A kinematic analysis of age-related changes in grasping to use and grasping to move common objects

Grasping is a complex action which requires high-level motor control. Although the impact of aging on grasping has been investigated in some studies, to date little is known as to how the aging process interacts with the purpose of the movement. The aims of the present study were (i) to investigate the effect of aging on grasping movements, and to explore on how this effect is modulated by (ii) the goal of the task, and by (iii) the characteristics of the target such as its location in the visual field, its orientation and its size. Young and elderly adults were asked to grasp to move or to grasp to use objects of different sizes and orientations, presented either in the central or the peripheral visual field. Movement duration did not differ between the two groups. However, elderly participants required a longer approach phase and showed a different grasping strategy, characterized by larger grip aperture and smaller percentage of wrist rotation in comparison to young adults. Elderly adults showed a decrease in accuracy when grasping objects presented in the peripheral, but not in the central visual field. A similar modulation of the kinematic parameters consisting in longer planning and execution phases in the grasp to use in comparison to the grasp to move condition was observed in both groups, suggesting that the effect of aging might be minimized and compensated in more goal-directed tasks.     

History and Intentions in the Experience of Artworks

The role of personal background knowledge—in particular knowledge about the context of production of an artwork—has been only marginally taken into account in cognitive approaches to art. Addressing this issue is crucial to enhancing these approaches’ explanatory power and framing their collaboration with the humanities (Bullot and Reber 2012). This paper sketches a model of the experience of artworks based on the mechanisms of intention attribution, and shows how this model makes it possible to address the issue of personal background knowledge empirically. I claim that the role of intention attribution in art experience has been incorrectly accounted in the literature because of an overly narrow definition of “intention.” I suggest that the observer can recover not only the artist’s abstract projects, but any kind of mental states that have played a causal role during the production of the work. In addition, I suggest that this recovery occurs in large part unconsciously and/or implicitly. I provide support for these claims by distinguishing three families of psychological mechanisms of intention attribution that are activated by artworks: one involved in the cognition of artifacts, one devoted to communication, and one involved in action perception.     

Validating the Diathesis–Stress Model Based Case Conceptualization Procedure in Cognitive Behavioral Therapies: The LIBET (Life Themes and Semi-Adaptive Plans—Implications of Biased Beliefs,Elicitation and Treatment) Procedure

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approaches use case formulation procedures based on the diathesis–stress conceptualization...     

Generalizing Deontic Action Logic

We introduce a multimodal framework of deontic action logic which encodes the interaction between two fundamental procedures in normative reasoning: conceptual classification and deontic classification. The expressive power of the framework is noteworthy, since it combines insights from agency logic and dynamic logic, allowing for a representation of many kinds of normative conflicts. We provide a semantic characterization for three axiomatic systems of increasing strength, showing how our approach can be modularly extended in order to get different levels of analysis of normative reasoning. Finally, we discuss ways in which the framework can be used to capture other formalisms proposed in the literature, as well as to model searching problems in Artificial Intelligence.

     

Listen to the Children: Elementary School Students' Perspectives on a Mindfulness Intervention

Journal of Child and Family Studies - In recent years, mindfulness-based practices in grade schools have been associated with students’ improved cognitive skills and general classroom...     

Don’t worry,be happy! Positive affect at work,greater balance at home. A daily diary study on work-family balance

IntroductionThe dynamics pertaining to work-family interface such as conflict, enrichment, etc. have received considerable scholarly attention in social sciences. However, the daily processes that are involved have been examined to a lesser extent, least of all including the role played by emotions.ObjectiveThis study aimed at examining, consistently with the Affective Events Theory, if positive and negative affect experienced during the working day played a mediational role in the associations between daily levels of work-family conflict and work-family enrichment on one side, and work-family balance on the other. Moreover, the moderating cross-level role of trait emotional stability was examined.MethodThe study included a convenience sample of 104 Italian employees who completed a diary-book over five consecutive working days.ResultsMultilevel-modelling results highlighted, controlling for emotional stability, a mediational role of only daily positive affect in the relationships between both work-family conflict and enrichment on the one side and work-family balance on the other side.ConclusionThis study contributed to the literature emphasizing the role of positive affective states experienced at the workplace and their connections with the private life. Limitations and implications for research and practice are described.     

Does the character-based dimension of stories impact narrative processing? An event-related potentials (ERPs) study

Cognitive Processing - This event-related potentials (ERPs) study investigated online processes of integration of information relating to characters in narrative comprehension. The final sample...     

Science as Theater: Too Obvious to Be Appreciated

The analogy between science and theater work is so strict as to be normally taken for granted without the need of further specification. This implies that the analogy is completely ignored. Here I try to go in depth into the character of this analogy and to demonstrate how stopping and thinking about this issue could give some useful hints for solving problems that contemporary science is experiencing.     

Decision Preceding Negativity in the Iowa Gambling Task: an ERP study

The present study aimed to investigate the slow negative potential (termed Decision Preceding Negativity, DPN, from the family of the Readiness Potential) which precedes a willed risky decision. To this end, evoked potentials preceding and following an economic choice were measured in a sample of 16 male students during the Iowa Gambling Task modified for ERPs recording. Statistics revealed reduced positivity/relative greater negativity (marking relative activation) in right prefrontal sites and reduced negativity (indicating relative inhibition of DPN) in central clusters over left premotor cortex, 500 ms before picking from economically disadvantageous risky decks. Analyses of the potentials elicited by the economic outcome (wins vs. losses) showed the classical frontal negativity (N260) to the economic losses. Results are consistent with the view that an economically risky decision is preceded by a relative inhibition of the planned motor response together with the activation of emotion-related right frontal sites.