Social complexities

Complexities of social networks: A Physicist’s perspective

A large number of natural phenomena in the universe go on oblivious of the presence of any living being, let alone a society. Fundamental science subjects like physics and chemistry deal with laws which would remain unaltered in the absence of life. In biological science, which deals with living beings, the idea of a society may exist in a basic form, e.g., as food chains, struggle for existenc...

Complexities of emotional responses to social and non-social affective stimuli in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND Adaptive emotional responses are important in interpersonal relationships. We investigated self-reported emotional experience, physiological reactivity, and micro-facial expressivity in relation to the social nature of stimuli in individuals with schizophrenia (SZ). METHOD Galvanic skin response (GSR) and facial electromyography (fEMG) were recorded in medicated outpatients with SZ...

Complexities of complex contrast

For the visual system, luminance contrast is a fundamental property of images, and is one of the main inputs of any simulation of visual processing. Many models intended to evaluate visual properties such as image discriminability compute perceived contrast by using contrast sensitivity functions derived from studies of human spatial vision. Such use is of questionable validity even for such ap...

Dinoflagellate Life-cycle Complexities

Acknowledging the Complexities

RANDY THORNHILL AND CRAIG PALMER’S NEW BOOK A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (2000a) sets up a stark contrast between evolutionary theory and feminist theory that performed perfectly in its intended role as a media hook (for a summary of the book, see Thronhill & Palmer, 2000b). The authors have appeared on CNN, Dateline, and other television programs, and on Natio...