Influence of speed-related auditory feedback on braking in a 3D-driving simulator

Although discrete auditory stimuli have been found useful for emergency braking, the role of continuous speed-related auditory feedback has not been investigated yet. This point may though be of importance in electric vehicles in which acoustic cues are drastically changed. The present study addressed this question through two experiments. In experiment 1, 12 usual drivers were exposed to naturalistic auditory feedback mimicking those issued from electric cars, while facing dynamic visual scenes in a 3D driving simulator. After being passively travelled up to a sustained constant speed, subjects had to stop their car in front of a traffic light that unexpectedly turned to red. Modifications of the speed-related auditory feedback did not impact braking initiation and regulation. In experiment 2, synthesized auditory feedback based on the Shepard-Risset glissando was provided to a new sample of 15 usual drivers in the same task. Pitch variations of this acoustic stimulus, although not scaled to an absolute speed, were manipulated as a function of visual speed changes. Changing the mapping between pitch variations of the synthesized auditory feedback and visual speed changes induced adjustments on braking which depended on acceleration/deceleration feedback. These findings stressed the importance of the acoustic content and its dynamics for car speed control.     

全真道人居理念及其当代价值

全真道内丹修炼得以进行,需要满足法、财、侣、地四个方面的条件,其中"地"即是指修道场所,而全真道的人居理念主要体现在其对修道场所的选择上。其在选择修道场所时所体现出来的崇阳、择静、取便和尚简的理念,对于当代社会合理而科学的择居具有重要启示价值。     

Perceptual prioritization of self-associated voices

Information associated with the self is prioritized relative to information associated with others and is therefore processed more quickly and accurately. Across three experiments, we examined whether a new externally-generated voice could become associated with the self and thus be prioritized in perception. In the first experiment, participants learned associations between three unfamiliar voices and three identities (self, friend, stranger). Participants then made speeded judgements of whether voice-identity pairs were correctly matched, or not. A clear self-prioritization effect was found, with participants showing quicker and more accurate responses to the newly self-associated voice relative to either the friend- or stranger- voice. In two further experiments, we tested whether this prioritization effect increased if the self-voice was gender-matched to the identity of the participant (Experiment 2) or if the self-voice was chosen by the participant (Experiment 3). Gender-matching did not significantly influence prioritization; the self-voice was similarly prioritized when it matched the gender identity of the listener as when it did not. However, we observed that choosing the self-voice did interact with prioritization (Experiment 3); the self-voice became more prominent, via lesser prioritization of the other identities, when the self-voice was chosen relative to when it was not. Our findings have implications for the design and selection of individuated synthetic voices used for assistive communication devices, suggesting that agency in choosing a new vocal identity may modulate the distinctiveness of that voice relative to others.     

The Sports Path Not Taken: Pearl Diving Heritage and Cosmopolitanism from Below

ABSTRACT

In contrast to camel and horse racing as well as falconry, pearl diving has not been transformed into a popular heritage sport in the countries of the Arab Gulf. One reason for this striking disinterest is that the actual practice of pearling was undertaken by impoverished and exploited workers, and this is no longer compatible with the new prevailing, self-assertive ‘tribal modern’ of the Arab Gulf.     

Philosophizing with a historiographical figure: Descartes in Degérando’s Histoire comparée des systèmes de philosophie (1804 and 1847)

Abstract

The writings by the ‘state philosophers’ of nineteenth-century France are often seen, either as entirely driven by political or ideological concerns, or reduced to mere history of philosophy. Hence, ironically, those who established the philosophical canon that still now informs philosophy teaching in France were themselves excluded from that canon. Using the heuristic concept of a philosophical figure, this article intends to show how, for these philosophers, historiography represented a seemingly inoffensive, but in reality, extremely efficient means of searching out philosophical alternatives to the institutionally dominant philosophy of Victor Cousin (1792–1867). Focusing on the almost forgotten case of Joseph-Marie Degérando (1772–1842), I show how he used the philosophical figure of Descartes and how he used it to counter Cousin.