Nonlinear Dynamics Psychology and Life Sciences最新文献

Persuasive technology can support users of self-paced eLearning courses during critical moments of low motivation. Agent-based models (ABMs) - a relatively unfamiliar phenomenon within the persuasive technology and eLearning domains- offers a potentially relevant methodology to understand when the support should be delivered. Using ABMs, the dynamics of motivational user states can be simulated. Subsequently, emerging user patterns can be traced that can potentially provide insight in the ebb and flow of motivation. For the purpose of this study, we designed an exploratory ABM on motivation based on the mental energy notion of which the foundations can be found both within the literature of motivational psychology and agent-based modeling. During the simulations we succeeded in generating moments of critically low user motivation. In addition, we were able to simulate the positive impact of external user support at those critical moments. These results suggest that it is plausible to put further energy in developing ABM models with the ultimate goal of feeding persuasive technology with the ability to deliver just-in-time user support during eLearning.

Synchronization of autonomic arousal levels within dyads and larger teams has been associated with several types of social-behavioral outcome. One previous study reported greater physiological influence (brain activity in one area of the parietal lobe associated with verbal activity) of leaders on followers than of followers on leaders; influence was measured pairwise within triadic problem solving groups. The present study explored synchronized autonomic arousal with leadership outcomes in two experiments with group sizes of three to eight members. Drivers, who had the greatest physiological impact on other team members were consistently less like the leader of the group. Empaths, who were the most receptive to autonomic signals from others, were not consistently associated with leadership roles, although they did show sensitivity to team dynamics in their ratings of cognitive and social sources of workload. The tentative conclusion, subject to future research, is that successful leadership requires a balance between the driver and empath orientations.

This study explored the chaotic properties of human emotions as expressed in social media and its implications for attainable forecasting horizons. Three human emotional states extracted from Twitter were analyzed using the nonlinear dynamics approach. The greatest positive Lyapunov exponent (LE) and 0-1 test methods were applied to a time series set consisting of over 25,000 data points reflecting the hourly recorded data of over 1.3 million tweets. The results suggest that the examined emotional time series data represent a nonlinear dynamical system with deterministic chaos properties. Therefore, by utilizing traditional linear methods of social media data analysis, one may not be able to fully understand and forecast critical transition trends over time or beyond a limited duration. It was concluded that the nonlinear dynamics approach is useful to determine a feasible forecasting horizon and to assess the prediction accuracy of social media data in general.

In the current study, we applied the dynamical systems approach to obtain novel insights into resilience losses. Dyads (n = 42) performed a lateral rhythmical pointing (Fitts) task. To induce resilience losses and transitions in performance, dyads were exposed to ascending and descending scoring scenarios. To assess changes in the complexity of the dyadic pointing performance, reflecting their resilience, we performed cross-recurrence quantification analyses. Then, we tested for temporal patterns indicating resilience losses. We applied lag 1 autocorrelations to assess critical slowing down and mean squared successive differences (MSSD) to assess critical fluctuations. Although we did not find evidence that scoring scenarios produce performance transitions across individuals, we did observe transitions in each condition. Contrary to the lag 1 autocorrelations, our results suggest that transitions in human performance are signaled by increases in the MSSD. Specifically, both positive and negative performance transitions were accompanied with increased fluctuations in performance. Furthermore, negative performance transitions were accompanied with increased fluctuations of complexity, signaling resilience losses. On the other hand, complexity remained stable for positive performance transitions. Together, these results suggest that combining information of critical fluctuations in performance and complexity can predict both positive and negative transitions in dyadic team performance.

The adjacency matrix of a weighted directed graph contains information on both connectivity and the strength of that connection. When the special case of Markov chains are considered, the additional constraints permit the characterization of the eigenvalues of its transition matrix, and the change of the nature of those eigenvalues as the probabilities (weights) change. A change in the nature of the eigenvalues, bifurcations, signals a change in the dynamic approach to a limiting probability of a chain as well as other aspects that can be of interest in applications. In this paper, we first characterize eigenvalues of any weighted directed cycles and any 3-state Markov chain. Then we define and characterize a special case, zero trace chains, which is useful in an ecology application discussed.

Based upon multiple time series studies, an agent-based model (ABM) of women's decision-making related to partner violence was developed. However, help-seeking, legal action and leaving could be modeled as catastrophic phenomena, but catastrophic effects were not included in this prior ABM. The purpose of this study was to incorporate cusp catastrophe equations into the prior ABM to determine the impact upon her action-taking. Building upon this prior ABM of women's decision-making, we added cusp-related equations and compared resultant patterns and impacts of stress and interventions against those of the prior ABM. To assess the potential impact that random stress and her behavior could have on violence and stalking, the effect of variable parameter settings of these factors were assessed. Adding cusp equations to the prior ABM resulted in more legal action-taking for most of these patterns, many showing the effects of the bifurcation variables, and more women leaving in half of the patterns, but at the expense of increasing instability and more distortion effects. However, help-seeking was most impacted by possible interventions. In conclu-sion, adding cusp equations to the model had significant effects on modeling action-taking, especially for legal action and leaving while affecting the impact of interventions on help-seeking.

This paper presents a case study which aims to establish a relationship between the homogeneity of passing distribution between players of a team and goal attempts in the team sport of association football. We observed data from 10 competitive football matches, involving 10 different professional football teams of different performance levels, competing in the Portuguese League during the 2010/2011 season. Performance data were analysed using the Match Analysis Software Amisco. Shannon's entropy measure was used to quantify the homogeneity of passing distribution within each team. Results suggested the existence of a pattern between an increase in the homogeneity of passing distributions and the attempts to scoring goals in the sample of competitive matches studied. A homogeneous distribution of passes can moderately predict (approximately 45% of accuracy) when a goal attempt will occur within the following minute of an entropy assessment.

To shed light on findings suggesting that not all job crafting strategies are (equally) favourable for employee motivation, we applied cusp catastrophe models to explore the possibility that combinations of job crafting strategies might be associated with nonlinear changes in work engagement (i.e., vigour, dedication, and absorption). We used cross-sectional data from a heterogeneous sample of 193 Greek employees and investigated increasing social and structural job resources as asymmetry factors, and increasingly challenging job demands and decreasingly hindering job demands as bifurcation factors in relation to work engagement. Cusp models, analysed with the maximum likelihood and least squares methods, proved superior to their linear alter-natives. Increasing social job resources functioned as the asymmetry factor for vigour and dedication. Increasing structural job resources was the asymmetry factor for absorption. The bifurcation factors were decreasing hindering job demands for vigour and increasing job challenges for dedication and absorption. This evidence suggests that threshold values exist in decreasing hindering and increasing challenging job demands, beyond which sudden changes in work engagement occur. The supported nonlinear models add in explaining when job crafting strategies are unfavourable for employees and have epistemological implications by suggesting that the underlying processes may be viewed as a complex dynamical system.

Stimulus-response compatibility effects illustrate the mutual depen-dence of perception and action processes. Ellis and Tucker (2000) showed that object identification was facilitated when the response required a grip that was compatible with the stimulus. In the current study, we extend grip-compatibility effects to perception of the Necker cube. Participants reported the perceived orientation of a Necker cube by orienting a hand-held cube into a compatible or an incompatible position. Participants in the incompatible condition were quickly attracted to the FRB (front-side right bottom) percept, consistent with previous work. However, participants in the compatible condition showed an extended period of metastability, switching between the two perceptual states about equally. A second experiment replicated these results and showed that a control condition in which responses were made with a key press produced intermediate levels of metastability. These results are interpreted in terms of the dynamics of bistable perception.

In this empirical research, using a database of 41,107 directors from 38 European countries from 1999 to 2015, we analyze the topological features of the director's networks and observe that the degree distribution for both men and women follows a power law. The exponent of the power law is higher for women than the one for men, suggesting a milder role of interlocking for women that points to the absence of the 'Golden Skirts' phenomenon at the European level (i.e., women who accumulate more directorships than men). This gender gap in power laws has faded away during the studied period, coinciding with two counteracting external forces. On one hand, the diffusion of corporate governance good practices in European companies, reducing the size of boards and discouraging the multiple directorships by a single person, democratizing the director's network. On the other, the political and regulatory pressure for more women on boards across Europe, creating a high demand for women in the network.