Cognitive Shift Research Articles

Reading between the lines: exploring methods for analysing professional examiner feedback discourse

ABSTRACTThis paper uses the remote interactions of professional examiners working for a UK-based awarding body as a vehicle for discussing the benefits of the use of different methods for analysing such discourse. Communication is an area of interest for sociocultural theory because it can potentiate cognitive shifts in participants and affords learning. In the professional examiner context the feedback given to examiners by more senior colleagues on their performance is a mechanism through which the examiners ensure that their work articulates [Schmidt 2011. “Taking CSCW Seriously: Supporting Articulation Work.” In Cooperative Work and Coordinative Practices, 45–72. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. London: Springer]. Moreover, this communication has a learning function that helps examiners to become members of the professional community. The study captures feedback interaction data from 21 examiners. Once the study context is outlined, the paper briefly discusses three different approaches that have been widely used to analyse communication data. The paper then goes on to propose, using case study analyses of some of the study data, how these methods can be used to augment each other as part of a general sociocultural discourse analysis framework to construct a broad picture of communication.

Learning while (re)configuring: Business model innovation processes in established firms.

This study addresses the question of how established organizations develop new business models over time, using a process research approach to trace how four business model innovation trajectories unfold. With organizational learning as analytical lens, we discern two process patterns: “drifting” starts with an emphasis on experiential learning and shifts later to cognitive search; “leaping,” in contrast, starts with an emphasis on cognitive search and shifts later to experiential learning. Both drifting and leaping can result in radical business model innovations, while their occurrence depends on whether a new business model takes off from an existing model and when it goes into operation. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory on business models and organizational learning.

Bodily action penetrates affective perception.

Fantoni & Gerbino (2014) showed that subtle postural shifts associated with reaching can have a strong hedonic impact and affect how actors experience facial expressions of emotion. Using a novel Motor Action Mood Induction Procedure (MAMIP), they found consistent congruency effects in participants who performed a facial emotion identification task after a sequence of visually-guided reaches: a face perceived as neutral in a baseline condition appeared slightly happy after comfortable actions and slightly angry after uncomfortable actions. However, skeptics about the penetrability of perception (Zeimbekis & Raftopoulos, 2015) would consider such evidence insufficient to demonstrate that observer’s internal states induced by action comfort/discomfort affect perception in a top-down fashion. The action-modulated mood might have produced a back-end memory effect capable of affecting post-perceptual and decision processing, but not front-end perception.Here, we present evidence that performing a facial emotion detection (not identification) task after MAMIP exhibits systematic mood-congruent sensitivity changes, rather than response bias changes attributable to cognitive set shifts; i.e., we show that observer’s internal states induced by bodily action can modulate affective perception. The detection threshold for happiness was lower after fifty comfortable than uncomfortable reaches; while the detection threshold for anger was lower after fifty uncomfortable than comfortable reaches. Action valence induced an overall sensitivity improvement in detecting subtle variations of congruent facial expressions (happiness after positive comfortable actions, anger after negative uncomfortable actions), in the absence of significant response bias shifts. Notably, both comfortable and uncomfortable reaches impact sensitivity in an approximately symmetric way relative to a baseline inaction condition. All of these constitute compelling evidence of a genuine top-down effect on perception: specifically, facial expressions of emotion are penetrable by action-induced mood. Affective priming by action valence is a candidate mechanism for the influence of observer’s internal states on properties experienced as phenomenally objective and yet loaded with meaning.

Beetle and plant arrow poisons of the Ju|'hoan and Hai||om San peoples of Namibia (Insecta, Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae; Plantae, Anacardiaceae, Apocynaceae, Burseraceae).

The use of archery to hunt appears relatively late in human history. It is poorly understood but the application of poisons to arrows to increase lethality must have occurred shortly after developing bow hunting methods; these early multi-stage transitions represent cognitive shifts in human evolution. This paper is a synthesis of widely-scattered literature in anthropology, entomology, and chemistry, dealing with San (“Bushmen”) arrow poisons. The term San (or Khoisan) covers many indigenous groups using so-called ‘click languages’ in southern Africa. Beetles are used for arrow poison by at least eight San groups and one non-San group. Fieldwork and interviews with Ju|’hoan and Hai||om hunters in Namibia revealed major differences in the nature and preparation of arrow poisons, bow and arrow construction, and poison antidote. Ju|’hoan hunters use leaf-beetle larvae of Diamphidia Gerstaecker and Polyclada Chevrolat (Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae: Alticini) collected from soil around the host plants Commiphora africana (A. Rich.) Engl. and Commiphora angolensis Engl. (Burseracaeae). In the Nyae Nyae area of Namibia, Ju|’hoan hunters use larvae of Diamphidia nigroornata Ståhl. Larvae and adults live above-ground on the plants and eat leaves, but the San collect the underground cocoons to extract the mature larvae. Larval hemolymph is mixed with saliva and applied to arrows. Hai||om hunters boil the milky plant sap of Adenium bohemianum Schinz (Apocynaceae) to reduce it to a thick paste that is applied to their arrows. The socio-cultural, historical, and ecological contexts of the various San groups may determine differences in the sources and preparation of poisons, bow and arrow technology, hunting behaviors, poison potency, and perhaps antidotes.

Evidence for Skill Level Differences in the Thought Processes of Golfers During High and Low Pressure Situations.

Two studies examined differences in the cognition of golfers with differing levels of expertise in high and low pressure situations. In study 1, six high skill and six low skill golfers performed six holes of golf, while verbalizing their thoughts using Think Aloud (TA) protocol. Higher skilled golfers’ cognitive processes centered more on planning in comparison to lower skilled golfers. Study 2 investigated whether thought processes of golfers changed in response to competitive pressure. Eight high skill and eight moderate skilled golfers, completed a practice round and a competition round whilst verbalizing thoughts using TA. To create pressure in the competition condition, participants were instructed that monetary prizes would be awarded to the top three performers and scores of all golfers would be published in a league table in the club house. When performing under competitive pressure, it was found that higher skilled golfers were more likely to verbalize technical rules compared to practice conditions, especially during putting performance. This shift in cognition toward more technical aspects of motor performance was strongly related to scores on the Decision Specific Reinvestment Scale, suggesting individuals with a higher propensity for reinvestment show the largest changes in cognition under pressure. From a practical perspective, TA can aid a player, coach or sport psychologist by allowing thought processes to be identified and investigate a performer’s thoughts when faced with the pressure of a competition.

Idea Change Matters: China’s Practices and the East Asian Peace

In this article I examine the changes in China's foreign policy thinking and how they have influenced China's international behavior. I reveal how the leadership's beliefs guided and drove the Chinese state's behavior. When leaders believed that the world was in a “war and revolution” age, China was inclined to overlook the actual international order and institutions and backed revolutionary movements or armed struggles in other countries. The cognitive shift to “peace and development” in the 1980s, which was consolidated in the 1990s through two major debates, was fundamental in terms of strategically reshaping China's behavior, turning it from a revolutionary state into a quasi–status quo state. Besides embracing international institutions, China has also joined neighboring countries in creating new regional institutions and norms in East Asia. I argue that ideas, and not only perceptions, guide China's policymaking and international behavior.

Qualitative analysis of bibliotherapy as a tool for adults who stutter and graduate students

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the use of bibliotherapy as a therapeutic tool for adults who stutter (AWS) and as an educational tool for graduate students in speech-language pathology. Bibliotherapy refers to the process of reading, reflecting upon, and discussing literature, often first person illness or disability narratives, to promote cognitive shifts in the way clients and clinicians conceptualize the experience of disability. MethodFive AWS and six graduate students participated in supervised bibliotherapy using a stuttering memoir during therapy sessions. An inductive, qualitative analysis was utilized to analyze data collected from questionnaires and interviews. An additional deductive qualitative approach was utilized to explore how client data fit into an existing five-outcome model of bibliotherapy from the psychology literature. ResultsGraduate students reported developing essential clinical skills for working with clients who stutter, including an improved understanding of the experience of people who stutter and an increased ability to form and strengthen the therapeutic alliance. Clients reported experiencing shifts in the cognitive and affective components of the disorder. Imposing the five-outcome model on client data indicates that at least two clients in the current study experienced all five outcomes of bibliotherapy. These include client experiences of involvement, identification, catharsis, insight and universalism. ConclusionBoth graduate students and clients reported benefits from reading and discussing a memoir about stuttering. Bibliotherapy can be an effective tool in therapy and clinical education when used appropriately.

Transformative Learning, Enactivism, and Affectivity

Education theorists have emphasized that transformative learning is not simply a matter of students gaining access to new knowledge and information, but instead centers upon personal transformation: it alters students’ perspectives, interpretations, and responses. How should learning that brings about this sort of self-transformation be understood from the perspectives of philosophy of mind and cognitive science? Jack Mezirow has described transformative learning primarily in terms of critical reflection, meta-cognitive reasoning, and the questioning of assumptions and beliefs. And within mainstream philosophy of mind, there has been a long-standing assumption that cognition and thought are brain-based, computational, disembodied processes that occur separately from emotion and affect. According to this view, selftransformation might be construed as the forging of new neural connections and the development of new cognitive “programs.” However, I will argue that the literature on embodiment and enactivism that has emerged in recent years offers us a different and more productive way to conceptualize the intended effects of transformative learning. From the standpoint of enactivism, the experience of transformative learning is thoroughly bound up with the cognitive shifts that it involves, and it also involves significant changes to the neurobiological dynamics of the living body. Moreover, personal transformation is not simply something that happens to subjects, but rather a process in which they are actively and dynamically engaged. In addition, this enactivist approach emphasizes that the learning process is fully embodied and fundamentally affective. From a phenomenological perspective, personal transformation can be understood as a pronounced alteration in cognitive-affective orientation; and from a neurobiological perspective, the development of new habits of mind can be understood as the formation of highly integrated patterns of bodily engagement and response. The upshot is that it is not just subjects’ brains that are altered over the course of transformative learning, but also their overall bodily and affective attunement to their surroundings.

Youth's Awareness of and Reactions to The Real Cost National Tobacco Public Education Campaign.

In 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched its first tobacco-focused public education campaign, The Real Cost, aimed at reducing tobacco use among 12- to 17-year-olds in the United States. This study describes The Real Cost message strategy, implementation, and initial evaluation findings. The campaign was designed to encourage youth who had never smoked but are susceptible to trying cigarettes (susceptible nonsmokers) and youth who have previously experimented with smoking (experimenters) to reassess what they know about the “costs” of tobacco use to their body and mind. The Real Cost aired on national television, online, radio, and other media channels, resulting in high awareness levels. Overall, 89.0% of U.S. youth were aware of at least one advertisement 6 to 8 months after campaign launch, and high levels of awareness were attained within the campaign’s two targeted audiences: susceptible nonsmokers (90.5%) and experimenters (94.6%). Most youth consider The Real Cost advertising to be effective, based on assessments of ad perceived effectiveness (mean = 4.0 on a scale from 1.0 to 5.0). High levels of awareness and positive ad reactions are requisite proximal indicators of health behavioral change. Additional research is being conducted to assess whether potential shifts in population-level cognitions and/or behaviors are attributable to this campaign. Current findings demonstrate that The Real Cost has attained high levels of ad awareness which is a critical first step in achieving positive changes in tobacco-related attitudes and behaviors. These data can also be used to inform ongoing message and media strategies for The Real Cost and other U.S. youth tobacco prevention campaigns.

The changing nature of managerial skills, mindsets and roles: Advancing theory and relevancy for contemporary managers

AbstractManagement research has been challenged by the altering realities of organization life, job roles, and individual motivations that have long guided traditional theoretical thinking. The classical frameworks regarding managerial performance requirements have been largely based upon organizationally driven underpinnings. We propose a cognitive shift suggesting that individually driven roles and desires are impacting the relevancy of conventional job requirements. Our study analyzes the utilization of managerial skills, mindsets, and roles as perceived by 259 executives representing nine industries and ~200 organizations. The results reveal that the interpretation and application of managerial roles are primarily influenced by the individual’s intentions rather than adherence to the current organizationally based theoretical taxonomy as taught by many business schools. These findings illuminate the gap between the vast amount of effort researchers and educators have expended on taxonomic precision and its questionable relationship to organizational and individual learning and effectiveness. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed along with recommendations to extend the current research.

An adaptive paradigm for human space settlement

Because permanent space settlement will be multigenerational it will have to be viable on ecological timescales so far unfamiliar to those planning space exploration. Long-term viability will require evolutionary and adaptive planning. Adaptations in the natural world provide many lessons for such planning, but implementing these lessons will require a new, evolutionary paradigm for envisioning and carrying out Earth-independent space settlement. I describe some of these adaptive lessons and propose some cognitive shifts required to implement them in a genuinely evolutionary approach to human space settlement.

The Experience of Resilience for Adult Female Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence: A Phenomenological Inquiry.

While resilience research in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV) is increasing, there remains little known about women's lived experience of resilience. Using a phenomenological approach, this study examined the experience of resilience for adult female survivors of IPV. Sixteen women who were currently experiencing or had previously experienced abuse by an intimate partner participated in semi-structured interviews. Resilience was experienced as multiple cognitive, emotional, and behavioral shifts across three theme areas: toward resistance, in the experience of control, and toward positivity. The results of this study suggest a number of applications for clinical practice and intervention.

Executive function moderates the association between fearful temperament and dimensions of perfectionism

Previous research has shown that perfectionism is a dimensional construct and that it may be predicted by factors such as temperament and executive function. However, no previous studies have connected these lines of research. The current study sought to test a path model examining the role of fearful temperament, the cognitive shift domain of executive function, and their interaction on separate dimensions of perfectionism (SOP-critical, SPP, and SOP-striving). Participants were 56 parent–child dyads recruited from the community. Children were 7–13years (51.8% male; 83.6% Caucasian, 9.1% African American). Overall the model fit the data well. Results indicated that fearful temperament and cognitive shift did not individually predict for any dimension of perfectionism. However, the interaction of fearful temperament and cognitive shift did predict for scores of SOP-critical and SPP, such that those children with higher cognitive shift deficits had a stronger effect of fearful temperament on dimensions of perfectionism. The interaction did not predict for scores of SOP-striving. These results, consistent with previous research, suggest that SOP-critical and SPP may represent maladaptive aspects of perfectionism, while SOP-striving may represent adaptive aspects of perfectionism. Further, it appears that maladaptive and adaptive perfectionism dimensions have separate developmental precipitants.

The Developmental Transition From Living With to Dying From Cancer: Hospice Decision Making

Despite increasing utilization of hospice care, older adults with cancer enroll in hospice for shorter periods of time than those with other life-limiting illnesses. How older adults with cancer and their family members consider hospice is unknown. The purpose of this study was to compare decision making in late-stage cancer in people who enrolled in hospice with those who declined. Concepts from the Carroll and Johnson (1990) decision-making framework guided the development of a hospice decision-making model. The study design was exploratory-descriptive, cross-sectional, and used a two-group comparison. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in the same interview. Open-ended questions were used to explore the illness trajectory and decision-making process. The interrelationships between functional ability, quality of life, and social support with hospice decision making were assessed using the Katz, QLQ-30, and Lubben Social Network Scales. Study participants included 42 older adults with cancer who had been offered hospice enrollment (24 non-hospice and 18 hospice) and 38 caregivers (15 non-hospice and 23 hospice); N = 80. The decisional model illustrates that the recognition of advanced cancer and information and communication needs were experienced similarly by both groups. There was interaction between the decisional stages: formulation of awareness and generation of alternatives that informed the evaluation of hospice but these stages were different in the hospice and non-hospice groups. The hospice enrollment decision represents a critical developmental juncture, which is accompanied by a transformed identity and substantive cognitive shift. Increased attention to the psychosocial and emotional issues that accompany this transition are important for quality end-of-life care.

The NIMH experimental medicine initiative.

Much has been written about the dire state of treatment development for mental disorders (1). While there has been progress in the development of devices and psychosocial treatments, psychopharmacology over the past decade appears to have stalled after four decades of exuberant growth (2).

A concept analysis of 'Meaning in work' and its implications for nursing.

To report an analysis of the concept of 'meaning in work'. Associated with initiatives to improve the quality of working life and the emerging movement of positive organizations, 'meaning in work' has been studied as a positive individual-level state. 'Meaning in work' has potential benefits that will improve the nursing workforce if this concept is embraced in nursing. However, the concept is not clearly defined because it has been approached from diverse theoretical perspectives and used interchangeably with analogous terms. A concept analysis. Three key terms (using 'work', 'meaning' or 'meaningful', 'meaning of work', 'logotherapy') were searched in the CINAHL, PsycINFO, Business Source Complete and ABI/INFORM Global online databases from January 1940-March 2015. Among 346 articles retrieved, 28 studies were included for this concept analysis. The procedure of concept analysis developed by Walker and Avant (2011) was used. Four critical attributes are identified: (1) experienced positive emotion at work; (2) meaning from work itself; (3) meaningful purpose and goals of work; and (4) work as a part of life that contributes towards meaningful existence. The identified antecedent of 'meaning in work' was a cognitive shift and the identified consequences were positive personal experience and positive impact on peers and organizations. This article provides a clear definition of 'meaning in work'. The resulting coherent definition will facilitate the use of 'meaning in work' in nursing research.

Aberrant function of learning and cognitive control networks underlie inefficient cognitive flexibility in anorexia nervosa: a cross-sectional fMRI study.

ObjectivesPeople with Anorexia Nervosa exhibit difficulties flexibly adjusting behaviour in response to environmental changes. This has previously been attributed to problematic behavioural shifting, characterised by a decrease in fronto-striatal activity. Additionally, alterations of instrumental learning, which relies on fronto-striatal networks, may contribute to the observation of inflexible behaviour. The authors sought to investigate the neural correlates of cognitive flexibility and learning in Anorexia Nervosa.MethodThirty-two adult females with Anorexia Nervosa and thirty-two age-matched female control participants completed the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task whilst undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Event-related analysis permitted the comparison of cognitive shift trials against those requiring maintenance of rule-sets and allowed assessment of trials representing learning.ResultsAlthough both groups performed similarly, we found significant interactions in the left middle frontal gyrus, precuneus and superior parietal lobule whereby blood-oxygenated-level dependent response was higher in Anorexia Nervosa patients during shifting but lower when maintaining rule-sets, as compared to healthy controls. During learning, posterior cingulate cortex activity in healthy controls decreased whilst increasing in the Anorexia Nervosa group, whereas the right precuneus exhibited the opposite pattern. Furthermore, learning was associated with lower blood-oxygenated-level dependent response in the caudate body, as compared to healthy controls.ConclusionsPeople with Anorexia Nervosa display widespread changes in executive function. Whilst cognitive flexibility appears to be associated with aberrant functioning of the fronto-parietal control network that mediates between internally and externally directed cognition, fronto-striatal alterations, particularly within the caudate body, were associated with instrumental learning. Together, this shows how perseverative tendencies could be a substrate of multiple high-order processes that may contribute to the maintenance of Anorexia Nervosa.

“These Immeasurable Mysteries”: Rites of Passage in Stevens and Cummings

N HIS STUDY of religious beliefs and practices among Americans, Spir- itual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion, Wade Clark Roof observes that whether churchgoer or not, the sub- jective world of the American (is) a space open and spiritually revisable. To be American (is) to allow for cognitive and experiential shifts, to make and remake religious worlds (153). Roof uses terms such as lived reli- gion (157) and quest culture (Roof and Caron 119) to describe his coun- trymen's preference for a personal sense of spiritual meaning. Roof's assessment is correct, then America provides an unusually open space where spiritual ideas and faiths may be freely negotiated and combined according to individual preferences. This has a bearing on the solitary and contemplative tendency that George Lensing has identified in several of the country's greatest writers. As Lensing proposes, The great isolation of Hawthorne, Dickinson, Robinson, and Stevens suggests a peculiar dis- position of many American writers: their self-consciousness, their distrust of the world beyond an immediate circle, and, above all, the great inward probing that their art variously discloses (Poet's Growth 48). In her own reflections on American religious poetry, That Highest Candle (a title paying homage to Wallace Stevens), the novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson speculates, furthermore, that If there is a single subject upon which the gaze of the major Americans has been fixed since Whitman and Dickinson, it is surely human mortality, consciousness thrown into sharp relief by the fact that consciousness as we know it will cease (138). In this essay, I will use as a starting point the idea that many American poets are interested in a solitary contemplation of death, and that this con- frontation with the end of consciousness is informed by their ever-adapt- ing belief systems. I would like to push the image of a privately questing artist one step further by proposing a specific hypothesis: the engagement with mortality can trigger a kind of mystical experience that harkens back much farther than the faith and practices of America's Protestant settlers— an experience that is more akin to those undergone by Eleusinian initiates. My focus on Greek mysteries has an affinity with Edward Clarke's recent comparative study of Yeats and Stevens, in which he sets out to uncov-

Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution

A niche is the structural, temporal, and social context in which a species exists. Over the last two million years, the human lineage underwent clear morphological changes alongside less easily measurable, but significant, behavioral and cognitive shifts as it forged, and was shaped by, new niches. During this time period, core human patterns emerged, including the following: hypercooperation; lengthy childhood and complex parenting; intricate and diverse foraging and hunting patterns; novel and dynamic material and symbolic cultures; and complex communication and information sharing, eventually resulting in language. Approaches to human evolution grounded in paleoanthropology and archaeology offer fundamental insights into our past, and traditional evolutionary theory offers a strong grounding for explaining them. However, given the centrality of distinctive physiological, social, semiotic, and cognitive processes in human evolutionary histories, a broader anthropological approach can facilitate additional understanding of the human story. An integrative anthropology, reaching across subfields and foci, combined with contemporary evolutionary theory is an approach that can enhance our abilities to model and understand human evolution. [integrative anthropology, niche construction, evolution, extended evolutionary synthesis, Homo, semiosis, Pleistocene]

From Eden to Agora: The E-Learning Trading Zone

E-learning is not just a learning and teaching innovation; it also signals a shift in human cognition and communication. The lexicon of e-learning borrows from the barren lexicon of information science: of users, usage and usability (Gould and Lewis, 1985), or of information-seeking and affordances (Pirolli and Card, 1999). Deep e-learning requires a more fecund idiom, a new myth: of the digital agora , an e-learning ‘trading zone’ (Mills and Huber, 1995). Here we reflect on the process of shaping an electronic version of our generic doctoral skills sessions, during which it occurred to us that, to match the benefits of interactivity in face-to-face teaching and learning and to be transformative of academic subjectivity, e-learning must be truly performative, rather than merely informative; e-learners (and e-teachers too) must enact the skills they hope to learn (or teach).