Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Intelligence is the most evident of the emergent properties of the evolution of life on the hearth. The thought process of humans is still not very understood as background information processing. Most of the observations come from clinical practice where an impairment of the thought process is believed as the back ground phenomena of behavioural disfunctions. Data from clinical observation, patients self reports and antypsychotic treatment efficacy are the main source of present models of thought process. Other modeling arise from experimental psychology and cognitive sciences. Just in the last 20 years new data are available by pooling together neuropsychological reasults with clinica observations, and self reports. In present work the statistical structure of such pooling of data is presented from observations performed in normal, psychiatric patients and people with mental retardation. A model of thought process is presented taking into account both this statistic structure and clinical observations. Two main component are suggested as main modules of thought process: the “Rule Inference Processor” and the “Input Organizing Processor”. Impairment of one of both processor can explain the formal thought disorders observed in clinical diagnostic group of patients.

Aim of the present paper is to introduce some hints of analysis about the problems encountered using computer science instruments in school to improve the participation and the learning skills in people who are in a situation of disability. The ICF model of the World Health Organization has been explained as a proposal to classify the health conditions according to a bio-psycho-social approach. Classification tools of the computer Assistive Technology are described in the field of the Assistive Technologies and then hints of analysis are proposed to describe the various factor influencing the disability situations and then, starting from this, a definition is given of the principles of individualization to create a customized setup of the computer aids for people in a disability situation. Such approach has been experimentally tested in the project M@rte-Handicap of MIUR and Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, and is available on line at the site: www.portalem@rte.it.

The author approaches the old sociological riddle of cultural fashions—that is, of the ephemeral success of a cultural trait—making use of the theories of Chaos and Complexity. Reconsidering a classic of the sociological literature—Georg Simmel’s interpretation of fashions—the author approaches the dynamics of fashions as the result of two contradictory tensions, one pushing people to imitate others perceived as “up”, and another pushing each individual to distinguish her- or himself from the others.

Nowadays, dynamic S-P-R models, developed within personality research, seem to offer the chance for the development of a unitary research framework, one including individual and environmental factors, from both structural and dynamic levels of personality. Complexity concept is a fundamental element of convergence of the different existing theoretical and methodological approaches. From this expanded view, personality appears as an “hyper-complex” system of intra-individual circular interactions, and of recursive relations between internal and external factors, that develops and grows self-organizing. This approach takes into account, within a wide interpretative framework, the contributions from various humanistic and scientific disciplines.

The aim of the paper is to assess the features of public policy in a complex environment. The point of departure is provided by a number of recent papers by David Colander where he argues that progress in mathematics and computational technology allows scholars and policymakers to grasp features of economic reality that, up to some time ago, were beyond their reach. Since the technical difficulties associated to these new tools hardly allow single individuals to use them, Colander suggests that there is scope for public intervention. This intervention need not preclude individual freedom. He refers to it as “libertarian paternalism”. The paper argues that Colander focuses on first order complexity, which is associated to economic dynamics, but neglects second order complexity, which relates to cognitive processes. Cognition implies that actors can formulate their choices only by learning, i.e. by constructing appropriate knowledge contexts. This requires appropriate public action in order to prevent the establishment of restrictive knowledge contexts. In turn, this implies a “democratic paternalism” that is markedly different from the paternalism Colander refers to.

In this paper we are interested in the perceptual aspect of face recognition that is the process that categorizes the visually perceived face into a perceptive space made by as many categories as the possible discriminations are. The question we want to answer to is if it is possible to model some aspect of face perception using a neural network architecture and if this model is able to provide any useful information about that conditions such as apperceptive prosopagnosia in which face perception appears to be impaired. We will propose an answer to these question using a computational model. The research was dived into two experiments: the first one aimed to test the ability of the network to discriminate between different faces and to generalize between similar faces and the other one aimed to investigate the behaviour of the system when noise is added to the normal operation of the network.

This work explores the interactions between the cortical boundary and coloration and figural properties of two illusions: the neon color spreading and the watercolor effect. Through psychophysical and phenomenal observations the neon color spreading has been compared with the watercolor illusion. The results showed that the phenomenal qualities of both effects can be reduced to a basic common limiting case that can explain the perceptual differences between the two illusions. Finally, the article proposes a unified explanation of the properties of the two illusions in terms of the FACADE neural model of biological vision (Grossberg, 1994). The model clarifies how local properties, such as spatial competition, can control some properties of both illusions, and how more global figural properties, determining the shape and strength of contours, can explain differences between the two illusions.

This paper deals with the issue of usability of computer software, mainly as regards the one supporting web navigation. It is evidenced how the concept of usability cannot be defined in an objective way, bur results from an interaction between user characteristics and environmental demands. It is proposed that the study of such a question should start from a monitoring of user expertise. In this regard the paper introduces a new model for designing web search engines, called Guest Resource Model. It states that each expertise level should trigger the operation of a different kind of search engine. A possible practical implementation of this model is discussed, having in mind the goal of protecting children accessing Internet from the dangers of web navigation.

Long-range color spreading is studied in two experiments in which a purple contour is flanked by an orange contour. The color faintly but uniformly fills in the surface from the orange contour inducing a strong figural effect and is therefore known as the Watercolor illusion. The figural effect of the watercolor illusion is compared with classical Gestalt factors (past experience, similarity and symmetry). The results of the experiments reveal a more effective role of the watercolor illusion in form perception and in figure-ground segregation than the one of the past experience principle and, in addition, corroborate the perceptual effects in distinguishing and demarcating geographical regions obtained by early cartography using the outline-color technique. The results are explained in terms of Grossberg’s FACADE neural model of biological vision.

Autopoietic theory is more than a mere characterization of the living, as it can be applied to a wider class of systems and involves both organizational and epistemological aspects. In this paper we assert the necessity of considering the relation between autopoiesis and emergence, focusing on the crucial importance of the observer’s activity and demonstrating that autopoietic systems can be considered intrinsically emergent processes. From the attempts to conceptualize emergence, especially Rosen’s, autopoiesis stands out for its attention to the unitary character of systems and to emergent levels, both inseparable from the observer’s operations. These aspects are the basis of Varela’s approach to multiple level relationships, considered as descriptive complementarities.