JUNE 10
 |
||
 |
“ Doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life as one can in any likelihood pursue ”
Charles Darwin
Apologies
. . . to readers - there will be no posts today due to an irony overload. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
30 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Teabag Solution
“. . . it is common to prepare tea by immersion of a porous bag filled with tea into a cup of hot water. However, when the porous bag is immersed in water, it has a tendency to rise up in the cup due to captured air bubbles and the light density of the materials in the bag . . . Thus, it is commonplace for users to use a spoon to keep the porous bag totally immersed in the water.“
" This repetitive task is annoying to many users."
But, after today’s issue of US patent 7,744,939 , for a ‘ Weighted infusion beverage package ‘ the annoyance may be reduced, if not altogether removed.
Patent attorneys Paul V. Greco and Mario Aieta from New York have between them co-invented the ‘weighted teabag’ – which will undoubtedly go a long way towards combating ineffective steeping and its associated annoyances.
“ . . . the annoying and repetitive task of pushing the bag down with a spoon (or other hand-held element) is avoided, while low-cost compact designs can be realized. “
(click the pic for the full patent )
29 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Philosophy In The Void
The German philosopher and former-Nazi Martin Heidegger was a keen footballer and an avid skier. Sadly though, although he had a lifelong interest in sport in general, his philosophical writings almost entirely avoid the subject.
And if Heidegger ever experimented with skydiving, he certainly had nothing whatever to say about it.
But if he had done, what would his views have been ? This question, or one along similar lines, is explored in a new article in the latest edition of the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, where Professor Gunnar Breivik of the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences presents his article :
Being-in-the-Void: A Heideggerian Analysis of Skydiving
The professor points out that :
“. . . skydiving is an activity where one not only figuratively, but quite literally is ‘in-the-void’. One is falling through empty air. “
Or, put more dramatically still :
“ Between the time of jumping out of the plane and hanging in the parachute, one is falling thorough a void. The ‘being-in-the-world’ has become a ‘being-in-the-void’.”
Not only a drastic change – but a quick one as well :
“ It is impossible to jump a little or gradually out of a plane. In this respect skydiving is like being born.”
Thus Heidegger’s celebrated notions regarding human ” being-in-the-world ” is sharply and rapidly contrasted with a situation where the skydiver is ( for a time at least ) ” being-in-a-void ”.
The author points out too that skydiving is not the only radical sport where one can find oneself ‘ In the Void ‘. For example -
“ White water kayakers experience situations in heavy white water where they are upside down, under water, out of control and have a feeling of being in a big washing machine.”
There is probably scope then for future investigation into a possible Heideggerian Analysis of canoeing.
But perhaps the last word is best left to Heidegger himself, who observed :
“ Wer gross denkt, muss gross irren.”
[ “He who thinks greatly, must err greatly.” ]
The paper can be read in full here
Comment from reader Peter K.
I have finished the first draft of my thesis :
' The Geisteswissenschaften of Shuttlecocks.' Can I send you a copy?
[ Wonderful, Ed. ]
28 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Word of the week
Omniazimuthal
Really Magazine hasn't been able to track down a definition - but it appears to imply multiple azimuths - or perhaps multiple azimuths which are orientated in different directions ?
Here is an example of it in the wild.
Comment from reader Marco McC
' While it seems at first to refer to Ellen Muth, the young actress at the center of the wonderful /Dead Like Me/ series, it turns out to be the winning entry in a contest to unearth the longest, most science-esque word that can be pronounced equally well by a sober scientist and a sot, regardless of the speaker's first language.'
24 JUN 10 (late edition)
comments | permalink | back to the top
Null and happy about it.
There’s a blatantly observable bias associated with the
publication of scientific research articles. Simply put, research
projects which generate negative results ( or no results at
all ) often don’t get published.
This pernicious syndrome surely runs 180 degrees contrary to the philosophy of ‘pure science’ – not only because of the overtones of dishonesty – but also because research that flags null results, and which therfore remains unpublished, can lead to others unnecessarily duplicating the experiments.
Happily, for varying reasons, some do overcome the overriding system bias though.
For example : the Laboratoire d'Informatique des Systèmes Complexes, at the University of Brest, France, has recently been investigating the acoustics of the 16” French Musette.
Researchers wondered if the use of different woods for the ‘chanter’ ( a.k.a the drone ) might affect the sound. And in a carefully controlled set of experiments, they tested African Ebony, Santos Rosewood, Boxwood, African Blackwood, and Service Tree wood.
The results were presented at the Acoustics 08 Paris.
There was no difference.
Thanks to the diligence, humility and scientific honesty of the research team, others will not have to duplicate the experiment.
Unless they feel the need to double-check of course.
24 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Shedding light on lightbulbs
As
picture-libraries, book publishers and advertising agencies
are well aware, the use of the lightbulb as
a symbol of ‘creativity‘ ‘insight‘ and ‘Aha-ness‘ has
become widespread - some might say to the point of cliché.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] etc etc etc
But could the lightbulb = creativity link work in reverse ?
In a set of four different experiments, a joint research team from the psychology departments at Tufts University, California State University and Syracuse University tested the hypothesis that having an illuminated lightbulb* nearby when perfoming intellectual tasks might perhaps enhance insightful problem-solving.
The results of all four trials, though subtle, were definitive. The problems posed in the experiments were more efficiently solved if there was an illuminated lightbulb onhand nearby.
“ These findings add to the growing body of research showing that perception of objects in our environment can subtly influence our behavior. “
- say the research team. Their results are published in
the latest edition of the Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology (Volume
46, Issue 4, July 2010, Pages 696-700)
Or, you can read it in full here.
Also see : some previous environmental object research : which determined that having a large letter ‘A’ near students undertaking exams ( rather than an 'F' ) can enhance grades.
Note :
* The lightbulb used in the
tests was a standard 25 Watt incandescent version. Therefore,
research opportunities surely exist for future
studies to investigate whether the same effects might be induced
by the new compact-fluorescent versions. Aha !
22 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Money under the microscope
Dr. Thomas Li-Ping Tang, professor of Management & Marketing at the Jennings A. Jones College of Business, Middle Tennessee State University, has just had his latest money-related research published in the Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion.
The paper ‘ Money, the meaning of money, management, spirituality, and religion ‘ explains that :
“. . . money is the direct opposite of spirituality and one cannot serve both God and money, spirituality and religion help people live fulfilling, meaningful, and purposeful lives.“
Revealing too that :
“ People are subject to all kinds of temptation in the environment that trigger them to act ethically or unethically.”
The article is available here for US$30.00.
Also see his co-authored 2004 paper :
' The Love of Money, Satisfaction, and the Protestant Work Ethic: Money Profiles Among Univesity [sic] Professors in the U.S.A. and Spain '
Published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 50, Number 4 / April, 2004 - where prof. Tang identified ( at least ) four types of professor :
• Achieving Money Worshipers
• Careless Money Admirers
• Apathetic Money Managers
• Money Repellent Individuals
It’s available here for $34.00
21 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Smaller but bigger
We invite readers for a satellite-image tour around the Bonny Terminal
“ The Bonny crude oil terminal in Rivers State in the Niger Delta is the largest of its kind in Africa.”
Unfortunately, the terminal and its associated pipelines have experienced problems with leaks. And oil spills for the Niger Delta region as a whole ( both onshore and offshore ) now amount to “ 9 to 13 million barrels “ according to this 2009 report from Amnesty International.
Although this equates to a mere 500 or so barrels per day – perhaps just one fiftieth of the current BP leak in the US – the oil leakage has been going on for more than fifty years.
The leaks are not all Shell’s fault though. Other companies have also had problems. For example Texaco's Funiwa-5 blowout in 1980 spilled close to half a million barrels. [Source]
Though poorly recorded, the official number of ‘ incidents ’ according to the Nigerian Govt. Department of Petroleum Resources, was 4,647 between years 1976 – 1996 alone.
And sharply contrasting with the case of BP in the US, as yet none of the companies concerned has been required to pool $20Billion into a cleanup fund.
Perhaps they'll volunteer ?
؟ ؟ ؟
Notes:
• The Forcados and Bonny terminals are operated by Shell, the Escravos and Pennington by ChevronTexaco, the Qua Iboe by ExxonMobil, and the Brass terminal by Agip. [source]
• In an April 2010 Nigerian court case Shell lost its claim to 'ownership' of the land where the terminal is built. Under a 1958 agreement they had been renting it from the indigenous Bonny peoples, but had recently managed to obtain a Certificate of Ownership from the local state govt. without the owners' knowledge. The C of O has now been overturned. Maybe Shell saw the rent - which had been set at 2 Nigerian Pounds per year - as excessive. [source]
18 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Towards a consolidated account of boredom amongst Chinese librarians.
Professional Ennui – or perhaps just plain bound boredom – has recently been identified as an acute and ongoing problem for Chinese librarians.
The syndrome has not gone unnoticed in Chinese academia though - and in the last five years alone there have been at least six scholarly papers on the subject :
• On the Occurrence and Elimination of University Librarian's Professional Ennui (2005)
• On the Causes and Countermeasure of the Career Ennui of Campus Librarians (2006)
• Analysis of Causes of University Librarian Vocational Ennui and Countermeasures (2007)
• On the Cultural Cause and Countermeasures of Occupational Ennui of Librarians (2008)
• On the Regulating Action of Librarian's Self Concept to Vocational Ennui (2008)
And fortunately, the latest paper spells out a possible avoidance strategy :
• Happy Work Is the Best Cure for the Burnout of the Librarians (2009)
17 JUN 10 (late edition)
comments | permalink | back to the top
Money makes you happy ? – another proviso
A new study about the effect of wealth on happiness has just
been published in the journal Psychological Science.
The research, which was co-ordinated by the Personality & Individual
Differences Unit at
the University of Liège, Belgium, examined
two ‘wealth’* v. happiness scenarios.
The experiments involved imaginary piles
of cash, some chocolate, a notional weekend
away, and more. [ see paper below for full details
] They were
designed to test the Experience-Stretching
Hypothesis – first outlined in the book Stumbling
on Happiness ( Daniel Gilbert 2006 )
“ According to this perspective, experiencing the best things in life - such as surfing Oahu‘s famous North Shore or dining at Manhattan‘s four-star restaurant Daniel - may actually mitigate the delight one experiences in response to the more mundane joys of life, such as sunny days, cold beers, and chocolate bars “
The results of the experiments were clearcut.
" The present study provides the first evidence that money impairs people‘s ability to savor everyday positive emotions and experiences. "
Or, in other words,
“ . . .having access to the best things in life may actually undercut the ability to reap enjoyment from life‘s small pleasures. “
The full paper can be found here
؟ ؟ ؟
* Editor’s
note : In common
with most all
such studies, the experiments didn’t involve lavish quantities
of real cash - just some ‘imaginary money’. So,
interesting as the results are, the question could be asked
as to whether
they are any more real-world than the photos of the piles of
notes, or the imaginary waterfall ? (The chocolate was real
though.)
' Money doesn't make you happy - but it makes being miserable a whole lot more comfortable ' Anon.
17 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Socks in Space
Q. How do astronauts wash their socks?
A. No-one knows – not even NASA.
“ There are currently few or no* efficient means of washing clothing within the micro-gravity of space since terrestrial cleaning processes cannot be directly applied.”
NASA ’s Simple Microgravity Laundry Challenge is currently looking for a minimal system that could provide laundry freshening and some amount of cleaning capability for fabrics of all sorts ( towels, clothing, socks, under garments, etc ) in space.
If you can come up with a viable method before Jul 27, 2010, then you may be in line for a $25,000 USD reward.
Some details here. ( registration reqd. for full details )
[* "Few or no ?" Eh? Ed. ]
Comment:
Reader Carmelita kindly points us in the direction of J-Wear - which claims to be resistant to 'fouling, or permanent odour infusion'. It was recently evaluated by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata aboard the International Space Station - " I haven't talked about this underwear to my crew members . . . But I wore them for about a month, and my station crew members never complained for about a month, so I think the experiment went fine."
16 JUN 10 (late editon)
comments | permalink | back to the top
Seeing helps hearing
It was back in 1987 that M. J. Middelweerd and R. Plomp published their paper ‘ The effect of speechreading on the speech-reception threshold of sentences in noise ‘
Experiments had shown that, in a noisy environment, it’s considerably easier for a listener to accurately discern a speaker’s words if they can see the person who is speaking.
Now the concept has been taken a step further with the publication of a brand new study – this time with singers. A research team, from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in The Netherlands and the University of California, Santa Cruz, US wondered if being able to see the face of a singer might help with comprehension of the song’s lyrics.
26 students watched a video of Sarah Brightman singing 'Don’t Cry for Me Argentina ' either with Ms. Brightman fully visible, or obscured by a black rectangle.
The students tried their best to identify the lyrics.
After spelling mistakes had been corrected, the results showed a clear trend – the lyric recognition rate for the blanked-out videos was a disappointing 4% - but leapt to 21% when the students could see the singer.
The conclusion :
“Given that the comprehension of sung lyrics benefits from seeing the singer, just like speech comprehension benefits from seeing the speaker, both speech and music perception appear to be multisensory processes.”
The paper, which is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, can be read in full here:
؟ ؟ ؟
Edtor's note :
For readers who doubt the difficulties involved in correctly identifying song lyrics, even when you can see the singer, here is a classic video . . .
16 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Seven into Nine will Go
As a consequence of nearly ten years research conducted at Henley Management College (UK) during the 1970s, Dr. Meredith Belbin developed his ‘ 9 Belbin Team Roles ‘
The roles are, in a nutshell :
SH Shaper
IMP Implementer
CF Completer Finisher
CO Co-ordinator
TW Teamworker
RI Resource Investigator
PL Plant
SP Specialist
ME Monitor Evaluator
In an ideal balanced team, each member picks a role that he/she can successfully implement.
“ These team roles have been used in organisations and teams across the world . . . They have been immensely useful in making teams more effective.”
But recently, a troubling question has arisen. What happens if there are less than nine individuals in a team ? How can the crucial nine roles be divided – in a balanced way – between say, seven individuals ?
This seemingly intractable problem is resolved in the latest edition of the IMA Journal of Management Mathematics.
A research team from the Faculty of Economics and Business Management, at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands conducted an ‘ extensive management game ‘ with a large group of students over a period of six weeks.
For each of the 98 participants the researchers used the Belbin Team Role Self-Perception Questionnaire Inventory Test to determine all role weights.
• Tests can be found here, at just £30 per individual
Results from the data were then used to build a complex mathematical computational model for team-balancing. Thus it was discovered that a team with eight people have five options for building a balanced Belbin-ised team.
And, counter intuitively perhaps, if there a seven persons then there a six possible teams.
And so on though six, five, four etc etc.
There are limits to the new strategy though - less than two people will have considerable difficulty in building a balanced team.
You can read the full paper here, courtesy of the University of Groningen – there is no charge.
؟ ؟ ؟
Further study:
• Belbin’s latest video DVD ‘ Fire, Toast and Teamwork ‘ is available here at only £600 + postage + VAT
• Belbin Co-operate, a game exercise in which the team is required to form a strategy to defuse a notional faux ‘ bomb ’ within a short timeframe is here, at £545 + postage + VAT ( green string and plastic 'bomb ' included )
14 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Breaking News on the Twitter Corpus
Brkng nws ;-)
A Really Magazine almost exclusive
The long awaited Twitter Corpus has finally been put online.
The corpus is an extremely extensive text log of Twitter™ exchanges which were recorded by Microsoft™ between July 1, 2009 and Aug 27, 2009.
Hundreds of thousands of Tweets provided in one searchable file ( if you have the right software ) The file has been filtered to feature English only ( kind of ).
It’s being made available as a resource for researchers to study the sociological semiotics, syntax, semantics, and perhaps even the psychology of average twitterers.
Download the file here [ caution : 163Mb ]
؟ ؟ ؟
Important Notes :
1) It’s unlikely that any many of the users were aware that their Tweets were being recorded by Microsoft™ and that the content would be available en-masse, in one file, for public scrutiny a few months later.
2) Thus the firm provides the following reassuring info in the accompanying ‘ Readme ‘ file. “ If you feel that any part of this data set identifies someone to your discomfort, please contact Microsoft . . .” ( an e-mail address is supplied )
3) For reasons best known to Microsoft™, the source file isn’t saved in standard .zip format. Instead it comes as an .msi file ( Microsoft Installation file ) and has to be ‘ installed ’ as though it were a programme – which it isn’t. When uncompressed it’s becomes a ferociously unmanageable plain text (.txt) file stretching to more than 500Mb. Filling more than 30,000 pages if you were to (try to) open it in Word ™ for example.
Some preliminary research :
Really Magazine has already performed some of our own preliminary unscientific research on the data set.
The word ‘ awesome ’ occurs 42,950 times
The word ‘ dude ’ occurs 29,096 times
The word ‘ cat ’ occurs 7,625 times
The word ‘ gauntlet ’ occurs 40 times
The word ‘ aardvark ’ occurs 29 times
The word ‘ fawlty ’ occurs 16 times
At this stage though we don’t feel qualified to draw any firm conclusions regarding our findings.
Some example Tweets :
' Fried squirrel: it's what's for breakfast ' [ from page 2,683 ]
' tell her u don't want herp and walk away ' [ page 6,144 ]
' The Decline of Western Civilisation is what I meant to tweet ' [ page 24,876 ]
' look at how cool marmots can be ' [ page 24,932 ]
' can we just stop pretending that onion rings have anything to do with onions? It's a a lie and it's got to stop ' [ page 11,128 ]
11 JUN 10 [ updated Jun 12 ]
comments | permalink | back to the top
Possible Cause and Possible Effect, maybe perhaps
Why do share-prices sometimes fluctuate wildy ? Sometimes the reasons are murky. See for example . . .
‘ BP is Not Aware of Any Reason for Share Price Movement ’ - yesterday’s press release from the firm's press office in Houston. [ note: Where 'movement ' = ' drop ' ]
There are possible theories out there though – here’s one from AFP via Yahoo! Finance.
A similarly extreme BP.L share-price dip occurred on 13th of October 2008 - graph here.
Were there any obvious reasons back then ?
Really Magzine is not aware of any, but here’s another possibility, this time courtesy The Guardian of the same date.
10 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Floating your way to the top
BP has ‘bought’ oil-related internet search-terms to redirect users to their official company website, says ABC news.
According to news agency, BP is allegedly paying upwards of $10,000 a day to keep* search engine results linking directly to their PR company public interest informational releases.
Raising the question.
Has the highly sophisticated Google search algorithm, one that has been carefully developed over a decade or more by dedicated teams of computational prodigies and Bayesian über-mathematicians, simply been provided with a big hit-the-jackpot lever that overrides everything ?
Of course it has ! How else would Really Magazine maintain its number one position for :
Jetztzeit of the Eintagswesen, or,
Nachtlicht-Königsflammen syndrome , or
Phenomenological diachronic chaosmotics
Though bearing in mind Google’s published dedication to trustworthiness, wouldn’t it be better if the high-ranking search terms that have been ‘bought-and-paid-for’ show up, say, in a different colour ?
We suggest brown.
؟ ؟ ؟
“Note : Despite the $big
a day, it doesn’t
seem to be working all that well. Perhaps they’re
not paying enough ?
09 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Pessimism test
If you can get though these pages without re-galvanizing your faith in the slow-but-sure progress of humanity, you're in big trouble.
[ many thanks to @robinabrahams for drawing our attention to them ]
[ So that's where Frank Zappa got the title . . . Ed. ]
09 JUN 10 (morning edition)
comments | permalink | back to the top
Optimism test
We refer readers to this previously top-secret US Dept. of Justice document from 2005, for the time being basking in the public domain courtesy of turner.com (CNN). If you can get through the entire 20 pages without losing faith in humanity - you can count yourself as a cast-iron optimist.
08 JUN 10 (midnight edition)
comments | permalink | back to the top
Press release of the month
Can
giraffes swim ? Yes ! kind of, or at least virtual ones can,
says this University
of Portsmouth press
release.
The academic paper in question ( which, for reasons best known to the U of P publicity team is not linked-to in the release ) can be found here . . .
Also see : Giraffe height recalculated at Improbable Research
08 JUN 10 (late edition)
comments | permalink | back to the top
Word of the Week.
Uncannimedia
Sadly, Really Magazine has not been able to track down a solid definition – but we can inform readers that Professor Fred Botting from the Institute for Cultural Research, at Lancaster University, UK, is currently researching it.
[note : A Google search leads back to the only available reference as linked above ]
08 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Apostrophes, Stones and Shakespeare’s monkeys
The very first issue of the journal ' postmedieval ' has several articles in front of the paywall. Here are three examples . . .
It’s (for) you; or, the tele-t/r/opical post-human
Professor Julian Yates, at the Department of English, University of Delaware, asks :
“... what kind of trope or rhetorical operation is activated by the call of the ‘post-human’? “
“I argue that the ‘post-ing’ of the human proceeds by refiguring of the ‘human’ as telephone or screen, as a surface that registers the action or presencing of the inhuman via an overwhelming apostrophe or prosopopeia.”
By professor Jeffrey Jerome Cohen , from the Department of English, George Washington University.
“We cannot squeeze water from a rock
because we ‘socially construct’ the lithic as the
aqueous. Although we can find stone that will float like a
ship (as the medieval travel writer John Mandeville wrote of
pumice), we do not fabricate naval vessels out of boulders
because something in rock resists such transformation.”
Shakespearean primatology: A diptych
Professor Scott Maisano, at the Department of English, University of Massachusetts Boston, presents a new concept - what he calls Shakespearean Primatology. Pointing out :
“Shakespeare alludes to apes, baboons and monkeys in 24, or roughly two-thirds, of his plays.”
" Shakespeare anticipates the discoveries of twenty-first-century primatologists by demonstrating that neither morality, including acts of interspecies altruism, nor nepotism, including the global in-group bias known as speciesism, originated with humanity."
Bearing in mind though that -
". . .there will never be a society composed of non-anthropocentric humans or, for that matter, non-monkey-centric monkeys."
Note : The Bavian, or baboon, from Shakespeare's The Two Noble Kinsmen is not really a baboon, but a human dressed in a baboon-suit.
04 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
More on "______________"
Turn to the current edition of the journal ‘ Discourse Studies ‘ for the latest scholarly article on silence.
' Silence and its organization in the pragmatics of introspection '
Researchers at the University of York and the University of the West of England, UK examined periods of silence featuring in introspective reports produced during an experimental laboratory procedure.
“ . . . we argue that silences are a significant resource by which introspective accounts may be designed for the institutional requirements of the experimental setting. “
“ We identify the normative features of silence, and sketch some of the pragmatic or performative functions facilitated by silence. We conclude by considering our findings for the more general use of introspective data in the study of consciousness and cognate disciplines.”
For a general background on silence, see this seminal 2005
article from Università degli Studi di Cagliari,
Facoltà di
Scienze della Formazione
‘ The systemic approach to the communicative silence ‘
Which first offers a general definition of silence :
“ . . . any issuing source of acoustic perturbation is in silence when in any moment and in any way it keeps silent. “
And then describes how it -
“ . . . communicates that you want or don’t want others communicate or non communicate “
؟ ؟ ؟
Also see hear Really Magazine's .mp3 page
02 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
Patent of the week
Not actually a patent as such, but a ‘ Design Patent ’, issued today for a
' Device for Indicating Changes in a [sic] Physiological Parameters of a Living Body '
Though the assignees ( owners ) of this new patent are different, it does bear a striking resemblance to another machine registered back in 1984.
‘ Indicating Device for use in a Device for Measuring and Indicating Changes in a Living Body ‘
When the assignee was none other than : Lafayette R. Hubbard ( a.k.a. L. Ron Hubbard )
In case readers are wondering about the utility of such a machine, the instrument, also known as the E-Meter, is - according to its developers . . .
“. . . a religious artifact used as a spiritual guide in auditing.”
01 JUN 10 (late edition)
comments | permalink | back to the top
Art left unsaid
A new study, in the latest issue of the journal Empirical Studies of the Arts, won’t be overly encouraging for the curators of fine art exhibitions.
Researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne showed artworks to a set of 172 participants (students) under two conditions. Either with the help of written contextural information about the art which they were viewing ( Dadaist, Outsider, Impressionism, and Renaissance ) or with no info at all.
The group who received no info were measurably more enthusiastic about the pictures . . .
01 JUN 10
comments | permalink | back to the top
advertising
|
The Best of . . .View a random article from our editor's list of absolute favourites
click the refresh button for a new selection
|
|
|
 |
LRS
"the world's leader in language removal services"
