Zur Entzifferung der minoisch-kyprischen Tafel von Enkomi

Als 1950 von mir eine Entzifferung der damals bekannten minoisch-kretischen Inschriften versucht wurde, von denen nur insgesamt 750 Silbenzeichen umfassende Tafeln, noch dazu in teilweise ungenauer Wiedergabe vorlagen, ging ich von der ziemlich allgemein herrschenden Ansicht der Fachgelehrten im weitesten Sinne aus, es könne sich bei diesen Inschriften nicht um griechische Sprachtexte handeln

Haptic adaptation to slant: No transfer between exploration modes

Human touch is an inherently active sense: to estimate an object’s shape humans often move their hand across its surface. This way the object is sampled both in a serial (sampling different parts of the object across time) and parallel fashion (sampling using different parts of the hand simultaneously). Both the serial (moving a single finger) and parallel (static contact with the entire hand) exploration modes provide reliable and similar global shape information, suggesting the possibility that this information is shared early in the sensory cortex. In contrast, we here show the opposite. Using an adaptation-and-transfer paradigm, a change in haptic perception was induced by slant-adaptation using either the serial or parallel exploration mode. A unified shape-based coding would predict that this would equally affect perception using other exploration modes. However, we found that adaptation-induced perceptual changes did not transfer between exploration modes. Instead, serial and parallel exploration components adapted simultaneously, but to different kinaesthetic aspects of exploration behaviour rather than object-shape per se. These results indicate that a potential combination of information from different exploration modes can only occur at down-stream cortical processing stages, at which adaptation is no longer effective

Visual, Motor and Attentional Influences on Proprioceptive Contributions to Perception of Hand Path Rectilinearity during Reaching

We examined how proprioceptive contributions to perception of hand path straightness are influenced by visual, motor and attentional sources of performance variability during horizontal planar reaching. Subjects held the handle of a robot that constrained goal-directed movements of the hand to the paths of controlled curvature. Subjects attempted to detect the presence of hand path curvature during both active (subject driven) and passive (robot driven) movements that either required active muscle force production or not. Subjects were less able to discriminate curved from straight paths when actively reaching for a target versus when the robot moved their hand through the same curved paths. This effect was especially evident during robot-driven movements requiring concurrent activation of lengthening but not shortening muscles. Subjects were less likely to report curvature and were more variable in reporting when movements appeared straight in a novel “visual channel” condition previously shown to block adaptive updating of motor commands in response to deviations from a straight-line hand path. Similarly, compromised performance was obtained when subjects simultaneously performed a distracting secondary task (key pressing with the contralateral hand). The effects compounded when these last two treatments were combined. It is concluded that environmental, intrinsic and attentional factors all impact the ability to detect deviations from a rectilinear hand path during goal-directed movement by decreasing proprioceptive contributions to limb state estimation. In contrast, response variability increased only in experimental conditions thought to impose additional attentional demands on the observer. Implications of these results for perception and other sensorimotor behaviors are discussed

Sprachen die Minoer Griechisch?

In der Arbeit an der Entzifferung der minoischen Inschriften bedeutete der von Ventris gemachte kühne Versuch, griechische Sprache auf ihnen anzusetzen,1 nicht nur den grossen, sondern geradezu den entscheidenden Fortschritt der letzten Jahre. Kühn war dieser Gedanke, da er allen Erwartungen widersprach, die Archäologen, Vorgeschichtler, Althistoriker und Sprachwissenschaftler gehegt und in jahrzehntelanger Forschung gestützt hatten

Methodologisches zur Entzifferung der kretischen Silbenschrift Linear B

Mehr als 3300 Jahre trennen uns von der versunkenen minoischen Kultur Kretas. Wohl trat sie vor fünfzig Jahren durchSir Arthur Evans' grossartige Ausgrabungen anslyicht. Wir erblickten ihre unvergleichlichen Schôpfungen, aber alies blieb nur ein lebendes und doch stummes Bild der Vorgeschichte: Schweigen und Dâmmerung; kein noch so geringes Tàfelchen der vielen Hunderte sprach uns an und Hess das zweite Jahrtausend unseres alten Erdteils zu uns reden; nicht wandelte sich Vorgeschichte in Geschichte

Letter From Ernst Carl Wilhelm Sittig to Emmett L. Bennett Jr., August 22, 1951

Sittig offers corrections and comments on Bennett's work in light of Sittig's own conviction of Linear B's closeness with the Etruscan language.Classic

Carta de Ernst Sittig a Antonio Tovar Llorente. Tübingen-Lustnau (Alemania), 22 de mayo de 1954

[ES] Carta de Ernst Sittig, profesor de la Universidad de Tübingen (Alemania), a Antonio Tovar Llorente en la que da las gracias a Tovar y a la imprenta y le reenvía su corrección

Carta de Ernst Sittig a Antonio Tovar Llorente. Tübingen-Lustnau (Alemania), 24 de mayo de 1954

[ES] Carta de Ernst Sittig, profesor de la Universidad de Tübingen (Alemania), a Antonio Tovar Llorente comentando que ha encontrado un error en su manuscrito de los últimos artículos para "Minos" y pide la corrección del mismo