The joint role of trained, untrained, and observed actions at the origins of goal recognition

Recent findings across a variety of domains reveal the benefits of self-produced experience on object exploration, object knowledge, attention, and action perception. The influence of active experience may be particularly important in infancy, when motor development is undergoing great changes. Despite the importance of self-produced experience, we know that infants and young children are eventually able to gain knowledge through purely observational experience. In the current work, three-month-old infants were given experience with object-directed actions in one of three forms and their recognition of the goal of grasping actions was then assessed in a habituation paradigm. All infants were given the chance to manually interact with the toys without assistance (a difficult task for most three-month-olds). Two of the three groups were then given additional experience with object-directed actions, either through active training (in which Velcro mittens helped infants act more efficiently) or observational training. Findings support the conclusion that self-produced experience is uniquely informative for action perception and suggest that individual differences in spontaneous motor activity may interact with observational experience to inform action perception early in life.PostprintPeer reviewe

Mortality among Lifelong Nonsmokers Exposed to Secondhand Smoke at Home: Cohort Data and Sensitivity Analyses

Evidence is growing that secondhand smoke can cause death from several diseases. The association between household exposure to secondhand smoke and disease-specific mortality was examined in two New Zealand cohorts of lifelong nonsmokers (‘‘never smokers’’) aged 45–77 years. Individual census records from 1981 and 1996 were anonymously and probabilistically linked with mortality records from the 3 years that followed each census. Age- and ethnicity-standardized mortality rates were compared for never smokers with and without home exposure to secondhand smoke (based on the reported smoking behavior of other household members). Relative risk estimates adjusted for age, ethnicity, marital status, and socioeconomic position showed a significantly greater mortality risk for never smokers living in households with smokers, with excess mortality attributed to tobacco-related diseases, particularly ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, but not lung cancer. Adjusted relative risk estimates for all cardiovascular diseases were 1.19 (95 % confidence interval: 1.04, 1.38) for men and 1.01 (95 % confidence interval: 0.88, 1.16) for women from the 1981–1984 cohort, and 1.25 (95 % confidence interval: 1.06, 1.47) for men and 1.35 (95 % confidence interval: 1.11, 1.64) for women from the 1996–1999 cohort. Passive smokers also had nonsignificantly increased mortality from respiratory disease. Sensitivity analyses in-dicate that these findings are not due to misclassification bias. cohort studies; mortality; myocardial ischemia; neoplasms; New Zealand; respiratory tract diseases; tobacc

Slamming into the visceral pleasure of language : the value of disordered spaces and its impact on contemporary vocal landscpes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 27-33).The premise of this research is that the creation of a disordered space will have a positive effect on the stimulation of a physical response to spoken language. In a disordered space, vocal delivery is foregrounded as physical activity and has a re-patterning effect on the vocal landscapes of young actors. A disordered space co-opts elements from the vocal art forms of the popular phenomenon of the Spoken Word Movement. Disordered spaces act as an intervention on the traditional notions of western theatre voice practice. Chapter 1: The term 'disordered spaces' is explored as an imaginative mental space, feeding off the energetic impulses created by anti-establishment notions of chaos and anarchy. The language based forms of the Spoken Word Movement invite new responses to stimuli that force a repatterning of vocal responses in the actor, with an emphasis on the visceral quality of speech. Chapter 2: I outline in further detail the specific vocal elements of the Spoken Word Movement that contribute to the creation of disordered spaces. The four main strands that influence this movement are Rap Music, Dub Poetry, Slam Poetry and Freestyle. Rhythmic qualities of dialect are examined as a means of re-patterning responses to text. There is an exploration of the paralinguistic elements of speech through the concept of beat-boxing. The status of the individual performer is reconsidered in terms of the ownership of material that occurs within the movement. Chapter 3: Vocal landscapes are analysed as a socio-linguistic reality that is affected by changes in dialect. The dialect of the Spoken Word Movement is classified as non-standard dialect, which is slang based. It is concluded that it is the flexibility of a young actor's vocal landscape that leads to the success of the co-option of vocal elements from the Spoken Word Movement. I propose ways of using this material as inspiration for an intervention on the traditional notions of western theatre voice

Slamming into the visceral pleasure of language: the value of disordered spaces and its impact on contemporary vocal landscapes

The premise of this research is that the creation of a disordered space will have a positive effect on the stimulation of a physical response to spoken language. In a disordered space, vocal delivery is foregrounded as physical activity and has a re-patterning effect on the vocal landscapes of young actors. A disordered space co-opts elements from the vocal art forms of the popular phenomenon of the Spoken Word Movement. Disordered spaces act as an intervention on the traditional notions of western theatre voice practice. Chapter 1: The term 'disordered spaces' is explored as an imaginative mental space, feeding off the energetic impulses created by anti-establishment notions of chaos and anarchy. The language based forms of the Spoken Word Movement invite new responses to stimuli that force a repatterning of vocal responses in the actor, with an emphasis on the visceral quality of speech. Chapter 2: I outline in further detail the specific vocal elements of the Spoken Word Movement that contribute to the creation of disordered spaces. The four main strands that influence this movement are Rap Music, Dub Poetry, Slam Poetry and Freestyle. Rhythmic qualities of dialect are examined as a means of re-patterning responses to text. There is an exploration of the paralinguistic elements of speech through the concept of beat-boxing. The status of the individual performer is reconsidered in terms of the ownership of material that occurs within the movement. Chapter 3: Vocal landscapes are analysed as a socio-linguistic reality that is affected by changes in dialect. The dialect of the Spoken Word Movement is classified as non-standard dialect, which is slang based. It is concluded that it is the flexibility of a young actor's vocal landscape that leads to the success of the co-option of vocal elements from the Spoken Word Movement. I propose ways of using this material as inspiration for an intervention on the traditional notions of western theatre voice

Elm Farm Research Centre Bulletin 82 February 2006

Regular newsletter with technical updates from the Organic Advisory Service Issue covers: organic sector payments, dietary health choices, avian influenza vaccination, tradable quotas, feeding cities, sewage sludge, organic aquaculture, organic poultry, biodiversity and productivity research, organic winter wheat varieties, linking farmers and scientists, Interreg Project, RAFAEL energy use greenhouse gas emissions food and farming