Connected car

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_car

A connected car is a car that can communicate bidirectionally with other systems outside of the car. This connectivity can be used to provide services to passengers (such as music, identification of local businesses, and navigation) or to support or enhance self-driving functionality (such as coordination with other cars, receiving software updates, or integration into a ride hailing service). For safety-critical applications, it is anticipated that cars will also be connected using dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) or cellular radios, operating in the FCC-granted 5.9 GHz band with very low latency.

History of connected cars, 1996–present

General Motors was the first automaker to bring the first connected car features to market with OnStar in 1996 in Cadillac DeVille, Seville and Eldorado. OnStar was created by GM working with Motorola Automotive (that was later bought by Continental). The primary purpose was safety and to get emergency help to a vehicle when there was an accident. The sooner medical helps arrives the more likely the drivers and passengers would survive. A cellular telephone call would be routed to a call center where the agent sent help.

At first, OnStar only worked with voice but when cellular systems added data the system was able to send the GPS location to the call center. After the success of OnStar, many automakers followed with similar safety programs that usually come with a free trial for a new car and then a paid subscription after the trial is over.

Remote diagnostics were introduced in 2001. By 2003 connected car services included vehicle health reports, turn-by-turn directions and a network access device. Data-only telematics were first offered in 2007.

In the summer of 2014, Audi was the first automaker to offer 4G LTE Wi-Fi Hotspots access and the first mass deployment of 4G LTE was by General Motors.

By 2015, OnStar had processed 1 billion requests from customers.

The AA (formerly known as The Automobile Association) introduced Car Genie, the first piece of connected car technology in the UK that connects directly to a breakdown service, not only warning of issues with car health, but intervening directly with a phone call to customers to help them prevent a breakdown.

In 2017, European technology start-up Stratio Automotive provides over 10,000 vehicles predictive intelligence enabling fleet operators to better manage and maintain their vehicles.

Types of connectivity

See also: Internet of vehicles

There are 7 ways a vehicle can be connected to its surroundings and communicate with them. These connections are all a part of Vehicle to Everything - V2X:

1. V2I "Vehicle to Infrastructure": The technology captures data generated by the vehicle and provides information about the infrastructure to the driver. The V2I technology communicates information about safety, mobility or environment-related conditions.
2. V2V "Vehicle to Vehicle": The technology communicates information about speed and position of surrounding vehicles through a wireless exchange of information. The goal is to avoid accidents, ease traffic congestions and have a positive impact on the environment.
3. V2C "Vehicle to Cloud": The technology exchanges information about and for applications of the vehicle with a cloud system. This allows the vehicle to use information from other, though the cloud connected industries like energy, transportation and smart homes and make use of IoT.
4. V2P "Vehicle to Pedestrian": The technology senses information about its environment and communicates it to other vehicles, infrastructure and personal mobile devices. This enables the vehicle to communicate with pedestrians and is intended to improve safety and mobility on the road.
5. V2D "Vehicle to Device": The technology connects your vehicle to any other device such as bluetooth or mobile phones. This is how vehicles can connect to a multitude of apps built to improve driver safety and experience.
6. V2N "Vehicle to Network": The technology allows vehicles to utilize cell tower networks to communicate with nearby vehicles and road infrastructure. Vehicles can receive alerts and communicate with nearby data centers connected to WiFi or  5G.
7. V2G "Vehicle to Grid": The technology allows electric vehicles to communicate with the power grid. This technology allows for two-way energy flow; not only can EVs draw energy from the power grid to charge their batteries, but they can also send energy back to the grid from their batteries when needed. V2G enables power companies to use parked electric vehicles as a sort of decentralized energy storage solution to help balance demand on the electrical grid.

Categories of applications

Applications can be separated into two categories:

1. Single vehicle applications: In-car content and service applications implemented by a single vehicle in connection with a cloud or backoffice.
2. Cooperative safety and efficiency applications: they provide connectivity between vehicles (or infrastructure) directly have to work cross-brand and cross-borders and require standards and regulation. Some may be convenience applications, others safety, which may require regulation.

Examples include, amongst others:

1. Single-vehicle applications: concierge features provided by automakers or apps alert the driver of the time to leave to arrive on time from a calendar and send text message alerts to friends or business associates to alert them of arrival times such as BMW Connected NA that also helps find parking or gas stations. The European eCall would be an example of a single vehicle safety application that is mandatory in the EU.
2. Cooperative safety-of-life and cooperative efficiency: forward collision warning, lane change warning/blind spot warning, emergency brake light warning, intersection movement assist, emergency vehicle approaching, road works warning, automatic notification of crashes, notification of speeding and safety alerts.

The connected car segment can be further classified into eight categories.

• Mobility management: functions that allow the driver to reach a destination quickly, safely, and in a cost-efficient manner (e.g.: Current traffic information, Parking lot or garage assistance, Optimised fuel consumption)
• Commerce: functions enabling users to purchase good or services while on-the-go (e.g., fuel, food & beverage, parking, tolls)
• Vehicle management: functions that aid the driver in reducing operating costs and improving ease of use (e.g., vehicle condition and service reminders, remote operation, transfer of usage data)
• Breakdown prevention: connected to a breakdown service, with a back end algorithm predicting breakdowns and an outbound service intervening via phone, SMS or push notification
• Safety: functions that warn the driver of external hazards and internal responses of the vehicle to hazards (e.g., emergency breaking, lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, blind spot object identification)
• Entertainment: functions involving the entertainment of the driver and passengers (e.g., smartphone interface, WLAN hotspot, music, video, Internet, social media, mobile office)
• Driver assistance: functions involving partially or fully automatic driving (e.g., operational assistance or autopilot in heavy traffic, in parking, or on highways)
• Well-being: functions involving the driver's comfort and ability and fitness to drive (e.g., fatigue detection, automatic environment adjustments to keep drivers alert, medical assistance)

Single-vehicle applications

Current automobiles entail embedded navigation systems, smartphone integration and multimedia packages. Typically, a connected car made after 2010 has a head-unit, in car entertainment unit, in-dash system with a screen from which the operations of the connections can be seen or managed by the driver. Types of functions that can be made include music/audio playing, smartphone apps, navigation, roadside assistance, voice commands, contextual help/offers, parking apps, engine controls and car diagnosis.

On January 6, 2014, Google announced the formation of the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA) a global alliance of technology and auto industry leaders committed to bringing the Android platform to cars starting in 2014. The OAA includes Audi, GM, Google, Honda, Hyundai and Nvidia.

On March 3, 2014, Apple announced a new system to connect iPhone 5/5c/5S to car infotainment units using iOS 7 to cars via a Lightning connector, called CarPlay.

Android Auto was announced on June 25, 2014, to provide a way for Android smartphones to connect to car infotainment systems.

Increasingly, connected cars (and especially electric cars) are taking advantage of the rise of smartphones, and apps are available to interact with the car from any distance. Users can unlock their cars, check the status of batteries on electric cars, find the location of the car, or remotely activate the climate control system.

Innovations to be introduced until 2020 include the full integration of smartphone applications, such as the linkage of the smartphone calendar, displaying it on the car's windshield and automatic address searches in the navigation system for calendar entries. In the longer term, navigation systems will be integrated in the windshield and through augmented reality project digital information, like alerts and traffic information, onto real images from the driver's perspective.

Near-term innovations regarding Vehicle Relationship Management (VRM) entail advanced remote services, such as GPS tracking and personalized usage restrictions. Further, maintenance services like over-the-air tune-ups, requiring the collaboration of car dealers, OEMs and service centers, are under development.

Despite various market drivers there are also barriers that have prevented the ultimate breakthrough of the connected car in the past few years. One of these is the fact that customers are reluctant to pay the extra costs associated with embedded connectivity and instead use their smartphones as solution for their in-car connectivity needs. Because this barrier is likely to continue, at least in the short-term, car manufacturers are turning to smartphone integration in an effort to satisfy consumer demand for connectivity.

Cooperative safety-of-life and efficiency

These services relate to Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), that depend on the sensory input of more than one vehicle and enable instant reaction through automatic monitoring, alerting, braking and steering activities. They depend on instant vehicle-to-vehicle communication, as well as infrastructure, functioning across brands and national borders and offering cross-brand and cross-border levels of privacy and security. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for that reason has argued for regulation in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) on V2V Communication and argued the case in US Congress. NHTSA began the rule-making process on December 13, 2016, proposing to mandate dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) technology in new light vehicles. Under this proposed rule, vehicles would broadcast a defined data packet, the "basic safety message" (BSM) up to ten times per second, indicating vehicle location, heading, and speed. In March, 2017, GM became the first US automaker to provide DSRC as standard equipment on a production automobile, the Cadillac CTS. The US also has appropriate standards – IEEE 802.11p – and frequency rules in place. In Europe a frequency is harmonised for transport safety and a harmonised standard, called ETSI ITS-G5, are in place. In the EU there is no push to oblige vehicle manufacturers to introduce connect. Discussions about a regulatory framework for privacy and security are ongoing.

Technologically speaking cooperative applications can be implemented. Here the regulatory framework is the main obstacle to implementation, questions like privacy and security need to be addressed. British weekly "The Economist" even argues that the matter is regulatory driven.

Roadway projects

The Michigan Department of Transportation announced in 2020 it would pilot a dedicated lane for connected autonomous vehicles on Interstate 94 between Ann Arbor and Detroit. Construction began in 2023, upgrading the left lane for a 3 mi (4.8 km) stretch.

Hardware

The necessary hardware can be divided into built-in or brought-in connection systems. The built-in telematics boxes most commonly have a proprietary Internet connection via a GSM module and are integrated in the car IT system. Although most connected cars in the United States use the GSM operator AT&T with a GSM SIM such as the case with Volvo, some cars such as the Hyundai Blue Link system utilizes Verizon Wireless Enterprise, a non-GSM CDMA operator.

Most brought-in devices are plugged in the OBD (on-board diagnostics) port for electrification and access to vehicle data and can further be divided into two types of connection:

• Hardware relies on customers smartphone for the Internet connection or
• Hardware establishes proprietary internet connection via GSM module.

All forms of hardware have typical use cases as drivers. The built-in solutions were mostly driven by safety regulations in Europe for an automated Emergency Call (abbr. eCall). The brought-in devices usually focus on one customer segment and one specific use case.

Insurance

The data provided by greater vehicle connectivity is impacting the car insurance industry. Predictive-modeling and machine-learning technologies, as well as real-time data streaming, providing among others information on driving speed, routes and time, are changing insurers' doing-of-business. Early adopters have begun to adjust their offering to the developments in the automotive industry, leading them to transition from being pure insurance product provider to becoming insurance-service hybrids.

Progressive, for example, has introduced its usage-based-insurance program, Snapshot, in 2008, which takes into account driving times and ability. The data gathered through an onboard diagnostics device allows the company to perform further personal and regional risk assessments. Another innovation being tested in the insurance industry regards telematics devices, which transmit vehicle and driver data through wide-area networks and are subsequently used to influence driving behavior, for legal purposes and the identification of fraudulent insurance claims. Further applications are dynamic risk profiles and improved customer segmentation. Future services include coaching on driving skills for fuel efficiency and safety reasons, the prediction of maintenance needs and providing advice to car owners regarding the best time to sell their car.

Trends

The following trends are strengthening the shift towards a fully developed connected cars industry, changing the concept of what is understood as a car and what are its functions.

Technological innovation in the field of connectivity is accelerating. High-speed computers help make the car aware of its surroundings, which can transform manoeuvring a self-driving vehicle an increasing reality.

There are initiatives to use Ethernet technology to connect the sensors that allow for advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS). Through the Ethernet, network speed inside the vehicle can increase from one megabit to gigabits. Further, Ethernet uses switches that allow connections to any number of devices, reducing the amount of cabling required and thus the overall weight of the car. Moreover, it is more scalable, allowing devices and sensors to connect at different speeds and has the benefit of components being available off the shelf.

In fact, research also shows that customers are willing to switch manufacturers just to be able to use mobile devices and connectivity. In 2014 there were 21% who were willing to do so whereas in 2015 this number climbed up to 37%. On top of that 32% of those customers would also be ready to pay for a service related to connectivity on top on a base model. This figure has been at 21% in 2014, one year before. The increase of customers willing to switch manufacturers and to pay for such services shows the increase in importance for connected cars.

The Internet of Things will be used to provide mobile services in the car with high-speed Internet. This feature will enable real time traffic control, interaction with the car manufacturer service for remote diagnostics and improved company logistics automation. Moreover, in the beginning of the self-driven car era, internet will be used for information exchange between the cars for better route selection and accident reports.

Criticism

Drawbacks and Challenges

Although the connected car offers both benefits and excitement to the drivers, it also faces drawbacks and challenges;

• A major issue with the connected cars is hackability. The more it is connected to the Internet and to the system, it becomes more exposed to being penetrated from the outside. If the service and help can be provided from distance by car-makers, through that channel, hackers can access and control the car as well. In Germany and Brazil, 59% of car drivers are afraid to be hacked into their car if it is connected to the Internet. In the U.S there are 43% and in China 53% whereas the average lies at 54%.
• Reliability is also a major concern. Cars, sensor, and network hardware will malfunction. The system has to deal with incorrect data, as well as faulty communications, such as denial of service attacks.
• Privacy is another dimension, both with hacking and with other uses. Sensitive data gathered from the car such as the location, driver's daily route, apps that are used, etc. are all susceptible to be hacked and used for unauthorised purposes, as well as being used by businesses and government. In Germany for example 51% of car drivers do not want to use car-related connected services because they want to keep their privacy. In the U.S. it is 45%, in Brazil 37% and in China 21% of the car drivers that think so. The average lies at 37%.
• A simple failure in the system, whether in the connected car, or elsewhere in the network, while on the autonomous drive can cause fatal consequences.

Fighting the challenges

Changing the design of products: the way that the product is developed and the "maintenance-respond-architecture" play a crucial role. Companies have to focus on long-term solutions in terms of design security because quick changes are costly and easy to circumvent. Integrating this sphere at the earliest stage possible when developing the product can be the right approach for the companies.

Internal cooperation between departments of the company: product-security teams and corporate IT-security teams will have to work closely together in order to prevent the hackability of their devices. To do so, companies may create guidelines that minimize probabilities of bugs, and security gaps (software). Making modifying and patching systems easier can be another effect driven from that.

Over-the-air updates: As short-term solutions are also easy to solve problems a technology called OTA (over-the-air) becomes more and more important to OEMs. These OTA updates allow companies to quickly detect problems/attacks and prevent the malefactors to become active and attack the system. However, this is a very costly approach and companies have to know the architecture of their systems in detail to directly attack the issue not to lose money on inefficiency.

Value chain security: As companies are the final integrators of security systems they also have to control security all along the value chain. Also suppliers have to make sure that security plays the most important role for the mobile device. Taking the example of the procurement department, it has to make sure that the cybersecurity features of the final product are negotiated and available. The whole security issue starts at the beginning of the value chain. This approach can be used to actually define and shape future security standards in the industry and make sure that every player in the industry has the same understanding of the importance of security.

Ego depletion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion

Ego depletion is the idea that self-control or willpower draws upon conscious mental resources that can be taxed to exhaustion when in constant use with no reprieve (with the word "ego" used in the psychoanalytic sense rather than the colloquial sense). When the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is typically impaired, which would be considered a state of ego depletion. In particular, experiencing a state of ego depletion impairs the ability to control oneself later on. A depleting task requiring self-control can have a hindering effect on a subsequent self-control task, even if the tasks are seemingly unrelated. Self-control plays a valuable role in the functioning of the self on both individualistic and interpersonal levels. Ego depletion is therefore a critical topic in experimental psychology, specifically social psychology, because it is a mechanism that contributes to the understanding of the processes of human self-control. There have both been studies to support and to question the validity of ego-depletion as a theory.

Some meta-analyses and studies have questioned the size and existence of the ego depletion effect. The ultimate validity and conclusions of those later studies are not universally agreed upon. Martin Hagger and Nikos Chatzisrantis, whose 2010 meta-analysis seemed to support the existence of the ego depletion effect, subsequently performed a pre-registered 23-lab replication study that did not find an ego-depletion effect.

Early experimental evidence

American social psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues proposed a model that described self-control like a muscle, which can become both strengthened and fatigued. The researches proposed that initial use of the “muscle” of self-control could cause a decrease in strength, or ego depletion, for subsequent tasks. Later experimental findings showed support for this muscle model of self-control and ego depletion.

A key experiment by Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Mark Muraven, and Dianne Tice in 1998, demonstrated some of the first evidence that ego depletion had effects in diverse contexts or situations. They showed that people who initially resisted the temptation of chocolates were subsequently less able to persist on a difficult and frustrating puzzle task. They attributed this effect to ego depletion, which resulted from the prior resisting of a tempting treat. Additionally, it was demonstrated that when people voluntarily gave a speech that included beliefs contrary to their own, they were also less able to persist on the difficult puzzle, indicating a state of ego depletion. This effect was not nearly as strong when individuals were not given a choice and were "forced" to write a counter-attitudinal speech. Thus, they proposed that both the act of choice and counter-attitudinal behaviors draw upon the same pool of limited resources. While giving a counter-attitudinal speech is expected to produce ego depletion, introducing the element of choice further increases the level of experienced depletion. These findings demonstrated the effects of ego depletion in differential situations and emphasized that ego depletion may not be context-specific. This experiment was critical in that the researchers synthesized ideas proposed by prior studies that had suggested evidence for a strength model of willpower. With this study, Baumeister and his colleagues therefore provided the first direct experimental evidence of ego depletion, and initiated research interest on the subject.

Physiological causes

The role of glucose as a specific form of energy needed for self-control has been explored by researchers. Glucose, a sugar found in many foods, is the primary fuel for the body and the brain. Multiple experiments have connected self-control depletion to reduced blood glucose, and suggested that self-control performance could be replenished by consuming glucose. Some of the findings were later questioned. However, several recent experiments have found that resource depletion effects can be reversed by simply tasting (but not swallowing or consuming) sweet beverages, which can have rewarding properties. Others have suggested that the taste of sugar (but not artificial sweetener) has psycho-physiological signaling effects.

A 2007 experiment by Segertrom and Nes found HRV (heart rate variability) to be a marker for ego depletion as well as an index for self-control power before the task.

Neural activity associated with self-control failure has recently been examined using neurophysiological techniques. According to cognitive and neuroscientific models of mental control, a "conflict-monitoring/error-detection system" identifies discrepancies between intended goals and actual behaviors. Error-related negativity (ERN) signals are a waveform of event-related potentials, which appear to be generated in the anterior cingulate cortex when individuals commit errors in various psychological tasks. Using electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, Inzlicht and Gutsell found that individuals who had undergone an emotion-suppression task displayed weaker ERN signals compared to individuals who had not undergone emotion-suppression tasks. These findings demonstrate preliminary evidence that depletion experienced after exerting self-control can weaken neural mechanisms responsible for conflict monitoring.

The majority of ego depletion studies have been carried out on university students, which raises concerns about how generalizable the results really are. The effects of age are unknown, but maybe younger people are more susceptible to the effects of ego depletion, given that the areas of the brain involved in self-control continue to develop until the mid 20s. For example, a recent study found that people over the age of 40 did not become ego depleted following a typical depletion manipulation, whereas younger university students did.

Manifestations

Guilt and prosocial behavior

Ego depletion has also been implicated in guilt and prosocial behavior. The feeling of guilt, while unpleasant, is necessary to facilitate adaptive human interactions. The experience of guilt is dependent on one's ability to reflect on past actions and behaviors. Ego depletion has been shown to hinder the ability to engage in such reflection, thereby making it difficult to experience guilt. Since guilt typically leads to prosocial behavior, ego depletion will therefore reduce the good deeds that often result from a guilty conscience. In the study by Xu and colleagues, some participants were required to suppress their emotions while watching a movie about butchering animals, which resulted in a depleted state. Participants were then induced to feel guilty by playing a game in which an opponent player was blasted with loud, unpleasant noises when they made errors. At the end of the experiment, participants were given a chance to leave money for a subsequent participant and were also given the choice of making a charitable donation. These were the measures of pro-social behavior. The results of this study indicated that people who experienced ego depletion felt less guilty and donated less money than non-depleted people. This demonstrates that ego depletion has an indirect effect on prosocial behavior by decreasing one's ability to experience guilt.

Perceived levels of fatigue

An individual's perceived level of fatigue has been shown to influence their subsequent performance on a task requiring self-regulation, independent of their actual state of depletion. This effect is known as illusory fatigue. This was shown in an experiment in which participants engaged in a task that was either depleting or non-depleting, which determined each individual's true state of depletion. Ultimately, when participants were led to believe their level of depletion was lower than their true state of depletion, they performed much worse on a difficult working memory task. This indicates that an increased perceived level of fatigue can hinder self-regulatory performance independent of the actual state of depletion.

Motivation and beliefs

Ego depletion has been shown to have some rather debilitating consequences, most notably self-regulation impairments. These effects can, however, be temporarily buffered by external motivations and beliefs in unlimited willpower. An example of such an external motivator was demonstrated by Boucher and Kofos in 2012, where depleted participants who were reminded of money performed better on a subsequent self-control task.

An experiment by Carol Dweck and subsequent work by Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs has shown that beliefs in unlimited self-control helps mitigate ego depletion for a short while, but not for long. Participants that were led to believe that they will not get fatigued performed well on a second task but were fully depleted on a third task.

Real-life implications

In a state of ego depletion, an individual's impaired ability to self-regulate can be implicated in a wide range of undesirable and maladaptive behaviors, such as acts of aggression. Knowledge and strategies to counteract ego depletion would therefore, be highly beneficial in various real-life situations. 

Dieting

An experiment performed by Kathleen Vohs and Todd Heatherton demonstrated how ego depletion is particularly relevant when considering chronic dieters compared to non-dieters. Chronic dieters constantly work at resisting their cravings and limiting their food intake. Vohs and Heatherton showed that the task of regulating food intake could be undermined in the face of tempting snacks, especially when the individual was experiencing a state of ego depletion. Both dieters and non-dieters attempted to suppress their emotional responses while watching a movie. Afterwards, participants were required to consume ice cream in order to engage in a taste-test. The major finding was that dieters who suppressed their emotional responses to the movie experienced more ego depletion than those who were not required to suppress their emotions. Additionally, those individuals subsequently ate much more ice cream in the taste-testing task. Non-dieters did not show the same self-regulatory failures as dieters in these tasks. Therefore, it seems that the act of dieting itself is a form of resource expenditure. Dieters spend so much energy trying to limit their food intake that these efforts are likely to be undermined when faced with overwhelming temptation.

Athletic performance

Research has found that competitive athletes’ mental determination can be hindered after completing a difficult cognitive task more than after completing an easy cognitive task. This indicates that the hindering effects of ego depletion can be applied not only to subsequent performance on cognitive tasks, but on physical tasks, as well.

Consumer behavior

In the world of consumerism, individuals are faced with decisions and choices that require the use of valuable energy resources in order to make informed purchases while resisting temptation of impulsive or unnecessary purchases. Consumers are constantly bombarded with a broad range of options. In order to make the best choice, one must compare the many different aspects of various products. The complexity of consumer decisions in itself can result in ego depletion. This, in turn, could impact any subsequent decisions consumers must make. When consumers are depleted, they are more likely to become passive, and make more impulsive decisions that may not fall in line with their true values.

Consumers are faced with choices of different price ranges and product qualities in the market. Having many options can make consumers feel overwhelmed, causing ego depletion. Advertisements telling consumers how they deserve and must have a product can cause mental fatigue and frustration, leading people to give in to buying a product. Fatigue and frustration can also stem from deals with specific requirements on ways to purchase a product, along with spending effort on deciding which store has the best deals or trying to get to the store. People will then be led to buy the high priced or cheapest product.

Consumers who have low self-control are susceptible to be more invested in obtaining product of a high status. These same consumers are more likely to be more motivated, persistent, and pay more for a product. This will lead consumers to have a sense of empowerment; they will feel in control again and feel as though they are overcoming their ego depleted states. It can also lead them to purchasing a brand that has a high status. The consumer might feel that the brand be more beneficial and secure with the product.

Relief

In a recent experiment, it was shown that inducing a positive mood can buffer the impairing effects of ego depletion on subsequent performance. Positive mood was induced by getting individuals to watch comedy videos or by giving them a surprise gift. Positive mood seemed to allow people to recover faster from ego depletion and furthermore, improved their ability to self-regulate. There is no claim that positive mood can provide a general benefit to people who had not previously engaged in self-regulatory tasks; rather, positive mood can restore depleted individuals’ capacity to self-regulate. Furthermore, this experimental work does not consider in depth the mechanisms by which performance is restored. It is not known whether positive mood counteracts ego depletion or whether positive mood merely motivates an individual to persist in a task, despite their depleted state.

The ego depletion effect itself (without mood intervention), has however been shown to be unrelated to mood changes, as shown in multiple ego depletion experiments that either controlled for mood, or saw no mood changes. Thus, positive affect is just a way to counteract ego depletion after a person is depleted.

Theoretical explanations

Conservation hypothesis

The conservation hypothesis is a partial explanation of ego depletion. It suggests that there are two sorts of depletion:

1. When one is completely depleted and unable to self-control.
2. When one is not fully depleted, but partly. Still, one reduces their self-control efforts to avoid complete exhaustion.

According to this view, when people feel depleted, there might still exist a reserve store of energy to be used in extreme, high priority situations that could be encountered in the future. This can be adaptive to the extent that expending any more resources at a given time might render an individual fully depleted of their resources in an unexpected situation requiring self-regulation or other self-monitoring behaviours. The existence of a spare reservoir of mental energy ultimately explains why various motivators can buffer the effects of mild or moderate ego depletion. In a state of low resources, an individual lacks motivation to exert any more energy, but if motivation is presented, there are still extra resources that can be used up. Thus, ego depletion could be conceptualized as a psychological constraint necessary to safeguard precious resources that might be needed in emergency situations in the future. Under mild depletion, people still have a small amount of energy left in their "tank", which they do not have access to under normal circumstances.

Criticism

Questions and alternative explanations

Although self-control has traditionally been thought of as a limited resource that can be depleted, some researchers disagree with this model. While multiple studies provided support for the ego depletion effect, there is currently no direct measure of ego depletion, and studies mainly observe it by measuring how long people persist at a second task after performing a self-control task (the depleting task). Furthermore, researchers usually examine the average task performance rather than the longitudinal performance trajectory. Only a few studies are available, where performance trajectories were modelled. In two studies there was no evidence that the ego depletion group performed worse in the first trials of the second task.

Many ego depletion studies, however, have shown that mood is not relevant to the results. In fact, many of the earlier experiments have tested for the effects of mood and saw no effect of mood whatsoever. Furthermore, the study and measurement of ego depletion may be affected by the confounding effect of cognitive dissonance. Researchers have questioned whether subjects are truly experiencing ego depletion, or whether the individuals are merely experiencing cognitive dissonance in the psychological tasks.

Process model

In contrast to the original most known model of self-control, Michael Inzlicht and Brandon J. Schmeichel propose an alternative model of depletion, which they refer to as the process model. This process model holds that initial exertions of willpower lead an individual's motivation to shift away from control, and towards gratification. As a part of this process, one's attention shifts away from cues that signal the need for control, and towards cues that signal indulgence. Inzlicht and Schmeichel argue that the process model provides a starting point for understanding self-control and that more research examining these cognitive, motivational, and affective influences on self-control is needed. A 2020 pre-registered study (686 participants) by Inzlicht and colleagues provided some evidence for this model. They fitted computational models of decision making to show that when depleted, the decision boundary parameter was reduced, suggesting that people disengage and become less interested in exerting further effort. Furthermore, they showed that depletion did not impair inhibitory control.

Reproducibility controversy and conflicting meta analyses

Although up until the mid-2010s there was widespread confidence in the robustness of the ego depletion effect, a substantial body of research has since cast doubt on the replicability of the effect.

A 2010 meta analysis of 198 independent tests found the effect significant with a moderate effect size (d = .6). Even after accounting for possible unpublished failed studies, the analysis concluded that it is extremely unlikely that the effect doesn't exist. In 2015, a meta analysis of over 100 studies by Carter and McCullough argued that the 2010 meta-analysis failed to take publication bias into account. They showed statistical evidence for publication bias. When they statistically controlled for publication bias, the effect size estimate was small (d = .2) and not significantly different from zero. Michael Inzlicht and colleagues praised Carter's meta analysis, but argued that bias-correction techniques are not precise enough to give a precise control size estimate. In response, Cunningham and Baumeister argued that Carter and McCullough analysis contained errors in its data collection and in the various analyses used.

Ulrich Schimmack (2016) conducted a meta-analysis of published studies and found that most studies could produce significant results only with the help of random sampling error. Based on the low power of studies, one would expect a large number of non-significant results, but these results are missing from published articles. This finding supports Carter and McCullough's meta-analysis that showed publication bias with a different statistical method. Schimmack's replicability report also identified a small set of studies with adequate power that provided evidence for ego-depletion. These studies are the most promising studies for a replication project to examine whether ego-depletion effects can be replicated consistently across several independent laboratories.

In 2016, a major multi-lab replication study (2141 participants) carried out at two dozen labs across the world using a single protocol failed to find any evidence for ego depletion. In response, Baumeister and Vohs argued that Baumeister's original protocol was rejected by the project coordinators, and after discussion was stalled, he only reluctantly agreed to a task that differed to some degree from the original 1998 studies. However, a subsequent, separate multi-lab replication project, led by Kathleen Vohs and involving 36 labs testing 3531 participants, also failed to find an ego-depletion effect (d = 0.06; an order of magnitude smaller than the effect size estimate in the original Hagger meta-analysis). Replication difficulties have also emerged for 5 additional protocols (operationalizations) of the basic ego depletion effect.

Attentional control

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentional_control

A person concentrating on their work

A person paying close visual attention to their use of a bottle opener, ignoring the other people around them

Attentional control, colloquially referred to as concentration, refers to an individual's capacity to choose what they pay attention to and what they ignore. It is also known as endogenous attention or executive attention. In lay terms, attentional control can be described as an individual's ability to concentrate. Primarily mediated by the frontal areas of the brain including the anterior cingulate cortex, attentional control and attentional shifting are thought to be closely related to other executive functions such as working memory.

General overview of research

Sources of attention in the brain create a system of three networks: alertness (maintaining awareness), orientation (information from sensory input), and executive control (resolving conflict). These three networks have been studied using experimental designs involving adults, children, and monkeys, with and without abnormalities of attention. Research designs include the Stroop task  and flanker task, which study executive control with analysis techniques including event-related functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI). While some research designs focus specifically on one aspect of attention (such as executive control), others experiments view several areas, which examine interactions between the alerting, orienting, and executive control networks. More recently, the Attention Network Test (ANT), designed by Fan and Posner, has been used to obtain efficiency measures of the three networks, and allow their relationships to be examined. It was designed as a behavioural task simple enough to obtain data from children, patients, and animals. The task requires participants to quickly respond to cues given on a computer screen, while having their attention fixated on a center target.

Development

See also: Neurobiological effects of physical exercise § Cognitive control and memory

Infancy

Early researchers studying the development of the frontal cortex thought that it was functionally silent during the first year of life. Similarly, early research suggested that infants aged one year or younger are completely passive in the allocation of their attention, and have no capacity to choose what they pay attention to and what they ignore. This is shown, for example, in the phenomenon of 'sticky fixation', whereby infants are incapable of disengaging their attention from a particularly salient target. Other research has suggested, however, that even very young infants do have some capacity to exercise control over their allocation of attention, albeit in a much more limited sense.

Childhood

As the frontal lobes mature, children's capacity to exercise attentional control increases, although attentional control abilities remain much poorer in children than they do in adults. Some children show impaired development of attentional control abilities, thought to arise from the relatively slower development of frontal areas of the brain, which sometimes results in a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Elderly

Some studies of aging and cognition focus on working memory processes and declines in attentional control. One study used fMRI measures during a Stroop task comparing neural activity of attentional control in younger (21–27 years) and older participants (60–75 years). Conditions included increased competition and increased conflict. Results showed evidence of decreases in responsiveness in brain areas associated with attentional control for the older group. This result suggests that older people may have decreases in their ability to utilize attentional control in their everyday lives.

A major contributor to age-related decreased attentional control includes the weight of the brain. Several studies conclude that the brain experiences rapid weight loss after the age of 60. This loss of brain weight results from a decrease in cerebral white matter and gray matter. White matter is the area in the brain responsible for exchanging information between gray matter areas. Gray matter tissue in the central nervous system enables individuals to interact with the world and carry out highly skilled functions. Studies reveal that individuals who engage in physical activity increase the cortical volume of gray matter later in life, preventing age-related atrophy and promoting attentional control. However, because most individuals' brains undergo pathological changes after the age of 80 or develop cardiac disease, neuron loss occurs and the brain volume decreases.

Abnormal development

Disrupted attentional control has been noted not just in the early development of conditions for which the core deficit is related to attention such as ADHD, but also in conditions such as autism and anxiety. Disrupted attentional control has also been reported in infants born preterm, as well as in infants with genetic disorders such as Down syndrome and Williams syndrome. Several groups have also reported impaired attentional control early in development in children from lower socioeconomic status families.

The patterns of disrupted attentional control relate to findings of disrupted performance on executive functions tasks such as working memory across a wide number of different disorder groups. The question of why the executive functions appear to be disrupted across so many different disorder groups remains, however, poorly understood.

Relevance to mental illness

Studies have shown that there is a high probability that those with low attentional control also experience other mental conditions. Low attentional control is more common among those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), "a disorder with persistent age-inappropriate symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that are sufficient to cause impairment in major life activities". Low attentional control is also common in individuals with schizophrenia and  Alzheimer's disease, those with social anxiety, trait anxiety, and depression, and attention difficulties following a stroke. Individuals respond quicker and have stronger overall executive control when they have low levels of anxiety and depression. Weak attentional control is also thought to increase chances of developing a psychopathological condition, as these individuals have disrupted threat processing and magnified emotional responses to threat. More researchers are accounting for attentional control in studies that might not necessarily focus on attention by having participants fill out an Attentional Control Scale (ACS) or a Cognitive Attentional Syndrome-1 (CAS1), both of which are self-reporting questionnaires that measure attentional focus and shifting. Researchers suggest that people should use experimental and longitudinal designs to address the relationship between ACS, emotional functioning, CAS, and attention to threat. This is due to the increasing problematic occurrences experts are seeing in the field regarding attentional control in relation to other mental illnesses.

Attention problems are also characteristic of anxiety disorders like PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). A recent review revealed that 61.2% of current studies found that participants who experienced PTSD suffered from significant attentional control problems. These problems caused by PTSD can lead to the development of an attentional bias, which causes a person to process emotionally negative information preferentially over emotionally positive information. Patients who suffer from PTSD commonly struggle to concentrate on certain tasks for longer periods of time, allowing intrusive thoughts to override their current focus. This interference can be caused by many different factors, but it is most commonly triggered by emotional cues, particularly the emotion of fear. Attention is considered a gateway function to advanced cognitive processes such as memory and learning, and attentional interference can cause such cognitive processes to decrease. In recent years, attentional control therapies have been used to improve attentional control in patients who suffer from PTSD. More recently, yoga and meditation were found to positivity affect attentional control in patients who have experienced PTSD.

Applications

Performance

Attentional control theory focuses on anxiety and cognitive performance. The assumption of this theory is that the effects of anxiety on attentional control are key to understanding the relationship between anxiety and performance. In general, anxiety inhibits attentional control on a specific task by impairing processing efficiency. There are three functions associated with this theory. The inhibition function prevents stimuli unrelated to a task and responses from disrupting performance. The shifting function is used to allocate attention to the stimuli that are most relevant to the task. The updating function is used to update and monitor information in working memory. There are three main hypotheses associated with attentional control theory. First, the efficiency of the central executive is impaired by anxiety. Second, anxiety impairs the inhibition function, and third, anxiety impairs the shifting function. Studies related to attentional control and performance take two differing approaches. Specifically, research on attentional capture has two modes: voluntary and reflexive. The voluntary mode is a top down approach where attention is shifted according to high-level cognitive processes. The reflexive mode is a bottom up approach where attention shifts involuntarily based on a stimulus's attention attracting properties. These modes are important to understanding how attentional control works.

Mindfulness

Even four days of mindfulness meditation training can significantly improve visuo-spatial processing, working memory and executive functioning. However, research has shown mixed results surrounding whether mindfulness effects attentional control directly. Participants did tasks of sustained attention, inhibition, switching, and object detection. These tasks were done before and after an 8-week mindfulness based stress reduction course (MBSR), and were compared to a control group. There were no significant differences between the groups, meaning that the MBSR course did not affect attentional control. However, an active randomized controlled trial showed that a mobile-based mindfulness app with extensive self-assessment features may have long-term benefits for attentional control in healthy participants. Mindfulness influences non-directed attention and other things like emotional well-being.

Learning

Modular approaches view cognitive development as a mosaic-like process, according to which cognitive faculties develop separately according to genetically predetermined maturational timetables. Prominent authors who take a modular approach to cognitive development include Jerry Fodor, Elizabeth Spelke and Steven Pinker. In contrast, other authors such as Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Mark Johnson and Linda Smith have instead advocated taking a more interactive or dynamical systems approaches to cognitive development. According to these approaches, which are known as neuroconstructivist approaches, cognitive systems interact over developmental time as certain cognitive faculties are required for the subsequent acquisition of other faculties in other areas.

Amongst authors who take neuroconstructivist approaches to development, particular importance has been attached to attentional control, since it is thought to be a domain-general process that may influence the subsequent acquisition of other skills in other areas. The ability to regulate and direct attention releases the child from the constraints of only responding to environmental events, and means they are able to actively guide their attention towards the information-rich areas key for learning. For example, a number of authors have looked at the relationship between an infant's capacity to exercise attentional control and their subsequent performance during language acquisition. Working memory capacity has been studied to understand how memory functions. The ability to predict the effectiveness of someone's working memory capacity comes from attentional control mechanisms. These mechanisms help with the regulation of goals, behavior, and outside distractions, which are all important for effective learning.

Visual attentional control

Our brains have distinct attention systems that have been shaped throughout time by evolution. Visual attention operates mainly on three different representations: location, feature, and object-based. The spatial separation between two objects has an effect on attention. People can selectively pay attention to one of two objects in the same general location. Research has also been done on attention to non-object based things like motion. When directing attention to a feature like motion, neuronal activity increases in areas specific for the feature. When visually searching for a non-spatial feature or a perceptual feature, selectively enhancing the sensitivity to that specific feature plays a role in directing attention. When people are told to look for motion, then motion will capture their attention, but attention is not captured by motion if they are told to look for color.

Spatial focus of attention

See also: Object based attention

According to fMRI studies of the brain and behavioral observations, visual attention can be moved independently of moving eye position. Studies have had participants fixate their eyes on a central point and measured brain activity as stimuli were presented outside the visual fixation point. fMRI findings show changes in brain activity correlated with the shift in spatial attention to the various stimuli. Behavioral studies have also shown that when a person knows where a stimulus is likely to appear, their attention can shift to it more rapidly and process it better.

Other studies have demonstrated that perceptual and cognitive load affect spatial focusing of attention. These two mechanisms interact oppositely so that when cognitive load is decreased, perceptual load must be high to increase spatial attention focusing.

Auditory alertness

The cocktail party effect is the phenomenon that a person hears his or her name even when not attending to the conversation. To study this, a screening measure for attentional control was given that tested a person's ability to keep track of words while also doing math problems. Participants were separated into two groups---low and high span attentional control ability groups. They listened to two word lists read simultaneously by a male and a female voice and were told to ignore the male voice. Their name was read by the "ignored" male voice. Low span people were more likely to hear their name compared to high span people. This result suggests that people with lower attentional control ability have more trouble inhibiting information from the surrounding environment.

Simulacrum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum

Image of a real apple (left), and plastic food model apple (right). The fake apple is a simulacrum.

A simulacrum (pl.: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin simulacrum, meaning "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Literary critic Fredric Jameson offers photorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, in which a painting is created by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real thing. Other art forms that play with simulacra include trompe-l'œil, pop art, Italian neorealism, and French New Wave.

Original philosophy

Mole & Thomas, Human Statue of Liberty (1919)—12,000 people in the flame of the torch, 6,000 in the rest of the shape. Plato was referring to an optical illusion such as this in his discussion of simulacra.

Simulacra have long been of interest to philosophers. In his Sophist, Plato speaks of two kinds of image-making. The first is a faithful reproduction, attempted to copy precisely the original. The second is intentionally distorted in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers. He gives the example of Greek statuary, which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers on the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed. This example from the visual arts serves as a metaphor for the philosophical arts and the tendency of some philosophers to distort the truth so that it appears accurate unless viewed from the proper angle. Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum (but does not use the term) in the Twilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality.

French semiotician and social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues in Simulacra and Simulation that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal. According to Baudrillard, what the simulacrum copies either had no original or no longer has an original, since a simulacrum signifies something it is not, and therefore leaves the original unable to be located. Where Plato saw two types of representation—faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum)—Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic reflection of reality; (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which "bears no relation to any reality whatsoever".

In Baudrillard's concept, like Nietzsche's, simulacra are perceived as negative, but another modern philosopher who addressed the topic, Gilles Deleuze, takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue by which an accepted ideal or "privileged position" could be "challenged and overturned". Deleuze defines simulacra as "those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior identity, no internal resemblance".

Alain Badiou, in speaking with reference to Nazism about Evil, writes, "fidelity to a simulacrum, unlike fidelity to an event, regulates its break with the situation not by the universality of the void, but by the closed particularity of an abstract set ... (the 'Germans' or the 'Aryans')".

According to the philosopher Florent Schoumacher, in societies of hypermodernity, in the West, the social contract states that we are obliged to use “simulacra”. We are carried there by hubris (hubris). However, the contemporary notion of simulacrum assumes that we all have a biased relationship with the reality of the world, not because reality is not accessible, but because we wish not to see things as they appear. The philosopher nevertheless emphasizes that our capacity for aphairesis, our capacity for representing the world, does indeed exist.

Recreation

Recreational simulacra include reenactments of historical events or replicas of landmarks, such as Colonial Williamsburg and the Eiffel Tower, and constructions of fictional or cultural ideas, such as Fantasyland at The Walt Disney Company's Magic Kingdom. The various Disney parks have been regarded as the ultimate recreational simulacra by some philosophers, with Baudrillard noting that Walt Disney World Resort is a copy of a copy, or "a simulacrum to the second power". In 1975, Italian author Umberto Eco argued that at Disney's parks, "we not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it". Examining the impact of Disney's simulacrum of national parks, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, environmentalist Jennifer Cypher and anthropologist Eric Higgs expressed worry that "the boundary between artificiality and reality will become so thin that the artificial will become the centre of moral value". Eco also refers to commentary on watching sports as sports to the power of three, or sports cubed. First, there are the players who participate in the sport (the real), then the onlookers merely witnessing it, and finally the commentary on the act of witnessing the sport. Visual artist Paul McCarthy has created entire installations based on Pirates of the Caribbean and theme park simulacra, with videos playing inside the installation.

Caricature

An interesting example of simulacrum is caricature. When an artist produces a line drawing that closely approximates the facial features of a real person, the subject of the sketch cannot be easily identified by a random observer; it can be taken for a likeness of any individual. However, a caricaturist exaggerates prominent facial features, and a viewer will pick up on these features and be able to identify the subject, even though the caricature bears far less actual resemblance to the subject.

Iconography

Beer (1999: p. 11) employs the term "simulacrum" to denote the formation of a sign or iconographic image, whether iconic or aniconic, in the landscape or greater field of Thangka art and Tantric Buddhist iconography. For example, an iconographic representation of a cloud formation sheltering a deity in a thangka or covering the auspice of a sacred mountain in the natural environment may be discerned as a simulacrum of an "auspicious canopy" (Sanskrit: Chhatra) of the Ashtamangala. Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena approach a cultural universal and may be proffered as evidence of the natural creative spiritual engagement of the experienced environment endemic to the human psychology.

As artificial beings

Simulacra often appear in speculative fiction. Examples of simulacra in the sense of artificial or supernaturally or scientifically created artificial life forms include:

• Automaton – A self-operating robot.
• Androids created to pass for human beings in several of Philip K. Dick's novels (called "simulacra" in We Can Build You, The Simulacra, Now Wait for Last Year, Clans of the Alphane Moon, The Penultimate Truth and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (called "replicants" in its film adaptation Blade Runner).
• Avatar (computing) – A graphical representation of a user.
• Experience machine - A thought experiment put forward by Robert Nozick in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which any desirable experience can be simulated.
• Evil Deadpool - A Marvel Comics character created by Deadpool's preserved lost body parts being fused and brought to life by their remaining healing factor.
• Feathertop – A scarecrow created and brought to life by a witch.
• Frankenstein's Monster from Frankenstein – A creation of Victor Frankenstein made from various body parts. Frankenstein's Monster was also adapted in DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
  • The Universal Pictures film Bride of Frankenstein featured the titular monster that was made by a collaboration of Henry Frankenstein and Doctor Septimus Pretorius. She even had comic book counterpart from DC Comics.
  • DC Comics also had another Frankenstein's monster-like character called Young Frankenstein.
• Galatea from Metamorphoses – A statue of a female created by Pygmalion and brought to life by Aphrodite.
• Gargoyles – Statues sculpted to resemble monsters.
• Ham Monster - A monster from The Mr. Potato Head Show who Dr. Fruitcake created from meat and crab claws.
• Hatsune Miku and other Vocaloids.
• Holograms – Computerized images of anything.
• Homunculus – Small miniature humanoids created through alchemy.
• Jack Pumpkinhead - Princess Ozma's Tip form created him from a jack-o'-lantern and tree limbs.
• "Maria" the Robotrix from Fritz Lang's Metropolis
• Neutrinos from Solaris – A race of creatures made from the memories of humans.
• Nomu – Creatures from My Hero Academia. Also known as "Artificial Humans", the Nomu are deceased humans who were resurrected and modified to wield multiple powers at once.
• Pinocchio – A puppet that comes to life.
• Pintosmalto – A statue of a man-made from large amounts of sugar and sweet almonds, scented water, musk and amber, various jewels, gold thread, and above all a trough and a silver trowel who was brought to life by a Goddess of Love.
• Realm of the Mad God has several enemies stated to be simulacrums in-universe. Most notably, the incarnation of Oryx the Mad God that the player fights in Oryx's Chamber is explicitly stated by Oryx to not be his real form. In addition, the versions of various bosses fought in the "Mad God Mayhem" dungeon are all stated to be simulacrums, and the version of Dr. Terrible fought in the Mad Lab is stated to be a simulacrum in additional media.
• Robots
• RUR – Originated the word robot.
• Simulacrum Soldier – Robotic soldiers with human minds employed by both the IMC and Frontier Militia in the Titanfall universe. While they bear a superficial resemblance to the commonly-fielded BRD-01 Spectre, Simulacra are instead human minds uploaded into robotic bodies. A simulacrum can be considered a form of transhumanism.
  • Revenant – An example from its spinoff, Apex Legends, a playable Legend who possesses a mind of a former human hitman.
  • Ash - Also an example, present in both Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends.
• Simulacrum Spell – An illusion spell from Dungeons & Dragons that creates a partially real duplicate of someone, though it only has half the power and abilities of the original.
• Snegurochka – A little girl made of snow.
• Squadron Supreme of America - In Marvel Comics, the Squadron Supreme of America are revealed to be simulacrums created by Mephisto and programmed by the Power Elite so that Phil Coulson can have them be a United States-sponsored superhero team.
• Terracotta Army – Terracotta sculptures of the armies of Qin Shi Huang.
• The Gingerbread Man – A gingerbread man that came to life.
  • The character John Dough was also a gingerbread man that came to life.
• The Golem of Jewish folklore – A creation of a rabbi made from clay that was harvested from the banks of the Vltava.
• Thumbelina – A small girl created by a witch.
• Ushabti – Egyptian figurines.
• Vasilisa the Beautiful – A doll that came to life.
• Wirehead (science fiction) - A hypothetical futuristic application of brain stimulation reward where pleasure is artificially induced.

Also, the illusions of absent loved ones created by an alien life form in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris can be considered simulacra.

Architecture

Architecture is a special form of simulacrum.

In his book Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard describes the Beaubourg effect in which the Pompidou Centre functions as a monument of a mass simulation that absorbs and devours all the cultural energy from its surrounding areas. According to Baudrillard, the Centre Pompidou is "a machine for making emptiness".

An everyday use of the simulacrum are the false facades, used during renovations to hide and imitate the real architecture underneath it.

A Potemkin village is a simulation: a facade meant to fool the viewer into thinking that he or she is seeing the real thing. The concept is used in the Russian-speaking world as well as in English and in other languages. Potemkin village belongs to a genus of phenomena that proliferated in post-Soviet space. Those phenomena describe gaps between external appearances and underlying realities.

Disneyland – Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulacra. [...] Play of illusions and phantasms.

Las Vegas – the absolute advertising city (of the 1950s, of the crazy years of advertising, which has retained the charm of that era).