A Complexity Science Account of Humor.

A common assumption of psychological theories of humor is that experienced funniness results from an incongruity between stimuli provided by a verbal joke or visual pun, followed by a sudden, surprising resolution of incongruity. In the perspective of complexity science, this characteristic incongruity-resolution sequence is modeled by a phase transition, where an initial attractor-like script, suggested by the initial joke information, is suddenly destructed, and in the course of resolution replaced by a less probable novel script. The transition from the initial to the enforced final script was modeled as a succession of two attractors with different minimum potentials, during which free energy becomes available to the joke recipient. Hypotheses derived from the model were tested in an empirical study where participants rated the funniness of visual puns. It was found, consistent with the model, that the extent of incongruity and the abruptness of resolution were associated with reported funniness, and with social factors, such as disparagement (Schadenfreude) added to humor responses. The model suggests explanations as to why bistable puns and phase transitions in conventional problem solving, albeit also based on phase transitions, are generally less funny. We proposed that findings from the model can be transferred to decision processes and mental change dynamics in psychotherapy.

Information and Self-Organization II: Steady State and Phase Transition.

This paper starts from Schrödinger's famous question "what is life" and elucidates answers that invoke, in particular, Friston's free energy principle and its relation to the method of Bayesian inference and to Synergetics 2nd foundation that utilizes Jaynes' maximum entropy principle. Our presentation reflects the shift from the emphasis on physical principles to principles of information theory and Synergetics. In view of the expected general audience of this issue, we have chosen a somewhat tutorial style that does not require special knowledge on physics but familiarizes the reader with concepts rooted in information theory and Synergetics.

Causation and chance: Detection of deterministic and stochastic ingredients in psychotherapy processes.

A novel methodology for the empirical analysis of processes in psychotherapy was developed and tested. This method is based on the Fokker-Planck equation (FPE), a probabilistic model that detects the deterministic and stochastic components of a process. The deterministic component is given by the potential function underlying the process. The FPE application can be used to visualize the attractor (or in the case of multistability, attractors) of the dynamics, and the sources of stochasticity. The FPE app can also be employed in two-dimensional systems, for example, client's and therapist's coupled processes; then the method is run on the cross-correlations of the time series. Signatures were defined that merge the functions retrieved from the methodology into numerical values, and may serve to detect associations with conventional self-report measures of psychotherapy. The method was tested in a case series where client's and therapist's heart rate, heart rate variability and respiration were monitored in 20 psychotherapy sessions. The FPE app works well with time series of high resolution and adequate observation numbers, which renders it applicable to nonverbal and physiological time series.

Self-organization and information in biosystems: a case study.

Eigen's original molecular evolution equations are extended in two ways. (1) By an additional nonlinear autocatalytic term leading to new stability features, their dependence on the relative size of fitness parameters and on initial conditions is discussed in detail. (2) By adding noise terms that represent the spontaneous generation of molecules by mutations of substrate molecules, these terms are taken care of by both Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations. The steady-state solution of the latter provides us with a potential landscape giving a bird's eye view on all stable states (attractors). Two different types of evolutionary processes are suggested: (a) in a fixed attractor landscape and (b) caused by a changed landscape caused by changed fitness parameters. This may be related to Gould's concept of punctuated equilibria. External signals in the form of additional molecules may generate a new initial state within a specific basin of attraction. The corresponding attractor is then reached by self-organization. This approach allows me to define pragmatic information as signals causing a specific reaction of the receiver and to use equations equivalent to (1) as model of (human) pattern recognition as substantiated by the synergetic computer.

How to Modify Psychopathological States? Hypotheses Based on Complex Systems Theory.

In mathematical analysis based on the assumptions of complexity science, the emergence of a pattern is the result of a competition of modes, which each have a parameter value attached. In the context of visual pattern recognition, a specific connectionist system (the synergetic computer SC) was developed, which was derived from the assumptions of synergetics, a theory of complex systems. We adapted the processes of visual pattern recognition performed by the SC to a different context, psychopathology and therapeutic interventions, assuming these scenarios are analogous. The problem then becomes, under which conditions will a previously established psychopathological pattern not be restituted? We discuss several cases by using the equations of the SC. Translated to the psychopathological context, we interpret the mathematical findings and proofs in such a way that successful corrective interventions, e.g. by psychotherapy, should focus on one alternative pattern only. This alternative cognition-behavior-experience pattern is to be constructed individually by a therapist and a patient in the therapeutic alliance. The alternative pattern must be provided with higher valence (i.e. affective and motivational intensity) than possessed by the psychopathological pattern. Our findings do not support a linear symptom-oriented therapy approach based on specific intervention techniques, but rather a holistic approach. This is consistent with empirical results of psychotherapy research, especially the theory of common factors.

A synergetic perspective on urban scaling, urban regulatory focus and their interrelations.

By means of rich data, studies on urban scaling suggested that many urban properties scale with city size in universal ways. A recent study suggested an explanation why the behaviour of citizens in small and large cities differs qualitatively, by deriving the urban agents' behaviour from an extended version of Higgins' regulatory focus theory regarding humans' motivational system. Based on several sets of laboratory experiments, this study demonstrated that urban context of large, fast-paced cities and that of small slow-paced cities encourage two distinctively different motivations and behaviours on the part of their inhabitants. What remains an open question following the above study, however, is the way these behavioural reactions are related to the dynamics of cities as complex, adaptive, self-organization systems. The aim of the present paper is to answer this open question. It does so from the theoretical perspective of Synergetics and its application to the domain of cities by means of synergetic inter-representation networks, information adaptation and their conjunction. From this conjunction, the paper suggests a theoretical interpretation associated with a mathematical model that links the theoretical framework to the empirical findings.

What Can Synergetics Contribute to Embodied Aesthetics?

I deal with perception and action (e.g., movements) using results from synergetics, a comprehensive mathematical theory of the self-organized formation (emergence) of spatial, temporal, or functional structures in complex systems. I illustrate basic concepts such as order parameters (OPs), enslavement, complexity reduction, circular causality first by examples of well-known collective, spontaneous modes of human behavior such as rhythmic clapping of hands, and so forth, and then by face recognition. The role played by OPs depends on context. In the case of face (or pattern) recognition an OP represents the concept of an individual face (action of mind) and it enslaves the action (firing rates) of neurons (body). This insight allows me to interpret syndromes as order parameters playing their mind/body double role. I present criteria for the identification of OPs and discuss their general properties including error correction and remedy of deficiencies. Contact is made with a recent paper by Sabine Koch on embodied aesthetics. My approach includes the saturation of attention at various time scales (ambiguous figures/fashion). Adopting a psychological perspective, I discuss some ingredients of beauty such as proportionality and symmetry, but also the importance of irregularities.

Synergetics of brain function.

Several brain functions such as movement coordination and visual perception are analysed in terms of synergetics, an interdisciplinary field of research dealing with spontaneous pattern formation. Accordingly, the brain is conceived as a self-organizing system operating close to instabilities where its activities are governed by collective variables, the order parameters, that enslave the individual parts, i.e., the neurons. In this approach, emphasis is laid on qualitative changes of behavioral and neuronal activities. These concepts are substantiated by detailed experimental and theoretical studies of the coordination of finger movements by direct observation of their changes and MEG measurements. In its main part, this paper deals with visual pattern recognition. Using general properties of order parameters, at the phenomenological level bistability, hysteresis and oscillations of visual perception can be modelled. Then, at the microscopic level, a network of pulse-coupled neurons is treated, where the dynamics of the dendritic currents as well as the axonic pulses (spikes) are taken into account. Both pulse-synchronization as well as pattern recognition are treated. In the high pulse frequency limit the attractor network of the synergetic computer is recovered. In the next step, the concept of quasi-attractors is mathematically formulated where due to saturation of attention attractors are closed. Depending on incoming signals, the visual system thus wanders from quasi-attractor to quasi-attractor. The paper includes an interpretation of consciousness in terms of order parameters as well as a discussion on linearity versus nonlinearity, the binding problem, and the psychological "present".

Alliance: a common factor of psychotherapy modeled by structural theory.

There is broad consensus that the therapeutic alliance constitutes a core common factor for all modalities of psychotherapy. Meta-analyses corroborated that alliance, as it emerges from therapeutic process, is a significant predictor of therapy outcome. Psychotherapy process is traditionally described and explored using two categorically different approaches, the experiential (first-person) perspective and the behavioral (third-person) perspective. We propose to add to this duality a third, structural approach. Dynamical systems theory and synergetics on the one hand and enactivist theory on the other together can provide this structural approach, which contributes in specific ways to a clarification of the alliance factor. Systems theory offers concepts and tools for the modeling of the individual self and, building on this, of alliance processes. In the enactive perspective, the self is conceived as a socially enacted autonomous system that strives to maintain identity by observing a two-fold goal: to exist as an individual self in its own right (distinction) while also being open to others (participation). Using this conceptualization, we formalized the therapeutic alliance as a phase space whose potential minima (attractors) can be shifted by the therapist to approximate therapy goals. This mathematical formalization is derived from probability theory and synergetics. We draw the conclusion that structural theory provides powerful tools for the modeling of how therapeutic change is staged by the formation, utilization, and dissolution of the therapeutic alliance. In addition, we point out novel testable hypotheses and future applications.

Towards a unifying model of neural net activity in the visual cortex.

A neural net model describing the non-linear interactions between axonal spikes is presented. It reconciles aspects of pattern recognition (as action of an associative memory) with those of spike synchronization and phase locking. The stability of the synchronized state is studied in detail.