City rats: From rat behaviour to human spatial cognition in urban environments

The structure and shape of an urban environment influence our ability to find our way about in the city^1-2^. Indeed, urban designers who face the challenge of planning environments that facilitate wayfinding^3^, have a consequent need to understand the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition^4^. Previous studies have suggested that certain qualities of city elements, such as a distinct contrast with the background (e.g. The Eiffel Tower in Paris), or a clear morphology (e.g. the grid layout of Manhattan's streets) affect spatial behaviour and cognition^1,5-7^. However, only a few empirical studies have examined the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition. Here we suggest that testing rats in experimental environments that simulate certain facets of urban environment can provide an insight into human spatial behaviour in urban environments with a similar layout. Specifically, we simulated two city layouts: (1) a grid street layout such as that of Manhattan; and (2) an irregular street layout such as that of Jerusalem. We found that the rats that were tested in the grid layout covered more ground and visited more locations, compared with the restricted movement demonstrated by the rats tested in the irregular layout. This finding in rats is in accordance with previous findings that urban grids conduce to high movement flow throughout the city, compared to low movement flow in irregular urban layouts^8-9^. Previous studies revealed that the spatial behaviour of rats and humans is controlled by the same underlying mechanisms^10-11^. In the same vein, we show that rats demonstrate spatial movement patterns that recall those of humans in similar urban environments. Rat behaviour may thus offer an in-vivo means for testing and analyzing the spatial cognitive principles of specific urban designs and for inferring how humans may perceive a particular urban environment and orient in it

Potencialidades para Planeamento e Ordenamento do Território

UID/SOC/04647/2019 SFRH/BPD/116933/2016As concepções pós-modernistas da teoria do planeamento territorial consubstanciam, de uma forma geral, perspectivas de colaboração e participação entre os diversos actores envolvidos, como contraponto a um planeamento centralizado, regulador e normativo dominado pelo Estado. O interesse público passa a ser objecto de negociação e da construção de consensos e a natureza do plano assume um carácter estratégico e potencialmente mais resiliente a contextos de incerteza. Contudo, a integração de um número crescente de actores amplia a multiplicidade de interesses e posições nem sempre convergentes e até conflituantes. Paralelamente, as transformações rápidas, e por vezes imprevisíveis, ao nível tecnológico, financeiro e político reforçam a complexidade inerente às dinâmicas territoriais e para as quais o ordenamento do território carece de resposta(s) em tempo útil. Nestes contextos instáveis, a tomada de decisão é confrontada com uma pluralidade de perspectivas e tendências de desenvolvimento não lineares que envolvem uma tensão permanente entre cooperação e competição – muitas vezes dificultado quando as soluções envolvem alterações ao status quo ou a padrões de comportamento estabelecidos na sociedade colocando em confronto o interesse colectivo ou de bem comum com os interesses individuais ou corporativos. No contexto desta problemática é notória a necessidade de desenvolvimento de processos e abordagens analíticas de suporte à teoria e prática de planeamento. A Teoria de Jogos Evolutiva permite a análise de transformações socio-territoriais onde os vários agentes interagem e adotam diferentes estratégias ao longo do tempo. Este processo dinâmico depende do sucesso percebido de cada estratégia, e também das estratégias adotadas por outros. Neste sentido, é possível analisar a evolução da adopção de estratégias ao longo do tempo procurando antecipar o (in)sucesso das soluções desenhadas. Na comunicação são apresentados modelos teóricos de aplicação de teoria de jogos evolutiva em problemas que envolvem agentes de diferentes sectores da sociedade e onde se procura perceber de que forma a cooperação pode emergir e persistir ao longo do tempo, em função do grau e tipo de interacção entre as várias partes envolvidas. A reflexão crítica sobre os resultados encontrados permitirá identificar potencialidades de aplicação no âmbito do planeamento e ordenamento do território, quer ao nível teórico, quer ao nível operativo.publishersversionpublishe

Complexity, Cognition and the City

Complexity, Cognition and the City aims at a deeper understanding of urbanism, while invoking, on an equal footing, the contributions both the hard and soft sciences have made, and are still making, when grappling with the many issues and facets of regional planning and dynamics. In this work, the author goes beyond merely seeing the city as a self-organized, emerging pattern of some collective interaction between many stylized urban "agents" – he makes the crucial step of attributing cognition to his agents and thus raises, for the first time, the question on how to deal with a complex system composed of many interacting complex agents in clearly defined settings. Accordingly, the author eventually addresses issues of practical relevance for urban planners and decision makers. The book unfolds its message in a largely nontechnical manner, so as to provide a broad interdisciplinary readership with insights, ideas, and other stimuli to encourage further research – with the twofold aim of further pushing back the boundaries of complexity science and emphasizing the all-important interrelation of hard and soft sciences in recognizing the cognitive sciences as another necessary ingredient for meaningful urban studies

Schrödinger’s <i>What is Life?</i>—Complexity, Cognition and the City

This paper draws attention to four central concepts in Schrödinger’s ‘What is Life?’ that have not, as yet, received sufficient attention in the domain of complexity: delayed entropy, free energy, order out of order and aperiodic crystal. It then demonstrates the important role the four elements play in the dynamics of complex systems by elaborating on their implications for cities as complex systems

Complexity theory as a link between space and place

Since the early 1970s, the notions of space and place have been located on the two sides of a barricade that divides what has been described as science’s two great cultures. Space is located among the ‘hard’ sciences as a central term in the attempt of geography to transform the discipline from a descriptive into a quantitative, analytic, and thus scientific, enterprise. Place, on the other hand, is located among the ‘soft’ humanities and social philosophy oriented social sciences as an important notion in the post-1970 attempt to transform geography from a positivistic into a humanistic, structuralist, hermeneutic, critical science. More recently, the place-oriented geographies have adopted postmodern, poststructuralist, and deconstruction approaches, while the quantitative spatial geographies have been strongly influenced by theories of self-organization and complexity. In this paper I first point to, and then explore, structural similarities between complexity theories and theories oriented toward social philosophy. I then elaborate the thesis that, in consequence, complexity theories have the potential to bridge the geographies of space and place and, by implication, the two cultures of science. Finally, discuss in some detail conceptual and methodological implications.

Toward a cognitive approach to urban dynamics

'A cognitive approach to urban dynamics' is proposed in this paper as a theorization of the dynamics of cities from the first principles of humans' cognitive capabilities. The aim is to initiate a discussion concerning the potential of such an approach. This is done by examining some of the cognitive processes that are relevant to cities and their dynamics, by considering some conceptual and methodological obstacles for such a project, and by suggesting SIRN (Synergetic Inter-Representation Networks) as an approach that can overcome these obstacles. I then discuss and exemplify the implications to urban simulation models and conclude by suggesting further research directions.

Information and Self-Organization II: Steady State and Phase Transition

This paper starts from Schrödinger’s famous question “what is life” and elucidates answers that invoke, in particular, Friston’s free energy principle and its relation to the method of Bayesian inference and to Synergetics 2nd foundation that utilizes Jaynes’ maximum entropy principle. Our presentation reflects the shift from the emphasis on physical principles to principles of information theory and Synergetics. In view of the expected general audience of this issue, we have chosen a somewhat tutorial style that does not require special knowledge on physics but familiarizes the reader with concepts rooted in information theory and Synergetics

Information and Self-Organization

The process of “self-organization” takes place in open and complex systems that acquire spatio-temporal or functional structures without specific ordering instructions from the outside. [...