Symmetrical – Asymmetrical Dialectics Within Catastrophical Dynamics. Thought of the Day 148.0

Catastrophe theory has been developed as a deterministic theory for systems that may respond to continuous changes in control variables by a discontinuous change from one equilibrium state to another. A key idea is that system under study is driven towards an equilibrium state. The behavior of the dynamical systems under study is completely determined by a so-called potential function, which depends on behavioral and control variables. The behavioral, or state variable describes the state of the system, while control variables determine the behavior of the system. The dynamics under catastrophe models can become extremely complex, and according to the classification theory of Thom, there are seven different families based on the number of control and dependent variables.

Let us suppose that the process y_t evolves over t = 1,…, T as

dy_t = -dV(y_t; α, β)dt/dy_t —– (1)

where V (y_t; α, β) is the potential function describing the dynamics of the state variable y_t controlled by parameters α and β determining the system. When the right-hand side of (1) equals zero, −dV (y_t; α, β)/dy_t = 0, the system is in equilibrium. If the system is at a non-equilibrium point, it will move back to its equilibrium where the potential function takes the minimum values with respect to y_t. While the concept of potential function is very general, i.e. it can be quadratic yielding equilibrium of a simple flat response surface, one of the most applied potential functions in behavioral sciences, a cusp potential function is defined as

−V(y_t; α, β) = −1/4y_t⁴ + 1/2βy_t² + αy_t —– (2)

with equilibria at

-dV(y_t; α, β)dt/dy_t = -y_t³ + βy_t + α —– (3)

being equal to zero. The two dimensions of the control space, α and β, further depend on realizations from i = 1 . . . , n independent variables x_i,t. Thus it is convenient to think about them as functions

α_x = α₀ +α₁x_1,t +…+ α_nx_n,t —– (4)

β_x = β₀ + β₁x_1,t +…+ β_nx_n,t —– (5)

The control functions α_x and β_x are called normal and splitting factors, or asymmetry and bifurcation factors, respectively and they determine the predicted values of y_t given x_i,t. This means that for each combination of values of independent variables there might be up to three predicted values of the state variable given by roots of

-dV(y_t; α_x, β_x)dt/dy_t = -y_t³ + βy_t + α = 0 —– (6)

This equation has one solution if

δ_x = 1/4α_x² − 1/27β_x³ —– (7)

is greater than zero, δ_x > 0 and three solutions if δ_x < 0. This construction can serve as a statistic for bimodality, one of the catastrophe flags. The set of values for which the discriminant is equal to zero, δ_x = 0 is the bifurcation set which determines the set of singularity points in the system. In the case of three roots, the central root is called an “anti-prediction” and is least probable state of the system. Inside the bifurcation, when δ_x < 0, the surface predicts two possible values of the state variable which means that the state variable is bimodal in this case.

Most of the systems in behavioral sciences are subject to noise stemming from measurement errors or inherent stochastic nature of the system under study. Thus for a real-world applications, it is necessary to add non-deterministic behavior into the system. As catastrophe theory has primarily been developed to describe deterministic systems, it may not be obvious how to extend the theory to stochastic systems. An important bridge has been provided by the Itô stochastic differential equations to establish a link between the potential function of a deterministic catastrophe system and the stationary probability density function of the corresponding stochastic process. Adding a stochastic Gaussian white noise term to the system

dy_t = -dV(y_t; α_x, β_x)dt/dy_t + σ_ytdW_t —– (8)

where -dV(y_t; α_x, β_x)dt/dy_t is the deterministic term, or drift function representing the equilibrium state of the cusp catastrophe, σ_yt is the diffusion function and W_t is a Wiener process. When the diffusion function is constant, σ_yt = σ, and the current measurement scale is not to be nonlinearly transformed, the stochastic potential function is proportional to deterministic potential function and probability distribution function corresponding to the solution from (8) converges to a probability distribution function of a limiting stationary stochastic process as dynamics of y_t are assumed to be much faster than changes in x_i,t. The probability density that describes the distribution of the system’s states at any t is then

f_s(y|x) = ψ exp((−1/4)y⁴ + (β_x/2)y² + α_xy)/σ —– (9)

The constant ψ normalizes the probability distribution function so its integral over the entire range equals to one. As bifurcation factor β_x changes from negative to positive, the f_s(y|x) changes its shape from unimodal to bimodal. On the other hand, α_x causes asymmetry in f_s(y|x).

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