Changing Negative Perceptions of Individuals With Facial Disfigurement: The Effectiveness of a Brief Intervention

Can a brief personal narrative by an individual with facial disfigurement enhance perceptions of their skills and personality? Participants (n = 224) mainly from Europe and the USA completed the study online. Four experimental conditions presented either a video clip or the audio soundtrack, relating either a positive message or a message about overcoming adversity. In the control condition, participants viewed a still facial photograph. Evaluations of sociability and resilience, emotional stability, leadership, and success in forming relationships, and expectations regarding future interactions, were all enhanced by the personal narratives compared to the still photograph. Experimental conditions did not differ from each other. It appears that a brief online intervention can be effective in encouraging future contact with individuals with facial disfigurement

Embodied Songs: Insights Into the Nature of Cross-Modal Meaning-Making Within Sign Language Informed, Embodied Interpretations of Vocal Music

Embodied song practices involve the transformation of songs from the acoustic modality into an embodied-visual form, to increase meaningful access for d/Deaf audiences. This goes beyond the translation of lyrics, by combining poetic sign language with other bodily movements to embody the para-linguistic expressive and musical features that enhance the message of a song. To date, the limited research into this phenomenon has focussed on linguistic features and interactions with rhythm. The relationship between bodily actions and music has not been probed beyond an assumed implication of conformance. However, as the primary objective is to communicate equivalent meanings, the ways that the acoustic and embodied-visual signals relate to each other should reveal something about underlying conceptual agreement. This paper draws together a range of pertinent theories from within a grounded cognition framework including semiotics, analogy mapping and cross-modal correspondences. These theories are applied to embodiment strategies used by prominent d/Deaf and hearing Dutch practitioners, to unpack the relationship between acoustic songs, their embodied representations, and their broader conceptual and affective meanings. This leads to the proposition that meaning primarily arises through shared patterns of internal relations across a range of amodal and cross-modal features with an emphasis on dynamic qualities. These analogous patterns can inform metaphorical interpretations and trigger shared emotional responses. This exploratory survey offers insights into the nature of cross-modal and embodied meaning-making, as a jumping-off point for further research

Critical spin liquid at 1/3 magnetization in a spin-1/2 triangular antiferromagnet

Although magnetically ordered at low temperatures, the spin-1/2 triangular antiferromagnet Cs_2CuCl_4 exhibits remarkable spin dynamics that strongly suggest proximity to a spin liquid phase. Here we address the question of whether a proximate spin liquid may also occur in an applied magnetic field, leaving a similar imprint on the dynamical spin correlations of this material. Specifically, we explore a spatially anisotropic Heisenberg spin-1/2 triangular antiferromagnet at 1/3 magnetization from a dual vortex perspective, and indeed find a new ``critical'' spin liquid phase described by QED3 with an emergent SU(6) symmetry. A number of nontrivial predictions are given for the dynamical spin structure factor in this ``algebraic vortex liquid'' phase, which can be tested experimentally via inelastic neutron scattering. We also discuss how the well-studied ``up-up-down'' magnetization plateaus can be captured within our approach, and further predict the existence of a stable gapless solid phase in a weakly ordered up-up-down state. Finally, we predict several anomalous ``roton'' minima in the excitation spectrum in the regime of lattice anisotropy where the canted Neel state appears.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; expanded intro & discussion of theory; minor correction to structure facto

Fluctuating loops and glassy dynamics of a pinned line in two dimensions

We represent the slow, glassy equilibrium dynamics of a line in a two-dimensional random potential landscape as driven by an array of asymptotically independent two-state systems, or loops, fluctuating on all length scales. The assumption of independence enables a fairly complete analytic description. We obtain good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations when the free energy barriers separating the two sides of a loop of size L are drawn from a distribution whose width and mean scale as L^(1/3), in agreement with recent results for scaling of such barriers.Comment: 11 pages, 4 Postscript figure