Shared Representations in Athletes: Segmenting Action Sequences From Taekwondo Reveals Implicit Agreement

How do athletes represent actions from their sport? How are these representations structured and which knowledge is shared among experts in the same discipline? To address these questions, the event segmentation task was used. Experts in Taekwondo and novices indicated how they would subjectively split videos of Taekwondo form sequences into meaningful units. In previous research, this procedure was shown to unveil the structure of internal action representations and to be affected by sensorimotor knowledge. Without specific instructions on the grain size of segmentation, experts tended to integrate over longer episodes which resulted in a lower number of single units. Moreover, in accordance with studies in figure-skating and basketball, we expected higher agreement among experts on where to place segmentation marks, i.e., boundaries. In line with this hypothesis, significantly more overlap of boundaries was found within the expert group as compared to the control group. This was observed even though the interindividual differences in the selected grain size were huge and expertise had no systematic influence here. The absence of obvious goals or objects to structure Taekwondo forms underlines the importance of shared expert knowledge. Further, experts might have benefited from sensorimotor skills which allowed to simulate the observed actions more precisely. Both aspects may explain stronger agreement among experts even in unfamiliar Taekwondo forms. These interpretations are descriptively supported by the participants’ statements about features which guided segmentation and by an overlap of the group’s agreed boundaries with those of an experienced referee. The study shows that action segmentation can be used to provide insights into structure and content of action representations specific to experts. The mechanisms underlying shared knowledge among Taekwondoists and among experts in general are discussed on the background of current theoretic frameworks.

Improving investment promotion agencies performance in attracting foreign direct investment

Purpose This study aims to investigate how investment promotion agencies (IPAs) attract funds effectively from emerging to established countries. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative action research (AR) study with data collected from focus groups and semi-structured interviews, observation and journaling. Comparative case studies are also presented to provide an external perspective to the researchers’ internal action researcher positions. Findings The research identifies four main factors that impact IPAs’ effectiveness in seeking a strategic asset in the UK from a developing country, China. The factors are policy advocacy, targeting industry, regional strategy and cultural adaption, which provide positive and significant influences on IPAs’ effectiveness. Research limitations/implications Little research has been published about the roles of IPAs in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) from a developing to a developed country. The study uses an AR approach and case studies, which have not previously been used to investigate IPAs’ performance. The study extends the sparse extant research and provides insights into what influences the performance of IPAs, thus contributing to knowledge and practice. Practical implications The findings provide insights into the ways in which IPAs influence FDI flows. The research contributes to discipline knowledge and practice by identifying factors influencing funding in a non-traditional manner, that is from a developing to a developed country. Originality/value Little research has been published about the roles of IPAs in attracting FDI from a developing to a developed country. The study uses an AR approach and case study, which have not previously been used to investigate IPAs’ performance. The study extends the sparse extant research and provides insights into what influences the performance of IPAs, thus contributing to knowledge and practice.

Understanding Complaints Made About Surgical Departments in a UK District General Hospital

BACKGROUND Patient complaints are increasingly recognised to provide a valuable insight into patients’ experience of healthcare. Being local and subjective, they can bring to light previously under-appreciated causes of patient dissatisfaction. The focus of surgical care is usually an intervention, and the nature of complaints made about surgical care may vary substantially from those in non-surgical specialties. This may have specific implications for quality improvement in surgical departments. This study aims to investigate the causes of patient dissatisfaction in surgical care. METHODS We retrospectively examined the content and frequency of patient complaints received by surgical departments at a UK district general hospital in the calendar year 2017. Second-hand reports of complaints, documented by members of the hospital’s complaints department, were collated from a prospectively maintained database and categorised by content. RESULTS 399 complaints were received over the study period. These related to the care of 327 different patients. One complaint was generated for every 111 patient encounters. 91% were made by the patient, and 8.8% by a family member. Complaints cited communication with hospital staff in 25% of cases, out-of-hospital delays in 24%, clinical issues in 22%, hospital administration in 16%, and in-hospital delays in 10%. Post-operative symptoms and complications accounted for only 2% of complaints. 26% of complaints resulted in the rescheduling of an operation or clinic appointment. 17% prompted internal action within the surgical department to investigate and learn from the incident. CONCLUSION The profile of complaints made about surgical departments is similar to that of non-surgical departments in other studies. Clinical issues represented only the third largest cause of complaints. More complaints implicated patient-staff communication, and around half implicated management-related issues. Improving staff communication training, clinical standards and hospital administration continue to represent opportunities to enhance patients’ overall experience of surgical care.

A Hierarchical Attractor Network Model of perceptual versus intentional decision updates

Changes of Mind are a striking example of our ability to flexibly reverse decisions and change our own actions. Previous studies largely focused on Changes of Mind in decisions about perceptual information. Here we report reversals of decisions that require integrating multiple classes of information: 1) Perceptual evidence, 2) higher-order, voluntary intentions, and 3) motor costs. In an adapted version of the random-dot motion task, participants moved to a target that matched both the external (exogenous) evidence about dot-motion direction and a preceding internally-generated (endogenous) intention about which colour to paint the dots. Movement trajectories revealed whether and when participants changed their mind about the dot-motion direction, or additionally changed their mind about which colour to choose. Our results show that decision reversals about colour intentions are less frequent in participants with stronger intentions (Exp. 1) and when motor costs of intention pursuit are lower (Exp. 2). We further show that these findings can be explained by a hierarchical, multimodal Attractor Network Model that continuously integrates higher-order voluntary intentions with perceptual evidence and motor costs. Our model thus provides a unifying framework in which voluntary actions emerge from a dynamic combination of internal action tendencies and external environmental factors, each of which can be subject to Change of Mind.

FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECTUAL ABILITIES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN MUSIK LESSONS

The article analyzes different approaches and views on the possibilities of effective development of intellectual abilities of primary school students in music lessons. In this context, the author emphasizes the special importance of music, creative and performing activities. Also, the article provides an overview of the results of the study of the level of acquisition of various intellectual skills that were identified during music lessons among primary school students. It was found that the most important aspect of the development of intellectual abilities and skills in children of primary school age is the motivational aspect. School teachers, educators, club leaders and, in particular, music teachers should work on the development of motivation. In addition, the article summarizes and clarifies the meaning of the concept of «intellectual skills». Different aspects of the process of formation of intellectual skills are distinguished: motivational, meaningful, operational and reflexive. The author argues that in the process of performing the tasks set by the music teacher using the methods proposed and disclosed in the article, students effectively learn intellectual skills, the development of which will allow in the future logically and effectively: analyze, classify, compare; to separate the primary from the secondary; to divide the whole into parts, highlighting their features, specific properties; to combine the elements found as a result of the analysis in an integral art form; draw up and adhere to an adequate and logical motivated «internal action plan». The results of the conducted experimental work allow to draw conclusions that systematic and purposeful lessons of musical art promote intellectual and emotional development of children, accelerate processes of maturing and socialization. In addition, music lessons help to improve efficiency, concentrate and accumulate attention, teach to approach any problem in a non-standard and creative way.

Judas in Films

This chapter tracks the evolving and changing interpretations of filmic portrayals of Judas Iscariot from 1902 to 2017. Variations depicting Judas’s motives, his sinister behavior, his status in the apostolic band, his relationship with Jesus—and Satan—and his suicide are identified and discussed. The focus is on Judas’s characterization through appearance, dialogue, external action, internal action, reactions of other characters, dramatic foils, caricature and leitmotif, name typing, and music. Through a century of films the Judas character progressively transforms from the demonized Jew to being the mouthpiece for the oppressed and becomes the instrument of humanity’s salvation. The films analyzed are more than adaptations of the gospel account. They also reflect the social, political, and cultural concerns of their time and stand as artifacts of pluralistic and diverse societies.

Deeply Felt Affect: The Emergence of Valence in Deep Active Inference

The positive-negative axis of emotional valence has long been recognized as fundamental to adaptive behavior, but its origin and underlying function have largely eluded formal theorizing and computational modeling. Using deep active inference, a hierarchical inference scheme that rests on inverting a model of how sensory data are generated, we develop a principled Bayesian model of emotional valence. This formulation asserts that agents infer their valence state based on the expected precision of their action model—an internal estimate of overall model fitness (“subjective fitness”). This index of subjective fitness can be estimated within any environment and exploits the domain generality of second-order beliefs (beliefs about beliefs). We show how maintaining internal valence representations allows the ensuing affective agent to optimize confidence in action selection preemptively. Valence representations can in turn be optimized by leveraging the (Bayes-optimal) updating term for subjective fitness, which we label affective charge (AC). AC tracks changes in fitness estimates and lends a sign to otherwise unsigned divergences between predictions and outcomes. We simulate the resulting affective inference by subjecting an in silico affective agent to a T-maze paradigm requiring context learning, followed by context reversal. This formulation of affective inference offers a principled account of the link between affect, (mental) action, and implicit metacognition. It characterizes how a deep biological system can infer its affective state and reduce uncertainty about such inferences through internal action (i.e., top-down modulation of priors that underwrite confidence). Thus, we demonstrate the potential of active inference to provide a formal and computationally tractable account of affect. Our demonstration of the face validity and potential utility of this formulation represents the first step within a larger research program. Next, this model can be leveraged to test the hypothesized role of valence by fitting the model to behavioral and neuronal responses.

Story “Beauty and Force” by V. Vynnychenko and prose by M. Gorky. Poetics and typology of individual styles

The paper focuses on the functionality and style characteristics of the authors’ expressive means. It shows differences in the literary handling of similar subjects at the level of forms and functions of pictorial-like images, narrative presentation of action, the integrity of plot and composition in the works. The analysis proves the style originality of the Ukrainian aspiring writer. Gorky’s bright pictorialism with a tendency towards impressionistic images and enthusiastic evaluation connects his narration to the codes and toposes of a higher, elite culture, open to aesthetic contemplative perception and intellectual reaction to the action of a work. While Vynnychenko’s model revises or even rejects external picturesqueness as an attribute of national realistic style. This feature gets a universal ontological dimension, and the verbal representation of scenes approaches to the reality of the potential reader’s world. The internal action in Gorky’s works is characterized by reflection that stays in line with the literary tradition of the rational interpretation of a character and the logical development of a plot leading to the disclosure of existential truth. Vynnychenko, using emotionally perceptible plastic tools of naturalistic psychologism and minimal narrative rhetorical devices, appeals to universal anthropological experience.

Dopamine promotes instrumental motivation, but reduces reward-related vigour

We can be motivated when reward depends on performance, or merely by the prospect of a guaranteed reward. Performance-dependent (contingent) reward is instrumental, relying on an internal action-outcome model, whereas motivation by guaranteed reward may minimise opportunity cost in reward-rich environments. Competing theories propose that each type of motivation should be dependent on dopaminergic activity. We contrasted these two types of motivation with a rewarded saccade task, in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). When PD patients were ON dopamine, they had greater response vigour (peak saccadic velocity residuals) for contingent rewards, whereas when PD patients were OFF medication, they had greater vigour for guaranteed rewards. These results support the view that reward expectation and contingency drive distinct motivational processes, and can be dissociated by manipulating dopaminergic activity. We posit that dopamine promotes goal-directed motivation, but dampens reward-driven vigour, contradictory to the prediction that increased tonic dopamine amplifies reward expectation.

Cinematographic coloring of open space in Volodymyr Drozd’s short prose from 1960s

The paper considers the style manner of V. Drozd’s prose from his early writing period with a focus on cinematographic aesthetics of color and possibilities of the screen design of plein air as the most free spatial environment for visual development of the image. The writer’s literary means have their analogues in the well-known contemporary films (“October”, “Poem about Sea”, “Red Desert”). The dynamic plein air compositions have certain screen potential. The images of open-space are related to freedom in dynamic and successive change of a scene, and alternation of verbal pictures. They are rather close to the specifc cinematographic representation of action, as their color markers may be associated with an imaginary film. The first V. Drozd’s attempts of designing the color and light of plein air are marked with an accent on the hues of the represented objects, the dynamism of objects in the imaginary shots, and expressive motion, increased with spectral indicators. A growth of the writer’s mastery is related to development of successive color ‘melody’, based on nuances of the visual impressions, and harmonized with internal action progress. Plastic imaginal markers with limited color range also remind the technique of cinematographic rush, adding emotional and psychological mood connotations to the narration and stimulating positive (nostalgic, elegiac) associations. Although they may seem random, the light and color signals acquire cinematographic expressiveness due to integration into the plot and its internal action, and to the dynamics of the character’s point of view. Abandoning a picturesque fixed nature, the author acquires possibility to decode wider associative meanings with color and light markers, search for deeper semantics of visual image complexes, and construct deterministic relations of a character and environment. Even minimal visual signals contribute to the color structure of a verbal shot. Such terseness and obscurity of objects in the prospect of a narrative camera, and a rapid change of plein air sections are similar to the features of cinematographic aesthetics and poetics.