Analyzing and Computing Humans - the Role of Language, Culture, Brain and Health

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About this Research Topic

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Background

Research has investigated the neurobiological and neurophysiological underpinnings of human experience and behavior, of cognitive and affective processing, perception, action, and thought, and their role in mental disorders, health and well-being. New technological developments paved the way for the study of human experience and behavior and their behavioral, neurophysiological and psychophysiological correlates outside the laboratory. The purposes and applications of tracking biosignals in the wild are as diverse as human life. Prominent examples are brain computer interfaces (BCIs). BCIs link the external and internal world by translating brain and bodily activity into adaptive and assistive computer commands. The application domains of BCIs are growing, ranging from the development of supportive devices for people with neurological conditions, to self-control of one’s mood- or stress-level for health promotion or the augmentation of leisure time entertainment by mind-, brain-, eye gaze-, or voice controlled gaming or virtual reality devices. Moreover, more and more people are using BCIs and computer-mediated biosignal tracking options to communicate digitally with each other or with virtual agents. The scientific interests here are to develop embodied virtual agents and train artificial neural networks that are able to decode the human user’s preferences and intentions and by doing so, teach themselves of behaving more human-like, intelligent and aware of their Self and others.
There is no doubt: computer-assisted automated data analysis as well as the development of new technologies for ambulatory biosignal recording and digitized communication all open up new possibilities for many scientific disciplines, companies and the people themselves. However, at the same time, this field of scientific research once more reveals that humans are not rational machines. People behave spontaneously and decide intuitively. How we experience and decide in a particular situation depends not only strongly on our feelings, but also on our social, linguistic and cultural embedding.

The Role of Language and Culture
Cognitive, educational and affective neurolinguistics suggests that the language we speak and in which we think and feel requires the human brain to reactivate those sensory and motor processes that become activated while getting in touch with the world and making a particular experience. Implicit rules such as linguistic in-group biases that exist in many languages or the difference in perceiving and expressing time, emotions or the Self in different languages are just a few examples of how people construe meaning from embodied personal experience and how culture and language affect these experiences. It is these implicit cultural, linguistic and embodied factors as well as their interactions that make it difficult for artificial intelligence to behave in a conversation like humans without losing meaning. Despite significant evidence that the human brain is not hard-wired but that its processes and functionality can be shaped by language and by culture, cultural factors and language are still too little taken into account, be it BCI research, AI- based applications, models for computer-based simulation of human behavior or automated biosignal processing. This blind spot is a hot spot, conceptually, theoretically, ethically as well as methodologically.


The goal of this Research Topic is to take an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective on the topic of “analyzing and computing humans and their brains” in order to discuss how human experience and behavior, how cognition and emotions, how health, well-being and the Self as well as the respective neuro-, psychophysiological and behavioral correlates can be studied in the context of language and cultural diversity. In addition, it will be discussed how this knowledge can be considered by technical and digital solutions of Brain Computer Interfaces, human behavior analysis and this without violating privacy or ethics.


Researchers from all scientific disciplines are invited to submit their work to the Research Topic. Original research, brief reports, opinion papers, reviews as well as conceptual- theoretical papers that discuss and investigate the role of language, culture, brain and health in analyzing and computing humans and BCI research are welcome. Original research including behavior research or behavioral or peripheral-physiological methods only, can be considered, if making a reference to neuroscientific models, theories or the underlying brain mechanisms.

Keywords: Language, Culture, Brain, Health, Human Experience, Cross-cultural

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