The question of the other in French phenomenology

I would like to show how with Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas, we have to do with three different ways of understanding the experience of the other. For Sartre it is a visual experience, the experience of being looked at by the other, so that the experience of the other is understood as a confrontation; for Merleau-Ponty, the experience of the other necessarily implies coexistence and what he calls “intercorporeality,” so that for him the other is never to be found in front, but instead beside me, in reciprocity with me; for Levinas, the experience of the other is the experience of a non-reciprocity, of an assymetrical relation, because the experience of the other is for him an ethical and not an ontological experience, and because this experience of the face of the other is the experience of a speaking and not in the first place corporeal presence. There are consequently three different ways of finding an access to the other : the look for Sartre, intercorporeality for Merleau-Ponty and the face for Levinas.     

Influence of balance on oral-motor control of speech: a pilot investigation

In this exploratory study, the interaction between motor coordination for balance and oral-motor control for speech was investigated in 31 typical college-aged women, ages 20 to 29 years (M = 22.3, SD = 2.1), recruited through the local university. Since speech is dependent on the control and coordination of the subsystems of the speech production mechanism, it was hypothesized that a difficult balance task would interfere with speech motor control. Oral-motor control was measured by diadochokinesis while participants were in a nonchallenging balance position (floor standing) and a challenging balance position (balance disk on one leg). Results indicated that individuals compensated for speech rate while having to maintain their balance for the syllable repetitions. However, the number of syllables repeated was significantly fewer while on the balance disk. In addition, a correlational analysis indicated that history of speech therapy services was related to poorer balance screening score. Directions for future research are discussed.     

The perception of concurrent sound objects in harmonic complexes impairs gap detection

Since the introduction of the concept of auditory scene analysis, there has been a paucity of work focusing on the theoretical explanation of how attention is allocated within a complex auditory scene. Here we examined signal detection in situations that promote either the fusion of tonal elements into a single sound object or the segregation of a mistuned element (i.e., harmonic) that "popped out" as a separate individuated auditory object and yielded the perception of concurrent sound objects. On each trial, participants indicated whether the incoming complex sound contained a brief gap or not. The gap (i.e., signal) was always inserted in the middle of one of the tonal elements. Our findings were consistent with an object-based account in which perception of two simultaneous auditory objects interfered with signal detection. This effect was observed for a wide range of gap durations and was greater when the mistuned harmonic was perceived as a separate object. These results suggest that attention may be initially shared among concurrent sound objects thereby reducing listeners' ability to process acoustic details belonging to a particular sound object. These findings provide new theoretical insight for our understanding of auditory attention and auditory scene analysis.     

Biculturalism and Academic Achievement of African American High School Students

Biculturalism was examined as a factor that may positively affect the academic achievement of African American high school students, beyond cultural identity and self‐esteem. Hierarchical regression analyses determined that cultural identity and academic self‐esteem were important factors for academic achievement, but not biculturalism. Implications and future research are discussed. Se examinó el biculturalismo como un factor que puede afectar positivamente al rendimiento académico de los alumnos de educación secundaria Afroamericanos, más allá de la identidad cultural y la autoestima. Los análisis de regresión jerárquica determinaron que la identidad cultural y la autoestima académica fueron factores importantes para el rendimiento académico, pero no el biculturalismo. Se discutieron implicaciones e investigaciones futuras.     

Citizenship and withdrawal in the workplace: relationship between organizational citizenship behavior, intention to leave current job and intention to leave the organization

This study investigates the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and employee intention to leave the organization and current job using a sample of French employees. A survey was sent to 1,200 alumni of a business school in France. Participation in the study was voluntary. The participants were 355 working adults with French citizenship. This paper provides several interesting findings. While no relationship was found between altruism and intention to leave both the organization and the current job, sportsmanship, civic virtue and helping others emerged as the strongest predictors of intention to leave the organization and intention to leave the current job. Results are discussed.     

Motivated use of information about others: Linking the 2 × 2 achievement goal model to social comparison propensities and processes

The present research used correlational and experimental methods and two well-established social comparison paradigms to integrate and extend prior research from the achievement goal and social comparison literatures. In Study 1, a general disposition to engage in social comparison was positively correlated with each type of goal in the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals, suggesting that the desire to seek out social comparison information is not exclusive to a particular type of achievement goal pursuit. In Study 2, when evaluating the specific direction of social comparison (upward or downward), the pursuit of performance-approach, mastery-approach, and mastery-avoidance goals facilitated upward social comparison, and the pursuit of performance-avoidance goals prompted a shift away from upward comparison towards downward comparison. The present findings provide new insight to the emerging integration of achievement goals and social comparison.     

Risk of crashing with a tram: Perceptions of pedestrians,cyclists, and motorists

IntroductionRoad users not abiding by the rule of tram priority has increased the number of crashes between trams and other road users. This study focuses on the perceptions of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists regarding the risk of crashes with trams. The first aim was to examine how these road users assess the risk of tram crashes with themselves and with other road users of the same age and type. The second aim was to look into whether and to what extent road users’ comparative judgments about tram risk are realistic in terms of their self-reported behavior.MethodThe study sample included 973 road users (379 pedestrians, 146 cyclists, and 448 motorists). Three versions of a questionnaire were constructed to assess risk perceptions concerning interactions between these road users and trams, self-reported behavior, and knowledge of the tram-priority rules.ResultsThe results showed that all three types of road users perceived the risk of a crash between a tram and themselves to be very low (M = 1.53, SD = 0.88) and with other users to be higher (M = 2.28, SD = 1.06); they therefore expressed comparative optimism. The results also revealed realistic optimism among pedestrians and unrealistic optimism among young motorists.ConclusionThe present study shows that, as a whole, road users have little awareness of crash risks with trams. It may therefore be worthwhile to increase communication about the priority of trams, and to persuade road users not to violate this rule.