NOV 09
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" A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain. "
Mark Twain
Functives in Bundoora
A new paper produced at the Media Studies Dept., School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry, at La Trobe University, Australia ( motto : ‘ Qui cherche trouve ‘ ) has been searching for ‘ Secrets Between the Panels ’ in comic books.
Using techniques established by Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, and Walt Disney, the paper embarks on an ‘ x marks the spot journey ‘ investigating not only the Schizoanalysis, the Complexification and the Functives of comics, but in the process also asks :
“ . . . does the logocentric form the academic treasure hunt prevent the journey from being anything other than a linear quest progressing towards a concealed presence ? “
Or, refining things still further -
“ . . . the author applies Deleuze’s extra-structural object = x to the structuring of sense in comic book analysis; she submits this third thing to the ‘irreducible difference’ of Derridean and Deleuzian thought and proposes an alternate reading of the medium, one which attempts to avoid closure through an aporetic reading of the formal structure. “
But how and where does Donald Duck fit into all of this ?
To find out read Derrida, Deleuze and a Duck
In the latest issue of the journal Animation.
؟ ؟ ؟
Here's Donald in action in an unusual Disney creation perhaps contemplating not only the rationality of phenomenological diachronic chaosmotics but encapsulating an internalized post-structuralist ' Déjà vu ', and ' Plus ça change ' at the same time . . .
27 NOV 09
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Why do jurors nod ?
“ This study is a first step towards investigating the impact of head nodding in the courtroom. “ say the authors - whose experiments with 244 mock-jurors lead them to determine that there are four categories of juror-head-nod.
All four broadly describable as affirmative.
Turn to the latest edition of The Jury Expert to find out exactly what they are.
؟ ؟ ؟
Really Magazine points out however a noticeable omission from the list . . . and the number of categories might need to expanded by at least 25%
We are of course referring to the ‘ falling asleep ‘ nod.
26 NOV 09
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Putting Inutility to Work
One of the cornerstones of Gambling and Game Theory was first described by mathematician Daniel Bernoulli as far back as 1738.
Loosely framed, it can be stated that gamblers, gamers, voters etc etc always prefer to choose scenarios with higher expected outcomes than those with lower ones.
In recent years the theory has been considerably refined and consolidated – but, are there perhaps circumstances where the standard von Neumann-Morgenstern (vNM) Expected Utility Theory may not apply ?
The author of a new ( as yet unpublished ) research work believes there may be.
The paper, created at the Department of Economics of the University of Pennsylvania points to :
' The Value of Useless Information '
Could it be that Useless Information (UI) is sometimes usefully employed by, for example, gamblers who are ‘ Self-Deceiving ‘.
For it’s a given that many a gambler, game-player ( and voter ) can experience “ . . . a paradoxical ability to lie to himself. “ - therefore might they not implement Useless Information to their advantage ?
Around fifty pages and a set of of highly complex calculations
come to the conclusion that such individuals may well ( find a use for it ).
Or, as the author neatly sums it up :
“ Patrons of a local restaurant often do not wish to enter the kitchen. “
؟ ؟ ؟
Editor’s comment.
There is one possible problem with the findings – for one can ask - is there really such a thing as ‘ Useless Information ‘ ? Does it even exist ?
Surely ‘ Information ‘ must, by definition ‘ Inform ‘ ? If it doesn't, then it's not ‘ Information ‘ . How can the process of becoming informed be useless ? A person who has been ‘ Informed ‘ must surely have an advantage, however slight, over someone who hasn’t ?
Is the concept of ‘ Useless Information ‘ not therefore an oxymoron ?
Really Magazine invites readers to submit any examples of ‘ Information ‘ which could not conceivably have any possible utility to anyone.
Results in so far . . .
• Atomic particles aquire their mass via the Higgs boson field.
• Never take anybody's advice : especailly if it's mine.
• This statement is false.
Also don't miss a previous Really Magazine article on uselessness :
Rationality violations under the microscope
25 NOV 09
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Meatballs & Cream
It almost goes without saying that, bearing in mind the severity and ubiquity of the so-called ‘ Obesity Epidemic ‘, any possible strategy which might be able to combat habitual overeating should be closely examined.
Now, for the first time, a previously overlooked (?) factor may have been identified.
Researchers from the University of Dijon setup experiments in which test subjects ( students ? ) were given the opportunity to consume Meatballs (M), French Fires (F), Vanilla Cream (C) and Brownies (B).
But, most importantly, in differing orders . . .
• They could eat in the order M-F-C-B
• or in a Single-Repetition* session with F-M-F-B-C-B
• or even in Multiple-Repetition sessions with M-F-M-F-M-F-C-B-C-B-C-B
Would there be a difference in the amount they ate ?
Yes. There was.
It was determined that -
“ . . . moderate alternation between foods at lunch increases intake, but multiple alternations of foods at the end of the meal may decrease consumption. “
[ out italics ]
Encouraging as the results are, there is, however, still plenty of room for
further study. Did the subjects eat less because the food was being rapidly
multiplexed
in the time-domain – or because the flavours / textures simply became ‘ mixed
up ‘ in
an unappetising way ?
[ Further research needed – maybe just give them a plate or two from a typical Czech restaurant ? Ed . ]
Read
Alternation between foods within a meal. Influence on satiation and consumption in humans.
In the latest issue of the journal Appetite.
؟ ؟ ؟
* As yet Really Magazine has not been able to determine what constitutes
a ‘ Single Repetition ‘.
23 NOV 09
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Not Eschewing the Fat
Turning to the very latest issue of the journal of Fuel Processing Technology . . .
Researchers
from the department of Inorganic Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Universidad
de Córdoba, Spain, have, for the first time, refined the
fundamental reactions that could form the basis a new industrial process
- which may
be of interest, amongst many others, to sausage delivery logistics firms
and liposuction clinics alike :
Application of the factorial design of experiments to biodiesel production from lard
The results are not to sniffed at. For, bearing in mind that although there are currently very real concerns for the possibility of a Peak Oil scenario, it’s quite unlikely that there will ever be a Peak Lard problem.
؟ ؟ ؟
Really Magazine invites readers to send us ideas for possible names for any future lard-based fuel companies : we'll post the results here.
Ideas in so far :
• Lardoil [ sorry, already registered, Ed. ]
• Lipolube [ sorry, already registered, Ed. ]
• Exxfat [ sorry, already registered, Ed. ]
• I can't believe it's not diesel [ possibly, Ed. ]
؟ ؟ ؟
Bearing in mind the current controversy regarding the ethics of using viable food products to fuel vehicles ( e.g. corn oil ) the new process may of course raise similar concerns about lard : see
Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes
and not forgetting
The British Lard Marketing Board
Comment from reader MC
Why not cut out the middleman? I run my diesel moped directly on lard. Though it’s in for major service at the moment. Triple injector bypass.
20 NOV 09
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Ice Cream Scoop
In the US, ice cream first appeared as a large-scale industrialised product somewhere around 1850s. Perhaps it’s surprising then, that until now, very little formal research has been directed at discovering the main factors driving consumer demand for it.
The Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture ( in collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Tennessee ) have just published what might be the first official taxpayer-funded investigation into the subject.
Researchers used a ' Censored Translog Demand System Model ' to analyze purchases of three ice cream product categories.
Bearing in mind of course there are a huge range of factors which may be taken into account : brand variations, advertising campaigns, mergers and acquisitions, consumer health trends, the weather etc etc.
But what would be the most important factor ?
Results of the analysis were clearcut.
It depends on how expensive it is.
“ . . . price and consumer income were the main determinants of demand for ice cream products. “
Whereby : cheaper = more sales.
The authors are confident that these insights –
“. . . will assist milk producers, dairy processors and manufacturers, and dairy marketers as they face changing consumer responses to food and diet issues. “
The study is
published in the latest issue of the Journal of Dairy Science.
19 NOV 09
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More T anyone ?
The much awaited ‘Biological Basis of Business ‘ special issue of the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes has been published.
One research paper in particular could be of interest to anyone participating in ( or organising ) business meetings.
For the first time (?) a possible biological mechanism for their inefficiency may have been pinpointed :
Testosterone Mismatch.
Researchers employed ' a novel slope-as-predictor multilevel structural equation model ' to analyse data from 92 meetings - and discovered that things tend to go badly when testosterone (T) levels vary widely from one participant to another.
See the paper :
Testosterone–status
mismatch lowers collective efficacy in groups
Note : The researchers did not overlook the fact that women tend to have around one quarter of the T levels which men have – the data were mathematically scaled to compensate – and, according to the researchers, the effect still showed up.
18 NOV 09
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The Math(s) of Sprawl.
Assessing which factors are the most important for determining the growth of new cities is a daunting task.
A new joint Chinese / US study has made a brave attempt at finding out - by studying the expansion of no less than 659 Chinese cities between 2002 and 2004 – and the results have just been published in the journal Urban Studies
And, as the authors put it, the results are –
“ . . . surprisingly similar to those found for US cities. “
The research team have constructed a complex set of mathematical formulae
[ for details, see the link to the paper below
] to describe the most
common scenarios - and perhaps predict future growth.
Using ( amongst others ) the following terms :
The price of land [p]
How many people there are [N]
How much money they have [y]
The cost of commuting [k]
Distance to the city centre [z]
It should be pointed out though that the term [ big C ] is entirely missing from the team's calculations . . . odd perhaps, as it is one of the most important controlling factors of urban sprawl in most major cities in most of the other countries on the planet . . .
Nevertheless, Really Magazine's text-search though the full 27 page paper revealed that the word ‘ Corruption ‘ appears 0 times.
17 NOV 09
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Operational note :
Really Magazine has removed all instances of the addthis.com sharing
widgets [ 
]
from our site after in-house tests showed that the company is using them
to implement ‘ Flash
Cookie ‘ files which store user tracking
info.
‘ Flash Cookies ‘ are entirely unaffected by the normal web-browser ‘ cookie ‘ settings - and they cannot be deleted (or read) via the browser.
If you have Flash installed, and would like to see what Flash Cookies have been slightly-less-than-obviously stored on your machine(s), do a search on your hard drive for [ *.sol ] You may be surprised.
The options for turning off the Flask Cookie storage function should of course be provided at installation-time of the Flash player. But they are not.
Instead, Adobe Systems ( the current owners of Flash ) provide a somewhat under-publicised official online method for permanently turning off the storage of new Flash Cookies on your machine(s) - it can be found here :
Comment from Peter K.
For reasons best known to Adobe the actual contents of their .sol files is encoded, and so they can't be read by an ordinary text editor like Notepad.
But there's an open-source .sol reader available here.
Update 19 NOV
Really Magazine can now confirm that Adobe's ' official ' method of Flash-cookie blocking doesn't work. Not on our machines anyway. Websites are still happily squirelling away .sol files . . . Who would have thought it ?
So, for the time being, we are experimenting with an ' unofficial ' version.
Of course you shouldn’t try it . . .
• Locating the directory :
ApplicationData/Macromedia/Flash Player/
• Where we find a folder called #SharedObjects.
• Renaming it to anything.
• Opening ‘ Notepad ‘ and saving a blank file called #SharedObjects to the same directory as above. Thus the folder has been replaced with a dummy file.
• The same procedure for
ApplicationData/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/
• Locating a folder called sys
• Renaming it to anything
• Opening ‘ Notepad ‘ and replacing the folder with a blank file called sys
• Bye Flash Cookies . . .
16 NOV 09 ( late edition )
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Jetztzeit of the Eintagswesen *
Turn to the penultimate edition of the international journal Organisational
and Social Dynamics for an in-depth article on Organisational Time - by Prof.
Dr. Burkard Sievers, professor of psychosocial organisational dynamics
at the University of Wuppertal in Gemany.
“ The intent of this paper is to grasp some of the hidden meaning and meaninglessness, the gains and losses resulting from the predominant use of time in organizations, and the shadows that the past, present, and future cast before. “
The professor highlights work from a wide range of other authors in order to explain how organisations might view and use their time - and perhaps to try to pin down what it actually is.
Quoting, for example, Pedro Dal Bó from 2002
“ Empirical evidence on how ' the shadow of the future ' affects behavior is scarce and inconclusive. “
Or, perhaps more enigmatic still :
“ I am still hoping that yesterday will become better. “
( Charles Schulz – Peanuts )
Perhaps it can be asked then, are modern organisations in a sense hypnotised by the ‘ now-ness ‘ afforded by the realtime always-on global 24/7 info-sphere ? Could they benefit from cultivating a corporate unconscious art of ' remembering the future ' ?
Read the new paper ‘ Pushing the Past Backwards in Front of Oneself ‘ ( £13.00 to non-subscribers )
( Or, you can find a previous
draft here for free . . . )
؟ ؟ ؟
Also see ( from the same author )
• Psychotic Implications of the Pension Fund System (2003)
• The Psychotic Organization (2006)
• The Psychotic University (2008)
[ * roughly translated : The 'now-time' of the 'today-creatures' .]
16 NOV 09
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Speaking in fragments
Not all sentences are strictly complete. For example :
" Fire ! " , " Next ! " , " What to do ? "
Yet all the above are fairly readily understandable despite being obviously incomplete – surprising, then, perhaps, that so little research has focussed on the meanings of so-called ‘ Fragments ‘ and how they are generated.
Turn to the latest edition of the journal Pragmatics & Cognition for an in-depth examination of sub-sentences.
How short can a fragment be and yet still be interpretable ?
“ Your elbows ! “ doesn’t seem to mean much at first glance – but would be perfectly well understood as a mother-to-son interaction at the dinner table.
“ Close cover before striking ” might seem a mysterious request – unless it’s on a pack of bookmatches.
Sadly though, even now, despite the new 33 page research paper from Robert Harnish, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona - not all the ‘ fragmentation ‘ dilemmas have yet been fully resolved.
As he puts it in the last line :
“ . . . sorting this out is a project for another occasion. “
The professor has also made available chapter one of his Fragments
and Speech Acts here
13 NOV 09
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Is it because I is semiotic ?
You wait months or even years for scholarly investigations into the meaning of the word ‘ I ’ – and then two come along at once . . .
• The first from the journal Semiotica in which the author presents -
“ . . . an analytical-linguistic technique for uncovering the relational matrix in which the ‘I’ is embedded, and some of the transformations used to frame it. “
Pointing out -
" . . . the mysterious fact that, unlike other signs, 'I' does not have a concrete signified. "
And using, by way of example, the various uses of ‘ I ‘ in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.
• The second study, published in Discourse & Communication
“ . . . explicates the specific manners in which professorial power is indexed and implemented in the first personal pronoun 'I' in academic discourse. “
Or, to clarify,
“ . . . displays how a meaning-less sign ‘I’ is coagulated into a meaning-full subject in the properties that are predicated
on it, and how a power-less speaking subject that ‘I’ stands
for is positioned as a powerfull [sic] social actor in the communicative
acts that ‘I’ performs. “
12 NOV 09
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Current directions in popular music research.
#1
Musical Meaning in TV-Commercials: A Case of Cheesy Music
Popular Musicology Online ( current issue 5 )
( focusing on a TV commercial for a Danish dairy product Riberhus )
“ . . . the music can be heard as a so called non-diegetic device expressing characters feelings and depicting the more general emotional atmosphere, but when encountered as a music video, the pictures might indeed be seen as a sort of non-diegetic device that expresses a cheesy, musical diegesis. “
#2
The Girl Is a Boy Is a Girl: Gender Representations in the Gizzy Guitar 2005 Air Guitar Competition
Journal of Popular Music Studies
Volume 21 Issue 3, Pages 284 – 303
“ . . . even if it is physically absent, the electric guitar is a major part of air guitar competitions . . . “
“ By imitating electric guitar players, air guitarists invoke a wide variety of gender representations. Most notably, the electric guitar as an instrument is constructed as one played by male musicians, although the instrument itself is frequently thought of as a woman “
#3
Making the Dream a Reality (Show): The Celebration of Failure in American Idol
Popular Music and Society, Volume 32, Issue 4 ,October 2009 , pages 475 – 488
“ In American Idol, fame is as readily won through harsh rejection as it is through approbation. As millions tune in each season to watch the dismissal of a tragic-comic parade of anti-stars, it becomes clear that something beyond mere reality-show ridicule is at work here. In failing, those rejected from American Idol succeed in authenticating certain understandings of the American Dream—obligatory ambition, individuality, and the necessity of failure in the process of achievement. This paper examines the negotiation of failure in American Idol, and addresses the question of why, in the end, losers sell just as well as winners. “
11 NOV 09
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Boat not-rocking
The connections between bureaucracy and inefficiency are overwhelmingly acknowledged – and yet somehow underexplained.
What are the exact nature of the links ? Although many mechanisms ( lack of incentives, excessive hierarchy, the pursuits of special interests etc etc ) have been identified over the years, mysteries still remain. Bureaucratic behaviour is still highly enigmatic under some conditions.
Now a new underlying mechanism has been discovered, and is published in the penultimate issue of the journal American Economic Review.
Professor Leaver of the Department of Economics at Oxford University , UK has for the first time pinpointed the
Minimal Squawk Theory.
“ I show that a desire to avoid criticism can prompt, otherwise public-spirited, bureaucrats to behave inefficiently. The desire to maintain a favourable reputation results in what I term minimal squawk behavior: bureaucrats take decisions to keep interest groups quiet and mistakes out of the public eye. “
The research paper’s math[s] is [are] not for the fainthearted, stretching as it does [they do] over 13 pages or so of highly complex calculations supporting and demonstrating the theory. The final results, however, are fairly clearcut :
Sometimes, everyone wins if everyone keeps quiet ( i.e. everyone except the general public )
Although the Minimal Squawk Theory was initially developed as a model to help to explain behaviour in the Public Utilities sector, the author points out that it may well have ( highly contemporary ) applications in analysing the sometimes mysterious behaviour of Central Banks.
“ With the basic model building blocks in place, it seems possible that, despite (and perhaps even because of) reform, central banks may be susceptible to minimal squawk behavior. “
Very possible. Here is a minimal squawk which we take the liberty of repeating from a ReallyMagazine item earlier this month :
“ Since I've become a central banker, I've learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said. "
Alan Greenspan, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, September 22, 1987.
Read an earlier draft of the full version of the paper here ;
10 NOV 09
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Swarm Mentality ( the downside )
For Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri ( authors of Empire and Multitude )
“ . . . the swarm buzzes for the anonymous multitude, achieving creative solutions to humankind's problems. “
Indeed, some may dream that it is possible that the Wisdom of Swarms – millions
perhaps billions of micro-empowered interconnected realtime cyber-twitterers
- may, in a sense, outshine, outsmart, outrun and ultimately outdate our
current societal modus operandi.
But, as a new article in the journal Differences reminds
us ‘ Society
as Swarm ‘ ideas are not altogether new - going back roughly a couple
of millennia or so.
The author, Page duBois, Professor of Classics and Comparative
Literature, University of California, Berkeley, points out :
“ The ancient Greeks used the figure of the swarm to connote an anonymous and undifferentiated mass of human beings. “
The comic poet Aristophanes for example, likened some sectors of the nouveau riche Athenian society to a swarm of wasps.
But as the Ancient Greeks were well aware, there are also sinister overtones to such ideas.
For the philosopher Plato took a considerably less humorous view – as he
“ . . . removes the sting from the wasps and represents docile and obedient bees, model citizen-workers, and even cicadas, transformed from human beings who once loved the muses into tattletales for the gods . . .“
Enthusiasts of Swarm Mentality circa 2009 take note, see :
The Democratic Insect: Productive Swarms
Comment from reader John C
Re, the last quote. errrr, bees have stings too don't they ?
09 NOV 09 (late edition)
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Positioning Colloquialisms in Australia
• Bloke
•
Dude
•
Geezer
• Guy
• Man
– but, in particular ( in Australia )
• Mate
Where -
. . . ‘mate’ occurs in a wide variety of situations and carries with it a range of interpretations, it is an extremely popular term that can be used not only when talking to friends, but also between casual acquaintances who may never talk to each other again. “
Of note though is the fact that ‘ mate ‘ is not necessarily a 100% benign form of address – for it can have negative, even ironic, overtones.
New research from the School of Language Studies at The Australian National University has, possibly for the first time, identified a framework whereby the meaning of ‘ mate ‘ might be changed.
Depending on its position in the sentence.
Thus pre-positioned ‘ mate ‘ :
“ Mate, how are ya’ ? “
might sometimes ( though not necessarily ) convey a different meaning to post-positioned versions :
“ How are ya’ mate ? “
The author points out :
“ . . . it is only through understanding its sequential position that we can begin to understand why ‘mate’ is sometimes interpreted as antagonistic or hostile. “
Though some may not entirely agree. . .
Sequential positioning is not the only factor. For intonation and gestural components can certainly have strong effects on its meaning too. Then there are geographical and cultural considerations.
For example " Aw'ight mate '" is almost a de rigueur greeting in some sectors of the UK whereas " Mate aw'ight “ would barely be understood.
Clearly more research ( on an international scale ) is needed before the full palette of ‘ mate's ’ intricacies is thoroughly explained and fully catalogued.
The research paper is published in the latest issue of the Journal
of Pragmatics
09 NOV 09
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Laughing in Baltimore
Over the years there has been a fair amount of research aimed at clarifying the mechanisms and motivations behind laughter - but Robert R. Provine, Professor of Psychology and Assistant Director of the Neuroscience Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County - is perhaps the only scientific investigator who has studied in detail one very specific sub-type :
Operatic Laughter [* example below ]
As part of his research, he recently published the paper -
‘ Notation
and expression of emotion in operatic laughter ‘
- in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
“ The emotional expression of laughter in opera scores and performance was evaluated by converting notation to temporal data and contrasting it with the conversational laughter it emulates. The potency of scored and sung laughter was assayed by its ability to trigger contagion in audiences. “
؟ ؟ ؟
for another laugh-based publication by the same author, see
' Le rire des singes. ' R. R. Provine et H. R. Weems. Sciences et Avenir (Julliet/Aout), pp. 20- 23. 1998
" Description du rire des singes. Comparaison avec le rire humain. Encadrés sur les vocalisations du chimpanzé et sur le rire chez les australopithèques. "
( rough translation
here )
* An example : For readers unsure as to the exact nature of Operatic Laughter, Really Magazine provides an especially compiled mp3 clip of one of its greatest exponents :
The laughs are excerpts from recordings made in 1902, 1904, and 1907
06 NOV 09
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Goals : What are they good for ?
“ Consumers set goals to achieve a variety of objectives such as losing weight, saving for retirement, and achieving better health. “
But are they doing the right thing ?
For, as Macy's Foundation Professor of Marketing at Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, points out :
“ . . .there is almost no research that examines how we should set optimal goals. “
The professor has addressed the problem with a new paper, just published in the journal Marketing Science, which might be of help to consumers who are attempting to optimize their goal-setting techniques.
This may be the first time that Hyperbolic Discounting Theory has been employed to clarify the previously murky situation.
Noting, amongst the results :
“ . . . goals can often increase performance but can also sometimes encourage procrastination.”
“ We show that some goals are worse than having no goals . . .”
“ We also find that it is sometimes optimal to set goals that are never achieved.”
Comment from reader Eric F.
' That's great ! I thought those non-achievable goals I had set myself were just loopy! But now I see I did the right thing all along! I'm actually optimized! Thanks prof.! '
05 NOV 09 (late edition)
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Fuzziness at the office
Words can be problematic. Take, for example, communications
in the business world. If your boss says “ I need to see
those figures today “ what
exactly does the word ‘ Today ‘ mean ? *[1]
For the first time a formal research project, just published in the Journal of Business Communications, has investigated the inherent fuzziness of such words and pinned them down to actual timeframes.
A team from Appalachian State University and Murray State University focussed on words which describe when something will happen - such as ASAP, Soon, Today, Tomorrow, and Right away.
They asked a group of 345 people ( students ) to record their perceived meaning of each word - and subsequent analysis of the results clearly showed how the potential arises for what the authors call ' miscommunication problems ' *[2]
Some examples :
Some felt that ‘ Right away ‘ meant as little as 4 hours – but for others it meant more than double that – at nearly 9.5 hours.
It was determined that 'ASAP ' meant anywhere between 27 hours and 72 hours.
But perhaps the most extreme example was the word ‘ Soon ‘, which meant somewhere around 150 hours for most people – but one respondent felt it meant 1 year !
The results show in a very clear light the possibilities for misunderstandings in the business world – managers should do well to remember the key finding of this study
“ . . . you should not assume others have the same definitions for words and terms as you do “
before they say something like “ I want that report, and I want it yesterday ! “
The paper :
Obfuscating
the Obvious : Miscommunication Issues in the Interpretation of
Common Terms
is available in the latest issue of the Journal of Business Communications (for US$32.00 )
؟ ؟ ؟
Notes:
*[1] ‘Today ’ means between 9.14 and 11.96 hours
*[2] errrr . . . shouldn't that be 'communication problems' ? Ed.
05 NOV 09
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Diving in Portsmouth
Spectators at soccer matches invariably think they know when a player has deliberately ‘ taken a dive ‘ - but do they really ? For the first time (?) a formal academic study into professional footballers' deceptional diving behaviour has not only quantified and described the phenomenon – but also measured its effectiveness ( in terms of fooling the referee and the spectators ).
Dr. Paul Morris, Principal Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Portsmouth, UK, is shortly to publish the results of his study in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.
No less than four types of players’ ‘ diving ‘ behaviour have been identified :
• Clutching their body where they haven’t been hit
• Taking an extra roll when they hit the ground
• After being tackled, taking fully controlled strides before falling
• Holding up both arms in the air, with open palms, chest thrust out, legs bent at the knee in an ‘ Archer’s Bow ’ position.
(
Dr. Morris demonstrates the ‘ Archer’s Bow ’ in the accompanying
photo )
“ Although this behaviour is absurd, the fraudulent footballer does it to try to deceive the referee into believing that the tackle was illegal, and the histrionics are necessary to get the referee’s attention in the first place. “
But are any of the ‘dives‘ really effective ?
Probably not - in tests, 300 experimental participants watching videos of matches were regularly able to correctly identify the fake falls . . .
Sadly the
research article is behind a $34 paywall – but the university
provides some detail in a press-release about the study, here.
؟ ؟ ؟
Some previous research by the same author :
‘ The factor structure of horse personality ‘ (2002) ($22.99)
‘ The
survival of the cutest: who's responsible for the evolution of the
teddy bear? ‘ (1995) ($31.50)
04 NOV 09
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More on avatars
Researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) recently discovered the ‘ Proteus Effect ‘ – whereby computer gamers who were given larger and more athletic ‘ avatars ‘ to play-with behaved more aggressively ( in their 3-D world ) than those with tiny, ugly ones.
( previous Really Magazine articles describing their discoveries here and here )
Now the effect has been further examined by a team from Cornell and Texas universites. The results – which some might see as either shockingly revelatory or highly predictable ( depending on their point of view ) will be are published in the December edition of the journal Communication Research.
The experimenters provided avatars to 100 computer-game players (students) in several highly contrasting flavours.
Would they behave differently depending whether they were ' dressed ' as a KKK member or as a Doctor ?
Yes. They would.
Analysis of Thematic Apperception Tests (TATs) employed by the experimenters to gauge the players' responses showed that :
“ . . . people’s digital self-representation surreptitiously affect[s] cognition and behavior . . ."
And with a disturbing pointer which will no doubt be noted in other spheres outside of the virtual world of 3-D game-playing - of interest to, say, philosophers, writers of childrens’ stories, politicians and PR agencies :
" . . . suggesting that the ‘puppet’ exerts a hidden power over the ‘puppeteer’ “.
Read the full study here :
03 NOV 09
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More on Vagueness.
The Department of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh is furthering the ongoing academic investigation into ‘ Vagueness ‘ ( a.k.a. F-ness ) - and taking a more practical approach than some previous investigators who have studied Vagueness from a purely philosophical standpoint.*
For, as might be expected, the Department of Economics is focussing on how Vagueness is used in the banking world – paying particular attention to what some have called ‘ Central Bank Speak ‘.
Their ( yet to be published ) research paper ‘ Intentional Vagueness ‘ focuses on
“ . . . the strategic use of vague messages to manipulate information. “
Take, as an extreme example, the words of no lesser an exponent than Alan Greenspan ( as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, September 22, 1987 )
“ Since I've become a central banker, I've learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said."
Such strategies are analysed in considerable detail in the paper – running to over 56 pages, and, enigmatically perhaps given the subject, incorporating an intensely complex set of high-end prescision mathematical proofs.
Though reassuringly distilling down to a straightforward conclusion that, as Mr. Greenspan discovered during his 19 years in office as Chairman of the Federal Reserve - Intentional Vagueness can be ( and often is ) used with great effect in an effort to mitigate conflict.
“ . . . we confirm results from earlier work that exogenous vagueness can enhance efficiency . . .“
؟ ؟ ؟
* see here
02 NOV 09
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