Maybe its not free fucking, but this may be of interest to people. Its a
talk to be given at our seminar tomorrow.
mike
--- Christine M. Johnson 7 June 02 CSB 180 NoonIn models of Distributed Cognition, cognitive processes are recognized as occurring both within and between individuals. That is, these models take cognition as apparent in collaborative practice. As such, they are well suited to the study of complex social interactions in nonhumans, similar to those that may have helped shape hominid cognitive evolution. In our study, "Social Tool" use - in which one individual interacts with a second to in some way influence its relation to a third - was investigated in bonobos at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Data were collected across multiple time scales, including scan samples of social interactions in the group over multiple years, and frame-by-frame video analysis of inter-animal distance, relative head and body orientation, gaze, and gesture in particular interactions. Social Tool segments are contrasted to Control segments involving fluid collaborations between two animals (e.g. coming together for sex or play) with a third individual nearby. The main dyad in the Controls can be characterized by proximity, mutually high head and body access, and high attentional sensitivity (immediate reactivity to changes in any of the above media, especially head orientation). Analyzed at a higher task-dependent level, the efficiency of these interactions is captured by their high proportion of "enactments’ of the final ("goal") state and acts that "facilitate" enactments by self or other (vs. acts that are only "incompatible"). In the Social Tool segments, micro-level To/From patterns (per moment-to-moment changes in trajectory and relative orientation) can be used to differentiate classes of tool use (Buffer, Passport etc.). In these segments, although the User usually actively engages the Tool, attentional sensitivity is highest in the User/Target dyad, and the User/Tool dyad exhibit fewer facilitations and more incompatibles. As a result of such analyses, Social Tool interactions can be operationalized as negative feedback loops in which an initial User/Target dynamic involving aggression or rejection is undermined by an incompatible, incomplete, and fragile collaboration between the User and the Tool. The participants’ manifest divided attention, context-sensitive use of signals, peripheral monitoring, and responsiveness to attentional behavior suggests that such interactions demand individual capacities for rudimentary multi-tasking and social attention-based self-control.
Christine M. Johnson, Ph.D. Phn: (858) 534-9854 Department of Cognitive Science FAX: (858) 534-1128 Univ of Calif, San Diego 92093-0515 email: johnson@cogsci.ucsd.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jul 01 2002 - 01:00:07 PDT