Using a virtual reality system to study balance and walking in a virtual outdoor environment: a pilot study.

Falls and fall-related injuries are a major problem for elderly persons. Most falls occur during walking and turning, and the risk of falling increases when attention is diverted to something besides walking. It is often difficult to standardize methods for testing balance and fall tendency in a clinically relevant setting. We describe the development of a system using a virtual environment (VE) to assess how attention demanding and unexpected events influence a person's capacity to control balance and movement. The hardware in the system consists of a head-mounted display (HMD), a magnetic tracker system, and two SGI computers. The software consists of the image generation of the VE and the management and visualization of motion tracking data. In a preliminary pilot study eight subjects (age 23-80) participated. Each subject walked on a normal floor and was visually presented a familiar outdoor environment in the HMD. They were exposed to different unexpected events, such as a virtual snowfall and tilting of the VE. Disturbances of balance and walking patterns such as changes in speed, stride length and balance reactions like slipping were observed. Two subjects experienced symptoms of cyber sickness with a SSQ score above 25 points. Walking with sensors only did not affect walking time, but in VE the subjects generally walked more slowly. Virtual tilting of the environment had an impact on balance performance during walking. This effect was not observed while the test subjects were walking in a virtual snowfall. The model needs further development but may hold a potential for clinical use.     

The Problem of Other Minds: Wittgenstein's Phenomenological Perspective

This paper discusses Wittgenstein's take on the problem of other minds. In opposition to certain widespread views that I collect under the heading of the “No Problem Interpretation,” I argue that Wittgenstein does address some problem of other minds. However, Wittgenstein's problem is not the traditional epistemological problem of other minds; rather, it is more reminiscent of the issue of intersubjectivity as it emerges in the writings of phenomenologists such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger. This is one sense in which Wittgenstein's perspective on other minds might be called “phenomenological.” Yet there is another sense as well, in that Wittgenstein's positive views on this issue resemble the views defended by phenomenologists. The key to a proper philosophical grasp of intersubjectivity, on both views, lies in rethinking the mind. If we conceive of minds as essentially embodied we can understand how intersubjectivity is possible.     

Facets of psychopathy, heart rate variability and cognitive function

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the four facets of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991; Bolt, Hare, Vitale, & Newman, 2004) were related to physiological and cognitive mechanisms. Fifty-three male prisoners participated in this study. Physiological responses were measured as heart rate variability (HRV) and heart rate (HR). Cognitive functions were measured using a continuous performance test (CPT; California Computerized Assessment Package, Abbreviated version) and a working memory test (WMT); based on Baddeley & Hitch (1974). The regression analysis of the HRV revealed that the interpersonal facet explained most of the variance during baseline (28%), CPT (16%), and WMT (12%). This was also true for the HR data during baseline (28%), CPT (20%), WMT (10%), and recovery (13%). The antisocial facet explained 10% of the variance only during baseline. Subjects scoring high compared to low on the interpersonal facet also showed better cognitive functioning. The study suggests that the different facets were differently associated with both physiological and cognitive functions.     

Semiotic transformations in psychoanalysis with infants and adults

The author addresses issues that emerge when we compare psychoanalytic experiences with adults and with infants. Two analyses-one with a 35 year-old woman and one with a 2 week-old boy and his mother-illustrate that infant psychoanalytic experiences help us understand and handle adult transference. However, we cannot extrapolate infant experiences to adult work. Truly, witnessing the baby's communication widens our sensitivity to non-verbal layers of the adult's communication. Infant work also offers a direct encounter with the container and the contained personified by a mother with her baby. But we need to conceptualize carefully the links between clinical experiences with babies and adults. When we call an adult transference pattern 'infantile', we imply that primeval experience has been transformed into present behaviour. However, if we view the analytical situation as one in which infantile invariants have transformed into adult symptoms, we face the impossible task of indicating the roots of the present symptoms. The author rather suggests that what is transformed is not an invariant infantile essence but signs denoting the patient's inner reality. He proposes we define transformation as a semiotic process instead of building it on an essentialist grounding. If we view the analytic situation as a map of signs that we translate during our psychoanalytic work, we can proceed into defining containment as a semiotic process. This idea will be linked with a conceptualization of the mother-infant relation in semiotic terms.     

Working memory deficit in children with mathematical difficulties: a general or specific deficit?

This study examined whether children with mathematical difficulties (MDs) or comorbid mathematical and reading difficulties have a working memory deficit and whether the hypothesized working memory deficit includes the whole working memory system or only specific components. In the study, 31 10-year-olds with MDs and 37 10-year-olds with both mathematical and reading difficulties were compared with 47 age-matched and 50 younger controls (9-year-olds) on a number of working memory tasks. Compared with the age-matched controls, both groups of children with MDs performed worse on tasks tapping the central executive (e.g., visual matrix span) and the phonological loop (e.g., word span). More important, the MD group performed worse than the younger controls on the counting span task, whereas the group with comorbid mathematical and reading difficulties performed worse on the counting span task and the visual matrix span task. These findings provide support for the assumption that children with MDs have a working memory deficit. More specifically, children with MDs have a central executive deficit connected to concurrent processing and storage of numerical and visual information.     

Moral Relativism

Moral relativism comes in many varieties. One is a moral doctrine, according to which we ought to respect other cultures, and allow them to solve moral problems as they see fit. I will say nothing about this kind of moral relativism in the present context. Another kind of moral relativism is semantic moral relativism, according to which, when we pass moral judgements, we make an implicit reference to some system of morality (our own). According to this kind of moral relativism, when I say that a certain action is right, my statement is elliptic. What I am really saying is that, according to the system of morality in my culture, this action is right. I will reject this kind of relativism. According to yet another kind of moral relativism, which we may call epistemic, it is possible that, when one person (belonging to one culture) makes a certain moral judgement, such as that this action is right, and another person (belong to another culture) makes the judgement that the very same action is wrong, they may have just as good reasons for their respective judgements; it is even possible that, were they fully informed about all the facts, equally imaginative, and so forth, they would still hold on to their respective (conflicting) judgements. They are each fully justified in their belief in conflicting judgements. I will comment on this form of moral relativism in passing. Finally, however, there is a kind of moral relativism we could call ontological, according to which, when two persons pass conflicting moral verdicts on a certain action, they may both be right. The explanation is that they make their judgements from the perspective of different, socially constructed, moral universes. So while it is true in the first person's moral universe that a certain action is right, it is true in the second person's moral universe that the very same action is wrong. I explain and defend this version of ontological moral relativism.     

Living with Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Type 1: Decent Care-Insufficient Medical and Genetic Information A Qualitative Study of MEN 1 Patients in a Swedish Hospital

This qualitative study explores how 29 Swedish patients with Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) experience living with the condition, appraisal of the clinical follow-up program, and surveys their future expectations. The aim of this study is to build knowledge about this patient group in order to provide optimal care. The participants describe physical, psychological, and social limitations in their daily activities and how these limitations influence quality of life. Our findings indicate that a majority of patients have adjusted to their situation, describing themselves as being healthy despite physical symptoms and treatment. The participants received decent care in the clinical follow-up program, - however, greater effort should be put into patient information. These patients might benefit from genetic counseling. Health professionals involved should recognize their potential impact and influence on a patient’s ability to adjust to these circumstances. Antonovsky`s Sense of Coherence theory is used to discuss these findings.     

Comparing infants' use of featural and spatiotemporal information in an object individuation task using a new event-monitoring design

Discussions have recently taken place on whether spatiotemporal information is more important than featural information when infants attempt to individuate objects. Hitherto, spatiotemporal and featural information have only been compared directly by using cognitively demanding 'event-mapping designs' (e.g. Xu & Carey, 1996), whereas the simpler event-monitoring designs (e.g. the 'wide-screen/narrow-screen' by Wilcox and colleagues) have not been employed for such a comparison. The present research offers a new event-monitoring design, the rotating screen design, that allows for such a direct comparison. Three experiments in which 9.5-, 8.0-, and 6.5-month-old infants attempt to individuate objects by spatiotemporal and featural information are reported. The results showed that whereas the 9.5-month-old infants were able to individuate objects by spatiotemporal as well as featural information, the infants of the younger age groups only successfully individuated objects when provided with spatiotemporal information, but not with featural information.     

Interpreting Perelman’s Universal Audience: Gross versus Crosswhite

While still subject to differing interpretations Perelman’s theory of audience has potential as an evaluative tool in rhetorical criticism as demonstrated by Gross and Crosswhite. I compare their explanations of how politicians address the universal audience and the respective implications for evaluating the argumentation and then argue that although Gross provides a more immediately applicable theory, Crosswhite’s interpretation recommends itself by virtue of its wider scope in regard to deliberative rhetoric.