Protocol for the conceptualization and evaluation of a screening-tool for fitness-to-drive assessment in older people with cognitive impairment

Introduction: Due to aging and health status people may be subjected to a decrease of cognitive ability and subsequently also a decline of driving safety. On the other hand there is a lack of valid and economically applicable instruments to assess driving performance. Objective: The study is designed to develop a valid screening-tool for fitness-to-drive assessment in older people with cognitive impairment externally validated on the basis of on-road driving performance. Methods: In a single-centre, non-randomized cross-sectional trial cognitive functioning and on-road-driving-behavior of older drivers will be assessed. Forty participants with cognitive impairment of different etiology and 40 healthy controls will undergo an extensive neuropsychological assessment. Additionally, an on-road driving assessment for external validation of fitness to drive will be carried out. Primary outcome measures will be performance in attention, executive functions and visuospatial tasks that will be validated with respect to performance on the on-road-driving-test. Secondary outcome measures will be sociodemographic, clinical- and driving characteristics to systematically examine their influence on the prediction of driving behavior. Discussion: In clinical practice counselling patients with respect to driving safety is of great relevance. Thus, having valid, reliable, time economical and easily interpretable screening-tools on hand to counsel patients is of great relevance for practitioners. Ethics and dissemination: Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. The trial results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and various conferences

Art expertise in construing meaning of representational and abstract artworks

Aesthetic appraisal of artwork can present the observer with visual problems to solve in the process of grasping its meaning and ‘visual rightness’ (i.e. “good” structure; Locher, 2003), with an elaboration on perceptual, semantic and affective dimensions (e.g. Marković, 2011). Thus observer's expertise is a factor in aesthetic appraisal. To examine the influence of art training on the aesthetic response, and to clarify the nature of the Representational/Abstract distinction, 30 Experts and 33 Non-experts (Art and Psychology students, respectively) were asked to rate 24 paintings on six affective and affective-evaluative semantic differential scales. Stimuli were images of paintings from the period 1900–1935, 12 broadly Representational and 12 broadly Abstract. Relative to Non-experts, Experts rated Abstract artworks as more Interesting, Beautiful, Informative and Sophisticated, distinguishing them less markedly from Representational artworks. Aggregate Expert and Non-expert ratings, processed by factor analysis, resulted in a two-factor solution. The first factor, contrasting Abstract and Representational artworks, appeared more salient for Non-experts. The second factor, Cool–Warm, separating vibrantly-colored paintings from those with a blue-dominated/dull palette, was more salient for Experts. While Non-experts exaggerated differences between Abstract and Representational paintings, Experts appraised these two types of art similarly, attending more to artwork collative properties. We conclude that appreciation of art by Experts involves ‘cognitive mastery’ (Leder, Belke, Oeberst, & Augustin, 2004), i.e. more complex, cues-based visual schemata which equip them with more sophisticated strategies for analysing collative properties and semantics of an artwork while parsing ‘visual rightness’ to unfold its visual meaning

Stronger Neural Modulation by Visual Motion Intensity in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Theories of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have focused on altered perceptual integration of sensory features as a possible core deficit. Yet, there is little understanding of the neuronal processing of elementary sensory features in ASD. For typically developed individuals, we previously established a direct link between frequency-specific neural activity and the intensity of a specific sensory feature: Gamma-band activity in the visual cortex increased approximately linearly with the strength of visual motion. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated whether in individuals with ASD neural activity reflect the coherence, and thus intensity, of visual motion in a similar fashion. Thirteen adult participants with ASD and 14 control participants performed a motion direction discrimination task with increasing levels of motion coherence. A polynomial regression analysis revealed that gamma-band power increased significantly stronger with motion coherence in ASD compared to controls, suggesting excessive visual activation with increasing stimulus intensity originating from motion-responsive visual areas V3, V6 and hMT/V5. Enhanced neural responses with increasing stimulus intensity suggest an enhanced response gain in ASD. Response gain is controlled by excitatory-inhibitory interactions, which also drive high-frequency oscillations in the gamma-band. Thus, our data suggest that a disturbed excitatoryinhibitory balance underlies enhanced neural responses to coherent motion in ASD

Art in time and space: context modulates the relation between art experience and viewing time.

The experience of art emerges from the interaction of various cognitive and affective processes. The unfolding of these processes in time and their relation with viewing behavior, however, is still poorly understood. Here we examined the effect of context on the relation between the experience of art and viewing time, the most basic indicator of viewing behavior. Two groups of participants viewed an art exhibition in one of two contexts: one in the museum, the other in the laboratory. In both cases viewing time was recorded with a mobile eye tracking system. After freely viewing the exhibition, participants rated each artwork on liking, interest, understanding, and ambiguity scales. Our results show that participants in the museum context liked artworks more, found them more interesting, and viewed them longer than those in the laboratory. Analyses with mixed effects models revealed that aesthetic appreciation (compounding liking and interest), understanding, and ambiguity predicted viewing time for artworks and for their corresponding labels. The effect of aesthetic appreciation and ambiguity on viewing time was modulated by context: Whereas art appreciation tended to predict viewing time better in the laboratory than in museum context, the relation between ambiguity and viewing time was positive in the museum and negative in the laboratory context. Our results suggest that art museums foster an enduring and focused aesthetic experience and demonstrate that context modulates the relation between art experience and viewing behavior

Symmetry is Not a Universal Law of Beauty

Scientific disciplines as diverse as biology, physics, and psychological aesthetics regard symmetry as one of the most important principles in nature and one of the most powerful determinants of beauty. However, symmetry has a low standing in the arts and humanities. This difference in the valuation of symmetry is a remarkable illustration of the gap between the two cultures. To close this gap, we conducted an interdisciplinary, empirical study to directly demonstrate the effects of art expertise on symmetry appreciation. Two groups of art experts—artists and art historians—and a group of non-experts provided spontaneous beauty ratings of visual stimuli that varied in symmetry and complexity. In complete contrast to responses typically found in non-art experts, art experts found asymmetrical and simple stimuli as most beautiful. This is evidence of the effects of specific education and training on aesthetic appreciation and a direct challenge to the universality of symmetry

Differences in art appreciation, ambiguity, and understanding between contexts.

<p>Mean ratings for A) art appreciation, B) ambiguity, and C) understanding split by context. Asterisks indicate significant differences (<i>p</i><.05). Lab  =  Laboratory. Error bars represent 95% CI.</p

Relationships between viewing time for artworks and art experiences by context.

<p>Relationships according to mixed effects model analysis between log transformed viewing time for artworks and A) art appreciation, B) ambiguity, and C) understanding ratings, respectively. Asterisks indicate significant (<i>p</i><.05) and hashes indicate trends (<i>p</i><.10) for different slopes for the museum (solid) and laboratory (dashed) context.</p

The impact of education in the primacy and recency effects in cognitively healthy aging

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Relationship between viewing time for labels and art appreciation by context.

<p>Relationship according to mixed effects model analysis between log(x+1) transformed viewing time for labels and art appreciation ratings. Lab  =  Laboratory. Slopes for the museum (solid) and laboratory (dashed) context are significantly different (<i>p</i><.05).</p

Differences in viewing time between contexts.

<p>Boxplots for A) viewing time for artworks (VT-A), B) viewing time for labels (VT-L), and C) overall viewing time (VT-O = VT-A+VT-L) split by context. Asterisks indicate significant differences between medians (<i>p</i><.05). Lab  =  Laboratory.</p