Showing papers on "Surprise published in 1979"

Facial patterning and infant emotional expression: happiness, surprise, and fear.

Abstract: Although recent studies have convincingly demonstrated that emotional expressions can be judged reliably from actor-posed facial displays, there exists little evidence that facial expressions in lifelike settings are similar to actor-posed displays, are reliable across situations designed to elicit the same emotion, or provide sufficient information to mediate consistent emotion judgments by raters. The present study therefore investigated these issues as they related to the emotions of happiness, surprise, and fear. 27 infants between 10 and 12 months of age (when emotion masking is not likely to confound results) were tested in 2 situations designed to elicit hapiness (peek-a-boo game and a collapsing toy), 2 to elicit surprise (a toy-switch and a vanishing-object task), and 2 to elicit fear (the visual cliff and the approach of a stranger. Dependent variables included changes in 28 facial response components taken from previous work using actor poses, as well as judgments of the presence of 6 discrete emotions. In addition, instrumental behaviors were used to verify with other than facial expression responses whether the predicted emotion was elicited. In contrast to previous conclusions on the subject, we found that judges were able to make all facial expression judgments reliably, even in the absence of contextual information. Support was also obtained for at least some degree of specificity of facial component response patterns, especially for happiness and surprise. Emotion judgments by raters were found to be a function of the presence of discrete facial components predicted to be linked to those emotions. Finally, almost all situations elicited blends, rather than discrete emotions.

Threat perception in international crisis

Abstract: Threat perception is the decisive intervening variable between action and reaction in international crisis. When threat is not perceived, even in the face of objective evidence, there can be no mobilization of defensive resources. Hence the phenomenon of surprise. Conversely, threat may be perceived, and countermeasures taken, even when the opponent possesses no malicious intent. The project described here set out to investigate empirically, on the basis of the comparative analysis of historical case studies, the conditions under which threat is perceived. Six examples were chosen, each involving a different state actor, from the past hundred years. Adequacy of documentation and diversity were two criteria of selection. Examples consisted of:

Expectation in Economics

Abstract: Preface to second edition Preface to first edition 1. Introduction 2. The nature of expectation 3. Expected clarifying of expectations and its influence on the pace of investment 4. The choice of assets to be held for speculative gain 5. Design of taxation to maintain the incentive to enterprise 6. A theory of the bargaining process 7. A comparison with the orthodox view Appendix. The formal properties of the concept of potential surprise.

The Rational Timing of Surprise

Abstract: National leaders are frequently surprised by the actions of other governments. This paper explores the structure common to problems involving the use of resources for achieving surprise. Such resources include deception through double agents and through sudden changes in standard operating procedures. Still other resources for surprise include cracked codes, spies, and new weapons. Since surprise is usually possible only by risking the revelation of the means of surprise, in each case the same problem arises: when should the resource be risked and when should it be maintained for a potentially more important event later? A rational-actor model is developed to provide a prescriptive answer to this question. Examining the ways in which actual actors are likely to differ from rational actors leads to several important policy implications. One is that leaders may tend to be overconfident in their ability to predict the actions of their potential opponents just when the stakes get large. Another implication is that, as observational technology improves, the potential for surprise and deception may actually increase.

Systems analysis in health-care delivery

Abstract: Recently I visited many of the Japanese Production Subsidiaries which are currently in operation in the U.K. My aim was to attempt to isolate factors which may hinder (or benefit) the relationships between the Japanese and the U.K. managers. As we all know, our personal perceptions of other peoples concepts are apt to be quite erroneous. It will be of no great surprise that the Japanese and U.K. managers have quite different realworld viewpoints?yet they are identified as part of the same management team with the same objectives... In relation to the problems with which I am faced in the study of intercultural cognition, I found Thinking in Organisations stimulating and constructive. I .must admit that the first 30 pages of the book, relating to "Subjective Worlds in Policy and Organisation", held many thought provoking messages which would be too dangerous to abstract in this brief review, without causing my biases to cloud your perceptions without you, the reader, being able to question me directly. Suffice it to say that the argued approach is that of grounding cognitive map models in the language of the client, which makes explicit, for others to see, the clients' map of his reality. Further? more, they have chosen to see the personal construct system as being composed of two parts: a system of heki beliefs which relate events describing actors or things; and a system of values which describes and relate the goal oriented aspects of the person's constructs. In this fashion, the authors broadly conclude, a very detailed and very per? sonal real world view may be obtained from the actors in a policy-making environment. It is this very richness that is missing in Normative models of behaviour?even the most complex imaginable. The major part of the book provides some insight into the ways and means of eliciting and using cognitive maps. Firstly, the authors describe the coding methods used for constructing maps and they introduce the reader to COPE: a suite of interactive pro? grams for a micro processor created for the analyst and client jointly to explore and extend the clients' cognitive map of a policy issue. Secondly, some case work is described wherein the uses of cognitive mapping are illustrated in different contexts. I would recommend this text as essential reading for everyone who is concerned with the process of O.R. (or even the process of getting on with others). But beware?by reading it you may be changed in subtle ways'

Schools and Socialization.

Abstract: Any activity that takes a lot of time inevita bly has a substantial socializing effect. When the person putting in time is young, the effect is more profound, since the adaptive conduct learned and socialization is essentially a form of learning is less likely to be contradicted by previous knowledge. Thus, schools have impor tant socializing effects. It may surprise you that their effects are not necessarily good. In fact, modern schools often do a poor job of socializing students to effective adulthood. I will illustrate with specific examples, but also mention some good things that are happening. First, however, I want to analyze briefly the nature of adulthood in modern society, because we need an image of what an adult should be like in order to tell whether schools are producing bad or good effects.

Support and surprise: l. j. cohen's view of inductive probability

Abstract: In The Probable and the Provable, L. J. Cohen introduces a measure of what he calls 'inductive probability'. His measure has the formal properties of measures of degrees of belief or confidence of acceptance derivable from G. L. S. Shackle's measures of potential surprise. Shackle thought of his measures of potential surprise (or degrees of disbelief) and the correlated measures of degrees of belief as 1 ivals to measures of uncertainty obeying the classical calculus of probabilities. I have argued elsewhere that Shackle's measures should not be construed as rival measures of uncertainty to probabilistic measures but as measures contributing to the explication of what Keynes called 'weight of argument' and Cohen has followed me in this. This pleasant agreement with my proposed reconstruction of Shackle's idea is enhanced by Cohen's contribution to the discussion. Cohen contends that inductive probability (in his sense) has properties which render it useful in clarifying certain kinds of reasoning in Anglo-American law. I hope others will explore this important suggestion of Cohen's more closely. I wish, however, to focus on some important differences between Cohen's approach to applying Shackle-like measures to inductive reasoning and my own. Although Cohen recognises quite clearly that measures conforming to the calculus of probabilities and Shackle-like measures have complementary and not rival applications, he is quite anxious to establish his right to call Shackle-like measures a species of probability (which he calls 'inductive probability'). He is also concerned to claim that measures of inductive probability are parasitic on measures of inductive support in the sense in which he introduced such measures in his earlier book, The Implications of Induction. These two objectives contribute to his restricting the domain of applicability of his measures of inductive probability to contexts of singular predictive inference. My alternative reconstruction of Shackle-like measures applies to the contexts considered by Cohen and to other contexts as well. Moreover, it does so without appeal to Cohen's concept of inductive support. Thus, the restrictions Cohen imposes on the domain of applicability of Shackle-like measures of degrees of confidence of acceptance (as I have called them) are needless unless one is concerned, as Cohen seems to be, with enhancing the importance of his conception of inductive support and with defending the right to call Shackle-like measures degrees of probability. I find Cohen's efforts of doubtful validity in the first place and of little importance in the second. Thus, it seems to me that Cohen has gratuitously restricted the domain of applicability of his measures

The study of surprise attacks

Abstract: During the years following the Second World War, intensive research was undertaken on the subject of response to threat. Confronted with the baffling yet recurrent inability of nations to respond adequately to warnings of an impending attack, many scholars concentrated on such events as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the outbreak of the Korean War, and produced a voluminous empirical literature, as well as a considerably meagre body of theoretically oriented works. Thus alongside the plethora of works that sought explanations solely in terms of certain specific conditions operating at the time of the event analyzed, a few other inquiries attempted to integrate the case under scrutiny into a broader theoretical context in order to better elucidate the patterns by which nations cope with situations of crisis and threat.

Text and Form in Dallapiccola's Goethe-Lieder

Abstract: It will come as no surprise to anybody familiar with my music if I affirm that the word, sometimes even the sound of the syllable, has always been of supreme interest to me, right from the beginning of my career-both the word in the theater and divorced from it. The perusal of the catalog of my works is enough; there are few indeed which do not require the participation of vocal soloists or chorus.1

Challenger or Competitor

Abstract: To begin I must apologize for not being able to present carefully worked out comments on Richard Rorty’s thoughtful and stimulating paper. I explained to the organizers of the colloquium in advance that, for reasons beyond my control, I would be unable to prepare extensive comments unless the paper were available to me before the middle of May. Considering the richness and complexity of Professor Rorty’s argumentation, it is certainly no surprise that the paper arrived much later. So, as is usually the case, richness on one side means poverty on the other: I will have to confine myself to a few remarks. They can be taken as a list of theses, questions and objections that, although in need of further support, raise issues which may be of interest at some later point in our discussion.

Analyzability and capacity for change in middle life.

Abstract: The stimulus for this paper was the analyst's surprise at the capacity for change in a number of middle-aged patients, some of whom would not have been considered good analytic prospects even if young, especially since they had all had extensive, unsuccessful previous psychiatric and psychoanalytic treatment, in two instances with the author herself. Factors of change in what now constitutes "old age," and of analyzability, rigidity, motivation and readiness for change, countertransference factors, and the significance of a late-appearing corrective emotional experience were all considered, along with a brief re-evaluation of what the analytic process really is, and how change comes about.

‘Always on tap, never on top’

Abstract: Government scientists this week called off their industrial action after settlement of their prolonged pay dispute Joe Schwartz reports on the scientists' attitudes towards the strike whose success took both union and management by surprise

Comments on the Book Entitled It's A Funny Thing, Humour: Essays on the Nature of Humour, Laughter and Comedy

Abstract: The title of this book [1] might lead one to expect that some of it was designed to provoke laughter and that at least some of its contributors would be professional humorists. Alas, I must report that neither of these expectations is fulfilled. In fact, this is a collection of papers by psychologists, psychoanalysts and sociologists presented at the 1976 International Conference of Humour and Laughter held under the auspices of the University of Wales at Cardiff in July 1976. The authors are handicapped like, for example, most critics of the arts, in that they have struggled to understand and explain something that they do not themselves invent or make. Only those few readers of Leonardo who are interested in the morphology of humor and revel in post-mortem reports will find of interest the psychological aspects to which I draw attention in the following paragraphs. As might be expected by those familiar with psychological concepts, humor is said to be funny because it relieves psychological tensions; it is escapist and dream fulfilling; it lessens the role of the super-ego (authority) that represses a person in every-day life; it is a defense against aggression; it is a tool for obtaining approval, etc. The collection of papers is encyclopedic on these matters and extensive bibliographies are provided. Their analyses indicate that incongruity is often an important element in humor, for example, a big man in a little hat and vice versa. Ambiguity is another element, both its existence and resolution. This is illustrated by a mother's comment to her husband about their son, who has just left the army, watching four girls walk down the street: 'Look how our little boy has grown up. He was never interested in girls before he was a soldier.' As the girls disappear around a comer, the son comments 'One of them is out of step!' The extent to which novelty and surprise are essential to the pleasure of the humor is evident when one reflects that after one has heard the same joke several times it no longer provokes laughter. In this respect humor is like tricks of magic; once one knows the secret of a trick, one loses interest in it, unless one wishes to demonstrate it to others. In both cases elements of novelty and surprise are crucial to pleasure. Discussions about the elements that make up humor can be a bit like how-to-do-it books on love-making or how to be a painter. One can articulate to some degree what was good after the event, but the intangibles of