Erwiderung

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Mobile communication and the transformation of daily life: The next phase of research on mobiles

Conclusion In 2004, Prof. Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Bergen discovered in South Africa what appears to be the oldest known jewelry—75,000 year old pierced and ochre-tinted tick shells. His discovery suggested the importance of jewelry and other forms of interpersonal communication and representation. Henshilwood asserts that “once symbolically mediated behavior was adopted by our ancestors it meant communication strategies rapidly shifted, leading to the transmission of individual and widely shared cultural values” (Graham 2004). If we agree with Prof. Henshilwood’s assessment of the import of the initial use of symbolic display technologies (in this case, tick shell decorative jewelry), the implications for evolving practices of mobile communication technology may be even more significant than we generally assume. Specifically, novel forms of widespread mediated communication could alter the cultural values we embrace and transmit. They could also transform social structure, interpersonal processes and land use in ways we might neither anticipate nor desire. The lines of investigation sketched above are important since the illuminate understand current and emerging social practices and their implications. Mobile technology allows unprecedented permutations and concatenation of innovations in communication at the levels of place and space, individual, group and mass, and creative new services offered from a range of entities from amateur creators to gigantic corporations. Therefore, we have an opportunity to structure services and social practices in a self-aware way that should be conductive to outcomes that are better than would otherwise be the case. I would, for the purposes of argument, go further and suggest that it might be the case that the mobile communication is also likely to be a transformative technology. He is the author of Connections: Social and Cultural Studies of the Telephone in American Life (1999) and editor of Machines that Become Us: The Social Context of Personal Communication Technology (2003), both available from Transaction Publishers.     

Automatic Activation of Word Phonology from Print in Deep Dyslexia

The performance of deep dyslexics in oral reading and other tasks suggests that they are poor at activating the phonology of words and non-words from printed stimuli. As the tasks ordinarily used to test deep dyslexics require controlled processing, it is possible that the phonology of printed words can be better activated on an automatic basis. This study investigated this possibility by testing a deep dyslexic patient on a lexical decision task with pairs of stimuli presented simultaneously. In Experiment 1, which used content words as stimuli, the deep dyslexic, like normal subjects, showed faster reaction times on trials with rhyming, similarly spelled stimuli (e.g. bribe-tribe) than on control trials (consisting of non-rhyming, dissimilarly spelled words), but slower reaction times on trials with non-rhyming, similarly spelled stimuli (e.g. couch-touch). When the experiment was repeated using function words as stimuli, the patient no longer showed a phonological effect. Therefore, the phonological activation of printed content words by deep dyslexics may be better than would be expected on the basis of their oral reading performance.     

Posture and Prediction on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale

A study was performed investigating the relationship between stated attitudes toward the feminist movement and willingness to help that movement. Results suggested that Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) measures of feminist commitment may be limited by a social desirability variable and that high scores on the AWS do not correlate with a behavioral measure of commitment.     

Does Mother Know Best? An Actor–Partner Model of College‐Age Women's Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Behavior

This study examined the associations of perceived threat, perceived efficacy, and parent–child communication with the extent to which college‐age women received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Daughters and their mothers completed a survey about the HPV vaccine (N = 182 dyads). The results showed that mothers' perceived self‐efficacy to talk to their daughters and mothers' response efficacy of the vaccine were indirectly related to mother–daughter communication about HPV. Further, mother–daughter communication mediated the relation between mothers' intention to talk to their daughters and daughters' HPV vaccination behavior. This study demonstrates the importance of the social context of health behavior and the role of communication in understanding maternal influence on the HPV vaccination behavior of young adult women.     

The eccentricity effect: Target eccentricity affects performance on conjunction searches

The serial pattern found for conjunction visual-search tasks has been attributed to covert attentional shifts, even though the possible contributions of target location have not been considered. To investigate the effect of target location on orientation × color conjunction searches, the target’s duration and its position in the display were manipulated. The display was present either until observers responded (Experiment 1), for 104 msec (Experiment 2), or for 62 msec (Experiment 3). Target eccentricity critically affected performance: A pronounced eccentricity effect was very similar for all three experiments; as eccentricity increased, reaction times and errors increased gradually. Furthermore, the set-size effect became more pronounced as target eccentricity increased, and the extent of the eccentricity effect increased for larger set sizes. In addition, according to stepwise regressions, target eccentricity as well as its interaction with set size were good predictors of performance. We suggest that these findings could be explained by spatial-resolution and lateral-inhibition factors. The serial self-terminating hypothesis for orientation × color conjunction searches was evaluated and rejected. We compared the eccentricity effect as well as the extent of the orientation asymmetry in these three conjunction experiments with those found in feature experiments (Carrasco & Katz, 1992). The roles of eye movements, spatial resolution, and covert attention in the eccentricity effect, as well as their implications, are discussed.     

Peripheral and central hyperexcitability: differential signs and symptoms in persistent pain

This target article examines the clinical and experimental evidence for a role of peripheral and central hyperexcitability in persistent pain in four key areas: cutaneous hyperalgesia, referred pain, neuropathic pain, and postoperative pain. Each suggests that persistent pain depends not only on central sensitization, but also on inputs from damaged peripheral tissue. It is instructive to think of central sensitization as comprised of both an initial central sensitization and an ongoing central sensitization driven by inputs from peripheral sources. Each of these factors, initial sensitization, ongoing central sensitization, and inputs from peripheral sources, contributes to the net activity in dorsal horn neurons and thus influences the expression of persistent pain or hyperalgesia. Since each factor, peripheral inputs and central sensitization (initial or ongoing), can contribute to both the initiation and maintenance of persistent pain, therapies should target both peripheral and central sources of pathology.     

The Effect of Motor-Mental Preperformance Routines on Motor Performance in Novice Learners

Two sequential studies were conducted to test the notion that preperformance routines (PPRs) positively affect motor performance. The first study consisted of observations and interviews with 115 elite athletes to explore crucial time periods and body positions inherent in expert preparation for performing a golf putt, tennis serve, volleyball serve, and basketball free throw. In the second study, we taught these features of PPR to novice performers: 240 male and female high school students were assigned to two motor-mental PPR, and one control condition. Findings revealed that PPR enhances motor performance and can be implemented at an early stage of learning.