Hey, Did You Hear? ?Why We Don?t Listen

Why do we sometimes not register sounds and voices around us? A wife asks her husband for the third time, ?did you take the garbage out yet?? He is so glued to the big game and he still hasn?t issued a response. A kid doesn?t hear her mother tell her dinner is ready because she is fully immersed in her favorite video game. You miss part of the conversation you were having with your friends at a coffee shop because you were too busy checking for new email, comments and tweets on your smart phone for the millionth time today (that one I can relate to). What do these three scenarios have in common? Our bodies trying to balance our sensory perceptual load between vision and hearing and one of these senses ultimately falls short.

Researchers in the United Kingdom have demonstrated for the first time a phenomenon known as inattentional deafness. It seems when we are concentrated on a highly involved visual task, we block out auditory information around us that is unrelated to the task at hand. In other words, we may be involuntarily putting sounds ?on mute? while we concentrate on activities that take a great deal of our attention visually and and this can turn us into poor listeners.

Inattentional Blindness:

Now we have all probably heard of something called ?inattentional blindness? and the infamous visual awareness test that Chabris and Simons conducted back in 1999 in which one is asked to watch a video and count the number of times a basketball is passed by one of two teams. If you haven?t seen it, it was similar to the following video. Check it out!

Visual Awareness Test (by dothetest.co.uk):

In the original version of this test, also known as the ?invisible gorilla? experiment by Chabris and Simons, the mental task of counting passes had about 50% of viewers so distracted that they were visually unaware of the gorilla walking (or in this case, the bear moonwalking) right into the middle of the screen. A moonwalking bear, hello? A gorilla beating on his chest? Come on! (For the record, I missed both!)

Perhaps you have also heard about the study that came out in 2009 in which distracted cell phone users were visually unaware of a clown on a unicycle passing them as they were walking and chatting away on their phone. I mean, really. How could you not notice a clown pedaling right passed you on a unicycle!

Visual awareness has been well researched and there are many interesting studies out there on how distractions can take away from your vision. If you?d like to have a little more fun with it, I will list a couple of other videos at the end of this post. But for now let?s turn our attention towards hearing and distractions causing a decrease in our auditory awareness. What is this newly named phenomenon of inattentional deafness?

Inattentional Deafness:

In May 2011, Macdonald and Lavie set up a series of experiments putting the theory of inattentional deafness to the test. They found subjects were able to hear a beeping sound being played through headphones while they performed a visual task on the computer if the task was relatively easy but as the level of difficulty of the visual task increased, they became unaware that a sound was even there.

The setup of the experiment went like this. On the computer screen, a series of crosses were presented to participants, one by one, each for a short interval. The cross had one green arm and one blue arm and the lengths of the arms on the cross varied slightly. Each person was asked to either indicate which arm was blue or judge which arm was longer. Determining color was thought to be a very easy visual task with a low amount of perceptual load. Conversely, participants who were asked to detect the subtle difference in length of the two arms were said to have a more challenging task, requiring more visual attention and therefore having to endure a higher perceptual load.

The experiment had three parts. In the first part, experiment 1, white noise was played through the headphones and participants were told that they were to wear the headphones throughout the experiment. Researchers said the white noise would ?aid concentration by blocking out noise from people passing the testing room?[according to researchers] participants seemed to take this instruction at face value and did not seem suspicious [of the need to] block out the sound of people passing by.?

During the last cross presentation, the white noise was accompanied by a beeping sound. Participants were then stopped and asked at the end if they had heard ?anything different about the sound coming through the headphones during the last trial?? Their response was noted. Then they were asked to perform one more trial in which they were told to ignore the cross and just listen to the sound coming through the headphones to make sure each person had good enough hearing to detect the sound. If they didn?t hear it when they were actively listening for it, then they were excluded from the study and replaced.

From the results in Experiment 1, Macdonald and Lavie concluded that their hypothesis was in fact correct. At times when a higher visual load was presented (determining length of the arms of the cross), the participants were less likely to hear the task-unrelated tone sounding through their headphones.

However, they wanted to prove their point further so they did a second experiment without the white noise. They thought that maybe the presence of white noise could possibly cause subjects to actively ignore all noise during the entire experiment. By taking away the white noise from the headphones, the presence of sound (versus natural silence) should be easier to detect and therefore be more noticeable. They found that, again, when the participants had the more dauntingly visual task of detecting the subtle difference in the length of the arms on the cross, they were a lot less likely to notice the beeping sound being played through the headphones, even in the absence of all other sound. So again, if a task takes a lot of visual concentration and attention, it can cause a decrease in auditory awareness. Now you think they would stop there, but Macdonald and Lavie took it to the next level once more.

In experiment 3, they sought to eliminate the possibility that those who were on the low perceptual load team were a little aloof during the experiment and those who were on the high perceptual load team maybe were a little more motivated, engaged and attentive because of the nature of their work being a little harder. So they made it a length only discrimination task where each person was asked nothing about color, only which arm of the cross was longer. Sometimes the difference in lengths between the arms of the cross was grossly obvious, other times it was subtle. They also increased the number of trials presented. Macdonald and Lavie found that still, those with a higher perceptual load (distracted with determining a more subtle difference in arm length) heard the sound less often than those who had the easier visual task of the more grossly obvious difference in cross arm length. Their results were ?not as robust? but they were still there.

More studies need to be conducted on inattentional deafness to truly see how it affects our everyday lives. Macdonald and Lavie have concerns about inattentional deafness and driving a motor vehicle stating that if people were ?less likely to notice an auditory alarm while engaged in a high-visual-load computer task, [then] the sound of a car horn while attending to a visually loaded billboard? also might pose a problem. Safety out on the roadways is definitely a concern.

Perhaps another interesting modification to the study would be to replace the tone sounding through the headphones with a person?s voice saying a word. Maybe a bizarre word that you wouldn?t just happen to overhear in the laboratory like zebra or halloween. Would the participant be completely unaware of human speech like it was of the tone when engaged in a highly visual task?

After researching this topic, I know I will be practicing more patience when I catch someone not listening to me. It may not have been intentional. And also I pledge to put down the smartphone and have some real ?face-time? with the person sitting right across the table from me the next time I?m out for coffee. After all, they are deserving of my undivided attention. My emails, texts and tweets can wait. Unless of course I see a moon-walking bear, then all bets are off, sorry guys, I have to tweet pic that.

Additional tests of your visual awareness:

The Colour Changing Card Trick (by Richard Wiseman/Quirkology):

Test Your Awareness: Whodunnit? (by dothetest.co.uk ):

Also, check out the fun book by Chabris and Simons, The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions deceive us.

Photo Credits: Man with glasses (Matt Jeacock /istockphoto), i-distractions and Author pic (Erica Angiolillo/Gotcha! by Erica), Bear (Trine de Florie /stockxchg photo).

References:

Boss, M. Caggiano, J. Hyman, I. McKenzie, K. Wise, B. (2010) Do You See the Unicycling Clown? Inattentional Blindness While Walking and Talking on a Cell Phone. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 24:597-607.

Chabris C. and Simons, D. (2011) The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions deceive us. New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Macdonald JS and Lavie N. Visual perceptual load induces inattentional deafness. Atten Percept Psychophys. 2011 Aug; 73(6):1780-9. doi: 10.3758/s13414-011-0144-4

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Trade Commodity Finance | Selby Jennings : Recruitment for the ...

Any Spanish or Portuguese speaking candidate with experience in Trade Finance or Commodity Finance please get in touch. My client a leading Managing Director in field of Trade commodity finance is hiring immediately for one Associate of Trade Finance to join their New York team.

The Role

• Successful candidate will join the trade finance commodities team in New York and be responsible for all commodities- energy/ softs/ metals/ agriculture to clients in Latin America particularly Brazil and Mexico
• Role involves structuring and negotiating trade agreements/ credit approvals/ financings and originating, structuring and executing trade commodity finance transactions for US clients and borrowers in developing countries, particularly Latin America.
• You will learn and develop massively from working with successful senior members of the team and having a broad remit of responsibilities
• Role will involve identifying and mitigating risk associated with transactions/ working on collateral and trade receivables/ commodity pricing and hedging and also pre payment financing and warehouse financing

The Candidate

• My client has the headcount now to hire and wants the candidate on board by February/ March 2012
• Essential to speak fluent English and Spanish and or Portuguese
• Successful candidate will need experience/ exposure to the commodity sectors in Latam, and know the players and market well
• Successful candidate must be skilled in credit application and negotiation of documentation and structuring of transactions related to commodity trade transactions, ideally in the soft, metal & mining and energy sectors
• My client would consider Spanish speaking candidates with experience of trade finance/ export finance or commodity finance

Great opportunity to join a stable team with significant commitment to the trade/ commodity finance world.
If you feel you are suitable please send your CV to structuring@selbyjennings.com or call +442070194139.
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Category: Structuring Jobs

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Source: http://www.selbyjennings.com/current-vancancies/structuring-jobs/trade-commodity-finance-3/30937/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trade-commodity-finance-3

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Fotoshop by Adob

By Bora Zivkovic?| January 12, 2012 |??

Share ?Email

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Video of the Week #25, January 12th, 2012

From: The magic of filmmaking (science and otherwise) by Joanne Manaster at PsiVid

Original source: Jesse Rosten on YouTube

In The Magic of Filmmaking (science and otherwise) on PsiVid, Joanne featured clever videos featuring technology and nature by Jesse Rosten. Rosten shows us the true science of beauty in his video Fotoshop by Adob?. Great camerawork and editing capture the feel of make-up commercials in this mockery of them, because as we all know, beauty in the world of video, TV, film, and modeling these days is really all about the technology of Photoshop.

About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.

More??

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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Obama vows new ideas to bring jobs home from abroad (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama vowed on Wednesday to help bring jobs home from overseas and promised new tax proposals to reward companies that invest in America as he launched an election-year effort to show he is tackling high unemployment.

Obama's latest jobs push appeared timed to steal back the spotlight and draw a contrast with Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, whose rivals have accused him of once being a ruthless corporate raider who laid off U.S. workers and shipped jobs overseas.

Highlighting what the White House touts as a growing trend but which some economists say has yet to gather much steam, Obama put the focus on businesses that have chosen to "insource" jobs from abroad and urged others to follow their lead.

"In the next few weeks, I will put forward new tax proposals that reward companies that choose to bring jobs home and invest in America and we're going to eliminate tax breaks for companies that are moving jobs overseas," Obama told business leaders and state and local officials.

The White House declined to give specifics about the new ideas but repeated its call for Congress to enact some of those already put forth, including making a research and development tax credit permanent, allowing businesses to write off new equipment and providing a hiring credit for adding new workers.

Any new tax initiatives would require approval by Congress, where the Democratic president faces continued stiff resistance on tax policy from his Republican foes.

Obama was hosting a White House forum on "Insourcing American Jobs," a message that could resonate with middle-class voters and unionized workers whose support he will need to win re-election in November.

His push for corporate America to return more jobs to U.S. soil after years of hiring workers in lower-wage countries like China and India ties in with the increasingly populist theme of his re-election campaign.

Obama's new effort came just a day after Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, won New Hampshire's Republican presidential primary election.

Before seeking public office, Romney headed investment firm Bain Capital that took over distressed companies and sometimes outsourced production to China and other emerging markets. He says his business experience will help him revive the U.S. economy.

At the White House, Obama pressed companies to invest and hire more in the United States instead of moving jobs overseas, saying "labor costs are going up in places like China" while U.S. workers are becoming more productive.

Leaving little doubt that election politics were in play, Obama said he wanted the next generation of manufacturing jobs to "take root in places like Michigan and Ohio and Virginia and North Carolina." All four are key election battlegrounds.

CARROT-AND-STICK APPROACH?

Lobbyists and congressional aides said Obama is likely to revive many of his earlier international tax proposals and also propose tighter limits on the ability of corporations to avoid taxes by parking profits in low-tax countries.

"I'd envision some type of carrot-and-stick approach that offers tax incentives to firms that keep jobs here while penalizing firms that outsource," said Greg Valliere, an analyst at the Potomac Research Group.

For several years, Obama has proposed closing what he calls tax loopholes used by multinational firms, including those restricting the use of foreign tax credits, and preventing companies from deferring taxes on income earned abroad.

The administration had been drafting revisions to just the corporate side of the tax code but largely abandoned the effort over the past year after complaints that the tax code needs a massive overhaul and that many businesses file as individuals.

Executives from more than a dozen firms attended the meeting, including Ford Motor Co, computer chipmaker Intel, chemicals giant DuPont and padlock maker Master Lock plus U.S. subsidiaries of technology giant Siemens, engine maker Rolls-Royce and steel maker ThyssenKrupp.

"Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to the country that made our success possible," Obama said. "And I'm going to do everything in my power to help you do it. We're going to have to seize this moment."

But those companies are credited so far with bringing back only modest numbers of jobs from overseas as the U.S. economy still struggles to heal after the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

While rising costs in emerging markets have prompted some U.S. firms to rethink their outsourcing strategy, questions remain whether it will become enough of a trend to start reversing decades of shipping U.S. jobs overseas.

"You don't see a lot of evidence of it happening in a big way just yet," said Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist for the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington.

He said a key obstacle was a lack of data comparing competitive advantages and disadvantages of operating in the United States versus foreign markets and he urged Obama to order the Labor Department to conduct studies to fill the gap.

The issue resonates strongly in Midwest industrial states such as Ohio and Michigan that have been hit hard by the 2007-2009 economic crisis and by years of shrinkage in manufacturing jobs.

Republicans vying to challenge Obama in November's election have hammered him over his economic stewardship, contending that his regulatory policies - including new rules for the financial sector and the overhaul of the healthcare system - have discouraged investment and hampered job creation.

(Additional reporting By Kevin Drawbaugh and Kim Dixon; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120111/pl_nm/us_obama_business_taxes

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US will have world?s strongest military despite cuts, says Panetta

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta answers a question during CBS?s ?Face the Nation? programme in Washington on January 6, 2012 in this handout picture released to Reuters on January 8, 2012.? Reuters pic

WASHINGTON, Jan 9 ? Defence Secretary Leon Panetta cautioned global rivals yesterday not to misjudge US plans to slash military spending over the next decade, saying America would still field the world?s strongest military and nobody should ?mess with that.?

Panetta, speaking on CBS?s ?Face the Nation,? also reiterated the tough US stance toward Iran?s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is vital for oil shipping in the Gulf, saying the United States would not ?tolerate? it.

?That?s another red line for us and ... we will respond to them,? he said.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ?Face the Nation? Iran had been investing in the weapons they would need to close the strait but the United States had been working to ?ensure if that happens, we can defeat that.?

?The simple answer is, ?Yes, they can block it,?? he said. ?But we would take action and reopen the strait.?

Asked whether it would be difficult to take out Iran?s nuclear capability, Dempsey said it was his job to plan and understand the risks associated with any military option and ?all those activities are going on.?

Pressed on whether the United States could take out Iran?s nuclear sites without using nuclear weapons, Dempsey would only say: ?I absolutely want them to believe that that?s the case.?

?They need to know that ... if they take that step, they are going to get stopped,? Panetta added.

The United States is concerned that Iran?s nuclear programme is aimed at producing a weapon, but Tehran insists it is for peaceful energy production.

The tough talk comes days after President Barack Obama unveiled a new military strategy that calls for a smaller force as the United States cuts US$487 billion (RM1.538 trillion) in projected defence spending over the next decade in an effort to deal with the nation?s US$14 trillion debt.

The new strategy, which is meant to identify spending priorities as the military cuts back, calls for greater emphasis on Asia even as the Army and Marines shrink to become smaller and more agile forces.

Not ?military in decline? ? Dempsey

Dempsey said he worried that some countries might misunderstand the debate Americans are having over changing strategy and the need to cut defence spending.

?There may be some around the world who see us as a nation in decline, and worse, as a military in decline. And nothing could be further from the truth,? Dempsey said.

He said such a miscalculation could be ?troublesome? in dealing with countries like Iran or North Korea. Panetta said US rivals should not misunderstand the situation.

?I think the message that the world needs to understand is: America is the strongest military power and we intend to remain the strongest military power and nobody ought to mess with that,? he said.

Obama and Congress agreed in August to cut some US$487 billion in defence spending over the next decade. As part of the August deal, defense spending could be cut by another US$600 billion unless Congress compromises on an alternative.

Congress missed a deadline for reaching a compromise that could have stopped the new defence cuts, but it could still take action to override the spending reductions before they are due to go into force next year.

Obama, in unveiling the new defense strategy at a Pentagon news conference on Thursday, noted that even with the US$487 trillion in cuts to projected spending, the defence budget would continue to grow in nominal terms.

He also said the US defence budget would still be by far the world?s largest ? roughly the size of the 10 next-biggest defence budgets combined.

If the second round of defence cuts takes place, the Pentagon?s base budget would fall to roughly US$472 billion in fiscal 2013 ? about the level of fiscal 2007 in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to an analysis by Todd Harrison of the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

That represents a real cut of about 11 per cent. It would remain at roughly the same level for about eight years, growing only at about the pace of inflation, Harrison?s analysis said.

Panetta told National Public Radio yesterday the Pentagon was not ready for cuts of that magnitude.

?If we had to do over a trillion dollars in cuts in this department, I have to tell you that the strategy that we developed, we?d probably have to throw that out the window and start over,? he said.

Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod downplayed the likelihood that the second round of cuts would actually occur, telling ABC?s ?This Week? programme, ?We expect we?re going to deal with that ... during the course of this year.? ? Reuters

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Fox News: 'Muppets' Trying To Brainwash Your Children!

This may come as a bit of a shock, but it's only right for you to know that you've been "indoctrinated" by the Muppets. Yes, as much as Jim Henson's crew of cuddly misfits might have appeared to want nothing more than to teach children how to count on "Sesame Street" or to make them [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/12/06/muppets-fox-news/

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Pfizer cancer drug effect may be limited: FDA staff (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Slower tumor growth in kidney cancer patients taking Pfizer Inc's experimental drug, Inlyta, in a clinical trial was driven by a subset of patients who are rare in the United States, U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers said.

In review documents released on Monday ahead of an expert advisory panel meeting on the drug, FDA staff expressed concern the Pfizer medicine appeared to work better in patients previously treated by cytokines that are rarely used in the United States, potentially limiting its appeal in the world's largest market.

U.S. kidney cancer patients are far more likely to be given Pfizer's Sutent as an initial treatment option rather than cytokines.

The FDA documents found the safety profile of Inlyta, clinically known as axitinib, to be similar to rival drugs. However, interim analysis of Pfizer's pivotal trial showed more overall deaths and more deaths related to treatment in patients who received Inlyta compared with those who took Nexavar, which is sold by Bayer AG and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Inlyta, which inhibits certain receptors that can influence tumor growth and progression of cancer, is one of several new drugs Pfizer is banking on to help replace lost revenue from its top-selling cholesterol fighter, Lipitor, which began facing generic competition last week.

FDA staff said Pfizer's kidney cancer drug showed the same degree of liver enzyme elevation and potential for liver failure as some other drugs in its class, but had lower rates of skin related side effects and anemia than Nexavar.

About 61,000 Americans will be diagnosed with kidney cancer this year and one in five of them are expected to die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. Most often, this cancer occurs in people over 55 years old.

The drug is awaiting an approval decision in Europe for use in patients who failed to be helped by prior treatment.

In November 2010, Pfizer released results of a study showing axitinib significantly delayed the time before the disease progressed compared with Nexavar in previously treated patients with advanced kidney cancer.

The trial also found the Pfizer drug delayed progression of the disease by some 5.6 months in patients previously treated with cytokines, but only by 1.4 months in those initially treated with Sutent, known chemically as sunitinib.

A panel of FDA advisers will consider whether the discrepancy affects Inlyta's risk-benefit ratio.

The drug is also being tested in another late-stage trial for kidney cancer as both an initial treatment option and in previously treated patients. It is also being tested as a treatment for liver cancer.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/meds/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/hl_nm/us_pfizer_cancer

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