1,720,956 research outputs found
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Controlling Away the Phenomenon: Maze Research and the Nature of Learning
No full textFollowing maze research in animal behavior studies through the twentieth century, I explore “control” as an extended historical process involving the successive stabilization or removal of bits and scraps of the world to arrive at the pure form of a phenomenon of interest. Early behaviorist investigation of maze learning aimed to strip environmental cues from maze design to study context-free learning. Exemplifying this tendency is the famous 1907 “Kerplunk” experiment of Watson and Carr, in which they concluded that rats could ultimately learn a maze as one long bodily response unspooling in a successive series of actions, rather than basing their movement through the maze on external sensory stimuli. Supporting this context-free research program was a conceptual understanding of learning as something singular and general. With later, more ecological, accounts of animal behavior, however, it was argued that these early control practices had nullified the rich interrelation between organism and environment that makes advanced learning possible. The result was a deflated and distorted understanding of animal learning. Researchers had, in short, controlled away the phenomenon. This case highlights the tension between the object of inquiry and the object of control, and illustrates how novelty emerges in reinterpreting as central to the phenomenon of interest that which was previously merely interference
Adaptive explanations of behaviors: obstacles and overcomings
Get PDFThis paper seeks to clarify and modestly defend the use of adaptive explanations – explaining the existence of a trait by reference to putative historical selection pressures – within the evolutionary behavioral sciences. I identify four major areas of concern: (1) the kind of target that behavior is, (2) the explanatory strategy used by adaptive explanations, (3) the forward-looking or model-based approach to adaptive explanations, and (4) the adaptive explanation of human behaviors. After working through each of these areas, I conclude that, adaptive explanation, even via the forward-looking approach, is a viable strategy to explain the behavior of human and non-human animals, but is subject to legitimate difficulties and limitations concerning hypothesized selection pressures, cognitive complexity, and non-genetic systems of inheritance
Controlling Away the Phenomenon: Maze Research and the Nature of Learning
Get PDFFollowing maze research in animal behavior studies through the twentieth century, I explore “control” as an extended historical process involving the successive stabilization or removal of bits and scraps of the world to arrive at the pure form of a phenomenon of interest. Early behaviorist investigation of maze learning aimed to strip environmental cues from maze design to study context-free learning. Exemplifying this tendency is the famous 1907 “Kerplunk” experiment of Watson and Carr, in which they concluded that rats could ultimately learn a maze as one long bodily response unspooling in a successive series of actions, rather than basing their movement through the maze on external sensory stimuli. Supporting this context-free research program was a conceptual understanding of learning as something singular and general. With later, more ecological, accounts of animal behavior, however, it was argued that these early control practices had nullified the rich interrelation between organism and environment that makes advanced learning possible. The result was a deflated and distorted understanding of animal learning. Researchers had, in short, controlled away the phenomenon. This case highlights the tension between the object of inquiry and the object of control, and illustrates how novelty emerges in reinterpreting as central to the phenomenon of interest that which was previously merely interference
William Timberlake: An ethologist's psychologist
Get PDFWilliam Timberlake was one of several psychologists who, in the wake of traditional learning theory, aimed to develop an improved theoretical basis for the study of learning via greater incorporation of ecology and evolution. In this short biography, I place Timberlake’s varied work in historical context. Originally trained as a neoHullian behaviorist, Timberlake sought to integrate the laboratory approach and methodological rigor of behaviorism, with the ethologist’s interest in the animal as such. Starting at Indiana University in 1969, he stayed there his entire professional career, where he was one of the founders of the university’s internationally recognized Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior. He is best known for his behavior systems theory, which characterizes animal behavior as an evolved complex hierarchically organized system. Timberlake has also made diverse contributions to the study of reinforcement, explanations of superstitious behavior and misbehavior, and the understanding of circadian rhythms and their modification, among other areas
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