Slides for my talk at the University of Southampton, UK, 22 May 2018. Introduces a model for characterizing social cognition, in terms of narratives and their interaction.

1. Many Worlds on a Frame
Characterizing online social cognition
Srinath Srinivasa
Web Science Lab
IIIT-B, Bengaluru, India
http://wsl.iiitb.ac.in/
Disclaimer: Illustrative images used in this presentation, sourced from the net, whose copyright rests with their respective
creators.

2. Online Social Cognition

3. The global
“socio-cognitive” space
Web as an active, participatory space, rather
than a passive repository of documents
Humans as “participants” rather than “users” --
i.e.. the web uses humans as much as humans
use the web!
Perhaps for the first time, tech research is as
much about not how to avoid getting exploited
by technology, as about how to exploit the
technology! WWW
W
W
W
1990s
Present day

4. The global
“socio-cognitive” space
Social Realm
Active social interactions
“Trigger” Realm
Publication venues (news sites,
blogs) that often trigger social
interactions
“Inert” Realm
Informational sites that are cited
and supports social interactions

5. Modeling the social
realm
A “secondary marketplace” where
“opinions” are invested, for returns
Returns take different forms:
Economic (Sales, Business orders),
Political (Votes),
Psychological (Likes)
A ⇒ B
A ⇒ C

6. Modeling the social
realm
How do opinions yield returns?
● Compatible opinions help build a coherent
“narrative”
● Narratives help build and sustain a
“worldview” shared by a population
● Worldview of a population itself is rooted in
sustainability considerations of the population
Social and cultural practices yielding positive returns,
are based on upholding the culture’s worldview.
Opinion
Narrative
Worldview
Sustainability of
Being

7. Dimensions of Opinion
O = (A,E)
An opinion is made of two elements:
abstraction, and expression.
Abstraction: objective perspective about
the issue, by the opinion-holder
Expression: communication of subjective
sentiment, by the opinion-holder
Abstractions and Expressions have vastly
different characteristics of diffusion
through a population.
#Jallikattu ban is an assault on
our culture
Maybe, but Jallikattu
has elements of animal
cruelty
A ban may be an
overkill, but the sport
has to be regulated
Culture has to evolve
with the times
Yes, the ban is
unjustified
He sounds angry about
the ban
He must be a right-wing
goon
He represents the
primitive patriarchy of
Indian society!
You chauvinist pig!!
Cultural chauvinism has
no place in civilised
society!!!
A E

8. The social life of
Abstractions
Abstractions encounter an innate
cognitive resistance to assimilation,
unless the mind is already primed or in
conformance with the abstraction
Also, negative emotional states
predispose us to a defensive approach
towards new abstractions
Elements affecting the spread of
abstraction:
Conformity
Confirmation bias
Emotional state
I was right all along! The earth is flat!

9. The social life of
Expressions
Expressions encounter an innate
cognitive “anti-resistance” from our
minds
The “emotional contagion effect”
Emotions (and expressive reactions) also
triggered by induced dissonance in
mental models
Used to trigger humour, anger,
terror, excitement, etc.

10. Online social cognition
Dissonance in underlying mental models
or ground truths creates a dearth in
ability to interpret new abstractions
Leading to expressive, often defensive
rhetorics
Leading to more entrenched, or intense
adoption of the previously held belief as
ground truth
A ⇒ B A ⇒ C
A ⇒ B A ⇒ C
A ⇒ B
A ⇒ B A ⇒ C
A ⇒ C
A ⇒ B A ⇒ C
A ⇒ C

11. Opinions and
Collectives
Different extents of homogenization of (A,E),
result in different collective characteristics of a
group:
Crowds: High diversity in abstractions and
expressions. High collective insight. Unstable.
Herds: High levels of homogenization of
abstraction. Persuasive. Stable.
Mobs: High levels of homogenization of expression.
Unpredictable, rapid changes due to emotional
contagions.
Gangs: High amounts of homogenization in both
(A,E). Small size. Passionate, powerful, aggressive.

12. From Opinions to
Narratives
Opinions that are “compatible” team up
to form a narrative
Compatibility modeled as an embedding
function onto a semantic space
E
Abstraction Expression Embedding
E
Entity
Characterization
E
E
Association

13. Dominant Narrative over time for #Jallikattu

14. Many Worlds on a
Frame (MWF)
A knowledge representation model for
characterizing multiple narratives and
their interplay
Assertions bounded within narrative
contexts called “worlds”
Worlds appear as first-order entities
within other worlds
Set of all representations of worlds
within other worlds forms the Frame
B =p⇒ A
B =q⇒ C
A
A =p⇒ B
B =q⇒ C
B
A =p⇒ C
C

15. Many Worlds on a
Frame
Assertions within a world w represent a
narrative, or “worldview” of w
Worldview statements represented using
RDF triples:
(subject, predicate, object)
Frame level assertions represented as
NQuad quartets:
(subject, predicate, object, context)
NQuad specification:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-n-qua
ds-20140225/#n-quads-language
B =p⇒ A
B =q⇒ C
A
A =p⇒ B
B =q⇒ C
B
(B, p, A) worldview of A
(A, p, B) worldview of B
(B, p, A, A) Frame statement
(B, q, C, B) Frame statement

16. Many Worlds on a Frame
Reasoning with MWF
Given a set of worlds W, a predicate of the form
p(A,B) is necessarily true, if (A, p, B, w) holds for
all w ⋲ W
p(A,B) is possibly true, if there exists a w ⋲ W,
such that (A, p, B, w) holds
Predicate q is said to be conflicting with predicate
p if for all A, B, q(A,B) ⇒ ~p(A,B) and vice versa
Note that conflict may be due to conflicting
expressions represented by p and q (for example:
happy and sad over a team winning over another
team.)
A predicate of the form p(A,B) is said to have
conflicting narratives if there exists w1
, w2
⋲ W
such that the following Frame statements are true:
(A, p, B, w1
) and (A, q, B, w2
)
Narrative A is said to “dominate” over or “cover”
narrative B, denoted by A ⊐ B, if for any predicate
p, and w1
, w2
⋲ W, the following is true:
(w1
, p, w2
, B) ⇒ (w1
, p, w2
, A)
Narrative B is said to be “covered by” narrative A
in such cases.

17. Many Worlds on a Frame
Reasoning with MWF
Narrative A is said to be “universally dominating”
or a “global worldview,” if any statement of the
form (w1
, p, w2
, A) holds, then the following also
holds: (w1
, p, w2
, w) for any w ⋲ W.
Narrative A cannot dominate over another
narrative B, and is said to be in “conflict” with
narrative B, if the following Frame statements
hold: (w1
, p, w2
, A) and (w1
, q, w2
, B), where
predicate q conflicts with predicate p.
Narrative B is said to “yield” to narrative A,
denoted by B ≼ A, if statements in B that are
conflicting with A are either dropped or modified
so that they are no longer conflicting.
A pair of narratives are said to be “stable” if there
are no conflicting predicates between them.

18. Many Worlds on a Frame
Reasoning with MWF
Stability between two narratives A and B is said to
have been achieved in a “predatory” fashion if:
A コ B and B ≼ A.
Stability between two narratives A and B is said to
have been achieved in a “non-predatory” or
“symbiotic” fashion if:
neither A コ B, nor B コ A, and
B ≼ A, and A ≼ B in resolving conflicts
A Frame comprising of multiple narratives is said
to be “convergent” if eventually, there emerges a
single universally dominant narrative A:
Aコw for all w ⋲ W.
A Frame comprising of multiple narratives is said
to be “divergent” if there emerges a stable
condition with no conflicts across narratives, such
that for any pair of narratives A and B:
1. Neither AコB nor BコA
2. B ≼ A, and A ≼ B in resolving conflicts

19. MWF and the Web
Two models for the proposed “Magna Carta for
the Web” or the Universal Bill of Rights
1. Universal Bill of Rights as a single
dominating narrative that has to apply across
all cultures and nations
2. Universal Bill of Rights as the underlying
Frame that supports a multitude of
non-conflicting narratives (or cultural
worldviews)
Claim:
Principles of online free speech, individual liberty,
privacy, etc, cannot be implemented as one
dominant narrative for the world -- it has to be
implemented as an underlying Frame that supports
a multitude of cultural viewpoints on these issues
in a non-conflicting manner.

20. Narratives as “Beings”
The story of the tribals and
borewells
The “alternate” story of Jurassic
Park!

21. The formation of Narratives rooted in
underlying worldview, which in turn is
rooted in logic pertaining to
“sustainability” of a system of being.
Elements of an “algebra of being”:
Atma (being),
Vidhi (context of being)
Dharma (sustainability of being)
Prana (capability of being)
Narratives as “Beings”

22. Changing Perspectives towards the Web
1990s
2000s
Present
day

23. Thank You!