Participation Structures as a Mediational Means: Learning Balinese Gamelan in the United States Through Intent Participation,Mediated Discourse,and Distributed Cognition

Participation has presented a complex unit of analysis for interactional sociolinguistics. In this study I add another dimension to participation by considering recent theories related to sociocultural activity theory—mediated discourse analysis and distributed cognition. Drawing on examples from maguru panggul, the traditional pedagogy of Balinese Gamelan music, I argue that participation structures are a mediational means that enable students to augment their learning. Focusing on two participation structures that involve keen observation and listening-in, I also consider how intent participation is a part of these participation structures and maguru panggul pedagogy. What emerges is an understanding of how participation structures used as mediational means can have an effect on the division of cognitive labor within a classroom.     

Looking for artifacts and agency: A basic approach to diversity for preservice and inservice teachers

This paper provides a starting point for preservice and inservice multicultural education teachers to consider five concepts and assumptions from what is generally known as sociocultural theory, derived from the work of Vygotsky, Luria, and Leont'ev (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996; Luria, 1979). These concepts and assumptions about learning and development, and the links to multicultural education, are expressed by a focus on concrete and abstract artifacts and how these mediate activities. We believe this focus can inform inservice and preservice teachers' present and future practice in diverse settings by providing them with a framework for understanding the psychological tools associated with cultural artifacts embedded in learning and development. Vygotskian perspectives on mediated activity (Wertsch et al., 1993) and the links to other sociocultural concepts and assumptions are followed by a review of three studies (Duke, 2000; Kamberelis & Bovino, 1999; Neuman & Celano, 2001) that are related to Vygotskian perspectives and have implications for multicultural issues and literacy. The implications for multicultural issues and literacy revolve around access and engagement with various types of text (e.g. informational text) and how this in turn affects equity. Finally, a classroom activity to make these Vygotskian concepts and assumptions more accessible and applicable to instruction is presented.     

Thinking and Speech and Protocol Analysis

Some form of verbal report—that is, a research participant' s concurrent or retrospective verbal account of thought processes during problem-solving activities—has been used throughout this century as the database from which psychologists have developed theories of human mentation. Newell and Simon (1972) and Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1993) have provided extensive justification for using one such method, protocol analysis, as a tool for investigating cognition from an information-processing (IP) perspective. Their arguments have characterized protocol analysis as a methodology capable of providing evidence of the ways in which people attend to information stored in short-term memory to solve problems, with the evidence providing them with the grounds from which to generate models of human cognitive processes. A different view of protocol analysis is available from the perspective of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) based on the work of Vygotsky (1987), Leont'ev (1981), and others, and its concern with the mediation of human development by culturally and historically grounded signs and tools. Because of its emphasis on culturally channeled development, a CHAT perspective views speech, including the speech that serves as evidence for cognition in psychological research, as a tool that potentially enables changes in consciousness. In this article I outline a CHAT perspective that accounts for protocol analysis along three key dimensions: (a) the relation between thinking and speech from a representational standpoint, (b) the social role of speech in research methodology, and (c) the influence of speech on thinking during data collection. The purpose of this discussion is not to refute the IP perspective on protocol analysis but to illustrate how this method can be viewed through a CHAT lens and to identify alternative assumptions that must be made to use it from a CHAT perspective.     

Aux limites du paradigme de la distribution : l’écoute des appels de détresse et le traitement de la souffrance des suicidaires,du téléphone à l’e-mail

How can a telephone hotline for helping the suicidal be seen as a distributed practice and collective skill? Based on fieldwork, this research reviews the paradigm of distributed action by broadening it to activities that imply not only cognition but also moral and emotional dimensions. Two limits of this paradigm are discussed. The first, illustrated with the shift from telephone calls to electronic mail, bears on the capacity for analyzing the development of activities; it leads to a discussion of the differences and similarities between distributed cognition and activity theory. The second has to do with covering up the political dimension of distributed cognition: how do the persons involved in an activity perceive what they do and act on their perceptions — how are they “concerned”? This case study of a counseling hotline by telephone and E-mail raises questions about the performative nature of the words used to express suffering.     

(Dis)Empowering technologies: ICT for education (ICT4E) in China,past and present

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are often presented as the cure-all for various problems: ICTs for education (ICT4E) are considered promising tools for promoting self-directed, creative learning and bridging various divides, such as those between developed and developing countries, urban and rural regions, and so on. While the lofty goals of ICT4E are continuously being highlighted, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how these technologies are embedded in sociocultural and political environments. China is no exception to this narrative of techno-determinism. In China, new technologies are being widely propagated as effective instruments for erasing differences between learners and learning communities, particularly with regard to transplanting “modern” education into rural communities. The novelty of twenty-first century ICT, however, tends to obscure the fact that these techno-optimist beliefs date back to attempts in the early twentieth century to uplift rural China through the implementation of modern technologies. The article will scrutinize this history of techno-optimism and will relate it to recent attempts at “transformation by technology.” Finally, I will discuss how the new keyword in both educational modernization and the knowledge economy – “creativity” – functions as the conceptual ideological heir to “production capacity,” the core ingredient of the industrializing societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.     

Navigating the Current of Economic Policy: Written Genres and the Distribution of Cognitive Work at a Financial Institution

Like navigating a ship (Hutchins, 1993), conducting monetary policy involves complex processes of distributed cognition. The difference is that, in a governmental financial institution like the Bank of Canada, much of the cognitive work and its distribution are accomplished by means of interweaving webs of genres of discourse. The genres of the Bank enable both the forming and reforming of policy as well as the constant reflexive self-monitoring necessary for maintaining the robustness of the institution and for achieving its goals. The genres operate as sites for the communal construction of and negotiation over knowledge; paradoxically, as institutionalized artifacts, they both channel and codify thinking at the same time that they function as sites for change.     

The urban neighborhood and cognitive functioning in late middle age

This study examines the association of cognitive functioning with urban neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and racial/ethnic segregation for a U.S. national sample of persons in late middle age, a time in the life course when cognitive deficits begin to emerge. The key hypothesis is that effects of neighborhood on cognitive functioning are not uniform but are most pronounced among subgroups of the population defined by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. Data are from the third wave of the Health and Retirement Survey for the birth cohort of 1931 to 1941, which was 55 to 65 years of age in 1996 (analytic N = 4,525), and the 1990 U.S. Census. Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage has an especially large negative impact on cognitive functioning among persons who are themselves poor, an instance of compound disadvantage. These findings have policy implications supporting "upstream" interventions to enhance cognitive functioning, especially among those most adversely affected by neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage.     

Effects of physical,virtual reality-based,and brain exercise on physical,cognition, and preference in older persons: a randomized controlled trial

Background

Physical exercise (PE), virtual reality-based exercise (VRE), and brain exercise (BE) can influence physical and cognitive conditions in older persons. However, it is not known which of the three types of exercises provide the best effects on physical and cognitive status, and which exercise is preferred by older persons. This study compared the effects of PE, VRE, and BE on balance, muscle strength, cognition, and fall concern. In addition, exercise effort perception and contentment in older persons was evaluated.

Methods

Eighty-four older persons (n?=?84) were randomly selected for PE, VRE, BE, and control groups. The exercise groups received 8-week training, whereas the control group did not. Balance was assessed by Berg Balance Scale (BBS) and Timed Up and Go test (TUG), muscle strength by 5 Times Sit to Stand (5TSTS) and left and right hand grip strength (HGS), cognition by Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and Timed Up and Go test Cognition (TUG-cog), fall concern by Fall Efficacy Scale International (FES-I), exercise effort perception by Borg category ratio scale (Borg CR-10), and exercise contentment by a questionnaire.

Results

After exercise, PE significantly enhanced TUG and 5TSTS to a greater extent than VRE (TUG; p?=?0.004, 5TSTS; p?=?0.027) and BE (TUG; p?=?0,012, 5TSTS; p?<?0.001). VRE significantly improved MoCA (p?<?0.001) and FES-I (p?=?0.036) compared to PE, and 5TSTS (p?<?0.001) and FES-I (p?=?0.011) were improved relative to BE. MoCA was significantly enhanced by BE compared to PE (p?<?0.001) and both MoCA and TUG-cog were improved compared to VRE (p?=?0.04). PE and VRE significantly (p < 0.001) increased Borg CR-10 in all exercise sessions, whereas BE showed a significant improvement (p?< 0.001) in the first 4 sessions. Participants had a significantly greater satisfaction with BE than controls (p?=?0.006), and enjoyed VRE and BE more than PE (p?< 0.001). Subjects in all exercise groups exhibited benefits compared to the control group (p?< 0.001).

Conclusions

PE provided the best results in physical tests, VRE produced measurable improvements in physical and cognition scores, while BE enhanced cognition ability in older persons. Older persons preferred VRE and BE compared to PE. Both exercises are suggested to older persons to improve physical and cognitive conditions.

     

Dans le « carré de l’activité » : perspectives internationales sur le travail et l’activité

How to define a “space” of research on labor and work for describing the development, at the international level, of case studies of work-related situations? This space is described as a square bounded by four perspectives: distributed cognition, activity theory, ethnomethodology as well as related currents of thought and the sociology of science and techniques. After an explanation of their underlying principles, these perspectives are compared so as to highlight their tensions and differences with regard to several critical points in analyzing work-related situations: data collection during fieldwork, the roles of persons and things and their position on the dialectics of continuity and change. The current development of information and communication technology provides a starting point for (re)inquiring into these four perspectives and suggesting overlapping areas and possible reconfigurations.     

Exercise or physical activity and cognitive function in adults with type 2 diabetes,insulin resistance or impaired glucose tolerance: a systematic review

Background

Diabetes is an important risk factor for cognitive impairment. Although some studies suggest that physical exercise can minimize age-related cognitive declines or improve brain morphology or function, benefits in diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance are unclear. Therefore, our aim was to evaluate the efficacy of exercise or physical activity on cognition in adults with type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance or impaired glucose tolerance.

Methods

An electronic search for studies published from the earliest record until February 2017 was conducted using Medline, EMBASE, SPORTDiscus, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. Any experimental or observational study designs were included, as long as they were conducted in individuals of any age with type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance or impaired glucose tolerance, and they directly examined exercise/physical activity effects on cognitive outcomes or the relationship between changes in cognition and changes in either insulin resistance and glucose homeostasis. Study quality was assessed using the PEDro scale; data on participant and intervention characteristics and outcomes were extracted.

Results

Six studies enrolling 2289 participants met the eligibility criteria. Quality was modest and effect sizes variable and mostly small or negligible. Overall, four of the six studies (67%) reported significant benefits of greater exercise/physical activity participation for some aspects of cognition, but only 26% of cognitive outcomes were significant across all trials. Clinical improvements in insulin resistance/glucose homeostasis were related to improvements in cognitive function in three studies. Overall results were inconsistent, with benefits varying across exercise types and cognitive domains.

Conclusions

Literature does not provide evidence that physical activity or exercise interventions contribute to a better cognitive function in patients with type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance. Large-scale, long-term, robust randomized controlled trials are required to determine if exercise improves cognition in this high-risk cohort, and to investigate putative mechanistic links between cognition, body composition, metabolism, and inflammation in diabetes and related metabolic syndromes.

     

Discursive Psychology and Educational Technology: Beyond the Cognitive Revolution

As an alternative to dominant cognitive-constructivist approaches to educational technology, this article makes the case for what has been termed a discursive, or postcognitive, psychological research paradigm. It does so by adapting discursive psychological analyses of conversational activity to the study of educational technology use. It applies these modified techniques specifically to discursive interactions with chatbots or intelligent agents, and to the theories commonly associated with them. In doing so, it presents a critique of notions of human–computer “indistinguishability” or equality as they have been articulated from Alan Turing to Reeves and Nass, and it sketches an alternative account of the potential and limitations of this technology. In divergence from Turing and Reeves and Nass, human discourse generated through encounters with natural language interfaces is seen as emphasizing the issue of conversation itself, foregrounding the achievement of common discursive aims and projects, rather than illuminating the internal states of either interlocutor. Mind and cognition, correspondingly, are revealed as phenomena “accomplished” through contingent social activity, rather than as computational processes concealed within or distributed between mind and machine.     

TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY IN LOCAL NEWSCASTS:

In Counter-Statement , Kenneth Burke distinguishs between the psychology of form and the psychology of information—meaning as brought by readers to a text and as supplied by a text. That distinction can help us understand local news as relevant, formalized, public information, where social standards of relevance (tradition) encounter technologically enhanced and restructured information (technology). These two competing presentational modes put into tension sociocultural and technological formalisms, grounding news in shared culture yet creating possibilities for new ways of seeing and understanding the world. Tradition stabilizes thought even as the new technologies rescore our senses of time and place, and both energize our lives.     

Terrorism,tyranny, and religious extremism as collective activity: Beyond the deviant,psychological, and power mystiques

While not focusing on any particular instances of terrorism, tyranny, or religious extremism, this paper examines these matters from an interactionist (Mead, 1934; Blumer, 1969; Strauss, 1993; Prus, 1996, 1997, 1999) viewpoint and indicates how these realms of human endeavor may be approached in more direct empirical (i.e., ethnographic) and instructive analytic terms. After (a) defining terrorism, tyranny, and religious extremism within the context of instances of collectively engaged activity, consideration is given to (b) three mystiques (deviant, psychological, power) that commonly obfuscate and distort analyses of human activity. The paper then (c) outlines a series of conceptual, methodological, and literary resources that would enable scholars to engage these and related subject matters in more direct research terms and develop more viable conceptualizations of instances of these collectively engaged activities.     

Educational technology, reimagined

"Educational technology" is often equated in the popular imagination with "computers in the schools." But technology is much more than merely computers, and education is much more than mere schooling. The landscape of child-accessible technologies is blossoming in all sorts of directions: tools for communication, for physical construction and fabrication, and for human-computer interaction. These new systems and artifacts allow educational designers to think much more creatively about when and where learning takes place in children's lives, both within and outside the classroom.     

THE AURA OF "HIGH TECH" IN A WORLD OF MESSY PRACTICE

This study employs interlocking analytical devices from the perspectives of several disciplines to explore members' meanings through definitions of "high technology" given by workers in design engineering. The comparative analysis employs concepts from art history, sociology of culture, anthropology and science studies to explore the appeal of "high technology" in comparison with the aura of original artworks and the status accrued by symbolic tools. Additionally, the role standardization has played in the development of engineering as a profession is explored in historical context as are the recurring themes of speed and "the new." The findings reveal that how engineers use new technologies in the world of messy practice and their conceptual framework regarding so-called "high technology" do not map well onto one another. The study illustrates the perspective of science and technology studies that views all technology as socially shaped and society shaping, its construction accomplished through messy patched-up practices rather than clean, linear paths or perfect techniques.     

Cybersex: Outercourse and the Enselfment of the Body

The increased popularity of the Internet invites the possibility of repackaging familiar activities in a new medium. Sex is one such activity—an age‐old topic with a new cybertwist. The new technologies of computer‐mediated communication allow us to examine the nature of human interaction in a uniquely disembodied environment that potentially transforms the nature of self, body, and situation. Sex—fundamentally a bodily activity—provides an ideal situation for examining these kinds of potential transformations. In the disembodied context of on‐line interaction both bodies and selves are fluid symbolic constructs emergent in communication and are defined by sociocultural standards. Situations such as these are suggestive of issues related to contemporary transgressions of the empirical shell of the body, potentially reshaping body‐to‐self‐to‐social‐world relationships.     

The Use of Tracking Technologies for the Analysis of Outdoor Mobility in the Face of Dementia: First Steps into a Project and Some Illustrative Findings From Germany

As people age in place, cognitive impairment is a major threat to maintaining out-of-home mobility. The SenTra project measures outdoor mobility by taking advantage of tracking technology in an interdisciplinary project involving researchers from geography, social work, gerontology, psychology, and medicine disciplines. The project assesses mobility patterns of urban-dwelling demented and mildly cognitively impaired elders and cognitively intact persons over a period of 3 years in Israel and Germany. The main objectives are to learn more about out-of-home mobility by means of global positioning system/geographical information system technology, to analyze the relationships between cognitive functioning, mobility behavior, and well-being, to examine the ethical implications of the use of advanced tracking technologies in this population, and to assess the potential of tracking technologies in the diagnosis of various types of cognitive impairment. The article presents preliminary findings to illustrate the potential of interdisciplinary data analyses to be performed later in the project. Pilot data were drawn from a combined psychiatric, psycho-social, and tracking data assessment of a group of 19 men and women between 63 and 80 years of age (7 who were healthy, 6 who were mildly cognitive impaired, 6 who were demented) living in Germany. The findings revealed that healthy participants have better health and higher levels of well-being and smaller networks compared to elders who are cognitively impaired. Examples of daily outdoor trips indicate meaningful mobility patterns and the need to combine psycho-social and geographical data to understand the relationships between outdoor mobility, socio-structural dimensions, behavior patterns, and well-being. By achieving its aims, the project will be able to make a substantial contribution to basic, applied, and clinical knowledge gaps in the area of mobility and cognitive impairment research.     

Toward the Establishment of General Dimensions Underlying the Listening Process

Findings from previous research (Coakley, Halone, & Wolvin, 1996; Halone, Wolvin, & Coakley, 1997; Wolvin, Coakley, & Halone, 1995) indicate that the listening process may be conceptualized primarily in (a) cognitive, (b) affective, (c) behavioral/verbal, (d) behavioral/nonverbal, and (e) behavioral/interactive terms. This report seeks to quantitatively confirm these qualitatively-derived findings. Specifically, this study sought to analyze whether each respective dimension could be generally characteristic of the listening process. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, providing support for each respective dimension. Results from this study have implications for how communication scholars should conceive of the listening process in theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical terms.     

A metahistorical information theory of social change: the theory

Abstract

A new yin-yang metahistorical approach that we call sociohistory is created to explore the possibilities of tracking and explaining social change. For this purpose, a frame of reference is created using Social Viable Systems theory to harness Sorokin's sociocultural dynamics. Epistemological content is enhanced by Frieden's new constructivist information theory called Extreme Physical Information. Its aim is to provide a scientific framework for the metahistory. The coupling of these theories has the potential for explaining and possibly predicting long-term, large-scale or short-term, small-scale sociocultural events. This new theory should be seen as emerging from the convergence of the approaches by Sorokin, Yolles and Frieden.     

The Social Construction of the Midlife Crisis: A Case Study in the Temporalities of Identity

This paper examines the emergence, reification, and dissemination of the "midlife crisis" from a sociology of knowledge perspective. Two decades of articles on the subject from both professional and mass media sources (n = 233) are content analyzed. Upon elaborating the various biological, psychological, and social psychological theories of this biographical phenomenon, we address such questions as how different disciplines portray the event, what patterns of interdisciplinary citations there are, and how these professional depictions lead into the mass media. The results suggest longitudinal declines in the frequency of reductionist explanations from the biological and psychiatric paradigms and increasing attention given to the interplay between social dynamics and personality structures. From this, a new sociocultural theory is posited, one portraying this subjective experience deriving not simply from age, but from external social temporalities. Specifically, we consider the particular cohort that most midlife research is based upon as well as the particular historical period when it reached middle age.