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Verbal, visual and musical memory in children with and without Developmental Language Disorder
Full text linkWhile there is a large body of evidence linking Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) with impairments in verbal short-term memory (STM), very little research has investigated the impact on auditory processing outside the language domain. Shared cognitive mechanisms may be involved in the maintenance of verbal and musical information in STM, and we hypothesized that impairments in verbal STM would impact musical STM in children with DLD. Children with DLD and two groups of typically developing (TD) children matched for chronological (CA) and verbal mental age (VMA) completed two tasks: one measuring pitch direction discrimination in two-tone sequences, and another measuring memory for pairs of melodies that differed in global contour shape and local intervals within the melodies. All participants were able to discriminate the direction of pitch intervals in two-tone sequences with above-chance accuracy with the CA group showing better discrimination accuracy than the VMA or DLD groups. Melody discrimination was significantly better for melodies that differed at global than local levels in all three groups and the CA group showed better discrimination than the DLD or VMA groups. Correlational analyses revealed that performance on the melody discrimination task was associated with auditory STM in TD children but not children with DLD. Conversely, visual STM was associated with melody discrimination in children with DLD but not TD children. These findings may indicate that visual properties of the musical input could be used to support musical STM in children with DLD
New Digital Technologies, Law, and a Non-Fascist Life? On Global Governance, Digital Networks, and the Molecular Unconscious
No full textDeterminants of physicians’ referrals for suspected cancer given a risk-prediction algorithm: Linking signal detection and fuzzy-trace theory
Full text linkBackground. Previous research suggests that physicians’ inclination to refer patients for suspected cancer is a relatively stable characteristic of their decision-making. We aimed to identify its psychological determinants in the presence of a risk-prediction algorithm.
Methods. We presented 200 UK General Practitioners with online vignettes describing patients with possible colorectal cancer. Per vignette, GPs indicated likelihood of referral (from “highly unlikely” to “highly likely”) and level of cancer risk (negligible/low/medium/high), received an algorithmic risk estimate, and could then revise their responses. After completing the vignettes, GPs responded to questions about their values with regards to harms and benefits of cancer referral for different stakeholders; perceived severity of errors; acceptance of false alarms; and attitudes to uncertainty. We tested whether these values and attitudes predicted their earlier referral decisions.
Results. The algorithm significantly reduced both referral likelihood (b=-0.06 [-0.10, -0.007], p=0.025) and risk level (b=-0.14 [-0.17, -0.11] p<0.001). The strongest predictor of referral was the value GPs attached to patient benefits (b=0.30 [0.23, 0.36] p<0.001), followed by benefits (b=0.18 [0.11, 0.24] p<0.001) and harms (b=-0.14 [-0.21, -0.08] p<0.001) to the health system/society. Perceived severity of missing a cancer vis-à-vis over-referring also predicted referral (b=0.004 [0.001, 0.007] p=0.009). The algorithm did not significantly reduce the impact of these variables on referral decisions.
Conclusions. The decision to refer patients who might have cancer can be influenced by how physicians perceive and value the potential benefits and harms of referral primarily for patients, and the moral seriousness of missing a cancer vis-à-vis over-referring. These values contribute to an internal threshold for action and are important even when an algorithm informs risk judgements
An evaluation of a visual interface for supporting query formulation in scholarly searching
Full text linkPerforming an effective literature review is a fundamental academic skill. Whether writing up a final project, preparing a research proposal, or simply finding answers to complex questions, students need to be able to systematically gather and analyze evidence from a variety of sources. However, many students have difficulty formulating effective search queries and understanding how to optimize their search strategy. This paper evaluates a novel approach to query formulation based on an alternative, visual interface. The approach is evaluated alongside a conventional, form-based interface in a comparative, controlled setting. The study finds that overall, participants considered the visual interface to be more complex and difficult to use. However, at the same time they used significantly more terms, facets and reformulations in the visual interface, and gave more attention to creating and refining more complex queries. In addition, the majority considered the visual interface to have greater transparency, with a clearer overview of the search tasks that encouraged them to invest greater effort in completing them successfully. The results demonstrate that visual approaches can offer tangible benefits in developing and improving students’ competence in exploratory search tasks
Composing with waves. An empirical ontology of electromagnetism
No full textThis paper collates a series of theoretical and empirical reflections emerging from the practice of making music with lights and other invisible electromagnetic waves. Starting from a simple philosophical and scientific description of the electromagnetic wave, the phenomenology of interacting with interfaces which are uncertain, invisible or unpredictable is explored and interpreted in relation to culture and traditional definitions of modernity and the contemporary. The peculiar form of interaction between humans and electronic machines that is created when using the electromagnetic field as a sensor system is described through first-hand experience and observation. The results are then revisited from a media theory perspective in order to abstract and imagine a description of the aesthetics of dynamic invisible interfaces. And in understanding the “substance” (Aristotelian substance is that which exists in the most fundamental way) of the interfaces we use to make music, and the forms of experience and perception that this engenders, the reflection attempts to reinterpret the context of making music in the new millennium
Dreaming of Wagner: Performing Gluck and the Aspiration for a National Theatre in Japan
Full text linkThe Japanese first encountered opera after 1854, following the termination of their isolation policy (Sakoku). Opera was welcomed as part of a politico-cultural agenda to modernise their country through Westernisation. In so doing, they aspired to a musico-theatrical genre in imitation of Wagnerian ideals but in the Japanese language, that would form the basis of a ‘National Theatre’.
This chapter explores their attempts to realise this project in the early twentieth century. First, it will trace the dissemination in Japan of Wagner’s discourses on musical theatre. Then it will examine intense discussions among Japanese intellectuals concerning how to realise the German composer’s ideals in the Japanese language and context, and assess their experimental musico-theatrical products generated from the debates.
Second, I will discuss in detail the first opera performance by an all-Japanese cast at Japan’s earliest state conservatoire in 1903. The performance was instigated by the Wagnerian Society founded by intellectuals at the University of Tokyo. The chosen work was Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, a substitute for their original over-ambitious plan of mounting Tannhäuser. The moderate success of the Gluck premiere proved historic in Japan’s reception of opera, giving a glimmer of hope towards a National Theatre. Even so, the conservatoire immediately banned further operatic performances fearing that overt displays of amorous gestures in educational settings might incite women to sexual immodesty. Hence, only commercial organisations performed opera, which eventually created ‘vulgarised’ forms of Western opera, somewhat unique in Japan but distant from Wagnerian music theatre – much to the chagrin of the intellectuals.
Through examining such a cultural dissonance between the ‘high and low’ and Western and Eastern mores, this chapter explores the modification of operatic genres and meanings involved in the transfer of artworks from one society to another
Songwriting and Career Musicianship as a Technology of the Self: Autosociobiographical Reflections on Music and Wellbeing
No full textThe relationship between songwriting and developing a career as a musician is complex. On the one hand, the psychosocial working conditions of musicians have been characterised as engendering specific risks vis-à-vis health and wellbeing, and conditions such as anxiety and depression have been attributed, at least in part, to participating in a labour market typified by high hopes, high risks, and endemic precarity. At the same time, developing a career as a musician can be a source of wellbeing; it can be both highly rewarding, emotionally rewarding, and a source of fulfillment, with the practice of songwriting too being a crucial expressive medium bound up with a musicians’ self of self and identity. This chapter draws on autosociobiographical reflections of my own career as a rapper and songwriter signed to Sony and explores in more focused detail a thematic area of analysis from the recently published The England No One Cares About: Lyrics from Suburbia. In doing so, I look at the role of songwriting in my own career, drawing on Foucault’s concept of technologies of the self, to look at the challenges and joys of building an identity and a career around music
Using Foucault to interrogate teacher wellbeing as discourse
Full text linkTeachers’ work is increasingly complex and demanding. Across the globe, teachers are experiencing unmanageable workloads, high levels of stress, and demoralisation that is leading to unprecedented attrition. In this context, teacher wellbeing has emerged as a focus of political discourse and government policies and programs, whilst teachers in many jurisdictions express their dissatisfaction and grievances with work conditions, including through teacher protests. In this chapter we demonstrate the value and application of Foucault’s historical-philosophical method to interrogating teacher wellbeing as discourse with a focus on education policies and teacher strikes. Through deploying various Foucauldian concepts, including ‘discourse’ and ‘power/knowledge’, among others, we illustrate how teacher wellbeing as a normative discourse works to position teachers and their work. We argue that deploying these concepts help us to better understand the powers that shape the creation and circulation of discourses through which teachers’ work is understood, problematised and acted upon. This is especially important in socio-political environments that aim to diminish counter discourses and sideline teachers from policy debates and public discussions of their work