Memory and Sharing Information

                 Monday’s lecture reminded me of an episode of Brain Games I saw not too long ago. The series on Netflix analyzes concepts relating to human cognition in a fresh and engaging way. Professor De Young, in his talk on experts and how they can most effectively share information with those that might not have their same expertise, shared a list of several strategies for sharing information. Two of these strategies were also salient in the Brain Games episode on Remembering (Season 1: Ep. 3) suggesting a possible link between sharing information effectively and activating the audience’s memory.

All images courtesy of Brain Games. (Crowell, "Remember This!", 2011)

                  The episode included a gentleman named Ron White whom engaged in competitive memory task and several times throughout the show he took on challenges where he was required to remember a series of items. After each challenge, he would explain his strategy for remembering the concepts and his techniques frequently overlapped with the guidelines for sharing information that Professor De Young presented in class. The first task was to memorize the serial numbers of three-dollar bills he obtained and for this he said he created a mental map equating each number with a picture. For instance, he thought of a cat when the number was nine because cat’s supposedly have nine lives. He would then mentally arrange the collection of images in a conceptual space which he called his house. When recalling the numbers, he would just take a journey through his house and see what objects he would encounter. This strategy seemed to fit with Professor De Young’s point concerning concrete examples specifically visual imagery. A series of numbers was more easily recalled when each number could be represented by a relatable real world entity.

(Crowell, "Remember This!", 2011)

                  In a second task, Ron was required to remember a series of everyday objects. He approached this challenge by creating a narrative in which all the objects were used allowing for easier recollection later by reviewing his narrative. Case in point three of the items listed were a hat, umbrella, and gift and considering the show’s setting in New York City, Ron imagined a young man leaving the subway with an umbrella in his hand, a hat on, and a gift under his arm which he intended to give to a female friend he would meet later on. This strategy exemplified one of the more emphasized points from lecture in that stories are a quite effective means of sharing information in that they make concepts more palpable for the audience.

(Crowell, "Remember This!", 2011)

The final task for Mr. White was to memorize a small deck of cards. His strategy in this instance was a combination of those seen in the first two task as he formulated a picture for each card, organized those pictures into a holistic narrative, and then imagined this narrative taking place in “his house”. This method advocated for a multi-layered approach to taking on the guidelines for sharing information. The episode of Brain Games as well as Professor De Young’s lecture prompted a question in my mind about the presentation of material as an expert in a certain field. Specifically, what real world presentation methods lend themselves best to the principles outlined for sharing information (I.e. PowerPoint, virtual reality, audio recordings, Prezi, publications, etc.)? What do you guys think? And does the episode raise any other questions or concepts?

 (Crowell, "Remember This!", 2011)

PS: I definitely recommend the episode if you are interested in memory as it relates to recalling the story of the crime in court cases as this is a topic touched upon as well.

Sources:

Crowell, J. (Writer). (2011, October 09). Remember This! [Television series episode]. In Brain Games. National Geographic.

The Dilemma of Architects: Misinterpretation or Selective-Negligence?

The CCTV New Headquarters Project (designed by Rem Koolhaas, Figure 1) in Beijing has been in the spotlight, since the first day of its appearance. The confusing public as well as the media gave it a nickname--“Big Pants” to joke about the strangeness of this building (Figure 2). Interestingly, architects seem to take an opposite stance, and use it as a good example to explore how this “strange” from is realized and supported by the structural calculation. This distinctive attitude towards Koolhaas’s CCTV building suggests the different cognitive processes of architects and laypeople. Architects tend to perceive the building as a technological problem and in a more abstract way; while laypeople tend to interpret this building in a more concrete way and relate it to a familiar, everyday object—pants. Drawing on Kaplan’s explanation (2015), architects as experts, are trained to build more simplified mental models of the CCTV building, and are selective in the information they are willing to consider. 

Figure 1 

(Source: Retrieved from http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2008-05/07/content_8120308.htm)

 Figure 2

(Source: Retrieved from http://www.tubaiwan.com/topic/showpic/81441-2063.html)

This gap also exists in a different cultural context. A study conducted by Jack Nasar (1989) in the context of North America, shows that in interpreting the symbolic meanings of home-styles, architects responded differently from the public, and they misinterpret the public responses. In general, architects ranked the Contemporary style (Figure 3) as more desirable, while the public ranked traditional styles (such as Tudor, Figure 4) as more desirable. The differentiated perceptions pose several questions: If architects and laypeople generate different representations of buildings, how can architects design buildings that satisfy their users or the public? Or even though architects know the differences, as experts, what are their choices? As we are sharing the built environments with people from different social fields, whom shall we architects or urban designers design for, our own ambitions, our clients, or the public? 

Figure 3 

(Source: Nasar, J. (1989). Symbolic meanings of house styles. Environment and Behavior, 21: 235-257.)

Figure 4

(Source: Nasar, J. (1989). Symbolic meanings of house styles. Environment and Behavior, 21: 235-257.)

Encouraging participatory design, in this sense, is of great importance in the field of architectural and urban design. Through engaging in the process of design, the public can get familiar with the concept and integrate this information into their existing cognitive map. This will help the public 1) to understand why and how this certain built environment is formed, and 2) to feel they have some control over this built environment. This process will alter their interpretations about the built environment, which will further narrow the gap between the public and the architects. At the same time, the architects will get alternative information outside their expertise, which will remind themselves how they perceived the world before their architectural education. 

References:

Kaplan, S. (2015). The Expertise Challenge. In R. Kaplan & A. Basu (Eds.), Fostering Reasonableness (pp.43–53). Ann Arbor: Maize Books.

Nasar, J. (1989). Symbolic meanings of house styles. Environment and Behavior, 21: 235-257.

Experts or not, we can all relate to bathroom science!

The whole idea of "experts are bad at communicating about their expertise," is pretty much what landed me where I am today. I came to that conclusion after attending the United Nations Conference of Parties 20 (COP 20) in Lima, Peru in 2014. I like to think that, on some level, have some social skills (maybe more than that of a typical climate scientist). I also have the ability to understand higher level science (I'd hope so, my bachelor's is in Math!). My whole shtick is that I'd like to build a bridge between these hard science facts and everyday people who don't have the internal representations (IRs) to understand them. So, today's lecture resonated pretty deeply with me.

One of the other classes I'm taking in the Ford School of Public Policy, PP750, is called the Psychology of Climate Change and it goes over a lot about the content of these communication techniques - but here, I got the unique opportunity to look at these tactics from an information processing perspective.

We mentioned the idea of using stories to communicate today in class. In PP750, we also talked about the use of analogies (like stories) being helpful to communicate complex ideas - especially when it comes to really mathy things, like, "how much CO2 can we dump into the atmosphere before we're completely overloaded?" 

In a study that tried to address people's misconceptions about this topic, researchers developed an analogy that compared the atmosphere with a bathtub filling with water. In the late 1990s, a simulation was built so people could play with it themselves. Below is a picture of the interface.

Yes, yes, it's not pretty - and it's not very preferred (it is originally from 1997!). While it's not perfect and could use some updating, I think the benefits of this kind of simulation outweigh its crude design. A person can play and pause the simulation as they'd like, to take in the information at their own pace. They can go back and start over - and more importantly, when the simulation hits 2007, they can control in three different ways: they can allow increased CO2 emissions, level off emissions, or reduce CO2 emissions. While they can't determine how much to increase/reduce by, the "reduce" option shows the bare minimum we need to stay at 450ppm (parts per million), which has kind of been our "doomsday" number. If you want to play and mess around with the simulation yourself, you can do so here! 

In 2013, another study was done based around this idea of comparing the atmosphere to a bathtub. The groups for the study were: control (information about CO2 accumulation with no analogy or graph), information with the analogy only, graphical representation only, and analogy with graphical representation (Guy et al., 2013). It was expected that within the general public, that the combination of the analogy and the graph would be the most helpful for comprehension - however, they found that analogy only was actually the most effective tool for communicating this issue (Guy et al., 2013). Just the presence of the graph seemed to have an adverse effect on people's comprehension (Guy et al., 2013).

I think this is a big indicator for how we need to communicate these issues, even if it makes the job a little tougher. Although a lot of climate science comes from mathematical models and data, we need to translate these things so everyday people can understand them, and that may mean even tossing out the things many scientists hold near and dear; like graphs. We want to think that the data, presented graphically, can be considered legible and only take "common sense" to understand, but I think that even that is still too deep into our expertise.

Of course, translating that hard data is only half the battle. We also need to get people to genuinely care about the issue, and frame it not in just a way that they can understand, but so that they take this knowledge and turn it into action.

But... I think, for now, we should take one step at a time.

Reference:

Guy, S., Kashima, Y., Walker, I., & O’Neill, S. (2013, October 17). Comparing the atmosphere to a bathtub: Effectiveness of analogy for reasoning about accumulation. Climatic Change, 121(4), 579-594. doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0949-3:

Sensory overload + emotional triggers + inadequate coping ≠ preferred and productive environment

So, in the wake of a tumultuous week, I find I have “fifty million” thoughts in my head yet I have nothing to say. Ah...the irony of it all.

That’s not entirely true, I do have a lot to say…it just seems everything wants to come out at once.  I want to be heard.  I want to be understood.

The gerbils have been racing through my cognitive map-maze trying to make sense of, cope with, and draw from familiarity, in the days since the curtain closed on the 2016 Presidential election.  But there is absolutely nothing familiar or preferred about this environment. This chaos is definitely not an environment I chose to create nor chose to be in.  Hundreds of acute stressors trigger upending emotions and terrifying memories for which I find few coping mechanisms for. Terrifying because life's structure is becoming less and less coherent, the complexity of the social (national) environment is overwhelming, legibility brings up distinctly unpleasant memories and, under these conditions, I dread exploring the mystery of the looming future.   Herein lies the crux of my turmoil. 

It’s a fact; I’m a product of the 70’s.  But, I’m truly a child of the 80’s…when expression was measured by how high your hair was and phone service was limited by the length of its cord.  

It was during the early 1980’s when I experienced my first bit of racial terror; although, at that time, I had no idea what it meant.  

Originally born in Flint, our family lived a short while in Ann Arbor so my Dad could attend the U of M’s School of Engineering. I remember meeting really cool people-bonding because of our differences in color or language.  Cognitive maps were created through all of the fascinating experiences and adventures of trying to find common ground.   I was a bit sad to leave Ann Arbor to head back to the Flint area….to Grand Blanc, which translates to “Great White”.  I later learned it was originally named because of the expanse of bare, snow-covered landscape the French settlers encountered – not the prediction of an awesome 80’s hair band. 

I also later learned the subtlety of the city and its namesake.  I vividly remember sitting on the bus heading to school one morning as it was making all of the stops around our Blue Collar neighborhood (we always joked it was “the other side of the tracks” in Grand Blanc because the central part of Grand Blanc was considered "the rich side").   You could feel it first….the evil emanating from some unseen source.  Then it came into view as the bus prepared to stop to pick up Diana (name changed), the daughter of one of the first and few black families who came to live in Grand Blanc in the early ‘80s.   Diana wasn’t there, though.  And her house told the story as to why.  Spray painted all over it was the letters “KKK” and pictures of swastikas.  And hanging in the trees were the tattered remnants of charred fabric.  I remember the tears streaming down my face all the way to school.  And I remember not really realizing why….I just knew it was evil. 

That’s my earliest recollection of experiencing racism.  This presidential election has triggered the same response and caused a meltdown of my very psyche…leading me down a cognitive path I never ever wanted to revisit.  This time, however, I cry and I know why.  I understand racism is a reality but it is one that does not exist in my reality.  And let me tell you why….before anyone cries “White silence is violence” or “White privilege” affords me that luxury. 

In many of the classes I’ve encountered, the same theme keeps popping up; “we must re-frame our language so the populace can change their anthropogenic behavior and combat climate change”.  (Although I wholeheartedly argue and believe anthropogenic behavior only influences the rate of climate change and no “battle” will ever “defeat” climate change – it’s going to happen regardless of human influence.) If we’re schooled on re-framing language to reach out to the preferred “rational actors 2 and 3” for this behavior change, we can apply that notion to this enormous thing called racism. 

Let’s define racism first to familiarize ourselves with what racism truly is defined as.  

• “rac·ism, ˈrāˌsizəm, noun. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.   Alternatively, prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.” (English Oxford Dictionaries, 2016).

I am not a racist.  I absolutely know this with every part of my being and would never support someone who felt this way.  As of late, though, I’m shaken by seemingly “familiar” people (my friends and acquaintances) voting for someone who acts in ways which support and perpetuate racism.  I would like to believe many of the people we love and have friendships with would not support that either.  But many did. I can’t control the actions of others…they are walking the different paths of their own unique cognitive maps. 

As this Nation is currently very focused on racism and sets foot to a path with a divisive future, segregation of all people increases; leading to increased inferiority and superiority complexes.  At the moment, I feel very inferior.   And I also feel this path is leading (me especially), away from what I "came here to do" environmentally and artistically.

I have been considered racist as of late.  According to many non-white people, I’m condemned to that fate because I was born in white skin.  But I have to believe racism serves no evolutionary purpose and therefore racism hasn’t evolved generation to generation in anyone’s DNA.  Nor is it "automatically wired" into our cognitive maps from birth; since we develop our maps from repeat experiences.  

On an emotional level, I’m really grappling with this.  The only coping skill I can turn to is to “numb out”.  I have no cognitive map, no experience to draw from on how to deal with this personal accusation.  I've certainly had prejudices held against me, but I've never been considered something so abominably evil.

And numbing out is a very interesting coping mechanism.  I believe, as a society, we have effectively created generations of completely desensitized individuals.  How could we not?  Again, a child of the ‘80s, I remember when Tipper Gore succeeded in leading the charge to warn of “explicit” lyrics on albums (albeit, explicit differed greatly ‘back then’). There were, and still are, cries of censorship and First Amendment injustices involving her “Parents Music Resource Center” warning label.  And I remember all too well when the Nation was graced with “The Faces of Death” movies - “Your senses will be numbed when you witness actual footage of a human barbeque….”.  Why. Why do we need to numb our senses?  Why do we need to engage in activities that promote the numbing of our senses? We should be outraged this was available! We should be outraged that numbing of the senses is encouraged! Look at the consequences today! 

I hear people saying, “Oh, give the president-elect a chance, don’t be so bitter your candidate lost”.  OMG.   I try not to have a non-rational temper tantrum.  It’s not about losing….like a game of Monopoly or something.  It’s not about giving trump “a chance”.  It’s about completely overlooking and accepting a leader who has actively demonstrated hateful, negative, racist, misogynistic, and prejudiced behaviors.  The same language and behavior that would warrant a PMRC warning label on a music album!

I’m a Libra.  I need balance.  I need Peace.  So, how do I achieve this?  I truly don’t know. 

But I do believe a true stance against racism starts with restructuring our language instead of being prejudiced about a white person for what is perceived as inaction on inequality.   This is applicable to promoting pro-environmental behaviors, as well. We must stop using language perpetuating segregation of any sort.  I know it begins by not looking at a situation as “us” and/or “them”.  And I struggle with this minute by minute….facebook post by facebook post.  Even the safety pin movement, of which I have several laid out on my dresser but have not donned.  I wanted people to know “I wasn’t necessarily ‘with her’” but I’m definitely not “with him”.  Then I thought it might make me a target of some sort of president-elect supporter meting out justice in the name of their führer.    

So, alas, I find myself struggling with the “day to day”.  I had replied to Erin’s blog, “No sleep for the weary”, mentioning how my personal clarity has become very clear over the last week. But it’s certainly not helping to cope.  My individual exploratory assignment explores 6 methods of mindful meditation.  Even though it is meant as deeply restorative, I feel this is going to take a ton of directed attention…at a time I’m deeply attention deficit and fatigued.   But maybe that's the coping mechanism I need.  I am open to trying...and, perhaps in my next blog assignment, I will be a little more focused, a little more grounded and a lot less defensive.  It’s a choice, I know.  In the gracious words of Mother Teresa, “If you want Peace, then focus on Peace”.  

References:

English Oxford Living Dictionaries.  2016. Retrieved               from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/racism.  2016 Oxford University Press.

Humanscape, Chapter 7, Stress and the Failure of Preference, pp 194-199.
Humanscape, Chapter 8, Coping strategies: Choice and Control, pp 324 - 330.

Kaplan, Richard, Stephen Kaplan, and Robert L. Ryan "Some human characteristics," in With People in       Mind: Design and Management of Everyday Nature.  Washington, DC: Island Press, 1998, pp 7-16.

Lecture on Evolution and Human Information Processing, 09.12.16

Lecture on Rationality, 10.24.16

A Time to Restore

gif credit: New York Times

"Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of a universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit." -William James

It's that time of year again, when the deadlines keep coming and all of us the the academic world start feeling seriously overwhelmed. This also seems to be the time of year when other stressors pile up as well-- many people are also worried by things like the unexpected election results, impending graduation, health issues, relationship uncertainty, being far from family, etc. For me personally, it's always the things I have the least control over that make me the most stressed, and the additional attention fatigue I'm experiencing as deadlines approach makes it even harder to find ways to slow down, unplug, and restore. In light of our conversation last Friday, and the walking tour yesterday, I want to remind everyone about a couple of things covered early in the course that may help us stop the dreaded cycle of attention fatigue and stress.

I brought back the above quote, from one of Dr. De Young's early lectures, not to say that we should be ignoring our stressors, but more to say that it is possible for us to choose our focus and thus our universe, if only for a short moment in time. Taking even a very small break to be mindful can completely shift our attitude and outlook on the day, making us happier, calmer, and more productive. When most of us think about mindfulness we picture something more like meditation, we probably picture someone sitting alone in a dark room, probably for a long time. In reality it is possible to be mindful doing the most mundane of tasks--mindfulness is more about slowing down our thoughts, not eliminating them, and doing something simple very deliberately. The goal is not to change what we are doing or thinking about, but to detach from the world for a few minutes and simply notice the thoughts as they pass by.

One of my favorite resources for mindfulness practice is, surprisingly, the New York Times. There is a great collection you can find here of short mindfulness exercises centered around everyday tasks, with new ones posted each week. There are exercises centered around stopping at a stoplight, walking outside in the fall, and sipping a coffee. For me, simply reading over the exercises helped me see ways to be mindful and take a pause during all sorts of tasks throughout my day. My personal favorite is this one:

How to Be Mindful With Your Cat

Feel the way the cat settles into your lap.

Notice the contours of the cat’s body, its soft belly and its bony legs.

Is the warmth all over your lap or is there a concentration, a warmest spot?

Pet your cat from the head towards the tail, observing how the cat responds and reacts.

Scratch your cat gently, starting at the top of the head and going down towards the jaw.

Notice the change in the feeling of the fur, as it gets a little softer at the jawline.

Look at your cat’s eyes. Are they half-closed? Fully closed?

Feel the cat’s breath, and deepen your own inhalations and exhalations.

For those of us without pets, you can be mindful with lots of cats here (accessible by bus!) I tried in vain to find something similar for dogs, but I know the university brings in therapy dogs periodically during finals periods so hopefully there are lots of dogs to come. In the mean time, I hope this introduction to mini-mindfulness can help us all remember to slow down and tune out during this stressful season, if only for a moment.

Safety Pin Movement

The safety pin movement is an interesting concept to think about within the frame of coping with community. Wearing a safety pin is supposed to signify self-identifying as an ally in the midst of the increased violence and hate crimes in the last week. Identifying people, where one could conceivably predict their behavior, could lead to increased preference. Kaplan in Humanscape says, “One cannot check the intentions of intruders if one cannot recognize who does and who does not belong. It is not only essential to recognize who belongs in one’s community...it is also necessary to predict their likely behavior” (p. 265-266). Our social and physical environments are being manipulated and affecting the ways we cope. Isms have always been present but othering and violence is increasing. Previously when I have thought about coping, I have thought about comfort. But what about coping as a community? Safety pins have been critiqued as passive and misleading. Perhaps they aren’t the best way to socially cope in this changing and violent environment. In such a non-preferred environment, I am thinking about collective coping and how I can be proactive and inclusive. I am currently trying to cope by being uncomfortable and supporting marginalized communities in action.

Fitting a village in an apartment building

My grandmother used to live in a small beautiful village, an hour drive from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Right in front of her house was a very productive beautiful wetland where the locals cultivated fish and ducks for consumption, with big trees surrounding There were one mushola (a small community mosque) and six houses around the wetland, five of them were owned and lived in by three generations of the same family. On the west side of the wetland were rice fields and farms. Meanwhile tea plantation was in the far west of the village.

My grandmother’s house was surrounded by low fences with a one-meter-tall gate as an entrance. Then there was a long path with exotic fruit trees and flowers before the porch, before the front door. The house itself was surrounded by rambutan garden. It was an ideal preferred environment and territory for the family. At least that is how I remember that place from when I used to live there and the weekly visit later on.

Stereotypically the locals usually having a lot of kids, because they believe more kids give you more financial opportunity, and less access to education. Most of the generations who were born before the 80’s are fulfilling the hard labor market for the textile factories surrounding, which was started to operate at the 80’s. Due to lack of education, their lands usually being sold in little pieces to new settlers anytime they need money. As the parents get older, the remaining piece of land at the end will be divided for eight to nine children, so each kid will have small piece of land to build their house among the new settlers. Hence the rising of the density, resulted in smaller living area, and bigger environmental problems.

The village has changed physically and mentally, as I saw when I paid visit earlier this year. The wetland was converted into residential area, creeks have been used for untreated wastewater disposal, trees and birds are disappeared, and bunch of new settlers occupied more spaces. Once an ideally preferred environment and territory, now have less adequate physical setting as a preferable place to live. However, generations of local people who grew up in the village for decades still have the well-developed cognitive maps, positive feeling, as well as connection, both social connection to the community and to the land. In the meantime, conversation about forced eviction was getting more intense throughout the years. Local people predict eviction might happen anytime soon, and it will never be easy.

One of the solution offered by the government to avoid tumultuous on the day of forced eviction is by relocating the local people to a high apartment building with thousands of people living there. Here is when the problems of The Pruitt-Igoe Housing project replicates.

Forced eviction is a big problem in big cities throughout Indonesia, especially Jakarta. The relations between government and developer, plus lack of knowledge about social, psychological and pro-urban-poor economy system on physical removal, resulted in violence. As human is a territorial animal who are attached to a certain physical space, most of the local people refuse to be removed from their roots. Meanwhile the government never learn how to make a good urban planning to help transform a village to become an urban area without messing with the local people’s territory. Violence and human right abused have been used to overcome this situation. However, the local people usually give a good fight and government will face a hard time. Local people will fight well in their own territory the familiar place where they have control. In their territory, people also have a strong sense of community, cooperation, as well as social commitment to reach the same goal among the settlers: to remain stay in their own land.

It will not be easy to force local people to leave their territory and their root as they will suffer the loss of connection to the land where they feel accepted. Only in their own territory human and animal can do what they want, and functioned the most effective. More than that, losing the preferred physical, social, psychological environment will also cause them losing their social interaction among friends and bigger family circle. Meanwhile, the high-rise apartment buildings from the government designed with many intrinsic problems.

One of them is the absence of buffer zone. Human needs transition to move from private space to public space, thus a preferred territory needs to have semi-private and semi-public space, or at least one of them as a social buffer zone. As mentioned in earlier, my grandmother’s front yard can be seen as semi-public space, and the porch as semi-private space. Those two elements are luxury for the apartment designed for the relocation project. Government apartments usually around 30 floors high or more, consists of a row of tiny living areas with parallel entrances on the corridor.

There’s a directness from social space (corridor) to private space (living area) without social buffer 

This design gives a minimum transition from public space to private space, which often known as wasted space or defensible space. Without defensible space, the occupants don’t feel any responsibility to the corridor because they see it as a public space. The lack of ownership means no one will take care of the corridor unless the building has its own cleaner, but we talk about cheap housing here, with lack of services. The absence of caring on the corridor shown by the condition on the hallway of one of the cheap apartment that I visited couple years ago, it was dirty and smell like urine.

This situation creates to a lose-lose situation for the local people who become unrooted anywhere, they lost connection and territory to their land, and can’t cope with the new space. If only government help them with pre-familiarization to the new place, and change a little bit of the apartment design to give a buffer zone, it might work better.

Changing the entrance position to create transition area 

Adjustment on the entrance gives more space for social buffer for a better transition from public space to private space by giving a semi private space. This little tweaks will give more vigilance to the occupants, make them caring the site more, and improve their well-being. Positioning window will help residents to have a general check towards the public space to give then the concept of transitioning.

However, I believe better option is to have a better urban planning with a pro mindset to poor urban citizen, to help keeping their preferable environment and territory, but also fit with the transition from a village to urban area.

Example on how Jogjakarta Provincial Government help village to keep preferable environment
while transforming to urban area without relocating the locals

Reference:

Lecture on Coping: territory, November 9, 2016
Humanscape, Chapter 8, Coping strategies: choice and control

No sleep for the weary...

I'm sitting here now, 11:27 pm on the night of the election, and admittedly, tonight is not going how I expected.  My eyes are bleary, already stinging from tears I haven't let myself shed.  And I feel myself slipping into that cloudy place where everything I write will likely lean toward the dramatic.

Texts flash back and forth between myself and other local friends - "How is this happening?"  "I cannot imagine this."  "Maybe I should just go to sleep - I don't want to see this."  It occurs to me that tomorrow in lecture we'll begin discussing how information processors cope.  I look around at my near-empty bowl of cake and second pint of beer, and I let out a sad chuckle at this means of coping.

And then it hits me, "How did I fail to pre-familiarize for this?"  How could my cognitive map be so deficient that I cannot even imagine a reality under a President Trump?  I cannot wrap my mind around waking up tomorrow morning and not being able to tell my oldest daughter that YES, for her 5th birthday our country has elected the first female president.  More so, I can't reconcile the values I earnestly believed to be inherently American with the values of this proposed leader.

So how and when does a cognitive map fail to pre-familiarize?  If cognitive maps are built through repeated experience, what has my experience told me to expect?  Have I naively insulated myself?
I spent the first 24 years of my life in Texas and much of my extended family lives in Oklahoma and I have in-laws throughout Minnesota.  I'm often the quiet liberal outsider at family gatherings, having learned long ago not to try to engage with the majority of my family on politics.  Yet despite feeling like I am regularly exposed to different perspectives, have I still managed to hide in some way?  I think of the hypothetical rational actor rat in the T-maze.  Seeking to maximize his gain of tasty food pellets, this rat chooses to go the same direction with every trip through the maze.  But we know that this behavior isn't adaptive.  This rat fails to gain other experiences and build valuable mental models that can effectively cope with change and variability.  Did I unwittingly become this rational rat?  Did I routinely choose to travel the same path? While I never "unfriended" or blocked anyone on Facebook for their views, no matter how antithetical to mine, don't we all tend to be attracted to similar thinkers - people whose ideas excite us and affirm us?  Was I so inundated by the sweet stories from Pantsuit Nation the past couple of days that I failed to see or seek out similarly passionate stories from an equally large and influential populace of Trump supporters?

Or did previous experience lead me to predict this wouldn't be the case?  Twice electing a president whom I have respected more as a leader and human being than almost any other public figure in my own history has perhaps led me to expect a different outcome tonight.  I thought WE elected Barack Obama.  WE would not possibly elect Donald Trump.  Have my past experiences created expectations that now simply don't seem to fit with this emerging reality?

I don't know when we will be able to call this election or when sleep will come or what tomorrow will bring - aside from lots of coffee.  But I do know that human beings are adaptive.  We like to solve problems.  We do not just care about ourselves.  And we benefit from diversity.  So if this whole thing ends up going the wrong way and let's face it, apparently half the country will feel this way tomorrow no matter who is elected, we can adapt.  We can survive.  I know these things to be true.  I may not feel the affirmation of these statements in my heart right now - my heart is sinking ever lower in my body.  But hopefully soon I will.  Good night friends.

(Note: The political opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the University of Michigan or the other instructors of this course.)

Stress, Preference, and "Zones of Comfort"

Growing up with a mom who’s an educator and learning specialist gave me some initial instincts into the world of psychology and neurodevelopmental underpinnings to learning, and one of my favorite concepts that has stuck with me is how to define my “zones of comfort.” The basic premise is that we all experience three zones: our safety zone, risk zone, and danger zone. In our safety zone, everything is comfortable, and you may even consider it a kind of default mode. In contrast, the danger zone is a place where everything is uncomfortable, and you are constantly vigilant or even panicked. The risk zone is therefore the place in the middle where learning occurs, as it presents the supportive environment as well as the ability to explore and challenge oneself.

Starting to sound familiar? I thought so too! I found myself recently connecting these to our discussions of environmental preference and stress. In the comfort zone, we can think about this as an area in the environmental preference matrix that is low in preference and high in familiarity, likely being an environment with high coherence but reduced in legibility, complexity, and mystery. The danger zone is also a non-preferred environment but for opposite reasons; it is unfamiliar as well as incoherent, illegible, and containing elements of complexity and surprise, not mystery. The risk zone we can seek out as somewhere in the middle; it is a highly preferred environment through its familiarity as well as its balance of coherence, legibility, mystery, and complexity. We learn best here because it maximizes exploration and understanding while also aligning with our cognitive maps.

From a stress perspective, these zones also apply. The comfort zone is a place of very little internal or external stress, perhaps being at home or on vacation. The danger zone once again would be in stark contrast as a place where external and/or internal stress levels are high; in this zone, we are much more likely to exhibit stress responses and be in a fight or flight or endurance mode while we remain there. Finally the risk zone presents a “normal” amount of stress through the regular demands of everyday life at work or school, which we could consider as motivational for learning and developing maps of the world. Moreover, we deal with different forms of cognitive confusion and non-preferred environments everyday, but the key difference between the risk and danger zone is our ability to control our time there as well as how quickly we can find clarity.

While most often these zones are best modeled for learning in school, I think they also have large implications for how we function throughout different environements. How often do you occupy each zone? Are there certain professions, cities, personal histories, etc., that push individuals into one zone more often than another? Through thinking about these questions, I believe we can also understand the sources of stress in our lives that may lead to decreased health and mental capacity over time. As seen in the studies we have been reading for class and chapters in Humanscape, there are many seemingly visible and invisible sources of acute or chronic stress (i.e., abuse, job searching, noise, migration, illness) that could be keeping us for too long in the danger zone and therefore impacting our ability to make reasonable decisions. Perhaps it is exactly this state of chronic “endurance” that people know so well that directly affect our everyday lives; this only underscores the need for understanding ourselves and how we are connected to the world around us.

How do these “zones of comfort” appear in your everyday life and relate to your levels of stress and preferred environments?

References:
 http://www.nsrfharmony.org/system/files/protocols/zones_of_comfort_0.pdf
Humanscape Chapter 7 – Stress
Humanscape Chapter 6 – Preferred Environments
Kaplan, S. (1987). Aesthetics, affect, and cognition: Environmental preference from an evolutionary perspective. Environment and Behavior 19(1), 3-32.