Global Category Research Articles

Cross-Category Adaptation: Objects Produce Gender Adaptation in the Perception of Faces

Adaptation aftereffects have been found for low-level visual features such as colour, motion and shape perception, as well as higher-level features such as gender, race and identity in domains such as faces and biological motion. It is not yet clear if adaptation effects in humans extend beyond this set of higher order features. The aim of this study was to investigate whether objects highly associated with one gender, e.g. high heels for females or electric shavers for males can modulate gender perception of a face. In two separate experiments, we adapted subjects to a series of objects highly associated with one gender and subsequently asked participants to judge the gender of an ambiguous face. Results showed that participants are more likely to perceive an ambiguous face as male after being exposed to objects highly associated to females and vice versa. A gender adaptation aftereffect was obtained despite the adaptor and test stimuli being from different global categories (objects and faces respectively). These findings show that our perception of gender from faces is highly affected by our environment and recent experience. This suggests two possible mechanisms: (a) that perception of the gender associated with an object shares at least some brain areas with those responsible for gender perception of faces and (b) adaptation to gender, which is a high-level concept, can modulate brain areas that are involved in facial gender perception through top-down processes.

Are firms from developed markets more international than firms from emerging markets?

Regionalist supporters’ claim that most of the world's largest firms are regional rather than global and that managers should be encouraged to ‘think regional, act local and forget global’ (Rugman and Moore, 2004, p. 67). We apply the matrix of multinationality proposed by Aggarwal et al. (2011) to a sample of the world's 500 largest corporations, the Fortune Global 500. We show that these firms range from purely domestic to regional, trans-regional and entirely global with most lying in the trans-regional and global categories. Our results imply that global strategies are essential to international trade and management in today's business environment. We compare multinationality results by market type (developed versus emerging market), industry, size and age. We find that firms from more advanced economies tend to be older, larger and more multinational than firms from emerging markets. We find no relationship between multinationality and age or multinationality and size, and conclude that developed market firms are not more multinational as a result of size, age or industrial structure.

Contributors

Contributors

Descriptive and Injunctive Social Norm Overestimation in Hooking Up and Their Role as Predictors of Hook-Up Activity in a College Student Sample

This study examined the presence of norm overestimation in both injunctive and descriptive norms about hooking up. An online survey was completed by 186 college students (127 women). Overestimation was examined for hooking up as a global category, as well as for six specific behaviors. The role of norms in predicting hooking up was also examined using hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The predictive role of sensation-seeking, sociosexual orientation, self-esteem, and alcohol drinking status was also examined. Injunctive norm overestimation was present for less intimate behaviors (kissing and non-genital touching); only women showed overestimation for more intimate behaviors (genital touching, receiving oral sex, giving oral sex, and intercourse). Descriptive norms were overestimated across the board. Injunctive norms were poor predictors of behavior. Descriptive norms were good predictors only for less intimate behaviors, a pattern similar to that observed for drinking status. Ultimately, participants' level of personal comfort was the best predictor of participation in the most intimate behaviors, including oral sex and sexual intercourse.

Role of Temporal Processing Stages by Inferior Temporal Neurons in Facial Recognition

In this review, we focus on the role of temporal stages of encoded facial information in the visual system, which might enable the efficient determination of species, identity, and expression. Facial recognition is an important function of our brain and is known to be processed in the ventral visual pathway, where visual signals are processed through areas V1, V2, V4, and the inferior temporal (IT) cortex. In the IT cortex, neurons show selective responses to complex visual images such as faces, and at each stage along the pathway the stimulus selectivity of the neural responses becomes sharper, particularly in the later portion of the responses. In the IT cortex of the monkey, facial information is represented by different temporal stages of neural responses, as shown in our previous study: the initial transient response of face-responsive neurons represents information about global categories, i.e., human vs. monkey vs. simple shapes, whilst the later portion of these responses represents information about detailed facial categories, i.e., expression and/or identity. This suggests that the temporal stages of the neuronal firing pattern play an important role in the coding of visual stimuli, including faces. This type of coding may be a plausible mechanism underlying the temporal dynamics of recognition, including the process of detection/categorization followed by the identification of objects. Recent single-unit studies in monkeys have also provided evidence consistent with the important role of the temporal stages of encoded facial information. For example, view-invariant facial identity information is represented in the response at a later period within a region of face-selective neurons. Consistent with these findings, temporally modulated neural activity has also been observed in human studies. These results suggest a close correlation between the temporal processing stages of facial information by IT neurons and the temporal dynamics of face recognition.

Learn Locally, Think Globally

Research suggests that variability of exemplars supports successful object categorization; however, the scope of variability’s support at the level of higher-order generalization remains unexplored. Using a longitudinal study, we examined the role of exemplar variability in first- and second-order generalization in the context of nominal-category learning at an early age. Sixteen 18-month-old children were taught 12 categories. Half of the children were taught with sets of highly similar exemplars; the other half were taught with sets of dissimilar, variable exemplars. Participants’ learning and generalization of trained labels and their development of more general word-learning biases were tested. All children were found to have learned labels for trained exemplars, but children trained with variable exemplars generalized to novel exemplars of these categories, developed a discriminating word-learning bias generalizing labels of novel solid objects by shape and labels of nonsolid objects by material, and accelerated in vocabulary acquisition. These findings demonstrate that object variability leads to better abstraction of individual and global category organization, which increases learning outside the laboratory.

Findings from an Assessment of State Title V Workforce Development Needs

To describe results of a 2008 assessment of Title V workforce competencies and training needs at the state level, and examine preferences and barriers related to available education and training opportunities. A web-based survey was administered May through August, 2008 to Maternal and Child Health (MCH) and Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) program leaders in all 50 states, and U.S. jurisdictions. Forty-nine MCH (96%) and 44 CYSHCN (86%) programs and four territories completed surveys. A major focus of the survey related to competencies in six core domains: Public Health/Title V Knowledge Base, Communication, Critical Thinking, Management Skills, Family Centered Care and Medical Home, and Leadership Development. The top training needs identified by state Title V programs fall into the global category of critical thinking, including skills in MCH data synthesis and translation, in program evaluation, and in systems thinking. The need to enhance personal rather than organizational leadership skills was emphasized. Blended learning approaches (graduate education), and national conferences with skills building workshops (continuing education) were identified as preferred training modalities. Barriers to training included lack of career opportunities, insufficient agency support, and inability to take leave (graduate education), and travel restrictions, release time limitations, costs, and limited geographic access (continuing education). Both the focus of training and preferred training modalities differed from previous MCH workforce survey findings. Given the changing needs expressed by state Title V leaders as well as their training preferences, it is important that current and future graduate education and continuing education approaches be better aligned to meet these needs and preferences.

Documentation of Clinical Activities Using a Web-Based Application within an Eight Hospital Integrated Health Care System: A Six-Year Experience

Purpose To assess the first 6 years of documented clinical interventions and activities by a health care system pharmacy department after implementation of a Web-based documentation tool. Methods Saint Barnabas Health Care System (SBHCS) implemented the Quantifi Web-based documentation tool in October of 2002. Nine global intervention categories were developed, and the activities of SBHCS's pharmacists were tracked from January 2003 to December 2008. The following data were monitored: total number of interventions per category, number of interventions per category stratified by year, total cost savings, cost savings by global category, top 5 activities documented each year, top 5 cost-saving interventions documented each year, and top 5 intervened medications each year. Results A total of 760,555 clinical activities were documented during the study period, with the greatest number of interventions being from the order clarification category (30%) from 2003 through 2005 and the laboratory analysis category (25% to 30%) from 2006 to 2008. The total number of documented activities trended upward each year, as a whole and in nearly every individual category. The total documented direct cost savings during the study period was $6,169,593, with the therapeutic interventions category ($1,993,490) being the most influential. The total cost savings generally trended upward over the 6-year period. Conclusions Implementation of the Web-based documentation tool had a positive impact on pharmacists' documentation rates. The tool is a practical and convenient method for documenting clinical activities and interventions in real-time, with corresponding cost-savings information, for a pharmacy department within an integrated health care system.

Cultural stereotypes of disabled and non‐disabled men and women: Consensus for global category representations and diagnostic domains

Despite the fact that disabled people comprise a heterogeneous social group, cross-impairment cultural stereotypes reflect a consistent set of beliefs used to characterize this population as dependent, incompetent, and asexual. Using a free-response methodology, stereotypical beliefs about disabled men (DM) and women (DW) were contrasted against the stereotypes of their non-disabled counterparts illustrating the dimensions considered most diagnostic of each group. Results revealed that both disabled and non-disabled participants expressed consensus about the contents of group stereotypes that exaggerate traditional gender role expectations of the non-disabled while minimizing perceived differences between DM and DW. Implications for the field of stereotyping and prejudice, and the individual and system justifying functions of cultural stereotypes are discussed.

A response to the article “Taxonomic errors and inaccuracies in Sri Lanka’s Red List, 2007: a cautionary note”

As members of the team that was involved in the preparation of the ‘2007 Red List of Threatened Fauna and Flora of Sri Lanka’ (IUCN Sri Lanka & the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, 2007), we have paid careful attention to a recent article published by Bahir & Gabadage (2009) in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, which has attempted to judge or interpret the quality of this publication. After careful review of the article under reference, we have decided to submit a response in order to address erroneous interpretations and misleading statements contained therein, based on reasoned judgment or analysis. The 2007 Red List of Threatened Fauna and Flora of Sri Lanka will be referred to herein, as the 2007 National Red List. The 2007 National Red List was the result of a three-year collaborative project implemented by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) in Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. This project, evaluated the conservation status of selected fauna and flora species in Sri Lanka using IUCN’s Global Red List Categories and Criteria, adapted to a regional level. The project was steered by the National Species Conservation Advisory Group (NSCAG) appointed by the Biodiversity Secretariat of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. As elaborated on page 11 of the 2007 National Red List, the project followed an extensive consultative process, involving a group of expert reviewers appointed by the Biodiversity Secretariat. These reviewers consisted of over 50 researchers, taxonomists and naturalists, within 11 taxonomic groups. It also consulted relevant stakeholders such as protected area managers, and non-governmental environmental organizations in the country. It is evident that Bahir & Gabadage (2009) have not read this section of the document as the statements made in the background as well as conclusions in their article have implied that appropriate specialists have not been consulted in the preparatory process of this national document. Ironically the first author, Mr. Mohomed Bahir was one of the appointed expert reviewers as can be seen from the list contained in page viii. Bahir & Gabadage (2009) have ignored facts, in their effort to point out errors in taxonomy, nomenclature, citations, and data, in the 2007 National Red List. We will address all of their unsubstantiated allegations, with relevant facts, in the following sections. The science of taxonomy is dynamic and fluid, continuously evolving and changing as new data emerges. Taxonomists often find themselves at odds with each other in changes relating to nomenclature. Therefore it is obvious that the taxonomic changes emerging after the publication of the 2007 National Red List could only be be addressed in its future revisions. Bahir & Gabadage (2009) have pointed out nomenclatural issues relating to the amphibians in the 2007 National Red List, without noting the fact that the document has chosen to adopt the list of threatened amphibians from the Global Amphibian Assessment (www.globalamphibians.org). The decision to adopt the threatened amphibians list from the Global Amphibian Assessment was taken in order to avoid duplication of efforts, a decision which was endorsed by the National Species Conservation Advisory Group (NSCAG) of Sri Lanka, as well as the expert reviewers, including the foremost amphibian taxonomists and researchers in the country. This fact is mentioned in the methodology section of the document (page 12). It is to be noted however, that the national list was further supplemented with evaluations of amphibian species described more recently from Sri Lanka (Meegaskumbura & Manamendra-Arachchi 2005; Fernando et al. 2007; Meegaskumubura et al. 2007). Bahir & Gabadage (2009) have further highlighted Cnemaspis tropidogaster (Boulenger 1885) as being OPEN ACCESS | FREE DOWNLOAD Date of publication (online): 26 April 2010 Date of publication (print): 26 April 2010 ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)

Index Versus Active Funds Scorecard for Canadian Funds Standard & Poor's Indices Versus Active Funds Scorecard, Year-End 2009

The Standard & Poor's Indices Versus Active Funds (SPIVA) Scorecard reports performance of actively managed Canadian mutual funds corrected for survivorship bias and shows equal and asset weighted peer averages.Domestic Equities: For 2009, only 30.4% of Canadian Equity active funds were able to outperform the S&P/TSX Composite Index. In contrast, in the Canadian Small/Mid Cap Equity category 52% of active funds beating the S&P/TSX Completion Index. For the Canadian Focused Equity category 61% of active funds outpaced the blended index (comprised of 50% S&P/TSX Composite 25% S&P 500 25% S&P EPAC LargeMidCap).In 2009, active funds in the Canadian Equity weren’t able to add value over the S&P/TSX Composite Index when examining both equal and asset-weighted returns. However, active funds fared better across some of the other fund categories. On both an equal and asset-weighted basis active funds outperformed their benchmarks in the categories Canadian Small/Mid Cap Equity, U.S. Equity, Global Equity and Canadian Focused Equity.Over longer periods, we continue to observe indices outperforming the majority of domestic funds. In three-year and five-year periods, only 12.5% and 7.4%, respectively, of actively managed Canadian Equity funds have outperformed the S&P/TSX Composite Index.Foreign Equities: Over the last five years, only 10% of active funds in the International Equity category, 13.9% in the Global Equity category, and 9.2% in the U.S. Equity category have outpaced S&P EPAC LargeMidCap, S&P Developed LargeMidCap and S&P 500 indices respectively.

Initial response to cigarettes predicts rate of progression to regular smoking: Findings from an offspring-of-twins design

The aim of this study was to examine the association between initial subjective effects from cigarettes and the rate of progression from first cigarette to regular smoking. Latent class analysis (LCA) was applied to subjective effects data from 573 offspring of twins ranging in age from 14 to 32 years. LCA revealed four classes: 1) High on both pleasurable and physiological responses, 2) Cough only response, 3) High on physiological, low on pleasurable responses, and 4) High on pleasurable, low on physiological responses. Classes of responses were then used to predict time from first cigarette to the onset of regular smoking in a Cox proportional hazards model. Time-varying covariates representing relevant psychiatric and psychosocial factors as well as dummy variables representing the offspring-of-twins design were included in the model. Members of classes 1 and 4 transitioned more rapidly to regular smoking than the classes characterized as low on the pleasurable response dimension. Our findings provide evidence that previously reported associations between pleasurable initial experiences and progression to regular smoking hold true as well for the rate at which that transition occurs. Furthermore, the fact that profiles of responses did not fall into global categories of exclusively pleasurable vs. exclusively negative (physiological) responses suggests the importance of considering both dimensions in combination to characterize risk for smoking-related outcomes.

Editorial – Using sexual identity labels to move beyond them

This is the first issue of the Psychology of Sexualities Review. As mentioned in my previous Editorial, this change in name reflects the change made to the Section’s name, following a ballot of the Section’s membership. I trust that the papers in this issue are a testament to the Editorial Team’s promise to continue the legacy of the Lesbian & Gay Psychology Review’s of publishing high quality papers. In this Editorial I focus on the idea of using sexual identity labels, which have served us well and continue to do so, to move beyond them. I must clarify that by suggesting movement beyond these labels, I am in no way implying that we discard them, but permit a flexibility to incorporate other labelled identities and label-less identities to the fold. This plurality and inclusivity, I believe, forms the spirit of the Psychology of Sexualities Review. When thinking about plurality and inclusivity related to sexuality, two landmark judicial judgments in the recent past come to mind, perhaps because of their personal relevance to me, both from my own subject-ship and from those of some of my clients I see in therapy. The first, the Delhi High Court’s reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a section which criminalises private consensual sex between adults of the same sex (reported in the papers as ‘India decriminalises gay sex’, Mitta & Singh, 2009); and the second, the UK Supreme Court ruling related to ‘gay asylum seekers’ (‘Gay asylum seekers’, 2010). There is no question about the importance, the worthiness, the triumph, and the desperate need for both these judgments. A close reading, however, examining the language used in the official judgments and the English language newspaper reporting of these, exposes a certain conservative economy of terms that both reports employ. This is particularly pertinent as both judgments are related to minorities from India, and ‘gay asylum seekers’ from Cameroon and Iran, countries where some sexual minorities2 do not identity as ‘gay’ or even ‘homosexual’. The collapsing of sexual identities (and associated labels) into seemingly ‘neutral’ terminology employing behavioural categories of ‘men who have sex with men’ (MSM) and ‘women who have sex with women’ (WSW) is also problematic. While such usage has almost become the mainstay of epidemiological and public health studies (since the 1990s), social constructionists have highlighted the limits of such terms, but have also critiqued the use of identity labels such as ‘gay’, instead arguing for a ‘more textured understandings of sexuality that do not assume alignments among identity, behaviour, and desire’ (Young & Meyer, 2005, p.1144). My argument is that just as terms such as MSM and WSW tend to obliterate self-determination regarding sexual identities, terms such as ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’, when applied indiscriminately or as global categories, can be as alienating; obfuscating text and subtext of sexual identities, desires, and practices. These terms then have the potential to become essentialist concepts.

The Ethics of Gender and Globalization: Military Madness and Ecological Stress

Globalization has an impact on gender relations in complex and contradictory ways. The consequences are neither solely detrimental nor the same everywhere. Globalization may offer new opportunities to women, but overall globalization from above has exacerbated gender inequality. Globalization disperses local and national decision-making powers. Flexible labor laws weaken worker protections and job security. All of these threaten advancement in women's interests. The oft-accompanying environmental degradation directly affects women responsible for domestic necessities and caring labor, which is the situation of most women within the Pacific Rim. Military activities around the Pacific Rim continually erode women's rights. This paper discusses the ethics of globalization, adopting micro, macro and global categories.

Effects of cochlear implants: a qualitative study

This qualitative study aimed to gain a deeper insight into the effects of cochlear implants on recipients' lives, as perceived by the recipients themselves. To obtain this insight, we used four open-ended questions. We invited 107 adult patients from two Norwegian implant centres. Of these, 74 returned completed questionnaires (69%). Recipients perceived that they had got 'A new life' with the implant. Contributing to this global category of effects were four other categories. These concerned subjects' interactions with the world around them, experience of themselves, ability to hear the world around them and finally certain device-related issues. Overall, psychological well-being was improved. The questionnaire described might prove a useful tool in the follow-up of patients.

Effects of cochlear implants: a qualitative study

This qualitative study aimed to gain a deeper insight into the effects of cochlear implants on recipients' lives, as perceived by the recipients themselves. To obtain this insight, we used four open-ended questions. We invited 107 adult patients from two Norwegian implant centres. Of these, 74 returned completed questionnaires (69%). Recipients perceived that they had got ‘A new life’ with the implant. Contributing to this global category of effects were four other categories. These concerned subjects' interactions with the world around them, experience of themselves, ability to hear the world around them and finally certain device-related issues. Overall, psychological well-being was improved. The questionnaire described might prove a useful tool in the follow-up of patients. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The effects of perceptual similarity and category membership on early word-referent identification

We investigated the impact of perceptual and categorical relatedness between a target and a distracter object on early referent identification in infants and adults. In an intermodal preferential looking (IPL) task, participants looked at a target object paired with a distracter object that could be perceptually similar or dissimilar and drawn from the same or different global category. The proportion of target looking measures revealed that infants and adults were sensitive to the interplay between category membership and perceptual similarity. Online latency measures demonstrated an advantage for perceptually dissimilar items regardless of their categorical status, indicating that different IPL measures index different processes during target identification. Results suggest that perceptual similarity and category membership of the objects lead to competition effects in word recognition and referent identification in both adults and infants and that lexical categorization and nonlinguistic categorization processes are closely related during infancy.

Realizing the Social Internet? Online Social Networking Meets Offline Civic Engagement

ABSTRACT Does Internet use have the potential to build social capital? Emerging evidence suggests that politically knowledgeable, interpersonally trusting, and civically engaged individuals share particular patterns of Internet use. In previous national survey studies, Internet use has been divided into a handful of excessively broad categories, and researchers have been unable to address newer, category-spanning Internet uses as well as the potential impact of individual Web sites. By examining the use of online social networks in a nationally representative sample of young people, this study explores the varied relationships between indicators of social capital and Internet use on a site-specific level (i.e., MySpace vs. Facebook). Indeed, differences between social networking sites are as large as those between more global categories of use (e.g., informational vs. social networking) and are robust to attempts to account for differences between the users of the sites. In explaining these relationships and exploring the differences between social networking sites, we suggest that Web site use induces a site-specific culture that can either encourage or hinder social capital.

A High Resolution Color Image Restoration Algorithm for Thin TOMBO Imaging Systems

In this paper, we present a blind image restoration algorithm to reconstruct a high resolution (HR) color image from multiple, low resolution (LR), degraded and noisy images captured by thin (< 1mm) TOMBO imaging systems. The proposed algorithm is an extension of our grayscale algorithm reported in [1] to the case of color images. In this color extension, each Point Spread Function (PSF) of each captured image is assumed to be different from one color component to another and from one imaging unit to the other. For the task of image restoration, we use all spectral information in each captured image to restore each output pixel in the reconstructed HR image, i.e., we use the most efficient global category of point operations. First, the composite RGB color components of each captured image are extracted. A blind estimation technique is then applied to estimate the spectra of each color component and its associated blurring PSF. The estimation process is formed in a way that minimizes significantly the interchannel cross-correlations and additive noise. The estimated PSFs together with advanced interpolation techniques are then combined to compensate for blur and reconstruct a HR color image of the original scene. Finally, a histogram normalization process adjusts the balance between image color components, brightness and contrast. Simulated and experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm is capable of restoring HR color images from degraded, LR and noisy observations even at low Signal-to-Noise Energy ratios (SNERs). The proposed algorithm uses FFT and only two fundamental image restoration constraints, making it suitable for silicon integration with the TOMBO imager.

Role of bacterial peptidase F inferred by statistical analysis and further experimental validation

Despite the quantity of high-throughput data available nowadays, the precise role of many proteins has not been elucidated. Available methods for classifying proteins and reconstructing metabolic networks are efficient for finding global categories, but do not answer the biologist's specific and targeted questions. Following Yamanishi et al. [Yamanishi, Y, Vert, JP, Nakaya, A, and Kaneisha, M (2003). "Extraction of correlated clusters from multiple genomic data by generalized kernel canonical correlation analysis." Bioinformatics 19, Suppl. 1, i323-i330] we used a kernel canonical correlation analysis (KCCA) to predict the role of the bacterial peptidase PepF. We integrated five existing data types: protein metabolic networks, microarray data, phylogenetic profiles, distances between proteins and incomplete two-dimensional-gel data (for which we propose a completion strategy), available for Lactococcus lactis to determine relationships between proteins. The predicted relationships were then used to guide our laboratory work which proved most of the predictions correct. PepF had previously been characterized as a zinc dependent endopeptidase [Nardi, M, Renault, P, and Monnet, V (1997). "Duplication of the pepF gene and shuffling of DNA fragments on the lactose plasmid of Lactococcus lactis." J. Bacteriol. 179, 4164-4171; Monnet, V, Nardi, M, Chopin, MC, and Gripon, JC (1994). "Biochemical and genetic characterization of PepF on oligoendopeptidase from Lactococcus lactis." J. Bio. Chem. 269, 32070-32076]. Analyzing a PepF mutant, we confirmed its participation in protein secretion through a strong relationship between the signal peptidase I and PepF predicted by the KCCA. The global nature of our approach made it possible to discover pleiotropic roles of the protein which had remained unknown using classical approaches.