A simple technique to study embodied language processes: the grip force sensor

Research in cognitive neuroscience has shown that brain structures serving perceptual, emotional, and motor processes are also recruited during the understanding of language when it refers to emotion, perception, and action. However, the exact linguistic and extralinguistic conditions under which such language-induced activity in modality-specific cortex is triggered are not yet well understood. The purpose of this study is to introduce a simple experimental technique that allows for the online measure of language-induced activity in motor structures of the brain. This technique consists in the use of a grip force sensor that captures subtle grip force variations while participants listen to words and sentences. Since grip force reflects activity in motor brain structures, the continuous monitoring of force fluctuations provides a fine-grained estimation of motor activity across time. In other terms, this method allows for both localization of the source of language-induced activity to motor brain structures and high temporal resolution of the recorded data. To facilitate comparison of the data to be collected with this tool, we present two experiments that describe in detail the technical setup, the nature of the recorded data, and the analyses (including justification about the data filtering and artifact rejection) that we applied. We also discuss how the tool could be used in other domains of behavioral research.     

Competing top-down processes in visual selection: evidence that selection by location is stronger than selection by color

The purpose of this study was to examine whether color and position information are functionally equivalent when observers are asked to select simultaneously on both dimensions. Observers were asked to report a letter of a given color from a given region of a briefly flashed letter array, then to report any additional letters they could recall from the stimulus set. Of the additional letters, more location letters were reported than were same-color or neutral letters. The results suggested that position information has priority over color information in top-down-guided visual selection.     

Pastoral Care in Aged Care Settings: Role and Challenges

Journal of Religion and Health - This mixed methods study explored challenges faced by pastoral care workers. A development phase preceded an on-line survey completed by chaplains and pastoral...     

Can Norman Daniels Help You Get a Wheelchair? A Commentary on Durocher et al.

Durocher and colleagues (2019) argue that Norman Daniels’s notion of just health could provide a useful framework for decreasing inequities in access to assistive technology. I argue that it would provide limited help for two reasons. First, Daniels’s reliance on normal species functioning as the goal of health care and his assumptions regarding the impact of normal species functioning on reasonable life projects create substantial difficulties for application to assistive technology. Second, although Daniels’s requirements for distributive justice provide a critical starting point for any discussion of health equity, these requirements appear already met within current assistive technology funding schemes.     

Systems-Centered Therapy: A Protocol for Treating Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The systems-centered short-term therapy protocol was adapted and applied in three single case studies with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients in a ten-session individual treatment over a two week period. All three subjects showed substantial improvement and no longer met diagnostic criteria post-treatment. Changes were maintained at follow up both six months and one year later. These results are promising and suggest the importance of further research on SCT as a viable, alternative treatment for generalized anxiety disorder.