Chapter 12: Making up ‘Vulnerable’ People: Human Subjects and the Subjective Experience of Medical Experiment

ABSTRACTIdentical physical inputs do not always evoke identical percepts. To investigate the role of stimulus history in tactile perception, we designed a task in which rats had to judge each vibrissal vibration, in a long series, as strong or weak depending on its mean speed. After a low-speed stimulus (trial n-1), rats were more likely to report the next stimulus (trial n) as strong, and after a high-speed stimulus, they were more likely to report the next stimulus as weak, a repulsive effect that did not depend on choice or reward on trial n-1. This effect could be tracked over several preceding trials (i.e. n-2 and earlier) and was characterized by an exponential decay function, reflecting a trial-by-trial incorporation of sensory history. Surprisingly, the influence of trial n-1 strengthened as the time interval between n-1 and n grew. Human subjects receiving fingertip vibrations showed these same key findings. We are able to account for the repulsive stimulus history effect, and its detailed time scale, through a single-parameter model, wherein each new stimulus gradually updates the subject’s decision criterion. This model points to mechanisms underlying how the past affects the ongoing subjective experience.

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Dextroamphetamine-induced arousal in human subjects as a model for mania

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291700009132 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 323-329 ◽

Cited By ~ 82

Author(s):

D. Jacobs ◽

T. Silverstone

Keyword(s):

Subjective Experience ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Pharmacological Agents ◽

Valuable Adjunct ◽

Manic Patients

SynopsisBecause of the practical difficulties which arise in studying manic patients, a reproducible model for mania using human subjects would be a valuable adjunct to research in this condition. Dextroamphetamine, given as a single oral 20 mg dose, fulfils the criteria for such a model in that there are very close similarities between the changes which occur after dextroamphetamine and those which have been observed in mania in terms of subjective experience, physiological and endocrine changes, and response to pharmacological agents.

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Natural Language as a Window into the Subjective Effects and Neurochemistry of Psychedelic Drugs

10.20944/preprints202111.0201.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Enzo Tagliazucchi

Keyword(s):

Language Production ◽

Subjective Experience ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Subjective Effects ◽

Semantic Content ◽

Acute Effects ◽

Open Problems ◽

Retrospective Reports ◽

Psychedelic Drugs ◽

Neurochemical Profile

Psychedelics are drugs capable of eliciting profound alterations in the subjective experience of the users, sometimes with long-lasting consequences. Because of this, psychedelic research tends to focus on human subjects, given their capacity to construct detailed narratives about the contents of their consciousness experiences. In spite of its relevance, the interaction between serotonergic psychedelics and language production is comparatively understudied in the recent literature. This review is focused on two aspects of this interaction: how the acute effects of psychedelic drugs impact on speech organization regardless of its semantic content, and how to characterize the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs by analyzing the semantic content of written retrospective reports. We show that the computational characterization of language production is an emergent powerful tool to predict the therapeutic outcome of individual experiences, relate the effects elicited by psychedelics with those associated with other altered states of consciousness, draw comparisons between the psychedelic state and the symptomatology of certain psychiatric disorders, and investigate the neurochemical profile and mechanism of action of different psychedelic drugs. We conclude that researchers studying psychedelics can considerably expand the range of their potential scientific conclusions by analyzing brief interviews obtained before, during and after the acute effects. Finally, we list a series of questions and open problems that should be addressed to further consolidate this approach.

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Digitalizing 1947: A Postmodernist Analysis of the Shifting Faces of Communitarian Identity

sjesr ◽

10.36902/sjesr-vol3-iss4-2020(215-222) ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 215-222

Author(s):

Dr. Asma Aftab ◽

Sadia Akram ◽

Dr. Muhammad Asif

Keyword(s):

Identity Politics ◽

Subjective Experience ◽

Indian Subcontinent ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Historical Event ◽

Digital Representation ◽

Official History ◽

Current Scenario ◽

History Of ◽

Cultural Texts

This paper deals with the problem of identity during and after the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947. It focuses on the portrayal of the shifting faces of communitarian identity/politics by analyzing two digital versions of this historical event – one is Mehreen Jabbar's drama-film Ramchand Pakistani and the other is the adapted version of Razia Butt's novel Bano, broadcast by a private T.V Channel with the title of Dastaan. Based on the postmodernist shift from performance to performance, our argument foregrounds the digital representation of 1947 which offers new angles to view the subaltern story(ies) vis-à-vis the official history of nationalism by showing different characters who experience a fleeing sense of identity in their attempt to cope with the trauma of displacement and violence during 1947. In this article, the textual and digital versions of 1947 are read as cultural texts which embody the human and subjective experience and perceptions of ordinary human subjects from both sides of the divide, either during the historical event of Partition as sufferers or survivors or in current scenario in the wake of the politics of mistrust between Pakistan and India. The study concludes that digitalizing the history of 1947 offers an introspective representation of myriad experiences of people and their past which is different from a retrospective illustration of official history with its nationalist certitude and xenophobia.

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Umwelt, Lebenswelt and Dasein seen through the lens of a subjective experience of reality

Sign Systems Studies ◽

10.12697/sss.2018.46.1.06 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 126-142

Author(s):

Zdzisław Wąsik

Keyword(s):

Subjective Experience ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Direct Access ◽

Individual Experience ◽

Philosophy Of Nature ◽

Semantic Relationships ◽

Nature And Culture ◽

The World ◽

Semiotic Phenomenology ◽

Or Modelling

Depar ting from estimations of existential universes of animals (umwelt) and humans (Lebenswelt and Dasein), this paper observes a number of views on the subjective experience, or modelling systems of reality, developed in the philosophy of nature and culture. The first part examines how the semantic relationships of nonhuman and human organisms with their environments are outlined in phenomenology as a study of individual experience from a subject-oriented perspective. Respectively, animals are admitted to have meaningful relations with actual things in observable reality through an outward extension of their bodies, but they are stated to lack direct access to things in themselves and to their various forms of being, because they cannot transcend the imprisonment in their surroundings. In the second part, exposing the mundane background of semiotic phenomenology, the existence modes of animal and human subjects are considered in terms of being-in-the-world as immanence and being-for-the-world as transcendence. Immanent subjects are seen as existing in their environments and transcendent subjects as being able to go beyond their Lebenswelten. In keeping with positively marked or unmarked interpretations of existence and life in the subjective universes of humans and animals, made by other philosophers and psychologists, the author arrives at a conclusion that the extension of the study of reality and the world might enrich the framework of existential semiotics if the organisms’ relations to the world they dwell in were considered from the viewpoint of their becoming in the world and the becoming of the world as a result of their interactions.

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Effects of the Size of Mixed-Reality Person Representations on Stress and Presence in Telecommunication

International Journal of Semantic Computing ◽

10.1142/s1793351x19400130 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (03) ◽

pp. 311-328

Author(s):

Michał Joachimczak ◽

Juan Liu ◽

Hiroshi Ando

Keyword(s):

3D Reconstruction ◽

Real Time ◽

Subjective Experience ◽

Mixed Reality ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Human Interaction ◽

Long Distance ◽

Job Interview ◽

Depth Sensors ◽

Sense Of Presence

We study how mixed reality (MR) telepresence can enhance long-distance human interaction and how altering 3D representations of a remote person can be used to modulate stress and anxiety during social interactions. To do so, we developed an MR telepresence system employing commodity depth sensors and Microsoft’s Hololens. A textured, polygonal 3D model of a person was reconstructed in real time and transmitted over network for rendering in remote location using HoloLens. In this study, we used mock job interview paradigm to induce stress in human–subjects interacting with an interviewer presented as an MR hologram. Participants were exposed to three different types of real-time reconstructed virtual holograms of the interviewer, a natural-sized 3D reconstruction (NR), a miniature 3D reconstruction (SR) and a 2D-display representation (LCD). Participants reported their subjective experience through questionnaires, while their biophysical responses were recorded. We found that the size of 3D representation of a remote interviewer had a significant effect on participants’ stress levels and their sense of presence. The questionnaire data showed that NR condition induced more stress and presence than SR condition and was significantly different from LCD condition. We also found consistent patterns in the biophysical data.

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How do memory modules differentially contribute to familiarity and recollection?

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x19001833 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Author(s):

Olya Hakobyan ◽

Sen Cheng

Keyword(s):

Recognition Memory ◽

Experimental Evidence ◽

Subjective Experience ◽

Target Article ◽

Memory Modules ◽

Familiarity And Recollection ◽

Memory Contents

Abstract We fully support dissociating the subjective experience from the memory contents in recognition memory, as Bastin et al. posit in the target article. However, having two generic memory modules with qualitatively different functions is not mandatory and is in fact inconsistent with experimental evidence. We propose that quantitative differences in the properties of the memory modules can account for the apparent dissociation of recollection and familiarity along anatomical lines.

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Elevated level of circulatory sTLT1 induces inflammation through SYK/MEK/ERK signalling in coronary artery disease

Clinical Science ◽

10.1042/cs20190999 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 133 (22) ◽

pp. 2283-2299

Author(s):

Apabrita Ayan Das ◽

Devasmita Chakravarty ◽

Debmalya Bhunia ◽

Surajit Ghosh ◽

Prakash C. Mandal ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Coronary Artery Disease ◽

Coronary Artery ◽

Chronic Inflammation ◽

Ex Vivo ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Critical Role ◽

Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease ◽

Tnf Α ◽

Artery Disease

Abstract The role of inflammation in all phases of atherosclerotic process is well established and soluble TREM-like transcript 1 (sTLT1) is reported to be associated with chronic inflammation. Yet, no information is available about the involvement of sTLT1 in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Present study was undertaken to determine the pathophysiological significance of sTLT1 in atherosclerosis by employing an observational study on human subjects (n=117) followed by experiments in human macrophages and atherosclerotic apolipoprotein E (apoE)−/− mice. Plasma level of sTLT1 was found to be significantly (P<0.05) higher in clinical (2342 ± 184 pg/ml) and subclinical cases (1773 ± 118 pg/ml) than healthy controls (461 ± 57 pg/ml). Moreover, statistical analyses further indicated that sTLT1 was not only associated with common risk factors for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) in both clinical and subclinical groups but also strongly correlated with disease severity. Ex vivo studies on macrophages showed that sTLT1 interacts with Fcɣ receptor I (FcɣRI) to activate spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK)-mediated downstream MAP kinase signalling cascade to activate nuclear factor-κ B (NF-kB). Activation of NF-kB induces secretion of tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) from macrophage cells that plays pivotal role in governing the persistence of chronic inflammation. Atherosclerotic apoE−/− mice also showed high levels of sTLT1 and TNF-α in nearly occluded aortic stage indicating the contribution of sTLT1 in inflammation. Our results clearly demonstrate that sTLT1 is clinically related to the risk factors of CAD. We also showed that binding of sTLT1 with macrophage membrane receptor, FcɣR1 initiates inflammatory signals in macrophages suggesting its critical role in thrombus development and atherosclerosis.

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