Behavioural Atlas Documentation
The Behavioural Atlas is a structured repository of cognitive biases, heuristics, and behavioural phenomena mapped within a relational network.
Conceptual Structure
Each node represents a behavioural construct, be it a bias, distortion, fallacy, law, decision heuristic, or architectural feature of cognition.
Nodes are grouped beneath broader structural principles. You have Core nodes, used as umbrella terms. Underneath this are mechanisms. There can be many mechanisms under a core node. Within each mechanism are the behavioural phenomena that relate to the mechanism. The higher-order nodes act as organising anchors and are not rigid categories.
Purpose
The Atlas serves as a navigable reference layer for behavioural science. It allows users to:
- ▹Explore biases and behavioural effects through relational proximity
- ▹Identify structural overlaps between domains
- ▹Understand behavioural patterns within broader systems
- ▹Trace conceptual linkages across cognitive mechanisms
Interpretation Notes
This repository does not claim completeness or final authority. As with all science, Behavioural science also evolves and therefore definitions might shift.
Many biases overlap semantically. Some may be debated, reframed, or subsumed under broader mechanisms. The Atlas reflects a working model.
Spatial arrangement within the graph is completely heuristic. That is, distance implies conceptual relatedness, not some concrete, empirical magnitude.
Caveats & Limitations
- 01Not all behavioural effects are independent constructs.
- 02Some nodes represent theoretical abstractions rather than experimentally isolated phenomena.
- 03The network does not encode effect size or empirical robustness.
- 04Conceptual links reflect interpretative judgement.
Design Philosophy
Behaviour is not modular, but entangled in a complex web of subtle intricacies. Biases are therefore rarely isolated mechanisms; they emerge from interacting cognitive constraints, be it background, education and of course, other biases.
The Atlas therefore emphasises connectivity over categorisation. It is intended as a conceptual scaffold for exploration and should not, for the time being, be considered anything more than this.