Public art as research in the open

In 1979, the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar staged his first public intervention in the context of military dictatorship. His inquiry on states of happiness anticipated a working method that Jaar has been following since. In taking Studies on Happiness as an early example of social aesthetics, this article will show that the work itself is not only seen as the product of making (poïesis), but that the process itself is seen as the embodiment of knowledge, the dwelling and outcome of an intended action. However, this action is not simply an act in the everyday (praxis), but as an intended action it is intelligent in itself and calls for the practical wisdom of acting (phronesis). As soon as the project includes a relational process and forms of participation, both in nature of unforeseeable outcome, the aim is no longer the production of a (common) object; rather, it is the social relation itself, established through the aesthetic or “boundary” object that puts into action the relation as well as the reflection on the conditions of its becoming. We will assess how play and phronesis can mediate between research and art by creating a situational knowledge, that is both critique and contributory: a research in the open.

Dissecting the dimension of protection: Caligae and Scutum in the evaluative model of normative appeals

A normative appeal indicates that one should (or should not) do a certain action in a concrete situation. According to the Evaluative Model of Normative Appeals (EMNA), willingness to comply with these messages depends on an appraisal formed by two dimensions: formality and protection. In this work we center on the dimension of protection, proposing that it can be divided into two components: avoiding physical or psychological damage (scutum) and affording the performance of the main intended action (caligae). We conducted two studies to test this twofold meaning of protection. In Study 1 (N = 525), we manipulated the coherence of regulatory focus (promotion vs. control vs. prevention) with salience of the components of protection (caligae vs. control vs. scutum). In Study 2 (N = 513), we separately measured the perception of each component referred to an actual normative appeal (i.e., “To get into a class punctually”). The results showed that the manipulated salience and the measured perception of caligae and scutum elicits (Study 1) and predicts (Study 2) higher willingness to comply with normative appeals. Theoretical and applied implications of the results are discussed.

Language and the Moving Body: Directive Actions With the Finnish kato “look” in Nature-Related Activities

The article explores how social interaction is accomplished through intertwined verbal and bodily conduct, focusing on directive actions that include a second-person imperative form of the Finnish verb katsoa “to look,” typically kato. The study draws on video recordings of various outdoor activities in nature, mostly from family interaction with small children, and employs interactional linguistics and conversation analysis as its analytic framework. The directive kato actions in focus are produced (1) as noticings, to initiate a new course of action by directing the recipient to look at and possibly talk about a target that the speaker treats as newsworthy; (2) as showings, to initiate an evaluative course of action by directing the recipient to look at and align with the speaker’s stance toward the target; or (3) as prompts, to contribute to an ongoing course of action by directing the recipient to do something relevant to or with the target. Apart from the use of kato, the actions differ in their design. In noticings, the target is typically named verbally and pointed at through embodied means, but the participants remain at some distance from it (e.g., kato muurahaispesä tuossa “look an anthill there”). In showings, the participant producing the action typically approaches the recipient with the target in hand, so that the naming of the target is not necessary but, by evaluating the target themselves, the shower explicates how the target should be seen (e.g., kato kuinka jättejä “look how giant {ones}”). In prompts, neither the target nor the intended action is named, but the target is typically indicated by embodied means, for example, by the participants’ approaching and pointing at it, and the intended action is inferable from the participants’ prior conduct (e.g., kato tuossa “look there” and pointing at a berry in the participants’ vicinity when berry picking has been established as relevant). By examining these three grammar-body assemblages, the article uncovers regularities in the co-occurrence of multiple modalities and contributes to new understandings of language use in its natural ecology – in co-present social interaction.

The conscious crow

SummaryNieder, Wagener, & Rinnert (Science, 369(6511), 1626–1629, 2020) demonstrated that some neurons in a prefrontal-like brain area of carrion crows signal neither the physical stimulus nor the intended action but the upcoming choice. This pattern of results implies that neural computations for consciousness can be generated by nonmammalian brains in similar ways as in primates.

Distinguishing Intended from Advertent Action

This chapter distinguishes between intended action and advertent action, exploring the criteria of intended action. Broadly speaking, actions done as ends or means are intended; those done as (foreseen) side-effects are merely advertent. Beyond that, various further categories are explored. The criteria of justifications make it important also to distinguish, within intended actions, between actions done as ends and those done as means. Moreover, in delineating the boundaries of the intended, one needs to consider two special categories, of obliquely-intended and inseparably-intended actions. In oblique intention, the defendant believes that the action is ‘virtually’, ‘practically’, or ‘morally’ certain to be constituted by her behaviour. It may be appropriate to treat such actions as if intended when assessing a person’s mens rea, but they should not be similarly assimilated when evaluating justifications. There are certain special cases of inseparability, on the other hand, that are rightly categorized as intended.

Search Engine Optimization – Study and Analysis

Search Engine Optimization is about understanding what people are searching for online, the answers they are seeking, the words they are using, and the type of content they wish to consume. Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to connect to the people who are searching online for the solutions you offer. Building the onsite and offsite page tactics will help us to build a better site that ranks higher in search and also with better click through rates. Understanding what the users or consumers need and producing the same to them is one of the major factor in the Digital Marketing. Using Analytics tool we can analyze how our site is doing well or not with our intended action will help us to understand our audience better.

The Role of Conjunctive Representations in Regulating Actions

Action selection appears to rely on conjunctive representations that nonlinearly integrate task-relevant features (Kikumoto & Mayr, 2020). We test here the corollary hypothesis that such representations are also intricately involved during attempts to stop an action—a key aspect of action regulation. We tracked both conjunctive representations and those of constituent rule, stimulus, or response features through trial-by-trial representational similarity analysis of the EEG signal in a combined, rule-selection and stop-signal paradigm. Across two experiments with student participants (N = 57), we found (a) that the strength of decoded conjunctive representations prior to the stop signal uniquely predicted trial-by-trial stopping success (Exp. 1) and (b) that these representations were selectively suppressed following the onset of the stop signal (Exp. 1 and 2). We conclude that conjunctive representations are key to successful action execution and therefore need to be suppressed when an intended action is no longer appropriate.Statement of RelevanceSome theorists have posited that as a necessary step during action selection, action-relevant features need to be combined within a conjunctive representation that is more than the sum if its basic features. Consequently, such representations should also play a critical role when trying to stop an intended action—a key aspect of self-regulation. However direct evidence of conjunctive representations has been elusive. Using a method for tracking both conjunctive and basic-feature representations on a trial-by-trial basis in the EEG signal, we show that the stronger the conjunctive representations, the harder it was to stop the intended action. Furthermore, the stopping process also selectively reduced the strength of conjunctive representations. These results further our knowledge about action regulation by showing that conjunctive representations are a necessary precursor for carrying out actions successfully and for that reason also need to be the target of self-regulatory stopping attempts.

Anti-resultativity in Latin

The paper examines the semantic domain of anti-resultativity (absence of result) as well as lingual means of its rendering in Latin. It has been made explicit that anti-resultativity denoting unreached or cancelled result is verbalized through grammatical and lexical means. An unsuccessful result can be realized in three directions: temporary cessation of the situation, which does not exclude the possibility of its further continuation (interrupted action); the subject’s attempt to achieve the result (a deliberate action); ending the situation at the point that is as close as possible to the finale. The termination of a situation with its possible continuation and logical ending is expressed solely at the lexical level with the help of phase verbs with termination semantics (desino, desisto, cesso) or circumstantial indices that indicate the absence of a result until a certain moment (nondum). The main role is given to the context. The means of expressing a deliberate but not realized action is the imperfect (so-called imperfectum de conatu), the conative meaning of which arises due to the interaction of the actional semantics of predicates (mainly telic verbs) and context and can be interpreted as pragmatic implicature. Explicitly intended action is also expressed by syntagmas with verbs of the corresponding semantics (conor, tempto + infinitive). Termination of a situation at a critical point close to completion is treated in the article as proximity (partial resultativity). It is implemented exclusively at the lexical level with the help of the adverbs paene and, more rarely, prope. Plusquamperfect is used to express cancelled result. The anti-resultative meanings of the Latin imperfectum, as well as that of plusquamperfectum, are consequences of the pragmatic implicature that arises under the influence of the context and/or under the influence of the communicative situation. In the first case, the lack of result can be considered as an implication of durativity, if there is no information about reaching the final point, but only the situation is advised towards it. The anti-resultative meaning of the plusquamperfectum is due to the inherent time interval of the time frame and the connection to the secondary reference point.

Kato. Hulluna puolukoita.

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan puhetoimintoja, joissa esiintyy jokin katsoa-verbin 2. persoonan imperatiivimuodoista, tyypillisesti kato. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytetään keskustelun­analyysia, ja aineistona toimivat videoidut tilanteet luontoilutoiminnasta, kuten marjastuksesta, sienestyksestä ja retkeilystä. Artikkelissa analysoidaan, miten meneillään oleva toiminta ja sen resursseina kieli, osallistujien kehot, tila, liike ja materiaalinen ympäristö vaikuttavat kato-vuorojen muotoiluun ja tulkintaan. Artikkelissa osoitetaan, että kato-vuoroilla on ainakin neljä eri tehtävää sosiaalisessa vuorovaikutuksessa. Valtaosa tutkimusaineiston kato-vuoroista toimii direktiiveinä tai liittyy direktiivisiin tilanteisiin, joissa puhuja ohjaa vastaanottajaa toimimaan tai olemaan toimimatta tietyllä tavalla. Direktiivisillä kato-vuoroilla puhuja ohjaa vastaan­ottajaa joko 1) katsomaan jotain objektia ympäristössä tai 2) tekemään jotain meneillään olevan toiminnan kannalta relevanttia. Tällaiset direktiiviset kato-vuorot eroavat toisistaan niin kielellisen kuin kehollisen muotoilun suhteen: ­kato-­vuoroissa, joilla ohjataan vastaanottajaa katsomaan, huomion kohde nimetään (kato muulahait­petä) ja siihen suuntaudutaan kehollisesti, mutta osallistujat jäävät hieman etäälle siitä. Sen sijaan sellaisissa kato-vuoroissa, joilla osallistujaa ohjataan tekemään jotain muuta kuin katsomaan, ei yleensä nimetä tekemisen kohdetta tai tekemistä ylipäätään vaan kohde merkitään kehollisesti ja tekemistä käsitellään yhteisesti jaettuna meneillään olevan aktiviteetin perusteella (katopas tuosa ohjaa poimimaan marjan). Tutkimus­aineistossa on myös sellaisia kato-vuoroja, joissa kato toimii 3) päivittelyn keinona tai 4) huomion kohdistavana, selittävänä lausumapartikkelina. Tutkimuksessa vuoro­vaikutusta tarkastellaan holistisesti, eli meneillään oleva toiminta ja osallistujien käyttämät multimodaaliset resurssit luovat puitteet sille, miten toimintoja on mahdollista tuottaa ja tulkita. Kato. An insane amount of lingonberries. Kato as an interactional resource in nature-related activities The article examines actions that include one of the second-person imperative forms of the verb katsoa (‘to look’), typically kato (‘look, see’). Methodologically the study draws on conversation analysis, and the data include video recordings of activities in nature, such as berry picking, mushroom picking and trekking. The article analyses how participants design and interpret turns that include kato on the basis of ongoing activities and available resources, such as language, participants’ bodies, movement, space and the material environment. The article shows that turns including kato have at least four functions in social interaction. In the majority of the cases in the data, kato functions as a directive or is used in a directive context. These turns are used for directing the recipient either 1) to look at some object in the surrounds or 2) to do something relevant in terms of the ongoing activity. Apart from the use of kato, the turns differ in their design: In turns in which kato directs the recipient to look at something, the target is mentioned explicitly (e.g. kato muulahaitpetä ‘look an anthill’) and the participants remain at some distance from it. By contrast, in turns in which kato directs the recipient to do something, the target – or the intended action in general – is not mentioned, but the target is indicated by embodied means and the desired course of action is dealt with as shared by the participants on the basis of their ongoing activity (e.g. katopas tuosa ‘look right there’ is used to direct the recipient to pick a berry). The data also include turns in which kato functions 3) as a resource for general wondering or 4) as an explanatory connective and attention getter. The study approaches interaction holistically, having as its premise that the ongoing activity and the multimodal resources employed by the participants provide the framework for the formation and interpretation of social actions.

Errors in Imagined and Executed Typing

In motor imagery (MI), internal models may predict the action effects. A mismatch between predicted and intended action effects may result in error detection. To compare error detection in MI and motor execution (ME), ten-finger typists and hunt-and-peck typists performed a copy-typing task. Visibility of the screen and visibility of the keyboard were manipulated. Participants reported what type of error occurred and by which sources they detected the error. With covered screen, fewer errors were reported, showing the importance of distal action effects for error detection. With covered screen, the number of reported higher-order planning errors did not significantly differ between MI and ME. However, the number of reported motor command errors was lower in MI than in ME. Hence, only errors that occur in advance to internal modeling are equally observed in MI and ME. MI may require more attention than ME, leaving fewer resources to monitor motor command errors in MI. In comparison to hunt-and-peck typists, ten-finger typists detected more higher-order planning errors by kinesthesis/touch and fewer motor command errors by vision of the keyboard. The use of sources for error detection did not significantly differ between MI and ME, indicating similar mechanisms.