Facial expression of pain: an evolutionary account.

This paper proposes that human expression of pain in the presence or absence of caregivers, and the detection of pain by observers, arises from evolved propensities. The function of pain is to demand attention and prioritise escape, recovery, and healing; where others can help achieve these goals, effective communication of pain is required. Evidence is reviewed of a distinct and specific facial expression of pain from infancy to old age, consistent across stimuli, and recognizable as pain by observers. Voluntary control over amplitude is incomplete, and observers can better detect pain that the individual attempts to suppress rather than amplify or simulate. In many clinical and experimental settings, the facial expression of pain is incorporated with verbal and nonverbal vocal activity, posture, and movement in an overall category of pain behaviour. This is assumed by clinicians to be under operant control of social contingencies such as sympathy, caregiving, and practical help; thus, strong facial expression is presumed to constitute and attempt to manipulate these contingencies by amplification of the normal expression. Operant formulations support skepticism about the presence or extent of pain, judgments of malingering, and sometimes the withholding of caregiving and help. To the extent that pain expression is influenced by environmental contingencies, however, "amplification" could equally plausibly constitute the release of suppression according to evolved contingent propensities that guide behaviour. Pain has been largely neglected in the evolutionary literature and the literature on expression of emotion, but an evolutionary account can generate improved assessment of pain and reactions to it

An Optokinetic Nystagmus Detection Method for Use With Young Children

Sangi, M., Thompson, B., & Turuwhenua, J. (2015). An Optokinetic Nystagmus Detection Method for Use With Young Children. IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, 3, 1600110. http://doi.org/10.1109/JTEHM.2015.2410286 ©IEEEThe detection of vision problems in early childhood can prevent neurodevelopmental disorders such as amblyopia. However, accurate clinical assessment of visual function in young children is challenging. optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) is a reflexive sawtooth motion of the eye that occurs in response to drifting stimuli, that may allow for objective measurement of visual function in young children if appropriate child-friendly eye tracking techniques are available. In this paper, we present offline tools to detect the presence and direction of the optokinetic reflex in children using consumer grade video equipment. Our methods are tested on video footage of children (N = 5 children and 20 trials) taken as they freely observed visual stimuli that induced horizontal OKN. Using results from an experienced observer as a baseline, we found the sensitivity and specificity of our OKN detection method to be 89.13% and 98.54%, respectively, across all trials. Our OKN detection results also compared well (85%) with results obtained from a clinically trained assessor. In conclusion, our results suggest that OKN presence and direction can be measured objectively in children using consumer grade equipment, and readily implementable algorithms

Chapter From the Lab to the Real World: Affect Recognition Using Multiple Cues and Modalities

Interdisciplinary concept of dissipative soliton is unfolded in connection with ultrafast fibre lasers. The different mode-locking techniques as well as experimental realizations of dissipative soliton fibre lasers are surveyed briefly with an emphasis on their energy scalability. Basic topics of the dissipative soliton theory are elucidated in connection with concepts of energy scalability and stability. It is shown that the parametric space of dissipative soliton has reduced dimension and comparatively simple structure that simplifies the analysis and optimization of ultrafast fibre lasers. The main destabilization scenarios are described and the limits of energy scalability are connected with impact of optical turbulence and stimulated Raman scattering. The fast and slow dynamics of vector dissipative solitons are exposed

Facilitating the Child–Robot Interaction by Endowing the Robot with the Capability of Understanding the Child Engagement: The Case of Mio Amico Robot

AbstractSocial Robots (SRs) are substantially becoming part of modern society, given their frequent use in many areas of application including education, communication, assistance, and entertainment. The main challenge in human–robot interaction is in achieving human-like and affective interaction between the two groups. This study is aimed at endowing SRs with the capability of assessing the emotional state of the interlocutor, by analyzing his/her psychophysiological signals. The methodology is focused on remote evaluations of the subject's peripheral neuro-vegetative activity by means of thermal infrared imaging. The approach was developed and tested for a particularly challenging use case: the interaction between children and a commercial educational robot, Mio Amico Robot, produced by LiscianiGiochi©. The emotional state classified from the thermal signal analysis was compared to the emotional state recognized by a facial action coding system. The proposed approach was reliable and accurate and favored a personalized and improved interaction of children with SRs

Change blindness: eradication of gestalt strategies

Arrays of eight, texture-defined rectangles were used as stimuli in a one-shot change blindness (CB) task where there was a 50% chance that one rectangle would change orientation between two successive presentations separated by an interval. CB was eliminated by cueing the target rectangle in the first stimulus, reduced by cueing in the interval and unaffected by cueing in the second presentation. This supports the idea that a representation was formed that persisted through the interval before being 'overwritten' by the second presentation (Landman et al, 2003 Vision Research 43149–164]. Another possibility is that participants used some kind of grouping or Gestalt strategy. To test this we changed the spatial position of the rectangles in the second presentation by shifting them along imaginary spokes (by ±1 degree) emanating from the central fixation point. There was no significant difference seen in performance between this and the standard task [F(1,4)=2.565, p=0.185]. This may suggest two things: (i) Gestalt grouping is not used as a strategy in these tasks, and (ii) it gives further weight to the argument that objects may be stored and retrieved from a pre-attentional store during this task