The Effect of Media Professionalization on Cognitive Neurodynamics During Audiovisual Cuts

Experts apply their experience to the proper development of their routine activities. Their acquired expertise or professionalization is expected to help in the development of those recurring tasks. Media professionals spend their daily work watching narrative contents on screens, so learning how they manage visual perception of those contents could be of interest in an increasingly audiovisual society. Media works require not only the understanding of the storytelling, but also the decoding of the formal rules and presentations. We recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from 36 participants (18 media professionals and 18 non-media professionals) while they were watching audiovisual contents, and compared their eyeblink rate and their brain activity and connectivity. We found that media professionals decreased their blink rate after the cuts, suggesting that they can better manage the loss of visual information that blinks entail by sparing them when new visual information is being presented. Cuts triggered similar activation of basic brain processing in the visual cortex of the two groups, but different processing in medial and frontal cortical areas, where media professionals showed a lower activity. Effective brain connectivity occurred in a more organized way in media professionals–possibly due to a better communication between cortical areas that are coordinated for decoding new visual content after cuts.

Abating Biomechanical Risks: A Comparative Review of Ergonomic Assessment Tools

Ergonomic assessment tools are crucial for evaluation of biomechanical risk factors at workplaces to understand the contributing factors and reduce the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) which have negative implications on employees’ health and productivity. This review examines a range of methods and ergonomic assessment tools. It shows ergonomic assessment tools, particularly postural analysis to comprise self-reports from workers, observation methods, direct measurement method and advanced techniques for assessment of postural change in executing highly dynamic activities. These tools have been designed for different work activities consisting typically of manual handing, repetitive tasks and static loading. Some of the tools target at specific body parts while others at multiple body parts. The tools have the strengths particularly in the assessment of recurring tasks in standing or sitting postures involving specific or multiple body parts. However, the tools also have obvious limitations in terms of not considering vibration, contact stress and trauma to other body parts for tools assessing specific body parts, and undifferentiated weight of different ergonomic risks for whole-body tools. These strengths and shortcomings prompt a user to consider the job nature and tasks to be assessed prior to selecting the tools. This review advocates an integrated approach in ergonomic assessment using a combination of general and specific methods with direct measurements if permissible. It contributes to the accurate selection of the postural analysis tools through systematically presenting their features and limitations besides highlighting improvement of methods and approaches in ergonomic assessment.

Collaboration Engineering for Designing Self-Directed Group Efforts

Collaboration engineering is defined as an approach to designing collaborative work practices for highvalue recurring tasks, and deploying those designs for practitioners to execute for themselves without ongoing support from professional facilitators (Briggs, Kolfschoten, Vreede, & Dean, 2006; Briggs, Vreede, & Nunamaker, 2003; Vreede & Briggs, 2005). To enable the transition of collaboration support skills and their application by practitioners we need to be able to design easy to use, robust collaboration support, both in terms of process support and technology support. Collaboration Engineering research therefore addresses both a design and deployment challenge, that when overcome enable more sustained implementation of collaboration support. In this article, we will further explain the collaboration engineering approach; the challenge it addresses, the details of the approach and the research challenges it poses.

A produção biopolítica é constitutiva ao capitalismo cognitivo | Biopolitical production is constitutive of cognitive capitalism

Resumo Os últimos anos do século XX imprimiram uma nova configuração à sociedade do trabalho. Assiste-se a mudanças profundas que alteram significativamente o modo produtivo e desorganizam o mundo do trabalho que se conhece. No epicentro do deslocamento, encontra-se a emergência da economia do imaterial e do trabalho imaterial. Essas características estão modificando o modo produtivo e, mais do que isso, a relação do trabalhador com o seu trabalho. Estamos transitando da sociedade industrial para a sociedade pós-industrial, da sociedade do trabalho da reprodução à sociedade do trabalho da bioprodução. Uma passagem da reprodução da vida à produção da vida. Da sociedade do biopoder à biopolítica. Uma transição que envolve uma ressignificação do conceito força de trabalho. A sociedade industrial, taylorista/fordista, mobilizou massas enormes de trabalhadores e os empurrou para uma divisão técnica do trabalho que lhes reservava tarefas simples e repetitivas. A sociedade industrial cindiu o operário e reduziu-o a uma máquina produtiva. Assiste-se, agora, a uma transformação significativa do sujeito do trabalho na sua relação com a produção. O capitalismo cognitivo, em sua versão pós-industrial, sob a hegemonia qualitativa do trabalho imaterial, tendo em sua base o conhecimento, a comunicação e a cooperação, faz emergir uma outra subjetividade que, ao mesmo tempo em que é requerida pelo capital, preserva a sua autonomia e é portadora de emancipação.Palavras chave trabalho; sujeito do trabalho; trabalho imaterial; capitalismo cognitivo; biopolíticaAbstract The last years of the 20th century have given a new design to the working society. Profound transformations happened which changed deeply the mode of production and disorganized the working world we used to know. Right in the core of this displacement it emerges the immaterial economy and the non-material work. These traits are modifying the mode of production and, even more, the relationship between the worker and his work. We are moving from the industrial society to the pos-industrial society, from the society of reproduction work to one of bio-production work. A transition from reproductive life to the production of life; from the society of bio-power to one of bio-politics. This transition implies a new signification for the concept of labour force. The industrial society, on the inspiration of Taylor and Ford, hired a massive amount of workers and pushed them into a technical division of labor, giving them simple and recurring tasks. The industrial society split the manual worker and reduced him into a productive engine. Now it can be seen the significant transformation of the subject person of work in relashionship with production. Cognitive capitalism, in its post-industrial version, under the qualitative preeminence of the immaterial work, having its roots grounded in knowledge, communication and cooperation, gave birth to another subjectivity required by capital but which, at the same time, preserves the worker´s autonomy and, hence, makes possible his emancipation.Keywords work; subject of work; non-material work; capitalism cognitive; biopolitics

Excuses and Character: Personal and Social Implications of Excuses

Recent research has emphasized the effectiveness of excuses in protecting the self from the implications of failures and transgressions. The disadvantages of excuses have been relatively neglected. The triangle model of responsibility provides a conceptual framework to analyze how excuses disengage the self from events and the conditions under which advantages and disadvantages accrue. On the disadvantage side, excuse-makers risk being seen as deceptive, self-absorbed, and ineffectual; they are viewed as unreliable social participants with flawed character These undesired consequences result when excuses are used in ways that lower credibility (e.g., fail to receive corroboration), lower goodwill (e.g., blamefailures on team members), and produce long-term disengagement (e.g., lead to failures to correct personal deficiencies). It is proposed that excuses are effective in the long run only if they balance short-term disengagement of the self and long-term engagement. Excuses are especially problematic when used to disengage the self from important, recurring tasks.