Cognition and Linguistics

Evolution and propagation of the world’s languages is a complex phenomenon, driven, to a
large extent, by social interactions. Multilingual society can be seen as a system of interacting
agents, where the interaction leads to a modification of the language spoken by the individuals. Two people can reach the state of full linguistic compatibility due to the positive interactions,
like transfer of loanwords. But, on the other hand, if they speak entirely different languages,

In this work, we look into drivers of team innovation, from the perspective of team interaction network. We show that the answer to this problem depends not only on the complexity level of the problem space, but also strongly depends on the temporal horizon of team work. We use a two-layer computational model to capture a complex problem landscape through interdependency of decision variables, and the interaction structure of team members, respectively.

Mental disorders (MD) have an enormous impact in our society. A holistic approach to mental health promotion and care provision is then needed since individuals with MD are defined not just alone but in relation to other members of the community: caregivers, relatives and friends, all of them holding different but relevant roles. Thus, we have designed an experimental setup by means of citizen science practices that probes into the complexity of the interdependencies at play within the mental health ecosystem.

How does network structure affect how teams find solutions and how do solution strategies spread? We investigate collective problem solving on a rugged landscape with dyads as the problem-solving unit, i.e. participants are paired with network neighbors to seek a solution to the problem. Inspired by the 80’s sci-fi movie Close Encounters of The Third Kind, we set up a networked multiplayer game where participants had to signal peace to invading aliens from space by finding the four-tone melody signaling peace.

A peace agreement was recently subjected to a plebiscite as a solution finish the Colombian armed conflict. With 62.57% of abstention, 18.44% of the Colombian electorate rejected this agreement. This paper aims to propose a methodological approach that shows how to linguistically analyze peace agreements as political products that are acceptable or not according to their text difficulty. Given the socio-political similarities of the armed conflicts of Colombia, Guatemala, and El Salvador, we scrutinized with sufficient computational detail these peace agreements.

Spatial metaphors are ubiquitous in political communication. One talks about political positions, political landscapes, and about the distances between opinions or positions of political actors. Thus, it is natural to consider spatial representations of political opinions: Political spaces. The main level of political discourse, that can be observed directly, is the level of political issues. We consider anything on which a political decision can be made as a political issue.

A remarkable trait of human communication is that universal patterns can be found regardless of the language being used. Zipf's law is the most famous example - when words are ranked according to how frequently they are used, a power-law relationship is observed between the rank of the word and its frequency.

Why does observing HHHHHH (six heads) from a fair coin feel more regular and less random than observing HTTHHT when both are equally likely outcomes? Despite the simplicity of this question, cognitive and complexity scientists have debated whether human perception of randomness is simply erroneous,1 determined by how representative the event is of a large random sequence,2 reflective of cognitive limitations (e.g., working memory),3 calculated via Bayesian inference (posterior odds of the sequence having been generated by a "fair" vs.

The last decades, Intelligent Transport Systems are in the spotlight. There is an increasing scientific interest in this field, due to the continuous rise in the number of vehicles causing a major problem in urban areas. A lot of research has been introduced to propose different ways to deal with the congestion, mainly by better predicting the traffic status and improving its management. Researchers suggest that both the data and the methodology being used have a significant impact on the results.