Un Prototipo Di Pianoforte Digitale Con Feedback Vibrotattile

Questo lavoro presenta i risultati di due esperimenti percettivi compiuti su un prototipo di pianoforte digitale aumentato. L'obiettivo di entrambi gli esperimenti era studiare la percezione da parte del pianista di feedback vibrotattile sulla tastiera. Nel primo esperimento i soggetti coinvolti dovevano suonare liberamente al variare del feedback, e fornire un giudizio sulla qualit\ue0 percepita dello strumento in una griglia di cinque attributi: controllo dinamico, ricchezza, coinvolgimento, naturalezza, e preferenza complessiva. Nel secondo esperimento si \ue8 misurata l'accuratezza (in termini di tempo e di controllo dinamico) nell'esecuzione di una scala, al variare del feedback. I risultati mostrano una preferenza per le condizioni in cui \ue8 presente feedback vibrotattile, tuttavia per quanto riguarda l'accuratezza dell'esecuzione non sono state osservate differenze significative tra le diverse condizioni

Substrate specificity of the TRAMP nuclear surveillance complexes

During nuclear surveillance in yeast and human cells, the RNA exosome functions together with the TRAMP complexes. Here, the authors defined the protein composition of the TRAMP complexes and identified specific RNA binding sites for the different TRAMP components

Short-Term Memory Maintenance of Object Locations during Active Navigation: Which Working Memory Subsystem Is Essential?

The goal of the present study was to examine the extent to which working memory supports the maintenance of object locations during active spatial navigation. Participants were required to navigate a virtual environment and to encode the location of a target object. In the subsequent maintenance period they performed one of three secondary tasks that were designed to selectively load visual, verbal or spatial working memory subsystems. Thereafter participants re-entered the environment and navigated back to the remembered location of the target. We found that while navigation performance in participants with high navigational ability was impaired only by the spatial secondary task, navigation performance in participants with poor navigational ability was impaired equally by spatial and verbal secondary tasks. The visual secondary task had no effect on navigation performance. Our results extend current knowledge by showing that the differential engagement of working memory subsystems is determined by navigational ability

Social Anxiety Modulates Subliminal Affective Priming

BACKGROUND: It is well established that there is anxiety-related variation between observers in the very earliest, pre-attentive stage of visual processing of images such as emotionally expressive faces, often leading to enhanced attention to threat in a variety of disorders and traits. Whether there is also variation in early-stage affective (i.e. valenced) responses resulting from such images, however, is not yet known. The present study used the subliminal affective priming paradigm to investigate whether people varying in trait social anxiety also differ in their affective responses to very briefly presented, emotionally expressive face images. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Participants (n = 67) completed a subliminal affective priming task, in which briefly presented and smiling, neutral and angry faces were shown for 10 ms durations (below objective and subjective thresholds for visual discrimination), and immediately followed by a randomly selected Chinese character mask (2000 ms). Ratings of participants' liking for each Chinese character indicated the degree of valenced affective response made to the unseen emotive images. Participants' ratings of their liking for the Chinese characters were significantly influenced by the type of face image preceding them, with smiling faces generating more positive ratings than neutral and angry ones (F(2,128) = 3.107, p<0.05). Self-reported social anxiety was positively correlated with ratings of smiling relative to neutral-face primed characters (Pearson's r = .323, p<0.01). Individual variation in self-reported mood awareness was not associated with ratings. CONCLUSIONS: Trait social anxiety is associated with individual variation in affective responding, even in response to the earliest, pre-attentive stage of visual image processing. However, the fact that these priming effects are limited to smiling and not angry (i.e. threatening) images leads us to propose that the pre-attentive processes involved in generating the subliminal affective priming effect may be different from those that generate attentional biases in anxious individuals

Factors contributing to posttraumatic growth and its buffering effect in adult chidren of cancer patients undergoing treatment

This study examined relationships among demographic, clinical, and psychosocial variables in adult children of cancer patients. Two hundred and fourteen participants completed measures of posttraumatic growth (PTG), distress, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, social support, and family functioning. Significant gender differences in all PTG dimensions were found, as well as associations among PTG, gender, parental dependency, distress, PTSD, and family functioning. Social support was not a mediator in the relationship between gender and PTG. Gender, education, disease duration, dependency, distress, and family flexibility predicted PTG. Finally, PTG had amoderating effect in the relationship between distress and PTSD/social support. These results may guide psychosocial interventions in this population.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT