Analysis of movement quality in full-body physical activities

Full-body human movement is characterized by fine-grain expressive qualities that humans are easily capable of exhibiting and recognizing in others' movement. In sports (e.g., martial arts) and performing arts (e.g., dance), the same sequence of movements can be performed in a wide range of ways characterized by different qualities, often in terms of subtle (spatial and temporal) perturbations of the movement. Even a non-expert observer can distinguish between a top-level and average performance by a dancer or martial artist. The difference is not in the performed movements-the same in both cases-but in the \u201cquality\u201d of their performance. In this article, we present a computational framework aimed at an automated approximate measure of movement quality in full-body physical activities. Starting from motion capture data, the framework computes low-level (e.g., a limb velocity) and high-level (e.g., synchronization between different limbs) movement features. Then, this vector of features is integrated to compute a value aimed at providing a quantitative assessment of movement quality approximating the evaluation that an external expert observer would give of the same sequence of movements. Next, a system representing a concrete implementation of the framework is proposed. Karate is adopted as a testbed. We selected two different katas (i.e., detailed choreographies of movements in karate) characterized by different overall attitudes and expressions (aggressiveness, meditation), and we asked seven athletes, having various levels of experience and age, to perform them. Motion capture data were collected from the performances and were analyzed with the system. The results of the automated analysis were compared with the scores given by 14 karate experts who rated the same performances. Results show that the movement-quality scores computed by the system and the ratings given by the human observers are highly correlated (Pearson's correlations r = 0.84, p = 0.001 and r = 0.75, p = 0.005)

Upper-Body Post-activation Performance Enhancement for Athletic Performance: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis and Recommendations for Future Research

BACKGROUND: Research on post-activation performance enhancement (PAPE) is dominated by lower-body conditioning activities/performance test complexes. Despite the contribution of the upper body to many sporting actions, no review on upper-body PAPE currently exists. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this systematic review with meta-analysis was to provide a synthesis of the available research on the inclusion of upper-body PAPE conditioning activities to improve athletic performance. METHODS: A review of the literature was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses guidelines, including a literature search of EBSCOhost, SPORTDiscus, PubMed and Google Scholar databases. A total of 127 studies were identified through database searches, and were assessed against the following criteria: (1) randomised controlled trial or pre-and-post study design; (2) studies explored the effects of prior voluntary muscle activity, and not electrically induced contractions, (3) evidence, or lack thereof, of PAPE was quantified by the monitoring of individual performance to commonly applied physical tests or sport-specific tasks; (4) conditioning activities and performance tests were primarily upper-body; (5) detailed description of a standardised warm-up; and (6) full-text versions of studies could be accessed in English language peer-reviewed journals. Studies were quality assessed for methodological quality via the PEDro scale and ranked accordingly. RESULTS: Thirty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies were classified into different conditioning activity modes: bench press variations, sport-specific (modified implement throws, swing-specific, cable pulley, elastic resistance, combination) and bodyweight activity. Acute performance enhancement in several movement-specific combinations was found. A meta-analysis revealed that bench press at  ≥ 80% one repetition maximum significantly (p = 0.03; ES = 0.31) improves subsequent power output in the ballistic bench throw at 30–40% one repetition maximum, following 8–12 min recovery. Additionally, sport-specific overweight implement throws improved subsequent throwing distance at competition weight by ~ 1.7–8.5%; ES = 0.14–0.33, following 3 min recovery. Sport-specific lighter weighted bat swings and swing-specific isometrics resulted in improved subsequent competition weight bat swing velocities, ranging from ~ 1.3–4.9%; ES = 0.16–0.57. CONCLUSIONS: This review presents several upper-body movement-specific conditioning activities that could be considered by coaches and practitioners as part of complex or contrast training, or used in pre-competition warm-ups to acutely enhance performance

Learning Bodily and Temporal Attention in Protective Movement Behavior Detection

For people with chronic pain, the assessment of protective behavior during physical functioning is essential to understand their subjective pain-related experiences (e.g., fear and anxiety toward pain and injury) and how they deal with such experiences (avoidance or reliance on specific body joints), with the ultimate goal of guiding intervention. Advances in deep learning (DL) can enable the development of such intervention. Using the EmoPain MoCap dataset, we investigate how attention-based DL architectures can be used to improve the detection of protective behavior by capturing the most informative temporal and body configurational cues characterizing specific movements and the strategies used to perform them. We propose an end-to-end deep learning architecture named BodyAttentionNet (BANet). BANet is designed to learn temporal and bodily parts that are more informative to the detection of protective behavior. The approach addresses the variety of ways people execute a movement (including healthy people) independently of the type of movement analyzed. Through extensive comparison experiments with other state-of-the-art machine learning techniques used with motion capture data, we show statistically significant improvements achieved by using these attention mechanisms. In addition, the BANet architecture requires a much lower number of parameters than the state of the art for comparable if not higher performances.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, code available, accepted in ACII 201

Full-body motion-based game interaction for older adults

Older adults in nursing homes often lead sedentary lifestyles, which reduces their life expectancy. Full-body motion-control games provide an opportunity for these adults to remain active and engaged; these games are not designed with age-related impairments in mind, which prevents the games from being leveraged to increase the activity levels of older adults. In this paper, we present two studies aimed at developing game design guidelines for full-body motion controls for older adults experiencing age-related changes and impairments. Our studies also demonstrate how full-body motion-control games can accommodate a variety of user abilities, have a positive effect on mood and, by extension, the emotional well-being of older adults. Based on our studies, we present seven guidelines for the design of full-body interaction in games. The guidelines are designed to foster safe physical activity among older adults, thereby increasing their quality of life. Copyright 2012 ACM

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of body psychotherapy in the treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia - a multi-centre randomised controlled trial

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Performance anxiety in actors: symptoms, explanations and an Indian approach to treatment

There are numerous examples of renowned performers across the arts (actors and musicians) and in sports, which become news items in the media due to their performance anxiety (also called stage fright in English, or Lampenfieber in German). Given the number of celebrity actors suffering from stage fright, the number of those actors who do not make the news headlines in relation to their stage fright but nevertheless suffer from it must be even higher. In t his essay we provide an up to date account of the symptoms of stage fright, possible explanations for it and a range of known approaches to treatment. This is followed by an original approach to treating stage fright, based on Indian performance techniques, using details of a study undertaken in 2005.This multi-author journal article provides an in-depth analysis into the nature and treatment available for performance anxiety. The article offers examples of numerous artists and singers, including Sir Laurence Olivier, who had experienced stage fright for the duration of his performances of the title role in Ibsen’s The Master Builder (1965). The article run a clear analysis of the symptoms of stage fright and explain the nature of this psychophysical anxiety using clinical evidences and therapeutic methods. The key focus of the article is to compare and contrast two therapeutic methods for deducing stage anxiety: NLP, a well-established method, and SIT, which is an emerging method developed by Sreenath Nair using South Indian Bodily traditions. The article is based on a project carried out by Emerita Elizabeth Valentine and Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe in 2005, funded by the British Academy and the University of Wales Aberystwyth. The project compared two distinct methods of reducing stage fright in stage actors (Valentine et.al. 2006), one of them based on Indian approaches (South Indian Techniques, SIT) and the other Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). The SIT approach makes use of a range of psychophysical approaches deriving from the martial and performance traditions of Kerala. The study concludes that although many of the results were not statistically significant, ten of the eleven main effects were in the predicted direction, i.e. a greater effect for SIT than NLP. This multi-author journal article provides an in-depth analysis into the nature and treatment available for performance anxiety. The article offers examples of numerous artists and singers, including Sir Laurence Olivier, who had experienced stage fright for the duration of his performances of the title role in Ibsen’s The Master Builder (1965). The article run a clear analysis of the symptoms of stage fright and explain the nature of this psychophysical anxiety using clinical evidences and therapeutic methods. The key focus of the article is to compare and contrast two therapeutic methods for deducing stage anxiety: NLP, a well-established method, and SIT, which is an emerging method developed by Sreenath Nair using South Indian Bodily traditions. The article is based on a project carried out by Emerita Elizabeth Valentine and Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe in 2005, funded by the British Academy and the University of Wales Aberystwyth. The project compared two distinct methods of reducing stage fright in stage actors (Valentine et.al. 2006), one of them based on Indian approaches (South Indian Techniques, SIT) and the other Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). The SIT approach makes use of a range of psychophysical approaches deriving from the martial and performance traditions of Kerala. The study concludes that although many of the results were not statistically significant, ten of the eleven main effects were in the predicted direction, i.e. a greater effect for SIT than NLP. The study is a practice-based research demonstrating a highly relevant contribution to a therapeutic practice reducing stage fright. The research combines science and humanities indicating direct and wider impact

A review of the effectiveness of lower limb orthoses used in cerebral palsy

To produce this review, a systematic literature search was conducted for relevant articles published in the period between the date of the previous ISPO consensus conference report on cerebral palsy (1994) and April 2008. The search terms were 'cerebral and pals* (palsy, palsies), 'hemiplegia', 'diplegia', 'orthos*' (orthoses, orthosis) orthot* (orthotic, orthotics), brace or AFO

A review of contemporary techniques for measuring ergonomic wear comfort of protective and sport clothing

Protective and sport clothing is governed by protection requirements, performance, and comfort of the user. The comfort and impact performance of protective and sport clothing are typically subjectively measured, and this is a multifactorial and dynamic process. The aim of this review paper is to review the contemporary methodologies and approaches for measuring ergonomic wear comfort, including objective and subjective techniques. Special emphasis is given to the discussion of different methods, such as objective techniques, subjective techniques, and a combination of techniques, as well as a new biomechanical approach called modeling of skin. Literature indicates that there are four main techniques to measure wear comfort: subjective evaluation, objective measurements, a combination of subjective and objective techniques, and computer modeling of human–textile interaction. In objective measurement methods, the repeatability of results is excellent, and quantified results are obtained, but in some cases, such quantified results are quite different from the real perception of human comfort. Studies indicate that subjective analysis of comfort is less reliable than objective analysis because human subjects vary among themselves. Therefore, it can be concluded that a combination of objective and subjective measuring techniques could be the valid approach to model the comfort of textile materials