Unrelated Concepts Research Articles

Elements of creative thought: Investigating the cognitive and neural correlates of association and bi-association processes

Creative thinking relies on the ability to make remote associations and fruitfully combine unrelated concepts. Hence, original associations and bi-associations (i.e., associations to one and two concepts, respectively) are considered elementary cognitive processes of creative cognition. In this work, we investigated the cognitive and brain mechanisms underlying these association processes with tasks that asked for original associations to either one or two adjective stimuli. Study 1 showed that the generation of more original associations and bi-associations was related to several indicators of creativity, corroborating the validity of these association performances as basic processes underlying creative cognition. Study 2 assessed brain activity during performance of these association tasks by means of fMRI. The generation of original versus common associations was related to higher activation in bilateral lingual gyri suggesting that cued search for remote representatives of given properties are supported by visually-mediated search strategies. Parametric analyses further showed that the generation of more original associations involved activation of the left inferior frontal cortex and the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which are consistently implicated in constrained retrieval and evaluation processes, and relevant for making distant semantic connections. Finally, the generation of original bi-associations involved higher activation in bilateral hippocampus and inferior parietal lobe, indicating that conceptual combination recruits episodic simulation processes. Together, these findings suggest that the generation of verbally cued, original associations relies not only on verbal semantic memory but involves mental imagery and episodic simulation, offering new insights in the nuanced interplay of memory systems in creative thought.

Survey and Review

Finding the convolution of two vectors is a ubiquitous task in applied mathematics. Signal processing, image processing, deep neural networks, the numerical solution of partial differential equations, and other current applications require the computation of convolutions, often on terabytes or petabytes of data. Convolution was incognito when it was first introduced to each of us. In grade school, we were taught how to multiply two (n)-digit numbers (a) and (b) by finding the (n^2) products (a_ib_j) of the individual digits and applying the convolution formula \beginalign* &\qquad\qquad \big(a_0+a_1 10^1+ḑots+a_n-1 10^n-1\big) \big(b_0+b_1 10^1+ḑots +b_n-1 10^n-1\big) &\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad=(a_0b_0)+ (a_0b_1+a_1b_0)10^1+ḑots +(a_n-1b_n-1)10^2n-2. \endalign* Kolmogorov thought that the complexity of the grade school recipe was optimal: no other algorithm would compute the product \(ab\) using less than \(\mathcalO(n^2)\) one-digit products. However, he was proved to be wrong when in 1960 Anatoly Karatsuba formulated an algorithm that only requires \(\mathcalO(n^łog_2(3))\) one-digit products (\(łog_2(3)\approx 1.58\)). This was the first example of a fast algorithm to compute convolutions. The Survey and Review paper in this issue of SIAM Review, “Derivation and Analysis of Fast Bilinear Algorithms for Convolution,” by Caleb Ju and Edgar Solomonik, provides an overview of the many algorithms now available in this area. The authors systematize their exposition by using the formalism of bilinear algorithms: the different approaches are described by means of a unified linear algebra framework based on the observation that all algorithms proceed by first transforming linearly the input vectors, then computing a pointwise product of the transformed vectors, and then transforming the product (many readers will have seen this pattern at work when using Fourier and other transforms). The paper provides numerical experiments and compares the cost and stability of the different alternative techniques. It will be useful to different groups of readers. Applied mathematicians working on areas where convolutions are required will certainly benefit from reading this streamlined survey. In addition, the material connects seemingly unrelated concepts from elementary interpolation, linear algebra, polynomial algebra, Fourier transforms, etc., and it will be enlightening for SIAM readers who teach or study different applied mathematics undergraduate or graduate courses.

Topological Elasticity of Nonorientable Ribbons

In this article, we unravel an intimate relationship between two seemingly unrelated concepts: elasticity, that defines the local relations between stress and strain of deformable bodies, and topology that classifies their global shape. Focusing on Moebius strips, we establish that the elastic response of surfaces with non-orientable topology is: non-additive, non-reciprocal and contingent on stress-history. Investigating the elastic instabilities of non-orientable ribbons, we then challenge the very concept of bulk-boundary-correspondence of topological phases. We establish a quantitative connection between the modes found at the interface between inequivalent topological insulators and solitonic bending excitations that freely propagate through the bulk non-orientable ribbons. Beyond the specifics of mechanics, we argue that non-orientability offers a versatile platform to tailor the response of systems as diverse as liquid crystals, photonic and electronic matter.

Using computer‐based cognitive mapping to improve students' divergent thinking for creativity development

AbstractCreativity is increasingly considered to be an important goal of education. While creativity can be influenced by many noncognitive factors (eg, personality and motivation), creative thinking remains the most important source of creativity. Creative thinking combines several cognitive processes leading to the generation and selection of new and useful ideas or solutions. Divergent thinking or the ability to generate a range of alternative ideas, is a necessary component of creative thinking. Research has explored cognitive strategies to activate divergent thinking. However, such strategies are often abstract and difficult to implement. This study proposes a computer‐based cognitive mapping approach to improving divergent thinking as a response to this challenge. The approach enables students to build a computer‐based cognitive map that can foster divergent thinking by associating unrelated concept, object or situation (COS), by decomposing a COS into rich details for viewing it from divergent perspectives, and by combining and changing COSs. A quasi‐experiment was conducted with high school students. The results have shown promising effects of the approach on improving students' performance and perceived competence in divergent thinking.Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topicDivergent thinking is an important part of the cognitive processes that may lead to creativity.Divergent thinking can be enhanced by training in cognitive strategies, but these strategies involve complex cognitive processes that are abstract and difficult to implement.Cognitive mapping can facilitate complex thinking and cognitive processes.What this paper addsThis study proposes a computer‐based cognitive mapping approach as a divergent thinking tool that may help students visualize the process of applying divergent thinking strategies (association, decomposition, and combination and adjustment) when performing creativity‐related tasks.The approach is effective in improving high school students' divergent thinking performance in terms of idea fluency, flexibility and originality, in addition to perceived competence in divergent thinking.Implications for practice and/or policyIt is important to provide learners with effective thinking tools that facilitate the complex cognitive processes of applying divergent thinking strategies.Divergent thinking processes can be facilitated by associating unrelated concept, object or situation (COS), by decomposing a COS into rich details for viewing it from divergent perspectives, and by combining and changing COSs.

Analyzing Knowledge Retrieval Impairments Associated with Alzheimer's Disease Using Network Analyses.

A defining characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease is difficulty in retrieving semantic memories, or memories encoding facts and knowledge. While it has been suggested that this impairment is caused by a degradation of the semantic store, the precise ways in which the semantic store is degraded are not well understood. Using a longitudinal corpus of semantic fluency data (listing of items in a category), we derive semantic network representations of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and of healthy controls. We contrast our network-based approach with analyzing fluency data with the standard method of counting the total number of items and perseverations in fluency data. We find that the networks of Alzheimer’s patients are more connected and that those connections are more randomly distributed than the connections in networks of healthy individuals. These results suggest that the semantic memory impairment of Alzheimer’s patients can be modeled through the inclusion of spurious associations between unrelated concepts in the semantic store. We also find that information from our network analysis of fluency data improves prediction of patient diagnosis compared to traditional measures of the semantic fluency task.

Duality, Matroids, Qubits, Twistors, and Surreal Numbers

We show that via the Grassmann-Pl\"ucker relations, the various apparent unrelated concepts, such as duality, matroids, qubits, twistors and surreal numbers are, in fact, deeply connected. Moreover, we conjecture the possibility that these concepts may be considered as underlying mathematical structures in quantum gravity.

Optogenetics enables real-time spatiotemporal control over spiral wave dynamics in an excitable cardiac system.

Propagation of non-linear waves is key to the functioning of diverse biological systems. Such waves can organize into spirals, rotating around a core, whose properties determine the overall wave dynamics. Theoretically, manipulation of a spiral wave core should lead to full spatiotemporal control over its dynamics. However, this theory lacks supportive evidence (even at a conceptual level), making it thus a long-standing hypothesis. Here, we propose a new phenomenological concept that involves artificially dragging spiral waves by their cores, to prove the aforementioned hypothesis in silico, with subsequent in vitro validation in optogenetically modified monolayers of rat atrial cardiomyocytes. We thereby connect previously established, but unrelated concepts of spiral wave attraction, anchoring and unpinning to demonstrate that core manipulation, through controlled displacement of heterogeneities in excitable media, allows forced movement of spiral waves along pre-defined trajectories. Consequently, we impose real-time spatiotemporal control over spiral wave dynamics in a biological system.

Blurred Lines: Disentangling the Concept of Fetal Viability from Abortion Law.

Blurred Lines: Disentangling the Concept of Fetal Viability from Abortion Law.

Controlled semantic cognition relies upon dynamic and flexible interactions between the executive ‘semantic control’ and hub-and-spoke ‘semantic representation’ systems

Built upon a wealth of neuroimaging, neurostimulation, and neuropsychology data, a recent proposal set forth a framework termed controlled semantic cognition (CSC) to account for how the brain underpins the ability to flexibly use semantic knowledge (Lambon Ralph et al., 2017; Nature Reviews Neuroscience). In CSC, the ‘semantic control’ system, underpinned predominantly by the prefrontal cortex, dynamically monitors and modulates the ‘semantic representation’ system that consists of a ‘hub’ (anterior temporal lobe, ATL) and multiple ‘spokes’ (modality-specific areas). CSC predicts that unfamiliar and exacting semantic tasks should intensify communication between the ‘control’ and ‘representation’ systems, relative to familiar and less taxing tasks. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test this hypothesis. Participants paired unrelated concepts by canonical colours (a less accustomed task – e.g., pairing ketchup with fire-extinguishers due to both being red) or paired well-related concepts by semantic relationship (a typical task – e.g., ketchup is related to mustard). We found the ‘control’ system was more engaged by atypical than typical pairing. While both tasks activated the ATL ‘hub’, colour pairing additionally involved occipitotemporal ‘spoke’ regions abutting areas of hue perception. Furthermore, we uncovered a gradient along the ventral temporal cortex, transitioning from the caudal ‘spoke’ zones preferring canonical colour processing to the rostral ‘hub’ zones preferring semantic relationship. Functional connectivity also differed between the tasks: Compared with semantic pairing, colour pairing relied more upon the inferior frontal gyrus, a key node of the control system, driving enhanced connectivity with occipitotemporal ‘spoke’. Together, our findings characterise the interaction within the neural architecture of semantic cognition – the control system dynamically heightens its connectivity with relevant components of the representation system, in response to different semantic contents and difficulty levels.

The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Paula McDowell

Reviewed by: The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Paula McDowell Jennifer L. Airey (bio) Paula McDowell. The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. Pp. 353. $45. We are living in a moment of profound cultural change, as the movement from print to online culture has fundamentally shifted the ways in which we access and process information and monetize written content. Set in this context, Paula McDowell’s The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain is an especially timely work, one that draws parallels between the developing technologies of the eighteenth century—in this case, the movement from oral to print culture—and our own. It is only in retrospect, McDowell argues, that we can fully understand the implications of such a monstrous cultural shift, but similarities have already emerged between eighteenth-century reactions to technological change and our own: concerns over what is being lost, fears about the democratization of access to content, and uncertainty about how to monetize new modes of information transmission. According to McDowell, the concept of the “oral” came into being in the eighteenth century as an umbrella term for a series of often unrelated concepts. Encapsulating at once beliefs about religious tradition, appropriate gender roles, and social class divides, reactions to the concept of orality in the eighteenth century offer insight into a wide variety of social and cultural attitudes. In drawing connections between the development of [End Page 494] eighteenth-century print culture and the emergence of the digital, McDowell’s book is both important and timely. As a work of scholarship on the eighteenth century, it is a masterful and often enlightening work, offering new interpretations of well-known works by authors such as Defoe, Johnson, and Swift, and engaging with previously understudied voices such as those of the Billingsgate fishwives and John “Orator” Henley. McDowell begins in her first chapter with a nuanced analysis of the concept of oral tradition as it emerged in the eighteenth century. While the word “tradition” is now used in predominantly secular ways, it had important religious resonance in the early modern period. For Catholics, who placed emphasis on the importance of priestly intercession between the individual and God, “the tradition of the church is of equal authority with scripture” (28). For Protestants, by contrast, who privileged Biblical text and the individual’s relationship with God, the concept of tradition was much more fraught. Protestants positioned scripture—and by extension writing—as “the most reliable method of preserving and communicating knowledge” (29). Of particular interest in this chapter is McDowell’s reading of Dryden; prior to his conversion, she argues, Dryden linked orality with the vulgar rabble. As a Catholic, however, he became more supportive of oral tradition, arguing in The Hind and the Panther that the Catholic Church “by Tradition’s force upheld the Truth” (39). The battle between print and oral authority was central to other eighteenth-century debates. English common law, for instance, was composed of many unwritten laws, and thus “seventeenth-century proponents of the Ancient Constitution appealed to the authority of an ancient, unwritten tradition of laws and customs to further their own political goals” (45). Meanwhile antiquarians lamented the loss of oral culture (including lower-class slang, popular ballads, and the oral poetry of the Scottish Highlands) resulting from the growth of print. Not all forms of oral transmission were viewed positively, however; the concept of old wives’ tales, for instance, reflects the disrespect in which women’s speech was consistently held. McDowell turns in chapter 2 to Swift’s treatment of speech in A Tale of a Tub. As a clergyman himself, Swift understood well the importance of dynamic oratory in the pulpit, and he suggested that Dissenters were dangerous precisely because they knew how to perform for largely illiterate audiences. Swift associated the physicality and emotion of the spoken sermon “with popular unrest and gender subversion from below” (67). Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year is the subject of McDowell’s third chapter. As...

Photography and Neobaroque Imaginary in Julio Cortázar’s “Las babas del diablo”: Can the Neobaroque Name a Photograph?

This article examines Julio Cortazar's short story Las babas del diablo from a visual perspective and at the intersection of Roland Barthes's ideas on photography and Severo Sarduy's theory on the Neobaroque. I propose that in Las babas del diablo photography and the Neobaroque—two seemingly unrelated concepts—interact and complement each other to create a story that negotiates the Neobaroque's persistent desire to name and the photograph's stubbornness to stay unnamed. Through an intense interaction with the photograph and an unrestrained production of verboseness stirred by the punctum of the image, Roberto Michel gives birth to a Neobaroque narrative that inverts the established order of things: both the photograph and the narrative transcend spatio-temporal limits leaving the narrator-photographer in complete immobility.

Social value of an innovation ecosystem: the case of Leiden Bioscience Park, The Netherlands

Purpose Science parks are business clusters situated in a particular geographical location, originally conceptualized by local universities, local government and businesses. In recent times, science park stakeholders and tenants are starting to pursue social value and even how to manage. This study aims to clarify the understanding of social value in an innovation ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach This study combines existing literature studies and concepts, observations in a real-life innovation ecosystem – a Bioscience Park – and interviews of key personnel managing the science park. Findings Science Park Social Value (SPSV) is a value resulting from interaction among groups and not just the pursuit of a single firm-level goal. SPSV emanates from the firms within the science park in reaction to the demands of the actors or entities within and outside the innovation ecosystem of the science park: internal operations, external stakeholders and infexternal or broader societal impact. In addition to this, the author has conceptualized a framework for social value of an innovation ecosystem, which will require further research. Research limitations/implications This paper creates a link between concepts about social value, innovation ecosystem (e.g. science park) and stakeholder theory. Practical implications SPSV will be useful for science park orchestrators or managers to manage expectations of social and non-social actors. Social implications Social value of a science park will bring a new light on the stigma that science parks are only money-making ventures and are not in touch with social issues. Originality value This study theorized and researched previously unrelated concepts.

On the dynamical incompleteness of the Protein Data Bank.

Major scientific challenges that are beyond the capability of individuals need to be addressed by multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional consortia. Examples of these endeavours include the Human Genome Project, and more recently, the Structural Genomics (SG) initiative. The SG initiative pursues the expansion of structural coverage to include at least one structural representative for each protein family to derive the remaining structures using homology modelling. However, biological function is inherently connected with protein dynamics that can be studied by knowing different structures of the same protein. This ensemble of structures provides snapshots of protein conformational diversity under native conditions. Thus, sequence redundancy in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) (i.e. crystallization of the same protein under different conditions) is therefore an essential input contributing to experimentally based studies of protein dynamics and providing insights into protein function. In this work, we show that sequence redundancy, a key concept for exploring protein dynamics, is highly biased and fundamentally incomplete in the PDB. Additionally, our results show that dynamical behaviour of proteins cannot be inferred using homologous proteins. Minor to moderate changes in sequence can produce great differences in dynamical behaviour. Nonetheless, the structural and dynamical incompleteness of the PDB is apparently unrelated concepts in SG. While the first could be reversed by promoting the extension of the structural coverage, we would like to emphasize that further focused efforts will be needed to amend the incompleteness of the PDB in terms of dynamical information content, essential to fully understand protein function.

Envelope of Mid-Planes of a Surface and Some Classical Notions of Affine Differential Geometry

For a pair of points in a smooth locally convex surface in 3-space, its mid-plane is the plane containing its mid-point and the intersection line of the corresponding pair of tangent planes. In this paper we show that the limit of mid-planes when one point tends to the other along a direction is the Transon plane of the direction. Moreover, the limit of the envelope of mid-planes is non-empty for at most six directions, and, in this case, it coincides with the center of the Moutard's quadric. These results establish an unexpected connection between these classical notions of affine differential geometry and the apparently unrelated concept of envelope of mid-planes. We call the limit of envelope of mid-planes the affine mid-planes evolute and prove that, under some generic conditions, it is a regular surface in 3-space.

Cell nucleus and English letters.

Cell nucleus and English letters seem to be two totally unrelated concepts. How could they be connected?

P163 The role of the angular gyrus in creative and automatic tasks

Introduction Research suggests that creativity entails forming of new associative links between otherwise unrelated concepts, these new links should be in some way useful. In addition, the Angular gyrus (AG) plays a role in complex information integration and knowledge retrieval. Neuroimaging creativity studies observed deactivation in the AG while participants were engaged in creative tasks (Fink et al., 2010; Berkowitz and Ansari, 2010). This deactivation can reflect inhibition of prevalent stimulus-related information retrieval that allows more original responses reach conscious awareness. Objectives In the current study we hypothesize that automaticity is the opposite of creativity, hence we aim to enhance creativity by decreasing automaticity. Materials & methods Under this hypothesis we will use transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to activate the AG in order to enhance automaticity, and to deactivate the AG in order to enhance creativity. Healthy subjects in the enhanced creativity group will receive cathodal stimulation above the right angular gyrus, while the enhanced automaticity participants will receive double anodal stimulation to the right and left AG (p3 and P4). In addition, each participant will undergo a sham (control) condition, with one week interval between the experiment condition and the sham condition. Participants will perform two creative tasks, the Alternative uses task (AUT) (Fink et al., 2010) and the Remote association task, and two automatic tasks of lexical decisions. Results The study is due to end on June 2016, current 4 subjects generated more original solutions in the AUT task under the cathodal AG stimulation, and were faster in the lexical decision tasks under the double anodal stimulation. Conclusion Under the cathodal stimulation of the AG, participants showed better creativity performance. The double anodal stimulation improved automaticity performance.

Distant Domain Transfer Learning

In this paper, we study a novel transfer learning problem termed Distant Domain Transfer Learning (DDTL). Different from existing transfer learning problems which assume that there is a close relation between the source domain and the target domain, in the DDTL problem, the target domain can be totally different from the source domain. For example, the source domain classifies face images but the target domain distinguishes plane images. Inspired by the cognitive processof human where two seemingly unrelated concepts can be connected by learning intermediate concepts gradually, we propose a Selective Learning Algorithm (SLA) to solve the DDTL problem with supervised autoencoder or supervised convolutional autoencoder as a base model for handling different types of inputs. Intuitively, the SLA algorithm selects usefully unlabeled data gradually from intermediate domains as a bridge to break the large distribution gap for transferring knowledge between two distant domains. Empirical studies on image classification problems demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and on some tasks the improvement in terms of the classification accuracy is up to 17% over “non-transfer” methods.

A Knowledge Concept Map: Structured Concept Analysis from Systematic Literature Review

The purpose of this article is to present a mental model of knowledge as a concept map as an input to knowledge management (KM) investigations. This article’s extended knowledge concept map can serve as a resource where the investigation, development, or application of knowledge would be served with a broad mental model of knowledge. Previously unrelated concepts are related; knowledge concepts can sometimes be expressed as a range, i.e., certainty related states: view, opinion, sentiment, persuasion, belief, and conviction. Extrathesis is identified as a potential skill level higher than synthesis, and associated with the concepts: discovery, institution, insight (the event), revelation, or illumination that precedes innovation. Qualitative methods were used to gather and document concepts. System engineering and object analysis methods were applied to define and relate concepts. However, the theoretical sampling and theoretical saturation methods applied do not guarantee all appropriate concepts have been identified. Given the breadth, depth, and dimensionality of concepts of knowledge, later researchers may add additional concepts. This article provides evidence of additional things people know, an alternative to psychology’s acquaintanceship, understanding and placement of newer categorizations of knowledge in relation to older ones, and suggests that ranges for knowledge terms exist. This article extends the 2015 paper on this topic by: 1) taking a deeper look into epistemological terms and relationships, 2) providing contextual definitions, 3) suggesting extrathesis as an idea beyond synthesis, 4) updating the concept map; and 5) providing new insight on the overloaded knows including adding an eleventh know. It provides a much more solid basis for KM investigations than typical presentations, providing a broad understanding of knowledge that is beneficial.

Broaden the mind before ideation: The effect of conceptual attention scope on creativity

Many theorists have argued that creativity essentially derives from associating and combining seemingly unrelated concepts; by implication, psychological factors that facilitate the association of remote concepts may be conducive to creativity. The present study attempted to test the potential effect of one of these factors, the scope of conceptual attention – defined as the range of activation of mental representations in long-term memory. Broad conceptual attention engenders activation of a wide range of memory contents simultaneously, increasing the possibility of discovering useful associations between remote concepts, thus the hypothesis was that broad conceptual attention facilitates creativity. Three experiments were conducted using two different manipulations of conceptual attention scope. Their effects on creativity shown in imagined alien creatures were observed. The results demonstrated evidence to support the hypothesis. Specifically, Experiment 1 revealed that participants who had to generate free associates to the presented categories subsequently showed higher levels of creativity than those who had to generate associates confined by category boundaries, namely exemplars of the same categories. Experiment 2 aimed to replicate the effect of the manipulation on creativity and also examine its impact on analytic thinking. The results suggested that conceptual attention scope might affect creativity, but did not impact deductive reasoning. In Experiment 3, the participants whose attention was broadened by producing atypical category exemplars were more creative than those who generated typical exemplars. Overall, the findings lent support for the associative theory of creativity and similar accounts, and their practical significance is discussed in this paper.

Nonlocal correlations: Fair and unfair strategies in Bayesian games

Interesting connection has been established between two apparently unrelated concepts, namely, quantum nonlocality and Bayesian game theory. It has been shown that nonlocal correlations in the form of advice can outperform classical equilibrium strategies in common interest Bayesian games and also in conflicting interest games. However, classical equilibrium strategies can be of two types, fair and unfair. Whereas in fair equilibrium payoffs of different players are same, in unfair case they differ. Advantage of nonlocal correlation has been demonstrated over fair strategies. In this work we show that quantum strategies can outperform even the unfair classical equilibrium strategies. For this purpose we consider a class of two players games which as a special case includes the conflicting game proposed in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 020401 (2015)]. These games can have both fair and unfair classical equilibria and also can have only unfair ones. We provide a simple analytic characterization of the nonlocal correlations that are advantageous over the classical equilibrium strategies in these games.