Meter isn't everything: The case of a timeline-oriented Cuban polyrhythm

Meter serves as a robust temporal referent for the creation and perception of musical rhythm. In music from Africa and the diaspora, a parallel referent is often present in the form of repetitive rhythmic patterns known as timelines. This paper examines how a well-known timeline (the standard pattern) serves as a grounding framework for quinto (lead conga drum) rhythms heard in different drumming performances of Afro-Cuban rumba columbia. Focusing on the layout of alignment points between the constituent elements of the various temporal layers—rhythm, timeline, and possible meters—indicates that the quinto players may be orienting their playing according to the timeline's onsets.     

Extending a class of motion stimuli to study multiattribute texture perception

We present a class of stimuli that makes it possible to study the interaction of visual attributes in forming textural patterns. These stimuli are obtained in a simple manner from a class of motion stimuli that we described earlier (Papathomas & Gorea, 1988). The main advantages of the texture stimuli presented in this paper are: (1) each attribute can be arranged simultaneously with, but independently of, other attributes, (2) an arbitrary number of attributes can be used, (3) the interaction of attributes can be studied systematically, (4) direct comparison of two attributes is possible with stimuli in which the two are arranged to form competing patterns, and (5) because of the similarity to the motion stimuli, the relationship between texture and motion mechanisms can be investigated.     

Internalized activities

This paper argues that interactive mental processes in humans have a natural tendency to replay internally and cyclically, a typical example being the tunes that run ‘in our head’ for hours. The existence of these ‘internalized activities’ may be shown by both simple introspection and neurological experiments, which also reveal that they occur in all sensory modalities and involve everything from perception to more abstract activities.We will show that this hypothesis provides new ways to explain 1- how real activity is guided by similar internalized activities, 2- how goals are represented to an agent by persistent internalized activities, 3- how the pursuit of these goals subordinates other activities.We account for such internalized activities by means of the sorts of interactive processes described by the interactivist model, with a tendency, like that of Piaget schemes, to run cyclically, whenever possible. They are similar to real activities in that they draw on the same neural machinery, but their sensory-motor aspects are somehow inhibited. Not being enslaved to reality and its timing, they can run faster and in a discontinuous way. Multiple internalized processes may also co-occur with compatible sensory-motor operations, even though the latter are inhibited.When an activity is actually performed by an agent, we argue that a synchronization phenomenon makes previous similar activities run in an internalized way in parallel, and that they help to guide real activity by providing anticipated potentialities in real time. When we make a basketball shot, previous analogous shots run in internal synchrony at the same time, guiding the current attempt.A goal such as a successful shot can be initially present in the agent's mind as a persistent internalized activity. The tendency of internalized activities to run whenever possible allows for a sequence construction mechanism, which operates forward and backward, and permits the creation of sequences of internalized processes projecting from a current activity, such as dribbling against an opponent, to a goal activity, such as shooting.These ideas have been applied 1- to a computer program able to recognize musical rhythms by synchronizing actual rhythms to internalized ones, and 2- to the construction of a model of how an agent represents the routes it knows in a town and how these routes coordinate internally to produce sequences from a current location to a destination.     

AN INTRODUCTION TO PANSPIRITISM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MATERIALISM AND PANPSYCHISM

This article is an introduction to a philosophical approach termed “panspiritism.” The fundamental principles of this approach are summarized, with discussion of how it links to earlier (mainly Eastern) philosophical perspectives, how it differs from panpsychism and its relationship to idealism and theism. Issues such as the relationship between mind and matter, the relationship between the mind and the brain, and the emergence of mind are discussed from a “panspiritist” perspective. There is a discussion of how panspiritism relates to mystical experiences. The article concludes by suggesting that this approach can help to elucidate a wide range of phenomena that appear anomalous or problematic from a materialist point of view.     

TEST VALIDATION FOR SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING: TWO DEMONSTRATIONS OF AN APPROACH TO STUDYING PREDICTOR-CRITERION LINKAGES

This paper argues that a construct-oriented approach to test validation is likely to enhance scientific understanding of our predictor measures, performance criteria, and links between them. In particular, examining relationships between relatively homogeneous predictors and criteria tapping specific performance areas operationalizes earlier conceptual statements made by Guion and Dunnette about test validation for scientific understanding. Two demonstrations are offered to show how measures of predictor constructs have predictably different patterns of correlations with different criteria. In a study of Navy recruiters ( N = 267), individual personality scales had significantly different relationships with three different rating criteria; in a second study, with Army enlisted soldiers ( N = 8, 642), cognitive ability and personality construct measures also showed predictable patterns of correlations, with rating criteria measuring three different performance areas. The paper discusses scientific and practical implications of this construct-oriented approach to test validation.     

Processing of English inflectional morphology

The present paper explores the representation of inflectional morphology in the English lexicon. There has been a long-standing debate about how these inflectional relationships might be involved during on-line processing. Inflected forms may be derived from an uninflected base form by rule application; by contrast, both regular and irregular inflection may be treated in the same way, with morphological patterns emerging from mappings between base and inflected forms. The present series of experiments investigated these issues using a lexical decision task. The first experiment showed that response latencies to nouns were significantly shorter than those to verbs. A possible explanation for these results can be found in differences in inflectional structure between English nouns and verbs. Namely, the relative frequency of uninflected compared with inflected forms is greater for nouns than for verbs. Two additional experiments compared noun stimuli with different inflectional structures. In all cases, differences in response latencies were predicted by the frequency of the surface form, whether uninflected or inflected. The pattern of results lends support for a unitary associative system for processing regular inflection of nouns in English and argues against the view that regular inflected plurals are derived by rule from a single, uninflected lexical entry.     

A Complexity Approach To Co-Creating An Innovative Environment

The distinguishing characteristic of complex co-evolving systems is their ability to create new order. In human systems this may take the form of new ways of working or relating, new ideas for products, procedures, artefacts, or even the creation of a different culture or a new organizational form. This article will explore the creation of new order using the principles of complexity and the concepts of creativity and innovation. It will argue that innovation can be facilitated by an enabling environment based on the logic of complexity and describe how one organization (the Humberside Training and Enterprise Council) co-created an innovative environment and changed its culture, ways of working, thinking, and relating.     

Creating New Ways of Being and Relating

The therapeutic action of psychoanalysis has been broadened beyond interpretation to the creation of new ways of being and relating. The concept of analysis as including both understanding and creation is rooted in two major analytic traditions: the British Independent school and the relational movement. It is proposed that central concepts from each tradition can be combined to form a theory of technique that is focused creating new ways of being to replace the patient's historical patterns. The clinical strategy advocated here is aimed toward bringing dissociated self states to consciousness and then using the now conscious conflicting states to create new self-world relationship patterns. A theory of technique is suggested that combines the relational concepts of dissociated patterns of interaction with Winnicott's theory of potential space for the purpose of transforming latent psychic capacities into new forms of being. Specific criteria are proposed for identifying new potentially authentic ways of being, and a technique for facilitating their evolution from nascent dispositions to new ways of being is delineated. Two cases are used to illustrate how the technical strategy can be used to create ways of being from previously dormant psychic potential.     

Integrating remotely accessible information services into psychology instruction and research

Wide-area computer networks provide a wealth of information services that have the potential to alter the approach toward scholarship taken by both students and researchers. Although it can be argued that the translation of information from hard copy to a publicly accessible electronic form has developed slowly, the total volume of text-based information that has been digitized is already staggering. Two major challenges facing psychologists wishing to develop their skills in network use are to identify and locate pertinent information that is accessible, and to find an easy way to retrieve it. This paper is an attempt to provide an overview of network resources and services that may be of particular interest to psychologists and psychology students. Its focus is on how to learn more about the available information services, as well as how to make access as user friendly as possible.     

Using Dynamic Field Theory to extend the embodiment stance toward higher cognition

The embodiment stance emphasizes that cognitive processes unfold continuously in time, are constantly linked to the sensory and motor surfaces, and adapt through learning and development. Dynamic Field Theory (DFT) is a neurally based set of concepts that has turned out to be useful for understanding how cognition emerges in an embodied and situated system. We explore how the embodiment stance may be extended beyond those forms of cognition that are closest to sensorimotor processes. The core elements of DFT are dynamic neural fields (DNFs), patterns of activation defined over different kinds of spaces. These may include retinal space and visual feature spaces, spaces spanned by movement parameters such as movement direction and amplitude, or abstract spaces like the ordinal axis along which sequences unfold. Instances of representation that stand for perceptual objects, motor plans, or action intentions are peaks of activation in the DNFs. We show how such peaks may arise from input and are stabilized by intra-field interaction. Given a neural mechanism for instantiation, the neuronal couplings between DNFs implement cognitive operations. We illustrate how these mechanisms can be used to enable architectures of dynamic neural fields to perform cognitive functions such as acquiring and updating scene representations, using grounded spatial language, and generating sequences of actions. Implementing these DFT models in autonomous robots demonstrates how these cognitive functions can be enacted in embodied, situated systems.     

Christian Engagement with Public Bioethics in Britain: The Case of Human Admixed Embryos

This paper offers an assessment of the prospects for Christianengagement with public bioethical debates in a contemporaryBritish context. One recent example, the debate provoked byproposed legislation for research involving human admixed embryos,is examined briefly. It is argued that this debate has someproblematic features that are characteristic of public ethicaldebates in this context. Next, a proposal is offered as to howsuch bioethical questions may be approached from within a Christiantheological tradition (specifically, a Reformed Protestant tradition).This proposed approach makes use of four "diagnostic questions"to assess whether technological proposals and practices suchas the creation of human admixed embryos can be consistent withthe distinctive Christian narrative of creation, sin, salvationthrough Christ, and promised future hope. The final sectionoffers some reflections on how Christians and churches mightengage, on the basis of this theological approach, with publicethical debates such as the one about admixed embryos.     

Conventions and Rules in Literature

Views of what role convention plays in the creation and appreciation of art works gravitate towards two extremes. One view holds that works of art can be apprehended and appreciated as well as created with no reference to convention. The other claims that conventions fully determine how works of art are apprehended and are therefore necessary conditions for the creation of works of art as well as constitutive of appreciation. The former is a version of the Romantic view of art as something that appeals spontaneously to man's most profound emotions, to man's sentient nature, without making use of or needing mediating conventions. The conventionalist view denies that it is possible to respond spontaneously to art. All apprehension and appreciation of art are structured by conventions, and the reader/audience cannot go beyond these conventions because they constitute , the experience of the work of art. This paper explains the sense in which the constitutive view may be best understood.     

Rational cognitive therapy with public offenders

In addressing the issue of how offenders may help themselves face the world in prison and outside, this article outlines how the principles of rational emotive therapy as outlined by Ellis and Maultsby can be simplified for use with this population in order to provide them a method for understanding and alleviating unhelpful emotional reactions. An example is provided to illustrate how a rational self-analysis model can be taught as written homework in individual or group sessions. Using the RSA model, offenders are taught to review and better understand the meanings of irrational words and how they upset themselves. Overall, our experience has been that offenders of many persuasions can be taught to be more rational and logical—an essential foundation for successful rehabilitation. This article is reproduced with permission in a slightly modified form from an earlier article authored by Smith and Lombardo “Rational Cognitive Therapy: An Executive Summary” that appeared inThe Correctional Psychologist, 27, 1995, pp. 2–5.     

“Counting” serially presented stimuli by human and nonhuman primates and pigeons

Much of Stewart Hulse's career was spent analyzing how animals can extract patterned information from sequences of stimuli. Yet an additional form of information contained in a sequence may be the number of times different elements occurred. Experiments that required numerical discrimination between different stimulus items presented in sequence are analyzed for primates and pigeons. It is shown that a model based on magnitude discrimination can account well for data from human and nonhuman primate experiments. Similar experiments carried out with pigeons showed a strong recency effect not found with primates. The pigeon data are modeled successfully, however, by assuming that representations of events decay as other events are presented.     

Evaluation algorithm for eye movement patterns during a problem solving task]

Cognitive processes are accompanied by eye movements, which are interrupted by fixations of an almost infinite number of points in the visual field. To investigate these processes, a systematic analysis of those movements is required to structure the long sequences of fixations. This task is possible if there are interrelationships between the ongoing thought processes and the fixations. Such interrelationships may manifest themselves through certain patterns of eye movements. It often happens that subsets of visual points are being looked at repeatedly. This is because a cognitive connection among the subset's elements is being discovered or created by such repetition. The method presented here attempts to achieve automatic recognition of fixation point patterns. Its usefulness is demonstrated using data from an experiment where eye movements were recorded while subjects were solving Raven Test items. The method may be characterized as a variant of time series analysis for nominal data. It is suitable for non-numerical data in general.     

ASTROPHYSICS AND CREATION: PERCEIVING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH SCIENCE AND PARTICIPATION

I explore how the notion of divine creation could be made understandable in a worldview dominated by empirical science. The crucial question concerns the empirical basis of belief in creation. Astronomical observations have changed our worldview in an exemplary manner. I show by an example from imaginative literature that human beings can perceive stars by means other than astronomical observation. This alternative mode may be described as “participatory perception,” in which a human experiences the world not by objectifying separation as in science, but by personal involvement. I relate such perceptions to “embodied cognitive science,” a topical interdisciplinary field of research in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. Embodied cognitions initiate processes that can convey personal experiences of the stars. Such cognitions may involve religious apprehensions and give rise to sophisticated values. It is argued that the knowledge available through astrophysics and interpretation of the universe as divine creation represent two different ways of perceiving the same reality and should thus be seen as mutually complementary.     

Distributed planning of movement sequences

Three experiments are reported that examine whether fast finger-tapping sequences are entirely planned before execution starts (advance planning), or if they can be started while planning is still under way (distributed planning). Subjects performed finger tapping sequences of three to eight taps at a high rate, under both simple and 2-choice reaction time (RT) conditions. The sequences differed in the location of an accentuated element within them. The RT to choose between sequences with different accent locations progressively decreased as an inverse function of the time-distance between the initial tap and the first point at which the alternative sequences differed. The shortening in choice reaction time (CRT) was never accompanied by noticeable changes in the inter-response times or force patterns of the tapping sequences. The RT to initiate sequences with accent location known beforehand (SRT condition) showed, in two of three experiments, a weak decreasing trend as the accentuated tap shifted away from the beginning of the sequence. The SRT results suggest a possible predominance of advance planning when the same sequence is repeated over a series of trials. The CRT results are taken as evidence that planning of the sequence beyond the unpredictable tap could be distributed before and after sequence initiation. Several factors are discussed that may influence the balance between planning in advance of, and planning in parallel with, sequence execution.     

Distributed Planning of Movement Sequences

Three experiments are reported that examine whether fast finger-tapping sequences are entirely planned before execution starts (advance planning), or if they can be started while planning is still under way (distributed planning). Subjects performed finger tapping sequences of three to eight taps at a high rate, under both simple and 2-choice reaction time (RT) conditions. The sequences differed in the location of an accentuated element within them. The RT to choose between sequences with different accent locations progressively decreased as an inverse function of the time-distance between the initial tap and the first point at which the alternative sequences differed. The shortening in choice reaction time (CRT) was never accompanied by noticeable changes in the inter-response times or force patterns of the tapping sequences. The RT to initiate sequences with accent location known beforehand (SRT condition) showed, in two of three experiments, a weak decreasing trend as the accentuated tap shifted away from the beginning of the sequence. The SRT results suggest a possible predominance of advance planning when the same sequence is repeated over a series of trials. The CRT results are taken as evidence that planning of the sequence beyond the unpredictable tap could be distributed before and after sequence initiation. Several factors are discussed that may influence the balance between planning in advance of, and planning in parallel with, sequence execution.     

Tapered dipoles in briefly flashed glass-pattern sequences disambiguate perceived motion direction

In order to investigate the relationship between 'neural speedlines', form (shape), and fast motion-direction decisions, Glass patterns were constructed with dipoles assuming a tapered shape. The results of a 2-alternative forced-choice direction-discrimination task, for both concentric and translational Glass-pattern sequences, suggest that with short stimulus presentations (< 1 s) form can influence direction decisions. This result implies that neural speedlines may be analogous to tapered lines and further supports Geisler's (1999, Nature 400 65-69) model of form/motion interaction.