Morphologic asymmetries of the face: A review

It has been suggested that asymmetries in the morphological properties of the face contribute to or produce asymmetries in facial emotional expression. Over 50 years of research on hard tissue, soft tissue, and facial surface asymmetries is reviewed here. Generally, it appears that if consistent asymmetry characterizes facial morphology, it is extremely small in magnitude or characterizes regions yet to be examined. In contrast, marked homology and asymmetry in regional size and area has been noted often. At present, it does not appear that asymmetry in facial morphology is associated with facial expressive asymmetry, with the latter more likely to be an outcome of functional brain asymmetry.     

The cultivation of ‘wild channeling’: lived religion as a normalizing force

ABSTRACT

Channeling, a New Age form of spirit mediumship, is a hyper-individualized religiosity, with proponents claiming that each person can create his/her own reality. Yet, most channels hold to very similar beliefs and practise their craft in a uniform manner. This, for most channels, involves moving through two stages: first, in the wild phase, they undergo powerful experiences of direct encounters with non-material beings who can be harsh and demanding, sensations are strongly embodied, the experience can be horrifying and its meaning remains obscure. In the second, cultivated stage, channels come to understand these raw experiences through pre-existing narratives of meaning learned from friends and literature, the entities channeled are benevolent, and both the content and the form of the sessions come to emphasize empowerment. Both the phenomenology and repetition of lived religion, it is shown, can serve as a regulating force, creating institutionalization of religious practices and beliefs, even when these advocate individualism and are situated in a milieu lacking any formal institutions.     

Relationship between eight physiological variables and severity of stuttering

The results of this study illustrated the primacy of individual differences in the relationship between physiological responses before speech and stuttering severity.     

POLITICS: Automated ideological reasoning

POLITICS is a system of computer programs which simulates humans in comprehending and responding to world events from a given political or ideological perspective. The primary theoretical motivations were: (1) the implemention of a functional system which applies the knowledge structures of Schank and Abelson (1977) to the domain of simulating political belief systems; (2) the development of a tentative theory of intentional goal conflicts and counterplanning. Secondary goals of the POLITICS project include developing a representation for belief systems, investigating cognitive processes such as goal-directed inferencing, and the integration of several types of knowledge representations into a functional system.     

Human and computational question answering

The ability to answer questions about a text is the strongest possible demonstration of text comprehension. The question-answering problems that arise in a story-understanding system are discussed. Some solutions are described and illustrated by a computer program, which reads stories, and answers questions.     

Learning to form relationships in infancy: Parallel attainments with parents and peers

Freud's assertion notwithstanding, the attachment relationship is not “without parallel” in social life. Children's attainments in forming attachments to parents parallel the steps they take in relating to their peers. During the first 3 years of life, in both domains, infants come to recognize prospective social partners, communicate with them, engage them in patterned interaction, including both cooperation and conflict, learn from their presence and actions, and interact in idiosyncratic ways with particular companions. Toward the end of this period, children show signs of acquiring generalized concepts of the social relationships in which they engage. It is proposed that biological constraints on learning promote human infants' interest in and rudimentary abilities to interact with other members of their species. Subsequent incidental and intentional learning processes shape both the child's attachments and less intense relationships with other persons.     

Eye-fixation patterns during reading confirm theories of language comprehension

Eye-movement patterns during reading are consistent with proposition-by-proposition models of speech comprehension. (1) Fixation times are least affected by word length at ends of clauses: this confirms the theory based on the study of speech comprehension that, at such points, attention is directed inward to text integration. (2) Fixation time for words at the end of clauses is longer for canonical sequences which conform to the pattern, “N-V-N = actor-action-object”; this confirms the view that complete semantic integration of such sequences is routinely delayed until their completion. A two-variable model based on principles of exhaustive visual search and speech comprehension accounts for 80% of the fixation durations in a sample paragraph from Just and Carpenter (1980) and Thibodeou, Just ond Carpenter (1982). This comprehension-based model compares favorably with their models constructed within a production-system framework. This result clarifies the relationship between reading and listening.     

Ear asymmetry in recognition of unfamiliar voices

Female right-handed subjects were presented with a memory set consisting of five unfamiliar female voices. They were then tested with a recognition procedure in which samples of voice, memory set or novel, 2 or 4 sec in duration, were heard in one ear and a competing noise stimulus was heard in the other ear. There was an overall left-ear advantage in accuracy of recognition. This advantage held particularly for identifications of memory-set voices in the second half of trials. Internal analyses indicated that the left-ear advantage could not be attributed to greater retroactive interference during right-ear presentation. Congruent with studies of recognition of unfamiliar faces, the findings suggested right-hemisphere superiority in the recognition of unfamiliar voices.     

What are the odds of burnt-out risk and leaving the job? Turnover intent consequences of worker burnout using a two sample New Zealand study

Job burnout is a pressing issue for organizations, and this study explores the new Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT), which provides a robust calculation of burnt-out risk. Next, the odds of high turnover intentions from burnt-out risk are calculated using two samples: (1) N = 709 employees and (2) N = 313 managers. Analysis shows the odds of burnt-out risk are higher for managers (17%) than employees (8%). High burnt-out risk in employees shows a 47% likelihood of high turnover intent versus 13% for employees with nonburnt-out risk. High burnt-out risk in managers shows a 51% likelihood of high turnover intent versus 12% for managers with nonburnt-out risk. Furthermore, moderating effects of supervisor organizational embodiment were found to interact with burnt-out risk for employees only, showing the highest turnover intent when embodiment is high, reflecting the potential backlash against the organization.