Conscious Elaboration Research Articles

Influencing crowding at locations with decision support systems: The role of information timeliness and location recommendations

To target crowding at locations, decision support systems (DSS) increasingly feature crowding information (CI) to indicate how much of a location's available capacity is occupied. Yet, little is known about how and why the timeliness of such CI (e.g., “updated just now”) influences users' selections of differently crowded locations and the effectiveness of location recommendations. Addressing this knowledge gap is, however, important to understand how to design DSS interfaces that prevent (over)crowding and improve related DSS reuse intentions. Drawing on construal level theory, we applied a mixed-methods approach comprising a quantitative and a complementary qualitative study. First, we conducted an online experiment in which 171 participants selected between differently crowded bars. The quantitative data provides evidence that high (vs. low) timeliness of CI leads users to select less crowded bars and raises users' DSS reuse intentions. Yet, the effect of high (vs. low) timeliness of CI on location selection is unexpectedly cancelled out when location recommendations are displayed. In subsequent qualitative interviews with DSS users we find that even though high (vs. low) timeliness of CI affords more conscious elaboration on CI's costs and benefits and increased trusting beliefs, present (vs. absent) location recommendations decrease one's cognitive effort and are more influential than timeliness of CI with regard to the actual location selection. Furthermore, high (vs. low) timeliness of CI enhances positive user perceptions, explaining the increased DSS reuse intentions. Overall, we provide novel insights on the role of timeliness of information for DSS to influence crowding behavior.

The Role of Implicit Memory in the Development and Recovery from Trauma-Related Disorders.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a chronic condition that occurs following a traumatic experience. Information processing models of PTSD focus on integrating situationally triggered sensory-emotional memories with consciously accessible autobiographical memories. Review of the nature of implicit memory supports the view that sensory-emotional memories are implicit in nature. Dissociation was also found to be associated with the development and severity of PTSD, as well as deficits in autobiographical memory. Moreover, disorganized attachment (DA) was associated with greater degrees of dissociation and PTSD, and like the defining neural activation in PTSD, was found to be associated with basal ganglia activity. In addition, subcortical neuroception of safety promotes a neurophysiological substrate supportive of social engagement and inhibition of fear-based responses. Furthermore, activation of representations of co-created imagined scenes of safety and secure attachment are associated with increases in this neurophysiological substrate. Repeated priming of secure attachment imagery was associated with modification of internal working models of DA along with reductions in dissociation and recovery from complex PTSD. In conclusion, it is posited that adequate recovery from extensive trauma experiences requires more than conscious elaboration of traumatic autobiographical memories and that the application of implicit nonconscious memory modification strategies will facilitate more optimal recovery.

Higher Right Hemisphere Gamma Band Lateralization and Suggestion of a Sensitive Period for Vocal Auditory Emotional Stimuli Recognition in Unilateral Cochlear Implant Children: An EEG Study.

In deaf children, huge emphasis was given to language; however, emotional cues decoding and production appear of pivotal importance for communication capabilities. Concerning neurophysiological correlates of emotional processing, the gamma band activity appears a useful tool adopted for emotion classification and related to the conscious elaboration of emotions. Starting from these considerations, the following items have been investigated: (i) whether emotional auditory stimuli processing differs between normal-hearing (NH) children and children using a cochlear implant (CI), given the non-physiological development of the auditory system in the latter group; (ii) whether the age at CI surgery influences emotion recognition capabilities; and (iii) in light of the right hemisphere hypothesis for emotional processing, whether the CI side influences the processing of emotional cues in unilateral CI (UCI) children. To answer these matters, 9 UCI (9.47 ± 2.33 years old) and 10 NH (10.95 ± 2.11 years old) children were asked to recognize nonverbal vocalizations belonging to three emotional states: positive (achievement, amusement, contentment, relief), negative (anger, disgust, fear, sadness), and neutral (neutral, surprise). Results showed better performances in NH than UCI children in emotional states recognition. The UCI group showed increased gamma activity lateralization index (LI) (relative higher right hemisphere activity) in comparison to the NH group in response to emotional auditory cues. Moreover, LI gamma values were negatively correlated with the percentage of correct responses in emotion recognition. Such observations could be explained by a deficit in UCI children in engaging the left hemisphere for more demanding emotional task, or alternatively by a higher conscious elaboration in UCI than NH children. Additionally, for the UCI group, there was no difference between the CI side and the contralateral side in gamma activity, but a higher gamma activity in the right in comparison to the left hemisphere was found. Therefore, the CI side did not appear to influence the physiologic hemispheric lateralization of emotional processing. Finally, a negative correlation was shown between the age at the CI surgery and the percentage of correct responses in emotion recognition and then suggesting the occurrence of a sensitive period for CI surgery for best emotion recognition skills development.

Subliminal determinants of cue-guided choice

By anticipating potential rewards, external cues can guide behavior to achieve a goal. Whether the conscious elaboration of these cues is necessary to elicit cue-guided choices is still unknown. The goal of the present study is to test whether the subliminal presentation of a visual cue previously paired with a reward is sufficient to bias responses that can lead to the same or a similar reward. To this aim, three experiments compared the subliminal and supraliminal presentation of reward-associated cues during a Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer task. In line with previous evidence, results showed that the supraliminal presentation of reward-associated Pavlovian cues biased participant’s choice towards motivationally similar rewards (general transfer) as well as towards rewards sharing the precise sensory-specific properties of the cue (outcome-specific transfer). In striking contrast, subliminal cues biased choice only towards motivationally similar rewards (general transfer). Taken together, these findings suggest that cue-guided choices are modulated by the level of perceptual threshold (i.e., subliminal vs supraliminal) of reward-associated cues. Although conscious elaboration of the cue is necessary to guide choice towards a specific reward, subliminal processing is still sufficient to push towards choices sharing the motivational properties of the cue. Implications for everyday life, clinical conditions, and theoretical accounts of cue-guided choices are discussed.

Blanc, lux et lumen dans la poésie de Czesław Miłosz

The use of the colour white, as with other colours evoked by Czesław Miłosz, is not the result of conscious elaboration (technical, philosophical or mystical). Instead, it seems that the colours belong to another level of thought; they are not chosen, they choose us. However, and this is the object of my demonstration, white and its various nuances structure Miłosz’s work. This work, which has been called the “wonderful mess” due to the many antithetical and apparently disparate themes with which it overflows, has already been explored using several critical approaches and following various common threads. Here, my chosen common thread is the colour white.

The War Generation and Generation Wars: French Veterans and the Association des Écrivains Combattants, 1919–1945

This article examines the ways in which veteran writers, notably through the activities and publications of the Association des Écrivians Combattants [Association of Combatant Writers], were essential to the conscious elaboration of a generational identity amongst French veterans in the interwar years. In particular, it explores how the AEC constructed the war generation in France, examining how its successes, limitations, and legacy beyond the First World War illustrate the ambiguities surrounding the notion of generation. It shows how the AEC mobilized the memory of the war through a range of commemorative textual practices centring on the figure of the dead combatant author in order to assert the rights, interests, and moral authority of French veterans in a society that the latter now sought to ‘correct’ through the example of their generation's sacrifice. It will also explore the political choices this led AEC members to take, focusing in particular on the ambiguous relationship veterans entertained with the French Republic. Finally, it places veterans’ struggle within a pattern of generational politics and conflict that characterizes twentieth-century France and which would see the veteran of World War One supplanted by another generation of veterans: those who had resisted Nazi occupation and collaboration during World War Two.

If 'Journeys' and 'Things' Frame Our Thinking, Can We Adequately Reason About the Nature of Conflict?

Like virtually all discourse, the professional literature on conflict resolution depends heavily on metaphor to explain its central concern: What is conflict and how may it be resolved? Readers are conscious of explicit distinctions, evaluations, and logic, but unconscious metaphors frame thinking, structure assumptions and inferences, and guide reasoning. Are these metaphors adequate, robust, and creative enough to describe and explain our highly specialized knowledge of the complexities of conflict and how to resolve it? This study uses cognitive linguistics methodology to identify metaphors and unpack their mappings in a sizable corpus of mainstream expert literature on mediation and in a small corpus of dynamical systems literature on conflict. In both, two highly conventional conceptual metaphors are found to dominate: conflict metaphorically understood as a journey, including paths, movement, and force dynamics, and conflict metaphorically understood as a material substance or physical object. Building construction, war/struggle and personificationanimation metaphors are frequently used and several others are occasionally used; novel or unusual metaphors are rare. Overwhelmingly the same conceptual metaphors are used in the literature studied here as are commonly found elsewhere in a wide variety of discourse types. Yet certain innovative elaborations and extensions that explicate the complexities that conflict scholars have labored over for decades were found in the dynamical systems corpus. Their value in helping us comprehend and teach the nature of conflict and suggestions for their conscious elaboration are discussed.

Consciousness and arousal effects on emotional face processing as revealed by brain oscillations. A gamma band analysis

It remains an open question whether it is possible to assign a single brain operation or psychological function for facial emotion decoding to a certain type of oscillatory activity. Gamma band activity (GBA) offers an adequate tool for studying cortical activation patterns during emotional face information processing. In the present study brain oscillations were analyzed in response to facial expression of emotions. Specifically, GBA modulation was measured when twenty subjects looked at emotional (angry, fearful, happy, and sad faces) or neutral faces in two different conditions: supraliminal (10 ms) vs subliminal (150 ms) stimulation (100 target-mask pairs for each condition). The results showed that both consciousness and significance of the stimulus in terms of arousal can modulate the power synchronization (ERD decrease) during 150–350 time range: an early oscillatory event showed its peak at about 200 ms post-stimulus. GBA was enhanced by supraliminal more than subliminal elaboration, as well as more by high arousal (anger and fear) than low arousal (happiness and sadness) emotions. Finally a left-posterior dominance for conscious elaboration was found, whereas right hemisphere was discriminant in emotional processing of face in comparison with neutral face.

The prefrontal cortex and conscious monitoring of action: An experimental study

To investigate the role of the prefrontal cortex in conscious monitoring, we used an experimental paradigm generating a conflict between the action planned and the sensory-motor feedback. We analyzed the acquisition of explicit knowledge of the strategy for resolving the conflict and its influence on motor adaptation. Twenty patients with frontal lobe lesions and 18 controls had to trace a sagittal line with a stylus on a graphics tablet. A mirror on which the traced line, processed by a computer, was projected hid the hand. A mask limited visual feedback to the last third of the trajectory. Without informing the subjects, the line traced was modified by introducing a bias of 24° to the right. To succeed in the task, subjects had to modify their motor program and to deviate their trajectory in the opposite direction. Conscious elaboration of the strategy was evaluated by the number of trials needed to explicitly report the required deviation. Three groups of patients were distinguished: (1) with normal explicit strategy; (2) with delayed explicit strategy, and (3) without explicit strategy at the last trial. They significantly differed by the severity of the dysexecutive syndrome, particularly of environmental adherence. Motor adaptation was evaluated by the area between the line traced and the ideal line to compensate for the deviation. In patients with normal elaboration of the strategy, motor control was similar to that of controls, but it was severely disturbed in the other two groups. These results suggest the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in conscious motor monitoring.

¿Anchoring on objectivity or navigating to pleasure?

¿What is it that moves into researching? ¿Why do we conduct it and what is such effort worth? These are the main questions underlying this paper: a tour into several of the topics involved in the "ought to's" of social sciences -objectivity, knowledge, transformation. His claim is that "pleasure is precisely what we count on to found our commitment for researching". Such claim does not imply in any way rather soft or pleasing criteria, for only the studies of great quality, implacable rigour, conscious elaboration and sustained effort, manage to reach the place of a beautiful objects of thought, capable of modifying their authors as well as those who enter in contact with them. To replace that old barometer of objectivity by the hetherodox barometer of pleasure -the main subject of this paper- is not to lowen any of the levels that a good social practice demands. Quite the contrary.

Localization and Identification of Cutaneous Stimuli-Reply

In Reply. —We use the terms identifi cation and localization with their usual connotation in the classic approach to the what and where problem. This approach distinguishes basically two visual systems for orienting and identifying 1 and two cortical neural networks for the parallel processing of visual information related to object qualities (shape, color, size, and so on) and to object location in the extracorporeal space. 2 Both object quality and location are properties that can be memorized and recognized. This recognition is obviously a perceptive process that presupposes some kind of awareness, some conscious elaboration of the sensory experience. If we had chosen to restrict our investigation to gnostic functions, the comments of Dr Schady would have been entirely relevant, and his suggestion to improve the study of topognostic capacity are indeed most interesting. Our study, however, dealt with quite another facet of the localization function.

The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy and Its Significance for the New Order in Central Europe: A Reappraisal

In 1929, when Oscar Jászi published his study on The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, he began his discussion by remarking: “When the task of describing the mass-psychological process of the disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy and of the failure of the conscious elaboration of a common will was tendered me, I was hesitant for a long time in accepting it… I clearly felt that such an undertaking would mean the work of many years and the energies of a man equally qualified as a historian, a sociologist, and an economist. How could one dare to do such a work in a comparatively short time without being an expert in all these fields?” The task has by no means become easier during the forty years that have elapsed since the publication of Jászi's manuscript. In addition to political tracts written during the course of various events or for the deliberate purpose of influencing these events, treatises permeated with resentments rooted in conflicts between the nationalities, and writings dominated by political interpretations in propaganda tracts, a large number of scholarly monographs have been written during the past decades which endeavor to examine all details connected with the causes and process of the collapse of the Central Powers and the reorganization of Central Europe in 1918. The opening of the archives has recently intensifiedthe interest in questions dealing with the disintegration of the monarchy. The bibliographies of the past two years indicate that in the near future the scholarly literature dealing with this problem will be enriched by the publication of many detailed and thorough studies based on new documentary evidence.