Reading speed matters in most real-world contexts, and it is a robust and easy aspect of reading to measure. Theories of reading should account for speed.

The authors outline research strategies that may identify the possible adaptive value of a trait. But this does not solve the problem of how to decide which characteristics of living organisms require an adaptive explanation. I suggest that knowledge of the ontogenetic and phylogenetic construction of a trait facilitates the identification of features that may have been acted on by natural selection.

COVID-19 created a transformational shift in the working environment for much of the labour force, yet its impact on workers is unclear. This study uses longitudinal data to examine the wellbeing of 621 full-time workers assessed before and during the first lockdown in the United Kingdom. We employ fixed effects analyses to investigate the impact of the restrictions and mandatory homeworking on cognitive, emotional, and psychological wellbeing. Within the sample, the rate of full-time homeworking increased from 2 to 74% between (...) waves. We identify significant changes in 9 of the 15 measures assessed, with a general pattern of improvements in wellbeing during lockdown. Overall levels of stress, self-rated mental health, positive emotions and life and job satisfaction are not adversely affected by the restrictions. There is a reduction in the burnout symptoms of disengagement and exhaustion and in the frequency with which negative emotions are experienced at work. Workers feel more autonomous, closer to their co-workers, and more attached to their organisations. However, homelife satisfaction declines. These findings highlight the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic and large-scale transition to homeworking was associated with unchanged or improved worker wellbeing. This study has important implications for governments and employers regarding a global shift to homeworking. (shrink)

Niilismo, neoliberalismo e catástrofe: A subjetividade neoliberal, como estudada por Foucault, Laval e Dardot, acaba por reforçar o niilismo, que já tinha sido tão bem interpretado e conjurado por Nietzsche, ainda no século XIX. Esse aprofundamento acontece principalmente pelo viés do ressentimento, um dos afetos que está presente tanto na leitura neoliberal como nos estudos sobre o niilismo. No século XXI, a cientista política Wendy Brown atualizou essa correlação do niilismo e do ressentimento com o neoliberalismo, demonstrando que os atuais (...) grupos de extrema-direita, com receio de perderem suas posições de privilégio, decidem por, de forma ressentida, atacar segmentos da sociedade que foram historicamente ostracizados. Por sua vez, Nietzsche ainda se mantém uma boa ferramenta para estudar as agremiações extremistas ao demonstrar que o problema não é a liberação da vontade de poder desse grupos extremistas, mas que tal vontade de poder é reativa, age em chave negativa, nunca de maneira a criar novos valores afirmativos. O resultado dessa mistura de neoliberalismo e niilismo ressentido é o agravamento da catástrofe climática. Como Latour explica, a destruição do mundo, esse niilismo elevado à máxima potência, foi uma decisão deliberada de parte da elite neoliberal exatamente quando tal formato político-econômico se tornou hegemônico no Ocidente. (shrink)

Often when there is no attention to an object, there is no conscious perception of it either, leading some to conclude that conscious perception is an attentional phenomenon. There is a well-known perceptual phenomenon—visuo-spatial crowding, in which objects are too closely packed for attention to single out one of them. This article argues that there is a variant of crowding—what I call ‘‘identity-crowding’’—in which one can consciously see a thing despite failure of attention to it. This conclusion, together with new (...) evidence that attention to an object occurs in unconscious perception, suggests there may be a double dissociation between conscious perception of an object and attention to that object, constraining the extent to which consciousness can be constitutively attentional. The argument appeals to a comparison between the minimal resolution (or ‘‘grain’’) of object-attention and object-seeing. (shrink)