DETECTOR

Charles François (2004). DETECTOR, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(1): 885.

Collection	International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics
Year	2004
Vol. (num.)	2(1)
ID	◀ 885 ▶
Object type	General information, Human sciences, Methodology or model

Any device usable to discover and measure some characteristic of an environment or a system.

In biological systems, the famous \term“{Frogs Eye}”experiment by'J.Y LETTVIN et al “… showed how the built-in classes of visual detectors in the frog's retina correspond to perceptual'categories \term”{ (}J.L. SNELL \term,{ 1988, p.360)}.

This also shows that biological detectors have an ingrained evolutive history and are not only detectors but moreover selectors and transducers whose transparency is far from total. (See LOTKA's concept of descriptor). It would be interesting to define and study the nature of social detectors. Values, norms, ideologies, etc… are probably such social selective detectors.