We were discussing microphones in Communications Lab today, and I saw one that looked a lot like a microphone I’d seen on the TV show “How It’s Made”.
Thought I’d share the YouTube link.
Category: General Discussion
Paper: Why Do Dominant Personalities Attain Influence in Face-to-Face Groups?
“People perceive those that are overconfident to be competent, which in turn gives them power. This irritating effect may clarify a lot about the past decade in American life.” — Jerry Davis, co-director, Interdisciplinary Committee on Organizational Studies, University of Michigan
I was reading this paper today on trait dominance, or the ability of people who exhibit more assertiveness and competence to gain leadership status in their group. Basically, the study finds that people who act competently gain influence over others because they are perceived to be more competent by the group. The researchers also found that this perceived competence may not actually be related to their true competence.
The paper cites ways in which an individual may demonstrate competence to a group, such as their vocabulary or choice of “factual” language, their ability to speak assertively and fluidly, eye contact, and their “relaxed and expansive posture”. Individuals with a higher trait do same attributes, with the addition of suggesting and expressing their opinions more frequently.
The researchers stated: “We do not wish to argue that the core feature of personality dominance is to send a misleading signal of competence to others. Rather, trait dominance might be best defined by its primary social outcome, the establishment of influence in interpersonal settings (Gough et al., 1951; Wiggins, 1979). Individuals higher in trait dominance are perhaps defined by their striving and attainment of control and power in dyads and face-to-face groups.”
The researchers also found that “More assertive individuals might sometimes gain influence above and beyond what their actual competence warrants, and skilled members who are low in trait dominance might be unjustifiably ignored.”
They also stated that the groups may be initially wrong. “Initially, shy individuals were perceived as less intelligent by fellow group members because they spoke less; however, over time shyness was unrelated to peer ratings of intelligence, and, instead, actual intelligence predicted peer-rated intelligence.” Good news for me, I guess, but I suppose I should fake being extroverted more often.
Finally, the researchers suggested that it might be interesting to see if their finding could hold up outside of the experiment, such as what would happen if the study took place over a longer period of time, or if the groups were larger and the organization was more complex.
The study was conducted by Cameron Anderson and Gavin J. Kilduff, of UC Berkeley, and the full title is “Why Do Dominant Personalities Attain Influence In Face-to-Face Groups?: The Competence-Signaling Effects of Trait Dominance.”
This video is good for you grown-ups, too.
Last week in our Communications Lab class, we discussed photo manipulation.
Today, a friend posted a video on her FB Wall, that really depicts the whole process – from makeup session, to photo session, to photo manipulation and print.
I really like the video, but what I don’t understand is why people constantly make the comment that a video with this type of subject matter is great for teenagers, without any mention of how this type of video may benefit all members of society. I feel insecure about my appearance as I did when I was a teenager, but perhaps I’ve lived enough to appreciate the amount of variation in the population to know that I’m not as unusual as I may think I am.
Anyway, it is a good video, so watch it. It’s good for you.
Dove evolution video
…ok, so actually, I think the advertising from Dove is clearly implied on the billboard at the end. It’s a billboard for a make-up brand called “Fasel” – aka False? – Foundation. Anyway, it’s a brand of makeup that doesn’t exist.
Communications Lab: Week 5 — Response to “Understanding Comics”
Chapters 1 and 2 were interesting summarizations of psychological patterns, as well as introducing the idea of simple, yet complex, design.
In Chapter 3, I found interesting the discussion on the Visual Iconography of comics. That is, visual iconography is used by comics as its “vocabulary”. Closure, as used in the “gutters”, or spaces between panels, is its grammar.
I also thought the breakdown of the types of closure – i.e., subject-to-subject, scene-to-scene, etc – and the analysis of the evolution of Japanese comics, as a reflection of the Japanese culture, was very interesting as well.
Chapter 4 was a discussion on the breakdown of the passage of time, which was compared to photographs and the way we typically experience time. My notes include: “Time in comics is different from photographs; we may see several moments in time arranged within the same panel. In photos, the action is all from a single moment….” and “[in comics] time breaks down into panel-to-panel closure[s].”
Chapters 5-8 discuss the impact of line, and mixing of words and pictures. Points I found interesting:
- Expressionism and synaesthetics are distortive by nature and can obscure their subjects.
- In a visual medium, the visual sense has the burden of taking in all the other senses.
- Words have become more simple, while art became representational & specific.
- New media have been misunderstood – first beginning as an imitation of the previous media
- People find art in all aspects of human life, outside of the basic human instincts.
- Most comics artists don’t use color, because it’s expensive and can take away from the meaning of the comic, or art, itself.
Points I found interesting in Chapter 9:
- All media of communication are a by-product of our inability to communicate to others what it’s like to be ourselves
- Each media converts thoughts into forms that can traverse the physical world and can be interpreted by another of our senses – taste, sound, sight, etc.
- Mastery of a medium is the degree (percentage) that the artistic vision can survive the journey from artist’s thought to perception by others
- Comics use cartoons to command viewer involvement and identification; and use realism to capture beauty and complexity of the visible world
- Embedded in all pictures are the seeds of expressionism and synaesthetics.
Phys Comp – Week 4: Stupid Pet Trick
We were assigned to create a “stupid pet trick” which combines a bunch of stuff we’ve learned in our previous few weeks. It doesn’t have to be logical, which is why it’s called stupid. Some of my classmates made really awesome stupid pets, that weren’t really stupid at all. Mine, I admit, is a little goofy.
For now, I’m going to call it, “The Pickup Artist Bear, for Sensitive Gals and Guys”. Here’s how it works:
Step 1 – The Pledge: The Bear finds someone he/she would like to pick up. Bear sings a sweet song to attract Gal/Guy.
To play the song, you press a button. I installed my button within the neck of the teddy bear.
The song plays while the button is pressed. When you let go of the button, the music stops. When you press again, the song starts off from where it left off.
When you get to the end of the song, the music starts again at the beginning.
Step 2 – The Turn: Guy/Gal is sufficiently impressed with sweet, sweet song. Bear continues the pickup by helping Guy/Gal build self-confidence by showing you how tender your caresses are – and in the process, shows off ability to be affectionate.
For this, you squeeze the Force Sensing Resistors on the breadboard. To do this, I’ve set up 2 analog inputs which take a variable level of force not equally set. So, the same level of force for the Green light will not necessarily work for the Yellow. If you light them both, the red light comes on and teddy bear’s heart lights up. It’s a little bit tricky to do actually, and you can adjust it to really annoy your friends.
Step 3 – The Prestige: The bear has now sufficiently won the heart of Gal/Guy, and now gets you to really show your affection. Bear asks Gal/Guy to spill secrets. Bear shows happiness.
Phys Comp: Week 3 – Electronics
This week, our Phys Comp lab consisted of combining several previous labs plus the addition of using our multimeters to check the current of electricity. Checking the flow of electricity is something I’ll need to get used to doing, starting with just learning how to read the multimeter dial and learning to choose between A/C or D/C. Anyway, here are my steps:
A. Measuring Voltage: I set up the breadboard with a voltage regulator and a 12V A/C adaptor. Then I tested the input to and the output from the regulator.
B. A Basic LED Circuit: Next, I added a switch and an LED to the breadboard. This is when the voltage regulator came in handy, to decrease the amount of voltage coming into the circuit that the LED was attached to. (If not, it would have been too much current for the LED. That’s also why the regulator was so hot, the extra energy was being emitted as heat.)
C. Components in Series/Parallel: This experiment showed how parallel and series circuits work. Series circuits work like Christmas lights all in a row – when one goes out, the circuit is broken. Parallel circuits share the current, so if one goes out the other lights stay on.
D. Variable Voltage with a Potentiometer: This was pretty similar to “A”, except that now I was using an analog switch to adjust the output of an LED.