This exploratory qualitative study investigated how doctoral students reported their personal and professional interaction experiences that they believed might facilitate or impede their academic pursuits in biomedical research. We collected 19 in-depth interviews with doctoral students in biomedical research from eight universities, and we based our qualitative analytic approach on the work of Miles and Huberman. The results indicated that among different sources and types of interaction, academic and emotional interactions from family and teachers in various stages essentially affected students’ (...) persistence in the biomedical science field. In addition, co-mentorship among peers, departmental environment, and volunteer experiences were other essential factors. This study also found related experiences among women and underrepresented minority students that were important to their academic pursuit. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue that what is distinctive about aesthetic experiences has to do with what we do -- not with our perception or evaluation, but with our action and, more precisely, with our interaction with whatever we are aesthetically engaging with. This view goes against the mainstream inasmuch as aesthetic engagement is widely held to be special precisely because it is detached from the sphere of the practical. I argue that taking the interactive nature (...) of aesthetic experiences seriously can help us to understand some of the most important features of aesthetic experiences and the role they play in our life: their normativity, their crucial role in the ways in which the aesthetic domain looms large in our self-image and in the social dimension of aesthetic engagement. (shrink)

‘Interactional expertise’ is developed through linguistic interaction without full scale practical immersion in a culture. Interactional expertise is the medium of communication in peer review in science, in review committees, and in interdisciplinary projects. It is also the medium of specialist journalists and of interpretative methods in the social sciences. We describe imitation game experiments designed to make concrete the idea of interactional expertise. The experiments show that the linguistic performance of those well socialized in the language of a specialist (...) group is indistinguishable from those with full blown practical socialization but distinguishable from those who are not well socialized. The imitation game can also be used to indicate whether an individual can enter an esoteric domain and master the interactional expertise, a skill required by interpretative sociologists of science, anthropologists, ethnographers, and the like.Keywords: Expertise; Interactional expertise; Imitation game; Turing test; Colour blindness; Interpretative methods. (shrink)

Background:Dignity experience in the daily lives of people living with dementia is influenced by their relational interactions with others. However, literature reviews show that knowledge concerning crucial interactional qualities, preserving their sense of dignity, is limited.Aim:The aim of this study was to explore and describe crucial qualities of relational interactions preserving dignity experience among people with dementia, while interacting with family, social network, and healthcare professionals.Methodology:The study was founded upon Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, and an exploratory design employing qualitative (...) research interviews was conducted.Participants and research context:A total of 11 individuals diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia, living in their own homes, were recruited from two Hospital Memory Clinics in Norway.Ethical considerations:In recruiting persons with dementia as study participants, sensitivity toward their life history, autonomy, integrity, relationships, and dignity is essential. These standards, and the ethical principles of moral sensitivity to their vulnerability, doing no harm, showing justice, and respecting their personal utility, guided our research.Results:Three main interactional qualities preserving the participants’ dignity experience were found: Experiencing love and confirmation; experiencing social inclusion and fellowship; experiencing humane warmth and understanding within a caring culture, while being met as an equal human being. A total of 10 sub-qualities were identified within these 3 main qualities.Discussion and final considerations:Dignity experience among the participants was preserved when certain interactional qualities were present in their interactions with family, social network, and healthcare professionals. While supporting some of the findings of previous studies, this study adds new knowledge on the subject. Knowledge of relational interactions toward preserving dignity experience should be a fundamental part of future dementia care practice. Based on the results of this study, an empirical–theoretical model was developed for this purpose. (shrink)

As the ubiquity of technology-mediated communication grows, so does the number of questions about the costs and benefits of replacing in-person interactions with technology-mediated ones. In the present study, we used a daily diary design to examine how people’s emotional experiences vary across in-person, video-, phone-, and text-mediated interactions in day-to-day life. We hypothesised that individuals would report less positive affect and more negative affect after less life-like interactions (where in-person is defined as the most life-like and text-mediated as the (...) least life-like). In line with this hypothesis, the analysis of 527 unique interactions reported by 102 individuals (mean age = 19.3; 85.6% female) over the course of 7 days reveals that people feel lonelier, sadder, less affectionate, less supported, and less happy following less life-like interactions. Additional analyses show that the links between life-like communication and momentary experiences are independent of properties of individual interactions such as interaction length and participants’ overall evaluations of interaction quality. These findings provide initial evidence that there may be inherent properties of common technology-mediated communication tools that may lead to momentary changes in affective experiences and make social connection more challenging. (shrink)

The article investigates how the use of extended reality technologies and interactive digital interfaces have affected the design of exhibition spaces. Its main objective is to shed light on how these technologies have influenced the ways in which immersive art installations are conceived and experienced. Particular emphasis is placed on the impact of interactive technologies on how visitors experience exhibition spaces. The article examines an ensemble of immersive art cases, paying special attention to the distinction between immersion (...) and interactivity. Two concepts that are pivotal for understanding the transformations concerning the subjectivity of the exhibition visitor those of the “imagineer” and the “ultra-technologist”, which are analysed in the article. The intention is to render explicit how extended reality technologies have contributed to the design of immersive experiences, significantly influencing the interrelations between the technical, aesthetic and institutional aspects concerning exhibition design and the methods of dissemination of art. (shrink)

Current theories of addiction try to explain what addiction is, who experiences it, why it occurs, and how it develops and persists. In this article, I explain why none of these theories can be accepted as a comprehensive model. I argue that current models fail to account for differences in embodiment, interaction processes, and the experience of addiction. To redress these limiting factors, I design a proposal for an enactive account of addiction that follows the enactive model of autism (...) proposed by Hanne De Jaegher. (shrink)

BackgroundThe experience sampling method is an increasingly popular data collection method to assess interpersonal dynamics in everyday life and emotions contextualized in real-world settings. As primary advantages of ESM sampling strategies include minimization of memory biases, maximization of ecological validity, and hypothesis testing at the between- and within-person levels, ESM is suggested to be appropriate for studying the daily lives of educational actors. However, ESM appears to be underutilized in education research. We, thus, aimed to systematically evaluate the methodological (...) characteristics and quality of published ESM studies of social interactions among children and adolescents in school settings, as well as to explore how much variance in social interaction variables could be attributed to the within-person level.MethodUsing Academic Search Complete, APA PsycINFO, APA PsycArticles, ProQuest, Web of Science, Wiley Online Library, and SAGE Journals, and in accordance with PRISMA guidelines and pre-defined eligibility criteria, we conducted a systematic literature search of experience sampling studies up to November 2020. To assess methodological quality, we used a modified checklist for reporting of ESM studies.ResultsOf the originally 2 413 identified studies, a final 52 experience sampling studies were included in the present review. Findings on sample and study design characteristics generally revealed wide variability. Even if high-quality studies were associated with higher scores on the training of participants in using the ESM procedure, and use of incentives, these design strategies did not reveal a statistically significant impact on compliance. The intraclass correlation coefficient was reported in nine studies and on average 58% of the variance in social interaction variables could be attributed to within-person fluctuation between timepoints.ConclusionThe current study is the first to systematically review ESM-based studies on social interactions among children and adolescents in the school context. These observations suggest that ESM is a potentially favorable technique for extracting complex social phenomena in real-world settings. We hope that this review will contribute to improving the quality assessment of ESM studies as well as to inform and guide future experience sampling studies, particularly regarding social phenomena with children and adolescents in educational settings. (shrink)

During the last decades several tools have been developed to anticipate the future impact of new and emerging technologies. Many of these focus on ‘hard,’ quantifiable impacts, investigating how novel technologies may affect health, environment and safety. Much less attention is paid to what might be called ‘soft’ impacts: the way technology influences, for example, the distribution of social roles and responsibilities, moral norms and values, or identities. Several types of technology assessment and of scenario studies can be used to (...) anticipate such soft impacts. We argue, however, that these methods do not recognize the dynamic character of morality and its interaction with technology. As a result, they miss an important opportunity to broaden the scope of social and political deliberation on new and emerging technologies.In this paper we outline a framework for building scenarios that enhance the techno-moral imagination by anticipating how technology, morality and their interaction might evolve. To show what kind of product might result from this framework, a scenario is presented as an exemplar. This scenario focuses on developments in biomedical nanotechnology and the moral regime of experimenting with human beings. Finally, the merits and limitations of our framework and the resulting type of scenarios are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 373-380 [Access article in PDF] Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology:Dichotomy or Interaction? Caroline Brett Keywords: mysticism, psychosis, values, phenomenology, spiritual emergence. THE PURPOSE OF Marzanski and Bratton's paper is to challenge Jackson and Fulford's (1997) treatment of the area of spiritual experience and psychosis, specifically the perspective of discriminating pathological from spiritual experiences on the basis of action enhancement in contrast to (...) action failure. In my opinion, they are partially successful in this aim, and in their analysis they further the discussion of this complex and controversial area in an interesting and potentially fruitful way. What the paper does not offer, or attempt to suggest, is an alternative way of making a distinction, and in the following discussion I intend to explain why I think that, on the one hand, the status of specific experiences is of practical importance, and on the other hand any distinction should not be conceptualized as mutually exclusive. I also hope to clarify those issues which I perceive as being raised by both Jackson and Fulford's and Marzanski and Bratton's papers. The Critique Marzanski and Bratton's first, and in my opinion strongest, point is to argue that "values and actions alone cannot always discriminate between religious experience and psychopathology." They demonstrate convincingly that the fact that an individual positively evaluates a certain anomalous experience and shows enhanced function as a result of it, does not in itself mean that the experience should be viewed as "spiritual." Their second and third points relate to the way spirituality ought to be regarded, suggesting that Jackson and Fulford are in error to identify spirituality with experience, and moreover that any judgment of genuine spiritual content or value requires reference to an individual's personal history, and also some spiritual tradition or authority. I believe that the former point, although certainly relevant to the issue, is in danger of broadening the debate too far from the consideration of particular anomalous experiences: namely, those that are phemenologically similar or identical to psychotic symptomatology. Marzanski and Bratton also mount an objection to the psychologization of spiritual experience by Jackson and Fulford, although I am not convinced that they represent these authors' opinions fairly. Whose Values? Action or Ethics? The first point, the refutation of the thesis that a spiritual experience can be distinguished from [End Page 373] psychopathology on the basis of a positive evaluation and preservation of functionality, succeeds in that it is shown both that (1) experiences accepted as spiritual within major religious traditions may actually be distressing and/or disabling; and (2) anomalous experiences that are both positively evaluated by the experient and action enhancing nevertheless may not have genuine spiritual characteristics. The argument proceeds through the use of counterexamples, and it is indeed a problem for the Jackson and Fulford account that suffering and periods of social withdrawal or distress do appear to be historically, anthropologically, and theologically associated with the spiritual journey. Bratton and Marzanski use, among other examples, the "dark night of the soul" of mystics, raising the very interesting point that a person may have experiences that, at least at the time of experiencing, are profoundly disturbing or even disabling, socially or functionally, and yet those same experiences may in some way set the scene for a profound transformation or spiritual renewal. To my mind this concept can be seen reflected in the "terrible" forms of the Wisdom Goddess in Advaita Vedanta (as expressed in my own paper), and can be related to the concept of "breaking down to break through" espoused by transpersonal psychologists such as Grof and Grof (1992).Therefore, on closer examination, it appears that Jackson and Fulford's notion of preserved functionality may play some role after all, even if it does require supplementation: if the breaking through aspect of the process is necessary to distinguish from simply breaking down, then action enhancement may remain a criterion determining the spiritual value of an experience. However, it will need to be observed in the longer term, and as such can only play a role... (shrink)

Current work in experimental biology revolves around a handful of animal species. Studying only a few organisms limits science to the answers that those organisms can provide. Nature has given us an overwhelming diversity of animals to study, and recent technological advances have greatly accelerated the ability to generate genetic and genomic tools to develop model organisms for research on host–microbe interactions. With the help of such models the authors therefore hope to construct a more complete picture of the mechanisms (...) that underlie crucial interactions in a given metaorganism (entity consisting of a eukaryotic host with all its associated microbial partners). As reviewed here, new knowledge of the diversity of host–microbe interactions found across the animal kingdom will provide new insights into how animals develop, evolve, and succumb to the disease. (shrink)

Recent theory suggests that action prediction relies of a motor emulation mechanism that works by mapping observed actions onto the observer action system so that predictions can be generated using that same predictive mechanisms that underlie action control. This suggests that action prediction may be more accurate when there is a more direct mapping between the stimulus and the observer. We tested this hypothesis by comparing prediction accuracy for two stimulus types. A mannequin stimulus which contained information about the effectors (...) used to produce the action and a point stimulus, which contained identical dynamic information but no effector information. Prediction was more accurate for the mannequin stimulus. However, this effect was dependent on the observer having previous experience performing the observed action. This suggests that experienced and na¨ıve observers might generate predictions in qualitatively difference ways, which may relate to the presence of an internal representation of the action laid down through action performance. (shrink)

A recent version of the view that aesthetic experience is based in empathy as inner imitation explains aesthetic experience as the automatic simulation of actions, emotions, and bodily sensations depicted in an artwork by motor neurons in the brain. Criticizing the simulation theory for committing to an erroneous concept of empathy and failing to distinguish regular from aesthetic experiences of art, I advance an alternative, dynamic approach and claim that aesthetic experience is enacted and skillful, based in (...) the recognition of others’ experiences as distinct from one’s own. In combining insights from mainly psychology, phenomenology, and cognitive science, the dynamic approach aims to explain the emergence of aesthetic experience in terms of the reciprocal interaction between viewer and artwork. I argue that aesthetic experience emerges by participatory sense-making and revolves around movement as a means for creating meaning. While entrainment merely plays a preparatory part in this, aesthetic engagement constitutes the phenomenological side of coupling to an artwork and provides the context for exploration, and eventually for moving, seeing, and feeling with art. I submit that aesthetic experience emerges from bodily and emotional engagement with works of art via the complementary processes of the perception–action and motion–emotion loops. The former involves the embodied visual exploration of an artwork in physical space, and progressively structures and organizes visual experience by way of perceptual feedback from body movements made in response to the artwork. The latter concerns the movement qualities and shapes of implicit and explicit bodily responses to an artwork that cue emotion and thereby modulate over-all affect and attitude. The two processes cause the viewer to bodily and emotionally move with and be moved by individual works of art, and consequently to recognize another psychological orientation than her own, which explains how art can cause feelings of insight or awe and disclose aspects of life that are unfamiliar or novel to the viewer. (shrink)

The fallibility and corrigibility of experimental results, and of the confirmation or refutation based on those results, is illustrated in the 1930's history of Fermi's theory of decay. Early results favored the competing theory of Konopinski and Uhlenbeck. It was found that there were experimental difficulties along with an incorrect theoretical comparison. When the experiments were corrected and the proper theoretical calculations made, the evidence favored Fermi and refuted Konopinski and Uhlenbeck. The relevance of known evidence for confirmation and the (...) value of ad hoc hypotheses is also discussed. (shrink)

This article examines how a molecular "solution" to an important biological problem-how is antibody diversity generated? was obtained in the 1970s. After the primarily biological clonal selection theory (CST) was accepted by 1967, immunologists developed several different contrasting theories to complete the SCST. To choose among these theories, immunology had to turn to the new molecular biology, first to nucleic acid hybridization and then to recombinant DNA technology. The research programs of Tonegawa and Leder that led to the "solution" are (...) discussed, and some of their strategies and heuristics are broadly characterized: (1) to what extent does the new recombinant DNA technology provide what the scientists claim is "direct evidence," what does that term mean, and what are the implications of that claim for biological "realism," and (2) is this episode one of reduction, partial reduction, or explanatory extension, and what do these terms mean in the context of a successful molecular "solution" to a biological problem. (shrink)

[OPEN ACCESS TARGET ARTICLE WITH COMMENTARIES AND RESPONSE] We develop a new model of how human agency-detection capacities and other socio-cognitive biases are involved in forming religious beliefs. Crucially, we distinguish general religious beliefs (such as *God exists*) from personal religious beliefs that directly refer to the agent holding the belief or to her peripersonal time and space (such as *God appeared to _me_ last night*). On our model, people acquire general religious beliefs mostly from their surrounding culture; however, people (...) use agency-intuitions and other low-level experiences to form personal religious beliefs. We call our model the Interactive Religious Experience Model (IREM). IREM inverts received versions of Hyperactive Agency-Detection Device Theory (HADD Theory): instead of saying that agency-intuitions are major causes of religious belief in general, IREM says that general belief in supernatural agents causes people to seek situations that trigger agency-intuitions and other experiences, since these enable one to form personal beliefs about those agents. In addition to developing this model, we (1) present empirical and conceptual difficulties with received versions of HADD Theory, (2) explain how IREM incorporates philosophical work on indexical belief, (3) relate IREM to existing anthropological and psychological research, and (4) propose future empirical research programs based on IREM. (shrink)

Since the 1940s Harold Garfinkel developed ethnomethodology as a distinctive sociological attitude. This sociological attitude turns the focus of the analysis of interaction to the actor’s perspective. It suggests that interaction is ongoingly produced through actions that are organized in a retrospective and prospective fashion. The ethnomethodological analysis of interaction therefore investigates how actors produce their actions in light of their analysis of immediately prior actions and in anticipation of possible next actions. Ethnomethodologists describe the relationship of actions emerging from (...) this analysis as “sequential”. This article discusses how Garfinkel’s description of practical action as “experiment in miniature” can be seen as a precursor to the concept of “sequentiality” that defines today’s ethnomethodological analysis of interaction. Having discussed the intellectual background to ethnomethodology the article briefly explores two fragments of interaction audio-/video-recorded in a museum and an optometric consultation to illustrate the key concerns of this kind of analysis. The article closes with a short reflection on current developments in ethnomethodology and their relationship to sociology. (shrink)

Memory and Cognition, Vol.36, No.1, pp.157-169. 2008.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced many restrictions to in-person interactions, and remote social interactions may be especially important for managing loneliness when such restrictions are in place. However, it is unclear how social interactions are related to loneliness when in-person interactions are limited. Data were collected between February 2021 and March 2022 from a sample of 581 university students. Participants reported their loneliness and participation in positive in-person or remote social interactions each day for 14 days. Results from dynamic structural equation (...) models showed that participants felt less lonely than they usually felt on the days they engaged in positive remote interactions at the within-person level. Moreover, participants generally felt less lonely when engaging more frequently in remote interactions, but only when in-person interactions were restricted (between-person level). Some of these results varied by changing COVID-19 restrictions. Finally, for participants who felt lonelier in general, the effect of positive in-person and remote interactions on loneliness was less strong. These findings suggest that social interactions may buffer loneliness but are not as impactful for those who experience greater loneliness. (shrink)

Human interaction and communication involve space in multiple ways. This paper examines the spatial and interactional order of a covertly video-taped police interrogation. When the participants enter the interrogation room and become engaged in the interrogation process, the room itself is a constraint and a resource for interaction. While interacting within a built environment, the participants appropriate their material surroundings in ways that constitute a spatial order and make possible certain arguments. This paper examines how the physical structure of the (...) interrogation room is differentially appropriated, used, and filled in by the participants''; territorial and postural manoeuvers over the course of their interaction; and how the spatial structures thus created by the bodily appropriation of the physical locale are subsequently formulated by talk and thereby used as a metaphorical resource to frame the participants'' situated experience. Through this embedded process, the interrogators move the suspect toward confession. (shrink)

Embodied and phenomenological approaches to neuropsychiatry have proven to be promising for assessing social cognition and its impairments. Second-person neuroscience has demonstrated that the dynamics of social interaction make a difference when it comes to how people understand each other. This article presents the Perceptual Crossing Experiment (PCE) as a paradigm for studying real-time dyadic embodied interactions in the context of schizophrenia. We draw on the phenomenological concept of interbodily resonance (IR) and show how the PCE can be used to (...) accurately model and assess IR. We then turn to disembodied interaction in schizophrenia and finally propose the PCE as a translational tool for systematically assessing the hindered IR that individuals with schizophrenia suffer from. We offer an experimental approach to phenomenology which could be informative for the development of more embodied interventions aiming to remedy the profoundly disrupted social life that patients with schizophrenia live with. (shrink)

The primary means for psychotherapy interaction is language. Since talk-in-interaction is accomplished and rendered interpretable by the systematic use of linguistic resources, this study focuses on one of the central issues in psychotherapy, namely agency, and the ways in which linguistic resources, person references in particular, are used for constructing different types of agency in psychotherapy interaction. The study investigates therapists' responses to turns where the client complains about a third party. It focuses on the way therapists' responses distribute (...) class='Hi'>experience and agency between the therapist and the client by comparing responses formulated with the zero-person to responses formulated with a second person singular pronoun that refers to the client. The study thus approaches agency as situated, dynamic and interactional: an agent is a social unit whose elements are distributed in the therapist-client interaction. The data consist of 70 audio-recorded sessions of cognitive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and the method of analysis is conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. The main findings are that therapists use the zero-person for two types of responses: affiliating and empathetic responses that distribute the emotional experience between the client and the therapist, and responses that invite clients to interpret their own experiences, thereby distributing control and responsibility to the clients. In contrast, the second person references are used for re-constructing the client's past history. The conclusion is that therapists use the zero-person for both immediate emotional work and interpretative co-work on the client's experiences. The study suggests that therapists' use of the zero-person does not necessarily attribute “weak agency” to the client but instead might strengthen the clients' agency in the sense of control and responsibility in the long term. (shrink)

Theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of communicative interactions between heterospecifics are scarce and tend to apply a monological model of communication that focuses on the transfer of information from signallers to receivers. This study relies on an alternative model of communication, semiotic alignment, which sees communicative interaction as a dialogical process of joint semiosis resulting in the alignment of the interactants’ own-worlds. We conducted an experiment where dyads composed of an elephant instruction-giver and a human instruction-receiver needed to (...) engage in dynamic and interactive communication in order to solve a cooperative object-choice task. Our results showed that dyads were able to solve the task well above chance levels. Moreover, cross-recurrence analysis revealed that interactants were synchronizing referential indexical gestures throughout the experiment. However, we were not able to confirm a direct correlation between joint deixis and experimental outcomes, presumably because these outcomes are dependent on other forms of joint semiosis not analysed in this study. (shrink)

The article investigates the rhetorical means of mediating affective experience in occasioned storytelling. The completion of this article has been supported by The Emil Aaltonen Foundation and The Academy of Finland project (285144) The Literary in Life and The Academy of Finland project (326645) European Solidarities in Turmoil. We are interested in the forms and aspects of bodily action in signifying and communicating a “para-factual experience” that was triggered by a real-life incident, but in fact only took place (...) in a person’s imagination. We explore the case of a TV interview in which an American living in Finland narrates a personal, disturbing experience related to the news about 9/11. The story presents a visual scenario of the teller’s affective reaction towards two Muslim women in a grocery store. What is interesting in the story are its involuntary dimensions: the scenario portrays a picture of the teller that he finds unrecognizable and detached from his sense of self as a person. Even if the act was never actually realized, to the teller it felt real and compelling, as is manifest in the way he translates the scenario into a bodily performance. The teller not only uses his body to tell the story but momentarily turns the surrounding setting into a scene in the storyworld in which he plays the unidentified me. We call this physical performance of the imagined scene the embodied ekphrasis of experience. In Semiotica, the rhetorical device of ekphrasis has appeared before (see Frosh 2003; Hopkins 2015; Nesselroth 2016; Sarapik 2009) from such literary and linguistic perspectives, as well as through the lens of media research and cultural studies, to which our application will add from the viewpoint of ethnomethodology and the social sciences. Deploying research on multimodal interaction and intermediality, our empirical analysis explicates how the teller’s body, and not just words, build action, convey affective meaning, and resemiotize and mobilize a physical enactment of the past hypothetical scene. (shrink)

This article develops a critical theory of human–computer interaction intended to test some of the assumptions and omissions made in the field as it transitions from a cognitive theoretical frame to a phenomenological understanding of user experience described by Harrison et al. as a third research paradigm and similarly Bødker :24–31; Bødker, Interactions 22):24–31, 2015) as third-wave HCI. Although this particular focus on experience has provided some novel avenues of academic enquiry, this article draws attention to a distinct (...) bridge between the conventional HCI disciplinary concerns with predominantly task-based digital work and use context and a growing business interest in consumer experiences in digital environments. Critical HCI addresses the problem of experience in two interrelated ways. On one hand, it explores the role market logic plays in putting user experiences to work. On the other hand, it engages with ontological understandings of experience hitherto realized in HCI by way of a phenomenological matrix. The article concludes by bringing in an old thinker to consider experience in novel ways that relate ontological concerns to a broader political concept of experience capitalism. (shrink)

It is feasible to deal with high pressure in entrepreneurship with humor. This paper studies the effect of interaction between entrepreneurs’ perception of social culture and entrepreneurial experience (including experience with entrepreneurial failure and current company performance) on coping humor of entrepreneurs with the sample of 171 entrepreneurs from Bohai Rim in China. Regression analysis revealed that entrepreneurs prefer coping with pressure with humor if they sense the favorable condition brought by social culture to entrepreneurship and their business (...) is currently performing well or if they perceive a friendly culture to entrepreneurship and had once experienced entrepreneurial failure. This study contributes to the literature of the theory of humor, the culture of entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial failure. (shrink)

In this paper I will focus on the case of the discovery of parity nonconservation in weak interactions from the period spanning 1947–1957, and the lessons this episode provides for successful theory construction in HEP. I aim to (a) summarize the history into a coherent story for philosophers of science, and (b) use the history as a case study for the epistemological evolution of the understanding of weak interactions in HEP. I conclude with some philosophical lessons regarding theory construction in (...) physics. (shrink)

The flow state – an experience of complete absorption in an activity – is linked with less self-referential processing and increased arousal. We used the heart-evoked potential, an index representing brain–heart interaction, as well as indices of peripheral physiology to assess the state of flow in individuals playing a video game. 22 gamers and 21 non-gamers played the video game Thumper for 25 min while their brain and cardiorespiratory signals were simultaneously recorded. The more participants were absorbed in the (...) game, the less they thought about time and the faster time passed subjectively. On the cortical level, the fronto-central HEP amplitude was significantly lower while playing the game compared to resting states before and after the game, reflecting less self-referential processing while playing. This HEP effect corresponded with lower activity during gameplay in brain regions contributing to interoceptive processing. The HEP amplitude predicted the level of absorption in the game. While the HEP amplitude was overall lower during the gaming session than during the resting states, within the gaming session the amplitude of HEP was positively associated with absorption. Since higher absorption was related to higher performance in the game, the higher HEP in more absorbed individuals reflects more efficient brain–heart interaction, which is necessary for efficient game play. On the physiological level, a higher level of flow was associated with increased overall sympathetic activity and less inhibited parasympathetic activity toward the end of the game. These results are building blocks for future neurophysiological assessments of flow. (shrink)

The temporality of intentions and actions in situations of social interaction can sometimes be paradoxical. I argue that in these situations it may sometimes be possible to conceive of individual acts that can, in a strong sense, be intended retroactively. This could happen when the relational patterns in social interaction literally alter the virtual structure of a participant's past corporeal intentions resulting in an odd experience of having intended something all along without knowing it. I propose that this possibility (...) should be interpreted as more than just a narrowly epistemic phenomenon. Examining this claim involves clarifying the enactive perspective on intentionality, which I do here. The enactive approach rejects the model of a causal relation between intention and action for one of an intrinsic qualitative relation between the two as facets of sense-making. I develop this idea and compare it with Merleau-Ponty's Fundierung model of the mutual relation between corporeal and reflexive intentionality to show that co-regulated moves/affections during social interaction may modulate both arcs of this relation, creating the possibility of a re-signification that alters not the actuality but the virtual tendencies that preceded the social act. (shrink)

This article outlines a research agenda that addresses the question of how contemporary interactive arts practice can evolve new strategies or ways of facilitating the development and representation of subjective experiences that induce an embodied felt sense of the humanmachine co-evolution. To help answer this question, the term symbiogenic has been created as a shorthand or umbrella term to better discuss these types of experiences and the concepts they introduce. The term symbiogenic is taken from symbiogenesis, the evolutionary theory (...) introduced in 1909 by Russian biologist Konstantin Mereschkowsky and expanded in the modern era by Dr. Lynn Margulis (1993, 1981). This theory emphasizes cooperation and other more complex interactions between organisms that go beyond mere competition. The research starts from the conception that there currently exists a range of interactive artworks that examine and engage with the increasing cooperation and co-evolution that humans are experiencing with their technological environment. However, what is proposed is that interactive or technological art can go further and provoke a bodily felt sense of this dynamic and thus bring into greater consciousness the co-dependent and co-evolutionary path of our relationship with technology. It is believed that these experiences can be both developed and identified within an artistic context but they lack a cohesive conceptual framework from which to study and analyse them. (shrink)

A sociological revision of Aron Gurwitsch provides a helpful layered theory of conscious experience as a four-domain structure: _the theme_, _the thematic field_, _the halo_, and _the social horizon_. The social horizon—the totality of the social world that is unknown, vaguely known, taken for granted, or ignored by the subject despite objectively influencing the thoughts and actions of the subject—, helps conceptualize how everyday human–computer interaction (HCI) can obscure social structures. Two examples illustrate the usefulness of this framework: (1) (...) illuminating new forms of social control known as “surveillance capitalism” that influence the other domains of consciousness despite being invisible to the subject and (2) explaining how computer use tends to “hide” the ecological impacts of digital-technological systems from the attention of subjects. A sociological four-domain theory of consciousness supplements ethnomethodological HCI research by preserving the field’s long-standing focus on micro-level interactions and user experience while simultaneously drawing attention to a “commonsense ignorance of social structure”—in this case, the invisibility of the social structures behind personal computer use. Social structure can be reproduced even when actors are unaware of engaging in its reproduction. (shrink)

Based on the work of Alfred Schutz, this article develops a theory of intersubjectivity—one of the basic building blocks of social experience—and shows how such a theory can be empirically leveraged in sociological work. Complementing the interactionist and ethnomethodological emphasis on the situated production of intersubjectivity, this paper revisits the basic theoretical assumptions undergirding this theory. Schutz tied intersubjectivity to the way people experience the world of everyday life: a world that he held as distinct from other provinces (...) of meaning, such as religious experience, humor, or scientific reasoning. However, as this article shows, such neat distinctions are problematic for both empirical and theoretical reasons: The cognitive styles that define different provinces of meaning often bleed into one another; people often inhabit multiple provinces of meaning simultaneously. Intersubjectivity may thus be simultaneously anchored in multiple worlds, opening a host of empirical research questions: not only about how intersubjectivity is done in interaction, but about how different kinds of intersubjective experiences are constructed, how multi-layered they are, as well as opening up questions about possible asymmetries in the experiences of intersubjectivity. (shrink)

Cetaceans show high cognitive abilities and strong social bonds. Their primary sensory modality to communicate and sense the environment is acoustics. Research on their echolocation and social vocalizations typically uses visual and tactile systems adapted from research on primates or birds. Such research would benefit from a purely acoustic communication system to better match their natural capabilities. We argue that a full duplex system, in which signals can flow in both directions simultaneously is essential for communication research. We designed and (...) implemented a full duplex system to acoustically interact with cetaceans in the wild, featuring digital echo-suppression. We pilot tested the system in Arctic Norway and achieved an echo suppression of 18 dB. We discuss the limiting factors and how to improve the echo suppression further. The system enabled vocal interaction with the underwater acoustic scene by allowing experimenters to listen while producing sounds. We describe our motivations, then present our pilot deployment and give examples of initial explorative attempts to vocally interact with wild orcas and humpback whales. (shrink)

This paper proposes a theory of how conscious emotional experience is produced by the brain as the result of many interacting brain areas coordinated in working memory. These brain areas integrate perceptions of bodily states of an organism with cognitive appraisals of its current situation. Emotions are neural processes that represent the overall cognitive and somatic state of the organism. Conscious experience arises when neural representations achieve high activation as part of working memory. This theory explains numerous phenomena (...) concerning emotional consciousness, including differentiation, integration, intensity, valence, and change. Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)