Against Relative Timing Invariance in Movement Kinematics

The kinematics of stair climbing were examined to test the assertion that relative timing is an invariant feature of human gait. Six male and four female subjects were video-recorded (at 60 Hz) while they climbed a flight of stairs 10 times at each of three speeds. Each gait cycle was divided into three segments by the maximum and minimum angular displacement of the left knee and left foot contact. Gentner's (1987) analysis methods were applied to the individual subject data to determine whether the duration of the segments remained a fixed proportion of gait cycle duration across changes in stair-climbing speed. A similar analysis was performed using knee velocity maxima to partition the gait cycle. Regardless of how the gait cycle was divided, relative timing was not found to remain strictly invariant across changes in speed. This conclusion is contrary to previous studies of relative timing that involved less conservative analysis but is consistent with the wider gait literature. Strict invariant relative timing may not be a fundamental feature of movement kinematics.     

Majority and minority influence using the afterimage paradigm: A replication with an unambiguous blue slide

This study re-examines the afterimage paradigm which claims to show that a minority produces a conversion in a task involving afterimage judgements (more private influence than public influence) as opposed to mere compliance produced by a majority. Subsequent failures to replicate this finding have suggested that the changes in the afterimages could be attributed to increased attention due to an ambiguous stimulus coupled with subject suspiciousness. This study attempted to replicate the original experiment but with an unambiguous stimulus in order to remove potential biases. The results showed shifts in afterimages consistent with the increased attention hypothesis for a minority and majority and these were unaffected by the level of suspiciousness reported by the subjects. Additional data shows that no shifts were found in a no-influence control condition showing that shifts were related to exposure to a deviant source and not to response repetition.     

Bullying and cyberbullying in adulthood and the workplace

Two studies generated profiles of cyberbullying/cyberincivility and traditional bullying/incivility in adults, particularly within the workplace. In Study 1, 20% of 3,699 participants had the majority of cyberbullying victimization and 7.5% had the majority of traditional bullying victimization occur in adulthood, with 30% saying they were bullied at work. Relationships between bullying and negative outcomes were found. Because of the clear evidence of bullying and cyberbullying in the workplace in Study 1, Study 2 addressed the relationship of these constructs to workplace incivility. Workplace face-to-face incivility and bullying were related among 321 participants, as were workplace cyberbullying and cyberincivility. Face-to-face incivility was more common than online incivility, face-to-face bullying, or online bullying, yet all four behaviors were associated with negative outcomes. Differences in intentionality, acceptability, and severity were observed, with workplace face-to-face bullying perceived as the most severe and having the greatest intentionality to harm. These results emphasize the importance of studying bullying among adults, and highlight the conceptual independence of bullying and incivility. Correlates of workplace aggression are discussed using job demands-resources theory.     

Precarity is a Feminist Issue: Gender and Contingent Labor in the Academy

Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, that is, the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight? In this article, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such an ideology have been overlooked. To do so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths—and the two‐tier system itself—manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co‐constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reason to organize against the casualization of academic work.     

The influences of tropical climate on imagined walking time

This study investigated the effects of a Tropical Climate (TC) on actual and imagined walking times. Participants had to execute and imagine walking 3 distances with or without a 10-kg weight in either a TC or an Air Conditioning (AC) condition. The motor imagery quality was evaluated by computing the isochrony index. The results revealed that movement times were shorter for imagined walking than for actual walking and increased with the distance of the paths in both cases. By contrast, the effect of the load increased actual walking times for the 10- and 15-meter distances without affecting imagined walking times. Importantly, the isochrony index was negatively affected by the increase in load and distance and the effects of distance were amplified in a TC. These findings showed that the environmental climate in which motor imagery arises can modulate the subject’s ability to build up the temporal characteristics of simulated actions.