Being flexible or rigid in goal-directed behavior: When positive affect implicitly motivates the pursuit of goals or means

Building on previous research on the role of positive affect as implicit motivator we investigated both flexibility and rigidity in goal-directed behavior. Given that goal-directed behavior can be represented in terms of goals or means, we suggest that goal-directed behavior is more flexible in switching means when positive affect implicitly motivates a person to reach the goal, but is more rigid in switching means when positive affect implicitly motivates a person to perform a specific means. Three experiments corroborated this idea: the speed of switching from a learned goal-directed means to a new means was facilitated when positive affect was attached to the representation of the goal, whereas this switching was slowed down when positive affect was attached to the representation of the learned means. Together, these findings provide new insights into the occurrence of flexibility and rigidity in implicitly motivated goal-directed behavior.     

Fostering learning-in-organizing through narration: Questioning myths and stimulating multiplicity in two performing art schools

This article is organized around the concept of “learning-in-organizing” to capture the collective, dynamic, and relational nature of how groups of persons, moving together through space and time, can come to gain knowledge and appreciation of a given issue through “storying” their experiences. Learning is understood as an integral part of the process of organizing. I suggest that the character and modes of learning vary depending on the stage of organizing. These move through stages of relative stability (“gaming”) and change (“playing”). The learning that takes place during a relative stable period has the character of monitoring and is primarily problem driven. During change, more complicated learning occurs. Inherited myths and rules are called into question; situations and problems are redefined as a result of the conflicting stories told by social actors. This article covers considerable theoretical and practical ground in outlining and illustrating this dynamic narrative approach to organizational learning. It includes a case concerned with making self-care a public issue among the communities of two performing art schools. The example shows that in situations where inherited narratives are no longer adequate, it is possible to foster transformational learning through reflexive dialogues if participants are willing to share their experiences, to take each other seriously, and to acknowledge multiplicity.     

Index for Volume 20

Sixteen adult subjects served in an experiment in which the writing of six unfamiliar graphemes was practiced. To investigate the learning process, we analyzed the absolute and relative changes of movement time of the first three consecutive segments as a function of practice. The results showed that movement time of all three segments decreased. This decrease was significantly less in the first segment than it was in the second and third segment, however. We interpret these effects of practice, from an information-processing viewpoint, as follows: (a) Initially separate response segments become integrated in more comprehensive response chunks, and (b) the preparation of later segments of the grapheme is realized more and more during the real-time execution of the initial segment. The results further revealed that these learning effects were more pronounced in graphemes composed of familiar segments than in graphemes that contained unfamiliar segments. Finally, it turned out that similarity between initial and final segments hindered the writing speed of the first segment; the effect of similarity was independent of the above-mentioned effects of practice. The latter effect is interpreted as confirming evidence for the view that the preparation of later segments of a grapheme is reflected by changes of movement time of the first segments of a grapheme.     

Choosing the shortest way to Mum: auditory guided rotation in 6- to 9-month-old infants

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of auditory information for rotation of the shortest way in twelve 6- to 9-month-old sighted infants. Behavior was manipulated by means of an auditory stimulus presented in four different directional angles (90°, 112.5°, 135°, and 157.5°) to the right and to the left behind the infants, and in one non-directional angle (180°). Infants lay in a prone position and had magnetic trackers fastened to the head and body which measured their rotation direction and angular velocity. The results showed that infants not only consistently chose the shortest over the longest way, but also rotated with a higher peak angular velocity as the angle to be covered between themselves and the goal increased. The results did not show significant preferences for one particular rotation direction. The study can contribute to the understanding of the auditory system as a functional listening system where auditory information is used as a perceptual source for prospectively guiding behavior in the environment.     

Islamic law and human rights: A contribution to an ongoing debate

In this essay the author criticizes two opposite approaches to the relationship between Islam and human rights: the incriminating and the apologetic approach. They are either anachronistic in that they judge the rules of classical Islamic jurisprudence by present‐day standards, or they entirely ignore its heritage. The author attempts instead to develop a new approach whereby classical Islamic jurisprudence is analyzed in its historical context. In order to examine whether Islam recognized a notion of fundamental rights, the author first tries to establish to what extent the notion of legal equality is recognized in Islamic law. Secondly, he examines two hierarchical legal relationships, viz. that between master and slave and that between husband and wife, in order to find which basic and inalienable rights Islamic law assigns to the weaker party in these relationships. His conclusion is that classical Islamic law offers points of departure for the development of a modern theory of human rights rooted in Islamic notions.>     

The visual basis of category effects in object identification: evidence from the visual hemifield paradigm

The basis for the category specific living things advantage in object recognition (i.e., faster and more accurate identification of living compared to nonliving things) was investigated in two experiments. It was hypothesised that the global shape of living things on average provides more information about their basic level identity than the global shape of nonliving things. In two experiments subjects performed name-picture or picture-name verification tasks, in which blurred or clear images of living and nonliving things were presented in either the right or the left visual hemifield. With blurred images, recognition performance was worst for nonliving things presented to the right visual field/left hemisphere, indicating that the lack of visual detail in the stimulus combined with a left hemisphere bias toward processing high frequency visual elements proved detrimental for processing nonliving stimuli in this condition. In addition, an overall living things advantage was observed in both experiments. This advantage was considerably larger with blurred images than with clear. These results are compatible with the global shape hypothesis and converge with evidence using other paradigms.