Fig. 1

Visual representation of a landscape of attraction given two arbitrary DOFs (A and B). Dips in cold colors indicate basins of attraction towards which the system is drawn and materialize stable patterns of interaction between the respective states of A and B. Hills in hot color indicate unstable patterns which the system is pulled away from. When A and B have certain states, they tend to evolve toward the deep basins the system is close to. The black curved and dashed arrow represents the trajectory of the system given an initial state (IS) and its tendency to follow habitual paths of attraction toward a stable pattern—the final state where it settles (FS1). The curvature illustrates fluctuations that can stem from intrinsic noise present in the system or from other DOF not represented here. In unstable situations, tiny changes in the values of the DOF can nudge the system toward one or the other basins. The violet curved arrow represents the trajectory of the system when it is first disrupted (blue arrow) and put in such an unstable situation, at the crossroad between several potential alternatives (disrupted state, DS), and then nudged toward a pattern that is stable but usually less attractive (the second final state, FS2). The DOF B could be a parameter of the environment (including another person with whom one interacts with), expressing the fact that certain patterns become attractive and stable thanks to the process of interaction with our surroundings and in the context of our own ongoing activity