Self-Organiztion of Cognitive Performance

Number 1319
Year 2003
Drawer 25
Entry Date 01/23/2008
Authors Guy C. Van Orden, John G. Holden, Michael T. Turvey
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Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2003, Vol. 132,No. 3, pp. 331-350
url http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1319.pdf
Abstract Background noise is the irregular variation across repeated measurements of human performance. Background noise remains after task and treatment effects are minimized. Background noise refers to intrinsic sources of variability, the intrinsic dynamics of mind and body, and the internal workings of a living being. Two experiments demonstrate 1/ƒ scaling (pink noise) in simple reaction times and speeded word naming times, which round out a catalogof laboratory task demonstrations that background noise is pink noise. Ubiquitous pink noise suggests processes of mind and body that change each other’s dynamics. Such interaction-dominant dynamics are found in systems that self-organize their behavior.Self-organized provides an unconventional perspective on cognition, but this perspective closely parallels a contemporary interdisciplinary view of living systems.
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