Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections -- A Report of the Task Force on Children's Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight

Provides guiding principles and recommendations to organizations to support the development of arts-based early childhood programs and resources

Colour for behavioural success

Colour information not only helps sustain the survival of animal species by guiding sexual selection and foraging behaviour but also is an important factor in the cultural and technological development of our own species. This is illustrated by examples from the visual arts and from state-of-the-art imaging technology, where the strategic use of colour has become a powerful tool for guiding the planning and execution of interventional procedures. The functional role of colour information in terms of its potential benefits to behavioural success across the species is addressed in the introduction here to clarify why colour perception may have evolved to generate behavioural success. It is argued that evolutionary and environmental pressures influence not only colour trait production in the different species but also their ability to process and exploit colour information for goal-specific purposes. We then leap straight to the human primate with insight from current research on the facilitating role of colour cues on performance training with precision technology for image-guided surgical planning and intervention. It is shown that local colour cues in two-dimensional images generated by a surgical fisheye camera help individuals become more precise rapidly across a limited number of trial sets in simulator training for specific manual gestures with a tool. This facilitating effect of a local colour cue on performance evolution in a video-controlled simulator (pick-and-place) task can be explained in terms of colour-based figure-ground segregation facilitating attention to local image parts when more than two layers of subjective surface depth are present, as in all natural and surgical images

When does group norm or group identity predict cooperation in a public goods dilemma? The moderating effects of idiocentrism and allocentrism

In this study we examined how perceived group norm and group identity influence individual cooperative behavior in a public goods dilemma across cultural settings. Six hundred and eight students in the United States and People's Republic of China participated in a laboratory experiment in which group norm and group identity were manipulated and the individual cultural orientations of idiocentrism and allocentrism were measured. We found that idiocentrism and allocentrism moderated the relationship between perceived group norm and cooperation but not between group identity and cooperation. In particular, members who endorsed allocentrism to a greater extent cooperated more when they perceived a more cooperative group norm than did members who endorsed lower levels of allocentrism. On the other hand, people scored high on idiocentrism cooperated less when perceiving a more cooperative norm than did people scored low on idiocentrism. The results suggest that allocentrics are not cooperative in every context but are rather highly sensitive to social cues whereas idiocentrics, while tending to behave in a way that maximizes personal outcomes at the expense of the group, are also somewhat aloof to the situation

How the presentation of patient information and decision-support advisories influences opioid prescribing behavior: A simulation study

ObjectiveThe United States faces an opioid crisis. Integrating prescription drug monitoring programs into electronic health records offers promise to improve opioid prescribing practices. This study aimed to evaluate 2 different user interface designs for prescription drug monitoring program and electronic health record integration.Materials and MethodsTwenty-four resident physicians participated in a randomized controlled experiment using 4 simulated patient cases. In the conventional condition, prescription opioid histories were presented in tabular format, and computerized clinical decision support (CDS) was provided via interruptive modal dialogs (ie, pop-ups). The alternative condition featured a graphical opioid history, a cue to visit that history, and noninterruptive CDS. Two attending pain specialists judged prescription appropriateness.ResultsParticipants in the alternative condition wrote more appropriate prescriptions. When asked after the experiment, most participants stated that they preferred the alternative design to the conventional design.ConclusionsHow patient information and CDS are presented appears to have a significant influence on opioid prescribing behavior

Social norms and human normative psychology

Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch a cognitive evolutionary approach for developing explanations of social change that is anchored on the psychological mechanisms underlying normative cognition and the transmission of social norms. We throw the relevant features of this approach into relief by comparing it with the self-fulfilling social expectations account developed by Bicchieri and colleagues. After describing both accounts, we argue that the two approaches are largely compatible, but that the cognitive evolutionary approach is well- suited to encompass much of the social expectations view, whose focus on a narrow range of norms comes at the expense of the breadth the cognitive evolutionary approach can provide

Development of MBA education in China: opportunities and challenges for western universities

China’s embrace of the market economy has created a growing demand for business education, in particular for MBA programs. This paper first reviews development of MBA education in China as a basis for then discussing problems with current Chinese MBA teaching. Next, suggestions of how to solve these problems are presented. Finally, opportunities and challenges for Western universities to participate in China’s MBA education are addressed

Constructing effective ethical frameworks for biobanking

This paper is about the actual and potential development of an ethics that is appropriate to the practices and institutions of biobanking, the question being how best to develop a framework within which the relevant ethical questions are first identified and then addressed in the right ways. It begins with ways in which a standard approach in bioethics – namely upholding a principle of individual autonomy via the practice of gaining donors’ informed consent – is an inadequate ethical framework for biobanking. In donating material to a biobank, the individual donor relinquishes a degree of control and knowledge over the way their material is used in large-scale and typically open ended projects; and the identifying nature of genetic material means that third parties have rights and interests which must be taken into account as well as those of the individual donor. After discussing the problems for informed consent in the biobanking context, the paper then considers three emerging alternative approaches which, broadly speaking, conceptualize the subject of biobanking ethics in communal or co-operative terms: one version sees participants in biobanking research as ‘shareholders’ whilst the other expands on the notion of participation to include the wider public beneficiaries of biobanking as ‘stakeholders’. It concludes by outlining a third view, on which the biobanking institution itself is conceived as an ethical subject whose defining function can do useful normative work in guiding and evaluating its activities

Complementary Actions

Human beings come into the world wired for social interaction. At the fourteenth week of gestation, twin fetuses already display interactive movements specifically directed towards their co- twin. Readiness for social interaction is also clearly expressed by the newborn who imitate facial gestures, suggesting that there is a common representation mediating action observation and execution. While actions that are observed and those that are planned seem to be functionally equivalent, it is unclear if the visual representation of an observed action inevitably leads to its motor representation. This is particularly true with regard to complementary actions (from the Latin complementum ; i.e. that fills up), a specific class of movements which differ, while interacting, with observed ones. In geometry, angles are defined as complementary if they form a right angle. In art and design, complementary colors are color pairs that, when combined in the right proportions, produce white or black. As a working definition, complementary actions refer here to any form of social interaction wherein two (or more) individuals complete each other\u2019s actions in a balanced way. Successful complementary interactions are founded on the abilities:\ua0 (1)\ua0 to simulate another person\u2019s movements; (2)\ua0 to predict another person\u2019s future action/ s; (3)\ua0to produce an appropriate congruent/ incongruent response that completes the other person\u2019s action/ s; and (4)\ua0to integrate the predicted effects of one\u2019s own and another person\u2019s actions. It is the neurophysiological mechanism that underlies this process which forms the main theme of this chapte

Understanding and Developing Emotional Intelligence

{Excerpt} Emotional intelligence describes an ability, capacity, skill, or self-perceived ability to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one\u27s self, of others, and of groups. The theory is enjoying considerable support in the literature and has had successful applications in many domains. The intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests to measure intelligence. It has been used to assess giftedness, and sometimes underpin recruitment. Many have argued that IQ, or conventional intelligence, is too narrow: some people are academically brilliant yet socially and interpersonally inept. And we know that success does not automatically follow those who possess a high IQ rating. Wider areas of intelligence enable or dictate how successful we are. Toughness, determination, and vision help. But emotional intelligence, often measured as an emotional intelligence quotient, or EQ, is more and more relevant to important work-related outcomes such as individual performance, organizational productivity, and developing people because its principles provide a new way to understand and assess the behaviors, management styles, attitudes, interpersonal skills, and potential of people. It is an increasingly important consideration in human resource planning, job profiling, recruitment interviewing and selection, learning and development, and client relations and customer service, among others