Cortical processing of musical pitch as reflected by behavioural and electrophysiological evidence

In a musical context, the pitch of sounds is encoded according to domain-general principles not confined to music or even to audition overall but common to other perceptual and cognitive processes (such as multiple pattern encoding and feature integration), and to domain-specific and culture-specific properties related to a particular musical system only (such as the pitch steps of the Western tonal system). The studies included in this thesis shed light on the processing stages during which pitch encoding occurs on the basis of both domain-general and music-specific properties, and elucidate the putative brain mechanisms underlying pitch-related music perception. Study I showed, in subjects without formal musical education, that the pitch and timbre of multiple sounds are integrated as unified object representations in sensory memory before attentional intervention. Similarly, multiple pattern pitches are simultaneously maintained in non-musicians' sensory memory (Study II). These findings demonstrate the degree of sophistication of pitch processing at the sensory memory stage, requiring neither attention nor any special expertise of the subjects. Furthermore, music- and culture-specific properties, such as the pitch steps of the equal-tempered musical scale, are automatically discriminated in sensory memory even by subjects without formal musical education (Studies III and IV). The cognitive processing of pitch according to culture-specific musical-scale schemata hence occurs as early as at the sensory-memory stage of pitch analysis. Exposure and cortical plasticity seem to be involved in musical pitch encoding. For instance, after only one hour of laboratory training, the neural representations of pitch in the auditory cortex are altered (Study V). However, faulty brain mechanisms for attentive processing of fine-grained pitch steps lead to inborn deficits in music perception and recognition such as those encountered in congenital amusia (Study VI). These findings suggest that predispositions for exact pitch-step discrimination together with long-term exposure to music govern the acquisition of the automatized schematic knowledge of the music of a particular culture that even non-musicians possess.

Laatutyöhön sitoutumisen edellytykset ammattikorkeakoulussa

The goal of this research was to establish the necessary conditions under which individuals are prepared to commit themselves to quality assurance work in the organisation of a Polytechnic. The conditions were studied using four main concepts: awareness of quality, commitment to the organisation, leadership and work welfare. First, individuals were asked to describe these four concepts. Then, relationships between the concepts were analysed in order to establish the conditions for the commitment of an individual towards quality assurance work (QA). The study group comprised the entire personnel of Helsinki Polytechnic, of which 341 (44.5%) individuals participated. Mixed methods were used as the methodological base. A questionnaire and interviews were used as the research methods. The data from the interviews were used for the validation of the results, as well as for completing the analysis. The results of these interviews and analyses were integrated using the concurrent nested design method. In addition, the questionnaire was used to separately analyse the impressions and meanings of the awareness of quality and leadership, because, according to the pre-understanding, impressions of phenomena expressed in terms of reality have an influence on the commitment to QA. In addition to statistical figures, principal component analysis was used as a description method. For comparisons between groups, one way variance analysis and effect size analysis were used. For explaining the analysis methods, forward regression analysis and structural modelling were applied. As a result of the research it was found that 51% of the conditions necessary for a commitment to QA were explained by an individual’s experience/belief that QA was a method of development, that QA was possible to participate in and that the meaning of quality included both product and process qualities. If analysed separately, other main concepts (commitment to the organisation, leadership and work welfare) played only a small part in explaining an individual’s commitment. In the context of this research, a structural path model of the main concepts was built. In the model, the concepts were interconnected by paths created as a result of a literature search covering the main concepts, as well as a result of an analysis of the empirical material of this thesis work. The path model explained 46% of the necessary conditions under which individuals are prepared to commit themselves to QA. The most important path for achieving a commitment stemmed from product and system quality emanating from the new goals of the Polytechnic, moved through the individual’s experience that QA is a method of the total development of quality and ended in a commitment to QA. The second most important path stemmed from the individual’s experience of belonging to a supportive work community, moved through the supportive value of the job and through affective commitment to the organisation and ended in a commitment to QA. The third path stemmed from an individual’s experiences in participating in QA, moved through collective system quality and through these to the supportive value of the job to affective commitment to the organisation and ended in a commitment to QA. The final path in the path model stemmed from leadership by empowerment, moved through collective system quality, the supportive value of the job and an affective commitment to the organisation, and again, ended in a commitment to QA. As a result of the research, it was found that the individual’s functional department was an important factor in explaining the differences between groups. Therefore, it was found that understanding the processing of part cultures in the organisation is important when developing QA. Likewise, learning-teaching paradigms proved to be a differentiating factor. Individuals thinking according to the humanistic-constructivistic paradigm showed more commitment to QA than technological-rational thinkers. Also, it was proved that the QA training program did not increase commitment, as the path model demonstrated that those who participated in training showed 34% commitment, whereas those who did not showed 55% commitment. As a summary of the results it can be said that the necessary conditions under which individuals are prepared to commit themselves to QA cannot be treated in a reductionistic way. Instead, the conditions must be treated as one totality, with all the main concepts interacting simultaneously. Also, the theoretical framework of quality must include its dynamic aspect, which means the development of the work of the individual and learning through auditing. In addition, this dynamism includes the reflection of the paradigm of the functions of the individual as well as that of all parts of the organisation. It is important to understand and manage the various ways of thinking and the cultural differences produced by the fragmentation of the organisation. Finally, it seems possible that the path model can be generalised for use in any organisation development project where the personnel should be committed.

Child temperament and parental personality: continuity and transactional change

Studying the continuity and underlying mechanisms of temperament change from early childhood through adulthood is clinically and theoretically relevant. Knowledge of the continuity and change of temperament from infancy onwards, especially as perceived by both parents is, however, still scanty. Only in recent years have researchers become aware that personality, long considered as stable in adulthood, may also change. Further, studies that focus on the transactional change of child temperament and parental personality also seem to be lacking, as are studies focusing on transactions between child temperament and more transient parental characteristics, like parental stress. Therefore, this longitudinal study examined the degree of continuity of temperament over five years from the infant s age of six months to the child s age of five and a half years, as perceived by both biological parents, and also investigated the bidirectional effects between child temperament and parents personality traits and overall stress experienced during that time. First, moderate to high levels of continuity of temperament from infancy to middle childhood were shown, depicting the developmental links between affectively positive and well-adjusted temperament characteristics, and between characteristics of early and later negative affectivity. The continuity of temperament was quantitatively and qualitatively similar in both parents ratings. The findings also demonstrate that infant and childhood temperament characteristics cluster to form stable temperament types that resemble personality types shown in child and adult personality studies. Second, the parental personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism were shown to be highly stable over five years, but evidence of change in relation to parents views of their child s temperament was also shown: an infant s higher positive affectivity predicted an increase in parental extraversion, while the infant s higher activity level predicted a decrease in parental neuroticism over five years. Furthermore, initially higher parental extraversion predicted higher ratings of the child s effortful control, while initially higher parental neuroticism predicted the child s higher negative affectivity. In terms of changes in parental stress, the infant s higher activity level predicted a decrease in maternal overall stress, while initially higher maternal stress predicted a higher level of child negative affectivity in middle childhood. Together, the results demonstrate that the mother- and father-rated temperament of the child shows continuity during the early years of life, but also support the view that the development of these characteristics is sensitive to important contextual factors such as parental personality and overall stress. While parental personality and experienced stress were shown to have an effect on the child s developing temperament, the reverse was also true: the parents own personality traits and perceived stress seemed to be highly stable, but also susceptible to their experiences of their child s temperament.

Learning challenges of NGOs in development : Co-operation of Finnish NGOs in Morogoro, Tanzania

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have gained an important role in development co-operation during the last two decades. The development funding channelled through NGOs has increased and the number of NGOs engaged in development activities, both North and South, has been growing. Supporting NGOs has been seen as one way to strengthen civil society in the South and to provide potential for enhancing more effective development than the state, and to exercise participatory development and partnership in their North-South relationships. This study focuses on learning in the co-operation practices of small Finnish NGOs in Morogoro, Tanzania. Drawing on the cultural-historical activity theory and the theory of expansive learning, in this study I understand learning as a qualitative change in the actual co-operation practices. The qualitative change, for its part, emerges out of attempts to deal with the contradictions in the present activity. I use the concept of developmental contradiction in exploring the co-operation of the small Finnish NGOs with their Tanzanian counterparts. Developmental contradiction connects learning to actual practice and its historical development. By history, in this study I refer to multiple developmental trajectories, such as trajectories of individual participants, organisations, co-operation practices and the institutional system in which the NGO-development co-operation is embedded. In the empirical chapters I explore the co-operation both in the development co-operation projects and in micro-level interaction between partners taking place within the projects. I analyse the perceptions of the Finnish participants about the different developmental trajectories, the tensions, inclusions and exclusions in the evolving object of co-operation in one project, the construction of power relations in project meetings in three projects, and the collision of explicated partnership with the emerging practice of trusteeship in one project. On the basis of the empirical analyses I elaborate four developmental contradictions and learning challenges for the co-operation. The developmental contradictions include: 1) implementing a ready-made Finnish project idea vs. taking the current activities of Tanzanian NGO as a starting point; 2) gaining experiences and cultural interaction vs. access to outside funding; 3) promoting the official tools of development co-operation in training vs. use of tools and procedures taken from the prior activities of both partners in actual practice; and 4) asymmetric relations between the partners vs. rhetoric of equal partnership. Consequently, on the basis of developmental contradictions four learning challenges are suggested: a shift from legitimation of Finnish ideas to negotiation, transcending the separate objects and finding a partly joint object, developing locally shared tools for the co-operation, and identification and reflection of the power relations in the practice of co-operation. Keywords: activity theory; expansive learning; NGO development co-operation; partnership; power

Kaveriporukasta liiketoiminnaksi : Tuotannon häiriöt ja organisaation oppiminen nopeasti muuttuvassa yrityksessä

In the 1990 s the companies utilizing and producing new information technology, especially so-called new media, were also expected to be forerunners in new forms of work and organization. Researchers anticipated that new, more creative forms of work and the changing content of working life were about to replace old industrial and standardized ways of working. However, research on actual companies in the IT sector revealed a situation where only minor changes to existing organizational forms were seen .Many of the independent companies faced great difficulties trying to survive the rapid changes in the products and production forms in the emerging field. Most of the research on the new media field has been conducted as surveys, and an understanding of the actual everyday work process has remained thin. My research is a longitudinal study of the early phases of one new media company in Finland. The study is an analysis of the challenges the company faced in a rapidly changing business field and the attempts to overcome these challenges. The two main analyses in the study focus on the developmental phases of the company and the disturbances in the production process. Based on these analyses, I study changes and learning at work using the methodological framework of developmental work research. Developmental work research is a Finnish variant of the cultural-historical activity theory applied to the study of learning and transformations at work. The data was gathered over a three-year period of ethnographic fieldwork. I documented the production processes and everyday life in the company as a participant observer. I interviewed key persons, video and audio-taped meetings, followed e-mail correspondence and collected various documents, such as agreements and memos. I developed a systematic method for analyzing the disturbances in the production process by combining the various data sources. The systematic analysis of the disturbances depicted a very complex and only partly managed production process. The production process had a long duration, and no single actor had an understanding of it as a whole. Most of the disturbances had to do with the customer relationships. The nature of the disturbances was latent; they were recognized but not addressed. In the particular production processes that I analyzed, the ending life span of a particular product, a CD-ROM, became obvious. This finding can be interpreted in relation to the developmental phase of the production and the transformation of the field as a whole. Based on the analysis of the developmental phases and the disturbances, I formulate a hypothesis of the contradictions and developmental potentials of the activity studied. The conclusions of the study challenge the existing understanding of how to conceptualize and study organizational learning in production work. Most theories of organizational learning do not address qualitative changes in production nor historical challenges of organizational learning itself. My study opens up a new horizon in understanding organizational learning in a rapidly changing field where a learning culture based on craft or mass production work is insufficient. There is a need for anticipatory and proactive organizational learning. Proactive learning is needed to anticipate the changes in production type, and the life cycles of products.

Tieteellinen ajattelu yliopisto-opinnoissa : haastattelututkimus psykologian, teologian ja farmasian opiskelijoista

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the academic thinking and personal epistemology of university students. More specifically, the aim is to understand and promote students’ research and academic skills as a central goal of academic studies in the research-intensive university of Helsinki. Two of the four studies examine the personal epistemology of psychology students in different study phases, and the variation in personal epistemology among final-year psychology, theology and pharmacy students. Furthermore, personal epistemology was explored as a phenomenon among the student groups. In the fourth study the individual answers of the students interviewed are investigated in more detail. The main focus is on examining students’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowledge acquisition as a representation of their personal epistemology. Study I presents a model which describes the main elements and aspects of teaching and learning in pharmacy education. Firstly, the meaning of quality of teaching and learning is explored. On the basis of this information, the study concentrates on the pedagogical implications of changing pharmacy teaching to improve the quality of learning. Study II describes the results of a cross-sectional study of psychology students participating in undergraduate and master’s level psychology programmes. The students (N = 53) were interviewed concerning their beliefs about knowledge and knowing, the aim being to explore students’ responses about thinking and reasoning. The results are analysed using content analysis to create categories of personal epistemology and comparisons among the students according to the phase of their studies. Study III examines interdisciplinary differences in final-year psychology, pharmacy and theology students’ (N = 52) academic thinking and personal epistemology. The aims of study IV are to examine and compare the consistency of personal epistemology profiles among university students (N = 87) representing three academic disciplines. The individual answers are examined and rated on a scale from absolutist to evaluativist thinking. On the basis of this data, three personal epistemology profiles are identified: a) absolutist profiles; b) relativistic profiles; and c) evaluativist profiles consisting of the subgroups entitled “limited” and “sophisticated”. The results of the studies clearly demonstrate that personal epistemology varies between students in different age groups, study phases, and disciplines. Three categories, including several subcategories, emerge to describe the personal epistemology of students. Furthermore, three personal epistemology profiles can be identified from the data. The comparison between students reveals interesting differences and similarities among student groups, and developmental trends of personal epistemology.

Transcending “the Impossible” : From Dead End to Expansive Learning

This dissertation investigates changes in bank work and the experience of impossibility attached to these by workers at the local level from the viewpoint of work-related well-being and collective learning. A special challenge in my work is to conceptualize the experience of impossibility as related to change, and as a starting point and tool for development work. The subject of the dissertation, solving the impossible as a collective learning process, came up as a central theme in an earlier project: Work Units between the Old and the New (1997 – 1999). Its aim was to investigate how change is constructed as a long-term process, starting from the planning of the change until its final realization in everyday banking work. I studied changes taking place in the former Postipankki (Postal Bank), later called Leonia. The three-year study involved the Branch Office of Martinlaakso, and was conducted from the perspective of well-being in a change process. The sense of impossibility involved in changes turned out to be one of the most crucial factors impairing the sense of well-being. The work community that was the target of my study did not have the available tools to construct the change locally, or to deal with the change-related impossibility by solving it through a mutual process among themselves. During the last year of the project, I carried out an intervention for development in the Branch Office, as collaboration between the researchers and the workers. The purpose of the intervention was to resolve such perceived change-related impossibility as experienced repeatedly and considered by the work community as relevant to work-related well-being. The documentation of the intervention – audio records from development sessions, written assignments by workers and assessment or evaluation interviews – constitute the essential data for my dissertation. The earlier data, collected and analysed during the first two years, provides a historical perspective on the process, all the way from construction of the impossibility towards resolving and transcending it. The aim of my dissertation is to understand the progress of developmental intervention as a shared, possibly expansive learning process within a work community and thus to provide tools for perceiving and constructing local change. I chose the change-related impossibility as a starting point for development work in the work community and as a target of conceptualization. This, I feel, is the most important contribution of my dissertation. While the intervention was in progress, the concept of impossibility started emerging as a stimulating tool for development work. An understanding of such a process can be applied to development work outside banking work as well. According to my results, it is pivotal that a concept stimulating development is strongly connected with everyday experiences of and speech about changes in work activity, as well as with the theoretical framework of work development. During this process, development work on a local level became of utmost interest as a case study for managing change. Theoretically, this was conceptualized as so-called second-order work and this concept accompanies us all the way through the research process. Learning second-order work and constructing tools based on this work have proved crucial for promoting well-being in the change circumstances in a local work unit. The lack of second-order work has led to non-well-being and inability to transcend the change-related sense of impossibility in the work community. Solving the impossible, either individually or situationally, did not orient the workers towards solving problems of impossibility together as a work community. Because the experience of the impossibility and coming to terms with transcending it are the starting point and the target of conceptualization in this dissertation, the research provides a fresh viewpoint on the theoretical framework of change and developmental work. My dissertation can facilitate construction of local changes necessitated by the recent financial crisis, and thus promote fluency and well-being in work units. It can also support change-related well-being in other areas of working life.