Positive Technology Journal

Pushing the limits of imagination: mental practice for learning sequences.

J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2007 Jan;33(1):254-61

Authors: Wohldmann EL, Healy AF, Bourne LE

In 2 experiments, the efficacy of motor imagery for learning to type number sequences was examined. Adults practiced typing 4-digit numbers. Then, during subsequent training, they either typed in the same or a different location, imagined typing, merely looked at each number, or performed an irrelevant task. Repetition priming (faster responses for old relative to new numbers) was observed on an immediate test and after a 3-month delay for participants who imagined typing. Improvement across the delay in typing old and new numbers was found for the imagined and actual typing conditions but not for the other conditions. The findings suggest that imagery can be used to acquire and retain representations of sequences and to improve general typing skill. ((c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).

 via Networked Performance

NIME 2007 CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: On behalf of the NIME07 Committee, we would like to invite you to be part of the 7th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), organized by Harvestworks and New York University's (NYU) Music Technology Program in partnership with LEMUR and the NYU InteractiveTelecommunications Program (ITP).

We encourage contributions of the following kinds: * Papers (full-length, short-length, posters) * Demos * Live Performances * Installations. Complete submission guidelines are now available at http://www.nime.org/2007.

Adolescent development of motor imagery in a visually guided pointing task.

Conscious Cogn. 2006 Dec 28;

Authors: Choudhury S, Charman T, Bird V, Blakemore SJ

The development of action representation during adolescence was investigated using a visually guided pointing motor task (VGPT) to test motor imagery. Forty adolescents (24 males; mean age 13.1 years) and 33 adults (15 males; mean age 27.5 years) were instructed to both execute and imagine hand movements from a starting point to a target of varying size. Reaction time (RT) was measured for both Execution (E) and Imagery (I) conditions. There is typically a close association between time taken to execute and image actions in adults because action execution and action simulation rely on overlapping neural circuitry. Further, representations of actions are governed by the same speed-accuracy trade-off as real actions, as expressed by Fitts' Law. In the current study, performance on the VGPT in both adolescents and adults conformed to Fitts' Law in E and I conditions. However, the strength of association between E and I significantly increased with age, reflecting a refinement in action representation between adolescence and adulthood.

Temporal classification of multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy signals of motor imagery for developing a brain-computer interface.

Neuroimage. 2006 Dec 28;

Authors: Sitaram R, Zhang H, Guan C, Thulasidas M, Hoshi Y, Ishikawa A, Shimizu K, Birbaumer N

There has been an increase in research interest for brain-computer interface (BCI) technology as an alternate mode of communication and environmental control for the disabled, such as patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brainstem stroke and spinal cord injury. Disabled patients with appropriate physical care and cognitive ability to communicate with their social environment continue to live with a reasonable quality of life over extended periods of time. Near-infrared spectroscopy is a non-invasive technique which utilizes light in the near-infrared range (700 to 1000 nm) to determine cerebral oxygenation, blood flow and metabolic status of localized regions of the brain. In this paper, we describe a study conducted to test the feasibility of using multichannel NIRS in the development of a BCI. We used a continuous wave 20-channel NIRS system over the motor cortex of 5 healthy volunteers to measure oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin changes during left-hand and right-hand motor imagery. We present results of signal analysis indicating that there exist distinct patterns of hemodynamic responses which could be utilized in a pattern classifier towards developing a BCI. We applied two different pattern recognition algorithms separately, Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Hidden Markov Model (HMM), to classify the data offline. SVM classified left-hand imagery from right-hand imagery with an average accuracy of 73% for all volunteers, while HMM performed better with an average accuracy of 89%. Our results indicate potential application of NIRS in the development of BCIs. We also discuss here future extension of our system to develop a word speller application based on a cursor control paradigm incorporating online pattern classification of single-trial NIRS data.