A Literature Review of the Universal and Atomic Elements of Complex Cognition

Derek Cabreraa,b,c, Laura Cabreraa,b,c, and Elena Cabreraa,b,c

aCornell University; bCornell Human Ecology; cCabrera Research Lab

1 Abstract: This paper posits that universal atomic elements exist that 7 Conclusion 30 27 2 underlie complex cognition. At its core, constructs are born of the A Systems Thinking is a Cognitive Science.... 30 28 3 dynamics of thinking operating on information. This elemental un- B DSRP Are Not Steps In a List, But Simple 29 4 derstanding of the structural underpinnings - and the dynamics be- Rules of Complex Cognition...... 30 30 5 tween and among the elements - provides insight into the value of C DSRP Exists in Mind and Nature and DSRP 31 6 thinking and awareness of one’s thinking to everyday life and scien- are Universal Cognitive Structures...... 30 32 7 tific inquiry. Knowledge of the structural and dynamical properties of

8 human thought leads to generative, purposeful, and predictive cog- 8 References 31 33

9 nitive acts that evolve one’s thinking. As a result, our mental models A Appendix A: Table of Methods for Studies 34 10 (comprised of information and thinking) of how systems work are Cited 33 35 11 better aligned with how they exist in the real world. This alignment

12 yields better solutions, innovation and results. Continued inquiry B Appendix B: Summary Statistics of Table of 36 13 into the universality of these structural elements has significant po- Methods 39 37 14 tential to advance understanding across a wide variety of academic

15 disciplines. In other words, the study of cognition is deemed synony- C Appendix C: Summary Table of Studies Cited 40 38 16 mous with the evolution of science and knowledge itself.

complex cognition | cognitive structures | universality | systems thinking 1. DSRP Theory: Simple Rules that Underlie Complex 39 Cognition 40

1 Contents DSRP theory articulates how we build meaning of concepts and 41 how knowledge is created. Additionally, DSRP highlights how 42 thinking and knowledge evolve. This paper offers two impor- 43 2 1 DSRP Theory: Simple Rules that Underlie tant and new insights about complex cognition. First, it artic- 44 3 Complex Cognition1 ulates the foundational building blocks of thoughts—cognitive 45 structures that underlie thinking and learning. These under- 46 4 2 Identity-Other Distinctions2 lying structures are identified as four simple rules detailed in 47 5 A Distinctions Exist in Both Mind and Nature..2 Table1 below. 48 6 B Real-world Examples of Distinction Making..6 7 C Distinctions have an identity↔other structure.7 The Identity-Other Distinctions Rule 8 D Metacognitive Awareness of D(i ↔ o) Structure D := (i ↔ o) A Distinction (D) is defined as an identity (i) co- 9 Matters...... 9 implying an other (o) The Part-Whole Systems Rule 10 3 Part-Whole Systems 11 S := (p ↔ w) A System (S) is defined as apart (p) co-implying a 11 A Systems Exist in Mind and Nature...... 12 whole (w) 12 B Systems have a Part-Whole Structure..... 13 The Action-Reaction Relationships Rule 13 S p ↔ w C Metacognitive Awareness of ( ) Struc- R := (a ↔ r) A Relationship (R) is defined as an action (a) co- 14 ture Matters...... 14 implying a reaction (r) The Point-View Perspectives Rule 15 4 Action-Reaction Relationships 15 P := (ρ ↔ v) A Perspective (P ) is defined as a point (ρ) co- 16 A Relationships Exist in Mind and Nature.... 15 implying a view (v) 17 B Relationships Have an Action-Reaction Structure 18 Table 1. The foundational building blocks of thought. 18 C Metacognitive Awareness of R(a ↔ r) Structure 19 Matters...... 20

These structures underlie more complex cognitive struc- 49 20 5 Point-View Perspectives 20 tures such as categories, concepts, schema, and mental models. 50 21 A Perspectives Exist in Mind and Nature..... 21 The second thing DSRP Theory explicates is the dynamics 51 22 B Perspectives have a Point-View Structure... 22 (the complex of interactions) that these 4 structural patterns 52 23 C Metacognitive Awareness of P (ρ ↔ v) Struc- of thought generate. DSRP explicates 4 simple rules that 53 24 ture Matters...... 23

25 6 DSRP: Not Steps...Fractal, Recombinant, Re- 2 26 cursive, Simple Rules 25 Address correspondence to E-mail: Derek Cabrera [email protected]

www.joast.org Journal of Applied Systems Thinking | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 | 1–48 54 interact with one another inextricably. For example, any idea the basic forms underlying linguistic, mathematical, 109 55 is simultaneously: a distinct (D) manifested in it’s label or physical, and biological science, and can begin to see 110 56 identity; a system (S) that has parts (and can be part of a how the familiar laws of our own experience follow 111 57 larger whole; related (R) to other ideas or things around it; inexorably from the original act of severance. The act 112 58 and can be a perspective (P) on other ideas or things (e.g., is itself already remembered, even if unconsciously, 113 59 a person in a network or a concept on another concept like as our first attempt to distinguish different things in 114 60 sustainability as a perspective on a policy solution). Thus a world where, in the first place, the boundaries can 115 61 while the structures themselves are simple and easily under- be drawn anywhere we please.” 116 62 stood, the dynamics among them yield considerable power Understanding that objects have boundaries and that we 117 63 to cognition, understanding, learning, and the evolution of create borders to understand the way the world works is 118 64 knowledge itself. a powerful idea that deepens our understanding of reality. 119 Distinctions exist in the real world and in the mind. Often we 120 65 2. Identity-Other Distinctions strive for coherence between reality and the mind to align our 121 66 Distinction-making (D) is the act of distinguishing among thinking with the reality of how things exist in the world. 122 67 ideas or things. In other words, explicitly delineating a concept Theoretical physicist, Lawrence Krauss, Director of the 123 68 or thing the "identity" and therefore, often implicitly, other Origins Project at Arizona State University and author of "A 124 69 concept(s) or thing(s) become the "other." Infants show evi- Universe From Nothing" explains the reason there is something 125 70 dence of distinction-making in the womb and object-oriented rather than nothing is simply that “nothing is unstable” (2) 126 71 distinction-making as early as three months of age, while and that if one waits long enough something will emerge from 127 72 experiments with adults show the varied and sophisticated nothing. He states, 128 73 ways distinctions are made across the lifespan. A review of “Once you combine quantum mechanics and rela- 129 74 peer-reviewed journals across disciplines indicates: tivity, empty space, which apparently of course is 130 nothing, it is not so simple. It’s actually a boiling, 131 75 1. The existence of Distinctions (i.e., D as a noun); bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and 132 76 2. The act of Distinction making (i.e., D as a verb); out of existence, in a time scale so short you can’t 133 see them. And in fact, if you wait long enough, and 134 77 3. That the relationship between “identity” and “other” (i.e., allow gravity to operate empty space will eventually 135 78 D(i ↔ o) is elemental to (1) and (2) above; and, start producing particles.” 136

79 4. That the human tendency toward identification without Ergo, something exists as part of the real world or universe, 137 80 the conscious or metacognitive recognition of the other or reality. That something is of course many things today, 138 81 (i.e., where the “other” remains implicit), leads to op- and the backdrop for either the entirety of that something 139 82 portunity costs and marginalization. Alternatively, the is nothing. At the same time, if we were to single out one 140 83 purposeful and explicit identification of the other (i.e., of the parts of that aggregate something the backdrop for 141 84 where the “other” is made explicit) can lead to marginal- any element is not only nothing, but all the other somethings 142 85 ization and stigmatization. which are not that thing. Of course, what we single out with 143 our mind’s eye may be in alignment with something real and 144 86 5. In summary, the literature shows that items 1-4 are fun- discrete in the universe, but it may also be a figment of our 145 87 damental “patterns of mind” agnostic to the content they imagination or an approximation of something real that is 146 88 are within and are seen throughout the lifespan of humans. so flawed as to be a heavily biased version of it. Regardless, 147 89 Yet, where Distinction making is concerned, the difference distinguishable entities exist—whether in the natural or “real” 148 90 between thinking (ie., cognition) and systems thinking world or in the mind (i.e., conceptual entities) or both. 149 91 (i.e., systematic metacognition) is not in the D(i ↔ o) Leonid Euler (3) incidentally discovered graph theory and 150 92 structure of cognition itself, but in the willful and pur- spawned modern day network theory during his effort to solve 151 93 poseful attempt to see (i.e., be aware of) the D(i ↔ o) one of the perplexing problems of 18th century Prussian society. 152 94 structure that is at work when thinking. In the “Seven Bridges of Königsberg” problem, there are two 153 islands connected to the mainland by seven bridges (Figure 154 95 A. Distinctions Exist in Both Mind and Nature. Distinctions 1). The problem was to determine if it was possible to go on 155 96 exist in our minds and in nature . They are both real and a walk through the city that crossed each of the seven bridges 156 97 conceptual and sometimes the real are in alignment with the once and only once. Euler, using the power of abstraction, 157 98 conceptual (e.g., we see things as they are). Distinction-making discovered that the Königsberg problem had no solution but 158 99 is a universal cognitive structure, as we cannot think a thought, in doing so he launched modern network theory. 159 100 without also making a distinction. G Spencer Brown (1) opens 101 his book, Laws Of Form (1969) with:

102 “The theme of this book is that a universe comes 103 into being when a space is severed or taken apart. 104 The skin of a living organism cuts off an outside 105 from an inside. So does the circumference of a circle 106 in a plane. By tracing the way we represent such 107 a severance, we can begin to reconstruct, with an Fig. 1. Euler abstracted the problem to a set of nodes and edges and launched network theory 108 accuracy and coverage that appear almost uncanny,

2 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 160 Today networks are a ubiquitous modeling tool that crosses 161 the physical, natural, and social sciences, as well as business 162 and commerce. Networks are both ubiquitous structures in 163 nature and powerful tools of the mind for understanding nature 164 better. Figure2 illustrates a sampling of such networks: (left to 165 right, top to bottom) abstract, political, food web, corruption, 166 ecological, computer, corporate, disease, conceptual, terrorism, 167 social, and human trafficking. Taking Euler’s cue on the 168 value of abstraction, what we see across all of these networks 169 is simply that there are things, which are called nodes in 170 network theory. Nodes represent things (identities) of all 171 shapes and sizes, from abstract ideas, to people, to groups of 172 people, animals, corporations, words, computers, terrorists, 173 senators, and so on. If it’s a thing, it can be a node. In 174 short, networks—both in the real world and in our mind are 175 made up of things (identities) represented as nodes in the 176 network. The nodes exist with other nodes, which they are 177 differentiated from by virtue of their own nodeness. Those 178 other nodes provide the backdrop or context for any individual 179 node (identity). Indeed, in any given network, in order to fully 180 define any given node, one must not only identify that node’s 181 (label, name, status, etc) but also that of the other nodes it is 182 with. Thus, the other nodes provide context for the node itself, 183 and this occurs simultaneously for all nodes in the network.

184 DSRP Theory advances modern day network theory by 185 offering a complete definition of any given node: what the Fig. 2. Networks of all kinds 186 node is (it’s distinguishing characteristics, ID, label, position, 187 etc.) and also what the node isn’t (i.e., the other nodes it

188 is with). This is critically important, because, as you will ∗ continuing in the direction in which it is set. 220 189 see, the mind does not merely form concepts based only on Two experimental groups were familiarized 221 190 positive affirmations of a thing, but also on the negation of with a complex pattern shown in Figure3. 222 191 a thing. A car is not-a-duck and also not-a-refrigerator, but To determine whether infants 223 192 closer to its definition, it is also not-a-truck. The concepts we could parse and organize the 224 193 form exist within a network of similar and different concepts pattern in Figure3 into two 225 194 and are heavily dependent on the affirmation of identity but distinct shapes (a teardrop 226 195 also the negation of it. and a square) one experimen- 227 196 Kolata 1984 (4) studied learning while in utero. In the tal group was presented with 228 197 past, researchers thought that an infant’s world was incredibly a teardrop shape and a num- Fig. 3. Pattern used in Experiment 1 229 198 confusing and overwhelming, but it is becoming increasingly ber 4 immediately following 230 199 clear that infants are familiarized with their environment familiarization. In the experimental group, 17 out of 24 in- 231 200 from day one. This means that infants are learning while fants showed a preference for the “4” at a preference rating 232 201 developing in the mother’s womb. She wrote that, “They of over 50%, while in the control group (those who had not 233 202 [infants] can discriminate between objects that they can see and seen the number 4 alongside the teardrop), only 4 out of 24 234 203 even recognize their mother’s voice.” Infants can Distinguish, infants showed a preference for the “4” at a preference rating 235 204 from birth, their caregiver’s voices. Some studies showed of over 50%. These results indicate that the experimental 236 205 that babies recognize and show a preference for poems or group of infants who had seen the teardrop before, saw the 237 206 stories that were read to them while developing in the womb. number “4” a novel visual stimulus—catching their attention 238 207 Kolata notes that, whenever researchers look for evidence of and preference. This preference indicates that the infants were 239 208 in-utero/fetal learning, they find it. Evidence that fetuses able to Distinguish pattern into two Distinct shapes. 240 209 form Distinctions before they encounter the complexity of the A second experimental group was presented with a square 241 210 world forwards the assertion that Distinction-making is an shape and a number 4 immediately following familiarization. 242 211 innate process possessed by human beings. In this experimental group, 22 out of 24 infants showed a 243 preference for the “4” at a preference rating of over 50%, while 244 212 An innate process possessed by humans leads one to explore in the control group (those who had not seen a 4), 14 out of 24 245 213 when humans develop this skill and how it can be ascertained. infants showed a preference for the “4” at a preference rating of 246 214 In 1997, Quinn et. al. 1997 (5) completed two studies on over 50%. Further, these results indicate that the experimental 247 215 97 healthy infants between three and four months old. In group of infants who had seen the square shape before were 248 216 Experiment 1, an embedded figure task was used to deter- able to Distinguish the above pattern into two Distinct shapes. 249 217 mine whether three and four month-old infants organize visual

218 pattern information in accord with the good continuation prin- ∗The “good continuation principle” refers to the Gestalt organization principle that humans have an 219 ciple which simply means that humans tend to see a line as innate tendency to perceive a line as continuing in the established direction of the line.

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 3 250 According to the authors the differentiate different patterns and/or shapes. 309 251 experiment showed, “a find- As Quinn et al shows, young infants visually distinguish 310 252 ing consistent with the no- among objects with some skill. Studies on aural distinctions 311 253 tion that infants’ adherence made by infants also explore another sensory mode of distin- 312 254 to the good continuation prin- Fig. 4. Pattern used in Experiment 2 guishing sounds. Newman and Jusczyk (1996) (6) studied 313 255 ciple facilitated organization the brain’s ability to separate one sound (i.e., your name at 314 256 of the region containing the a cocktail party) from many competing background sounds 315 257 contours of the square into the square shape.” These results (known as the “cocktail party effect.” This phenomena has 316 258 from both groups in Experiment 1 confirm that some degree been studied in adults, but their studies showed that infants 317 259 of habituation to the familiar stimulus occurred in both ex- as young as 7.5 months old separate particular sounds from 318 260 perimental groups. competing sounds. Their first three experiments were designed 319 261 In the second experiment, three- and four-month-old infants to test if infants at or around the age of 7.5 months were able 320 262 in an experimental group were initially familiarized with the to attend to a target voice that was either 10 dB, 5 dB, or 321 263 stimulus in Figure4. 0 dB more intense than a competing background voice. The 322 264 To determine whether the researchers hypothesized that if infants were able to separate 323 265 infants organize the familiar competing layers of speech, they would listen longer to “flu- 324 266 stimulus information into two ent speech passages” that contain words they heard in the 325 267 separate shapes—the circle familiarization trial. 326 268 and the square—the experi- For the first experiment, 24 infants at 7.5 months of age 327 269 mental group was given two Fig. 5. Shape P1 were tested. They went through a familiarization trial, where 328 270 preference tests immediately they were familiarized with their target words. They were then 329 271 following familiarization, one tested with four , 6-sentence passages (known in text as “Cup”, 330 272 of which paired the circle with shape Pl shown in Figure5. “Dog”, “Feet”, and “Bike”) that were read and recorded by a 331 273 And the other pairing the square with P2 shown in Figure6. woman speaking in a “lively” tone. The familiarized target 332 274 In the experimental group words were dispersed throughout the passages, and were not 333 275 for the second study, 16 out necessarily emphasized in the passage. For the distractor 334 276 of 24 infants showed a pref- recording, a non-lively male voice was used, and when the two 335 277 erence for the shape P1 over recordings were played, the distractor passage was set at 10 336 278 the circle at a preference rat- dB lower than the target recording. Half of the infants were 337 279 ing of over 50%, while in the Fig. 6. Shape P2 assigned to the “Cup and Dog” familiarization trials, while the 338 280 control group, 11 out of 24 in- other half were assigned to the “Feet and Bike” familiarization 339 281 fants showed a preference for the shape P1 over the circle at a trials. The two recordings were played while the infant was 340 282 preference rating of over 50%. For the square condition, in the looking at a blinking red light, and the recording stopped when 341 283 experimental group, 22 out of 24 infants showed a preference the infant looked away for two consecutive seconds (to indicate 342 284 for the shape P2 at a preference rating of over 50%, while in that they were no longer listening). The results showed that 343 285 the control group, 16 out of 24 infants showed a preference for 21 out of 24 infants listened longer to the passages containing 344 286 the shape P2 at a preference rating of over 50%. These results familiar words. The infants listened to the familiar passages 345 287 indicate that after familiarization infants preferred the novel for an average of 7.71 seconds, and the unfamiliar ones for an 346 288 shapes (P1 and P2) over the separated pattern stimulus (a average of 6.21 seconds. “These results suggest that infants 347 289 circle and a square). This means that the infants were able to are capable of separating different streams of speech and are 348 290 take a combined shape and separate out the Distinct shapes capable of listening selectively.” For the second experiment the 349 291 it was made of. The results of the experiment, “indicates that only change in the method was that the distractor passage 350 292 infants habituated, at least to some degree, to the familiar was reduced to 5 dB lower than the target passage. All other 351 293 stimulus configuration.” Overall, the study states that, “the experimental conditions were the same, including the sample 352 294 present research has extended these findings by demonstrating of 24 infants aged 7.5 months.. In this second experiment 18 353 295 that infants can also parse and organize the more complex of 24 infants listened longer to the passages containing familiar 354 296 pattern information in a set of intersecting contours into two words. The infants listened to the familiar passages for an 355 297 complete shapes.” This evidence suggests that three to four average of 8.01 seconds, and only listened to the unfamiliar 356 298 month old infants are capable of extracting relationships from † passages for an average of 6.90 seconds. In the third experiment 357 299 a set of patterns, which provides for concept formation. The the distractor passage was changed to 0 dB lower than the 358 300 authors concluded that “infants from a very early age, perhaps target passage. The results for this experiment differed from 359 301 even from birth, are able to organize a variety of stimulus the previous two, in that only 10 of 24 infants listened longer 360 302 configurations into coherent shapes and forms.” They stressed to the passages containing familiar words. In addition, the 361 303 that this didn’t mean that infants perceived all aspects of a amount of time devoted to each passage was not as different 362 304 scene in an organized manner. It does confirm, however, that in length, as the infants listened to the familiar passages for 363 305 from an early age, the human brain Distinguishes between an average of 6.74 seconds, and the unfamiliar ones for an 364 306 different patterns and shapes, even if the two shapes overlap. average of 6.65 seconds. The authors wrote, “In contrast to 365 307 Even in cases where two or more forms clearly overlap, the the results of Experiments 1 and 2, there was no evidence 366 308 human brain interprets them in a way that allows people to that the infants recognized the similarity between the words 367

†Also known as “prototype representation” - a complex form of pattern processing that may provide in the test passages and the words that had been presented in 368 a basis for early concept formation. isolation during the familiarization phase.” 369

4 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 370 For their fourth experiment, the general method was the 371 same as the other three experiments, however during the 372 familiarization trials, the infants were exposed to the target 373 passages along with the distractor recording. They then were 374 introduced to the target words for the experimental tests. They 375 still had 24 infants of 7.5 months of age. The results were 376 that only 11 of 24 infants listened longer to the lists containing 377 familiar words. However, the infants listened to the familiar 378 lists for an average of 11.34 seconds, and the unfamiliar ones Fig. 8. The parts of the greeble. 379 for an average of 9.85 seconds, which is significantly longer 380 than the first three experiments. No extra training was given to the novice group. They 404

381 These experiments indicate that infants can identify the then were shown 6 novel greebles with a quick flash of their 405 382 sound they are interested in from other sounds competing names (1 second) for 36 trials. Afterwards, the participants 406 383 with their target sound. This implies that the ability to were given a forced-choice recognition of the parts. This was 407 384 make auditory distinctions (to identify one sound from other done in the form of a greeble’s name and part was shown on 408 385 surrounding sounds) happens at a very young age and opens the screen (e.g. Pimo’s Boges) and the participants were asked 409 386 up more questions about the innateness of the Distinction to identify the part. There were three conditions for this test: 410 387 pattern of mind in all sensory input mechanisms. 1. “Studied-configuration: the two choices were the specified 411 part and a foil part, both in the context of the Greeble 412 388 Gautheir and Tarr 1997 (7) worked with computer gener- specified in the prompt; 413 389 ated things called “greebles.” These were created in order to 390 test different aspects of facial recognition processes in humans. 2. Transformed-configuration: the two choices were of the 414 391 In their experiment, they worked with 32 Yale University un- specified part and a foil part, both in the context of the 415 392 dergraduates. They generated 60 of the “greebles” (Figure7), Greeble specified in the prompt but with the top parts 416 393 which are organized into five families and two genders based moved 15 deg towards the front; 417 394 on the physical configuration of the generated greeble.

3. Isolated-part: the two choices were of the specified part 418 and a foil part, both in isolation on the screen.” 419

The same procedure was done with inverted greebles af- 420 terwards. If the participants were in the “expert” test group, 421 then they were given extensive training to make them experts 422 at greeble recognition. This was done by having them prac- 423 tice greeble recognition at the family, gender, and individual 424 levels with 30 different greebles. They then had to do 60 trials 425 in which they verified their experts status by labelling novel 426 greebles. The participants did 360 randomized trials where 427 their response time and accuracy was collected. On average, 428 those in the expert category responded more accurately and 429 faster than those in the novice groups. Their results indicate 430 that the more exposure one has to fine-tuned and novel dis- 431 tinctions, the better they will be at recognizing them. This is 432 significant for the universal patterns of thought as it implies 433 that the more aware that one is of the Distinctions around 434 them, the more accurate and quick they will be at recognizing 435 Fig. 7. Examples of the greeble families and genders. and thinking with them. 436 The ability to make auditory distinctions has been ex- 437 amined in more than humans. Aubin and Jouventin 1998 438 (8) researched the cocktail party effect within king penguin 439 colonies. The ability to Distinguish parental calls from the 440 calls of the other adult penguins is essential to a chick’s sur- 441 395 Each individual is unique, even though some might look vival, as king penguins breed in colonies of several thousand 442 396 as if they are quite similar. 30 of the generated greebles were individuals. There are many factors simultaneously happening 443 397 used in the expertise training, while 24 of the unused ones as the parent birds call their chicks, including all the other 444 398 were used for both the novice-level and expertise-level test parents calling for their chicks, the calls of other birds, and 445 399 phases. They designated “nonsense words” to call the five background noise. They hypothesized that the chicks would 446 400 families, two genders, and each individual greeble. 16 of the have to be within a distance of 8-9 meters to make the needed 447 401 participants were “experts” and 16 were “novices.” The novice auditory distinctions, however, their results showed that a 448 402 test group were only given the names of the 3 greeble parts: much greater distance of 11 meters was possible. They ob- 449 403 boges, quiff, and dunth (Figure8). served and measured approximately 40,000 pairs of adults 450

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 5 451 and around 1,500 chicks and recorded and analyzed the fre- and Tarr 1997 study mentioned above. The only difference was 510 452 quency and sound pressure level of the adult penguin pairs. that they learned 30 of the greebles at the family level, but only 511 453 They followed and recorded the birds until they met up with learned 20 at the individual level. The impaired participant 512 454 their chick. They then tested the chick’s response to those performed significantly worse than the control participants. 513 455 recordings and noted behavioral changes in the chick when it He had to use alternative strategies such as figuring out the 514 456 recognized its parent’s call. Usually, the chick “turned its head family that the greeble belonged to first, and then figuring 515 457 in the direction of the signal source, called in reply, and then out the individual identity. It took this participant extra 516 458 approached (often running) directly towards the loudspeaker.” trials to be able to meet the expert criteria than the controls 517 459 Notably, the other chicks in the vicinity did not react to the did. What is interesting, however, is that the participant 518 460 call. This research demonstrates that the ability to distinguish with prosopagnosia could be considered an “expert” at all. 519 461 is not only a human one, but is also seen in other species of That indicates that even people who are impaired in their 520 462 animals (including bees (9)(10), etc.), and Distinction-making distinction-making have the ability to learn how to distinguish 521 463 is often essential to the survival of the species. things more accurately and quickly. 522 464 If research confirms the innate and essential nature of In 2018, Rajalingham and DiCarlo (13) examined the infer- 523 ¶ 465 distinction making - across the sensory inputs - it becomes otemporal cortex and its role in visual processing and object 524 466 relevant to explore associated activity within the brain as these Distinguishing. “Extensive research suggests that the inferior 525 467 things are occurring. For example, Badre, 2008 (11) researched temporal (IT) population supports visual object recognition 526 ‡ 468 the prefrontal cortex and working memory. The memory behavior. . . Moreover, inactivating different IT subregions 527 469 function allows for active maintenance and manipulation of resulted in different patterns of subtask deficits, predicted by 528 470 information over a brief interval in the service of a task. Of each subregion’s neuronal object discriminability. . . Taken 529 471 note is that working memory is considered to be domain- together, these results provide direct evidence that the IT 530 § 472 specific in the brain, existing in specific areas of the brain cortex causally supports general core object recognition and 531 473 depending on the stimuli. Badre’s experiments tested for that the underlying IT coding dimensions are topographically 532 474 regional differences based on the working memory domain. organized.” They conducted their research on object Distinc- 533 475 He found that “when content-based distinctions are evident tion by “turning off” patches of the IT cortex using muscimol. 534 476 [in the brain/thinking processes], they are typically observed They confirmed that areas/patches of the brain were devoted 535 477 in caudal (near the posterior of the body) PFC [prefrontal to face-recognition and also that the IT cortex is divided 536 478 cortex] structures.” However, object or spatial distinctions have into areas that handle object recognition as well. When they 537 479 not yet been located and are considered to be controversial. turned off a patch, the subjects struggled with certain aspects 538 480 While acknowledging this, Barde wrote, rostral (near the of object recognition depending on the focus of the task. They 539 481 front of the body) PFC regions “ . . . seem to be capable of wrote that, “individual neurons in the IT cortex are selective 540 482 maintaining information from multiple domains, such as object to complex visual features in images and exhibit remarkable 541 483 and spatial, in addition to integrated cross-domain information, tolerance to changes in viewing parameters.” The researchers 542 484 such as an object in a particular location.” Barde also noted made it clear that there was not a direct correlation between 543 485 that abstraction was found in the prefrontal cortex, and that the task they struggled with and a corresponding area in the 544 486 studying abstraction could lead to a deeper understanding IT cortex. In other words, when a monkey struggled to Dis- 545 487 of the hierarchical structure of the brain. These findings tinguish between cars (as a result of a turned off patch), that 546 488 increasingly show a potential neurological placement of where did not mean that there is a “car patch” in the IT cortex. 547 489 some Distinctions are made, and the potential for distinct areas They therefore stated that these findings hold for any kind 548 490 of the brain being designated for different types of distinction- of Distinction happening in the IT cortex, and they conclude 549 491 making is demonstrative of the existence of the Distinction that the IT cortex is an important area of the brain in which 550 492 pattern of mind. Distinctions are made. Finding a neurological placement in 551 493 Bukach et al. 2012 (12) attempted to teach a prosopagnosic which Distinctions occur is significant, and this study provides 552 494 participant how to recognize the previously mentioned greebles. evidence that the cognitive process of Distinction-making is 553 495 Prosopagnosia is a condition in which the person does not not uniquely human, as the subjects in this study were mon- 554 496 have the ability to recognize faces compared to other types keys. This drives the argument for the universality of the 555 497 of objects. They wrote that, “...the expertise account of face- Distinction pattern of mind even further. In fact, once we are 556 498 specificity hypothesizes that face recognition is a particular aware of the Distinctions we make, we begin to see examples 557 499 example of more domain-general mechanisms that potentially of them all around us. 558 500 support expert-level within-category individuation across most 501 visually homogeneous object categories.” They mention that B. Real-world Examples of Distinction Making. 559 502 some studies done on neurotypical people have called into Geographic Boundaries. Clark (1994) (14) looked at national 560 503 question the specificity of facial recognition, and it might not be boundaries and border zones and the impact those boundaries 561 504 faces that have a specific recognition point, but another aspect have on marketing strategy. Clark wrote that national bound- 562 505 of that kind of Distinction. This participant’s prosopagnosia aries are essential to international marketing, but are rarely 563 506 developed after the anterior temporal lobe was damaged in discussed in literature. The boundaries are complex systems, 564 507 a car accident. Along with this impaired participant, 5 age- and one fault at these borders can have significant repercus- 565 508 matched male participants were tested as a control. The sions. Borders dominate and shape economic behavior, which 566 509 procedure for this experiment was replicated from Gautheir in turn affects a multitude of factors internationally. This 567 ‡The memory function that allows for active maintenance and manipulation of information over a brief interval in the service of a task. ¶The cerebral cortex on the inferior convexity of the temporal lobe in primates including humans. It §In other words, it exists in specific areas of the brain depending on the stimuli. is crucial for visual object recognition.

6 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 568 article is a good example of the powerful impact Distinction- ibly helpful and impactful in policy, economics, science and 628 569 making can have on real world issues. Drawing a boundary more. Challenging the Distinctions made by others and one 629 570 to Distinguish between two countries has an incredible im- makes for themselves can provide richer analysis and deeper 630 571 pact on potentially millions of people. Not just the people understanding of anything. 631 572 directly next to the border, but also the people nearby, or that 573 have a diplomatic relationship with the area of land being C. Distinctions have an identity↔other structure. The under- 632 574 Distinguished. Many of the current boundaries we have in lying or elemental structure of the Distinctions PoM can be ex- 633 575 today’s world were drawn without thought, or at the very plained as “Distinctions are defined as an identity co-implying 634 576 least without a consideration of all the potential impacts and an other” or, D := i ↔ o. Numerous research studies illustrate 635 577 unintended consequences there could’ve been on the general these simple but sublime structural elements of thought. 636 578 population. How does one decide to make a Distinction like Figure-Ground. Peterson and Skow-Grant 2003 (17) discussed 637 579 that? If you think about it, it’s completely arbitrary. It’s not a how memory and learning work with figure-ground perception. 638 580 real Distinction; it’s been completely manufactured by humans. Figure-ground assignment occurs when, “two regions share 639 581 The fact that an essentially meaningless line across a piece of a common border.” It is typical for humans to think that 640 582 land can have such a monumental impact speaks worlds about one region is perceived as being shaped by the border (or 641 583 the strength and significance the act of Distinction-making identifying the figure), while the other region is perceived as 642 584 can have on many domains, economic, political, social, etc.. shapeless, and typically continues behind the figure as the 643 background (this is the “other”). An example of this is shown 644 585 Footwear. Dale Coye (1986) (15) explored the Distinction be- in Figure9. 645 586 tween the term “sneakers” and the term “tennis shoes.” He 587 was curious that in dictionaries, the two terms were related 588 to each other (under the entry for sneakers, the dictionary 589 said that they were also called tennis shoes.) So he gave 110 590 participants who had lived in the same town since the age of 5 591 or younger, a survey which asked them: "What do you call the 592 things I’m wearing on my feet?" He was wearing regular white 593 gym shoes. The participants listed any synonymous terms 594 and about whether sneakers and tennis shoes were the same 595 thing. People from the Northeast (47 participants) exclusively 596 called the shoes “sneakers” and did not view “tennis shoes” as 597 a synonym. The other 54 participants answered “tennis shoes” 598 with only 9 stating that “sneakers” could be synonymous with 599 that term. Coye discovered that the Distinct terms followed 600 a geographic boundary, specifically the Northeast including Fig. 9. Image depicting stimuli used in figure-ground assessment studies. 601 Washington D.C. used the term “sneakers”, while the rest of 602 the U.S. used the term “tennis shoes.” Thus, Distinctions are 603 all around us - in terms we commonly use everyday without They found that in order to access memories about the 646 604 thought. When Coye looked at just one of these terms, he figure-ground assignments, the prompt had to be the figure, 647 605 discovered a fascinating correlation with geographical bound- not the ground. Using Gestalt principles, they reasoned that 648 606 aries. This holds true for all kinds of Distinctions, including in order to be able to perform the process of memory match- 649 607 linguistic ones. ing, that prior, innate organization was necessary. Gestalt 650 psychologists say that, “figure assignment is determined by 651 608 Language. Another example is provided by Powers, Cabrera, any of a number of “configural” cues that can operate without 652 609 and Cabrera 2016 (16), who explored the Distinction between accessing memory.” Border assignment is incredibly helpful 653 610 the terms “Nerd” and “Geek” based on an analysis by Burrset- for the process of visual Gestalt grouping. This includes past 654 611 tles in a blog post on Slack. The two terms originated from experience with borders. Perterson and Skow-Grant write 655 612 different places and root words, but they seem to be used that, “a single past experience with a border is sufficient to 656 613 interchangeably in normal conversation. Yet, when pressed, establish a memory that is accessed the next time the border 657 614 it was acknowledged that they are in fact Distinct terms. We is encountered suggests that memories of object structure are 658 615 find that context is essential when assessing the meaning of remarkably plastic.” They hypothesized that exploring the 659 616 a word. This idea works in tandem with the Distinction rule, nature of border assignment (i.e., identity-other Distinctions) 660 617 as the word becomes the identity, and the context becomes will further the research in this area. Forming Distinctions 661 618 the other. The authors examined articles that attempted to using borders is shown in this paper to be a surprisingly quick 662 619 articulate the Distinction between the two words, and found and fundamental tool for recalling memories associated with 663 620 that by analyzing what parts Distinguished the terms from the figure formed using the border. Border assignment of 664 621 one another, they could arrive at the whole Distinction. For visual stimuli is something humans (and other species) are 665 622 example, collections are “geeky”, while academic fields are doing every single day, all day long. This act of visually Dis- 666 623 “nerdy.” Analyses like these eventually led to the conclusion tinguishing through boundary formation is fundamental to 667 624 that, “Geeks are fans, and fans collect stuff; nerds are prac- the brain and its processing of information into meaningful 668 625 titioners, and practitioners play with ideas.(page 4)” This concepts. 669 626 is another example of a linguistic Distinction. Awareness or Picione and Valsiner, 2017 (18) explored narrative processes 670 627 metacognition about the Distinctions one makes can be incred- and verbal expression of one’s experiences. They observed the 671

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 7 672 nature of Distinction-making in speech and the establishment ers and induces changes in an entity.” Working with the concept 723 673 of borders in language. They offer that if a border could be of an “other” is significant for organizations, as not recognizing 724 674 viewed abstractly, it would be useful in working with ideas the other in your organization can lead to marginalization of 725 675 such as the self vs “non-self”, and things like space and time. people and ideas. This is why Durand and Calori concluded 726 676 Examples of borders are shown below in Figure 10. that the relationship between sameness and otherness is abso- 727 lutely essential to the functioning of an organization. Without 728 both principles working in tandem, they warn that there will 729 always be limitations in the pursuit of organizational change. 730

Distinctions are shaped by the Other. Originally in Titchener, E.B. 731 (1902), the Ebbinghaus illusion or “Titchener circles” is an 732 optical illusion in which the perceived size of a circle changes 733 relative to the size and proximity of the other circles surround- 734 ing it. This means that the identity of the center circle is not 735 Fig. 10. Examples of borders from Picione and Valsiner 2017 only dependent on the characteristics of the central circle itself, 736 but is intimately entwined with the other circles that surround 737

677 They also noted that borders have several functions which it. 738 678 are, “to create a framework of sense, to diversify subjects and 679 objects and to differentiate identities and positionings.” They 680 viewed borders as a tool to help people Distinctions that can 681 become difficult for people to understand, particularly the 682 ones that help them understand themselves. Identity-other 683 Distinctions, it seems, are as relevant to concept formation, as 684 they are to a simple shape, the meaning of a word, personal 685 identity (self and other), psychosocial phenomena such as us 686 and them, the creation of an identity marketing campaign 687 for an entire corporation, or the identity that defines the 688 patriotism within any country. Therefore, the knowledge 689 and awareness gained through explicating one’s identity-other Fig. 11. The two orange dots are actually the same size, but their context makes 690 Distinctions is NOT infinitesimal. them look like they are different sizes. 691 The self and other within Distinction making was also 692 explored by Glanville (1990) (19) when he stated that a Dis- Much like the circles, text and context have a similar re- 739 693 tinction has to create itself. In other words, a Distinction IS an lationship, as the meaning of a word or phrase is dependent 740 694 Identity. However, in order to exist, a Distinction also requires on its context (or surrounding text). In other words, text gets 741 695 an other and a “transfer distinction.” Meaning that in order its meaning internally from how it is defined (in a dictionary, 742 696 for a Distinction to be valid, the other is a prominent part of for example) but also externally from its context. Yet, this 743 697 the creation of the Distinction. This allows the Distinction to, context is not an amorphous cloud of meaning generating 744 698 “generate the purpose of the distinction as becoming, of, by ether. The context itself is just more text. This can be seen 745 699 and for itself.” Although Glanville is right that the identity in the imaginary text passages below. In this example, blue is 746 700 and other are necessary elements of any Distinction, and that the text being defined (i.e., the identity) and the yellow is the 747 701 there are clear benefits to being metacognitive about the dual- contextualizing text (i.e., the other). Note that the text in 748 702 structure of any Distinction, it is typical that more people make Passage B is merely part of the context in Passage A and vice 749 703 Distinctions while being unaware of this dual structure. It is versa (shown in green). In the second row of Table ?? you see 750 704 more often than not the case that the identity is explicit while an specific example using a homonym "rose" which can have 751 705 the other is implicit (often with the intended or unintended different meanings depending on its context. 752 706 consequence of marginalization). 707 This notion of identity and other was expanded to principles Passage A Passage B 708 within organizational change efforts by Durand and Calori Text text texty text textual text Text text texty text textual text 709 (2006) (20). They explored the “sameness principle” and text texty text text text. Text text text texty text text text. Text text 710 the “otherness principle” within organizational change. The texty text textual text text texty texty text textual text text texty 711 Sameness principle is defined by the assumption that certain text text text. Text text texty text text text text. Text text texty text 712 significant traits and characteristics of an organization remain textual text text texty text text textual text text texty text text 713 during times of change for organizations. This principle has text. text. 714 limitations, many of which are due to the lack of an “other.” During a stressful time for the During a stressful time for the 715 Even when the concept of an other is used, it’s used as “another country, it would be good if the country, it would be good for the 716 me.” This is not allowing the thinker to get at the depth of president rose to the occa- president to show some class 717 what a true “other” can do. By framing the other using sion and showed some class. and place a rose at the site of the travesty. 718 themselves as the point of view, they are just turning the Table 2. Example of identity and other in textual context. 719 other into another identity. This is not nearly as productive 720 as an actual other to solving problems. 721 As a result, Durand and Calori introduced the otherness 722 principle, defined as “what derives from the encounter with oth- Whether the identity is visual, linguistic, even self-identity 753

8 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 754 or otherwise, a thing gets its identity not merely from itself or both the subjective difference between classes, and the sub- 811 755 its existential qualities, but also from its relationship to others. jective similarities among classes of stimuli. This pattern is 812 756 We are reminded of the Zulu greeting, "Sawubona” which exemplified by stereotyping—when humans tend to highlight 813 757 means "I see you" and the response "Ngikhona” which means the differences of the other, and the similarities of the group 814 758 "I am here." As always when translating from one language they identify with. The more experience a person has with 815 759 to another, crucial subtleties are lost. Inherent in the Zulu one class of stimuli, the more judgemental they are towards 816 760 greeting and grateful response is the sense that until you saw other classes. 817 761 me, I didn’t exist. By recognizing me, you brought me into In 1982, Christine Davies (23) explored the relationship 818 762 existence. A Zulu folk saying clarifies this, "Umuntu ngumuntu between sexual taboos and social boundaries. She found that 819 763 ngabantu," meaning "A person is a person because of other the strong taboos in Western culture against things like ho- 820 764 people.” This reinforces the notion that identity and other mosexuality and beastiality were attempts to maintain and 821 765 mutually define one another. Additionally, the i/o structure of cultivate ethnic, religious, and institutional boundaries. She 822 766 Distinctions exists across all of our sensory inputs in which we notes that these taboos cannot be of a biological or psycholog- 823 767 receive information: visually, aurally, linguistically, orally, and ical origin, because other societies and species do not consider 824 768 olfactorally. And while we know that Distinctions are made those behaviors to be taboo or, at the very least, have much 825 769 across all of our senses, the extent to which we are aware of weaker taboos in place. Davies writes that the origin of these 826 770 the distinctions we make is equally relevant to explore. In social boundaries/taboos comes from either religious or mili- 827 771 other words, it is simply not enough to make distinctions in tary leaders. In order to maintain hierarchical control, they 828 772 numerous ways, it also matters whether or not we are aware create a rigid, Distinctive identity for their followers to uphold. 829 773 that we are making them. Davies also found that when an organization or leader tried to 830 strengthen their group’s boundaries, they began by regulating 831 774 D. Metacognitive Awareness of D(i ↔ o) Structure Matters. or controlling sexual behavior. This regulation creates an 832 775 One’s awareness of a thought process such as distinguishing “other” for the majority to view as an enemy. In the example 833 776 one or more ideas rests on articulating a boundary between of homosexuality, the Old Testament clearly states that if a 834 777 what is in and what’s out. man sleeps with a man like he would with a woman, he is 835 778 Gillette (1925) (21) explains that the boundaries of a scien- to be killed. This purposely marginalizes homosexuals, and 836 779 tific field come from the boundaries of the phenomena under creates a framework for an identity that the Jewish people 837 780 investigation. The boundaries of the phenomena also have to (in this case) followed. This implies that the creation and 838 781 be defined by and decided on by people. Thus, there cannot be maintenance of identity-other Distinctions can have a massive 839 782 “clear-cut divisions” between and among the scientific fields, as impact on people’s lives, leading to discriminatory behaviors 840 783 people in each field cannot know exactly where the boundaries and policies. 841 784 of their phenomena are, which isn’t the case in reality. Those Langer et. al. 1985 (24) wanted to understand the “mind- 842 785 boundaries set by investigators in a field are then deemed to be fulness” (aka distinction-making) about groups of people by 843 786 “artificial.” Recognizing and acknowledging the artificialness examining the psychological borders that structure thought 844 787 of the boundaries that we encounter everyday not only helps through discussions of past and future, inside and outside, 845 788 us to better understand academic fields, but it also moves us and self and other (Picione and Valsiner, 2017). Experiments 846 789 a step closer to understanding the real world. conducted with 47 sixth graders, demonstrated that teaching 847 790 Gillette further offers that social boundaries are established children to be “mindful,” or to be aware of the Distinctions 848 791 by both a person’s conceptions of society and what society is, they were making, had a benefit regardless of the content of the 849 792 and that, “Society is association.” This is another example of lesson they were being taught. He did this through 40 minute 850 793 how prolific boundaries are in everyday life. So not only does sessions in class on mindfulness over 5 days. The students were 851 794 society and sociability come about from Distinctions, but they shown slides either of “normal” people, or of handicapped peo- 852 795 are also heavily dependent on the increased interrelatedness ple (handicaps included confinement to a wheelchair, blindness, 853 796 of the elements “inside” relative to the interrelatedness of the deafness, and having only one arm). Which slides students 854 797 elements “outside” of such boundaries. were shown was randomly assigned. The students were then 855 ‖ 798 Tajfel and Wilkes (1963) (22) found that classification has given booklets with questions designed to invoke either high 856 799 an increased effect on the behavior of judgement, when the or low levels of distinction making. There were four sets of 857 800 experience is repeated throughout the experimental session. questions: Set 1 consisted of professional skills questions; Set 858 801 The purpose of their experiment was to examine the effect 2 of situational skill questions; Set 3 of explanations for events 859 802 classification had on quantitative judgements. This was ac- questions; and Set 4 of role-flexibility questions. A professional 860 803 complished through judging the length of a collection of lines, skills question (set 1) was asked each day; for this question 861 804 so that the judgement (in this case, length) would be simple. the subjects were shown a photo of a person doing a job (ex: 862 805 After presenting the lines one by one in a sequential order, newscaster) who was either able-bodied or handicapped. 863 806 their results showed that when classification is imposed on The high-mindfulness group was asked to list 4 reasons why 864 807 participants, the judgments people made were altered. They a person would be good at their job, and 4 reasons why they 865 808 postulated that this could be due to the repeated and fre- wouldn’t be, while the low-mindfulness group was asked to find 866 809 quent experience of the same class of stimuli, which could then only 1 reason. For Set 2, subjects were presented with a prob- 867 810 strengthen the association to it. This includes an increase in lem (person in a wheelchair and driving a car) and they were 868 asked either "how" it might be solved (high-mindfulness group), 869 ‖Similar to categorization involves Perspective to frame under what conditions the item belongs to class, Relationships between items in the class, Part-whole Systematizing in order to group the or whether it "can" be solved (low-mindfulness group). Set 3 870 class, and Distinction-making at the boundary of the class. involved looking at an image and providing an explanation for 871

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 9 872 what was happening (multiple for high-mindfulness and single pronoun. “In general, in-group-designating pronouns appeared 933 873 for low-mindfulness). “In the fourth and final set of questions, to possess strongly positive evaluative and affective associa- 934 874 asked on the last two days, we asked the high-mindfulness tions as gauged against a set of control nonsense syllables, 935 875 groups to consider several aspects of one role, whereas the whereas out-group-designating words were relatively less likely 936 876 low- mindfulness groups were asked to consider only one.” And to elicit such positive responses.” Their findings suggest that 937 877 on day five, they began testing whether the children would in-group and out-group terms (such as we, they, us, them) can 938 878 choose to avoid a handicapped person. They were first shown subtly shape responses toward others and other groups. They 939 879 a picture of three children and asked if they wanted to go on further suggest that ingroup bias is a more powerful bias than 940 880 a picnic with one of the children. They were then shown a racial biases. Gaining awareness of the way we assign identity 941 881 picture of three children, one of whom was handicapped, and and other distinctions therefore affects one’s behavior; and 942 882 asked if they wanted to go on a picnic with the handicapped mitigates this bias. 943 883 child. Let’s look at these ideas in a real-world context. After the 944 945 884 The results were that, “The most mindful group ("deviant" September 11th attacks, Leudar et al 2004 (26) reviewed the 946 885 slides/mindfulness treatment) showed the least avoidance.” speeches made immediately afterwards by President George 947 886 Analysis of how the students responded to the slides, showed W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Al Qaeda 948 887 that the 12 students who were given high mindfulness training leader Osama Bin Laden. They analyzed the language and 949 888 who were also shown handicapped slides chose the “right” (not content of those speeches that showed that each leader quickly 950 889 biased) answer 92% of the time. The 12 students who were made “us” vs “them” Distinctions, to justify violent actions 951 890 not shown handicapped slides but were given high mindfulness against the “other” group. For example, the first five lines 952 891 training got the right answer 33% of the time. For the students of US President George W. Bush’s statement after the 9/11 953 892 who were given low mindfulness training, the 10 shown the terrorist attacks make some critical distinctions: 893 handicapped slides got the right answer 60% of the time, and 894 the 11 that were shown the non-handicapped slides got the 895 right answer 64% of the time.

896 In the discussion, the authors assert that, “mindfulness 897 training was of some benefit to subjects regardless of the par- 898 ticular content of that training. The results suggest that one 899 may decrease inappropriate discrimination by increasing mind- Fig. 12. First 5 lines of President Bush’s speech to the nation. 900 fulness.” They went on to suggest that teaching mindfulness 901 was a way to reduce discrimination, because it helps people 902 make more Distinctions about others. This also holds true President Bush uses the pronoun “our” in his first sentence, 954 903 not just for distinction making about other people, but also which implies that there must also be a “them” to his “our.” 955 904 for making distinctions about other ideas. Langer’s research For every identity implies an other. Furthermore, in his use of 956 905 illustrates both that the identity-other Distinctions one makes “our”, he refers to the victims he lists, and to the nation as 957 906 can lead to long-term marginalization of the “other” and also a whole. His use of “our way of life” and “our very freedom” 958 907 that awareness of the identity-other structure of Distinctions resonate with ideals that are important to Americans, that 959 908 can dampen our marginalizing tendencies. make up large portions of their identity. Leuder et al argue 960 909 Perdue et al 1990 (25) explored the elements of Identity- that President Bush’s implicit and explicit characterization of 961 910 Other Distinctions based on intergroup relations and how the “other” makes it possible to expand the construct of the 962 911 the phrases “us” and “them” affected an individual’s identity enemy beyond merely terrorists to include more parts and a 963 912 within groups. They tested 23 undergraduate students, who wider range of other things, such as people and ways of living. 964 913 completed 108 trials on a computer based trial. They were They study then related the 9/11 example to the concept 965 914 shown sets of seemingly random strings of letters in which of member categorization and the three ways to construct and 966 915 each string was paired with either an in-group pronoun or an change member categories. The first is through “changing the 967 916 out-group pronoun. Additionally, one part of the string had predicates normatively bound to a category (personal char- 968 917 a “nonsense syllable (xeh. yof, laj, giw, wuh, or qug)” and acteristics, dispositions to act in a particular way etc.)” The 969 918 the other part was either the in-group (we, us, or ours) or second is “by respecifying the incumbency of the category.” 970 919 out-group pronoun (they, them, or theirs). In contrast, the And the third is through “changing a collection into which 971 920 control group was given one pronoun of: he, she, his, hers, the category is allocated.” They stressed that these three pro- 972 921 me, you, mine, or yours. The students were led to believe cesses are not independent of each other, and doing one may 973 922 that they were participating in an experiment to test their require the adjustment of the others. Finally, they found that 974 923 verbal skills, and as were asked to, “indicate as quickly as the creation of membership categories was related to action, 975 924 possible which word of the presented pair was a real word.” At and in concert with a particular purpose. Just as a lack of 976 925 the end of the 108 trials, they were shown the six nonsense awareness (metacognition) about the distinctions one makes 977 926 words and asked to rate them as either “pleasant” or “un- can lead to unintentional marginalization of groups, the act of 978 927 pleasant.” Their results showed that, “The perceived relative distinction making can also be used to purposefully marginal- 979 928 pleasantness of the target nonsense syllables proved to be ize others.This can happen subtly and explicitly. Creating 980 929 significantly determined by the pronouns with which they had marginalization can come from an awareness of one’s own 981 930 been associated...” Using a least significant difference method, Distinction-making or that of others. It requires one to take 982 931 the nonsense syllables paired with an in-group pronoun were a Perspective other than their own to determine the in and 983 932 rated to be more pleasant than those paired with an out-group out group distinction for one’s self or for others. This is the 984

10 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 985 basis for manipulation, agendas, and conflict. Thus, the ele- tions, and also the effect of metacognition on one’s identity 1043 986 mental patterns of Distinctions (identity-other) are powerful and other Distinctions. 1044 987 on their own, but as this paper demonstrates, combining the Midgley and Pinzon (2011) (28) explored the role of bound- 1045 988 patterns together can be essential to ensuring that one doesn’t ary critique and conflict, specifically in the context of conflict 1046 989 use their newfound metacognition for manipulating others or resolution and prevention. Their work demonstrated a need 1047 990 themselves. for people to explore their differences, and be supported in 1048 991 This type of manipulation typically starts with a stated that exploration. Their work highlights the need for Perspec- 1049 992 boundary between insiders and outsiders, us and them, etc. tives within boundary critique. This is because “different 1050 993 Young 2005 (map) (27) articulated the act of distinguishing interpretations of a common concern arise. . . ” between peo- 1051 994 ideas by defining the two terms “insiders” and “outsiders.” ple and cause conflict. Through the framing/reframing of 1052 995 “Insiders” (or Emic) was said to be linked to the concept of ideas and boundaries, conflict can not only be resolved, but 1053 996 the self, or and more specifically is, “the situation of one’s self potentially prevented. They write that, “in particular, if par- 1054 997 within a group, experience and/or community.” Interestingly, ties who frame a phenomenon differently can be supported 1055 998 she also noted that the act of being an insider also included in identifying their core and peripheral concerns, stigmatisa- 1056 999 the ability to understand how the self is perceived by others. tion can be short-circuited through the promotion of better 1057 1000 The “outsider” was said to be related to the concept of the mutual understanding.” This paper demonstrates the function 1058 1001 other, and was explicitly defined as, “the situation of one’s self of identity-other Distinctions related to conflict and conflict 1059 1002 without a group, experience and/or community.” She wrote resolution. In other words, Midgley and Pinzon suggest that 1060 1003 that one can become an outsider based on several possible when one is aware of the way they are assigning “otherness” 1061 1004 criteria from a multitude of factors including, race, gender, to people, they may try to do it less, which leads to more 1062 1005 ethnicity, social class, and even personal domains. Insider productive conflict resolution, and, in general, a society that 1063 1006 and outsider concepts have greatly influenced a process called gets along easier. 1064 1007 Participatory Action Research (PAR), which was designed Bentley et al 2017 (29) examined the effect inclusion and 1065 1008 to lift up and give a voice to oppressed or disadvantaged exclusion had on both the self, and one’s retention of informa- 1066 1009 peoples rather than serve to keep helping the people with tion about the self and the other. He conducted an experiment 1067 1010 more social, financial, and political power. The use of insider with 169 first year psychology students on the effect inclusion 1068 1011 and outsider perspectives in the PAR process allows for better and exclusion had on the retention of information about oneself 1069 1012 (more inclusive) research and conclusions, problem solving, and others. They used a computer-based experiment in which 1070 1013 and social change. participants completed a questionnaire about themselves, and 1071 1014 Another significant part of Young’s paper focused on iden- then played a computer game with another person. Before 1072 1015 tity, using herself as an example, she offered that a person’s they played they viewed the other player’s (fake) question- 1073 1016 identity has to be created, and is created through their person’s naire results. As a result, participants classified their opposing 1074 1017 insider/outsider placement in various aspects of their life. On player as either matched or opposite to their own results. This 1075 1018 top of that, there are infinite possible identities such that new assigned either an ingroup or an outgroup status to the sub- 1076 1019 identities can be “discovered” as more people in a society begin ject pairs. They then tested each subject’s memory of their 1077 1020 to identify themselves as something not previously thought of opponent’s questionnaire results. Between-subjects, one-way, 1078 1021 as an identity. Gender identities are an example of this phe- ANOVA test, showed significant effect on the “psychological 1079 ∗∗ †† 1022 nomenon. This is exemplified within the creation of labels need satisfaction.” In the inclusion condition, reported need 1080 1023 and the addition of recognition of the person, thing or group satisfaction was highest among all other conditions. In sum- 1081 1024 that is not the identity. This often happens through either mary, they found that when the subject was excluded from the 1082 1025 the creation of government programs, social movements, and ingroup, they retained (in a memory retention test about the 1083 1026 general ideas of societal acceptance. Note also that identities experiment) significantly more information related to them- 1084 1027 change over time as perceptions and societal implications or selves than they did about their opponent. However, when 1085 1028 consequences shift. They also change as the individual grows included in the ingroup, the participant remembered (within 1086 1029 developmentally and chooses a new identity. Additionally, as an appropriate margin of error) as much information about 1087 1030 the individual’s context changes, their identity shifts. One the other as they did themselves. The authors concluded that 1088 1031 can identify as one thing while at school and another while at it was possible that inclusion added to their self identity, and 1089 1032 home with their family. One’s identity is influenced by how that the other also became the same as a part of the self 1090 1033 prevalent the “other” is in their context. Young offers that the when the two are perceived to be in the same group (ingroup). 1091 1034 current mental model about identity is that identities are rigid Identity and other, or inside and outside classification, are 1092 1035 and stagnant, while the opposite is true. Identities are flexible, important underlying factors to our perceptions of ourselves 1093 1036 constantly changing, and adjusting due to a variety of factors. and of others. 1094 1037 Most importantly, the implication of these ideas is that when

1038 one explicitly deals with identities (especially the hidden ones), 3. Part-Whole Systems 1095 1039 the act of “othering” is greatly reduced. As more and more Systematizing (S) is the act of organizing things or ideas into 1096 1040 identities are accepted, people personalize all the “thems” that parts and wholes. In other words, explicitly grouping a concept 1097 1041 they had marginalized previously. This paper explicates the into a whole made up of parts or breaking something down 1098 1042 societal importance of awareness of our identity/other Distinc- into its constituent parts. This reinforces the idea that every 1099 ∗∗Previously, here were 5 medically driven gender identities male, female, hermaphrodite, female whole has parts while simultaneously being part of a larger 1100 pseudohermaphrodites (individuals who have ovaries and some male genitalia but lack testes), and male pseudohermaphrodites (individuals who have testes and some female genitalia but lack ††With a p-value of p<0.001. Between-subjects, one-way, ANOVA test, showed they found that there ovaries), but now there are 64 accepted variations of gender. was a significant effect on the “psychological need satisfaction” through social context manipulation.

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 11 1101 whole. Systematization of things or ideas is evident in both a system and usually is. Take a simple example of a social 1159 1102 monkeys and infants as early as three months of age. Similar network or an ecological network. Each of the nodes in that 1160 1103 experiments with adults show the varied and sophisticated network are complex part-whole Systems themselves. Not only 1161 1104 ways systems-part-whole is used to understand concepts across is the network itself a part-whole System, one can imagine 1162 1105 the lifespan. that inside each and every node, there exists a network of 1163 1106 A review of peer-reviewed journals across disciplines indi- lesser, equal, or greater complexity - comprised of parts and 1164 1107 cates: wholes. 1165

1108 1. the existence of Systems (i.e., part-whole groupings); Anderson (1991) (31) analyzed the adaptive nature of hu- 1166

1109 2. the act of Systematizing (i.e., splitting into parts and/or man categorization. In framing a cognitive problem, Anderson 1167 1110 lumping of parts into wholes); noted that categorization of the elements of the problem is an 1168 essential step towards building a complete frame. He listed 1169 1111 3. that the relationship between “part” and “whole” (i.e., three origin points of category formation: linguistic, feature 1170 1112 S(p ↔ w)) is elemental to (1) and (2) above; and, overlap, similar function. The linguistic origin is essentially 1171 that a label provides a cue that a category exists, which people 1172 1113 4. that the human tendency with Systematization (group- then recognize. In feature overlap, people see that a group of 1173 1114 ing of parts and wholes) is marked by “lock-in” where objects overlap for the most part (either physically or concep- 1174 1115 part-whole groupings that are dynamic, evolving, organic, tually) and then put those objects into a category. And lastly, 1175 1116 or perspectival erroneously end up becoming static, “ac- for the similar function origin, people notice that a group of 1176 1117 cepted,” categories, and hierarchies. objects all perform the same function, and assemble them into 1177 1118 In summary, it shows that items 1-4 are fundamental “pat- a category. The origin of categorization does not have to be 1178 1119 terns of mind” agnostic to content area (across disciplines) one of these, but can be all three of them. He goes on to 1179 1120 and throughout the lifespan of humans. Yet, where System- conclude that, “categorization behavior can be predicted from 1180 1121 atization is concerned, the difference between thinking (ie., the structure of the environment at least as well as it can from 1181 1122 cognition) and systems thinking (i.e., systematic metacogni- the structure of the mind.” It is important to note here that 1182 1123 tion) is not in the S(p ↔ w) structure of cognition itself, but while categorization is an important process to study, it is not 1183 1124 in the willful and purposeful attempt to see (i.e., be aware of) the most fundamental process to study, because it is not a 1184 1125 the S(p ↔ w) structure that is at work when thinking. universal pattern of mind such as part-whole systems. 1185

1126 A. Systems Exist in Mind and Nature. Like Distinctions, Sys- While Anderson offered that categorization can be pre- 1186 1127 tems exist in both Mind and Nature. They are both real dicted from the external environment, Pellegrino, 2001 (32) 1187 1128 things and conceptual things. And, Systematizing is a univer- implied that categorization is a shortcut to deal with complex 1188 1129 sal cognitive structure. We cannot think a thought, without environments or concepts. Pellegrino reported on experiments 1189 1130 also making a part-whole System. in which morphs of dogs and cats were made, so that each 1190 1131 Nobel Laureate, Herbert Simon (30) explains, “Empirically image was a certain percentage of a cat and a dog, but the 1191 1132 a large proportion of the complex systems we observe in na- images were never 100% dog or cat. The images were shown 1192 1133 ture exhibit hierarchic structure. On theoretical grounds we to monkeys, and the monkeys had a surprisingly high success 1193 1134 could expect complex systems to be hierarchies in a world in rate of categorization (90%) even when the image was close to 1194 1135 which complexity had to evolve from simplicity.” Complexity being a 50-50 split. For example, if the split was 60% dog and 1195 1136 is born of simple rules and the collective dynamics of inter- 40% cat, the monkey would correctly categorize the image as 1196 1137 actions among agents. The emergent properties of a system dog 90% of the time. In addition, they found that the neurons 1197 1138 yield system-scale boundaries which, when nested, lead to fired differently when the split was 60/40 dog to cat, then 1198 1139 hierarchical organization. At its core, hierarchy of any kind when it was 60/40 cat to dog. They observed that “categor- 1199 1140 across physical, chemical, biological, psychological, and socio- ical knowledge is explicitly represented in the firing rates of 1200 1141 logical organizations, is simply a nested part-whole structure. prefrontal neurons.” He also found that neurons responded 1201 1142 Although, as Simon explains, this hierarchy is empirically differently to stimuli that were morphologically similar (i.e., 1202 1143 verifiable, it is so basal to the structure of nature itself that dog and cat) but rested on opposite sides on the spectrum 1203 1144 it is nearly an a priori principle. Part-whole Systems exist than it did to stimuli that were morphologically different (i.e., 1204 1145 in nature. But they also exist in our mind. Sometimes our dog and shark). This led to further exploration of where in 1205 1146 conceptual hierarchies appear to align with nature (as the the brain the act of categorization - or organizing into parts 1206 1147 basic disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and whole systems occurs. 1207 1148 ecology, and sociology seem to confirm) and sometimes they 1149 do not (as numerous flawed taxonomies such as Bloom’s and Muehlhuas et. al. 2014 (33) used fMRI studies to demon- 1208 1150 Maslow’s and the Species Concept have shown). In any case, strate the neural basis for part-whole and other categorical 1209 1151 the structure of Part-Whole Systems are not only found in relationships that could potentially be distinguished. In their 1210 1152 Nature but also in the Mind. experiment, 22 healthy adults were tested by analyzing pic- 1211 1153 Revisiting Leonid Euler and the ubiquity of networks in ture/word combinations (see Figure 13) in three categories “(1) 1212 1154 mind and nature, it is easy to see that nodes in a network 45 functionally related picture–word pairs, e.g., flute-note, (2) 1213 1155 are part and whole. Any network (in mind or in nature) is 51 part-whole related picture–word pairs, e.g., bike-handlebars, 1214 1156 therefore a part-whole System. But more importantly, DSRP and (3) 96 unrelated picture–word pairs, e.g., bench-plug.” In 1215 1157 Theory tells us that any one of those nodes (indeed any one addition, all pictured objects were labelled with their names 1216 1158 of those relationships (i.e., “edges”) has the potential to be to ensure there was no “false-naming” occurring. 1217

12 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. able to see the grouping patterns when they were masked. 1262 For the second experiment, the focus was to test grouping 1263 by similarity. This experiment had 38 undergraduate students 1264 as the participants. “The stimuli and apparatus were identical 1265 to those of Experiment 1, with the sole exception that the 1266 Gestalt patterns consisted of a 6x6 array, forming rows or 1267 columns with elements of identical luminance.” Otherwise, the 1268 procedure and design was identical. The second experiment 1269 also concluded that there was a significant effect of priming, 1270 and the subjects also were not aware of their priming. For 1271 the forced grouping task, their analysis was the same as the 1272 first experiment. When masked, priming is not noticed by the 1273 subjects. They concluded that their results demonstrated that 1274 there doesn’t need to be an aspect of consciousness in order 1275 Fig. 13. Example of the three stimulus groups used in the experiment. to perceptually group something. Overall, the article makes 1276 the point that there is an uncontrollable nature to Gestalt 1277 grouping. This is notable in its similarity to the four patterns 1278 1218 As participants matched the word pairs their brains were of mind —DSRP—that are happening within every thought 1279 1219 analyzed with the fMRI machine. They did 192 trials of each one has, without their control. Note, the awareness of such 1280 1220 of the three categories while in the fMRI. Analysis of average patterns is of equal importance to their existence. 1281 1221 response time between and among the three types of relation- 1222 ships, found no significant difference among them. They wrote, B. Systems have a Part-Whole Structure. The most common, 1282 1223 “To test the hypothesis that fine-grained associations are or- simple definition of a system is, “a regularly interacting or 1283 1224 ganized by distinct features (intrinsic versus extrinsic) with §§ ‡‡ interdependent group of items forming a unified whole." Kurt 1284 1225 characteristic neural activation patterns, t-contrasts between Lewin’s A Dynamic Theory of Personality (1935) (35) discusses 1285 1226 functional and part-whole relations were conducted to identify many aspects of personality, one of the most relevant being 1286 1227 the brain regions that are involved in the relative processing of the structure of the mind. He wrote, “The cause of the process 1287 1228 part-whole versus functional associations.” This did not lead to b is not to be seen in its rigid coupling with the preceding 1288 1229 a conclusive result, however, when looking at the relationship independent event a. Rather, if a forms a dependent moment 1289 1230 between the functional tests to the part-whole tests, there was of a more comprehensive whole, it carries that whole with it. 1290 1231 a small amount of activation in the location in the brain where Thus, indeed, no chain-like coupling of member to member, 1291 1232 scenes are encoded. When the pattern is reversed (part-whole but the connections of the parts in the whole, is regarded as 1292 1233 tests to functional tests) they found activation patterns in the the "cause" of the event.” In other words, it is not enough to 1293 1234 regions that are involved with perceptual details, but further make distinctions and relationships between objects/concepts, 1294 1235 research needs to be done; this is the first definitive evidence but one also has to evaluate the concepts/objects as parts and 1295 1236 of part-whole Systems being structurally visible in the brain. wholes. This also suggests that relationships are made up of 1296 1237 Although, the level of consciousness associated with part-whole Part-Whole dynamics. 1297 1238 groupings required further examination. Mooney (1951) (36) took his observations as a former 1298 1239 Montoro et. al. 2014 (34) wrote on the subconsciousness teacher on the “part-whole” problem and applied it to a 1299 1240 of grouping, specifically Gestalt grouping that offers that the neurological study that attempted to find where Part-Whole 1300 1241 whole is more than the sum of its parts. They did two experi- grouping occurred in the brain. Mooney was a teacher who 1301 1242 ments, the first one was on grouping by proximity. They took throughout his career realized a significant problem in the 1302 1243 38 undergraduate students and had them complete two tasks: norms of teaching. “Sooner or later, those who are responsible 1303 1244 a masked priming task and a prime visibility discrimination for teaching come face to face with the problem of parts ver- 1304 1245 task. For the masked priming task, the students completed a sus wholes.” Mooney wrote that every teacher has wondered 1305 1246 “forced-choice reaction time” task. They were told that they whether to teach from Parts to Whole, or Whole to Parts. 1306 1247 would see target lines displayed on the screen, and that they However, he had noticed issues with both of these strategies. 1307 1248 would then have to indicate either the vertical or horizontal When one teaches from the assumption that if you teach the 1308 1249 orientation by pressing one of two buttons as fast as possible Parts, then the students will understand the Whole, yet this 1309 1250 but to avoid making mistakes. For the prime visibility discrim- isn’t the case; there is a disconnect. A similar problem arises 1310 1251 ination task, the participants were told to pay attention to the when you teach the Whole and assume that the students will 1311 1252 prime stimulus that was displayed between two masks, and know the Parts. He found Part-Whole to be an important 1312 1253 to perform a “forced-choice discrimination” task indicating conceptual tool for teaching, but it was used primarily in math 1313 1254 the horizontal or vertical orientation of that stimulus. They and not in many other places. He did three “demonstrations,” 1314 1255 asked the participants afterwards what patterns they had seen the first focused on “perception”, the second on “language,” 1315 1256 on the screen before the experiment began, and none of the and the third is on both “perception” and “language.” The 1316 1257 participants said that they had seen any horizontal or verti- first demonstration is the most relevant to this review, and 1317 1258 cal patterns. This means they weren’t aware of the priming. will be the one discussed. 1318 1259 However, the priming significantly influenced the speed and The first Demonstration was done using pin-points of light. 1319 1260 accuracy of their reaction time. However, in the forced group- A group of students (one at a time) were put 20 feet from the 1320 1261 ing task, the analyzed results showed that the subjects weren’t

‡‡A type of statistical test. §§Definition from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/system

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 13 1321 “front of the room.” They gave the students time to acclimate A review on categorization Solomon et. al. 1999 (38), 1382 1322 to their surroundings. Then they turned off the lights and began with the statement, “Concepts are the building blocks 1383 1323 had the students focus on a “light-tight” box in the front of of thought. How concepts are formed, used, and updated 1384 1324 the room. The only thing that can be seen from the box, is a are therefore, central questions in cognitive science.” In the 1385 1325 very small pin-point of light. The light is turned on, and the review, “concept” was defined as a “mental representation 1386 1326 students are asked to watch the pin-point of light. After about that is used to meet a variety of cognitive functions.” Through 1387 1327 a minute of watching, the light would begin to appear to move. their review, they realized that the study of concepts has 1388 1328 They saw that as the students saw the movement, they would primarily been done through the study of categorization. In 1389 1329 sometimes move their heads to follow the light, even though their analysis, they realized that the conceptual functions 1390 1330 the actual light itself has never moved. While this apparent interact and influence one another. In fact, some conceptual 1391 1331 movement continued, two additional lights were turned on, the representations are often a compromise between conceptual 1392 1332 perceived motion ceased, and then continued with all three functions. This is a shortcoming of categorization. They argue 1393 1333 lights moving in unison. They found that the movement of that: 1394 1334 the single light was more impactful than the movement of the “...concepts cannot be understood sufficiently through 1395 1335 three lights together. When the overhead lights were turned the study of categorization, or any other function, in 1396 1336 back on, all apparent motion stopped. isolation, for two important reasons. First, concepts 1397 1337 This demonstration showed that in just the act of focusing serve multiple functions which interact to affect con- 1398 1338 on and following a pin-point of light, the brain/self has to do ceptual structure and processing. Second, studying a 1399 1339 many things. In particular, this demonstration showed how single function in isolation encourages one to see cog- 1400 1340 essential relationships are to the dynamic of part/wholes. He nitive processes that are particular to each function, 1401 1341 writes that the very act of perception is creating relationships but discourages the discovery of processes that are 1402 1342 between parts of an environment/stimulus in order to get common to multiple functions. For these two reasons, 1403 1343 a conceptual grasp on the whole. Moony writes, “When a we suggest that concepts should instead be studied 1404 1344 relation is accomplished, those things which had been taken in the context of a System of interrelated functions.” 1405 1345 as different are taken as included in a "one", whereupon the 1406 1346 "one" is taken as assumption for further action, with attention This analysis emphasizes the importance of seeing parts and 1407 1347 turning elsewhere as an invitation to further relationships, wholes in the larger context of interrelatedness to better un- 1408 1348 at which time the things which had formerly been sensed as derstand systems. 1349 stable are then sensed as moveable. The greater the number C. Metacognitive Awareness of S(p ↔ w) Structure Matters. 1409 1350 of differences included within a relationship (or a system of The simultaneity of Distinctions (identities) acting as Systems 1410 1351 relations), the greater the apparent stability of the field.” The (either wholes or parts) was examined by Tversky and Hemen- 1411 1352 reason that people have to operate in relationships is that we way (1984) (39). They studied objects, parts, and categories 1412 1353 don’t have the environment living in our heads with us. In and discussed Gaul, who observed that when “describing or 1413 1354 order to get to a semblance of the reality one exists in, one comprehending some body of knowledge or set of phenomena, 1414 1355 has to build relationships between the environment and the we often begin by decomposing the thing to be understood 1415 1356 self. This is done in a couple ways, the one demonstrated here into separate parts.” They noted that this was done not just 1416 1357 is perception. because smaller parts are easier to deal with conceptually, but 1417 1358 He went on to write that part-whole concepts/tools don’t also because each Part is an entity within itself, and needs 1418 1359 have to only apply to math, as it is an important cognitive skill to be dealt with as a distinct thing. They later wrote that, 1419 1360 and could be used to help students learn in all subjects (he “our work has shown that one particular kind of information 1420 1361 mentioned reading quite a few times). This article indicates is more salient in the minds of people when they think about 1421 1362 that even in 1951, people were aware that part-whole didn’t entities at the basic level, namely, information about parts.” 1422 1363 just apply to the things it came easy to, like mathematics. The process of categorization is prevalent in human thought 1423 1364 More importantly, it showed that the relationship between the and research because of their utility evolutionarily. Categories 1424 1365 Part and the Whole needs to be explicated if one is to give a are an adaptive tool easily applied to situations throughout 1425 1366 complete conceptual understanding to their students. time. Glushko et. al. 2008 (40), discussed the highly adaptive 1426 1367 Ackoff (1971) (37) explored organizing Systems concepts nature of categories. The evolutionary origins of categorization 1427 1368 and ideas into its own System. He notes that part and whole relate to the ever-changing world of technology, as technology 1428 1369 are some of the key tools used to understand and evaluate and technological categorization (part-whole Systems) change 1429 1370 systems across fields. The “systems approach” to solving and evolve, one’s brain quickly adapts in concert. They write, 1430 1371 complex problems, is to look at the whole, not each of the “this illustrates a fundamentally important principle of human 1431 1372 individual parts. The properties of the systems, Ackoff stated, categorization mechanisms: as the context changes in which 1432 1373 comes from the relationships between a System and its parts. human categorization mechanisms operate, they produce new 1433 1374 He notes that the way the parts of a System interact and types of classification systems. When new technological tools 1434 1375 behave with each other leads to the emerging properties of become available, categorization mechanisms adapt quickly 1435 1376 that System. He also said that “all systems are either variety- and new classification systems result. Rather than categoriza- 1436 1377 increasing or variety-decreasing relative to the behavior of tion being a fixed process, it evolves dynamically as situational 1437 1378 its parts.” The way parts of a system relate to one another, constraints change.” This quick ability to adapt to differing 1438 1379 according to Ackoff, is through observation and communication. categorization systems implies that there are neurological 1439 1380 In his concluding remarks Ackoff said “Systems thinking, if structures built into our brain that make categorization eas- 1440 1381 anything, should be carried out systematically.” ier for us. It also indicates that the categories we make are 1441

14 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 1442 not merely static part-whole Systems or groupings, but are tendency to categorize things in a binary manner can impede 1503 1443 sensitively dependent on the perspective that is being used the formation of accurate mental models of phenomena (as 1504 1444 to organize content or phenomena into categories in the first the world exists in shades of gray - not black and white); see 1505 1445 place. In short, categories are structures born of several ele- relationships (falsely) as only cause and effect (rather than 1506 1446 ments of thinking—part-whole Systems, Relationships, and webs of causality) and narrows our perspectives on things 1507 1447 Perspectives. Notably, once categories are formed, they also towards bivalency in lieu of multivalency. Thus, systems 1508 1448 become boundaries/distinctions in and of themselves. thinking (DSRP) shifts this paradigm away from the binary 1509 bias and towards a more spectrum-based thought process. 1510 1449 Liberman et. al. 2017 (41) argued that social categories 1450 help people navigate the increasingly complex social world 1451 around them. Through reasoning about predictable thoughts, 4. Action-Reaction Relationships 1511 1452 actions, beliefs, and possible interactions with and among 1453 others are guided via the group membership that individ- Relationships (R) refer to the act of relating things using 1512 1454 ual(s) assign to themselves. Thus, categorization within the action and reaction. In other words, explicitly working with 1513 1455 social realm has some positive effects. They wrote, “forming concepts while being aware of the relationships, systems, and 1514 1456 conceptually-rich categories has obvious functional value – distinctions between them. Infants show evidence of relat- 1515 1457 social categories organize our vast knowledge about human ing as early as seven months of age, while experiments with 1516 1458 attributes and about the complex relationship networks that adults show the varied and sophisticated ways relating occurs 1517 1459 comprise human social life.” In other words, people use infor- across the lifespan. A review of peer-reviewed journals across 1518 1460 mation about group membership to infer whether they will disciplines indicates: 1519 1461 share properties, and how people will interact. Thus, these 1462 conceptually-rich social categories emerge before the provision 1. The existence of Relationships (i.e., R as a noun/object); 1520 1463 of verbal information can affect social knowledge, suggesting 1464 that the ability to form social categories does not depend on 1521 1465 explicit learning about the cultural or stereotypic content asso- 2. The act of Relating between and among things (i.e., R as 1522 1466 ciated with different groups. Further, the ability to use these a verb/action); 1467 categories to draw inferences about social structures likely 1468 drives social thinking and learning from early on. 3. That the relationship between “action” and “reaction” 1523

1469 The downside of those very same categories is the unin- (i.e., R(a ↔ r)) is elemental to (1) and (2) above; and, 1524 1470 tended consequences like bias, prejudice, stereotyping, and

1471 discrimination. Interestingly, social categorization requires the 4. That the human tendency is heavily weighted toward Di, 1525 1472 individual to place themselves into their desired group. Psy- Spw, and the relative absence of Relationships. Further, 1526 1473 chologists are careful to state that prejudice takes many forms, when relationships are identified they are often seen as 1527 1474 “social psychologists have long noted the distinction between linear causal rather than webs of causality. Finally, Re- 1528 1475 explicit prejudice (negative affect towards an outgroup) and lationships that are drawn are rarely identified (RDi) or 1529 1476 endorsement of stereotypes (cognitive representations of cul- Systematized (RDS). 1530 1477 turally held beliefs about a group).” Therefore the awareness of 1478 how one organizes thoughts into part/whole systems based on 5. Items 1-4 are fundamental “patterns of mind” agnostic 1531 1479 a particular perspective—is a useful way to increase awareness to content area (across disciplines) and throughout the 1532 1480 of one’s biases. Awareness of DSRP maintains the positive lifespan of humans. Yet, where Relationships are con- 1533 1481 aspects of categorization and increases awareness about the cerned, the difference between thinking (ie., cognition) 1534 1482 negative effects as well. and systems thinking (i.e., systematic metacognition) is 1535 1483 Fisher and Keil, 2018 (42) explicate that humans have a not in the R(a ↔ r) structure of cognition itself, but in 1536 1484 tendency to treat evidence as binary. As a result, their beliefs the willful and purposeful attempt to see (i.e., be aware 1537 1485 that formed from binary evidence are distorted because they of) the R(a ↔ r) structure that is at work when thinking 1538 1486 have inaccurately weighed the evidence, based on the severity 1487 of statistical estimate. Importantly this bias influences ”how 1488 people use data to make health, financial, and public-policy A. Relationships Exist in Mind and Nature. Like Distinctions 1539 1489 decisions.” They highlight this pervasive binary bias as one of and Systems, Relationships exist in both Mind and Nature. 1540 1490 the largest dangers of categorization, especially when applied They are real things and they are conceptual things and some- 1541 1491 to the serious issues above. In one study 154 participants were times they are in alignment. And, drawing Relationships 1542 1492 randomly assigned to one of four groups (scientific reports, between and among ideas is a universal cognitive structure. 1543 1493 eyewitness testimonies, social judgments, or consumer reviews). We cannot think, without forming Relationships. 1544 1494 They were then shown 5 statements about the relationships Let’s revisit Leonid Euler and the ubiquity of networks 1545 1495 between and among the materials they had observed. The in both mind and nature. Previously we explained that Eu- 1546 1496 results of the study were, “that the binary bias has a stronger ler, in abstracting and thereby solving the Konigsberg prob- 1547 1497 influence on the formation of beliefs and attitudes than the lem—invented graph and network theory. His abstraction 1548 1498 previously documented factors of order and salience.” Binary included two basic elements: nodes and “edges.” The edges in 1549 1499 thought tends to be damaging to both mental models and deep a network are the Relationships between nodes. Ergo, in all of 1550 1500 understanding of concepts and problems. They wrote, “the the many networks and examples of network theory’s powerful 1551 1501 binary bias appears to be a pervasive aspect of cognition with utility as a tool across the physical, natural, and social sciences 1552 1502 extensive real-world implications.” In other words, the human as well as commerce and industry, we see Relationships. 1553

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 15 they perform when tested for comprehension. Relatedness (R) 1601 allows us to access schema and leads to elaborative processing 1602 which leads to inferences as well as as a check on validity itself. 1603

Gopnik et. al. 2004 (45) explored the causal structure of 1604 the world and how children use that structure to learn content 1605 that has typically a steep learning curve. In their research, 1606 they hypothesized that,“children use specialized cognitive sys- 1607 tems that allow them to recover an accurate “causal map” of 1608 the world: an abstract, coherent, learned representation of the 1609 causal relations among events.” They found that a possible 1610 method for causal learning and inference in children is compu- 1611 tations that resemble the learning and prediction process for 1612 Fig. 14. In networks, “edges” are Relationships Bayes nets, which simply put, are representations of multiple 1613 variables and their dependencies (or a web of causality). Their 1614 experiments indicated that children ages 2 to 4 years old were 1615 1554 While Euler (1735) set forth the notion of systems compo- able to construct such causal maps, and their learning process 1616 1555 sition of parts (nodes) and relationships (edges) researchers was similar to the “Bayes net formalism” in which they saw 1617 1556 have explored the nature of relationships more fully. far more than simple one way relationships among things. 1618 1557 In a review of Cybernetics (1948) by Norbert Wiener, John 1619 1558 Weily, 1951 (43), raised many points of interest in his discus- Additional research by Green 2010 (46), examined how 1620 1559 sion of machines, and the underlying Systems that run them. memory is a function of linking thoughts to one another. He 1621 1560 Of particular interest was his discussion of a very important said, “recent research has shown that some people who lose 1622 1561 structural type relationship found within System: feedback their memory also lose the ability to connect things to each 1623 1562 loops. Weily recognized that feedback loops can become dan- other in their mind.” He notes that connections are what 1624 1563 gerous or impossible in machines, but they can be an essential makes memory powerful, for example, connections one makes 1625 1564 tool/process of cognition. He writes that, “The concept of feed- when they make a mistake. Memory is the method by which 1626 1565 back is undoubtedly so important that the social no less than events that happen are connected to the consequences of events 1627 1566 the natural scientist ought to be familiar with its denotation.” (actions or decisions) so that the person does not repeat that 1628 1567 The structure of a feedback loop is a critical relationship that same mistake. Green also shows that when one’s hippocampus 1629 1568 allows the System to react to its environment and potentially is damaged, the ability to make new memories, and to learn 1630 1569 restructure itself in response. Ultimately, the feedback loop complex associations is lost, which can lead to amnesia. The 1631 1570 allows some Systems to regulate themselves, with the more ability to make connections also allows humans to conceive of 1632 1571 obvious examples found within biological Systems. the future. “Put enough of these item associations together, and you will create a web of connections that can help you make 1633 1572 Researchers later examined the process of making relation- predictions and navigate the world more effectively over time.” 1634 1573 ships in the mind. Clement and Falmagne, 1986 (44) studied Connections made by the brain, also create sentimentality, 1635 1574 the relationship between imagery, schema and comprehension that is, connections are the root of why people feel sentimental 1636 1575 of material. They conducted two experiments: the first ex- in the first place. Green suggests that the reason that humans 1637 1576 amined respondent’s “performance on conditional reasoning have such a developed ability to make connections is that we 1638 1577 problems” based on the relatedness of information and imagery are social beings. He writes, “social interactions can pose our 1639 1578 presented to them in the experiment. Two rating tasks were greatest predictive challenges and may well have been a major 1640 1579 developed—in the first— a sentence was read, and then rated impetus, among our pre-human ancestors, for the evolution of 1641 1580 on a scale of 1-5 relative to the ease with which participants astounding learning abilities” to make relationships between 1642 1581 could form a picture in their head that was related to the and among things, concepts and emotions. 1643 1582 sentence. More specifically, “In a relatedness rating task, sub- 1583 jects rated conditional statements according to how easily or “A growing body of evidence in cognitive psychology and 1644 1584 naturally they could conceive of a relation between the two neuroscience suggests a deep interconnection between sensory- 1645 1585 actions described by the constituent clauses.” They were sure motor and language systems in the brain” according to Chersi 1646 1586 to mention that the Relations should be natural, and what et. al. 2014 (47). Building relationships causes a change in the 1647 1587 came to mind first was what should be reported. After the brain via the neuronal pathways and a corollary action and 1648 1588 rating (in which any stimuli that was rated zero was removed lexiconal coding (language systems). Examining relationships 1649 1589 from the test) a conditional reasoning task was performed, from a cognitive neuroscience perspective shows that, “neurons 1650 1590 each trial with imagery of varying value and relatedness. The responding to the same stimulus or class of stimuli tend to 1651 1591 second experiment was conducted in order to assess the im- cluster together to form topologically connected areas similar 1652 1592 agery value of the conditional sentences used in Experiment 1. to those observed in the brain cortex.” To test this idea, two 1653 1593 Both the imagery rating task and the task materials were from experiments were conducted to explore sensory-motor and 1654 1594 the first experiment. They explain that their results suggest lexical chains (sequences of related words seen in written text, 1655 1595 that, “schema accessibility and mental imagery jointly were both in sentences, passages, or the entirety of written works). 1656 1596 important in the reasoning process.” They stated that the Re- The first experiment used a sequence of “goal-activated motor 1657 1597 lationship between mental imagery and schema accessibility is chains” to test the interplay between frequency, competition, 1658 1598 essential to the reasoning process, while the imagery facilitates and familiarization within these chains. Each chain started 1659 1599 working memory. Essentially, the more content one has access with a goal (e.g., eat the food), followed by the motor acts 1660 1600 to and can actively create interconnections between, the better taken to succeed at the goal (e.g., grab, bring to mouth, 1661

16 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 1662 etc.). The results of this experiment showed “evidence of 1663 different pools of neurons being activated by goal-specific 1664 motor acts emerged as the result of a process of adaptive 1665 specialization of long-term memory circuits for serial cognition.” 1666 The second experiment had a similar goal, but used verbs as 1667 the starting stimuli because they have a multitude of ways 1668 they can be used in terms of tense and mood. In other words 1669 both experiments offer that the relationship drawn among 1670 motor and lexical chains are key to understanding. Overall, 1671 the article makes the point that Relationships and the systems 1672 of data support many critically important processes such as 1673 language development, working memory, and sequencing of 1674 information. Experiment 1 focused on the activation of lexical Fig. 15. Examples of toys 1675 chains (language) in relation to motor (movement) behavior. 1676 Experiment 2 examined how language (lexical chains ) develops 1677 through the perceived relationship to other sequences of letters For the familiarization trials, the infants were exposed to a 1715 1678 out of context. In other words, Chersi offers that the formation series of objects that were either the same or different. The 4 1716 1679 of lexical chains relies heavily on the surrounding context. groups of stimuli are pictured in Table3: 1717 1680 Further, creating lexical chains without the context of word 1681 recognition in surrounding text was not able to be simulated. 1682 The results of this experiment showed that neural coding of 1683 information thereby requires associations and relationships 1684 among concepts regardless of the form in which they come, 1685 whether it via sensory-motor or lexical (language) inputs.

1686 The analogy is a common tool in which “new words and 1687 inflections are created on the basis of regularities in the form of ¶¶ 1688 existing ones.” Ferry et. al. 2015 (map) (48) researched the 1689 ability to process analogies in infants aged 7 to 9 months old. 1690 Analogical ability is defined in the text as, “the ability to make 1691 relational comparisons between objects, events, or ideas, and 1692 to think about relations independently of a particular set of 1693 arguments.” They outlined three possibilities for how analogical 1694 ability develops. First, it is innate—infants are born with 1695 skill in a series of basic relations (including the same/different Same Condition Different Condition 1696 Relations). The second possibility is that infants are born with Table 3. Same and Different Conditions 1697 analogical ability that allows them to be able to process and 1698 abstract relationships from their experiences. And lastly, the 1699 third possibility is that, “analogical ability is not an inherent 1700 capacity but is formed by combining more basic processes, There were then six test trials done, in 3 categories: object 1718 1701 guided by cultural and linguistic experience.” Ferry et. al. did experience, object experience and pair habituation, and novel 1719 1702 two experiments to test this, but the first was an unsuccessful items. The infants looking time was measured to indicate 1720 1703 replication of Tyrrell et. al. 1991. preference. 1721

1704 For the second experiment, the major question was, “Can 1705 infants derive abstract same–different Relations from a brief 1706 series of examples, and if so does this learning process bear 1707 the signatures of analogical learning?” In this experiment, 64 1708 healthy, full-term infants participated, roughly half were 7 1709 months old and the others were 9 months old. Half of the 1710 infants were assigned the “same” condition, and half of the ∗∗∗ 1711 infants were assigned the “different” condition. While in Fig. 16. Object Experience 1712 the waiting room, the infants were exposed to some of the 1713 toys, as pictured in Figure 15 (top is same condition, bottom 1714 is different condition):

¶¶Definition from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analogy ∗∗∗In the waiting room infants saw a subset of the individual toys before the experiment. Infants were habituated to four pairs of objects, either same or different. In six sequential test trials looking time was recorded to the novel and familiar relational pairs in three different types of test trials (object experience, object experience + pair habituation, and novel). Fig. 17. Object Experience and Pair Habituation

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 17 stimuli in this procedure were very similar to the stimuli in 1776 experiment 1b. “All of the events were two-object events, in 1777 which the two discs (A and B) could move either at the same 1778 speed or at different speeds, and this varied across trials (but 1779 not within a trial).” They found that in testing these kinds of 1780 physical Relationships, that sensitivity to speed had an impact 1781 Fig. 18. Novel on their results in experiment 1b. 1782

For the third experiment, they tested the age at which 1783 1722 The results of their second experiment were significant. this kind of cognitive processing happens. For each of the 1784 1723 Generally, their results suggest that infants are able to ab- previously discussed four categories, they got approximately 1785 1724 stract the same/different Relations. They found that the 34 infants in between the ages of 6 ½ months to 10 months 1786 1725 infants looked significantly longer at the novel pair than the old. For the infants, there was a habituation phase and a test 1787 1726 others for both the same and different conditions, which is phase. The infants were shown electronic animated stimuli 1788 1727 in contrast to their initial replication. This meant that the and their looking time was measured. Once the infant had 1789 1728 infants “successfully generalized the abstract relation to new looked away for two continuous seconds, the trial ended. Their 1790 1729 objects presented for the first time in test trials.” Ferry et. results showed that infants are capable of noticing and being 1791 1730 al. also found that there was no difference between the way interested in “categorical boundary between launching (1:1 1792 1731 infants responded to the same relation versus the different and 3:1 events) and triggering (1:3 events).” They wrote, “our 1793 1732 relation. It seems infants make relationships and are even three experiments reveal categorical boundaries within causal 1794 1733 capable of abstracting relationships of a particular type (in perception—boundaries that are defined by an interplay of 1795 1734 the case of this study, sameness and difference). This is criti- physical and perceptual constraints.” Overall, these experi- 1796 1735 cally important, because it means that not only are (1) infants ments showed that causal perceptions are seen in seven to nine 1797 1736 (and one might conclude therefore adults) cognitively prone to month old infants. This early-on development of Relationships 1798 1737 making relationships, they are also (2) capable of abstracting indicates that Relationships are therefore an inherent part of 1799 1738 them and/or utilizing abstract Relationships (i.e., “Rs”), (3) human thought. It is clear that the cognitive, emotional, and 1800 1739 but also that infants are able and prone to distinguishing conative ability to make Relationships is essential to the pro- 1801 1740 relationships (i.e., RDs), which is an important implication cess of thinking. But what is the elemental or atomic structure 1802 1741 of DSRP Theory. In other words, while Relationships can of these all-important Relationships? To answer this, let’s 1803 1742 be abstracted universally as a purely structural cognitive act, look at a few more studies. 1804 1743 they are also content specific (that is the relationship itself 1744 is distinguishable by additional informational content such as 1745 “sameness” or “difference” or perhaps countless other content B. Relationships Have an Action-Reaction Structure. New- 1805 1746 variables). ton’s Third law states that for every action there is an equal 1806 1747 Kominsky et. al. 2017 (49) discusses “causal perception” and opposite reaction. Although applied to physical bodies in 1807 1748 which is a Relationship. There were 3 experiments done, physical interactions, Newton’s Third Law is extrapolatable 1808 1749 one of which had two sub experiments. In experiment 1a, to other domains, if not directly, metaphorically. As shown 1809 1750 a visual search task in which the search array consisted of in the Ebbinghaus illusion, where the proximity and size of 1810 1751 a set of two-object events was performed. There were four the surrounding circles affect the perception of the size of the 1811 1752 conditions (causal, temporal offset, spatial offset, and slip central circle, there are a complex of interactions (sometimes 1812 1753 event). There were discs presented under the four conditions referred to as “context”) that affect outcomes. 1813 1754 and the “subjects were instructed to press the spacebar as 1755 soon as they detected the pair in which the two discs were 1756 moving at different speeds (i.e., the asymmetric event). After 1757 they pressed the spacebar, the animation paused, and they 1758 used the mouse cursor to select the asymmetric event.” The 1759 85 subjects performed this task, approximately twelve for 1760 each condition. For experiment 1b, practice rounds were 1761 added, due to an issue with instruction understanding in 1762 experiment 1a. The stimuli used were the same as the first 1763 part of the experiment, however there were only two conditions 1764 used (an asymmetric-target condition, identical to the causal 1765 condition in Experiment 1a, and a symmetric-target condition). Fig. 19. Ebbinghaus illusion 1766 In the discussion, the authors concluded that, “Experiment 1767 1 demonstrated that adults’ causal perception distinguishes 1768 between triggering and launching events. . . provided initial 1769 evidence that causal perception, independently of judgment or In other words, the surrounding circles (and their proximity) 1814 1770 reasoning, is sensitive to a distinction between launching and are acting upon the center circle and vice versa. The net effect 1815 1771 triggering.” This could mean that Relationships are sensitive of these action-reaction chains is the relative perception of size. 1816 1772 to Distinctions, and that the two must function with each Newton’s Third Law expresses this action-reaction property 1817 1773 other, not separately. where if A and B push against each other (action), they both 1818 1774 In the second experiment, there was only one event on the move away (reaction) from each other. Indeed, even if only A 1819 1775 screen at any given time, instead of three. Otherwise, the does the “pushing,” the same effect results. 1820

18 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. babies were able to Distinguish and have a preference for a 1864 causal vs. a non-causal event. The causal stimuli presented 1865 was a two object event with apparent causal motion with 1866 spatial and temporal continuity, while the non-causal stimuli 1867 was characterized by temporal discontinuity. They said that, 1868 “the delay event, in fact, was identical to the launching one 1869 except for the presence of a 1-s delay between the time of 1870 contact and the motion of the second object.” The ages of 1871 the newborns ranged from 8 to 71 hours old. A preferential 1872 looking task was used to gather data, and while measuring, 1873 distractions were minimized to the best of their ability. The 1874 newborns showed a significant preference for the causal event 1875 over the non-causal ones. For the second experiment, the 1876 stimuli were the same, except for the spatial parameters. “Both 1877 stimuli in Experiment 2, in fact, were characterized by a 1878 discontinuity between the trajectory of the two objects involved 1879 Fig. 20. Newton’s Third Law (Action-Reaction) in each event.” The procedure was identical to experiment one. 1880 This experiment resulted in the conclusion that “the spatial 1881 continuity of trajectory between the motion of the two objects 1882 1821 The relational and interconnected nature of human cogni- appears to be crucial in determining newborns’ preference.” 1883 1822 tive processes has a similar analog. When ideas meet, they For the third experiment, the purpose of the experiment was to 1884 1823 affect one another. test the role of the “temporal sequence between the motion of 1885 1824 There is a widespread tendency to think of relationships the two objects in triggering newborns’ preference.” The causal 1886 1825 as one thing leading to another, or cause and effect. Harris et event was the same as in experiment one. The non-causal 1887 1826 al 1996 (50) wrote that, “research on children’s causal think- Relationship differed in that object B moved first, then object 1888 1827 ing has emphasized the perception of temporal and spatial A moved. The non-causal stimuli is inverted. The procedure 1889 1828 contiguity between cause and effect.” Three experiments were was identical to experiment one. The results showed that 1890 1829 designed to test a child’s ability and capacity for counterfac- the newborns were able to Distinguish between the event and 1891 1830 tual thinking. Counterfactual thinking refers to the human its inverted form, and they still showed a preference for the 1892 1831 tendency to create possible alternatives to events that have causal events. They wrote that, “overall, newborns seem 1893 1832 already occurred that are contrary to what actually happened. to be sensitive to the additive effect of a set of perceptual 1894 1833 This is manifested in statements like "What if?" and "If I had cues (i.e. temporal continuity between the motion of the 1895 1834 only...". It is our desire to entertain how things could have two objects involved in the event, continuity of trajectory 1896 1835 been different, literally, counter to the facts of how things between the motion of the two objects, and the sequence of 1897 1836 happened in reality. the displacements of the two objects) which are crucial in 1898 1837 In the first experiment, “children aged 3-5 years observed determining perception of physical causality in adults.” This 1899 1838 a sequence such as A causing B.” The children were able to study demonstrates a newborn’s visual perception of causal 1900 1839 accurately reply to a question relating to a counterfactual relationships, and it’s similarity to that same mechanism found 1901 1840 sequence (for example: "What if A had not occurred, then in adults. 1902 1841 B or not B?"). For the second experiment, the children were 1842 asked about “two counterfactual antecedents”, one that would Rolfs et. al. 2013 (52) discussed how seeing the Relation- 1903 1843 not have caused B, and one that would have also caused B. ships occasionally depends on the immediacy of the cause and 1904 1844 The children were able to differentiate between both types of effect principle. They stated that if there was a delay between 1905 1845 antecedent. In the third experiment, children were told stories the causal node of the Relationship and the subsequent effect, 1906 1846 where the protagonist chose a course of action that either, then the person could miss the Relationship entirely. “The 1907 1847 “led to a minor mishap (e.g., drawing with a black pen and perception of causality involves two components, one that is 1908 1848 getting inky fingers), having rejected an option that would have stimulus based and one that is inference based.” They com- 1909 1849 prevented it in experimental stories (e.g., using a pencil) or an pleted three experiments, the first of which was testing the 1910 1850 option that would have led to an equivalent outcome in control adaptation to collision events. The collision stimuli they used 1911 1851 stories (e.g., using a blue pen).” The children were able to were two discs bouncing back and forth, clearly causal to each 1912 1852 identify the protagonist’s failure to choose a different course of other. The subjects had to watch the discs and determine 1913 1853 action as the cause of the mistake. In the experimental stories, where the “point of subjective equality” was. One test group 1914 1854 the kids chose to focus on the rejection of the alternative option. had the locations adapted, while the other did not. The results 1915 1855 Overall, this research demonstrates that young children have were that, “events that were perceptually ambiguous before 1916 1856 the ability to recognize and articulate the action and reactions adaptation were now judged to be noncausal passes in the 1917 1857 within Relationships. vast majority of trials; events that were regularly perceived as 1918 1858 Additional research conducted by Mascalzoni et. al. 2013 causal before adaptation had now become ambiguous.” The 1919 1859 (51) explored “the question of how humans come to perceive second experiment was set up functionally the same as the 1920 1860 causal relationships [that] has long been a challenge both for first, except the stimulus was a slipping disc instead of the 1921 1861 philosophers and psychologists.” They studied the presence swinging discs. The point was to test “whether adaptation to 1922 1862 and use of causal reasoning in newborn children in three other visual features of the adapting stimuli might explain the 1923 1863 experiments. The first experiment tested whether newborn change in observers’ judgments of causality.” However, in this 1924

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 19 1925 experiment, there was no change in perceptual causality. In understanding of causality. They did two experiments, the first 1986 1926 the final experiment, they sought to determine the “reference of which was designed to test if the children could arrange pic- 1987 1927 frame of adaptation.” In order to test this they measured eye tures in a predetermined sequence. There were different types 1988 1928 movements with one side of fixation. “The present findings of stories used that were about mechanical (objects interacting 1989 1929 take an equally important step toward determining how the in a casual Relationship with each other), behavioral (people 1990 1930 brain parses events and assigns causal links, which paves the interacting), or psychological (people interacting with regards 1991 1931 way for tracking down the neural mechanisms underlying these to mental state) causality. After performing this test, they 1992 1932 visual processes.” Humans have the ability to “fill in the blanks” did a false belief task as well. The results of the experiment 1993 1933 between cause and effect in the case of predicting where a ball indicated that there was some Relationship between successful 1994 1934 will land once it’s been thrown in the air for example. The picture sequencing and success in the false belief task. In the 1995 1935 brain (using vision and visual cues) can then parse through second experiment, the children that failed the false belief task 1996 1936 events and assign a relationship or a causal path in real time. were the subjects. They were given the same false belief task 1997 as in the first experiment. The experiment showed that the 1998 1937 C. Metacognitive Awareness of R(a ↔ r) Structure Matters. children who performed better on the psychological stories 1999 1938 Yet, while we know that we have the ability to make relation- in the first experiment, did better on the second false belief 2000 1939 ships, often we make them without an awareness that we are task. Overall, the study showed that, “the findings of the 2001 1940 doing so. In other words, metacognition requires recognition present study indicated that children who cannot understand 2002 1941 and explication of the relationships we make between and others’ false beliefs are able to understand and enjoy stories 2003 1942 among things whether they are people, concepts, or other containing false beliefs.” In other words, conscious establish- 2004 1943 ideas. Schultz and Gopnik (2004) (53) researched causal learn- ment of sequential relationships in the first experiment also 2005 1944 ing across domains. They completed five experiments that increased the subject’s ability to take new perspectives and 2006 1945 concluded that children can, “make causal judgments using see alternatives to the sequence as it played out. 2007 1946 patterns of independent and dependent probabilities across a 1947 range of tasks and domains.” Their research (using a screening- 5. Point-View Perspectives 2008 1948 off technique) showed that when screening off information,

1949 preschool aged children were able to learn the causal Re- Perspective-taking (P) is the act of looking at things using 2009 1950 lationships within both biological and psychological events. a point and view. In other words, explicitly working with 2010 1951 Furthermore, they saw an impressive ability from the subjects concepts using one or many points and views, while being 2011 1952 (3-4 year old children) to draw causal Relationships from de- aware of the relationships, systems, and distinctions between 2012 1953 pendence patterns. This data is indicative of the power and them. Infants show evidence of Perspective-taking as early 2013 1954 prevalence of Relationships, and how early they come into as three years of age, while experiments with adults show 2014 1955 play cognitively. In particular, it shows that young children the varied and sophisticated ways Perspective-taking is used 2015 1956 can learn to be more cognizant of the relationships they make across the lifespan. A review of peer-reviewed journals across 2016 1957 in their mind; as a powerful tool to understand new concepts. disciplines indicates: 2017 1958 Additional research by Dhamala, 2015 (54), explored the 1959 nature and importance of causality as a tool for gaining deeper 1. The existence of Perspectives (i.e., P as a noun/object); 2018 1960 understanding. They argue that the neurological research on 1961 causality is important to science as a whole and should be 2. The act of Perspective taking (i.e., P as a verb/action); 2019 1962 applied more readily. “A living brain is a complex dynamical 1963 system with many highly interconnected, interacting and self- 3. That the relationship between “point” and “view” (i.e., 2020 1964 organizing entities (neurons). The traditional notion of brain P (ρ ↔ v) is elemental to (1) and (2) above; and, 2021 1965 regions as information-processing units, with an input, a local 1966 processing capability and an output is too rigid and is not 4. That the human tendency is to take one’s own Perspective 2022 1967 generally applicable throughout the brain.” They offer that and marginalize the Perspective of the other. 2023 1968 the nature of causality is not yet well known, and therefore

1969 application to a broader range of subjects and sciences could 5. In summary, it shows that items 1-4 are fundamental 2024 1970 greatly increase the understanding of causality itself, and the “patterns of mind” agnostic to content area (across dis- 2025 1971 utility for deeper understanding of any content. They also ciplines) and throughout the lifespan of humans. Where 2026 1972 say that it is naturally hard to see the brain as a fluid entity Perspective taking is concerned, the difference between 2027 1973 rather than as a black box of inputs and outputs; because the thinking (ie., cognition) and systems thinking (i.e., sys- 2028 1974 latter is much simpler and easier to deal with when trying tematic metacognition) is not in the P (ρ ↔ v) structure 2029 1975 to solve problems and answer questions. The human brain of cognition itself, but in the willful and purposeful at- 2030 1976 is considered to be one of the most complex systems in the tempt to see (i.e., be aware of) the P (ρ ↔ v) structure 2031 1977 universe. “There are many mysteries to be solved including that is at work when thinking. 2032 1978 the patterns of causal relations among brain regions during 1979 perception, cognition and behavior.” That relationships exist Many sources relevant to Perspectives were found in peer- 2033 1980 in mind and nature is established, such that the new emphasis reviewed social psychology, cognition, and psychology jour- 2034 1981 needs to be one increasing human awareness of them and the nals. The understanding of Perspectives in the literature 2035 1982 power in seeing the relationships we make as a tool for building (and related search terms such as point of view and theory of 2036 1983 meaning from new inputs. mind) demonstrated the power and unknown influence that 2037 1984 Sanefuji and Haryu 2018 (55), studied the Relationship be- perspective-taking can have on interpersonal, professional, and 2038 1985 tween a preschooler’s development of theory of mind, and their reality-based relationships. 2039

20 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 2040 A. Perspectives Exist in Mind and Nature. Like Distinctions, 2041 Systems, and Relationships, Perspectives exist in both Mind 2042 and Nature. They are real things (exist in reality) and they 2043 are conceptual things (things we think) and sometimes they 2044 are in alignment with one another. And, Perspective-taking is 2045 a universal cognitive structure—we cannot think a thought, 2046 without also taking a Perspective.

2047 It is perhaps a reasonable a priori assumption that no 2048 thought happens absent of the perspective of the thinker. To 2049 think is to isolate some set of things from the universe of 2050 things and because it is impossible to “boil the ocean” by 2051 thinking every single thing in a single thought, it is a priori 2052 that any given thought is therefore only a slice of the whole 2053 (usually an infinitesimally small slice). Ergo, in order to decide 2054 which slice to focus on and which slice not to (a Distinction), 2055 is by definition Perspectival. In addition, some other person, 2056 perhaps considering a similar thought or slice of the whole,

2057 may select a different set of things to focus on. Although there Fig. 21. Sally-Anne Test 2058 is ample empirical evidence that illustrates this, as a global 2059 statement of the nature of how things work, it is essentially There were two doll protagonists, Sally and Anne. 2101 2060 an a priori fact. First, we checked that the children knew which doll 2102 2061 Earlier research into perspective taking focused on the was which (Naming Question). Sally first placed a 2103 2062 development of theory of mind, which is simply the ability to marble into her basket. Then she left the scene, and 2104 2063 attribute beliefs, thoughts or feelings to another person (take the marble was transferred by Anne and hidden in 2105 2064 another’s perspective). Marvin et. al. 1976 (56) researched her box. Then, when Sally returned, the experimenter 2106 2065 the development of conceptual Perspective taking in the early asked the critical Belief Question: “Where will Sally 2107 2066 years of life. They identified two types of Perspective taking: look for her marble?“ If the children point to the 2108 2067 perceptual and conceptual. They define conceptual Perspective previous location of the marble, then they pass the 2109 2068 taking as, “an inference a child makes regarding those less Belief Question by appreciating the doll’s now false 2110 2069 tangible aspects of another’s internal experience such as his belief. If however, they point to the marble’s current 2111 2070 thoughts, desires, attitudes, plans.” At this point, both types location, then they fail the question by not taking into 2112 2071 of Perspective taking had been thought to develop at around account the doll’s belief (page 41). 2113 2072 7 years old. However, through their research, they determined 2073 that conceptual Perspective taking occurred in children as It is designed to test if the children can step out of their own 2114 2074 young as 4 years old. Remarkably, they were not just able to Perspective and take Sally’s. Their results after testing both 2115 2075 take the Perspective of one individual but were able to take normal and autistic children showed that while the normal 2116 2076 the Perspectives of up to three individuals. children pointed to where Sally had put the marble in the 2117 2077 Premack and Woodruff (1978) (57) explored the possibility first place, the autistic children however, pointed to where 2118 2078 of chimpanzees having a theory of mind. In order to test the marble had been moved. Theory of mind, which is a 2119 2079 this, they showed chimpanzees videos of humans experiencing form of Perspective taking, is a process of the psychological 2120 2080 problems. For example, the videos featured problems like food development of children. 2121 2081 being out of reach, the actors being unable to get themselves Vallar et al 1998 (59) investigated how the brain creates 2122 2082 out of a locked cage, the actors being cold due to a broken an “egocentric spatial frame of reference” using an fMRI. In 2123 2083 heater, and an actor not being able to use a phonograph particular, they observed the mid-sagittal plane, which divides 2124 2084 because it was unplugged. To see if the chimpanzees could the left and right sides of the brain. In the fMRI machine, the 2125 2085 take the Perspective of the actors in the videos, they were 7 participants were instructed to press a button when a vertical 2126 2086 shown a few cards with photos on them, one of which had the bar that was moving horizontally, passed their “subjective mid- 2127 2087 solution to the problem on it (stick, key, lit match, etc). The sagittal plane.” Control group participants were instructed to 2128 2088 chimpanzees consistently picked the card with the appropriate press the button when the bar changed direction, instead 2129 2089 solution on it, which indicates that the chimpanzees were able of when it crossed the mid-sagittal plane. They observed 2130 2090 to take another’s Perspective, understand the problem they an increased signal in, “posterior parietal and lateral frontal 2131 2091 face, and identify the needed solution. This is evidence that premotor regions, with a more extensive activation in the right 2132 2092 Perspective-taking is not just a human cognitive process, but cerebral hemisphere.” Their finding that the formation of an 2133 2093 is potentially found throughout the animal kingdom as well. egocentric spatial frame of reference is located in the right 2134 2094 Perhaps the most known work about theory of mind is hemisphere corresponds with previous research in people with 2135 2095 Baron-Cohen et. al. 1985 (58) who wrote the paper that lesions in that same area. “Damage to the right hemisphere, 2136 2096 developed the concept of a “theory of mind,” through their more frequently to the posterior-inferior parietal region, may 2137 2097 experiments and analyses on children with autism. They bring about neglect syndrome of the contralesional, left side 2138 2098 developed the Sally-Anne test, which is a psychological test of space, including a major rightward displacement of the 2139 2099 designed to see if one can attribute a false belief to another. subjective mid-sagittal plane.” In other words, having an injury 2140 2100 The Sally-Anne test is depicted in the image below: on that specific part of the brain, will affect one’s ability to 2141

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 21 2142 create a spatial frame of reference. This research is significant exercises declined with age, while tests on wisdom stayed rel- 2203 2143 to us in particular because it demonstrates a neurological atively consistent with age. Through their experiments and 2204 2144 placement for taking perspective, specifically a spatial one. evaluation, they found that this discrepancy could be due to, 2205 “the pattern of diverging developmental trends in perspective- 2206 2145 Ruby and Decety 2004 (60) researched the neurological taking measured in the established ToM [Theory of Mind] 2207 2146 process of perspective-taking using a positron emission tomog- versus wisdom tasks is not necessarily specific to perspective- 2208 2147 raphy (PET) scanner. The ten participants of the study were taking as such, but might reflect the general pattern of the 2209 2148 asked to either adopt their own or their mother’s perspective development of cognitive capacities over the lifespan.” In fact, 2210 2149 in response to an assortment of situations. Some of the situa- the negative correlation disappeared with the theory of mind 2211 2150 tions required social emotions, and others were neutral. Each studies when they accounted for the difference in processing 2212 2151 subject was scanned 12 times to eliminate as much machine speed as one ages. They also found that when changing both 2213 2152 noise as possible. The main result of the first person/third tests to have novel ways of measuring theory of mind and 2214 2153 person was, “hemodynamic increase in the medial part of the wisdom performance, the performance difference due to age 2215 2154 superior frontal gyrus, the left superior temporal sulcus, the disappeared (practically), indicating that there could be some- 2216 2155 left temporal pole, the posterior cingulate gyrus, and the right thing to the tests that made them difficult or not interesting 2217 2156 inferior parietal lobe.” The amygdala was also activated when to the older adults in the test. This indicates that theory of 2218 2157 looking at both the self and others perspectives. This study mind (and therefore Perspective taking) is a part of cognition 2219 2158 demonstrated that perspective taking has a neurological basis, throughout the human’s whole life. 2220 2159 and there is not “a single mechanism that accounts for the Additionally, perspective taking is thought to be the root 2221 2160 perspective taking process.” This means that the perspective- of empathy. Mafessoni and Lachmann 2019 (63) researched 2222 2161 taking process is facilitated by multiple locations within the the origins of empathy and emotional contagion. They looked 2223 2162 brain. at the possibility that empathy and emotional contagion orig- 2224 2163 Research indicates that perspective taking is likely a fun- inated from a cognitive process or function, and not only 2225 2164 damental process of human cognition. As such, many scholars from social cooperation or coordination. They stated that, 2226 2165 began to study more specific aspects of perspective taking “contagious yawning, emotional contagion and empathy are 2227 2166 as developmental skill. Russell et. al. 2009 (61) examined characterized by the activation of similar neurophysiological 2228 2167 “episodic future thinking” children ages 3 to 5 years old. He states or responses in an observed individual and an observer.” 2229 2168 conducted four experiments to explore children’s ability to While organisms cannot read the minds of other organisms, 2230 2169 “think of what will be needed from a different point of view.” they do share very similar minds to members of their own 2231 2170 The first experiment tested if children could pass a “blow- species. As a result, organisms seem to be “constantly run- 2232 2171 football” by playing a game in which the child uses a straw to ning simulations of what other minds might be doing.” This 2233 2172 blow a ball into a goal across from them. They performed this constant simulation isn’t always geared toward cooperation 2234 2173 task both in a present self condition and also the past other but rather is something animals do spontaneously. Mafessoni 2235 2174 condition (i.e. someone performing the task in the past). All and Lachmann also offer that the behavior of putting oneself 2236 2175 of the children were able to do the task in both conditions as an actor in another’s mind requires embodied cognition. 2237 2176 successfully, confirming the original hypothesis. The second ex- Embodied cognition means that the mind is connected to 2238 2177 periment was similar to experiment one, but the conditions the the body, and the mind also influences the body. This plays 2239 2178 children were put through were the “future-self ” and “future- out socially, “as an actor’s cognition is embodied, even an 2240 2179 other” conditions. Their results showed that processes such observer’s cognition is required to be embodied, despite the 2241 2180 as future thinking begins at approximately four years of age. risk of accidental coordination.” Thus, the spread of empathy 2242 2181 This is due to an ability to perform Point of View thoughts. and the contagion of emotion occurs in the mind and body, 2243 2182 Findings from experiments 1 and 2 justified the examination naturally. Perspective taking is therefore a needed cognitive 2244 2183 of a spatial and conceptual approach to episodic cognition in act that bolsters emotional connection to others, which, as 2245 2184 the third and fourth experiments for four year old children social animals, is essential for evolutionary success, in both 2246 2185 only. In the third experiment, the main finding was that, “this humans and other animals. 2247 2186 experiment demonstrates clearly that children of 4 years of age 2187 find a future-self question more challenging than a future-other B. Perspectives have a Point-View Structure. Perspectives ex- 2248 2188 question.” The main finding for the fourth experiment was that ist in mind and nature, and therefore it would be beneficial to 2249 2189 “self-directed questions are not generally more difficult than examine the form in which they occur. In other words, how do 2250 2190 other-directed questions, as there was no difference in difficulty humans take perspectives? What are the underlying elements 2251 2191 when they were asked in the present tense.” Interestingly, 4 to the act of taking a perspective? Generally speaking there 2252 2192 year olds struggled more with future conditions of themselves, are two parts to a perspective: a point (an observer/looker); 2253 2193 than they did but for others. The general discussion alludes and a view (that which is being looked at). 2254 2194 to a pivotal point in child development at age 4 in which Often perspective is seen as synonymous with how things 2255 2195 children’s abilities to engage in future thinking and the self are framed. In other words, how things are framed (a problem, 2256 2196 versus other distinction. In other words, in “perspective-taking issue or situation) is rooted in a perspective. Notably, the 2257 2197 tasks children of 4 will imagine how something looks from a way things are framed often shapes the action’s one takes, or 2258 2198 point of a view they do not share.” These findings show the decisions made. Tversky and Kahneman (1981) (64) studied 2259 2199 developmental path and inherent nature of Perspective as a the psychology of choice and its relation to the framing of 2260 2200 cognitive skill. decisions. They looked at the difference between the depen- 2261 2201 Rakoczy et. al. 2018 (62) explored and re-evaluated the dence on frames and the dependence of perceptual appearance 2262 2202 past research that found that performance on theory of mind on Perspective in general. They found that subjects bounced 2263

22 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 2264 between finding one option better over the other, depending to altruistic motivations, whereas, putting oneself in another’s 2325 2265 on how the choice was framed. A metaphor was used in the position is correlated with egotistical motivation as well. This 2326 2266 discussion, “If while traveling in a mountain range you notice implies a benefit of taking Perspective, is not just to expand 2327 2267 that the apparent relative height of mountain peaks varies with your worldview, but to also increase one’s desire to help others. 2328 2268 your vantage point, you will conclude that some impressions The relationship between social dynamics and Perspective 2329 2269 of relative height must be erroneous, even when you have no taking was also explored by Knowles, 2014 (67). She com- 2330 2270 access to the correct answer.” They offer that the appeal of pleted three studies total, the first experiment was designed to 2331 2271 certain options is correlated with the frame itself. Such that test whether social rejection was related to a shift in Perspec- 2332 2272 changing the frame, can change the attractiveness of options, tive from self-centered to other-centered. The experimental 2333 2273 and therefore the decision made and actions taken. This is also group was first asked to spend five minutes writing and re- 2334 2274 the case with choice-making. Normally, discovering that your flecting on a time they felt rejected. They were then asked 2335 2275 previous mental model is incorrect, the decision-maker could to perform a Perspective-taking exercise directly afterward. 2336 2276 reconsider the framing and assumptions that were initially put The participants who had to relive a rejection took other’s 2337 2277 in place, knowing that there is no true way to get a correct Perspectives more often than the ones who didn’t. The second 2338 2278 mental model. The underlying subjectivity of how things are study was designed to replicate the results and to assess the 2339 2279 framed necessitates an understanding (and awareness) of the effort level of rejection-motivated perspective taking. The 2340 2280 root perspective from which it originated. results showed that, “only highly motivated individuals—the 2341 rejected—marshal their limited resources to take another’s 2342 2281 Additional research examined how perspective taking in- point of view on a task requiring social coordination.” The third 2343 2282 fluences communication between people. Schober (1993) (65) study showed that “adopting another’s perspective enhances 2344 2283 researched how people took Perspective when describing the individuals’ memory for their social environment.” When one is 2345 2284 location of an object (or multiple objects), either to themselves socially rejected, Knowles found that their ability and desire to 2346 2285 or to others. He observed participants attempting to describe take other’s perspectives increases dramatically, even when the 2347 2286 the location of objects either alone, or with a partner. The brain is cognitively busy (although to a lesser degree). There 2348 2287 type, point, and view were the variables used to describe the is also a relationship drawn between perception and behavior, 2349 2288 location of objects in this study. Those who had to speak as those who were rejected were hyper aware of facial expres- 2350 2289 to an imaginary partner took Perspective with relative ease, sions and vocal tone as an indicator of acceptance. As such, 2351 2290 while those who were given a real partner found that they had perspective-taking is foundational to our social interactions 2352 2291 to choose between an egocentric or other-centered Perspective. with others. 2353 2292 However, Schober found that when the partners switched roles, Spatial perspectives were studied by Cavallo et. al. 2017 2354 2293 the ones who had an egocentric partner would take an ego- (68). Specifically, they examined how taking a spatial Perspec- 2355 2294 centric perspective, and the ones who had an other-centered tive involves a process of mental “remapping” of the spatial 2356 2295 perspective to their partner’s Perspective. Also, there was environment from a different point of view. Three experiments 2357 2296 an indication that perspective taking can be collaborative, were conducted. In the first experiment, participants had to 2358 2297 with partners checking in with each other about their other- “judge whether the apple was to the left or right from their 2359 2298 centered directions. Interestingly, this shows the many ways own perspective and from that of the human avatar seated 2360 2299 in which perspective shapes how we communicate with others, at the opposite end of the table.” When viewing from the hu- 2361 2300 and also the need to be able to identify when communication man avatar’s Perspective, there was evidence to show that the 2362 2301 is facilitated or hindered by doing so. participants spatially remapped the environment. The second 2363 2302 That communication is affected by humans ability to take experiment tested whether the remapping happened due to 2364 2303 their own or another’s perspective leads to a similar interest the presence of a human triggered spatial remapping. They 2365 2304 in the role of perspective in understanding how one feels. wrote that as a result of their experiment, they found that, 2366 2305 Batson et. al. 1997 (66) distinguished between two types “remapping does not require the presence of a human avatar 2367 2306 of Perspective taking: thinking about how another person but simply the possibility of a human perspective.” In the third 2368 2307 feels, and thinking about how you would feel in that same experiment, the scene was changed so that a human couldn’t 2369 2308 scenario. To test how these two types of Perspective taking possibly fit at the end of the table. As a result, the spatial 2370 2309 differed, they did an experiment involving sixty students who remapping effect disappeared. This article demonstrates that 2371 2310 were assigned to three possible conditions: to be objective, to the presence of the identity/other construct can deeply change 2372 2311 imagine how the other feels, and to imagine how they would the way one interacts with their environment. As an example 2373 2312 feel (20 people per condition). The participants listened to of this, they wrote, “When responding from their own view- 2374 2313 a tape of a girl describing how her parents had died in a car point, right-handed participants responded faster when the 2375 2314 crash, and her struggles to take care of her younger siblings object was closer to and to the right of them. In contrast, 2376 2315 during her last year of college. The researchers measured the when responding from the viewpoint of a human avatar seated 2377 2316 emotional reaction people had to the tape and found that facing them, participants responded faster when the object was 2378 2317 the two groups tasked with (1) imagining how the other felt closer to and to the right of the avatar.” Perspectives therefore 2379 2318 and (2) how they would feel in the other’s situation both had can be anthropomorphic, physical, spatial and conceptual in 2380 2319 emotional responses of empathy; with the latter also showing nature. 2381 2320 signs of emotional distress.

2321 This difference is noted in particular as it relates to human C. Metacognitive Awareness of P (ρ ↔ v) Structure Matters. 2382 2322 motivation. In other words, there is a difference in why one While we tend to think of perspectives as anthropomorphic, it 2383 2323 feels something in relation to perspective taking exercises. The is equally important to be aware of the spatial, and conceptual 2384 2324 act of empathy, where you feel how the other feels is connected perspectives we use to better understand things. Neale and 2385

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 23 2386 Bazerman (1983) (69) studied if Perspective-taking has a role (Epley et. al. 2004 (73)). In the first study, the focus was 2447 2387 in the outcome of a negotiation. Their test included 240 stu- sarcasm, which can be viewed as an ambiguous communica- 2448 2388 dents who engaged in two types of negotiation: conventional tion. If the participants were primed with a negative stimuli 2449 2389 arbitration and final-offer arbitration. Results suggested that they saw a message as being sarcastic, while if primed with a 2450 2390 the type of negotiation and the use of Perspective-taking im- positive stimuli they did not. In the second study, responses to 2451 2391 proved the outcome of their negotiations. They distinguished questions and statements would be more egocentric if one was 2452 2392 two types of Perspective taking: taking their own Perspective under pressure, rather than if they had more time to think. 2453 2393 and taking their opponents Perspective. They wrote, “An “The results of this study further support our contention that 2454 2394 opponent’s Perspective-taking ability affected both process adult Perspective taking follows a process of anchoring and 2455 2395 and outcome variables.” This supports previous research which serial adjustment. Because adjustment from one’s own per- 2456 2396 found that negotiators behavior affects their opponent when it spective takes time, hurried participants adjusted less and 2457 2397 is in the realm of reciprocity and equity. However, they noted were consequently more egocentric than those who responded 2458 2398 that experience with negotiation also had an impact on the at their leisure.” In the third experiment, participants were 2459 2399 participant’s success rate. given Coke and Pepsi to taste test the difference between them. 2460 2461 2400 The potential that Perspective-taking has in reducing bias They were informed of the identities of the drinks beforehand. 2462 2401 was examined by Galinsky and Moscowitz (2000) (70). In their They were then told to estimate another’s ability to taste the 2463 2402 first experiment, they found that taking Perspective reduced difference. When speaking of themselves, respondents said 2464 2403 both conscious and unconscious bias as shown with two tasks. the difference was obvious, but used a more moderate state- 2465 2404 In their second experiment, they looked at the participants’ ment when discussing others perceptions of the taste difference. 2466 2405 perceptions of the elderly. Their results showed that taking “These results offer further evidence that people adopt others’ 2467 2406 Perspective, “led to both decreased stereotyping and increased Perspectives by initially anchoring on their own perception 2468 2407 overlap between representations of the self and representations and then effortfully adjusting for differences between them- 2469 2408 of the elderly, suggesting activation and application of the selves and others.” For the fourth experiment, the influence of 2470 2409 self-concept in judgments of the elderly.” And in the last subtle body language cues (such as nodding or shaking one’s 2471 2410 experiment, Galinsky and Moscowitz found that in-group bias head) was tested in relation to willingness to adopt another’s 2472 2411 was reduced through Perspective taking. They concluded Perspective. Their results showed that nodding one’s head 2473 2412 that if Perspective-taking increases, then negative biases could led them to be more likely to adopt the Perspective, while 2474 2413 reasonably be reduced. shaking their head led them to be less willing to adopt the Perspective. In the final experiment, they tested if human 2475 2414 Takaku et al 2001 (71) researched the effects of perspective Perspective taking was related to the concept of “satisficing”. 2476 2415 taking on apology and forgiveness in both Western and Eastern This means, “given the uncertainty surrounding the true value 2477 2416 societies. Specifically, they looked at how much perspective- being estimated, people are likely to have a range of values 2478 2417 taking impacted apology acceptance in Japanese and American they would consider to be plausible estimates. In the absence 2479 2418 cultures. In order to test this, the 77 Japanese participants of sufficient motivation for accuracy, people are likely to termi- 2480 2419 and the 102 American participants in the study were asked to nate adjustment once a plausible estimate is reached—arriving 2481 2420 read a short blurb where they were instructed to imagine that at a satisfactory estimate rather than the most accurate es- 2482 2421 they were being mistreated by their classmates. Before they timate.” They confirmed their hypothesis that humans have 2483 2422 did this however, the participants were “randomly assigned an egocentric bias, in which they view the world through 2484 2423 to one of three perspective-taking conditions: (a) recall times their Perspective nearly 100% of the time. So the authors 2485 2424 when they mistreated or hurt others in the past; (b) imagine suggested taking another’s Perspective requires starting from 2486 2425 how the victimized classmate would think, feel, and behave their Perspective (their anchor) and then analyzing the differ- 2487 2426 in the scenario; or (c) imagine the situation as the personal ences between themselves and the other. In other words, they 2488 2427 victim.” After being given their instructions, the participants offer that people understand others by using themselves first 2489 2428 read their passages all of which were completed by a detailed as a lens. People vary in the amount of awareness they have 2490 2429 apology from the classmate. Their results showed that when of this bias, which can be an issue, as many social judgements 2491 2430 the participants took the perspective of the offender, they were are egocentrically biased which can be detrimental especially 2492 2431 “significantly more” likely to accept the offender’s apology. during a conflict. 2493 2432 Apologies are one of the main ways conflict is resolved in 2433 today’s world. This research demonstrates that taking another Davis et al 2004 (74) performed two experiments to test 2494 2434 person’s perspective can lead to apologies, forgiveness, and a how Perspective taking occurs. “In the first, a thought-listing 2495 2435 better understanding of one another. procedure was used to assess observer cognitions; in the sec- 2496 2436 Perspective-taking in the workplace has value and can be ond, a less reactive measure was used.” The results of these 2497 2437 predictive of “contextual performance.” Parker and Axtell studies showed a few things. The first is that when a partici- 2498 2438 (2001) (72) looked at Perspective-taking in the workplace. In pant is given instructions to take Perspective, they have more 2499 2439 this scenario an “internal customer adopts the perspective of self-related thoughts. Also, people who were given the Perspec- 2500 2440 an internal supplier.” They looked at two aspects: empathy tive instructions “produce more self-related, and fewer target- 2501 2441 and positive attributions. They stated that, “these findings related, thoughts than imagine-target instructions.” More glob- 2502 2442 suggest two ways to enhance supplier perspective taking and ally, there was an indication that there is something inherent 2503 2443 hence contextual performance: increase employee interaction about Perspective-taking, as maintaining a control group that 2504 2444 with suppliers and enrich job content.” did no Perspective taking was difficult. This could indicate 2505 2445 Research was also conducted around the egocentric anchor- that taking another’s Perspective is a “natural” state for hu- 2506 2446 ing and adjustment people use to successfully take Perspectives mans. 2507

24 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 2508 The relationship between Perspective taking and theory associated with greater willingness to engage in contact...” The 2569 2509 of mind is one area that has been examined a lot. Harwood third study tested if taking one outgroup members perspective 2570 2510 and Farrar, 2006 (75) examined this relationship in 42 three led to a shifting perspective on the group itself. The 148 2571 2511 to five year olds. In their experiment, each child performed participants were shown a picture of a homeless man and were 2572 2512 three tasks, one to test affective perspective taking ability, asked to write their essays on a day in his life. All conditions 2573 2513 one to test theory of mind understanding, and the last to were the same as the first experiment. They were then asked 2574 2514 test language development. They found a positive correlation how many additional activities (1-6) they were willing to 2575 2515 between theory of mind skills and affective perspective taking participate in with another homeless man. Overall, they found 2576 2516 skills, and the correlation was the strongest in the scenarios that active perspective taking helped people interact with the 2577 2517 in which emotional conflict was involved. They indicated that entire outgroup more positively. This research showed that 2578 2518 having the ability to take another’s Perspective is key to the perspective-taking “increased individuals’ willingness to engage 2579 2519 development of empathy. This indicates that both perspective in contact with stereotyped outgroup members.” Overall, the 2580 2520 and theory of mind can be taught and influenced in social body of research on perspective shows that the more aware 2581 2521 systems and development. The article states that the biggest one is of their own and the perspective of others leads to 2582 2522 link between the two concepts is that they both require the better communication, interrelations, increased empathy, and 2583 2523 child to understand different or conflicting Perspectives. prosocial behavior. 2584

2524 Tversky and Hard, 2008 (76), asserted that having an ego- 2525 centric Perspective is natural, which if looked at from an 6. DSRP: Not Steps...Fractal, Recombinant, Recursive, 2585 2526 evolutionary Perspective, makes sense. The self comes first Simple Rules 2586 2527 and anything else takes extra mental effort. Terms like front, It is common, when first introduced to DSRP Theory to 2587 2528 back, left, and right are usually used in relation to the self’s think of its four patterns (D, S, R, and P) as (a) descriptive 2588 2529 spatial position in the environment. However, sometimes tak- “buckets” and/or (b) a stepwise list. They are not. DSRP 2589 2530 ing another’s perspective was necessary for survival. Socially, Theory explicates universal structures that exist, but it also 2590 2531 this occurs when someone asks for directions or the location explicates the dynamics between the simple rules that lead 2591 2532 of an object. In their two studies, when asking people to to the emergence of those structures. This latter aspect of 2592 2533 take spatial Perspectives (either their own, another’s, or an DSRP Theory—its dynamical predictionsis often lost on the 2593 2534 object’s) people naturally took their own when they were in new reader. Nevertheless, the dynamics of the theory are, in 2594 2535 the room alone. However when another person was introduced many ways, far more important to understand. There are 2595 2536 as part of the scene, they subconsciously switched to taking reasons why (a) and (b) are common. 2596 2537 that person’s spatial Perspective. “Given the difficulty of using First, DSRP as a way to post-hoc describe conceptual ob- 2597 2538 right and left from one’s own Perspective, reversing right and jects and “bucket” or categorize them is easy to do and perhaps 2598 2539 left to take another’s Perspective is notable.” They also offer, a natural by-product of our love of and the comforting nature 2599 2540 “It would be an interesting if surprising extension of embodied with finite categories. It is easy to say, “that is a Distinction, 2600 2541 cognition if attitudinal or emotional perspective-taking also whereas here is a Perspective, and this is a Relationship.” It 2601 2542 promoted spatial perspective-taking.” This indicates that just works reasonably well and is easy to do. The problem is that 2602 2543 the visual cue of another person is enough to trigger the use these four cognitive patterns do not work in isolation, certainly 2603 2544 of Perspectives. not at the micro-cognitive scale (measured in time in nanosec- 2604 2545 Wang et al 2014 (77) researched whether taking another’s onds or seconds). At the macro-scale, it is perhaps true that 2605 2546 perspective increased intergroup contact with outgroup or we can claim “This opinion is that man’s perspective” and be 2606 2547 stereotyped members of the group. They did 3 experiments, reasonably accurate. But for something to be a perspective, it 2607 2548 the first measured how close participants sat to members of must exist. The existential nature of a thing has to do with 2608 2549 an outgroup after going through a perspective-taking exercise. the formation of it using Distinctions. Further, most things 2609 2550 The 116 undergraduate students tested had to write a nar- (conceptual or actual) are really conglomerations of things 2610 2551 rative essay about a person in a photograph (a young Asian (ergo, they are Systems made up of parts). And, for those 2611 2552 man with spiky hair and tattoos). They manipulated the things to cohere as a thing, they must be related in some way, 2612 2553 instructions so that there was a perspective-taking condition, if nothing else that they are a coherent whole. If we randomly 2613 2554 a suppression condition, and two control conditions. The first assign 10 things (people, buttons, data, chickens) to a group, 2614 2555 control condition had the participants take an “objective focus” we cannot assume that there exists any pre-group relationships 2615 2556 and the second control condition did not provide participants between the things in the group. Yet, by virtue of them now 2616 2557 instructions at all. After they wrote the essay, the man in the being grouped, they are related as co-parts in the group and 2617 2558 photo was in another room that the participants were brought they each are related to the whole in that they belong to, or 2618 2559 into. The distance the participants chose to sit from the man alternatively, are contained within the group. The group itself 2619 2560 was measured. They found that the participants who went (the System made up of the thing-parts) is a Distinction, as 2620 2561 through the perspective-taking exercise (instead of the control) are each of the things in it. Of course, none of this would be 2621 2562 sat on average closer to the outgroup member than all the known to an outside observer who is not aware of the grouping, 2622 2563 other groups. so these facts are also perspectival. 2623 2564 The second experiment had 31 undergraduate students as Second, DSRP is falsely thought of as a step-wise set of 2624 2565 participants. The set up was the same, except that instead operations. This in large part may be due to the simple 2625 2566 of measuring how close they sat to the man in the photo, naming convention where the acronym DSRP falsely indicates 2626 2567 they measured their willingness to meet the man in the photo an order of some kind. It may also be due to the human love 2627 2568 another time. Therefore, “perspective-taking tendencies were and comfort with ordered, step-wise lists, especially attractive 2628

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 25 2629 when the phenomena one is dealing with is as complex and same abstracted structural cognition to predict and to be gen- 2686 2630 convoluted as cognition itself. The elements of DSRP often erative because the structures themselves prompt the mind to 2687 2631 work simultaneously and in no particular order. One could ask structural questions. 2688 2632 argue, for example that “D must come first” because it is In Form, Substance, and Difference by Gregorgy Bateson 2689 2633 existential in its nature. How can S, R, or P result from (1970) (78) he discusses Pythagorean’s philosophy of looking at 2690 2634 nothing? The truth is that Ds often come first and it is easy patterns rather than content. He then offers that the idea of the 2691 2635 to think in this way. But, Ds also emerge as a result of the Mind was roped into early evolutionary theory, making pattern 2692 2636 activities of the S, R and/or P rules. For example, there may and mind two—seemingly simple, but incredibly powerful ideas. 2693 2637 be a number of similar items (they could be people, buttons, He also explores the concept of “difference”, or in our case, 2694 2638 data, chickens, or mixed, etc.) presented to a subject. Distinctions in which he wrote, “I suggest to you now, that 2695 2639 Immediately, the human mind tries to make sense of the the word ‘idea’, in its most elementary sense, is synonymous 2696 2640 collection of items. They perhaps see that two people are with ‘difference’.” This correlates well with the idea that every 2697 2641 wearing blue shirts, which causes them to see that another thought is within itself a Distinction. Bateson’s combination 2698 2642 is wearing a blue hat and another blue socks. The initial of pattern and difference has contributed greatly to Systems 2699 ††† 2643 recognition of blue shirts was an obvious relationship of simi- science. 2700 2644 larity, blue becoming a Distinction that stands out from the Bertalanffy (1972) (79) studied the historical significance 2701 2645 other as-yet undifferentiated colors. But the blue-distinction and status of the General Systems Theory (GST). He discussed 2702 2646 quickly becomes a perspectival lens (is there a preponderance one of the first assertions made about Systems. “Aristotle’s 2703 2647 or pattern of blueness?) and the subject is scanning through statement, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts,” is 2704 2648 the environment to identify blue (and by implication ignore a definition of the basic system problem which is still valid.” 2705 2649 not-blue). In doing so, they discover a blue hat and blue socks He goes on to discuss the “Gailean conception,” which moved 2706 2650 and they arrive at the grouping of “people wearing blue” and the world towards believing that the cosmos directed fate 2707 2651 people not wearing blue.” This grouping is a Systematization. and decisions to viewing events as the result of reasonable, 2708 2652 But it is also a Distinction. And, relationally, it may cause the mathematical laws. Bertalanffy cited Descartes bete machine 2709 2653 subject to say, “Are there people wearing red?” which through and Darwinian natural selection as the two ideas that helped 2710 2654 a similar process as described above may cause the person deal with the problem of order within Systems theory. In 2711 2655 to conclude: Blue-group, Red-group, Other-group. This is relation to the part and the whole aspect of a system, he writes, 2712 2656 merely an example, and the human mind is so adaptive, so “Hence an object (and in particular a system) is definable only 2713 2657 plastic, so fluid, that one could easily imagine it taking a turn by its cohesion in a broad sense, that is, the interactions of the 2714 2658 for a very different set of conclusions. component elements.” This paper highlights the importance of 2715 2659 The point is that DSRP is not a step-wise or linear process. recognizing the parts, the whole, and the relationships between 2716 2660 It is: the parts. 2717 Of equal importance at this time was the work by Rittel and 2718 2661 Fractal 1. : DSRPs are occurring at multiple scales simul- Webber 1973 (80) in the field of planning, and demonstrated 2719 2662 taneously. That is, while the informational content may how systems thinking could be helpful in solving “wicked prob- 2720 2663 vary greatly at different levels of scale, the underlying lems.” The perspective one uses to see problems has shifted 2721 2664 structure that underlies it is a self-similar and replicating from the problems being “definable, understandable, and con- 2722 2665 pattern of DSRP. sensual.” Wicked problems are characterized as; undefinable, 2723 have endless effects (some known and some unknown), there is 2724 2666 Recombinant 2. : The D,S,R, and P rules and their ele- usually no right answer to solve them, and they are incredibly 2725 2667 ments are massively recombinant. They are mixing and hard to test. You cannot use trial and error to solve a wicked 2726 2668 matching and producing different results. The rules are problem as the solution will have a great impact on the system. 2727 2669 operating in parallel and constantly adapting and influ- The recognition of wicked problems has led to the reexamina- 2728 2670 encing one another. tion of national values and goals. This was done by shifting 2729 the Perspective one took on the Systems they worked with. 2730 2671 3. Recursive: The output (results) of one iteration of Instead of looking at just the parts of the Systems, they were 2731 2672 DSRP (interacting with content information) can be uti- encouraged to look at the Systems from the view of “What do 2732 2673 lized as an informational input for another DSRP itera- these systems do?”, and more importantly, “What should these 2733 2674 tion. systems do?” They needed to explicitly Distinguish what their 2734 desired outcome was, and how taking that Perspective would 2735 2675 4. Universal: At a micro-level, D, S, R, and P cannot occur change the System. Explicating their outcomes led to a deeper 2736 2676 without D,S,R, and P. Indeed, inside each of the individual awareness of the interconnections among parts of the Systems, 2737 2677 patterns, we see the structures of the alternative patterns and that awareness made it necessary to expand and work 2738 2678 being necessary for their existence. with the boundaries they had placed for that System. Thus, 2739 a deeper understanding of the Systems and wicked problems 2740 2679 Below we discuss a few studies that more explicitly show they face, leads to identifying the root causes of the problem 2741 2680 these dynamical dependencies. It is the massively parallel in the first place. 2742 2681 processing of these simple rules that provides for the type of 2682 complexity and adaptivity we actually see in cognitive pro- †††For some further reading on the universality of DSRP theory, I recommend How People Learn: 2683 cesses while at the same time, borne of stunning simplicity. Brain, Mind, Experience and School by Bransford, Brown, and Cocking which is an excellent book that consolidates cognitive science research on learning. Also, Mind and Nature by Gregory Bate- 2684 It is this simplicity that allows the mind not merely to use son is another book that elaborates on Bateson’s thoughts on the patterns that connect organisms 2685 structures to describe what is or has been, but to use these to each other and their environment.

26 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 2743 The concept of a system is one of the most powerful and life. Ivan et al. looked at how HIFs (hypoxia-inducible factors) 2804 2744 important ideas in science and the real world, and therefore, are a factor that plays an essential role in cellular adaptations 2805 2745 getting a general concept of systems is a high priority. Marchal, to oxygen changes in the environment. HIF binds to DNA to 2806 2746 1975, (81) explored the concept of a system. He explained that stabilize it in a hypoxic environment, leading to the expression 2807 2747 while the actual word “system” can have multiple meanings, of genes that promote processes like angiogenesis and glucose 2808 2748 the most important form of it is as a structural term. It can metabolism. Ivan et al. looked at the relationship between HIF 2809 2749 also be used in the form of an activity one does (i.e., doing and Von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) disease. VHL is a cancer that 2810 2750 something systematically). It’s important to note that sys- is characterized by the development of highly vascular tumors. 2811 2751 tems are “conceptualized differently by different investigators.” The protein pVHL in humans is linked to a compound that 2812 2752 In other words, the structure of a system will be different regulates HIF. It binds with short HIF peptides when the core 2813 2753 when looked at from different perspectives. Also, Marchal of the HIF peptide is hydroxylated and destroys it. This core is 2814 2754 writes, “We certainly distinguish between, and are interested made up of prolines, which require oxygen and iron to become 2815 2755 in, different kinds of systems, for example, nervous systems, hydroxylated. Overall, the fact that non-neural entities such 2816 2756 number systems, and betting systems. The question is, do as cells are able to make distinctions is not necessarily the most 2817 2757 these distinctions between kinds of systems warrant, or require, remarkable thing about this discovery. What is remarkable is 2818 2758 parallel distinctions among senses of ’system’, each with its that every little system in the bodies of all species is based on 2819 2759 correspondingly different concept of a system?” the ability to perform the D, S, R, and P functions. Thus, the 2820 universality of the DSRP functions across all living organisms 2821 2760 Marchal is essentially drawing a line between Distinctions becomes apparent. 2822 2761 and Systems for us. One is able to turn a system into a dis- The process of categorization (forming distinctions between 2823 2762 tinction, and Marchal acknowledges later that systems are also types of objects), begins at around 3 months of age, and 2824 2763 made up of distinctions. “We can distinguish between things if improves as the infants grew according to Mareschal and Quinn, 2825 2764 some feature of one is not had by the other. The distinctions 2826 2765 2001 (84). They completed 5 studies with infants between 3 that we bother to draw rest on our interests.” Importantly, ‡‡‡ and 30 months of age on their ability to categorize. This 2827 2766 Marchal’s definition of a system is: “ S is a system only if was measured in five ways, from visual preference, object- 2828 2767 S is a set of related elements.” Therefore, the word ‘system’ examination, leg-kicking, generalized imitation, and sequential 2829 2768 implies a set (S) of interconnected (R) components (D). It touching. The visual preference experiments were tested via a 2830 2769 is important to note that Marchal is implying that the Rela- portable apparatus that provided a viewing chamber with a 2831 2770 tionships themselves are also to be counted as components of grey stage that contains two compartments, used to display 2832 2771 the system. This article excellently demonstrates the intercon- two stimuli simultaneously to the infant. 2833 2772 nections between the patterns of mind, as in order for one to The object examination experiments were conducted in 2834 2773 Systematize, they have to Relate and make Distinctions. two phases, familiarization and testing. In the familiarization 2835 2774 Another paper that goes into the elements D, S, R, P, as a phase, infants sat in a highchair and were given objects in a 2836 2775 whole theory is Goguen and Varela 1979 (82): Systems and random order to simply gain some understanding of the objects 2837 2776 Distinctions; Duality and Complementarity. They write in the prior to testing. The testing phase involved three trials of the 2838 2777 introduction that, “It is evident that different people find it presentation of: a novel instance from a familiar category, a 2839 2778 convenient to divide the world in different ways, and even one novel instance from a novel category, and a completely novel 2840 2779 person will be interested in different systems at different times.” stimulus. 2841 2780 This connects Distinctions (dividing the world is the same as There were three types of tests performed - the one that 2842 2781 Distinction-making), Systems, Relationships (the interconnec- is of greatest interest is the sequential touching test. During 2843 2782 tions between them), and Perspectives (they clearly state that the sequential touching experiments, infants were seated in 2844 2783 each person will have their own perspective on D,S, and R, and highchairs and eight objects were randomly placed on the 2845 2784 that the Perspectives can change depending on the context). high chair table. The infant is allowed and able to indepen- 2846 2785 In terms of Distinctions, they stated that distinctions are one dently manipulate the objects for several minutes. The order 2847 2786 of the most fundamental processes that humans do. They in which the infants manipulate the objects is observed and 2848 2787 also noted that Distinctions work in tandem with Perspec- recorded. The results showed that “studies not requiring a 2849 2788 tives, with individuals making different Distinctions based on familiarization phase find that infants separate entities accord- 2850 2789 their intent, context, and individuality. They also wrote that, ing to broad, global category distinctions.” While studies that 2851 2790 “The properties of a system emerge from the interactions of did have a familiarization phase showed that, “infants can sort 2852 2791 its components.” Relationships are therefore another essential entities into global categories, but they can also form more 2853 2792 part of human thinking/being. They posit that a System can finely tuned basic-level categories, and in some instances are 2854 2793 be part of another larger system, and that a System can be even sensitive to the exemplar-specific characteristics of the 2855 2794 part of another even larger System, and so on. “There is no individual instances presented during familiarization.” Their 2856 2795 whole system without an interconnection of its parts; and research demonstrated that the Distinction making process 2857 2796 there is no whole system without an environment. Such pairs begins early in life, and leads one to see that Distinction mak- 2858 2797 are mutually interdependent: each defines the other.” ing is also an essential part of categorization. This indicates 2859 2798 Ivan et al 2001 (83) researched how cells are able to sense that in order to perform a task as simple as interacting with 2860 2799 the levels of ambient oxygen in their environment and react objects, both the D and S patterns of mind are present and 2861 2800 to them, for which they were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize could lead one to infer that these are fundamental processes 2862 2801 in Medicine. Specific cellular processes like this one are an ‡‡‡While categorization is a term more associated with part-whole Systems, it is also important to note 2802 example of how Distinctions, Relationships, Perspectives, and that in order to categorize, one must not only see objects as groupable into part-whole structures 2803 Systems may not be merely a pattern of mind, but a pattern of but also make Distinctions between or among groups of types of objects.

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 27 2863 in human thinking due to their early appearance in life. trials, each involving a randomized sequence of 40 training 2924 items. For the experiment the subjects had to categorize each 2925 2864 Ashby et al 2003 (85) discusses procedural learning within stimulus, and later report on the rules they used to categorize. 2926 2865 perceptual categorization. For the first experiment they did, 2866 “there were three experimental conditions: control, hand For the second experiment, 38 volunteers were selected and 2927 2867 switch, and button switch. In all the conditions, the observers given either course credit or $10. The procedure was essentially 2928 2868 depressed the two response keys with their index fingers, and the same, with the difference being that the rectangles were 2929 2869 trial-by-trial feedback was provided.” For the hand-switch con- presented with a counterclockwise rotation of 10º about the 2930 2870 dition, the observers began the first 500 trials with their hands bottom left corner, and the dimensions of the boundaries were 2931 2871 crossed on the buttons, and for the button-switch condition, slightly changed. The results of the experiments led them to 2932 2872 the buttons used to make the category response were reversed state that partitioned knowledge helps create the phenomenon 2933 2873 for the last 100 trials. For the second experiment, the proce- where people make different decisions for the same problem in a 2934 2874 dures were the same as in the first experiment, except for the different context. They noted that partitioning occurred most 2935 2875 following: “Each participant in the unidimensional conditions often in experts, as the more knowledge you have the more 2936 2876 completed 5 blocks of trials (with 50 trials per block), and the “parcels” you bring to the table. Through multiple experiments 2937 2877 change in response instructions occurred after Block 3 for all they determined that the more difficult and complex a problem 2938 2878 the conditions. Each participant in the diagonal conditions is, the more likely partitioning is to occur. By distinguishing 2939 2879 completed 12 blocks of training (50 trials per block) during between aspects of the problem, people are able to use context 2940 2880 the first experimental session. The second session occurred to help solve complicated problems. Their work led them to 2941 2881 approximately 24 h later. The procedure during the second believe that partitioning (aka, creating a boundary between 2942 2882 session was identical to that of the single sessions used in two or more things) is a pervasive aspect of categorization 2943 2883 Experiment 1. Finally, the diagonal/ hand-switch condition (aka, grouping things according to their type or relationships), 2944 2884 was omitted.” In discussing the two types of category struc- thus involving Distinctions and Systems. 2945 2885 tures, the article suggests that the formation of these category Lupyan, 2008, (88) completed three experiments that al- 2946 2886 structures developed due to a survivalistic need for a quick re- lowed him to observe a bridge between Distinctions and Sys- 2947 2887 sponse to the environment. Using examples like safe food and tems. The first experiment involved 21 students searching for 2948 2888 poisonous food, and the motor response of seeing a snake and a non-letter within a group of similarly shaped letters. Lupyan 2949 2889 then jumping backwards, they showed that the categorization wrote that the finding that is “significant is that the present 2950 2890 of objects and information developed through making distinc- finding cannot be attributed to a difference in novelty between 2951 2891 tions and forming a physical relationship to them, resulted in target and non-targets – since the target was always novel – 2952 2892 categorization. supporting the interpretation that such effects have more to 2953 2893 Sloutsky, 2003 (86) argued that perceptual and attentional do with greater processing efficiency of familiar stimuli.” For 2954 2894 mechanisms are the places where categorization is developed. the second experiment, 14 students (using the same stimuli as 2955 2895 This is due to the perceptual and attentional mechanisms the first experiment) participated in a “speeded same/different 2956 2896 ability to detect similarities in an environment. Sloutsky judgement task.” This experiment showed that “perceptual 2957 2897 inferred that the more often one makes categories, or is put warping was not the source of the conceptual grouping effect" 2958 2898 into situations where categorization is needed, the better and (emphasis added). The purpose of the third experiment was 2959 2899 faster one gets at categorization. He concluded that categories to examine “the impact of verbal category labels on visual 2960 2900 are more easily facilitated by similarity-based relationships search.” The overall hypothesis was, “if conceptual categories 2961 2901 between objects, rather than a difference-based one. This is affect visual processing online, then hearing a category name 2962 2902 due to the natural impulse to use the parts of an object in prior to the appearance of a search display may further mod- 2963 2903 order to determine what it is and in which category it belongs ulate the degree to which visual representations are shaped 2964 2904 to. Sloutsky wrote, “For example, when 2- to 3-year-olds by conceptual categories.” 28 students had to identify a letter 2965 2905 were asked to extend a learned word to novel instances, they within a group of other letters. For some trials, the object 2966 2906 attended to both shape and texture if the entities presented had they were searching for was labelled (named, distinguished), 2967 2907 eyes (presence of eyes is diagnostic for the animate–inanimate and for others it was not. He found that assigning a label 2968 2908 distinction), whereas when the same entities were presented significantly reduced search times. The overall result of his 2969 2909 without eyes, participants attended only to shape.” The use experiments was that the assignment of a label (or a Distinc- 2970 2910 of parts to figure out where the whole object belongs requires tion) facilitated (Perspective) the grouping (Systemizing) and 2971 2911 not only Systems, but Distinctions and Relationships. deeper understanding of concepts and ideas. Provided as a 2972 prime, the label (a Distinguished identity) is, in effect, used 2973 2912 Lewandowsky et. al. 2006 (87) discussed the concept of by the respondent as a framing Perspective to more quickly 2974 2913 knowledge partitioning in relation to boundary conditions. identify the identities that will be grouped. 2975 2914 They completed two experiments to test their hypothesis. In 2915 the first, 81 students volunteered for course credit. All of the Dijk et. al. 2008 (89) discussed embodied cognition, which 2976 2916 stimuli and data recording was done on a computer. There was is the idea that the brain is one part of cognition, while the 2977 2917 a training phase, in which 40 stimuli (shapes) were selected body and the world are the other two parts of cognition. 2978 2918 from random locations within the training space. They wrote They wrote that, “Drawing on work in robotics, biology, and 2979 2919 that, “The two dimensions of the category space corresponded neuroscience, we propose a conceptualization (a metaphor) of 2980 2920 to the dimensions of the stimuli in each condition (e.g., height the relationship between behavior, body, and brain activity in 2981 2921 and width of a rectangle in the integral–verbal condition, and real-world contexts.” One of the examples used to make their 2982 2922 so on). Correct classification could be achieved on the basis point was in robotics, as one builds a larger and more complex 2983 2923 of x and y alone.” The training consisted of eight blocks of robot they need to focus heavily on how the bot processes 2984

28 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 2985 the Relationship between its processor and the unpredictable either the one-name or two-name groups. The stimuli were 3046 2986 environment it encounters. The article makes the point that, a spectrum of colorful creature-esque objects going from one 3047 2987 “the success of the brain’s functioning is formulated in terms creature to the other. One group was shown the objects, and 3048 2988 of how well it is able to model the outside world internally. . . ” a nonsense name was spoken (the one-name-group), while the 3049 2989 They imply that the Relationship between the brain and the other group was shown the objects and the two objects on the 3050 2990 outside world is essential to the brain’s success. The sensory ends of the spectrum were each given a different nonsense name 3051 2991 inputs of the brain and body all help D, S, R, and P to occur (the two-name-group). This resulted in the two-name-group 3052 2992 in embodied cognition. sorting the objects based on which end of the spectrum they 3053 resembled most, while the one-name-group did not sort. In 3054 2993 Mahon and Caramazza, 2009 (90), through their review of the second experiment, 16 healthy, 9-month-old infants were 3055 2994 research from the intersection of concepts and categories, were given similar stimuli (with the distribution tighter around 3056 2995 interested in the organization and “functional architecture” of the poles) and performed the same procedure as the first ex- 3057 2996 the brain, and used people with brain damage as their subjects periment. The researchers found that, “even when presented 3058 2997 to better understand this idea. They determined that concept with a unimodal distribution, infants listening to two distinct 3059 2998 organization in the brain is a multifaceted issue that reaches names for exemplars at each end of the continuum formed 3060 2999 on many different regions of the brain. They went further to two distinct categories.” Overall, they determined that “even 3061 3000 extrapolate that “human behavior arises due to the integration before infants begin to produce words on their own, naming 3062 3001 of multiple cognitive processes that individually operate over serves as a strong supervisory signal for category learning, 3063 3002 distinct types of knowledge.” They also argued that our ability supporting infants as they impose boundaries along a contin- 3064 3003 to organize concepts is grounded in the physical world. The uum and highlighting the categories joints.” This implies that 3065 3004 importance of further research was highly emphasized, as the addition of Distinctions i.e., naming) to the Systems (i.e., 3066 3005 they stated that, “progress in understanding the causes of categories) the infants are trying to make aids in their forming 3067 3006 category specificity in one region of the brain, or one functional part-whole systems and even can begin their comprehension 3068 3007 component of a cognitive model, will require an understanding of Relationships. 3069 3008 of how category specificity is realized throughout the whole 3009 brain and throughout the whole cognitive model.” Boisseau et al. 2016 (93) investigated learning in non-neural 3070 3010 Tarrant et. al. 2012 (91) began by stating that Perspective- organisms (i.e., a slime mold). A slime mold may not jump 3071 3011 taking as a conflict resolution tool isn’t always the most effec- to mind as the ideal subject for research on the fundamen- 3072 3012 tive tool as it can lead to more animosity within the group. tal mechanisms of learning, however, Boisseau et al. states 3073 3013 This is due to the relationship between group identity and that maybe it should be. They define learning as “a change 3074 3014 perspective-taking. They did two experiments to test their in behaviour evoked by experience.” In their research with 3075 3015 ideas. In the first experiment, a group of participants (college the slime mold (Physarum polycephalum), they found that 3076 3016 students) were prompted to establish their in-group status, it developed habituation behaviour, an “unmistakable form 3077 3017 while another group was asked to read a paragraph and de- of learning.” In their experiment, they exposed the mold to 3078 3018 termine which group the subject of the paragraph is in. “ a stimulus (quinine or caffeine) and waited to see a response 3079 3019 Participants in the perspective-taking condition attributed behavior (in this case, it was chemotaxis or movement based 3080 3020 significantly more negative traits to the out-group as in-group on a concentration of a substance). What they observed was 3081 3021 identification increased.” In the second experiment, the in- remarkable. The more times they exposed the slime mold to 3082 3022 group/out-group status was based on nationality. The idea the stimulus, its response rate was less and less. Eventually, 3083 3023 was that if you increase the directness and the personal level the mold learned to ignore the stimulus altogether. When 3084 3024 of the grouping, that it would help to test the causal and given a break from the stimulus and then reintroduced, the 3085 3025 robustness of the effect discovered in the first experiment. The process started over again. These results open up a whole new 3086 3026 results were that when one is more directly connected to the world to the study of learning, as non-neural organisms have 3087 3027 in-group, the out-group can be seen more negatively. When a not typically been the focus for cognitive investigations which 3088 3028 Perspective-taking exercise is done in a group consisting of an tend to focus on organisms with neurons and brains. What 3089 3029 ingroup and an outgroup, if a member of the ingroup takes does it mean if learning can occur without neurons or brains? 3090 3030 another’s perspective, they can be rejected or alienated from There are many implications. Of importance, this discovery 3091 3031 the ingroup as a result. This is due to the level of identification shifts when the scientific community thought learning evolved, 3092 3032 one has within the ingroup, the more dedicated they are the bringing the time much earlier than previously assumed. Sec- 3093 3033 more negatively they react to the other and the exercise, as ond, this means that learning as a process is so fundamental to 3094 3034 they can perceive that their identity is being threatened. A life itself that neurons, while helpful, aren’t necessary to make 3095 3035 solution for this is to include in the exercise a discussion of distinctions (i.e., stimulus from non stimulus) and to make 3096 3036 not only Perspectives, but also Distinctions, Systems, and something as complex as a perspectival shift (i.e., "stimulus is 3097 3037 Relationships. bad and warrants a reaction" to "stimulus is neutral and can be 3098 ignored"). The point of this and many other similar researches 3099 3038 Havy and Waxman, 2016 (92), did two experiments with into unicellular and multicellular organisms, plants, etc, is that 3100 3039 32 and 16 healthy nine month old infants. The general idea even non-neural organisms can learn and are building little 3101 3040 was that, “if infants formed two distinct categories during mental models of their surroundings (however rudimentary) 3102 3041 the learning phase, each linked to one (or the other) pole of based on distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives. 3103 3042 the underlying distribution, then infants would detect that 3043 members of one category move to the right doors and mem- In Cabrera Cabrera 2015 (94), the argument was that 3104 3044 bers of the other category to the left.” In the first experiment, DSRP “offers a unifying and organizing principle for the field of 3105 3045 32 healthy 9 month old infants were randomly assigned to systems thinking and an indispensable analytical tool for solv- 3106

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 29 3107 ing complex problems.” In addition to that, they argued that both emotion (feelings) and conation (motivation). 3166 3108 while DSRP is academically useful and pertinent to problem In layman’s terms, cognition is often called “thinking.” 3167 3109 solving, the theory also has significant social and psychological Metacognition, a subfield of cognition, is therefore referred to 3168 3110 implications. Examples of this are in self-awareness, empathy, as “thinking about thinking” or “awareness of one’s thinking.” 3169 3111 and decreasing negative social practices such as stereotyping. Because thinking is so essential to everyday life, it is important 3170 3112 This review of the literature has demonstrated that Dis- to consider both the scientific advances (theory and research) 3171 3113 tinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives have been about cognition and it’s practical applications (practice). In 3172 3114 and remain fundamental aspects of cognition, and interest practice, there are numerous terms used to describe differ- 3173 3115 in them spans many disciplines and domains. Furthermore, ent types of thinking: critical thinking, analytical thinking, 3174 3116 it is interesting to note, that while there is substantial re- creative thinking, design thinking, interdisciplinary thinking, 3175 3117 search into distinction-making, part-whole thinking, relation- scientific thinking, and enterprise thinking. Other terms refer 3176 3118 ship based thought, and perspective taking individually as to styles of thinking (even if they do not include the term 3177 3119 cognitive acts, there is also some substantial research between thinking) such as emotional intelligence, prosocial behavior, 3178 3120 and among them in human cognition, psychology, and neuro- etc. These terms create labels for versions of thinking which 3179 3121 science. Fundamentally, this review has positioned Systems are robust, adaptive, coherent, or generally speaking, better 3180 3122 Thinking within multiple domains, and especially centered it in specific contexts. 3181 3123 within the brain-based sciences. This is essential for not only The term systems thinking encompasses all of these other 3182 3124 the field, but for any future research that needs to be done in types of thinking because it accounts for all of the systemic 3183 3125 the field of Systems Thinking. properties of the phenomena under observation, including the 3184 observer. Thus, if thinking is the popular term for cognition, 3185 3186 3126 7. Conclusion then systems thinking is the popular term for complex cog- nition—cognition that goes beyond the standard thinking in 3187 3127 A. Systems Thinking is a Cognitive Science. Systems think- a way that is better, more robust, adaptive, useful, etc. As 3188 3128 ing is a quality of thought that exists in the real world. It is such, systems thinking is the purposeful act of applying a 3189 3129 thought that is richer, robust, and contextually aware. Quali- systems lens to any topic of interest. The process of think- 3190 3130 tatively, one can experience and identify the difference between ing systemically leads to an awareness of one’s thinking—or 3191 3131 thought that is overly simplistic, needlessly reductionistic, and metacognition. Thus, systems thinking can be thought of as 3192 3132 contextually unaware; and that which is robust, rich, complex, being synonymous with complex metacognition. 3193 3133 and systemic. It is important to state this upfront as it is A portmanteau of “systems” and “thinking,” Systems Think- 3194 3134 sometimes the case that the “map becomes the territory.” Sys- ing can be thought of as a “systems lens applied to all thinking.” 3195 3135 tems Thinking is also a field of academic research, but that It is a method of thinking that: 3196 3136 field is the map, not the territory. 1. Takes into account a wider set of variables (or “context”) 3197 3137 Systems Thinking is a style of thinking that attempts to than is the norm; 3198 3138 incorporate “that which is known about how systems generally 3139 work.” Systems thinking creates new knowledge about a given 2. Attempts to balance reductionism and holism; 3199 3140 system and also attempts to uncover biases lead to unintended 3. Uncovers bias and assumptions; 3200 3141 consequences, failure to see webs of causality, confirmation bias, 3142 delay, and exponential effects. Systems Thinking describes or 4. Deals with more complexity well; and, 3201 3143 elucidates new awareness of the processes that underlie our 3144 thinking about systems of various kinds. 5. Aspires to be more complete or comprehensive than other 3202 3145 At its core, systems thinking is a cognitive science explores types of thinking. 3203 3146 how "thinking can best be understood in terms of representa- Thus the result of Systems Thinking is an awareness of 3204 3147 tional structures in the mind and computational procedures norms and the aspiration to think beyond norms, while also 3205 3148 that operate on those structures." (95) There are three parts of taking them into account. Systems Thinking is therefore not 3206 3149 this idea that are of importance. First, that thinking involves only inherently cognitive, but also metacognitive (i.e., having 3207 3150 structures “representational ” [emphasis added]. Second, that to do with meta-states of awareness of one’s thinking). 3208 3151 there are “computational procedures that operate on those 3152 structures” [emphasis added]. Third, that the structures are C. DSRP Exists in Mind and Nature and DSRP are Universal 3209 3153 “representational” [emphasis added] which implies that their Cognitive Structures. This chapter articulates and explores the 3210 3154 utility is born of their representational veracity (representa- universal elements underlying complex cognition and metacog- 3211 3155 tional of what? The real world). Herein, we explore the nition. A review of the literature related to the four simple 3212 3156 structures that are universal to all types of thinking and the rules of cognition yields a wide set of peer reviewed articles, ex- 3213 3157 dynamical processes that operate upon these structures to periments and research that show these structures of thought 3214 3158 evolve and adapt one’s thinking. exist in both the real world (nature) and in our thinking 3215 (Mind). We further see the elemental pairs that make up each 3216 3159 B. DSRP Are Not Steps In a List, But Simple Rules of Com- of the four simple rules of cognition—making Distinctions (i,o), 3217 3160 plex Cognition. Thus, the process of thinking consisted of organizing ideas into Systems (p,w), recognizing Relationships 3218 3161 structures and dynamics among them. These representational (a,r), and taking Perspectives (ρ,v). Importantly, it is particu- 3219 3162 structures are important to concept formation, knowledge cre- larly important that we are aware of these structural elements 3220 3163 ation, and the evolution of new knowledge, as part of memory, of how we think. This awareness, ultimately, empowers us to 3221 3164 reasoning, logic, problem solving, language use, decision mak- deconstruct and deeply understand any concepts, issues, or 3222 3165 ing, and all other cognitive functions. This also holds true for situations involved in the challenges we face. 3223

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Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 31 3391 95. Encyclopedia of philosophy and the social sciences (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/ 3392 encyclopedia-of-philosophy-and-the-social-sciences/book234813) (2020) Accessed: 2020- 3393 6-2.

32 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. 3394 A. Appendix A: Table of Methods for Studies Cited

DSRP Title Author Year Journal Discipline Method #1 Method #2 Sample Size Description of Method D Laws of Form G Spencer 1969 Book Mathematics Qual Editorial N/A Mathematical/theoretical thought Brown D Why Is There Something In- Lawrence 2014 Scientific Ameri- Physics Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical stead of Nothing? Krauss can (Video) D The solution of a problem Leonid Euler 1736 Commentarii Mathematics Qual Editorial N/A Thought experiment relating to the geometry of academiae scien- position tiarum Petropoli- tanae D Studying Learning in the Gina Kolata 1984 Science Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Review of the field/research topic Womb D Perceptual Organization of- Quinn et. al. 1997 Infant Behavior Human De- Quant Randomized 97 infants between the Showed the infants visual stimuli of two shapes overlaid on each other, and Complex Visual Configura- and Development velopment Control ages of 3-4 months then were shown one of the shapes on its own and a novel shape. Their tions by Young Infants Trial preference (based on looking time) was measured. D The Cocktail Party Effect in Newman and 1996 Perception & Psy- Psychology Quant Experimental 96 total infants across In all four experiments, the infants were familiarized with their "target words." Infants Jusczyk chophysics 4 studies (24 per Then two recordings were played, one with the target words at a lower vol- study) all were at ume than the distractor recording which was saying something else. The ∼7.5 months old infants gaze was recorded to indicate if the infant was still listening or not. The difference between experiments is the volume at which the recordings were played. D Becoming a “Greeble” Gautheir and 1997 Vision Research Cognitive Quant Experimental 32 Yale Undergrads Generated "greebles." Tested one group as novices and the other experts. Expert: ExploringMecha- Tarr Science Then they tested if they could recognize the family, gender, and individ- nisms for Face Recognition ual greebles by the nonsense words assigned to those categories. Each group’s average response time (in milliseconds) and accurary was mea- sured. D Cocktail-party effect in king Aubin and 1998 Proceedings of Cognitive Mixed Quasi- ∼40,000 pairs of They recorded the calls of the adults and followed them until they reached penguin colonies Jouventin the Royal Society Science Experimental adult penguins and their chicks. The behavior of the chicks was observed in order to determine Of London ∼1,500 chicks when recognition occured. D Cognitive control, hierarchy, David Badre 2008 Trends in Cogni- Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Review of the literature/theoretical/analysis and therostro–caudal orga- tive Sciences Science nization of thefrontal lobes D Does acquisition of Gree- Bukach et al 2012 Neuropsychologia Neuroscience Quant Experimental 1 prosopagnoisac, 5 Same procedure as Gautheir and Tarr, tested to see how long it would take ble expertise in prosopag- control males at the the prosopagnoisac to obtain "expert" status in greeble recognition. nosia rule out adomain- same age general deficit? D Reversible Inactivation Rajahlingham 2018 Neuron Neuroscience Quant Experimental 2 monkeys They "turned off" certain patches of the brain known to react to certain of Different Millimeter- and DiCarlo stimuli using Mucismol and then showed the monkeys an active stimuli and ScaleRegions of Primate an turned off one and observed their brain activity and behavior. IT Results in Different Patterns ofCore Object Recognition Deficits D National Boundaries, Bor- Clark 1994 Journal of Market- Business Quant Editorial N/A Review of the literature/analysis of available data. der Zones, and Market- ing ing Strategy: A Concep- tual Framework and Theo- retical Model of Secondary Boundary Effects D The Sneakers/Tennis Dale Coye 1986 American Speech Lingusitics Mixed Survey 110 participants Survey of people, asking them what they called a specific picture of the Shoes Boundary Tech- shoes in question. niques D Distinguishing “Nerd” vs. Powers, 2016 Cabrera Reserch Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Analysis of relevant literature “Geek” Cabrera and Cognitive Case Science Cabrera Study Series D Memory And Learning In- Peterson and 2003 The Psychology Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Analysis of relevant literature and past experiments (mostly by Peterson) Figure–Ground Perception Skow-Grant of Learning and Motivation D Psychological Functions of Picione and 2017 Europe’s Journal Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Review of the literature/theoretical/analysis Semiotic Borders in Sense- Valsiner of Psychology Making: Liminalityof Narra- tive Processes D The Self And The Glanville 1990 Originally pre- Sociology Qual Editorial N/A Review of the literature/theoretical/analysis Other:The Purpose Of sented at a Distinction conference D Sameness, Otherness? Durand and 2006 Academy of Man- Business Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas Enriching Organizational Calori agement Review Change Theories with PhilosophicalConsidera- tions on the Same and the Other D On Insiders (Emic) and Young 2005 Systemic Prac- Systems Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas Outsiders (Etic):Views of tice and Action Science Self, and Othering Research D Cognition in context: So- Bentley et al 2017 Journal of Experi- Psychology Quant Randomized 169 first-year pyschol- First, the participants filled out a questionnaire about themselves, and would cial inclusion attenuates mental Social Psy- Control ogy students then play a computer game with another person. Before they did they the psychological bound- chology Trial viewed the other player’s (fake) questionnaire results. They either matched arybetween self and other or were opposite to their own results. This assigned either an ingroup or an outgroup status to the subject. They then tested the subject’s memory of their and the other player’s questionnaire results. D Us and Them: Social Cat- Perdue et al 1990 Journal of Person- Psychology Quant Randomized 23 undergraduate stu- They were shown on a computer screen sets of random strings of letters. egorizationand the Process ality and Social Control dents Each string was paired with either an in-group pronoun or an out-group of Intergroup Bias Psychology Trial pronoun. One part of the string had a “nonsense syllable (xeh. yof, laj, giw, wuh, or qug)” and the other part was either the in-group (we, us, or ours) or out-group pronoun (they, them, or theirs). The control group was given one pronoun of these eight: he, she, his, hers, me, you, mine, or yours. The participants were asked to, “indicate as quickly as possible which word of the presented pair was a real word.” At the end of the 108 trials, they were shown the six nonsense words and asked to rate them as either “pleasant” or “unpleasant.” D Decreasing Prejudice by In- Langer et al 1985 Journal of Person- Psychology Mixed Quasi- 47 sixth graders He did this through 40 minute sessions in class on mindfulness over 5 days. creasing Discrimination ality and Social Experimental The students were randomly shown either slides of either “normal” people, Psychology or of handicapped people (handicaps included confinement to a wheelchair, blindness, deafness, and having only one arm). The students were then given booklets with questions designed to invoke either high or low active distinction making. On day five, they began testing whether the children would choose to avoid a handicapped person. They were first shown a pic- ture of three children and asked if they wanted to go on a picnic with one of the children. They were then shown a picture of three children, one of whom was handicapped, and asked if they wanted to go on a picnic with the handicapped child. D Boundary Lines of Social Gillette 1925 American Journal Sociology Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas Phenomena of Sociology D Classification and Quantita- Tajfel and 1963 British Journal of Psychology Quant Experimental 61 participants The purpose of their experiment was to examine the effect classification tive Judgement Wilkes Psychology had on quantitative judgements. This was accomplished through judging the length of a collection of lines, so that the judgement (in this case, length) would be simple.

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 33 Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Discipline Method Method #2 Sample Size Description of Method #1 D Sexual Taboos and Social Davies 1982 American Journal Sociology Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature Boundaries of Sociology D On membership catego- Leudar et al. 2004 Discourse & Soci- Sociology Qual Editorial 3 speeches Analysis of speech lingustics. rization: ‘us’, ‘them’ and ety ‘doing violence’ in political discourse D Boundary critique and its Midgley and 2011 The Journal of Business Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. implications for conflict pre- Pinzon the Operational vention Research Society S The Enormous Theorum Gorenstein 1985 Scientific Ameri- Mathematics Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. can S The Architecture of Com- Herbert A. Si- 1962 Proceedings of Philosophy Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. plexity mon the American Philosophical Society S The Adaptive Nature of Hu- Anderson 1991 Psychological Re- Psychology Mixed Editorial N/A Analysis of the literaure and data within the field. man Categorization view S Categorization in single Pellegrino 2001 Trends in Cogni- Cognitive Mixed Quasi- 2 monkeys A computerized morphing procedure was used to merge different propor- neurons tive Sciences Science Experimental tions of cat and dog features into single images. These ‘morphs’ continu- ously varied between prototype dogs and cats. Then, monkeys were trained to judge whether a morphed picture belonged to the category of a prototype cat or dog. S Deeper insights into se- Muehlhuas et 2014 Brain & Language Neuroscience Quant Experimental 22 adults The tests were done by having the participants analyze picture/word combi- mantic relations: An fMRI al. nations in three categories “(1) 45 functionally related picture–word pairs, study of part-wholeand e.g., flute-note, (2) 51 part-whole related picture–word pairs, e.g., bike- functional associations handlebars, and (3) 96 unrelated picture–word pairs, e.g., bench-plug.” In addition, all pictured objects were labelled with their names to ensure there was no “false-naming” occurring. As participants matched the word pairs their brains were analyzed with the fMRI machine. They did 192 trials of each of the three categories while in the fMRI. S Subliminal Gestalt group- Montoro et al. 2014 Consciousness Cognitive Quant Experimental 38 undergraduates They did two experiments, the first one was on grouping by proximity. For ing: Evidence of perceptual and Cognition Science the masked priming task, the students completed a “forced-choice reaction grouping by proximity and time” task. They were told that they would see target lines displayed on the similarity in absence of con- screen, and that they would then have to indicate either the vertical or hor- scious perception izontal orientation by pressing one of two buttons as fast as possible but to avoid making mistakes. For the prime visibility discrimination task, the par- ticipants were told to pay attention to the prime stimulus that was displayed between two masks, and to perform a “forced-choice discrimination” task in- dicating the horizontal or vertical orientation of that stimulus. They asked the participants afterwards what patterns they had seen on the screen before the experiment began, and none of the participants said that they had seen any horizontal or vertical patterns. For the second experiment, the focus was to test grouping by similarity. The stimuli and apparatus were identical to those of Experiment 1, with the sole exception that the Gestalt patterns consisted of a 6x6 array, forming rows or columns with elements of identical luminance. Otherwise, the procedure and design was identical. S Dynamic Theory of Person- Kurt Lewin 1935 Book Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. ality S Perception, language, and Mooney 1951 Book Cognitive Qual Quasi- Undisclosed amount A group of students (one at a time) were put ∼20 feet from the “front of the part-whole problem. Science Experimental of students the room.” They gave the students time to acclimate to their surroundings. Then they turned off the lights and had the students focus on a “light-tight” box in the front of the room. The only thing that can be seen from the box, is a very small pin-point of light. The light is turned on, and the students were asked to watch the pin-point of light. After about a minute of watching, the light would begin to appear to move. They saw that as the students saw the movement, they would sometimes move their heads to follow the light, even though the actual light itself has never moved. While this apparent movement continued, two additional lights were turned on, the perceived motion ceased, and then continued with all three lights moving in unison. They found that the movement of the single light was more impactful than the movement of the three lights together. When the overhead lights were turned back on, all apparent motion stopped. S Towards a System of Sys- Ackoff 1971 Management Sci- Business Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. tems Concepts ence S The History and Status of Bertalanffy 1972 Academy of Man- Business Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. General Systems Theory agement Journal S Concepts do more than cat- Solomon et 1999 Trends in Cogni- Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. egorize al. tive Sciences Science S Objects, Parts, and Cate- Tversky and 1984 Journal of Exper- Psychology Mixed Quasi- 30 undergraduates Had participants organize and sort various categories of stimumi into parts, gories Hemenway imental Psychol- Experimental wholes, and "nonparts" and measured the number of part and nonpart at- ogy tributes were computed for each category and averaged over categories for each level of analysis. In reporting our results, we separate findings for object categories from findings for biological categories. S Categorization in the wild Glushko et al. 2008 Trends in Cogni- Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. tive Sciences Science S The Origins of SocialCate- Liberman et 2017 Trends in Cogni- Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. gorization al. tive Sciences Science S The Binary Bias: A System- Fisher and 2018 Psychological Sci- Psychology Quant Quasi- ∼600 participants Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups (scientific re- atic Distortionin the Integra- Kiel ence Experimental across 4 studies ports, eyewitness testimonies, social judgments, or consumer reviews). tion of Information They were then shown 5 statements about the relationships between and among the materials they had observed. Some of the relationships were binary, some were not. R "Cybernetics or Control Norbert 1951 Social Research Sociology Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. and Communication in the Wiener Animal and theMachine" (Book Review) R Logical reasoning, world Clement and 1986 Memory & Cogni- Cognitive Quant Quasi- 170 participants Two rating tasks were developed—in the first— a sentence was read, and knowledge, and mental im- Falmagne tion Science Experimental then rated on a scale of 1-5 relative to the ease with which participants agery: Interconnections in could form a picture in their head that was related to the sentence. In a cognitive processes relatedness rating task, subjects rated conditional statements according to how easily or naturally they could conceive of a relation between the two actions described by the constituent clauses.After the rating (in which any stimuli that was rated zero was removed from the test) a conditional rea- soning task was performed, each trial with imagery of varying value and relatedness. The second experiment was conducted in order to assess the imagery value of the conditional sentences used in Experiment 1. Both the imagery rating task and the task materials were from the first experiment. R A Theory of Causal Learn- Gopnik et al. 2004 Psychological Re- Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. ing in Children: Causal view Maps and Bayes Nets R Making Connections Greene 2010 Scientific Ameri- Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. can Mind Science

34 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Discipline Method Method #2 Sample Size Description of Method #1 R Topological Self- Chersi et al. 2014 Topics in Cogni- Cognitive Mixed Quasi- Undisclosed amount The first experiment used a sequence of “goal-activated motor chains” to Organization and Pre- tive Science Science Experimental of participants test the interplay between frequency, competition, and familiarization within diction LearningSupport these chains. Each chain started with a goal (e.g., eat the food), followed by Both Action and Lexical the motor acts taken to succeed at the goal (e.g., grab, bring to mouth, etc.). Chains in the Brain The second experiment had a similar goal, but used verbs as the starting stimuli because they have a multitude of ways they can be used in terms of tense and mood. R Prelinguistic Relational Ferry et al. 2015 Child Develop- Human De- Mixed Quasi- 64 infants aged 7 to 9 Half of the infants were assigned the “same” condition, and half of the in- Concepts: Investigating ment velopment Experimental months fants were assigned the “different” condition. While in the waiting room, the Analogical Processing in infants were exposed to some toys. For the familiarization trials, the infants Infants were exposed to a series of objects that were either the same or different than the original toys. There were then six test trials done, in 3 categories: object experience, object experience and pair habituation, and novel items. The infants looking time was measured to indicate preference. R Categories and Constraints Kominsky et 2017 Psychological Sci- Psychology Quant Quasi- 85 adult subjects, 34 There were four conditions (causal, temporal offset, spatial offset, and slip inCausal Perception al. ence Experimental infants event). There were discs presented under the four conditions and the “sub- jects were instructed to press the spacebar as soon as they detected the pair in which the two discs were moving at different speeds (i.e., the asym- metric event). After they pressed the spacebar, the animation paused, and they used the mouse cursor to select the asymmetric event.” In the second experiment, there was only one event on the screen at any given time, in- stead of three.For the third experiment, they tested the age at which this kind of cognitive processing happens. They did this by using infants rather than adults. R Children’s use of counter- Harris et al. 1996 Cognition Cognitive Quant Randomized 26-32 children aged 3- Three experiments were designed to test a child’s ability and capacity for factual thinking in causal Science Control 5 counterfactual thinking. In the first experiment, “children aged 3-5 years ob- reasoning Trial served a sequence such as A causing B.” The children were able to accu- rately reply to a question relating to a counterfactual sequence (for example: "What if A had not occurred, then B or not B?"). For the second experiment, the children were asked about “two counterfactual antecedents”, one that would not have caused B, and one that would have also caused B. The children were able to differentiate between both types of antecedent. In the third experiment, children were told stories where the protagonist chose a course of action that either, “led to a minor mishap (e.g., drawing with a black pen and getting inky fingers), having rejected an option that would have prevented it in experimental stories (e.g., using a pencil) or an option that would have led to an equivalent outcome in control stories (e.g., using a blue pen).” R The cradle of causal rea- Mascalzoni 2013 Developmental Human De- Quant Experimental 17-22 newborn infants The first experiment had causal stimuli presented was a two object event soning: newborns’ prefer- et al. Science velopment with apparent causal motion with spatial and temporal continuity, while the ence forphysical causality non-causal stimuli was characterized by temporal discontinuity. They said that, “the delay event, in fact, was identical to the launching one except for the presence of a 1-s delay between the time of contact and the motion of the second object.” For the second experiment, the stimuli were the same, except for the spatial parameters. For the third experiment, the causal event was the same as in experiment one. The non-causal Relationship differed in that object B moved first, then object A moved. The non-causal stimuli is inverted. The procedure was identical to experiment one. R Visual Adaptationof the Rolfs et al. 2013 Current Biology Biological Quant Experimental 4 participants The first experiment had the collision stimuli they used were two discs Perception of Causality Sciences bouncing back and forth, clearly causal to each other. The subjects had to watch the discs and determine where the “point of subjective equality” was. One test group had the locations adapted, while the other did not. The second experiment was set up functionally the same as the first, except the stimulus was a slipping disc instead of the swinging discs. In the final ex- periment, they sought to determine the “reference frame of adaptation.” In order to test this they measured eye movements with one side of fixation. R Causal Learning Across Schulz and 2004 Developmental Psychology Mixed Randomized 36-16 participants per Children were introduced to stimuli from different domains (biology, psy- Domains Gopnik Psychology Control experiment chology). All children were introduced to the vase and the monkey puppet Trial (biology) or Animal A and Animal B (psychology). Children were told a short story relating the two stimuli . Their reactions to the story and the relation- ship were accounted for. The four other experiments varied the stories, and the type and color of the stimuli. R What is the nature of Dhamala 2015 Physics of Life Re- Neuroscience Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. causality in the brain? view R Preschoolers’ Develop- Sanefuji and 2018 Frontiers in Psy- Psychology Quant Quasi- 115 children They did two experiments, the first of which was designed to test if the chil- ment of Theory of Mind: Haryu chology Experimental dren could arrange pictures in a predetermined sequence. There were dif- The Contribution of Un- ferent types of stories used that were about mechanical (objects interacting derstanding Psychological in a casual Relationship with each other), behavioral (people interacting), Causality in Stories or psychological (people interacting with regards to mental state) causality. After performing this test, they did a false belief task as well. In the second experiment, the children that failed the false belief task were the subjects. They were given the same false belief task as in the first experiment. P The Early Development of Marvin et al. 1976 Child Develop- Human De- Mixed Quasi- 80 children In the first version of the task, the experimenter hid his eyes so that he Conceptual Perspective ment velopment Experimental could not see what the mother and child did. In whispered tones, the mother Taking: Distinguishing and child then chose one of the toys to think of as their secret. Leaving among MultiplePerspec- the toys where they were, the mother and child told the experimenter that tives they were ready. The experimenter uncovered his eyes and asked the child questions. The order of the questions was randomized. At this point, the experimenter told the child that he was going to try to figure out which toy was the secret. The experimenter chose one of the toys and asked the child if he was right or wrong. The same procedure was followed for the second and third versions. In the second version the mother hid her eyes, and in the third, the child hid his eyes. P Does the Chimpanzee Premack and 1978 The Behavo- Cognitive Qual Experimental Undisclosed number They showed chimpanzees videos of humans experiencing problems. For have a theory of mind? Woodruff rial and Brain Science of Chimpanzees example, the videos featured problems like food being out of reach, the ac- Sciences tors being unable to get themselves out of a locked cage, the actors being cold due to a broken heater, and an actor not being able to use a phono- graph because it was unplugged. To see if the chimpanzees could take the Perspective of the actors in the videos, they were shown a few cards with photos on them, one of which had the solution to the problem on it (stick, key, lit match, etc). P Does the autistic child have Baron-Cohen 1985 Cognition Cognitive Qual Experimental 20 autistic children, 14 They performed the Sally-Anne Test. There were two doll protagonists, Sally a “theory of mind”? et al. Science Down’s Syndrome and and Anne. First, we checked that the children knew which doll was which 27 clinically normal (Naming Question). Sally first placed a marble into her basket. Then she preschool children. left the scene, and the marble was transferred by Anne and hidden in her box. Then, when Sally returned, the experimenter asked the critical Belief Question: “Where will Sally look for her marble?“. If the children point to the previous location of the marble, then they pass the Belief Question by appreciating the doll’s now false belief. If however, they point to the marble’s current location, then they fail the question by not taking into account the doll’s belief. P A fronto-parietal system for Vallar et al. 1999 Experimental Neuroscience Mixed Experimental 7 participants In the fMRI machine, the 7 participants were instructed to press a button computing the egocentric Brain Research when a vertical bar that was moving horizontally, passed their “subjective spatial frameof reference in mid-sagittal plane.” Control group participants were instructed to press the humans button when the bar changed direction, instead of when it crossed the mid- sagittal plane. They observed an increased signal in, “ posterior parietal and lateral frontal premotor regions, with a more extensive activation in the right cerebral hemisphere.”

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 35 Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Discipline Method Method #2 Sample Size Description of Method #1 P How Would You Feel ver- Ruby and De- 2004 Journal of Cogni- Neuroscience Mixed Quasi- 10 participants The ten participants of the study were asked to either adopt their own or sus How Do You Think She cety tive Neuroscience Experimental their mother’s perspective in response to an assortment of situations. Some WouldFeel? A Neuroimag- of the situations required social emotions, and others were neutral. Each ing Study of Perspective- subject was scanned 12 times to eliminate as much machine noise as pos- Taking with Social Emo- sible. tions P Episodic future thinking in 3 Russel et al. 2009 Cognition Cognitive Mixed Randomized 72 preschool-aged He conducted four experiments to explore children’s ability to “think of what to 5 year old children: The Science Control children will be needed from a different point of view.” The first experiment tested if ability to think of what will Trial children could pass a “blow-football” by playing a game in which the child be needed from a different uses a straw to blow a ball into a goal across from them. They performed this point of view task both in a present self condition and also the past other condition (i.e. someone performing the task in the past). The second experiment was simi- lar to experiment one, but the conditions the children were put through were the “future-self” and “future-other” conditions. Findings from experiments 1 and 2 justified the examination of a spatial and conceptual approach to episodic cognition in the third and fourth experiments for four year old chil- dren only. P Theory of mind and Rakoczy et 2018 British Journal of Psychology Mixed Experimental 80 adults Each subject was tested in a single session in which we tested for wisdom: The develop- al. Psychology perspective-taking in thewisdom sense and in the ToM sense, as well as ment of different forms of for potential cognitive covariates such asprocessing speed, executive func- perspective-taking in late tions (EF), and crystallized intelligence. First of all,wisdom and ToM were adulthood tested with established tests. Participants read two letters that, they were told, were addressed to an advice column that concerned interpersonal con- flicts. Participants were then asked to think aloud in response to questions. German translations of four of the original Strange stories from Happe et al. (1998) were used, and participants read short stories about social interac- tions and had to make inferences about mental states of the protagonists. P The complexity of under- Mafesson 2019 Nature: Scientific Biological Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. standing others as the evo- and Lach- Reports Sciences lutionary origin of empathy mann and emotional contagion P The Framing of Decisions Tversky and 1981 Science Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. and the Psychology of Kahneman Choice P Spatial perspective-taking Schober 1993 Cognition Cognitive Mixed Quasi- 40 students Participants had to either desrcibe where an "X" was in a circle (director) or in conversation Science Experimental be directed where the "X" was (matcher). There were 32 different displays of two framed circles that were randomly assigned to the pairs of participants. There were three ways to play the game: solo, interactive with long turns, and interactive with short turns. The type, point, and view were the variables used to describe the location of objects in this study. P Perspective Taking: Imagin- Batson et al. 1997 Personality and Psychology Mixed Quasi- 60 psychology stu- To test how these two types of Perspective taking differed, they did an ex- ing how aother would feels Social Psychol- Experimental dents periment involving sixty students who were assigned to three possible con- versus imagining how you ogy Bulletin ditions: to be objective, to imagine how the other feels, and to imagine how would feel they would feel (20 people per condition). The participants listened to a tape of a girl describing how her parents had died in a car crash, and her strug- gles to take care of her younger siblings during her last year of college. The researchers measured the emotional reaction people had to the tape. P Social rejection increases Knowles 2014 Journal of Experi- Psychology Mixed Randomized Between 40-64 under- She completed three studies total, the first experiment was designed to perspective taking mental Social Psy- Control graduate students per test whether social rejection was related to a shift in Perspective from chology Trial study. self-centered to other-centered. The experimental group was first asked to spend five minutes writing and reflecting on a time they felt rejected. They were then asked to perform a Perspective-taking exercise directly afterward. The second study was designed to replicate the results and to assess the effort level of rejection-motivated perspective taking. The third experiment was the same, but the participants had the choice to complete the activity in front of a mirror or not. P When Far Becomes Near: Cavallo et al. 2017 Psychological Sci- Psychology Mixed Quasi- 27 undergraduate stu- Three experiments were conducted. In the first experiment, participants had PerspectiveTaking Induces ence Experimental dents to “judge whether the apple was to the left or right from their own perspective Social Remapping ofSpa- and from that of the human avatar seated at the opposite end of the table.” tial Relations The second experiment tested whether the remapping happened due to the presence of a human triggered spatial remapping. In the third experiment, the scene was changed so that a human couldn’t possibly fit at the end of the table. P THE ROLE OF Neale and 1983 Industrial artd La- Business Qual Randomized 240 undergraduate Their test included 240 students who engaged in two types of negotiation: PERSPECTIVE-TAKING Bazerman bor Relations Re- Control students conventional arbitration and final-offer arbitration. They either took perspec- ABILITY IN NEGOTIAT- view Trial tive as a tactic or not. The results of the negotiation were measure in "suc- ING UNDER DIFFERENT cess." FORMS OF ARBITRA- TION P Perspective-Taking: De- Galinsky and 2000 Journal of Person- Psychology Qual Randomized 37 undergradaute stu- All participants were then shown a black and white photograph (presented creasing Stereotype Moscowitz ality and Social Control dents on a computer screen) of an older man sitting on a chair near a newspaper Expression, Stereotype Psychology Trial stand. Participants were then asked to write a short narrative essay about a Accessibility, and In-Group typical day in the life of the individual. Before constructing their narrative es- Favoritism say, one third of the participants were randomly assigned to the control con- dition and were given no additional instructions. One third were randomly assigned to the suppression condition and were instructed that "previous research has demonstrated that thoughts and impressions are consistently influenced by stereotypic preconceptions, and therefore you should actively try to avoid thinking about the photographed target in such a manner." The final third of the participants were instructed to adopt the perspective of the individual in the photograph and "imagine a day in the life of this individual as if you were that person, looking at the world through his eyes and walk- ing through the world in his shoes." For the second experiment, participants were first given the list of 90 traits from and asked to rate how well each trait described them using a scale anchored at 1 (extremely unlike) and 7 (extremely like). Next, participants completed the narrative essay task in which they were presented with the same photograph and instructions from Experiment 1. P A CROSS-CULTURAL Takaku et al. 2001 Journal Of Lan- Psychology Quant Randomized 77 Japanese partici- In order to test this, the participants in the study were asked to read a short EXAMINATION OF THE guage And Social Control pants and 102 Ameri- blurb where they were instructed to imagine that they were being mistreated EFFECTS OF APOLOGY Psychology Trial can participants by their classmates. Before they did this however, the participants were AND PERSPECTIVE TAK- “randomly assigned to one of three perspective-taking conditions: (a) recall ING ON FORGIVENESS times when they mistreated or hurt others in the past; (b) imagine how the victimized classmate would think, feel, and behave in the scenario; or (c) imagine the situation as the personal victim.” After being given their instruc- tions, the participants read their passages all of which were completed by a detailed apology from the classmate. P Seeing Another View- Parker and 2001 The Academy Business Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. point: Antecedents and Axtell of Management Outcomes of Employee Journal Perspective Taking

36 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Discipline Method Method #2 Sample Size Description of Method #1 P Perspective Taking as Ego- Epley et al. 2004 Journal of Person- Psychology Mixed Randomized 53-96 undergraduates In the first study, the focus was sarcasm, which can be viewed as an ambigu- centric Anchoring and Ad- ality and Social Control ous communication. If the participants were primed with a negative stimuli justment Psychology Trial they saw a message as being sarcastic, while if primed with a positive stim- uli they did not. In the second study, responses to questions and statements would be more egocentric if one was under pressure, rather than if they had more time to think. In the third experiment, participants were given Coke and Pepsi to taste test the difference between them. They were informed of the identities of the drinks beforehand. They were then told to estimate an- other’s ability to taste the difference. When speaking of themselves, respon- dents said the difference was obvious, but used a more moderate statement when discussing others perceptions of the taste difference. For the fourth experiment, the influence of subtle body language cues (such as nodding or shaking one’s head) was tested in relation to willingness to adopt another’s Perspective. In the final experiment, they tested if human Perspective taking was related to the concept of “satisficing.” P Cognitions Associated Davis et al. 2004 PERSONALITY Psychology Mixed Experimental 204 undergraduate In the first, a thought-listing procedure was used to assess observer cogni- With Attempts to Em- AND SOCIAL students tions; in the second, a less reactive measure was used. The experimenter pathize: How Do We PSYCHOLOGY explained that the study was concerned with first impressions and that Imagine the Perspective of BULLETIN they would see a videotape of an interview with a woman, Jackie, who Another? had some serious health problems. Participants were then told that they would be asked to take a particular “approach” when watching the tape. They were handed an instructional set corresponding to one of four con- ditions: imagine-self, imagine-target, watch-target, and naturalistic. In the second experiment, participants were run in pairs. Instead of a woman with health issues, it featured a student. The woman, an actor, followed a script that was designed to make her appear to be an average student, without any unusually positive or negative characteristics. Then in both experiments, they filled out "unrelated" questionnaires about perspective-taking. P Conflicting Emotions: The Harwood and 2006 The British Psychology Qual Quasi- 46 children In their experiment, each child performed three tasks, one to test affective connection between affec- Farrar Journal of De- Experimental perspective taking ability, one to test theory of mind understanding, and tive perspective taking and velopmental the last to test language development. The task was designed to test if theory of mind Psychology children could predict their emotional state and others emotional state. The two emotions shown were happy and sad. P Embodied and disem- Tversky and 2008 Cognition Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. bodied cognition: Spatial Hard Science perspective-taking P Perspective-Taking In- Wang et al. 2014 Public Library of Business Mixed Experimental 116, 31, 148 partici- They did 3 experiments, the first measured how close participants sat to creases Willingness to Science One pants in experiments 1, members of an outgroup after going through a perspective-taking exercise. Engage inIntergroup Con- 2, and 3 The participants had to write a narrative essay about a person in a photo- tact graph. They manipulated the instructions so that there was a perspective- taking condition, a suppression condition, and two control conditions. The first control condition had the participants take an “objective focus” and the second control condition did not provide participants instructions at all. After they wrote the essay, the man in the photo was in another room that the par- ticipants were brought into. The distance the participants chose to sit from the man was measured. The second experiment’s set up was the same, ex- cept that instead of measuring how close they sat to the man in the photo, they measured their willingness to meet the man in the photo another time. The third study tested if taking one outgroup members perspective led to a shifting perspective on the group itself. The participants were shown a pic- ture of a homeless man and were asked to write their essays on a day in his life. All conditions were the same as the first experiment. They were then asked how many additional activities (1-6) they were willing to participate in with another homeless man. DSRP Form, Substance, and Dif- Gregory 1970 Essay Systems Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. ference Bateson Science DSRP HIFa Targeted forVHL- Ivan et. al. 2001 Science Biological Quant Experimental We are using this pa- Isolated the HIF pathway in cells, again, not sure how detailed you want this Mediated Destruction Sciences per in more of a the- section for this paper. byProline Hydroxyla- oretical sense, so I’m tion:Implications for O2 not sure how applica- Sensing ble this category is, but the answer is a lot of cells, not specified the number that they tested. DSRP Dilemmas in a General Rittel and 1973 Policy Sciences Policy and Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. Theory of Planning Webber Political Science DSRP On the Concept of a Sys- Marchal 1975 Philosophy of Sci- Systems Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. tem ence Science DSRP Systems and Distinctions; Goguen and 2007 International Jour- Systems Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. Duality and Complementar- Varela nal Of General Science ity Systems DSRP Categorization in infancy Mareschal 2001 Trends in Cogni- Cognitive Mixed Quasi- Undisclosed number They completed 5 studies with infants between 3 and 30 months of age on and Quinn tive Sciences Science Experimental of infants from birth to their ability to categorize. This was measured in five ways, from visual pref- 30 months of age. erence, object-examination, leg-kicking, generalized imitation, and sequen- tial touching. The one that is of greatest interest is the sequential touching test. During the sequential touching experiments, infants were seated in highchairs and eight objects were randomly placed on the high chair table. The infant is allowed and able to independently manipulate the objects for several minutes. The order in which the infants manipulate the objects is observed and recorded. DSRP Procedural learning in per- Ashby et al. 2003 Memory & Cogni- Cognitive Quant Experimental 116 participants For the first experiment they did, “there were three experimental conditions: ceptual categorization tion Science control, hand switch, and button switch. In all the conditions, the observers depressed the two response keys with their index fingers, and trial-by-trial feedback was provided.” For the hand-switch condition, the observers be- gan the first 500 trials with their hands crossed on the buttons, and for the button-switch condition, the buttons used to make the category response were reversed for the last 100 trials. For the second experiment, the pro- cedures were the same as in the first experiment, except for the following: “Each participant in the unidimensional conditions completed 5 blocks of trials (with 50 trials per block), and the change in response instructions occurred after Block 3 for all the conditions. Each participant in the diago- nal conditions completed 12 blocks of training (50 trials per block) during the first experimental session. The second session occurred approximately 24 h later. The procedure during the second session was identical to that of the single sessions used in Experiment 1. Finally, the diagonal/ hand-switch condition was omitted.” DSRP The role of similarity in the Sloutsky 2003 Trends in Cogni- Cognitive Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. development of categoriza- tive Sciences Science tion

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 37 Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Discipline Method Method #2 Sample Size Description of Method #1 DSRP Knowledge partitioning in Lewandowsky 2006 Memory & Cogni- Cognitive Mixed Randomized 81 participants In the first experiment, there was a training phase, in which 40 stimuli categorization: Boundary et al. tion Science Control (shapes) were selected from random locations within the training space. conditions Trial Correct classification could be achieved on the basis of x and y alone. For the experiment the subjects had to categorize each stimulus, and later re- port on the rules they used to categorize. For the second experiment the procedure was essentially the same, with the difference being that the rectangles were presented with a counterclockwise rotation of 10º about the bottom left corner, and the dimensions of the boundaries were slightly changed. DSRP The conceptual grouping Lupyan 2008 Cognition Cognitive Mixed Quasi- 21, 14, and 28 stu- The first experiment involved 21 students searching for a non-letter within effect: Categories mat- Science Experimental dents a group of similarly shaped letters. For the second experiment, 14 students ter (and named categories (using the same stimuli as the first experiment) participated in a “speeded matter more) same/different judgement task.” For the third experiment, 28 students had to identify a letter within a group of other letters. For some trials, the object they were searching for was labelled (named, distinguished), and for others it was not. DSRP Can There Be Such a Dijk et al. 2008 Theory and Psy- Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. Thing as Embodied Em- chology bedded Cognitive Neuro- science? DSRP Concepts and Categories: Mahon and 2009 Annual Review of Psychology Qual Editorial N/A Literature Review and Analysis A Cognitive Neuropsycho- Caramazza Psychology logical Perspective DSRP Social Identification Struc- Tarrant et al. 2012 Psychological Sci- Psychology Mixed Experimental 127 college students In the first experiment, a group of participants (college students) were tures the Effects of Per- ence prompted to establish their in-group status, while another group was asked spective Taking to read a paragraph and determine which group the subject of the para- graph is in. In the second experiment, the in-group/out-group status was based on nationality. The idea was that if you increase the directness and the personal level of the grouping, that it would help to test the causal and robustness of the effect discovered in the first experiment. DSRP Naming influences 9- Havy and 2016 Cognition Cognitive Mixed Quasi- 32 and 16 healthy nine In the first experiment the stimuli were a spectrum of colorful creature-esque month-olds’ identification Waxman Science Experimental month old infants. objects going from one creature to the other. One group was shown the ob- of discrete categories jects, and a nonsense name was spoken (the one-name-group), while the along a perceptual contin- other group was shown the objects and the two objects on the ends of uum the spectrum were each given a different nonsense name (the two-name- group). In the second experiment, 16 healthy, 9-month-old infants were given similar stimuli (with the distribution tighter around the poles) and per- formed the same procedure as the first experiment. DSRP Habituation in non-neural Boisseau et 2016 Royal Society Biological Mixed Experimental 416 slime molds In their experiment, they exposed the mold to a stimulus (quinine or caffeine) organisms: evidence from al Publications Sciences and waited to see a response behavior (in this case, it was chemotaxis or slime moulds movement based on a concentration of a substance). DSRP A Unifying Theory of Cabrera and 2015 Systems Re- Systems Qual Editorial N/A Theoretical discussion and analysis of ideas and literature. Systems Thinkingwith Cabrera search and Science Psychosocial Applications Behavioral Sci- ence

38 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. B. Appendix B: Summary Statistics of Table of Methods

Summary of Cited Works by Method Summary of Cited Works by Discipline

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 39 3395 C. Appendix C: Summary Table of Studies Cited

DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose D Laws of Form G Spencer 1969 Book Distinctions exist. A conclusion that boundaries are simultane- To discuss the nature and reality Brown ously real and constructed, and they need to of boundaries be interacted with at all times. D Why Is There Something In- Lawrence 2014 Scientific Ameri- Identity and other are inherently built into the Nothing and something have to coexist in the To answer the question: why is stead of Nothing? Krauss can (Video) fabric of the universe. universe and aided in the creation of all that there something rather than noth- we know. ing? D The solution of a problem Leonid Euler 1736 Commentarii Nodes in network theory are representative of Created network theory. Seven Bridges Problem relating to the geometry of academiae scien- identities. position tiarum Petropoli- tanae D Studying Learning in the Gina Kolata 1984 Science Distinction-making as a process occurs in Learning begins in the womb which is indi- Studying learning in utero Womb utero. cated by a variety of studies. D Perceptual Organization of- Quinn et. al. 1997 Infant Behavior From an early age, the human brain is capa- The infants were able to visually distinguish Researching how infants perceive Complex Visual Configura- and Development ble of visually distinguishing between stimuli. the shapes and their looking times indicated things. tions by Young Infants as such. D The Cocktail Party Effect in Newman and 1996 Perception & Psy- Infants are able to make auditory distinctions. Infants indicated that they listened longer to Do infants experience the "cocktail Infants Jusczyk chophysics the recordings with the familiarized words, party effect?" demonstrating that they do experience the "cocktail party effect." D Becoming a “Greeble” Gautheir and 1997 Vision Research Purposefully "training" yourself to make dis- The "expert" group (the ones with longer and How does facial recognition work Expert: ExploringMecha- Tarr tinctions increases the speed at which you more productive exposure to the distinctions) in the brain? nisms for Face Recognition can distinguish identities and the accurary had a faster response time and slightly more with which you make those distinctions. accurate results on average. D Cocktail-party effect in king Aubin and 1998 Proceedings of Humans are not the only species who makes Chicks clearly recognized their parents Do King Penguins experience the penguin colonies Jouventin the Royal Society auditory distictions, further supporting the unique call, and notably the other chicks didn’t "cocktail party effect"? Of London case for the universality of the patterns. react to non-parental calls. D Cognitive control, hierarchy, David Badre 2008 Trends in Cogni- The structure of the brain itself is distinct, and There are spatially distinct areas of the brain How does working memory work and therostro–caudal orga- tive Sciences leads to the ability to do D,S,R,P. for some distinct processes. in the prefrontal cortex? nization of thefrontal lobes D Does acquisition of Gree- Bukach et al 2012 Neuropsychologia Through training, a neurologically impaired The prosopagnoisac took significantly longer Can someone with prosopahnoisa ble expertise in prosopag- human can learn to distinguish between ob- to obtain expert status, however, they did recognize distinctions in gree- nosia rule out adomain- jects with time. i,e, Distinction-making can be eventually obtain it. bles? general deficit? trained. D Reversible Inactivation Rajahlingham 2018 Neuron An example of someone finding a physical lo- The inferotemporal cortex is a part of the brain What role does the inferotemporal of Different Millimeter- and DiCarlo cation in the brain for the D pattern. where visual distinctions are made. cortex have in visual and object ScaleRegions of Primate distingushing? IT Results in Different Patterns ofCore Object Recognition Deficits D National Boundaries, Bor- Clark 1994 Journal of Market- The impact of making a distinction can National borders are complex systems and How do national bor- der Zones, and Market- ing be huge, and therefore paying attention to have signifcant impact on multiple areas of ders/boundaries affect marketing ing Strategy: A Concep- how/why one draws the boundaries they do life. strategies? tual Framework and Theo- can be overall beneficial for society. retical Model of Secondary Boundary Effects D The Sneakers/Tennis Dale Coye 1986 American Speech Distinction terms can follow a geographic People from the Northeast called the "sneak- Why do some places call a shoe a Shoes Boundary boundary. ers" and others called them "tennis shoes" sneaker vs a tennis shoe? D Distinguishing “Nerd” vs. Powers, 2016 Cabrera Reserch Exploring the distinctions one makes in every- Nerd and geek are typically used inter- What is the distinction between “Geek” Cabrera and Cognitive Case day life can lead to a richer understanding of changably yet they are distinct terms. the terms "nerd" and "geek"? Cabrera Study Series the world around them. D Memory And Learning In- Peterson and 2003 The Psychology Visual distinctions through the brain’s organi- Forming distinctions using borders is a quick How do memory and learning Figure–Ground Perception Skow-Grant of Learning and zation of boundaries are fundamental to hu- way to recall a memory. work with figure-ground percep- Motivation man cognition and functioning. tion? D Psychological Functions of Picione and 2017 Europe’s Journal Identity and other are an inherent part of ev- Distinctions are relevant in concept formation Explored narrative processes as Semiotic Borders in Sense- Valsiner of Psychology eryday life, and without them the world and and psychosocial phenomenon. an expression of one’s experi- Making: Liminalityof Narra- one’s self would be drastically different. ences tive Processes D The Self And The Glanville 1990 Originally pre- Identity is explicit while the other is implicit Distinctions need both an identity and an Explored the self and other as a Other:The Purpose Of sented at a (often with the intended or unintended conse- other in order to exist. Ignoring the explicit- concept. Distinction conference quence of marginalization) ness of this can lead to unintended conse- quences. D Sameness, Otherness? Durand and 2006 Academy of Man- The relationship between sameness and oth- The sameness principle has limitations which Explored the "sameness" and Enriching Organizational Calori agement Review erness is absolutely essential to the function- are mostly brought about by the "lack" of the "otherness" principle. Change Theories with ing of an organization. Without both principles other. The other was used in the form of "an- PhilosophicalConsidera- working in tandem with each other there will other me" and was used primarliy as a per- tions on the Same and the always be limitations in the pursuit of organi- spective, rather than in our use of identity Other zational change. and other. The otherness principle however, brought the organizations into a place of re- ality. Seeing the other reduced marginizaliza- tion and gives more power to the organiza- tions to change. D On Insiders (Emic) and Young 2005 Systemic Prac- Taking into account the insider and outsider Being an insider is giving oneself an identity, Looked at the concepts of "insid- Outsiders (Etic):Views of tice and Action concepts leads to better research and conclu- however the insider needs to be aware of how ers" and "outsiders" Self, and Othering Research sions. Being metacognitive about your identity they are percieved by others. Being an out- and other aspects of your life can help with sider is directly related to the concept of the personal development. other, specifically, it is not having an identity. One is part of no groups, no community. One creates thier identity based on their relation- ships with the other throughout their life. Iden- tities also shift based on the context one is in. D Cognition in context: So- Bentley et al 2017 Journal of Experi- Inclusion can be added to self identity, and the When the subject was excluded from the in- How does inclusion/exclusion af- cial inclusion attenuates mental Social Psy- other can become a part of the self. Identity group, they retained significantly more infor- fect a person? the psychological bound- chology and other engage in a dynamic dance. mation related to themselves than they did arybetween self and other about the other. However, when included, the participant remembered as much information about the other as they did the self. D Us and Them: Social Cat- Perdue et al 1990 Journal of Person- In-group and out-group terms (such as we, The nonsense syllables paired with an in- How do the phrases "us" and egorizationand the Process ality and Social they, us, them) can subtly shape responses group pronoun were rated to be more pleas- "them" affect one’s perception of of Intergroup Bias Psychology toward others and other groups. ant than those paired with an out-group pro- their identity/other status? noun. D Decreasing Prejudice by In- Langer et al 1985 Journal of Person- Teaching the children to be “mindful,” or to The most mindful group ("deviant" Explores mindfulness and iden- creasing Discrimination ality and Social be aware of the Distinctions they were mak- slides/mindfulness treatment) showed the tity/other relationships Psychology ing, had a benefit regardless of the content least avoidance. of the lesson they were being taught. The ef- fect of identity-other Distinctions can lead to long-term marginalization of the “other” and that awareness of the identity-other structure of Distinctions can dampen our marginalizing tendencies.

40 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose D Boundary Lines of Social Gillette 1925 American Journal Recognizing and acknowledging the artificial- Scientific boundaries are "decided" on by peo- Dives into the reality and nature of Phenomena of Sociology ness of the boundaries that we encounter ev- ple. The boundaries of a field are based on boundaries eryday not only helps us to understand our the human perception of the boundaries of fields better, but it allows us to get one step the phenomenon they study. In reality, many closer to understanding the real world. Soci- of these boundaries are fuzzy at best. Social ety and sociability come about from Distinc- boundaries are established both by a person’s tions, but it is also heavily dependent on Rela- conceptions of society and what society is. tionships as where the boundary lies is often a function of the increased interrelatedness of the elements “inside” relative to the interrelat- edness of the elements “outside.” D Classification and Quantita- Tajfel and 1963 British Journal of The way that one thinks about an idea, per- When classification is imposed on partici- How does the act of classification tive Judgement Wilkes Psychology son, or thing has an impact on the resulting pants, the judgments people made were al- affect judgement? mental model. Being aware of the way your tered. patterns of thinking affect you can only lead to increased metacognition and allows one to try to mitigate their biases. D Sexual Taboos and Social Davies 1982 American Journal The creation and maintenance of identity- The strong taboos in Western culture against Where do taboos and social Boundaries of Sociology other Distinctions can have a massive impact things like homosexuality and beastiality were boundaries originate from? on people’s lives, leading to discriminatory be- attempts to maintain and cultivate ethnic, reli- haviors and policies. gious, and institutional boundaries. D On membership catego- Leudar et al. 2004 Discourse & Soci- The elemental patterns of Distinctions Just as a lack of awareness (metacognition) How does the identification of out- rization: ‘us’, ‘them’ and ety (identity-other) are powerful on their own, about the distinctions one makes can lead to groups and ingroups in political ‘doing violence’ in political but as this paper demonstrates, combining unintentional marginalization of groups, the discourse affect the meaning of discourse the patterns together can be essential to act of distinction making can also be used to the speech and the subsequently ensuring that one doesn’t use their newfound purposefully marginalize others.This can hap- formed mental models? metacognition for manipulating others or pen subtly and explicitly. Creating marginal- themselves. ization can come from an awareness of one’s own Distinction-making or that of others. It re- quires one to take a Perspective other than their own to determine the in and out group distinction for one’s self or for others. This is the basis for manipulation, agendas, and con- flict. D Boundary critique and its Midgley and 2011 The Journal of Through the framing/reframing of ideas and When one is aware of the way they are assign- To explore the role of boundary cri- implications for conflict pre- Pinzon the Operational boundaries, conflict can not only be resolved, ing “otherness” to people, they may try to do tique and conflict, specifically in vention Research Society but potentially prevented. it less, which leads to more productive conflict the context of conflict resolution resolution, and, in general, a society that gets and prevention. along easier. S The Enormous Theorum Gorenstein 1985 Scientific Ameri- Gorenstein explains that, “One can now ap- Yet there it is: the proof that all finite, simple To explore how the idea of simplic- can preciate how the rules for combining the ele- groups have been found has run to between ity itself is complex. ments in a group are the basic laws of arith- 10,000 and 15,000 pages. Of course, no one metic in more abstract form.” The very ba- person is responsible for the achievement, sis of mathematics–arithmetic–is born of part- nor is the size of the proof attributable to whole grouping. lengthy computer calculations (although com- puters are used at one place in the analysis). S The Architecture of Com- Herbert A. Si- 1962 Proceedings of The structure of Part-Whole Systems are not Empirically a large proportion of the complex Explores the natural hierarchical plexity mon the American only found in Nature but also in the Mind. systems we observe in nature exhibit hier- structures in the universe. Philosophical archic structure. On theoretical grounds we Society could expect complex systems to be hierar- chies in a world in which complexity had to evolve from simplicity S The Adaptive Nature of Hu- Anderson 1991 Psychological Re- While categorization is an important process Categorization of the elements of the problem To explore how categorization man Categorization view to study, it is not the most fundamental pro- is an essential step towards building a com- functions within the human mind cess to study, because it is not a universal plete frame. He listed three origin points of and adapts to contextual situa- pattern of mind such as part-whole systems. category formation: linguistic, feature overlap, tions. similar function. The origin of categorization does not have to be one of these, but can be all three of them. Categorization behavior can be predicted from the structure of the environ- ment at least as well as it can from the struc- ture of the mind. S Categorization in single Pellegrino 2001 Trends in Cogni- Categorical knowledge and the elemental pat- The monkeys had a surprisingly high success Summary of research done on neurons tive Sciences terns of part-whole systems is explicitly repre- rate of categorization (90%) even when the how categorization functions in sented in the firing rates of prefrontal neurons. image was close to being a 50-50 split. For ex- neurons. ample, if the split was 60% dog and 40% cat, the monkey would correctly categorize the im- age as dog 90% of the time. In addition, they found that the neurons fired differently when the split was 60/40 dog to cat, then when it was 60/40 cat to dog. Neurons responded dif- ferently to stimuli that were morphologically similar (i.e., dog and cat) but rested on oppo- site sides on the spectrum than it did to stimuli that were morphologically different (i.e., dog and shark). S Deeper insights into se- Muehlhuas et 2014 Brain & Language While more research is needed, this is the first Analysis of average response time between To use the fMRI method to explore mantic relations: An fMRI al. definitive evidence of part-whole Systems be- and among the three types of relationships, part-whole and functional associa- study of part-wholeand ing structurally visible in the brain. found no significant difference among them. tions. functional associations When looking at the relationship between the functional tests to the part-whole tests, there was a small amount of activation in the right parahippocampal complex, which is known for being the location in the brain where scenes are encoded. When the pattern is re- versed (part-whole tests to functional tests) they found activation patterns in the left supra- marginal gyrus and the right inferior temporal sulcus. S Subliminal Gestalt group- Montoro et al. 2014 Consciousness This is notable in its similarity to the four pat- When masked, priming is not noticed by the To explore the unconscious nature ing: Evidence of perceptual and Cognition terns of mind —DSRP—that are happening subjects They concluded that their results of some forms of grouping. grouping by proximity and within every thought one has, without their demonstrated that there doesn’t need to be similarity in absence of con- control. Note, the awareness of such patterns an aspect of consciousness in order to per- scious perception is of equal importance to their existence. ceptually group something. There is an uncon- trollable nature to Gestalt grouping. S Dynamic Theory of Person- Kurt Lewin 1935 Book It is not enough to make distinctions and rela- The cause of the process b is not to be seen To explore the structure of the ality tionships between objects/concepts, but one in its rigid coupling with the preceding inde- mind. also has to evaluate the concepts/objects as pendent event a. Rather, if a forms a depen- parts and wholes. This also suggests that re- dent moment of a more comprehensive whole, lationships are made up of Part-Whole dy- it carries that whole with it. Thus, indeed, no namics. chain-like coupling of member to member, but the connections of the parts in the whole, is regarded as the "cause" of the event.

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 41 Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose S Perception, language, and Mooney 1951 Book Even in 1951, people were aware that part- In just the act of focusing on and following To take the author’s experience as the part-whole problem. whole didn’t just apply to the things it came a pin-point of light, the brain/self has to do a teacher and apply it to the idea easy to, like mathematics. More importantly, it many things. In particular, this demonstration of part-whole structures. showed that the relationship between the Part showed how essential relationships are to the and the Whole needs to be explicated if one is dynamic of part/wholes. He writes that the to give a complete conceptual understanding very act of perception is creating relationships to their students. between parts of an environment/stimulus in order to get a conceptual grasp on the whole. part-whole concepts/tools don’t have to only apply to math, as it is an important cognitive skill and could be used to help students learn in all subjects (he mentioned reading quite a few times). S Towards a System of Sys- Ackoff 1971 Management Sci- One can and should apply systems thinking The “systems approach” to solving complex To organize the systems terminol- tems Concepts ence to systems thinking. problems, is to look at the whole, not each ogy into a system. of the individual parts. The properties of the systems, Ackoff stated, comes from the rela- tionships between a System and its parts. He notes that the way the parts of a System inter- act and behave with each other leads to the emerging properties of that System. S The History and Status of Bertalanffy 1972 Academy of Man- This paper highlights the importance of recog- Aristotle’s statement, “The whole is more than To study the historical significance General Systems Theory agement Journal nizing the parts, the whole, and the relation- the sum of its parts,” is a definition of the ba- and status of the General Sys- ships between the parts. sic system problem which is still valid. Then tems Theory. the “Gailean conception,” which moved the world towards believing that the cosmos di- rected fate and decisions to viewing events as the result of reasonable, mathematical laws. Descartes bete machine and Darwinian natu- ral selection were the two ideas that helped deal with the problem of order. In relation to the part and the whole aspect of a system, he writes, “Hence an object (and in particular a system) is definable only by its cohesion in a broad sense, that is, the interactions of the component elements.” S Concepts do more than cat- Solomon et 1999 Trends in Cogni- This analysis emphasizes the importance of Concepts cannot be understood sufficiently To expand the study of concepts egorize al. tive Sciences seeing parts and wholes in the larger context through the study of categorization, or any from just the process of catego- of interrelatedness to better understand sys- other function, in isolation, for two important rization. tems. reasons. First, concepts serve multiple func- tions which interact to affect conceptual struc- ture and processing. Second, studying a sin- gle function in isolation encourages one to see cognitive processes that are particular to each function, but discourages the discov- ery of processes that are common to multiple functions. For these two reasons, we suggest that concepts should instead be studied in the context of a System of interrelated functions. S Objects, Parts, and Cate- Tversky and 1984 Journal of Exper- Smaller parts are easier to deal with concep- Overall, 58% of the attributes were parts; how- Looked at the simultaneity of Dis- gories Hemenway imental Psychol- tually, but also because each Part is an entity ever, the percentage varied with taxonomic tinctions (identities) acting as Sys- ogy within itself, and needs to be dealt with as a level, as predicted. Parts were infrequent at tems (either wholes or parts). distinct thing. The work has shown that one the superordinate level and frequent at the particular kind of information is more salient basic and subordinate levels: Only 20% of in the minds of people when they think about the superordinate level attributes were parts, entities at the basic level, namely, information whereas 64% of the basic level attributes about parts. were parts, and 60% of the subordinate level attributes were parts. S Categorization in the wild Glushko et al. 2008 Trends in Cogni- Categories are structures born of several ele- The process of categorization is so preva- Explored the highly adaptive na- tive Sciences ments of thinking – part-whole Systems, Re- lent in human thought and research because ture of categories. lationships, and Perspectives. Notably, once they were evolutionarily useful, as an adap- categories are formed, they also become tive tool easily applied to situations through- boundaries/distinctions in and of themselves. out time. As the context changes in which human categorization mechanisms operate, they produce new types of classification sys- tems. When new technological tools become available, categorization mechanisms adapt quickly and new classification systems result. Rather than categorization being a fixed pro- cess, it evolves dynamically as situational con- straints change. S The Origins of SocialCate- Liberman et 2017 Trends in Cogni- These conceptually-rich social categories Social categories help people navigate the in- Explored the impact that social gorization al. tive Sciences emerge before the provision of verbal infor- creasingly complex social world around them. categories have on people and so- mation can affect social knowledge, suggest- They wrote, “forming conceptually-rich cat- ciety. ing that the ability to form social categories egories has obvious functional value – so- does not depend on explicit learning about the cial categories organize our vast knowledge cultural or stereotypic content associated with about human attributes and about the com- different groups. Further, the ability to use plex relationship networks that comprise hu- these categories to draw inferences about so- man social life. cial structures likely drives social thinking and learning from early on. Awareness of DSRP maintains the positive aspects of categoriza- tion and increases awareness about the neg- ative effects as well S The Binary Bias: A System- Fisher and 2018 Psychological Sci- Systems thinking (DSRP) shifts this paradigm The binary bias has a stronger influence on Humans have a tendency to be bi- atic Distortionin the Integra- Kiel ence away from the binary bias and towards a more the formation of beliefs and attitudes than the nary. This paper explores the bi- tion of Information spectrum-based thought process. previously documented factors of order and nary bias. salience. The binary bias appears to be a per- vasive aspect of cognition with extensive real- world implications. The human tendency to categorize things in a binary manner can im- pede the formation of accurate mental models of phenomena (as the world exists in shades of gray - not balck and white); see relation- ships (falsely) as only cause and effect (rather than webs of causality) and narrows our per- spectives on things towards bivalency in lieu of multivalency. R "Cybernetics or Control Norbert 1951 Social Research The structure of a feedback loop is a critical Feedback loops can become dangerous or Review the nature of relationships and Communication in the Wiener relationship that allows the System to react to impossible in machines, but they can be an in technology and feedback loops. Animal and theMachine" its environment and potentially restructure it- essential tool/process of cognition. The con- (Book Review) self in response. Ultimately, the feedback loop cept of feedback is undoubtedly so important allows some Systems to regulate themselves, that the social no less than the natural scien- with the more obvious examples found within tist ought to be familiar with its denotation. biological Systems.

42 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose R Logical reasoning, world Clement and 1986 Memory & Cogni- The more content one has access to and can The Relationship between mental imagery Explore the process of making re- knowledge, and mental im- Falmagne tion actively create interconnections between, the and schema accessibility is essential to the lationships in the mind. agery: Interconnections in better they perform when tested for compre- reasoning process, while the imagery facili- cognitive processes hension. Relatedness (R) allows us to access tates working memory. schema and leads to elaborative processing which leads to inferences as well as as a check on validity itself. R A Theory of Causal Learn- Gopnik et al. 2004 Psychological Re- Children are fundamentally able to build com- They hypothesized that,“children use special- To explore the causal structure ing in Children: Causal view plex relationships and utilize the Rar struc- ized cognitive systems that allow them to re- of the world and how children Maps and Bayes Nets ture. cover an accurate “causal map” of the world: use that structure to learn content an abstract, coherent, learned representation that has typically a steep learning of the causal relations among events.” Their curve. experiments indicated that children ages 2 to 4 years old were able to construct such causal maps, and their learning process was similar to the “Bayes net formalism” in which they saw far more than simple one way relationships among things. R Making Connections Greene 2010 Scientific Ameri- Social interactions can pose our greatest pre- Memory is the method by which events that To explore how memory is a can Mind dictive challenges and may well have been a happen are connected to the consequences method for making connections. major impetus, among our pre human ances- of events (actions or decisions) so that the tors, for the evolution of astounding learning person does not repeat that same mistake. abilities to make relationships between and Also, when one’s hippocampus is damaged, among things, concepts and emotions. the ability to make new memories, and to learn complex associations is lost, which can lead to amnesia. The ability to make connec- tions also allows humans to conceive of the future. Put enough of these item associations together, and you will create a web of connec- tions that can help you make predictions and navigate the world more effectively over time. R Topological Self- Chersi et al. 2014 Topics in Cogni- Relationships and the systems of data sup- Building relationships causes a change in the To explore the relationship be- Organization and Pre- tive Science port many critically important processes such brain via the neuronal pathways and a corol- tween sensory, motor, and lan- diction LearningSupport as language development, working memory, lary action and lexiconal coding (language gauge centers in the brain. Both Action and Lexical and sequencing of information. Neural coding systems). Neurons responding to the same Chains in the Brain of information thereby requires associations stimulus or class of stimuli tend to cluster to- and relationships among concepts regardless gether to form topologically connected areas of the form in which they come, whether it via similar to those observed in the brain cortex. sensory-motor or lexical (language) inputs. Evidence of different pools of neurons being activated by goal-specific motor acts emerged as the result of a process of adaptive special- ization of long-term memory circuits for serial cognition. In other words both experiments of- fer that the relationship drawn among motor and lexical chains are key to understanding. R Prelinguistic Relational Ferry et al. 2015 Child Develop- While Relationships can be abstracted univer- their results suggest that infants are able to To research the ability to process Concepts: Investigating ment sally as a purely structural cognitive act, they abstract the same/different Relations. They analogies in infants aged 7 to 9 Analogical Processing in are also content specific (that is the relation- found that the infants looked significantly months old. Infants ship itself is distinguishable by additional infor- longer at the novel pair than the others for mational content such as “sameness” or “dif- both the same and different conditions, which ference” or perhaps countless other content is in contrast to their initial replication. This variables). meant that the infants “successfully general- ized the abstract relation to new objects pre- sented for the first time in test trials.” R Categories and Constraints Kominsky et 2017 Psychological Sci- This early-on development of Relationships Our three experiments reveal categor- To discuss “causal perception” inCausal Perception al. ence indicates that Relationships are therefore an ical boundaries within causal percep- which is a Relationship. inherent part of human thought. It is clear that tion—boundaries that are defined by an the cognitive, emotional, and conative ability interplay of physical and perceptual con- to make Relationships is essential to the pro- straints. Overall, these experiments showed cess of thinking. that causal perceptions are seen in seven to nine month old infants. R Children’s use of counter- Harris et al. 1996 Cognition Overall, this research demonstrates that The children were able to identify the protag- To research children’s causal factual thinking in causal young children have the ability to recognize onist’s failure to choose a different course of thinking. reasoning and articulate the action and reactions within action as the cause of the mistake. In the ex- Relationships. perimental stories, the kids chose to focus on the rejection of the alternative option. R The cradle of causal rea- Mascalzoni 2013 Developmental This study demonstrates a newborn’s visual The newborns showed a significant prefer- How humans come to perceive soning: newborns’ prefer- et al. Science perception of causal relationships, and it’s ence for the causal event over the non-causal causal relationships. ence forphysical causality similarity to that same mechanism found in ones. This experiment resulted in the conclu- adults. sion that “the spatial continuity of trajectory between the motion of the two objects ap- pears to be crucial in determining newborns’ preference.” The results showed that the new- borns were able to Distinguish between the event and its inverted form, and they still showed a preference for the causal events. R Visual Adaptationof the Rolfs et al. 2013 Current Biology Humans have the ability to “fill in the blanks” The results were that, “events that were per- To discuss how seeing the Rela- Perception of Causality between cause and effect in the case of pre- ceptually ambiguous before adaptation were tionships occasionally depends on dicting where a ball will land once it’s been now judged to be noncausal passes in the the immediacy of the cause and thrown in the air for example. The brain (us- vast majority of trials; events that were reg- effect principle. ing vision and visual cues) can then parse ularly perceived as causal before adaptation through events and assign a relationship or had now become ambiguous.” The present a causal path in real time. findings take an equally important step toward determining how the brain parses events and assigns causal links, which paves the way for tracking down the neural mechanisms under- lying these visual processes. R Causal Learning Across Schulz and 2004 Developmental This data is indicative of the power and preva- Children can, “make causal judgments using To research causal learning Domains Gopnik Psychology lence of Relationships, and how early they patterns of independent and dependent prob- across domains. come into play cognitively. In particular, it abilities across a range of tasks and domains.” shows that young children can learn to be Their research (using a screening-off tech- more cognizant of the relationships they make nique) showed that when screening off infor- in their mind; as a powerful tool to understand mation, preschool aged children were able new concepts. to learn the causal Relationships within both biological and psychological events. Further- more, they saw an impressive ability from the subjects (3-4 year old children) to draw causal Relationships from dependence patterns.

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 43 Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose R What is the nature of Dhamala 2015 Physics of Life Re- That relationships exist in mind and nature A living brain is a complex dynamical sys- To explore the nature and impor- causality in the brain? view is established, such that the new emphasis tem with many highly interconnected, inter- tance of causality as a tool for needs to be one increasing human aware- acting and self-organizing entities (neurons). gaining deeper understanding ness of them and the power in seeing the rela- The traditional notion of brain regions as tionships we make as a tool for building mean- information-processing units, with an input, ing from new inputs. a local processing capability and an output is too rigid and is not generally applicable throughout the brain. They offer that the na- ture of causality is not yet well known, and therefore application to a broader range of subjects and sciences could greatly increase the understanding of causality itself, and the utility for deeper understanding of any con- tent. R Preschoolers’ Develop- Sanefuji and 2018 Frontiers in Psy- Conscious establishment of sequential re- There was some Relationship between suc- To study the Relationship between ment of Theory of Mind: Haryu chology lationships in the first experiment also in- cessful picture sequencing and success in the a preschooler’s development of The Contribution of Un- creased the subject’s ability to take new per- false belief task. The children who performed theory of mind, and their under- derstanding Psychological spectives and see alternatives to the se- better on the psychological stories in the first standing of causality. Causality in Stories quence as it played out. experiment, did better on the second false be- lief task. Overall, the study showed that, “the findings of the present study indicated that children who cannot understand others’ false beliefs are able to understand and enjoy sto- ries containing false beliefs.” P The Early Development of Marvin et al. 1976 Child Develop- Children were not just able to take the Per- Through their research, they determined that To research the development of Conceptual Perspective ment spective of one individual but were able to conceptual Perspective taking occurred in conceptual Perspective taking in Taking: Distinguishing take the Perspectives of up to three individ- children as young as 4 years old. the early years of life. among MultiplePerspec- uals. tives P Does the Chimpanzee Premack and 1978 The Behavo- Perspective-taking is not just a human cogni- The chimpanzees consistently picked the To explore the possibility of chim- have a theory of mind? Woodruff rial and Brain tive process, but is potentially found through- card with the appropriate solution on it, which panzees having a theory of mind. Sciences out the animal kingdom as well. indicates that the chimpanzees were able to take another’s Perspective, understand the problem they face, and identify the needed so- lution. P Does the autistic child have Baron-Cohen 1985 Cognition Theory of mind, which is a form of Perspec- heir results after testing both normal and To develop the concept of a “the- a “theory of mind”? et al. tive taking, is a process of the psychological autistic children showed that while the nor- ory of mind,” through their exper- development of children. mal children pointed to where Sally had put iments and analyses on children the marble in the first place, the autistic chil- with autism. dren however, pointed to where the marble had been moved. P A fronto-parietal system for Vallar et al. 1999 Experimental This research is significant to us in particular Their finding that the formation of an egocen- To investigate how the brain cre- computing the egocentric Brain Research because it demonstrates a neurological place- tric spatial frame of reference is located in the ates an “egocentric spatial frame spatial frameof reference in ment for taking perspective, specifically a spa- right hemisphere corresponds with previous of reference” using an fMRI. humans tial one. research in people with lesions in that same area. In other words, having an injury on that specific part of the brain, will affect one’s abil- ity to create a spatial frame of reference. P How Would You Feel ver- Ruby and De- 2004 Journal of Cogni- This study demonstrated that perspective tak- The main result of the first person/third person To research the neurological pro- sus How Do You Think She cety tive Neuroscience ing has a neurological basis, and there is was, “hemodynamic increase in the medial cess of perspective-taking using a WouldFeel? A Neuroimag- not “a single mechanism that accounts for the part of the superior frontal gyrus, the left su- PET scanner. ing Study of Perspective- perspective taking process.” This means that perior temporal sulcus, the left temporal pole, Taking with Social Emo- the perspective-taking process is facilitated by the posterior cingulate gyrus, and the right in- tions multiple locations within the brain. ferior parietal lobe.” The amygdala was also activated when looking at both the self and others perspectives. P Episodic future thinking in 3 Russel et al. 2009 Cognition In other words, in “perspective-taking tasks Their results showed that processes such as To examine “episodic future think- to 5 year old children: The children of 4 will imagine how something future thinking begins at approximately four ing” children ages 3 to 5 yeras old. ability to think of what will looks from a point of a view they do not share.” years of age. This is due to an ability to per- be needed from a different These findings show the developmental path form Point of View thoughts. In the third exper- point of view and inherent nature of Perspective as a cogni- iment, the main finding was that, “this exper- tive skill. iment demonstrates clearly that children of 4 years of age find a future-self question more challenging than a future-other question.” The main finding for the fourth experiment was that “self-directed questions are not generally more difficult than other-directed questions, as there was no difference in difficulty when they were asked in the present tense.” P Theory of mind and Rakoczy et 2018 British Journal of This indicates that theory of mind (and there- Through their experiments and evaluation, To explore and re-evaluate the wisdom: The develop- al. Psychology fore Perspective taking) is a part of cognition they found that this discrepancy could be past research that found that per- ment of different forms of throughout the human’s whole life. due to, “the pattern of diverging developmen- formance on theory of mind ex- perspective-taking in late tal trends in perspective-taking measured in ercises declined with age, while adulthood the established ToM [Theory of Mind] versus tests on wisdom stayed relatively wisdom tasks is not necessarily specific to consistent with age. perspective-taking as such, but might reflect the general pattern of the development of cog- nitive capacities over the lifespan.” In fact, the negative correlation disappeared with the the- ory of mind studies when they accounted for the difference in processing speed as one ages. They also found that when changing both tests to have novel ways of measur- ing theory of mind and wisdom performance, the performance difference due to age dis- appeared (practically), indicating that there could be something to the tests that made them difficult or not interesting to the older adults in the test. P The complexity of under- Mafesson 2019 Nature: Scientific Perspective taking is therefore a needed cog- Empathy and emotional contagion originated To research the origins of empathy standing others as the evo- and Lach- Reports nitive act that bolsters emotional connection from a cognitive process or function, and and emotional contagion. lutionary origin of empathy mann to others, which, as social animals, is essen- not only from social cooperation or coordi- and emotional contagion tial for evolutionary success, in both humans nation. Contagious yawning, emotional con- and other animals. tagion and empathy are characterized by the activation of similar neurophysiological states or responses in an observed individual and an observer. While organisms cannot read the minds of other organisms, they do share very similar minds to members of their own species. As a result, organisms seem to be “constantly running simulations of what other minds might be doing.” This constant simula- tion isn’t always geared toward cooperation but rather is something animals do sponta- neously.

44 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose P The Framing of Decisions Tversky and 1981 Science The underlying subjectivity of how things are They found that subjects bounced between To study the psychology of choice and the Psychology of Kahneman framed necessitates an understanding (and finding one option better over the other, de- and its relation to the framing of Choice awareness) of the root perspective from which pending on how the choice was framed. They decisions. it originated. offer that the appeal of certain options is corre- lated with the frame itself. Such that changing the frame, can change the attravienns of op- tions, and therefore the decision made and ac- tions taken. This is also the case with choice- making. Normally, discovering that your pre- vious mental model is incorrect, the decision- maker could reconsider the framing and as- sumptions that were initially put in place, knowing that there is no true way to get a cor- rect mental model. P Spatial perspective-taking Schober 1993 Cognition Interestingly, this shows the many ways in Those who had to speak to an imaginary part- To research how people took Per- in conversation which perspective shapes how we communi- ner took Perspective with relative ease, while spective when describing the loca- cate with others, and also the need to be able those who were given a real partner found tion of an object (or multiple ob- to identify when communication is facilitated that they had to choose between an ego- jects), either to themselves or to or hindered by doing so. centric or other-centered Perspective. How- others. ever, Schober found that when the partners switched roles, the ones who had an ego- centric partner would take an egocentric per- spective, and the ones who had an other- centered perspective to their partner’s Per- spective. Also, there was an indication that perspective taking can be collaborative, with partners checking in with each other about their other-centered directions. P Perspective Taking: Imagin- Batson et al. 1997 Personality and The act of empathy, where you feel how the They found that the two groups tasked with To distinguish between two types ing how aother would feels Social Psychol- other feels is connected to altruistic motiva- (1) imagining how the other felt and (2) how of Perspective taking: thinking versus imagining how you ogy Bulletin tions, whereas, putting oneself in another’s they would feel in the other’s situation both about how another person feels, would feel position is correlated with egotistical motiva- had emotional responses of empathy; with the and thinking about how you would tion as well. This implies a benefit of taking latter also showing signs of emotional distress. feel in that same scenario. Perspective, is not just to expand your world- In other words, there is a difference in why view, but to also increase one’s desire to help one feels something in relation to perspective others. taking exercises. P Social rejection increases Knowles 2014 Journal of Experi- There is also a relationship drawn between The participants who had to relive a rejec- To explore the relationship be- perspective taking mental Social Psy- perception and behavior, as those who were tion took other’s Perspectives more often than tween social dynamics and Per- chology rejected were hyper aware of facial expres- the ones who didn’t. The results showed spective taking. sions and vocal tone as an indicator of accep- that, “only highly motivated individuals—the tance. As such, perspective-taking is founda- rejected—marshal their limited resources to tional to our social interactions with others. take another’s point of view on a task re- quiring social coordination.” The third study showed that “adopting another’s perspective enhances individuals’ memory for their social environment.” P When Far Becomes Near: Cavallo et al. 2017 Psychological Sci- Perspectives therefore can be anthropomor- When viewing from the human avatar’s Per- To study spatial perspectives. PerspectiveTaking Induces ence phic, physical, spatial and conceptual in na- spective, there was evidence to show that Social Remapping ofSpa- ture. the participants spatially remapped the en- tial Relations vironment. They wrote that as a result of their experiment, they found that, “remap- ping does not require the presence of a hu- man avatar but simply the possibility of a hu- man perspective.” This article demonstrates that the presence of the identity/other con- struct can deeply change the way one inter- acts with their environment. As an example of this, they wrote, “When responding from their own viewpoint, right-handed participants responded faster when the object was closer to and to the right of them. In contrast, when responding from the viewpoint of a human avatar seated facing them, participants re- sponded faster when the object was closer to and to the right of the avatar.” P THE ROLE OF Neale and 1983 Industrial artd La- Perspective taking can have a direct benefit in Results suggested that the type of negotiation To study if Perspective-taking has PERSPECTIVE-TAKING Bazerman bor Relations Re- the worlds of business and management. and the use of Perspective-taking improved a role in the outcome of a negotia- ABILITY IN NEGOTIAT- view the outcome of their negotiations. They distin- tion. ING UNDER DIFFERENT guished two types of Perspective taking: tak- FORMS OF ARBITRA- ing their own Perspective and taking their op- TION ponents Perspective. They wrote, “An oppo- nent’s Perspective-taking ability affected both process and outcome variables.” P Perspective-Taking: De- Galinsky and 2000 Journal of Person- They concluded that if Perspective-taking in- In their first experiment, they found that taking To study the potential that creasing Stereotype Moscowitz ality and Social creases, then negative biases could reason- Perspective reduced both conscious and un- Perspective-taking has in reduc- Expression, Stereotype Psychology ably be reduced. conscious bias as shown with two tasks. Their ing bias. Accessibility, and In-Group results showed that taking Perspective, “led Favoritism to both decreased stereotyping and increased overlap between representations of the self and representations of the elderly, suggesting activation and application of the self-concept in judgments of the elderly.” And in the last ex- periment, Galinsky and Moscowitz found that in-group bias was reduced through Perspec- tive taking. P A CROSS-CULTURAL Takaku et al. 2001 Journal Of Lan- Apologies are one of the main ways conflict Their results showed that when the partici- To research the effects of perspec- EXAMINATION OF THE guage And Social is resolved in today’s world. This research pants took the perspective of the offender, tive taking on apology and forgive- EFFECTS OF APOLOGY Psychology demonstrates that taking another person’s they were “significantly more” likely to accept ness in both Western and Eastern AND PERSPECTIVE TAK- perspective can lead to apologies, forgive- the offender’s apology. societies. ING ON FORGIVENESS ness, and a better understanding of one an- other. P Seeing Another View- Parker and 2001 The Academy Perspective-taking in the workplace has value In this scenario an “internal customer adopts To explore Perspective-taking in point: Antecedents and Axtell of Management and can be predictive of “contextual perfor- the perspective of an internal supplier.” They the workplace. Outcomes of Employee Journal mance.” looked at two aspects: empathy and positive Perspective Taking attributions. They stated that, “these findings suggest two ways to enhance supplier per- spective taking and hence contextual perfor- mance: increase employee interaction with suppliers and enrich job content.”

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 45 Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose P Perspective Taking as Ego- Epley et al. 2004 Journal of Person- People understand others by using them- Adjustment from one’s own perspective takes To research the egocentric an- centric Anchoring and Ad- ality and Social selves first as a lens. People vary in the time, and hurried participants adjusted less choring and adjustment people justment Psychology amount of awareness they have of this bias, and were consequently more egocentric than use to successfully take Perspec- which can be an issue, as. many social judge- those who responded at their leisure. These tives ments are egocentrically biased which can be results offer further evidence that people detrimental especially during a conflict. adopt others’ Perspectives by initially anchor- ing on their own perception and then effort- fully adjusting for differences between them- selves and others. Their results showed that nodding one’s head led them to be more likely to adopt the Perspective, while shaking their head led them to be less willing to adopt the Perspective. In the absence of sufficient mo- tivation for accuracy, people are likely to ter- minate adjustment once a plausible estimate is reached—arriving at a satisfactory estimate rather than the most accurate estimate.” They confirmed their hypothesis that humans have an egocentric bias, in which they view the world through their Perspective nearly 100% of the time. P Cognitions Associated Davis et al. 2004 PERSONALITY More globally, there was an indication When a participant is given instructions to To test how perspective taking oc- With Attempts to Em- AND SOCIAL that there is something inherent about take Perspective, they have more self-related curs. pathize: How Do We PSYCHOLOGY Perspective-taking, as maintaining a control thoughts. Also, people who were given the Imagine the Perspective of BULLETIN group that did no Perspective taking was dif- Perspective instructions “produce more self- Another? ficult. This could indicate that taking another’s related, and fewer target-related, thoughts Perspective is a “natural” state for humans. than imagine-target instructions.” P Conflicting Emotions: The Harwood and 2006 The British This indicates that both perspective and the- They found a positive correlation between To explore the relationship be- connection between affec- Farrar Journal of De- ory of mind can be taught and influenced in theory of mind skills and affective perspec- tween Perspective taking and the- tive perspective taking and velopmental social systems and development. The article tive taking skills, and the correlation was the ory of mind. theory of mind Psychology states that the biggest link between the two strongest in the scenarios in which emotional concepts is that they both require the child conflict was involved. They indicated that hav- to understand different or conflicting Perspec- ing the ability to take another’s Perspective is tives. key to the development of empathy. P Embodied and disem- Tversky and 2008 Cognition This indicates that just the visual cue of an- The self comes first and anything else takes To research the nature of egocen- bodied cognition: Spatial Hard other person is enough to trigger the use of extra mental effort. Terms like front, back, left, tric perspectives. perspective-taking Perspectives. and right are usually used in relation to the self’s spatial position in the environment. How- ever, sometimes taking another’s perspective was necessary for survival. Socially, this oc- curs when someone asks for directions or the location of an object. When asking peo- ple to take spatial Perspectives (either their own, another’s, or an object’s) people natu- rally took their own when they were in the room alone. However when another person was introduced as part of the scene, they sub- consciously switched to taking that person’s spatial Perspective. “Given the difficulty of us- ing right and left from one’s own Perspective, reversing right and left to take another’s Per- spective is notable." P Perspective-Taking In- Wang et al. 2014 Public Library of Overall, the body of research on perspective They found that the participants who went To research whether taking an- creases Willingness to Science One shows that the more aware one is of their own through the perspective-taking exercise (in- other’s perspective increased in- Engage inIntergroup Con- and the perspective of others leads to better stead of the control) sat on average closer tergroup contact with outgroup tact communication, interrelations, increased em- to the outgroup member than all the other or stereotyped members of the pathy, and prosocial behavior. groups. Therefore, “perspective-taking ten- group. dencies were associated with greater willing- ness to engage in contact...” Overall, they found that active perspective taking helped people interact with the entire outgroup more positively. This research showed that perspective-taking “increased individuals’ will- ingness to engage in contact with stereotyped outgroup members.” DSRP Form, Substance, and Dif- Gregory 1970 Essay This correlates well with the idea that ev- The idea of the Mind was roped into early To explore fundamental patterns. ference Bateson ery thought is within itself a Distinction. Bate- evolutionary theory, making pattern and mind son’s combination of pattern and difference two—seemingly simple, but incredibly power- has contributed greatly to Systems science. ful ideas. He also explores the concept of “dif- ference”, or in our case, Distinctions in which he wrote, “I suggest to you now, that the word ‘idea’, in its most elementary sense, is synony- mous with ‘difference’.” DSRP HIFa Targeted forVHL- Ivan et. al. 2001 Science Non-neural entities such as cells have the abil- Cells have an awarness of their environments How do cells sense the levels Mediated Destruction ity to make distinctions, speaking to the funda- that is brought upon by stimuli. of ambiant oxygen in their envi- byProline Hydroxyla- mentality of the D,S,R, and P patterns. ronemnts? tion:Implications for O2 Sensing DSRP Dilemmas in a General Rittel and 1973 Policy Sciences A deeper understanding of the Systems and The perspective one uses to see problems Studied how systems thinking Theory of Planning Webber wicked problems they face, leads to identify- has shifted from the problems being “defin- could be useful in solving "wicked ing the root causes of the problem in the first able, understandable, and consensual.” You problems." place cannot use trial and error to solve a wicked problem as the solution will have a great im- pact on the system. The recognition of wicked problems has led to the reexamination of na- tional values and goals. This was done by shifting the Perspective one took on the Sys- tems they worked with. Instead of looking at just the parts of the Systems, they were en- couraged to look at the Systems from the view of “What do these systems do?”, and more importantly, “What should these systems do?” They needed to explicitly Distinguish what their desired outcome was, and how taking that Perspective would change the System.

46 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al. Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose DSRP On the Concept of a Sys- Marchal 1975 Philosophy of Sci- Marchal is essentially drawing a line between He explained that while the actual word “sys- Explores a concept of systems. tem ence Distinctions and Systems for us. One is able tem” can have multiple meanings, the most to turn a system into a distinction, and Mar- important form of it is as a structural term. It’s chal acknowledges later that systems are also important to note that systems are “concep- made up of distinctions. herefore, the word tualized differently by different investigators.” ‘system’ implies a set (S) of interconnected In other words, the structure of a system will (R) components (D). It is important to note be different when looked at from different per- that Marchal is implying that the Relationships spectives.“We certainly distinguish between, themselves are also to be counted as compo- and are interested in, different kinds of sys- nents of the system. This article excellently tems, for example, nervous systems, number demonstrates the interconnections between systems, and betting systems. The question the patterns of mind, as in order for one to is, do these distinctions between kinds of sys- Systematize, they have to Relate and make tems warrant, or require, parallel distinctions Distinctions. among senses of ’system’, each with its cor- respondingly different concept of a system?” Importantly, Marchal’s definition of a system is: “ S is a system only if S is a set of related elements.” DSRP Systems and Distinctions; Goguen and 2007 International Jour- There is no whole system without an intercon- It is evident that different people find it conve- To look at the concepts of sys- Duality and Complementar- Varela nal Of General nection of its parts; and there is no whole sys- nient to divide the world in different ways, and tems and distinctions and how ity Systems tem without an environment. Such pairs are even one person will be interested in different they function and relate. mutually interdependent: each defines the systems at different times.” This connects Dis- other. DSRP is real. tinctions (dividing the world is the same as Distinction-making), Systems, Relationships (the interconnections between them), and Per- spectives (they clearly state that each person will have their own perspective on D,S, and R, and that the Perspectives can change de- pending on the context). In terms of Distinc- tions, they stated that distinctions are one of the most fundamental processes that hu- mans do. They also noted that Distinctions work in tandem with Perspectives, with indi- viduals making different Distinctions based on their intent, context, and individuality. They also wrote that, “The properties of a system emerge from the interactions of its compo- nents.” Relationships are therefore another essential part of human thinking/being. They posit that a System can be part of another larger system, and that a System can be part of another even larger System, and so on. DSRP Categorization in infancy Mareschal 2001 Trends in Cogni- Their research demonstrated that the Distinc- The results showed that “studies not requir- Looked at the process of catego- and Quinn tive Sciences tion making process begins early in life, and ing a familiarization phase find that infants rization, especially in infancy. leads one to see that Distinction making is separate entities according to broad, global also an essential part of categorization. This category distinctions.” While studies that did indicates that in order to perform a task as have a familiarization phase showed that, “in- simple as interacting with objects, both the D fants can sort entities into global categories, and S patterns of mind are present and could but they can also form more finely tuned lead one to infer that these are fundamental basic-level categories, and in some instances processes in human thinking due to their early are even sensitive to the exemplar-specific appearance in life. characteristics of the individual instances pre- sented during familiarization.” DSRP Procedural learning in per- Ashby et al. 2003 Memory & Cogni- Categorization of objects and information de- In discussing the two types of category struc- To discuss procedural learning ceptual categorization tion veloped through making distinctions and form- tures, the article suggests that the formation within perceptual categorization ing a physical relationship to them, resulted in of these category structures developed due to categorization. a survivalistic need for a quick response to the environment. DSRP The role of similarity in the Sloutsky 2003 Trends in Cogni- The use of parts to figure out where the whole The more often one makes categories, or To argue that perceptual and development of categoriza- tive Sciences object belongs requires not only Systems, but is put into situations where categorization is attentional mechanisms are the tion Distinctions and Relationships. needed, the better and faster one gets at places where categorization is de- categorization. He concluded that categories veloped. are more easily facilitated by similarity-based relationships between objects, rather than a difference-based one. This is due to the nat- ural impulse to use the parts of an object in order to determine what it is and in which cat- egory it belongs to. DSRP Knowledge partitioning in Lewandowsky 2006 Memory & Cogni- Their work led them to believe that partition- The results of the experiments led them to To discuss the concept of knowl- categorization: Boundary et al. tion ing (aka, creating a boundary between two state that partitioned knowledge helps create edge partitioning in relation to conditions or more things) is a pervasive aspect of cate- the phenomenon where people make differ- boundary conditions. gorization (aka, grouping things according to ent decisions for the same problem in a dif- their type or relationships), thus involving Dis- ferent context. They noted that partitioning oc- tinctions and Systems. curred most often in experts, as the more knowledge you have the more “parcels” you bring to the table. Through multiple experi- ments they determined that the more difficult and complex a problem is, the more likely par- titioning is to occur. By distinguishing between aspects of the problem, people are able to use context to help solve complicated prob- lems. DSRP The conceptual grouping Lupyan 2008 Cognition Provided as a prime, the label (a Distin- The overall result of his experiments was that To observe a bridge between Dis- effect: Categories mat- guished identity) is, in effect, used by the re- the assignment of a label (or a Distinction) fa- tinctions and Systems. ter (and named categories spondent as a framing Perspective to more cilitated (Perspective) the grouping (System- matter more) quickly identify the identities that will be izing) and deeper understanding of concepts grouped. and ideas. DSRP Can There Be Such a Dijk et al. 2008 Theory and Psy- They imply that the Relationship between the Drawing on work in robotics, biology, and neu- To discuss embodied cognition. Thing as Embodied Em- chology brain and the outside world is essential to the roscience, we propose a conceptualization (a bedded Cognitive Neuro- brain’s success. The sensory inputs of the metaphor) of the relationship between behav- science? brain and body all help D, S, R, and P to occur ior, body, and brain activity in real-world con- in embodied cognition. texts. As one builds a larger and more com- plex robot they need to focus heavily on how the bot processes the Relationship between its processor and the unpredictable environ- ment it encounters. DSRP Concepts and Categories: Mahon and 2009 Annual Review of Progress in understanding the causes of cat- They determined that concept organization in Neuroscientific perspective of cat- A Cognitive Neuropsycho- Caramazza Psychology egory specificity in one region of the brain, the brain is a multifaceted issue that reaches egories. logical Perspective or one functional component of a cognitive on many different regions of the brain. They model, will require an understanding of how went further to extrapolate that “human be- category specificity is realized throughout the havior arises due to the integration of multiple whole brain and throughout the whole cogni- cognitive processes that individually operate tive model. over distinct types of knowledge.” They also argued that our ability to organize concepts is grounded in the physical world.

Cabrera et al. JOAST | June 2, 2020 | vol. 20 | no. 6 47 Table continued from previous page DSRP Title Author Year Journal Meaning Result Purpose DSRP Social Identification Struc- Tarrant et al. 2012 Psychological Sci- A solution for this issue highlighted in the ar- Participants in the perspective-taking con- Exploring the idea that tures the Effects of Per- ence ticle is to include in the exercise a discussion dition attributed significantly more negative Perspective-taking as a con- spective Taking of not only Perspectives, but also Distinctions, traits to the out-group as in-group identifica- flict resolution tool isn’t always Systems, and Relationships. tion increased. When a Perspective-taking ex- the most effective tool as it can ercise is done in a group consisting of an in- lead to more animosity within the group and an outgroup, if a member of the group. ingroup takes another’s perspective, they can be rejected or alienated from the ingroup as a result. This is due to the level of identifica- tion one has within the ingroup, the more ded- icated they are the more negatively they react to the other and the exercise, as they can per- ceive that their identity is being threatened. DSRP Naming influences 9- Havy and 2016 Cognition This implies that the addition of Distinctions This resulted in the two-name-group sorting Exploring the impact of naming on month-olds’ identification Waxman i.e., naming) to the Systems (i.e., categories) the objects based on which end of the spec- infant categorization. of discrete categories the infants are trying to make aids in their trum they resembled most, while the one- along a perceptual contin- forming part-whole systems and even can be- name-group did not sort. The researchers uum gin their comprehension of Relationships. found that, “even when presented with a uni- modal distribution, infants listening to two dis- tinct names for exemplars at each end of the continuum formed two distinct categories.” Overall, they determined that “even before in- fants begin to produce words on their own, naming serves as a strong supervisory sig- nal for category learning, supporting infants as they impose boundaries along a continuum and highlighting the categories joints.” DSRP Habituation in non-neural Boisseau et 2016 Royal Society The point of this and many other similar re- The more times they exposed the slime mold To investigate learning in non- organisms: evidence from al Publications searches into unicellular and multicellular or- to the stimulus, its response rate was less and neural organisms slime moulds ganisms, plants, etc, is that even non-neural less. Eventually, the mold learned to ignore organisms can learn and are building little the stimulus altogether. When given a break mental models of their surroundings (however from the stimulus and then reintroduced, the rudimentary) based on distinctions, systems, process started over again. relationships, and perspectives. DSRP A Unifying Theory of Cabrera and 2015 Systems Re- DSRP is academically useful and pertinent to DSRP offers a unifying and organizing prin- To argue that DSRP “offers a uni- Systems Thinkingwith Cabrera search and problem solving and the theory also has sig- ciple for the field of systems thinking and an fying and organizing principle for Psychosocial Applications Behavioral Sci- nificant social and psychological implications. indispensable analytical tool for solving com- the field of systems thinking and ence Examples of this are in self-awareness, empa- plex problems. an indispensable analytical tool for thy, and decreasing negative social practices solving complex problems.” such as stereotyping.

48 | www.joast.org Cabrera et al.