A Web-based digitized video image system for the study of motor coordination

A Web-based instructional project for the study of motor coordination is presented. The project includes two components: a tutorial on motor coordination and an interactive digitized video image system developed for the analysis of motion, including topics in biomechanics, motor coordination, motor control, and motor skill. This interactive system allows for the quantitative analysis of stored video images that are accessible from the World-Wide Web. The use of this digitizing system for the measurement and analysis of human locomotion coordination patterns is presented.     

Ontogenetic dissociation of two classes of habituation.

The rates of decrement of two classes of response (an elicited startle reflex and emitted exploratory behavior) were determined in rats of two different ages (15 and 36 days). The rate of decrement in the startle reflex was not clearly differentiated as a function of age. In contrast, there was no evidence of habituation of exploration in the younger animals, whereas the older rats uniformly showed profound response decrements. This ontogenetic dissociation of the two instances of response decrement indicates that accounts of both instances in terms of a common process called habituation may be unwarranted. In addition, these data, in conjunction with earlier findings, indirectly support the possibility that reflex decrements may be relatively more dependent on brain serotonin whereas decrements in exploration may be more dependent on normal cholinergic activity in brain.     

Recognition memory for active and passive sentences

Data from three experiments are reported in which recognition memory for active and passive sentences is compared. The results consistently show no difference, a result taken to invalidate syntactic memory hypotheses (e.g., the kernel plus tag and markedness hypotheses) which assume that the stored representation of passive sentences is more complex than that of active sentences. Previous reports of superior recall of active sentences are attributed to a reconstructive bias. One form of propositional hypothesis and a verbatim hypothesis are consistent with the data.This research was supported by Grant MH 19859 from NIMH to the first author, and by Rutgers University Research Council grants to both authors.     

Coordinating visual and kinaesthetic memory codes.

Four experiments examined the Connolly & Jones (1970) model which postulates that translation between modalities in the cross-modal paradigm occurs before storage in short-term memory. In general, the results provided no support for the translation notion. Delaying until the end of the retention interval knowledge of the reproduction mode failed to produce a matching performance decrement. Subjects were able to maintain the code of original presentation through the retention interval even when they did not expect reproduction to be in this mode. In addition, the asymmetry in the cross-modal matching of visual (V) and kinaesthetic (K) information, whereby K-V performance is more accurate than V-K performance, was found to occur only under certain visual display conditions. The implications of these findings for general models of cross-modal translation were discussed.     

Velocity as a factor in movement timing accuracy

Our experiments examined the boundaries within which movement timing error decreases in timing responses as a function of increases in movement velocity. Experiment 1 investigated the lower end of the movement-velocity continuum and showed a curvilinear decrease in movement error as average velocity increased from 5 to 25 cm/sec. Experiment 2 also revealed a decrease in movement error as velocities increased from 67 to 95% (98-320 cm/sec) of maximum velocity for the amplitudes employed. These findings were confirmed in Experiment 3 which examined the full range of the velocity continuum in a completely within-subject design. Absolute timing error, expressed as a percentage of movement time, was a logarithmic function of average velocity, with error decreasing as velocity increased. Overall, the findings demonstrate the generalizability of the movement-velocity effect on timing error. The discussion focuses on explanations for this phenomenon which currently appear far from clear-cut.     

Kinematic information feedback and task constraints

The experiments were designed to examine the effect of task constraints on the influence of kinematic information feedback to facilitate the acquisition of discrete arm movements. The findings of Experiments 1 and 3 revealed that when the criterion kinematic trajectory was an increasing acceleration function, the most effective control space representation for kinematic feedback (i.e. position-time; velocity-position) was the one that matched the error criterion to be minimized. Furthermore, in Experiment 1 the velocity-position feedback condition led to greater performance error than the discrete knowledge of results of movement time or integrated position-time error. Experiment 2 showed that kinematic information feedback of the movement trajectory (position-time; velocity-position) did not facilitate acquisition of a constant velocity criterion, in contrast to knowledge of results of movement time or integrated velocity-position error. Collectively the findings suggest that the interaction of task and organismic constraints dictates the nature of the information feedback required to facilitate the acquisition of skill. The augmented information available must match the degrees of freedom requiring constraint in the movement sequence.     

Central and peripheral coordination in movement sequences

Summary Motor coordination has been too poorly defined to be a useful construct in studying the control of movement. In general, motor coordination involves controlling both the timing and the kinematics of movement. Yet the motor behaviors typically used for the study of coordination have required controlling only the timing or the spatial aspects of a movement. To understand better the basis of motor behavior, this study examined movement sequences, a class of movement in which both the timing and the kinematics must be controlled. In one experiment we studied a reaching and grasping movement sequence to characterize the central coordination of movement sequences. In another experiment we studied a throwing movement sequence to characterize the peripheral (kinesthetic) coordination of movement sequences. An heuristic model is presented to explain how central and peripheral mechanisms of coordination might interact to produce accurate movement.     

Biopsychosocial Factors Associated with Parenting Stress in Pediatric Sickle Cell Disease

Caregivers of children with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience significant physical and emotional hardship with their child’s disease management. Little is known about the potential contributors to parenting stress in pediatric SCD. The present study aimed to identify child and caregiver biopsychosocial factors associated with disease-related parenting stress in pediatric SCD. Participants included 74 caregiver-youth dyads. Parenting stress was associated with increased child pain frequency, more missed school days, and increased healthcare utilization, and inversely correlated with caregiver mental health and social-emotional functioning. Parenting stress also partially explained the relationship between child pain frequency and healthcare utilization after controlling for parent depression and anxiety. Parenting stress may play a unique and critical role in pediatric SCD and underscore the impact parenting stress may have on youth in medical and academic settings. Further research is warranted to determine risk factors and appropriate interventions for parenting stress to improve comprehensive patient care.

     

Gerald Edelman’s Project: How Gerald Edelman’s Theory of Consciousness Completes Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and Provides a Basis for a Brain-Based Psychoanalytic Perspective

In this article we consider Nobel Prize Winner Gerald Edelman’s remarkable contribution to the understanding of human evolution, and our own application of Edelman’s theory to a brain-based psychoanalytic perspective we have devised. Edelman’s paradigm setting out his theory of the evolution of mind, brain, and consciousness concerns not only mankind’s evolution over all of time, but also the evolution of each and every individual over and within his single lifetime. Edelman contends that human beings, as individuals, and not only as the taxonomic category from which they sprang, have a separate and distinct evolutionary history of their own, and it is especially from within Edelman’s theoretical assumptions about the evolution of the individual per se that our own psychoanalytic understanding of theory and practice derives.