Positive Technology Journal

Via Omni Brain

According to this press release, psychologists at Iowa State have done the first study on violence desensitization from video games.

From the press release:

Ames, Iowa -- Research led by a pair of Iowa State University psychologists has proven for the first time that exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence.

Nicholas Carnagey, an Iowa State psychology instructor and research assistant, and ISU Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson collaborated on the study with Brad Bushman, a former Iowa State psychology professor now at the University of Michigan and Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

They authored a paper titled "The Effects of Video Game Violence on Physiological Desensitization to Real-Life Violence," which was published in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, a professional journal. In this paper, the authors define desensitization to violence as "a reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence."

Their paper reports that past research -- including their own studies -- documents that exposure to violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal and aggressive behaviors, and decreases helpful behaviors. Previous studies also found that more than 85 percent of video games contain some violence, and approximately half of video games include serious violent actions.

Their latest study tested 257 college students (124 men and 133 women) individually. After taking baseline physiological measurements on heart rate and galvanic skin response -- and asking questions to control for their preference for violent video games and general aggression -- participants then played one of eight randomly assigned violent or non-violent video games for 20 minutes. The four violent video games were Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, Mortal Kombat or Future Cop; the non-violent games were Glider Pro, 3D Pinball, 3D Munch Man and Tetra Madness.

After playing a video game, a second set of five-minute heart rate and skin response measurements were taken. Participants were then asked to watch a 10-minute videotape of actual violent episodes taken from TV programs and commercially-released films in the following four contexts: courtroom outbursts, police confrontations, shootings and prison fights. Heart rate and skin response were monitored throughout the viewing.

When viewing real violence, participants who had played a violent video game experienced skin response measurements significantly lower than those who had played a non-violent video game. The participants in the violent video game group also had lower heart rates while viewing the real-life violence compared to the nonviolent video game group.

"The results demonstrate that playing violent video games, even for just 20 minutes, can cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence," said Carnagey. "Participants randomly assigned to play a violent video game had relatively lower heart rates and galvanic skin responses while watching footage of people being beaten, stabbed and shot than did those randomly assigned to play nonviolent video games.

See also a critique to this article by Ed Castronova, a "synthetic worlds" researcher.

Via Mind Hacks 

A team of three Italian researchers (Emanuele Olivetti, Diego Sona, and Sriharsha Veeramachaneni) won $10000 in a brain-activity interpretation competition. Entrants were provided with the fMRI data and behavioural reports recorded when four people watched two movies. The competitors' task was to create an algorithm that could use the viewers ongoing brain activity to predict what they were thinking and feeling as the film unfolded.

The Italian team resulted to be the most accurate, with a correlation of .86 for basic features, such as whether an instant of the film contained music. The full results are here.

Via Medgadget

According to estimates by University of Pennsylvania researchers, information transmission of the human retina is as fast as a regular Ethernet connection:

Read the press release

Via Emerging Technology Trends

Adrian White, Analytic Social Psychologist at the University of Leicester has developed the first ever World Map of Happiness. He analysed data published by several organizations, including UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, and the WHO, to create a global projection of subjective well-being.

Below is a small version of this map (source: Emerging Technology Trends). On this map, red indicates a high level of happiness.

A Flash version of this map is available here.

Via Emerging Technology Trends
 

 

This new fingertip-mounted device uses miniature thin-film force sensors, a tri-axial accelerometer, and a motion tracker. A real-time, network-based, multi-rate data-acquisition system was developed using LabVIEW virtual instrumentation technology. Biomechanical models based on human-subject studies were applied to the sensing algorithm. A new 2D touch-based painting application (Touch Painter) was developed with a new portable, touch-based projection system (Touch Canvas). Also, a new 3D object-digitizing application (Tactile Tracer) was developed to determine object properties by dynamic tactile activities, such as rubbing, palpation, tapping, and nail-scratching.