3D modeling and motion parallax for improved videoconferencing

We consider a face-to-face videoconferencing system that uses a Kinect camera at each end of the link for 3D modeling and an ordinary 2D display for output. The Kinect camera allows a 3D model of each participant to be transmitted; the (assumed static) background is sent separately. Furthermore, the Kinect tracks the receiver’s head, allowing our system to render a view of the sender depending on the receiver’s viewpoint. The resulting motion parallax gives the receivers a strong impression of 3D viewing as they move, yet the system only needs an ordinary 2D display. This is cheaper than a full 3D system, and avoids disadvantages such as the need to wear shutter glasses, VR headsets, or to sit in a particular position required by an autostereo display. Perceptual studies show that users experience a greater sensation of depth with our system compared to a typical 2D videoconferencing system

The significance of trust in the political system and motivation for pupils' learning progress in politics lessons

Very little research has been conducted on the contribution of political education to learning progress in Germany. Hence, there is a need for intervention studies measuring performance against the theoretical background of a political competence model. This model comprises three constructs: subject knowledge, motivation and attitudes. According to this model, politics lessons should not only convey knowledge but also arouse subject interest, promote political attitudes and develop problem-solving skills. This study investigates how knowledge acquisition is influenced by intervention using theory-oriented teaching materials on the European Union, intervention using conventional textbooks on the European Union and politics lessons without any reference to the European Union. It further asks how the performance-related self-concept and subject interest in political issues impact political knowledge and whether civic virtue and trust in the system are related to it. The sample comprises 1071 pupils. Theory-oriented politics classes lead to greater growth of pupils’ knowledge than in the control group. As anticipated, this study proves that a positive subject-specific self-concept impacts knowledge. The examination of political attitudes reveals a positive correlation between civic virtue and knowledge. There is no connection between trust in the political system and knowledge

Determinants of impact : towards a better understanding of encounters with the arts

The article argues that current methods for assessing the impact of the arts are largely based on a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience. It postulates that a better grasp of the interaction between the individual and the work of art is the necessary foundation for a genuine understanding of how the arts can affect people. Through a critique of philosophical and empirical attempts to capture the main features of the aesthetic encounter, the article draws attention to the gaps in our current understanding of the responses to art. It proposes a classification and exploration of the factors—social, cultural and psychological—that contribute to shaping the aesthetic experience, thus determining the possibility of impact. The ‘determinants of impact’ identified are distinguished into three groups: those that are inherent to the individual who interacts with the artwork; those that are inherent to the artwork; and ‘environmental factors’, which are extrinsic to both the individual and the artwork. The article concludes that any meaningful attempt to assess the impact of the arts would need to take these ‘determinants of impact’ into account, in order to capture the multidimensional and subjective nature of the aesthetic experience

When prototypes are not best: Judgments made by children with autism

The current study used a factorial comparison experimental design to investigate conflicting findings on prototype effects shown by children with autism (Klinger & Dawson, 2001; Molesworth, Bowler, & Hampton, 2005). The aim was to see whether children with high –functioning autism could demonstrate prototype effects via categorization responses and whether failure to do so was related to difficulty understanding ambiguous task demands. Two thirds of the autism group did show an effect. The remainder, a sub-group defined by performance on a control task, did not. The discussion focuses on the influence of heterogeneity within the autism group and the ability to resolve ambiguity on task performance. Finally, an alternative experimental design is recommended for further research into these issues

Neighbourliness, conviviality, and the sacred in Athens’ refugee squats

To better understand the range of possibilities and opportunities for (co)existence available to displacement‐affected people, attention must be given to the thick webs of sociality shaping interactions in situations of mass displacement. This paper makes the case that refugee squats in Athens are distinct spaces wherein different understandings of (co)existence converge – spaces whose production is contingent on support from neighbourly relations and networks that are mediated in moments through conceptions of conviviality informed by religion. Based on ethnographic work carried out in 2016 and a spatial analysis of refugee squats in Athens, this paper emphasises neighbourliness and conviviality as they relate to sacred understandings of coexistence. This helps highlight the limits built in to thinking about the movement of refugees from the global South through Euro‐centric ontologies of the social. More than this, following postcolonial debates on the decentring of knowledge production, the research makes manifest how Islamic socio‐cultural memories of jiwār or a right of neighbourliness complicate geographies of humanitarianism that make stark binary assumptions between religious and secular space. In turn, the evidence from Athens indicates that refugee perspectives on neighbourliness are imperfectly translated by migrant rights activists as solidarity, obscuring the different ways Muslim structures of feeling contribute to the production of refugee squats

The quality of options in strategic decision making: a study about creativity and completeness in business decision making

A qualidade das decisões estratégicas dos empresários está diretamente relacionada à capacidade que eles demonstram para encontrar alternativas criativas quando enfrentam os problemas de suas empresas. Essas alternativas podem ser geradas intuitivamente, utilizando heurísticas. As pesquisas sobre geração de alternativas têm indicado consistentemente que as pessoas não são eficientes nessa atividade. As explicações para esse fato, contidas na literatura sobre decisão, não são conclusivas e permitem especulações a respeito. Para explorar essa questão e relacioná-la ao administrador brasileiro, foi idealizado um experimento com 174 alunos de quatro cursos de MBA para avaliar a originalidade e a completude das alternativas. O experimento e a respectiva análise basearam-se na confluência da pesquisa experimental, oriunda da psicologia cognitiva da decisão, com as visões da ciência da decisão organizacional tradicional e o novo campo de estudo das decisões intuitivas ou naturalísticas. Para mensurar a criatividade das alternativas apresentadas durante o experimento, empregou-se o conceito de árvore hierárquica, que demonstrou ser uma poderosa ferramenta para a tipologia de alternativas. O resultado desse experimento confirmou o baixo desempenho em geração de alternativas dos gerentes e, ao mesmo tempo, indicou que, provavelmente, a etapa de geração de alternativas isolada da etapa de escolha pode melhorar a qualidade das alternativas. A heurística, por sua vez, não demonstrou influenciar o conjunto de alternativas geradas. _________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT: The quality of strategic decisions of executives is directly related to the ability they have to find creative alternatives when facing business problems. These alternatives could be generated intuitively, using heuristics. On the other hand, the researches on alternatives generation have consistently indicated that people are not efficient on this duty. The argument for that, contained in the decision’s literature, is not conclusive and it allows speculation about it. To explore this issue and relate it to the Brazilian Administration, an experiment was designed for 174 students of four courses of MBA. The experiment and the analysis were resulted from the confluence between the experimental research from decision cognitive psychology with science’s vision of the traditional organizational decision and the new field of study on naturalistic or intuitive decisions. To measure the creativity of the alternatives presented during the experiment, the concept of hierarchical tree was utilized and it has proved a powerful tool to the typology of alternatives. The result of this experiment confirmed the poor performance in alternatives generation by managers and at the same time, indicated that probably, the generation of options isolated of analysis can produce better quality of alternatives. The heuristic, do not demonstrated any influence on options generated

Cognitive Effects of Mindfulness Training: Results of a Pilot Study Based on a Theory Driven Approach

The present paper reports a pilot study which tested cognitive effects of mindfulness practice in a theory-driven approach. Thirty-four fifth graders received either a mindfulness training which was based on the mindfulness-based stress reduction approach (experimental group), a concentration training (active control group), or no treatment (passive control group). Based on the operational definition of mindfulness by Bishop et al. (2004), effects on sustained attention, cognitive flexibility, cognitive inhibition, and data-driven as opposed to schema-based information processing were predicted. These abilities were assessed in a pre-post design by means of a vigilance test, a reversible figures test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a Stroop test, a visual search task, and a recognition task of prototypical faces. Results suggest that the mindfulness training specifically improved cognitive inhibition and data-driven information processing

Preference for facial averageness: evidence for a common mechanism in human and macaque infants

Human adults and infants show a preference for average faces, which could stem from a general processing mechanism and may be shared among primates. However, little is known about preference for facial averageness in monkeys. We used a comparative developmental approach and eye-tracking methodology to assess visual attention in human and macaque infants to faces naturally varying in their distance from a prototypical face. In Experiment 1, we examined the preference for faces relatively close to or far from the prototype in 12-month-old human infants with human adult female faces. Infants preferred faces closer to the average than faces farther from it. In Experiment 2, we measured the looking time of 3-month-old rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) viewing macaque faces varying in their distance from the prototype. Like human infants, macaque infants looked longer to faces closer to the average. In Experiments 3 and 4, both species were presented with unfamiliar categories of faces (i.e., macaque infants tested with adult macaque faces; human infants and adults tested with infant macaque faces) and showed no prototype preferences, suggesting that the prototypicality effect is experience-dependent. Overall, the findings suggest a common processing mechanism across species, leading to averageness preferences in primates