Efficacy and feeling of a vibrotactile Frontal Collision Warning implemented in a haptic pedal

A haptic pedal has been designed to emulate the behaviour of a common vehicle pedal and render superimposed vibrations with different characteristics. It was installed in a driving simulator, as an accelerator pedal with the secondary function of a vibrotactile Frontal Collision Warning (FCW). The efficacy and feeling of this solution was tested with 30 subjects using vibrotactile signals with 0.50, 1.05, and 1.60 Nm, at 2.5, 5, and 10 Hz, against a baseline visual FCW. Participants had to match the speed of a leading vehicle when the FCW was triggered. Their braking response was evaluated in terms of brake reaction time, matching speed time, control of velocity and headway reduction. Driver’s feelings were assessed with Kansei methodologies. Haptic stimuli were found to be more effective than visual signals, and the characteristics of the vibration also influenced the results. The best performance was achieved at the maximum amplitude, and in the range between 5 and 10 Hz. The perceived functionality and discomfort followed a trend coherent with the objective measurements. The conclusions of this study may be applied to develop effective and safe warning systems in vehicles, limiting the annoyance that they might cause to drivers.     

The effect of expectancy of a threatening event on time perception in human adults

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of a threatening stimulus in human adults in a temporal bisection task. In Experiment 1, for two anchor duration conditions (400/800 vs. 800/1600 ms), the participants completed trials in which the probe duration was followed by an aversive stimulus or a nonaversive stimulus. The results showed that the duration was judged longer when the participants expected an aversive rather than a nonaversive stimulus. In Experiment 2, the effect of the temporal localization of the aversive stimulus was also tested, with the aversive stimulus being presented at the beginning or at the end of the probe duration. The results revealed a temporal overestimation in each condition compared to the trials in which no aversive stimulus was presented. Furthermore, the temporal overestimation was greater when the expectation for the forthcoming threatening stimulus was longer. This temporal overestimation is explained in terms of a speeding-up of the neural timing system in response to the increase in the arousal level produced by the expectation of a threatening stimulus.     

The intergenerational transmission of ethnic essentialism: how parents talk counts the most

The present study analyzed the role of parents as potential sources of children's essentialist beliefs about ethnicity. We tested 76 parent–child (5‐year‐olds) dyads of Jewish Israeli parents from three social groups, defined by the kindergartens children attended: national religious, secular, or Jewish‐Arab integrated. We assessed parents' and children's beliefs, and parents' usage of ethnic attitudinal and categorization markers in a book‐reading activity. Overall, national religious parents manifested the strongest ethnic essentialism and endorsement of anti‐negotiations with Palestinians, and were the most likely to express negative attitudes and mark ethnic categories in their conversations with their children. Moreover, regression analyses revealed that ethnic categorization in parents' speech was the most reliable predictor of children's ethnic essentialism. Ethnic essentialism is transmitted to children not via explicit communication of intergroup beliefs or attitudes, but rather via the sheer marking of categories in ways that resonate with children's own intuitive ways of conceptualizing the social world.     

Nurturing Socioculturally and Medically Appropriate Palliative Care Delivery: Lessons Learned by Israeli Medical Faculty

Journal of Religion and Health - Israel is one of the few countries worldwide with a national policy and defined standards of palliative care (PC); its culture is highly diverse and more...     

Family Interdependence,Spiritual Perspective,Self-Transcendence,and Depression Among Korean College Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the mechanisms that might account for the effects of spirituality and self-transcendence on Korean college students’ depression among 197 Korean fathers, mothers, and children. A structural equation analysis indicated that spiritual perspective related to lower depression through the mediating pathway of self-transcendence for individuals. Mothers’ spiritual perspective and self-transcendence related to their children’s depression through the mediating pathway of their own depression, but the same was not true for fathers. Findings help explicate the intergenerational transmission of depression and important predictors of depression related to spirituality.     

The undesired: on nudniks in Jewish American fiction

This essay discusses the recurring preoccupation in Jewish literature with the character of the nudnik, a popular figure in Jewish culture but a rather neglected one in scholarly studies. Even though the nudnik appears in many stories throughout the years, from Sholem Aleichem’s, through Franz Kafka’s, to Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories and novels – nowhere was he more prominent than in post–World War II Jewish American fiction, more specifically in the short stories and novels of Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud. Both Roth and Malamud depict the nudnik as an embodiment of a generational divide, between the tormented Americanized young and the tormenting “Ostjuden” old. And yet, while Malamud’s nudniks serve as a critique on the fate of Jewish culture and tradition in post-Holocaust America, Roth identifies the character of the nudnik as a contaminating element that will forever haunt the younger individual. By discussing the Yiddish term “nudnik” and its ambivalent and unsettling nature in these writers’ texts, this essay will highlight the cultural impact on modern Jewish identity of the nudnik within each story.     

The value of value: Further excursions on the meaning and role of customer value

Grounded on fundamental marketing principles, the concept of customer value has been revisited and refined by academicians and practitioners for the last 30 years. However, research devoted to achieving a consistent theoretical and conceptual development of value‐related concepts has proceeded apace without ever reaching full closure. The present essay seeks reasons behind remaining deficiencies in value‐related research and offers a review intended to move our understanding of customer value toward what promises to become a more enlightened future. The topic of value is approached by theoretical analysis and conceptual development. First, “the challenge” of value research is presented: the researcher faces a topic that is central to the marketing discipline but that suffers from various conceptual and methodological difficulties. Second, among the literature on value from the last three decades, two main research areas are selected: the conceptual delimitation and the methodological links between quality, satisfaction, and value. Third, as a conclusion, we identify several streams of research that promise to expand future knowledge in the area of customer value. Several tables and figures that provide a systematic and structured review of value‐related knowledge support this inventory of the state‐of‐the‐art in value research. Even the most patient theoretical development of value‐related concepts tends to resist full conceptual closure. The breadth of customer value and its richness for marketing implications encourage novel and refreshing approaches. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Reading Literacy test for Secondary Education (CompLEC)

A new test to evaluate reading literacy, the Test of Reading Literacy for Secondary Education (CompLEC) is presented. CompLEC is based on the PISA assessment framework and new definitions of reading literacy. The test, easy to apply and score, assesses the level of reading literacy of children between 11 and 14 years of age in several reading situations (i.e., public, educational, personal and occupational) and with different types of texts (i.e., continuous and non-continuous). The scale has been standardized with a sample of 1,854 students from five different Spanish regions. Empirical results show that CompLEC is a homogeneous, reliable and valid instrument.     

"Time flies in the presence of angry faces"… depending on the temporal task used!

A number of studies have reported that the perception of an arousing emotional stimulus, such as an angry face, results in temporal overestimations which are probably due to the speeding up of a clock-like system. The aim of the present study was to examine whether this emotional effect can be generalized to all temporal tasks irrespective of the underlying cognitive processes involved in each task. Five different temporal tasks involving the presentation of neutral and angry faces were therefore tested: bisection, generalization, verbal estimation, production and reproduction. Our results showed an overestimation of time for the angry compared to the neutral faces in the temporal bisection, verbal estimation and production tasks but not in the temporal generalization and reproduction tasks. Moreover, the results obtained in the temporal verbal estimation and production tasks suggest that this temporal overestimation of the angry faces was associated with relatively more accurate estimates. The involvement of both arousal and attention mechanisms in the effect of emotional facial expressions on time perception is discussed in the light of the differences in the impact of the same emotional stimulus as a function of the temporal task considered.     

Influence of memory strategies on memory test performance: a study in healthy and pathological aging

The ability to generate memory strategies is a key factor in the performance of episodic memory tasks. Whether the ability to generate memory strategies exerts an influence in the performance of memory tests in the elderly population is still a matter of debate. Here we present results from an experimental memory task (Test of Memory Strategies, TMS), comprised of five lists of words starting from an incidental learning task, and four more lists which progressively gain in their external organization of the material, reducing the necessity of mobilizing complex memory strategies. TMS has been applied to four groups of elderly patients (amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment - aMCI, multidomain (mMCI), and Vascular Cognitive Impairment - VCI and Depression) and a healthy aging group. In conditions with low organization of the material, the mMCI and VCI groups (both showing a greater executive function impairment) have shown lower performance. However, as the material was progressively organized, they improved their performance. The aMCI group showed similar performance to the control group at the lower level of external organization but did not improve performance in conditions with a high level of external organization. The mMCI and VCI groups showed lower performance on all TMS conditions compared with controls. Discriminant analysis revealed 90% sensitivity and specificity to differentiate between groups based on TMS conditions. These results indicate how executive functions influence performance on memory tasks in elderly subjects with different neuropsychological profiles.