Positive Technology Journal

Interdisciplines is a website for research in the social sciences, merging contributions from different fields in the humanities. One interesting feature of this site is that it allows to organize virtual conferences. The current conference is on Causality

Past conferences include very interesting topics, as mirror neurons, art and cognition, language and evolution.

Via Pasta and Vinegar

A paper by Andor Dornbush, Kevin Fisher, Kyle McKay, Alex Prikhodko, and Zary Segall describe a mobile MP3 player, the Xbox, which is able to automatically select the song best suited to the emotive situation of the user.

Here is an excerpt from the article (I am quoting it from Nicholas' blog Pasta and Vinegar).

the notion of collecting human emotion and activity information from the user, and explore how this information could be used to improve the user experience with mobile music players.
(…)
a mobile MP3 player, XPod, which is able to automate the process of selecting the song best suited to the emotion and the current activity of the user. The XPod concept is based on the idea of automating much of the interaction between the music player and its user.
(…)
After an initial training period, the XPod is able to use its internal algorithms to make an educated selection of the song that would best fit its user’s emotion and situation. We use the data gathered from a streaming version of the BodyMedia SenseWear to detect different levels of user activity and emotion. After determining the state of the user the neural network engine compares the user’s current state, time, and activity levels to past user song preferences matching the existing set of conditions and makes a musical selection. The XPod system was trained to play different music based on the user’s activity level. A simple pattern was used so the state dependant customization could be verified. XPod successfully learned the pattern of listening behavior exhibited by the test user. As the training proceeded the XPod learned the desired behavior and chose music to match the preferences of the test user. XPod automates the process of choosing music best suited for a user’s current activity. The success of the initial implementation of XPod concepts provides the basis for further exploration of human- and emotion-aware mobile music players.

Many relevant articles on social cognitive neuroscience were published in the December 2005 special issue of NeuroImage

Hubmed is an alternative interface to the PubMed medical literature database, with some powerful features, which include:

- Daily updates of search results via web feeds.

The new issue of the journal Psychnology is online and available full-text

This special issue focuses on digital divide - the unequal access to information and communication technology services and contents across the population.

According to Junichi Takeno and his co-workers, the ground-breaking technology could eventually lead to robots able to express emotions.

Read full story

Via Smart mobs

Prompted by Edge, Cognitive neuroscientist Stephen Kosslyn offers a set of hypotheses concerning a scientific theory of God

Here's an idea that many academics may find unsettling and dangerous: God exists. And here's another idea that many religious people may find unsettling and dangerous: God is not supernatural, but rather part of the natural order. Simply stating these ideas in the same breath invites them to scrape against each other, and sparks begin to fly. To avoid such conflict, Stephen Jay Gould famously argued that we should separate religion and science, treating them as distinct "magisteria." But science leads many of us to try to understand all that we encounter with a single, grand and glorious overarching framework. In this spirit, let me try to suggest one way in which the idea of a "supreme being" can fit into a scientific worldview.

I offer the following not to advocate the ideas, but rather simply to illustrate one (certainly not the only) way that the concept of God can be approached scientifically.

1.0. First, here's the specific conception of God I want to explore: God is a "supreme being" that transcends space and time, permeates our world but also stands outside of it, and can intervene in our daily lives (partly in response to prayer).

2.0. A way to begin to think about this conception of the divine rests on three ideas:

2.1. Emergent properties. There are many examples in science where aggregates produce an entity that has properties that cannot be predicted entirely from the elements themselves. For example, neurons in large numbers produce minds; moreover, minds in large numbers produce economic, political, and social systems.

2.2. Downward causality. Events at "higher levels" (where emergent properties become evident) can in turn feed back and affect events at lower levels. For example, chronic stress (a mental event) can cause parts of the brain to become smaller. Similarly, an economic depression or the results of an election affect the lives of the individuals who live in that society.

2.3. The Ultimate Superset. The Ultimate Superset (superordinate set) of all living things may have an equivalent status to an economy or culture. It has properties that emerge from the interactions of living things and groups of living things, and in turn can feed back to affect those things and groups.

3.0. Can we conceive of God as an emergent property of all living things that can in turn affect its constituents? Here are some ways in which this idea is consistent with the nature of God, as outlined at the outset.

3.1. This emergent entity is "transcendent" in the sense that it exists in no specific place or time. Like a culture or an economy, God is nowhere, although the constituent elements occupy specific places. As for transcending time, consider this analogy: Imagine that 1/100th of the neurons in your brain were replaced every hour, and each old neuron programmed a new one so that the old one's functionality was preserved. After 100 hours your brain would be an entirely new organ — but your mind would continue to exist as it had been before. Similarly, as each citizen dies and is replaced by a child, the culture continues to exist (and can grow and develop, with a "life of its own"). So too with God. For example, in the story of Jacob's ladder, Jacob realizes "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." (Genesis 28: 16) I interpret this story as illustrating that God is everywhere but nowhere. The Ultimate Superset permeates our world but also stands outside of (or, more specifically, "above") it.

3.2. The Ultimate Superset can affect our individual lives. Another analogy: Say that geese flying south for the winter have rather unreliable magnetic field detectors in their brains. However, there's a rule built into their brains that leads them to try to stay near their fellows as they fly. The flock as a whole would navigate far better than any individual bird, because the noise in the individual bird brain navigation systems would cancel out. The emergent entity — the flock — in turn would affect the individual geese, helping them to navigate better than they could on their own.

3.3. When people pray to the Lord, they beseech intervention on their or others' behalf. The view that I've been outlining invites us to think of the effects of prayer as akin to becoming more sensitive to the need to stay close to the other birds in the flock: By praying, one can become more sensitive to the emergent "supreme being." Such increased sensitivity may imply that one can contribute more strongly to this emergent entity.

By analogy, it's as if one of those geese became aware of the "keep near" rule, and decided to nudge the other birds in a particular direction — which thereby allows it to influence the flock's effect on itself. To the extent that prayer puts one closer to God, one's plea for intervention will have a larger impact on the way that The Ultimate Superset exerts downward causality. But note that, according to this view, God works rather slowly. Think of dropping rocks in a pond: it takes time for the ripples to propagate and eventually be reflected back from the edge, forming interference patterns in the center of the pond.

4.0. A crucial idea in monotheistic religions is that God is the Creator. The present approach may help us begin to grapple with this idea, as follows.

4.1. First, consider each individual person. The environment plays a key role in creating who and what we are because there are far too few genes to program every aspect of our brains. For example, when you were born, your genes programmed many connections in your visual areas, but did not specify the precise circuits necessary to determine how far away objects are. As an infant, the act of reaching for an object tuned the brain circuits that estimate how far away the object was from you.

Similarly, your genes graced you with the ability to acquire language, but not with a specific language. The act of acquiring a language shapes your brain (which in turn may make it difficult to acquire another language, with different sounds and grammar, later in life). Moreover, cultural practices configure the brains of members of the culture. A case in point: the Japanese have many forms of bowing, which are difficult for a Westerner to master relatively late in life; when we try to bow, we "bow with an accent."

4.2. And the environment not only played an essential role in how we developed as children, but also plays a continuing role in how we develop over the course of our lives as adults. The act of learning literally changes who and what we are.

4.3. According to this perspective, it's not just negotiating the physical world and sociocultural experience that shape the brain: The Ultimate Superset — the emergent property of all living things — affects all of the influences that "make us who and what we are," both as we develop during childhood and continue to learn and develop as adults.

4.4. Next, consider our species. One could try to push this perspective into a historical context, and note that evolution by natural selection reflects the effects of interactions among living things. If so, then the emergent properties of such interactions could feed back to affect the course of evolution itself.

In short, it is possible to begin to view the divine through the lens of science. But such reasoning does no more than set the stage; to be a truly dangerous idea, this sort of proposal must be buttressed by the results of empirical test. At present, my point is not to convince, but rather to intrigue. As much as I admired Stephen Jay Gould (and I did, very much), perhaps he missed the mark on this one. Perhaps there is a grand project waiting to be launched, to integrate the two great sources of knowledge and belief in the world today — science and religion.

J Integr Neurosci. 2005 Dec;4(4):537-50

Authors: Danilov Y, Tyler M

Behav Brain Sci. 2005 Dec;28(6):773

Authors: Smythies JR

This commentary reviews and extends the target article's treatment of the topic of the role of acetylcholine in hallucinatory experience in health and disease. Particular attention is paid to differentiating muscarinic and nicotinic effects in modulating the use of virtual reality mechanisms by the brain. Then, attention is drawn to the similarities between these aspects of brain function and certain aspects of television digital compression technology.

Psychotherapists have begun to experience the emersion of “new addictions.” These new addictions, which are directly connected to our advancing technological environment, have rooted over the past few years and patients experiencing the negative consequences are increasingly presenting for treatment in psychotherapy practices

Learn more about cyberaddiction here

Science mag offers a streaming video presentation on this year's main breakthrough - it's amazing, don't miss it!

From the website.

Touch is a research project at the Interaction Design department at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, looking at user-centred applications for Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is a technology that enables connections between mobile phones and real-world objects:bridging the gap between the real and the virtual

Event Date: 5 April 2006 to 7 April 2006

Symposium Chairs
• Tom Rodden - University of Nottingham
• Richard Harper - Microsoft Research

Program Committee:
• Emile Aarts – Philips Research
• Alan Blackwell - University of Cambridge
• Alex Brandle – Microsoft Research
• Yang Cai - Carnegie Mellon University
• Luca Chittaro - University of Udine
• Gillian Crampton Smith - CONVIVIO
• Bernard Burdek - HFG Offenback
• Geraldine Fitzpatrick - University of Sussex
• David Frohlich - University of Surrey
• Matt Jones – Swansea University
• Kristina Höök - SICS Sweden
• Hani Hagras - University of Essex
• Wendy MacKay - INRIA
• Ryohei Nakatsu - Kwansei Gakuin University
• Matthias Rauterberg - University of Eindhoven
• Albrecht Schmidt - University of Munich
• Naoko Tosa - Kyoto University
• Ken Wood - Microsoft Research

Urology. 2005 Dec;66(6):1320

Authors: Wright JL, Hoffman HG, Sweet RM

The management of pain during clinic transurethral microwave thermotherapy (TUMT) can be challenging. Pain can lead to increased pelvic blood flow, which dissipates the energy delivered, limiting the amount of heat delivered to the prostate. In this report, we describe the novel use of virtual reality distraction as an adjunctive mechanism for local anesthesia during TUMT in a 67-year-old man. This report is novel in being, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate the efficacy of virtual reality in an elderly patient and the first documented use for a urologic clinic procedure. We believe it is also the first to demonstrate efficacy for the control of thermally induced pain.

Brain. 2005 Dec 19;

Authors: Kühn AA, Doyle L, Pogosyan A, Yarrow K, Kupsch A, Schneider GH, Hariz MI, Trottenberg T, Brown P

Activation of the basal ganglia has been shown during the preparation and execution of movement. However, the extent to which the activation during movement is related to efferent processes or feedback-related motor control remains unclear. We used motor imagery (MI), which eliminates peripheral feedback, to further investigate the role of the subthalamic area in the feedforward organization of movement. We recorded local field potential (LPF) activity from the region of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in eight patients with Parkinson's disease off dopaminergic medication during performance of a warned reaction time task. Patients were instructed to either extend the wrist [motor execution (ME)], to imagine performing the same task without any overt movement (MI), or, in a subgroup, to perform a non-motor visual imagery (VI) task. MI led to event-related desynchronization (ERD) of oscillatory beta activity in the region of the STN in all patients that was similar in frequency, time course and degree to the ERD occurring during ME. The degree of ERD during MI correlated with the ERD in trials of ME and, like ME, was accompanied by a decrease in cortico-STN coherence, so that STN LFP activity during MI was similar to that in ME. The ERD in ME and MI were both significantly larger than the ERD in VI. In contrast, event-related synchronization (ERS) was significantly smaller in trials of MI, and even smaller in trials of VI, than during ME. The data suggest that the activity in the region of the human STN indexed by the ERD during movement is related to the feedforward organization of movement and is relatively independent of peripheral feedback. In contrast, sensorimotor feedback is an important factor in the ERS occurring in the STN area after completion of movement, consistent with a role for this region in trial-to-trial motor learning or the re-establishment of postural set following movements.

Via Pasta and Vinegar

amBX is a Philips project for a system that should provide gamers with a full ‘sensory surround experience’ allowing them to use light, colour, sound, heat and even airflow in the real world during gameplay.

A light year leap in ambient experience – to the world of computer gaming, spotlighting a technology that will revolutionize the game play experience and extend the gaming world out of the screen and into the real world.

Due for release in May 2006 and coming from the Surrey-based Philips amBX Group, amBX is a step towards a full ‘sensory surround experience’ and enabled games will provide gamers with the ability to use light, colour, sound, heat and even airflow in the real world during gameplay.

The University of Plymouth invites applications for a PhD Studentship (stipend to cover living expenses plus UK/EU fees) in the areas of Computational Neuroscience and/or Interactive Intelligent Systems. There are about twelve academic staff in the two Centres, and their work was awarded a rating of 5 (International Excellence) in the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise.

The primary areas of interest and expertise within the CTCN and CIIS include:

- Audition

- Biophysics and modelling of temporal brain dynamics

- Mathematical neuroscience

- Neural computation

- Sensorimotor control

- Vision

- Artificial life models of cognition

- Interactive robotics

- Information visualisation

- Computer music

- Semantic web

 
Applicants should have, or expect to obtain, a high grade Bachelors or Masters degree in computing, neuroscience, psychology/cognitive science, physics, mathematics or an allied discipline. The candidate should ideally possess good computational skills and must have a strong motivation for research.

For more information on the activity of the CTCN and CIIS, visit:

http://www.plymneuro.org.uk/

http://neuromusic.soc.plymouth.ac.uk/ciis.html

For informal enquiries contact Professor Mike Denham (m.denham@plymouth.ac.uk) or Dr. Angelo Cangelosi (a.cangelosi@plymouth.ac.uk). Applications should be sent via email to Mrs. Carole Watson (c.watson@plymouth.ac.uk; tel. +44 1752 233329), Senior Research Administrator, Faculty of Technology, University of Plymouth. Closing deadline for applications is March 20th, 2006. PhD will start in October 2006. Each application should include (1) detailed CV and (2) cover letter and (3) application form. The PhD application form can be downloaded here:

http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=5731

Via Usability News 

Venue: Montreal, Canada

Dates: 23 April 2006

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submissions December 18 2005
Notification of acceptance January 31 2006
Workshop April 23 2006