Research note · non-clinical
Perceptual & Cognitive Mapping System (PCMS)
Open MIT-licensed web software for mapping cognitive tendencies in continuous dimensional space—for research, education, and self-understanding. Not a diagnostic tool, not a Synaptic Four product.
This page is a short orientation on the Synaptic Four website. It is not medical, psychological, or legal advice. PCMS does not replace professional assessment. Deploying similar tools with minors or in schools requires local ethics review and appropriate consent design.
What PCMS is
PCMS is an adaptive questionnaire backed by a multi-dimensional routing model. It produces descriptive profiles and visualisations intended for reflection and research datasets—not labels that assign people to diagnostic categories.
The codebase includes consent flows, internationalisation, optional Supabase-backed logging for studies, and documentation that states limits clearly. Technical depth (pipeline architecture, scoring model) lives in the repository README and docs.
Why dimensions, not labels
Human cognitive traits vary continuously. Dimensional approaches are often a better fit for prediction and nuance than forced categories—and in some cultural contexts, imported categorical labels can cause stigma or exclusion. PCMS was designed with that tension in mind.
Where helpful, the project can still relate profiles to common neurodevelopmental presentations—but only as correlation framed in research language, never as a clinical verdict.
Technical snapshot
Built with Next.js and TypeScript, Tailwind, optional Supabase storage, Playwright and Vitest in CI. Content and locales live in the repo; the canonical technical reference is GitHub.
Ethics and use
The authors require informed consent before assessments, avoid collecting personal identifiers in the default design, and warn operators not to use outputs for individual placement or institutional gatekeeping. If you run studies, you remain responsible for ethics approval and data protection in your jurisdiction.
Questions about the engineering stack are welcome via normal contact channels; Synaptic Four does not sell PCMS as a service.