Construct · 2 fields · 4 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaningbridgecompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to switch is bridge.
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A regulatory circuit that holds a cell in one of two stable states and flips between them when a signal arrives, so a gene network behaves like a toggle rather than a dial. Ptashne's account of bacteriophage lambda is the canonical case: two repressor proteins each block the other's gene, so the phage settles into either lysogeny or lysis and stays there, and a strong enough signal throws it from one state to the other. Gardner, Cantor, and Collins built the abstraction from scratch in E. coli, showing that two mutually repressing genes form a bistable toggle with memory. The referent is a network of genes and proteins inside a living cell, and its unit is the concentration state of the mutually repressing regulators. It shares the word with the electrical device, but here the two states come from feedback among molecules, and each is a pattern of gene expression a cell can hold and pass to its daughters.[1][2]
The reconfiguration the mind performs when it stops doing one task and starts another, and the measurable cost that reconfiguration imposes. Rogers and Monsell found that when people alternate between two simple tasks in a predictable sequence, responses on the switch trial are slower and more error-prone than on a repeat trial, a residual switch cost that survives even when there is ample time to prepare. Monsell frames it as a signature of executive control: loading a new task set, the rules that map stimuli to responses, over a competing set that lingers from the trial before. The referent is a control process in a person's cognition, and its unit is the difference in reaction time and accuracy between switch and repeat trials. It shares the word with the hardware and the gene circuit but names an act of attention, counted in milliseconds of overhead, not a device or a molecular state.[3][4]
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