Author Archives: Graham Shawcross

About Graham Shawcross

Architect PhD student at Edinburgh University Interested in order, rhythm and pattern in Architectural Design

Jevons’es Data

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

In 1871 the early economist and logician William Stanley Jevons published an article in Nature “The Power of Numerical Discrimination” (Jevons 1871) According to Jevons, Sir William Hamilton had clearly stated the problem: “Assuming that the mind is not limited to … Continue reading →

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Shooting Baboons: A Story

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

If a man with a gun goes to shoot baboons near the edge of a forest, the baboons will see him coming, hide in the forest and not come out until he is seen to go away. If the first … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Brain Physiology, Camouflage, Enumeration | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Beau Geste Hypothesis

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

In the 1924 book Beau Geste, and the many film versions that followed it, the climax of the action takes place in the desert at Fort Zinderneuf where members of the French Foreign Legion are attempting to hold off an Arab  attack. … Continue reading →

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Counting Cormorants

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

As a small child I have a vivid memory of a picture in a Wonder Book that showed cormorants  being used by Chinese fishermen. Each bird having a ring round its neck that prevented it eating the fish it caught. … Continue reading →

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Otto Koehler

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

Numerical Competence in Animals The German zoologist Otto Koehler (1889-1974) was the first scientist to convincingly demonstrate numerical competence in animals. The first part of this post is based upon a panel from Counting on neurons: the neurobiology of numerical competence” (Nieder … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Brain Physiology, Design Methods, Enumeration, Logic | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Primed Number Lines

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

As noted in the previous post, there is a right brain hemisphere dominance in attending to visuospatial and numerical information. (Rogers et al 2013) So when patients with a right parietal lesion and therefore a spatial deficit for left side stimuli, … Continue reading →

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Even 3-day-old Chicks Do It

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

An interesting series of experiments has recently been reported in Science.  (Regani et al 2015). These strongly support the idea that many animals and humans represent numbers by a mental number line where smaller values are located on the left … Continue reading →

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Seriation

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Graham Shawcross

This is Archie, our then 3 year old grandson, after spontaneously reassembling a sawn up branch and being asked to pose with it for his delighted grandfather. Seriation is defined as “the forming of an orderly sequence” and was apparently first used in this sense in the 1650s. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Classification, Enumeration, Logic | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Emergent Images

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Graham Shawcross

This is a short post on emergent images, still or moving images where objects at first only appear with effort and concentration, but once recognised are very easy to see again even after several months or years. In effect once you have recognised … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Audiology, Brain Physiology, Camouflage, Embodiment, Graphics Technology, Illusions, Objects | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Number Names and Words

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Graham Shawcross

Number Names George Lakoff has pointed out that we do not normally distinguish numbers from what might be more properly be called number names. (Lakoff 1989)  The most common number naming systems adopt base-10 and use ten single-digit number names, … Continue reading →

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