Multiple Messages: Facial Recognition Advantage for Compound Expressions

The impact of singular (e.g. sadness alone) and compound (e.g. sadness and anger together) facial expressions on individuals' recognition of faces was investigated. In three studies, a face recognition paradigm was used as a measure of the proficiency with which participants processed compound and singular facial expressions. For both positive and negative facial expressions, participants displayed greater proficiency in processing compound expressions relative to singular expressions. Specifically, the accuracy with which faces displaying compound expressions were recognized was significantly higher than the accuracy with which faces displaying singular expressions were recognized. Possible explanations involving the familiarity, distinctiveness, and salience of the facial expressions are discussed.     

Behavioral Stability Across Time and Situations: Nonverbal Versus Verbal Consistency

Behavioral consistency has been at the center of debates regarding the stability of personality. We argue that people are consistent but that such consistency is best observed in nonverbal behavior. In Study 1, participants’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors were observed in a mock interview and then in an informal interaction. In Study 2, medical students’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors were observed during first- and third-year clinical skills evaluation. Nonverbal behavior exhibited consistency across context and time (a duration of 2 years) whereas verbal behavior did not. Discussion focuses on implications for theories of personality and nonverbal behavior.     

Transnational community enterprises for social welfare in global civil society

Considerable attention has been devoted thus far to transnational economic and political enterprises in globalisation. This article focuses on the phenomenon of social globalisation. Specifically, we call attention to the need for research and development on transnational enterprises to support and maintain individuals and families that are members of transnational communities in the USA and Mexico. The social fallout of transmigration on the health and social wellbeing of sending and receiving communities is enormous and costly, and far beyond the capacity of transmigrants to handle merely through self-help, mutual aid or small voluntary clubs and associations. This article raises questions about whether it is possible, or desirable, for civil society organisations to expand the scope of their vision to include social welfare activities that promote and enhance the health and social wellbeing of host and home communities simultaneously.     

On the Correspondence Between Physiological and Nonverbal Responses: Nonverbal Behavior Accompanying Challenge and Threat

Little is known regarding the covariance between physiological and nonverbal responses to “stressful” situations. We argue that physiological markers are especially likely to be accompanied by psychologically-meaningful nonverbal behavior. Within “stressful” motivated performance situations, complex patterns of cardiovascular (CV) reactivity mark challenge and threat motivational states relevant to confidence. We expected the CV challenge and threat markers to be distinguished on the basis of facial and vocal confidence. In a test of this hypothesis, participants’ cardiovascular (CV) responses were recorded during a videotaped social interaction. As expected, the CV challenge marker was associated with more vocal confidence and less facial confidence than the CV threat marker. These findings are related to the complexity of human responses to motivated performances.     

Identity Adaptiveness: Affect Across Multiple Identities

Most empirical work that examines the effects of stereotypes on targets considers only one of a target's many social identities. This study examined how individuals implicitly affectively orient themselves toward their social identities in situations in which one or another of these identities is relatively adaptive. An adaptive identity is one associated with stereotypes that predict desirable performance in a given context. One hundred and twenty-one Asian American females generated ethnicity- and gender-related memories in contexts in which their gender identity was relatively adaptive, their ethnic identity was relatively adaptive, or neither identity was relatively adaptive. Self-reported affect expressed in these memories was analyzed. In a context in which their ethnic identity was adaptive, participants generated more positive ethnicity-related memories than gender-related memories. In contrast, in a context in which their gender identity was adaptive, participants generated more positive gender-related memories than ethnicity-related memories. When neither identity was adaptive participants expressed similar affect toward both. Similar results were found when blind raters coded memory affect. Findings suggest that stereotypes and different social contexts do not simply result in targets' "identification" or "disidentification" along a single dimension of identity, but rather prompt a reorientation of implicit affect across their multiple identities.     

BAYESIAN ANALYSIS OF VECTOR ARFIMA PROCESSES

A general framework is presented for Bayesian inference of multivariate time series exhibiting long-range dependence. The series are modelled using a vector autoregressive fractionally integrated moving-average (VARFIMA) process, which can capture both short-term correlation structure and long-range dependence characteristics of the individual series, as well as interdependence and feedback relationships between the series. To facilitate a sampling-based Bayesian approach, the exact joint posterior density is derived for the parameters, in a form that is computationally simpler than direct evaluation of the likelihood, and a modified Gibbs sampling algorithm is used to generate samples from the complete conditional distribution associated with each parameter. The paper also shows how an approximate form of the joint posterior density may be used for long time series. The procedure is illustrated using sea surface temperatures measured at three locations along the central California coast. These series are believed to be interdependent due to similarities in local atmospheric conditions at the different locations, and previous studies have found that they exhibit ‘long memory’ when studied individually. The approach adopted here permits investigation of the effects on model estimation of the interdependence and feedback relationships between the series.     

Land and worship: a reading of paintings by two South African artists of Indian ancestry

This article, drawn from my doctoral study, focuses on the landscape paintings of two South African graduates of the former Indian institution, the University of Durban-Westville. The work is analysed through the lens of Hindu philosophy and Hindu ritualistic practice which views the earth as fundamental for survival and intrinsically linked to the cosmic order. This article presents the Hindu attachment to the land seen in the expansive imagery of Hindu deities located within serene landscapes resplendent in its attention to mythological and symbolic details. This attachment positions Hinduism as a guide to the exploration of the paintings. This article locates the work within the complex historical base of Indians in South Africa, and the impact it had on contemporary artists of Indian ancestry. While their art production addresses their conflating Indian/South Africanness, their paintings can be viewed as a veiled historiography of the Indian presence in South Africa.     

Keeping Up: Web Design Skill and The Reinvented Worker

The flexible reinvented worker figures prominently in accounts of informationage work (Touraine 1971; Bell 1976; Zuboff 1988; Block 1990; Aronowitz and DiFazio 1994; Castells 1996; Rifkin 1996; Sennett 1998). These accounts argue that new media workers, in particular, need to be flexible, to often readjust to new technology and to reskill constantly. While these arguments normally emphasize the role of changing work conditions, in this paper, I investigate the formation of skill in the new media industry. Specifically, I ask how employers in the late 1990s framed a particular new media skill, web design, and how this skillset dealt with upgrades and changes. Using classified job advertisements, trade publications, informant interviews, and fieldwork, I document the articulation of web design skill and its boundaries. My findings highlight how skill definition, rather than work conditions, affects new media work. I show that the web design skill-set: 1. emerged as a fluid, rather than narrow and technically defined, set of competencies; 2. thrived in a tension between art (design) and code (development); 3. utilized web technology itself to create professional institutions; and 4. required constant skill maintenance and upgrading, what I, echoing an informant, call 'keeping up'. I conclude by suggesting that the definition of what constitutes a skill is essential to one of the greatest challenges of new media work: the phenomenon of re-skilling.