Resource-Building Processes Across Life Domains: Father-Child Interactions as Starting Points for Resource Caravans

Journal of Happiness Studies - In two studies, we examined preconditions of resource-building processes between family and work. Focusing on positive father-child interactions, we investigated...     

Logical Metonymy Resolution in a Words‐as‐Cues Framework: Evidence From Self‐Paced Reading and Probe Recognition

Logical metonymy resolution (begin a book → begin writing a book) has traditionally been explained either through complex lexical entries (qualia structures) or through the integration of the implicit event via post‐lexical access to world knowledge. We propose that recent work within the words‐as‐cues paradigm can provide a more dynamic model of logical metonymy, accounting for early and dynamic integration of complex event information depending on previous contextual cues (agent and patient). We first present a self‐paced reading experiment on German subordinate sentences, where metonymic sentences and their paraphrased version differ only in the presence or absence of the clause‐final target verb (Der Konditor begann die Glasur → Der Konditor begann, die Glasur spreading the icing). Longer reading times at the target verb position in a high‐typicality condition (baker + icing → spread ) suggest that we make use of knowledge activated by lexical cues to build expectations about events. The early and dynamic integration of event knowledge in metonymy interpretation is bolstered by further evidence from a second experiment using the probe recognition paradigm. Presenting covert events as probes following a high‐typicality or a low‐typicality metonymic sentence (Der Konditor begann die Glasur → SPREAD ), we obtain an analogous effect of typicality at 100 ms interstimulus interval.     

An augmented reality home-training system based on the mirror training and imagery approach

Mirror training and movement imagery have been demonstrated to be effective in treating several clinical conditions, such as phantom limb pain, stroke-induced hemiparesis, and complex regional pain syndrome. This article presents an augmented reality home-training system based on the mirror and imagery treatment approaches for hand training. A head-mounted display equipped with cameras captures one hand held in front of the body, mirrors this hand, and displays it in real time in a set of four different training tasks: (1) flexing fingers in a predefined sequence, (2) moving the hand into a posture fitting into a silhouette template, (3) driving a “Snake” video game with the index finger, and (4) grasping and moving a virtual ball. The system records task performance and transfers these data to a central server via the Internet, allowing monitoring of training progress. We evaluated the system by having 7 healthy participants train with it over the course of ten sessions of 15-min duration. No technical problems emerged during this time. Performance indicators showed that the system achieves a good balance between relatively easy and more challenging tasks and that participants improved significantly over the training sessions. This suggests that the system is well suited to maintain motivation in patients, especially when it is used for a prolonged period of time.     

The scene and the unseen: Manipulating photographs for experiments on change blindness and scene memory

The change blindness paradigm, in which participants often fail to notice substantial changes in a scene, is a popular tool for studying scene perception, visual memory, and the link between awareness and attention. Some of the most striking and popular examples of change blindness have been demonstrated with digital photographs of natural scenes; in most studies, however, much simpler displays, such as abstract stimuli or “free-floating” objects, are typically used. Although simple displays have undeniable advantages, natural scenes remain a very useful and attractive stimulus for change blindness research. To assist researchers interested in using natural-scene stimuli in change blindness experiments, we provide here a step-by-step tutorial on how to produce changes in natural-scene images with a freely available image-processing tool (GIMP). We explain how changes in a scene can be made by deleting objects or relocating them within the scene or by changing the color of an object, in just a few simple steps. We also explain how the physical properties of such changes can be analyzed using GIMP and MATLAB (a high-level scientific programming tool). Finally, we present an experiment confirming that scenes manipulated according to our guidelines are effective in inducing change blindness and demonstrating the relationship between change blindness and the physical properties of the change and inter-individual differences in performance measures. We expect that this tutorial will be useful for researchers interested in studying the mechanisms of change blindness, attention, or visual memory using natural scenes.     

Suppression of emotional stroop effects by fear-arousal

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested that subjects are slower to colour-name emotional words, when the meaning of these words is related to a fear or current concern. We carried out three experiments on subjects having either high or low fear of snakes, with the aim of replicating this finding, and of testing the effects of arousing fear in subjects at the same time. Unexpectedly, we could only replicate the predicted interference effect in the absence of threat, whether due to a snake or to another threatening stimulus. We conclude that emotional interference effects do depend on high levels of fearfulness or trait anxiety, and on a match between the content of the subjects' concerns and the meaning of the interfering material. However, this interference may be paradoxically obscured by fear arousal, or the presence of a real danger that alters processing priorities in highly fearful subjects.     

How equivalent are the action execution,imagery, and observation of intransitive movements? Revisiting the concept of somatotopy during action simulation

Jeannerod (2001) hypothesized that action execution, imagery, and observation are functionally equivalent. This led to the major prediction that these motor states are based on the same action-specific and even effector-specific motor representations. The present study examined whether hand and foot movements are represented in a somatotopic manner during action execution, imagery, and action observation.     

Using Dynamic Field Theory to extend the embodiment stance toward higher cognition

The embodiment stance emphasizes that cognitive processes unfold continuously in time, are constantly linked to the sensory and motor surfaces, and adapt through learning and development. Dynamic Field Theory (DFT) is a neurally based set of concepts that has turned out to be useful for understanding how cognition emerges in an embodied and situated system. We explore how the embodiment stance may be extended beyond those forms of cognition that are closest to sensorimotor processes. The core elements of DFT are dynamic neural fields (DNFs), patterns of activation defined over different kinds of spaces. These may include retinal space and visual feature spaces, spaces spanned by movement parameters such as movement direction and amplitude, or abstract spaces like the ordinal axis along which sequences unfold. Instances of representation that stand for perceptual objects, motor plans, or action intentions are peaks of activation in the DNFs. We show how such peaks may arise from input and are stabilized by intra-field interaction. Given a neural mechanism for instantiation, the neuronal couplings between DNFs implement cognitive operations. We illustrate how these mechanisms can be used to enable architectures of dynamic neural fields to perform cognitive functions such as acquiring and updating scene representations, using grounded spatial language, and generating sequences of actions. Implementing these DFT models in autonomous robots demonstrates how these cognitive functions can be enacted in embodied, situated systems.