Units of analysis and kinetic structure of behavioral repertoires

It is suggested that molar streams of behavior are constructed of various arrangements of three elementary constituents (elicited, evoked, and emitted response classes). An eight-cell taxonomy is elaborated as a framework for analyzing and synthesizing complex behavioral repertoires based on these functional units. It is proposed that the local force binding functional units into a smoothly articulated kinetic sequence arises from temporally arranged relative response probability relationships. Behavioral integration is thought to reflect the joint influence of the organism's hierarchy of relative response probabilities, fluctuating biological states, and the arrangement of environmental and behavioral events in time.     

EVOLUTION IN THERMODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE: A HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANGLE

Abstract. The recently suggested reformulation of Darwinian evolutionary theory, based on the thermodynamics of self-organizing processes, has strong philosophical implications. My claim is that the main philosophical merit of the thermodynamic approach, made especially clear in J.S. Wicken's work, is its insistence on the law-governed, continuous nature of evolution. I attempt to substantiate this claim following a historical analysis of beginning-of-the-century ideas on evolution and matter-life relationship, in particular, the fitness-of-the-environment-for-life theory of the Harvard physiologist L.J. Henderson. In addition, I point to an epistemological common ground underlying the studies of the “thermodynamics school” and other currently active research groups focusing on the emergence and evolution of biological organization.     

成人脑涨落图年龄变化特点的研究

该工作研究了１２０名２０－７９岁正常成人脑涨落图的年龄变化特点。结果表明：（１）从２０岁到５０岁,Ｓ系谱线活动向低频方向集中,６０岁后谱线又向高频方向有所移动;（２）部分谐振系的随龄变化表现明显,其中以Ｓ１７系变化最为敏感;（３）脑区间相干活动和各脑区的连频活动随年龄增强,脑能量分布的有序性逐渐破坏;（４）增龄性变化主要反映在优势脑区（左前脑）和优势脑轴（左前／右后脑）上,与脑高级机能活动密切相关的左前脑的退行性变化最为明显。上述结果反映了脑功能的减退是一个非线性的多层次的复杂过程。     

From dialectic to organization: Bogdanov’s contribution to social theory

This paper situates Bogdanov in the context of social theory generally and socialist theory in particular. It outlines briefly the principal characteristics of his mature system, and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of his approach to the fundamental problems of social thought. The paper devotes particular attention to the problem of just how systems develop from less complex to more complex forms of organization, and evaluates Bogdanov’s solution to this problem against the background of populist, social democratic, and Leninist alternatives.     

Decision-making bioinspired model for target definition and “satisfactor” selection for physiological needs

Every person, from an early age, has to make decisions to resolve situations that arise in life. In general, different people make different decisions in the same situation, since decision-making takes into account different factors such as age, emotional state, experience, among others. We can make decisions about situations that we classify as: more important than others, routine, unexpected, or trivial. However, making the correct decision(s) in a timely manner for these situations is one of the most complex and delicate challenges that human beings face. This is due to the arduous mental process required to be carried out. Providing such behavior to a virtual entity is possible through the use of Cognitive Architectures (CAs). CAs are an approach for modeling human intelligence and behavior. This paper presents an functional bioinspired computational decision-making model to satisfy the physiological needs of hunger and thirst. Our proposal considers as black boxes other cognitive functions that are part of a general CA (named Cuäyöllötl or brain in Nahuatl). In the proposed case study, it is proved that the decision-making process plays an essential role in determining the objective and selecting the object that satisfies the established need.     

Declarative working memory: A bio-inspired cognitive architecture proposal

Memory is considered one of the most important functions since it allows us to code, store and retrieve knowledge. These qualities make it an indispensable function for a virtual creature. In general, memory can be classified based on the durability of the stored data in working memory and long-term memory. Working memory refers to the capacity to maintain temporarily a limited amount of information in mind, which can then be used to support various abilities, including learning, reasoning, planning and decision-making. Unlike short-term memory, working memory is not only a storage site, but it is also a framework of interacting processes that involve the temporary storage and manipulation of information in the service of performing complex cognitive activities. Declarative memory is a type of long-term memory related with the storage of facts and events. This research focuses on the development of a cognitive architecture for the type of working memory that maintains and manipulates declarative information. The construction of the model was grounded in theoretical evidence taken from cognitive sciences such as neuroscience and psychology, which gave us the components and their processes. The model was evaluated through a case study that covers the encoding, storing, and retrieval stages. Our hypothesis is that a virtual creature endowed with our working memory model will provide faster access to the information needed for the ongoing task. Therefore, it improves the planning and decision-making processes.     

Intrafemale agonistic interactions in the domestic rabbit (oryctolagus cuniculus L.)

Agonistic interactions between adult domestic rabbit females were observed. Females were housed in groups of four in outdoor enclosures measuring 4 × 4 m. Agonistic patterns included aggression (AG), flight (FL), and submission (SB). Observations focused on 1) initial interactions between unfamiliar females, concomitant with the formation and establishment of a social structure (Phase 1); and 2) interactions between familiar females organized in a stable social structure (Phase 2). AG was frequent between unfamiliar females and appeared related to the acquisition of social dominance. When social organization was settled, there was a dramatic reduction in the number and frequency of aggressive behaviors. Similarly, FL was more frequent when females were unfamiliar, but it did not appear to be merely a response to AG. The decreased frequency of both AG and FL in Phase 2 was paralleled by an increased frequency of SB with respect to FL. Under stable social conditions, subordinate females frequently signalled submission to dominant counterparts. In contrast, the latter did not signal their social status with any consistent behavioral pattern. It follows that SB was not necessarily induced as the appropriate response to aggression given by dominant females. Thus, SB appeared relevant in social communication especially in structured groups, where it conveyed information on the actor's subordination and possibly inhibited the receiver's aggression. A further possibility is that it has an autonomous rather than secondary role in the maintenance of stable dominance/subordination relationships.     

Processing homonymy and polysemy: effects of sentential context and time-course following unilateral brain damage

The present study investigated the abilities of left-hemisphere-damaged (LHD) non-fluent aphasic, right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD), and normal control individuals to access, in sentential biasing contexts, the multiple meanings of three types of ambiguous words, namely homonyms (e.g., "punch"), metonymies (e.g., "rabbit"), and metaphors (e.g., "star"). Furthermore, the predictions of the "suppression deficit" and "coarse semantic coding" hypotheses, which have been proposed to account for RH language function/dysfunction, were tested. Using an auditory semantic priming paradigm, ambiguous words were incorporated in dominant- or subordinate-biasing sentence-primes followed after a short (100 ms) or long (1,000 ms) interstimulus interval (ISI) by dominant-meaning-related, subordinate-meaning-related or unrelated target words. For all three types of ambiguous words, both the effects of context and ISI were obvious in the performance of normal control subjects, who showed multiple meaning activation at the short ISI, but eventually, at the long ISI, contextually appropriate meaning selection. Largely similar performance was exhibited by the LHD non-fluent aphasic patients as well. In contrast, RHD patients showed limited effects of context, and no effects of the time-course of processing. In addition, although homonymous and metonymous words showed similar patterns of activation (i.e., both meanings were activated at both ISIs), RHD patients had difficulties activating the subordinate meanings of metaphors, suggesting a selective problem with figurative meanings. Although the present findings do not provide strong support for either the "coarse semantic coding" or the "suppression deficit" hypotheses, they are viewed as being more consistent with the latter, according to which RH damage leads to deficits suppressing alternative meanings of ambiguous words that become incompatible with the context.     

Training requirements and retention characteristics of serial list organization by macaque monkeys

This work evaluated the prospect that organizational accounts of the retention of list information by monkeys might be an artifact of familiarity with conditional relationships. Seven sophisticated macaques were trained on four five-item lists. Each acquisition selectively excluded one of the internal conditional pairs of the typical four-problem sequence (AB,BC,CD,DE) that defines a five-item serially ordered list. Then, all possible novel pairings and the trained pairs appeared together in a test. After this, the previously omitted pair was trained and animals were retested. On all tasks, initial tests revealed little organization and much intersubject variability of characteristic choice strategies, but subsequent inclusion of all four conditional pairs always yielded organized serial choice. On both the four-problem tests and in a later retention, errors were directly related to interitem distance between the objects paired on test trials. These results helped to specify the conditions required for demonstration of non-human primate analogs of transitivity, and showed that even sophisticated monkeys organize information in retention only if they know all interitem relationships. Received: 7 October 1998 / Accepted after revision: 10 October 1999