‘Pushing Through’ in Plato’s Sophist: A New Reading of the Parity Assumption

At a crucial juncture in Plato’s Sophist, when the interlocutors have reached their deepest confusion about being and not-being, the Eleatic Visitor proclaims that there is yet hope. Insofar as they clarify one, he maintains, they will equally clarify the other. But what justifies the Visitor’s seemingly oracular prediction? A new interpretation explains how the Visitor’s hope is in fact warranted by the peculiar aporia they find themselves in. The passage describes a broader pattern of ‘exploring both sides’ that lends insight into Plato’s aporetic method

Superstitiousness in obsessive-compulsive disorder

It has been speculated that superstitiousness and obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) exist along a continuum. The distinction between superstitious behavior italic>and superstitious belief, however, is crucial for any theoretical account of claimed associations between superstitiousness and OCD. By demonstrating that there is a dichotomy between behavior and belief, which is experimentally testable, we can differentiate superstitious behavior from superstitious belief, or magical ideation. Different brain circuits are responsible for these two forms of superstitiousness; thus, determining which type of superstition is prominent in the symptomatology of an individual patient may inform us about the primarily affected neurocognitive systems

Cynophobic Fear Adaptively Extends Peri-Personal Space

cote interne IRCAM: Taffou14aInternational audiencePeri-personal space (PPS) is defined as the space immediately surrounding our bodies, which is critical in the adaptation of our social behavior. As a space of interaction with the external world, PPS is involved in the control of motor action as well as in the protection of the body. The boundaries of this PPS are known to be flexible but so far, little is known about how PPS boundaries are influenced by unreasonable fear. We hypothesized that unreasonable fear extends the neural representation of the multisensory space immediately surrounding the body in the presence of a feared object, with the aim of expanding the space of protection around the body.To test this hypothesis, we explored the impact of unreasonable fear on the size of PPS in two groups of non-clinical participants: dog-fearful and non-fearful participants. The sensitivity to cynophobia was assessed with a questionnaire. We measured participants’ PPS extent in the presence of threatening (dog growling) and non-threatening (sheep bleating) auditory stimuli. The sound stimuli were processed through binaural rendering so that the virtual sound sources were looming toward participants from their rear hemi-field.We found that, when in the presence of the auditory dog stimulus, the PPS of dog-fearful participants is larger than that of non-fearful participants. Our results demonstrate that PPS size is adaptively modulated by cynophobia and suggest that anxiety tailors PPS boundaries when exposed to fear-relevant features. Anxiety, with the exception of social phobia, has rarely been studied as a disorder of social interaction. These findings could help develop new treatment strategies for anxious disorders by involving the link between space and interpersonal interaction in the approach of the disorder

Auditory-visual virtual reality as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for cynophobia

International audienceTraditionally, virtual reality exposure-based treatment concentrates primarily on the presentation of a high fidelity visual experience. However, adequately combining the visual and the auditory experience provides a powerful tool to enhance sensory processing and modulate attention. We present the design and usability testing of an auditory-visual interactive environment for investigating virtual reality exposurebased treatment for cynophobia. The specificity of our application is that it involves 3D sound, allowing the presentations and spatial manipulation of a fearful stimulus in the auditory modality, in the visual modality, and both. We conducted an evaluation test with 10 dog fearful participants in order to assess the capacity of our auditory-visual virtual environment to generate fear reactions. The specific perceptual characteristics of the dog model that were implemented in the virtual environment were highly arousing, suggesting that virtual reality is a promising tool to treat cynophobia

Human Computer Confluence. Transforming Human Experience Through Symbiotic Technologies

Human-computer confluence refers to an invisible, implicit, embodied or even implanted interaction between humans and system components. New classes of user interfaces are emerging that make use of several sensors and are able to adapt their physical properties to the current situational context of users. A key aspect of human-computer confluence is its potential for transforming human experience in the sense of bending, breaking and blending the barriers between the real, the virtual and the augmented, to allow users to experience their body and their world in new ways. Research on Presence, Embodiment and Brain-Computer Interface is already exploring these boundaries and asking questions such as: Can we seamlessly move between the virtual and the real? Can we assimilate fundamentally new senses through confluence? The aim of this book is to explore the boundaries and intersections of the multidisciplinary field of HCC and discuss its potential applications in different domains, including healthcare, education, training and even arts

Réalité virtuelle : Simulation sonore en trois dimensions par Nicolas Tsingos. Phobies à l'épreuve du virtuel, entretien avec Isabelle Viaud-Delmon ; propos recueillis par Dominique Chouchan. Le jeu vidéo est un produit de très haute technologie par David Alloza

National audienceEn synthèse d'images, on s'intéresse à la simulation des formes, des couleurs, des ombres, de l'éclairage... La sonorisation d'un monde synthétique est tout aussi exigeante si l'on veut qu'elle reflète notre perception spatiale des sons

Brain State-dependent Functional Hemispheric Specialization in Men but not in Women

Hemispheric specialization is reliably demonstrated in patients with unilateral lesions or disconnected hemispheres, but is inconsistent in healthy populations. The reason for this paradox is unclear. We propose that functional hemispheric specialization in healthy participants depends upon functional brain states at stimulus arrival (FBS). Brain activity was recorded from 123 surface electrodes while 22 participants (11 women) performed lateralized lexical decisions (left hemisphere processing) on neutral and emotional (right hemisphere processing) words. We determined two classes of stable FBS, one with right anterior-left posterior orientations (RA-LP maps) and one with left anterior-right posterior orientations (LA-RP maps). Results show that functional hemispheric specialization is dependent upon the class of FBS and gender. Of those with LA-RP maps, only men showed a strong emotional word advantage (EWA) after left visual field (right hemisphere) presentation, but no EWA after right visual field (left hemisphere) presentation. Subsequent to all other brain states, there was an almost equal EWA after presentation to either visual field. Only about half of the FBS in men led to the pattern of functional hemispheric specialization. We suggest that ‘split-brain' research may be marginally describable by a model, but only in exceptional situations, while in connected brains this functional hemispheric specialization is only one of many dynamic state

Bimodal perception of audio-visual material properties for virtual environments

INRIA Research Report 6687High-quality rendering of both audio and visual material properties is very important in interactive virtual environments, since convincingly rendered materials increase realism and the sense of immersion. We studied how the level of detail of auditory and visual stimuli interact in the perception of audio-visual material rendering quality. Our study is based on perception of material discrimination, when varying the levels of detail of modal synthesis for sound, and Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions for graphics. We performed an experiment for two different models (a Dragon and a Bunny model) and two material types (Plastic and Gold). The results show a significant interaction between auditory and visual level of detail in the perception of material similarity, when comparing approximate levels of detail to a high-quality audio-visual reference rendering. We show how this result can contribute to significant savings in computation time in an interactive audio-visual rendering system. To our knowledge this is the first study which shows interaction of audio and graphics representation in a material perception task

Binaural sound rendering improves immersion in a daily usage of a smartphone video game

International audienc

Auditory-visual virtual reality as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for cynophobia

International audienceTraditionally, virtual reality exposure-based treatment concentrates primarily on the presentation of a high fidelity visual experience. However, adequately combining the visual and the auditory experience provides a powerful tool to enhance sensory processing and modulate attention. We present the design and usability testing of an auditory-visual interactive environment for investigating virtual reality exposurebased treatment for cynophobia. The specificity of our application is that it involves 3D sound, allowing the presentations and spatial manipulation of a fearful stimulus in the auditory modality, in the visual modality, and both. We conducted an evaluation test with 10 dog fearful participants in order to assess the capacity of our auditory-visual virtual environment to generate fear reactions. The specific perceptual characteristics of the dog model that were implemented in the virtual environment were highly arousing, suggesting that virtual reality is a promising tool to treat cynophobia