Ivana Marková

Bio: Ivana Marková is an academic researcher from University of Stirling. The author has contributed to research in topics: Dialogical self & Social psychology (sociology). The author has an hindex of 47, co-authored 202 publications receiving 7111 citations. Previous affiliations of Ivana Marková include University of Glasgow & Hacettepe University.

Trajectories of quality of life in early-stage dementia: individual variations and predictors of change

Abstract: Background: Little evidence is available about how quality of life (QoL) changes as dementia progresses. Objectives: We explored QoL trajectories over a 20-month period and examined what predicted change in QoL. Method: Fifty-one individuals with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, vascular or mixed dementia (PwD) participating in the MIDAS study rated their QoL using the QoL-AD scale at baseline and at 20-month follow-up. PwD also rated their mood and quality of relationship with the carer. In each case the carer rated his/her level of stress and perceived quality of relationship with the PwD. Results: There was no change in mean QoL score. Nearly one-third of PwD rated QoL more positively at 20-month follow-up and nearly one-third rated QoL more negatively. These changes could be regarded as reliable in one-quarter of the sample. Participants taking AChEI medication at baseline were more likely to show a decline in QoL score. There were no other significant differences between those whose scores increased, decreased or stayed the same on any demographic or disease-related variables, or in mood or perceived quality of relationship with the carer. While baseline QoL score was the strongest predictor of QoL at 20 months, the quality of relationship with the carer as perceived by the PwD was also independently a significant predictor. Conclusions: There is a degree of individual variation in QoL trajectories. Use of AChEI medication appears linked to decline in QoL score, while positive relationships with carers play an important role in maintaining QoL in early-stage dementia.

Perspectives on AAC systems by the users and by their communication partners

Abstract: The study examined the perspectives of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) users and their ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ communication partners in relation to two areas of relevance to AAC: firstly, communication strategies, and secondly, advantages and disadvantages of AAC systems. With respect to communication strategies, it was found that formal communication partners thought that more vocabulary for communicating social purposes was actually available to AAC users and they were less aware of daily routines within day and residential environments. With respect to advantages and disadvantages, three main areas of concern emerged: the effect of the AAC system on the users' communication; features of AAC systems; and the effect of AAC on the users' quality of life. Both high- and low-technology AAC systems were seen as having advantages and disadvantages. This study demonstrates the important contribution to be made by AAC users in the provision of a new set of priorities based on their user experi...

Social Identities and Social Representations

Abstract: The concepts of “identity” and “representation” have had a long history both in mundane and philosophical thought; over aeons of time, they have both retained some stable characteristics, but they have also changed. Questions like “who am I?” “who are we?” and “who are they?” as well as “what do we know about the world and how do we represent it?” have been everlasting. However, answers to these questions have been continuously changing throughout history.

Lay Representations of Democracy: A Study in Two Cultures

Abstract: While the term 'democracy' has existed in political a and philosophical vocabularies since classical Athens, representations of democracy by laypeople are relatively more recent. Lay representations of democracy are likely to be formed, maintained and changed by both implicit and explicit processes. Some features of lay representations are deeply seated and transmitted across cultures; others are shaped by the already existing thinking schemata; and they also shape the existing thinking schemata by foregrounding particular latent issues, by bringing them into focused consciousness, and by introducing new contents. In the present study, lay representations of democracy were explored in two cultures, in Slovakia and in Scotland. It was found that the most important terms associated with 'democracy' were value terms such as 'individual freedom', 'justice' and 'individual rights'. The remaining clusters of terms expressed political processes and ideological vocabularies. It is argued in accordance with dialog...

Interaction between impaired and unimpaired speakers: inter-subjectivity and the interplay of culturally shared and situation specific knowledge.

Abstract: The part played by culturally shared knowledge in interaction is generally recognised. However, the details of how it may be manifested in interaction are largely undocumented. This study explores this issue in the context of interactions between impaired and unimpaired speakers, using a conversation analytic approach in combination with a communication task commonly employed in experimental social psychology. Three exemplary cases are analysed. Results show that when the task interaction is co-constructed, the interaction is collaboratively enacted, participants' actions are in alignment, and the task outcome is relatively accurate. When the unimpaired speaker proceeds on the basis of culturally shared knowledge, and thereby 'unilaterally' manages the interaction, two courses of action are available to the impaired speaker. The impaired speaker may make attempts to provide situation specific details. In this case, because each participant is drawing on different resources to construct the interaction, their actions are out of alignment, and the task outcome is less accurate. Alternatively, the impaired speaker may concur with the culturally shared knowledge drawn on by the unimpaired speaker, in which case the participants' actions are in alignment, but the task outcome is highly inaccurate. The authors conclude that by combining a conversation analytic approach with a communication task which reflects participants' everyday experiences, orientations to different interaction resources can be drawn out. This can have relevance for, and help to elicit, practices in everyday interaction.

A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation

Abstract: This paper proposes a paradigm for managing the dynamic aspects of organizational knowledge creating processes. Its central theme is that organizational knowledge is created through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge. The nature of this dialogue is examined and four patterns of interaction involving tacit and explicit knowledge are identified. It is argued that while new knowledge is developed by individuals, organizations play a critical role in articulating and amplifying that knowledge. A theoretical framework is developed which provides an analytical perspective on the constituent dimensions of knowledge creation. This framework is then applied in two operational models for facilitating the dynamic creation of appropriate organizational knowledge.

Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. The emergence of learning activity as a historical form of human learning 3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research 4. The instruments of expansion 5. Toward an expansive methodology 6. Epilogue.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

Abstract: Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment.

Abstract: Research on the relation between social information processing and social adjustment in childhood is reviewed and interpreted within the framework of a reformulated model of human performance and social exchange. This reformulation proves to assimilate almost all previous studies and is a useful heuristic device for organizing the field. The review suggests that overwhelming evidence supports the empirical relation between characteristic processing styles and children's social adjustment, with some aspects of processing (e.g., hostile attributional biases, intention cue detection accuracy, response access patterns, and evaluation of response outcomes) likely to be causal of behaviors that lead to social status and other aspects (e.g., perceived self-competence) likely to be responsive to peer status