Posts tagged psychology
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Passengers who survived terrifying Air Transat flight in 2001, help psychologists uncover new clues about post-traumatic stress vulnerability
An extraordinary opportunity to study memory and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a group of Air Transat passengers who experienced 30 minutes of unimaginable terror over the Atlantic Ocean in 2001 has resulted in the discovery of a potential risk factor that may help predict who is most vulnerable to PTSD.
The study, led by researchers at Baycrest Health Sciences, is published online this week in the journal Clinical Psychological Science – ahead of print publication. It is the first to involve detailed interviews and psychological testing in individuals exposed to the same life-threatening traumatic event. By necessity, other trauma studies involve heterogeneous events as experienced in different situations.
This opportunity was enhanced by the fact that one of the researchers, Dr. Margaret McKinnon, was a passenger on the plane. Heading off on her honeymoon in late August 2001, Dr. McKinnon’s flight departed Toronto for Lisbon, Portugal with 306 passengers and crew on board. Mid way over the Atlantic Ocean, the plane suddenly ran out of fuel. Everyone onboard was instructed to prepare for an ocean ditching, which included a countdown to impact, loss of on-board lighting and cabin de-pressurization. About 25 minutes into the emergency, the pilot located a small island military base in the Azores and glided the aircraft to a rough landing with no loss of life and few injuries.
“Imagine your worst nightmare – that’s what it was like,” said Dr. McKinnon, who initiated the study as a postdoctoral fellow at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute. She is now a clinician-scientist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and Associate Co-Chair of Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University in Hamilton.
“This wasn’t just a close call where your life flashes before your eyes in a split second and then everything is okay,” she said. The sickening feeling of “I’m going to die” lasted an excruciating 30 minutes as the plane’s systems shut down.
Following this incident, Dr. McKinnon and her colleagues at Baycrest – including Dr. Daniela Palombo (now a postdoctoral researcher at VA Boston Healthcare System and Boston University School of Medicine) and Dr. Brian Levine (senior scientist at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute and the University of Toronto) – recruited 15 passengers to participate in the Baycrest study. Using their knowledge of the moment-to-moment unfolding of events in this disaster, the researchers were able to probe both the quality and accuracy of passengers’ memories for the AT emergency in great detail along with two other events (Sept. 11, 2001 and a neutral event from the same time period) – and relate their findings to the presence or absence of PTSD in those passengers.
Not all passengers on Flight 236 went on to develop PTSD despite experiencing the same “single blow” traumatic event with the threat of imminent death.
The study produced two key findings. First, the Flight 236 passengers showed tremendously enhanced vivid memories of the plane emergency. Although the Baycrest team was not surprised by this, other research has suggested that memory for traumatic events is impoverished. Second, neither the vividness nor accuracy of memory related to who developed PTSD, but those with PTSD recalled a higher number of details external to the main event (i.e. details that were not specific in time, or were repetitions or editorial statements) compared to passengers who did not have PTSD and to healthy controls. This pattern was observed across all events tested, not just the traumatic event, suggesting that it is not just memory for the trauma itself that is related to PTSD, but rather how a person processes memory for events in general.
“What our findings show is that it is not what happened but to whom it happened that may determine subsequent onset of PTSD,” said Dr. Levine, senior author of the study.
This inability to shut out external or semantic details when recalling personally-experienced memories is related to mental control over memory recall, adding to a growing body of evidence that altered memory processing may be a vulnerability factor for PTSD.
A second study, in preparation for publication, involves functional brain imaging of 10 of the passengers from Air Transat Flight 236. The aim is to illuminate the brain mechanisms associated with exposure to this traumatic event.
(Source: baycrest.org)
Autism rates steady for two decades
A University of Queensland study has found no evidence of an increase in autism in the past 20 years, countering reports that the rates of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are on the rise.
The study, led by Dr Amanda Baxter from UQ’s Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research at the School of Population Health, was a first-of-its-kind analysis of research data from 1990 to 2010.
Dr Baxter said she and her colleagues found that rates had remained steady, despite reports that the prevalence of ASDs was increasing.
“We found that the prevalence of ASDs in 2010 was one in 132 people, which represents no change from 1990,” Dr Baxter said.
“We found that better recognition of the disorders and improved diagnostic criteria explain much of the difference in study findings over time.”
Part of the Global Burden of Disease project, this is the largest study to systematically assess rates and disability caused by ASDs in the community, using data collected from global research findings in the past 20 years.
ASDs are chronic, disabling disorders that stem from problems with brain development.
They affect people from a young age and are among the world’s 20 most disabling childhood conditions.
The study shows that about 52 million children and adults around the globe meet diagnostic criteria for an ASD.
Dr Baxter said researchers hoped the study would help guide health policy and improve support for those with ASD and their families.
“As ASDs cause substantial lifelong health issues, an accurate understanding of the burden of these disorders can inform public health policy as well as help allocate necessary resources for education, housing and employment,” she said.
The study, a collaboration with the University of Leicester and the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, is published in Psychological Medicine journal.
(Source: uq.edu.au)
People understand hyperbole through intent of communication
People tend to understand nonliteral language – metaphor, hyperbole and exaggerated statements – when they realize the purpose of the communication, according to new Stanford research.
Noah Goodman, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford, believes that figurative language – the nuanced ways that people use language to communicate meanings different than the literal meaning of their words – is one of the deepest mysteries of human communication.
"Human communication," he said, "is rife with nonliteral language that includes metaphor, irony and hyperbole. When we say ‘Juliet is the sun’ or ‘That watch cost a million dollars,’ listeners read through the direct meanings – which are often false if taken literally – to understand subtle connotations."
'Sharp' vs. 'round' numbers
To understand this communication dynamic, Goodman, director of the Computation and Cognition Lab at Stanford, and his colleagues used computational modeling. Stanford graduate student Justine Kao was the first author on the paper, which included co-authors Jean Wu, a former graduate student at Stanford, and Leon Bergen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In their lab, they develop computational models that use pragmatic reasoning to interpret metaphorical utterances. Their research for this particular project involved four online experiments with 340 subjects.
Participants in the experiments read different scenarios involving hyperbole. For example, a person bought a watch and was asked by a friend whether it was expensive. That person responded with different figures, ranging from low- to high-cost figures – such as $50, $51, $10,000 or $10,001. Given this, the participants rated the probability of the purchaser thinking it was an expensive watch or not.
People tended to interpret “sharp numbers” – such as a watch costing $51 – more precisely than “round numbers,” as in a watch costing $50.
The findings suggest that even creative and figurative language may follow predictable and rational principles.
Kao said, “This research advances our understanding of communication by providing evidence that reasoning about a speaker’s goals is critical for understanding nonliteral language. We were able to capture nuanced and nonliteral interpretations of number words using a computational model.”
Common ground
The research showed that if listeners are trying to understand the topic and goal of communication as well as the underlying subtext – that which is not expressed explicitly – they’re better able to truly understand the utterance. A sense of common knowledge about what is being described or expressed is also important. Speakers and listeners assume that individuals are rational agents who use common ground and reference points to best maximize information.
As Kao put it, “There is still a long way to go before computers can understand Shakespeare, but it is a start.”
Goodman offered this example: Imagine someone describing a new restaurant, and she says, “It took 30 minutes to get a table.” People are most likely to interpret this to mean she waited about 30 minutes. But if she says, “It took a million years to get a table,” people will probably interpret this to mean that the wait was shorter than a million years, but that the person thinks it was much too long.
"One of the most fascinating facts about communication is that people do not always mean what they say – a crucial part of the listener’s job is to understand an utterance even when its literal meaning is false," the researchers wrote.
Goodman said the computational model he and his colleagues use to understand nonliteral utterances integrates empirically measured background knowledge, communication principles and reasoning about communication goals.
What is next in line research-wise?
Goodman and the others said they believe that the same ideas and techniques can extend to metaphor, irony and many other uses of language. For example, they have a promising initial exploration of “is a” metaphors such as “your lawyer is a shark,” Goodman said.
"Beyond these cases of figurative speech, the overall mathematical framework is beginning to give a precise theory of natural language understanding that takes into account context, intention and many subtle shades of meaning," he said, adding, "There is a lot more work to do."
(Source: news.stanford.edu)
'Seeing' through Virtual Touch Is Believing
A University of Cincinnati experiment aimed at this diverse and growing population could spark development of advanced tools to help all the aging baby boomers, injured veterans, diabetics and white-cane-wielding pedestrians navigate the blurred edges of everyday life.
These tools could be based on a device called the Enactive Torch, which looks like a combination between a TV remote and Captain Kirk’s weapon of choice. But it can do much greater things than change channels or stun aliens.
Luis Favela, a graduate student in philosophy and psychology, has found the torch enables the visually impaired to judge their ability to comfortably pass through narrow passages, like an open door or busy sidewalk, as good as if they were actually seeing such pathways themselves.
The handheld torch uses infra-red sensors to “see” objects in front of it. When the torch detects an object, it emits a vibration – similar to a cellphone alert – through an attached wristband. The gentle buzz increases in intensity as the torch nears the object, letting the user make judgments about where to move based on a virtual touch.
"Results of this experiment point in the direction of different kinds of tools or sensory augmentation devices that could help people who have visual impairment or other sorts of perceptual deficiencies. This could start a research program that could help people like that," Favela says.
Favela presented his research “Augmenting the Sensory Judgment Abilities of the Visually Impaired” at the American Psychological Association’s (APA) annual convention, held Aug. 7-10 in Washington, D.C. More than 11,000 psychology professionals, scholars and students from around the world annually attend APA’s convention.
A Growing Population in Need
Favela studies how people perceive their environment and how those perceptions inform their judgments. For this experiment, he was inspired by what he knew about the surging population of visually impaired Americans.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts that more than 6 million Americans age 40 and older will be affected by blindness or low vision by 2030 – double the number from 2004 – due to diabetes or other chronic diseases and the rapidly aging population. The CDC also notes that vision loss is among the top 10 causes of disability in the U.S., and vision impairment is one of the most prevalent disabilities in children.
"In my research I’ve found that there’s an emotional stigma that people who are visually impaired experience, particularly children," Favela says. "When you’re a kid in elementary school, you want to blend in and be part of the group. It’s hard to do that when you’re carrying this big, white cane."
Substituting Sight with Touch
In Favela’s experiment, 27 undergraduate students with normal or corrected-to-normal vision and no prior experience with mobility assistance devices were asked to make perceptual judgments about their ability to pass through an opening a few feet in front of them without needing to shift their normal posture. Favela tested participants’ judgments in three ways: using only their vision, using a cane while blindfolded and using the Enactive Torch while blindfolded. The idea was to compare judgments made with vision against those made by touch.
The results of the experiment were surprising. Favela figured vision-based judgments would be the most accurate because vision tends to be most people’s dominant perceptual modality. However, he found the three types of judgments were equally accurate.
"When you compare the participants’ judgments with vision, cane and Enactive Torch, there was not a significant difference, meaning that they made the same judgments," Favela says. "The three modalities are functionally equivalent. People can carry out actions just about to the same degree whether they’re using their vision or their sense of touch. I was really surprised."
Favela plans additional experiments requiring more complicated judgments, such as the ability to step over an obstacle or to climb stairs. With further study and improvements to the Enactive Torch, Favela says similar tools that augment touch-based perception could have a significant impact on the lives of the visually impaired.
"If the future version of the Enactive Torch is smaller and more compact, kids who use it wouldn’t stand out from the crowd, they might feel like they blend in more," he says, noting people can quickly adapt to using the torch. "That bodes well, say, for someone in the Marines who was injured by a roadside bomb. They could be devastated. But hope’s not lost. They will learn how to navigate the world pretty quickly."
(Source: uc.edu)
The future of pain relief?
Dutch burns unit trialling new virtual reality computer system that distracts patients from the agony of their wounds
Musical Training Offsets Some Academic Achievement Gaps
Learning to play a musical instrument or to sing can help disadvantaged children strengthen their reading and language skills, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association’s 122nd Annual Convention.
The findings, which involved hundreds of kids participating in musical training programs in Chicago and Los Angeles public schools, highlight the role learning music can have on the brains of youth in impoverished areas, according to presenter Nina Kraus, PhD, a neurobiologist at Northwestern University.
“Research has shown that there are differences in the brains of children raised in impoverished environments that affect their ability to learn,” said Kraus. “While more affluent students do better in school than children from lower income backgrounds, we are finding that musical training can alter the nervous system to create a better learner and help offset this academic gap.” Up until now, research on the impact of musical training has been primarily conducted on middle- to upper-income music students participating in private music lessons, she said.
Kraus’s lab research has concluded that musical training appears to enhance the way children’s nervous systems process sounds in a busy environment, such as a classroom or a playground. This improved neural function may lead to enhanced memory and attention spans which, in turn, allow kids to focus better in the classroom and improve their communication skills, she said.
Many of Kraus’s study participants are part of the Harmony Project in Los Angeles, which was founded by fellow presenter Margaret Martin, DrPH. In her most recent research, Kraus studied children beginning when they were in first and second grade. Half participated in musical training and the other half were randomly selected from the program’s lengthy waiting list and received no musical training during the first year of the study. Children who had no musical training had diminished reading scores while Harmony Project participants’ reading scores remained unchanged over the same time span.
Kraus’s lab also found that, after two years, neural responses to sound in adolescent music students were faster and more precise than in students in another type of enrichment class. The researchers tested the auditory abilities in adolescents from lower economic backgrounds at three public high schools in Chicago. Over two years, half of the students participated in either band or choir during each school day while the other half were enrolled in Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps classes, which teaches character education, achievement, wellness, leadership and diversity. All participants had comparable reading ability and IQs at the start of the study. The researchers recorded the children’s brain waves as they listened to a repeated syllable against soft background sound, which made it harder for the brain to process. The researchers repeated measures after one year and again at the two-year mark. They found music students’ neural responses had strengthened while the JROTC students’ responses had remained the same. Interestingly, the differences in the music students’ brain waves in response to sounds as described above occurred after two years but not at one year, which showed that these programs cannot be used as quick fixes, Kraus said. This is the strongest evidence to date that public school music education in lower-income students can lead to better sound processing in the brain when compared to other types of enrichment education, she added.
Even after the lessons stop, the brain still reaps benefits, according to studies on the long-term benefits of music lessons. In one study, Kraus’s team surveyed college students and asked them how many years they had music training. As they found with the elementary school students, college students who had more than five years of musical training in elementary school or high school had improved neural responses to sound when compared to college students who had had no musical training.
The Harmony Project provides instruments for the students who participate five or more hours a week in musical instruction and ensemble rehearsals. The project is year-round and tuition-free based on income, said Martin. Many of the programs build full-time bands in neighborhoods where the students live and the students agree to commit to the program from elementary school through high school, she said.
“We’re spending millions of dollars on drugs to help kids focus and here we have a non-pharmacologic intervention that thousands of disadvantaged kids devote themselves to in their non-school hours — that works,” Martin said. “Learning to make music appears to remodel our kids’ brains in ways that facilitates and improves their ability to learn.”
The Harmony Project has launched programs in other urban school districts, including Miami, New Orleans, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Missouri and Ventura, California.
(Image: Shutterstock)
How we form habits and change existing ones
Much of our daily lives are taken up by habits that we’ve formed over our lifetime. An important characteristic of a habit is that it’s automatic— we don’t always recognize habits in our own behavior. Studies show that about 40 percent of people’s daily activities are performed each day in almost the same situations. Habits emerge through associative learning. “We find patterns of behavior that allow us to reach goals. We repeat what works, and when actions are repeated in a stable context, we form associations between cues and response,” Wendy Wood explains in her session at the American Psychological Association’s 122nd Annual Convention.
What are habits?
Wood calls attention to the neurology of habits, and how they have a recognizable neural signature. When you are learning a response you engage your associative basal ganglia, which involves the prefrontal cortex and supports working memory so you can make decisions. As you repeat the behavior in the same context, the information is reorganized in your brain. It shifts to the sensory motor loop that supports representations of cue response associations, and no longer retains information on the goal or outcome. This shift from goal directed to context cue response helps to explain why our habits are rigid behaviors.
There is a dual mind at play, Wood explains. When our intentional mind is engaged, we act in ways that meet an outcome we desire and typically we’re aware of our intentions. Intentions can change quickly because we can make conscious decisions about what we want to do in the future that may be different from the past. However, when the habitual mind is engaged, our habits function largely outside of awareness. We can’t easily articulate how we do our habits or why we do them, and they change slowly through repeated experience. “Our minds don’t always integrate in the best way possible. Even when you know the right answer, you can’t make yourself change the habitual behavior,” Wood says.
Participants in a study were asked to taste popcorn, and as expected, fresh popcorn was preferable to stale. But when participants were given popcorn in a movie theater, people who have a habit of eating popcorn at the movies ate just as much stale popcorn as participants in the fresh popcorn group. “The thoughtful intentional mind is easily derailed and people tend to fall back on habitual behaviors. Forty percent of the time we’re not thinking about what we’re doing,” Wood interjects. “Habits allow us to focus on other things…Willpower is a limited resource, and when it runs out you fall back on habits.”
How can we change our habits?
Public service announcements, educational programs, community workshops, and weight-loss programs are all geared toward improving your day-to-day habits. But are they really effective? These standard interventions are very successful at increasing motivation and desire. You will almost always leave feeling like you can change and that you want to change. The programs give you knowledge and goal-setting strategies for implementation, but these programs only address the intentional mind.
In a study on the “Take 5” program, 35 percent of people polled came away believing they should eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day. Looking at that result, it appears that the national program was effective at teaching people that it’s important to have 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. But the data changes when you ask what people are actually eating. Only 11 percent of people reported that they met this goal. The program changed people’s intentions, but it did not overrule habitual behavior.
According to Wood, there are three main principles to consider when effectively changing habitual behavior. First, you must derail existing habits and create a window of opportunity to act on new intentions. Someone who moves to a new city or changes jobs has the perfect scenario to disrupt old cues and create new habits. When the cues for existing habits are removed, it’s easier to form a new behavior. If you can’t alter your entire environment by switching cities— make small changes. For instance, if weight-loss or healthy eating is your goal, try moving unhealthy foods to a top shelf out of reach, or to the back of the freezer instead of in front.
The second principle is remembering that repetition is key. Studies have shown it can take anywhere from 15 days to 254 days to truly form a new habit. “There’s no easy formula for how long it takes,” Wood says. Lastly, there must be stable context cues available in order to trigger a new pattern. “It’s easier to maintain the behavior if it’s repeated in a specific context,” Wood emphasizes. Flossing after you brush your teeth allows the act of brushing to be the cue to remember to floss. Reversing the two behaviors is not as successful at creating a new flossing habit. Having an initial cue is a crucial component.
Part of the brain stays “youthful” into older age
At least one part of the human brain may be able to process information the same way in older age as it does in the prime of life, according to new research conducted at the University of Adelaide.
A study compared the ability of 60 older and younger people to respond to visual and non-visual stimuli in order to measure their “spatial attention” skills.
Spatial attention is critical for many aspects of life, from driving, to walking, to picking up and using objects.
"Our studies have found that older and younger adults perform in a similar way on a range of visual and non-visual tasks that measure spatial attention," says Dr Joanna Brooks, who conducted the study as a Visiting Research Fellow with the University of Adelaide’s School of Psychology and the School of Medicine.
"Both younger (aged 18-38 years) and older (55-95 years) adults had the same responses for spatial attention tasks involving touch, sight or sound.
"In one task, participants were asked to feel wooden objects whilst blindfolded and decide where the middle of the object was - participants’ judgements were significantly biased towards the left-hand side of the true object centre. This bias is subtle but highly consistent," Dr Brooks says.
"When we think of ageing, we think not just of the physical aspects but also the cognitive side of it, especially when it comes to issues such as reaction time, which is typically slower among older adults. However, our research suggests that certain types of cognitive systems in the right cerebral hemisphere - like spatial attention - are ‘encapsulated’ and may be protected from ageing," she says.
Dr Brooks, who is now a Research Fellow in Healthy Ageing based at the Australian National University, recently presented her results at the 12th International Cognitive Neuroscience Conference in Brisbane. Her project is part of an international collaboration with scientists at the University of Edinburgh and Queen Margaret University in Scotland to better understand spatial attention in the human brain.
"Our results challenge current models of cognitive ageing because they show that the right side of the brain remains dominant for spatial processing throughout the entire adult lifespan," Dr Brooks says. "We now need to better understand how and why some areas of the brain seem to be more affected by ageing than others."
Dr Brooks’s research could also be helpful in better understanding how diseases such as Alzheimer’s affect the brain.
(Source: adelaide.edu.au)
Older adults have morning brains! Study shows noticeable differences in brain function across the day
Older adults who are tested at their optimal time of day (the morning), not only perform better on demanding cognitive tasks but also activate the same brain networks responsible for paying attention and suppressing distraction as younger adults, according to Canadian researchers.
The study, published online July 7th in the journal Psychology and Aging (ahead of print publication), has yielded some of the strongest evidence yet that there are noticeable differences in brain function across the day for older adults.
“Time of day really does matter when testing older adults. This age group is more focused and better able to ignore distraction in the morning than in the afternoon,” said lead author John Anderson, a PhD candidate with the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences and University of Toronto, Department of Psychology.
“Their improved cognitive performance in the morning correlated with greater activation of the brain’s attentional control regions – the rostral prefrontal and superior parietal cortex – similar to that of younger adults.”
Asked how his team’s findings may be useful to older adults in their daily activities, Anderson recommended that older adults try to schedule their most mentally-challenging tasks for the morning time. Those tasks could include doing taxes, taking a test (such as a driver’s license renewal), seeing a doctor about a new condition, or cooking an unfamiliar recipe.
In the study, 16 younger adults (aged 19 – 30) and 16 older adults (aged 60-82) participated in a series of memory tests during the afternoon from 1 – 5 p.m. The tests involved studying and recalling a series of picture and word combinations flashed on a computer screen. Irrelevant words linked to certain pictures and irrelevant pictures linked to certain words also flashed on the screen as a distraction. During the testing, participants’ brains were scanned with fMRI which allows researchers to detect with great precision which areas of the brain are activated. Older adults were 10 percent more likely to pay attention to the distracting information than younger adults who were able to successfully focus and block this information. The fMRI data confirmed that older adults showed substantially less engagement of the attentional control areas of the brain compared to younger adults. Indeed, older adults tested in the afternoon were “idling” – showing activations in the default mode (a set of regions that come online primarily when a person is resting or thinking about nothing in particular) indicating that perhaps they were having great difficulty focusing. When a person is fully engaged with focusing, resting state activations are suppressed.
When 18 older adults were morning tested (8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.) they performed noticeably better, according to two separate behavioural measures of inhibitory control. They attended to fewer distracting items than their peers tested at off-peak times of day, closing the age difference gap in performance with younger adults. Importantly, older adults tested in the morning activated the same brain areas young adults did to successfully ignore the distracting information. This suggests that when older adults are tested is important for both how they perform and what brain activity one should expert to see.
“Our research is consistent with previous science reports showing that at a time of day that matches circadian arousal patterns, older adults are able to resist distraction,” said Dr. Lynn Hasher, senior author on the paper and a leading authority in attention and inhibitory functioning in younger and older adults.
The Baycrest findings offer a cautionary flag to those who study cognitive function in older adults. “Since older adults tend to be morning-type people, ignoring time of day when testing them on some tasks may create an inaccurate picture of age differences in brain function,” said Dr. Hasher, senior scientist at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute and Professor of Psychology at University of Toronto.
(Source: baycrest.org)
New brain mechanism study could advance artificial intelligence
Research at the University of Reading has provided a new understanding of how our brain processes information to change how we see the world.
Using a simple computer game, akin to a 3D version of the 80s game Pong, the researchers examined how the brain recalibrates its perception of slant in order to bounce a moving ball through a target hoop.
They found that the brain uses an internal simulation of the laws of physics to change its perception of slant in order to ‘score’ consistently.
The findings provide a unique insight into why humans are such an adaptable and skillful species. With the development of effective autonomous robots, engineers are starting to look at how humans’ sensory systems effortlessly achieve what is currently impossible for robotic systems.
The study, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, saw participants play a 3D game where they had to adjust the slant of a surface so that a moving ball bounced off it and through a target hoop.
Part way through the game, without telling the participants, researchers altered the bounce of the ball so that the surface behaved differently to the slant signalled by visual cues.
When faced with the altered bounce, participants changed their behaviour to continue scoring points. At the same time, their brain recalibrated their perception of slant - simulating the laws of physics to actually change how the slant looked. In a separate group, making the ball spin eliminated this recalibration.
Dr. Peter Scarfe from the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, who conducted the study with colleague Prof. Andrew Glennerster, said: “We take for granted our amazing ‘adaptability’ which allows us to enjoy such past-times as DIY or playing ball sports. However, little is known about the brain mechanisms that enable us to do these activities. Our research shows how our brains appear to have an intimate understanding of the laws of physics. In addition to aiding skillful action, this can change how we perceive the world around us.”
The researchers say understanding the basic mechanisms that allow the brain to calibrate sensory information will prove vital in the design of future autonomous robots.
Dr. Scarfe continued: “The human brain exhibits expert skill in making predictions about how the world behaves. For example, a child can bounce a ball off a wall and understand how spinning the ball alters its bounce. However, many of the fine motor skills of a young child are currently way beyond the capability of modern robots. Understanding how sensory systems adapt to feedback about the consequences of actions is likely to be key in solving this problem.”
Humans Use Predictive Kinematic Models to Calibrate Visual Cues to Three-Dimensional Surface Slant is published in the Journal of Neuroscience
(Source: reading.ac.uk)