Perceptual learning can be defined as practice-induced improvement in the ability to perform specific perceptual tasks. We previously proposed the Reverse Hierarchy Theory as a unifying concept that links behavioral findings of visual learning with physiological and anatomical data. Essentially, it asserts that learning is a top-down guided process, which begins at high-level areas of the visual system, and when these do not suffice, progresses backwards to the input levels, which have a better signal-to-noise ratio. This simple concept has proved (...) powerful in explaining a broad range of findings, including seemingly contradicting data. We now extend this concept to describe the dynamics of skill acquisition and interpret recent behavioral and electrophysiological findings. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify Merleau-Ponty’s difficult concept of “reversibility” by interpreting it as resuming the dialectical critique of the rationalist and empiricist tradition that informs Merleau-Ponty’s earlier work. The focus is on reversibility in “Eye and Mind,” as dismantling the traditional dualism of activity and passivity. This clarification also puts reversibility in continuity with the Phenomenology’s appropriation of Kant, letting us note an affiliation between Merleau-Ponty’s reversibility and Heidegger’s Ereignis: in each case being itself already performs the operation that (...) Kant had located in the imagination. Reversibility discovers this Kantian imagination moving in place, Ereignis discovers it in temporality. (shrink)

This study investigated the performance of boys with psychopathic tendencies and comparison boys, aged 9 to 17 years, on two tasks believed to be sensitive to amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex func- tioning. Fifty-one boys were divided into two groups according to the Psychopathy Screening Device (PSD, P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press) and presented with two tasks. The tasks were the gambling task (A. Bechara, A. R. Damasio, H. Damasio, & S. W. Anderson, 1994) and the (...) Intradimensional/ Extradimensional (ID/ED) shift task (R. Dias, T. W. Robbins, & A. C. Roberts, 1996). The boys with psychopathic tendencies showed impaired performance on the gambling task. However, there were no group differences on the ID/ED task either for response reversal or extradimensional set shifting. The implications of these results for models of psychopathy are discussed. (shrink)

Continuous recordings of brain electrical activity were obtained from a group of 176 patients throughout surgical procedures using general anesthesia. Artifact-free data from the 19 electrodes of the International 10/20 System were subjected to quantitative analysis of the electroencephalogram (QEEG). Induction was variously accomplished with etomidate, propofol or thiopental. Anesthesia was maintained throughout the procedures by isoflurane, desflurane or sevoflurane (N = 68), total intravenous anesthesia using propofol (N = 49), or nitrous oxide plus narcotics (N = 59). A set (...) of QEEG measures were found which reversibly displayed high heterogeneity of variance between four states as follows: (1) during induction; (2) just after loss of consciousness (LOC); (3) just before return of consciousness (ROC); (4) just after ROC. Homogeneity of variance across all agents within states was found. Topographic statistical probability images were compared between states. At LOC, power increased in all frequency bands in the power spectrum with the exception of a decrease in gamma activity, and there was a marked anteriorization of power. Additionally, a significant change occurred in hemispheric relationships, with prefrontal and frontal regions of each hemisphere becoming more closely coupled, and anterior and posterior regions on each hemisphere, as well as homologous regions between the two hemispheres, uncoupling. All of these changes reversed upon ROC. Variable resolution electromagnetic tomography (VARETA) was performed to localize salient features of power anteriorization in three dimensions. A common set of neuroanatomical regions appeared to be the locus of the most probable generators of the observed EEG changes. (shrink)

We describe reversible adaptive trees, a class of stochastic algorithms modified from the formerly described adaptive trees. They evolve in time a finite subset of an ambient Euclidean space of any dimension, starting from a seed point and, accreting points to the evolving set, they grow branches towards a target set which can depend on time. In contrast with plain adaptive trees, which were formerly proven to have strong convergence properties to a static target, the points of reversible adaptive trees (...) are removed from the tree when they have not been used recently enough in a path from the root to an accreted point. This, together with a straightening process performed on the branches, permits the tree to follow some moving targets and still remain adapted to it. We then discuss in what way one can see such reversible trees as a model for a qualitative property of resilience, which leads us to discuss qualitative modeling. (shrink)

This study investigates the performance of psychopathic individuals on tasks believed to be sensitive to dorsolateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) functioning. Psychopathic and non-psychopathic individuals, as defined by the Hare psychopathy checklist revised (PCL-R) [Hare, The Hare psychopathy checklist revised, Toronto, Ontario: Multi-Health Systems, 1991] completed a gambling task [Cognition 50 (1994) 7] and the intradimensional/extradimensional (ID/ED) shift task [Nature 380 (1996) 69]. On the gambling task, psychopathic participants showed a global tendency to choose disadvantageously. Specifically, they showed (...) an impaired ability to show learning over the course of the task. On the ID/ED task, the performance of psychopathic individuals was not significantly different from incarcerated controls on attentional set-shifting, but significant impairments were found on response reversal. These results are interpreted with reference to an OFC and amygdala dysfunction explanation of psychopathy. (shrink)

Control stimuli are key for understanding the extent to which face processing relies on holistic processing, and affective evaluation versus the encoding of low-level image properties. Luminance polarity reversal combined with face inversion is a popular tool for severely disrupting the recognition of face controls. However, recent findings demonstrate visibility-recognition trade-offs for LP-reversed faces, where these face controls sometimes appear more salient despite being harder to recognize. The present report brings together findings from image analysis, simple stimuli, and behavioral (...) data for facial recognition and visibility, in an attempt to disentangle instances where LP-reversed control faces are associated with a performance bias in terms of their perceived salience. These findings have important implications for studies of subjective face appearance, and highlight that future research must be aware of behavioral artifacts due to the possibility of trade-off effects. (shrink)

We consider work extraction from two finite reservoirs with constant heat capacity, when the thermodynamic coordinates of the process are not fully specified, i.e., are described by probabilities only. Incomplete information refers to both the specific value of the temperature as well as the label of the reservoir to which it is assigned. Based on the concept of inference, we characterize the reduced performance resulting from this lack of control. Indeed, the estimates for the average efficiency reveal that uncertainty (...) regarding the exact labels reduces the maximal expected efficiency below the Carnot value ), its minimum value reproducing the well known Curzon–Ahlborn value: \ . We also estimate the efficiency before the value of the temperature is revealed. It is found that if the labels are known with certainty, then in the near-equilibrium limit the efficiency scales as \ , while if there is maximal uncertainty in the labels, then the average estimate for efficiency drops to \ . We also suggest how the inferred properties of the incomplete model can be mapped onto a model with complete information but with an additional source of thermodynamic irreversibility. (shrink)

The paper aims at connecting the concepts of beauty and possession, traditionally coupled with the male gaze, with eros as felt by women, by homosexuals, and by those who do not identify with a defined gender. First, I will outline the concepts of beauty and possession according to “male thinking”, well formulated by Freud, Plato, Levinas, and Sartre. I will show that, in Western tradition, beauty is seen from a masculine perspective, as a set of charms arousing the subject and (...) stimulating his will to possess. The erotic relationship is consequently considered in a dualistic way: the subject is masculine and active, and desires his “object”, who can be either a man or a woman. However, the mentioned authors also highlight a crucial point: desire is doomed to be unfulfilled, because the transcendence of the other person is ungraspable. I will argue that, despite the latter point, such authors bring forward a reductionist view of eros and relationships between genders. I will suggest a solution to this reductionism, taking inspiration from the concepts of gender performativity, theorized by Butler, and queer orientation, developed by Ahmed. I will also propose to rely on Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the flesh, especially as it concerns its features of reversibility and divergence, in order to give account of every gender identity, including non-binary ones. The concepts of beauty and possession, together with the impossibility to grasp the transcendence of the other person, will not be rejected, but reconfigured through a different way of conceiving subjectivity. (shrink)

Consumer behavior knowledge is essential to designing successful products. However, measuring subjective perceptions affecting this behavior is a complex issue that depends on many factors. Identifying visual cues elicited by the product’s appearance is key in many cases. Marketing research on this topic has produced different approaches to the question. This paper proposes the use of Noise-Based Reverse Correlation techniques in the identification of product form features carrying a particular semantic message. This technique has been successfully utilized in social sciences (...) to obtain prototypical images of faces representing social stereotypes from different judgements. In this work, an exploratory study on subcompact cars is performed by applying Noise-Based Reverse Correlation to identify relevant form features conveying a sports car image. The results provide meaningful information about the car attributes involved in communicating this idea, thus validating the use of the technique in this particular case. More research is needed to generalize and adapt Noise-Based Reverse Correlation procedures to different product scenarios and semantic concepts. (shrink)

The empirical relationship between a firm’s social performance and its financial performance is still not well established in the literature. Despite more than 30 years of research and more than 100 empirical studies on the issue, the results are still mixed. We argue that the heterogeneous results found in previous studies are not due exclusively to problems related with the measurement instruments or the samples used. Instead, we posit that a more fundamental problem related with the endogeneity of (...) social strategic decisions could be driving most of the empirical findings. We show that, using a panel data of 658 firms from 1991 to 2005, how some of the results found in previous research change, and some are even reversed when endogeneity is properly taken into account. (shrink)

There is sufficient evidence to believe that variations in the error-related negativity (ERN) are linked to dispositional characteristics in individuals. However, explanations of individual differences in the amplitude of the ERN cannot be derived from functional theories of the ERN. The ERN has a counterpart that occurs after correct responses (correct-response negativity, CRN). Based on the assumption that ERN and CRN reflect an identical cognitive process, variations in CRN might be associated with dispositional characteristics as well. Higher CRN amplitudes have (...) been found to reflect task engagement. In the present study, a simple-choice-reaction task was used to investigate ERN and CRN amplitudes in relation to their score on a conscientiousness scale. The task consisted of a simple rule that required pressing the left or right key when a circle or square appeared, respectively. During alternative conditions that occur infrequently, participants were instructed to violate or reverse the previously established response rules. Smaller ΔERN amplitudes (manifested in almost equal CRN and ERN amplitudes) and a tendency of better task performance from participants scoring high on the conscientiousness scale might indicate a greater focus on the task and higher motivation of responding correctly. In addition, higher Pc amplitudes directly following the CRN indicated that the response monitoring system of less conscientious participants showed a higher disengagement. The role of individual differences in CRN amplitude should be studied in future experiments on performance monitoring. (shrink)

According to the Appraisal-Tendency Framework (Han, Lerner, & Keltner, 2007), certainty-associated emotions increase risk taking compared with uncertainty-associated emotions. To date, this general effect has only been shown in static judgement and decision-making paradigms; therefore, the present study tested the effect of certainty on risk taking in a sequential decision-making task. We hypothesised that the effect would be reversed due to the kind of processing involved, as certainty is considered to encourage heuristic processing that takes into account the emotional cues (...) arising from previous decisions, whereas uncertainty leads to more systematic processing. One hundred and one female participants were induced to feel one of three emotions (film clips) before performing a decision-making task involving risk (Game of Dice Task; Brand et al., 2005). As expected, the angry and happy participants (certainty-associated emotions) were more likely than the fearful participants (uncertainty-associated emotion) to make safe decisions (vs. risky decisions). (shrink)

Research on preference reversals has demonstrated a disproportionate influence of outcome probability on choices between monetary gambles. The aim was to investigate the hypothesis that this is a prominence effect originally demonstrated for riskless choice. Another aim was to test the structure compatibility hypothesis as an explanation of the effect. The hypothesis implies that probability should be the prominent attribute when compared with value attributes both in a choice and a preference rating procedure. In Experiment 1, two groups of undergraduates (...) were presented with medical treatments described by two value attributes (effectiveness and pain-relief). All participants performed both a matching task and made preference ratings. In the latter task, outcome probabilities were added to the descriptions of the medical treatments for one of the groups. In line with the hypothesis, this reduced the prominence effect on the preference ratings observed for effectiveness. In Experiment 2, a matching task was used to demonstrate that probability was considered more important by a group of participating undergraduates than the value attributes. Furthermore, in both choices and preference ratings the expected prominence effect was found for probability. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the claim made by mainstream internet platforms that they inherently foster a democratic public sphere, offering reasons why the opposite may be true. It surveys past studies that have supported both views, showing how the position taken by scholars tends to depend on their disciplinary perspectives. Historically, scholarly approaches to the public or political impacts of the internet and social media have been characterised by four main interpretative lenses: technodeterminism, behaviourism, and the prioritising of either ideology, or (...) the economics of media ownership. This article pays particular attention to the last two, and to Facebook, which among mainstream internet platforms has notably associated itself with democratic ideals. The article describes how many of the democratic ideals associated with Facebook’s impacts on society are in fact reversed by the platform’s practices, with effects that directly contradict the platform’s stated principles. The article ends by suggesting that Facebook consciously pretends to favour the public sphere, and that such Orwellian doublethink is a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from its augmentation of private and personal issues at the expense of collective engagement and empowerment. designed differently, Facebook could have had favourable impacts. (shrink)

What kind of technology is the piano? It was once a distinctly everyday technology. In the bourgeois home of the nineteenth century it became an emblematic figure of gendered social life, its role shifting between visually pleasing piece of furniture, source of light entertainment, and expression of cultured upbringing. It performed this role unobtrusively, acting as a transparent mediator of social relations. To the composer of concert music it was, and sometimes still is, says Samuel Wilson, like the philosopher’s table: (...) “an assumed background on which one writes.” Like other instruments standard to Western art music, the piano was designed to facilitate the production of a consistent and refined timbre. More than most other such instruments, the piano also facilitated a kind of sonic neutrality. With its wide pitch range and smoothing of the percussive attack of its predecessor instruments, the piano presented composers with a technological means of approaching composition from a seemingly objective vantage point. It exemplified, in Heideggerian terms, the instrumentality of the instrument, serving as a mediator between idea and expression that apparently adds no character of its own. -/- This notion of the invisibility, or transparency, of the mediations that musical technologies such as the piano enact is one of my areas of concern here. So too is its inverse: when these mediations become visible or opaque. Transparency has been a topic of significant recent theoretical attention. Stefanos Geroulanos, for example, has detailed how the supposed transparency of intersubjective, epistemological, and social relations was a major point of critique in postwar French thought, where the supposition of transparency was taken to suppress how the world was “complex, layered, structured, filled with heterogeneity” – and, as I will stress here, contingency. The thinkers Geroulanos considers, from Jean-Paul Sartre through to Jean-François Lyotard, can be said to be united in their refusal to invisibilise mediatedness. From a starting point of conceiving of the piano as a technological artifact, and in particular from John Cage’s ‘prepared piano,’ I will explore how a similar concern has appeared in musical contexts, albeit not without the risk of reversion back into a logic of transparency. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the claim made by mainstream internet platforms that they inherently foster a democratic public sphere, offering reasons why the opposite may be true. It surveys past studies that have supported both views, showing how the position taken by scholars tends to depend on their disciplinary perspectives. Historically, scholarly approaches to the public or political impacts of the internet and social media have been characterised by four main interpretative lenses: technodeterminism, behaviourism, and the prioritising of either ideology, or (...) the economics of media ownership. This article pays particular attention to the last two, and to Facebook, which among mainstream internet platforms has notably associated itself with democratic ideals. The article describes how many of the democratic ideals associated with Facebook’s impacts on society are in fact reversed by the platform’s practices, with effects that directly contradict the platform’s stated principles. The article ends by suggesting that Facebook consciously pretends to favour the public sphere, and that such Orwellian doublethink is a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from its augmentation of private and personal issues at the expense of collective engagement and empowerment. designed differently, Facebook could have had favourable impacts. (shrink)

The relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate financial performance has long been a central and contentious debate in the literature. However, prior empirical studies provide indefinite conclusions. The purpose of this study is to review systematically and quantify the CSR–CFP link in a meta-analytic framework. Based on 119 effect sizes from 42 studies, this study estimates that the overall effect size of the CSR–CFP relationship is positive and significant, thus endorsing the argument that CSR does enhance financial (...) class='Hi'>performance. Furthermore, this work sheds light on the causal relationship between CSR and CFP. Subsequent financial performance is associated with prior social responsibility, while the reverse direction is not supported. This finding supports the instrumental stakeholder theory. As predicted, the meta-analysis results indicate that the measurement strategies of the two key constructs of CSR and CFP explain some variations of the CSR–CFP relationship. Last, this study examines the moderating effect of the environmental context on the CSR–CFP link. This work proposes that CSR in the developed world, with a relatively mature institutional system and efficient market mechanism, will be more visible than CSR in the developing world. The results show that the CSR–CFP relationship is stronger for firms from advanced economies than for firms from developing economies. (shrink)

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most widely used tools to assess economic decision-making. However, the research tradition on aging and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been mainly focused on the overall performance of older adults in relation to younger or clinical groups, remaining unclear whether older adults are capable of learning along the task. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine older adults’ decision-making on the IGT, to test the effects of aging on reversal learning (...) (45 studies) and to provide normative data on total and block net scores (55 studies). From the accumulated empirical evidence, we found an average total net score of 7.55 (± 25.9). We also observed a significant reversal learning effect along the blocks of the IGT, indicating that older adults inhibit the prepotent response towards immediately attractive options associated with high losses, in favor of initially less attractive options associated with long-run profit. During block 1, decisions of older adults led to a negative gambling net score, reflecting the expected initial pattern of risk-taking. However, the shift towards more safe options occurred between block 2 (small-to-medium effect size) and blocks 3, 4, 5 (medium-to-large effect size). These main findings highlight that older adults are able to move from the initial uncertainty, when the possible outcomes are unknown, to decisions based on risk, when the outcomes are learned and may be used to guide future adaptive decision-making. (shrink)

While there are growing bodies of research examining both the differences between strongly and poorly socially performing firms, and the impact of firm leaders on other strategic outcomes, little has been done in examining the effect of firm leaders on corporate social performance (CSP). This study directly addresses this issue by using upper echelon theory, and the KLD Research Analytics CSP ratings, to show that observable CEO characteristics predict differences in CSP between firms, even when firm and industry characteristics (...) are controlled for. Using a sample of 650 public US firms I find that strong or exemplary CSP, as measured by the strengths categories of KLD's ratings, is positively related to the CEO having a bachelor's degree in humanities, having a breadth of career experience and being female. I find that KLD strength ratings are negatively related to the CEO having a bachelor's degree in economics and to their level of short-term compensation. Preliminary tests of causality support the assertion that these effects reflect CEO discretion rather than being an artifact of reverse causality. Significant relationships between the CEO characteristics and poor social performance as measured by the concerns categories of KLD's ratings are not found. This suggests that CEOs have more discretion in influencing strong and exemplary social performance than in impacting poor CSP. Implications, particularly for economics education, are discussed. While there are many fruitful directions for future research, the benefits and challenges to conducting similar studies in other countries is focused upon to correspond to the global nature of this special issue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Reconception of Performance Study in the Philosophy of Music EducationValerie L. TrollingerThe actual place of performance in music education has been the subject of numerous debates over the years. Most debates have revolved within the paradigm of the performance ability of the teacher and consequently the performance ability of the students. Is the level to be attained that of a winning concert band/marching band/choir? (...) Or, is the level to be attained the level at which the students and teacher feel the most comfortable and pleased? Most of this debate, along with the development of various assessments (including the Watkins-Farnum Test) and various rubrics to score music performance competitions, has emphasized characteristics of performance pertaining to accuracy of notes, precision of rhythm, and attendance to musicianship, style, and interpretation. On the other hand, the aesthetic value of performance has also been questioned in that the value of music in the schools should not be assessed solely by the importance placed on the attainment of performance skills by the students, suggesting that it is only through performance that one may know music. For example, in a recent article in the Music Educator's Journal,1 Bennett Reimer promotes the [End Page 193] position that time spent in either performance studies and active performance in music education (both at the K-12 and college teacher training levels) is not vital to the reconception of the National Standards (USA) for music education and, by extension, the field of music education itself. In the MEJ article, Reimer wrote:there is no reason to believe that highly developed performers make the best general music teachers, just as there is no reason to believe the reverse. We must get over the outdated and unrealistic assumption that performance is the one, singular, royal road to being musical and being an effective music educator.... [T]eachers cannot be expected to do what performance specialists do, and their teacher education curriculum must reflect that fact.2This position has also been recently supported by sociological publications3 and the following statement—echoed by several colleagues of mine—by a music teacher-training specialist,There is one big misconception among many music education students. Many graduates view themselves as musicians who are going into teaching. I attribute my own success to the realization that I am a teacher at heart. My first responsibility is teaching children. The vehicle through which I connect to them is music.4It is likely within the previous paradigm in which these respected authors positioned their arguments for the place of performance in the music curriculum and in that regard these assertions are unquestionably valid. What this particular paradigm concerns is the quantity and quality of performance based on purely musical attributes. The omission is that it does not include the quality of performance in relationship to health-based music education, a growing area of concern in the performing arts medicine field and, by extension, music educators who are concerned about this particular aspect of performance.5 The reason for the concern and hence this paper calling to the philosophical community to re-think the place and quality of performance in music education is that these viewpoints have had a great impact upon the validity of music education, in that they ignore a growing body of research from the performance and medical fields. While it must be made clear for the purposes of this paper that the writers of the above quotes have framed their ideas gracefully within their individual philosophical structures of music education, it must be pointed out that current research and knowledge in performance arts, in its conception as a physical human activity, needs to be incorporated into a revised philosophy of music education and curriculum. Music performance in music education has traditionally been viewed as a cognitive and emotional experience. However, it [End Page 194] is also a psychomotor experience, involving all sorts of soft body tissues, bones, and cartilages, which can enhance or detract from the total musical experience. Many music educators do not get enough instruction in college on how to teach voice or instruments healthfully and this is the reason for the concern... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Reconception of Performance Study in the Philosophy of Music EducationValerie L. TrollingerThe actual place of performance in music education has been the subject of numerous debates over the years. Most debates have revolved within the paradigm of the performance ability of the teacher and consequently the performance ability of the students. Is the level to be attained that of a winning concert band/marching band/choir? (...) Or, is the level to be attained the level at which the students and teacher feel the most comfortable and pleased? Most of this debate, along with the development of various assessments (including the Watkins-Farnum Test) and various rubrics to score music performance competitions, has emphasized characteristics of performance pertaining to accuracy of notes, precision of rhythm, and attendance to musicianship, style, and interpretation. On the other hand, the aesthetic value of performance has also been questioned in that the value of music in the schools should not be assessed solely by the importance placed on the attainment of performance skills by the students, suggesting that it is only through performance that one may know music. For example, in a recent article in the Music Educator's Journal,1 Bennett Reimer promotes the [End Page 193] position that time spent in either performance studies and active performance in music education (both at the K-12 and college teacher training levels) is not vital to the reconception of the National Standards (USA) for music education and, by extension, the field of music education itself. In the MEJ article, Reimer wrote:there is no reason to believe that highly developed performers make the best general music teachers, just as there is no reason to believe the reverse. We must get over the outdated and unrealistic assumption that performance is the one, singular, royal road to being musical and being an effective music educator.... [T]eachers cannot be expected to do what performance specialists do, and their teacher education curriculum must reflect that fact.2This position has also been recently supported by sociological publications3 and the following statement—echoed by several colleagues of mine—by a music teacher-training specialist,There is one big misconception among many music education students. Many graduates view themselves as musicians who are going into teaching. I attribute my own success to the realization that I am a teacher at heart. My first responsibility is teaching children. The vehicle through which I connect to them is music.4It is likely within the previous paradigm in which these respected authors positioned their arguments for the place of performance in the music curriculum and in that regard these assertions are unquestionably valid. What this particular paradigm concerns is the quantity and quality of performance based on purely musical attributes. The omission is that it does not include the quality of performance in relationship to health-based music education, a growing area of concern in the performing arts medicine field and, by extension, music educators who are concerned about this particular aspect of performance.5 The reason for the concern and hence this paper calling to the philosophical community to re-think the place and quality of performance in music education is that these viewpoints have had a great impact upon the validity of music education, in that they ignore a growing body of research from the performance and medical fields. While it must be made clear for the purposes of this paper that the writers of the above quotes have framed their ideas gracefully within their individual philosophical structures of music education, it must be pointed out that current research and knowledge in performance arts, in its conception as a physical human activity, needs to be incorporated into a revised philosophy of music education and curriculum. Music performance in music education has traditionally been viewed as a cognitive and emotional experience. However, it [End Page 194] is also a psychomotor experience, involving all sorts of soft body tissues, bones, and cartilages, which can enhance or detract from the total musical experience. Many music educators do not get enough instruction in college on how to teach voice or instruments healthfully and this is the reason for the concern... (shrink)

An understanding of the functional repertoire of neural circuits and their plasticity requires knowledge of neural connectivity diagrams and their dynamical evolution. However, one must additionally take into account the fast and reversible functional effects induced by neuromodulatory mechanisms which do not alter neural circuit diagrams. Neuromodulators contribute crucially to determine the performativity of a neural circuit, that is, its ability to change behavior, and especially behavioral changes occurring under temporal constraints that are incompatible with the longer time scales of (...) Hebbian learning and other forms of neural learning. This paper focuses on two properties of neuromodulatory action that have been relatively neglected so far. These properties are the functional soundness of neuromodulated circuits and the robustness of neuromodulatory action. Both properties are analyzed here as sources of functional specifications for the computational modeling of neural circuit performativity. In particular, taking dynamical systems that are based on CTRNNs as an exemplary class of computational models, it is argued that robustness is suitably modeled there by means of a hysteresis process, and functional soundness by means of a multiplicity of stable fixed points. (shrink)

The under-representation of women on boards is a heavily discussed topic—not only in Germany. Based on critical mass theory and with the help of a hand-collected panel dataset of 151 listed German firms for the years 2000–2005, we explore whether the link between gender diversity and firm performance follows a U-shape. Controlling for reversed causality, we find evidence for gender diversity to at first negatively affect firm performance and—only after a “critical mass” of about 30 % women has (...) been reached—to be associated with higher firm performance than completely male boards. Given our sample firms, the critical mass of 30 % women translates into an absolute number of about three women on the board and hence supports recent studies on a corresponding “magic number” of women in the boardroom. (shrink)

Two experiments involving an international collaboration of experimenters sought to replicate and extend a previously published psi experiment on precognition by Daryl Bem that has been the focus of extensive research. The experiment reverses the usual cause–effect sequence of a standard psychology experiment using priming and reaction times. The preregistered confirmatory hypothesis is that response times to incongruent stimuli will be longer than response times to congruent stimuli even though the prime has not yet appeared when the participant records their (...) judgments. The confirmatory hypothesis for Experiment 1 was not supported. Exploratory analyses indicated that those participants who completed the English-language version rather than a translation showed a significant effect, as was the case in the original study; no significant departure from chance was found in data involving non-English translations. Experiment 2 sought to enhance the predicted effect by having each participant read either a pro-psi or an anti-psi statement at the beginning of the experiment to test the pre-recorded hypothesis that a pro-psi statement would produce a larger effect than an anti-psi statement. The results did not support the primary psi hypothesis and there was no effect in the English-language sample. However, there was mixed support for the effect of the psi statement on performance; those participants who received the pro-psi statement had a greater psi score than those who received the anti-psi statement. As in the original experiment, neither the experimenters’ nor participants’ beliefs were significantly associated with the dependent measure. In sum, the pre-registered confirmatory hypotheses were not supported. The importance of the personality variable Sensation Seeking, a component of extraversion, as a correlate of psi performance is discussed as are the challenges and implications for international collaborations and replication in controversial science. Keywords: priming; expectancy effect; retrocausation; consciousness; sociology; precognition; psi; replication Two experiments involving an international collaboration of experimenters sought to replicate and extend a previously published psi experiment on precognition by Daryl Bem that has been the focus of extensive research. The experiment reverses the usual cause-effect sequence of a standard psychology experiment using priming and reaction times. The preregistered confirmatory hypothesis is that response times to incongruent stimuli will be longer than response times to congruent stimuli even though the prime has not yet appeared when the participant records his or her judgments. The confirmatory hypothesis for Study 1 was not supported. Exploratory analyses indicated that those participants who completed the English-language version rather than a translation showed a significant effect, as was the case in the original study; no significant departure from chance was found in data involving non-English translations. Study 2 sought to enhance the predicted effect by having each participant read either a pro-psi or an anti-psi statement at the beginning of the experiment to test the pre-recorded hypothesis that a pro-psi statement would produce a larger effect than an anti-psi statement. The results did not support the primary psi hypothesis and there was no observed association between belief and experience of ESP and psi outcome. However, there was mixed support for the effect of the psi statement on performance; those participants who received the pro-psi statement had a greater psi score than those who received anti-psi statement. As in the original experiment, neither the experimenters’ nor participants’ beliefs or expectations were significantly correlated with the dependent measure. In sum, the pre-registered confirmatory hypotheses were not supported. The importance of the personality variable Sensation Seeking, a component of extraversion, as a correlate of psi performance is discussed as are the challenges and implications for international collaborations and replication in controversial science. (shrink)

This study examines the determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its implications on firms’ investment policy, organizational strategy, and performance. First, we find that firms with better performance, higher R&D intensity, better financial health, and firms in new economy industries are more likely to engage in CSR activities, while riskier firms are less likely to do so. We also find U-shaped relation between firm size and CSR, indicating that either very small or very large firms exhibit high (...) levels of CSR strengths and concerns. Next, we find that firms’ CSR strengths relate favorably with their investments, organizational strategy, and performance, whereas CSR concerns and firm attributes are by and large negatively related. Using a 2SLS procedure, we verify that the CSR–performance relation is robust to corrections for endogeneity through reverse causation and/or biases introduced by time varying omitted variables. Finally, we find that the CSR–firm attributes relation is strengthened when the CEO’s incentives are below the sample median, suggesting that CSR participation is especially important when monetary incentives are lower than benchmark levels. (shrink)

?Right words are like the reverse? is the concluding remark of chap. 78 in the Daoist classic Daodejing. Quoted in treatises composed by Seng Zhao (374?414), it designates the linguistic strategy used to unfold the Buddhist Madhyamaka meaning of ?emptiness? and ?ultimate truth?. In his treatise Things Do not Move, Seng Zhao demonstrates that ?motion and stillness? are not really contradictory, performing the deconstructive meaning of Buddhist ?emptiness? via the corresponding linguistic strategy. Though the topic of the discussion and the (...) rhetoric are borrowed from Daoist sources, the point of view is rooted in the Buddhist understanding. The first section of this paper deals with the issue of exegetical methods in early Chinese Buddhism; the subsequent part explains both the Daoist background and the topics modified in Seng Zhao's discussions; the third part analyzes Seng Zhao's linguistic strategy and expounds its particular philosophical significance. (shrink)

Background Obtaining informed consent in the clinical setting is an important yet challenging aspect of providing safe and collaborative care to patients. While the medical profession has defined best practices for obtaining informed consent, it is unclear whether these standards meet the expressed needs of patients, their families as well as healthcare providers. The authors sought to address this gap by comparing the responses of these three groups with a standardised informed consent paradigm. Methods Piloting a web-based ‘reverse’ simulation paradigm, (...) participants viewed a video showing a standardised doctor engaging in an informed consent discussion. The scenario depicted a simulated patient with psychotic symptoms who is prescribed an atypical antipsychotic medication. 107 participants accessed the simulation online and completed a web-based debriefing survey. Results Survey responses from patients, family members and healthcare providers indicated disparities in information retention, perception of the doctor's performance and priorities for required elements of the consent process. Conclusions To enhance existing informed consent best practices, steps should be taken to improve patient retention of critical information. Adverse events should be described in the short-term and long-term along with preventative measures, and alternative psychosocial and pharmacological treatment options should be reviewed. Information about treatment should include when the medication takes therapeutic effect and how to safely maintain the treatment. The reverse simulation design is a model that can discern gaps in clinical practice, which can be used to improve patient care. (shrink)

Much has been written on Derrida’s and Butler's discussions of Austin’s speech act theory, but one thing at least remains unclear: why does performativity hinge on the notion of “force,” and what “force” are we here talking about? For Austin, the force of the performative signals a performative enforcement, a validating repetition of prior conditions of legitimation: it testifies to the “felicity” or “success” of the performative event.According to Derrida, this articulation between force and success closes off the eventness of (...) the event; it implies an ontological reduction and reconstruction, that is, an appropriation of the event in the form of performative power. However, the performative, if it is to truly produce an event, must exceed prior conditions of validation and transform, in its performance, the conditions of validity it was meant to repeat. Eventness must remain beyond and without power. In this perspective, the article explores the “force” which Derrida describes as “force of the event”: an excessive force in the face of which “performative force” must fail. At bottom undecidable, “the force of the event” suggests the fallibility of force and the force of fallibility. I compare this self-deconstructive notion of force with Butler’s subversive politics of the performative, which theorizes “performative force” as the force of a failure – but a successful failure – to comply with the norm: a non-normative repetition and a reappropriation that forces change, and of which “queer” is at once the example, the model, and the very name. While Derrida’s is an attempt to think the uncanny force of a strange, non-appropriable, non-ontologizable, and perhaps “queer” event or quasi-event, characterized by fallibility and undecidability, Butler’s theory of power and her notion of “performative force” reverse, but fundamentally maintain, Austin’s ontological oppositions between success and failure, legitimacy and illegitimacy, repetition and change. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of board gender diversity on financial performance of listed Indian firms in a dynamic modelling framework. Using a firm-year unit of analysis, a sample of 148 publicly listed firms across multiple industries have been studied over a period of five financial years namely FY 2008–2009 to FY 2012–2013. Employing panel data analysis, percentage of women directors is taken as the independent variable and firm performance measured by return on assets and Tobin’s Q as (...) the dependent variables. The primary results of the study using ordinary least squares and fixed effects estimation models point towards a positive and significant relationship between percentage of independent women directors and firm performance. However, results are reversed when the theoretically superior Arellano Bond estimation is used. Findings of the study indicate that the number of companies with no IWDs is reducing across the 5 years of study. This may be due to external pressure created by stakeholders. Also, the number of companies with one IWD is increasing over the period of the study, while the number of companies with two or three or more directors is more or less the same. The number of two or three IWD companies remaining the same could arguably be due to lack of availability of independent directors who are women. (shrink)

Extensive training with a musical instrument results in the automatisation of the bodily operations needed to manipulate the instrument: the performer no longer has to consciously think about the instrument while playing. The ability of the performer to automate operations on the instrument is due to sensorimotor mechanisms that can predict changes in the state of the body and the instrument in response to motor commands. But how strong are these mechanisms? To what extent can we alter the structure of (...) the instrument before they disappear? We performed an exploratory study to understand whether and how sensorimotor predictions survive instrument modification. We asked seven professional violinists to perform repertoire pieces and sight-reading exercises on four different violins: their own, a cheap violin, a small violin, and a violin whose strings had been put on in reverse order. We performed a series of quantitative investigations on performance intonation and duration, and on bowing gestures and errors. The analysis revealed that participants struggled adapting to the altered instruments, suggesting that prediction mechanisms are a function of instrument configuration. In particular, the analysis of bowing errors, intonation, and of performance duration suggested that the performance with the reverse violin was much less fluent and precise than the performer's own instrument; the performance with the small violin was also sub-standard though to a lesser extent. We also observed that violinists were differently affected by instrument modifications, suggesting that the capability to adapt to a new instrument is highly personal. (shrink)

This study provides a cross-lagged examination of the relationships between proactive vitality management, work–home enrichment, and entrepreneurial performance. Specifically, based on the Job Demands-Resources and Conservation of Resources theories, we postulate a mediation model where proactive vitality management leads to entrepreneurs transferring resources developed in their work role to thrive in their home role, resulting in augmented entrepreneurial performance. The hypotheses were tested with data collected at two time points, 1 onth apart—T1 and T2, from Romanian entrepreneurs. We (...) analyzed autoregressive, causal, reversed, and reciprocal models to test the mediation model. In the linkage between predictor and outcome variable, the reversed model is the best-fitting model, showing that proactive vitality management is only a distal precursor of performance. However, the best-fitting models for the relationship between predictor and mediator and between mediator and outcome were the reciprocal models. Thus, proactive vitality management and work–home enrichment have reciprocal effects on each other over time, as was the case between work–home enrichment and entrepreneurial performance. These results are in line with the resource gain cycle perspective of the Conservation of Resources theory. Employing proactive behaviors to optimize functioning at work enables the transfer of resources to the home role. Potentiating one role through aspects of another will thus generate additional resources reflecting on entrepreneurial performance. Hence, this study provides insights into precursors and mechanisms that can shape entrepreneurial performance. (shrink)

The hypothesis that everyday cognitive failures are associated over individuals with levels of focused-attention performance was examined in a series of experiments. Everyday cognitive failure was assessed by the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, and focused-attention performance was assessed using the Stroop, reverse Stroop, and dichotic-listening paradigms, together with the Embedded Figures Test. No reliable association between the two types of measure was observed. In addition, questionnaire results indicated a significant relation between reported cognitive failure and memory performance (using (...) the Short Inventory of Memory Experiences and the Everyday Memory Questionnaire) but not attentional performance (using the Everyday Attention Questionnaire). (shrink)

The present study investigated whether infants learn the effects of other persons' actions like they do for their own actions, and whether infants transfer observed action-effect relations to their own actions. Nine-, 12-, 15- and 18-month-olds explored an object that allowed two actions, and that produced a certain salient effect after each action. In a self-exploration group, infants explored the object directly, whereas in two observation groups, infants first watched an adult model acting on the object and obtaining a certain (...) effect with each action before exploring the objects by themselves. In one observation group, the infants' actions were followed by the same effects as the model's actions, but in the other group, the action-effect mapping for the infant was reversed to that of the model. The results showed that the observation of the model had an impact on the infants' exploration behavior from 12 months, but not earlier, and that the specific relations between observed actions and effects were acquired by 15 months. Thus, around their first birthday infants learn the effects of other persons' actions by observation, and they transfer the observed action-effect relations to their own actions in the second year of life. (shrink)

Sentence comprehension involves maintaining and continuously integrating linguistic information and, thus, makes demands on working memory. Past research has demonstrated that semantic WM, but not phonological WM, is critical for integrating word meanings across some distance and resolving semantic interference in sentence comprehension. Here, we examined the relation between phonological and semantic WM and the comprehension of center-embedded relative clause sentences, often argued to make heavy demands on WM. Additionally, we examined the relation between phonological and semantic WM and the (...) comprehension of transitive and dative active and passive sentences, which may also draw on WM resources depending on the number of propositions that must be maintained and the difficulty of processing passive clauses. In a large sample of individuals with aphasia, we assessed whether comprehension performance on more complex vs. simpler active-passive or embedded relative clause sentences would be predicted by semantic but not phonological WM when controlling for single word comprehension. For performance on the active-passive comprehension task, we found that semantic WM, but not phonological WM, predicted comprehension of dative sentences when controlling for comprehension of transitive sentences. We also found that phonological WM, but not semantic WM, predicted mean comprehension for reversible active-passive sentences when controlling for trials with lexical distractors. On the relative clause comprehension task, consistent with prior results, we found that semantic WM, but not phonological WM, predicted comprehension of object relative clause sentences and relative clause sentences with a passive construction. However, both phonological WM and semantic WM predicted mean comprehension across all relative clause types for reversible trials when controlling for trials with lexical distractors. While we found evidence of semantic WM’s role in comprehension, we also observed unpredicted relations between phonological WM and comprehension in some conditions. Post-hoc analyses provided preliminary evidence that phonological WM maintains a backup phonological representation of the sentence that may be accessed when sentence comprehension processing is less efficient. Future work should investigate possible roles that phonological WM may play across sentence types. (shrink)

Previous studies have confirmed that the temporal attentional control created by the repetition of stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) tasks was transferred to shooting skills in lacrosse players. In the current study, we investigated whether combining motor imagery training with SRC tasks could enhance the scoring ability of lacrosse players. We grouped 33 male lacrosse players into three groups: an SRC task and motor imagery group (referred as to SRC+Image), an SRC task group, and a control group. Players in the first two (...) groups underwent five sessions of 200 SRC task trials. In addition, the SRC+Image group completed five sessions of motor imagery training. The control group underwent no training interventions. All three groups performed a lacrosse shooting test and a Simon task before and after training sessions to assess the magnitude of the interference effects of the various types of training they underwent. The results of the Simon task showed that repetition of 1,000 trials was enough to create a short-term representation with the incompatible special mapping being transferred to a dynamic activity like lacrosse shooting. Moreover, combination of a computer-based Type 2 task and motor-imagery training could effectively increase players’ scoring ability in a field of large spatial conflict. (shrink)