Formalising a hypothesis for the development of anticipatory skill in time-constrained interceptive actions: Implications for the design of junior sport

When professional athletes strike a ball in tennis, cricket or baseball, the high temporal demands often necessitate the need to exploit pre-ball-flight information in order to anticipate the ball's trajectory. Despite the wealth of research probing anticipatory behaviour in sport, our understanding of when, how or why anticipatory skill develops is limited. In this article, we sought to formalise a hypothesis on the development of anticipatory skill. Using empirical temporal data from tennis, cricket and baseball, we propose that the temporal demands of the task dictate an athlete's propensity to anticipate. We then outline the implications of this hypothesis as it relates to junior sport. Notably, we question whether current playing dimensions in junior sport impose temporal demands that are sufficient to elicit anticipatory behaviour. Using tennis, cricket and baseball as examples, we illustrate differences in temporal demands between the junior and professional game and present implications for anticipation. Our discussion challenges the current junior sport experience as it relates to developing anticipatory skill.     

The construction of gender in halakhic Responsa by the Reform movement: transgender people as a case study

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the expanding field of trans-Jewish-feminist studies in general, and to the scholarship about Jewish law in particular, by analyzing the ways in which the Reform movement has gradually legitimized transgender people and accepted them fully. Applying Judith Butler's ideas about the heterosexual matrix as an analytical tool, the article demonstrates how the Reform movement, in a slow and gradual process, has left the entire heterosexual matrix behind, although it can be claimed that the process (of leaving behind the heterosexual matrix) has not run all the way to a complete dissolution.     

Reducing Proactive Interference in Motor Tasks

Abstract

Changing automatized movement patterns often leads to initial performance decrements caused by proactive interference. In this study, we scrutinized whether proactive interference could be reduced by inhibiting the to-be-changed movement pattern by means of a physical movement constraint and verbal inhibition instructions, and whether any of the two interventions may be superior. Skilled typists typed short texts as fast and accurately as possible on a regular QWERTZ keyboard. After baseline measures, a new rule prohibiting the use of the left index finger was introduced. Subsequently, participants took part in either a verbal instruction or an additional motor restriction intervention phase. Results revealed that the original rule change was successful in inducing proactive interference in skilled typists. Most importantly, the two interventions similarly reduced proactive interference both immediately following the rule change and after ten practice sessions. We conclude that reducing proactive interference by means of physical motor restrictions and verbal instructions may be equally effective.     

Laying Claim to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Legacy

This essay assesses the oft-made link between Walter Rauschenbusch and Martin Luther King Jr. Denying neither Rauschenbusch’s influence on King nor King’s social gospel status, it nevertheless questions the way historians locate Rauschenbusch’s legacy in King and the civil rights movement. This strategy, however unintentionally, reproduces the white social gospel’s “astigmatism” on race and undermines the contributions of black social gospel (and other neglected) leaders even as revised histories affirm them. After exploring King’s references to Rauschenbusch and Rauschenbusch’s reflections on race, the paper compares their theologies. This comparison reveals key differences on race and economic justice that ramify across Rauschenbusch’s and King’s distinctive articulations of social gospel categories, further complicating historians’ claims on King. Oversimplifying the connection between these important figures in religious ethics distorts theological understanding of social gospel legacies and compromises their power for future generations.     

Analysis and Discrimination of Surface Electromyographic Features for Parkinson’s Disease during Elbow Flexion Movements

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. Early intervention/treatment relies on early diagnosis of PD. There is increasing interest in methods based on electromyography measurements of PD patients because of its noninvasiveness. Thus, this study was to investigate electromyographic (EMG) characteristics of the upper limb between PD patients and healthy control subjects using EMG, and to distinguish PD patients from healthy control subjects according to the EMG information using a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Sixteen right-handed PD patients and 25 right-handed healthy subjects participated in experiments involving elbow flexion movement. The frequency power, duration, skewness, recurrence rate, and correlation dimension of EMG signals and success rate for the right hand and the skewness of EMG signals for the left hand were found to be significantly different between the two groups. This information was subsequently used to distinguish PD patients from healthy control subjects using the SVM classifier to obtain a mean accuracy of 87.02%. Although the results may not be immediately available to use in clinical applications, the safety, simplicity and speed of the system still merits further consideration. Enhancing performance accuracy and examining PD patients in different stages of disease are anticipated in future investigations.     

Analysis of the Movement-Inducing Effects of Music through the Fractality of Head Sway during Standstill

Abstract

The links between music and human movement have been shown to provide insight into crucial aspects of human’s perception, cognition, and sensorimotor systems. In this study, we examined the influence of music on movement during standstill, aiming at further characterizing the correspondences between movement, music, and perception, by analyzing head sway fractality. Eighty seven participants were asked to stand as still as possible for 500?seconds while being presented with alternating silence and audio stimuli. The audio stimuli were all rhythmic in nature, ranging from a metronome track to complex electronic dance music. The head position of each participant was captured with an optical motion capture system. Long-range correlations of head movement were estimated by detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). Results agree with previous work on the movement-inducing effect of music, showing significantly greater head sway and lower head sway fractality during the music stimuli. In addition, patterns across stimuli suggest a two-way adaptation process to the effects of music, with musical stimuli influencing head sway while at the same time fractality modulated movement responses. Results indicate that fluctuations in head movement in both conditions exhibit long-range correlations, suggesting that the effects of music on head movement depended not only on the value of the most recent measured intervals, but also on the values of those intervals at distant times.     

Organizing Race

Faith‐based community organizing is receiving an increasing amount of attention from scholars of religious ethics. This essay is motivated by the worry that accounts of such organizing depend on a problematic embrace of multiculturalism, an embrace characteristic of our neoliberal era. Like the powers that they purport to challenge, organizing efforts often embrace difference (racial, gender, and religious) only when it is carefully managed. This is being challenged by theological accounts of organizing that take the religious dimension of such efforts seriously, as well as by feminist critiques of community organizing. This essay probes how race might be taken just as seriously by religious ethicists who study community organizing. Drawing on the civil rights movement's legacy of faith‐based community mobilization as well as traditions of Black theological reflection, this essay challenges the easy embrace of multi‐racial coalitions in faith‐based organizing.     

Telling the Truth About Power

SUMMARY

In this culture, those in power do not usually talk about it and the rest of us tend not to recognize it either. A similar situation exists in therapy, where the therapist herself may not be aware of her own power-over tactics. This article suggests methods that may help therapists to acknowledge their power and also to change from power-over actions to mutually empowering relationships. From this line of thinking, there follows an exploration of altering the concept of boundaries in therapy into mutually constructed agreements between patient and therapist. This article was presented at the Summer Training Institute of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute, June, 2003.     

嵌套词汉字位置加工的亚词边界效应

使用眼动追踪技术，采用边界范式，考察了三字嵌套词的汉字位置加工是否存在亚词边界效应。实验以三字前嵌套词（如“历史系”）和三字后嵌套词（如“核技术”）为靶子，对次字和尾字进行操纵（相同、转置和替换）。结果发现：对于前嵌套词，靶子的注视时间在替换条件显著长于转置条件，相同条件和转置条件差异不显著；对于后嵌套词，靶子的注视时间在转置条件显著长于相同条件，替换条件和转置条件差异不显著。结果表明：跨亚词边界汉字转置不影响词汇识别，而亚词首字转置干扰词汇识别。