A Biosymtic (Biosymbiotic Robotic) Approach to Human Development and Evolution. The Echo of the Universe.

In the present work we demonstrate that the current Child-Computer Interaction paradigm is not potentiating human development to its fullest – it is associated with several physical and mental health problems and appears not to be maximizing children’s cognitive performance and cognitive development. In order to potentiate children’s physical and mental health (including cognitive performance and cognitive development) we have developed a new approach to human development and evolution. This approach proposes a particular synergy between the developing human body, computing machines and natural environments. It emphasizes that children should be encouraged to interact with challenging physical environments offering multiple possibilities for sensory stimulation and increasing physical and mental stress to the organism. We created and tested a new set of computing devices in order to operationalize our approach – Biosymtic (Biosymbiotic Robotic) devices: “Albert” and “Cratus”. In two initial studies we were able to observe that the main goal of our approach is being achieved. We observed that, interaction with the Biosymtic device “Albert”, in a natural environment, managed to trigger a different neurophysiological response (increases in sustained attention levels) and tended to optimize episodic memory performance in children, compared to interaction with a sedentary screen-based computing device, in an artificially controlled environment (indoors) - thus a promising solution to promote cognitive performance/development; and that interaction with the Biosymtic device “Cratus”, in a natural environment, instilled vigorous physical activity levels in children - thus a promising solution to promote physical and mental health

Peak Alpha Frequency: an Electroencephalographic Measure of Cognitive Preparedness

Background. Electroencephalographic (EEG) peak alpha frequency (PAF) has been shown to correlate with a variety of phenomena, including age, memory performance in healthy and demented individuals, different emotional states, schizophrenia, anxiety, recovery from stroke, cerebral blood flow (CBF) velocity, brain oxygenation, as well as acute administration of stimulant and nootropic substances. These studies have shown that PAF varies between healthy and clinical individuals, with the latter consistently having lower PAF. Moreover, PAF varies between healthy individuals, reflecting cognitive performance, with better performance being associated with increased PAF. Finally, PAF varies within individuals both between developmental stages and between different cognitive tasks, or physiological states induced by administration of various substances. The present study suggests that among other phenomena PAF reflects a trait or state of cognitive preparedness, using three independent datasets from healthy and brain injured individuals. Based on the preceding literature, the following hypotheses were generated. First, that PAF is an index of optimal brain function, being suppressed under traumatic brain injury (TBI). Second, that PAF is negatively correlated with time since TBI, and that it is increased after cognitive rehabilitation of individuals with TBI. Third, that PAF shows cognitive preparedness within individuals, reflecting task performance differences at different days. Fourth, that PAF is increased after tasks more in those individuals who had it lower at initial baseline, being affected by the task that forces them to correct their initial unpreparedness. Method. Dataset A involved EEG recordings from 15 healthy young adults before, during, and after a set of reading tasks (task duration 5-20 minutes) . Dataset B involved EEG recordings from 10 individuals with TBI and 12 healthy age and sex matched controls, before, during, and after tasks of visual and auditory attention (task duration 20 minutes) (Captain\u27s Log, Braintrain). Dataset C involved EEG recordings from 19 healthy young adults before and after a 3-minute working memory task (WAIS-R Digit Span). In this dataset, the procedure has been repeated in two different days, so within individual differences in PAF and performance could be measured. EEG was recorded at 19 scalp electrodes using the 10/20 international electrode placement system. Average PAF for each recording was reported using the EEG Workstation 2.0 software (NovatechEEG, inc.). Results. PAF showed significantly lower values in individuals with TBI as compared to matched healthy controls during a post-task eyes-open baseline. PAF recorded at day 1 was significantly correlated with Digit Span performance of the same day but not with Digit Span performance of day 2. Likewise, PAF recorded at day 2 was significantly correlated with Digit Span performance of the same day but not with Digit Span performance of day 1. Moreover, PAF was significantly increased after Digit Span for those participants who had it below the sample median before the task, whereas it did not increase significantly for those who had it above the sample median. However, this was not replicated with PAF before and after reading tasks. Finally, PAF was not found to be significantly correlated to time since TBI, and it did not increase significantly after cognitive rehabilitation of individuals with TBI. Conclusions. As expected, individuals with brain injury had lower PAF from healthy controls, confirming the consistent direction of PAF differences between normal brain function and pathology, as is the case with other neurological or psychiatric syndromes, including stroke, dementia, and schizophrenia. Interestingly, these differences between individuals with TBI and non-clinical controls were mostly prominent during a baseline that followed a set of cognitive tasks, resembling other physiological indices that require stressing the organ to be assessed (e.g. electrocardiogram). In addition to its sensitivity to gross brain pathology, PAF was found to be particularly sensitive to brain states within individuals during different days. PAF significantly predicted cognitive performance on a working memory task that was performed immediately after EEG recording, whereas it did not predict performance within a few days. In addition to predict performance, PAF was found to be affected by a working memory task, extending previous research and supporting a strong dual relationship between PAF and cognitive performance. The nature and duration of this state of relationship, however, needs further investigation. Although a short working memory task increased PAF in individuals who had it lower immediately before the task, a longer set of reading tasks failed to replicate this phenomenon. It is suggested that EEG normative databases include PAF into their statistical reports and that neurofeedback protocols to increase PAF are attempted to improve cognitive performance in both clinical and non-clinical populations

Study, definition and analysis of pilot/system performance measurements for planetary entry experiments

Definition analysis for experimental prediction of pilot performance during planetary entr

Ocular accommodation and cognitive demand: An additional indicator besides pupil size and cardiovascular measures?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aim of the present study was to assess accommodation as a possible indicator of changes in the autonomic balance caused by altered cognitive demand. Accounting for accommodative responses from a human factors perspective may be motivated by the interest of designing virtual image displays or by establishing an autonomic indicator that allows for remote measurement at the human eye. Heart period, pulse transit time, and the pupillary response were considered as reference for possible closed-loop accommodative effects. Cognitive demand was varied by presenting monocularly numbers at a viewing distance of 5 D (20 cm) which had to be read, added or multiplied; further, letters were presented in a "n-back" task.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cardiovascular parameters and pupil size indicated a change in autonomic balance, while error rates and reaction time confirmed the increased cognitive demand during task processing. An observed decrease in accommodation could not be attributed to the cognitive demand itself for two reasons: (1) the cognitive demand induced a shift in gaze direction which, for methodological reasons, accounted for a substantial part of the observed accommodative changes. (2) Remaining effects disappeared when the correctness of task processing was taken into account.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although the expectation of accommodation as possible autonomic indicator of cognitive demand was not confirmed, the present results are informative for the field of applied psychophysiology noting that it seems not to be worthwhile to include closed-loop accommodation in future studies. From a human factors perspective, expected changes of accommodation due to cognitive demand are of minor importance for design specifications – of, for example, complex visual displays.</p

Occipital Cortex of Blind Individuals Is Functionally Coupled with Executive Control Areas of Frontal Cortex

In congenital blindness, the occipital cortex responds to a range of nonvisual inputs, including tactile, auditory, and linguistic stimuli. Are these changes in functional responses to stimuli accompanied by altered interactions with nonvisual functional networks? To answer this question, we introduce a data-driven method that searches across cortex for functional connectivity differences across groups. Replicating prior work, we find increased fronto-occipital functional connectivity in congenitally blind relative to blindfolded sighted participants. We demonstrate that this heightened connectivity extends over most of occipital cortex but is specific to a subset of regions in the inferior, dorsal, and medial frontal lobe. To assess the functional profile of these frontal areas, we used an n-back working memory task and a sentence comprehension task. We find that, among prefrontal areas with overconnectivity to occipital cortex, one left inferior frontal region responds to language over music. By contrast, the majority of these regions responded to working memory load but not language. These results suggest that in blindness occipital cortex interacts more with working memory systems and raise new questions about the function and mechanism of occipital plasticity.David & Lucile Packard FoundationNational Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship Progra

Bestial boredom: a biological perspective on animal boredom and suggestions for its scientific investigation

Boredom is likely to have adaptive value in motivating exploration and learning, and many animals may possess the basic neurological mechanisms to support it. Chronic inescapable boredom can be extremely aversive, and understimulation can harm neural, cognitive and behavioural flexibility. Wild and domesticated animals are at particular risk in captivity, which is often spatially and temporally monotonous. Yet biological research into boredom has barely begun, despite having important implications for animal welfare, the evolution of motivation and cognition, and for human dysfunction at individual and societal levels. Here I aim to facilitate hypotheses about how monotony affects behaviour and physiology, so that boredom can be objectively studied by ethologists and other scientists. I cover valence (pleasantness) and arousal (wakefulness) qualities of boredom, because both can be measured, and I suggest boredom includes suboptimal arousal and aversion to monotony. Because the suboptimal arousal during boredom is aversive, individuals will resist low arousal. Thus, behavioural indicators of boredom will, seemingly paradoxically, include signs of increasing drowsiness, alongside bouts of restlessness, avoidance and sensation-seeking behaviour. Valence and arousal are not, however, sufficient to fully describe boredom. For example, human boredom is further characterized by a perception that time ‘drags’, and this effect of monotony on time perception can too be behaviourally assayed in animals. Sleep disruption and some abnormal behaviour may also be caused by boredom. Ethological research into this emotional phenomenon will deepen understanding of its causes, development, function and evolution, and will enable evidence-based interventions to mitigate human and animal boredom

Training methods for facial image comparison: a literature review

This literature review was commissioned to explore the psychological literature relating to facial image comparison with a particular emphasis on whether individuals can be trained to improve performance on this task. Surprisingly few studies have addressed this question directly. As a consequence, this review has been extended to cover training of face recognition and training of different kinds of perceptual comparisons where we are of the opinion that the methodologies or findings of such studies are informative. The majority of studies of face processing have examined face recognition, which relies heavily on memory. This may be memory for a face that was learned recently (e.g. minutes or hours previously) or for a face learned longer ago, perhaps after many exposures (e.g. friends, family members, celebrities). Successful face recognition, irrespective of the type of face, relies on the ability to retrieve the to-berecognised face from long-term memory. This memory is then compared to the physically present image to reach a recognition decision. In contrast, in face matching task two physical representations of a face (live, photographs, movies) are compared and so long-term memory is not involved. Because the comparison is between two present stimuli rather than between a present stimulus and a memory, one might expect that face matching, even if not an easy task, would be easier to do and easier to learn than face recognition. In support of this, there is evidence that judgment tasks where a presented stimulus must be judged by a remembered standard are generally more cognitively demanding than judgments that require comparing two presented stimuli Davies &amp; Parasuraman, 1982; Parasuraman &amp; Davies, 1977; Warm and Dember, 1998). Is there enough overlap between face recognition and matching that it is useful to look at the literature recognition? No study has directly compared face recognition and face matching, so we turn to research in which people decided whether two non-face stimuli were the same or different. In these studies, accuracy of comparison is not always better when the comparator is present than when it is remembered. Further, all perceptual factors that were found to affect comparisons of simultaneously presented objects also affected comparisons of successively presented objects in qualitatively the same way. Those studies involved judgments about colour (Newhall, Burnham &amp; Clark, 1957; Romero, Hita &amp; Del Barco, 1986), and shape (Larsen, McIlhagga &amp; Bundesen, 1999; Lawson, Bülthoff &amp; Dumbell, 2003; Quinlan, 1995). Although one must be cautious in generalising from studies of object processing to studies of face processing (see, e.g., section comparing face processing to object processing), from these kinds of studies there is no evidence to suggest that there are qualitative differences in the perceptual aspects of how recognition and matching are done. As a result, this review will include studies of face recognition skill as well as face matching skill. The distinction between face recognition involving memory and face matching not involving memory is clouded in many recognition studies which require observers to decide which of many presented faces matches a remembered face (e.g., eyewitness studies). And of course there are other forensic face-matching tasks that will require comparison to both presented and remembered comparators (e.g., deciding whether any person in a video showing a crowd is the target person). For this reason, too, we choose to include studies of face recognition as well as face matching in our revie

Bacteria Hunt: Evaluating multi-paradigm BCI interaction

The multimodal, multi-paradigm brain-computer interfacing (BCI) game Bacteria Hunt was used to evaluate two aspects of BCI interaction in a gaming context. One goal was to examine the effect of feedback on the ability of the user to manipulate his mental state of relaxation. This was done by having one condition in which the subject played the game with real feedback, and another with sham feedback. The feedback did not seem to affect the game experience (such as sense of control and tension) or the objective indicators of relaxation, alpha activity and heart rate. The results are discussed with regard to clinical neurofeedback studies. The second goal was to look into possible interactions between the two BCI paradigms used in the game: steady-state visually-evoked potentials (SSVEP) as an indicator of concentration, and alpha activity as a measure of relaxation. SSVEP stimulation activates the cortex and can thus block the alpha rhythm. Despite this effect, subjects were able to keep their alpha power up, in compliance with the instructed relaxation task. In addition to the main goals, a new SSVEP detection algorithm was developed and evaluated