Sounds familiar(?): Expertise with specific musical genres modulates timing perception and micro-level synchronization to auditory stimuli

Musical expertise improves the precision of timing perception and performance – but is this expertise generic, or is it tied to the specific style(s) and genre(s) of one’s musical training? We asked expert musicians from three musical genres (folk, jazz, and EDM/hip-hop) to align click tracks and tap in synchrony with genre-specific and genre-neutral sound stimuli to determine the perceptual center (“P-center”) and variability (“beat bin”) for each group of experts. We had three stimulus categories – Organic, Electronic, and Neutral sounds – each of which had a 2 × 2 design of the acoustic factors Attack (fast/slow) and Duration (short/long). We found significant effects of Genre expertise, and a significant interaction for both P-center and P-center variability: folk and jazz musicians synchronize to sounds typical of folk and jazz in a different manner than the EDM/hip-hop producers. The results show that expertise in a specific musical genre affects our low-level perceptions of sounds as well as their affordance(s) for joint action/synchronization. The study provides new insights into the effects of active long-term musical enculturation and skill acquisition on basic sensorimotor synchronization and timing perception, shedding light on the important question of how nature and nurture intersect in the development of our perceptual systems.

Consciousness and life after death in the evolution of intelligence

It seems no scientific study has been able to find evidence of the afterlife, and empirical studies along with materialism reject such ideas on the continuum of consciousness after death. Present knowledge of physics seems not fit enough to describe why and how the life of the brain functions and is different from the zombie computer. Here, I show the probability of an afterlife by three simple thought experiments and theoretical evidence. I suppose consciousness is an effect of a few facts, including unidentified two microparticles, nature and nurture, which may be crucial to making life in the brain. One micro particle might carry its evolving genome, and the other is made the uniqueness of consciousness of any given brain. Such two particles' behaviors may go beyond general relativity and quantum mechanics theories. According to the thought experiments, there is no option other than the probability of an afterlife, though we could not find the mechanism precisely. If this hypothesis is valid when a brain death, the specific particles couple might emit and bond simultaneously with a zygote or early embryo by traveling in infinite velocity. However, this theory might be a proverbial hypothesis, yet not a theory of everything the mysterious consciousness and life of the brain.

Sports Science and Efforts towards Sub-Two Hour Marathon Performance

Performance in different athletic activities has continued to improve over time, with some athletes from diverse parts of the world registering new world records from time to time. With stiff competition from athletes from different parts of the world, constant upgrading of sports science based approaches to training and competition are employed to achieve more success. However, some approaches used to improve sports performance may pose ethical concerns and may challenge sports as a concept of celebrating natural human abilities. This book chapter interrogates the factors associated with efforts towards improvement of performance in endurance sports events, with a specific focus on marathon races, and the future implications for training, competition, and the nature of sports. While the interplay between nature and nurture determines the unique psychophysiological responses to training and competition, technological exploits leading to advanced sports products coupled with favourable natural and/or manipulated internal (body) and external environmental conditions will ensure continued improvement in performance. However, there is a need to censor commercial interest as well as safeguard safety and the nature of sports as a medium to celebrate natural human abilities.

Entrepreneurial intentions: the relevance of nature and nurture

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the role of nature and nurture in students’ entrepreneurial intention (EIs). In doing so, the study examines the relationship between prenatal testosterone exposure (2D:4D), risk-taking propensity, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and EIs. Moreover, the moderating role of entrepreneurial education between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and EI is also investigated.Design/methodology/approachIn line with previous studies on EI, the authors tested hypotheses based on quantitative data obtained from university students.FindingsData were analyzed with the help of the structural equation modeling technique, and the results revealed that all the hypothesized relationships were supported.Originality/valueThe field of entrepreneurship has become an attractive area of research for practitioners and academics. One tinted area of research in entrepreneurship is the investigation of EI because it is a good predictor of entrepreneurial behavior. Several antecedents of EIs have been recognized in the literature ranging from personality traits to environmental factors. However, less is known about the role of biology in entrepreneurship. Incorporating biological factors in the field of entrepreneurship appears to be theoretically viable and sound. Thus, this study investigates the effect of biological factors in the presence of psychological factors on EIs, which is a unique contribution to the literature on entrepreneurship.

Origins

Human beings began hunting each other after dispatching the competition – the megafauna that once roamed the planet. From prey we became the Alpha predator. War has its origins in hunting, and the other criteria which distinguishes as a species – the use of language, the capacity for sacrifice and altruism; the use of tools and the ability to bind socially with small communities from clans to tribes which also encourages us of course to separate insiders from outsiders. It owes much to the very human interplay of nature and nurture, and the way in which humans ha e gendered war from the very beginning. Above all, we are still lumbered with the brains of our Stone Age ancestors which is why evolutionary psychologists argue that we are so maladapted to the world in which we live