scholarly journals Neural rhythmic underpinnings of intergroup bias: implications for peace-building attitudes and dialogue

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Levy ◽  
Abraham Goldstein ◽  
Moran Influs ◽  
Shafiq Masalha ◽  
Ruth Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Alpha Rhythm ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Intergroup Bias ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Intergroup Dialogue ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Very High Frequency ◽  
Neural Underpinnings

Abstract Intergroup bias is a ubiquitous socio-cognitive phenomenon that, while sustaining human dependence on group living, often leads to prejudice, inequity, and violence; yet, its neural underpinnings remain unclear. Framed within the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and targeting youth, this study utilized magnetoencephalography to describe intrinsic neural oscillatory processes that represent the intergroup bias and may link with engagement in peacemaking in order to shed further light on the neural mechanisms underpinning intergroup conflict. Across the oscillatory spectrum, from very low to very high frequency bands, the only rhythm found to underlie the intergroup bias was the alpha rhythm. Alpha rhythm was continuously activated across the task and integrated a rapid perceptual component in the occipital cortex with a top-down cognitive-control component in the medial cingulate cortex. These components were distinctly associated with the real-life intergroup dialogue style and expressed attitudes that promote active engagement in peacemaking. Our findings suggest that the cortical alpha rhythm plays a crucial role in sustaining intergroup bias and addresses its impact on concrete intergroup experiences. The results highlight the need to provide opportunities for active peace-building dialogue to youth reared amidst intractable conflicts.

Brain responses to peer feedback in social media are modulated by valence and personality dimensions in late adolescence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrik Wikman ◽  
Mona Moisala ◽  
Artturi Ylinen ◽  
Jallu Lindblom ◽  
Sointu Leikas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Peer Feedback ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Brain Responses

Previous studies have examined the neural correlates of receiving negative feedback from peers during virtual social interaction in young people. However, there is a lack of studies using platforms adolescents use in daily life. In the present study, 92 participants ages 17 to 20 performed a task that involved receiving positive and negative feedback from peers in a Facebook-like platform, while brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We also studied the effects of real-life habits of social media use on neural sensitivity to negative feedback. Peer feedback was shown to activate clusters in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), superior temporal gyrus and sulcus (STG/STS), and occipital cortex (OC). Negative feedback was related to greater activity in the VLPFC, MPFC, and anterior insula than positive feedback, replicating previous findings on peer feedback and social rejection. Habits of social media use did not correlate with brain responses to negative feedback.

scholarly journals Envelope analysis of the human alpha rhythm

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Víctor Manuel Hidalgo ◽  
Javier Díaz ◽  
Jorge Mpodozis ◽  
Juan-Carlos Letelier
Keyword(s):  
Gaussian Noise ◽  
Alpha Rhythm ◽  
Phase Locking ◽  
Gaussian White Noise ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Neural Population ◽  
Envelope Analysis ◽  
Weakly Coupled ◽  
Neural Signal Analysis ◽  
New Interpretation

The origin of the human alpha rhythm has been a matter of debate since Lord Adrian attributed it to synchronous neural populations in the occipital cortex. While some authors have pointed out the Gaussian characteristics of the alpha rhythm, their results have been repeatedly disregarded in favor of Adrian′s interpretation; even though the first EEG Gaussianity reports can be traced back to the origins of EEG. Here we revisit this problem using the envelope analysis — a method that relies on the fact that the coefficient of variation of the envelope (CVE) for continuous-time zero-mean Gaussian white noise (as well as for any filteredsub-band) is equal to √(4−π)/π≈0.523, thus making the CVE a fingerprint for Gaussianity. As a consequence, any significant deviation from Gaussianity is linked to synchronous neural dynamics. Low-CVE signals come from phase-locking dynamics, while mid-CVE signals constitute Gaussian noise. High-CVE signals have been linked to unsteady dynamics in populations of nonlinear oscillators. We analyzed occipital EEG and iEEG data from massive public databases and the order parameter of a population of weakly coupled oscillators using the envelope analysis. Our results showed that the human alpha rhythm can be characterized as a rhythmic, Gaussian, or pulsating signal due to intra- and inter-subject variability. Furthermore, Fourier analysis showed that the canonical spectral peak at≈10[Hz] is present in all three CVE classes, thus demonstrating that this same peak can be produced by rhythms, Gaussian noise, and pulsating ripples. Alpha-like signals obtained from a population of non-linear oscillators showed a different CVE depending only on the coupling constant, suggesting that the same neural population can produce the amplitude modulation patterns observed in experimental data. iEEG data, however, was found to be mostly Gaussian, specially the signals recorded from the calcarine cortex. These results suggest that a new interpretation for EEG event-related synchronization/desynchronization (ERS/ERD) may be needed. Envelope analysis constitutes a novel complement to traditional Fourier-based methods for neural signal analysis relating amplitude modulations (CVE) to signal energy.

Sustained Engagement Experiences in Kinesiology: An Engaged Department Initiative

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 362-367
Author(s):  
Brian D. Clocksin ◽  
Margo B. Greicar
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Real Life ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
The University ◽  
High Impact Practice

Community engagement is commonly imbedded in the ethos of institutions of higher education and has been identified as a High Impact Practice for student learning and retention. The Sustained Engagement Experiences in Kinesiology (SEEK) program at the University of La Verne is a curriculum-wide approach that moves students through four stages of community engagement: Respect, Participating with Effort, Self-Directions, and Leadership. The stages are developmentally sequenced across the curriculum and provide opportunities for learners to move from passive participants to active engagement scholars. The engagement experiences serve to enhance students’ abilities to transfer what they learn in the classroom to real-life problems, foster an asset-based approach to community engagement, and facilitate a transition from surface-to deep-learning.

scholarly journals Successfully Teaching Ethics For Effective Learning

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald R. Sims ◽  
Edward L. Felton, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Ethics Education ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Teaching Ethics ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Effective Learning ◽  
Made In

This paper is concerned with identifying keys to successfully teach ethics. The keys are: addressing the relevance challenge; striving to achieve a balance between the active engagement of students with issues and a critical analysis of choices in to be made in real-life situations; attending to or managing the learning process to include learning styles and experiential learning; debriefing experientially-oriented learning activities; and institutionalizing outcomes of ethics education objectives. The paper discusses results of a study that attempted to answer the question What is required to successfully deliver experientially-oriented ethics education

scholarly journals The Use of the Reassignment Technique in the Time-Frequency Analysis Applied in VHF-Based Passive Forward Scattering Radar

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 3434
Author(s):  
Marek Płotka ◽  
Karol Abratkiewicz ◽  
Mateusz Malanowski ◽  
Piotr Samczyński ◽  
Krzysztof Kulpa
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Forward Scattering ◽  
Kinematic Parameters ◽  
Very High Frequency ◽  
Digital Video Broadcasting ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
Video Broadcasting ◽  
Airborne Target ◽  
Very High

This paper presents the application of the time-frequency (TF) reassignment technique in passive forward scattering radar (FSR) using Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T) transmitters of opportunity operating in the Very High Frequency (VHF) band. The validation of the proposed technique was done using real-life signals collected by the passive radar demonstrator during a measurement campaign. The scenario was chosen to test detection ranges and the capability of estimating the kinematic parameters of a cooperative airborne target in passive FSR geometry. Additionally, in the experiment the possibility of utilizing FSR geometry in foliage penetration conditions taking advantage of the VHF band of a DVB-T illuminator of opportunity was tested. The results presented in this paper show that the concentrated (reassigned) energy distribution of the signal in the TF domain allows a more precise target Doppler rate to be estimated using the Hough transform.

Beautiful People in the Brain of the Beholder

2021 ◽  
pp. 48-51
Author(s):  
Anjan Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Imaging Study ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study ◽  
Lateral Occipital Complex ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Facial Beauty ◽  
Neural Underpinnings ◽  
Human Brains ◽  
The Brain

In the paper discussed in this chapter, the authors were interested in the neural underpinnings for facial beauty and whether such responses were automatic. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study over two sessions, the authors asked participants to make beauty and identity judgments on a series of computer-generated faces. When people judged beauty, the authors found that neural activity varied parametrically to the degree of facial attractiveness in the fusiform face area and the lateral occipital complex, as well as in parts of parietal and frontal cortices. When people made familiarity judgments, the authors observed the same modulation of neural activity within occipital cortex to the degree of attractiveness in the faces. The data suggested that human brains automatically respond to facial beauty even when people might be attending to other aspects of the faces they apprehend.

scholarly journals Neural underpinnings of morality judgment and moral aesthetic judgment

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiuping Cheng ◽  
Xue Wen ◽  
Guozhen Ye ◽  
Yanchi Liu ◽  
Yilong Kong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Neural Underpinnings ◽  
Motor Representations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

AbstractMorality judgment usually refers to the evaluation of moral behavior`s ability to affect others` interests and welfare, while moral aesthetic judgment often implies the appraisal of moral behavior's capability to provide aesthetic pleasure. Both are based on the behavioral understanding. To our knowledge, no study has directly compared the brain activity of these two types of judgments. The present study recorded and analyzed brain activity involved in the morality and moral aesthetic judgments to reveal whether these two types of judgments differ in their neural underpinnings. Results reveled that morality judgment activated the frontal, parietal and occipital cortex previously reported for motor representations of behavior. Evaluation of goodness and badness showed similar patterns of activation in these brain regions. In contrast, moral aesthetic judgment elicited specific activations in the frontal, parietal and temporal cortex proved to be involved in the behavioral intentions and emotions. Evaluation of beauty and ugliness showed similar patterns of activation in these brain regions. Our findings indicate that morality judgment and moral aesthetic judgment recruit different cortical networks that might decode others' behaviors at different levels. These results contribute to further understanding of the essence of the relationship between morality judgment and aesthetic judgment.

scholarly journals Pedagogy and youth civic engagement: Shifting understandings, emergent considerations and persisting challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-186
Author(s):  
Mark Evans ◽  
Andrew Peterson ◽  
Márta Fülöp ◽  
Dina Kiwan ◽  
Jasmine B.-Y. Sim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Youth Civic Engagement ◽  
Civic Learning ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
School Based ◽  
Constructing Knowledge ◽  
Fundamental Shift

Pedagogies about and for civic engagement are not clearly defined. We consider how these understandings have been constructed and how these pedagogical developments reveal a gradual yet fundamental shift from more transmission-oriented learning intentions and practices to more transformative orientations. We examine how particular broad and interrelated pedagogical considerations and experiences appear to enhance civic engagement learning (e.g. a focus on real-life and relevant political questions and issues, classroom to community, local to global). We review experiences that allow for the practice of different forms of civic engagement; varied ways of knowing and active involvement in the process of constructing knowledge in relation to these political questions and issues rather than simply receiving information passively; and building capacities for decision-making, public issue investigation, ethical thinking, peace-building and conflict management. We recognize that these matters are approached differently in the literature and in classrooms, schools and communities with varying degrees of emphasis and levels of sophistication. We contend that these contrasting approaches and practices reflect differing cultural and historical traditions and contexts, pressures being experienced locally and globally, and the guidance of educational policies and study programmes. The enactment of these developing understandings of civic engagement pedagogy is nominal and uneven in classrooms, schools and community sites within and across countries. Most forms of civic engagement pedagogy for youth tend to occur randomly in their communities, while school-based programmes are limited and most often involved in forms of civic action that are perceived as safe and minimal. We highlight ‐ in the form of questions ‐ some of the persisting challenges that face educators in developing appropriate pedagogies for civic engagement. This work originated from a three-year (2016‐19), six-country project, ‘Youth Activism, Engagement and the Development of New Civic Learning Spaces’, undertaken by an international network of researchers (based in Australia, Canada, England, Hungary, Lebanon and Singapore) and funded by a Leverhulme Network Grant. We explore key ideas and issues about the ways in which young people participate in society and discuss what implications there are for education.

scholarly journals Seeing Sounds and Hearing Sights: The Influence of Prior Learning on Current Perception

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1030-1042 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer D. Ryan ◽  
Sandra N. Moses ◽  
Melanie L. Ostreicher ◽  
Timothy Bardouille ◽  
Anthony T. Herdman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Evoked Responses ◽  
Prior Learning ◽  
Visual Cortices ◽  
Neural Underpinnings ◽  
Prior Experiences

It is well known that previous perceptual experiences alter subsequent perception, but the details of the neural underpinnings of this general phenomenon are still sketchy. Here, we ask whether previous experiences with an item (such as seeing a person's face) leads to the alteration of the neural correlates related to processing of the item as such, or whether it creates additional associative connections between such substrates and those activated during prior experience. To address this question, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to identify neural changes accompanying subjects' viewing of unfamiliar versus famous faces and hearing the names of unfamiliar versus famous names. We were interested in the nature of the involvement of auditory brain regions in the viewing of faces, and in the involvement of visual regions in the hearing of names. Evoked responses from MEG recordings for the names and faces conditions were localized to auditory and visual cortices, respectively. Unsurprisingly, peak activation strength of evoked responses was larger for famous versus nonfamous names within the superior temporal gyrus (STG), and was similar for famous and nonfamous faces in the occipital cortex. More relevant to the issue of experience on perception, peak activation strength in the STG was larger for viewed famous versus nonfamous faces, and peak activation within the occipital cortex was larger for heard famous versus nonfamous names. Critically, these experience-related responses were present within 150–250 msec of stimulus onset. These findings support the hypothesis that prior experiences may influence processing of faces and names such that perception encompasses more than what is imparted on the senses.

UMASST: A New Teaching Tool for Stress State Transformation

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei Yu ◽  
Ian R. Grosse ◽  
Beverly Woolf ◽  
Mike Lindenmuth
Keyword(s):  
Stress State ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Depth Information ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
State Transformation ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Mechanics Of Materials ◽  
How People Learn ◽  
Stress States ◽  
Future Work

This paper presents UMASST, the UMASS Stress State Transformation tutor. UMASST is a multimedia tutor based on active engagement of the learner and the use of visualization. The development of UMASST was informed by cognitive models of human reasoning, research on how people learn and computing technology. As a multimedia Director® and web-based application with knowledge-centered and assessment-centered modules, the UMASST targets improving understanding and mastery of transformation of stress states in mechanics of materials. In the knowledge-centered modules learners receive in-depth information on physical meaning and real-life applications of stress state transformations before their understanding is assessed in interactive workshops. The assessment-centered modules assist novices in assessing themselves on the subject domain. Assessment results show that the current efficacy of the UMASST tutor is above that of in-class lectures. Future work will include a learner-centered module customizing learning process by considering learners’ individual backgrounds.

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