Practices of freedom: playing with the position of the Other

An exercise for introducing tutors to a group of trainee systemic therapists is described. This is based on a principle of subverting hierarchy between tutors and students in a playful way and invites transparency and self‐disclosure on the part of the tutors. It is an example of ongoing experimentation with positioning theory in systemic training as a way of exploring power differentials and attempting to give voice to subjugated discourses. Tutors and trainees reflect on the excitement and learning arising from the exercise.     

Children's kinematic false memories

ABSTRACT

Individuals misrecognise as seen the never-presented natural continuation of an action. These false memories derive from the running of kinematic mental models of the actions seen, which rest on motor inferences from implicit knowledge. We verified an implied prediction: kinematic false memories should be detectable even in children. The participants in our experiments first observed photos in which actors were about to perform actions on objects. At recognition they were presented with the original photos, plus (a) distractors representing the unseen natural continuation of the original actions, (b) distractors representing the beginning of other actions on the same objects and (c) distractors representing completed different actions on the same objects. In contrast to the original studies in which participants expressed their confidence in recognition, in our experiments the participants catgorirzed the action as seen or not seen. After replicating the original results with the dichotomous recognition task (Experiment 1), we detected spontaneous false memories also in children (Experiment 2).     

Building reciprocity: the dialectic processes of creating a grounded theory and the emergence of a theoretical framework

We reflect on and illustrate with concrete examples the various systematic and creative steps taken along the process of grounded theory (GT). This process led to the emergence of a theoretical framework centered on building reciprocity as a way of collaborating with socio-economically disadvantaged communities and a means for facilitating poverty-reduction initiatives. This article aims to present the systematic processes of analysis that lie behind the theoretical framework and to reflect on the lessons learned along the path to creating a GT. In this way, the emergence of the theoretical framework is examined along the different inductive and analytic steps, and the interrelation between concepts is discussed. Theoretical sensitivity, pacing, sampling, coding, memoing, and sorting in this research are illustrated and brought to light.     

Two Tales of Rumination and Burnout: Examining the Effects of Boredom and Overload

Although boredom poses serious consequences for employees and organizations, research has paid little attention to this phenomenon, especially when compared to other job experiences such as overload. Building upon the Effort-Recovery Model, our study examines the impact of these two sub-optimal experiences, characterized by under- and over-stimulation, on burnout via three facets of rumination. Using a time lagged design with three measurement moments and a sample of 152 participants, we found partial support for our hypotheses. Boredom and overload led to emotional exhaustion and disengagement 2 weeks later, via an increase in affective rumination. Overload also increased emotional exhaustion via reduced detachment, yet boredom reduced emotional exhaustion by facilitating detachment. These findings stress the importance of addressing boredom as a pervasive, although often silent, workplace phenomenon.     

Prenatal daily musical exposure is associated with enhanced neural representation of speech fundamental frequency: Evidence from neonatal frequency-following responses

Fetal hearing experiences shape the linguistic and musical preferences of neonates. From the very first moment after birth, newborns prefer their native language, recognize their mother's voice, and show a greater responsiveness to lullabies presented during pregnancy. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this experience inducing plasticity have remained elusive. Here we recorded the frequency-following response (FFR), an auditory evoked potential elicited to periodic complex sounds, to show that prenatal music exposure is associated to enhanced neural encoding of speech stimuli periodicity, which relates to the perceptual experience of pitch. FFRs were recorded in a sample of 60 healthy neonates born at term and aged 12–72 hours. The sample was divided into two groups according to their prenatal musical exposure (29 daily musically exposed; 31 not-daily musically exposed). Prenatal exposure was assessed retrospectively by a questionnaire in which mothers reported how often they sang or listened to music through loudspeakers during the last trimester of pregnancy. The FFR was recorded to either a /da/ or an /oa/ speech-syllable stimulus. Analyses were centered on stimuli sections of identical duration (113 ms) and fundamental frequency (F₀ = 113 Hz). Neural encoding of stimuli periodicity was quantified as the FFR spectral amplitude at the stimulus F₀. Data revealed that newborns exposed daily to music exhibit larger spectral amplitudes at F₀ as compared to not-daily musically-exposed newborns, regardless of the eliciting stimulus. Our results suggest that prenatal music exposure facilitates the tuning to human speech fundamental frequency, which may support early language processing and acquisition.

Research Highlights

• Frequency-following responses to speech were collected from a sample of neonates prenatally exposed to music daily and compared to neonates not-daily exposed to music.
• Neonates who experienced daily prenatal music exposure exhibit enhanced frequency-following responses to the periodicity of speech sounds.
• Prenatal music exposure is associated with a fine-tuned encoding of human speech fundamental frequency, which may facilitate early language processing and acquisition.