Does movement proficiency impact on exergaming performance?

There is growing interest in the use of consumer level exergames in movement skill acquisition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between movement proficiency and performance in virtual exergaming. Twenty seven children, aged 10–15 years participated in an experiment completing the Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2 (MABC-2) and a series of XBOX360 Kinect Sports exergaming tasks. Significant correlations were observed between MABC-2 aiming and catching percentile and exergame javelin and target kick, where the more proficient movers tended to perform better in the exergame. Statistically significant correlations were observed between MABC-2 balance percentile and exergaming sprint and target kick performance. In this study children who scored better in real life gross motor movement tasks performed better in most related exergaming activities. This suggests current exergaming technology has advanced to a point where body movement unencumbered by a physical or remote game device tether can extract movements resembling real life tasks, translate them into game play and reward proficient movers with higher in-game performance. It is possible that benefit gained in an exergaming environment by more proficient movers was a result of either their more proficient movement, or a greater ability to adapt to the exergame.     

The effect of instruction to synchronize over step frequency while walking with auditory cues on a treadmill

Walking to a pacing stimulus has proven useful in motor rehabilitation, and it has been suggested that spontaneous synchronization could be preferable to intentional synchronization. But it is still unclear if the paced walking effect can occur spontaneously, or if intentionality plays a role. The aim of this work is to analyze the effect of sound pacing on gait with and without instruction to synchronize, and with different rhythmic auditory cues, while walking on a treadmill.Firstly, the baseline step frequency while walking on a treadmill was determined for all participants, followed by experimental sessions with both music and footstep sound cues. Participants were split into two groups, with one being instructed to synchronize their gait to the auditory stimuli, and the other being simply told to walk. Individual auditory cues were generated for each participant: for each trial, cues were provided at the participant’s baseline walking frequency, at 5% and 10% above baseline, and at 5% and 10% below baseline.This study’s major finding was the role of intention on synchronization, given that only the instructed group synchronized their gait with the auditory cues. No differences were found between the effects of step or music stimuli on step frequency.In conclusion, without intention or cues that direct the individual’s attention, spontaneous gait synchronization does not occur during treadmill walking.     

The Goal Circuit Model: A Hierarchical Multi‐Route Model of the Acquisition and Control of Routine Sequential Action in Humans

Human control of action in routine situations involves a flexible interplay between (a) task‐dependent serial ordering constraints; (b) top‐down, or intentional, control processes; and (c) bottom‐up, or environmentally triggered, affordances. In addition, the interaction between these influences is modulated by learning mechanisms that, over time, appear to reduce the need for top‐down control processes while still allowing those processes to intervene at any point if necessary or if desired. We present a model of the acquisition and control of goal‐directed action that goes beyond existing models by operationalizing an interface between two putative systems—a routine and a non‐routine system—thereby demonstrating how explicitly represented goals can interact with the emergent task representations that develop through learning in the routine system. The gradual emergence of task representations offers an explanation for the transfer of control with experience from the non‐routine goal‐based system to the routine system. At the same time it allows action selection to be sensitive both to environmental triggers and to biasing from multiple levels within the goal system.     

Interventions in everyday lives: How clients use psychotherapy outside their sessions

The purpose of psychotherapy is to help clients address and overcome problems troubling them in their everyday lives. Therapy can therefore only work if clients include it in their ongoing lives to deal with their problems. Detailed, systematic research is needed on how clients do so in their everyday lives outside their sessions. A design of exploratory case studies on this topic is presented in this article. The main outcomes of such a case study on family therapy are then laid out in general terms. They highlight how treatment practices and clients’ ordinary everyday practices interact when clients change their everyday lives to overcome their troubles. They also highlight what it involves for clients to accomplish this. It is concluded that we need more research on how to understand intervention; on the interaction between interventions and clients’ conduct of their everyday life; on sessions as a particular, secluded part of clients’ ongoing everyday lives, and on how to consider therapists’ procedures and conduct of sessions accordingly.     

Divine Action,Resurrection, and the Transformation of the Universe

Abstract

The article examines the notion of self-organization and explores the reality of biological processes from an epistemological point of view. First, I briefly analyze what is currently regarded as one of the most important discoveries not only in physics, but also in biology—namely, complex systems and deterministic chaos; secondly, I offer some reflections on the new frontiers of contemporary biology— namely, functional genomics and systems biology. The central part of the article focuses on the epistemological transition from genetic determinism to the new conception of “meaning” as emergence.     

价值计算决定何时与如何努力

优化努力的分配,最小化努力成本和最大化收益是各个领域的关键问题。本文梳理了基于努力的决策(effort-based decision-making)的理论与实证研究,讨论了努力的两面性：固有成本和潜在价值。通过拓展控制期望价值理论(Expected Value of Control, EVC),本研究探讨了影响努力的非社会与社会因素。探索人们何时以及如何付出努力的计算神经机制,有利于理解与促进社会互动中的努力行为,以及为干预精神疾病中动机缺失症状提供参考。     

依赖于唤醒与效价的情绪记忆增强效应：自动与控制加工*

情绪记忆增强(Emotionally Enhanced Memory, EEM)效应受到刺激的唤醒度和效价的影响。Kensinger 等人提出依赖于唤醒的 EEM 效应与自动加工相联系,依赖于效价的 EEM 效应与控制加工相联系。然而现有研究并不能为这一假设提供充分的证据。本研究的三个实验采用学习--再认范式和 DA 范式(divided attention paradigm)相结合的方法,分别考察了在两种注意条件下依赖于唤醒和依赖于效价的EEM 效应在编码阶段的加工机制。结果发现,中性词、正性非唤醒词、负性非唤醒词在集中注意条件下的记忆再认成绩显著高于分散注意条件下的记忆再认成绩;正性唤醒词在集中注意条件下的记忆再认成绩也显著高于分散注意条件下的记忆再认成绩,但负性唤醒词的记忆再认成绩在两种注意条件下不存在显著差异。这表明依赖于效价的 EEM 效应与控制加工相联系,而依赖于唤醒的 EEM 效应并不总是与自动加工相联系,其加工还受到情绪效价的调节,对于负性刺激,依赖于唤醒的 EEM 效应与自动加工相联系;对于正性刺激,依赖于唤醒的EEM效应则与控制加工相联系。     

The Deep Structure of Group Life: Unconscious Dimensions

There is a reconsideration and renaissance of interest in expanded conceptions of unconscious processes as they affect individuals and groups (Grotstein, 1999). Recent focus on social unconscious (Hopper, 1996) and cultural unconscious processes (Henderson, 1988) and the nature of intersubjectivity (Harwood and Pines, 1998) raise questions about the location of group analysis. This paper considers the deep structure of group life by examining four functions of the unconscious: repressive, conservative, creative, and mythopoetic (Ellenberger, 1970). On an individual level of analysis, these functions are equated respectively with formative ideas about the: personal–subjective, social–political, intersubjective–cultural and collective–objective unconscious. Group level analogs, as they develop and affect groups and their members, are explored as synthetic, shared, symbolicy and synchronous unconscious processes.     

Why theatre-based research works? Psychological theories from behind the curtain

While many scholars have demonstrated the effectiveness of theatre-based knowledge mobilization, fewer studies have examined its psychological dimensions. This article examines some psychological theories that may account for the success behind theatre-based knowledge mobilization. Drawing from the Canadian Experience Project, a study about the labor market challenges of skilled immigrant workers, we show how theatre-based research dissemination efforts attempt to achieve optimal stress by using aesthetic distance processes. We maintain that this psychological capacity to attune to audience members, especially evident in forum theatre, makes theatre a particularly effective means for knowledge mobilization.