Cognitive Distance Research Articles

Relationship between Cognitive Distance and Residential History in Metropolitan Areas

Relationship between Cognitive Distance and Residential History in Metropolitan Areas

‘Going Missing’ as a Maladaptive Coping Behavior for Adults Experiencing Strain

ABSTRACT This study applied the Threat Appraisal and Coping Theory to explore the mechanisms influencing a person to go missing. We examined the negative emotions and stressors – proximate stressors/stressful events, underlying life stressors, emotional states, and other dysfunctional behaviors – of adults who were reported as missing from 2014–2018. Our results indicate that missing persons experience significant underlying life stressors, stressful situations, and proximate stressors that can ‘trigger’ a missing episode. We also found that most missing adults are described as facing negative emotions, such as anger, and engaging in maladaptive behaviors, such as drug and alcohol use, that are related to these events. These findings, we suggest, highlight that affectual and individual-level mechanisms are influential factors contributing to why adults go missing. Lastly, it was revealed that missing adults are commonly reported as experiencing strains and stressors in their personal relationships, indicating that this phenomenon may be attenuated through social support as an adaptive coping resource. Through these results, we can begin to understand missingness as driven by a negative event, stressor, or emotion in which the person engages in the maladaptive coping behavior of ‘going missing’ as a way to escape the situation and achieve some level of emotional or cognitive distance.

Zastosowanie narzędzi GIS do określenia lokalnej specyfiki procesu rozwoju obszarów wiejskich. Studium aktywności społeczności lokalnych w programie odnowy wsi w województwie wielkopolskim

<p>Rozwój obszarów wiejskich na poziomie lokalnym jest zagadnieniem niezwykle złożonym, co dotyczy zarówno uczestniczących w tym procesie aktorów, jak i praktyk przez nich podejmowanych. Współcześnie istotną rolę w tym procesie przypisuje się społeczności wiejskiej, a jej aktywność w działaniach na rzecz rozwoju uważana jest za kluczową. Podczas gdy w programowaniu rozwoju obszarów wiejskich centrum zainteresowania to obszar wiejski, koncepcje tego rozwoju wskazują na specyficzność tego procesu już na poziomie wsi. Daje to przyczynek do zastanowienia się, czy interpretacja określonych praktyk rozwoju obszarów wiejskich rzeczywiście może się różnić w zależności od przyjętej jednostki przestrzennej analizy. Empiryczna weryfikacja tej tezy na przykładzie aktywności społeczności lokalnych w programie odnowy wsi w województwie wielkopolskim była głównym celem pracy. Zastosowano w niej analizę <em>hot spot</em>, która opiera się na metodach statystyki przestrzennej. Dyskusja wykorzystania narzędzi GIS, pozwalających na przeprowadzenie tej analizy, w badaniach nad rozwojem obszarów wiejskich była drugim celem pracy. Trzecim zaś była kontrybucja do stanu wiedzy na temat rozwoju obszarów wiejskich realizowanego poza polityką Unii Europejskiej. Najważniejszym wnioskiem z przeprowadzonych badań jest to, że społeczności najbardziej aktywne tworzą skupiska, które stanowią specyficzną formę sieci powiązań, a ich istnienie jest niezależne od przebiegu granic administracyjnych obszarów wiejskich. Na aktywność tę decydujący wpływ mają jednocześnie efekt sąsiedztwa i bliskość poznawcza. Ponadto zidentyfikowano trudności w zastosowaniu wspomnianych narzędzi – problem kwantyfikacji zjawisk społecznych oraz dobór parametrów samej analizy statystyczno-przestrzennej.</p>

Sexual Health in the SARS-CoV-2 Era.

Sexual contact carries some risk for exposure to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This commentary provides clinicians wit...

Hospitals as professional organizations and the perception of distances

AbstractManagement at a distance is increasingly employed to organize hospital resources, of which professionally skilled staff is the key component. Mergers often imply distant management. The study examines the internal management aspects for two hospitals in two consecutive mergers, 5 years apart. We focus on how geographical and cognitive distances are experienced by middle managers and their followers. We find that the concept of distance plays significant and different roles in managing units in an organization with distant top management teams. Our findings indicate that hospital professionals’ positive perception of their relationship with top managers, as measured by cognitive distance, can outweigh the possible negative effects of large geographical distances between hospital units and top management teams. Our study also indicates that information systems and communication mechanisms may mitigate the possible perceived negative effects of distance. Our findings imply that politicians, policymakers, and National Health Service’ management should be aware of the effects of distances in implementing new collaborative management arrangements. We recognize that our study is limited in context, time, and scale. We welcome further research on comparative analyses of the complex interplay between physical and cognitive distances in other hospitals and also other types of organizations.

Cognitive Template-Clustering Improved LineMod for Efficient Multi-object Pose Estimation

Various types of theoretical algorithms have been proposed for 6D pose estimation, e.g., the point pair method, template matching method, Hough forest method, and deep learning method. However, they are still far from the performance of our natural biological systems, which can undertake 6D pose estimation of multi-objects efficiently, especially with severe occlusion. With the inspiration of the Müller-Lyer illusion in the biological visual system, in this paper, we propose a cognitive template-clustering improved LineMod (CT-LineMod) model. The model uses a 7D cognitive feature vector to replace standard 3D spatial points in the clustering procedure of Patch-LineMod, in which the cognitive distance of different 3D spatial points will be further influenced by the additional 4D information related with direction and magnitude of features in the Müller-Lyer illusion. The 7D vector will be dimensionally reduced into the 3D vector by the gradient-descent method, and then further clustered by K-means to aggregately match templates and automatically eliminate superfluous clusters, which makes the template matching possible on both holistic and part-based scales. The model has been verified on the standard Doumanoglou dataset and demonstrates a state-of-the-art performance, which shows the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed model on cognitive feature distance measurement and template selection on multiple pose estimation under severe occlusion. The powerful feature representation in the biological visual system also includes characteristics of the Müller-Lyer illusion, which, to some extent, will provide guidance towards a biologically plausible algorithm for efficient 6D pose estimation under severe occlusion.

The trajectory of thought: Heavy-tailed distributions in memory foraging promote efficiency

Free-recall tasks suggest human memory foraging may follow a heavy-tailed distribution, such as a Lévy flight, patch foraging, or area-restricted search - walk procedures that are common in other activities of cognitive agents, such as food foraging in both animals and humans. To date, research merely equates memory foraging with hunting in the physical world based on similarities in statistical structure. The current work supports that memory foraging follows a heavy-tailed distribution by using categories with quantitative distances between each item: countries, which have physical distances, and animals, from which cognitive distances can be derived using a multidimensional scaling (MDS) procedure. Likewise, inter-item lag times follow a heavy-tailed distribution. The current work also demonstrates that inter-item distances and times are positively correlated, suggesting the organization of items in memory may be akin to the organization of a physical landscape. Finally, both studies show that participants' original, heavy-tailed lists of countries and animal names produce shorter overall distances traveled than random selection. Human memory foraging follows the same pattern as foraging in the natural world - perhaps because exposure to ecological settings informs our inner cognitive experience - leading to a processing and retrieval time benefit.

The influence of the structure of technological knowledge on inter-firm R&D collaboration and knowledge discovery: An agent-based simulation approach

This paper studies the impact of the structure of technological knowledge on the collaborative knowledge discovery process. We employ a complex adaptive systems perspective and develop an agent-based model in which firms seek to discover new knowledge by combining previously discovered knowledge. Firms may collaborate with other firms to access a more diverse knowledge base. We experimentally vary the structural properties of the technological knowledge landscape and firm characteristics to study the rate of discovery, propensity to collaborate, and emerging structure of the network of firms. Conceptual interpretations of the simulation results underline the significance of inter-firm R&D collaboration, particularly for specialized firms. We also find that varying the research scope of a firm reveals a trade-off between an individual and the collective perspective, pointing at a systemic failure. Finally, our results provide a complementary explanation for the theoretically desirable cognitive distance between economic actors.

Functional Programming in Pattern-Match-Oriented Programming Style

Throughout the history of functional programming, recursion has emerged as a natural method for describing loops in programs. However, there does often exist a substantial cognitive distance between the recursive definition and the simplest explanation of an algorithm even for the basic list processing functions such as map, concat, or unique; when we explain these functions, we seldom use recursion explicitly as we do in functional programming. For example, map is often explained as follows: the map function takes a function and a list and returns a list of the results of applying the function to all the elements of the list. This paper advocates a new programming paradigm called pattern-match-oriented programming for filling this gap. An essential ingredient of our method is utilizing pattern matching for non-free data types. Pattern matching for non-free data types features non-linear pattern matching with backtracking and extensibility of pattern-matching algorithms. Several non-standard pattern constructs, such as not-patterns, loop patterns, and sequential patterns, are derived from this pattern-matching facility. Based on that result, this paper introduces many programming techniques that replace explicit recursions with an intuitive pattern by confining recursions inside patterns. We classify these techniques as pattern-match-oriented programming design patterns. These programming techniques allow us to redefine not only the most basic functions for list processing such as map, concat, or unique more elegantly than the traditional functional programming style, but also more practical mathematical algorithms and software such as a SAT solver, computer algebra system, and database query language that we had not been able to implement concisely.

A network-based model of exploration and exploitation

We propose a new model of exploration and exploitation, in which firms rely on local search for exploitation and on imitation for exploration. We assume that firms imitate the knowledge base of successful competitors, with imitation errors taking place depending on the social distance between the imitating firm and imitated firm in the network. The key model outcome, consistent with earlier empirical findings, holds that successful imitation generally occurs at an intermediate level of cognitive proximity because imitation at high cognitive distance is too error-prone, while for imitation at low cognitive distance there are typically no firms to imitate. A second outcome holds that social and cognitive proximity are substitutes. The model further shows that exploration by imitation is more beneficial in highly complex industries than in less complex industries, and that small-world networks yield the highest benefits for collective learning.

An integrated-dynamic mode of entry model: global MNEs entering into emerging markets

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model for the mode of entry in a particular case of global MNEs entering into emerging markets. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual model builds on institutional theory and follows an integrated approach of entry mode theories using bargaining theory, the liability of foreignness and local legitimacy. Findings The conceptual model introduces five propositions. Research limitations/implications The study has policy implications for emerging market institutions. Also, the model highlights the significance of long-term vision in global MNEs’ sustainability. However, the model excludes the MNEs’ internal institutions, home country institutions, as well as institutional and cognitive distances. Originality/value The conceptual model addresses the dynamics of MNEs’ entry decisions with long-term strategic vision. It helps to recognize the global MNEs’ internalization of the host country’s formal and informal institutions when the bargaining power is in imbalance.

Mapping International Co-authorship Networks in Border Studies (1986–2018)

ABSTRACT Border studies have become increasingly global over the past two decades. Yet, a network analysis of the articles published in the Journal of Borderlands Studies from 1986 to 2018 shows that less than half of them have one or more coauthors. Unlike in other scientific disciplines, where a growth of co-publications is observed, this proportion has not really changed over the last decade. Our paper also shows that major divisions can be found within border studies, which is no small paradox for a science supposedly cross-border by nature. Despite the overall global increase in scientific connectivity, internationally co-authored papers are still an exception in our field and scholars have a strong preference for publishing within their own country. Instead of a fully integrated community, they form a fragmented network whose main components are mainly located in the United States. Interviews with border experts reveal that various obstacles contribute to the current fragmentation of border studies. In addition to being separated by geographical distance and, sometimes, by actual walls, border scholars must also able to overcome the cognitive, social, organizational, and institutional distance that separate them.

Ambidexterity in government: The influence of different types of legitimacy on innovation

Using a comparative case study of four independent infrastructure agencies in Australia, this article explores how governments can use structural ambidexterity to innovate. Independent agencies can serve as exploration units, but their innovation needs to be integrated into the rest of government. Instead of relying on an executive team to do it, independent agencies can take on this role, but they need to become legitimate to several government actors to influence government processes. Legitimacy can come from regulations, practical value, moral values or cognitive frames. Relying on regulations solely reduces influence; but relying on cognitive legitimacy leads to losing one's ability to radically innovate. We conclude that leading both exploration and integration relies on the exploration unit employees’ practical and moral legitimacy to several actors, and their ability to maintain cognitive distance from other governmental units. However, we caution that such a balance is hard to sustain over the long run, leading many innovative agencies to appeal to cognitive legitimacy and revert to incremental innovation over time.

University-industry collaborations—The key to radical innovations?

Radical innovations are an important factor for long-term economic growth. Universities provide basic research and knowledge that form the basis for future innovations. Previous research has investigated the effects of universities, university-industry partnerships and proximity on factors such as innovations, knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurial activities, as well as regional growth, wealth and competitiveness. However, the role that university-industry collaborations play in radical innovations, mediated by various measures of proximity such as cognitive or geographic distance, has not yet been explored. With this study, we illuminate the conditions under which university-industry collaborations are the key to radical innovations in German firms. Combining firm, patent and subsidy data, we built a data set consisting of 8404 firms that patented between the years 2012 and 2014. Based on the patent data, we identified the emergence of radical innovations by using new technology combinations as a proxy for (radical) novelty. As our main independent variables, we computed the cognitive distance of firms, universities and research institutions as well as the geographic distance between these partners. We identified formal relationships through publicly supported R&D collaborations between universities, firms, and research institutions using the German subsidy catalogue. Our research is vital for understanding the conditions under which university-industry collaborations contribute to the creation of radical innovations. While not only closing a research gap, this paper has practical ramifications for companies, universities as well as policy-makers by evaluating the concrete effects of university-industry collaborations on the probability to generate radical innovations.

Editorial

Editorial

Commercializing academic research: a social network approach exploring the role of regions and distance

Relationships between firms and universities have been centre stage for some time. However, empirical studies on firms contracting research to universities remains limited. The likelihood of engaging in contract research depends on the characteristics of the firm and the university. Because existing literature further suggests that location is a key facilitator for knowledge transfer activities, the paper investigates the role played by regions and geographical distance between firms and universities when engaging in contract research. Hence, the analysis combines characteristics from both organisations and adds relationship-specific features with respect to the distance between them and the region they are located in. It also looks at the role played by cognitive distance. The paper contributes to the understanding of how academic research, commissioned by firms, is influenced by locational features: the ability to engage in contract research and the regional context, the regional embeddedness of research contract partners, and the geographical distance between these partners. It builds on an original dataset with information on contract research at firm. Based on a panel of three consecutive waves of R&D surveys in Belgium conducted in 2006, 2008 and 2010, the linkages of universities with R&D active firms are examined by linking a database on universities with one on firm R&D investments. Using the most recent insights in the social network approach, highlights the variables that impact the likelihood of firms engaging in research contracted to a university. Descriptive measurements are calculated from social network analysis to capture the basic structure of the firm-university network and construct an Exponential Random Graph model to predict firm-university relationships based on network characteristics and node attributes. Four main conclusions are drawn. First, more innovative regions do not show a higher likelihood of firms to engage in contract research with universities. Second, the likelihood for contract research is higher, if firms and universities are located in the same region. Third, geographical distance shows a negative relation to the likelihood of contract research suggesting cluster formation. Fourth, in the case of contract research cognitive distance complements geographic distance.

No innovation for the elderly? The influence of cognitive distance in corporate innovation

Knowledge of customer needs are crucial for successful corporate innovations. Demographic ageing leads to a higher share of older adults (65+ generation). Consumer‐facing companies are urged to target this special or distant target group, which is mostly underrepresented in innovation teams. Various scientific domains have adopted the concept of psychological or cognitive distance, which is theoretically grounded in Construal Level Theory (CLT). Applied to an innovation context, CLT suggests that it is difficult to form detailed user representations of distant target groups and thus to acquire critical need knowledge. User involvement encompasses approaches designed to increase customer centricity and therefore helps with obtaining a better understanding of customer needs. This paper attempts to (i) explore experimentally the cognitive distance between individual developers and the target group and its role in successful ideation, and (ii) test how cognitive distance effects are moderated by the application of user‐involvement measures. The results show that cognitive distance, in particular social distance, has adverse effects; user‐involvement activities affect ideation quality positively when developers are socially close to the target group. Our findings reveal conditions for the applicability of CLT in innovation management. Implications for management practice include team composition and the application of user involvement when targeting distant target groups.

Cognitive Distance and Research Output in Computing Education: A Case-Study

Contribution: This paper quantifies the phenomenon of more versus better research output in computing research education and elaborates on how the organizational variable known as cognitive distance plays a fundamental role in mediating such more versus better research output relation. Background: To improve the current educational system, investigation and quantification is needed of the “silos.” Cognitive distance—a measure of the differences in background, culture, and expertise between collaborators—may be a factor influencing the lack of quality and variety in research outputs. Addressing this is a key enabler for fruitful collaboration. Research Question: Does collaboration with similarly expert researchers yield better research? Methodology: A quantitative survey provides baseline data for cognitive distance while publication data allowed creation of a co-authorship network between 123 researchers in a European computing research department. The network was analyzed through quantitative and qualitative research methods. Findings: Increased expertise overlaps across sub-fields of computing is a strong predictor for further collaboration (quantity), but research impact (quality) decreases with larger overlaps. This reveals an educational silo effect in doctoral computing education and, consequently, a flaw in the connected research output. The lack of a single, agreed way to evaluate research impact across sub-fields further hinders cross-departmental collaboration among doctoral students. Conclusion: Three recommendations emerge for policy makers and educational leaders: 1) departments should be cross-functional and focused on societal interests; 2) communities of practice should be created at the level of doctoral education and upward; and 3) departments should hold matchmaking and speed-meeting events regularly within and across institutions.

Values congruence in multicultural groups: the causal mapping method

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the adoption and application of the causal mapping method for cognitive distances measurement in the multicultural domain.Design/methodology/approachCausal mapping was used to estimate differences in mental models between participants. The developed method was applied in a multicultural setting for the selection of teaching cases.FindingsIn the main study, 129 people participated in the test. Overall, 7,217 relationships were tested. A set of demographic variables were used to test the reliability and external validity of the method. The method proved to be reliable and easy to apply. A smaller second study is an application example of the method.Research limitations/implicationsThe main study proposes a formula for distance ratio calculation. Moreover, this formula proved to be externally valid and reliable. Thus, it is of interest for further research in this domain.Practical implicationsPractitioners are provided with a tool for the analysis of intercultural differences with the example of the perception of cultural values to develop a better understanding and improve education in a multicultural setting. Study 2 proposes an example of the methodology application.Originality/valueThis is the first application of causal mapping in the field of values research performed in a multicultural education setting. The formula for comparing causal maps is improved upon, and an application for the field of multicultural university classes is provided.

Research on Tibetan Folk’s Contemporary Tibetan Cultural Adaptive Differences and Its Influencing Factors—Taking ShigatseCity, Tibet, China as an Example

Using qualitative research methods and mathematical statistical analysis, taking Shigatse city in Tibet as a case study area, and based on the affective, behavioral, and cognitive (ABC) model and cultural distance theory, we explore the Tibetan people’s cultural adaptive types, differences, and its influencing factors. The results show that there are seven Tibetans’ cultural adaptive kinds: Integration, assimilation, isolation, marginalization, tending to Tibetan modern culture, adaptation to Tibetan traditional culture, and unclassified cultural adaptive style. The Tibetans’ cultural adaptive tendency mainly integrates between modern and traditional parts in the contemporary Tibetan local cultures. Meanwhile, the Tibetan folk still has a large proportion of modifying to traditional culture. Moreover, the Tibetans’ cultural adjusted differences in the affective and cognitive dimensions are smaller than the acculturate features in the behavioral side. However, the cultural adjusted distinctions in the affective and cognitive aspects compared to that in the behavioral field are more complex. Moreover, there are direct and mediating effects that impact the Tibetan folks’ cultural adaptability. Studying Tibetan people’s cultural adaptation may be conducive to understanding the evolution of Tibetan locality’s meaning and the mutual game between the two different parts in local culture as well as comprehending the Tibetan folks’ real cultural appeal. The conclusions have important practical significance of the harmony, stability, unity, progress, and information in China ethnic areas’ economy, society, and culture.