1,721,018 research outputs found
Plos-One
No full textThe journal covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine
Exploring the association between muscle dysmorphia and cognitive processing of human bodies: A pilot study|DISMORFISMO MUSCOLARE E ALTERAZIONI NELLA PERCEZIONE DEL CORPO: UNO STUDIO PILOTA
No full textIl presente studio indaga l’associazione tra il Dismorfismo Muscolare (DM), caratterizzato da un’eccessiva preoccupazione per la propria massa muscolare e l’aspetto fisico, e il processamento cognitivo dei corpi umani. Si ipotizza che gli individui con DM presentino un’elaborazione «locale» dei corpi anziché «olistica». I partecipanti hanno completato il Questionario per il DM (MDDI) e un compito di inversione con corpi, volti ed edifici. L’effetto di inversione è utilizzato come misura di processamento cognitivo olistico versus locale degli stimoli. I risultati mostrano una correlazione inversa tra l’intolleranza all’aspetto corporeo (MDDI - Appearance Intolerance) e l’accuratezza nell’effetto di inversione dei corpi, suggerendo che il processamento locale dei corpi possa essere alla base della manifestazione del DM
Skills In DEmentia CARe – Building psychosocial knowledge and best practice in dementia care
No full textSiDECar is a European Erasmus+ project aimed at promoting the psychosocial knowledge in dementia care through the introduction and delivery of HE programs relevant to the labor market in dementia care. It has been receiving the support of the KA2 Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education
Early psychosocial intervention for family carers in Italy: Effects on behavioural problems and carer distress
No full textThe effect of sport practice on enhanced cognitive processing of bodily indices: A study on volleyball players and their ability to predict hand gestures
Full text linkTo program proper reactions, athletes must anticipate opponents’ actions on the basis of previous visuomotor experience. In particular, such abilities seem to rely on processing others’ intentions to act. We adopted a new approach based on an attentional spatial compatibility paradigm to investigate how elite volleyball players elaborate both spatial and motor information at upperlimb posture presentation. Forty-two participants (18 volleyball players and 17 nonathlete controls assigned to Experiments 1 a and b, and eight basketball players assigned to Experiment 2) were tested to study their ability to process the intentions to act conveyed by hands and extract motor primitives (i.e., significant components of body movements). Analysis looked for a spatial compatibility effect between direction of the spike action (correspondence factor) and response side for both palm and back of the hand (view factor). We demonstrated that volleyball players encoded spatial sport-related indices from bodily information and showed preparatory motor activation according to the direction of the implied spike actions for the palm view (Experiment 1; hand simulating a cross-court spike, p = 0.013, and a down-the-line spike, p = 0.026) but both nonathlete controls (Experiment 1; both p < 0.05) and other sports athletes (basketball players, Experiment 2; p = 0.34, only cross-court spike) did not. Results confirm that elite players’ supremacy lies in the predictive abilities of coding elementary motor primitives for their sport discipline
Storytelling e supporto alla narrazione: strumenti per il dialogo e la riscoperta inter-generazionale
No full textRiassunto: La persona con demenza (PCD) può esprimere abilità sociali (Sabat S.R. e Gladstone C.M., 2010): nel racconto della propria vita queste emergono tanto meglio, quanto più la narrazione è supportata da un familiare in grado di sostenere e aiutare il narratore a costruire con linearità cronologica il racconto. Obiettivo: Poiché i giovani sembrano coadiuvare meglio le narrazioni (Chung J.C., 2009), nel presente lavoro di ricerca ci si è focalizzati sull’acquisizione di informazioni relative al possibile effetto modulatorio che l’interazione con un familiare adulto (e.g., consorte o figli) potesse avere rispetto all’interazione con un famigliare giovane (e.g., nipoti o figli giovani) in termini di abilità sociali, identità e performance della narrazione. Metodi: I partecipanti sono stati reclutati all’interno di centri d’incontro ubicati a Bologna e Modena. In totale erano 28 tra familiari adulti, giovani e PCD suddivisi in due gruppi: interazione del PCD con il familiare giovane; interazione del PCD con il familiare adulto. I PCD hanno prima svolto un laboratorio di reminiscenza in gruppo e poi le interviste in coppia. Le interviste trascritte sono state poi analizzate attraverso una content analysis. Risultati: Sono state confermate le abilità sociali delle PCD. Sebbene non siano emerse differenze per quanto riguarda l’identità e la performance del racconto, i giovani supportavano il racconto aiutando il narratore a direzionarsi verso una narrazione efficace e a significato condiviso, evitando che questi perdesse il filo del racconto; gli adulti tendevano maggiormente a commentare e a limitare il racconto, fino ad arrivare a mettersi a narrare in prima persona l’accaduto. Conclusioni: Dallo studio emerge il ruolo attivo della PCD: in interazione con il familiare giovane, la PCD riesce meglio a farsi carico del ruolo di messaggero di conoscenze relative a culture e momenti passati
The effect of structured exercise on short-term memory subsystems: New insight on training activities
Full text linkIt has been shown that exercise positively affects cognitive abilities, such as frontal functions and long-term memory processes. We tried to understand whether different exercises (i.e., an open-skill activity, a team game, vs. a closed-skill activity, a circuit) might specifically influence different short-term-memory (STM) subsystems of working memory. We examined the effect of a single bout of open-and closed-skill exercises on three STM tasks (i.e., verbal, visuo-spatial, and motor) in children attending the 3rd and 4th classes at primary school. One group was tested before and after (T0 and T1) an Italian class (control group), one group before and after 30-min exercise on a circuit, and one group before and after 30-min of a team game. The control group presented no improvement. The open-skill activity improved short-term memory performance in all the partici-pants at T1 (p < 0.001 for children attending the 3rd class, and p = 0.007 for children attending the 4th class). In contrast, closed-skill activity improved short-term memory performance in older children (those attending the 4th class; p = 0.046) at T1. Importantly, this finding was found in a school setting and might have ecological validity. Therefore, the exercise protocol here used might help to structure specific training activities for both normal children and those with learning deficits to positively improve short-term memory abilities
The role of oculomotor coordination in affordance
No full textRecently Ellis and Tucker (2000) proposed that “micro-affordances” are a consequence of object-based attention. Behavioural studies on affordances typically use asymmetrical common-use objects. To study affordance aside from the asymmetrical confound, we used a new symmetrical object (8-shaped object) whose orientation was manipulated to get the graspable part closer to participants’ hands or eyes. In Experiment 1 the entire object was coloured, in Experiment 2, only the central part of the object was. Participants (adults and children) answered according to the colours by pressing one of two lateralized keys. We had expected affordance effect for both the objects and groups, however, no effect arose in Experiment 1, maybe because attention was devoted over the whole object. In Experiment 2, instead, both the groups showed the effect but only for the graspable part close to participants' eyes and not for that close to their hand: children showed the effect for the lower part of the object, adults for the upper part of it. The result suggests that affordances are not automatic but task-dependent. Most importantly, they indicate that the ocular components plays a crucial role allowing the affordance to emerge
L'effetto dell'expertise nei processi sottostanti la codifica del movimento e del corpo: Uno studio su pallavolisti esperti
No full textAthletes are often required to anticipate others’ actions and to interact with
moving objects whose motion has to be anticipatory represented in order to properly react. To this aim visual and motor experience become essential in developing such predictor abilities. We here investigated if volleyball players were able to process the intention to act transmitted by the posture of hands’ picture. In three experiments we used an attentional paradigm, a Simon-like task called Sidedness paradigm (Ottoboni, Tessari, Cubelli & Umiltà, 2005) and highlighted as professional volleyball players differ from non-players in the ability to encode specific spatial and bodily indexes and to
direct attention according to them. Images of hands of potential adversaries incorporate meanings related to sport that makes volleyball athletes sensitive to directional spatial characteristics previously unobserved. What appears to be crucial in the generation of such effect is the ability to predict the direction of an action by single body postures and to anticipatorily prepare the motor behavior in order to oppose them
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