Bulletin of NTU "KhPI". Series: Problems of Electrical Machines and Apparatus Perfection. The Theory and Practice / Вісник Національного технічного університету "ХПІ". Серія: Проблеми удосконалювання електричних машин і апаратів. Теорія і практика
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Aiming at creativity and ending up with a range from low-hanging fruits to foolishness: A Reflective Model of Creativity
No full textThe term 'creative' is commonly used in everyday language and in academic discourse to discuss the nature of artistic and innovative productions. This usage implies the existence of a variable of creativity that allows different production to be compared. The standard definition of creativity asserts that a production must possess both value and novelty in order to be considered creative. However, previous psychometric studies aimed at establishing the existence of such a creativity variable based on these two dimensions have produced results that seem to demonstrate their independence or even negative association. These widely replicated empirical results seem to call into question the notion of a single creativity variable associated with productions, leading to a paradoxical use of the term 'creative' to describe the object produced. In our study, we aimed to reproduce these results while addressing methodological errors made in previous efforts to establish construct validity. This work led us to test the existence of a common cause for the observed variations in novelty and value. The higher-order factor we obtain in our analysis encompasses subtle differences from the conventional creativity axis and interacts negatively with novelty, while correlating positively with value
Opinion: All in the name: COVID-19, variants of concern, and the (re)production of difference
No full textDrawing on the concept of ‘medicalized nativism’ fostered by Kraut (1994), Wald (2008) reveals how disease carriers are fiercely maligned in such periods of hyper-nationalism. So too the places they inhabit. Such pathologising discourse is not only used to justify greater regulation and control at and also within a nation’s borders – as if “national borders can afford protection”, but to exclude, socially as well as physically, those identified as diseased if they dare to cross them. This opinion piece argues that the same level of care when naming Covid-19 and its variants and reporting on their community spread needs to be taken at this moment in the pandemic as was exercised in its beginning. If President Trump’s depiction of COVID-19 as the ‘Chinese Virus’ was racist, why aren’t statements about the Brazil, Indian, South African, and for that matter the Kent, variants not similarly critiqued
Configural sensitivity to inter-letter spacing in visual word perception
No full textThe word superiority effect refers to the phenomenon that people have better recognition of letters presented within words as compared to recognition of isolated letters. Although many previous research on how the spatial relations between letters in words affect the perceptual processing through the inversion paradigm, a significant amount of effort goes into setting the default inter-letter spacing when designing new fonts. Our current research examines the effect of manipulating letter spacing on the processing efficiency, as a measure of the word superiority effect. First, we tested multiple different words instead of fixed word stimuli to show that measures of efficiency can be generalized; second, we disrupted default inter-letter spacing by increasing, decreasing, and randomizing letter spacing to explore the extent to which the efficiency was sustained with the assessment functions. Our results indicate that participants are limited capacity only in the extreme spacing scenario. Additionally, the principle component (PC) analysis shows that highest PC values occur at normal spacing with degradation with increased disruption—spreading or narrowing. These results appear to confirm the configural nature of perceptual processing with normally-spaced words between identifiable tracking and kerning boundaries, and agree well with the ideas about optimal spacing by type designers and typographers implicit in general notion of "rhythmic spacing''. This work is also notable in that we demonstrate the use of assessment functions as a standardized tool for assessing the capacity benefits and efficiency of configural processing
A novel resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging signature of resilience to recurrent depression
No full textBackground: A high proportion of patients with remitted major depressive disorder (MDD) will experience recurring episodes, whilst some develop resilience and remain in recovery. The neural basis of resilience to recurrence is elusive. Abnormal resting-state connectivity of the subgenual cingulate cortex (sgACC) was previously found in cross-sectional studies of MDD, suggesting its potential pathophysiological importance. The current study aimed to investigate whether resting-state connectivity to a left sgACC seed region distinguishes resilient patients from those developing recurring episodes. Method: A total of 47 medication-free remitted MDD patients and 38 healthy controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at baseline. Over 14 months, 30 patients remained resilient whilst 17 experienced a recurring episode. Results: Attenuated interhemispheric left-to-right sgACC connectivity distinguished the resilient from the recurring-episode and control groups and was not correlated with residual depressive symptoms. Conclusions: The current study revealed a neural signature of resilience to recurrence in MDD and thereby elucidates the role of compensatory adaptation in sgACC networks
Centering inclusivity in the design of online conferences - An OHBM - Open Science perspective
No full textAs the global health crisis unfolded throughout the world, many academic conferences moved online in 2020. This move has been hailed as a positive step towards inclusivity in its attenuation of economic, physical and legal barriers and effectively enabled many individuals who have traditionally been underrepresented to join and participate. A number of studies have outlined how moving online made it possible to gather a more global community and has increased opportunities for individuals with various constraints, e.g. caregiving responsibilities.
Yet, the mere existence of online conferences is unfortunately no guarantee that everyone can attend and participate meaningfully. In fact, many elements of an online conference are still significant barriers to truly diverse participation: the tools used can be inaccessible for some individuals; the scheduling choices can favour some geographical locations; the setup of the conference can provide more visibility to well-established researchers and reduce opportunities for early career researchers. While acknowledging the benefits of an online setting, especially for individuals who have traditionally been underrepresented or excluded, we recognize that fostering social justice requires inclusivity to actively be centered in every aspect of online conference design.
Here, we draw from the literature and from our own experiences to identify practices that purposefully encourage a diverse community to: attend, participate in, and lead online conferences. Reflecting on how to design more inclusive online events is especially important as multiple scientific organizations have announced that they will continue offering an online version of their event when in-person conferences can resume
Do Autocrats Respond to Citizen Demands? Petitions and Housing Construction in the GDR
No full textCitizens in authoritarian regimes frequently communicate grievances to the government. While there is some evidence that governments respond to such petitions, little is known about the nature of this responsiveness: can petitions yield tangible improvements to citizens' livelihoods? To answer this question, we assemble a novel panel of housing-related petitions to the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and all housing constructed between 1945-1989. Exploiting the timing of the largest housing program in 1971, we employ a difference-in-differences design to show that construction was targeted at regions with higher rates of petitioning. We then use a variance decomposition method to benchmark the importance of petitions against objective indicators of housing need. Our results suggest that petitions allow citizens to meaningfully influence the allocation of public resources. The paper contributes to nascent scholarship on responsiveness in non-democratic regimes and shows that responsiveness leads to tangible improvements in citizens' livelihoods
Psychotic experiences in daily-life in adolescents and young adults with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome: an Ecological Momentary Assessment study
No full textObjectives: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is a genetic condition associated with a markedly increased risk for psychosis. Psychotic experiences (PE) are classically evaluated by clinical interviews that give little information about the fluctuation of these symptoms in daily-life. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate these phenomena using the Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), a structured diary technique that collects real-life measures in the everyday-life context, and to examine how these manifestations relate to a goal standard semi-structured assessment of PE.
Method: Eighty-six adolescents and young adults with 22q11DS as well as healthy controls (HC) aged 12-27 were recruited. All participants completed a 6-day ESM protocol assessing momentary psychotic experiences as well as their current mood (measured by positive and negative affects). The presence of (attenuated) psychotic symptoms was assessed in the 22q11DS group with a clinical interview (SIPS).
Results: Our main findings indicate that participants with 22q11DS reported more intense and more frequent momentary PE than HC and similar associations between affects (both PA and NA) and momentary PE. In participants with 22q11DS, more intense and more frequent momentary PE measured by EMA were associated with the severity of SIPS positive symptoms. Finally, participants with 22q11DS reporting at least attenuated positive symptoms of psychosis on the SIPS had more frequent and more intense momentary PE than participants with 22q11DS without psychotic symptoms.
Conclusions: Altogether, this study highlights the validity of EMA to assess PE and broadens previous findings about mood and PE associations
A large-scale comparison of cross-situational word learning models
No full textOne problem language learners face is extracting word meanings from scenes with many possible referents. Despite the ambiguity of individual situations, a large body of empirical work shows that people are able to learn cross-situationally when a word occurs in different situations. Many computational models of cross-situational word learning have been proposed, yet there is little consensus on the main mechanisms supporting learning, in part due to the profusion of disparate studies and models, and lack of systematic model comparisons across a wide range of studies. This study compares the performance of several extant models on a dataset of 44 experimental conditions and a total of 1,696 participants. Using cross-validation, we fit multiple models representing theories of both associative learning and hypothesis-testing theories of word learning, find two best-fitting models, and discuss issues of model and mechanism identifiability. Finally, we test the models’ ability to generalize to additional experiments, including developmental data
Heterogeneity of effects of cognitive reserve on performance in probable Alzheimer’s disease and in subjective cognitive decline
No full textOBJECTIVE: Cognitive reserve (CR) is a term used to describe the adaptability of cognitive processes to brain changes. It helps to explain the differential cognitive adaptation to daily functioning in aging individuals and in individuals with brain pathology, with a higher CR associated with a delay in the manifestation of cognitive symptoms. CR can be estimated using different proxies, such as education, life experience, premorbid IQ, and vocabulary size. Despite the complexity of CR, little research to date has systematically focused on the heterogeneity of its effects.
METHOD: We investigated this issue in individuals with probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and in those with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) by focusing on two variables: 1) the type of CR proxy (i.e., Education and Life-experience); and 2) the type of test used to assess cognitive performance (i.e., the MMSE screening test and the extensive ENB-2 test battery).
RESULTS: Our results suggested that effects on CR varied: in individuals with probable AD, we found a positive relationship of Education with performance on both the MMSE and the ENB-2 tests. In contrast, individuals with SCD showed a positive relationship of Life-experience selectively with the ENB-2 global score.
CONCLUSIONS: Different proxies can detect different compensatory effects of CR depending on task demand and on an individual’s global cognitive condition. In particular, while the Education proxy can capture CR-related cognitive compensation in pathological conditions such as probable AD, the more complex Life-experience proxy might be useful for capturing CR-related effects when signs of cognitive decline are subtle
Individual differences in decision-making
No full textThe study of individual differences in rational decision-making has led to two close streams of research. While the study of scores to the Adult-Decision Making Competence (A-DMC) tasks has provided evidence in favor of a general decision-making competence (DMC) factor, studies investigating individual differences in performance on heuristics and biases tasks have challenged a one-factor model of rationality. Assuming that heuristics and biases are part of DMC and considering that the A-DMC assesses just a few of them, the aim of the present study was to test whether a general DMC factor still emerges when adding four heuristics and biases tasks to the six A-DMC tasks, while ensuring satisfactory levels of score reliability. Exploratory factor analyses revealed that while performance on the A-DMC tasks can be reasonably aggregated into a general DMC measure, a two-factor model provided the best statistical and conceptual fit of the 10 tasks combined, the two factors reflecting Mindware gaps and Contaminated mindware