The Influence of Contraction Types on the Relationship Between the Intended Force and the Actual Force

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that the intended force (subjective estimation of force) does not always match to actual force without external feedback. The purpose of this study was to compare the influence of ballistic and tonic contractions on the relationship between the intended and actual force. Subjects produced isometric force at requested percentages of their MVC (20, 40, 60 and 80%) based on subjective estimation of force under two conditions (tonic and ballistic conditions). The tonic condition was to maintain force production, whereas the ballistic condition was to produce force as fast as possible. As a result, the actual force amplitude, the coefficient of variance and EMG amplitude were larger under the ballistic contraction compared with the tonic condition, even the same intended force levels. These results suggest that different motor unit activity and control systems in the ballistic and tonic contractions could alter the relationship between the intended force and the actual force.     

Comparison of Cognitive Process Measures Across Three Cultural Samples: Some Surprises

Investigations of cognitive processes of children in three different countries (India, Canada, & Japan) are reported extending the validity of measures of Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) processing. Results of average and low achieving school children in India on Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) comprising the four PASS scales showed that low achievers are low on all processing measures. Among Canadian Native children, Simultaneous processing was stronger and Successive was poorer. Children’s performance on Japanese standardization of CAS revealed the same 4 PASS factor structures as in the American CAS. However, in each case, there was a surprise: Indian children scored higher than American norm for Successive scale; only those Canadian Native children who were poor in reading performed poorly in Successive scale, and among the Japanese, Simultaneous processing was higher. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of cultural context and school instructions.     

Gaze following among toddlers

Children's cooperative activities with their peers become markedly coordinated during the 3rd year of life. During these activities, the child needs to follow his/her peers’ gaze to objects, and look at the same objects to initiate coordinated action. Since 3-year-olds’ ability to follow their peers’ gaze has not been studied, we experimentally investigated this in our study. In the experimental trials, an experimenter induced a child (looker) to look at a doll on display, and observed the reaction of another child (follower) who was in front of the looker (and not looking at the doll). In the control trials, the experimenter displayed the doll in an identical manner when the follower was alone. The followers followed the gaze of the lookers, looking at the doll in approximately 90% of the experimental trials, compared with 20% of the control trials. These results indicate that 3-year-olds can follow their peers’ gaze.     

Analogical modification in the creation of contemporary art

The goal of this study was to propose a framework to describe the analogical process in the context of creation. We conducted retrospective interviews with two contemporary artists in their forties using portfolios of their past works so that they could recall their creation processes in detail. We found that the artists often use analogical modification to produce new series of artwork. Analogical modification is a cognitive process used to generate a new target, in the context of creation, by changing values of a source to make differences during analogical mapping. We found three types of analogical modification, namely, subject modification, structure modification, and concept modification. Creative vision, which is formed through many years of creative activity and consists of long-term intentions or goals for creation, plays an important role in guiding the use of analogical modification. The process of artistic creation can be better understood using the framework of the interaction between activities in different time spans, such as analogical modification and creative vision.     

In search of East Asian self-enhancement

A meta-analysis of published cross-cultural studies of self-enhancement reveals pervasive and pronounced differences between East Asians and Westerners. Across 91 comparisons, the average cross-cultural effect was d = .84. The effect emerged in all 30 methods, except for comparisons of implicit self-esteem. Within cultures, Westerners showed a clear self-serving bias (d = .87), whereas East Asians did not (d = -.01), with Asian Americans falling in between (d = .52). East Asians did self-enhance in the methods that involved comparing themselves to average but were self-critical in other methods. It was hypothesized that this inconsistency could be explained in that these methods are compromised by the "everyone is better than their group's average effect" (EBTA). Supporting this rationale, studies that were implicated by the EBTA reported significantly larger self-enhancement effect for all cultures compared to other studies. Overall, the evidence converges to show that East Asians do not self-enhance.     

Which studies test whether self‐enhancement is pancultural? Reply to Sedikides,Gaertner, and Vevea, 2007

What types of studies test the question of pancultural self‐enhancement? Sedikides, Gaertner, and Vevea (2007) have identified inclusion criteria that largely limit the question to studies of the better‐than‐average effect (i.e. 27 out of 29 effects that they include as ‘validated’ and ‘relevant’). In contrast, other effects which they labelled as ‘unvalidated’ or ‘irrelevant’ used methods other than the better‐than‐average effect (i.e. 24 out of 24 effects). Because Sedikides et al. are drawing conclusions about pancultural self‐enhancement and not the pancultural better‐than‐average effect, these excluded studies are relevant to the hypothesis under question. Ignoring the findings from other methods is highly problematic, in particular because these other methods yield results that conflict with those from the better‐than‐average effect. An analysis of effects from all studies reveals no support for pancultural self‐enhancement.     

The Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan: A Rhetoric of Ideological Pronouncement

One manifestation of argumentation is in critical discussions where people genuinely strive cooperatively to achieve critical decisions. Hence, argumentation can be recognized as the process of advancing, supporting, modifying, and criticizing claims so that appropriate decision makers may grant or deny adherence. This audience-centered definition holds the assumption that the participants must willingly engage in public debate and discussion, and their arguments must function to open a critical space and keep it open. This essay investigates `ideological pronouncement,' a kind of rhetoric that undermines and limits the possibility of critical discussion among target audiences, as an enemy of sound argumentation. First, the essential characteristics of sound argumentation are explained. Next, the typical characteristics of ideological rhetoric are described. At the same time, the Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan, a Japanese wartime moral education textbook, is examined as a paradigm case of ideological rhetoric. Third, three key pronouncements of the Cardinal Principles are outlined and discussed. Finally, implications from the critical discussion are drawn.     

Culture and group-based emotions: could group-based emotions be dialectical?

Group-based emotions are experienced when individuals are engaged in emotion-provoking events that implicate the in-group. This research examines the complexity of group-based emotions, specifically a concurrence of positive and negative emotions, focusing on the role of dialecticism, or a set of folk beliefs prevalent in Asian cultures that views nature and objects as constantly changing, inherently contradictory, and fundamentally interconnected. Study 1 found that dialecticism is positively associated with the complexity of Chinese participants’ group-based emotions after reading a scenario depicting a positive intergroup experience. Study 2 found that Chinese participants experienced more complex group-based emotions compared with Dutch participants in an intergroup situation and that this cultural difference was mediated by dialecticism. Study 3 manipulated dialecticism and confirmed its causal effect on complex group-based emotions. These studies also suggested the role of a balanced appraisal of an intergroup situation as a mediating factor.     

Presentism and the Triviality Objection

Presentism is usually understood as the thesis that only the present exists whereas the rival theory of eternalism is usually understood as the thesis that past, present, and future things are all equally real. The significance of this debate has been threatened by the so-called triviality objection, which allegedly shows that the presentist thesis is either trivially true or obviously false: Presentism is trivially true if it is read as saying that everything that exists now is present, and it is obviously false if read as saying that everything that has existed, exits or will exist is present. If eternalism is taken as the negation of presentism, it is also either trivially false or obviously true. In this paper, I try to respond to the triviality objection on behalf of presentism. In second section, I will examine how the argument proceeds. In third section, I will reflect on three possible ways to respond but will argue that none of them succeeds in giving a satisfactory solution. I will then try to clarify the core idea of presentism and to suggest that if we characterise presentism accurately, the problem will disappear. In fourth section, I will offer a plausible definition of presentism and will show how it can avoid the triviality objection and demonstrate why it is advantageous to accept the version of presentism I offer.