Absence of contagious yawning in children with autism spectrum disorder

This study is the first to report the disturbance of contagious yawning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty-four children with ASD as well as 25 age-matched typically developing (TD) children observed video clips of either yawning or control mouth movements. Yawning video clips elicited more yawns in TD children than in children with ASD, but the frequency of yawns did not differ between groups when they observed control video clips. Moreover, TD children yawned more during or after the yawn video clips than the control video clips, but the type of video clips did not affect the amount of yawning in children with ASD. Current results suggest that contagious yawning is impaired in ASD, which may relate to their impairment in empathy. It supports the claim that contagious yawning is based on the capacity for empathy

Cultural background modulates how we look at other persons' gaze

The current study investigated the role of cultural norms on the development of face-scanning. British and Japanese adults’ eye movements were recorded while they observed avatar faces moving their mouth, and then their eyes toward or away from the participants. British participants fixated more on the mouth, which contrasts with Japanese participants fixating mainly on the eyes. Moreover, eye fixations of British participants were less affected by the gaze shift of the avatar than Japanese participants, who shifted their fixation to the corresponding direction of the avatar’s gaze. Results are consistent with the Western cultural norms that value the maintenance of eye contact, and the Eastern cultural norms that require flexible use of eye contact and gaze aversion

Content-Based Instruction (CBI) for the Social Future: A Recommendation for Critical Content-Based Language Instruction (CCBI)

In this article, we seek to reconceptualize content-based instruction (CBI) curricula and practices from a critical perspective. Further, we propose developing criticality as an essential component of CBI, advocating for an approach we call critical content-based instruction (CCBI). While the importance of CBI has long been recognized, previous discussions predominantly focused on its effectiveness for language learning (and content learning to a lesser degree), and overlooked its fundamental linkage and relevance to broader educational missions. In order to fully maximize the potential of CBI and envision language education as integral to the advancement of society, we argue that a critical approach to CBI should be considered. First, we lay out how CBI came to be and how it has been treated in language pedagogy. We believe CBI is indeed a suitable forum for introducing and implementing a critical perspective because of its original contribution of broadening language education to meet societal needs. Second, we provide an overview of recent discourse surrounding world language education. Based on these reviews, we lastly and most importantly delineate directions for CCBI by presenting examples and possible challenges

Theory of multiwave mixing and decoherence control in qubit array system

We develop a theory to analyze the decoherence effect in a charged qubit array system with photon echo signals in the multiwave mixing configuration. We present how the decoherence suppression effect by the {\it bang-bang} control with the $\pi$ pulses can be demonstrated in laboratory by using a bulk ensemble of exciton qubits and optical pulses whose pulse area is even smaller than $\pi$. Analysis is made on the time-integated multiwave mixing signals diffracted into certain phase matching directions from a bulk ensemble. Depending on the pulse interval conditions, the cross over from the decoherence acceleration regime to the decoherence suppression regime, which is a peculiar feature of the coherent interaction between a qubit and the reservoir bosons, may be observed in the time-integated multiwave mixing signals in the realistic case including inhomogeneous broadening effect. Our analysis will successfully be applied to precise estimation of the reservoir parameters from experimental data of the direction resolved signal intensities obtained in the multiwave mixing technique.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figure

A Novel Idea Generation Method for the Internet of Digital Reality Era: The Spinning Aufheben Method

Internet of Digital Reality (IoD) will be one of the essential next-generation information technologies. The content and presentation of information are the most important aspects that will make IoD work efficiently. However, the generation of ideas for IoD has not much progress in discussion because formalizing it is difficult. This paper presents an outline of the Spinning Aufheben (SA) method, which is a novel idea generation method, its application and model, validity, actual cases of the first application of the author, and potential social impact. Aufheben is one of the common mechanisms for generating ideas from two elements. This method enables the infinite generation of ideas by rotating three elements of a dialectic. We also present the result of pilot projects on 51 university students to determine its effectivity as an application for helping them determine future career plans after graduation. As a result, 46 students identified their career goals. The students expressed appreciation of the career search results using the SA methood

A note on maximality of analytic crossed products

AbstractLet G be a compact abelian group with the totally ordered dual group Gˆ which admits the positive semigroup Gˆ+. Let N be a von Neumann algebra and α={αgˆ}gˆ∈Gˆ be an automorphism group of Gˆ on N. We denote N⋊αGˆ+ to the analytic crossed product determined by N and α. We show that if N⋊αGˆ+ is a maximal σ-weakly closed subalgebra of N⋊αGˆ, then Gˆ+ induces an archimedean order in Gˆ