Recognizing emotions induced by wearable haptic vibration using noninvasive electroencephalogram

The integration of haptic technology into affective computing has led to a new field known as affective haptics. Nonetheless, the mechanism underlying the interaction between haptics and emotions remains unclear. In this paper, we proposed a novel haptic pattern with adaptive vibration intensity and rhythm according to the volume, and applied it into the emotional experiment paradigm. To verify its superiority, the proposed haptic pattern was compared with an existing haptic pattern by combining them with conventional visual–auditory stimuli to induce emotions (joy, sadness, fear, and neutral), and the subjects’ EEG signals were collected simultaneously. The features of power spectral density (PSD), differential entropy (DE), differential asymmetry (DASM), and differential caudality (DCAU) were extracted, and the support vector machine (SVM) was utilized to recognize four target emotions. The results demonstrated that haptic stimuli enhanced the activity of the lateral temporal and prefrontal areas of the emotion-related brain regions. Moreover, the classification accuracy of the existing constant haptic pattern and the proposed adaptive haptic pattern increased by 7.71 and 8.60%, respectively. These findings indicate that flexible and varied haptic patterns can enhance immersion and fully stimulate target emotions, which are of great importance for wearable haptic interfaces and emotion communication through haptics

Interannual Relationship between ENSO and Atlantic Storm Track in Spring Modulated by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

It has been well documented that storm track activity are closely related to the weather and short-term climate variability in the extratropics, which is affected by sea surface temperature anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. Interannual relationship between the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Atlantic storm track (AST) in spring modulated by the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) was investigated using reanalysis data and model simulations in this study. The meridional displacement of the AST is significantly correlated with ENSO during negative AMO phase, while no significant relationship is found during positive AMO phase. This may be due to the difference of 500-hPa geopotential height anomalies induced by ENSO in different AMO phases. For an El Niño event during the negative AMO phase, an anomalous 500-hPa wave train propagates eastward across the North American continent, with positive height anomalies at the high latitudes, extending from South Canada to Newfoundland. Thus, easterly wind anomalies appear over central North America, upstream of the negative AST anomaly. Accordingly, the local eddy growth rate (EGR) and baroclinic energy conversion (BC) are obviously reduced, which weaken (strengthen) the southern (northern) part of the climatological AST. As a result, the AST is shifted northward significantly. During the positive AMO phase, the ENSO-related anomalous wave train at 500 hPa only propagates northeastward and is largely suppressed over Northwest Canada, with positive height anomalies confined to the northwest of North America. Therefore, no significant changes of the westerly jet, EGR and BC are found in the upstream region of the AST, and the meridional location of the AST generally remains unchanged. Most previous studies investigate AST variabilities in winter, and few focus on AST in spring. This work may be helpful in understanding more about the interannual and interdecadal variations of springtime AST and in further studying the weather and short-term climate changes caused by AST

Modulated Responses of East Asian Winter Climate to Anthropogenic Aerosols by Urban Cover in Eastern China

The increasing anthropogenic aerosols (AAs) over East Asia have caused significant regional climate responses, but the role of urban land-use changes which occur simultaneously, in altering these AA-induced changes, is not well understood. Here, the modulation of the AAs’ effect on the East Asian winter (November–January) climate by the urban cover in eastern China was investigated using the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.1 coupled with the Community Land Model version 4. Results show that the winter sulfate aerosol burden is higher from central eastern China to southern Japan in the case with the presence of urban cover than in the case without it, resulting from urban-induced circulation changes. Such aerosol changes markedly increase the cloud fraction and precipitation over northern China and the adjacent ocean to the east, especially convection activities around southern Japan. This leads to a cooling effect near the surface over northern China and in the mid-upper troposphere to the east due to aerosol direct and indirect effects. The resulting circulation responses act to shift the mid-tropospheric East Asian trough southward and the upper-level East Asian westerly jet-stream as well, further supporting the surface changes. These winter climate responses to the urban-modulated aerosols can largely offset or even reverse those to the AAs forcing without the urban cover in the model, especially in northern East Asia. This study highlights the need to consider the modulating role of urban land-use changes in assessing the AAs’ climatic effect over East Asia and other regions

Seasonal and Interannual Variation Characteristics of Low-Cloud Fraction in Different North Pacific Regions

In this study, we use the long-term satellite data to investigate seasonal and interannual variation of low-cloud fraction (LCF) and the associated controlling factors over the eastern and western North Pacific. On the seasonal time scale, the enhanced LCF over the eastern North Pacific in summer is actively coupled with strong estimated inversion strength (EIS) and 700-hPa relative humidity, and the LCF over the western North Pacific in winter is large and mainly caused by increased sensible heat flux and tropospheric low-level cold advection. On the interannual time scale, the increased LCF over the eastern North Pacific in summer is associated with increased EIS and decreased sea surface temperatures, in which the El Niño plays an important role; the enhanced LCF over the western North Pacific in spring and winter has a positive correlation with enhanced sensible heat flux (SHF) and tropospheric low-level cold advection, which can be partly explained by the subpolar frontal zone (SPFZ) intensity

Decoding Natural Grasping Behaviors: Insights Into MRCP Source Features and Coupling Dynamics

The effective decoding of natural grasping behaviors is crucial for the natural control of neural prosthetics. This study aims to investigate the decoding performance of movement-related cortical potential (MRCP) source features between complex grasping actions and explore the temporal and frequency differences in inter-muscular and cortical-muscular coupling strength during movement. Based on the human grasping taxonomy and their frequency, five natural grasping motions—medium wrap, adducted thumb, adduction grip, tip pinch, and writing tripod—were chosen. We collected 64-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) and 5-channel surface electromyogram (sEMG) data from 17 healthy participants, and projected six EEG frequency bands into source space for further analysis. Results from multi-classification and binary classification demonstrated that MRCP source features could not only distinguish between power grasp and precision grasp, but also detect subtle action differences such as thumb adduction and abduction during the execution phase. Besides, we found that during natural reach-and-grasp movement, the coupling strength from cortical to muscle is lower than that from muscle to cortical, except in the hold phase of $\gamma$ frequency band. Furthermore, a 12-Hz peak of inter-muscular coupling strength was found in movement execution, which might be related to movement planning and execution. We believe that this research will enhance our comprehension of the control and feedback mechanisms of human hand grasping and contributes to a natural and intuitive control for brain-computer interface