Aerospace medicine and biology. A continuing bibliography (supplement 231)

This bibliography lists 284 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in March 1982

Asian Roboticism: Connecting Mechanized Labor to the Automation of Work

Abstract This article reconsiders the present-day automation of work and its transformation of who we are as humans. What has been missing from this important conversation are the social meanings surrounding Asian roboticism or how Asians have already been rendered as “robotic” subjects and labor. Through this racial gendered trope, I assess whether industrial automation will lessen, complicate, or exacerbate this modern archetype. By looking at corporate organizational practices and public media discourse, I believe that Asian roboticism will not simply vanish, but potentially continue to affect the ways such subjects are rendered as exploitable alienated robots without human rights or status

Gaze sensitivity: function and mechanisms from sensory and cognitive perspectives

Sensitivity to the gaze of other individuals has long been a primary focus in sociocognitive research on humans and other animals. Information about where others are looking may often be of adaptive value in social interactions and predator avoidance, but studies across a range of taxa indicate there are substantial differences in the extent to which animals obtain and use information about other individuals' gaze direction. As the literature expands, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make comparisons across taxa as experiments adopt and adjust different methodologies to account for differences between species in their socioecology, sensory systems and possibly also their underlying cognitive mechanisms. Furthermore, as more species are found to exhibit gaze sensitivity, more terminology arises to describe the behaviours. To clarify the field, we propose a restricted nomenclature that defines gaze sensitivity in terms of observable behaviour, independent of the underlying mechanisms. This is particularly useful in nonhuman animal studies where cognitive interpretations are ambiguous. We then describe how socioecological factors may influence whether species will attend to gaze cues, and suggest links between ultimate factors and proximate mechanisms such as cognition and perception. In particular, we argue that variation in sensory systems, such as retinal specializations and the position of the eyes, will determine whether gaze cues (e.g. head movement) are perceivable during visual fixation. We end by making methodological recommendations on how to apply these variations in socioecology and visual systems to advance the field of gaze research

Mapping Information Flow in Sensorimotor Networks

Biological organisms continuously select and sample information used by their neural structures for perception and action, and for creating coherent cognitive states guiding their autonomous behavior. Information processing, however, is not solely an internal function of the nervous system. Here we show, instead, how sensorimotor interaction and body morphology can induce statistical regularities and information structure in sensory inputs and within the neural control architecture, and how the flow of information between sensors, neural units, and effectors is actively shaped by the interaction with the environment. We analyze sensory and motor data collected from real and simulated robots and reveal the presence of information structure and directed information flow induced by dynamically coupled sensorimotor activity, including effects of motor outputs on sensory inputs. We find that information structure and information flow in sensorimotor networks (a) is spatially and temporally specific; (b) can be affected by learning, and (c) can be affected by changes in body morphology. Our results suggest a fundamental link between physical embeddedness and information, highlighting the effects of embodied interactions on internal (neural) information processing, and illuminating the role of various system components on the generation of behavior

Behaviour and its consequences

In this thesis, I have examined the behaviour and some of its neural underpinnings of a ‘model’ animal, the tadpoles and froglets of Xenopus laevis, at different levels of description and detail. At a macroscopic level, I investigated the animals’ movements in a very simple space. Zooming in, I looked at locomotion in freely and fictively swimming animals as well as at some of the sensory and motor consequences of locomotion. For many of these projects, I tested not only one particular developmental stage but a range of stages, allowing me to test for changes in behaviour with development. Methodologically, I employed video tracking to quantify movements in space over a longer period of time, as well as at a higher temporal and spatial resolution for short periods to record head movements during swimming. Semi-intact in vitro preparations of tadpoles were used to examine fictive locomotion and its consequences using electrophysiological recordings of peripheral nerves. Movements in space remained fairly similar over development, from small tadpoles to froglets, with all animals following the walls in a square environment, although the strength of wall following (WF) increased with growth. Tentacles, which are putatively mechanosensory appendages that large tadpoles temporarily possess, did not play any role for the strength of WF. WF was passive at all developmental stages, meaning that the animals never actively turned at a convex curvature to follow the wall, but instead went straight and left the wall. This implies that WF is unlikely to serve a defensive or spatial function. Looking specifically at locomotion in tadpoles showed that these animals commonly swim at 20 - 40 mm/s forward speeds, and move their heads left to right at up to 2500°/s angular velocities. These velocities decrease with development, probably because swimming frequency also decreases, from about 8 to about 5 Hz. Developmentally appropriate swimming frequencies are also seen in fictive swimming when the animals are deprived of normal sensory feedback. The mechanisms behind the developmental decrease in swimming frequency remain to be elucidated; biomechanical factors might well play a role. The left- right head oscillations during swimming also represent vestibular self-stimulation, which reaches amplitudes that are much higher than any of the stimuli used in sensory vestibular experiments. Another consequence of locomotion was observed in large tadpoles with tentacles: These tentacles are retracted during swimming, via a locomotor corollary discharge from the spinal cord. What I have shown in this thesis is first, that navigational behaviour of X. laevis in a simple laboratory setting seems to be mainly driven and constrained by the environment. Second, I have quantified head movements during swimming and therefore vestibular reafference, and found a developmental decrease in the swimming frequency. Finally, I uncovered an unusual effect of locomotion, namely the retraction of the tentacles during swimming. Together, these studies deepen the understanding of behaviour and its consequences in X. laevis

Fixing

Matt Freidson\u27s stories have appeared in New England Review, Confrontation, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Best New American Voices 2006. He lives in England