Wednesday, September 19, 2018


"The Whole is Other than the Sum of the Parts"  When the perceptual system forms a percept or gestalt, the whole thing has a reality of its own, independent of the parts.  The Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka made a famous statement about this:  "The whole is other than the sum of its parts."  This statement is often translated to English as, "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts."  Koffka did not like that translation.  He firmly corrected students who substituted "greater" for "other" (Heider, 1977).  "This is not a principle of addition," he said.  The statement as originally worded was supposed to mean that the whole had an independent existence in the perceptual system.  https://www.intropsych.com/ch04_senses/whole_is_other_than_the_sum_of_the_parts.html

1.  The Gestalt movement initially grew out of a problem that bedeviled 19th century perception theory.  If all perception is composed of "bundles" of sensory elements, as many prominent psychologists of the time thought, what are the elements that go into the perception of space and the perception of time?  The Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838-1916) had argued that "space-forms" and "time-forms" are separate elements unto themselves.  Thus, if I see the geometrical form of a circle, in addition to sensing each individual element, I sense a circular "space-form" as well; if I hear a melody, I sense an over-all "time-form" in addition to the tone sensations of the tune.  Another Austrian philosopher, Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932), extended this line of reasoning, claiming that in addition to the sensory elements of a perceived object, there is an extra element which, though in some sense derived from the organization of the standard sensory elements, is an element unto itself.  He called this extra element Gestalt-qualität or "form-quality."  For instance, when one hears a melody, one hears the notes plus something in addition to them which binds them together into a tune--the Gestalt-qualität.  2.  For the Gestalt psychologists, the true nature of relations between parts and wholes had been inverted by earlier psychologists such as Mach and Von Ehrenfels.  Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), founder of the Gestalt school, turned their theories around, saying "what is given me by the melody does not arise ... as a secondary process from the sum of the pieces as such.  Instead, what takes place in each single part already depends upon what the whole is," (1925/1938).  In other words, one hears the melody first and only then may perceptually divide it up into notes.  3.  Some of their primary evidence for this view came from the examination of "reversible" figures such as the Rubin vase, a figure that can be seen either as a white vase on a black background, or black profiles of two human faces on a white background.  It was with this radical change in orientation that Gestalt psychology distinguished itself from the varieties of experimental phenomenology which had gone before.  Read more at https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Koffka/Perception/intro.htm  Gestalt is German for shape or form. 

History and high-tech merge in a new offering from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library and an arm of the National Institutes of Health.  It's a novel twist on NLM's popular online system, Turning The Pages, (https://ceb.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/books.htm), which allows you to turn the pages of a rare book on your computer screen.  Now,  users can journey back to pre-book times and "unroll the scroll" or, more specifically, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the world's oldest known surgical document.  The new offering is at https://ceb.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/smith/smith.html.  The Smith Papyrus was written in Egyptian hieratic script around the 17th century BCE but probably based on material from a thousand years earlier.  This collaborative online representation features an important new translation by James P. Allen, formerly of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and high-resolution scans lent by the scroll's owner, the New York Academy of Medicine.  "We are delighted to collaborate with NLM in bringing the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus to a much wider audience and the use of interactive technology will allow researchers and the public to explore the document more deeply," said Academy President Jo Ivey Boufford, MD.  "The Smith Papyrus is extremely important," added NLM Director Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, "because it showed for the first time that Egyptians had a scientific understanding of traumatic injuries based on observable anatomy rather than relying on magic or potions."  The text is a treatise on trauma surgery and consists of 48 cases dealing with wounds and trauma.  Each case is laid out using a carefully prescribed formula:  a description of the injury; diagnosis; prognosis; treatment; and further explanations of the case, which resemble footnotes.  "This papyrus is unlike most other medical papyri in that it is chiefly rational and does not usually bring the supernatural into the explanations or treatments for injuries-for instance, there is only one incantation," said Michael North, curator of the project and of rare books in the Library's History of Medicine Division.  "The technical challenges of digitally transforming and making this scroll available on a personal computer were enormous," said George Thoma, PhD, chief of the Communications Engineering Branch at NLM's Lister Hill Center.  Thoma led the Library's technical efforts and team.  "The memory requirements were immense, so we had to come up with ways to manage the memory for home use.  We created the illusion of rolling and unrolling by superimposing the frame by frame animation of the rolled section of the scroll on the large image of the entire papyrus."  In addition, creative animation techniques, dealing with bend modifying and lattice deformation, were necessary in order for the scroll to unroll and flip over correctly. Also, to explore the graceful, two-color calligraphy, a "zoom" mode offers a roving magnifying window, the design for which came with its own complexity.  "As far as I know, we may be the only Library in the world that has mastered the computation and technology to create an easily usable virtual scroll for a personal computer  user," Dr. Thoma added.  The British Library created Turning The Pages, but NLM has collaborated with that institution to create its own version.  There are now six books, in addition to the scroll, in the online version.  Two touch-screen versions are also on view at the National Library of Medicine, on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.  See graphics at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/turn_page_egyptian.html

The rubber hand illusion works like this:  seat a volunteer with her forearms resting on a table and her right hand hidden in a box that’s open at both ends.  Align a lifelike rubber hand with her right shoulder, where her real hand would be.  Using a paintbrush, stroke the right index finger of the rubber hand and, simultaneously and in sync, her real right index finger.  Tell her to carefully watch the rubber finger being stroked.  Ask her where her right index finger is.  (To reduce the risk of lying or cheating, have her close her eyes and use her left hand to point to it.)  In all likelihood, within 15 seconds or so her answer will drift toward the rubber hand, as she feels that her own hand has melted away and the fake hand has become hers.  Seeing only the rubber hand being stroked, she’ll feel as if her own is.  Even odder, the temperature of the real hand usually drops—as if the brain, which controls body temperature, no longer considers it part of the body.  When visual information (seeing the rubber hand being stroked) conflicts with tactile information (feeling but not seeing one’s own hand being stroked), the brain trusts what it sees over what it feels.  Sharon Begley   https://www.statnews.com/2016/10/20/brain-rubber-hand-illusion/

A 2008 animal rights law introduced in Switzerland makes it illegal to own just one guinea pig at a time.  The law was part of a legislative push to grant “social rights” to pets that tend to get lonely.  Guinea pigs, for example, are herd animals, so having at least one furry companion to share a cage with should supposedly boost their quality of life.  Because it’s unlikely that two guinea pigs will die at the exact same time, pet owners can find themselves in a legally sticky situation when one of their animals passes away.  Fortunately, there are now rent-a-guinea pig services in the country that provide partners to live with lonesome guinea pigs for the remainder of their lives.  There are other pets in Switzerland that are forbidden from living in isolation.  Goldfish are also required to have at least one tank-mate and parrots must either live or have the opportunity to socialize with other birds on a regular basis.  And though most cats may seem like solitary creatures to their owners, their social wellbeing is also protected in Switzerland; the law doesn’t go so far as to say that pet owners must have more than one cat, just that single cats should be able to see other cats when prowling outside or staring though a window.

"Fast fashion” is a term used by fashion retailers to describe inexpensive designs that move quickly from the catwalk to stores to meet new trends.  As a result of this trend, the tradition of introducing new fashion lines on a seasonal basis is being challenged.  Today, it is not uncommon for fast-fashion retailers to introduce new products multiple times in a single week to stay on-trend.  From the perspective of retailers, fast fashion is advantageous because the constant introduction of new products encourages customers to make frequent visits to stores.  Collections are often based on designs seen at the spring and autumn Fashion Week events.  Fast fashion enables mainstream consumers to purchase trendy clothing at an affordable price.  The speed at which fast fashion moves tends to help retailers avoid markdowns, which cut into margins.  Despite the advantages for customers, fast fashion has also been criticized on the grounds that it encourages a “throw-away” attitude via the built-in obsolescence of its products.  Some contend that such disposable fashion contributes to pollution, poor workmanship and poor working conditions in developing countries.  The trend has also been criticized on intellectual property grounds, with some designers alleging that their designs have been illegally mass-produced by retailers.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fast-fashion.asp  See also Fast fashion:  Inside the fight to end the silence on waste bat https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44968561

Harry Bright and Jakob Anser are authors of such books as That's a Fact Jack! A New Collection of Utterly Useless Information, WTF (science), and 201 Weird True Facts WTF (Psychology), and Are You Kidding Me?  Are the authors using pseudonyms?   Is it one author, using bright anser as a pun?  See artwork of Tang Yau Hoong who illustrated WTF (psychology) at https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/negative-space-art-illustrations-tang-yau-hoong/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1955  September 19, 2018 

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