The default network is causally linked to creative thinking

Creative thinking represents a major evolutionary mechanism that greatly contributed to the rapid advancement of the human species. The ability to produce novel and useful ideas, or original thinking, is thought to correlate well with unexpected, synchronous activation of several large-scale, dispersed cortical networks, such as the default network (DN). Despite a vast amount of correlative evidence, a causal link between default network and creativity has yet to be demonstrated. Surgeries for resection of brain tumors that lie in proximity to speech related areas are performed while the patient is awake to map the exposed cortical surface for language functions. Such operations provide a unique opportunity to explore human behavior while disrupting a focal cortical area via focal electrical stimulation. We used a novel paradigm of individualized direct cortical stimulation to examine the association between creative thinking and the DN. Preoperative resting-state fMRI was used to map the DN in individual patients. A cortical area identified as a DN node (study) or outside the DN (controls) was stimulated while the participants performed an alternate-uses-task (AUT). This task measures divergent thinking through the number and originality of different uses provided for an everyday object. Baseline AUT performance in the operating room was positively correlated with DN integrity. Direct cortical stimulation at the DN node resulted in decreased ability to produce alternate uses, but not in the originality of uses produced. Stimulation in areas that when used as network seed regions produced a network similar to the canonical DN was associated with reduction of creative fluency. Stimulation of areas that did not produce a default-like network (controls) did not alter creative thinking. This is the first study to causally link the DN and creative thinking.

The Tent in the Context of the Byzantine Power Symbolism in the 10th–12th Centuries

ntroduction. The tent (σκηνή, τέντα) was a simple and everyday object of Byzantine life. Diplomats, merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, travelers, and simply wanderers spent a considerable part of their lives in a tent. It was a natural element of the Byzantine landscape, and geographical mobility was an important part of the lifestyle of the Byzantine elite and its psychology. But this simple, everyday thing in a certain context took on an extremely important meaning and turned into an important religious and social symbol. A simple object could indicate complicated social and ideological constructions of the 10th–12th centuries. The task of the study is to reveal the implicit power context which in certain cases endowed simple everyday objects (like a tent) with an extremely important meaning. Methods. The article is written in the general context of structuralist methodologies. We regarded the tent as a simple sign indicating the complex representations that lie behind its content. Structuralist methods allow for a correct reconstruction of Byzantine everyday representations in different strata of society. Analysis and Results. The rich tent in Byzantine society of the 10th–12th centuries was not just a part of the daily military life of the aristocracy, but also an important element of power relations. Tents defined the social status of their owners, emphasized their power and importance. Aristocratic tents of that time were a space where power decisions were made and court life took place. The tent as a power symbol relied on a broad religious context. The Tabernacle of Moses, which was the model for every tent in the Byzantine Empire, was also created by the Lord’s will, with Moses himself acting as “royal scribe”. The folkloric tent of Charos in the Acritic songs turns out to be the center of the “lower” world in which Charos ruthlessly reigns. Behind each reading of the symbolic meaning of the tent lie different social practices of different groups of Byzantine society, but they are all filled with their own understanding of the essence of power.

Limited Use Only. How Can the Design of an Everyday Object Evoke an Initiation of Use in Chronic Stroke Survivors

<p>Stroke causes significant damage to the brain and affects 15 million people annually worldwide. Symptoms commonly affect one or both limbs on one side of the body, limiting ability to perform daily activities. The preferential use of the less affected limb for performing everyday activities in the form of compensatory movement is a common phenomenon after a stroke and can lead to a “learned nonuse” of the affected arm and hand. This learned behaviour can be overcome by applying a physical restraint on the less affected arm to initiate use of the affected one. Stroke interventions that use physical restraint are criticised for being labour intensive and expensive and having a limited focus on the home environment of the stroke survivor. This study aimed to design everyday objects that restrain movement to initiate the use of the affected arm and hand. It was undertaken from a pragmatist theoretical perspective, using a human-centred design approach to develop an understanding of the users’ needs and create design solutions that addressed the observed problem. A qualitative multimethod approach helped understanding of how the restraining effect needs to be delivered to initiate use of the affected arm, and which everyday objects are key in daily activities post-stroke. The research through design methodology was employed for developing expansive and serial design prototypes to test how the restraint could be incorporated into a design prototype. The prototypes were evaluated with health professionals and chronic stroke survivors to validate the intended initiation of use. Findings of this study indicate that the development of learned nonuse is multifactorial and occurs over time. The current use of restraint in clinical practice focuses on reminding the survivor to use the affected arm and hand rather than physically restraining its use. It was emphasised by the therapists that a behaviour change is a crucial element in overcoming learned nonuse in the long-term. The evaluation of the design prototypes indicated that the design of the object needs to take into consideration the conceptual model the user has of the object and the interaction needs to be feasible to perform for the stroke survivor. Five different design strategies were developed to restrain movement and elicit an initiation of use. The restraining effect that is evoked by the design strategies can vary between the different users. Additionally, the object needs to provide sufficient feedforward to initiate the use of the affected arm and hand, increase self-efficacy beliefs, provide a repetitive and increasingly challenging movement, provide feedback and sensory input to secure engagement in the process. A behaviour change is an essential element to overcome the learned nonuse in the long-term. A behaviour contract was, therefore, incorporated in the form of the design components to facilitate such a change. At this stage it is unclear which strategy offers the greatest potential to evoke an initiation of use and if the behaviour contract contributes to overcoming the learned nonuse. Further studies are needed to increase the restraining effect and usability of the design prototypes and validate the long-term impact.</p>

Limited Use Only. How Can the Design of an Everyday Object Evoke an Initiation of Use in Chronic Stroke Survivors

<p>Stroke causes significant damage to the brain and affects 15 million people annually worldwide. Symptoms commonly affect one or both limbs on one side of the body, limiting ability to perform daily activities. The preferential use of the less affected limb for performing everyday activities in the form of compensatory movement is a common phenomenon after a stroke and can lead to a “learned nonuse” of the affected arm and hand. This learned behaviour can be overcome by applying a physical restraint on the less affected arm to initiate use of the affected one. Stroke interventions that use physical restraint are criticised for being labour intensive and expensive and having a limited focus on the home environment of the stroke survivor. This study aimed to design everyday objects that restrain movement to initiate the use of the affected arm and hand. It was undertaken from a pragmatist theoretical perspective, using a human-centred design approach to develop an understanding of the users’ needs and create design solutions that addressed the observed problem. A qualitative multimethod approach helped understanding of how the restraining effect needs to be delivered to initiate use of the affected arm, and which everyday objects are key in daily activities post-stroke. The research through design methodology was employed for developing expansive and serial design prototypes to test how the restraint could be incorporated into a design prototype. The prototypes were evaluated with health professionals and chronic stroke survivors to validate the intended initiation of use. Findings of this study indicate that the development of learned nonuse is multifactorial and occurs over time. The current use of restraint in clinical practice focuses on reminding the survivor to use the affected arm and hand rather than physically restraining its use. It was emphasised by the therapists that a behaviour change is a crucial element in overcoming learned nonuse in the long-term. The evaluation of the design prototypes indicated that the design of the object needs to take into consideration the conceptual model the user has of the object and the interaction needs to be feasible to perform for the stroke survivor. Five different design strategies were developed to restrain movement and elicit an initiation of use. The restraining effect that is evoked by the design strategies can vary between the different users. Additionally, the object needs to provide sufficient feedforward to initiate the use of the affected arm and hand, increase self-efficacy beliefs, provide a repetitive and increasingly challenging movement, provide feedback and sensory input to secure engagement in the process. A behaviour change is an essential element to overcome the learned nonuse in the long-term. A behaviour contract was, therefore, incorporated in the form of the design components to facilitate such a change. At this stage it is unclear which strategy offers the greatest potential to evoke an initiation of use and if the behaviour contract contributes to overcoming the learned nonuse. Further studies are needed to increase the restraining effect and usability of the design prototypes and validate the long-term impact.</p>

EXPRESS: Age-related differences when searching in a real environment: The use of semantic contextual guidance and incidental object encoding

Visual search is a crucial, everyday activity that declines with aging. Here, referring to the environmental support account, we hypothesized that semantic contextual associations between the target and the neighboring objects (e.g., a teacup near a tea bag and a spoon), acting as external cues, may counteract this decline. Moreover, when searching for a target, viewers may encode information about the co-present distractor objects, by simply looking at them. In everyday life, where viewers often search for several targets within the same environment, such distractor objects may often become targets of future searches. Thus, we examined whether incidentally fixating a target during previous trials, when it was a distractor, may also modulate the impact of aging on search performance. We used everyday object arrays on tables in a real room, where healthy young and older adults had to search sequentially for multiple objects across different trials within the same array. We showed that search was quicker: (1) in young than older adults, (2) for targets surrounded by semantically associated objects than unassociated objects, but only in older adults, and (3) for incidentally fixated targets than for targets that were not fixated when they were distractors, with no differences between young and older adults. These results suggest that older viewers use both environmental support based on object semantic associations and object information incidentally encoded to enhance efficiency of real-world search, even in relatively simple environments. This reduces, but does not eliminate, search decline related to aging.

What is Matter in Aristotle's Hylomorphism?

Aristotle's notion of matter has been seen either as unintelligible, it being some mysterious potential entity that is nothing in its own right, or as simply the notion of an everyday object. The latter is the common assumption in contemporary approaches to hylomorphism, but as has been pointed out, especially by scholars with a background in ancient philosophy, if we conceive of matter as an object itself we cannot account for the unity of hylomorphic substances. Thus, they assume that a hylomorphic substance is an essential unity and matter not a constituent at all. This solution to the problem of unity, however, brings us back to the mysterious notion of matter. For these reasons, I will revisit Aristotle's conception of matter in this paper. I will argue that an understanding of form as a cause of being requires that matter be an independent constituent of the individual substance. However, I agree that the conception of matter as an individual object with an essence makes it impossible to solve the problem of unity. We therefore need to take seriously Aristotle's assertion that matter is nothing in its own right and not an individual. By denying that matter is an individual, Aristotle does not introduce a mysterious entity, nor does he deny that it can be identified independently of the whole; instead, matter for Aristotle is an irreducible plurality, and this explains why it is not an individual and has no essence. I will conclude with some observations on how this gives rise to two competing versions of hylomorphic constitution.

IoT based Smart Home Automation using NodeMCU

With the expansion of Automation technology, life is getting simpler and easier altogether aspects. In the present world, Automatic systems are dominant over manual systems. The rapid increase within the number of users of the internet over the past decade has made the Internet a neighborhood and parcel of life, and IoT is that the latest and emerging internet technology. The Internet of things could also be a growing network of everyday object-from industrial machines to a commodity that can share information and complete tasks while you're busy with other activities. Wireless Home Automation system using IoT could also be a system that uses computers or mobile devices to manage standard home functions and its features automatically through the web from anywhere around the globe, an automatic house is sometimes called a sensible home. It is meant to save a plethora of electrical power and human (manual) energy. The home automation system differs from another system by admitting the user to figure the system from anywhere around the world through an online connection (internet). In this paper, we present a Home Automation system using Blynk Community that employs the mixing of cloud networking, wireless communication, to supply the user with a remote of various appliances within their home and storing the data logs in the cloud. This system is meant to be low cost and expandable allowing a spread of devices to be controlled. Keywords: IoT, Home Automation, NodeMCU, Blynk App, Relay Module

Size Perception Bias and Reach-to-Grasp Kinematics: An Exploratory Study on the Virtual Hand With a Consumer Immersive Virtual-Reality Device

While studies have increasingly used virtual hands and objects in virtual environments to investigate various processes of psychological phenomena, conflicting findings have been reported even at the most basic level of perception and action. To reconcile this situation, the present study aimed 1) to assess biases in size perception of a virtual hand using a strict psychophysical method and 2) to provide firm and conclusive evidence of the kinematic characteristics of reach-to-grasp movements with various virtual effectors (whole hand or fingertips only, with or without tactile feedback of a target object). Experiments were conducted using a consumer immersive virtual reality device. In a size judgment task, participants judged whether a presented virtual hand or an everyday object was larger than the remembered size. The results showed the same amplitude of underestimation (approximately 5%) for the virtual hand and the object, and no influence of object location, visuo-proprioceptive congruency, or short-term experience of controlling the virtual hand. Furthermore, there was a moderate positive correlation between actual hand size and perception bias. Analyses of reach-to-grasp movements revealed longer movement times and larger maximum grip aperture (MGA) for a virtual, as opposed to a physical, environment, but the MGA did not change when grasping was performed without tactile feedback. The MGA appeared earlier in the time course of grasping movements in all virtual reality conditions, regardless of the type of virtual effector. These findings confirm and corroborate previous evidence and may contribute to the field of virtual hand interfaces for interactions with virtual worlds.

Limbswish

This chapter explores the interrelation between the everyday object and the art object in the work of New York Dada poet, pioneer assemblage sculptor and performance artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Her intermedial poetics revolves around an unprecedented intrusion of quotidian objects and mass-produced commodities in art and poetry, while her hybrid forms radically redefine both the visual artwork and the poem and do away with the boundaries between different kinds of artistic objects. This chapter situates her artistic practice in the context of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, while making important distinctions between them. Although the Baroness’ assemblages have been eclipsed by Duchamp’s work, she came up with a strikingly original poetics that is literally “ready-to-wear,” integrating singular arrays of objects into her radical self-performances which work toward developing new genres such as a living body assemblage or a body performance poem. This chapter argues that in Baroness Elsa’s “ready-to-wear” poem-objects unravels a radical and ironic craft which inextricably welds together the consumer product and the unique artwork.