John Terrane: A Study of a First World War Revisionist

Of all the British military historians who started writing about the First World War during the boom of the sixties, perhaps no one has had greater influence or generated more controversy than John Alfred Terraine. As G.F. Elliot wrote in a 1965 review, John Terraine is one of the younger generation of British military analysts who are now proving, with brilliance and vigour, the value of the long view in putting World War I in proper perspective. It is this idea of perspective, trying to bring balance to the historical arguments concerning the British contribution to the First World War, that drove John Terraine in all his work. Terraine\u27s nine books on the British Expeditionary Force challenged the comfortable mainstream theories and assumptions, defended the generals, and debunked the myths. His opinions gave him both notoreity and influence

Rape myth acceptance, victim blame attribution and Just World Beliefs: a rapid evidence assessment

Background: Rape is underreported, potentially because individuals self-blame and/or are blamed by others. Research predominantly illustrates male-perpetrated stranger-rape of females; thus, there may be a perception that rape myth acceptance (RMA) and victim-blaming are most prevalent in males. The purpose of this rapid evidence assessment was to investigate the availability of high-quality research into the effects of Just World Beliefs, perpetrator/victim gender, and stranger- and acquaintance/marital-rape scenarios on victim-blaming and RMA. Methods: Several electronic databases were searched for empirical papers using terms including: ‘victim blame’, ‘rape myth acceptance’, ‘Just World Beliefs’, ‘type of rape’ and ‘gender’. Gough's (2007) weight of evidence framework was used to assess quality prior to inclusion. Findings: Studies retained after filtering and quality assessment suggested that RMA was predictive of victim-blaming with both male and female ‘victims’. Rape myth acceptance is more prevalent in males even in male ‘victim’ scenarios, and Just World Belief was positively associated with RMA. Greater victim-blaming was attributed in stranger- vs. acquaintance-rape scenarios. Discussion: There are no absolute conclusions regarding the role of gender or situational factors and rape-supportive/victim-blaming attitudes. Further empirical research is required to understand the prevalence of RMA in perceptions of marital rape and, particularly, homosexual marital rape

The volume and source of cyberabuse influences victim blame and perceptions of attractiveness

Cyberabuse is an escalating problem in society, as opportunities for abuse to occur in online public domains increase. Such acts are often defined by the frequency of abuse, and in many cases multiple individuals play a part in the abuse. Although consequences of such acts are often severe, there is typically little public sympathy/support for victims. To better understand perceptions of victims of abusive online acts, we manipulated the Volume (low, high) and Source (same-source, multi-source) of abusive posts in artificially-manipulated Facebook timelines of four fictitious ‘victims’. One hundred and sixty-four participants [United Kingdom-based; aged 18–59] rated ‘victims’ on measures of direct victim blame (DVB) and perceived social-, physical- and task-attractiveness. Results revealed significant Volume × Source interactions on DVB and social-attractiveness ratings. Few abusive posts authored by a single source yielded higher DVB and lower social-attractiveness ratings. Strong correlations between attractiveness and DVB were observed. We propose that our results could be due to an observer desensitization effect, or that participants interpreted the posts as indicative of friendly ‘teasing’ or ‘banter’ within an established social relationship, helping to explain why victims of online abuse often receive little sympathy or support

Early EEG correlates of word frequency and contextual predictability in reading

Previous research into written language comprehension has been equivocal as to whether word frequency and contextual predictability effects share an early time course of processing. Target word frequency (low, high) and its predictability from prior context (low, high) were manipulated across two-sentence passages. Context sentences were presented in full, followed by word-by-word presentation (300 ms SOA) of target sentences. ERPs were analysed across left-to-right and anterior-to-posterior regions of interest within intervals from 50 to 550 ms post-stimulus. The onset of significant predictability effects (50–80 ms) preceded that of frequency (P1, 80–120 ms), while both main effects were generally sustained through the N400 (350–550 ms). Critically, the frequency-predictability interaction became significant in the P1 and was sustained through the N400, although the specific configuration of effects differed across components. The pattern of findings supports an early, chronometric locus of contextual predictability in recognising words during reading

Testing the limits of contextual constraint: interactions with word frequency and parafoveal preview during fluent reading

Contextual constraint is a key factor affecting a word's fixation duration and its likelihood of being fixated during reading. Previous research has generally demonstrated additive effects of predictability and frequency in fixation times. Studies examining the role of parafoveal preview have shown that greater preview benefit is obtained from more predictable and higher frequency words versus less predictable and lower frequency words. In two experiments, we investigated effects of target word predictability, frequency, and parafoveal preview. A 3 (Predictability: low, medium, high) × 2 (Frequency: low, high) design was used with Preview (valid, invalid) manipulated between experiments. With valid previews, we found main effects of Predictability and Frequency in both fixation time and probability measures, including an interaction in early fixation measures. With invalid preview, we again found main effects of Predictability and Frequency in fixation times, but no evidence of an interaction. Fixation probability showed a weak Predictability effect and Predictability-Frequency interaction. Predictability interacted with Preview in early fixation time and probability measures. Our findings suggest that high levels of contextual constraint exert an early influence during lexical processing in reading. Results are discussed in terms of models of language processing and eye movement control

The Power of 8: Encouraging Collaborative DIY Futures

"The Power of 8" was an experimental futures project, collaboratively driven by an ad hoc team of eight people from different walks of life. The aim was to explore new pathways for creating democratic futures by building a public discourse around the aspirations of ordinary people. The team of eight comprised a Designer/Speculator, an Educator, an Interaction Designer, a Permaculturist, a Policy Researcher, an Urbanist, a retired Civil Servant, and a Biomedical Scientist. Through a series of three intensive workshops, and later a wider public engagement phase, we adopted a narrative approach to building a collective view, representing possible futures of Brentford in London, England. This paper describes the strategies we used – including maps, montage and storytelling – to develop concepts, visualise proposals and materialise ‘future artefacts’ during the project

An investigation into the perceptual and cognitive factors affecting word recognition during normal reading

The present thesis examines the effects of a range of factors on the processing of written language. The present thesis principally uses eye movement recording technology while participants read short passages of text. Factors known to influence written language processing range from lower-level perceptual constraints to higher-level discourse contingencies. Examples of lower-level to higher-level variables are, respectively, intraword orthographic constraints, such as word-initial letter constraint (WILC) – how many other words share the same three initial letters of a given word; lexical level word frequency – how often a word occurs in written language; and extraword contextual predictability – how likely a word is to occur given the discourse up to the position of the word in the passage. The present thesis not only investigates the main effects of these factors, but also studies the simultaneous effects that these factors have on written language processing. Information acquired from the right of current fixation location – parafoveal preview – is essential for reading to proceed at a normal rate. Preview is typically studied using gaze-contingent display change paradigms – non-foveal text is obscured or manipulated, and effects on eye movement behaviour recorded. The present thesis studies an additional method of measuring the effects of preview, without manipulating the text displayed: launch distance – how far readers’ prior fixation is from a given word, before foveal processing of that word. Visual acuity diminishes as retinal eccentricity increases. The present thesis examines the how the effects of the above factors, and any interactions between them, are modulated by launch distance. Standard effects of frequency and predictability were found across all studies. Lower-frequency words (LF) were processed with greater difficulty than higher-frequency words (HF); low-predictability words (LP) were processed with greater difficulty than (HP) words. Consistent with prior research (Rayner, Ashby, Pollatsek, Reichle, 2004), Experiment 1 found additive effects of frequency and predictability on eye movement behaviour. However, further investigation revealed that when preview was highest (i.e., Near launch distances), frequency and predictability exerted an interactive effect. Experiment 2a further investigated the simultaneous effects of frequency and predictability, addressing methodological concerns about Experiment 1. Principally, that HP contexts in Experiment 1 were medium-predictability (MP), potentially obscuring any interaction, as the acquisition of parafoveal information is influenced by the frequency and predictability of the parafoveal word. Comparing very low-predictability (VLP) items to very high-predictability (VHP) items, the interactive pattern of effects observed in the Near launch distance condition of Experiment 1 was replicated in the global analyses of Experiment 2a. In Experiment 2b, comparisons of HF and LF words in VLP and specifically-designed MP items yielded an additive pattern of effects, consistent with Experiment 1. Furthermore, conditionalised analyses of these items by launch distance showed an interactive pattern of effects, but only at Near launch distances. Conditionalised analyses of HF and LF words in VLP and VHP materials from Experiment 2a revealed an interactive pattern of frequency and predictability effects at both Near and Middle launch distances. It is argued that frequency and predictability can interact under two distinct conditions, but both manners are dependent on preview. When HF and LF words are presented in MP contexts, a high level of preview must be provided by a Near launch distance for an interaction to be observed; when HF and LF words are presented in VHP contexts, sufficient information can be extracted at further launch distances, generating an interactive pattern of effects in global analyses. Experiment 3 examines whether fixation durations are inflated prior to skipping a word in text. An overall non-significant effect of word skipping on prior fixation durations was observed. However, this result was somewhat misleading – inflated fixation durations prior to skipping were observed, but only when to-be-skipped words were either HF or HP; indeed, the largest mean inflation prior to skipping was observed when the to-be-skipped word was both HF and HP. These results suggest that when readers are able to extract most information about parafoveal words (e.g., when those words are HF or HP), fixation durations prior to skipping these words are inflated. It is tentatively suggested that these effects reflect a longer accumulation of information from parafoveal to-be-skipped word. These effects are consistent with models of eye movement control permitting parallel processing of written information, as opposed to a strictly serial approach. Experiments 4a and 4b tested the effects of WILC. Experiment 4a employed a lexical decision task, examining the separate and combined effects of WILC and frequency. LF words were responded to less quickly than HF words. Words with low WILC (LC words; e.g., “clown” shares its initial trigram “clo” with many words) were processed more quickly than words with high WILC (HC words; e.g., “dwarf” shares its initial trigram “dwa” with few words). It is suggested that LC words in a lexical decision task are responded to quickly as their initial trigram is shared by a large number of viable words, facilitating a “word” response. The initial trigrams of HC words are not shared by many other words, potentially hindering a “word” response. Experiment 4b re-tests the role of WILC on eye movement behaviour during reading, based on an earlier study by Lima and Inhoff (1985). Unlike Lima and Inhoff’s study, the frequency and predictability (known to influence the extraction of parafoveal information) of LC and HC target words was also manipulated. In contrast to the findings of Lima and Inhoff (but, consistent with their original prediction), HC words were found to exhibit a processing advantage over LC words in measures of eye movement behaviour reflecting early, lexical processing. Further analyses based on launch distances from, and landing positions within target words suggested that the pattern of effects observed may be due to the accumulation of WILC information from the parafovea. The present thesis finds that word frequency and contextual predictability can yield interactive effects on processing, but that any possible interaction is dependent on acquisition of parafoveal information. Evidence of inflated fixation durations prior to word skipping were observed, but these effects are modulated by the characteristics of the parafoveal to-be-skipped word. Initial letters of words have a substantial effect on processing, but this effect is task-dependent. In lexical decision, activation of “wordness” is advantageous, and LC words exhibit an advantage over HC words. In natural reading, information is available from sentential context and the parafovea, and HC words carry an advantage over LC words. The present thesis argues for the use of launch distance as a metric for measuring preview benefit, albeit in a necessarily post-hoc fashion. Reliable effects of launch distance were found across all experiments where it was examined as a factor – eventual fixation time on a word increases as the distance of prior fixation from beginning of that word increases. Launch distance was also shown to influence the effects of a range of factors which influence written language processing, and the interactions between these variables

Exploring the measurement of markedness and its relationship with other linguistic variables

Antonym pair members can be differentiated by each word's markedness-that distinction attributable to the presence or absence of features at morphological or semantic levels. Morphologically marked words incorporate their unmarked counterpart with additional morphs (e.g., "unlucky" vs. "lucky"); properties used to determine semantically marked words (e.g., "short" vs. "long") are less clearly defined. Despite extensive theoretical scrutiny, the lexical properties of markedness have received scant empirical study. The current paper employs an antonym sequencing approach to measure markedness: establishing markedness probabilities for individual words and evaluating their relationship with other lexical properties (e.g., length, frequency, valence). Regression analyses reveal that markedness probability is, as predicted, related to affixation and also strongly related to valence. Our results support the suggestion that antonym sequence is reflected in discourse, and further analysis demonstrates that markedness probabilities, derived from the antonym sequencing task, reflect the ordering of antonyms within natural language. In line with the Pollyanna Hypothesis, we argue that markedness is closely related to valence; language users demonstrate a tendency to present words evaluated positively ahead of those evaluated negatively if given the choice. Future research should consider the relationship of markedness and valence, and the influence of contextual information in determining which member of an antonym pair is marked or unmarked within discourse