Positive Technology Journal

Percept Mot Skills. 2005 Aug;101(1):203-11

Authors: Brouziyne M, Molinaro C

Recent research on motor skills of golf have pointed to the usefulness of mental imagery. In golf, such training is rarely used as a teaching technique for beginners on the grounds that only top professionals stand to gain from mental imagery. This study tested whether mental imagery combined with physical practice can improve golf performance for the approach shot. 23 volunteer beginners, 8 women and 15 men, M age 23.4 yr. (SD = 3.7), enrolled in the University Physical and Sporting Activities Department, were divided into three groups, using a combination of physical practice of the approach shot plus mental imagery, physical practice only, and a third group engaging in various sporting activities instead of either mental or physical practice of the chip shot. Analysis showed that the beginners' approach shot performance improved most in the group combining physical practice and mental imagery when compared with the group just physically practising the approach shot. It seems mental training can be used effectively to improve performance even with beginners.

Ann Behav Med. 2005;30(3):268-278

Authors: Wismeijer AA, Vingerhoets AJ

Background: This review focuses on the application of technologically advanced methods of audiovisual distraction as adjunct analgesic techniques; more specifically, (a) virtual reality (VR) and (b) audiovisual (A/V) eyeglass systems (A/V distraction). Purpose: It is assumed that distraction taxes the patient's limited attention capacity, resulting in the withdrawal of attention from the noxious stimulus with a subsequent reduction in pain. Methods: Twenty studies evaluating the analgesic potential of both methods in different patient groups and in healthy volunteers were identified in the scientific literature. Results: Although the majority of these studies are hampered by serious methodological drawbacks, particularly a small number of participants, the results nevertheless strongly suggest that both VR and A/V distraction can be a very promising analgesic technique that may be used safely and effectively for the reduction of pain and discomfort during medical procedures. An additional important aspect is that few negative side effects have been reported. Conclusions: Directions for future research are presented.

Neuroscience. 2005 Dec 7;

Authors: Gentili R, Papaxanthis C, Pozzo T

This study compares the improvement and generalization of arm motor performance after physical or mental training in a motor task requiring a speed-accuracy tradeoff. During the pre- and post-training sessions, 40 subjects pointed with their right arm as accurately and as fast as possible toward targets placed in the frontal plane. Arm movements were performed in two different workspaces called right and left paths. During the training sessions, which included only the right path, subjects were divided into four training groups (n=10): (i) the physical group, subjects overtly performed the task; (ii) the mental group, subjects imagined themselves performing the task; (iii) the active control group, subjects performed eye movements through the targets, (iv) the passive control group, subjects did not receive any specific training. We recorded movement duration, peak acceleration and electromyographic signals from arm muscles. Our findings showed that after both physical and mental training on the right path (training path), hand movement duration and peak acceleration respectively decreased and increased for this path. However, motor performance improvement was greater after physical compared with mental practice. Interestingly, we also observed a partial learning generalization, namely an enhancement of motor performance for the left path (non-training path). The amount of this generalization was roughly similar for the physical and mental groups. Furthermore, while arm muscle activity progressively increased during the training period for the physical group, the activity of the same muscles for the mental group was unchanged and comparable with that of the rest condition. Control groups did not exhibit any improvement. These findings put forward the idea that mental training facilitates motor learning and allows its partial transfer to nearby workspaces. They further suggest that motor prediction, a common process during both actual and imagined movements, is a fundamental operation for both sensorimotor control and learning.

A paper published on Proceedings of National Academy of Science describes results of an experiment, in which virtual reality is used in combination with fMRI to teach subjects to control pain perception. A display inside the fMRImachine depicted a flame whose intensity reflected the activity of participants rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), a brain region that is known to be involved in pain perception. Results showed that the better participants controlled their rACC activity, the better they controlled their pain. By contrast, participants included in a control group without fMRI feedback, failed to control their pain.

Read the full article in PDF format

Ann Behav Med. 2005;30(3):268-278

Authors: Wismeijer AA, Vingerhoets AJ

Via Pasta and Vinegar

CRAFT - School of Computer and Communication Sciences is looking for a PhD student. Here is the announcement:

PROJECT
Group mirrors provide users with a reflection of their collaborative processes. The noise sensitive table is an example of interactive furniture based on the concept of group mirror (http://craftsrv1.epfl.ch/research/interactivetable/). Its matrix of LED, embedded in the physical table, provides users with a representation of their social interactions. The table namely reflects turn-taking patterns when students work collaboratively. The peripheral perception of this feedback allows them reflecting on the group verbal interaction or on individual contributions and, finally, deepening learning and regulating their collaboration. The first prototype of the noise sensitive table showed the interest of the concept. Continuing this project now requires improving the software detecting speech configuration and develop adequate visual grammars for the feed-back. This project overlaps the domains of roomware and computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL).

POSITION
A PhD position, for 3 years is offered. The gross salary is approx. 3600 Swiss Francs per month. The PhD candidate will participate into a doctoral program at EPFL (12 credits).

PROFILE
The candidate will join the EPFL doctoral program in computer science. He must have a strong background in computers science and interest for research in collaborative activity, roomware or human-computer interaction. Knowledge in signal processing would also be appreciated. Working language is English.

FUNDING
This project in funded by an internal source for three years.

START
Spring 06 (as soon as possible)

Via Usability News

Deadline: 10 January 2006
Source: UN, 7 December 2005

The 1st International Workshop on Physicality will take place in Lancaster on 6-7 February 2006.

This multidisciplinary workshop will bring together researchers who are interested in the way that physicality of digital artefacts influences their use, or in the way that digitality informs our understanding of the physical. Through invited talks, short research presentations, and group discussion we will discuss views on the fundamental nature of physicality and how this relates to design in areas such as ubiquitous and tangible computing, virtual reality and digital arts.

submission deadline for position papers: 10th January 2006.

Cyberpsychol Behav. 2005 Dec;8(6):532-537

Authors: Walshe D, Lewis E, O'sullivan K, Kim SI

There is a small but growing body of research supporting the effectiveness of computergenerated environments in exposure therapy for driving phobia. However, research also suggests that difficulties can readily arise whereby patients do not immerse in simulated driving scenes. The simulated driving environments are not "real enough" to undertake exposure therapy. This sets a limitation to the use of virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy as a treatment modality for driving phobia. The aim of this study was to investigate if a clinically acceptable immersion/presence rate of >80% could be achieved for driving phobia subjects in computer generated environments by modifying external factors in the driving environment. Eleven patients referred from the Accident and Emergency Department of a general hospital or from their General Practitioner following a motor vehicle accident, who met DSM-IV criteria for Specific Phobia-driving were exposed to a computer-generated driving environment using computer driving games (London Racer/Midtown Madness). In an attempt to make the driving environments "real enough," external factors were modified by (a) projection of images onto a large screen, (b) viewing the scene through a windscreen, (c) using car seats for both driver and passenger, and (d) increasing vibration sense through use of more powerful subwoofers. Patients undertook a trial session involving driving through computer environments with graded risk of an accident. "Immersion/presence" was operationally defined as a subjective rating by the subject that the environment "feels real," together with an increase in subjective units of distress (SUD) ratings of >3 and/or an increase of heart rate of >15 beats per minute (BPM). Ten of 11 (91%) of the driving phobic subjects met the criteria for immersion/presence in the driving environment enabling progression to VR exposure therapy. These provisional findings suggest that the paradigm adopted in this study might be an effective and relatively inexpensive means of developing driving environments "real enough," to make VR exposure therapy a viable treatment modality for driving phobia following a motor vehicle accident (MVA).

Via VRPSYCH

Applications are invited for the following PhD student position at the Human-Technology Interaction group, Dept of Technology Management of the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.

PhD student (full-time, 4 years) "Contextual and situational cues for situated social awareness in mediated social interaction"

Project description:

As social presence, communication efficacy and situated group awareness depend heavily on the availability of communication history, contextual information and social-emotional cues, communication can be enriched by making available such implicit communication data. To date, this kind of information has not been made explicitly available in social interaction.

Mixed reality technology and future mobile technologies and services map uniquely onto this problem space. Meaningful contextual and situational communication cues can be indexed and instantly be fed back into the communication process. The unique synergy of media technology and social and environmental psychology in the the present project will enhance our understanding of human communication, providing excellent opportunities for improving existing and future communication technologies as well as the task-related and socio-emotional outcomes of mediated communication.

In the project, the PhD student will work to identify the salience of contextual and situational information in mediated and media-assisted communication and to test the effects of making such information explicitly available to communicating parties, both at the individual and group level. After developing a coherent theoretical framework regarding the fundamental role of contextual information in social interaction, he/she will create laboratory tools for basic research into the effects of contextual cues and perform basic research into patterns of mediated and non-mediated communication within social groups, and how to translate these into meaningful synthesized and integrated indicators to enhance and enrich situated group awareness and social interaction.

The PhD student will contribute to project deliverables, and is expected to publish at conferences and in scientific journals. After 4 years a thesis must be written and a PhD degree should be obtained.

This PhD project is part of the European Union IST-FET Integrated Project 'PASION' - Psychologically Augmented Social Interaction Over Networks.

Requirements:

Given the multi-disciplinary character of this project, we are looking for an individual with multiple talents and skills. The candidate should hold a recent MSc in a technical domain (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Human-Technology Interaction) and have demonstrable expertise and interest in social sciences and psychological research methodology. Or the candidate should hold a MSc/MA in psychology or communication research, with demonstrable expertise in (mobile) communication technology. Computer programming skills, experience in conducting experimental or survey research, as well as skills in statistics and methodology are highly desirable.

The successful candidate is able to demonstrate a strong interest in multi-disciplinary research, is creative, has excellent verbal as well as written communication skills, and works well in teams.

We offer:

* a full-time temporary appointment for a period of 4 years, with a start per February/March 2006;
* a gross monthly salary of EURO 1,877 during the first year up to EURO 2,407 during the fourth year of the appointment;

* a PhD program consisting of a number of mandatory courses, research seminars and specialized courses;
* a broad package of fringe benefits (a.o. an excellent technical infrastructure, child care, savings schemes, and excellent sports facilities);

* the university covers the costs of publishing your dissertation.

As part of an equal opportunity scheme, women are explicitly requested to apply. Attaining a PhD at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven provides you with excellent career opportunities.

Information:

Further information about this position is available from dr.ir. Y.A.W de Kort, e-mail: y.a.w.d.kort@tue.nl, or dr. W.A. IJsselsteijn, e-mail: w.a.ijsselsteijn@tue.nl.

Application:

Interested candidates are requested to send a written application with a recent Curriculum Vitae to the managing director of the Department of Technology Management, ir. M.J.M. Verbruggen, Pav R.1.32, PO Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, the Netherlands (fax number: ძ.40.2475712), or send an e- mail to: pz@tm.tue.nl . Please include the job vacancy code: V39.392

Applications should be received by 6 January 2006.

Further information: Mrs. P.J. Evers, personnel officer, phone ძ.40.2475204, e-mail: mailto:pz@tm.tue.nl

Nurs Adm Q. 2005 Oct-Dec;29(4):329-38.

Cheek P, Nikpour L, Nowlin HD

As baby-boomers age, the need for long-term nursing care services increases. In the future, there will simply not be enough long-term care facilities to accommodate all of these patients. In addition, many people prefer to grow old at home, a concept known as aging-in-place. Smart home technology facilities aging-in-place by assisting patients with emergency assistance, fall prevention/detection, reminder systems, medication administration and assistance for those with hearing, visual or cognitive impairments. Benefits include making aging-in-place a reality, continuous monitoring, and improved psychosocial effects. Concerns of this technology include cost, availability of technology, retrofitting complications, and potential inappropriate use of the technology. Overall, the concept of smart homes is gaining in popularity and will expand the role of the nurse in the future. It is important for all nurses to understand how their practices will be transformed as smart homes become a reality for the aging population.

Via Smart Mobs 

Workshop at CHI2006, Montreal, Canada, April 22-27, 2006

Deadline - 6 January 2006: Position paper to chi2006mososo@telin.nl

Social software has seen a tremendous jump in usage over the past few years and looks to take another significant leap forward as it becomes integrated into mobile devices we carry at all times. As designers of social software systems, we can now design for typical users who want to "do" social computing while they are in their social environments.

The goal for this workshop is to explore the research questions, coming directions, and relevant technologies surrounding expanded adoption of mobile social software. We plan to address issues in the following areas (see the workshop web page  for a full list of specific issues:

- How will mobile social software change existing social dynamics?
- How will location services and other new technologies change the game?
- What are the privacy risks and research challenges of these technologies?
- Next generation of mobile social software: What is it and when will we have it?
- How can we build a coordinated, cross-cultural research effort?

Via Action Potential

The December issue of Nature Neuroscience includes a special focus on computational and systems neuroscience highlighting research presented at the Cosyne meeting held this past March in Salt Lake City.

Here is the list of contributions included in the special focus:

A natural approach to studying vision pp1643 - 1646 Gidon Felsen & Yang Dan Published online: 23 November 2005 | doi:10.1038/nn1608 Abstract | Full text | PDF (108K)

In praise of artifice pp1647 - 1650 Nicole C Rust & J Anthony Movshon Published online: 23 November 2005 | doi:10.1038/nn1606 Abstract | Full text | PDF (159K)

Analyzing receptive fields, classification images and functional images: challenges with opportunities for synergy pp1651 - 1656 Jonathan D Victor Published online: 23 November 2005 | doi:10.1038/nn1607 Abstract | Full text | PDF (514K)

“Virtual Reality and Motor Disorders” Symposium
April 27th, 2006, Laval (France)
 
Laval Virtual is historically the biggest convention for Virtual Reality (VR) in Europe. With its industrial exhibition and its live demonstrations, it offers the possibility to discover and to test a wide range of interfaces and VR-based applications. Laval Virtual is also a scientific conference VRIC 2006 (Virtual Reality International Conference). On April 26-27-28th, 2006, it offers multiple opportunities of meetings, exchange of ideas, information as well as the possibility to attend the presentation of the most innovative applications of the field with lecturers from about 15 different countries and international papers published in the symposium Proceedings.
 
The “Virtual Reality and Motor Disorders” Symposium is a component of VRIC 2006. It will be held on April 27th, 2006. This full day symposium is dedicated to all issues regarding Motor Disorders with Virtual Reality. 
 
Areas covered include:

    - Motor disorders due to nervous system injuries;
    - Motor disorders due to orthopaedic injuries;
    - Balance and gait disorders;
    - Wheelchair mobility.

Interest is given to the consequences of VR use on functional activities of daily living.
 
The “Virtual Reality and Motor Disorders” Symposium will propose a wide range of works carried out to examine the different facets of the question; will allow meetings and exchanges between experts of these different fields; and will present VR-based systems designed for the affected people.
 
Our guest speaker is Tamar Weiss, Director of the Laboratory for Innovations in Rehabilitation Technology (LIRT) at the University of Haifa, Israel.
 
Call for Papers
 

        Submission of abstracts: January 27 th , 2006
        Notification of acceptation: February 10 th , 2006
        Submission of selected full papers: March 10 th , 2006
        Deadline for final revisions of full papers: March 24 th , 2006
 
If you need more information, please contact Evelyne Klinger (klinger@enst.fr), Scientific Chair of the symposium.

We are definitely looking forward to meet you personally at Laval Virtual 2006.
Evelyne Klinger, Simon Richir  & the Symposium’s Committee Program

Laval Virtual 8th International Conference on Virtual Reality

Mirella Dapretto, Mari S Davies, Jennifer H Pfeifer, Ashley A Scott, Marian Sigman, Susan Y Bookheimer, Marco Iacoboni

To examine mirror neuron abnormalities in autism, high-functioning children with autism and matched controls underwent fMRI while imitating and observing emotional expressions. Although both groups performed the tasks equally well, children with autism showed no mirror neuron activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis). Notably, activity in this area was inversely related to symptom severity in the social domain, suggesting that a dysfunctional 'mirror neuron system' may underlie the social deficits observed in autism.

via Science Daily

Robotic, simulated patients are allowing students in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine to practise clinical skills before they reach human patients. A simulator lab training centre set up by the anesthesia department allows students to experience the challenges of working in a hospital operating room in a setting that looks and functions as close as possible to the real thing...

Read full article

Biol Psychiatry. 2005 Nov 30;

Authors: Cornwell BR, Johnson L, Berardi L, Grillon C

Startle reflex modification has become valuable to the study of fear and anxiety, but few studies have explored startle reactivity in socially threatening situations. METHODS: Healthy participants ranging in trait social anxiety entered virtual reality (VR) that simulates standing center-stage in front of an audience to anticipate giving a speech and count backward. We measured startle and autonomic reactivity during anticipation of both tasks inside VR after a single baseline recording outside VR. RESULTS: Trait social anxiety, but not general trait anxiety, was positively correlated with startle before entering VR and most clearly during speech anticipation inside VR. Speech anticipation inside VR also elicited stronger physiologic responses relative to anticipation of counting. CONCLUSIONS: Under social-evaluative threat, startle reactivity showed robust relationships with fear of negative evaluation, a central aspect of social anxiety and clinical social phobia. Context-specific startle modification may be an endophenotype for subtypes of pathological anxiety.

Via Neurodudes

From Eugene Izhikevich’s website

On October 27, 2005 I finished simulation of a model that has the size of the human brain. The model has 100,000,000,000 neurons (hundred billion or 10^11) and almost 1,000,000,000,000,000 (one quadrillion or 10^15) synapses. It represents 300×300 mm^2 of mammalian thalamo-cortical surface, specific, non-specific, and reticular thalamic nuclei, and spiking neurons with firing properties corresponding to those recorded in the mammalian brain. The model exhibited alpha and gamma rhythms, moving clusters of neurons in up- and down-states, and other interesting phenomena (watch a 25M .avi or .mov movie). One second of simulation took 50 days on a beowulf cluster of 27 processors (3GHz each). Why did I do that?...

Via Networked performance

Ana Paiva, Rui Prada, Ricardo Chaves, Marco Vala, Adrian Bullock, Gerd Andersson, and Kristina Hook, ICMI’03, November 5–7, 2003, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

In this paper, we describe a way of controlling the emotional states of a synthetic character in a game (FantasyA) through a tangible interface named SenToy. SenToy is a doll with sensors in the arms, legs and body, allowing the user to influence the emotions of her character in the game. The user performs gestures and movements with SenToy, which are picked up by the sensors and interpreted according to a scheme found through an intial Wizard of Oz study. Different gestures are used to express each of the following emotions: anger, fear, happiness, surprise, sadness and gloating. Depending on the expressed emotion, the synthetic character in FantasyA will, in turn, perform different actions. The evaluation of SenToy acting as the interface to the computer game FantasyA has shown that users were able to express most of the desired emotions to influence the synthetic characters, and that overall, players, especially children, really liked the doll as an interface."

Read full paper:

Towards Tangibility in Gameplay: Building a Tangible Affective Interface for a Computer Game [pdf]

From Wikipedia

The Uncanny Valley is a principle of robotics concerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities. It was theorized by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. The principle states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached at which the response suddenly becomes strongly repulsive; as the appearance and motion are made to be indistinguishable to that of human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-human empathy levels.

Emotional response of human subjects is plotted against anthropomorphism of a robot, following Mori's results. The Uncanny Valley is the region of negative emotional response for robots that seem "almost human".

This gap of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a "barely-human" and "fully human" entity is called the Uncanny Valley. The name harkens to the notion that a robot which is "almost human" will seem overly "strange" to a human being and thus will fail to evoke the requisite empathetic response required for productive human-robot interaction.

The phenomenon can be explained by the notion that if an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy. On the other hand, if the entity is "almost human", then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of "strangeness" in the human viewer.

Another possibility is that infected individuals and corpses exhibit many visual anomalies similar to the ones we see with humanoid robots and so we react with the same alarm and revulsion. The reaction may in fact become worse with robots since there is no overt reason for it to occur; when we see a corpse we understand where our feelings come from. Behavioural anomalies too are indicative of illness, neurological conditions or mental dysfunction, and again evoke acutely negative emotions.

Some roboticists have heavily criticized the theory, arguing that Mori had no basis for the right part of his chart, as human-like robots are only now technically possible (and still only partially). David Hanson, a roboticist who developed a realistic robotic copy of his girlfriend's head, said the idea of the Uncanny Valley was "really pseudoscientific, but people treat it like it is science." Sara Kiesler, a human-robot interaction researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, questioned Uncanny Valley's scientific status, noting that "we have evidence that it’s true, and evidence that it’s not."

Via Usability news

11-15 September 2006
Queen Mary, University of London
The 20th British HCI Group conference in co-operation with ACM.