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Prisms for timing better: A review on application of prism adaptation on temporal domain
No full textThe possibility to induce a transient modulation of visuo-spatial attention boosted so far the implementation of the prism adaptation in a variety of domains. This sensorimotor technique has been adopted to investigate the neural plasticity in neurologically healthy individuals, as well as to ameliorate deficit of visuo-spatial attention (which characterizes neglect patients' performance). We review here evidence about a new promising application of prisms in exploring how the human brain represents the subjective time flow on a spatially oriented “mental time line”. Converging observations in healthy individuals suggest that altering spatial attention processing via prism adaptation can influence the spatial representation of time. These modulatory effects are generalizable to different aspects of time, such as the abilities to estimate time duration and to mentally travel in time. Furthermore, data from brain damaged patients, with a special focus on right brain-damaged patients with neglect, indicate that prismatic procedure ameliorates temporal deficits, hence paving the way to novel clinical applications. We conclude by discussing the possible cognitive mechanisms and neural circuits of the prism adaptation effects on time
Prisms to travel in time: Investigation of time-space association through prismatic adaptation effect on mental time travel.
No full textAccumulating evidence suggests that humans process time and space in similar veins. Humans represent time along a spatial continuum, and perception of temporal durations can be altered through manipulations of spatial attention by prismatic adaptation (PA). Here, we investigated whether PA-induced manipulations of spatial attention can also influence more conceptual aspects of time, such as humans' ability to travel mentally back and forward in time (mental time travel, MTT). Before and after leftward- and rightward-PA, participants projected themselves in the past, present or future time (i.e., self-projection), and, for each condition, determined whether a series of events were located in the past or the future with respect to that specific self-location in time (i.e., self-reference). The results demonstrated that leftward and rightward shifts of spatial attention facilitated recognition of past and future events, respectively. These findings suggest that spatial attention affects the temporal processing of the human self
Dialoghi riflessivi fra musica, movimento e tecnologia
No full textNel Capitolo 10, Marina Maffioli, Filomena Anelli e Anna Rita Addessi, propongono delle attività di improvvisazione da svolgere con l’aiuto del MIROR-Impro sia con il suono sia con il movimento. Il capitolo quindi presenta una serie di suggerimenti per l’insegnante per poter utilizzare il MIROR-Impro in maniera originale sia per l’improvvisazione musicale sia per l’improvvisazione motoria. Le attività sono pensate per bambini di 6-10 anni, ma con piccole varianti possono essere proposte anche a bambini più piccoli e possono essere svolte sia nella scuola pubblica, sia nelle scuole di danza, sia nelle scuole di musica nelle quali ci sia interesse a lavorare sul rapporto tra musica e movimento. Ogni attività prevede che vi sia un bambino che suona dialogando con il software MIROR-Impro e uno o più bambini che danzano o interpretano la musica ascoltata attraverso il movimento. La risposta con il movimento avviene sia durante la proposta musicale, sia durante la risposta “riflessiva” del MIROR-Impro. Quindi, mentre normalmente nelle attività di danza è l’adulto che suona il pianoforte guidando i bambini, l’originalità della proposta presentata in questo capitolo è che il movimento dei bambini è guidato, a turno, da uno degli altri bambini che suona la tastiera con il MIROR-Impro e dal sistema stesso. Le autrici discutono il rapporto tra suono e movimento alla luce del paradigma di interazione riflessiva e delle ricerche condotte nell’ambito del progetto MIROR su musica e movimento, arrivando ad ipotizzare che quando i bambini si muovono o ballano ascoltando le risposte “riflessive” del MIROR-Impro, si comporterebbero come specchi “motori” della risposta musicale del sistema, aggiungendo in tal modo il canale motorio all’interno dell'interazione bambino-macchina. Questo campo di studio, e la sua applicazione nelle scienze dell'educazione, è ancora in gran parte inesplorato, anche nell’educazione musicale e nell’educazione motoria. Le attività descritte favoriscono l’apprendimento attraverso il collaborative learning, il problem solving e il gioco di ruoli, e sono proposte ai bambini attraverso dispositivi verbali e musicali che suggeriscono contesti immaginifici e simbolici all’interno dei quali i bambini sono messi nelle condizioni di esplorare e creare suoni e movimenti originali
Does reflexive interaction enhance children’s musical improvisation? Computer-child interaction at the beginning stage of music learning
No full textBackground
Several scholars tackled the issue of children’s musical improvisation from
different learning/teaching perspectives and by using different
methodologies. We investigated this issue through the reflexive interaction
paradigm. This paradigm is based on the idea of letting users manipulate
virtual copies of themselves, through specific software called Interactive
Reflexive Musical Systems (IRMS).
Aims
We investigated whether the reflexive interaction using the IRMS influence
the children’s skillfulness to improvise, at the beginning stage of musical
learning. We used a particular IRMS, the MIROR-Impro, implemented in the
MIROR project (European Commission-FP7), which is able to reply to the
child playing a keyboard by mirroring (with repetitions and variations)
her/his inputs.
Method
The study was conducted in a primary public school, with 47 children, aged 6
to 7. The experimental design used the convergence procedure, based on
three sample groups (one control group - CG - and two experimental groups -
EG1 and EG2), allowing to verify if the MIROR-Impro and the reflexive
interaction are necessary and sufficient to improve the children's abilities to
improvise, in solo and in duet. Independent variables: to play 1) only the
keyboard, 2) the keyboard with the MIROR-Impro but with not-reflexive
reply, 3) the keyboard with the MIROR-Impro with reflexive reply.
Dependent variables: children’s ability to improvise 1) in solo, and 2) in duet.
Procedure: each child carried out 5 weekly individual 12 minutes sessions.
The CG played the complete package of independent variables (v1+v2+v3);
EG1 played the keyboard and the keyboard with the MIROR-Impro with notreflexive
reply (v1+v2); EG2 played only the keyboard with the reflexive
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system (v3). One week after, the children were asked to 1) improvise a
musical piece on the keyboard (Solo task), and 2) play the keyboard like in a
dialogue, in pair with a friend (Duet task). Activities and test were
videorecorded.
Results
Three independent judges assessed the Solo task improvisations by means of
a grid based on the TAI (Test for Ability to Improvise, by Gary McPherson)
rating scale. The following assessment criteria were used: Instrumental
Fluency, Musical Organization, Creativity, and Musical Quality. The total
result shows that the CG (13,56) obtained a lower score compared to both the
EG1 (13,82) and EG2 (15,45). Therefore, the total trend reveals that the IRMS
and the reflexive interaction are not necessary but sufficient to improve
children’s ability to improvise. However, the differences are not statistically
significant (p = .35, as from ANOVA). The analyses on each criterion confirm
the total trend, in particular as far as the Musical Organization is concerned
(CG = 3,13; EG1 = 3,38; EG2 = 4; p = .08). Moreover, the EG2, which played
just with the reflexive system, shows a higher score in all criteria.
Conclusions
The analysis of the Duet tasks is currently ongoing through an original grid
for assessing the musical dialogue improvisation. The discussion will focus
on: 1) the efficacy of reflexive pedagogy in the field of children’s music
performance and technology-enhanced learning; 2) the analysis and
assessment of the children’s ability to improvise, and 3) the musical
improvisation in computer-child interaction
Effects of spatial attention on mental time travel in patients with neglect
No full textNumerous studies agree that time is represented in spatial terms in the brain. Here we investigate how a deficit in orienting attention in space influences the ability to mentally travel in time, that is to recall the past and anticipate the future. Right brain-damaged patients, with (RBD-N+) and without neglect (RBD-N-), and healthy controls (HC) were subjected to a Mental Time Travel (MTT) task. Participants were asked to project themselves in time to past, present or future (i.e., self-projection) and, for each self-projection, to judge whether events were located relatively in the past or the future (i.e., self-reference). The MTT-task was performed before and after a manipulation, through prismatic adaptation (PA), inducing a leftward shift of spatial attention. Before PA, RBD-N+ were slower for future than for past events, whereas RBD-N- and HC responded similarly to past and future events. A leftward shift of spatial attention by PA reduced the difference in past/future processing in RBD-N+ and fastened RBD-N- and HC's response to past events. Assuming that time concepts, such as past/future, are coded with a left-to-right order on a mental time line (MTL), a recursive search of future-events can explain neglect patients' performance. Improvement of the spatial deficit following PA reduces the recursive search of future events on the rightmost part of the MTL, facilitating exploration of past events on the leftmost part of the MTL, finally favoring the correct location of past and future events. In addition, the study of the anatomical correlates of the temporal deficit in mental time travel through voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping showed a correlation with a lesion located in the insula and in the thalamus. These findings provide new insights about the inter-relations of space and time, and can pave the way to a procedure to rehabilitate a deficit in these cognitive domains
The carry-over effect of competition in task-sharing: Evidence from the joint Simon task
Full text linkThe Simon effect, that is the advantage of the spatial correspondence between stimulus and response locations when stimulus location is a task-irrelevant dimension, occurs even when the task is performed together by two participants, each performing a go/no-go task. Previous studies showed that this joint Simon effect, considered by some authors as a measure of self-other integration, does not emerge when during task performance co-actors are required to compete. The present study investigated whether and for how long competition experienced during joint performance of one task can affect performance in a following joint Simon task. In two experiments, we required pairs of participants to perform together a social Simon task, before and after jointly performing together an unrelated non-spatial task (the Eriksen flanker task). In Experiment 1, participants always performed the joint Simon task under neutral instructions, before and after performing the joint flanker task in which they were explicitly required either to cooperate with (i.e., cooperative condition) or to compete against a co-actor (i.e., competitive condition). In Experiment 2, they were required to compete during the joint flanker task and to cooperate during the subsequent joint Simon task. Competition experienced in one task affected the way the subsequent joint task was performed, as revealed by the lack of the joint Simon effect, even though, during the Simon task participants were not required to compete (Experiment 1). However, prior competition no longer affected subsequent performance if a new goal that created positive interdependence between the two agents was introduced (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the emergence of the joint Simon effect is significantly influenced by how the goals of the co-acting individuals are related, with the effect of competition extending beyond the specific competitive setting and affecting subsequent interactions
Nature and nurture effects on the spatiality of the mental time line
No full textThe nature-nurture debate regarding the origin of mental lines is fundamental for cognitive neuroscience. We examined natural-nurture effects on the mental time line, applying three different challenges to the directionality of time representation. We tested (1) patients with left-neglect and healthy participants, who are (2) left-to-right or right-to-left readers/writers, using (3) a lateralized left-right button press or a vocal mode in response to a mental time task, which asks participants to judge whether events have already happened in the past or are still to happen in the future. Using lateralized responses, a spatial-temporal association of response code (STEARC) effect was found, in concordance with the cultural effects. With vocal responses (no lateralization), past and future events showed similar results in both cultures. In patients with neglect, who have a deficit of spatial attention in processing the left side of space, future events were processed more slowly and less accurately than past events in both cultures. Our results indicate the existence of a “natural” disposition to map past and future events along a horizontal mental time line, which is affected by the different ways in which spatial representation of time is introduced
Walking boosts your performance in making additions and subtractions
Full text linkreviousresearchdemonstratesthattheprocessingofspatialinformationandnumericalmagnitudearestrictlyinterwoven.Recentstudiesalsoprovideconvergingevidencethatnumberprocessingisinfluencedbybodymovements.Inthepresentstudywefurtherinvestigatethisissuebyfocusingonwhetherandhowmotionsexperiencedwiththewholebodycaninfluencearithmeticalcalculations.Weaskedparticipantstomakeadditionsorsubtractionswhileexperiencingleftwardandrightwardmotions.Datarevealedtheemergenceofacongruencyeffectbetweentheorientationinferredbythetypeofarithmeticalcalculationsandthetypeofmotionsexperiencedalonganhorizontalaxis
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