Recognition of natural scenes from global properties: seeing the forest without representing the trees

Human observers are able to rapidly and accurately categorize natural scenes, but the representation mediating this feat is still unknown. Here we propose a framework of rapid scene categorization that does not segment a scene into objects and instead uses a vocabulary of global, ecological properties that describe spatial and functional aspects of scene space (such as navigability or mean depth). In Experiment 1, we obtained ground truth rankings on global properties for use in Experiments 2-4. To what extent do human observers use global property information when rapidly categorizing natural scenes? In Experiment 2, we found that global property resemblance was a strong predictor of both false alarm rates and reaction times in a rapid scene categorization experiment. To what extent is global property information alone a sufficient predictor of rapid natural scene categorization? In Experiment 3, we found that the performance of a classifier representing only these properties is indistinguishable from human performance in a rapid scene categorization task in terms of both accuracy and false alarms. To what extent is this high predictability unique to a global property representation? In Experiment 4, we compared two models that represent scene object information to human categorization performance and found that these models had lower fidelity at representing the patterns of performance than the global property model. These results provide support for the hypothesis that rapid categorization of natural scenes may not be mediated primarily though objects and parts, but also through global properties of structure and affordance.     

Thinking outside of the box: Transfer of shape-based reorientation across the boundary of an arena

The way in which human and non-human animals represent the shape of their environments remains a contentious issue. According to local theories of shape learning, organisms encode the local geometric features of the environment that signal a goal location. In contrast, global theories of shape learning suggest that organisms encode the overall shape of the environment. There is, however, a surprising lack of evidence to support this latter claim, despite the fact that common behaviours seem to require encoding of the global-shape of an environment. We tested one such behaviour in 5 experiments, in which human participants were trained to navigate to a hidden goal on one side of a virtual arena (e.g. the inside) before being required to find the same point on the alternative side (e.g. the outside). Participants navigated to the appropriate goal location, both when inside and outside the virtual arena, but only when the shape of the arena remained the same between training and test (Experiments 1a and 1b). When the arena shape was transformed between these stages, participants were lost (Experiments 2a and 2b). When training and testing was conducted on the outside of two different-shaped arenas that shared local geometric cues participants once again explored the appropriate goal location (Experiment 3). These results provide core evidence that humans encode a global representation of the overall shape of the environments in, or around, which they navigate.     

Global Leadership,Education, and Human Survival

Global leadership is the pivotal point for appropriate policies and action to ensure human survival, but a fast-changing world requires a learning leadership. How can potential and serving leaders acquire the necessary skills, abilities, and attributes for them to recognize and address the threats and challenges to our survival in the contemporary world? Serving leaders have little time for formal learning. They learn on the job through reciprocal peer interaction and transactional relationships with their followers. But the global aspect demands another dimension, cybernetic learning, within which an awareness of global ethics is central.     

Evolution of the Global Corporation: A Systemic Perspective

The growth of the modern corporation from local and nationally centered origins to the multinational and then the global level is traced on the one hand to global flows of matter, energy, and information, and on the other to the geographic and political constraints exercised by nation-states. The emergence of the global corporation follows basic laws of evolution applicable to all complex systems, whether in nature or in society. Thus the global corporation is a new but not an anomalous phenomenon on the stage of history.     

Training to be a volunteer Rape Crisis counsellor: a qualitative study of women's experiences

This is an account of a qualitative study designed to elicit and analyse the narratives of women who had trained to be volunteer counsellors at a Rape Crisis centre. Little prior research has focused on the experiences of workers in Rape Crisis centres and this project was designed to explore women's experiences in ways that were meaningful to them. The research methods used were face-to-face, unstructured, in-depth individual interviews and group sessions. Participants in the individual interviews had all undertaken Rape Crisis training within the preceding two years. The group sessions involved all workers who were actively involved with the Rape Crisis centre at the time of the research. Five themes emerged from an inductive analysis of the data: motivation to train, complexity and change, changes in personal relationships, personal change and feminism. Overall the study highlights the complex, transformative processes that volunteer Rape Crisis counsellors may experience. The article concludes by identifying implications for practice that may serve to enhance training for volunteer counsellors in the future.     

Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation of the right Wernicke's area improves comprehension in subacute stroke patients

Previous studies have shown the appearance of right-sided language-related brain activity in right-handed patients after a stroke. Non-invasive brain stimulation such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) have been shown to modulate excitability in the brain. Moreover, rTMS and tDCS have been found to improve naming in non-fluent post-stroke aphasic patients. Here, we investigated the effect of tDCS on the comprehension of aphasic patients with subacute stroke. We hypothesized that tDCS applied to the left superior temporal gyrus (Wernicke’s area) or the right Wernicke’s area might be associated with recovery of comprehension ability in aphasic patients with subacute stroke. Participants included right-handed subacute stroke patients with global aphasia due to ischemic infarct of the left M1 or M2 middle cerebral artery. Patients were randomly divided into three groups: patients who received anodal tDCS applied to the left superior temporal gyrus, patients who received cathodal tDCS applied to the right superior temporal gyrus, and patients who received sham tDCS. All patients received conventional speech and language therapy during each period of tDCS application. The Korean-Western Aphasia Battery (K-WAB) was used to assess all patients before and after tDCS sessions. After intervention, all patients had significant improvements in aphasia quotients, spontaneous speech, and auditory verbal comprehension. However, auditory verbal comprehension improved significantly more in patients treated with a cathode, as compared to patients in the other groups. These results are consistent with the role of Wernicke’s area in language comprehension and the therapeutic effect that cathodal tDCS has on aphasia patients with subacute stroke, suggesting that tDCS may be an adjuvant treatment approach for aphasia rehabilitation therapy in patients in an early stage of stroke.     

Can global justice provide a path toward achieving justice across the Americas?

In this article, I investigate actions that the United States took against Costa Rica during the 1980s in order to argue that current discussions about global justice and its foundations are flawed in three ways. First, it misidentifies the parties of global justice as individual citizens. Second, it conceptualizes global justice as exclusively a distributive justice concern and, as a result, it misidentifies what constitutes a global injustice as being the adverse fate of individuals who live in a poor nation. Finally, the current debate provides no guidance in what must be considered to identify the specific obligations one nation may have to another nation. Given these three problems, I maintain that we conceptualize global injustice as an issue of social justice rather than one exclusively of distributive justice. This will require identifying nations as the parties to global justice, at least in certain cases, and realizing that our goal is to remedy oppressive global structures of power. Utilizing the social justice I propose will put us on the road toward achieving justice across the Americas.     

Power affects basic cognition: Increased attentional inhibition and flexibility

The present article examines effects of power on basic cognition. It proposes that power bolsters the ability to attend to information selectively; enhancing the processing of information that is related to accessible constructs in detriment of peripheral, less accessible information. In contrast, powerlessness increases attunement to peripheral information, inducing greater distractibility and less attentional flexibility. Experiment 1 focuses on attention to an object and its context. Experiment 2 examines attentional focus and readiness to act. Experiment 3 examines attention to global vs. local aspects of a focal target. Powerful individuals, relative to powerless individuals, showed greater ability to inhibit peripheral information, and greater ability to focus attention in line with the demands of the task. Furthermore, inhibiting peripheral information facilitated action. The consequences of these findings for different domains are discussed.