Young children's understanding of oddity: reducing complexity by simple oddity and "most different" strategies

Children aged between 3 and 7 years were taught simple and dimension-abstracted oddity discrimination using learning-set training techniques, in which isomorphic problems with varying content were presented with verbal explanation and feedback. Following the training phase, simple oddity (SO), dimension-abstracted oddity with one or two irrelevant dimensions, and non-oddity (NO) tasks were presented (without feedback) to determine the basis of solution. Although dimension-abstracted oddity requires discrimination based on a stimulus that is different from the others, which are all the same as each other on the relevant dimension, this was not the major strategy. The data were more consistent with use of a simple oddity strategy by 3- to 4-year-olds, and a most different strategy by 6- to 7-year-olds. These strategies are interpreted as reducing task complexity. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

L'Educació assistencial i social a Vic

A partir de les fonts documentals de la “Casa Misericòrdia” i de “Casa Caritat” de Vic i també del testimoni de persones que hi havien viscut o hi havien treballat o les coneixien de prop, s’ha volgut explicar el naixement, evolució i decadència de les dues institucions centenàries que van realitzar, gairebé sempre amb pocs mitjans però amb notable dedicació, una tasca ingent en favor dels més desfavorits i que van deixar d’existir a principis dels anys setanta. Casa Caritat atenia persones necessitades d’ambdós sexes, encara que en dues instal•lacions diferents, com l’antic convent dels Trinitaris per al sexe femení i l’antic convent de Sant Domènec, per al masculí. La Misericòrdia va acollir durant poc més de dos-cents cinquanta anys nenes, noies, dones i velles pobres i desemparades. La raresa d’aquesta institució estava en el règim d’autogestió, sense la intervenció de cap ordre religiosa, com era costum en aquells temps. El tancament de les dues institucions va donar lloc a un nou model assistencial i educatiu per als menors, promogut pel bisbe de Vic Ramon Masnou i per Joan Riera, els impulsors de la Llar Juvenil. Es tractava d’un recurs modern i d’inspiració cristiana, ubicat en una casa de nova construcció i sota un reglament molt més humanitzat i amb menys pes de les pràctiques religioses. La conflictivitat dels nens i nenes, a mesura que creixien, i amb les necessitats d’uns altres temps, a més d’assumpció de les competències de menors per part de la Generalitat el 1981, van propiciar la creació per part de la Generalitat i de l’Ajuntament de Vic de Casa Moreta, amb un projecte totalment laic i portat per professionals que després es convertiria en el Centre Residencial Osona i també va suposar el naixement d’una altra entitat, la Llar Terricabras. La recerca, doncs, pretén posar les bases per a futures anàlisis aprofundides sobre l’atenció als menors a la ciutat de Vic, al llarg del temps.

A química atmosférica no Brasil de 1790 a 1853

Atmospheric chemistry in Brazil from 1790 to 1853. Scarcely any mention is made today of investigations carried out in Brazil during the period above on the science of the atmosphere. Yet the study of these cases reveals much about the milieu of a few devoted men who laboured to pursue a scientific career. That such an arcane topic has been the concern of investigators at such an early date may come as a surprise to many. The subject was an oddity as a field of study anywhere at the time, and its history deserves the attention of present-day chemists.

Liberdade e negação da vontade: análise do ser-livre como representação e na angústia

Common understanding about what freedom means has always been more or less related to the power to realize something intended, desired, a capability. Therefore, being free is commonly interpreted under the concept of free-will and the category of possibility to act. Although there are predecessors in History of Philosophy, Schopenhauer refuses the thesis of free will proposing otherwise the denial of willing (to live) as the ultimate possibility for human freedom, if not the only one left. The thesis that would make him famous was deeply misunderstood and so miscarried somewhat due to the way it was many times presented by the means of exotic examples wrapped in a mystical mood besides exaltations to Eastern traditions, which may satisfy anthropological curiosity instead of being capable to satisfy the reader in a philosophical way. It seems to result from Schopenhauer s thought a kind of pessimism against life. Otherwise, typical readings on the Schopenhauerian thesis are found full of inconsistencies once closely regarded, which blame does not belong to the author but to his interpreters. A new reading about the denial of willing as the ultimate possibility for human freedom demands a criticism on the inconsistencies and prejudgments deep grounded. For this, we firstly clarify the ways of understanding the willing nothing , which cannot be reduced to the mere refusal or conformism, being instead positively understood as a special manner of willing: the admission of oneself for the sake of one is. A few more than a century later The world as will and representation came to light, Heidegger proposes in his fundamental ontology that the proper being-free concerns to originary decision by which, in anguish of being suspended in nothingness, Dasein renders itself singular as the being who is in-a-world and to-death, concluding that the ultimate possibility of freedom is being-free-to-death. Developing the hypothesis that freedom, properly understood, concerns to nothingness as to indeterminate possibilities, we seek for a dialogue between Schopenhauer s thought and existential philosophy aiming to reconstitute and overcome Metaphysics tradition turning the question about freedom into a matter of Ontology. From the factual existence perspective, as we must show, every human activity (or inactivity) is ordinarily mediated by representations, in which me and world appear as distinct entities. So, each one among determininate individuals finds itself connected to the things in the world by interest, which proper concept must be sufficiently explored. Starting from this point, we may proceed to detailed analysis of usual representations of freedom aiming their destruction by Ontology and then reaching existential thesis according to Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Turning back to the analysis of Schopenhauer s work, we conclude existential understanding of freedom as will-to-be can also be found in Schopenhauer. In this way, denial of willing means ultimate freedom once the Will turns back to its own essence by suppressing the world as representation, which means the originary absolute indetermination of the extreme possibility to-be

Il ruolo del collicolo superiore nell'orientamento spaziale

This thesis was aimed at verifying the role of the superior colliculus (SC) in human spatial orienting. To do so, subjects performed two experimental tasks that have been shown to involve SC’s activation in animals, that is a multisensory integration task (Experiment 1 and 2) and a visual target selection task (Experiment 3). To investigate this topic in humans, we took advantage of neurophysiological finding revealing that retinal S-cones do not send projections to the collicular and magnocellular pathway. In the Experiment 1, subjects performed a simple reaction-time task in which they were required to respond as quickly as possible to any sensory stimulus (visual, auditory or bimodal audio-visual). The visual stimulus could be an S-cone stimulus (invisible to the collicular and magnocellular pathway) or a long wavelength stimulus (visible to the SC). Results showed that when using S-cone stimuli, RTs distribution was simply explained by probability summation, indicating that the redundant auditory and visual channels are independent. Conversely, with red long-wavelength stimuli, visible to the SC, the RTs distribution was related to nonlinear neural summation, which constitutes evidence of integration of different sensory information. We also demonstrate that when AV stimuli were presented at fixation, so that the spatial orienting component of the task was reduced, neural summation was possible regardless of stimulus color. Together, these findings provide support for a pivotal role of the SC in mediating multisensory spatial integration in humans, when behavior involves spatial orienting responses. Since previous studies have shown an anatomical asymmetry of fibres projecting to the SC from the hemiretinas, the Experiment 2 was aimed at investigating temporo-nasal asymmetry in multisensory integration. To do so, subjects performed monocularly the same task shown in the Experiment 1. When spatially coincident audio-visual stimuli were visible to the SC (i.e. red stimuli), the RTE depended on a neural coactivation mechanism, suggesting an integration of multisensory information. When using stimuli invisible to the SC (i.e. purple stimuli), the RTE depended only on a simple statistical facilitation effect, in which the two sensory stimuli were processed by independent channels. Finally, we demonstrate that the multisensory integration effect was stronger for stimuli presented to the temporal hemifield than to the nasal hemifield. Taken together, these findings suggested that multisensory stimulation can be differentially effective depending on specific stimulus parameters. The Experiment 3 was aimed at verifying the role of the SC in target selection by using a color-oddity search task, comprising stimuli either visible or invisible to the collicular and magnocellular pathways. Subjects were required to make a saccade toward a target that could be presented alone or with three distractors of another color (either S-cone or long-wavelength). When using S-cone distractors, invisible to the SC, localization errors were similar to those observed in the distractor-free condition. Conversely, with long-wavelength distractors, visible to the SC, saccadic localization error and variability were significantly greater than in either the distractor-free condition or the S-cone distractors condition. Our results clearly indicate that the SC plays a direct role in visual target selection in humans. Overall, our results indicate that the SC plays an important role in mediating spatial orienting responses both when required covert (Experiments 1 and 2) and overt orienting (Experiment 3).

Nature and origin of ultramafic lamprophyres and carbonatites from the borders of the Labrador Sea

Die Ränder des Labrador Meeres wurden während des späten Neoproterozoikums intensiv von karbonatreichen silikatischen Schmelzen durchsetzt. Diese Schmelzen bildeted sich bei Drucken zwischen ca. 4-6 GPa (ca. 120-180 km Tiefe) an der Basis der kontinentalen Mantel-Lithosphäre. Diese Magmengenerierung steht in zeitlichem und räumlichem Zusammenhang mit kontinentalen Extensionsprozessen, welche zu beiden Seiten des sich öffnenden Iapetus-Ozeans auftraten.

Singularidad, anomalía, diferencia, olvido : La derrota de los republicanos españoles en Francia. El testimonio de Diario a dos voces de José María y Manuel Lamana

Diario a dos voces, escrito por José María y Manuel Lamana -padre e hijo- ofrece el testimonio de los respectivos itinerarios de los dos autores por distintos campos de concentración franceses a donde fueron conducidos después de cruzar los Pirineos tras la caída de la II República. El inusual texto de doble autoría y doble fecha de escritura tiene el poder de recuperar un hecho poco conocido de la historia europea del pasado siglo y, al mismo tiempo, desatar reflexiones sobre los rasgos atípicos de un episodio concentracionario ocurrido bajo el arbitrio de un estado democrático. La experiencia, pese a reunir características particulares, se confundirá poco después, sin solución de continuidad, con en el horror de las deportaciones y el exterminio nazis.

Del fantástico al nonsense : Sobre la narrativa de Silvina Ocampo

El lugar común que identifica a la literatura de Silvina Ocampo como fantástica resulta un pretexto tranquilizador que de algún modo domestica su rareza. En las interpretaciones críticas actuales sigue funcionando esta idea reductora que, si para una coyuntura determinada resultaba explicativa, hoy se revela improcedente. Entiendo que, en sus momentos más característicos, los relatos de Ocampo se definen menos por los tópicos y procedimientos que involucran lo sobrenatural, lo anormal o lo irreal, que por una forma de la escritura cuyo desatino deja atónito al lector. Para leer esta literatura en nuevos términos, pienso en el nonsense como relato de la insensatez, un modo de uso de la locura como estética y como ética.

Singularidad, anomalía, diferencia, olvido : La derrota de los republicanos españoles en Francia. El testimonio de Diario a dos voces de José María y Manuel Lamana

Diario a dos voces, escrito por José María y Manuel Lamana -padre e hijo- ofrece el testimonio de los respectivos itinerarios de los dos autores por distintos campos de concentración franceses a donde fueron conducidos después de cruzar los Pirineos tras la caída de la II República. El inusual texto de doble autoría y doble fecha de escritura tiene el poder de recuperar un hecho poco conocido de la historia europea del pasado siglo y, al mismo tiempo, desatar reflexiones sobre los rasgos atípicos de un episodio concentracionario ocurrido bajo el arbitrio de un estado democrático. La experiencia, pese a reunir características particulares, se confundirá poco después, sin solución de continuidad, con en el horror de las deportaciones y el exterminio nazis.

Del fantástico al nonsense : Sobre la narrativa de Silvina Ocampo

El lugar común que identifica a la literatura de Silvina Ocampo como fantástica resulta un pretexto tranquilizador que de algún modo domestica su rareza. En las interpretaciones críticas actuales sigue funcionando esta idea reductora que, si para una coyuntura determinada resultaba explicativa, hoy se revela improcedente. Entiendo que, en sus momentos más característicos, los relatos de Ocampo se definen menos por los tópicos y procedimientos que involucran lo sobrenatural, lo anormal o lo irreal, que por una forma de la escritura cuyo desatino deja atónito al lector. Para leer esta literatura en nuevos términos, pienso en el nonsense como relato de la insensatez, un modo de uso de la locura como estética y como ética.

Singularidad, anomalía, diferencia, olvido : La derrota de los republicanos españoles en Francia. El testimonio de Diario a dos voces de José María y Manuel Lamana

Diario a dos voces, escrito por José María y Manuel Lamana -padre e hijo- ofrece el testimonio de los respectivos itinerarios de los dos autores por distintos campos de concentración franceses a donde fueron conducidos después de cruzar los Pirineos tras la caída de la II República. El inusual texto de doble autoría y doble fecha de escritura tiene el poder de recuperar un hecho poco conocido de la historia europea del pasado siglo y, al mismo tiempo, desatar reflexiones sobre los rasgos atípicos de un episodio concentracionario ocurrido bajo el arbitrio de un estado democrático. La experiencia, pese a reunir características particulares, se confundirá poco después, sin solución de continuidad, con en el horror de las deportaciones y el exterminio nazis.

Del fantástico al nonsense : Sobre la narrativa de Silvina Ocampo

El lugar común que identifica a la literatura de Silvina Ocampo como fantástica resulta un pretexto tranquilizador que de algún modo domestica su rareza. En las interpretaciones críticas actuales sigue funcionando esta idea reductora que, si para una coyuntura determinada resultaba explicativa, hoy se revela improcedente. Entiendo que, en sus momentos más característicos, los relatos de Ocampo se definen menos por los tópicos y procedimientos que involucran lo sobrenatural, lo anormal o lo irreal, que por una forma de la escritura cuyo desatino deja atónito al lector. Para leer esta literatura en nuevos términos, pienso en el nonsense como relato de la insensatez, un modo de uso de la locura como estética y como ética.