The influence of pre-experimental experience on social discrimination in rats (Rattus norvegicus)

The authors used laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus) of known relatedness and contrasting familiarity to assess the potential effect of preexperimental social experience on subsequent social recognition. The authors used the habituation-discrimination technique, which assumes that multiple exposures to a social stimulus (e.g., soiled bedding) ensure a subject discriminates between the habituation stimulus and a novel stimulus when both are introduced simultaneously. The authors observed a strong discrimination if the subjects had different amounts of preexperimental experience with the donors of the 2 stimuli but a weak discrimination if the subjects had either equal amounts of preexperimental experience or no experience with the stimuli. Preexperimental social experience does, therefore, appear to influence decision making in subsequent social discriminations. Implications for recognition and memory research are discussed

Joining forces: engineering and arts students get physic(al) – problem solving strategies in the trans-school project

This paper / web article describes the practical investigations undertaken as part of the arts/engineering trans-school project.University of the Arts, London and Brunel University LTDU (APDU

Understanding the Internet: Model, Metaphor, and Analogy

published or submitted for publicatio

Auditory communication in domestic dogs: vocal signalling in the extended social environment of a companion animal

Domestic dogs produce a range of vocalisations, including barks, growls, and whimpers, which are shared with other canid species. The source–filter model of vocal production can be used as a theoretical and applied framework to explain how and why the acoustic properties of some vocalisations are constrained by physical characteristics of the caller, whereas others are more dynamic, influenced by transient states such as arousal or motivation. This chapter thus reviews how and why particular call types are produced to transmit specific types of information, and how such information may be perceived by receivers. As domestication is thought to have caused a divergence in the vocal behaviour of dogs as compared to the ancestral wolf, evidence of both dog–human and human–dog communication is considered. Overall, it is clear that domestic dogs have the potential to acoustically broadcast a range of information, which is available to conspecific and human receivers. Moreover, dogs are highly attentive to human speech and are able to extract speaker identity, emotional state, and even some types of semantic information

The alaas: the interplay between environment and Sakhas in Central-Yakutia

Alaases, thermokarst depressions formed in the permafrost environment of Yakutia (north-eastern Siberia) provide fertile hayfields for the Sakha cattle economy. At this northern latitude, cattle breeding is in particular demand of nutritious fodder, because cows spend an average of nine months in winter-stables. Therefore, alaases are in the focus of Sakha environmental perception. Sakhas not only dwell at alaases, but through their economic activities, they modify and maintain them as well. This process is based on control and domination rather than on procurement of the environment. Villagers in Tobuluk (central Yakutia) consider the areas surrounding their village as controlled islands of alaases (hayfields) in a sea of uncontrolled forest. In this paper, I examine Sakha environmental perception in which landscapes and cardinal directions evoke and define each other and characterise those who reside there. Due to the subsequent transformations of Sakha economy and lifestyle by the Soviet and Russian state administration in the last 100 years (collectivisation, centralisation, and decollectivisation), the way Sakhas interact with their surroundings has transformed radically within the past four generations, causing profound differences in the way generations relate to, interact with, and understand alaases

Crazy ideas or creative probes?: presenting critical artefacts to stakeholders to develop innovative product ideas

A number of design practices derive from and develop the notion of critical theory. Notable developers of such “critical design practices” are Dunne &amp; Raby with “critical design”, Sengers and colleagues at Cornell University's Culturally Embedded Computing Group with “reflective design”, and Agre with “critical technical practice” within artificial intelligence research. And there are an increasing number of designers who, whilst not specifically explicating their theoretical ancestry, include critical elements in their products. The reflection afforded by the products of critical design is generally seen as its endpoint. However I have used this reflection instrumentally within human-centred design activities. “Critical artefacts” have proved more useful as tools than direct questioning techniques; in particular as a way of enabling stakeholders to engage with novel situations and consequently engage in creative thinking about future possibilities. This paper begins with a review of critical design practices. Two case studies are then detailed demonstrating my approach. A discussion of the commonalities and differences between critical design practices follows noting their relationship to critical social theory and the relationship of my work to them. Finally further research to develop generalisable methods is outlined.</p

Enhancing the Early Literacy Development of Children at Risk for Reading Difficulties

This paper reviews the dynamic and interactive links between the development of children’s language phonological awareness, and reading. Some of the key issues explored are procedures to enhance children’s language development, decoding and word recognition skills, along with some relevant assessment and programming strategies that can facilitate children’s early reading development. In particular, the paper supports the suggestion that deficits in phonological awareness are often a consequence of slow vocabulary development (a classic marker of language delay) and that teachers need to be able to adapt their language and dialogue interactions for children with language delays

Conformity, deformity and reformity

In any given field of artistic practice, practitioners position themselves—or find themselves positioned—according to interests and allegiances with specific movements, genres, and traditions. Selecting particular frameworks through which to approach the development of new ideas, patterns and expressions, balance is invariably maintained between the desire to contribute towards and connect with a particular set of domain conventions, whilst at the same time developing distinction and recognition as a creative individual. Creativity through the constraints of artistic domain, discipline and style provides a basis for consideration of notions of originality in the context of activity primarily associated with reconfiguration, manipulation and reorganisation of existing elements and ideas. Drawing from postmodern and post-structuralist perspectives in the analysis of modern hybrid art forms and the emergence of virtual creative environments, the transition from traditional artistic practice and notions of craft and creation, to creative spaces in which elements are manipulated, mutated, combined and distorted with often frivolous or subversive intent are considered. This paper presents an educational and musically focused perspective of the relationship between the individual and domain-based creative practice. Drawing primarily from musical and audio-visual examples with particular interest in creative disruption of pre-existing elements, creative strategies of appropriation and recycling are explored in the context of music composition and production. Conclusions focus on the interpretation of creativity as essentially a process of recombination and manipulation and highlight how the relationship between artist and field of practice creates unique creative spaces through which new ideas emerge

What a thirst it was: longing, excess and the genre-bending essay

Rachel Blau DuPlessis writes that the essay is restless, always a little too hungry, a little too thirsty (2006). Implicit in this statement is the fact that a good essay is full of desire and creates this response in readers too – building a thirst for more knowledge, for more emotion, for stimuli, satisfaction. Here the essay is unquenchable, undefinable and unsummarizable. This experimental essay talks about the practice and application of writing experimental essays and their capacity to be genre-bending, form-curious texts. Considering specific texts that explore artistic practice and/or, in their hybridity, bring image and text together in essential ways, the hybrid essay will emerge as a way of making, seeing, reading, interpreting and acquiring knowledge. By discussing intentional ambiguity, the unfamiliar familiar, knowledge in context, and the role of language and structure in the creation of presence, silence and absence in texts, this essay draws attention to the complications (and possibilities) of essays and their forms. The best essays create subtle, lively interactions between and within subjects, forms and languages that can howl and shape-shift in the final essay itself. These genre-bending essays can deepen and complicate the knowledge we make for ourselves – as we experience reverberations of meaning in the multiple readings each specific open text encourages. Included here is the writing and thinking of Anne Carson, Gertrude Stein, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Lyn Hejinian and others