The Communicative Work of Biology-Journal Captions: Lessons for Technical and Professional Communication

The authors examined a corpus of figure captions from technical and professional communication (TPC)-journal articles to test their sense that TPC captions do not fulfill their communicative potential as well as, they sensed, journals in science often do. The authors performed a content analysis on captions from biology-journal articles and iteratively tested a coding scheme of caption content. The resulting scheme can help in analyzing caption content, developing captions, and imparting a variety of TPC-related skills to students.     

The effect of disgust‐eliciting visuals on attitudes toward animal experimentation

Despite its obvious intersection with classic fear‐inducing stimuli, like rotting teeth and diseased lungs, disgust as a discrete emotion has been all but ignored in the persuasion literature. This study marks an initial effort to explore the effect of disgust as the dominant emotion evoked by a persuasive appeal on attitude change. 134 college students viewed one of four versions of a two‐sided refutational video message arguing in favor of animal experimentation. Visuals in the video's counterargument section were manipulated to show more or less disgusting images of animal experimentation. Visuals in the video's rebuttal section were manipulated to show more or less emotional images defending the medical research position. Results suggest that disgust can be the most dominant emotion elicited by a persuasive message and that disgust may either enhance or inhibit attitude change, depending on the context in which the emotion is used. Further research should consider more specifically the conditions under which disgust may induce persuasion and the cognitive processes through which such effects might occur.     

二语听力理解中可视材料作用的研究进展

在对可视材料应用的理论背景及其类型进行介绍的基础上,回顾了近年来国内外二语听力理解中可视材料作用的研究成果,并指出了这些成果对多媒体环境下听力教学及测试的启示,最后针对该领域的研究现状提出了需要进一步深入探讨的问题。     

A Clearer Picture

As journalists continue integrating social media into their professional work, they wrestle with ways to best represent themselves, their organizations, and their profession. Several recent studies have examined this trend in terms of branding, raising important questions about the changing ways in which journalists present themselves and how these changes may indicate shifts in their personal and professional identities. This study combines a visual content analysis of the images journalists use in their Twitter profiles with analyses of their profile text and tweets to examine how journalists present themselves online with an eye toward individual and organizational branding. Findings indicate journalists choose a branding approach and apply it consistently across their profiles, with most profiles consisting of a professional headshot while notably lacking organizational identifiers such as logos. Journalists also tend to lean toward professional rather than personal images in their profile and header photographs, indicating a possible predilection for professional identity over personal on social media.     

Adquisición de la identidad sexual y el rol de género en los deficientes visuales

Resumen

Se realiza un comparación entre la adquisición de la identidad sexual, tipificación sexual mediante roles de género y constancia de la identidad sexual, entre niños videntes, y Deficientes Visuales (D.V., invidentes y amblíopes profundos) de 4 a 11 años. Se utilizaron datos sobre juicios de etiquetado, estabilidad, tipificación sexual y constancia y explicaciones de estos juicios como correctas, incorrectas y ambiguas.

Un método transversal fue usado con 114 niños (44 videntes, 33 invidentes y 37 impedidos visuales).

Los resultados verifican que los niños videntes adquieren la tipificación sexual y constancia antes que los Deficientes Visuales, encontrándose efectos significativos con la adquisición de la identidad sexual mediante juicios y explicaciones de diferenciación de genitales. Una fase de transición, llamada de pseudoconstancia, apareció en los D.V. entre los 6 y los 8 años     

Are males and females still portrayed stereotypically? Visual analyses of gender in two Hong Kong primary English Language textbook series†

The present study examines how gender is represented in the visuals (or illustrations) of two English Language textbook series used in most primary schools in Hong Kong. Instead of conducting frequency counts of the occurrence of male and female characters in illustrations, or the spheres of activities they engaged in as in many previous textbook studies, this study involves qualitative analyses of how visualised male and female characters are represented in the selected illustrations of the analysed textbook series, particularly but not exclusively, in terms of their hair length and clothing. The results show that representations of females were more often portrayed having long hair rather than short hair and wearing dresses rather than trousers in both line drawings and photographs. For the colour of clothing, although blue and pink are generally considered ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ colours, respectively, less than half and only a small percentage of the human males and females were portrayed wearing blue and pink, respectively. For non-human characters, again, colour is not always a reliable cue to their sex. Yet, they can be recognised as males and females by the generally accepted ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ colour and clothing items. Hence, while binary notions of gender often remained intact in their normative forms there were also other forms of representation which challenged them.     

Role of generated and provided visuals in supporting learning from scientific text

This study explored the role of learner-generated and instructor-provided visuals in learning from scientific text. 134 college students studied a lesson on the human circulatory system and then completed recall and transfer tests. Across two consecutive study periods, students were randomly assigned to either view a provided illustration twice (provided-provided), generate a drawing from the text and then revise their drawing (generated-revised), view a provided illustration and then generate a drawing (provided-generated), or generate a drawing and then view a provided illustration (generated-provided). Results indicated a group by learning outcome interaction: the generated-provided and provided-generated groups performed higher on the transfer test and lower on the recall test compared to the provided-provided group. Furthermore, spatial ability was positively associated with learning outcomes among students who generated drawings but not among students in the provided-provided group. Finally, the relationship between spatial ability and learning outcomes among students who generated drawings was mediated by drawing quality. These findings suggest that provided and generated visuals have unique effects on different learning outcomes, and spatial ability plays an important role in supporting learner-generated visuals.     

当代流行音乐中音乐因素边缘化初探

针对音乐何以"流行"、如何"流行"问题,可以通过对流行音乐与歌词(文学)、受众、视像的关系等几个角度探讨与分析,从而指出当代流行音乐的特殊性即其中音乐因素的衰退与边缘化现象,以图对当代流行文化有所劝勉.     

两种不同视觉下的现代医院护患关系的改善与维护

护患关系是医疗工作过程中最基本和最重要的一种社会关系。保证护患关系健康有序的发展,不仅对现代医院的护理工作而且对整个医疗卫生事业的发展都有着及其重大的作用。文章旨在从护理人员和患者两种不同视觉出发来探讨现代医院护患关系这一问题,并从这两种不同视觉出发,在护患双方换位思考的情况下来研究如何改善和维护现代医院护患关系。