Theta activity and meditative states: spectral changes during concentrative meditation

Brain oscillatory activity is associated with different cognitive processes and plays a critical role in meditation. In this study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of oscillatory changes during Sahaj Samadhi meditation (a concentrative form of meditation that is part of Sudarshan Kriya yoga). EEG was recorded during Sudarshan Kriya yoga meditation for meditators and relaxation for controls. Spectral and coherence analysis was performed for the whole duration as well as specific blocks extracted from the initial, middle, and end portions of Sahaj Samadhi meditation or relaxation. The generation of distinct meditative states of consciousness was marked by distinct changes in spectral powers especially enhanced theta band activity during deep meditation in the frontal areas. Meditators also exhibited increased theta coherence compared to controls. The emergence of the slow frequency waves in the attention-related frontal regions provides strong support to the existing claims of frontal theta in producing meditative states along with trait effects in attentional processing. Interestingly, increased frontal theta activity was accompanied reduced activity (deactivation) in parietal–occipital areas signifying reduction in processing associated with self, space and, time.     

Bilingualism and the increased attentional blink effect: evidence that the difference between bilinguals and monolinguals generalizes to different levels of second language proficiency

The attentional blink task involves rapid serial presentation of visual stimuli, two of which the participants have to report. The usual finding is that participants are impaired at reporting the second target if it appears in close temporal proximity to the first target. Previous research has shown that the effect is stronger in bilinguals than monolinguals. We investigated whether the difference between monolinguals and proficient bilinguals can be extended to bilinguals of different proficiency levels. Therefore, we replicated the paradigm in a large sample of Hindi–English bilinguals with different proficiency levels of English, as measured with a validated vocabulary test. We additionally measured the participants’ intelligence with the raven progressive matrices. We found that the size of the attentional blink effect correlates with the degree of second language proficiency and not with the degree of intelligence. This indicates that research on executive control functions can be done with bilinguals of different proficiency levels. Our results are also in line with recent findings showing that the attentional blink effect is not primarily due to limited processing resources.     

Characterization of the aggregated phase in KCl:Cd2+ and KCl:Mn2+ by Raman spectroscopy

Abstract

The aggregated phase of the impurities in the systems KCl:Cd²⁺ and KCl:Mn²⁺ has been identified as the Suzuki phase by Raman spectroscopy. The linear increase in the integrated scattering intensities of the Raman lines with concentration of the impurities may be attributed to an increase in the mean precipitate size of the Suzuki phase.     

Insects as Gibsonian Animals

Research on the visual behavior of insects has uncovered a number of cues that are used for controlling and stabilizing flight and for extracting information about the structure of the environment. Flies monitor their egomotion and maintain a straight course by sensing the patterns of image motion that are induced in the eyes. Bees flying through a tunnel maintain equidistance to the flanking walls by balancing the speeds of the images of the two walls. This enables them to safely negotiate narrow passages or to fly between obstacles. The speed of flight in the tunnel is controlled by holding constant the average image velocity as seen by the 2 eyes. This ensures that the bee slows down to a safer speed when the passage narrows. Bees landing on a horizontal surface hold constant the image velocity of the surface as they approach it, thus automatically ensuring that flight speed is close to 0 at touchdown. Flies and bees distinguish objects from backgrounds by sensing the relative motion between the images of the object and the background. Ranges of objects are gauged in terms of the speeds of motion of the images of the objects. Foraging bees estimate the distance that they have traveled to reach a food source by integrating the optic flow experienced en route—they possess a visually driven odometer.     

An intelligent task analysis approach for special education based on MIRA

This paper describes a novel approach for generating a logical sequence of tasks in the task analysis process of special education. This approach is based on the formalism MIRA (Mīmā?sā Inspired Representation of Actions), which has the feature of expressing an action as reason, instruction and goal. MIRA also prescribes a set of deduction rules, which helps in the reasoning process of actions. These features are incorporated in this approach and a software tool, namely MIRATaskGen is designed, which facilitates the task analysis process of special education. The software receives various action related inputs along with the start and finish stages and generates a sequence of tasks from the start to the finish. This tool also informs the user, whether the desired goal can be achieved. If the desired goal cannot be achieved, then the sequence of actions from the start to a point of discontinuity is detected.     

The relationship between human resource investments and organizational performance: a firm-level examination of equilibrium theory

It is commonly believed that human resource investments can yield positive performance-related outcomes for organizations. Utilizing the theory of organizational equilibrium (H. A. Simon, D. W. Smithburg, & V. A. Thompson, 1950; J. G. March & H. A. Simon, 1958), the authors proposed that organizational inducements in the form of competitive pay will lead to 2 firm-level performance outcomes--labor productivity and customer satisfaction--and that financially successful organizations would be more likely to provide these inducements to their employees. To test their hypotheses, the authors gathered employee-survey and objective performance data from a sample of 126 large publicly traded U.S. organizations over a period of 3 years. Results indicated that (a) firm-level financial performance (net income) predicted employees' shared perceptions of competitive pay, (b) shared pay perceptions predicted future labor productivity, and (c) the relationship between shared pay perceptions and customer satisfaction was fully mediated by employee morale.     

The role of desires in sequential impulsive choices

The present research provides evidence for a sequential mitigation effect, which is the phenomenon that participation in a prior impulsive choice task significantly reduces the decision maker’s likelihood of choosing impulsively in a subsequent task. The results of five experiments: (a) provide evidence for the Sequential Mitigation Effect using different study materials and contexts (Experiments 1–3), (b) show that prior impulsive (as opposed to non-impulsive) choice is required for the effect to occur (Experiment 4), and (c) find that the decision maker’s chronic sensitivity to positive and negative outcomes moderates the effect (Experiment 5). The results support the notion that desire for impulsive options functions as a limited motivational resource, and being consumed in the first task, is experienced to a lesser extent in the second task. The sequential mitigation effect may be characterized as a motivational contextual influence on decision making, complementing existing research showing that cognitive context effects influence sequential choices.