Adaptive Information Processing Research Articles

Transmission or transformation?: Information processing theory of chronic human pain

Chronic pain results from a series of mental events that occur between the presentation of a noxious stimulus and the behavioral response. Central control processes transform nociceptive information into cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. The suffering associated with chronic human pain reflects a breakdown in or alteration of the information processing system at the central control level that results in an inability to integrate additional incoming noxious data into adaptive information processing routines and thereby elicit effective coping strategies. The model presented here requires a conceptual shift—from a long-standing tradition of pain theory, based on nociceptive transmission, to a pain theory based on the transformation of sensory data into information that is perceived, appraised, and acted upon.

The Adaptive Information Processing Hypothesis: Accounting for the V-Shaped Advertising Response Function

Abstract Previous research at Anheuser-Busch reported that the relationship between advertising expenditures and sales can exhibit a V-shaped pattern, with greater sales at both increased and reduced levels of advertising expenditures. While the right-side of the V-effect is consistent with the traditional perspective on the advertising-sales relationship, the left-side is not. Though the existence of the V-effect has considerable implications for advertising efficiency, theory which accounts for its effects or the conditions under which it occurs is limited. This paper critically evaluates previously proposed segment-based explanations for the V-effect and proposes a new (Adaptive Information Processing) hypothesis to account for its effects. The hypothesis suggests interesting implications for advertising decisions.

Commentary on “Conducting Advertising Experiments in the Real World: The Campbell Soup Company Experience”

Free AccessAboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Go to SectionFree Access HomeMarketing ScienceVol. 8, No. 1 Commentary on “Conducting Advertising Experiments in the Real World: The Campbell Soup Company Experience”Joe DodsonJoe DodsonPublished Online:1 Feb 1989https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.8.1.72"Commentary on “Conducting Advertising Experiments in the Real World: The Campbell Soup Company Experience”." Marketing Science, 8(1), pp. 72–73 Previous Back to Top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedInformationCited ByCultural differences in brand designs and tagline appealsInternational Marketing Review, Vol. 24, No. 4The Adaptive Information Processing Hypothesis: Accounting for the V-Shaped Advertising Response FunctionJournal of Advertising, Vol. 21, No. 2Measuring Advertising Effectiveness In Destination Marketing Strategies19 August 2016 | Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 29, No. 2 Volume 8, Issue 1February 1989Pages 1-106 Article Information Metrics Information Published Online:February 01, 1989 © 1989 INFORMSCite asJoe Dodson, (1989) Commentary on “Conducting Advertising Experiments in the Real World: The Campbell Soup Company Experience”. Marketing Science 8(1):72-73. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.8.1.72 PDF download

Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, part II: Case study: A computational theory of social exchange

Models of the various adaptive specializations that have evolved in the human psyche could become the building blocks of a scientific theory of culture. The first step in creating such models is the derivation of a so-called “computational theory” of the adaptive problem each psychological specialization has evolved to solve. In Part II, as a case study, a sketch of a computational theory of social exchange (cooperation for mutual benefit) is developed. The dynamics of natural selection in Pleistocene ecological conditions define adaptive information processing problems that humans must be able to solve in order to participate in social exchange: individual recognition, memory for one's history of interaction, value communication, value modeling, and a shared grammar of social contracts that specifies representational structure and inferential procedures. The nature of these adaptive information processing problems places constraints on the class of cognitive programs capable of solving them; this allows one to make empirical predictions about how the cognitive processes involved in attention, communication, memory, learning, and reasoning are mobilized in situations of social exchange. Once the cognitive programs specialized for regulating social exchange are mapped, the variation and invariances in social exchange within and between cultures can be meaningfully discussed.

Neurocomputing: picking the human brain

The nature of neurocomputing is discussed. Neurocomputing is defined as the engineering discipline concerned with nonprogrammed adaptive information processing systems (neural networks) that develop associations (transformations or mappings) between objects in response to their environment. The operation of a neural network is described, and its hardware realization is considered. Some applications of neural networks are examined.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Evolution of the Dance Language

The dance language of honey bees is the most remarkable nonhuman communication system known. Von Frisch offered hypotheses regarding both the origin and the subsequent evolution of the dance language. In the context of recent results, we review his hypothesis regarding the origin of the dance: that it arose as a flight-intention movement combined with a few behavioral "artifacts" (apparently functionless behaviors that are probably best viewed as adaptively neutral by-products of otherwise adaptive information processing). An alternative scenario, in which the dance evolved from the bees' cognitive map, seems in many ways more plausible. Among the four species of honey bee and among the races of Apis mellifera, many differences in the dance appear to have adaptive value, casting some light on the later evolution of the dance. In particular, we discuss the roles of sound versus vision in the dances, which appear related to nesting ecology; of the imprecision in distance and direction indication, which appears to be "tuned" to an optimal patch size; and of the various distance dialects, which appear to be consequences of winter stress.

Process Traces of Binary Choices: Evidence for Selective and Adaptive Decision Heuristics

While previous research has shown that human decision processes adjust to the characteristics of choice situations and task demands, the present study examined whether information processing would even adapt to the characteristics of an individual choice pair. By a process tracing method it was found that the amount of inspected information systematically depended upon the particular choice pair. In order to specify the selective and adaptive information processing, criterion-dependent choice models were introduced. These models postulate that information processing continues until the accumulated amount by which one alternative is better than the other reaches or exceeds a certain criterion. These models are strongly supported by the empirical data of the present study. Deviations between model predictions and observed data are explained in terms of fluctuating feature values of the choice alternatives.