Instruction Modes for Motor Control Skills Acquisition: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

The objective was to compare two different instruction modes used to teach patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain (CLBP) to perform a lumbar motor control task. The three intervention instruction modes used were: common verbal explanation of a motor task based on a motor control therapeutic exercise (MCTE-control group), MTCE instructed using motor imagery (MI) and MCTE instructed using tactile feedback (TF). The main outcome measure was lumbar motor control of the neutral position test. Forty-eight patients with CLBP were randomly allocated into three groups of 16 patients per group. The MI strategy was the most effective mode for developing the motor control task in an accurate and controlled manner, obtaining better outcomes than TF or verbal instruction.     

Face recognition algorithms and the other‐race effect: computational mechanisms for a developmental contact hypothesis

People recognize faces of their own race more accurately than faces of other races. The “contact” hypothesis suggests that this “other‐race effect” occurs as a result of the greater experience we have with own‐ versus other‐race faces. The computational mechanisms that may underlie different versions of the contact hypothesis were explored in this study. We replicated the other‐race effect with human participants and evaluated four classes of computational face recognition algorithms for the presence of an other‐race effect. Consistent with the predictions of a developmental contact hypothesis, “experience‐based models” demonstrated an other‐race effect only when the representational system was developed through experience that warped the perceptual space in a way that was sensitive to the overall structure of the model's experience with faces of different races. When the model's representation relied on a feature set optimized to encode the information in the learned faces, experience‐based algorithms recognized minority‐race faces more accurately than majority‐race faces. The results suggest a developmental learning process that warps the perceptual space to enhance the encoding of distinctions relevant for own‐race faces. This feature space limits the quality of face representations for other‐race faces.     

TALKING THE WALK AND WALKING THE TALK: Stanley Hauerwas's Contribution to Theological Ethics

Stanley Hauerwas's contribution to the study of Christian ethics is analyzed in the course of offering an overview of his work, including (1) his early reflections on “vision,”“narrative,” and moral agency; (2) his continuing focus on Christian virtues and practices in contrast to the ethos of moral and political liberalism; and (3) his specific attention to the meaning of peaceableness and the rejection of violence. The essay concludes by considering Hauerwas's legacy as a postliberal theologian, a critical participant in American Protestant ethics, and a conversation partner with Roman Catholics.     

Discounting mechanism underlies extinction illusion

Humans can perceive a coherent visual scene despite a low spatial resolution in peripheral vision. How does the visual system determine whether an object exists in the periphery? We addressed this question by focusing on the extinction illusion in which a disk becomes subjectively invisible when presented at the intersection of grids. We hypothesized that the disk would go unnoticed when the stimuli with and without the disk produced the same strength of visual signals. The visual system would miss the disk by confounding the target signals with the intersection signals that should be discounted. Computational analysis revealed that the energy ratio between the stimuli with and without the disk decreased with stimulus eccentricity and such energy ratio could successfully explain the observer’s d’ to detect the disk. These results indicate that the discounting mechanism relying on stimulus energy determines the awareness toward a peripheral object.     

Binocular vision in infancy: Responsiveness to uncrossed horizontal disparity

This research explored the onset of stereopsis, the ability to perceive depth from the different views provided by the two eyes. In a longitudinal study, infants were tested weekly from 6 to 20 weeks of age. The primary goal of the study was to establish the onset and the early development of sensitivity to uncrossed horizontal disparity. The infant participants were shown dynamic random dot stereograms displaying two squares, one with uncrossed horizontal disparity (0.5°) and one with vertical disparity (0.5°). The stimuli were presented on an autostereoscopic monitor. We used two methods, the forced-choice preferential looking (FPL) method and the classical natural preference (CNP) method, to measure whether the infants preferred the uncrossed over the vertical disparity display. According to the FPL data, the mean relative preferences for horizontal over vertical disparity were significantly greater than chance probability (0.50) from 13 weeks of age onward. With the CNP method we found significant preferences for uncrossed horizontal disparity from 15 weeks onward. The FPL method was hence more sensitive than the CNP method as it indicated an earlier onset of responsiveness to stereoscopic information.     

Colour vision is aligned with natural scene statistics at 4 months of age

Visual perception in adult humans is thought to be tuned to represent the statistical regularities of natural scenes. For example, in adults, visual sensitivity to different hues shows an asymmetry which coincides with the statistical regularities of colour in the natural world. Infants are sensitive to statistical regularities in social and linguistic stimuli, but whether or not infants’ visual systems are tuned to natural scene statistics is currently unclear. We measured colour discrimination in infants to investigate whether or not the visual system can represent chromatic scene statistics in very early life. Our results reveal the earliest association between vision and natural scene statistics that has yet been found: even as young as 4 months of age, colour vision is aligned with the distributions of colours in natural scenes.

Research Highlights

1. We find infants’ colour sensitivity is aligned with the distribution of colours in the natural world, as it is in adults.
2. At just 4 months, infants’ visual systems are tailored to extract and represent the statistical regularities of the natural world.
3. This points to a drive for the human brain to represent statistical regularities even at a young age.

     

Making a Case for the Common Good in a Global Economy: The United Nations Human Development Reports[1990–2001]

Whereas the chief development question of the past has been “how much is a nation producing?” the human development perspective that characterizes the United Nations Human Development Reports shifts the question to “how are its people faring?” This shift reflects the fundamental moral orientation of the human development perspective which makes a case for the common good in a global economy. Relating the themes and claims of the human development reports to Brian Stiltner’s recent study on religion and the common good, the author shows a variety of ways in which the common good as a moral norm is embedded in the human development perspective, without the context of religion. She explicates the presence and utility of this norm in these United Nations reports written by economists, development specialists, and policy advisors who seek to present and assess the humanizing and dehumanizing features of globalization.     

低社会经济地位与跨期决策：威胁视角下的心理转变机制

大量证据显示低社会经济地位者常做出“短视行为”, 如在教育上投资较少、有较多的债务和较少的储蓄等, 而这些行为又进一步恶化其不利处境。威胁感知引发心理转变, 使得低社会经济地位者将注意力聚焦在与稀缺相关的事情上, 并具体地、情境化地对事件进行表征, 同时倾向于采取快生命史策略, 进而导致短视决策行为发生。未来研究除了更深入地探讨低社会经济地位者行为决策陷阱的多层次多水平路径机制外, 应更加广泛而深入地开发出符合我国国情的有效干预方案, 使其为实现共同富裕提供科学的心理学路径。