Embodied cognition in the booth

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-306
Author(s):  
Celia Martín de León ◽  
Alba Fernández Santana

Abstract From an enactivist perspective, cognition can be described as embodied, since it is determined by our bodily, multisensory, affective interaction with the environment, in particular by our social interaction. In recent years, interpreting has been defined as a multimodal, embodied cognitive activity of inter-lingual mediation, and research on gestures in conference interpreting has found that simultaneous interpreters, although not visible for their audience, do gesture in the booth. However, gestures in interpreting are yet understudied. This paper presents an exploratory, in-depth descriptive study with the aim of generating hypotheses about the cognitive functions of gestures in simultaneous interpreting. To this end, we investigate the different types of gesture that emerge throughout a whole process of simultaneous interpreting, in conjunction with the concurrent speech, the interpreter’s interaction with her environment and her own description of her production of mental images and gestures. The research question guiding our investigation is: What functions do the different types of gestures play in the interpreting process? The results suggest that, in the analyzed material, referential gestures tend to support the construction of meanings, while the main role of pragmatic gestures consists in helping to manage the progress of the interpreting process.

Author(s):  
Zélia Caçador Anastácio

The institutionalization of children and adolescents generally is due to unfavourable socio-economic conditions, children maltreatment, school absenteeism and adolescents’ behavioural problems, including sexual risk behaviours. Sexuality education (SE) is very difficult to approach in residence care, given the sensitive and problematic life stories of adolescents involved. It is important to know what adolescents already know and what they want to learn and clarify about sexuality. The research question was: What interests and curiosities of sexuality do adolescents living in residence care have? The objectives were to make a diagnosis of adolescents’ interests, needs and conceptions about sexuality and to relate these conceptions with individual factors. A transversal study was done following a quantitative methodology. A questionnaire was carried out for this research. Dependent variables were: sources of information about SE; perceptions about the role of SE on children and adolescents’ development; responsible intervener for SE; sexuality topics about which adolescents want to learn more. A convenience sample included 114 teens aged between 11 to 21 (mean=15.7±2.4; 68 females and 46 males), living 60,5% of them since more than 24 months ago in residence care. A statistical analysis was done. Results showed that in adolescents’ views, the main role of SE is: to help them to respect different sexual orientations; to understand that sexuality expresses differently along the lifespan; and to promote equal rights and opportunities between men and women. Their main sources of information are friends, internet and familiars with approximately equal age. Persons they consider to be most responsible for their SE are doctors, nurses and mothers, with significant differences for health professionals, girls having a higher preference for them than boys. Topics about which adolescents have more interest and curiosity are: love, friendship and romantic relationships; adolescence; diversity, tolerance, sexual orientation and respect; and sexually transmitted diseases and infections.


Author(s):  
Florica Tomos ◽  
Nick Clifton ◽  
Saraswathy Thurairaj ◽  
Oana Cristina Balan

The aim of the chapter is to increase the knowledge regarding the methods and styles of learning used by women entrepreneurs in general, and in South East Wales and Malaysia in particular. The research question is What methods and styles of learning do women entrepreneurs employ in their businesses, in general, and specifically in SE Wales and Malaysia? The chapter is a theoretical study with a small empirical extension with two samples of women and men entrepreneurs in the South East Wales. The findings of this chapter support the constructive perspective on learning, adult and social learning, demonstrating the role of social interaction for women entrepreneurs' learning and experiential learning. Through a gender perspective with accent on andragogy, and by designing a model of women entrepreneurial learning, the study shapes a new direction within the research field of women entrepreneurship and constitutes an original contribution to knowledge.


2020 ◽  
pp. 123-158
Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath

This chapter shows how to develop an answer to a particular research question. It first considers the requirements and components of an answer to a research question before discussing the role of ‘theory’ in social science research, what a ‘theoretical framework’ is, and what a hypothesis is. It then explores the three components of a hypothesis: an independent variable, a dependent variable, and a proposition (a statement about the relationship between the variables). It also looks at the different types of hypotheses and how they guide various kinds of research. It also explains why conceptual and operational definitions of key terms are important and how they are formulated. Finally, it offers suggestions on how to answer normative questions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Favourate Y Sebele-Mpofu

Sampling is one of the most controversial matters in qualitative research. Qualitative researchers have often been denounced for not giving adequate rationalisations for their sample size resolutions. This study aimed to provide an extensive review of sampling methods used in qualitative research and discuss the extent to which saturation might help alleviate the issues concerning these methods, sample size sufficiency and when to sample. The study specifically honed on the sampling adequacy (how big or how small should a sample be), the sampling techniques used and whether sample sizes should be delineated a priori, posteriori or during analysis. Having highlighted, the paradoxically nature of these aspects, through an overview of the sampling process, the researcher explored saturation as a tool to alleviate the challenges and the lack of objectivity in sampling in qualitative research. The overall findings were that, saturation does provide same degree of transparency and quality in sampling, but the concept is not immune to controversy, guidelines on how to apply it or achieve it remain foggy and contestable among researchers. Discussions are in most cases oversimplified and comparatively unknowledgeable. The answer to the research question, was that, what really constitutes an adequate sample size is only answerable within the context of the study, scientific paradigm, epistemological stance, ontological and methodological assumptions of the research conducted. Contextualisation of the mode of saturation adopted, clear articulation of the research methodology and transparent reporting of the whole process is key to enhance the role of saturation in alleviating subjectivity in sampling. This paper sought to make a contribution to the on-going methodological discourse on how qualitative researchers can justify their sampling decisions.


Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath

This chapter shows how to develop an answer to a particular research question. It first considers the requirements and components of an answer to a research question before discussing the role of ‘theory’ in social science research, what a ‘theoretical framework’ is, and what a hypothesis is. It then explores the three components of a hypothesis: an independent variable, a dependent variable, and a proposition (a statement about the relationship between the variables). It also looks at the different types of hypotheses and how they guide various kinds of research. It also explains why conceptual and operational definitions of key terms are important and how they are formulated. Finally, it offers suggestions on how to answer normative questions.


Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath

This chapter deals with the first step of the research process: the formulation of a well-crafted research question. It explains why political research should begin with a research question and how a research question structures the research process. It discusses the difference between a topic or general question, on the one hand, and a focused research question, on the other. It also considers the question of where to find and how to formulate research questions, the various types of questions scholars ask, and the role of the ‘literature review’ as a source and rationale for research questions. Finally, it describes a tool called the ‘research vase’ that provides a visualization of the research process, along with different types of questions: descriptive question, explanatory question, predictive question, prescriptive question and normative question.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 01083
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Korobova ◽  
Irina Kardovich ◽  
Marina Konysheva ◽  
Dina Mironova

Cognition is an integral part of a person’s orientation in the world. It is studied by different sciences – philosophy, sociology, pedagogics, and psychology. In information society, the role of cognition and the ways it is realized are becoming extremely important. Cognitive activity is an essential part of cognition. It is formed and developed in the process of education. Cognitive activity is traditionally regarded as a special kind of mental activity. There are different components of cognitive activity and levels of its development. The higher the level of cognitive activity is, the more efficient the whole process of education is as knowledge is acquired more quickly and at a higher level. Cognitive independence combined with cognitive activity can radically improve the whole process of cognition. Thus, the task of an educational process is to activate cognition and develop cognitive independence by different methods and approaches.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iulia Zoicas ◽  
Johannes Kornhuber

The appropriate display of social behavior is critical for the well-being and survival of an individual. In many psychiatric disorders, including social anxiety disorder, autism spectrum disorders, depression and schizophrenia social behavior is severely impaired. Selective targeting of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) has emerged as a novel treatment strategy for these disorders. In this review, we describe some of the behavioral paradigms used to assess different types of social behavior, such as social interaction, social memory, aggressive behavior and sexual behavior. We then focus on the effects of pharmacological modulation of mGluR1-8 on these types of social behavior. Indeed, accumulating evidence indicates beneficial effects of selective ligands of specific mGluRs in ameliorating innate or pharmacologically-induced deficits in social interaction and social memory as well as in reducing aggression in rodents. We emphasize the importance of future studies investigating the role of selective mGluR ligands on different types of social behavior to provide a better understanding of the neural mechanisms involved which, in turn, might promote the development of selective mGluR-targeted tools for the improved treatment of psychiatric disorders associated with social deficits.


Author(s):  
Benjamin V. Tucker

Speech production is an important aspect of linguistic competence. An attempt to understand linguistic morphology without speech production would be incomplete. A central research question develops from this perspective: what is the role of morphology in speech production. Speech production researchers collect many different types of data and much of that data has informed how linguists and psycholinguists characterize the role of linguistic morphology in speech production. Models of speech production play an important role in the investigation of linguistic morphology. These models provide a framework, which allows researchers to explore the role of morphology in speech production. However, models of speech production generally focus on different aspects of the production process. These models are split between phonetic models (which attempt to understand how the brain creates motor commands for uttering and articulating speech) and psycholinguistic models (which attempt to understand the cognitive processes and representation of the production process). Models that merge these two model types, phonetic and psycholinguistic models, have the potential to allow researchers the possibility to make specific predictions about the effects of morphology on speech production. Many studies have explored models of speech production, but the investigation of the role of morphology and how morphological properties may be represented in merged speech production models is limited.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-712
Author(s):  
N. Arranz ◽  
Marta F. Arroyabe ◽  
Juan Carlos Fernandez de Arroyabe

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of obstacles and institutional factors on the cooperation for innovation. The collaboration between different types of organizations has been seen as a strategy that allows the firms to obtain reciprocal benefits, and that incentivises innovation. However, following D’Este et al. (2012) and Antonioli et al. (2017), the authors assume that the decision to cooperate is perceived as a strategy to overcome the obstacles and barriers of the innovation process. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyze these questions in the frame of the PITEC-2013 data that covers the period 2012–2013 and includes 5,461 Spanish innovative companies. Findings The results support that an important drive for the firm’s cooperation is to overcome the obstacles of the innovation process. Moreover, the type of partner for cooperation is influenced by the different perception that those companies have on the obstacles to innovation. Additionally, results contribute to the regional literature with new empirical evidence to characterize regions in terms of innovation. Such factors shed new light about the intensity of regional innovation and variables of the cooperation pattern. Originality/value Considering that a fourth of the Spanish companies develop technological cooperation agreements (PITEC, 2013), it is still observed that the level of cooperation and their results are lower with respect to other countries in the environment, therefore to analyze the role of cooperation agreements, evaluating the factors that characterize the dynamics of these agreements, is a critical research question for the Spanish economy.


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