Project acronym DenCity
Project Density assemblages: intensity and the city in a global urban age
Researcher (PI) Colin MCFARLANE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2017-COG
Summary DenCity offers a new approach for understanding density and its relationship to the city. Density is a defining feature of the city and urban life. Across the world, density is now at the centre of policy and planning agendas to build cities that are environmentally, economically, socially and politically ‘sustainable’. While there is a lively tradition of research on density in the city, we lack an understanding of the different ways in which high densities are lived and perceived by residents. Existing research provides rich resources for how we might define and represent density, how we might arrive at optimum numbers of people in a given area, and how capitalism builds or reduces densities within and between places globally. However, we lack an understanding of how high density – what I call intensity – is understood and experienced by different urban inhabitants, and the implications for how we understand the contemporary city. Developing a ‘density assemblage’ approach, I propose to examine the ways in which residents differently know and relate to intensity, including how it comes to matter, for good or ill. I do so by examining different cases of intensity in the Asian city, from travel and transport hubs, and slums to rooftops. While the 20th century witnessed a general global decrease of urban density in favour of urban sprawl, many Asian cities continue to densify. Asia is the densest and most urbanized part of the planet, and the trend is predicted to continue. I will examine some of the highest densities in the world, including in Hong Kong, Mumbai, Manila, Dhaka, and Tokyo. The different ways in which intensity becomes known and comes to matter for residents will be a vital challenge for understanding life in the urban 21st century, and for how we understand the city.
Summary
DenCity offers a new approach for understanding density and its relationship to the city. Density is a defining feature of the city and urban life. Across the world, density is now at the centre of policy and planning agendas to build cities that are environmentally, economically, socially and politically ‘sustainable’. While there is a lively tradition of research on density in the city, we lack an understanding of the different ways in which high densities are lived and perceived by residents. Existing research provides rich resources for how we might define and represent density, how we might arrive at optimum numbers of people in a given area, and how capitalism builds or reduces densities within and between places globally. However, we lack an understanding of how high density – what I call intensity – is understood and experienced by different urban inhabitants, and the implications for how we understand the contemporary city. Developing a ‘density assemblage’ approach, I propose to examine the ways in which residents differently know and relate to intensity, including how it comes to matter, for good or ill. I do so by examining different cases of intensity in the Asian city, from travel and transport hubs, and slums to rooftops. While the 20th century witnessed a general global decrease of urban density in favour of urban sprawl, many Asian cities continue to densify. Asia is the densest and most urbanized part of the planet, and the trend is predicted to continue. I will examine some of the highest densities in the world, including in Hong Kong, Mumbai, Manila, Dhaka, and Tokyo. The different ways in which intensity becomes known and comes to matter for residents will be a vital challenge for understanding life in the urban 21st century, and for how we understand the city.
Max ERC Funding
1 344 681 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym DICTATOREXPERIENCE
Project Dictatorship as experience: a comparative history of everyday life and the 'lived experience' of dictatorship in Mediterranean Europe (1922-1975)
Researcher (PI) Catherine Ferris
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2017-COG
Summary ‘Dictatorship’ conventionally conjures an image of a charismatic, dogmatic (male) leader ruling from on high, through magnetism, propaganda and violence, a pliant population alternately rallied in fervent support or cowed into submission. Such images belie the crucial reality that dictatorships were experienced subjectively – and in some respects put into practice - by the men, women and children who lived (through) them. Individuals encountered the dictatorial state not only in official policies, propaganda and rituals but also in everyday settings: the market; the factory; the bar; the street; the home. These venues were sites where dictatorships were made – and unmade. Whilst the ‘everyday life history’ of the mid 20th-century dictatorships in Germany, the USSR and (less often) Italy has been compared, this project will be the first to comparatively examine the ‘lived experience’ of dictatorships in four countries bordering the northern Mediterranean: Italy; Spain; Portugal; Greece. Framing this study within the context of Mediterranean Europe allows us to interrogate some of the institutions and cultural practices often assumed to connect and characterize this region and how, if at all, these intersected with the subjective experience of dictatorial rule. These include: certain family structures and practices; diet; temporal rhythms and spatial dimensions; and the perceived disjuncture between pays leal and pays real. How did Mediterranean populations experience dictatorship? Could shared socio-cultural institutions and practices, if detected, offer common tactics for negotiating daily life? Using a series of analytical concepts including subjectivity and agency, multiplicity, and everyday 'spaces', the project will reveal the complex ways in which dictators' ideology and practices were enacted on an intimate scale and the fragmented and multivalent encounters between individuals and the state which constituted the 'actually-existing' dictatorship.
Summary
‘Dictatorship’ conventionally conjures an image of a charismatic, dogmatic (male) leader ruling from on high, through magnetism, propaganda and violence, a pliant population alternately rallied in fervent support or cowed into submission. Such images belie the crucial reality that dictatorships were experienced subjectively – and in some respects put into practice - by the men, women and children who lived (through) them. Individuals encountered the dictatorial state not only in official policies, propaganda and rituals but also in everyday settings: the market; the factory; the bar; the street; the home. These venues were sites where dictatorships were made – and unmade. Whilst the ‘everyday life history’ of the mid 20th-century dictatorships in Germany, the USSR and (less often) Italy has been compared, this project will be the first to comparatively examine the ‘lived experience’ of dictatorships in four countries bordering the northern Mediterranean: Italy; Spain; Portugal; Greece. Framing this study within the context of Mediterranean Europe allows us to interrogate some of the institutions and cultural practices often assumed to connect and characterize this region and how, if at all, these intersected with the subjective experience of dictatorial rule. These include: certain family structures and practices; diet; temporal rhythms and spatial dimensions; and the perceived disjuncture between pays leal and pays real. How did Mediterranean populations experience dictatorship? Could shared socio-cultural institutions and practices, if detected, offer common tactics for negotiating daily life? Using a series of analytical concepts including subjectivity and agency, multiplicity, and everyday 'spaces', the project will reveal the complex ways in which dictators' ideology and practices were enacted on an intimate scale and the fragmented and multivalent encounters between individuals and the state which constituted the 'actually-existing' dictatorship.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 724 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2023-08-31
Project acronym DOCUMULT
Project Documenting Multiculturalism: coexistence, law and multiculturalism in the administrative and legal documents of Norman and Hohenstaufen Sicily, c.1060-c.1266
Researcher (PI) Jeremy JOHNS
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary Documenting Multiculturalism will investigate comprehensively and systematically the coexistence of the diverse confessional, ethnic and linguistic communities of the island of Sicily under its Norman and Hohenstaufen rulers — Arabic-speaking Muslims and Jews, Greek Christians, and Latin Christians. It will investigate: the legal foundations upon which the coexistence of the subject communities rested; the nature, extent and results of cultural, linguistic and social interactions between them; and variation in the above, from time to time c. 1060 – c. 1266, and from place to place within the island. The ambitious objective is to create the fundamental tools to study, and to begin to write, the history of the subject communities of Norman Sicily from the bottom up, using documentary rather than narrative sources, and illustrating as far as possible the full variety in space and time.
The Project will do this by making new critical editions of all of the administrative and legal documents for Norman Sicily, in the three principal administrative languages — Arabic, Greek and Latin. These texts will populate a database, to which further data from the non-documentary sources will be added. The database will then be used to generate a series of powerful electronic research tools, which will be both the means to meet the ends of this particular project, and ends in themselves that will revolutionise the future study of all aspects of the history of Norman Sicily. At the end of the Project, a series of summative studies will document, analyse and discuss different aspects of coexistence and popular multiculturalism in Norman Sicily, and set the case of Sicily in the wider Mediterranean context.
What is distinctive about this Project is that not only the publication of its research objectives, but also the tools that it will create in order to achieve them, will revolutionise the future study of all aspects of the cultural, economic and social history of Norman Sicily.
Summary
Documenting Multiculturalism will investigate comprehensively and systematically the coexistence of the diverse confessional, ethnic and linguistic communities of the island of Sicily under its Norman and Hohenstaufen rulers — Arabic-speaking Muslims and Jews, Greek Christians, and Latin Christians. It will investigate: the legal foundations upon which the coexistence of the subject communities rested; the nature, extent and results of cultural, linguistic and social interactions between them; and variation in the above, from time to time c. 1060 – c. 1266, and from place to place within the island. The ambitious objective is to create the fundamental tools to study, and to begin to write, the history of the subject communities of Norman Sicily from the bottom up, using documentary rather than narrative sources, and illustrating as far as possible the full variety in space and time.
The Project will do this by making new critical editions of all of the administrative and legal documents for Norman Sicily, in the three principal administrative languages — Arabic, Greek and Latin. These texts will populate a database, to which further data from the non-documentary sources will be added. The database will then be used to generate a series of powerful electronic research tools, which will be both the means to meet the ends of this particular project, and ends in themselves that will revolutionise the future study of all aspects of the history of Norman Sicily. At the end of the Project, a series of summative studies will document, analyse and discuss different aspects of coexistence and popular multiculturalism in Norman Sicily, and set the case of Sicily in the wider Mediterranean context.
What is distinctive about this Project is that not only the publication of its research objectives, but also the tools that it will create in order to achieve them, will revolutionise the future study of all aspects of the cultural, economic and social history of Norman Sicily.
Max ERC Funding
2 467 965 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-10-01, End date: 2023-09-30
Project acronym DRONETHICS
Project Emergent Ethics of Drone Violence: Toward a Comprehensive Governance Framework
Researcher (PI) Christian ENEMARK
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2017-COG
Summary The increasing use of armed, uninhabited aircraft (drones) is a serious political challenge with implications for security and justice worldwide. Drone technology is attracting high levels of investment, drones controlled remotely are becoming more numerous, and technological momentum toward drones controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) is building. Many human lives are at stake in this, so the violent use of drones continues to raise ethical questions. DRONETHICS will systematically address an urgent need to clarify the morality of ‘drone violence’, defined as violence involving a weapon system that is radically remote from its immediate user. Such remoteness is achieved through extreme physical distancing or the devolution of agency from humans to machines, so drone violence disrupts traditional expectations about war and a warrior’s exposure to risk. In turn, the disruptively innovative premise of this project is that such violence does not necessarily fall within the remit of the Just War framework according to which war is traditionally judged and governed. Moving beyond state-of-the-art Just War thinking, the project opens up an ethical inquiry into drone violence conceptualised as either war, law enforcement, interpersonal violence, or devolved (to AI) violence. An interdisciplinary research team, incorporating international relations, moral philosophy and computer science perspectives, will conduct rigorous analysis of documentary sources and engage closely with officials, drone operators, and roboticists. Through innovative exploration and application of alternative frameworks for governing violence, DRONETHICS will produce: the first integrated conceptual framework for explaining ethical concerns arising from current and potential forms of drone violence; concrete recommendations for policy-makers on how to manage this violence ethically; and a new normative vision for shaping the longer-term trajectory of drone violence for the good of all humanity.
Summary
The increasing use of armed, uninhabited aircraft (drones) is a serious political challenge with implications for security and justice worldwide. Drone technology is attracting high levels of investment, drones controlled remotely are becoming more numerous, and technological momentum toward drones controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) is building. Many human lives are at stake in this, so the violent use of drones continues to raise ethical questions. DRONETHICS will systematically address an urgent need to clarify the morality of ‘drone violence’, defined as violence involving a weapon system that is radically remote from its immediate user. Such remoteness is achieved through extreme physical distancing or the devolution of agency from humans to machines, so drone violence disrupts traditional expectations about war and a warrior’s exposure to risk. In turn, the disruptively innovative premise of this project is that such violence does not necessarily fall within the remit of the Just War framework according to which war is traditionally judged and governed. Moving beyond state-of-the-art Just War thinking, the project opens up an ethical inquiry into drone violence conceptualised as either war, law enforcement, interpersonal violence, or devolved (to AI) violence. An interdisciplinary research team, incorporating international relations, moral philosophy and computer science perspectives, will conduct rigorous analysis of documentary sources and engage closely with officials, drone operators, and roboticists. Through innovative exploration and application of alternative frameworks for governing violence, DRONETHICS will produce: the first integrated conceptual framework for explaining ethical concerns arising from current and potential forms of drone violence; concrete recommendations for policy-makers on how to manage this violence ethically; and a new normative vision for shaping the longer-term trajectory of drone violence for the good of all humanity.
Max ERC Funding
1 359 348 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-07-01, End date: 2022-06-30
Project acronym DUST
Project Data Assimilation for Agent-Based Models: Applications to Civil Emergencies
Researcher (PI) Nicolas Sparrow MALLESON
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Civil emergencies such as flooding, terrorist attacks, fire, etc., can have devastating impacts on people, infrastructure, and economies. Knowing how to best respond to an emergency can be extremely difficult because building a clear picture of the emerging situation is challenging with the limited data and modelling capabilities that are available. Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a field that excels in its ability to simulate human systems and has therefore become a popular tool for simulating disasters and for modelling strategies that are aimed at mitigating developing problems. However, the field suffers from a serious drawback: models are not able to incorporate up-to-date data (e.g. social media, mobile telephone use, public transport records, etc.). Instead they are initialised with historical data and therefore their forecasts diverge rapidly from reality.
To address this major shortcoming, this research will develop dynamic data assimilation methods for use in ABMs. These techniques have already revolutionised weather forecasts and could offer the same advantages for ABMs of social systems. There are serious methodological barriers that must be overcome, but this research has the potential to produce a step change in the ability of models to create accurate short-term forecasts of social systems. The project is largely methodological, and will evidence the efficacy of the new methods by developing a cutting-edge simulation of a city – entitled the Dynamic Urban Simulation Technique (DUST) – that can be dynamically optimised with streaming ‘big’ data. The model will ultimately be used in three areas of important policy impact: (1) as a tool for understanding and managing cities; (2) as a planning tool for exploring and preparing for potential emergency situations; and (3) as a real-time management tool, drawing on current data as they emerge to create the most reliable picture of the current situation.
Summary
Civil emergencies such as flooding, terrorist attacks, fire, etc., can have devastating impacts on people, infrastructure, and economies. Knowing how to best respond to an emergency can be extremely difficult because building a clear picture of the emerging situation is challenging with the limited data and modelling capabilities that are available. Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a field that excels in its ability to simulate human systems and has therefore become a popular tool for simulating disasters and for modelling strategies that are aimed at mitigating developing problems. However, the field suffers from a serious drawback: models are not able to incorporate up-to-date data (e.g. social media, mobile telephone use, public transport records, etc.). Instead they are initialised with historical data and therefore their forecasts diverge rapidly from reality.
To address this major shortcoming, this research will develop dynamic data assimilation methods for use in ABMs. These techniques have already revolutionised weather forecasts and could offer the same advantages for ABMs of social systems. There are serious methodological barriers that must be overcome, but this research has the potential to produce a step change in the ability of models to create accurate short-term forecasts of social systems. The project is largely methodological, and will evidence the efficacy of the new methods by developing a cutting-edge simulation of a city – entitled the Dynamic Urban Simulation Technique (DUST) – that can be dynamically optimised with streaming ‘big’ data. The model will ultimately be used in three areas of important policy impact: (1) as a tool for understanding and managing cities; (2) as a planning tool for exploring and preparing for potential emergency situations; and (3) as a real-time management tool, drawing on current data as they emerge to create the most reliable picture of the current situation.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 840 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym ELHO
Project The Age of Hostility: Understanding the Nature, Dynamics, Determinants, and Consequences of Citizens' Electoral Hostility in 27 Democracies
Researcher (PI) Michael BRUTER
Host Institution (HI) LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary ‘I hate Brexiteers, they betrayed my future’. Those words of an 18 year old on Brexit Referendum Night represent a growing and worrying phenomenon: electoral hostility. Electoral disagreements have long been seen as results of social divisions, but recent research shows that they have become a basis of antagonism in their own right in the US. Two comparative pilots I ran also found electoral hostility widespread in recent French and British elections but rare in South Africa and Australia. In the UK Brexit referendum, 51% of citizens felt anger towards opposite voters and 46% disgust.
I define electoral hostility as negative feelings (frustration, anger, contempt, disgust) held towards individuals or groups as a result of their effective or perceived electoral preferences. It may occur in the campaign, post-election, and reinforce into self-perpetuating cycles of hostility as it is structured as a Mokken scale which can become ‘stages’ of hostility. While scepticism of political elites is well-studied, hostility towards fellow voters takes electoral negativity to a new level. Electoral hostility may have far reaching consequences, leading citizens to resent one another due to electoral stances and drift apart in increasingly divided societies, but also to the delegitimization of electoral outcomes and negative attitudes towards solidarity.
ELHO will answer the following research question: What are the causes and consequences of electoral hostility at individual, group, and aggregate levels and how does it develop over time? The project’s innovative methods combine a 27 country multi-level panel survey, visual, physiological and field experiments, election diaries, family focus groups, a scoping survey of Election Management Bodies, and campaign and atmosphere coding. The project will also explore possible mitigation in ambitious partnership with psychiatrists, ergonomists, lawyers, EMBs and IGOs creating new Electoral Hostility Research Centre and Observatory.
Summary
‘I hate Brexiteers, they betrayed my future’. Those words of an 18 year old on Brexit Referendum Night represent a growing and worrying phenomenon: electoral hostility. Electoral disagreements have long been seen as results of social divisions, but recent research shows that they have become a basis of antagonism in their own right in the US. Two comparative pilots I ran also found electoral hostility widespread in recent French and British elections but rare in South Africa and Australia. In the UK Brexit referendum, 51% of citizens felt anger towards opposite voters and 46% disgust.
I define electoral hostility as negative feelings (frustration, anger, contempt, disgust) held towards individuals or groups as a result of their effective or perceived electoral preferences. It may occur in the campaign, post-election, and reinforce into self-perpetuating cycles of hostility as it is structured as a Mokken scale which can become ‘stages’ of hostility. While scepticism of political elites is well-studied, hostility towards fellow voters takes electoral negativity to a new level. Electoral hostility may have far reaching consequences, leading citizens to resent one another due to electoral stances and drift apart in increasingly divided societies, but also to the delegitimization of electoral outcomes and negative attitudes towards solidarity.
ELHO will answer the following research question: What are the causes and consequences of electoral hostility at individual, group, and aggregate levels and how does it develop over time? The project’s innovative methods combine a 27 country multi-level panel survey, visual, physiological and field experiments, election diaries, family focus groups, a scoping survey of Election Management Bodies, and campaign and atmosphere coding. The project will also explore possible mitigation in ambitious partnership with psychiatrists, ergonomists, lawyers, EMBs and IGOs creating new Electoral Hostility Research Centre and Observatory.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 838 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-04-01, End date: 2024-03-31
Project acronym EVOTONE
Project The emergence and evolution of linguistic tone
Researcher (PI) James KIRBY
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2017-STG
Summary This project will investigate the origins, acquisition, and evolution of linguistic tone: the use of pitch to distinguish between the meaning of words. Despite the typological ubiquity of tone, there is still no phonetic, structural, or psychological model that explains how and why tones emerge (or fail to emerge) in language after language, nor how they evolve once they are formed. This is because there has never been a systematic analysis of the principles that govern the evolution of tone systems. EVOTONE will provide the first comprehensive study of tonal emergence and evolution, combining detailed phonetic and perceptual studies of Himalayan and Southeast Asian minority languages with innovative experimental methodologies and large-scale computational analysis of the structural principles correlated with the emergence of tone.
EVOTONE is guided by a novel hypothesis that, if correct, will have important repercussions for the study of sound change. The core idea is deceptively simple: rather than being the result of small, incremental changes in pronunciation, features like tone come about due to a sudden failure to articulate a particular aspect of a sound. If the risk of focusing on tone is to overemphasize a single feature, the potential reward is enormous: an opportunity to transform our understanding of how physical and cognitive pressures interact to shape human behavior and language change. The outcomes of this project will provide a new empirical foundation for the typology and evolution of tone systems; break new ground in the study of how structural and phonetic factors interact in sound change; and establish, for the first time, an empirically grounded set of principles of tonal evolution. In addition to resolving a number of outstanding questions about tonogenesis, the results will substantially advance our more general understanding of how language changes over time.
Summary
This project will investigate the origins, acquisition, and evolution of linguistic tone: the use of pitch to distinguish between the meaning of words. Despite the typological ubiquity of tone, there is still no phonetic, structural, or psychological model that explains how and why tones emerge (or fail to emerge) in language after language, nor how they evolve once they are formed. This is because there has never been a systematic analysis of the principles that govern the evolution of tone systems. EVOTONE will provide the first comprehensive study of tonal emergence and evolution, combining detailed phonetic and perceptual studies of Himalayan and Southeast Asian minority languages with innovative experimental methodologies and large-scale computational analysis of the structural principles correlated with the emergence of tone.
EVOTONE is guided by a novel hypothesis that, if correct, will have important repercussions for the study of sound change. The core idea is deceptively simple: rather than being the result of small, incremental changes in pronunciation, features like tone come about due to a sudden failure to articulate a particular aspect of a sound. If the risk of focusing on tone is to overemphasize a single feature, the potential reward is enormous: an opportunity to transform our understanding of how physical and cognitive pressures interact to shape human behavior and language change. The outcomes of this project will provide a new empirical foundation for the typology and evolution of tone systems; break new ground in the study of how structural and phonetic factors interact in sound change; and establish, for the first time, an empirically grounded set of principles of tonal evolution. In addition to resolving a number of outstanding questions about tonogenesis, the results will substantially advance our more general understanding of how language changes over time.
Max ERC Funding
1 481 154 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31
Project acronym FACESYNTAX
Project Computing the Face Syntax of Social Communication
Researcher (PI) Rachael Jack
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Social interactions are critical to all societies. One of the most powerful tools for social interaction is the face – a complex system comprising variations of movement (expressions), morphology (shape/structure) and complexion (color/texture). Consequently, the face can elicit myriad rapid social judgments (e.g. personality, emotion, group membership, age, health, social status) with significant consequences (e.g. sentencing/voting decisions, social isolation, job offers). Yet, little is known about how the complex, dynamic face transmits the myriad messages that regulate social interactions in different cultures, how these complex face signals map onto psychological processes (e.g. categorical/dimensional perception) or which signals facilitate or hinder cross-culture communication. This is largely due to fragmented research on social concepts (mental states, personality, emotions), face signals (morphology, movements, complexion) and culture, which, consequently, has overlooked a possible latent algebraic, syntactical structure to social face signals across cultures. My own work hints at such a structure. My ambitious program will unify these fragments to derive the first generative, algebraic and syntactical model of social face signals using innovative methods combining social/cultural psychology, 3D dynamic computer graphics, vision science psychophysical methods, and mathematical psychology. It will thus test and validate a new theoretical framework of social face signals that will unite both categorical/dimensional and universal/culture-specific accounts of social face perception. This framework is highly relevant in the context of globalization and cultural integration where social communication using virtual agents is integral to modern society. It is thus imperative to equip digital agents with the tools to flexibly generate socially and culturally sophisticated face signals. FACESYNTAX will thus transfer the generative model to social robotics.
Summary
Social interactions are critical to all societies. One of the most powerful tools for social interaction is the face – a complex system comprising variations of movement (expressions), morphology (shape/structure) and complexion (color/texture). Consequently, the face can elicit myriad rapid social judgments (e.g. personality, emotion, group membership, age, health, social status) with significant consequences (e.g. sentencing/voting decisions, social isolation, job offers). Yet, little is known about how the complex, dynamic face transmits the myriad messages that regulate social interactions in different cultures, how these complex face signals map onto psychological processes (e.g. categorical/dimensional perception) or which signals facilitate or hinder cross-culture communication. This is largely due to fragmented research on social concepts (mental states, personality, emotions), face signals (morphology, movements, complexion) and culture, which, consequently, has overlooked a possible latent algebraic, syntactical structure to social face signals across cultures. My own work hints at such a structure. My ambitious program will unify these fragments to derive the first generative, algebraic and syntactical model of social face signals using innovative methods combining social/cultural psychology, 3D dynamic computer graphics, vision science psychophysical methods, and mathematical psychology. It will thus test and validate a new theoretical framework of social face signals that will unite both categorical/dimensional and universal/culture-specific accounts of social face perception. This framework is highly relevant in the context of globalization and cultural integration where social communication using virtual agents is integral to modern society. It is thus imperative to equip digital agents with the tools to flexibly generate socially and culturally sophisticated face signals. FACESYNTAX will thus transfer the generative model to social robotics.
Max ERC Funding
1 490 050 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2023-08-31
Project acronym FAIRFISH
Project Hidden Hunger, Forgotten Food
Researcher (PI) Christina Graham
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Food Security is a grand challenge of our time, but three factors inhibit our ability to meet global targets. First, interdisciplinary approaches incorporating ecological, social, and health sciences are fundamental, but lacking. Second, a disproportionate focus on food quantity overlooks ‘hidden hunger’, or micronutrient deficiencies, which are implicated in over a million deaths annually. Third, small-scale fisheries (SSF) reach 100s of millions of people in the developing world, hold potential for achieving food security, but remain ‘forgotten food’ in global discourse. Consequently, an interdisciplinary approach that tackles hidden hunger within SSF is a critical frontier for food security research.
Fish are particularly high in many micronutrients, but a systematic understanding of which species have the greatest concentrations of key nutrients is needed. Inadequate access to nutritious food is one of the most significant problems of the modern age, which can be illuminated through analyses of power. The failure to realise the tremendous potential for improving food security through fisheries stems from a lack of understanding of how social drivers exacerbate or ameliorate nutritional inequalities. Consequently, an in-depth analysis that quantifies how key social drivers impact nutritional inequality, is essential.
FAIRFISH will address these gaps to uncover the ecological and socio-cultural determinants of the contributions SSF make to human health:
1. Establish the ecological and environmental determinants of nutrient availability among fish species using a traits based approach.
2. Advance social practice theory, by integrating an analysis of power, to determine what power relations enable or constrain access to nutritious food.
3. Progress interdisciplinary science, by integrating findings from 1 and 2, to quantify the impact of key social drivers on nutritional inequality, and uncover opportunities to meet nutritional needs.
Summary
Food Security is a grand challenge of our time, but three factors inhibit our ability to meet global targets. First, interdisciplinary approaches incorporating ecological, social, and health sciences are fundamental, but lacking. Second, a disproportionate focus on food quantity overlooks ‘hidden hunger’, or micronutrient deficiencies, which are implicated in over a million deaths annually. Third, small-scale fisheries (SSF) reach 100s of millions of people in the developing world, hold potential for achieving food security, but remain ‘forgotten food’ in global discourse. Consequently, an interdisciplinary approach that tackles hidden hunger within SSF is a critical frontier for food security research.
Fish are particularly high in many micronutrients, but a systematic understanding of which species have the greatest concentrations of key nutrients is needed. Inadequate access to nutritious food is one of the most significant problems of the modern age, which can be illuminated through analyses of power. The failure to realise the tremendous potential for improving food security through fisheries stems from a lack of understanding of how social drivers exacerbate or ameliorate nutritional inequalities. Consequently, an in-depth analysis that quantifies how key social drivers impact nutritional inequality, is essential.
FAIRFISH will address these gaps to uncover the ecological and socio-cultural determinants of the contributions SSF make to human health:
1. Establish the ecological and environmental determinants of nutrient availability among fish species using a traits based approach.
2. Advance social practice theory, by integrating an analysis of power, to determine what power relations enable or constrain access to nutritious food.
3. Progress interdisciplinary science, by integrating findings from 1 and 2, to quantify the impact of key social drivers on nutritional inequality, and uncover opportunities to meet nutritional needs.
Max ERC Funding
1 493 605 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-02-01, End date: 2023-01-31
Project acronym FLEXSEM
Project Graded constraints in semantic cognition: How do we retrieve knowledge in a flexible way?
Researcher (PI) Elizabeth Alice JEFFERIES
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF YORK
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH4, ERC-2017-COG
Summary For any concept, we have knowledge about diverse features – for example, a dog is furry, can chase rabbits, and is “man’s best friend”. How, at a specific moment, do we flexibly retrieve relevant conceptual knowledge that suits our current goals and context? We can promote coherence between weakly-related aspects of knowledge as required, and also achieve the timely release from patterns of retrieval when the situation changes. These effects are likely to play a central role in our mental lives – yet they are poorly understood because past research has largely focused on how the conceptual store captures what is generally true across experiences (i.e. semantic representation). This project alternatively examines the cognitive and brain mechanisms that promote currently-relevant semantic information. We consider whether flexible semantic retrieval involves the recruitment of additional brain regions, organised within large-scale distributed networks, that place constraints on patterns of retrieval in the semantic store. In this way, semantic flexibility might relate to the evolving interaction between distinct brain networks. We examine whether specific brain regions support distinct cognitive processes (e.g., “automatic retrieval”; “selection”) or, alternatively, whether the functional organisation of these networks is non-arbitrary, with brain regions further away from the semantic store supporting retrieval when there is a greater mismatch between ongoing retrieval and the pattern required by the context. We test this “graded constraints” hypothesis by combining parametric manipulations of the need for constraint with convergent neuroscientific methods that characterise functional recruitment in space (magnetic resonance imaging) and time (magnetoencephalography). We investigate causality (neuropsychology; brain stimulation) and the broader implications of our account (using an individual differences approach).
Summary
For any concept, we have knowledge about diverse features – for example, a dog is furry, can chase rabbits, and is “man’s best friend”. How, at a specific moment, do we flexibly retrieve relevant conceptual knowledge that suits our current goals and context? We can promote coherence between weakly-related aspects of knowledge as required, and also achieve the timely release from patterns of retrieval when the situation changes. These effects are likely to play a central role in our mental lives – yet they are poorly understood because past research has largely focused on how the conceptual store captures what is generally true across experiences (i.e. semantic representation). This project alternatively examines the cognitive and brain mechanisms that promote currently-relevant semantic information. We consider whether flexible semantic retrieval involves the recruitment of additional brain regions, organised within large-scale distributed networks, that place constraints on patterns of retrieval in the semantic store. In this way, semantic flexibility might relate to the evolving interaction between distinct brain networks. We examine whether specific brain regions support distinct cognitive processes (e.g., “automatic retrieval”; “selection”) or, alternatively, whether the functional organisation of these networks is non-arbitrary, with brain regions further away from the semantic store supporting retrieval when there is a greater mismatch between ongoing retrieval and the pattern required by the context. We test this “graded constraints” hypothesis by combining parametric manipulations of the need for constraint with convergent neuroscientific methods that characterise functional recruitment in space (magnetic resonance imaging) and time (magnetoencephalography). We investigate causality (neuropsychology; brain stimulation) and the broader implications of our account (using an individual differences approach).
Max ERC Funding
1 999 860 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-04-01, End date: 2023-03-31
