Complex behaviour in our cuscus!!

Amazing video showing how with very simple rules we can create complex pattern of behavior.

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR_XL192wXw

Copio información sobre un próximo número especial de la NDPLS dedicado al fenómeno de la 'healthy variability' o varibilidad saludable, que viene a sugerirnos que los sistemas vivos y saludables muestran variabilidad y no rigidez.



It’s what’s chaotic in October! Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences is pleased to announce the bonus-sized special issue on OPTIMUM VARIABILITY for October, 2015.

It is now well known that healthy heart rate variability is chaotic and not rigidly oscillating. The principle of healthy variability has extended to other biomedical and psychological phenomena. What is the status of the research in any of the application areas? To elaborate further, some thought has been given to the idea that optimum variability results from a combination of the minimum entropy or free energy principle that pushes in a downward direction, and Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety that pushes in an upward direction. This issue of NDPLS expands the scope of the optimum variability principle to include new reviews and empirical studies in medicine, rehabilitation, sports, individual psychology, and work teams. You can read all the abstracts here:

http://www.societyforchaostheory.org/ndpls/home/files/Abstracts-OptimumVariability.pdf

This special issue will be sent to all active subscribers very soon. Institutional libraries can access the online version now.

Enjoy! Chaos can be VERY good for you!

Impressive fractals - take 2! (imgs from timewheel.net)

Healthy variability for dummies

Have you ever heard about how constancy is a virtue? Well, in most cases it’s not.

So, you’ve been told that mood swings are a sign that something is unbalanced? Well, think again. Variability is not the problem. In fact, research has shown that variability is good.
And this makes perfect sense! Let me explain. Think of those electrocardiogram graphics, full of ups-and-downs, without a clear order or pattern. Apparently they are confuse, you might be triggered about their meaning. However, that dance on lines is nothing but a sign of health, a sign of life. Imagine you are going to have a heart scan and instead of this energetic graphic you get a straight and invariable clear line… yes, I’m sure you would not be getting very positive news (best case scenario: you would be dead!).
Now think of affective states. Why are mood swings positive? Because they mean that you are actually responding to the environment, to others, to the world that exists in and outside you. It means you get sad if something bad happens, but that you can become happy in the minute after if someone cheers you up. Now picture a person with severe depression. Sadness all day long. No matter if you try to cheer that person up, if an elf comes into the room, if there is a circus right in front of the street. That person’s mood will most likely remain the same, independently of the external world. Are you starting to get why variability is healthy? I am sure that you are already thinking of other examples.
“Routine kills me!” – a perfect illustration of how low variability ruins our everyday lives.
“The monotonic voice of my teacher just puts me to sleep in every class!” – we all know someone that has that very same gift… low variability in speech never produces healthy results.
In fact, the effects of variability are everywhere!
Recent research has shown that, at work, positive behaviors like flow and performance are not linear. They show chaotic patterns over time, contrary to unhealthy behaviors, like mobbing and turnover intentions, which tend to follow the linear paths we are used to study.
Evidence is pointing out that variability is healthy, and non-variability is not. We have examples from our own physiology, from our affective states, and even from our work environments. But more research is needed before making generalizations. We need to revisit old constructs with new methods. We need to think of research as we think of life: including time, including oscillations, including the external environment, considering errors as part of the system and never neglecting our initial conditions. We may be facing a paradigm change in the way we see the world.
Chaos is good.
Who would’ve guessed?

Impresive fractals!

Impresionantes fractales!!



No puedo dejar de hacerme dos preguntas.


Primera, ¿por qué en un entorno casi salvaje como Doñana, un entorno que es muy similar al momento del génesis, hay tal abundancia de fractales?

Segunda, ¿por qué nos atraen tanto este tipo de estructuras, estas imágenes?

link

Cadenas de Markov y Contagio Emocional / Markov's Chains and Emotional Contagion

Junto con Rita Rueff y otro colegas del ISCTE hemos podido poner a prueba algunas de las ideas básicas de la teoría del contagio emocional usando cadenas de Markov para realizar análisis de secuencias de interacción. Los resultados han sido más que satisfactorios.




https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269160987_A_Markov_Chain_Analysis_of_Emotional_Exchange_in_Voice-to-Voice_Communication_Testing_for_the_Mimicry_Hypothesis_of_Emotional_Contagion


*****

Along with Rita Rueff and other colleagues from ISCTE we could test some of the basic ideas of the theory of emotional contagion using Markov chains to perform sequence analysis of interaction. The results have been more than satisfactory.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269160987_A_Markov_Chain_Analysis_of_Emotional_Exchange_in_Voice-to-Voice_Communication_Testing_for_the_Mimicry_Hypothesis_of_Emotional_Contagion

Un poco de humor "complejo" para acompañar el Otoño ,-D Especialmente para aquellos con vocación docente!