Attentional bias towards pain-related information diminishes the efficacy of distraction

Distraction is a strategy that is commonly used to cope with pain. Results concerning the efficacy of distraction from both experimental and clinical studies are variable, however, and indicate that its efficacy may depend on particular circumstances. Several models propose that distraction may be less effective for people who display a large attentional bias towards pain-related information. This hypothesis was tested in an experimental context with 53 pain-free volunteers. First, attentional bias towards cues signalling the occurrence of pain (electrocutaneous stimuli) and towards words describing the sensory experience of this painful stimulus was independently assessed by means of 2 behavioural paradigms (respectively, spatial cueing task and dot-probe task). This was followed by a subsequent distraction task during which the efficacy of distraction, by directing attention away from the electrocutaneous stimuli, was tested. In addition, state-trait anxiety, catastrophic thinking, and initial pain intensity were measured. Results indicated that people who display a large attentional bias towards predictive cues of pain or who initially experience the pain as more painful benefit less from distraction on a subsequent test. No effects were found between attentional bias towards pain words, state-trait anxiety, catastrophic thinking, and the efficacy of distraction. Current findings suggest that distraction should not be used as a 'one size fits all' method to control pain, but only under more specific conditions

Comprehension, Demonstration, and Accuracy in Aristotle

according to aristotle's posterior analytics, scientific expertise is composed of two different cognitive dispositions. Some propositions in the domain can be scientifically explained, which means that they are known by "demonstration", a deductive argument in which the premises are explanatory of the conclusion. Thus, the kind of cognition that apprehends those propositions is called "demonstrative knowledge".1 However, not all propositions in a scientific domain are demonstrable. Demonstrations are ultimately based on indemonstrable principles, whose knowledge is called "comprehension".2 If the knowledge of all scientific propositions were..

Interrupting tradition : now-time (Jeztzeit) in and out of the theatre

‘Progress has its seat not in the continuity of elapsing time but in its interruptions—where the truly new makes itself felt for the first time’. Interruption, as articulated by Walter Benjamin in The Arcades Project, presupposes both the potential continuation of historical time (defined as the sequential movement of history toward its end) as well as its possible cessation. To interrupt, meaning to “break between,” implies a space of allowing that punctures the status quo—be that status quo the disequilibria of power and material means or otherwise. Where the new ruptures, tradition maintains. For Benjamin this interruption occurs in the present. The present, being the site of interruption, is endowed with a potential to break with the self-positing structures of the past. The time of the present, now-time as Benjamin conceives of it, does not, however, condition itself transcendentally but must, instead, be immanently possible in and of world. The necessity for the metaphorical becoming space of time in the phrase “space of allowing” only reconfirms this. This paper questions how we can think and actualise interruption in both philosophy and the theatre. It argues that the theoretical germ for Benjamin’s concept of now-time derives from his work on the idea of tragedy found in his essays of the 1920s and in The Origins of German Tragic Drama. Elucidating these texts, this paper reconciles Benjamin’s aesthetic and political philosophies.peer-reviewe

Spatial audio in small display screen devices

Our work addresses the problem of (visual) clutter in mobile device interfaces. The solution we propose involves the translation of technique-from the graphical to the audio domain-for expliting space in information representation. This article presents an illustrative example in the form of a spatialisedaudio progress bar. In usability tests, participants performed background monitoring tasks significantly more accurately using this spatialised audio (a compared with a conventional visual) progress bar. Moreover, their performance in a simultaneously running, visually demanding foreground task was significantly improved in the eye-free monitoring condition. These results have important implications for the design of multi-tasking interfaces for mobile devices

Quantification and Intonation in Modern Greek

The present paper discusses data and problems concerning the distribution and licensing conditions of two subtly different yet distinct readings for kathe (‘every’) Determiner Phrases (DPs) in Modern Greek. The determiner kathe seems to be a single lexical item. Nonetheless, kathe DPs give rise to two different interpretations. The two readings, a presuppositional distributive universal quantifier and a non-presuppositional free choice existential-like one are phonologically differentiated by means of prosodic emphasis. The former appears as phonologically stressed, the latter without phonological marking. Sentential operators seem to regulate the appearance of the latter. The presence or absence of presupposition in the sentence is considered to be responsible for this distinction

Touching Freud's dog: H.D.'s tactile poetics

"Do not touch me", Frau Emmy warns Freud in 1889. "Do not touch", Freud echoes in 1933. This time, he is referring to his pet chow, Yofi, warning H.D. that "she snaps - she is very difficult with strangers". Examining the prohibition in light of work by Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, this article charts the withdrawal that always interrupts touch. Despite Freud's taboo, however, H.D.'s writing seeks to make contact in strange and unnerving ways. Developing Julia Kristeva's account of the semiotic, this paper proposes a literature of touch. Reading H.D.'s poems, alongside Tribute to Freud, and her letters, the author demonstrates that H.D.'s poetics are always haunted by the very (im)possibility of contact