视觉预期和注意指向对姿势和动作肌肉预期和补偿姿势调节的影响

采用经典落球试验研究范式,同步观察视觉预期和注意指向对腰部姿势肌肉和上肢运动肌肉预期和补偿姿势调节的影响,探索视觉预期和注意指向影响姿势控制的早期心理生理机制。24名青年志愿者(10名男性,14名女性)参与完成本实验,分别在有、无视觉预期以及注意指向"托盘稳定"或者"重心稳定"的实验条件下观察外部姿势干扰对腰部姿势肌肉(L5~S1腰部多裂肌)和上肢动作肌肉(肱二头肌)预期姿势调节(anticipatory postural adjustments,APAs)和补偿姿势调节(compensatory postural adjustments,CPAs)相关时间和强度参数的影响。APAs和CPAs的时间和强度参数通过获取被检肌肉s EMG信号并参照相关检测规范进行。结果显示:(1)视觉预期对多裂肌的APAs启动时间,对肱二头肌的APAs启动时间、APAs强度和CPAs强度有显著影响;(2)注意指向对多裂肌的CPAs启动时间和肱二头肌APAs启动时间有显著影响;(3)视觉预期和注意指向对肱二头肌的APAs启动时间和APAs强度有交互作用。研究认为,突发外部姿势干扰条件下姿势肌肉和动作肌肉的姿势调节策略具有一定的差异,视觉预期和注意指向仅对姿势肌肉的时间参数有影响,对动作肌肉APAs和CPAs时间和强度参数都产生调节作用,表明在中枢神经系统的姿势控制中,人体姿势策略的调节是通过对姿势肌肉和动作肌肉的双重控制来完成的,视觉预期效应和心理指向效应反映在对不同功能肌肉前馈控制和反馈控制相应参数的调节。     

Anticipatory Uncertainty: How Academic and Industry Researchers in the Life Sciences Experience and Manage the Uncertainties of the Research Process Differently

The institutional contexts of research increasingly require researchers to anticipate their productivity and the uncertainties inherent in their research. This applies to both academic researchers and to researchers in start-up companies. This creates a specific kind of uncertainty, anticipatory uncertainty, that we define as the state of being uncertain as to whether research processes will be productive in a specific time frame and along situated definitions of good performance. In the life sciences, this anticipatory uncertainty is experienced and managed differently, depending on how research is organized and the cultural resources available in specific institutional contexts. In biotechnology companies, there is a readiness to embrace dynamic changes in both research strategies and the organization of work in response to new developments in the progress of the overall research agenda. In academia, the ability of research groups to react with similar flexibility seems significantly constrained by the individual attribution of research work and credit, and the correspondingly high level of individual anticipatory uncertainty. This raises questions about how far the current organization of academic research allows epistemic uncertainty to be embraced and corresponding risks to be taken, rather than safe questions to be pursued.     

The attraction of evil and the destruction of meaning

Does the concept of evil deserve special formulation in the realm of psychoanalytic thought? In agreement with authors such as Meltzer (1992) and De Masi (2003) and through selected moments from a boy's long analysis, I will propose a definition of evil as a state of mind, characterized by disregard for the human quality of the object and the destruction of meaning and meaningfulness of life in and for others. Evil drains, perverts and strips symbols of intentions and goals, leaving them empty of emotional significance. In my patient, the state of mind that he called evil exerted a seductive appeal and was accompanied by a sadistic excitement that he elevated into a state of sexualized well‐being, which progressively perverted and destroyed emotional meaning, contributing to his confusion and desperation. Confronting this pathological configuration and describing the situation that I felt existed within his mind and between us, and rearticulating emotional meaning where it had been perverted, cannibalized or left empty, was the principal – and at times only – clinical instrument available to lead him out of his descent into nothingness.     

Psycho-perceptual-motor skills are deemed critical to save the penalty corner in international field hockey

In interceptive sports such as field hockey goalkeeping, the psycho-perceptual-motor skill anticipation is vital for performance due to the extreme time constraints associated with saving a goal. The purpose of this study was to understand the beliefs and attitudes of international field hockey goalkeepers and coaches regarding anticipation of the drag-flick in penalty corners. Seven international goalkeepers and five international coaches were interviewed. Using a constructionist and relativist approach to reflexive thematic data analysis, we identified three overarching themes to anticipate the drag-flick, namely, pre-match video analysis, perception and action, and psychological factors. In the first theme, participants reported that pre-match video analysis allowed goalkeepers and coaches to identify the attacking capabilities of opposing teams. This analysis was used to inform defensive structure and save the drag-flick. In the second theme, participants reported that perception and action, which consisted of the pick-up of visual cues and movement execution, was important to anticipate the drag-flick. Goalkeepers reported that they rely heavily on ball flight, which was central in coaches’ approaches in training drills such as to use a projection machine that presents only ball flight information. The third theme, psychological factors, encompassed, psychological resilience, arousal regulation, leadership and communication, and sports intelligence, which were thought to be vital to facilitate anticipation of the drag-flick. The findings of this study have important implications for how to assess and train visual anticipation in time-constrained interceptive sports skills.     

Anticipatory and consummatory components of the experience of pleasure: A scale development study

The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) was designed to measure individual trait dispositions in both anticipatory and consummatory experiences of pleasure. From an initial pool of theory-based items, we developed a 10-item anticipatory pleasure scale and an 8-item consummatory pleasure scale using several large college-age samples; the two scales were both internally consistent and temporally stable. As expected, these two scales were moderately, positively correlated with each other. Examination of convergent and discriminant validity indicated that the two scales measured distinct and specific constructs. In particular the anticipatory scale was related to reward responsiveness and imagery, while consummatory pleasure was related to openness to different experiences, and appreciation of positive stimuli. Potential applications of the TEPS, particularly in psychopathology research, are discussed.     

奖赏预期对选择性注意的影响——基于客体和空间的注意的区别

为了探究奖赏预期对选择性注意的影响,结合金钱激励延迟任务和双矩形范式,通过两个实验分别考察了奖赏预期的有无以及高低对选择性注意的影响。实验结果表明,在有奖赏预期的情况下,选择性注意更快,奖赏预期的有无对基于空间的注意影响区别不大,但奖赏预期几乎消除了基于客体的注意效应。在低奖赏预期条件下,基于客体和空间的注意均存在;而高奖赏预期条件下,基于空间的注意仍然存在,基于客体的注意几乎被消除了。结果表明奖赏预期可以影响选择性注意,并对基于空间和客体的注意产生不同影响。     

Predicting the biological variability of environmental rhythms: Weak or strong anticipation for sensorimotor synchronization?

The internal processes involved in synchronizing our movements with environmental stimuli have traditionally been addressed using regular metronomic sequences. Regarding real-life environments, however, biological rhythms are known to have intrinsic variability, ubiquitously characterized as fractal long-range correlations. In our research we thus investigate to what extent the synchronization processes drawn from regular metronome paradigms can be generalized to other (biologically) variable rhythms. Participants performed synchronized finger tapping under five conditions of long-range and/or short-range correlated, randomly variable, and regular auditory sequences. Combining experimental data analysis and numerical simulation, we found that synchronizing with biologically variable rhythms involves the same internal processes as with other variable rhythms (whether totally random or comprising lawful regularities), but different from those involved with a regular metronome. This challenges both the generalizability of conclusions drawn from regular-metronome paradigms, and recent research assuming that biologically variable rhythms may trigger specific strong anticipatory processes to achieve synchronization.     

Neurobiological foundations of aesthetics and art

A theory of the neurobiological foundations of aesthetics and art is described. This has its roots in emotion, in which what is pleasant or unpleasant, a reward or punisher, is the result of an evolutionary process in which genes define the (pleasant or unpleasant) goals for action. To this is added the operation of the reasoning, syntactic, brain system which evolved to help solve difficult, multistep, problems, and the use of which is encouraged by pleasant feelings when elegant, simple, and hence aesthetic solutions are found that are advantageous because they are parsimonious, and follow Occam's Razor. The combination of these two systems, and the interactions between them, provide an approach to understanding aesthetics that is rooted in evolution and its effects on brain design and function.     

Heartbeat perception in social anxiety before and during speech anticipation

According to current cognitive models of social phobia, individuals with social anxiety create a distorted image of themselves in social situations, relying, at least partially, on interoceptive cues. We investigated differences in heartbeat perception as a proxy of interoception in 48 individuals high and low in social anxiety at baseline and while anticipating a public speech. Results revealed lower error scores for high fearful participants both at baseline and during speech anticipation. Speech anticipation improved heartbeat perception in both groups only marginally. Eight of nine accurate perceivers as determined using a criterion of maximum difference between actual and counted beats were high socially anxious. Higher interoceptive accuracy might increase the risk of misinterpreting physical symptoms as visible signs of anxiety which then trigger negative evaluation by others. Treatment should take into account that in socially anxious individuals perceived physical arousal is likely to be accurate rather than false alarm.