Beyond new public management: Empowering community-based organisations.

AIMS: To describe how new public management practices, a global public service management trend, and a provincial community of practice, a group of people who learn from each other by interacting on an ongoing basis, affected a group of 240 community-based organisations. METHODS: We conducted a holistic single case study of 240 grassroots, community-based organisations called Family Resource Centres in the province of Québec, Canada. Data was collected from 36 research interviews, 6 years of participant observation, institutional documents and a research journal, and analysed qualitatively. RESULTS: New public management practices foster social injustice and endanger the integrity of the community-based organisations, whereas the provincial community of practice empowered them to fight back deleterious new public management practices and reclaim their identity. CONCLUSION: A provincial community of practice allowed 240 independent community-based organisations in Québec, Canada to become empowered on a macro level while remaining faithful to their small scale community orientation. We hope this model can serve as an example of alternatives to current (new public) management practices.

How do infants recognize joint attention?

The emergence of joint attention is still a matter of vigorous debate. It involves diverse hypotheses ranging from innate modules dedicated to intention reading to more neuro-constructivist approaches. The aim of this study was to assess whether 12-month-old infants are able to recognize a "joint attention" situation when observing such a social interaction. Using a violation-of-expectation paradigm, we habituated infants to a "joint attention" video and then compared their looking time durations between "divergent attention" videos and "joint attention" ones using a 2 (familiar or novel perceptual component)×2 (familiar or novel conceptual component) factorial design. These results were enriched with measures of pupil dilation, which are considered to be reliable measures of cognitive load. Infants looked longer at test events that involved novel speaker and divergent attention but no changes in infants' pupil dilation were observed in any conditions. Although looking time data suggest that infants may appreciate discrepancies from expectations related to joint attention behavior, in the absence of clear evidence from pupillometry, the results show no demonstration of understanding of joint attention, even at a tacit level. Our results suggest that infants may be sensitive to relevant perceptual variables in joint attention situations, which would help scaffold social cognitive development. This study supports a gradual, learning interpretation of how infants come to recognize, understand, and participate in joint attention.

Pupil diameter measurement errors as a function of gaze direction in corneal reflection eyetrackers.

Pupil dilation is a useful, noninvasive technique for measuring the change in cognitive load. Since it is implicit and nonverbal, it is particularly useful with preverbal or nonverbal participants. In cognitive psychology, pupil dilation is most often measured by corneal reflection eye-tracking devices. The present study investigates the effect of gaze position on pupil size estimation by three common eye-tracking systems. The task consisted of a simple object pursuit situation, as a sphere rotated around the display screen. Systematic errors of pupil size estimation were found with all three systems. Implications for task-elicited pupillometry, especially for gaze-contingent studies such as object tracking or reading, are discussed.