A scale-free network of evoked words

Abstract

We use a set of evoked words to define the vertices of a network. The connections between vertices are established by individuals in a population that evoke these words. The resulting graph is called an Evoked Words Network, EWN. The data of evoked words comes from an epidemiological research in odontological public health. In this research we consider three concept themes or evocative words: mouth, disease, and health. We investigate these words in two populations: an upper middle class and a poor district of the city of Natal. We compare and analyze six EWNs. The distribution of connectivities of all of these EWNs indicates a scalefree structure, with the data fitting a power law. The analyzed quantities of the EWNs depend more on the concept theme than on the income of population. This conclusion is discussed in the context of language-based networks.

To include or not to include : Teachers’ social representations of inclusion of students with Asperger syndrome

“…Defining the structure of a SR requires the discovery of its central zone (Abric, 2001). The basis of the central and peripheral system is a set of cognitive elements, detected by a free evocation task (Bodet, Meurgey, & Lacassagne, 2009;Ferreira et al, 2006). Therefore, the method in this dissertation was based on the use of free associations.…”

The role of experience in teachers’ social representation of students with autism spectrum diagnosis (Asperger)

“…The response phrases to the stimulus cue are the cognitive elements of the SR (Bodet, Meurgey, & Lacassagne, 2009;Ferreira, Corso, Piuvezam, & Alves, 2006;Moloney, 2010;Parales Quenza, 2005). By using the frequencies and rank order of the phrases produced, the organization and structure of a social representation is determined (Abric, 2001;Ferreira et al, 2006;Joffe, 2002). Thus, this method employs a combination of the elements in a hierarchical structure in exploring a social representation and not simply a sum of the elements (Abric, 2001;Molinari & Emiliani, 1996;Parales Quenza, 2005).…”

Mapping the central structure core in social representation of pain

“…Each participant generated three responses for the stimulus word “pain.” The “pain” is not shown in this figure. In “response‐response” network (right panel), each set of three words generated by at least the same subject forms a triangle (Ferreira et al., ). For example, if the subject “ S 1” induced “scar,” “suffering,” and “illness,” the three directed linkages of “ S 1→scar,” “ S 1→suffering,” and “ S 1→illness” were transformed to undirected linkages of “scar‐suffering,” “scar‐illness,” and “suffering‐illness.” For showing the triangles more clearly, the nodes of subjects remain undeleted in the right panel.…”

“…In a “response‐response” network in this study, a linkage between two words was derived from at least one subject's mind and shows an inter‐concept relationship about individual pain representation in the subject's memory, that is, the two words share semantic context of “pain” with each other ( C oronges et al., ). By combining all of individual representations, the whole “response‐response” networks can be used for analyzing structure characteristics of social representations which represent behavior distributions in each population (Ferreira et al., ).…”

“…The representation provides people with codes for unambiguously naming and classifying the tangible or intangible aspects of their world and both of their individual and group history in order for people to communicate with each other. For topics commonly discussed in everyday life, such as food risk (Joffe & Lee, ), peace, war and conflict (Sarrica & Contarello, ), organ donation (Lauri & Lauri, ), health and disease (Ferreira, Corso, Piuvezam, & Alves, ), and soccer (Rech, ), social representation determines both behaviors and practices of people. Therefore, social representation acts as a guide for people's actions by integrating people's collective memories with their individual experiences (Guimelli, ; Walmsley, ).…”