Informed horses are influential in group movements,but they may avoid leading

In species that move in cohesive groups, animals generally reach decisions through socially distributed processes, and individual knowledge is expected to influence collective decision making. Pooling of information should not be considered a general rule, however, since conflicts of interest may occur between group members. When resources are limited or highly attractive, higher-ranking individuals can prevent others from accessing food, and subordinates may have an interest in withholding information about its location. We investigated the role individual knowledge may play in recruitment processes in four groups of horses (Equus caballus). Animals were repeatedly released in a food search situation, in which one individual had been informed about the location of a preferred food, while another was a naïve control subject. Horses that were informed about the location of the feeding site were seen to approach the food source more steadily and were followed by a higher number of group members than their uninformed counterparts. Recruitment processes appeared mostly passive. Among the informed subjects, lower-ranking individuals were overall less followed than the higher-ranking ones. Most lower-ranking horses arrived alone at the feeding site. Non-followed informed subjects spent less time in active walk and used direct paths less frequently than followed animals, and they were joined by fewer partners at the attractive food source and spent more time feeding alone. This indicates that the influence of informed individuals on the behavior of other group members was a mixed process. Some horses brought nutritional benefits to their conspecifics by leading them to food supplies, whereas the behavior of others might be functionally deceptive.     

Sequent Calculi and Decision Procedures for Weak Modal Systems

We investigate sequent calculi for the weak modal (propositional) system reduced to the equivalence rule and extensions of it up to the full Kripke system containing monotonicity, conjunction and necessitation rules. The calculi have cut elimination and we concentrate on the inversion of rules to give in each case an effective procedure which for every sequent either furnishes a proof or a finite countermodel of it. Applications to the cardinality of countermodels, the inversion of rules and the derivability of Löb rules are given.     

Unfamiliar voice discrimination for short stimuli in newborns

In order to determine the minimal information required for newborns to discriminate unfamiliar voices two experiments were performed using the presentation of single disyllabic words uttered by male and female speakers. In the first experiment, utilizing the standard high‐amplitude‐sucking procedure, no significant discrimination was obtained. Hypothesizing that this failure in discrimination could be due to a deficient attention at the unique moment of stimulus change, a second experiment was performed in which the same to‐be‐discriminated stimuli alternated every minute and in which multiple tokens of the same word were presented to increase stimulus variability. Evidence for voice discrimination was obtained, suggesting that newborns are able to characterize unfamiliar voices on the basis of restrained vocal‐tract related information and minor prosodic information. Remarks addressing the consequences of stimulus organization upon attentional demands in experimental procedures in young infants are also presented.     

The Role of Affective Dispositions in Job Satisfaction and Work Strain: Comparing Collectivist and Individualist Societies

The individualism-collectivism dimension cuts across the East and the West. It explains the differing values and cultural breeding that are necessary in acculturating people's affective and cognitive behaviours in accordance with the culture to which they belong. Many empirical studies have investigated the effects of personality traits on job satisfaction and work strain. The personality of individuals affects how they perceive the impact of job satisfaction and work stress. Furthermore, personality traits are influenced by cultural background. This study surveyed 626 nurses from collectivist and individualist societies to find out the possible difference in the role of affective dispositions in self-reported job satisfaction and work strain between these two cultural orientations.     

Standardization and the democratic design of information and communication technology

The way information and communication technology (ICT) develops can promote or hinder the democratic potential of this critical societal infrastructure. Concerns about the role standards development organizations (SDOs) play in this context predate the “digital age” but are reemerging amid substantial changes in the institutional landscape of standardization. This article explores the increasingly critical link between the institutional design of SDOs and the democratic design of ICT. We review some principles of democracy in terms of the design of technology, apply these to standardization, and discuss the role public policy may play here, while distinguishing between input and output legitimacy. Eric J. Iversen is the guest editor of this issue of Knowledge, Technology, & Policy. His biographical sketch accompanies his Introduction. Thierry Vedel is a researcher with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. He is based at the Center for Political Research (CEVIPOF) at the National Foundation for Political Science. Having worked on public policies in the area of new communication technologies, he is currently engaged in research on electronic democracy and the governance of communication networks in a context of globalization. Thierry Vedel teaches communication and politics at the University of Paris 2 and at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. He may be reached via http://www.cevipof.mshparis.fr/. His current research is focused on the interaction of technical and institutional innovations and on the evolution, development, and governance of the Internet.     

Cognitive effort during note taking

Note taking is a complex activity that requires comprehension and selection of information and written production processes. Here we review the functions, abbreviation procedures, strategies, and working memory constraints of note taking with the aim of improving theoretical and practical understanding of the activity. The time urgency of selecting key points and recording them while comprehending new information at the same time places significant demands on the central executive and other components of working memory. Dual‐ and triple‐task procedures allow the measurement of the momentary cognitive effort or executive attention allocated to note taking. Comparative data show that note taking demands more effort than reading or learning. However, it requires less effort than the creative written composition of an original text. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stereotype content of people with acquired brain injury: Warm but incompetent

Since stereotypes about people with acquired brain injury (ABI) can lead to prejudice, studying these stereotypes is highly important. In two studies, we examined these stereotypes both on idiosyncratic dimensions and on the two dimensions of the Stereotype Content Model. Participants completed a specific questionnaire about ABI and warmth and competence questionnaires regarding people with ABI and other social groups. Specific stereotypes about ABI were found to be underpinned by dimensions of “cognitive impairments and ADL limitations,” “catastrophic outcomes,” and “personal and interpersonal development.” Within the model, people with ABI were seen as being warm but incompetent. The ambivalent ABI stereotype could elicit prejudicial attitudes that may impede rehabilitation.     

Metamemory following childhood brain injury: A consequence of executive impairment

In this study, we investigated the influence of children’s level of executive functioning on two types of metamemory knowledge following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). For this purpose, 22 children (aged 7 to 14 years) who had sustained a moderate to severe TBI and 44 typically developing children were recruited. The children with TBI were divided into two groups according to the severity of their executive impairment. Injury severity was determined by the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score on admission or by the duration of unconsciousness. All children were then tested on both their knowledge of general memory functioning and their level of memory self-awareness, respectively assessed using the total number of correct responses on an adapted version of a metamemory interview and a self-other discrepancy score on a questionnaire evaluating everyday memory abilities. Data analyses revealed that participants with TBI who suffered impaired executive functions demonstrated less general metamemory knowledge, and underestimated the frequency of their memory problems, compared with children with TBI who had preserved executive functions and with control participants. Considering the well-established effect of metamemory knowledge on people’s spontaneous implementation of strategies, the interest and the importance of these findings on both theoretical and clinical grounds are discussed.