Familiar Context Research Articles

Consistent Neural Activity Patterns Represent Personally Familiar People.

How does the brain encode and organize our understanding of the people we know? In this study, participants imagined personally familiar others in a variety of contexts while undergoing fMRI. Using multivoxel pattern analysis, we demonstrated that thinking about familiar others elicits consistent fine-grained patterns of neural activity. Person-specific patterns were distributed across many regions previously associated with social cognition, including medial prefrontal, medial parietal, and lateral temporoparietal cortices, as well as other regions including the anterior and mid-cingulate, insula, and precentral gyrus. Analogous context-specific patterns were observed in medial parietal and superior occipital regions. These results suggest that medial parietal cortex may play a particularly central role in simulating familiar others, as this is the only region to simultaneously represent both person and context information. Moreover, within portions of medial parietal cortex, the degree to which person-specific patterns were typically instated on a given trial predicted subsequent judgments of accuracy and vividness in the mental simulation. This suggests that people may access neural representations in this region to form metacognitive judgments of confidence in their mental simulations. In addition to fine-grained patterns within brain regions, we also observed encoding of both familiar people and contexts in coarse-grained patterns spread across the independently defined social brain network. Finally, we found tentative evidence that several established theories of person perception might explain the relative similarity between person-specific patterns within the social brain network.

Sensory Processing in the Dorsolateral Striatum: The Contribution of Thalamostriatal Pathways.

The dorsal striatum has two functionally-defined subdivisions: a dorsomedial striatum (DMS) region involved in mediating goal-directed behaviors that require conscious effort, and a dorsolateral striatum (DLS) region involved in the execution of habitual behaviors in a familiar sensory context. Consistent with its presumed role in forming stimulus-response (S-R) associations, neurons in DLS receive massive inputs from sensorimotor cortex and are responsive to both active and passive sensory stimulation. While several studies have established that corticostriatal inputs contribute to the stimulus-induced responses observed in the DLS, there is growing awareness that the thalamus has a significant role in conveying sensory-related information to DLS and other parts of the striatum. The thalamostriatal projections to DLS originate mainly from the caudal intralaminar region, which contains the parafascicular (Pf) nucleus, and from higher-order thalamic nuclei such as the medial part of the posterior (POm) nucleus. Based on recent findings, we hypothesize that the thalamostriatal projections from these two regions exert opposing influences on the expression of behavioral habits. This article reviews the subcortical circuits that regulate the transmission of sensory information through these thalamostriatal projection systems, and describes the evidence that indicates these circuits could be manipulated to ameliorate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and related neurological disorders.

Crowdsourcing without profit: The role of seeker motivation and strategies

While crowdsourcing is an important form of open innovation (OI), research has largely been limited to profit-seeking firms. Here we study how crowdsourcing is implemented by non-profit seeking organizations, and how it is different from the more familiar corporate context .Using data from local governments that use the same intermediary, we study how the variation of seeker motivation and strategies influences their online engagement behaviour, thereby making their crowdsourcing efforts more or less likely to succeed. Our findings suggest government agencies that adopt a strategic approach to crowdsourcing show a greater potential to produce successful outcomes, which in turn is underpinned by an overarching motivation to achieve transformative change. Based on this, we develop a three-phase model of crowdsourcing implementation. We also reveal how the non- pecuniary orientation of both seekers and solvers makes the motives, goals and processes of such crowdsourcing fundamentally different to corporate c...

Investigação psicológica em contexto prisional português: uma revisão sistemática da literatura e desafios futuros para a investigação

O presente artigo procura, por meio de uma revisão sistemática da literatura, identificar e compreender as temáticas predominantes na investigação em contexto prisional português, identificando oportunidades de investigação futura. A análise de 41 artigos permite identificar 6 tipologias de estudos que caracterizam este domínio de investigação, nomeadamente, estudos empíricos com população adulta, população juvenil e com staff prisional, estudos de adaptação e/ou validação de instrumentos, programas de intervenção e artigos teóricos. A nível temático, a investigação com população forense adulta, que representa 18 dos 41 estudos analisados, centra-se nos domínios da psicopatologia e perturbações de personalidade. Os resultados permitem concluir que a investigação psicológica em contexto prisional se tem centrado, maioritariamente, em temas psicológicos clássicos, do domínio clínico, com recolha de dados junto dos reclusos. A utilização de abordagens multinível e a investigação nos domínios organizacional, ocupacional, educacional e da sexualidade humana, são identificados como oportunidades de investigação futura.

Conservation priorities for elementary school students: Neotropical and European perspectives

Nature conservation can only be an efficient process if involving different society actors, especially those that have long-term and multiplying effects on how society relates with nature, such as children/students. To delineate nature conservation strategies, we need to understand the drivers that shape peoples’ behaviors and attitudes towards nature; for students this is mostly determined by their past experience and influence of their socio-economic and familiar context. To test these assumptions, we develop a study focused on elementary school students from Portugal and Brazil. In each country we selected two student’s groups representing two distinct socio-environmental contexts: rural and urban populations. Based on a written questionnaire, we aimed at understanding the effect of parental and socio-environmental contexts, gender, prior contact with nature and online news-associated environmental information, on how students prioritize taxa to be conserved. Furthermore, we analyzed how health, economic and touristic values constrain pro-conservation attitudes. Students from urban areas and from Portugal showed a lower probability of having a pro-conservation attitude. Brazilian and rural students may have a more frequent contact with nature and live in regions of higher biodiversity, two factors that may act synergistically to produce those patterns. Positive attitudes towards conservation seem to be over-ruled by health (i.e. self-preservation) and economical (i.e. financial subsistence) interests and values. Moreover, students prioritize for conservation species that are commonly mentioned in the online news, particularly mammals, and plants. Acknowledging that students rank higher health and economical values over conservation ones, as well as the perceptible importance of contacting with nature and the apparent relevance of online news as information vehicles, may increase the chances of improving the efficacy of nature conservation strategies. Furthermore, this information can lead to an improvement of environmental awareness and literacy.

Social context affects behavior, preoptic area gene expression, and response to D2 receptor manipulation during territorial defense in a cichlid fish.

Social context often has profound effects on behavior, yet the neural and molecular mechanisms which mediate flexible behavioral responses to different social environments are not well understood. We used the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, to examine aggressive defense behavior across three social contexts representing different motivational states: a reproductive opportunity, a familiar male and a neutral context. To elucidate how differences in behavior across contexts may be mediated by neural gene expression, we examined gene expression in the preoptic area, a brain region known to control male aggressive and sexual behavior. We show that social context has broad effects on preoptic gene expression. Specifically, we found that the expression of genes encoding nonapeptides and sex steroid receptors are upregulated in the familiar male context. Furthermore, circulating levels of testosterone and cortisol varied markedly depending on social context. We also manipulated the D2 receptor (D2R) in each social context, given that it has been implicated in mediating context-dependent behavior. We found that a D2R agonist reduced intruder-directed aggression in the reproductive opportunity and familiar male contexts, while a D2R antagonist inhibited intruder-directed aggression in the reproductive opportunity context and increased aggression in the neutral context. Our results demonstrate a critical role for preoptic gene expression, as well as circulating steroid hormone levels, in encoding information from the social environment and in shaping adaptive behavior. In addition, they provide further evidence for a role of D2R in context-dependent behavior.

Porch and Playhouse, Parlor and Performance Hall: Traversing Boundaries in Gottschalk'sThe Banjo

AbstractThis article reconsiders the cultural significance and historical impact of the well-known virtuosic piano compositionThe Banjoby Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Throughout the early nineteenth century, the banjo and the piano inhabited very specific and highly contrasting performance circumstances: black folk entertainment and minstrel shows for the former, white middle- and upper-class parlors and concert halls for the latter. InThe Banjo, Louis Moreau Gottschalk lifted the banjo out of its familiar contexts and placed it in the spaces usually privileged for the piano. Taking its inspiration from both African American and minstrel banjo playing techniques, Gottschalk's composition relaxed and muddled the boundaries among performance spaces, racial and class divisions, and two conspicuously different musical instruments in an egalitarian effort to demonstrate that, contrary to the opinions of some mid-nineteenth-century musical critics and tastemakers, both the piano and the banjo have a place in the shaping of American music culture.

Drinking among strangers: A meta-analysis examining familiarity as a moderator of alcohol's rewarding effects.

Drinking in unfamiliar social settings has long been linked to alcohol problems. A large body of indirect evidence has accumulated to suggest that alcohol's rewarding subjective effects-both tension relieving and positive-mood enhancing-will be magnified when it is consumed among strangers versus among familiar individuals. But the link between social familiarity and alcohol reward has never been examined. I conducted a meta-analysis of 21 alcohol-administration studies featuring social context (total N = 2,046), examining the effects of alcohol on self-reports of mood and social outcomes and on behaviors in the context of social interactions. Studies were classified according to whether participants involved in the social interaction were previously acquainted prior to study participation (familiarity condition) and also according to other characteristics of the social interaction and alcohol-dosing procedure. Results of random effects metaregression models revealed a significant effect of familiarity in moderating alcohol response, Q(1) = 9.80, p = .0002. Alcohol-related social-emotional enhancement was significantly larger when studies examined interactions among strangers (d = .48, 95% confidence interval [CI: .34, .61]) versus when they examined interactions among familiar individuals (d = .09, 95% CI [-.12, .29]). Of note, in analyses examining self-reports and behaviors separately, findings indicated that alcohol consumption leads to similar behavioral disinhibition across familiar and unfamiliar contexts but that the consequences of this disinhibition for internal subjective experience may differ depending on familiarity. Overall, results suggest that individuals may gain more subjective reward from alcohol in unfamiliar social contexts, pointing to familiarity as a potentially promising line of inquiry for research examining mechanisms of risk for alcohol problems. (PsycINFO Database Record

Building dynamic 3D visualizations through ontology-guided interactions with domain knowledge and simulation models

We need to find better ways of allowing non-computing experts to construct visualizations of dynamic models within familiar domain-specific contexts. Current methods used to construct these customized views, however, are expensive since content experts must employ engineers to code the mathematical model that defines the dynamic behaviour of the scenario. Engineers must then somehow visualize the output of the model. These tasks are typically performed with engineering software tools or just pure computer programming. We define an interface and interaction model that compresses this engineering overhead, thus narrowing the user interface gap between mathematical modelling and three-dimensional interactive visualization design and consumption. We present an interaction theory and corresponding software prototype. Both are discussed using a human cardiovascular system case study.

Contextual cueing improves attentional guidance, even when guidance is supposedly optimal.

Visual search through previously encountered contexts typically produces reduced reaction times compared with search through novel contexts. This contextual cueing benefit is well established, but there is debate regarding its underlying mechanisms. Eye-tracking studies have consistently shown reduced number of fixations with repetition, supporting improvements in attentional guidance as the source of contextual cueing. However, contextual cueing benefits have been shown in conditions in which attentional guidance should already be optimal-namely, when attention is captured to the target location by an abrupt onset, or under pop-out conditions. These results have been used to argue for a response-related account of contextual cueing. Here, we combine eye tracking with response time to examine the mechanisms behind contextual cueing in spatially cued and pop-out conditions. Three experiments find consistent response time benefits with repetition, which appear to be driven almost entirely by a reduction in number of fixations, supporting improved attentional guidance as the mechanism behind contextual cueing. No differences were observed in the time between fixating the target and responding-our proxy for response related processes. Furthermore, the correlation between contextual cueing magnitude and the reduction in number of fixations on repeated contexts approaches 1. These results argue strongly that attentional guidance is facilitated by familiar search contexts, even when guidance is near-optimal. (PsycINFO Database Record

On the Awareness of English Polysemous Words by Arabic-Speaking EFL Learners

This study measures the extent to which Arabic-speaking EFL learners are aware of polysemy in English. It also investigates whether the English proficiency level of Arabic-speaking EFL learners plays a role in their ability to distinguish between the various meanings of English polysemous words, and whether they face problems when they encounter these words in unusual contexts (i.e. the contexts that employ the extended meanings of the target polysemous words). To these ends, a translation test in which the participants were asked to give full Arabic translation for fifteen English sentences was designed. The words open, run, and make were the target polysemous words in this study. The Results show that Arabic-speaking EFL learners have little awareness of polysemy in English, and their English proficiency level does play a role in their ability to distinguish between the different meanings of English polysemous words. It was also found that Arabic-speaking EFL learners have no problems guessing the primary meaning of the English polysemous words. However, they face difficulty guessing the extended meanings of polysemous words in unusual contexts. Moreover, some Arabic-speaking EFL learners can guess the extended meanings of the polysemous words they encounter in familiar contexts, or when they understand some cues provided to disambiguate these words. This study concludes with some pedagogical implications and recommendations for further studies.

Season to taste: Television cookery programmes, aesthetics and seasonality

Abstract This article considers seasonality in relation to television and its more familiar context, food. From the perspective of television aesthetics, moving beyond dominant evaluative conceptions of ‘aesthetics’ often found in studies of TV cookery shows, it argues that selected recent cookery programmes warrant and reward aesthetic attention. Specifically, considering examples fronted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nigel Slater, this article contends that such shows evoke ‘seasonality’ in myriad ways and by varied means, many of which fall under the realm of the aesthetic. These programmes do more than offer cookery instruction or educate the viewer with regard to when particular foods are in and out of season. They stand as legitimate works of TV art which contribute to an aesthetic appreciation of changing seasons. They contribute to the perpetuation of cultural seasonality, offer vital and powerful reminders of our natural-world seasonality, and encourage the audience to celebrate both.

To Whom Does History Belong?

This article discusses different processes of appropriation of history in three former Soviet Republics. It provides a context for the recent historical retrofitting by taking the re-monumentalisation of the past in Estonia, the popularity of pseudo-history in Russia, and the current state of the Stalin museum in Georgia as symptomatic of wider social processes. New forms of convergence are shown between the historical and the political by the replacement, emptying of meaning, and remixability of past symbols. The author concludes that the Soviet world has been put to political and communicative uses as a familiar context to refer to; also that the process of retrofitting historical narratives is not over yet in any of these societies.

The effects of contextual familiarity on alcohol expectancies.

Social familiarity has been widely studied by researchers across a range of psychological disciplines, with level of familiarity in social context being indicated as a powerful factor influencing affective and motivational states. The degree of familiarity among drinking companions has further been linked to patterns of alcohol use, with regular drinking in unfamiliar social settings being associated with heavy consumption and drinking in highly familiar settings being indicated as a potentially protective factor. But social familiarity has received relatively little attention in relation to the psychological and cognitive processes supporting alcohol consumption. Here, in 2 studies, we explore the effects of social familiarity as it relates to alcohol expectancies-psychological processes believed to serve as among the most proximal determinants of alcohol consumption. In Study 1, we use a between-subjects design to explore the effects of familiarity in a sample of 400 undergraduates (40% male), producing evidence that individuals believe that alcohol consumption will be associated with significantly greater social enhancement and tension reduction when it is consumed in the company of unfamiliar versus familiar individuals. In Study 2 (N = 107; 41% male), we replicate these effects using a within-subject design and reveal effects of familiarity that are large in magnitude. Results of these studies provide initial evidence for familiarity among drinking companions as a factor driving beliefs surrounding alcohol's effects, and indicate familiarity as a potentially promising line of inquiry for future research exploring determinants of drinking. (PsycINFO Database Record

Exploring Black College Females’ Perceptions Regarding HIV Prevention Message Content

Media messages can facilitate the delivery of accurate information related to HIV and sexually transmitted infection. This study’s purpose was to examine preexisting media campaigns from the iMPPACS study to assess age-, gender-, and culturally appropriate components identified by African American females who attend historically Black colleges/universities. In 3 separate focus group sessions, 31 Black female college students (M age = 20) viewed 4 vignettes and heard 3 audio-only clips, then ranked and commented on them based on perceived satisfaction with HIV prevention content and appropriateness of delivery. Conventional qualitative analysis using NVivo software was performed until saturation of content was achieved and themes derived. Six major themes emerged and were designated as (a) social media; (b) mirror image; (c) visually dynamic advertisements; (d) the real world; (e) people, place, things; and (f) HIV knowledge. Visually stimulating content (i.e., graphics) was found to be most appealing in marketing HIV prevention, with brief monologue/dialogue from scenarios that resemble daily life. Socially and culturally relevant HIV prevention messages are important to Black college female students. Participants recommended creating short audiovisual messages that encompass familiar contexts like dorm rooms and appealing graphics for HIV health promotion messages, such as emojis. Future audio-only prevention advertisements for this population should use recognizable voices (e.g., celebrities). Finally, messaging should be promoted on open and closed circuit social media platforms.

Metamemory in a familiar place: The effects of environmental context on feeling of knowing.

Feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments are judgments of future recognizability of currently inaccessible information. They are known to depend both on the access to partial information about a target of retrieval and on the familiarity of the cue that is used as a memory probe. In the present study we assessed whether FOK judgments could also be shaped by incidental environmental context in which these judgments are made. To this end, we investigated 2 phenomena previously documented in studies on recognition memory—a context familiarity effect and a context reinstatement effect—in the procedure used to investigate FOK judgments. In 2 experiments, we found that FOK judgments increase in the presence of a familiar environmental context. The results of both experiments further revealed still higher FOK judgments when made in the presence of environmental context matching the encoding context of both cue and its associated target. The effect of context familiarity on FOK judgment was paralleled by an effect on the latencies of an unsuccessful memory search, but the effect of context reinstatement was not. Importantly, the elevated feeling of knowing in reinstated and familiar contexts was not accompanied by an increase in the accuracy of those judgments. Together, these results demonstrate that metacognitive processes are shaped by the overall volume of memory information accessed at retrieval, independently of whether this memory information is related to a cue, a target, or a context in which remembering takes place.

In Exchange for the Language of Pleasantry

In Exchange For The Language Of Pleasantry Niloofar Sarlati One once asked an agitated vagabond (shourideh ayyam), "What would you like?"—"Just insults," he replied, For I'll be made indebted for anything else I ask for (Farīd ud-Dīn Aṭṭār, Asrar Nameh) This line from Farīd ud-Dīn Aṭṭār, a Persian mystic poet, Sufi, and hagiographer of the twelfth century, can resonate quite literally today in our age of debt. It well grasps how "anything" can be used to create and breed "indebtedness." From this broad category of "anything," however, the "agitated vagabond" (Shourideh1) locates a getaway: a specific usage of language, i.e. insults, as that which might fabricate an escape from creating further debts. Departing from this line, I would like to move to a different context—from the twelfth century Persian mystic poetry to our very own familiar context of western capitalism and its decent. I will also shift the spotlight away from insults to focus instead on the very opposite usage of language, namely, cordiality, affability, or more broadly, language of pleasantry, and the forms of bonds they create. If we admit our vagabond's quip on how insults, and only insults, are debt-free, then attending to the kind of bond, obligation, or debt that is produced in the opposite linguistic realm—in the labor of pleasing through language—would be timely now as the economic value of such language is increasingly under scrutiny. In this essay I trace a point at which the linguistic and the economic met under the shadow of exchange and calculation in nineteenth century Britain. Looking at how the task of pleasing in conversation became counted among those tasks which can produce surplus value, this essay in turn addresses the growing conscription of all "surplus" languages of cordiality in the service industry and information economy under contemporary regimes of capitalism. The rising role of language in contemporary labor and its economic value has been addressed in different fields. Attending to the value of linguistic labor in contemporary economy, sociolinguist Norman Fairclough, for [End Page 439] instance, observes that with the shift from manufacturing to service industries in advanced capitalist economies a new responsibility has surfaced for the field of applied linguistics. As large numbers of workers who once were treated simply as "hands" are now redefined as linguistic actors with trainings in communication skills, applied linguistics need to attend to the ongoing "language-related consequences for people's lives" (Fairclough 1996, 6). With restaurant staffs being appointed because they possess the right "cultural capital," and particular communicative styles, language is in fact "clustering with the restaurant curtains, wallpaper and table decorations" (1996, 7). Fairclough thus concludes "language is now an important part of the goods, and is therefore subject to economic calculations, controls and intervention" (6). Fairclough's observation at the sociolinguistic forum is echoed with more economic nuance in the works of Paolo Virno, Christian Marazzi, and Maurizio Lazzarato who unanimously along with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri locate a rupture in the form of labor as we move form what they have called Fordism to post-Fordism. With the emergence of what they have termed "immaterial labor," producing affects such as "feelings of ease, well-being, or satisfaction," have gained increasing economic significance. In fact, Hardt and Negri argue that immaterial and affective labor have gained qualitative hegemony2 in the last decades of the twentieth century insofar as the production of such feelings designate "a general tendency of the economic system" (2006, 107). Language is thus now central to the means of labor. Christian Marazzi observes that if during the so-called Fordist era communication in the working space was considered a destabilizing disruption in the process of production, in the post-Fordist economy the inclusion of communication has a direct productive value. In this sense, Marazzi maintains, communication and production have overlapped, becoming almost "one and the same thing" (2011, 23). More anecdotally, Paolo Virno writes that in the contemporary workplace one can well replace the timeworn sign in the factories, saying "Silence! Men at Work," with new signs declaring, "Men at work here. Talk!" (2010. 91). But...

REPRESENTACIONES SOCIALES DE LOS ESTUDIANTES CON RELACIÓN A LA VIOLENCIA ENTRE PARES

This investigation is developed in the Provincia de Quebec educative public institution, located in the Usme fifth locality, in Bogota, Colombia. The purpose is to know and analyze fifth-grade student’s social representations about peer-to-peer violence, recognizing their own voices and perspectives about this problem. This research is qualitative in nature, following a hermeneutic approach. It was developed in seven focus groups, where some cases of physical, verbal or relational violence occur. Researches go in depth in the participants’ social representations. Three categories were defined for the purpose of data analysis: context conditions that allow for the construction of social representations, cognitive structuring of the social representations about peer-to-peer violence, and the attitudinal dimension of social representations about peer-to-peer violence. Hence, it can be concluded that children’s social representation about peer-to-peer violence is influenced by their cognitive process and experiences into the school, familiar and social contexts, generating representations that legitimize practices based on authoritarian, normative and violent principles. In a few cases, their social representations are more dialogic, participative and reflective.

The Brontë Sisters in Other Wor(l)ds

The Brontë Sisters in Other Wor(l)ds

A study of the cognitive diffusion model: facilitating students’ high level cognitive processes with authentic support

For this study the researchers designed learning activities to enhance students’ high level cognitive processes. Students learned new information in a classroom setting and then applied and analyzed their new knowledge in familiar authentic contexts by taking pictures of objects found there, describing them, and sharing their homework with peers. An experiment was carried out in which 58 junior high school students were divided into a control (n = 30) and an experimental (n = 28) group. The control group studied and completed learning activities with traditional textbooks while the experimental group used electronic textbooks and a learning system, Virtual Pen for Tablet PC (VPenTPC), in order to gauge the feasibility of the proposed approach. The post-test results show a significant difference between the control and experimental groups. In our analysis of the various approaches students took to complete the task, we were able to identify thirty cognitive and metacognitive strategies for using mobile technology, from which we selected the ten most frequently used ones. The results show that low ability students make better use of strategies than their high ability peers, resulting in significant learning gains. The results also show that most students perceive VPenTPC positively. Based on these results, we suggest some implications along with conclusions and directions for future research.