1/23 W. Bradford Paley, Digital Image Design Incorporated / Columbia University

Supporting Visual Analysis: Perceptual, Cognitive, and Semantic Techniques

Abstract: W. Bradford Paley has deployed work in seemingly diverse settings: the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Stock Exchange, NYU Bioinformatics, the Whitney; he has won equally diverse recognition: an ID Design Distinction award, Grand Prize in Tokyo's international arts festival, engineering tool awards for input devices, fellowship in the New York Foundation for the Arts. The same principles drive all of this work: If you engage the eye, you can engage the mind--as long as you "know the protocol," and keep the message consistent.

This talk has two parts. The first part will describe a knowledge acquisition pipeline: A designer/engineer's abstraction of visual, cognitive, and semantic "protocols" that engage seven distinct layers of the visual thinking processes. The second part introduces numerous examples of Mr. Paley's work informed by these protocols. Among them are the artwork TraceEncounters which is becoming a social network analysis tool for use by real researchers; the Whitney-commissioned CodeProfiles has been mistaken for a debugging tool; the Structualist text analysis tool TextArc was "mistaken for art" and won the Tokyo New Media Festival's grand prize.

1/30 Harold D. Green, Jr., Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Research Group, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mapping Artistic, Cultural, and Network Assets in the Chicago Metropolitan Area: Context, Project Design, Implementation, and Initial Findings

Abstract: The Chicago metropolitan area has, for the past few years, become a key destination for Mexican transnationals, both temporary and permanent. Post-NAFTA Mexican immigrants have combined their cultural, artistic and network resources to create hybrid behavioral and cultural forms unlike those commonly used in America or Mexico. The use of these hybrid forms allows migrants to leverage their social and cultural resources to gain access to basic assistance, jobs, social support services, and other types of group-based or group-facilitated resources. This study was conducted in conjunction with the Field Museum in Chicago. It combined innovations in ethnographic research—such as the use of Atlas Ti and other ethnographic support tools—with new techniques for egocentric social network data collection that incorporate electronic data collection and one-touch network discovery capabilities, to delve more deeply into the realities of life for the Mexican immigrant community. In the process, aspects of the widely popular ‘network theory of migration’ are investigated in more detail than has been previously possible. In this talk, I present the motivations for the project, identify the factors that led to the synthesis of ethnography and social network analysis, explain the new approaches that the research team developed and, finally, present some initial findings from the project, calling attention to how those findings correspond to current thinking vis-à-vis ‘network theory of migration’ and to the current immigration policy environment.

2/20 Robert Goldstone, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University

The Propagation of Innovations in a Social Network

Abstract: We have developed an internet-based experimental platform (for examples, see
http://groups.psych.indiana.edu) that allows groups of 2-200 people to interact with each other in real time on networked computers. I will describe experiments using this platform that explore how people attempt to solve simple problems while taking advantage of the developing solutions of other people in their social network. Over 15 rounds of problem solving, participants received feedback not only on the success of their own solutions to a simple search problem, but also on their neighbors¹ solutions and outcomes. Neighbors were determined by one of four network topologies: locally connected lattice, random, fully connected, and small-world (e.g. a lattice plus a few long-range connections). The results suggest that complete information is not always beneficial for a group, and that problem spaces requiring substantial exploration may benefit from networks with mostly locally connected individuals. We model the dissemination of innovations in these experiments using agents that probabilistically select choices guided by their own and their neighbors' explorations.

3/6 Stanley Wasserman, Statistics, Sociology, and Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University

Statistical Analysis for Network Science

Abstract: This talk highlights the wide range of statistical analyses that are part of network science. Of particular importance are the exponential family of random graph distributions,  known as p*, and recent work on robustness and resistance of network data when actors and/or relational ties are missing or removed.

3/20 Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University - Talk was cancelled.

Cross-Ideological Discussions among Top Conservative and Liberal Bloggers

Abstract: Information technologies make both interpersonal and one-to-many communication easily accessible to users having led to many speculations about their potential for influencing political communication. This paper explores the extent to which contemporary online political discussions on blogs have a cross-ideological component. Through a look at the interactions among the most popular conservative and liberal blogs, the paper considers whether authors representing opposing ends of the ideological spectrum engage each other in conversation. An analysis of linkages among such blogs sheds light on whether people of different political persuasions participate in any idea exchange online. The paper tests hypotheses about fragmentation and looks at whether widespread use of the Internet encourages dissenting political views to flourish or whether the Web merely offers a safe haven for everyone by isolating people with different opinions from each other.

3/27 David R. Heise, Sociology, Indiana University

Delineating Social Institutions From Semantic Networks of Role-Identities

Abstract: Dictionary definitions provide an accessible and commonsense body of data describing the cultural understandings that individuals have about role-identities. This research analyzes cross-references between definitions of several hundred identities to see whether social institutions can be viewed as confluences of identity meanings. I created a zero-one adjacency matrix by linking identities to the concepts given in their definitions. I then computed boolean powers of the adjacency matrix to simulate the process of looking up words that definitions contain. Principal components analysis of the result organized identities into clusters corresponding to standard social institutions, like family, education, medicine, work, law, religion. The analysis sub-divided some standard institutions in interesting ways, and additionally it identified sexuality as an incipient social institution.