The Ear and the Shunting Yard: Meaning Making as Resonance in Early Information Theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Clement
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Early Information ◽  
Shunting Yard

scholarly journals Cyberpunk's Other Hackers: The Girls Who Were Plugged In

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Lindsey Dolich Felt
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Crip Theory ◽  
Early Information ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Material Artifacts

This article locates an alternate paradigm of hacking in feminist cyberfiction, notably, James Tiptree, Jr.’s proto-cyberpunk novella, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1973). I argue this story critically reorients our understanding of how information technologies and their material artifacts construct and reinforce norms of able-bodiedness and ability. Drawing on archival materials from Bell System, early information theory, and crip theory, my reading reveals that Tiptree’s portrayal of disability is tied to a cybernetic conception of error and noise. These frictions between users and their machine interfaces materialize unexamined performances of critical labor and noncompliance that I link to the emerging field of crip technoscience. Tracking these disruptions in cybernetic feedback across “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” and in historical accounts of the telephone switchboard operator, I show that error and noise underpin an early example of a feminist hacking ethos, and also crip accounts of electronic disembodiment often imputed to information society and cyberpunk fiction.

Constructing and Deconstructing Concepts

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 249-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A. Doan ◽  
Ronaldo Vigo
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Unsupervised Classification ◽  
Family Resemblance ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Relational Patterns ◽  
Optimal Classification

Abstract. Several empirical investigations have explored whether observers prefer to sort sets of multidimensional stimuli into groups by employing one-dimensional or family-resemblance strategies. Although one-dimensional sorting strategies have been the prevalent finding for these unsupervised classification paradigms, several researchers have provided evidence that the choice of strategy may depend on the particular demands of the task. To account for this disparity, we propose that observers extract relational patterns from stimulus sets that facilitate the development of optimal classification strategies for relegating category membership. We conducted a novel constrained categorization experiment to empirically test this hypothesis by instructing participants to either add or remove objects from presented categorical stimuli. We employed generalized representational information theory (GRIT; Vigo, 2011b , 2013a , 2014 ) and its associated formal models to predict and explain how human beings chose to modify these categorical stimuli. Additionally, we compared model performance to predictions made by a leading prototypicality measure in the literature.

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