The Effect of Context on the Interpretation of Noun-Noun Combinations: Eye Movement and Behavioral Evidence

Two experiments examined processing of near-nonsense noun-noun combinations (e.g., dictionary treatment, olive signals). In the first experiment, readers’ eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing such combinations, or control sentences containing easy-to-interpret adjective-noun combinations. A preceding context sentence either did or did not support a specific interpretation of the critical noun-noun combination. The earliest measures of processing difficulty were not modulated by the context manipulation, but on later measures, the potentially helpful context did alleviate difficulty. In the second experiment, participants provided detailed interpretations of the critical combinations, with and without the potentially helpful context sentence; the results confirmed that the context sentences encouraged specific interpretations of these combinations. The results suggest that a noun-noun combination is initially interpreted without taking into account the immediate context, but that this context may ultimately play a critical role

Different Light Theatre: : Multimodal Practices in Learning-Disabled Theatre

Learning-disabled theatre is often perceived as giving a voice to the voiceless or empowering those marginalised in society. But how can this voice and power avoid becoming co-opted by neoliberal, racial, colonial capital merely to produce the entitled, self-possessed, autonomous individuals that late capitalism needs, but the production of which is destroying the planet? Does the political efficacy of this work consist in the mere presence of learning-disabled artists in these contexts, or is it not rather in the negotiation of the terms of their presence and participation? Interesting answers to these questions emerge in the exploration of the multimodal negotiation of voice, presence, representation and mediation in learning-disabled performance as performance

Human-AI Synergy in Creativity and Innovation

In order to maximize creative behavior, humans and computers need to collaborate in a manner that will leverage the strengths of both. A 2017 mathematical proof shows two limits to how innovative a computer can be. Humans can help counteract these demonstrated limits. Humans possess many mental blind spots to innovating (e.g., functional fixedness, design fixation, analogy blindness, etc.), and particular algorithms can help counteract these shortcomings. Further, since humans produce the corpora used by AI technology, human blind spots to innovation are implicit within the text processed by AI technology. Known algorithms that query humans in particular ways can effectively counter these text-based blind spots. Working together, a human-computer partnership can achieve higher degrees of innovation than either working alone. To become an effective partnership, however, a special interface is needed that is both human- and computer-friendly. This interface called BrainSwarming possesses a linguistic component, which is a formal grammar that is also natural for humans to use and a visual component that is easily represented by standard data structures. Further, the interface breaks down innovative problem solving into its essential components: a goal, sub-goals, resources, features, interactions, and effects. The resulting human-AI synergy has the potential to achieve innovative breakthroughs that either partner working alone may never achieve

Scoping capacity to deliver practice learning for social work students in statutory mental health settings

This project aimed to explore and evaluate current provision and promote further developments of statutory practice learning opportunities in mental health settings, including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services(CAMHS)

BrainSwarming, blockchain, and bioethics: applying innovation enhancing techniques to healthcare and research

Innovation in healthcare and biomedicine is in decline, yet there exist no widely-known alternatives to traditional brainstorming that can be employed for innovative idea generation. McCaffrey's Innovation Enhancing Techniques (IETs) were developed to enhance creative problem-solving by helping the solver to overcome common psychological obstacles to generating innovative ideas. These techniques were devised for engineering and design problems, which involve solving practical goals using physical materials. Healthcare and science problems however often involve solving abstract goals using intangible resources. Here we adapt two of McCaffrey's IETs, BrainSwarming and the Generic Parts Technique, to effectively enhance idea generation for such problems. To demonstrate their potential, we apply these techniques to a case study involving the use of blockchain technologies to facilitate ethical goals in biomedicine, and successfully identify 100 potential solutions to this problem. Being simple to understand and easy to implement, these and other IETs have significant potential to improve innovation and idea generation in healthcare, scientific, and technological contexts. By catalysing idea generation in problem-solving, these techniques may be used to target the innovative stagnation currently facing the scientific world

Responding to Per.Art's Dis_Sylphide:Six Voices from IFTR's Performance and Disability Working Group

This submission by IFTR's Performance and Disability working group features responses by six participants – voices projected from Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Wales, England and Australia – to Per.Art's production Dis_Sylphide, which was presented on 7 July 2018 at the Cultural Institution Vuk Karadžić as part of IFTR's conference in Belgrade at the invitation of the Performance and Disability working group. Per.Art is an independent theatre company founded in 1999 in Novi Sad, Serbia, by the internationally recognized choreographer and performer Saša Asentić, the company's artistic director. The company brings together people with learning disabilities, artists (theatre, dance and visual arts), special educators, representatives of cultural institutions, philosophers, architects and students to make work. This co-authored submission examines how the production responds to three important dance works of the twentieth century – Mary Wigman's Hexentanz (1928), Pina Bausch's Kontakthof (1978) and Xavier Le Roy's Self Unfinished (1998) – to explore normalizing and normative body concepts in dance theatre and in society, and how they have been migrating over the course of dance histories. The shared experience of witnessing the performance provoked discussion on the migration of dance forms across time and cultures, as well issues of access and (im)mobility, which are especially pertinent to a disability studies context