The Didactic Voice: The Foundations of an Imperial Education

Author(s):  
Florin Leonte

This chapter analyses how the emperor fashioned his didactic voice and how it functioned in a typical text of advice. It argues that the Foundations combines the tradition of political advice inaugurated by Agapetos, the gnomic tradition, and the tradition of theological centuria providing moral and theological principles. The generic strands present in the text allow for a multifaceted authorial voice less formal than that in previous similar texts. The Foundations stands as more than a list of principles for the emperor’s conduct: it is rather a complex guide for understanding, managing and implementing ethical axioms. Manuel injected a degree of political realism and paternal intimacy, features absent from the court rhetoric of the period. In re-elaborating the gnomic tradition, Manuel partly positioned himself outside the traditional tenets transmitted via other texts of advice. This chapter suggests that one should shy away from placing the Foundations in the category of ‘princely mirrors’, at least because that fails to explain the core features of the text: intimacy and political advice.

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-97
Author(s):  
Naomi Lyons ◽  
Detlef E. Dietrich ◽  
Johannes Graser ◽  
Georg Juckel ◽  
Christian Koßmann ◽  
...  

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> A disturbed sense of self is frequently discussed as an etiological factor for delusion symptoms in psychosis. Phenomenological approaches to psychopathology posit that lacking the sense that the self is localized within one’s bodily boundaries (disembodiment) is one of the core features of the disturbed self in psychosis. The present study examines this idea by experimentally manipulating the sense of bodily boundaries. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Seventy-three patients with psychosis were randomly assigned to either a 10-min, guided self-massage in the experimental group (EG) to enhance the sense of bodily boundaries or a control group (CG), which massaged a fabric ring. Effects on an implicit measure (jumping to conclusion bias; JTC) and an explicit measure (Brief State Paranoia Checklist; BSPC) of delusion processes were assessed. The JTC measures the tendency to make a decision with little evidence available, and the BSPC explicitly measures the approval of paranoid beliefs. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Patients in the EG showed a lower JTC (<i>M</i> = 4.11 draws before decision) than the CG (<i>M</i> = 2.43; Cohen’s <i>d</i> = 0.64). No significant difference in the BSPC was observed. <b><i>Discussion/Conclusion:</i></b> Our results indicate that enhancing the sense of body boundaries through a self-massage can reduce an implicit bias associated with delusional ideation and correspondingly support the idea that disembodiment might be a relevant factor in the formation of psychotic symptoms.


2021 ◽  
pp. 102986492098831
Author(s):  
Andrea Schiavio ◽  
Pieter-Jan Maes ◽  
Dylan van der Schyff

In this paper we argue that our comprehension of musical participation—the complex network of interactive dynamics involved in collaborative musical experience—can benefit from an analysis inspired by the existing frameworks of dynamical systems theory and coordination dynamics. These approaches can offer novel theoretical tools to help music researchers describe a number of central aspects of joint musical experience in greater detail, such as prediction, adaptivity, social cohesion, reciprocity, and reward. While most musicians involved in collective forms of musicking already have some familiarity with these terms and their associated experiences, we currently lack an analytical vocabulary to approach them in a more targeted way. To fill this gap, we adopt insights from these frameworks to suggest that musical participation may be advantageously characterized as an open, non-equilibrium, dynamical system. In particular, we suggest that research informed by dynamical systems theory might stimulate new interdisciplinary scholarship at the crossroads of musicology, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive (neuro)science, pointing toward new understandings of the core features of musical participation.


Author(s):  
Eliyahu Stern

The idea of a Jewish body provides the background to understand the major Jewish migrations, the core features of modern Jewish politics, the transformation of Judaism as a religion and the role played by Jews in the Minority Rights Movement. Eastern European Jews’ immigration to the United States or Palestine as two sides of the same coin.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sotaro Kondoh ◽  
Kazuo Okanoya ◽  
Ryosuke O Tachibana

Meter is one of the core features of music perception. It is the cognitive grouping of regular sound sequences, typically for every 2, 3, or 4 beats. Previous studies have suggested that one can not only passively perceive the meter from acoustic cues such as loudness, pitch, and duration of sound elements, but also actively perceive it by paying attention to isochronous sound events without any acoustic cues. Studying the interaction of top-down and bottom-up processing in meter perception leads to understanding the cognitive system’s ability to perceive the entire structure of music. The present study aimed to demonstrate that meter perception requires the top-down process (which maintains and switches attention between cues) as well as the bottom-up process for discriminating acoustic cues. We created a “biphasic” sound stimulus, which consists of successive tone sequences designed to provide cues for both the triple and quadruple meters in different sound attributes, frequency, and duration, and measured how participants perceived meters from the stimulus in a five-point scale (ranged from “strongly triple” to “strongly quadruple”). Participants were asked to focus on differences in frequency and duration. We found that well-trained participants perceived different meters by switching their attention to specific cues, while untrained participants did not. This result provides evidence for the idea that meter perception involves the interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes, which training can facilitate.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256712
Author(s):  
Sotaro Kondoh ◽  
Kazuo Okanoya ◽  
Ryosuke O. Tachibana

Meter is one of the core features of music perception. It is the cognitive grouping of regular sound sequences, typically for every 2, 3, or 4 beats. Previous studies have suggested that one can not only passively perceive the meter from acoustic cues such as loudness, pitch, and duration of sound elements, but also actively perceive it by paying attention to isochronous sound events without any acoustic cues. Studying the interaction of top-down and bottom-up processing in meter perception leads to understanding the cognitive system’s ability to perceive the entire structure of music. The present study aimed to demonstrate that meter perception requires the top-down process (which maintains and switches attention between cues) as well as the bottom-up process for discriminating acoustic cues. We created a “biphasic” sound stimulus, which consists of successive tone sequences designed to provide cues for both the triple and quadruple meters in different sound attributes, frequency, and duration. Participants were asked to focus on either frequency or duration of the stimulus, and to answer how they perceived meters on a five-point scale (ranged from “strongly triple” to “strongly quadruple”). As a result, we found that participants perceived different meters by switching their attention to specific cues. This result adds evidence to the idea that meter perception involves the interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Alison Killen

Background Lewy body dementia is the second most common form of age-related neurodegenerative dementia. It has two forms: dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson's disease dementia. Methods There are specific core symptoms associated with dementia with Lewy bodies. Optimum care requires awareness of the features associated with these, as well as appropriate support and management strategies, which are provided in this article. Results The core features of dementia with Lewy bodies are visual hallucinations, cognitive fluctuations, Parkinsonism and rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder. Appropriate psychosocial strategies includes psychoeducation, social support and environmental modification. Adoption of these approaches can reduce adverse outcomes. Conclusions The core features of dementia with Lewy bodies can significantly impair quality of life. Nursing and residential care staff are ideally placed to address this through the implementation of psychosocial strategies both directly, and through the provision of psychoeducation for family caregivers.


Author(s):  
Erik W. Carter

Supporting students with severe disabilities to access the myriad social and learning opportunities that exist within inclusive classrooms can be a challenge. Peer support arrangements are an evidence-based intervention for increasing social interactions and academic engagement while decreasing heavy reliance on individually assigned paraprofessionals. This chapter addresses the core features of this intervention and its anticipated outcomes. It also includes implementation steps and recommendations for intervention, as well as applications to diverse students and settings.


Author(s):  
G. Terence Wilson ◽  
Christopher G. Fairburn

A very substantial number of well-designed studies (Type 1 and Type 2) have shown that manual-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is currently the treatment of choice for bulimia nervosa (BN); roughly half of patients receiving CBT cease binge eating and purging. Well accepted by patients, CBT is the most effective means of eliminating the core features of the eating disorder and is often accompanied by improvement in psychological problems such as low self-esteem and depression; long-term maintenance of improvement is reasonably good. A large number of good to excellent outcome studies (Type 1 and Type 2) suggest that different classes of antidepressant drugs produce significantly greater reductions in the short term for binge eating and purging in BN patients than a placebo treatment; the long-term effects of antidepressant medication on BN remain untested. There is little evidence that combining CBT with antidepressant medication significantly enhances improvement in the core features of BN, although it may aid in treating comorbid anxiety and depression. The continuing paucity of controlled research on outcomes of treatment for anorexia nervosa (AN) contrasts sharply with the quantity and quality of research on outcomes of treatment for BN and binge-eating disorder (BED). Nevertheless, a specific form of family therapy, referred to as the Maudsley Model, has shown promising effects on AN in adolescent patients, although this remains to be shown to be a specific effect. Several different psychological treatments appear equally effective in reducing the frequency of binge eating in the short term in BED; these treatments include CBT, interpersonal therapy (IPT), behavioral weight loss programs, and guided self-help based on cognitive-behavioral principles. To date, only CBT and IPT have been shown to have significant longer term effects in eliminating binge eating. Evidence on the specific effects of antidepressant medication on BED is mixed. As yet, there has been no research on the treatment of the most common eating disorder diagnosis, “eating disorder not otherwise specified.”


Author(s):  
Amandeep Jutla ◽  
Bryan H. King ◽  
James T. McCracken
Keyword(s):  
The Core ◽  

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