Language and Communication Essay Example for Free

Language and Communication Essay Choosing a college is one of the most difficult choices you can make in regards to your career and there are many facets which need to be looked at when making that decision. Since we have a similar career path, I wanted to take the time to share with you the many different reasons why I chose Western Governors University as my college of choice. Credited certification courses, online access, flexible scheduling, expediting graduation date, and cost were all major factors I considered when I chose WGU. Information Technology certifications many times can still be a requirement that employers look for, even if you have a degree, as I know, it is also one of your major concerns. WGU offers industry certifications as a part of their course curriculum, which is one of the only colleges to do this. They include many of the different types of certifications depending on your learning track like Microsoft, CIW, CompTia, and Oracle. By incorporating them into the courses it enhances your resume, not only by the ability to declare your education but also that you have certifications that showcases your knowledge within the information technology industry, giving you an edge. Having an outstanding online program with easy access to the certification and course material was another advantage of choosing WGU, which is another concern you raised due to your current travel demands with your job. The online presence offered by WGU is the best that I have seen and having used it for the last year, and I know firsthand its quality and accessibility. Whether I am in the hotel, a rest stop, or having lunch at work I can access all my program information. Furthermore, they utilize Pearson, Task Stream, course mentorship, online communities, and workshops and have an extensive online library. The online dashboard outlines your entire degree program, course descriptions, emails, course contacts, degree tracking, and financial aid information. Overall the quality of the online functionality is the best, and will help ensure your experience is a great one. By having a well laid out online degree program not only assists you gaining, access but also actually helps you stay on track with flexible scheduling. With a busy work schedule, I am not bound by offsite classrooms, conference calls, or online live classes which can be mandatory for some schools; I pick the time to work on my education. Having this flexibility is key as I move forward in my current job meeting its demands, and meeting my education demands as well. Whether it is before work, lunchtime, after work, or weekends it is up to myself to find the time when it allows. Also, meeting the demands of an active family life can be very difficult to manage. With on-demand materials, when you want them, you can maintain a normal family lifestyle. To be empowered with flexibility of scheduling your classes online, along with a dynamic, robust education platform, make Western Governors a clear choice. Even though flexible scheduling is an import aspect of WGU when considering a college, the power to expedite your graduation date is just as important. When you sign up with WGU, you select your courses that match your degree program and can control what semesters you would like to take at that time. Once you have completed all your courses for a semester, you can still take additional courses within that semester. By utilizing the pre-assessments within the online dashboard, you can pre-qualify what you know about the course and move forward with the test, completing the whole course in days rather than months. This is great if the course is on something you have already established industry knowledge in the work place. Another great aspect is that if you already have certifications that you have earned, you can get credit for it, thus fulfilling a credit course. Being able to expedite your graduation is a huge value in saving your time, efforts and, most importantly, costs. College tuition has been on the rise over the years, and choosing a school that provides a top knowledge education, that is credited, sums up yet another reason for choosing WGU. They have a unique cost-cutting education system where you pay by the semester, not by each credit. So as you complete each course and then add more within that semester, you can actually reduce your overall cost for that degree. There are also savings found when you do not have to take additional certification classes and tests outside of your normal tuition, because it is all included. Another cost saving piece is that the school provides all the course materials for free, the books for each class is provided electronically. You save on commuting, as well as room and board which can also add to the bottom line of your education costs. The value of going to WGU for a top quality education is an undeniable benefit to you and your family, and should be a major factor in your decision. The decision to go to school or going back to complete your education can be a daunting task and one not to be taken lightly. But with your own research, you will find out what I have, that WGU is the best answer to your quest for success. With the certification built into the program, it just makes sense not to duplicate learning tracks. Online access gives you the resource to control your education and gives you a wider, flexible schedule to work with. Expediting your graduation date can only speed up and increase career opportunities. Finally, the cost comparison between a campus college verses an online education at WGU will give you the sense of value for the money spent well. Western Governors University is one of the fastest growing, premier online schools, providing a great education in a timely manner and results that will enhance your career.

Alice Walkers Color Purple - Historical and Political Insight Essay

The Color Purple : Historical and Political Insight Alice Walker’s writings were greatly influenced by the political and societal happenings around her during the 1960s and 1970s. She not only wrote about events that were taking place, she participated in them as well. Her devoted time and energy into society is very evident in her works. The Color Purple, one of Walker’s most prized novels, sends out a social message that concerns women’s struggle for freedom in a society where they are viewed as inferior to men. The events that happened during and previous to her writing of The Color Purple had a tremendous impact on the standpoint of the novel. The Civil Rights Movement was the largest influence on Walker’s writings. In a decision handed down by the Supreme Court in 1954, the beginning of civil rights occurred. In the decision of Brown vs. The Board of Education, the court ruled that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal because they gave AfricanAmerican children a sense of inferiority and retarded their educational and mental development. That case began the civil rights uprising in the United States. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbid businesses connected with interstate commerce to discriminate when choosing its employees. If these businesses did not conform to the act, they would lose funds that were granted to them from the government. Another act that was passed to secure the equality of blacks was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This act, which was readopted and modified in 1970, 1975, and 1982, contained a plan to eliminate devices for voting discrimination and gave the Department of Justice more power in enforcing equal rights. In another attempt for equal rights, the Equal Employment ... ...ally signed in 1973 and the Americans returned home following the signage. However, all was not well in the US. Overall, the war was very unpopular to the public and it led to radicalism and polarization of the country’s youth. Many universities had demonstrations and a resistance against institutions was prevalent on college campuses. By 1974, the country’s economy was in recession, a direct response to the Vietnam War. The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War were the two primary influences on the life and writings of Alice Walker. Walker is still alive today and continues to write about society issues that have affected her life. "Civil Rights and Liberties-Civil Rights Movement." Encyclopedia Americana. 1996 ed. Jackson, Melinda L. "Alice Walker-Womanist Writer." Online. Internet. 14 April 1998. Available http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~melindaj/alice.html

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Title: Actions speak louder than words: comparing automatic imitation and verbal command Authors: Helge Gillmeister, Arnaud Badets and Cecilia Heyes University College London, London, UK Corresponding author: Helge Gillmeister Department of Psychology, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP, United Kingdom Tel. : +44 207 679 5379 E-mail: h. [email  protected] ac. uk Running head: Actions speak louder than words Word count: 3904 Actions speak louder than words AbstractAutomatic imitation – copying observed actions without intention – is known to occur, not only in neurological patients and those with developmental disorders, but also in healthy, typically-developing adults and children. Previous research has shown that a variety of actions are automatically imitated, and that automatic imitation promotes social affiliation and rapport. We assessed the power of automatic imitation by comparing it with the strength of the tendency to obey verbal comma nds. In a Stroop interference paradigm, the stimuli were compatible, incompatible and neutral compounds of hand postures and verbal commands.When imitative responses were required, the impact of irrelevant action images on responding to words was greater than the effect of irrelevant words on responding to actions. Control group performance showed that this asymmetry was not due to modality effects or differential salience of action and word stimuli. These results indicate that automatic imitation was more powerful than verbal command. 1 Actions speak louder than words Introduction Even when we do not intend to imitate others, we are inclined to copy their body movements.This tendency, known as ‘mimicry’ or ‘automatic imitation’, was once thought to be confined to patients with frontal brain damage (Lhermitte, Pillon, & Serdaru, 1986), atypically-developing individuals (e. g. Charman & Baron-Cohen, 1994), ‘savages’ (Darwin, 1989) and nonhuman a nimals (Thorndike, 1898). More recent research has shown that automatic imitation is also common in healthy, typically-developing adults (e. g. Wallbott, 1991; Lakin & Chartrand, 2003; Brass, Bekkering, Wohlschlager, & Prinz, 2000) and children (Simpson & Riggs, 2007).The purpose of the present study was to estimate the strength of our tendency automatically to imitate the behavior of others by comparing it with the strength of our tendency to do what we are told; to perform actions on verbal command. Most previous research on automatic imitation has been concerned, not with the strength of this tendency, but with its pervasiveness and effects on social attitudes. Carefully controlled laboratory studies have found automatic imitation of facial expressions (e. g. Wallbott, 1991), as well as finger (e. . Brass et al. , 2000), hand (Heyes, Bird, Johnson, & Haggard, 2005) and arm movements (e. g. Kilner, Paulignan, & Blakemore, 2003). Studies investigating the ‘chameleon 2 Actions speak louder than words effect’ in semi-naturalistic social situations have shown that gestures such as eartouching and foot-wagging are automatically imitated, that this kind of mimicry can occur without the imitator’s conscious awareness, and that it promotes affiliation and rapport between social partners (e. g. Lakin & Chartrand, 2003).Indirect evidence of the pervasiveness of automatic imitation has been provided by functional imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). For example, imaging has shown that the observation of hand, foot and mouth movements activates the same areas of premotor cortex active during their execution (Buccino et al. , 2001). Revealing yet further specificity, the observation of hand and arm movements selectively increases TMS-induced motor evoked potentials from the particular muscles involved in executing these movement (e. g. Strafella & Paus, 2000).In behavioral studies, stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) procedures are o ften used to detect automatic imitation. These procedures provide some indication of the strength of the automatic imitation tendency by showing that it can interfere with performance based on task instructions. For example, Kilner et al. (2003) instructed participants to make sinusoidal arm movements in a vertical plane while observing a model perform the same vertical movements (compatible condition) or sinusoidal arm movements in a horizontal plane (incompatible 3 Actions speak louder than words condition).Although participants were, presumably, equally motivated to obey instructions in the two conditions, their movements showed more, counterinstructional deviation from the vertical plane in the incompatible than in the compatible condition. Other SRC studies have shown that automatic imitation interferes, not only with the spatial properties of movement, but also with its timing. Participants instructed in a simple reaction time (RT) task to open their hand as soon as an observe d hand began to move, initiated the opening movement faster when the stimulus hand opened than when it closed (Heyes et al. 2005). Similar studies have shown that automatic imitation can influence the timing of hand and finger movements even when the observed movements are taskirrelevant, i. e. when participants are instructed to respond, not to the observed movements, but to arbitrary stimuli such as digits (Brass et al. , 2000), crosses (Bertenthal et al. , 2006) or colors (Sturmer, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2000). As far as we are aware, only one study has explicitly compared the strength of automatic imitation with that of other response tendencies (Brass et al. , 2000).This study found that the impulse to imitate finger movements was stronger than the tendency to respond with finger movements to arbitrary symbols and to static spatial markers. The results were important in providing evidence that automatic imitation is genuinely automatic (i. e. that it occurs contrary to task ins tructions), and that it is not reducible to spatial compatibility (see also Heyes et al. , 2005; 4 Actions speak louder than words Bertenthal et al. , 2006), but Brass et al. (2000) provided only a very conservative estimate of the strength of automatic imitation.Theories of imitation assume that it is based on stimulus-response connections that are either innate (e. g. Meltzoff & Moore, 1997) or the product of long-term learning (e. g. Heyes & Ray, 2000). If this is the case, it is not surprising that the tendency to imitate is stronger than the tendency, based solely on task instructions, to respond differentially to symbolic cues. Like imitation, spatial compatibility effects depend on innate or learned response tendencies (Tagliabue, Zorzi, Umilta, & Bassignani, 2000). However, Brass et al. s study did not show that automatic imitation is generally stronger than the tendency to respond to the site of stimulation; only that automatic imitation is stronger than spatial compatibili ty when the spatial cue is smaller and less dynamic than the body movement cue. The present study provided a more stringent test of the strength of automatic imitation by comparing it with that of the tendency to obey verbal commands. Like imitation, verbal command is a common method of instruction in everyday life, and the power of words to evoke actions is a product of deeply engrained mechanisms.Indeed, one theory of imitation, the associative sequence learning (ASL) model (e. g. Heyes & Ray, 2000), suggests that the two response tendencies become engrained in the same way; that we learn to imitate through correlated 5 Actions speak louder than words experience of observing and executing action units, just as we learn the meanings of words through correlated experience of the words and their referents. We used a Stroop procedure to compare the strengths of automatic imitation and verbal command. There were four groups of participants.In the focal group (Manual-Auditory), particip ants were required in each trial to open or to close their hand in response to a compound stimulus. The compound consisted of an image of a hand in an open, closed or neutral posture, and the sound of a word: ‘open’, ‘close’ or a neutral nonword. In one condition, participants were instructed to imitate the action and to ignore the word (action-relevant task), and in the other condition they were told to obey the verbal command and to ignore the action (word-relevant task).In any given trial, the stimulus on the taskirrelevant dimension (the word in the action task, and the action in the word task) was compatible, incompatible or neutral with respect to the stimulus on the taskrelevant dimension. For example, in the action task, an image of an open hand was accompanied equally often by the word ‘open’ (compatible), the word ‘close’ (incompatible) and by a nonword (neutral). If the tendency to imitate is stronger than the tendency t o obey verbal commands, then, in this focal group, one would expect the impact on performance of action stimuli in the word task to be greater than the impact of word stimuli in Actions speak louder than words the action task. More specifically, one would expect the compatible taskirrelevant stimulus to speed responding, and /or the incompatible task-irrelevant stimulus to slow responding, more in the word task than in the action task. However, an effect of this kind would not be sufficient to show that automatic imitation is stronger than the tendency to obey verbal commands, for two reasons. First, it could be that the action images used in this experiment were more salient or easier to discriminate than the word stimuli.In this case, one would expect action images to be more potent stimuli, not only for automatic imitation, but also for nonimitative responding. To address this issue, we included a second group of participants (Vocal-Auditory) who were presented with exactly the s ame stimuli as the focal group, action images in compound with word sounds, but they were required to make vocal rather than imitative responses. For example, in the action task, this group said ‘open’ when they saw an opened hand, and ‘close’ when they saw a closed hand.Langton, O’Malley, & Bruce (1996, Experiment 5) found that irrelevant gestures affected vocal responses to words to the same extent as irrelevant words affected vocal responses to gestures. Therefore, we expected that, in contrast with the focal group, the performance of the Vocal-Auditory group would be affected equally by irrelevant actions in the word task, and by irrelevant words in the action task. 7 Actions speak louder than words The second issue concerns modality of stimulus presentation.In the focal group, actions were presented visually and words were presented in the auditory modality because those conditions are typical of everyday life. In the course of development, it i s likely that simple verbal instructions, consisting of a single word, are more often heard than seen. However, because spoken words unfold over time, whereas images are instantaneously available for processing, auditory presentation of verbal commands could put them at a disadvantage.In other words, if irrelevant actions have a greater impact than irrelevant words in the focal group, this could reflect, not the relative strengths of automatic imitation and verbal command, but faster processing of visual than auditory stimuli. To address this issue we included two further groups in which the word stimuli were written rather than spoken. One of these groups (Manual-Visual) made hand movement responses, and the other (Vocal-Visual) made vocal responses. Thus, there were four groups: Manual-Auditory, Vocal-Auditory, ManualVisual and Vocal-Visual.We predicted that in the focal Manual-Auditory group the effect of irrelevant actions on speed of responding to words would be greater than th e effect of irrelevant words on responding to actions. If this asymmetric effect indicates that the automatic tendency to imitate is stronger than the tendency to obey verbal commands, rather than an effect of nonspecific features of the stimuli or stimulus-response mapping, then it should also be present in the Manual-Visual group, but not in the Vocal-Auditory or Vocal-Visual groups. 8 Actions speak louder than words Method Participants Forty-eight right-handed volunteers (15 men, mean age: 22.  ±7. 5 years) were randomly assigned to one of four groups: Manual-Auditory, Vocal-Auditory, Manual-Visual and Vocal-Visual. All had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and normal hearing. The experiment was carried out with local ethical approval and written consent. Stimuli and Apparatus Warning and imperative stimuli were compounds of hand actions and words with coincidental onsets. Hand actions were life-sized images of postures made by a male right hand, taken from the angle at whic h one normally views one’s own hand, and presented on a laptop computer screen (60Hz, 400mm, 96DPI) in color on a black background.For the warning stimulus, the hand was in a neutral posture, with the fingers closed and pointing upwards in parallel with the thumb (visual angle: 6. 96 ° x 13. 33 °), and was shown for a variable duration between 800ms and 1520ms. For the imperative stimuli, the hand was in an opened (15. 5 ° x 13. 5 °), closed (7. 0 ° x 11. 2 °) or inverted neutral posture (see Figure 1D for examples), and was shown for 640ms. Word stimuli were either sound files presented via the laptop’s internal speaker (auditory) or superimposed in white 9 Actions speak louder than words nk on the hand stimuli in the centre of the screen (visual; 6. 5 ° to 7. 1 ° x 2. 6 ° to 3. 1 °). For the warning stimulus, the nonword clepo was presented for 650ms (auditory) or between 800 and 1520ms (visual). For the imperative stimuli, the word ‘openâ⠂¬â„¢, ‘close’ or the nonword pocle (see Figure 1C for examples) were presented for 640ms (visual) or between 600ms and 640ms (auditory). The nonwords clepo (warning stimulus) and pocle (neutral stimulus) were phonotactic amalgams of phonemes contained in the two words ‘open’ and ‘close’.Pocle contained the same syllables as clepo, presented in reverse order. For the manual response groups, response onset of opening and closing hand movements was measured by recording the electromyogram (EMG) from the first dorsal interosseus muscle of the right hand (see Heyes et al. , 2005). For the vocal response groups, onset of voice responses was measured via a free-standing electret microphone (Vivanco EM 32, Vivanco-direct. com). The RT interval began with the onset of the imperative stimulus, and ended with EMG onset (manual responses) or the activation of the microphone (vocal responses).Design and Procedure Participants sat at a viewing distance of a pproximately 700mm from the stimulus presentation screen. For the manual response groups, the participant’s right forearm lay in a horizontal position across his/her body, supported from elbow to wrist by an armrest. The wrist was rotated so that the fingers moved 10 Actions speak louder than words upwards during opening responses, and downwards when closing. Thus, the plane of response movement (up-down) was orthogonal to the plane of action stimulus movement (left-right), controlling for any effects of left-right spatial compatibility.After making each response, participants returned their hand to the neutral starting position; their fingers closed and parallel to the thumb. Each trial began with the presentation of the warning stimulus. After a variable duration it was replaced by the imperative stimulus. Participants were instructed to respond to the imperative stimulus as quickly as possible, without making errors, by opening or closing their hand (manual response groups ) or by saying ‘open’ or ‘close’ (vocal response groups) as soon as they saw an open or closed hand posture (action-relevant task), or heard or saw the word ‘open’ or ‘close’ (word-relevant task).They were instructed to ignore the irrelevant dimension. After the presentation of the imperative stimulus, the screen went black for 3000ms before the next trial. Four action-relevant and four word-relevant task blocks of 60 trials were presented in alternating order, counterbalanced between participants. Relevant and irrelevant stimulus compounds were compatible (e. g. an open hand accompanied by the word ‘open’), incompatible (e. g. an open hand accompanied by the word ‘close’) or neutral (e. . an open hand accompanied by the nonword pocle). The six trial types, defined by compatibility (compatible, neutral or 11 Actions speak louder than words incompatible) and relevant stimulus (open or close), were equiproba ble and randomly intermixed within each block. Results Mean RTs are plotted as a function of task and compatibility in Figures 1AD. Incorrect responses and RTs less than 100ms or greater than 1500ms were removed (3. 1%). Figure 1 about hereAs predicted, in the focal Manual-Auditory group (A) the impact of irrelevant actions on responding to words was greater than the impact of irrelevant words on responding to actions; there was an asymmetry favoring actions over words. This asymmetry was not observed in the Vocal-Auditory group (B), who responded to exactly the same stimuli using vocal responses rather than hand actions, suggesting that the asymmetry was not due to greater salience of the action than of the word stimuli.The asymmetry favoring actions over words was present in 12 Actions speak louder than words the Manual-Visual group (C), who saw rather than heard the word stimuli, indicating that it did not depend on faster processing of visual than auditory stimuli. Providing fur ther confirmation that this asymmetry was not due to nonspecific factors, the Vocal–Visual group (D) showed the reverse asymmetry; irrelevant actions had a lesser effect on responding to words than did irrelevant words on responding to actions.These impressions were confirmed by an initial ANOVA, in which task (action-relevant, word-relevant) and compatibility (compatible, neutral, incompatible) were within-subject factors, and response mode (manual, vocal) and word modality (auditory, visual) were between-subject factors, and by subsequent analyses in which a 2Ãâ€"3 ANOVA (task x compatibility) was applied to the RT data from each group separately. The initial analysis indicated a significant three-way interaction (task x compatibility x response mode: F(2, 94) = 35. , p < . 001), and a nonsignificant four-way interaction (task x compatibility x response mode x word modality: F(2, 94) = 1. 1, p = . 341). The separate analysis of the data from the focal Manual-Auditory group yielded a significant interaction between task and compatibility (F(2, 22) = 20. 8, p < . 001), confirming that there was an asymmetry favoring actions over words. This interaction was also significant in the Manual-Visual group (F(2, 22) = 25. 5, p < . 001), but it was 13 Actions speak louder than words bsent in the Vocal-Auditory group (F(2, 22) = 1. 5, p = . 252), and reversed in the Vocal-Visual group (F(2, 22) = 5. 5, p = . 017). In the two groups where there was an asymmetry favoring actions over words, mean RT in the action-relevant task was shorter than in the word-relevant task (Manual-Auditory: F(1, 11) = 48. 7, p < . 001; Manual-Visual: F(1, 11) = 172. 3, p < . 001). To check whether the action-dominant asymmetry was dependent on this main effect of task on RT, the data from these groups were subjected to bin analyses.For each group, RTs of each participant in each task were divided into five bins of equal size (Ratcliff, 1979). Three quintiles were selected in which, wi thin group, mean RT on neutral trials was approximately equal in action-relevant and word-relevant tasks. The data from these quintiles were subjected to 2x3x3 ANOVAs (task x compatibility x bin). These analyses showed that, in each group, although there was no main effect of task on RT (Manual-Auditory: F < 1; Manual-Visual: F(1, 11) = 1. 1, p = . 16), there was a significant task x compatibility interaction (Manual-Auditory: F(2, 22) = 11. 8, p < . 001; Manual-Visual: F(2, 22) = 11. 9, p = . 001). Thus, the action-dominant asymmetry observed in the Manual-Auditory and Manual-Visual groups did not depend on faster responding in the action task than in the word task. 14 Actions speak louder than words Discussion Previous research has shown that healthy adult humans have a pervasive and automatic tendency to imitate the actions of others, but this is the first study to provide a stringent test of the strength of this tendency.Using hand actions in a Stroop procedure, the power of act ions to elicit imitative responses was compared with the strength of our tendency to obey verbal commands. The results from the focal group, who made manual responses to simultaneously presented actions and spoken words, showed that the impact of irrelevant actions on responding to words was greater than the impact of irrelevant words on imitative responding to actions. The same asymmetry was observed when written, rather than spoken, words were presented, indicating that it was not due to faster processing in the visual modality.The same asymmetry was not observed when participants made vocal, rather than imitative, responses, indicating that the action-dominant asymmetry was not due to greater salience or discriminability of the action images than of the verbal stimuli. Therefore, these findings suggest that the human tendency to imitate is stronger than the tendency to obey verbal commands. Previous studies have indicated that irrelevant actions influence the control of movements made in response to color, spatial and symbolic cues (Sturmer et al. , 2000; Bertenthal et al. 2006; Brass et al. , 2000). The present findings show for 15 Actions speak louder than words the first time that automatic imitation effects occur, not only when the imperative stimuli bear an arbitrary or purely spatial relationship with responses, but also when they are verbal commands; that is, when the relationship between the imperative stimulus and the response is both specific and overlearned. Langton, O’Malley, & Bruce (1996, Experiment 5) used a Stroop procedure to compare the power of actions and words, but they did not examine imitative responding.Instead, they required participants to make vocal responses to directional gestures (a person pointing up, down, left and right) and to their verbal equivalents, and found symmetrical compatibility effects; irrelevant gestures affected vocal responses to words to the same extent as irrelevant words affected vocal responses to g estures. We found the same symmetrical pattern in our Vocal-Auditory group, when participants were making nonimitative responses, but a contrasting pattern, indicating action dominance, when participants were making imitative responses.Thus, comparison of the two studies i) confirms that action dominance is specific to imitation, and ii) indicates that, in the case of nonimitative vocal responding, actions and words have comparable impact both when the action stimuli are pointing gestures and when they are opening and closing hand movements. 16 Actions speak louder than words In a variant of the game ‘Simon says’, played at teatime in Victorian England, children were required to grip the tablecloth when an adult, gripping or releasing the cloth, said ‘Hold tight! ’, and to release the cloth, regardless of the adult’s action, when he said ‘Let go! . Presumably, amusement derived from the fact that, like the participants in the present experiment , children could not resist the influence of automatic imitation, and were therefore compelled flagrantly to disobey the authority of verbal command. However, the results of the present study do not merely vindicate the disobedient behavior of Victorian children. They show that automatic imitation is much more than a parlour game, or a device that experimental psychologists can use to investigate the processes involved in stimulus-response translation.These findings show that automatic imitation is not only pervasive but also powerful. Even among healthy, typicallydeveloping adults, it is more powerful than the tendency to obey verbal commands. In this context, actions do indeed speak louder than words. 17 Actions speak louder than words References Bertenthal, B. I. , Longo, M. R. , & Kosobud, A. (2006). Imitative response tendencies following observation of intransitive actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 210–225. Brass, M. , Be kkering, H. , Wohlschlager, A. , & Prinz, W. 2000). Compatibility between observed and executed finger movements: comparing symbolic, spatial, and imitative cues. Brain and Cognition, 44, 124-43. Buccino, G. , Binkofski, F. , Fink, G. R. , Fadiga, L. , Fogassi, L. , Gallese, V. , Seitz, R. J. , Zilles, K. , Rizzolatti, G. , & Freund, H. J. (2001). Action observation activates premotor and parietal areas in a somatotopic manner: an fMRI study. European Journal of Neuroscience, 13, 400-404. Charman, T. , & Baron-Cohen, S. (1994). Another look at imitation in autism. Development and Psychopathology, 6, 403-413.Darwin, C. (1989). Voyage of the Beagle. London: Penguin Books. 18 Actions speak louder than words Heyes, C. M. , & Ray, E. D. (2000). What is the significance of imitation in animals? Advances in the Study of Behavior, 29, 215–245. Heyes, C. M. , Bird, G. , Johnson, H. , & Haggard, P. (2005). Experience modulates automatic imitation. Cognitive Brain Research, 22, 233-240. Kilner, J. M. , Paulignan, Y. , & Blakemore, S. J. (2003). An interference effect of observed biological movement on action. Current Biology, 13, 522–525. Lakin, J. L. , & Chartrand, T. L. (2003).Using nonconscious behavioral mimicry to create affiliation and rapport. Psychological Science, 14, 334-339. Langton, S. R. H. , O'Malley, C. , & Bruce, V. (1996). Actions speak louder than words: Symmetrical cross-modal interference effects in the processing of verbal and gestural information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 1357–1375. Lhermitte, F. , Pillon, B. , & Serdaru, N. (1986). Human autonomy and the frontal lobes. Part I: Imitation and utilization behavior: a neuropsychological study of 75 patients. Annals of Neurology, 19, 326-334. 19Actions speak louder than words Meltzoff, A. N. & Moore, M. K. (1997). Explaining facial imitation: A theoretical model. Early Development and Parenting, 6, 179-192. Ratcliff, R. (1979). Group reaction time distributions and an analysis of distribution statistics. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 446–461. Simpson, A. & Riggs, K. J. (2007). Under what conditions do young children have difficulty inhibiting manual actions? Developmental Psychology, 43, 417-428. Strafella, A. P. & Paus, T. (2000). Modulation of cortical excitability during action observation: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study.Neuroreport, 11, 22892292. Sturmer, B. , Aschersleben, G. , & Prinz, W. (2000). Correspondence effects with manual gestures and postures: a study of imitation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 26, 1746-1759. Tagliabue, M. , Zorzi, M. , Umilta, C. , & Bassignani, F. (2000). The role of longterm-memory and short-term-memory links in the Simon effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 26, 648-670. 20 Actions speak louder than words Thorndike, E. L. (1898).Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associa tive Processes in Animals (Psychological Review, Monograph Supplements, No. 8). New York: Macmillan. Wallbott, H. G. (1991). Recognition of emotion from facial expression via imitation? Some indirect evidence for an old theory. British Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 207-219. 21 Actions speak louder than words Author note AB is now at Faculte de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. 22 Actions speak louder than words Figure caption Figure 1.RTs in compatible, neutral and incompatible trials for word-relevant (solid line) and action-relevant (broken line) task conditions. Results are presented separately for the four different participant groups: (A) ManualAuditory, (B) Vocal-Auditory, (C) Manual-Visual and (D) Vocal-Visual. Vertical bars indicate standard error of the mean. Images show compatible, neutral and incompatible stimulus compounds in action-relevant (Panel C) and word-relevant (Panel D) task conditions fo r the visual word modality groups (C and D). For the auditory word modality groups (A and B), words were spoken. 23

P.T. Barnum Biography

P.T. Barnum, often called The Greatest Showman on Earth, built a collection of curiosities into one of the worlds most successful traveling shows. However, his exhibits were often exploitative, and had a darker side. P.T. Barnum Fast Facts Full Name: Phineas Taylor BarnumBorn: July 5, 1810 in Bethel, ConnecticutDied: April 7, 1891 in Bridgeport, ConnecticutParents: Philo Barnum and Irene TaylorSpouses: Charity Hallett (m. 1829-1873) and Nancy Fish (m. 1874-1891)Children: Frances Irena, Caroline Cornelia, Helen Maria, and Pauline Taylor.Known For: Created the modern concept of the traveling circus as grand spectacle, promoted a number of hoaxes to entertain the public, and is credited with saying Theres a sucker born every minute. Early Years Born in Bethel, Connecticut, to Philo Barnum, an innkeeper, farmer, and shop owner, and his wife Irene Taylor, young Phineas Taylor Barnum was raised in a household that embraced the rigid conservative values of the Congregational church. The sixth of ten children, Barnum greatly admired his maternal grandfather, who was not only his namesake, but also a bit of a practical joker in a community that had only a few socially permissible forms of entertainment. Academically, Barnum excelled in school subjects like math, but hated the physical labor that was demanded of him on his fathers farm. He helped Philo out by working in the shop, but when his father died in 1825, teenage Barnum liquidated the family business, and went to work for a general store in a neighboring town. A few years later, at 19, Barnum married Charity Hallett, with whom he would eventually have four children. Around the same time, he began dabbling in investments in unusual speculation schemes, and was particularly interested promoting entertainment for the masses. Barnum believed that if he could only find one truly amazing thing to exhibit, he could be a success—as long as the crowd believed theyd gotten their moneys worth. Somewhere around 1835, a man walked into Barnums general store, knowing of Barnums interest in the odd and fantastic, and offered to sell him a curiosity. According to Gregg Mangan of Connecticut History, Joice Heth, an African American woman alleged to be 161 years old and former nurse to founding father George Washington, drew crowds of curious onlookers willing to pay for the chance to hear her speak and even sing. Barnum jumped at the opportunity to market her performances. P.T. Barnum got his start as a showman by purchasing a blind, nearly paralyzed, elderly African American woman for $1,000 and then working her for ten hours a day. He marketed her as the oldest woman alive, and she died less than a year later. Barnum charged spectators to view her autopsy, at which it was announced that she was no more than 80 years old. The Greatest Showman on Earth After exploiting Heth and marketing her as a curiosity, Barnum learned in 1841 that Scudder’s American Museum was for sale. Scudders, located on Broadway in New York City, housed a collection of some $50,000 worth of relics and rare curiosities, so Barnum pounced on the opportunity. He rebranded Scudders as Barnums American Museum, filled it with the oddest things he could find, and blasted the American public with his extravagant showmanship. Although he is credited with saying Theres a sucker born every minute, theres no evidence that these words came from Barnum; what he did say was the American people liked to be humbugged.† Barnums particular brand of humbuggery included marketing exotic, imported animals displayed alongside fakes. There was the so-called Feejee Mermaid, which was a monkeys head sewn onto the body of a large fish, and a giant, working replica of Niagara Falls. In addition, he created his traveling freak show, using real people as exhibits, and often creating elaborate, false backstories to make them seem more exciting to the crowds. In 1842, he met Charles Stratton, a four-year-old boy from Bridgeport, who was unusually small at just 25 tall. Barnum marketed the child to audiences as General Tom Thumb, an eleven-year-old entertainer from England. Barnums traveling spectacle gained momentum with the addition of Stratton, who was drinking wine and smoking cigars by the age of five, as well as Native American dancers, Salvadoran children who were marketed as Aztecs, and a number of people of African descent whose exhibits were rooted in racial prejudices of the time. Barnum took his show to Europe, where they played to Queen Victoria and other members of royalty. Barnum with Charles Stratton, who used the stage name Tom Thumb. Bettmann   / Getty Images In 1850, Barnum managed to convince Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale to come perform in New York. Lind, who was devout and a philanthropist, demanded her $150,000 fee in advance so she could use it to fund education programs in Sweden. Barnum went heavily into debt to pay Linds fees, but made the money back fairly early into her successful tour. Barnums promotion and marketing was so overwhelming that Lind eventually opted out of her contract, the two parted ways amicably, and both made a lot of money. The Darker Side of the Show Although Barnum is often portrayed as a delightful showman, much of his success was rooted in the exploitation of others. In addition to Stratton and Heth, Barnum profited from exhibiting a number of other individuals as human curiosities. William Henry Johnson was introduced to Barnums audiences as the man-monkey, found in the wilds of Africa. Johnson, an African American who suffered from microcephaly, was born to poor parents who were former slaves, and who allowed a local circus to display Johnson and his unusually small cranium for money. When his agent got him a role with Barnum, his fame skyrocketed. Barnum dressed him in furs and renamed him Zip the Pinhead, and billed him as the What is It? Barnum claimed Johnson as a missing link between civilized people and a naked race of men, traveling about by climbing on tree branches. A woman holds conjoined twins who were part of Barnums exhibit. Hulton Collection / Deutsch / Getty Images Annie Jones, the Bearded Lady, was another of Barnums most popular sideshows. Barnell had facial hair from the time she was an infant, and as a toddler, her parents sold her to Barnum as the Infant Esau, a reference to the Biblical figure known for an impressive beard. Jones ended up staying with Barnum for most of her life, and became one of the most successful bearded lady performers of all time. Isaac Sprague, the human skeleton, had an unusual condition in which his muscles atrophied, worked for Barnum several times through his adult life. Chang and Eng Bunker, well-known today as conjoined twins, had been circus performers earlier in their lives, and came out of retirement in North Carolina to join Barnum as a special exhibit. Prince Randian, the living torso, was brought to the U.S. by Barnum at age 18, and demonstrated amazing feats for audiences who wanted to see a man with no limbs do things like roll a cigarette or shave his own face. In addition to these types of acts, Barnum hired giants, dwarves, conjoined infants, people with extra and missing limbs, and several physically and mentally disabled individuals as exhibits for his audiences. He also regularly produced and promoted blackface minstrel shows. Legacy P.T. Barnum Monument, Bridgeport, Connecticut, circa 1962. Archive Photos / Getty Images Although Barnum built his success on promoting the freak show, which was rooted in the fears and prejudices of nineteenth century audiences, it appears that later in life he had a slight change of perspective. In the years prior to the Civil War, Barnum campaigned for public office and ran on an anti-slavery platform. He admitted to having engaged in the purchase and sale of slaves, and to having physically abused his slaves, and expressed regret for his actions. Later, he became a philanthropist, and donated a large sum of money to Tufts University for the establishment of a biology and natural history museum. Barnum died in 1891. The show hed founded had merged with James Baileys traveling circus ten years prior, forming Barnum Baileys Circus, and was eventually sold to Ringling Brothers, nearly two decades after his death. The city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, honored Barnum with a statue in his memory, and held a six-week Barnum Festival every year. Today, the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport houses over 1,200 of the curiosities that traveled around the country with Barnums show. Sources â€Å"About P.T. Barnum.†Ã‚  The Barnum Museum, barnum-museum.org/about/about-p-t-barnum/.Barnum, P. T./ Mihm, Stephen (EDT).  The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself: With Related Documents. Macmillan Higher Education, 2017.Cunningham, Sean, and Sean Cunningham. â€Å"P.T. Barnums Most Famous Freaks.†Ã‚  InsideHook, 21 Dec. 2017, www.insidehook.com/article/history/p-t-barnums-famous-freaks.Flatley, Helen. â€Å"The Darker Side of How P.T. Barnum Became ‘The Greatest Showman.’†Ã‚  The Vintage News, 6 Jan. 2019, www.thevintagenews.com/2019/01/06/greatest-showman/.Mansky, Jackie. â€Å"P.T. Barnum Isnt the Hero the ‘Greatest Showman’ Wants You to Think.†Ã‚  Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 22 Dec. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-pt-barnum-greatest-humbug-them-all-180967634/.