Augmenting Visual Search Performance With Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)

Military personnel endure rigorous and demanding man-hours designated to monitoring and locating targets in tasks such as cyber defense and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operators. These tasks are monotonous and repetitive, which can result in vigilance decrement. The objective of the study was to implement a form of noninvasive brain stimulation known as transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS) over the left frontal eye field (LFEF) region of the scalp to improve cognitive performance. The participants received anodal and cathodal stimulation of 2 mA for 30 min as well as placebo stimulation on 3 separate days while performing the task. The findings suggest that anodal and cathodal stimulation significantly improves detection accuracy. Also, a correlation was detected between percent of eye closure (PERCLOS) and blinking frequency in relation to stimulation condition. Our data suggest that tDCS over the LFEF would be a beneficial countermeasure to mitigate the vigilance decrement and improve visual search performance.     

The triumph of American psychiatry: How it created the modern therapeutic state

Over the past 170 years, American psychiatry has progressively asserted its authority over a larger segment of the American population. From the mid-1800s to the end of World War II, psychiatry had authority over the asylum population, which markedly increased in the first half of the twentieth century due to the influence of eugenics, an ideology that argued the ‘mentally ill’ had to be segregated from society. After the war, American psychiatry adopted Freudian conceptions of mental disorders, which enabled it to begin treating people in the community who were ‘neurotic’ in some way, which dramatically expanded its influence in society. Then, in the 1970s, when many in American society were questioning psychiatry’s legitimacy as a branch of medicine, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) responded by adopting a disease model for diagnosing mental disorders, which it set forth in the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. There were no scientific discoveries that led to this new model, but soon the APA was informing the American public that mental disorders were diseases of the brain, and that psychiatric drugs helped fix those diseases, ‘like insulin for diabetes.’ The APA, in concert with pharmaceutical companies, has successfully exported this belief system to much of the developed world. In order to break free of this ‘therapeutic state,’ the public needs to understand the history of how it came to be, and see the social injury it has caused.     

Teaching religious education as a second choice. The case of three male student teachers in Finland

This article explores the professional reflection of three male religious education (RE) student teachers during their one-year pedagogical training. The participants (n = 3) interviewed in this article were chosen on the basis of their self-report in the questionnaire in which they claimed no previous teaching experience. The participants were interviewed three times: at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of their one-year teacher education. The interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis. The study showed some patterns in the student teachers reflections concerning developmental aims, professionalism, and convictions during the year. The article concludes that in RE teacher education developing pedagogical thinking should be accompanied with becoming aware of the role of personal life history and contextual situation play in the process of becoming a sound professional in RE.     

I don't get you. Action observation effects inverted by kinematic variation

Recent studies have reported an intricate interplay between affordance and mirror effects (the imitation of another agent) when participants attend to the concurrent presentation of an object and another agent interacting with it. In the present paper, we compare two experimental settings in which an observed action was presented as a prime for a task involving the categorization of a graspable object. In experiment 1a, the action depicted a reach and grasp gesture whereas in experiment 1b, only the reach phase was presented. This modification led to very different outcomes. Experiment 1a reflected the traditional imitation effect elicited by human motion. Conversely, experiment 1b showed the facilitation of contralateral responses. Affordance effects were found in experiment 1a only for the RVF. Our results support the view that motor simulation processes underlying imitation or joint actions are extremely sensitive to specific phase kinematics.     

When the mask falls: The role of facial motor resonance in memory for emotional language

The recognition and interpretation of emotional information (e.g., about happiness) has been shown to elicit, amongst other bodily reactions, spontaneous facial expressions occurring in accordance to the relevant emotion (e.g. a smile). Theories of embodied cognition act on the assumption that such embodied simulations are not only an accessorial, but a crucial factor in the processing of emotional information. While several studies have confirmed the importance of facial motor resonance during the initial recognition of emotional information, its role at later stages of processing, such as during memory for emotional content, remains unexplored. The present study bridges this gap by exploring the impact of facial motor resonance on the retrieval of emotional stimuli. In a novel approach, the specific effects of embodied simulations were investigated at different stages of emotional memory processing (during encoding and/or retrieval). Eighty participants underwent a memory task involving emotional and neutral words consisting of an encoding and retrieval phase. Depending on the experimental condition, facial muscles were blocked by a hardening facial mask either during encoding, during retrieval, during both encoding and retrieval, or were left free to resonate (control). The results demonstrate that not only initial recognition but also memory of emotional items benefits from embodied simulations occurring during their encoding and retrieval.     

The impact of concurrent visual feedback on coding of on-line and pre-planned movement sequences

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which participants could effectively switch from on-line (OL) to pre-planned (PP) control (or vice versa) depending on previous practice conditions and whether concurrent visual feedback was available during transfer testing. The task was to reproduce a 2000 ms spatial–temporal pattern of a sequence of elbow flexions and extensions. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two practice conditions termed OL or PP. In the OL condition the criterion waveform and the cursor were provided during movement production while this information was withheld during movement production for the PP condition. A retention test and two effector transfer tests were administered to half of the participants in each acquisition conditions under OL conditions and the other half under PP conditions. The mirror effector transfer test required the same pattern of muscle activation and limb joint angles as required during acquisition. The non-mirror transfer test required movements to the same visual–spatial locations as experienced during acquisition. The results indicated that when visual information was available during the transfer tests performers could switch from PP to OL. When visual information was withdrawn, they shifted from the OL to the PP-control mode. This finding suggests that performers adopt a mode of control consistent with the feedback conditions provided during testing.     

A bilateral advantage for maintaining objects in visual short term memory

Research has shown that attentional pre-cues can subsequently influence the transfer of information into visual short term memory (VSTM) (Schmidt, B., Vogel, E., Woodman, G., & Luck, S. (2002). Voluntary and automatic attentional control of visual working memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 64(5), 754–763). However, studies also suggest that those effects are constrained by the hemifield alignment of the pre-cues (Holt, J. L., & Delvenne, J.-F. (2014). A bilateral advantage in controlling access to visual short-term memory. Experimental Psychology, 61(2), 127–133), revealing better recall when distributed across hemifields relative to within a single hemifield (otherwise known as a bilateral field advantage). By manipulating the duration of the retention interval in a colour change detection task (1 s, 3 s), we investigated whether selective pre-cues can also influence how information is later maintained in VSTM. The results revealed that the pre-cues influenced the maintenance of the colours in VSTM, promoting consistent performance across retention intervals (Experiments 1 & 4). However, those effects were only shown when the pre-cues were directed to stimuli displayed across hemifields relative to stimuli within a single hemifield. Importantly, the results were not replicated when participants were required to memorise colours (Experiment 2) or locations (Experiment 3) in the absence of spatial pre-cues. Those findings strongly suggest that attentional pre-cues have a strong influence on both the transfer of information in VSTM and its subsequent maintenance, allowing bilateral items to better survive decay.     

Temporality and the torments of time

Immersion in time gives birth to consciousness, as well as conflict and torment. When human beings developed a sense of future, they also gained the ability to anticipate threats from nature or their fellow beings. They thereby created cultures that are bastions of survival, as well as places of poetry, art and religion where they could band together and reflect upon their common plight. The practice of psychoanalysis is in many ways a temporal process, a process of remembering, for owning and elaborating a past that gives us substance, thereby providing a basis for reflective consciousness. Stimulated by Freud's early writings, Lacan, Laplanche and their successors in particular have focussed extensively on time and psychoanalysis, and their views are a central point of this discussion. A substantial case study is offered that provides concrete examples of these perspectives. A multi‐faceted view of temporality emerges, one that is more syncopated than linear or teleological. In conclusion, I will briefly discuss recent findings in the neuroscience of memory and ‘time travel’ that underpin contemporary psychoanalytic ideas in surprising ways. It is important to remember that acceptance of the contradictory nature of temporal experience can open space for increased freedom and playfulness.     

Relationships between coordination,active drag and propelling efficiency in crawl

This study examines the relationships between the index of coordination (IdC) and active drag (D) assuming that at constant average speed, average drag equals average propulsion. The relationship between IdC and propulsive efficiency (e_p) was also investigated at maximal speed. Twenty national swimmers completed two incremental speed tests swimming front crawl with arms only in free condition and using a measurement of active drag system. Each test was composed of eight 25-m bouts from 60% to 100% of maximal intensity whereby each lap was swum at constant speed. Different regression models were tested to analyse IdC–D relationship. Correlation between IdC and e_p was calculated. IdC was linked to D by linear regression (IdC = 0.246 · D − 27.06; R² = 0.88, P < .05); swimmers switched from catch-up to superposition coordination mode at a speed of ∼1.55 m s⁻¹ where average D is ∼110 N. No correlation between IdC and e_p at maximal speed was found. The intra-individual analysis revealed that coordination plays an important role in scaling propulsive forces with higher speed levels such that these are adapted to aquatic resistance. Inter-individual analysis showed that high IdC did not relate to a high e_p suggesting an individual optimization of force and power generation is at play to reach high speeds.     

Exercise can improve physical self perceptions in adolescents with low motor competence

Adolescents with low motor competence have diminished perceptions of their physical self and tend to avoid physical activities. This study examined the outcomes of an exercise intervention that focused on improving aerobic fitness, strength, and self-perceptions in the physical domain in adolescents with poor motor coordination. The sample included 35 adolescents with low motor competence, comprising boys (n = 25) and girls (n = 10) ranging in age from 13 to 17 years, who attended two sessions per week in the 13 week exercise intervention study (AMP it up). Physical self-perceptions were measured before and after the intervention using the Physical Self Perception Profile and Perceived Importance Profile. Significant improvements in perceived Physical Condition, Attractive Body and Physical Strength sub domain scores were identified between pre and post-test. Adjusting for age, gender, BMI and attendance, regression analyses revealed that Attractive Body was the strongest predictor of Physical Self Worth at pre-test, joined by Physical Condition at post-test. This exercise intervention had a positive impact on adolescent physical self-perceptions, in particular males, with improvements in those sub domains specifically related to the exercise program. Changes in specific aspects of Physical Self Worth can be facilitated by exercise interventions, after a relatively short period of time, in adolescents with poor motor coordination.