Multisensory Motion Perception in 3\u20134 Month-Old Infants

Human infants begin very early in life to take advantage of multisensory information by extracting the invariant amodal information that is conveyed redundantly by multiple senses. Here we addressed the question as to whether infants can bind multisensory moving stimuli, and whether this occurs even if the motion produced by the stimuli is only illusory. Three- to 4-month-old infants were presented with two bimodal pairings: visuo-tactile and audio-visual. Visuo-tactile pairings consisted of apparently vertically moving bars (the Barber Pole illusion) moving in either the same or opposite direction with a concurrent tactile stimulus consisting of strokes given on the infant\u2019s back. Audio-visual pairings consisted of the Barber Pole illusion in its visual and auditory version, the latter giving the impression of a continuous rising or ascending pitch. We found that infants were able to discriminate congruently (same direction) vs. incongruently moving (opposite direction) pairs irrespective of modality (Experiment 1). Importantly, we also found that congruently moving visuo-tactile and audio-visual stimuli were preferred over incongruently moving bimodal stimuli (Experiment 2). Our findings suggest that very young infants are able to extract motion as amodal component and use it to match stimuli that only apparently move in the same direction

Effectiveness of a Multimodal Mindfulness Program for Student Health Care Professionals: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: The effectiveness of a multimodal mindfulness program incorporating traditional and nontraditional forms of active and nonactive meditation practices with a sample of occupational and physical therapy students was assessed in this study. Method: Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. The 8-week mindfulness program consisted of one weekly 40-min in-person group session and four weekly 10-min online guided meditations. Pre and postintervention measures included the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Student Stress Management Scale (SSMS), mindfulness activity log, open-ended qualitative questionnaire, GPA, and counseling visit frequency. Results: Statistically significant differences, with large effect sizes, were found between intervention and control group PSS (Z=-4.291, pd=-1.84) and SSMS (Z=-3.330, pd=-1.27) postintervention scores. Statistically significant differences, with large effect sizes, were found between intervention group pre and postmindfulness activity ratings for each week and all weeks combined (Z=-12.599, pd=1.29). Qualitative data revealed eight themes including greater sleep quality, energy levels, self-compassion, and life-work balance. No statistically significant differences were found between intervention and control group counseling visit frequency and GPA. Conclusion: As this is preliminary data about a novel intervention with a small student sample, effectiveness of this intervention should be further explored in a replication study

Learning to Represent Haptic Feedback for Partially-Observable Tasks

The sense of touch, being the earliest sensory system to develop in a human body [1], plays a critical part of our daily interaction with the environment. In order to successfully complete a task, many manipulation interactions require incorporating haptic feedback. However, manually designing a feedback mechanism can be extremely challenging. In this work, we consider manipulation tasks that need to incorporate tactile sensor feedback in order to modify a provided nominal plan. To incorporate partial observation, we present a new framework that models the task as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) and learns an appropriate representation of haptic feedback which can serve as the state for a POMDP model. The model, that is parametrized by deep recurrent neural networks, utilizes variational Bayes methods to optimize the approximate posterior. Finally, we build on deep Q-learning to be able to select the optimal action in each state without access to a simulator. We test our model on a PR2 robot for multiple tasks of turning a knob until it clicks.Comment: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 201

Rapidly quantifying the relative distention of a human bladder

A device and method of rapidly quantifying the relative distention of the bladder in a human subject are disclosed. The ultrasonic transducer which is positioned on the subject in proximity to the bladder is excited by a pulser under the command of a microprocessor to launch an acoustic wave into the patient. This wave interacts with the bladder walls and is reflected back to the ultrasonic transducer, when it is received, amplified and processed by the receiver. The resulting signal is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter under the command of the microprocessor and is stored in the data memory. The software in the microprocessor determines the relative distention of the bladder as a function of the propagated ultrasonic energy; and based on programmed scientific measurements and individual, anatomical, and behavioral characterists of the specific subject as contained in the program memory, sends out a signal to turn on any or all of the audible alarm, the visible alarm, the tactile alarm, and the remote wireless alarm

The evolution of a visual-to-auditory sensory substitution device using interactive genetic algorithms

Sensory Substitution is a promising technique for mitigating the loss of a sensory modality. Sensory Substitution Devices (SSDs) work by converting information from the impaired sense (e.g. vision) into another, intact sense (e.g. audition). However, there are a potentially infinite number of ways of converting images into sounds and it is important that the conversion takes into account the limits of human perception and other user-related factors (e.g. whether the sounds are pleasant to listen to). The device explored here is termed “polyglot” because it generates a very large set of solutions. Specifically, we adapt a procedure that has been in widespread use in the design of technology but has rarely been used as a tool to explore perception – namely Interactive Genetic Algorithms. In this procedure, a very large range of potential sensory substitution devices can be explored by creating a set of ‘genes’ with different allelic variants (e.g. different ways of translating luminance into loudness). The most successful devices are then ‘bred’ together and we statistically explore the characteristics of the selected-for traits after multiple generations. The aim of the present study is to produce design guidelines for a better SSD. In three experiments we vary the way that the fitness of the device is computed: by asking the user to rate the auditory aesthetics of different devices (Experiment 1), by measuring the ability of participants to match sounds to images (Experiment 2) and the ability to perceptually discriminate between two sounds derived from similar images (Experiment 3). In each case the traits selected for by the genetic algorithm represent the ideal SSD for that task. Taken together, these traits can guide the design of a better SSD

Parasympathetic functions in children with sensory processing disorder.

The overall goal of this study was to determine if parasympathetic nervous system (PsNS) activity is a significant biomarker of sensory processing difficulties in children. Several studies have demonstrated that PsNS activity is an important regulator of reactivity in children, and thus, it is of interest to study whether PsNS activity is related to sensory reactivity in children who have a type of condition associated with sensory processing disorders termed sensory modulation dysfunction (SMD). If so, this will have important implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying sensory processing problems of children and for developing intervention strategies to address them. The primary aims of this project were: (1) to evaluate PsNS activity in children with SMD compared to typically developing (TYP) children, and (2) to determine if PsNS activity is a significant predictor of sensory behaviors and adaptive functions among children with SMD. We examine PsNS activity during the Sensory Challenge Protocol; which includes baseline, the administration of eight sequential stimuli in five sensory domains, recovery, and also evaluate response to a prolonged auditory stimulus. As a secondary aim we examined whether subgroups of children with specific physiological and behavioral sensory reactivity profiles can be identified. Results indicate that as a total group the children with severe SMD demonstrated a trend for low baseline PsNS activity, compared to TYP children, suggesting this may be a biomarker for SMD. In addition, children with SMD as a total group demonstrated significantly poorer adaptive behavior in the communication and daily living subdomains and in the overall Adaptive Behavior Composite of the Vineland than TYP children. Using latent class analysis, the subjects were grouped by severity and the severe SMD group had significantly lower PsNS activity at baseline, tones and prolonged auditory. These results provide preliminary evidence that children who demonstrate severe SMD may have physiological activity that is different from children without SMD, and that these physiological and behavioral manifestations of SMD may affect a child\u27s ability to engage in everyday social, communication, and daily living skills

A system for gaze-contingent image analysis and multi-sensorial image display

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