Beyond the observation that both speakers and listeners rapidly inspect the visual targets of referring expressions, it has been argued that such gaze may constitute part of the communicative signal. In this study, we investigate whether a speaker may, in principle, exploit listener gaze to improve communicative success. In the context of a virtual environment where listeners follow computer-generated instructions, we provide two kinds of support for this claim. First, we show that listener gaze provides a reliable (...) real-time index of understanding even in dynamic and complex environments, and on a per-utterance basis. Second, we show that a language generation system that uses listener gaze to provide rapid feedback improves overall task performance in comparison with two systems that do not use gaze. Aside from demonstrating the utility of listener gaze in situated communication, our findings open the door to new methods for developing and evaluating multi-modal models of situated interaction. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question whether we can conceive of music cognition in ecosemiotic terms. It claims that music knowledge must be generated as a tool for adaptation to the sonic world and calls forth a shift from a structural description of music as an artifact to a process-like approach to dealing with music. As listeners, we are observers who construct and organize our knowledge and bring with us our observational tools. What matters is not merely the sonic world in (...) its objective qualities, but the world as perceived. In order to make these claims operational we can rely on the ecological concept of coping with the sonic world and the cybernetic concepts of artificial and adaptive devices. Listeners, on this view, are able to change their semantic relations with the sonic world through functional adaptations at the level of sensing, acting and coordinating between action and perception. This allows us to understand music in functional terms of what it affords to us and not merely in terms of its acoustic qualities. There are, however, degrees of freedom and constraints which shape the semiotization of the sonic world. As such we must consider the role of event perception and cognitive economy: listeners do not perceive the acoustical environment in terms of phenomenological descriptions but as ecological events. (shrink)

Whoosh, crunch, buzz, inhale, exhale... Listening for Learning: Performing a Pedagogy of Sound and Listening presents sound, listening, and pedagogical interactions as performances that create relationships, ways of being and knowing, and that provide an opportunity for transformations of existing and taken-for-granted practices in the classroom. By using performative listening and performative writing this book presents fragments of sound and listening as sites of learning and knowledge production. The written fragments throughout this book are offered as performances that listen for (...) and hear sound as a central feature to educational practices in terms of bodies, classrooms, and pedagogy. The goal in sharing this performance of listening is to create opportunities for recognition, to invite further listening in educational contexts, and to employ listening as an opportunity for transforming and re-imagining educational spaces and interactions. (shrink)

According to sensorimotor theory perceiving is a bodily skill involving exercise of an implicit know-how of the systematic ways that sensations change as a result of potential movements, that is, of sensorimotor contingencies. The theory has been most successfully applied to vision and touch, while perceptual modalities that rely less on overt exploration of the environment have not received as much attention. In addition, most research has focused on philosophically grounding the theory and on psychologically elucidating sensorimotor laws, but (...) the theory’s ramifications for neuroscience still remain underexamined. Here we sketch the beginnings of a research program that could address these two outstanding challenges in terms of auditory perception. We review the neuroscience literature on passive listening, which is defined as listening without overt bodily movement, and conclude that sensorimotor theory provides a unique perspective on the consistent finding of motor system activation. In contrast to competing theories, this activation is predicted to be involved not only in the perception of speech- and action-related sounds, but in auditory perception in general. More specifically, we propose that the auditory processing associated with supplementary motor areas forms part of the neural basis of the exercise of sensorimotor know-how: these areas’ recognized role in facilitating spontaneous motor responses to sound and supporting flexible engagement of sensorimotor processes to guide auditory experience and enable auditory imagery, can be understood in terms of two key characteristics of sensorimotor interaction, its “alerting capacity” and “corporality”, respectively. We also highlight that there is more to the inside of the body than the brain: there is an opportunity to develop sensorimotor theory into new directions in terms of the still poorly understood active processes of the peripheral auditory system. (shrink)

Successful communication is important for both society and people’s personal life. Here we show that people can improve their communication skills by interacting with multiple others, and that this improvement seems to come about by a greater tendency to take the addressee’s perspective when there are multiple partners. In Experiment 1, during a training phase, participants described figures to a new partner in each round or to the same partner in all rounds. Then all participants interacted with a new partner (...) and their recordings from that round were presented to naïve listeners. Participants who had interacted with multiple partners during training were better understood. This occurred despite the fact that the partners had not provided the participants with any input other than feedback on comprehension during the interaction. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to provide descriptions to a different future participant in each round or to the same future participant in all rounds. Next they performed a surprise memory test designed to tap memory for global details, in line with the addressee’s perspective. Those who had provided descriptions for multiple future participants performed better. These results indicate that people can improve their communication skills by interacting with multiple people, and that this advantage might be due to a greater tendency to take the addressee’s perspective in such cases. Our findings thus show how the social environment can influence our communication skills by shaping our own behavior during interaction in a manner that promotes the development of our communication skills. (shrink)

Ethical debates around genetic enhancement tend to include an argument that the technology will eventually be fairly accessible once available. That we can fairly distribute genetic enhancement has become a moral defence of genetic enhancement. Two distribution solutions are argued for, the first being equal distribution. Equality of access is generally believed to be the fairest and most just method of distribution. Second, equitable distribution: providing genetic enhancements to reduce social inequalities. In this paper, I make two claims. I first (...) argue that the very assumption that genetic enhancements can be distributed fairly is problematic when considering our understanding of gene–environment interactions, for example, epigenetics. I then argue that arguments that genetic enhancements are permissible because the intended benefits can be distributed fairly as intended are misinformed. My first claim rests on the assertion that genetic enhancements do not enhance traits in a vacuum; genes are dependent on conducive environments for expression. If society cannot guarantee fair environments, then any benefit conferred from being genetically enhanced will be undermined. Thus, any argument that the distribution of genetic enhancements will be fair and that the technology is therefore morally permissible, is mistaken. (shrink)

This article argues for an epistemology of music, stating that dealing with music can be considered as a process of knowledge acquisition. What really matters is not the representation of an ontological musical reality, but the generation of music knowledge as a tool for adaptation to the sonic world. Three major positions are brought together: the epistemological claims of Jean Piaget, the biological methodology of Jakob von Uexküll, and the constructivistic conceptions of Ernst von Glasersfeld, each ingstress the role of (...) the music user rather than the music. Dealing with music, in this view, is not a matter of representation, but a process of semiotization of the sonorous environment as the outcome of interactions with the sound. Hence the role of enactive cognition and perceptual-motor interaction with the sonic environment. What is considered a central issue is the way how listeners as subjects experience their own phenomenal world or Umwelt, and how they can make sense out of their sonic environment. Umwelt-research, therefore, is highly relevant for music education in stressing the role of the listener and his/her listening strategies. (shrink)

Moral dissensus is a distinct feature of our time. This is not only true of our post-modern culture in general, but also of business culture specifically. In this paper I start by explaining how modernist rationality has produced moral dissensus without offering any hope of bringing an end to it in the foreseeable future. Opting for a form of post-modernist rationality as the only viable way of dealing with moral dissensus, I then make an analysis of a number of ways (...) proposed by both specialists in the field of business ethics, as well as philosophers to deal with moral decision-making in this situation of moral dissensus. The conclusion reached is that none of these attempts succeeds in coming to terms with moral dissensus. I then formulate an alternative approach to moral decision-making which I call: Rational interaction for moral sensitivity. After explaining this approach, I defend it against some of the most obvious objections that might be raised against it in a business environment. When you''re talking birth control, what blocks it and freezes it out is that it''s not a matter of more or fewer babies being argued. That''s just on the surface. What''s underneath is a conflict of faith, of faith in empirical social planning versus faith in the authority of God as revealed by the teachings of the Catholic Church. You can prove the practicality of planned parenthood till you get tired of listening to yourself and it''s going to get nowhere because your antagonist isn''t buying the assumption that anything socially practical is good per se. Goodness for him has other sources which he values as much as or more than social practicality. (Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.). (shrink)

The present longitudinal survey study explored changes in and effects of foreign language classroom anxiety and listening anxiety on Chinese undergraduate students’ English proficiency over a semester in the COVID-19 context. A set of 182 matching questionnaires was collected from first-year undergraduate English as a foreign language learners at two time points of a 16-week semester. Analyses of the data revealed the following major findings: the participants experienced high levels of FLCA and FLLA both at the beginning and end of (...) the semester, neither of which changed significantly during the semester, FLCA and FLLA were highly positively related to each other, FLCA and FLLA significantly predicted students’ self-rated proficiency in listening and speaking English, and confidence in using English, efforts and motivation to learn English and interaction with instructors and peers mediated FLCA and FLLA to exert effects on students’ self-perceived proficiency in listening and speaking English. These findings indicate that the learning environment is critical in influencing the levels of and changes in FLCA and listening anxiety and that these two types of foreign language anxiety are serious issues in the pandemic foreign language learning context. (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 article focuses on how biblical content and spiritualities can be communicated, probably more effectively, to (late) preschool children by using information technology, which has already been implemented successfully for years in secular and religious environments. Because children enjoy listening to stories, watching cartoons and playing every day, the approach in this research will be to propose a particular construct to communicate biblical content to preschool children. This construct comprises interactive storytelling, cartoon animation and educational gaming, which constitute a trilogy (...) for teaching biblical content and principles to preschool children. This should be done interactively. These three approaches have become fundamental designs and presentations in child education. Churches, Christian nurseries and other Christian educators, in general, are encouraged to develop computer programs according to the construct and strategy proposed in this article for the teaching of the Gospel to late preschool children. The approach in this article will be, firstly, to examine and explore the religious orientation of preschool children and, secondly, to validate and propose how computer technology can be implemented to communicate the biblical content to preschool children via the trilogy of interactive storytelling, cartoon animation and educational gaming in an uninterrupted experience. Contribution: This article argues that the use of interactive storytelling, cartoon animation and educational gaming should be used consecutively and uninterruptedly to communicate the biblical message to preschool children. This is probably the most effective way to keep the attention of these children and to affect their conduct. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns the active role of the organism in evolutionary theory. In particular, it concerns how our conception of the relationship between organism and environment, and the nature of natural selection, influences the causal and explanatory role of organismic activity and behavior in evolutionary explanations. The overarching aim is to argue that the behaviors and activities of organisms can serve both as the explananda (that which is explained) and the explanantia (that which explains) in evolutionary explanations. I attempt (...) to achieve this aim by offering three central arguments. First, that the organism-environment relation is the ontologically basic unit of biology. A common way of conceiving the relationship between organism and environment is as a duality—as two causally independent systems that overlap through interaction. I think this is a mistake. There cannot be organisms without environments and vice versa. They are codependent and codetermined. Second, that natural selection is an ecological process. By this I mean that natural selection acts primarily on organism-environment interactions. It is only in virtue of organisms interacting with their environments that there can be fitness differences amongst individual organisms in a population. The ecological approach to natural selection also entails that the nature of the system(s) of inheritance involved in the reoccurrence of favorable organism-environment interactions is, in principle, immaterial to the process of selection. It only matters for selection that organism-environment interactions actually do reoccur in subsequent generations. Third, that niche construction theory—the most well-developed theoretical and conceptual framework for studying how the activities of organisms influences evolutionary dynamics—can be seen as fully a compatible and integrated part of evolutionary theory. Together, these three arguments constitute an overarching argument. Namely that we both can, and should, take organismic activity and behavior to be crucial explanatory elements in evolutionary theory. Throughout the dissertation I also show how these three arguments have consequences for other debates in the philosophy of evolutionary theory, such as the nature of evolutionary processes, the structure of selection-based explanations, the validity and utility of the proximate-ultimate distinction, and the nature of teleology in evolutionary systems. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the economic, social, environmental and cultural changes taking place in Bolsena, Italy, where agricultural livelihoods have rapidly diminished in the last two decades. I examine how gender dynamics have shifted with the changing values and livelihoods of Bolsena through three women’s narratives detailing their gendered experiences of environment, community and self. I reflect on these changes with Sabrina, who is engaged in a feminist community-based organization; Anna, who is running an alternative wine bar; and (...) Isabella, a jeweler, who is engaged in ecofeminist practices. My analysis is based on concepts developed by feminist political ecology: specifically, the theory of rooted networks from Dianne Rocheleau, Donna Haraway’s concept of naturecultures (and the work of J. K. Gibson-Graham on new economic imaginaries emerging from the politics of place. I aim to think with, reflect upon and provoke from the “otherwise”, taking into account the lived relations entwining nature and gender. My article looks at the interconnections of gender, environment and livelihoods, attentive to the daily needs, embodied interactions and labours of these three women as part of a reappropriation, reconstruction and reinvention of Bolsena’s lifeworld. By listening to the stories of their everyday lives and struggles, I show the dynamic potential of the politics of place and the efforts to build diverse economies and more ethical economic and ecological relationships based on gender-aware subjectivities and values. (shrink)

In virtual learning environments students often find themselves in front of a computer, looking at a bright screen, interacting with classmates and teachers through a keyboard and a mouse, and, in most cases, listening and watching someone who is not physically present. Virtual components are not rare, and growing concern is currently surfacing about students’ potential feeling of isolation, which has been found to increase educational barriers such as lack of motivation or engagement, or poor academic achievement. We may therefore (...) begin to wonder whether VLE allows for the necessary interpersonal involvement required for learning. Using a qualitative phenomenological research methodology called phenomenology of practice, the aim of this study was to understand what it is like to experience a sense of closeness to others in a VLE. Data was gathered by means of in-depth phenomenological interviews with five adult university students recruited via snowball sampling who had previous experience in VLE settings. The findings revealed that students may experience closeness with their classmates and teachers when they suddenly look beyond the superficial technological hurdles and find the humanity in the virtual others, when they share a difficult group experience, or when they create a personal virtual space. This study showed that closeness is indeed essential in education, and that even online we repeatedly find ourselves in a continuum of closeness to others, moving from an experience of togetherness to an experience of loneliness, or vice versa. (shrink)

I argue that a phenotypic trait can be an adaptation to a particular environmental condition, as against others, only if the environmental condition and the phenotype interactively cause fitness. Models of interactive environmental causes of fitness generally require that environments be individuated by explicit representation rather than by measures of environmental quality, although the latter understanding of ‘environment’ is more prominent in the philosophy of biology. Hence, talk of adaptations to some but not other environmental conditions relies on conceptions (...) of ‘environment’ importantly different from that commonly presupposed in philosophy of biology. (shrink)

B-events are matters which are better known to listeners than to speakers. This paper studies the detectives’ use of B-event statements in two different environments in their interactions with suspects/witnesses. The first type of environment are relatively co-operative sequences during which the aim is the reconstruction of events and constructing the record; here, B-event statements are realised as confirmation seeking questions. The second type of environment, a hostile interactional environment, is composed of argumentative sequences in which detectives (...) aim to determine who are the perpetrators of crimes; in these sequences, the detectives’ B-event statements are realised as accusations. While performing the two activities, the detectives signal different epistemic levels and stances at the turn level. Thus, the former B-event statements are mostly epistemically downgraded, while the latter are mostly upgraded, in order to facilitate undertaking these different activities during police questioning. (shrink)

Although the field of psychiatry has witnessed the proliferation of studies on Gene x Environment (GxE) interactions, still limited is the knowledge we possess of GxE interactions regarding developmental disorders. In this perspective paper, we discuss why GxE interaction studies are needed to broaden our knowledge of developmental disorders. We also discuss the different roles of hazardous versus self-generated environmental factors and how these types of factors may differentially engage with an individual’s genetic background in predicting a resulting (...) phenotype. Then, we present exemplar studies that highlight the role of GxE in predicting atypical developmental trajectories as well as provide insight regarding treatment outcomes. Supported by these examples, we explicate the need to move beyond merely examining statistical interactions between genes and the environment, and to investigate specific genetic susceptibility and environmental contexts that drive developmental disorders. We propose that further parsing of genetic and environmental components is required to fully understand the unique contribution of each factor to the etiology of developmental disorders. Finally, with a greater appreciation of the complexities of GxE interaction, this discussion will converge upon the potential implications for clinical and translational research. (shrink)

The presence of gene–environment statistical interaction and correlation in biological development has led both practitioners and philosophers of science to question the legitimacy of heritability estimates. The paper offers a novel approach to assess the impact of GxE and rGE on the way genetic and environmental causation can be partitioned. A probabilistic framework is developed, based on a quantitative genetic model that incorporates GxE and rGE, offering a rigorous way of interpreting heritability estimates. Specifically, given an estimate of (...) heritability and the variance components associated with estimates of GxE and rGE, I arrive at a probabilistic account of the relative effect of genes and environment. (shrink)

The idea of organism-environment interaction, at least in its modern form, dates only to the mid-nineteenth century. After sketching the origins of the organism-environment dichotomy in the work of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, I will chart its metaphysical and methodological influence on later scientists and philosophers such as Conwy Lloyd Morgan and John Dewey. In biology and psychology, the environment was seen as a causal agent, highlighting questions of organismic variation and plasticity. In philosophy, organism- (...) class='Hi'>environment interaction provided a new foundation for ethics, politics, and scientific inquiry. Thinking about organism-environment interaction became indispensable, for it had restructured our view of the biological and social world. (shrink)

I provide a history of research on G×E in this article, showing that there have actually been two distinct concepts of G×E since the very origins of this research. R. A. Fisher introduced what I call the biometric concept of G×E, or G×EB, while Lancelot Hogben introduced what I call the developmental concept of G×E, or G×ED. Much of the subsequent history of research on G×E has largely consisted in the separate legacies of these separate concepts, along with the (sometimes (...) acrimonious) disputes that have arisen time and again when employers of each have argued over the appropriate way to conceptualize the phenomenon. With this history in place, I then consider more recent attempts to distinguish between different concepts of G×E, paying particular attention to the commonly made distinction between “statistical interaction” and “interactionism,” and also Michael Rutter’s distinction between “statistical interaction” and “the biological concept of interaction.” I argue that the history of the separate legacies of G×EB and G×ED better supports Rutter’s analysis of the situation, and that this analysis best paves the way for an integrative relationship between the various scientists investigating the place of G×E in the etiology of complex traits. (shrink)

Scientists now agree that common diseases arise through interactions of genetic and environmental factors, but there is less agreement about how scientific research should account for these interactions. This paper examines the politics of quantification in gene–environment interaction research. Drawing on interviews and observations with GEI researchers who study common, complex diseases, we describe quantification as an unfolding moral economy of science, in which researchers collectively enact competing “virtues.” Dominant virtues include molecular precision, in which behavioral and social (...) risk factors are moved into the body, and “harmonization,” in which scientists create large data sets and common interests in multisited consortia. We describe the negotiations and trade-offs scientists enact in order to produce credible knowledge and the forms of discipline that shape researchers, their practices, and objects of study. We describe how prevailing techniques of quantification are premised on the shrinking of the environment in the interest of producing harmonized data and harmonious scientists, leading some scientists to argue that social, economic, and political influences on disease patterns are sidelined in postgenomic research. We consider how a variety of GEI researchers navigate quantification’s productive and limiting effects on the science of etiological complexity. (shrink)

The environment impacts human health in profound ways, yet few theories define the form of the relationship between human physiology and the environment. It is conjectured that such complex systems cannot interact directly, but rather their interaction requires the formation of an intermediary “interface.” This position contrasts with current epidemiological constructs of causation, which implicitly assume that two complex systems transfer information directly while remaining separate entities. Further, it is contended that dynamic, process‐based interfaces incorporate components from (...) all the interacting systems but exhibit operational independence. This property has many consequences, the foremost being that characteristics of the interface cannot be fully resolved by only studying the systems involved in the interaction. The interface itself must be the subject of inquiry. Without refocusing the attention on biodynamic interfaces, how the environment impacts health cannot be discerned. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/XeyjeZeyo4o. (shrink)

This essay examines the origin of genotype-environment interaction, or G×E. "Origin" and not "the origin" because the thesis is that there were actually two distinct concepts of G×E at this beginning: a biometric concept, or \[G \times E_B\], and a developmental concept, or \[G \times E_D \]. R. A. Fisher, one of the founders of population genetics and the creator of the statistical analysis of variance, introduced the biometric concept as he attempted to resolve one of the main (...) problems in the biometric tradition of biology - partitioning the relative contributions of nature and nurture responsible for variation in a population. Lancelot Hogben, an experimental embryologist and also a statistician, introduced the developmental concept as he attempted to resolve one of the main problems in the developmental tradition of biology - determining the role that developmental relationships between genotype and environment played in the generation of variation. To argue for this thesis, I outline Fisher and Hogben's separate routes to their respective concepts of G × E; then these separate interpretations of G × E are drawn on to explicate a debate between Fisher and Hogben over the importance of G × E, the first installment of a persistent controversy. Finally, Fisher's \[G \times E_B\] and Hogben's \[G \times E_D \] are traced beyond their own work into mid-2Oth century population and developmental genetics, and then into the infamous IQ Controversy of the 1970s. (shrink)

The word ‘environment’ has a history. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of a singular, abstract entity—the organism—interacting with another singular, abstract entity—the environment—was virtually unknown. In this paper I trace how the idea of a plurality of external conditions or circumstances was replaced by the idea of a singular environment. The central figure behind this shift, at least in Anglo-American intellectual life, was the philosopher Herbert Spencer. I examine Spencer’s work from 1840 to 1855, demonstrating that (...) he was exposed to a variety of discussions of the ‘force of circumstances’ in this period, and was decisively influenced by the ideas of Auguste Comte in the years preceding the publication of Principles of psychology (1855). It is this latter work that popularized the word ‘environment’ and the corresponding idea of organism–environment interaction—an idea with important metaphysical and methodological implications. Spencer introduced into the English-speaking world one of our most enduring dichotomies: organism and environment. (shrink)

Most contemporary models of disease development consider the interaction between genotype and environment as static. The authors argue that because time is a key factor in genotype–environment interaction, this approach oversimplifies the pathology analysis and may lead to wrong conclusions. In reviewing the field, the authors suggest that the history of genotype–environment interactions plays an important role in the development of diseases and that this history may be analyzed using the phenotype as a proxy. Furthermore, (...) a theoretical and experimental framework is proposed based on the assumption that phenotypes do not change from one to another randomly but are interconnected and follow certain phenotype trajectories. It then follows that analysis of such phenotype trajectories might be useful to predict the future phenotypes including the onset of disease. In addition, an analysis of phenotype trajectories can be subsequently used to choose better control subjects in comparative studies reducing noise and bias in studies investigating disease mechanisms. (shrink)

In a widely acclaimed study from 2002, researchers found a case of gene-environment interaction for a gene controlling neuroenzymatic activity (low vs. high), exposure to childhood maltreatment, and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Cases of gene-environment interaction are generally characterized as evincing a genetic predisposition; for example, individuals with low neuroenzymatic activity are generally characterized as having a genetic predisposition to ASPD. I first argue that the concept of a genetic predisposition fundamentally misconstrues these cases of gene- (...) class='Hi'>environment interaction. This misconstrual will be diagnosed, and then a new concept—interactive predisposition—will be introduced. I then show how this conceptual shift reconfigures old questions and raises new questions for genetic screening. Attempts to screen embryos or fetuses for the gene associated with low neuroenzymatic activity with an eye towards selecting against the low-activity variant fall prey to the myth of pre-environmental prediction; attempts to screen newborns for the gene associated with low neuroenzymatic activity with an eye towards early intervention will have to face the interventionist’s dilemma. (shrink)

The following three points are made. One must consider not only the levels of circulating hormone but the target tissue upon which the hormone acts. Increased testosterone levels alone do not account for differences in displayed intermale aggression, because testosterone and social environment interact in complex ways to influence behavior. A given behavior can be triggered by multiple motivational systems.

Learning from demonstration is one of the promising approaches for fast robot programming. Most learning systems learn both movements and stiffness profiles from human demonstrations. However, they rarely consider the unknown environment interaction. In this paper, a robot human-like learning framework is proposed, where it can learn human skills through demonstration and complete the interaction task with an unknown environment. Firstly, the desired trajectory was generated by dynamic movement primitive based on human demonstration. Then, an adaptive (...) optimal admittance control scheme was employed to interact with environments with the reference adaptation method. Finally, the experimental study was conducted, and the effectiveness of the framework proposed in this paper was verified via a group of curved surface wiping experiments on a balloon with unknown model parameters. (shrink)

In our commentary we ask whether we should ultimately endeavour to find the deep causes of behaviours? Then we discuss two extensions of the proposed framework: (1) Mendelian randomisation and (2) hypothesis-free gene–environment interaction (leveraging heterogeneity in genetic associations). These complementary methods help move us towards second-generation causal knowledge, ultimately understanding mechanistic pathways and identifying more effective intervention targets.

This study examined whether the stability of highly relevant animate and inanimate information predicted encoding. Participants viewed audiovisual media and completed a change detection task of screenshots taken from the viewing session. The screenshots were either left as originally viewed or a factor was altered. The factors were all motivationally and story relevant. Half were part of an animal and half were part of other environmental information. This was crossed with whether the information was stable or fleeting in the scene. (...) Changes to animals were more recognized than inanimate information. Changes to fleeting inanimate information were better recognized than changes to stable inanimate information. These findings indicate potential for relevant change in environmental threat and opportunity is adaptively significant and likely to increase attention and encoding across animate and inanimate categories of information. (shrink)

During the Nineties, the diffusion of information and communication technologies allowed a dramatic transformation in art practices. Radically new aesthetic experiences, such as tele-presence, immersivity, responsivity, hyper-mediacy and multimediality, emerge in the framework of the digital arts and call into question not only the traditional status of the work of art but also the fundamental relation with the beholder. The aim of this paper is to define a conceptual framework for the ontology of digital arts by identifying some ontological features (...) that are distinctive to digital idioms. Such an analysis tries to outline how aesthetic and technical innovations affect our cognitive and sensorial relationship with technological artifacts. In the first part, the relation between technogenesis and ontology, as well as the key topics of the ontology of digital arts are discussed. The second part deals with the notion of presence. Despite traditional understandings of digital arts, mainly focused on immateriality, simulation and mediation, my analysis demonstrate how the notion of presence can provide an original perspective in order to understand the ontological status of the mediatized artistic practices. In the last three decades the generalisation of information and telecommunication technologies has played a major role in the transformation of the arts, opening the field to important experiments in the domain of computer graphics, digital audio, robotics and motion capture systems… (Dixon 2007). Peculiar forms of aesthetic experience such as tele-presence, immersivity, responsivity, hyper-mediation and multimediality, progressively arise from digital arts and question not only the status of artwork but also, more generally, the foundational relationship between this latter and the recipient. (shrink)

Second language listening is a common challenge for language learners. It remains largely unknown how bilinguals process L2 listening. The literature has suggested an interactive model of L2 listening processing. However, few studies have examined the model from an experimental approach. The current study tried to provide empirical evidence for the interactive model of L2 listening processing in bilinguals by exploring the relationships among English spoken word segmentation, cognitive inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and L2 listening proficiency. The results showed positive associations (...) among SWS, cognitive inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and L2 listening proficiency. Mediation analysis suggested that SWS might have a positive influence on L2 listening proficiency both directly and indirectly through cognitive inhibition and cognitive flexibility, respectively. These results imply that both bottom-up and top-down processes are engaged in bilinguals’ L2 listening processing. (shrink)