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.     

Body-ownership for actively operated non-corporeal objects

Rubber-hand and virtual-hand illusions show that people can perceive body ownership for objects under suitable conditions. Bottom-up approaches assume that perceived ownership emerges from multisensory matching (e.g., between seen object and felt hand movements), whereas top-down approaches claim that novel body parts are integrated only if they resemble some part of a permanent internal body representation. We demonstrate that healthy adults perceive body ownership for a virtual balloon changing in size, and a virtual square changing in size or color, in synchrony with movements of their real hand. This finding is inconsistent with top-down approaches and amounts to an existence proof that non-corporeal events can be perceived as body parts if their changes are systematically related to one’s actions. It also implies that previous studies with passive-stimulation techniques might have underestimated the plasticity of body representations and put too much emphasis on the resemblance between viewed object and real hand.     

Balancing awareness: Vestibular signals modulate visual consciousness in the absence of awareness

The processing of visual and vestibular information is crucial for perceiving self-motion. Visual cues, such as optic flow, have been shown to induce and alter vestibular percepts, yet the role of vestibular information in shaping visual awareness remains unclear. Here we investigated if vestibular signals influence the access to awareness of invisible visual signals. Using natural vestibular stimulation (passive yaw rotations) on a vestibular self-motion platform, and optic flow masked through continuous flash suppression (CFS) we tested if congruent visual–vestibular information would break interocular suppression more rapidly than incongruent information. We found that when the unseen optic flow was congruent with the vestibular signals perceptual suppression as quantified with the CFS paradigm was broken more rapidly than when it was incongruent. We argue that vestibular signals impact the formation of visual awareness through enhanced access to awareness for congruent multisensory stimulation.     

Feeling the burn: When it looks like it hurts,and belongs to me,it really does hurt more

We examined changes in pain sensitivity in the rubber hand illusion (RHI). Experiment 1 investigated changes in pain tolerance immediately after a “healthy” and “wounded” RHI when immersing the hand in a cold pressor ice bath. There was 19% increased pain tolerance and increased perception detection threshold after the healthy RHI, but 11% reduction after the wounded RHI. Experiment 2 examined pain experience during the wounded RHI with capsaicin-induced hyperalgesia. Pain intensity and unpleasantness was higher on the illusion arm during the synchronous RHI, compared with asynchronous trials. There was no change in pain experience on the control arm, and both arms had similar pain sensitivity after the experiment. Our results highlight the impact of embodying a substitute limb on pain, with increased tolerance and reduced tactile sensitivity when the fake limb is healthy and apparently pain-free, but increased pain sensitivity when the self-attributed limb appears to be wounded.     

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.     

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.     

基于扎根理论的志愿者遗体（器官）捐献的动力探索

在濒临死亡情境下,对26名遗体（器官）捐献志愿者进行深度访谈并收集资料,运用扎根理论的开放编码、关联编码及选择编码对原始资料进行分解、检测、比较、概念化及类属化,并围绕志愿者遗体（器官）捐献的动力进行理论编码。结果显示,构建了扎根于原始资料的志愿者遗体（器官）捐献的新利他主义动机心理模型,形成了正确生死观构筑志愿者遗体（器官）捐献的认识基础、追寻意义存在构建志愿者遗体（器官）捐献的心理特征及利他主义新理念成为志愿者遗体（器官）捐献的动力三条新理论,对诠释志愿者遗体（器官）捐献行为具有一定参与价值。

     

“助手”还是“杀手”：用ChatGPT求医问药的风险分析

ChatGPT正在影响人们求医问药的传统方式,将医疗保健应用场景从院内转移到院外,提高了医学知识和诊疗信息的可及性。但ChatGPT在回答医学问题时也存在不足,如回答内容的不准确性和随意性,也难以将每个患者视为独立个体并给出体现医者智慧、思想和精神关怀的答案。用ChatGPT求医问药还存在生命健康、道德伦理、安全隐私和医疗公平风险。未来,在人工智能赋能医疗发展并促进人类健康的同时,仍应警惕ChatGPT对生命健康权、知情同意权、隐私保护权的冲击。

     

困境与希望：新冠肺炎疫情下的医学叙事

数月以来,新冠肺炎疫情之下的中国医务人员及患者在这场抗疫之战中形成了许多独具特色的医学叙事,其中的文本意义既具有深刻的社会属性,亦具有极强的个人属性。采用参与式观察法,收集、记录自然条件下不同的患者在疫情期间前来医院就诊的疾病故事,共计29个案例,并根据患者就诊中的不同心态将这些案例分为恐慌、无奈和乐观三类,最后尝试以医者的视角,通过三个医务人员的平行病历对疫情之下这三类不同的患者心态进行解读,借此重新审视特殊时代背景之下医者的责任和医学的意义,旨在为后疫情时期的医患关系研究提供一些理论基础和思考空间。