Positive Technology Journal

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Virtual reality exposure therapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder following September 11, 2001.

J Clin Psychiatry. 2007 Nov;68(11):1639-47

Authors: Difede J, Cukor J, Jayasinghe N, Patt I, Jedel S, Spielman L, Giosan C, Hoffman HG

OBJECTIVE: This preliminary study endeavored to evaluate the use of virtual reality (VR) enhanced exposure therapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) consequent to the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001. METHOD: Participants were assigned to a VR treatment (N = 13) or a waitlist control (N = 8) group and were mostly middle-aged, male disaster workers. All participants were diagnosed with PTSD according to DSM-IV-TR criteria using the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS). The study was conducted between February 2002 and August 2005 in offices located in outpatient buildings of a hospital campus. RESULTS: Analysis of variance showed a significant interaction of time by group (p < .01) on CAPS scores, with a between-groups posttreatment effect size of 1.54. The VR group showed a significant decline in CAPS scores compared with the waitlist group (p < .01). CONCLUSIONS: Our preliminary data suggest that VR is an effective treatment tool for enhancing exposure therapy for both civilians and disaster workers with PTSD and may be especially useful for those patients who cannot engage in imaginal exposure therapy.

Self-initiation of EEG-based brain-computer communication using the heart rate response.

J Neural Eng. 2007 Dec;4(4):L23-9

Authors: Scherer R, Müller-Putz GR, Pfurtscheller G

Self-initiation, that is the ability of a brain-computer interface (BCI) user to autonomously switch on and off the system, is a very important issue. In this work we analyze whether the respiratory heart rate response, induced by brisk inspiration, can be used as an additional communication channel. After only 20 min of feedback training, ten healthy subjects were able to self-initiate and operate a 4-class steady-state visual evoked potential-based (SSVEP) BCI by using one bipolar ECG and one bipolar EEG channel only. Threshold detection was used to measure a beat-to-beat heart rate increase. Despite this simple method, during a 30 min evaluation period on average only 2.9 non-intentional switches (heart rate changes) were detected.

Via Engadget

Vodafone InsideOut service allows interaction between characters in the vast virtual world Second Life and real, actual phones (you know, like in the real world) operated by Voda. Both voice calls and text messages can be ferried in and out of the game, with SMSes running a cool L$300 (which we think is somewhere around $1) and voice calls running L$300 per minute. Calls and messages placed to Second Life, though, are billed at the same rate as they would be to a traditional German phone (it seems Voda’s pool of InsideOut numbers are based in of Deutschland at the moment). Through the end of November, InsideOut’s still operating in a beta mode so it’s all free to try out, but keep in mind that Voda’s customer support won’t be able to bail you out — cue Matrix reference — if you’re having trouble getting to a hardline.

Via Networked Performance 

Locative Media Art: Towards New Types of “Hybrid” Places for Communicating Meaning - A moderated discussion on YASMIN beginning on December 3, 2007: with Dimitris Charitos , Martin Rieser and Yanna Vogiazou.

The convergence of new mobile telecommunication networks along with geographical positioning systems and interactive graphical interfaces on mobile devices, are beginning to extend the potential of media technologies for supporting communication among mobile individuals. The aforementioned technologies allow groups of people to interact with each other, while being aware of each other’s location at all times. By introducing context awareness and by supporting multi-user communication, these ICT systems alter the patterns of information flow as well as the situation within which communication takes place, thus bringing to light new spatial structures where social interaction will occur and novel forms of cultural practices will emerge.

With: Roy Ascott, Mike Philips, Derrick de Kerckhove, Michael Punt, Laura Beloff, Elif Ayter, Isabelle Choiniere, Nicolas Reeves, Natasha Vita-More, Wolfgang Fiel, Semi Ryu, Francesco Monico, Pierluigi Capucci, Tommaso Tozzi, Massimo Cittadini, Stefano Sansavini, Domenico Quaranta, and Franco “Bifo” Berardi.

Topics-Themes: Media Art, Syncreticism, Technoetic, Moist Media, Phenomenology, Media Studies, Psychotechnologies, Transmodalities, Interactive Media Design, Virtual Reality, Enhanced Reality, Freud and Dream Science, Radical Thought, Semilife, Cultural Studies, Cognitive Architectures and Consciousness, Enteogenesis …

Now more than ever artists work through cultural interfaces, the ways and means, turning to evocations of both science and mythology, technology and tradition. The legacy of postmodernism has transformed itself in this “technoetic” variation. Today man is molded by hyperlinks, processors and networks and by bio and wet methodologies. Our senses are redefined, or rather, re-oriented from a collision with emerging realities, generated by new models of our world and of our subjectivity.

New art is linked to means that introduce it to a new praxis of production that is instantly pragmatic and philosophical. It (What? Art or the praxis?) generates interactivity and the transformation of common sense, both socially and aesthetically, while reflecting on the changing nature of perception, of connectivity and of conscience.

The man is not more into the center of the realm.

Works produced, both concretely and mentally, are made of a stratum of conscious associations, of unconscious sensitivity, of historic scientific data, of multiform unity and gripping discourse, fully interwoven in new telematic environments. These environments can be digital or natural and biological, furnishing us with new experiences and original creative visions.

Via Networked Performance

Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality by Edward Castronova -Virtual worlds have exploded out of online game culture and now capture the attention of millions of ordinary people: husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, workers, retirees. Devoting dozens of hours each week to massively multiplayer virtual reality environments (like World of Warcraft and Second Life), these millions are the start of an exodus into the refuge of fantasy, where they experience life under a new social, political, and economic order built around fun. Given the choice between a fantasy world and the real world, how many of us would choose reality? Exodus to the Virtual World explains the growing migration into virtual reality, and how it will change the way we live–both in fantasy worlds and in the real one.

Re-blogged from Medgadget

Parents with diabetic kids know how difficult it often is to convince the young ones to take regular glucose readings. Now a Minnesota company called Guidance Interactive Healthcare managed to fuse a portable glucometer with a Nintendo Game Boy Advance videogame cartridge. The idea is that the hybrid cartridge is preloaded with a number of games, and kids have to submit themselves to regular readings in order to unlock games and get points that can then be used in the games to get to higher levels.

Currently only available in Australia, the device should prove a hit with the parents, while the kids might be wondering why they got a locked down game cartridge that feeds on human blood for Christmas.

 

Glucoboy product page...

The emergence of motor imagery in children.

J Exp Child Psychol. 2007 Nov 28;

Authors: Molina M, Tijus C, Jouen F