Characteristics Of Human Behavior Research Articles

A Nonsupervised Learning Framework of Human Behavior Patterns Based on Sequential Actions

In designing autonomous service systems such as assistive robots for the aged and the disabled, discovery and prediction of human actions are important and often crucial. Patterns of human behavior, however, involve ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity, and inconsistency caused by physical, logical, and emotional factors, and thus their modeling and recognition are known to be difficult. In this paper, a nonsupervised learning framework of human behavior patterns is suggested in consideration of human behavioral characteristics. Our approach consists of two steps. In the first step, a meaningful structure of data is discovered by using Agglomerative Iterative Bayesian Fuzzy Clustering (AIBFC) with a newly proposed cluster validity index. In the second step, the sequence of actions is learned on the basis of the structure discovered in the first step and by utilizing the proposed Fuzzy-state Q--learning (FSQL) process. These two learning steps are incorporated in an amalgamated framework, AIBFC-FSQL, which is capable of learning human behavior patterns in a nonsupervised manner and predicting subsequent human actions. Through a number of simulations with typical benchmark data sets, we show that the proposed learning method outperforms several well-known methods. We further conduct experiments with two challenging real-world databases to demonstrate its usefulness from a practical perspective.

Major and minor music compared to excited and subdued speech

The affective impact of music arises from a variety of factors, including intensity, tempo, rhythm, and tonal relationships. The emotional coloring evoked by intensity, tempo, and rhythm appears to arise from association with the characteristics of human behavior in the corresponding condition; however, how and why particular tonal relationships in music convey distinct emotional effects are not clear. The hypothesis examined here is that major and minor tone collections elicit different affective reactions because their spectra are similar to the spectra of voiced speech uttered in different emotional states. To evaluate this possibility the spectra of the intervals that distinguish major and minor music were compared to the spectra of voiced segments in excited and subdued speech using fundamental frequency and frequency ratios as measures. Consistent with the hypothesis, the spectra of major intervals are more similar to spectra found in excited speech, whereas the spectra of particular minor intervals are more similar to the spectra of subdued speech. These results suggest that the characteristic affective impact of major and minor tone collections arises from associations routinely made between particular musical intervals and voiced speech.

On the Production of Religious Configurations

AbstractResearch on the emergence of the configuration known as “religion” requires tracing the articulation among biological, psychological and social processes. This research must take into account evolutionary approaches; first, in terms of hominid evolution, for it is only by taking into consideration work on symbolization, language development, the capacity to engage in metacognition and cooperation, the tendency to form hierarchies, engage in violence, sexual differentiation, and related topics, that one can hope to trace the emergence of certain relatively stable features of human behavior. But since symbolization and the other capacities mentioned above are exercised in specific social circumstances—which themselves could not have come into existence were it not for the exercise of those capacities—it is essential to consider social evolution, especially insofar as this evolution leads to the appearance of stratified societies and to the kind of labor that prevails in them.

Tremor Price Dynamics in the World’s Network of Stock Exchanges

We use insight from a model of earth techtonic plate movement to obtain a new understanding of the build up and release of stress in the price dynamics of the world’s stock exchanges. Nonlinearity enters the model due to a behavioral attribute of humans reacting disproportionately to big changes. This nonlinear response allows us to classify price movements of a given stock index as either being generated due to specific economic news for the country in question, or by the ensemble of the world’s stock exchanges reacting together like a complex system. Similar in structure to the Capital Asset Pricing Model in Finance, the model predicts how an individual stock exchange should be priced in terms of the performance of the global market of exchanges, but with human behavioral characteristics included in the pricing. A number of the model’s assumptions are validated against empirical data for 24 of the world’s leading stock exchanges. We show how threshold effects can lead to synchronization in the global network of stock exchanges.

Single Medial Prefrontal Neurons Cope with Error

Learning from mistakes is a key feature of human behavior. However, the mechanisms underlying short-term adaptation to erroneous action are still poorly understood. One possibility relies on the modulation of attentional systems after an error. To explore this possibility, we have designed a Stroop-like visuo-motor task in monkeys that favors incorrect action. Using this task, we previously found that single neurons recorded from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were closely tuned to behavioral performance and, more particularly, that the activity of most neurons was biased towards the evaluation of erroneous action. Here we describe single neurons engaged in both error detection and response alertness processing, whose activation is closely associated with the improvement of subsequent behavioral performance. Specifically, we show that the effect of a warning stimulus on neuronal firing is enhanced after an erroneous response rather than a successful one and that this outcome is correlated with an error rate decrease. Our results suggest that the anterior cingulate cortex, which exhibits this activity, serves as a powerful computational locus for rapid behavioral adaptation.

The Importance of Change Management in Reforming Customs

Customs organisations operate in a complex environment of constant change. They are required to respond to the promotion of economic development and to comply with regional, national and international obligations. To accommodate changes in these areas, it is important to determine ‘a certain management type’ to implement change processes. As well, it is critical to identify the most significant characteristics of change management theory, which in this article are demonstrated by describing the methods used by Latvian Customs as a practical example. In defining change management, the three constituents identified by Nickols (2004) – the task of managing change, an area of practical practice, and a body of knowledge – are regarded as being the most relevant to this particular investigation. The Nickols’ strategies also highlight certain characteristics of human behaviour that affect change management. The Latvian Customs State Revenue Service presents a striking example of a complex organisation where many factors are to be considered in order to effectively manage change.

Between-group competition and human cooperation

A distinctive feature of human behaviour is the widespread occurrence of cooperation among unrelated individuals. Explaining the maintenance of costly within-group cooperation is a challenge because the incentive to free ride on the efforts of other group members is expected to lead to decay of cooperation. However, the costs of cooperation can be diminished or overcome when there is competition at a higher level of organizational hierarchy. Here we show that competition between groups resolves the paradigmatic ‘public goods’ social dilemma and increases within-group cooperation and overall productivity. Further, group competition intensifies the moral emotions of anger and guilt associated with violations of the cooperative norm. The results suggest an important role for group conflict in the evolution of human cooperation and moral emotions.

Bridging Cognitive Modeling and Model-Based Evaluation: Extending GOMS to Model Virtual Sociotechnical Systems and Strategic Activities

Cognitive modeling and human factors models claim to represent critical features of human behavior and cognition, but for very different purposes. While cognitive modeling is concerned with the description and explanation of fundamental cognitive processes, human factors modeling is interested in performance and workload measures derived from simple formalisms of behavior and cognition in order to test design hypotheses. The present paper extends the use of GOMS models from models of the knowledge necessary for an agent to perform a task, to complex sociotechnical processes involving multiple agents in strategic activities situated in a virtual environment. The authors believe that extending GOMS may help to bridge the knowledge representation-driven cognitive models of complex human behaviors with the task networks-driven models of the human factors tradition.

Staircase evacuation modeling and its comparison with an egress drill

We study an evacuation process of a four-story building by means of an egress drill and simulations. The evacuation in the staircase is much different from that in flat areas in the building because of some special characteristics, for example, the twisting and descending passageway; the interflow of crowds at the joint of staircase and hallway; the turning behavior at the turning point between two flights. Considering the characteristics of human behavior and staircase structure, we develop an improved multi-grid model for the staircase evacuation. For a finer discretization of space, the key size of structures and boundaries are figured more accurately, and what is more, the rectangular body size, various walking speed in different densities, turning behavior of pedestrians are taken into account in the model. It is found that the interflow between the new entrance students from the hallway and students from upper staircase leads to a congestion in the buffer area which slows down the crowd speed. This area is just the bottleneck of the staircase evacuation. The simulation results are compared with the egress drill data, and there is close agreement between them. It implies that the composed model is reasonable and can be used to quantify staircase egress behaviors.

Pharmacological induction of the heat shock response improves myelination in a neuropathic model

Misexpression and intracellular retention of peripheral myelin protein 22 (PMP22) is associated with hereditary neuropathies in humans, including Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A). Mice expressing extra copies of the human PMP22, termed C22, display morphologic and behavioral characteristics of CMT1A. In neuropathic Schwann cells, the turnover of the newly-synthesized PMP22 is decreased, leading to the formation of cytosolic protein aggregates. To aid the processing of PMP22 and alleviate the associated myelin defects, we pharmacologically stimulated the expression of protein chaperones by synthetic small-molecule inhibitors of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90). The exposure of Schwann cells to these compounds enhanced the levels of cytosolic chaperones in a time- and dose-dependent manner, with minimal cytotoxicity. Treatment of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) explants from neuropathic mice improved myelin formation and the processing of PMP22. These results warrant further studies with HSP90 inhibitors as potential therapeutic candidates for hereditary demyelinating neuropathies.

Human Factors and Systems Engineering Approach to Patient Safety for Radiotherapy

The traditional approach to solving patient safety problems in healthcare is to blame the last person to touch the patient. But since the publication of To Err is Human, the call has been instead to use human factors and systems engineering methods and principles to solve patient safety problems. However, an understanding of the human factors and systems engineering is lacking, and confusion remains about what it means to apply their principles. This paper provides a primer on them and their applications to patient safety.

人間行動のハイブリッドシステムモデルに基づいた人間—機械協調型ロボットシステムの切替型制御器設計

Recently, the demand for man–machine cooperative systems has been growing in many industrial fields, particularly in cell production and in flexible manufacturing systems. In the design of man–machine cooperative systems, the characteristics of human behavior must be considered. This paper presents a new design strategy for a switched assist controller for a man–machine cooperative positioning task that takes into consideration a human behavior model based on a continuous/discrete hybrid dynamical system. First, the human behavior model is identified as a piecewise ARX model using k-means clustering and a support vector machine. Second, the switched assist system is designed as a switched impedance controller based on the identified hybrid human behavior model with optimization. The optimization was solved by performing a forward calculation of the closed loop response of the human behavior model and controller with a criterion reflecting the task time and the force effort. The results show that one can find the optimal parameters for a switched impedance controller. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 177(1): 55–64, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20932

Interactive perception for amplification of intended behavior in complex noisy environments

The detection of a human’s intended behavior is one of the most important skills that a social robot should have in order to become acceptable as a part of human society, because humans are used to understand the actions of other humans in a goal-directed manner and they will expect the social robot to behave similarly. A breakthrough in this area can advance several research branches related to social intelligence such as learning by imitation and mutual adaptation. To achieve this goal the robot needs to integrate all possible evidence of intention and neglect the unintended behavior, and a complete solution should use low-level signal processing and high-level reasoning. This work explores the low-level signal processing part of the solution by proposing an interactive adaptive perception scheme that uses four important features of human behavior to amplify the signals originating from intended behavior with respect to signals originating from unintended behavior and other noise sources such as instrumental noise. This work follows the vision that intelligence is not only a function of a centralized sophisticated artificial brain, but can be presented in different forms in the entire robot including its perception and motion systems (the mind is not contained in the brain, but distributed in every cell in the body). A simple example of using the proposed scheme was implemented and the results of two experiments with it are also presented.

Biometrics ‐ market segments and applications

Abstract Biometric methods are concerned with the measurement and evaluation of human physiological or behavioral characteristics. During the last years, the economic relevance of the biometric industry and market has increased rapidly. Although public security projects have initiated the positive market development, future growth will be also generated by private sector demand such as secure and convenient banking, payment applications etc. The deployment of biometrics to machine readable travel documents such as passports provides citizens with first experiences in biometric applications, thereby functioning as pioneer projects and market openers for other market segments. For example, biometric passports will redefine the border control process in the future, and in the midterm, aviation security is another market segment that will contribute to the growth. To prepare for this business, the industry must carefully analyze the market and meet the demand. This article assesses the economic relevance of b...

BIOMETRICS - MARKET SEGMENTS AND APPLICATIONS

Biometric methods are concerned with the measurement and evaluation of human physiological or behavioral characteristics. During the last years, the economic relevance of the biometric industry and market has increased rapidly. Although public security projects have initiated the positive market development, future growth will be also generated by private sector demand such as secure and convenient banking, payment applications etc. The deployment of biometrics to machine readable travel documents such as passports provides citizens with first experiences in biometric applications, thereby functioning as pioneer projects and market openers for other market segments. For example, biometric passports will redefine the border control process in the future, and in the midterm, aviation security is another market segment that will contribute to the growth. To prepare for this business, the industry must carefully analyze the market and meet the demand. This article assesses the economic relevance of biometrics and discusses selected market segments.

Evolutionary psychology and behavior analysis: Toward convergence.

Evolutionary psychology and behavior analysis are both committed to a scientific understanding of human behavior. This paper argues that--despite decades of mutual misunderstanding--greater convergence between these two theoretical orientations is now possible. Observations from evolutionary neurobiology, trait psychology, and behavior genetics allow us to move beyond old controversies. Keywords: Evolutionary psychology; Behavior Analysis; Behaviorism ********** It could be argued that many of the great leaps in human understanding occur when separate domains of inquiry are discovered to be united by some previously unsuspected commonality. Examples include; Descartes' unification of geometry and algebra (Singer, 1959) and the neo-Darwinian synthesis of natural selection and Mendelian genetics. In the latter case it is worth noting the acrimony that existed between Darwinians and Mendelians before the synthesis. The followers of Mendel had come to see inherited traits as discrete while the Darwinians thought in terms of continuous variation and tended toward Lamarckian notions of heredity. At the time these camps seem irreconcilable, yet the combined work of empirical investigators and mathematical theorists was able to create a powerful theory that embraced both Mendelian genetics and selection (Mayr, 1982). One wonders if such a synthesis is now possible between the discoveries of behavioral analysis and the insights of evolutionary psychology. There is a deep history of antagonism between these two approaches, which has reappeared in various guises over the last half century (e.g. Lorenz, 1965). It is not hard to find instances of misunderstanding and even incomprehension of the rival point of view. For example, Schlinger (1996) claims that: the problem with evolutionary explanations of behavior is that the evidence proffered to support them is so fraught with methodological problems that it is simply insufficient to warrant any conclusions about the role of genes and, thus, evolution (p. 75) While, Pinker's (2002) persuasive polemic for evolutionary and genetic influences on human behavior gratuitously, The Blank Slate, dismisses Skinner as a Maoist (p. 246). Skinner (1953) was certainly open to the possibility that genes and natural selection shape behavior. Skinner (1948), through the fictional Frazier, founder of Walden Two, argues: What is 'original nature of man?' I mean, what are the basic psychological characteristics of human behavior--the inherited characteristics, if any, and the possibilities of modifying them and creating others? That's certainly an experimental question--for a science of behavior to answer (p. 162). This statement is typical of Skinner's comments on this topic, he always admits that genes and evolution may play role, but is vague about what those influences might be or is skeptical about our ability to understand or study those influences. For example, in Science and Human Behavior he even seems favorably disposed to such unorthodox ideas as Huntington's (1938) climatic determinism and Sheldon's (Sheldon & Stevens, 1942) theory of somatotypes. Yet, just when he acknowledges these intriguing possibilities, he dismisses their relevance to the study of behavior: Even when it can be shown that some aspect of behavior is due to season of birth, gross body type, or genetic constitution, the fact is of limited use. It may help us in predicting behavior, but it is of little value in an experimental analysis or in practical control because such a condition cannot be manipulated after the individual has been conceived. The most that can be said is that knowledge of the genetic factor may enable us to make better use of other causes. If we know that an individual has certain inherent limitations, we may use our techniques of control more intelligently, but we cannot alter the genetic factor (Skinner, 1953, p. …

Serotonin Transporter Gene Variants and Behavior: A Comprehensive Review

The serotonin system modulates affective, cognitive and behavioral processes. A key molecular structure of this system, the serotonin transporter (SERT) gene, has been associated with many human behaviors, both normal and pathological. This article aim is a comprehensive overview of the human behavioral features influenced by SERT gene variants and to suggest some comprehensive hypotheses. In particular, the SERTPR insertion/deletion polymorphism has been related to hippocampal volume and amygdala response and it has been found to influence anxiety-related personality traits and anxiety disorders; in mood disorders it showed some influences on age at onset, periodicity, illness recurrence, rapid cycling, antidepressants response and depressive reaction to stressful life events. Psychosomatic disorders, suicide, alcoholism, smoking, eating disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and autism have been also found to be related to SERTPR variants. SERT gene variants seem therefore to modulate a wide range of aspects in both normal and affected individuals, many of which are possibly due to indirect correlations between such human features.

Considering the Rationality of Ritual Behavior

AbstractEngagement in religious ritual acts is, from a scientific point of view, a surprising feature of human behavior given the inherent commitment to counterintuitive worlds, including, generally invisible entities such as superhuman agents. Why people engage in such behaviors has preoccupied many scholars in the history of the study of religion (including scholars from within anthropology, psychology, sociology, and numerous other disciplines). These scholars have engaged in the Rationality Debate; the goal of which is to determine standards that could be used to make judgments about the rationality of human behavior. While ritual behavior might be ineffective for the achievement of purported goals and fail to conform to principles of reasoning based on rules of logic, the simple fact that this behavior is widespread, transmitted in a stable fashion, and the result (at least indirectly) of evolutionary processes suggest that considering its rationality or lack thereof is largely irrelevant. The question should not be “if” ritual behavior is rational but rather “why” this behavior is consistently exhibited. We argue that in order to answer this question anthropologists ultimately depend on heuristics recast as postulated entities. These are conceived as causal variable(s) governing patterned human behavior and consequently circle back and affirm a fallacious Durkheimian description of ritual behavior. This is a major and fundamental flaw in the current anthropological research tradition; the correction of which requires fundamental shifts in the philosophical commitments held—knowingly or unknowingly—by anthropologists.

The nature and significance of behavioural genetic information.

In light of the human genome project, establishing the genetic aetiology of complex human diseases has become a research priority within Western medicine. However, in addition to the identification of disease genes, numerous research projects are also being undertaken to identify genes contributing to the development of human behavioural characteristics, such as cognitive ability and criminal tendency. The permissibility of this research is obviously controversial: will society benefit from this research, or will it adversely affect our conceptions of ourselves and each other? When assessing the permissibility of this research, it is important to consider the nature and deterministic significance of behavioural genetic information. Whilst to date there has been much discussion and debate about the properties of genetic information per se and genetic determinism, this has not been applied to behavioural genetic research and its ethical implications. Therefore, this paper elucidates how behavioural genetic information can be distinguished from other types of genetic and non-genetic information and also synthesizes the determinative significance of genetic factors for the development of human behavioural traits. Undertaking this analysis enables the ethical issues raised by this research to be debated in an appropriate context and indicates that separate policy considerations are warranted.

Aetiological values in Achebe's stories for children

A fundamental aspect of Achebe’s work is shown in the narrations for children this writer developed during the sixties and seventies. These writings were Achebe’s response to the disastrous consequences of the Biafran War for his ethnic group which provoked a long silence on the part of the writer, unable to develop his commitment with his community through longer texts. During these years most of the production of Achebe was circumscribed to literary essays and stories for children, as an attempt to build a valuable literature for children throughout autochthonous reconstructions. With the exception of Chike and the River (published in 1966), the other tales are characterized by its moral fable-like tone and by being situated in a remote past, before the known time, in which the relationships between the physical and the spiritual worlds were very intense. Taking into account all these elements, I would like to pinpoint the aetiological value of Achebe’s tales, that is, the attempt to show the rural traditions that were used by the Ibo community to explain the cause and the origin of some natural phenomena, or even, of some features of human behaviour. I dare say that these tales constitute a clear example of a specifically African literature for children that, using autochthonous elements, does not deny the contact and influence of Western literature.