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Curiosity and Mind Wandering During Music Listening Are Negatively Correlated
Get PDFCuriosity, a crucial trigger of exploration and learning, has been described as the antithesis of mind wandering, a state of non-engagement with the external environment or a given task. Findings have confirmed that music’s structure influences levels of curiosity in listeners as they listen and, as such, suggests that this context could be useful in examining the relationship between curiosity and mind wandering. Here, participants were exposed to extended melodies twice, during which they carried out two counterbalanced tasks: one requiring them, whenever probed, to indicate whether they had been mind wandering at that moment and the other requiring them to indicate, when probed, how curious they were feeling about the music at that moment. Critically, participants were probed at the exact same moments in the music when completing the two tasks, allowing the relationship between curiosity and mind wandering to be examined. Results confirmed our prediction of a negative relationship between curiosity and mind wandering, while exploratory analysis further suggested an influence of expertise and the music’s information dynamics on patterns of mind wandering. We discuss the implications of our study for understanding music as an exploration-affording sound environment and outline directions for future work
Place
No full textIn this entry I use photographs to examine how my familial connections to Grenada and to histories of colonialism and exploitation are caught up with my responses to owning land there. Using the example of photographs I took for an exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2019 which explored these relationships, this personal account questions the blurred boundaries between ethnographic and art photography
Evaluation of fetal exposure to environmental noise using a computer-generated model
Get PDFAcoustic noise can have profound effects on wellbeing, impacting the health of the pregnant mother and the development of the fetus. Mounting evidence suggests neural memory traces are formed by auditory learning in utero. A better understanding of the fetal auditory environment is therefore critical to avoid exposure to damaging noise levels. Using anatomical data from MRI scans (N=3), we used a computational model to quantify the acoustic field inside the pregnant maternal abdomen. We obtained acoustic transfer characteristics across the human audio range and pressure maps in transverse planes passing through the uterus at 5 kHz, 10 kHz and 20 kHz, showcasing multiple scattering and modal patterns. Our calculations suggest that for all datasets, the sound transmitted in utero is attenuated by as little as 6 dB below 1 kHz, confirming results from animal studies that the maternal abdomen and pelvis do not shelter the fetus from external noise
Balancing accuracy and Interpretability: An R package assessing complex relationships beyond the Cox model and applications to clinical prediction
Get PDFBackground
Accurate and interpretable models are essential for clinical decision-making, where predictions can directly impact patient care. Machine learning (ML) survival methods can handle complex multidimensional data and achieve high accuracy but require post-hoc explanations. Traditional models such as the Cox Proportional Hazards Model (Cox-PH) are less flexible, but fast, stable, and intrinsically transparent. Moreover, ML does not always outperform Cox-PH in clinical settings, warranting a diligent model validation. We aimed to develop a set of R functions to help explore the limits of Cox-PH compared to the tree-based and deep learning survival models for clinical prediction modelling, employing ensemble learning and nested cross-validation.
Methods
We developed a set of R functions, publicly available as the package "survcompare”. It supports Cox-PH are Cox-Lasso, and Survival Random Forest (SRF) and DeepHit are the ML alternatives, along with the ensemble methods integrating Cox-PH with SRF or DeepHit designed to isolate the marginal value of ML. The package performs a repeated nested cross-validation and tests for statistical significance of the ML’s superiority using the survival-specific performance metrics, the concordance index, time-dependent AUC-ROC and calibration slope. To get practical insights, we applied this methodology to clinical and simulated datasets with varying complexities and sizes.
Results
In simulated data with non-linearities or interactions, ML models outperformed Cox-PH at sample sizes ≥500. ML superiority was also observed in imaging and high-dimensional clinical data. However, for tabular clinical data, the performance gains of ML were minimal; in some cases, regularised Cox-Lasso recovered much of the ML’s performance advantage with significantly faster computations. Ensemble methods combining Cox-PH and ML predictions were instrumental in quantifying Cox-PH’s limits and improving ML calibration. Traditional models like Cox-PH or Cox-Lasso should not be overlooked while developing clinical predictive models from tabular data or data of limited size.
Conclusion
Our package offers researchers a framework and practical tool for evaluating the accuracy-interpretability trade-off, helping make informed decisions about model selection
What Is a (Sonic) Time Machine? From Dark and Black Quantum Futurism to Coil’s Time Machines Project and La Dispute’s “King Park”
Get PDFThis article will go over some of the main inspirations behind the Time Machines symposium, looking at different conceptions and functions of time machines across a range of media arts. While Dark might seem to offer the most literal example of a time machine, this turns out to be strange and impossible device, itself dependent on time travel in its manufacture out of elements from different time periods and therefore calling into question questions of linear temporal. The Black Quantum Futurism collective deliberately combine elements from Afrofuturism and Quantum physics to undo the oppressions of linear chronological time via a range of media art practices, exhibitions and workshops, including workshops in time travel. Coil’s Time Machines project makes use of a different kind of loop, of analogue sonic repetitive drones, to generate a disturbed temporal experience for the listener that ‘under the right conditions’ (social, cognitive, chemical) may constitute a form of quantum time travel. All of the above can be considered as machines for escaping linear chronological time, even if these escapes may have their own dangers and limitations depending on the context. Finally, the article will do an analysis of the post hardcore band La Dispute’s ‘King Park’, an emotionally intense song revolving around the accidental shooting of a child and the consequences of this for the killer. More than just objective reportage or story-telling, I will argue that the song both lyrically and sonically inhabits the events it describes and enacts a mode of time travel to revisit these traumatic events and to re-experience them from multiple perspectives. As such , I will argue that this, alongside the other examples mentioned, resonate strongly with Deleuzian conceptions not only of chronological time as a chronic condition that artistic practices draw various lines of flight from, but also of the event as an acausal ad non-linear intensity, always capable of being re-actualised in the present
Process and Dynamics in AI and Language Use
Get PDFIn this volume, Randall Beer and Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi have opened an important discussion of what is further needed to enhance the reach of dynamical approaches to cognition. Focusing on issues concerning the nature of language and developments in language technology, we have attempted, in this brief contribution, to place their proposals in a larger philosophical framework that suggests lines of inquiry that we believe will yield fruitful outcomes. In particular, we suggest that the adoption of a process metaphysics suggests that dynamic approaches appropriately conceived within the context of current scientific advances are at basis adequate as a framework; however, the more profound implications of its adoption have not yet been sufficiently explored
Re-creation as recreation: the re-enactment of heritage buses in the everyday city
Get PDFThis paper explores the re-enactment of running heritage buses in the everyday city through a series of events. It presents findings from enthusiast-organised activities to re-create the past, based on four public and private events involving the reappearance of heritage buses on the streets of London. Through participatory observations undertaken in late 2022, these buses were arguably performing a re-enactment consisting of a re-dressing of the material culture of the bus, which involved paying tribute through considerable attention to detail. It also involved enthusiast conductors engaging in role-play with passengers to perform historical everyday mobility practices, thus reconstructing the atmosphere of the past. The juxtaposition of heritage buses with contemporary city landmarks for photography purposes was found to be popular among enthusiasts and appealing to the general public, which potentially also transformed private events into semi-public ones. The difference between the two notions of “nostalgic heritage” and “bonding heritage” (Laar 2013) was found not clear-cut because heritage buses impart different meanings and connections to individuals with different backgrounds, for which autobiographical and familial references appear key. As newcomers to Britain, Hongkongers formed a significant demography in these events, which they described as making them “feel at home” and on a “pilgrimage”. Critical reflections on current bus services were also prompted by the re-creation of past routes, which could be a useful strategy for collecting public opinion as the future of bus mobilities is reconsidered in the context of the past re-created
This month in history: VE Day, 80 years on
Get PDFTo mark 80 years of VE Day, Peter Doyle, Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University, describes the final days of World War 2 and Victory in Europe
Intimacy, vulnerability and post-neoliberalism?
Get PDFExtended book review and roundtable discussion of Digital Intimacies: Queer Men and Smartphones in Times of Crisis, by Jamie Hakim, James Cummings and Ingrid Youn