Positive Technology Journal

Stroke. 2006 Jun 1;

Authors: Sharma N, Pomeroy VM, Baron JC

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Understanding brain plasticity after stroke is important in developing rehabilitation strategies. Active movement therapies show considerable promise but depend on motor performance, excluding many otherwise eligible patients. Motor imagery is widely used in sport to improve performance, which raises the possibility of applying it both as a rehabilitation method and to access the motor network independently of recovery. Specifically, whether the primary motor cortex (M1), considered a prime target of poststroke rehabilitation, is involved in motor imagery is unresolved. Summary of Review--We review methodological considerations when applying motor imagery to healthy subjects and in patients with stroke, which may disrupt the motor imagery network. We then review firstly the motor imagery training literature focusing on upper-limb recovery, and secondly the functional imaging literature in healthy subjects and in patients with stroke. CONCLUSIONS: The review highlights the difficulty in addressing cognitive screening and compliance in motor imagery studies, particularly with regards to patients with stroke. Despite this, the literature suggests the encouraging effect of motor imagery training on motor recovery after stroke. Based on the available literature in healthy volunteers, robust activation of the nonprimary motor structures, but only weak and inconsistent activation of M1, occurs during motor imagery. In patients with stroke, the cortical activation patterns are essentially unexplored as is the underlying mechanism of motor imagery training. Provided appropriate methodology is implemented, motor imagery may provide a valuable tool to access the motor network and improve outcome after stroke.

Re-blogged from Prototype/Interaction Design Cluster 

emosive (formerly e:sense) is a new service for mobile devices which allows capturing, storing and sharing of fleeting emotional experiences. Based on the Cognitive Priming theory, as we become more immersed in digital media through our mobile devices, our personal media inventories constantly act as memory aids, “priming” us to better recollect associative, personal (episodic) memories when facing an external stimulus. Being mobile and in a dynamic environment, these recollections are moving, both emotionally and quickly away from us. Counting on the fact that near-today’s personal media inventories will be accessed from mobile devices and shared with a close collective, emosive bundles text, sound and image animation to allow capturing these fleeting emotional experiences, then sharing and reliving them with cared others. Playfully stemming from the technical, thin jargon of the mobile world (SMS, MMS), emosive proposes a new, light format of instant messages, dubbed “IFM” – Instant Feeling Messages.
 

Click to go directly to an emosive demo

Digital Chameleons: Automatic Assimilation of Nonverbal Gestures in Immersive Virtual Environments

Jeremy N. Bailenson and Nick Yee

Psychological Science, 16 (10)

Previous research demonstrated social influence resulting from mimicry (the chameleon effect); a confederate who mimicked participants was more highly regarded than a confederate who did not, despite the fact that participants did not explicitly notice the mimicry. In the current study, participants interacted with an embodied artificial intelligence agent in immersive virtual reality. The agent either mimicked a participant’s head movements at a 4-s delay or utilized prerecorded movements of another participant as it verbally presented an argument. Mimicking agents were more persuasive and received more positive trait ratings than nonmimickers, despite participants’ inability to explicitly detect the mimicry. These data are uniquely powerful because they demonstrate the ability to use automatic, indiscriminate mimicking (i.e., a computer algorithm blindly applied to allmovements) to gain social influence. Furthermore, this is the first study to demonstrate social influence effects with a nonhuman, nonverbal mimicker.

Download the full paper here 

Re-blogged from Networked Performance 

Interface and Society: Deadline call for works: July 1 - see call; Public Private Interface workshop: June 10-13; Mobile troops workshop: September 13-16; Conference: November 10-11 2006; Exhibition opening and performance: November 10, 2006.

In our everyday life we constantly have to cope more or less successfully with interfaces. We use the mobile phone, the mp3 player, and our laptop, in order to gain access to the digital part of our life. In recent years this situation has lead to the creation of new interdisciplinary subjects like "Interaction Design" or "Physical Computing".

We live between two worlds, our physical environment and the digital space. Technology and its digital space are our second nature and the interfaces are our points of access to this technosphere.

Since artists started working with technology they have been developing interfaces and modes of interaction. The interface itself became an artistic thematic.

The project INTERFACE and SOCIETY investigates how artists deal with the transformation of our everyday life through technical interfaces. With the rapid technological development a thoroughly critique of the interface towards society is necessary.

The role of the artist is thereby crucial. S/he has the freedom to deal with technologies and interfaces beyond functionality and usability. The project INTERFACE and SOCIETY is looking at this development with a special focus on the artistic contribution.

INTERFACE and SOCIETY is an umbrella for a range of activities throughout 2006 at Ateleir Nord in Oslo.