A theory of social communication is developed to explain the endogenous processes by which stable organization is achieved in social collectives. The theory shows how two orders of social relations, flux (the distribution of energy) and control (spatial and temporal constraints on behavior) activate the potential energy of the collective's members—their capacity for physical and social behavior—and directs the expenditure of this energy towards collective ends. The work is divided into two parts and begins inductively, in Part 1, with an empirical analysis using existing data from a longitudinal study of 46 social collectives. Sociometric measures of flux and control are developed and their relationship to stability (group survival) is investigated. Results from statistical analyses, including multivariate discriminant analysis, show that the interaction between the two relational orders is a strong predictor of stability, while measures of the collective's normative and structural organization and of the members' social characteristics have no predictive power. Building on these results, Part 2 draws on the concepts of energy and information from the natural sciences to show how the interaction between flux and control operates as an information processing system. The interaction between the two orders effects stability by gathering and communicating information about internal organization throughout the collective. The interaction informs (gives shape to) the members' expenditure of energy and results in stable, effective collective organization. The work concludes with a theoretical model that shows how different patterns of endogenous communication, different configurations of flux and control, produce various States of functional and dysfunctional organization.

A previously unexploited method of examining neural spike-trains was applied to data obtained from cells in the visual cortex. Distributions of interspike intervals recorded extracellularly from cat visual cortex under four conditions were analyzed. Stimuli were gratings differing in orientation and spatial frequency. The probability density function of first passage time for a random walk with drift process, which is defined by its barrier height and drift coefficient, was used to characterize the generating process of axonal discharge under resting and stimulus conditions. Drift coefficient and barrier height were derived from the sample mean and standard deviation of the measured inter-spike intervals. For cells with simple receptive fields, variations in the drift coefficient were produced by changes in orientation and spatial frequency. Variations in barrier height were produced only by changes in orientation of the stimulus.