Grouping Based on Phenomenal Similarity of Achromatic Color

Perception ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 779-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irvin Rock ◽  
Romi Nijhawan ◽  
Stephen Palmer ◽  
Leslie Tudor
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Achromatic Color ◽  
Lightness Constancy ◽  
Empirical Question ◽  
The World ◽  
Proximal Stimulus ◽  
Gestalt Laws

It is widely acknowledged that a precondition for the perception of the world of objects and events is an early process of organization, and it has generally been assumed that such organization is based on the Gestalt laws of grouping. However, the stage at which such grouping occurs, whether early or late, is an empirical question. It is demonstrated in two experiments that grouping by similarity of neutral color is based not on similarity of absolute luminance at the level of the proximal stimulus, but on phenomenal similarity of lightness resulting from the achievement of lightness constancy. An alternative explanation of such grouping based on the equivalence of luminance ratios between elements and background is ruled out by appropriate control conditions.

Has Europe Solved the Problem of War? Explaining the ‘Long Peace’ of the Post-1945 Era

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-377
Author(s):  
David Michael Green
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
60Th Anniversary ◽  
Causal Factors ◽  
Empirical Question ◽  
Successful Experiment ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

May 9, 2010, marks the 60th anniversary of what is arguably the boldest and ostensibly the most successful experiment in the history of international politics. On that date, in 1950, the Schuman Declaration1 was issued, seeking to release Europe from its centuries of fratricidal war, those conflagrations having just previously reached near suicidal proportions. The process of European integration – culminating in today’s European Union – was launched by six states at the heart of the continent, for the purposes of making war ‘not only unthinkable, but materially impossible.’ There is today little empirical question of Europe’s success. War between former bitter enemies has never been even remotely near the horizon during the period that has now become known as ‘The Long Peace,’ and, looking forward, such militarized conflict remains all but inconceivable. But was it the process of European integration that produced this achievement? And if so, is the model exportable to other regions? This essay catalogues the factors that account for Europe’s success in ending the scourge of war on a continent where it had been a commonly employed extension of politics for centuries. I conclude that the integration process represents an important contribution, but is only one of a plethora of causal factors that massively over-determined Europe’s long peace of our time, and that the European experiment is mostly non-exportable to other parts of the world.

Exploring Working-Class Consciousness: A Critique of the Theory of the ‘Labour-Aristocracy’*

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Post
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
World Market ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

AbstractThe notion of the labour-aristocracy is one of the oldest Marxian explanations of working-class conservatism and reformism. Despite its continued appeal to scholars and activists on the Left, there is no single, coherent theory of the labour-aristocracy. While all versions argue working-class conservatism and reformism reflects the politics of a privileged layer of workers who share in ‘monopoly’ super-profits, they differ on the sources of those super-profits: national dominance of the world-market in the nineteenth century (Marx and Engels), imperialist investments in the ‘colonial world’/global South (Lenin and Zinoviev), or corporate monopoly in the twentieth century (Elbaum and Seltzer). The existence of a privileged layer of workers who share monopoly super-profits with the capitalist class cannot be empirically verified. This essay presents evidence that British capital’s dominance of key-branches of global capitalist production in the Victorian period, imperialist investment and corporate market-power can not explain wage-differentials among workers globally or nationally, and that relatively well-paid workers have and continue to play a leading rôle in radical and revolutionary working-class organisations and struggles. An alternative explanation of working-class radicalism, reformism, and conservatism will be the subject of a subsequent essay.

The stone fortifications of the settlement at Spišský Štvrtok. A contribution to the discussion on the long-distance contacts of the Otomani-Füzesabony culture

2014 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-304
Author(s):  
Mateusz Jaeger
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Distance Relationships ◽  
Stone Walls

Zusammenfassung: In den letzten Jahrzehnten nahm die Siedlung von Spišský Štvrtok eine wichtige Rolle in der Debatte über jene Fernbeziehungen ein, die die Welt der mykenischen Kultur mit Mitteleuropa verbanden. Obwohl die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen auf dem Gelände noch immer nicht in ihrer Gesamtheit veröffentlicht sind, postulierte der Ausgräber J. Vladár eine Übereinstimmung der Steinmauern und Bastionen mit solchen mykenischer Architektur und fand für diese Thesen wissenschaftlichen Zuspruch. Im vorliegenden Artikel wird der Annahme jedoch widersprochen. Die Befestigungen von Spišský Štvrtok werden in einem vergleichenden Ansatz diskutiert und Siedlungsstrukturen gegenübergestellt, die aus der Otomani-Füzesabony-Kultur und der mykenischen Kultur bekannt sind. Der Autor zeigt im Vergleich mit weiteren Befunden bronzezeitlicher Verteidigungsarchitektur die Alleinstellung der vorliegenden Anlage. Die dabei sichtbar werdenden Unterschiede rechtfertigen die Notwendigkeit, nach alternativen chronologischen Ansätzen für die steinerne Befestigungsanlage von Spišský Štvrtok zu suchen. Résumé: L’habitat fortifié de Spišský Štvrtok a joué un rôle important au cours des dernières décennies dans le débat sur les relations à longue portée entre le monde de la civilisation mycénienne et l’Europe centrale. Quoique les résultats des fouilles de ce site n’aient pas été entièrement publiés, les opinions de leur auteur, J. Vladár, proposant que les murs et bastions en pierre encerclant le site démontrent des affinités avec l’architecture mycénienne, ont largement été acceptées. L’auteur du présent article conteste cette thèse. Les fortifications de Spišský Štvrtok font ici l’objet d’une approche comparative, les confrontant à d’autres structures d’habitat appartenant à la culture d’Otomani-Füzesabony et à la civilisation mycénienne. L’auteur démontre ainsi le caractère distinct de Spišský Štvrtok par rapport aux modèles courants de l’architecture de l’âge du Bronze. Cette disparité demande un autre modèle pour expliquer la chronologie des fortifications en pierre sur le site en question. Abstract: In recent decades, the settlement at Spišský Štvrtok played an important role in the debate concerning the long-distance relationships linking the world of the Mycenaean civilisation with Central Europe. Although the findings of the excavations at the site have not been published in their entirety, the views of its excavator, J. Vladár, who suggested that the site’s stone walls and bastions bore a similarity to Mycenaean architecture, have been widely accepted. In this article, the author challenges this thesis. The Spišský Štvrtok fortifications are discussed in a comparative approach, set against other settlement structures known from the Otomani-Füzesabony culture and the Mycenaean culture. The author demonstrates the apparent distinctiveness of Spišský Štvrtok when compared with the known models of Bronze Age defensive architecture. The disparity justifies the need to seek an alternative explanation for the chronology of the stone fortifications at the site in question.

Unfathomed Depths; Uncharted Mountains

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-100
Author(s):  
Jim Powell
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
World Market ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The World ◽  
Yarn Production ◽  
Market Requirement ◽  
Cotton Trade

This chapter investigates Britain’s cotton supply and usage during the war. It examines all the issues that have been misinterpreted or ignored: cotton imports, bale weights, cotton re-exports, wastage in spinning, raw cotton stocks, stocks of cotton goods, exports of cotton goods and investment in new mills. There was nothing abnormal about the cotton market in 1859–61. Without the war, there would have been no allegation of pre-war over-production, no assertion of the glutting of overseas markets. The chapter offers an alternative explanation of why short-term working, which led to the Lancashire cotton famine, began in October 1862 when there was not yet a scarcity of cotton. The international cotton trade needed a large pipeline of stock. The outbreak of war, followed by the Confederate embargo and the Union blockade, paralysed the world market and caused an abrupt fall in demand. The conclusion is that, for the three main years of the war, British yarn production was at 36 per cent of the market requirement, and that about 4.5 billion lb of raw cotton was denied to Britain in the seven years to the end of 1867.

Between world culture and local context

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 374-388
Author(s):  
Jelena Brankovic
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Higher Education Governance ◽  
Local Context ◽  
World Culture ◽  
Theoretical Interest ◽  
Education Governance ◽  
World Society Theory ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The World

World society theory argues that actor empowerment in local contexts is driven primarily by the expanding world culture, rendering alternative explanations weaker in comparison. This article explores one such alternative explanation and offers an account of actor empowerment which highlights the role of identity constructed in local interaction. The article imports insights from identity theory to show how identities constructed in interaction may complement those derived from the world culture. To explore the phenomenon of theoretical interest, the case of a historical empowerment of Serbian universities in the post-2000 period, as an actor in the national higher education governance, is considered.

The Enlightened Image of Nature in the Dutch East Indies: Consequences of Postmodernist Doctrine for Broad Structures and Intimate Life

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis Pyenson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social History ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
The World ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
Intimate Life

Eighteenth-century natural-history illustration in the Dutch East Indies reveals verisimilitude as a goal shared between colonial artists and their counterparts in Europe. Natural-history images more generally exhibit common styles in the world settled and dominated by Europeans. Apparently dramatic differences in the local settings of the artists produced only trivial variations in representing nature pictorially, in just the way that astronomy and physics in the European colonies and spheres of influence departed hardly at all from European practice. The overwhelming strength of disciplinary norms, in science and in art, is the standard explanation for this circumstance. An alternative explanation from social history is proposed. It centers on the hypothesis of a homology between households in colonial settings and in Europe. The alternative explanation implies that both the observatory and the artist's workshop were insensitive to superstructural variation in costume and architecture, as well as variation in climate and cuisine. The hypothesis behind the alternative explanation, designated by the term complementarity, derives directly from the postmodernist dictum that ideas are extrusions of social interactions. Nevertheless, just as the strength of disciplinary norms is unresolved in postmodernist doctrine, so complementarity directly challenges the postmodernist predilection for affirming the distinctiveness of colonial cultures.

Lithic Technology and the Hunter-Gatherer Sexual Division of Labor

1993 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth E. Sassaman
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Pottery Technology ◽  
Sexual Division Of Labor ◽  
Core Technology ◽  
The World ◽  
Perceived Change ◽  
Core Reduction

A technological change from formal to expedient core reduction marks the “transition” from mobile to sedentary prehistoric societies in many parts of the world. The phenomenon has often been attributed to changes in the organization of men's activities, particularly hunting. Considering, however, that the change coincides with the adoption of pottery, technology usually attributed to women, an alternative explanation must be considered. From the standpoint of archaeological systematics, the addition of pottery turns our focus away from places where hafted bifaces were discarded toward places where pottery was discarded. The latter are largely domestic contexts: locations at which women, as well as men, employed expedient core technology for a variety of tasks. Thus, the perceived change in core technology reflects the increased visibility of women's activities in the archaeological record. This recognition provides a basis for incorporating gender variables into our interpretations of prehistoric technology and labor organization.

scholarly journals Culture and COVID-19: Don’t Throw Your Elderly Away!

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Melton
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Homes ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Analysis Of Covariance ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Preventive Behaviors ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Enormous differences exist in rates of death from COVID-19 in countries around the world. Collectivist cultures and countries are characterized by concern for culture and country to a greater extent than for self-interest, whereas the reverse is true for individualistic cultures and countries. In light of this cultural difference, and suggestive evidence that cultures known for their collectivist orientation are more likely to have near-universal compliance with infection-preventive behaviors such as public mask-wearing and less likely to place their elderly in nursing homes (which account for a high proportion of deaths in individualistic countries such as the US, Canada, and the UK), we hypothesized that death per million (DPM) rates would be significantly lower for collectivist countries than individualistic countries. We categorized every country for which there are collectivist-individualistic scores and split the countries into two groups as defined by Hofstede’s (1980) cut-offs. As predicted, the DPM rate for collectivist countries was significantly lower than for individualistic countries. Furthermore, an analysis of covariance controlling for median age showed that the alternative explanation that the observed difference could be accounted for in terms of the significantly lower average age of citizens of collectivist countries was implausible. Implications in areas related to reopening schools, etc., and directions for future research are discussed.

scholarly journals Zulliger R-Optimized in the Evaluation of Depressive Characteristics

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Pereira Gonçalves ◽  
Anna Elisa de Villemor-Amaral
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
T Test ◽  
Clinical Group ◽  
Achromatic Color ◽  
The World ◽  
Depressive Patients

Abstract Depression is one of the most prevalent mental disorders in the world with more than 300 million diagnoses. Studies on the contributions that instruments offer in understanding the functioning of depressive patients are necessary. Therefore, our study aimed to compare the frequency of codes related to depression in Zulliger R-optimized application in a group of depressive individuals with non-clinical group. The study included 86 participants, 43 depressive patients and 43 non-clinical patients. The Escala Baptista de Depressão (EBADEP-A) was used to identify depressive symptoms in the clinical group and Zulliger was administered with R-optimized application. To compare the groups, the t-test and magnitude of differences (d) were used. The results showed differences between groups in the variables Mixed Determinants, Sum of achromatic color responses, pure color responses (C), Mor and AG. We understood that Zulliger R-optimized application may be useful in understanding the functioning of the depressive subject.

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