Hindsight bias

Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism, is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it, prior to its occurrence.[1][2] It is a multifaceted phenomenon that can affect different stages of designs, processes, contexts, and situations.[3] Hindsight bias may cause memory distortion, where the recollection and reconstruction of content can lead to false theoretical outcomes. It has been suggested that the effect can cause extreme methodological problems while trying to analyze, understand, and interpret results in experimental studies. A basic example of the hindsight bias is when, after viewing the outcome of a potentially unforeseeable event, a person believes he or she “knew it all along”. Such examples are present in the writings of historians describing outcomes of battles, physicians recalling clinical trials, and in judicial systems trying to attribute responsibility and predictability of accidents.

Role Theory

Role Theory proposed that human behavior is guided by expectations held both by the individual and by other people. The expectations correspond to different roles individualsperform or enact in their daily lives, such as secretary, father, or friend. For instance, most people hold pre-conceived notions of the role expectations of a secretary, which might include: answering phones, making and managing appointments, filing paperwork, and typing memos. These role expectations would not be expected of a professional soccer player.

Individuals generally have and manage many roles. Roles consist of a set of rules or norms that function as plans or blueprints to guide behavior. Roles specify what goals should be pursued, what tasks must be accomplished, and what performances are required in a given scenario or situation. Role theory holds that a substantial proportion of observable, day-to-day social behavior is simply persons carrying out their roles, much as actors carry out their roles on the stage or ballplayers theirs on the field. Role theory is, in fact, predictive. It implies that if we have information about the role expectations for a specified position (e.g., sister, fireman, prostitute), a significant portion of the behavior of the persons occupying that position can be predicted.

What’s more, role theory also argues that in order to change behavior it is necessary to change roles; roles correspond to behaviors and vice versa. In addition to heavily influencing behavior, roles influence beliefs and attitudes; individuals will change their beliefs and attitudes to correspond with their roles. For instance, someone over-looked for a promotion to a managerial position in a company may change their beliefs about the benefits of management by convincing him/herself that they didn’t want the additional responsibility that would have accompanied the position.

Many role theorists see Role Theory as one of the most compelling theories bridging individual behavior and social structure. Roles, which are in part dictated by social structure and in part by social interactions (see the two approaches outlined below), guide the behavior of the individual. The individual, in turn, influences the norms, expectations, and behaviors associated with roles. The understanding is reciprocal and didactic.

Internet Explorer does not open link

You might find at times that when you click on a link in Internet Explorer 10 or earlier, it does not open the link. In this article, we’d like to suggest some solutions you can try out to fix this issue. In most cases when this problem occurs, you may find that your Internet Explorer will not open links after a Windows update or after installing another browser on your computer. Resetting the Internet Explorer settings may not help in this case – a reinstall of Internet Explorer will help – but reinstalling however, should be the last option – when everything else fails.

Use following steps to reset IE:

1. Click Start, please type “inetcpl.cpl” (without quotation marks) in the Start Search bar and press Enter to open the Internet options window.
2. Switch to the Advanced tab.
3. Click the Reset Internet Explorer Settings button.
4. Click Reset to confirm the operation.
5. Click Close when the resetting process finished.
6. Uncheck Enable third-party browser extensions option in the Settings box.
7. Click Apply, click OK.

re-started IE without add-ons Try a reset. To reset, control panel -> Internet Options. On the last tab, click the reset button. It will take a while before Windows restores IE’s original settings. Also, when you do a reset, any customizations will be lost.

Power and dominance

Non verbal expressions of power and dominance are gestures or motions that assert one´s authority over another.

handshakes
waving
smiling

The colors one wears affect other´s perceptions of one´s authority:

purple: people of high status adorn their clothing with purple to distinguish themselves as noble or wealthy

people attribute greater authority to others wearing red

It is human to strive for power and dominance in social settings

simple gestures establish authority

A firmer handshake
Better posture
Causing slight interruptions in conversation

can rise authority in group situations

many peers view Non verbal expressions of power and dominance as manipulation for self gain

Their abuse can be disastrous

Men and women have different perceptions of Non verbal expressions of power and dominance

Nodding is misinterpreted in cross gender communication

women interpret a nod as a signal of understanding

men interpret a nod as a signal of agreement

small miscommunications and misinterpretations lead to disagreement and confrontation

Russel (as cited in Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005) describes, “the fundamental concept in social science is power, in the same way that energy is the fundamental concept in physics“. Power and dominance-submission are two key concepts in relationships, especially close relationships where individuals rely on one another to achieve their goals (Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005) and as such it is important to be able to identify indicators of dominance.

Power and dominance are different concepts yet share similarities. Power is the ability to influence behavior (Bachrach & Lawler; Berger; Burgoon et al.; Foa & Foa; French & Raven; Gray-Little & Burks; Henley; Olson & Cromwell; Rollins & Bahr, as cited in Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005) and may or may not be fully evident until challenged by an equal force (Huston, as cited in Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005). Unlike power, that may be latent, dominance is manifest reflecting individual (Komter, as cited in Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005), situational and relationship patterns where control attempts are either accepted or rejected (Rogers-Millar & Millar,as cited in Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005). Moskowitz, Suh, and Desaulniers (1994) mention two similar ways that people can relate to the world in interpersonal relationships: agency and communion. Agency includes status and is a continuum from assertiveness-dominance to passive-submissiveness – it can be measured by subtracting submissiveness from dominance. Communion is a second way to interact with others and includes love with a continuum from warm-agreeable to cold-hostile-quarrelsomeness. Power and dominance relate together in such a way that those with the greatest and least power typically do not assert dominance while those with more equal relationships make more control attempts Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005).

As one can see, power and dominance are important, intertwined, concepts that greatly impact relationships. In order to understand how dominance captures relationships one must understand the influence of gender and social roles while watching for verbal and nonverbal indicators of dominance.

wagon-wheel effect

The wagon-wheel effect (alternatively, stagecoach-wheel effectstroboscopic effect) is an optical illusion in which a spoked wheelappears to rotate differently from its true rotation. The wheel can appear to rotate more slowly than the true rotation, it can appear stationary, or it can appear to rotate in the opposite direction from the true rotation. This last form of the effect is sometimes called thereverse rotation effect.

The wagon-wheel effect is most often seen in film or television depictions of stagecoaches or wagons in Western movies, although recordings of any regularly spoked wheel will show it, such as helicopter rotors and aircraft propellers. In these recorded media, the effect is a result of temporal aliasing.[1] It can also commonly be seen when a rotating wheel is illuminated by flickering light. These forms of the effect are known as stroboscopic effects: the original smooth rotation of the wheel is visible only intermittently. A version of the wagon-wheel effect can also be seen under continuous illumination.

Rushton (1967[5]) observed the wagon-wheel effect under continuous illumination while humming. The humming vibrates the eyes in their sockets, effectively creating stroboscopic conditions within the eye. By humming at a frequency of a multiple of the rotation frequency, he was able to stop the rotation. By humming at slightly higher and lower frequencies, he was able to make the rotation reverse slowly and to make the rotation go slowly in the direction of rotation. A similar stroboscopic effect is now commonly observed by people eating crunchy foods, such as carrots, while watching TV: the image appears to shimmer.[6] The crunching vibrates the eyes at a multiple of the frame rate of the TV. Besides vibrations of the eyes, the effect can be produced by observing wheels via a vibrating mirror. Rear-view mirrors in vibrating cars can produce the effect.

Truly continuous illumination

The first to observe the wagon-wheel effect under truly continuous illumination (such as from the sun) was Schouten (1967[7]). He distinguished three forms of subjective stroboscopy which he called alpha, beta, and gamma: Alpha stroboscopy occurs at 8–12 cycles per second; the wheel appears to become stationary, although “some sectors [spokes] look as though they are performing a hurdle race over the standing ones” (p. 48). Beta stroboscopy occurs at 30–35 cycles per second: “The distinctness of the pattern has all but disappeared. At times a definite counterrotation is seen of a grayish striped pattern” (pp. 48–49). Gamma stroboscopy occurs at 40–100 cycles per second: “The disk appears almost uniform except that at all sector frequencies a standing grayish pattern is seen … in a quivery sort of standstill” (pp. 49–50). Schouten interpreted beta stroboscopy, reversed rotation, as consistent with there being Reichardt detectors in the human visual system for encoding motion. Because the spoked wheel patterns he used (radial gratings) are regular, they can strongly stimulate detectors for the true rotation, but also weakly stimulate detectors for the reverse rotation.

There are two broad theories for the wagon-wheel effect under truly continuous illumination. The first is that human visual perception takes a series of still frames of the visual scene and that movement is perceived much like a movie. The second is Schouten’s theory: that moving images are processed by visual detectors sensitive to the true motion and also by detectors sensitive to opposite motion from temporal aliasing. There is evidence for both theories, but the weight of evidence favours the latter.

Discrete frames theory

Purves, Paydarfar, and Andrews (1996[8]) proposed the discrete-frames theory. One piece of evidence for this theory comes from Dubois and VanRullen (2011[9]). They reviewed experiences of users of LSD who often report that under the influence of the drug a moving object is seen trailing a series of still images behind it. They asked such users to match their drug experiences with movies simulating such trailing images viewed when not under the drug. They found that users selected movies around 15–20 Hz. This is between Schouten’s alpha and beta rates.

Other evidence for the theory is reviewed next.

Temporal aliasing theory

Kline, Holcombe, and Eagleman (2004[10]) confirmed the observation of reversed rotation with regularly spaced dots on a rotating drum. They called this “illusory motion reversal”. They showed that these occurred only after a long time of viewing the rotating display (from about 30 seconds to as long as 10 minutes for some observers). They also showed that the incidences of reversed rotation were independent in different parts of the visual field. This is inconsistent with discrete frames covering the entire visual scene. Kline, Holcombe, and Eagleman (2006[11]) also showed that reversed rotation of a radial grating in one part of the visual field was independent of superimposed orthogonal motion in the same part of the visual field. The orthogonal motion was of a circular grating contracting so as to have the same temporal frequency as the radial grating. This is inconsistent with discrete frames covering local parts of visual scene. Kline et al. concluded that the reverse rotations were consistent with Reichardt detectors for the reverse direction of rotation becoming sufficiently active to dominate perception of the true rotation in a form of rivalry. The long time required to see the reverse rotation suggests that neural adaptation of the detectors responding to the true rotation has to occur before the weakly stimulated reverse-rotation detectors can contribute to perception.

Some small doubts about the results of Kline et al. (2004) sustain adherents of the discrete-frame theory. These doubts include Kline et al.’s finding in some observers more instances of simultaneous reversals from different parts of the visual field than would be expected by chance, and finding in some observers differences in the distribution of the durations of reversals from that expected by a pure rivalry process (Rojas, Carmona-Fontaine, López-Calderón, & Aboitiz, 2006[12]).

In 2008, Kline and Eagleman demonstrated that illusory reversals of two spatially overlapping motions could be perceived separately, providing further evidence that illusory motion reversal is not caused by temporal sampling.[13] They also showed that illusory motion reversal occurs with non-uniform and non-periodic stimuli (for example, a spinning belt of sandpaper), which also cannot be compatible with discrete sampling. Kline and Eagleman proposed instead that the effect results from a “motion during-effect”, meaning that a motion after-effect becomes superimposed on the real motion.

Dangers

Because of the illusion this can give to moving machinery, it is advised that single-phase lighting be avoided in workshops and factories. For example, a factory that is lit from a single-phase supply with basic fluorescent lighting will have a flicker of twice the mains frequency, either at 100 or 120 Hz (depending on country); thus, any machinery rotating at multiples of this frequency may appear to not be turning. Seeing that the most common types of AC motors are locked to the mains frequency, this can pose a considerable hazard to operators of lathes and other rotating equipment. Solutions include deploying the lighting over a full 3-phase supply, or by using high-frequency controllers that drive the lights at safer frequencies.[14] Traditional incandescent light bulbs, which employ filaments that glow continuously, offer another option as well, albeit at the expense of increased power consumption. Smaller incandescent lights can be used as task lighting on equipment to help combat this effect to avoid the cost of operating larger quantities of incandescent lighting in a workshop environment.

 

rotatingwheels

 

Captivate and Camtasia

Uploaded on Apr 27, 2011

Two of the most often used and requested eLearning development programs out there today are Adobe Captivate and Techsmith Camtasia. Both programs offer a wide variety of tools that assist in making web-based learning more interactive, intuitive, and overall fun. At the same time, there are some differences to take into consideration when deciding which one to use developing your curriculum. Let’s examine both programs and compare.

ADOBE CAPTIVATE

  • Allows the user to create interactive simulations of software programs
  • Takes detailed screen capture simulations
  • Allows for complex student interaction; giving them the opportunity to go down the incorrect path and learn from mistakes
  • Complex and varied activity and testing options (multiple choice, hot-spots, drag and drop, matching)

TECHSMITH CAMTASIA

  • Takes full-motion video simulations
  • Great for streaming video content
  • Easy to post to file sharing sites, such as YouTube
  • Less expensive than Captivate

BOTH PROGRAMS CAN:

  • Capture screen and keyboard info exactly as done and typed
  • Record video and audio/voice
  • Include SCORM/AICC complaint quizzes

As you can see from the comparison, Adobe Captivate is the better choice when going for something that is more interactive. A hands-on learner would definitely prefer a program that is made through Captivate as opposed to Camtasia. The learning and testing options are far more varied when it comes to Captivate. The program is a little more costly, but for the amount of services it offers it is fairly priced. Adobe Captivate can also be purchased as part of a bundle through the Adobe eLearning Suite.

Techsmith Camtasia’s strong points are in price and full-length video. At first glance, Camtasia looks a little like Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere combined, so the interface isn’t too difficult to figure out. If you are looking to capture a full-length video of an action you would take to complete a process on the computer or system, Camtasia is probably your better bet.  It is also very handy for live streaming video.

“How to Use Captivate to Build an Elearning Course” available in the Kindle Bookstore.
http://www.amazon.com/Captivate-Build…

The CompetitionP

If Camtasia is a bit expensive for you, take a look at Camstudio. It’s completely free, can do things like follow your mouse or provide a picture-in-picture view of your webcam, and it’svery simple and easy to use. The default video is of pretty crappy quality, but with the CamStudio lossless codec (which you can grab from their homepage), you can make it look a lot better.P

Jing, which is by the same company as Camtasia, is great for really quick videos that you want to upload to the net. It’s free, but for $15 a year you can add webcam recording and YouTube sharing to its feature list. Its only downside is that you can only record up to 5 minutes of video at a time, which can be a big roadblock for some.P

You might also try web-based screencasting tools like Screencast-O-Matic or Screenr. Without installing anything to your machine, you can instantly record short videos that you can upload to YouTube, Twitter, or other sites. Screencast-O-Matic even lets you record your webcam, and provides a $12/year pro version with editing tools, offline support, and more.

You may find the following information useful: