Haptic Aesthetics and Bodily Properties of Ori Gersht’s Digital Art: A Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Study.

Experimental aesthetics has shed light on the involvement of pre-motor areas in the perception of abstract art. However, the contribution of texture perception to aesthetic experience is still understudied. We hypothesized that digital screen-based art, despite its immateriality, might suggest potential sensorimotor stimulation. Original born-digital works of art were selected and manipulated by the artist himself. Five behavioral parameters: Beauty, Liking, Touch, Proximity, and Movement, were investigated under four experimental conditions: Resolution (high/low), and Magnitude (Entire image/detail). These were expected to modulate the quantity of material and textural information afforded by the image. While the Detail condition afforded less content-related information, our results show that it augmented the image’s haptic appeal. High Resolution improved the haptic and aesthetic properties of the images. Furthermore, aesthetic ratings positively correlated with sensorimotor ratings. Our results demonstrate a strict relation between the aesthetic and sensorimotor/haptic qualities of the images, empirically establishing a relationship between beholders’ bodily involvement and their aesthetic judgment of visual works of art. In addition, we found that beholders’ oculomotor behavior is selectively modulated by the perceptual manipulations being performed. The eye-tracking results indicate that the observation of the Entire, original images is the only condition in which the latency of the first fixation is shorter when participants gaze to the left side of the images. These results thus demonstrate the existence of a left-side bias during the observation of digital works of art, in particular, while participants are observing their original version

Emotional body postures affect inhibitory control only when task-relevant

A classical theoretical frame to interpret motor reactions to emotional stimuli is that such stimuli, particularly those threat-related, are processed preferentially, i.e., they are capable of capturing and grabbing attention automatically. Research has recently challenged this view, showing that the task relevance of emotional stimuli is crucial to having a reliable behavioral effect. Such evidence indicated that emotional facial expressions do not automatically influence motor responses in healthy young adults, but they do so only when intrinsically pertinent to the ongoing subject’s goals. Given the theoretical relevance of these findings, it is essential to assess their generalizability to different, socially relevant emotional stimuli such as emotional body postures. To address this issue, we compared the performance of 36 right-handed participants in two different versions of a Go/No-go task. In the Emotional Discrimination task, participants were required to withhold their responses at the display of emotional body postures (fearful or happy) and to move at the presentation of neutral postures. Differently, in the control task, the same images were shown, but participants had to respond according to the color of the actor/actress’ t-shirt, disregarding the emotional content. Results showed that participants made more commission errors (instances in which they moved even though the No-go signal was presented) for happy than fearful body postures in the Emotional Discrimination task. However, this difference disappeared in the control task. Such evidence indicates that, like facial emotion, emotional body expressions do not influence motor control automatically, but only when they are task-relevant

The consequences of COVID-19 on social interactions: an online study on face covering

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the nature of our social interactions. In order to understand how protective equipment and distancing measures influence the ability to comprehend others' emotions and, thus, to effectively interact with others, we carried out an online study across the Italian population during the first pandemic peak. Participants were shown static facial expressions (Angry, Happy and Neutral) covered by a sanitary mask or by a scarf. They were asked to evaluate the expressed emotions as well as to assess the degree to which one would adopt physical and social distancing measures for each stimulus. Results demonstrate that, despite the covering of the lower-face, participants correctly recognized the facial expressions of emotions with a polarizing effect on emotional valence ratings found in females. Noticeably, while females' ratings for physical and social distancing were driven by the emotional content of the stimuli, males were influenced by the "covered" condition. The results also show the impact of the pandemic on anxiety and fear experienced by participants. Taken together, our results offer novel insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social interactions, providing a deeper understanding of the way people react to different kinds of protective face covering

The Remapping of Peripersonal Space in a Real but Not in a Virtual Environment

One of the most surprising features of our brain is the fact that it is extremely plastic. Among the various plastic processes supported by our brain, there is the neural representation of the space surrounding our body, the peripersonal space (PPS). The effects of real-world tool use on the PPS are well known in cognitive neuroscience, but little is still known whether similar mechanisms also govern virtual tool use. To this purpose, the present study investigated the plasticity of the PPS before and after a real (Experiment 1) or virtual motor training with a tool (Experiment 2). The results show the expansion of the PPS only following real-world tool use but not virtual use, highlighting how the two types of training potentially rely on different processes. This study enriches the current state of the art on the plasticity of PPS in real and virtual environments. We discuss our data with respect to the relevance for the development of effective immersive environment for trainings, learning and rehabilitation

Kinetic cross-modal correspondences and felt (e)motion in a novel set of musical stimuli

Embodied music cognition predicts that our understanding of human-made sounds relates to our experience of making the same or similar movements and sounds, which involves imitation of the source of visual and auditory information. This embodiment of sound may lead to numerous kinetic cross-modal correspondences (CMCs). This article investigates music experience in participants with a non-professionally trained music background across three musical dimensions: Contour (Ascending, Descending, Flat), Vertical Density (Low, Medium, High), and Note Pattern (Binary, Ternary, Quaternary). In order that stimuli should reflect contemporary musical usage yet be subject to a high degree of experimental control, 27 ten-second digital piano tracks were created in collaboration with a film composer. In Study 1, participants were asked to rate the stimuli for perceived Direction, Rotation, Movement, and Emotional and Physical Involvement. We test the effects of these factors in terms of the following theories: general and vocal embodied responses to music, the Ecological Theory of Rotating Sounds, and the Shared Affective Motion Experience model of emotion induction. Results for Study 1 were consistent with theories of general and vocal embodied responses to music, as well as with theories of embodied emotional contagion in music. Study 1 also revealed potential confounds in the stimuli, which were further investigated in Study 2 with a new set of participants rating the stimuli for perceived Pitch, Loudness, and Speed. Results for Study 2 served to dissociate intrinsic features of the stimuli from CMCs. Taken together, the two studies reveal a range of embodied CMCs. Although there are limitations to a perceptual study such as this, these stimuli stand to benefit future research in further investigating the embodiment of musical motion

Protect, promote and support: a warm chain of breastfeeding for oncological women\u2014results from a survey of young Italian cancer mothers

The objective of this article was to analyse the experience of breastfeeding in new mothers with a history of cancer compared to women without a cancer diagnosis. First, we explored the impact of the cancer diagnosis on the breastfeeding choice. Second, we evaluated the relationship between different feeding methods and the mother\u2019s mood states in women with and without a history of cancer. The sample was composed of 74 mothers divided into two groups: 34 with a cancer history (clinical sample) and 40 without a cancer diagnosis (control group). Participants were requested to complete a questionnaire three months after childbirth which assessed: socio-demographic and clinical data, feeding modes (breastfeeding, formula and mixed feeding) and the profile of mood states (POMS). Results showed that women in the clinical group breastfeed significantly less and use formula more than those in the control group. Moreover, in the clinical group, women who breastfeed feel reported higher levels of confusion (according to POMS) than mothers who bottle-feed or use a mixed feeding method. On the contrary, in the control sample, women who breastfeed feel significantly more vigorous than puerperae who bottle-feed or use mixed methods according to POMS. Our findings suggest the need for a specific warm chain of support and the development of guidelines with clear and specific information for women with a cancer diagnosis in order to reduce their confusion around breastfeeding

Mejoramiento de la calidad en la educación estadística

n.d.Fil: Gallese, Elda. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Estadística - Universidad Nacional de Rosario - Argentin

The Neural Correlates of Theory of Mindand their Role during Empathy and theGame of Chess: A functional MagneticResonance Imaging Study

Chess involves the capacity to reason iteratively about potential intentional choices of an opponent and therefore involves high levels of explicit theory of mind [ToM] (i.e. ability to infer mental states of others) alongside clear, strategic rule-based decision-making. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used on 12 healthy male novice chess players to identify cortical regions associated with chess, ToM and empathizing. The blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) response for chess and empathizing tasks was extracted from each ToM region. Results showed neural overlap between ToM, chess and empathizing tasks in right-hemisphere temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) [BA40], left-hemisphere superior temporal gyrus [BA22] and posterior cingulate gyrus [BA23/31]. TPJ is suggested to underlie the capacity to reason iteratively about another's internal state in a range of tasks. Areas activated by ToM and empathy included right-hemisphere orbitofrontal cortex and bilateral middle temporal gyrus: areas that become active when there is need to inhibit one's own experience when considering the internal state of another and for visual evaluation of action rationality. Results support previous findings, that ToM recruits a neural network with each region sub-serving a supporting role depending on the nature of the task itself. In contrast, a network of cortical regions primarily located within right- and left-hemisphere medial-frontal and parietal cortex, outside the internal representational network, was selectively recruited during the chess task. We hypothesize that in our cohort of novice chess players the strategy was to employ an iterative thinking pattern which in part involved mentalizing processes and recruited core ToM-related regions

How Context Influences Our Perception of Emotional Faces: A Behavioral Study on the Kuleshov Effect

Facial expressions are of major importance in understanding the mental and emotional states of others. So far, most studies on the perception and comprehension of emotions have used isolated facial expressions as stimuli; for example, photographs of actors displaying facial expressions corresponding to one of the so called ‘basic emotions.’ However, our real experience during social interactions is different: facial expressions of emotion are mostly perceived in a wider context, constituted by body language, the surrounding environment, and our beliefs and expectations. Already in the early twentieth century, the Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov argued that such context, established by intermediate shots of strong emotional content, could significantly change our interpretation of facial expressions in film. Prior experiments have shown behavioral effects pointing in this direction, but have only used static images as stimuli. Our study used a more ecological design with participants watching film sequences of neutral faces, crosscut with scenes of strong emotional content (evoking happiness or fear, plus neutral stimuli as a baseline condition). The task was to rate the emotion displayed by a target person’s face in terms of valence, arousal, and category. Results clearly demonstrated the presence of a significant effect in terms of both valence and arousal in the fear condition only. Moreover, participants tended to categorize the target person’s neutral facial expression choosing the emotion category congruent with the preceding context. Our results highlight the context-sensitivity of emotions and the importance of studying them under ecologically valid conditions