The importance of fading slowly...

Guest Editorial

The importance of fading slowly...     

Lost in the Rhythm: Effects of Rhythm on Subsequent Interpersonal Coordination

Music is a natural human expression present in all cultures, but the functions it serves are still debated. Previous research indicates that rhythm, an essential feature of music, can enhance coordination of movement and increase social bonding. However, the prolonged effects of rhythm have not yet been investigated. In this study, pairs of participants were exposed to one of three kinds of auditory stimuli (rhythmic, arrhythmic, or white‐noise) and subsequently engaged in five trials of a joint‐action task demanding interpersonal coordination. We show that when compared with the other two stimuli, exposure to the rhythmic beat reduced the practice effect in task performance. Analysis of the behavioral data suggests that this reduction results from more temporally coupled motor movements over successive trials and that shared exposure to rhythm facilitates interpersonal motor coupling, which in this context serves to impede the attainment of necessary dynamic coordination. We propose that rhythm has the potential to enhance interpersonal motor coupling, which might serve as a mechanism behind its facilitation of positive social attitudes.     

The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You: The Influence of Circadian Rhythm Synchrony on Self‐Control Outcomes

This article aims to bridge the circadian and self‐control literatures by suggesting that people's self‐control performance varies as a function of their circadian preferences (i.e., chronotype). We review evidence for this assertion across a wide range of self‐control domains, including cognitive processing, emotion regulation, interpersonal relationships, and social influence. Across these widely ranging behaviors, the results indicate that when people's circadian preference matches the time of day, a synchrony effect occurs, and self‐control performance is at its peak. Therefore, people are more likely to display self‐regulatory failures and give in to temptations when there is a mismatch between their circadian preferences and time of day. Overall, this article offers new insights into the relationship between circadian preferences and self‐control and suggests novel and exciting new directions for future research.     

试论齐国在律学与声学上的成就

春秋战国时期的齐国,不仅是我国东方的一个国力强盛、经济发达、地域辽阔的大国,而且是一个底蕴丰厚、成就卓著的文化大国。就音乐艺术而言,无论从实践上还是从理论上来看,在许多方面处于世界领先地位。经考证,乐律学和音乐声学方面的成就便是其中两例。     

The Future of Education ... and its Philosophy

Alasdair MacIntyre and Richard Rorty, in their different ways, have represented the tension between acculturation and individuation, truth and freedom, as central to modern education systems, a tension which, both agree, they have failed to resolve. The paper argues that an additional complication is that in the contemporary postmodern landscape, which prioritises the notion of lifelong learning in its policy discourse, the very notion of education is threatened, and asks whether we should care. It considers MacIntyre’s suggestion that the notion of the educated public can solve the former tension and concurrently re-launch the notion of education in the postmodern world—central to MacIntyre’s plan is the reform of the university. And against it Rorty’s suggestion that acculturation and individuation be regarded as different but connected processes, with individuation conceived as self-creation and located in the non-vocational university.     

Rhythm and the timing of movement sequences

Summary Many motor skills involve a sequence of movements phased over a period of time. The present study investigated the importance of rhythmic timing structures in the acquisition and control of a serial key-pressing task. Four groups of subjects received extensive practice on 9-element finger sequences varying in the form of the inherent temporal structure. Following a training period, the stability of the various timing patterns was examined by requiring subjects to perform the key-pressing task concurrently with a verbal memory task. The memory task involved reporting back a sequence of visually-presented words with a lag of one word. A comparison was made of performance on the two tasks under dual task and control (single task) conditions. The results suggested that natural rhythmic timing structures require less attention for production than unnatural temporal patterns. A breakdown of the temporal patterns into within-group and between-group intervals showed that patterns containing within-group intervals that related as 1:1 or 1:2 evidenced good stability under dual-task conditions. These results were taken as support for the suggestion by Fraisse (1946) that the perception and production of rhythms can be understood by an internal representation that allows only two distinct durations that relate as 1:2. Furthermore, it was suggested that relative timing may become an invariant property of motor program representation only in those instances in which the timing sequence completely fits the internal timing structure.     

血压的生物节律与高血压的时间治疗学

人体血压的昼夜节律现象具有重要临床意义,高血压病更尤为如此.不同降压药物或不同时间用药对血压的昼夜节律产生不同的影响.高血压时间治疗学是根据疾病发生或发作的昼夜节律特征,通过调整投药时间及/或剂量、或应用特殊制剂,调整血液或组织中的药物浓度,从而增加疗效并减少或避免不良反应的发生.时间治疗学方法有助于以最小的医疗经济学及毒副反应代价获取最佳的治疗效果.     

The Masochism of the Group Therapist

With tongues firmly in cheek, the authors catalogue and explicate the many miseries of the group therapist. They hypothesize a deep well of masochism to account for the otherwise inexplicable tenacity of group therapists in forming and leading their groups.     

Visual Art and the Rhythm of Experience

The concept of rhythm is frequently used by art historians, critics, and philosophers as a way of describing central features of visual art. Since rhythm is generally considered to be a temporal phenomenon associated with music, it is far from clear how visual art, composed of fixed lines, figures, and color, can be associated with rhythmicity. Linked to a temporal ordering or structure in music, the notion of rhythm in visual art leads to a claim that the aesthetic aspect of a painting does not consist in, or emerge from, its spatial structures, but rather its temporal ordering of the visual field. Recently this account of rhythm in visual art has been criticized by philosopher Jason Gaiger, who argues that visual art does not comprise movement and therefore cannot be associated with a temporal rhythm. Through a discussion of temporality and rhythm in Edmund Husserl, Erwin Straus, and Henri Maldiney, this article maintains that rhythmicity is a central aspect of experiences with visual art. It is shown that the phenomenological account of rhythm in the experience of visual art is fundamentally linked to a different notion of time.     

血压的生物节律与高血压的时间治疗学

人体血压的昼夜节律现象具有重要临床意义,高血压病更尤为如此。不同降压药物或不同时间用药对血压的昼夜节律产生不同的影响。高血压时间治疗学是根据疾病发生或发作的昼夜节律特征,通过调整投药时间及/或剂量、或应用特殊制剂,调整血液或组织中的药物浓度,从而增加疗效并减少或避免不良反应的发生。时间治疗学方法有助于以最小的医疗经济学及毒副反应代价获取最佳的治疗效果。     

The Challenge to the Group Psychotherapist Created by a Society in Flux

Group psychotherapy has proven effective in treating an impressive array of specific problems. Clinical experience has also shown its utility in alleviating the more general, and very costly, alienation and pain with which the human condition is often fraught. Recent changes in health care delivery reflect a marketplace that emphasizes cost containment, brevity and specificity of treatment, and a narrowed focus of training. Techniques are often valued above relationships. In this climate, we are in danger of losing sight of group therapy's deeper promise; the experiential lesson that human beings must move toward each other with involvement and a commitment to understanding in response to the inevitable difficulties that arise as we share time, space, and resources.