The accepted ontology
Browse accepted Systema Constructum entries: human-made tools, institutions, methods, practices, works, and their definitions.
100 entries in this page
Attentional-control is the cognitive mechanism that selects, sustains, and shifts focused mental resources toward relevant stimuli or goals while suppressing distraction. Parameters: (1) selection gate — filtering incoming information by relevance to current…
Representativeness-heuristic is a cognitive model of judgment-by-similarity in which people assess the likelihood of an event or category membership by how much it resembles a prototype or typical case, while neglecting statistically relevant information such…
Source-monitoring is a cognitive model for attributing the origin of information — distinguishing self-generated from externally-sourced memories and knowledge. Its parameters are: (1) source categories — perceptual (sensed), cognitive (reasoned), imagined (f…
Epistemic-trust is the practice of granting informational authority to another agent or system as a reliable source of knowledge. Its parameters are: (1) source type — human expert, institutional body, or artificial system; (2) domain specificity — trust scop…
Belief-formation is a human-made cognitive process describing how agents integrate new information with existing representations to produce stable propositional attitudes. Parameters: (1) input channel — the mode by which information enters (perception, testi…
A feedback-loop is a control mechanism where a system's output is routed back as input, enabling the system to adjust its behavior based on past performance. The loop operates through four components: (1) a sensor or detector that measures the current output,…
The affect heuristic is a cognitive shortcut in which individuals rely on their emotional response (positive or negative feeling toward an option) to make judgments and decisions, bypassing analytical processing of factual attributes. Parameters: (1) affect =…
Flow-state is a psychological construct from positive psychology describing a mental state of complete immersion in an activity, characterized by intense focused concentration, loss of self-consciousness, distorted perception of time, and intrinsic reward fro…
dual-task is a cognitive psychology paradigm in which subjects perform two or more tasks simultaneously, and the resulting performance decrement relative to single-task performance is quantified as the dual-task cost. The paradigm operates under the constrain…
Self-regulation is a human-made psychological construct describing the systematic process by which individuals monitor, evaluate, and modify their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to achieve desired outcomes or conform to standards. It comprises four cor…
Habituation is a human-made psychological construct describing a specific type of non-associative learning in which repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus leads to a progressive decrease in behavioral response. Parameters: (1) stimulus type and intensit…
Cognitive-control is a human-made construct in cognitive psychology describing the set of top-down mental operations that deliberately regulate attention, memory, behavior, and other cognitive processes to achieve goals. Parameters: selective attention (filte…
Executive function is a human-made cognitive construct describing the set of top-down mental processes that regulate, control, and coordinate other cognitive operations. Parameters: working memory (holding and manipulating information), inhibitory control (su…
A cognitive phenomenon constructed to describe the failure to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain view when attention is engaged on a concurrent task or focal stimulus. Parameters: attentional set (the currently engaged focus), target (the unattended sti…
A cognitive phenomenon constructed to describe situations where the volume or complexity of incoming information exceeds an individual's capacity to process it effectively. Parameters: input rate (information per unit time), processing capacity (cognitive ban…
A human-made cognitive model describing the state of exhausted mental resources after sustained cognitive engagement. Parameters: resource demand level (the intensity of ongoing cognitive load), depletion threshold (the point at which performance degrades not…
A human-made cognitive act of selecting among alternatives, constructed as a formalizable process for resolving uncertainty through preference evaluation. Parameters: alternatives (the set of options presented), criteria (the standards by which options are we…
A psychological construct describing how the perception of insufficient resources—money, time, food, or social connection—captures cognitive bandwidth, narrows attention to immediate shortages (tunneling), and produces systematic shifts in judgment and decisi…
A psychological framework describing the phenomenon where exposure to an excessive number of options impairs decision quality, increases decision time, and reduces post-choice satisfaction. The construct identifies a threshold effect: beyond a certain number…
A human-made psychological research program that identifies and catalogs systematic deviations from rational decision-making by mapping cognitive shortcuts (heuristics) to their predictable errors (biases). Parameters: (1) a named heuristic — a mental shortcu…
A psychological concept describing the declining quality of decisions after extended periods of decision-making. Parameters: (1) cumulative decision count — the number of choices already made in the session, (2) decision complexity — the cognitive load per in…
A decision strategy in which an agent selects the first alternative that satisfies a minimum threshold of acceptability, rather than continuing search to find the optimal solution. Parameters: (1) a satisficing threshold below which options are rejected, (2)…
A model of decision-making in which agents produce satisficing outcomes — decisions that are good enough — rather than optimal ones, bounded by three constraints: (1) limited cognitive capacity for processing information, (2) incomplete or imperfect informati…
A cognitive bias in which people systematically prefer the current state of affairs. When considering change, the status quo is disproportionately favored — any departure from the current state is perceived as a loss rather than a potential gain, creating ine…
A cognitive bias in which adding a third option (the decoy) that is asymmetrically dominated — worse than one option but not the other — shifts preference toward the option that dominates the decoy. The decoy is designed by choice architects to make a target…
Debiasing is a class of deliberate interventions designed to reduce the impact of cognitive biases on judgment and decision-making. Its parameters are: (1) a target bias or heuristic (e.g. anchoring, confirmation bias, availability), (2) a decision context in…
A chart is a human-made visual representation that encodes data, information, or statistics into graphical elements (lines, bars, areas, symbols, points) arranged on a coordinate system to communicate quantitative relationships or patterns to a reader. Parame…
A human-made document format that condenses the key findings, recommendations, and data of a longer report into a brief, decision-ready overview. Parameters: (1) a source document with substantive content to distill, (2) distilled key findings extracted from…
A black swan is a cognitive heuristic for reasoning about low-probability, high-impact events. It identifies events satisfying three criteria: (1) rarity — the event lies outside normal expectations and cannot be reliably predicted by existing knowledge or mo…
Provocation is a deliberate act or stimulus designed to elicit a reaction, challenge assumptions, or initiate a process. It operates by disrupting habitual patterns of thought or behavior through surprise, contradiction, or deliberate misdirection. Parameters…
Curating is the practice of selecting, organizing, and presenting items — artifacts, information, content, or experiences — for a defined audience according to stated criteria. It operates through three phases: (1) selection, where items are chosen based on t…
Misinformation is the social category applied to information claims that a community determines to be false or inaccurate. It has three parameters: the claim is presented as factual (not opinion or speculation), the determination of inaccuracy derives from ve…
Self-deception is the cognitive practice of maintaining a belief while evading, distorting, or rationalizing away evidence that contradicts it. Parameters: (1) a held belief, (2) available contrary evidence, (3) a mechanism of evidential avoidance or rational…
Information design is the deliberate practice of structuring the visual and spatial presentation of information so that it can be perceived, understood, and acted upon by a user. Parameters: (1) the information to be designed (data, text, relationships, proce…
A summary is a condensed restatement of a longer work, preserving its essential content and structure while omitting detail. It operates by selective compression: identifying the main claims, arguments, or narrative beats and expressing them in fewer words. T…
An abstract is a condensed summary of a longer scholarly or technical work — paper, report, or book — that states the purpose, methods, findings, and conclusions so a reader can quickly assess the work's relevance and significance. It persists through publish…
A funnel chart is a human-made visual display that shows quantities at successive stages of a process using a series of progressively narrowing segments, each representing the remaining volume at that stage. It operates through two parameters: (1) stages — th…
A sampling-frame is a human-made enumeration of all units in a target population, constructed as the concrete set from which a sample is drawn. It operates through two parameters: (1) completeness — whether every eligible unit appears, and (2) accuracy — whet…
A statistics is a human-made corpus of methods and principles for reasoning under uncertainty — collecting data through sampling, analyzing patterns through inference, and communicating findings through quantification. It operates through three parameters: (1…
A spreadsheet is a human-made software tool that organizes data into a grid of rows and columns, where each cell can store a value, text, or a formula that computes dynamically from other cells. Users create spreadsheets to track finances, analyze data, autom…
A stem-and-leaf plot is a statistical chart for visualizing the distribution of a quantitative dataset by splitting each value into a stem (leading digit(s)) and a leaf (trailing digit), arranging stems in ascending order and listing leaves alongside to prese…
A bell curve is a human-made graphical visualization that depicts the normal (Gaussian) probability distribution as a symmetric, bell-shaped curve. Parameters: the mean (central tendency), the standard deviation (spread), and the domain over which the curve i…
A margin of error is a statistical measure that quantifies the expected sampling variability around a survey or poll estimate — it states the range within which the true population value is likely to fall at a given confidence level. Parameters: confidence le…
A correlation coefficient is a human-made statistical measure that quantifies the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables. Parameters: the pair of variables (X, Y), the sample size n, and the coefficient type (Pearson's r for linear r…
A sparkline is a compact, lightweight data visualization — a word-sized graphic that shows the shape of a data series without axes, labels, or a legend. Parameters: the data series (array of numeric values), optional min/max reference marks, color or line-sty…
A legal document is a written instrument created to produce, modify, or terminate legal effects — rights, obligations, liabilities, or statuses — within a recognized jurisdiction. Parameters: (1) written or formally recorded form; (2) intended legal effect en…
Standard error is a statistical estimate of the variability of a sample statistic across repeated random sampling from the same population. Parameters: sample size n, population variance σ² (or its estimate s²), sampling distribution shape. Persistence mechan…
A network graph is a visual representation of relationships between entities, composed of nodes (representing the entities) and edges (representing the connections or relationships between them). It is human-made as a design convention in network science and…
A legal procedure is a human-made system of rules and processes that govern how legal claims are investigated, adjudicated, and enforced within a jurisdiction. It operates through three parameters: (1) jurisdiction — the geographic and subject-matter scope in…
A summarization is a human-made condensation of longer or richer source material into a shorter form that preserves the essential points, arguments, or information. It operates through three parameters: (1) selection of source content to retain versus discard…
A bullet chart is a bar-based visualization displaying a single primary measure — such as actual sales, performance, or cost — against qualitative ranges (typically poor, satisfactory, and good) rendered as background bands, and optionally against a comparati…
A premise is a proposition — a declarative statement — accepted as true for the sake of argument or reasoning. It serves as the starting point from which inference proceeds, either to derive conclusions (in deductive argument) or to test hypotheses (in practi…
A radial chart is a data visualization in which data values are encoded as positions, lengths, or areas along circular paths radiating from a central origin. Variables or categories are arranged angularly around the circle, with magnitude represented by radia…
A correlogram is a data visualization technique that represents a correlation matrix or pairwise relationship matrix using a grid of small visual encodings. Each cell in the grid shows the relationship between two variables — either as a colored tile encoding…
A dendrogram is a tree-diagram data visualization that encodes hierarchical relationships among a set of entities through nested branching structure. Each node represents a cluster or entity; branches connect parent clusters to their children, and branch leng…
An odds ratio is a statistical measure quantifying the strength of association between two binary variables by comparing the odds of an outcome under one condition to the odds under another. It is computed as the ratio of (odds of outcome given exposure A) to…
A likelihood ratio is a statistical measure that compares the probability of observing given evidence under two competing hypotheses — typically a null hypothesis (H₀) versus an alternative hypothesis (H₁). It is computed as the ratio of the likelihood of the…
A ridgeline plot is a data visualization technique that displays multiple distributions as a series of overlapping line graphs, with each distribution vertically offset to produce a stacked mountain-range or ridgeline appearance. It enables comparison of dist…
A Likert scale is a psychometric measurement device that asks respondents to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with a series of statements along a symmetric ordered continuum (typically 5 or 7 points: strongly disagree to strongly agree). The…
A raincloud plot is a composite data visualization that displays a distribution by layering three elements vertically: (1) a box plot showing quartiles and whiskers, (2) a half-violin showing kernel density estimate on one side, and (3) a raincloud of jittere…
A boot is a type of footwear that encloses the entire foot and extends upward over the ankle or higher, typically reaching the calf, knee, or thigh. Boots are constructed from durable materials such as leather, rubber, or synthetic compounds, and are designed…
A sunburst chart is a data visualization technique that displays hierarchical data using concentric circles. Each ring represents one level of the tree hierarchy, with the root at the center. Arc segments within each ring encode values proportionally by angle…
A stacked bar chart is a data visualization technique in which rectangular bars are subdivided into colored segments, each representing a proportional part of a whole. The total length of each bar encodes the sum across categories, while the internal segments…
A qq plot (quantile-quantile plot) is a diagnostic scatter plot used to compare whether two data sets follow a common distribution. It plots the quantiles of one data set against the quantiles of another; if the points fall approximately along a straight refe…
A swarm plot is a data visualization for categorical scatter data that positions each point along an axis according to its value while jittering perpendicular to avoid overlap, producing a natural density shape that preserves every individual observation with…
A data visualization technique that displays distributions for several groups as overlapping density curves arranged vertically, creating a landscape-like appearance of mountain ridges, designed to reveal patterns of change in distributions across ordered cat…
A hexbin plot is a two-dimensional data visualization that bins scattered points into a grid of regular hexagons, encoding density through color or shading so clusters and voids in dense point clouds become visible at a glance. Parameters: (1) bin resolution…
A dot density map is a data visualization that represents quantitative values through a pattern of dots distributed across a geographic or categorical area, where dot density encodes magnitude. Its parameters are: (1) a base area or category serving as the ca…
A forest plot is a data visualization used in meta-analysis to display the estimated effects of interventions across multiple studies. Its parameters are: (1) a vertical line of no effect, (2) individual study results shown as markers with horizontal lines re…
A faceted visualization is a data visualization technique that splits a dataset by one or more categorical variables and displays a separate chart for each subset, enabling comparison across categories by showing what the data looks like under different condi…
A small multiple is a data visualization design pattern that displays the same type of chart or graph multiple times, each showing a different subset or segment of the data, arranged in a grid or sequence for direct visual comparison. The technique leverages…
A facet grid is a data visualization layout that arranges multiple subplots in a two-dimensional grid, where rows and columns of the grid encode different categorical variables and each cell displays a view of the data filtered to that combination of categori…
A bump chart is a data visualization that displays changes in relative rank ordering across ordered dimensions (typically time periods or groups) using lines that rise and fall as items shift in rank. Parameters: (1) an ordered axis (usually ordinal such as t…
A lollipop chart is a data visualization that represents values as horizontal or vertical lines terminating in filled circles (the 'lollipop head'), combining the axis structure of a bar chart with the point emphasis of a dot plot. Parameters: (1) categorical…
A streamgraph is a variation of a stacked area chart in which the layers are displaced around a central baseline rather than a flat axis, producing a flowing, organic appearance. Parameters: (1) continuous x-axis representing time or an ordinal dimension, (2)…
A mosaic plot is a data visualization for exploring relationships between two or more categorical variables. Its parameters are: (1) categorical variables that partition a contingency table into rectangular cells, (2) cell frequencies or proportions encoded a…
An alluvial diagram is a data visualization technique that represents flows or transitions between categories over sequential stages. It uses flowing ribbons (alluvia) whose widths are proportional to the volume of flow between categories, with nodes at each…
A data visualization layout that arranges multiple small visualizations in a grid structure, where each panel displays the same type of graphic for a different subset of the data, sliced by one or more categorical variables. Its parameters are: (1) the base v…
Word cloud is a data visualization in which words from a text corpus are rendered as graphical elements whose size (and optionally color) is proportional to their frequency or weight in the source text. Parameters: (1) input is a collection of tokens from a t…
A chord diagram is a data visualization that shows relationships and flow between entities using a circular layout. Entities are placed around the perimeter of a circle as arcs, and ribbons connecting arcs represent the magnitude of flow or relationship stren…
A gantt chart is a data visualization that displays a project schedule as horizontal bars aligned to a time axis, where each bar represents a task with its start date, duration, and end date. The parameters are: (1) the task list with assigned time bounds, (2…
A spider chart (also called a radar chart or web chart) is a data visualization that displays multivariate data on a two-dimensional chart with three or more quantitative variables represented on axes radiating from a common origin. Each variable gets its own…
An error bar is a visual encoding element used in data visualization that represents the variability or uncertainty of a measured or estimated value. It appears as a line segment (vertical or horizontal) extending from a data point, where the length of the ba…
A contour plot is a two-dimensional visualization that represents three-dimensional scalar data by drawing contour lines (isolines) — curves connecting points of equal value — across a coordinate plane. Each line encodes a specific scalar value; the spacing b…
A stem plot is a data visualization technique that displays quantitative values as vertical stems rising from a shared baseline, where each stem's height represents a value and the stem's thickness or count encodes frequency. Parameters: (1) a numeric axis ma…
A dot plot is a data visualization technique that represents quantitative values as discrete dots positioned along a categorical axis. Parameters: (1) a single categorical variable defining the grouping dimension, (2) a quantitative variable mapped to vertica…
A scatter plot matrix is a data visualization composed of a grid of individual scatter plots arranged in rows and columns, where each plot shows the relationship between two variables from a larger set. Parameters: (1) the variable set defining the grid dimen…
A sunburst diagram is a hierarchical data visualization that encodes nested categories as concentric rings, where each ring represents a depth level and the angular span of a segment indicates its proportion within its parent category. Parameters: (1) a tree-…
A waterfall chart is a data visualization technique that displays sequentially ordered values as a series of bars whose heights represent individual positive or negative contributions to a running total. Parameters: (1) a running total that accumulates across…
A violin plot is a data visualization that displays the distribution of numerical data across one or more categories by combining a box plot with a kernel density estimate (KDE). Parameters: (1) a box-plot core showing median as a central mark, interquartile…
A venn diagram is a human-made diagram that represents sets and their logical relationships using overlapping geometric shapes — most commonly circles in a two-dimensional plane. Each set is depicted as a closed curve, and the spatial overlap between curves e…
A treemap is a human-made data visualization technique that represents hierarchical (tree-structured) data as a set of nested rectangles. Each branch of the tree receives a rectangle, which is then partitioned recursively into smaller rectangles representing…
A bubble chart is a human-made data visualization technique that encodes three numeric variables simultaneously: two variables map to Cartesian x and y positions, and a third variable maps to the area of a circle (bubble) placed at that position. It extends t…
An ontological category is a human-made classification scheme used to partition reality into fundamental types of entities within an ontology. It provides a top-level taxonomy — such as entity, substance, property, event, process, relation, and role — that st…
A ladder is a hierarchical classification structure in which entities are organized into successive levels of generality, each level serving as a parent category for the one below. It operates through INSTANCE_OF links: specific items point to their nearest k…
A radar chart is a type of data visualization that displays multivariate data using two-dimensional geometry with three or more quantitative axes radiating from a central origin. Each axis represents a different variable, and data points are plotted along eac…
A sankey diagram is a type of flow diagram that represents the transfer of quantities between nodes using ribbons or arrows whose width is proportional to the flow rate. It consists of nodes representing entities or states connected by links representing flow…
A radial tree is a hierarchical data visualization in which nodes are arranged in concentric rings or circles around a central root node, with edges drawn as lines or curves radiating outward from the center. Each ring represents a depth level in the hierarch…
A tree diagram is a human-made visual construct for representing hierarchical relationships: entities or categories are displayed as nodes connected by directed edges in a top-down structure, where parent nodes contain child nodes that show subcategories or c…
A stacked area chart is a data visualization that displays two or more quantitative series as vertically stacked filled regions. Each series is plotted as an area whose height equals its value at each x-position; regions are layered so that the cumulative bou…