CACA &y,$ · 2020. 6. 30. · InvitedTalks...

MEi:CogSci Conference 2020

Online, Vienna

Proceedings of the

MEi:CogSci Conference

2020 Online, Vienna

Editors:

Laura Gschwandtner, Lucas Jeay-Bizot, Andras Makai, Tim Reinboth, Elisabeth

Zimmermann

University of Vienna, Austria

Igor Farkaš

Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

Published by:

Comenius University in Bratislava in June 2020

Proceedings of the MEi:CogSci Conference 2020

The conference took place as an online conference on 18-20 June, 2020, hosted by the University of

Vienna

Editors:

Laura Gschwandtner, Lucas Jeay-Bizot, Andras Makai, Tim Reinboth, Elisabeth

Zimmermann

University of Vienna, Austria

Igor Farkaš

Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

Cover Art:

Nicole Vella

Copyright 2020

Published by:

Comenius University in Bratislava in June 2020

ISBN 978-80-223-4948-2

Welcome!Dear Coxies, dear MEi:CogSci partners and friends, dear guests,

Welcome to our 14th MEi:CogSci Conference; the first one happening as an online conference!

This year we are more than ever experiencing the impact of technology on our personal and academic lives, the change of learning and working situations as well as the influence of technologies on social interaction in general…all topics that have been investigated within the field of cognitive science in the past years. We are proud to be able to contribute to this field and its applications in a wide variety of interdisciplinary domains. Furthermore, MEi:CogSci aims to educate not only experts in cognitive science, but also humans acting in an ethically and socially responsible manner in this highly relevant and impactful field.

We want to welcome our invited speakers Natalie Sebanz (Central European University, Budapest & Vienna), Martin Takač (Comenius University, Bratislava), and Andreas Kalckert (University of Skövde). Thank you for joining us this year and for sharing your expertise and knowledge with us.

We also welcome our graduates, who join this event and provide insights into possible careers after MEi:CogSci. Thank you for supporting MEi:CogSci even after graduation!

We thank Nicole Vella for creating the cover art for the conference proceedings.

Thank you, Igor Farkaš, for organising the publication of these proceedings under an ISBN number.

We also want to thank all reviewers and supervisors, who provide the foundations for this event.

And last but not least, it is you, Coxies, who make this conference happen. Your posters, talks, and initiatives will make the MEi:CogSci Conference 2020 an exciting and joyful event!

Thank you all for joining online this year! Enjoy the 14th MEi:CogSci Conference!

Laura Gschwandtner

Lucas Jeay-Bizot

Andras Makai

Tim Reinboth

Elisabeth Zimmermann

Editor’s Note

We, the editors, thank all MEi:CogSci students/authors for submitting their work to the MEi:CogSci Conference 2020. We are happy to present your work in the conference proceedings and to contribute to the field of cognitive science by covering such a variety of interesting topics.

The MEi:CogSci conference and its proceedings are a joint effort. The editors ensure that the work submitted to the conference is in accordance with the conference guidelines for authors. Thus, the editors revise the submissions in respect to formal criteria and formatting issues. Participating students/authors are expected to adhere to good scientific practice and to honour the regulations relating to good academic conduct. The students'/authors' responsibilities include the usage of references and citations in a transparent, precise, and correct manner, as well as issues regarding style, spelling, and grammar of their abstracts. Despite our best efforts to meet our responsibilities as editors, the MEi:CogSci Conference 2020 proceedings may contain errors and we apologise for any inconveniences.

Thank you all for allowing us to represent MEi:CogSci and our programme’s understanding of cognitive science through your submissions of original work.

Fourteenth Middle European Interdisciplinary Conference in Cognitive Science (MEi:CogSci Conference 2020) Online, Vienna18-20 June, 2020

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Invited Talks 6Kalckert, Andreas: Moving or Having a rubber hand - The role of multisensory

integration andmotor control in bodily illusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Sebanz, Natalie: Social Minds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Takáč, Martin: Intelligent Technologies and Society - Risks and Opportunities . . 9

Posters 10Arias Sutil, María; Grüner, Markus: Guidance of Visual Attention by Shapes . . . . 11

Bergant, Ajda; Javorič, Anja: Comparison of OpenSesame and Experiment Builder 12

Bojkovska, Isidora: Measuring Social Rewards in Humans and Animals . . . . . . 13

Boyadzhieva, Asena: Keeping the Breath in Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Božiček, Evita; Čepon, Darja; Pavlovčič, Tisa; Jug, Jan; Sakić, David; Dreo, Jurij:Tribalism in Scientific Methodology: Quantifying the Differences in BrainResearch Between Clinical Neurology and Neuroscience . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Brezovnik, Neža; Sterle, Miha: Creating Slovene Language Resources . . . . . . . 16

Cserjan, David: Estimating Emotional Well-Being on Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Csikyová, Flávia Lujza: Fighting Cashless Effects with Frictions in Online Store UI . 18

Dincer, Aylin; Smolka, Eva: Age-Related Changes in Idiom Processing . . . . . . . 19

Ferlinc, Zala; Močilnik, Vanesa; Kroflič, Niko; Ogrin, Ajda; Primožič, Maša: StressPrediction Based on Physiological Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Filipič, Andrej; Pečan, Janja: Discrimination of Modulated Vibration . . . . . . . . 21

Gömöri, Tamas: Collectivism and Individualism Through Colexification . . . . . . 22

Hutinski, Severin; Saksida, Amanda: TermFrame - Karst Evokes Imagination: Ex-perts Associations to Karst Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Jakaj, Sara; Štrempfel, Teja: Personality Reflects Through Brain Activity . . . . . 24

Knöbel, Surya: Reducing Susceptibility Towards FakeNews: Taking Advantage ofHeuristics and Biases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Kolenc, Tanja; Ličen, Mina: Neuromarketing: Green Advertising for Future Gener-ations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

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Proceedings of MEi:CogSci Conference 2020, Vienna

Komarova, Lubica: Does the Source Affect the Degree to Which You Believe FakeNews? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Konrad, Wilma: Effects of Mindfulness Meditation Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Kováč, Michal: Can the Effects of Alcohol onMotor Task Performance be NegatedBy the Effects of Cocaine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Lang, Nina: Subjective Cognitive Complaint: Predictive Markers for Progressionto Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Dementia . . . . . . . . . . 30

Leeb, Constanze: When Emotions Go Viral – an Analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic 31

Leonova, Nina; Tsaprouni, Eleni; Manouilidou, Christina: Processing of Nonwordswith Different Morphological Violations in Slovenian, Greek and Russian . . 32

Lin, Tzu nung: Homeorhesis in the Context of Generalized Anxiety Disorder . . . . 33

Moze, Tjasa; Poljak, Matej: Effects of Caffeine onBrain Activity Using the AuditoryOddball Task Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Müller-Naendrup, Lena: Build[ing] Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Narat, Marko: Discovering Language Biases With Word Embeddings . . . . . . . 36

Palmann, Anna; Golestani, Narly: Multilingual Language Experience andHeschl’sGyrus Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Purkhauser, Kevin: Artificial(ly) Talent(ed) - Using Comparative Swarm Simula-tions to Define Individual Qualities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Rašl, Katja: The Influence of Listening toMusic on the PsychophysicalWell-beingof the Elderly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Rosic, Jelena: Determining the Structure of the DMT Experience (Neurophe-nomenology of Entropic Mind) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Rutar, Minea; Černe, Jaša: Normative Data for Semantically Associated SloveneWord Lists That Create False Memories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Sojka, Viktor: Implementing Full Body Movement into Virtual Reality CognitiveTraining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Terglav, Anja; Mikić, Jasna; Matkovič, Andraž: The Effects of Grammatical Genderon Processing Occupational Role Names in Slovene: An ERP Study . . . . . 43

Ufer, Carina: The Effect of Testosterone in Public Prosocial Learning . . . . . . . 44

Urbančič, Eva: I Like to Move It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Wiesner, Jan-Ove: A Social Robot in the Role as Novice for the Learning by Teach-ing Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Zitterbart, André: Towards Computational Cognitive Modelling of Fighting GamePlayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

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Table of Contents

Talks 48Aybar, Kemal Ozan: Coordination Without Explicit Intentions . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Bae, Hansoo: Fake Vs. Real News: Interaction of Cognitive and Social Factors inAccepting Fake News in Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Bakondi, Flora: TheEffect of Contextual InformationonArt ViewingBehavior andExhibition Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Barbulescu, Anna Cornelia; Grosse-Wentrup, Moritz: Brain Computer Interfaces inStroke Rehabilitation: A Machine Learning-Based Meta-Analysis . . . . . . 52

Bass-Krueger, Julian Lyles: Experience and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Bogataj, Žiga: Effects of Acoustic Parameters in Voice on Language Perception . . 54

Bohnec, Gregor: Assessment of Sustained Attention with Neurobeans CognitiveTool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Bratić, Ena; Kojović, Maja: Finding the Best Arm Position for Muscle Relaxation:Implication for Tremor Recording in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease andPatients with Essential Tremor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Bregant, Jan Anton; Nádasdy, Zoltán: Role of Gamma in Visual Perception . . . . 57

Brečko, Patricija: Sense of Embodiment in Human-Robot Interface Design . . . . 58

But, Izabela: Transformation of Consciousness andSelf inMeditation andDuringPsychadelic Drug Use and Neuroscientific Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Caporusso, Jaya: What Is It like to Have a Dissolution Experience? . . . . . . . . . 60

Forke, Julia: Understanding the Headless Rider: Awareness and Intent Commu-nication as Common Language Between Autonomous Vehicles and OtherRoad Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Furdi, Barbara; Ringler, Eva: Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Identifying Activityin Distinct Brain Regions During Tadpole Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Fülle, Vesna; Guna, Jože: Evaluation of Heart Rate and Electrodermal Activity asObjective Indicators of Simulator Sickness in Virtual Reality Environments . 63

Giber, Tina: The Use of Psychophysiology in the Study of the Syllabus Difficulty,Synchronization and Use of Kinaesthetic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Godec, Ana: Learning in Children Through Serious Games Compared to LearningWith an Educator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Gschwandtner, Laura Pauline: Deep Learning for Detecting Interictal EEGBiomarkers to Assist Epilepsy Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Gsenger, Rita: Digital Literacy and Pseudoscience in Crisis Response. The Caseof COVID-19 in Austria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Habibnia, Hooman: Investigation of the Perception of Economic Inequality Usinga Novel Online Experimental Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Horváthová, Klára: The Role of Working Memory in Controlled Semantic Cognition 69

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Jeay-Bizot, Lucas; Berboth, Stella; Morawetz, Carmen: Test-Retest Reliability OfEmotion Regulation Networks In The Resting-State . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Jevšenak, Katarina: Looping Effects of Violence Risk Prediction . . . . . . . . . . 71

Knell, Georgia: Disruptifying Expectications: Exploring Factors That Impact theProcessing of Morphologically Complex Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Kondratiev, Lauren: The Influence of Cultural Cognition on Improvisation withinEmergency Response Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Kopač, Jan: Comparison of Preferences for Repetition or Meter in Humans andBudgies (Mellopsitacus undulatus) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Kriegleder, Moritz: Is Cognitive Information in the Eye of the Beholder?Information-Theoretic Foundations of the Free Energy Principle . . . . . . 75

Kubíčková, Lucia: Breaking the Barriers of Pro-Environmental Behaviour . . . . . 76

Lebens, Rebecca Rose: Linguistic Effects of Huntington’s Disease Across Languages 77

Marschner, Maximilian: Cues to Joint Agency - A Theoretical and Empirical Inves-tigation of the Sense of Agency in Joint Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Marušič, Jar Žiga: Attitudes in the Enaction of Knowledge, Thinking andCommu-nication - Content and Relationship Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Mencin, Matej; Bratko, Ivan: Analysis of Stress in Chess Players Through Physio-logical Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Merjasec, Marjeta; Bregant, Tina: Children’s Attachment and Relationships in theTimes of Social Distancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Meyer, Martyna: Categorisation and Three Kinds of Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Michalková, Barbora: The Analysis of Neurophysiological Correlates of SpatialWorking Memory and Filtering Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Mindu, Alexandra Diana; Gold, Christian; Silani, Giorgia: Exploring Cerebello-Cortico Functional Connectivity in Autism Spectrum Disorder . . . . . . . . 84

Mohammed, Mustafa: Dialogical Self in Action: Can It Lead to a Change in Attitude? 85

Motnikar, Lenart: Driving Simulator-based Assessment of Neurological Patients’Driving Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Peganc, Katja: Correlation Between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) andEmpathy inChildren in theFirst TriadofPrimarySchools IncludingChildrenwith Motor Impairment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Pignar, Grega; Manouilidou, Christina: Verb Production and Comprehension inPatients with Chronic Aphasia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Rebernik, Maša; Strle, Toma: Experiencing the Decision-Making Process to GoJogging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Roder, Tess: Comparing Four Versions of the Enactive Approach . . . . . . . . . . 90

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Table of Contents

Rupčić, Matija: Post-Trauma Embodiment; Proposition of Upgraded Embodi-ment Model in a Context of Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Saldaña Tumbay, Milagros Rocío: The Impact of Culture on Social Understanding 92

Seban, Peter: Are Kea Parrots Capable of Understanding the Ephemeral-RewardTask? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Slivnik, Lori: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Compo-nents of Happiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Soulat, Mariette: Strange Dream: Experiencing Unnatural Narratives . . . . . . . 95

Springinsfeld, ConstanzeMaria: How to Represent the Nonrepresentational: TheRole of Affect in Documentary Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Štecková, Viera: Training and Protocol Design Effects on Contralateral Delay Ac-tivity Components and Behavioral Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Štefunko, Adam: Modeling the Spatial Working Memory Employing the SimpleModel of Spiking Neurons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Talypova, Dinara: How Are You Feeling? Enhancing Empathic Interaction by Aux-iliary Emotional Cues in Computer-mediated Communication . . . . . . . 99

Topic Vizcaya, Danijela: The Role of Executive Attention in Controlled SemanticCognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Varga, Rebecca; Csicsvari, Jozsef: Offline Reactivation of Hippocampal PlaceCell Assemblies: Changes in Trajectory Replay and Oscillations Caused byLearning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Vidovic, Primoz: The Art of Enaction: Between Enactivism and the PhilosophicalAnthropology of Helmuth Plessner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Vinokurova, Viktoriia: Psychological Support for Hemodialysis Patients: One inthe Field but Without Shield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Voronina, Liubov; Heintz, Christophe: The Role of Precedence in CoordinationGames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Wachowiak, Lennart: Semi-automatic Extraction of ImageSchemas fromNaturalLanguage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Wiedemann, Elisa Gabrielle: Learning Music: Does Observing an Expert AffectHowWe Play? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Workshops 107Takáč, Martin: Ethics of Intelligent Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

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Invited Talks

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Invited Talks

Moving or Having a rubber hand – The role of multisensory integrationandmotor control in bodily illusions

Andreas Kalckert

University of Skövde,Skövde, Sweden

It has been suggested that the experience of the bodily self is constructed out of two com-plimentary sensations: the sense of ownership, i.e., the experience that the body I experi-ence is my own, and the sense of agency, i.e., I control the movements of my body. Thesense of ownership has been investigated with the rubber hand illusion paradigm. In thisillusion, visual and tactile stimulation leads to an illusory ownership sensation towardsa fake model hand. However, this illusion is typically conducted in static conditions, inwhich the participants do not move. However, the experience of our body is rarely static.The body is a typically a moving body, which moves and acts in the world. Thus, classicalrubber hand illusion paradigms exclude not only a range of sensory cues fromkinaestheticsources typically present in the experience of the body, but also excludes the dimension ofagency. Hence, the rubber hand illusion paradigm may provide only limited insights intothe experience of the bodily self.

In this talk I will provide an overview over rubber hand illusion experiments which usemovements instead of visuotactile stimulation. I will discuss differences and commonali-ties between the moving and classical rubber hand illusion paradigms. In particular, I willdiscuss the relationship of the sense of ownership and agency, and the mechanisms un-derpinning both these experiences. As we will see, the inclusion of movements providesvaluable insights into these processes, and theway the experience of the bodily self is con-structed out of sensory andmotor cues.

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Social Minds

Natalie Sebanz

Central European University,Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria

Taking others’ perspective and coordinating with them are crucial abilities for social inter-action. In this talk, I will give an overview of recent research that sheds light on themecha-nisms underlying these social abilities. I will present studies showing how people sponta-neous adopt others’ visuo-spatial perspectives, form joint task representations, and con-sider differences in knowledge during communication. On the one hand, these findingsreveal that people are strikingly attuned to others and benefit from interactions with mul-tiple different partners. On the other hand, they suggest that thinking too much aboutothers can have negative effects on coordination. I will conclude by outlining perspectivesfor future research: addressing the implications of joint action research for the evolutionof communication, the experience of commitment, and for collective decision making.

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Invited Talks

Intelligent Technologies and Society - Risks and Opportunities

Martin Takáč

Comenius University in Bratislava,Bratislava, Slovakia

Current boom of artificial intelligence and intelligent technologies has and will have a sig-nificant effect on the society and individual lives. How to reap its benefits and avoid itsrisks? In this talk I will elaborate on several topics where technological decisions have eth-ical/moral dimensions: human-AI value alignment, big data, predictive algorithms and hu-man autonomy, and effects of AI deployment on jobmarket.

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Posters

10

Posters

Guidance of Visual Attention byShapes

María Arias Sutil,Markus GrünerUniversity of Vienna

[email protected]

Introduction

Previous research studying visual atten-tional guidance by simple geometric shapesshowed that only target-matching cues cap-ture attention while non-matching cuesdid not. These results are in line withthe contingent-capture hypothesis, accord-ing to which attention is guided primar-ily based on search goals, and salient butnon-matching cuesdonot captureattention[1].

In a previous study, the non-matching cuewas a hexagon amongst circles. Althoughit is assumed that the hexagon is a salientstimulus that should be able to capture at-tention in a stimulus-driven way [2], this as-sumption could not be empirically shown.Indeed, Theeuwes reported no distractionby an additional shape singleton (in con-trast to a colour singleton) [3], which mightindicate that shape singletons are not assalient as other singleton features. There-fore, in this experiment, we use a trian-gle as the non-matching cue since a trian-gle is visually more distinctive from circlesas a hexagon and thus presumably moresalient.

Method

Participants search for a hexagon amongstother shapes (two squares and one dia-mond) and report the colour of a disk in-side the target shape. Preceding the targetdisplay, a cue is presented at the same po-sition as the target (valid trial) or a differ-ent position (invalid trial). The cue is either

matching (same shape as the target) or non-matching (triangle). For data analysis, wewill calculate the validity effect, which is thedifference between reaction times in validand invalid trials. Faster reaction times invalid trials compared to invalid ones will in-dicate attentional capture since attention isin valid trials already allocated at the targetposition.

Discussion

If we find a validity effect for the non-matching cue, a triangle amongst circles issalient enough to capture attention. How-ever, if we do not find a validity effect for thenon-matching cue, it might be that the top-down attentional control setting effectivelyprevents attentional capture by the non-matching triangle or that the non-matchingtriangle is not salient enough to capture at-tention at all. In the latter case, further re-search should investigate attentional cap-ture of singleton shapes in the absence oftop-down control settings.

References

[1] C. L. Folk, R. W. Remington, and J. C.Johnston, “Involuntary covert orienting iscontingent on attentional control settings,”Journal of Experimental Psychology: HumanPerception and Performance, vol. 18, no.4, pp. 1030–1044, 1992, doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.18.4.1030.

[2] L. Itti, C. Koch, and E. Niebur, “Amodel of saliency-based visual attention forrapid scene analysis,” IEEE Transactions onPattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence,vol. 20, no. 11, pp. 1254–1259, 1998, doi:10.1109/34.730558.

[3] J. Theeuwes, “Perceptual selectiv-ity for color and form,” Perception Psy-chophysics, vol. 51, pp. 599–606, 1992, doi:10.3758/BF03211656.

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Comparison of OpenSesame andExperiment Builder

Ajda Bergant, Anja JavoričUniversity of Ljubljana

[email protected]

Creating computer-based experiments inCognitive Science is important but oftentime-consuming. The programming envi-ronments vary fromusability aswell as com-patibility with data-collection imaging tools.We are recreating an experiment thatwill beused in a neurolinguistic study. Its goal is toidentify connections of reading abnormali-ties and the early stages of Alzheimer’s dis-ease (AD). Studies show that patients withAD and mild cognitive impairment showedan increase in total fixations and saccaderegressions and longer fixation durations[1]. Due to COVID-19, the study is not ongo-ing, so we decided to focus on comparingtwo commonly used programs for design-ing eye-tracking experiments, OpenSesame(OS) and Experiment Builder (EB). Our goalwas comparing the computer-based inter-faces to help users find their best fit for de-signing similar experiments.

Methods

After familiarizing with the experiment withEyeLink 1000 Plus eye tracker, we recreatedit first inOS and later in EB.Wehadnopreex-isting experience or knowledge of workingwith the programs. We relied on availableonline sources, suggested by our mentor.

The data was collected by two self-reportsandcombined intoaqualitative comparisonof theprograms. We focusedon the learningcurve, program flexibility, user support ac-cessibility, the input of the stimuli, time con-sumption and both the negative and posi-tive aspects of both programs.

Results

According to reports, OS has a steeper learn-ing curve and is less time consuming com-pared to EB. User support of OS and EBis respondent, but not helpful enough tosolve technicalities. OS is generally flex-ible, is more visually attractive and self-explanatory but EB is way handier for textformation (much likeWord). Both, but espe-cially EB, are well-compatible with Eyelinkeye tracker. Both programs’ componentsare drag-and-drop, but EB is far more com-plex.

The results show that OS is more userfriendly and easier to start without fore-knowledge, where EB requires an exten-sive study of the user manual and otherresources. EB has better and cleaner textinput but a more complex procedure ofretrieving multiline text from data sourcewhich is important for experiment forma-tion, where text input in OS is more simpleand straightforward.

References

[1] Fernández, G., Mandolesi, P., Rotstein, N.P., Colombo, O., Agamennoni, O., & Politi, L.E. (2013). Eye movement alterations duringreading in patients with early Alzheimer dis-ease. Investigative ophthalmology & visualscience, 54(13), 8345-8352.

[2] Mathôt, S., Schreij, D., & Theeuwes,J. (2012). OpenSesame: An open-source,graphical experiment builder for the so-cial sciences. Behavior Research Methods,44(2).314-324. doi:10.3758/s13428-011-0168-7

[3] SR Research Experiment Builder 1.10.165[Computer software]. (2011). Mississauga,Ontario, Canada: SR Research Ltd.

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Posters

Measuring Social Rewards inHumans and Animals

Isidora BojkovskaUniversity of Vienna

The majority of research dealing with theunderlyingmechanisms of reward builds onthe incentive salience hypothesis [1]. Theincentive salience hypothesis proposes thatupon considering reward as a phenomenon,it is important to distinguish between theprocesses of ‘liking’ (hedonic pleasure) and‘wanting’ (motivation for reward pursuit) [1].In addition to deriving pleasure from non-social rewards suchas food, drugsormoney,animals and humans also derive pleasurefrom social interactions and social rewards[1]. Midbrain dopaminergic areas, the stria-tum and prefrontal cortex have been impli-cated in reward processing [1].

Some disparities have been detected inthe methodologies measuring ‘liking’ and‘wanting’ in animals and humans [3]. Half ofthe studies in one review effort appeared tomeasure ‘expected pleasantness’ while in-tending to measure hedonic ‘liking’ [2]. Ex-pected pleasantness as a construct refers tothe pleasure that is expected to be derivedfrom a reward and is depended on encodedmemories of said reward [2]. Another is-sue arises from the vague differentiation of‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ in the literature specifi-cally relating to social reward [3]. As a result,studies do not adhere to uniform guidelinesof how they operationalize the constructsthey measure in social reward.

Therefore, this review aims to provide someclearance regarding the types ofmethodolo-gies employed in animal and human stud-ies on social reward. This effortmight fosterthe understanding of various forms of psy-chopathology characterized by social im-pairment (e.g. autism, schizophrenia).

Methods

A systematic search of animal human litera-ture will be performed with ‘social reward’‘dopamine’ present in the title or abstract.Only experimental studies will be consid-ered. The information extracted will relateto the reward concepts beingmeasured, theexperimental paradigms used, measures ofsocial reward implemented and definitionsof social reward employed.The results willbe organized in a reduced number of cate-gories and the differences between animaland human literature will be discussed.

References

[1] J. P. Bhanji andM. R. Delgado, “The socialbrain and reward: social information pro-cessing in the human striatum,” Wiley Inter-discip Rev Cogn Sci, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 61–73,Jan. 2014, doi: 10.1002/wcs.1266.

[2] E. Pool, V. Sennwald, S. Delplanque, T.Brosch, and D. Sander, “Measuring want-ing and liking from animals to humans:A systematic review,” Neurosci BiobehavRev, vol. 63, pp. 124–142, Apr. 2016, doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.01.006.

[3] A. Der-Avakian, S. A. Barnes, A. Markou,and D. A. Pizzagalli, “Translational Assess-ment of Reward and Motivational Deficitsin Psychiatric Disorders,” Curr Top BehavNeurosci, vol. 28, pp. 231–262, 2016, doi:10.1007/7854_2015_5004.

13


Keeping the Breath in Mind

Asena BoyadzhievaUniversity of Vienna

InSanskritpranameansbreath. At the sametime, it means life. This linguistic tie isa global one, present in many ancient cul-tures. The reason is simple - breath bringsus into life and carries us all theway throughit. Still, respiration is more than a matterof gas exchange. Some cultures have rec-ognized thismillenniaago, adoptingvariousbreathing exercises as part of their spiritualpractices. Interest has since spread from theEast to the West and from the spiritual tothe scientific. Research about the ways inwhich breath influences our cognitive, emo-tional, and physical well-being is on the rise.And yet, little is known about the underly-ing processes. The aim of this project isto unify these into a coherent framework,which when developed can become groundfor research in the field.

Attentive breathing as a bridge

Respiration’s role as a mediator of emo-tional and physiological control haspredominantly been studied on the be-havioural and physiological levels. Recentadvancements in neuroimaging revealthat the breath constitutes a fundamentalrhythm of brain function, tightly coupled tocognitive and affective functioning [1]. How-ever, the studies remain scattered acrossthe psychological and neuroscientificlandscape and the routes connecting them- underexplored. The current theoreticalproject addresses this gap.

Theoretical and empirical findings are inte-grated into an opinion article, which usesthe predictive processing framework to for-mulate a regulatory process, in which atten-tive breathing can modulate top-down pri-ors by bringing bottom-up sensory informa-

tion into the foreground. This is especiallyrelevant for interoceptive signals, where pri-ors are less prone to change [2]. Whileincreasing the gain of a sensory modalityincreases the chance of overriding predic-tions, not every interoceptive signal is a suit-able mediator, as they are normally incon-spicuous and resistant to directmodulation.The breath, however, is different. Not onlycan it be easily brought into awareness, itsrhythm can be readily adjusted. This meansthat through active and perceptual infer-ence, attention to respiration can alter theenaction of felt experience.

Implications

The implications of this theoretical investi-gation span beyond mere curiosity, as aber-rant sensory processing is associated withnumerous conditions, such as anxiety, de-pression, and alexithymia [2]. The studyof breathing-entrained dynamics is relevantnot only for bridging bottom-up and top-down processes but essentially for dissolv-ing the gap between body andmind.

References

[1] S. Varga and D.H. Heck, “Rhythms of thebody, rhythms of the brain: respiration, neu-ral oscillations, and embodied cognition”,Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 56, pp.77-90, 2017.

[2] L.F. Barrett and W.K. Simmons, “Intero-ceptive predictions in the brain”, Nature Re-views Neuroscience, vol. 16, no. 7, pp. 419-29,2015.

14

Posters

Tribalism in ScientificMethodology: Quantifying theDifferences in Brain Research

Between Clinical Neurology andNeuroscience

Evita Božiček, Darja Čepon, TisaPavlovčič, Jan Jug, David Sakić, Jurij

DreoUniversity of Ljubljana

[email protected]

Introduction

While a gradual loss of cognitive perfor-mance is usually observed in normal aging,a faster decline is usually related to a de-menting illness. As we are amidst a pop-ulation aging trend we are bound to ob-serve a continuous growth of dementia in-cidence. Various methods such as cogni-tive tests, structural imaging (CT and MRI),cerebrospinal fluid analysis, genetic test-ing, functional neuroimaging (PET, FDG-PETand SPECT) and EEG recordingmay be usedto aid in dementia diagnosis. Past researchinto EEG and Alzheimer’s disease has indi-cated a number of potential biomarkers butapart from visual EEG inspection for rarecases, none have been integrated into rou-tine clinical practice [1].

Having preliminarily examined a number ofpapers, we noticed that papers publishedin clinical journals (compared to basic sci-ence journals) tend to put less focus on EEG-based methods. This difference might indi-cate a lack of sufficient science communica-tion between basic research (neuroscience)and clinical practice (neurology). We hy-pothesize that a quantitative analysis ofa sufficiently large number of clinical andbasic science papers will show that elec-trophysiological (EEG) methods are rela-tively under-represented in clinical neurol-ogy, compared to brain imaging and bio-

chemical methods. Such a discrepancymight indicateakindofmethodological trib-alismbetween twovery related, but still sep-arate professional disciplines.

Methods

We will quantify keywords frequencies re-lated to 15 different categories of brain re-search methods (EEG, psychometric tests,MRI etc.) in a minimum of 1000 papers re-lated to dementia published since 1990. Pa-per abstracts will be manually inspected toensure relevance. We will then compare therelative frequencies of keyword categoriesbetween clinical and neuroscience journalsto detect possible differences in referencingvarious brain-research methods. Based onthe h-index, we have selected twenty-oneleading journals from the fields of neuro-science and clinical neurology for this com-parison. Keyword data will be extracted au-tomatically using a custom-written Pythonscript from paper pdfs.

Results

Based on a preliminary analysis of 500 pa-pers, we observed that the proportion of pa-pers referencing EEG methods in dementiaresearch is rather low (about 8-9% of total).To obtain more statistical power in detect-ing possible differences in referencing vari-ous brain research methodologies betweenclinical and neuroscience papers, we willdouble our current number of included pa-pers, bringing the total to 1000.

References

[1] K. Blennow, “Biomarkers in Alzheimer’sdisease drug development”, NatureMedicine, vol. 16, no. 11, pp. 1218-1222,2010.

15


Creating Slovene LanguageResources

Neža Brezovnik,Miha SterleUniversity of Ljubljana

[email protected]

Introduction

Lexical datasets, such as the English Word-Net, are important and useful resourcesthat can help with many of the natural lan-guage processing (NLP) tasks facing us to-day. Some languages are, in respect of cre-ating and maintaining such digital analogsof real-world lexical resources, more fortu-nate than others – the English WordNet, forexample, was built manually at PrincetonUniversity by a team of lexicographers andcomputer scientists [1]. Other languages,like Slovene, sacrifice some of their “pecu-liarities” to be able to leverage the exist-ingWordNets, parallel corpora, bilingual dic-tionaries, and Wikipedia, to automaticallycreate their own (Slo)WNets [2], hoping tosomeday arrive at manual revision. Our re-spective projects deal with aspects of thisautomation, their overarching goal being toimprove the state of the existing Slovenelanguage corpora and the SloWNet, makingboth a better fir for practical NLP tasks, suchas text analysis, text generation, and ma-chine translation.

Methods

First, we are going to compare the SloveneWordNet to the English WordNet with re-gard to some basic network statistics: num-ber of nodes (words representing seman-tic concepts), number of edges (synonymitybetween a word and a semantic concept),number of edges per node (a measure ofconnectivity), and degree of distribution(how many nodes have a certain number ofedges). This will give us some informationabout the present state of the SloWNet and

provide a baseline to measure further im-provements. Second, we are going to createa Slovene language sense-labeled datasetand derive out of it tasks for testing word-sense disambiguation (determining whichsense of a word is used in a sentence [3]) al-gorithms. For example, we could test thealgorithm on distinguishing between thetwo senses of the word “love” used in “Mylove for you will never die.” and “Please,bring me the book, my love.” Since mostof the tasks will be based on already exist-ing English ones, we will adapt them to theSlovene language context.

Results

We expect that the SloWNet will have fewernodes, fewer edges, and fewer edges pernode than the English WordNet but a sim-ilar degree of distribution. We hope thatthe set of Slovene language tasks createdfor testingword-sense disambiguation algo-rithms will provide a stepping stone for fur-ther resource development in this area of re-search.

References

[1] J. Ramanand, A. Ukey, B. Kiran Singh,P. Bhattacharyya “Mapping and StructuralAnalysis of Multi-lingual Wordnets,” IEEEData Engineering Bulletin, vol. 30, pp. 30-43,2007.

[2] D. Fišer, B. Sagot “Constructing a PoorMan’s WordNet in a Resource-Rich World”,Language Resources Evaluation, vol. 49, no.3, pp. 601-635, 2015.

[3] J. Camacho-Collados, M. Taher Pilehvar“From Word to Sense Embeddings: A Sur-vey on Vector Representations of Meaning,”Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research,vol. 5, no. 63, pp. 743-788, 2018.

16

Posters

Estimating Emotional Well-Beingon Twitter

David CserjanUniversity of Vienna

Introduction

Twitter is a widely used social network thatengages a high number of users word-wide.Every time users post a tweet, they leave be-hind digital traces of their thoughts and feel-ings [1]. These traces can provide insightsinto the emotional state of users. We usesentiment analysis to analyze text data andto categorize it according to its emotionalcontent (positive – neutral – negative). Lo-cation information in tweets allows us tomap them to geographical regions. Ourgoal is to find a reliable way of estimatingsubjective well-being (life satisfaction, pos-itive/negative emotion, a sense of meaningand purpose [1]) fromTwitter data. Our dataconsists of geotagged English tweets fromthe USA.

Problem

Measuring subjective well-being throughsurveys and interviews is time and resourceintensive. Recently, geotagged Twitter datais showing promising results in predictingwell-being in regions when compared to agold standard survey [1]. The primary aimofthis research is to reproduce the results in [1]with methods that are more recent and tai-lored to Twitter data.

Approach

VADER [3] is a sentiment analysis tool, whichhas been developed with social media inmind. First, we use VADER to assess the sen-timent of a set of geotagged tweets from2014 and aggregate them based on their lo-cation to estimate the subjective well-beingof regions. These estimates of well-being

are then compared to standardmeasures ofwell-being. Then, we will extend the analy-sis by linking the estimates to other socio-economic indicators such as income (Easter-lin paradox).

Impact and Limitations

If the replication of the methods used in[1] succeed, this research contributes to-wards useful estimates of subjective well-being of areas where survey data is pro-hibitively costly to gather or not available atall. These estimates of well-being can beused to contribute towards understandingcollective emotions [2] and monitoring sub-jectivewell-being in real time. This researchis limited by the nature of Twitter data. Weaim to overcome some of these limitationsand extend the analysis.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank David Gar-cia and Max Pellert from the Complexity Sci-ence Hub Vienna for their help and guid-ance.

References

[1] K. Jaidka, S. Giorgi, H. Schwartz, M. Kern,L. Ungar and J. Eichstaedt, “Estimating ge-ographic subjectivewell-being fromTwitter:A comparison of dictionary and data-drivenlanguage methods”, Proceedings of the Na-tional Academy of Sciences, vol. 117, no. 19,pp. 10165-10171, 2020.

[2] M. Pellert, S. Schweighofer and D. Gar-cia, “The individual dynamics of affective ex-pression on social media”, EPJ Data Science,vol. 9, no. 1, 2020.

[3] C. Hutto and E. Gilbert, “VADER: A Par-simonious Rule-Based Model for SentimentAnalysis of Social Media Text”, in Interna-tional AAAI Conference onWebandSocialMe-dia, Ann Arbor, MI, 2014.

17


Fighting Cashless Effects withFrictions in Online Store UI

Flávia Lujza CsikyováUniversity of Vienna

Context

Non-physical payment methods can impairconsumers’ ability to keep track of their ex-penses. The salience of the payment is de-creased due to the more abstract, opaquevisual and physical manifestation of themoney and the transaction, as well as theeffortlessness of the process [1]. Such us-abilitymechanismsembody theFrictionlessDesign Paradigm (FDP) [2], a creative frame-work that encompasses findings from user-experience and behaviour research to cre-ate interfaces with a minimal cognitive loadon the user. Its agenda is opposed by someauthors [e.g. 2], who, in linewith the human-centric perspective on human-computer in-teraction [3], remind us that the way visualand interactive structures are implementedin online platformsmay have a huge ethicalimpact.

Aim

This research aims to test the viability ofapproaches suggested by the opposers ofFDP to create more conscious payment en-vironment online. It treats the premises ofFDP and the instances of the cashless effectas findings incorporable into 4E cognitiveparadigm and plans to investigate usabilityfriction as a cognitive affordance.

Method

The experiment takes the formof a decision-making game based on a set of mock e-commerce websites and surveys. Subjectsare presented with a virtual credit, a storyand a shopping list. They are asked todevelop a plan and then purchase items

from categories, aiming for the best possi-ble products, while keeping track of theirbudgets. Afterwards, they try to recall theamounts they spent on particular items andcategories. Accuracy of this, the overallspendings and the ability to stick to the planare compared across websites. The storesdiffer in frictionless qualities. The effects oftwo types of frictions are investigated: Thenumber of steps necessary to take in check-out and the presence of a graphic add-on,which halts the user with price amount visu-alisations. I hypothesise these two frictionscan increase payment salience and recall ac-curacy [1].

References

[1] F. van der Horst and E. Matthijsen, “Theirrationality of payment behaviour,” DNBOccasional Studies, Netherlands CentralBank, Research Department, vol. 11, no.4, 2013. [Online serial]. Available: IDEAS,https://ideas.repec.org/p/dnb/dnbocs/1104.html [Accessed May 11, 2020].

[2] G. Le Gélard, “(Re)-Introducing Fric-tions in Design: A study on the frictionlesscult and the idea of productive frictions,”Medium, March 24, 2016. [Online], Available:https://medium.com/re-introducing-frictions-in-design [Accessed May 11,2020].

[3] S. Human and F. Cech, “A Human-centricPerspective onDigital Consenting: The Caseof GAFAM,” Human Centred Intelligent Sys-tems 2020, Jun 17, 2020 - Jun 19, 2020,Split, Croatia. 2020. [Conference paper ac-cepted for publication]. Available: ePubWU:https://epub.wu.ac.at/7523/ [Accessed May12, 2020].

18

Posters

Age-Related Changes in IdiomProcessing

Aylin Dincer, Eva SmolkaUniversity of Vienna

Introduction

Figurative language refers to non-literal lan-guage such as metaphors or idioms [1]. Id-ioms like to reach for the stars aremultiwordexpressions whose meaning cannot be de-rived from the constituents only [2]. Idiomdecomposability indicates to which extentthe singlewords contribute to theoverall fig-urative meaning [3].

Apart from a general cognitive decline,healthy older adults show a languagedecline in the lexical retrieval of nouns andin text comprehension [1]. Age-associatedeffects of meaning resolution are describedfor idioms as well [3].This study investigateswhether age-related changes that occur inidiom comprehension are affected by idiomdecomposability.

Method

Fifteenyounger (age 18-30) and 15older (age60-72) native speakers of German performan online literality judgement test. Stimuliare 20 sentences with non-decomposableidioms (e.g. Er hat sie durch den Kakao gezo-gen; figurative (F): He pulled her leg), 20 de-composable idioms (e.g. Sie ist immer ausder Reihe getanzt, F: She always stepped outof line), and 40 literal controls (e.g. Sie hatals Kind gerne Ballett getanzt; literal (L): As achild, she loved to dance ballett).

Literal sentences are matched in length(seven words), form (perfect tense,sentence-final participle), andpredictabilityof the sentence-final participle. Participantsread a sentence and decide whether it isliteral or non-literal.

Hypotheses and Results

This is an ongoing study. Consistent with aprevious literality judgement task [3], fasterand more accurate responses to literal thanidiomatic sentences, and faster responsesto decomposable than non-decomposableidioms are expected in both age groups.

By contrast, an interaction of response ac-curacy, but not of response latency is pre-dicted for older adults only. They shouldshow an effect of decomposability, that is,ratings are expected to be less accurate fornon-decomposable idioms.

Conclusion

Differences between the two groups in-dicate age-effects in idiom processing.Even though both age groups exposemore difficulties with the processing ofnon-decomposable idioms, a more distinctmanifestation of this effect of decompos-ability for older adults indicates that thesephrases require a maximal co-activationof figurative and literal meaning. Cog-nitive aging theories and the differencebetween healthy and impaired aging will bediscussed.

References

[1] B. Stemmer andH.A.Whitaker,Handbookof theNeuroscienceof Language, London: El-sevier Science, 2008.

[2] S. Schulte im Walde and E. Smolka,The Role of Constituents in Multiword Expres-sions: An Interdisciplinary, Cross-lingual Per-spective, Berlin: Language Science Press,2020.

[3] C.Westbury andD. Titone, “IdiomLiteral-ity Judgements in Younger andOlder Adults:Age-related Effects in Resolving SemanticInterference”, Psychology and Aging, vol.26,no.2, pp.467-474, 2011.

19


Stress Prediction Based onPhysiological Measurements

Zala Ferlinc, Vanesa Močilnik, NikoKroflič, Ajda Ogrin,Maša Primožič

University of [email protected]

Introduction

Real-time physiological data tracking is animportant aspect of optimization of human-computer interaction. Monitoring these signalsenables the computer toadapt to its user andde-tect certain deviation states, such as long-termstress levels [1]. Stress is a stimulus-triggeredphysiological response and can, therefore,be detected with different measurements.Increase in heart rate, temperature etc. areall physiological reactions that can vary fromperson to person, even if they are all presentedwith the same stimuli. It is, therefore, harder topredict, whether something will be perceived asstressful or not [2]. Reliable detection of stressis especially important because of the severeside effects long-term stress can have on anindividual [1].

In our research, we will be using WESAD [2], anonline dataset that includes physiological mea-surements under different conditions. Our goalis to graphically present stress responses in com-parison to a baseline response and try predict-ing stress from different signals with machinelearning algorithms.

Method

The data was acquired from the WESAD dataset[2]. It contains data from 15 subjects (M = 24.47,SD = 2.45, 80% male) for different sensors andconditions (baseline, stress, amusement, medi-tation). We extracted stress data and computedbasic statistical features (mean, STD, range,max,min) for 5 sensors (EDA, EMG, RESP, TEMP, ECG).For modelling, we split the data into a trainingand test set with 80/20 ratio, normalized thedata and built and optimized an Adaboost clas-sification model for each sensor type [3]. Lastly,we used the optimal parameters found in each

model and measured their accuracy on the testset.

Results

Currently, we only have preliminary resultsshowing some physiological differences be-tween stress and baseline condition. Theresults also indicate that some sensors havehigher classification accuracies than others, butfurther analysis is needed to confirm this.

Discussion

Ourpreliminarydata suggestsnot all sensors areequally accurate while predicting stress, mean-ing not all are necessary. Therefore, in futurestress predicting studies, fewer sensors can beused, saving researchers’ time and money. Forfurther research, we suggest predicting otherconditions in the dataset (amusement, medita-tion) and applying other algorithms (neural net-works).

References

[1] G. Jacucci, S. Fairclough and E. Solovey,“Physiological Computing”, Computer,vol. 48, no. 10, pp. 12-16, 2015. Available:10.1109/mc.2015.291.

[2] P. Schmidt, A. Reiss, R. Duerichen, C. Mar-berger and K. Van Laerhoven, “Introducing WE-SAD, a Multimodal Dataset for Wearable Stressand Affect Detection”, in 2018 International Con-ference on Multimodal Interaction, Boulder, CO,USA, 2018, pp. 400-408.

[3] Y. Freund and R. Schapire, “A Decision-Theoretic Generalization of On-Line Learningand an Application to Boosting”, ComputationalLearning Theory, pp. 23-37, 1995. Available:10.1007/3-540-59119-2_166.

20

Posters

Discrimination of ModulatedVibration

Andrej Filipič, Janja PečanUniversity of [email protected]

Introduction

Tactile haptic interfaces, such as modu-lated vibrations (MV), can facilitate human-machine interaction. Haptic discrimination,as discussed in this research, is the abil-ity to distinguish between patterns of MV.This research explores individuals’ abilitiesto discriminate between amplitude and fre-quency modulated vibrations and the ef-fects of age or disability (e.g. blindness ordeafness) on this. It also assesses individ-ual subjective experiences of variouslymod-ulated vibrations. The main research ques-tions address different aspects of vibrationdiscrimination: i) does age affect the abil-ity to discriminate MV?; ii) do blind and deafindividuals discriminate better than non-disabled ones?; iii) which part of the handis most susceptible to different types of MVand iv) do participants’ interpretations ofMV vary?

Methods

The first two research questions are an-swered through a literature review. Thethird and fourth are supported by pilot em-pirical research, using an in-house devel-oped device with a single eccentric rotatingmass (ERM) vibration motor. The ERM mo-tor was chosen due to its ability to generatehigher amplitudes at any given frequency[1]. Participants will either hold the devicein their palm or press fingers on it. They willdiscriminate between types of MV (ampli-tude, frequency) of varying duration, com-bined into different patterns. Throughoutthe discrimination testing, they will express

their interpretation of the MV via a question-naire.

Expected results

Based on our literature review it is possi-ble to conclude that i) due to a gradual sen-sitivity decrease with age, differences be-tween younger and older participants ex-ist [2], ii) because of neural plasticity whenpermanent sensory deprivation occurs, dif-ferences between deaf or blind participantsand non-disabled ones exist [3]. We ex-pect iii) the highest sensibility on the palm[1], iv) Due to interpretation being based oneach individuals’ previous experiences, weexpect intersubjective variability in the per-ceivedmeaning; patterns may emerge.

Discussion

Research findings could facilitate communi-cation for both disabled and non-disabledindividuals, by encoding information in MVinstead of audiovisual signals (e.g. transmit-ting encoded essential information throughthe steering wheel could contribute to roadsafety). Additional research could focus oninter-cultural differences of vibration pat-tern interpretation.

References

[1] C. Seim, J. Hallam, S. Raghu, T. Le, G.Bishop and T. Starner, “Perception in Hand-Worn Haptics: Placement, SimultaneousStimuli, and Vibration Motor Comparisons”,Hdl.handle.net, 2015.

[2] R. Verrillo, S. Bolanowski and G. Geschei-der, “Effect of agingon the subjectivemagni-tude of vibration”, Somatosensory Motor Re-search, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 238-244, 2002.

[3] S. Levänen and D. Hamdorf, “Feeling vi-brations: enhanced tactile sensitivity in con-genitally deaf humans”, Neuroscience Let-ters, vol. 301, no. 1, pp. 75-77, 2001.

21


Collectivism and IndividualismThrough Colexification

Tamas GömöriUniversity of Vienna

Introduction

The purpose of this research is to investigateif there are any correlations between languageuse and different national identities falling onthe individualism-collectivism scale. Specif-ically, using the CLICS3 database of cross-linguistic colexifications – which consist of ho-mophonies, or words pronounced identicallybut having different meaning, and of poly-semies, the possibility of multiple meaningsfor one word [1] – this research examines howcolexification networks in different languagesare correlated to national identities belongingto nations speaking those languages. Thesenational identities are based on the data col-lected and analysed by Geert Hofstede, whichclassifies national cultures according to differ-ent dimensions (including one centered aroundindividualism-collectivism) [2].

The Individualist/Collectivist Model

The individualist/collectivist distinction can beunderstood as the orientation toward personalgoals and higher self-regard, or the orientationtoward cohesiveness of a group and a focuson common values and goals [3]. By itself, itwould be an insufficient characterization of thecultural complexity in any population. Individ-ualism and collectivism are not necessarily ex-clusive cultural qualities, but can be consideredalong with other dimensions proposed by Hof-stede (such as the power distance index, whichshows how willing people are in a group to ac-cept inequalities in social hierarchy) [2]. Thus,the present research aims to contribute to anunderstanding of the individualism/collectivismspectrum keeping in mind theoretical modelsthat highlight the importance of different con-texts influencing this spectrum [3].

Methods

Using a random walker algorithm, we willconstruct colexification networks of languagesbased on the CLICS3 data. We will tie eachlanguage with the nation containing the largestnumber of the language’s speakers. Using thenational identities as starting points, we willlook for which colexifications in the networks ofeach language family could be meaningful in re-flecting a preference for individualism or collec-tivism.

Results

Wehypothesize that therewill be statistically sig-nificant differences between the colexificationsof languages whose national identity is morecollectivist and those whose national identity ismore individualist. Seeing the conceptual con-nections between words in different languagescould prove to be influenced by and influentialto cultural preferences in a linguistic context.

References

[1] C. Rzymski, T. Tresoldi and S. J. Green-hill, “The Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifi-cations, reproducible analysis of cross- linguis-tic polysemies,” Sci Data vol. 7 no. 13 2020,https://clics.clld.org/

[2] G. Hofstede, G. J. Hofstede and M. Minkov,Cultures andOrganizations: Software of theMind.3rd ed. McGraw-Hill, 2010

[3] T. Singelis, H. Triandis, D. Bhawuk and M.Gelfand, “Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions ofIndividualism and Collectivism: A Theoreticaland Measurement Refinement,” Cross-CulturalResearch vol. 29 no. 3 pp. 240 - 275 1995,https://doi.org/10.1177/10693971950290030 2

22

Posters

TermFrame - Karst EvokesImagination: Experts Associations

to Karst Terminology

Severin Hutinski, Amanda SaksidaUniversity of Ljubljana

[email protected]

Introduction

Frame Semantics is a linguistic approachthat focuses on analyzing and tracing cogni-tive frames in language processing. A frameis described as an abstract background orcontent knowledge, necessary for under-standing the semantic meaning of a singleword [1]. Frame Semantics has been ap-plied to lexicology, syntax, and recently alsoin the field of terminology and specializedknowledge [1]. The project TermFrame fo-cuses on context, language, and culture thatframe specialized knowledge in karstology,with the aim to create a dynamic frameworkof specialized concepts and definitions foreducational and research purposes.

In a separate study within the project, wecontrasted expert knowledge frames withthe corpus data and the lay knowledge onkarstology, in order to assess contextualspecifics of the expert compared to the non-expert knowledge, which may not be re-vealed if we only compare specialized andgeneral corpora.

Methods

We tested a group of experts (N=14), mem-bersof the Institute for karstologyand spele-ological society in one of the rooms of theInstitute. 28 keywords in Slovenian wereselected based on the list of the most fre-quent terms found in the specializedkarstol-ogy corpus. Each participant received a ran-domly selected list of 14 keywords.

To assess the knowledge frames for a listof keywords, we asked participants to type

free associations for the presented 14 key-words. The average testing time was 15 min.For the samekeywords list, we extracted theword sketches (i.e. collocations and com-binations) from the specialized corpus onkarstology, Sketch engine.

For both response lists (one collectedbypar-ticipants and the other from the corpus), weadded type frequencies, lexical and seman-tic categories. We compared the experimen-tal vocabulary (data from the expert group)with the most common words from the cor-pus list by performing a qualitative analy-sis.

Results

The results show a relatively low overlap be-tween expert responses and corpora collo-cations (24,26%), with almost half (46.91%)semantic categories not represented in cor-pora. Thepresentedkeywords evokedmoreresponses related to karstic landforms (es-pecially underground) and processes, thenfound in the specialized corpus; whereasin the corpus, more words were related tothe properties. This corresponds with therelative prevalence of adjectives in the cor-pus andnounphrases in the participant’s re-sponses.

Conclusion

The group of control lay participants re-mained untested, so the analysis betweenexpert and non-expert knowledge is still tobe done. With further comparison, thisstudy aims to contribute to a more accuraterepresentation of expert knowledge in the fi-nal dynamic frame definition.

References

[1] Faber Benítez, P., Márquez Linares, C. &Vega Expósito, M. (2005). Framing Terminol-ogy: AProcess-OrientedApproach. Meta, 50(4).

23


Personality Reflects ThroughBrain Activity

Sara Jakaj, Teja ŠtrempfelPedagoška fakulteta - Cognitive Science,

Univerza v [email protected]

Introduction

“Personality describes persistent human be-havioral responses to broad classes of envi-ronmental stimuli” [1]. The Big Five theorydefines five personality domains: Neuroti-cism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience,Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Pre-vious studies used the resting state func-tional connectivity to study neural corre-lates of these domains using seed regions.Seed regions are brain centers that have themost connections to other parts of the brain[2]. Similarly, our research focuses on hu-man personality and its reflection throughbrain mechanisms. Its principal theoreticalstarting point is that the brain is the foun-dation of our personality, cognitive abilityand our intellect. As the previous studies,we also presuppose a correlation betweenpersonality traits and brain activity patterns.The purpose is to study how personalitytraits reflect through brain activity.

Methods

Weperformeda studywith 45healthy volun-teers (21 females, mean age 21±3 years) thatunderwent several behavioural and cogni-tive testings and simultaneousEEGand fMRIrecordings. During the course of three EEG-fMRI scanning sessions the participants ei-ther had to rest, first with their eyes closedand later with their eyes opened, or solvea spatial memory task, in which they hadto remember the position of simple stim-uli on the screen. Standard activity in spe-cific brain areas, while the participant is rest-ing, indicates that these brain regions are

responsible for the participants personalityattributes. Meanwhile, temporary brain ac-tivity, the activity that changes throughoutdifferent scanning sessions, is responsiblefor variable attributes, like the participant´smood. To find the correlation between per-sonality traits and functional connectivity ofvarious brain regions, the results ofmultiplequestionnaires will be compared with theneuroimaging data.

Conclusion

We expect to confirm our assumptions andfind correlations between functional con-nectivity among different brain regions andmeasured personality traits.

References

[1] J. S. Adelstein, Z. Shehzad, M. Mennes, C.G. DeYoung, X. N. Zuo, C. Kelly, D. S. Mar-gulies, A. Bloomfield, J. R. Gray, F. X. Castel-lanos and M. P. Milham, “Personality Is Re-flected in the Brain’s Intrinsic FunctionalArchitecture”, PLoSONE, vol. 6, no. 11,November, 2011. [Online serial]. Avail-able: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027633. [Accessed Feb. 27, 2020].

[2] M. Kennis, A. R. Rademaker and E.Geuze, “Neural correlates of personal-ity: An integrative review”, Neuroscienceand Biobehavioral Reviews, vol. 37, Oc-tober, 2012. [Online serial]. Available:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2012.10.012. [Accessed May 31, 2020].

24

Posters

Reducing Susceptibility TowardsFake News: Taking Advantage of

Heuristics and Biases

Surya KnöbelUniversity of Vienna

[email protected]

Introduction

The rise in smartphone users and subse-quent increase in social media platformsis changing the news-related media land-scape. While traditional newsrooms are rad-ically shrinking due to the loss of adver-tising money, “tech giants” have becomethe most powerful publishers who do notemploy journalists but serve advertisementand news to audiences based on what theyknow about their interests. Nowadays, any-one with an internet connection can pub-lish content. This results in a wide varietyof sources, which is unprecedented in hu-man history. This makes new forms of po-litical participation possible and gives voiceto the excluded and visibility to those pre-viously invisible. It, however, also blursfacts, makes people susceptible to onlinemanipulation and nudging, and tends to in-crease social polarization. It is thus vitalto empower end-users regarding their socio-cognitive actions of searching and sharinginformation online [1].

Theoretical Framework

I will combine theories on how individualsseek out preferable and reject unfavorableinformation with the predictive processingframework. Predictive Processing describesour brains as predictivemachines, where ac-tion and perception are generated by con-stantly matching incoming sensory inputwith the brain’s top-down expectations andpredictions of what is perceived [2]. Humanbeings, according to this view, constantly

make their sensory input fit their expecta-tions and test their hypothesis by seeinghowmuchpredictionerror it generates – thelower the prediction error, the better the in-ternal model. False beliefs come into playas they reduce prediction error by puttingmoreweight on the favoredmodel andpriorbeliefs.

Methods

The idea is to minimize error between in-coming sensory data and what people’sprior beliefs say the data are. This will bedone by testing if triggering the use of spe-cific heuristics and biases, such as the af-fect heuristic or the bandwagon effect, canincrease prediction error and thus counterbiased decision making in cases of fact-checked fake news. An online experimentalsurvey with two conditions and one controlgroup will test how participants rate fifteenCovid-19-related statements. In the con-trol group, the participants will receive tar-get statements with additional informationaimed at increasing error signals by plac-ing them into a contextual mindset, whilethe control group will not. Expected resultswould show a reduced rating score in thestudy group.

References

[1] S. Human, R. Gsenger, und G. Neu-mann, „End-user Empowerment: AnInterdisciplinary Perspective“, HawaiiInternational Conference on System Sci-ences 2020, Hawaii, United States, 2020,S. 4102–4111, Accessed: Mai 26, 2020.http://hdl.handle.net/10125/64244.

[2] J. Hohwy, The Predictive Mind. OxfordUniversity Press, 2013.

25


Neuromarketing: GreenAdvertising for Future

Generations

Tanja Kolenc,Mina LičenSchool of Economics and Business

Nowadays companies are trying to respondto consumers’ demand by adapting techno-logical procedures, products and servicesto more sustainable ones. However actualmarket adoption is not meeting the expec-tations [1]. Namely it has been shown thatpeople are generally inclined toward greenproducts, but when it comes to actual pur-chase, they decide for the standard ones. Itis nowup tomarketers to findmore efficientway to promote green products. For thatthey need to understandwhat kind of an ad-vertisement would elicit the right emotionsfor it to have long-term impact, big enoughto influence the actual purchase.

What underlying mechanisms, such as fear,feeling of guilt or responsibility, social ac-ceptance or just pure selfishness, guideour perception of pro-environmental ads?There are some valuable insights on howsome subtle features like temporal fram-ing or type of voice (young vs. old and fe-male vs. male) subconsciously influence us[2]. Although self-reports demonstrate sub-stantial preference toward green products,it has been shown there is quite a discrep-ancybetween those reports and fMRI results(greater activity in regions correlated to per-sonal value and reward when viewing stan-dard ads) [1]. What is it when making a finaldecision that influences the actual acquisi-tion? Is having some small financial benefitright away more compelling than making apositive impact on some far-fetched idea ofthe future world?

Although entire population is taken in con-sideration, the focus is on the generation

Z, since their buying power is increasingand more importantly, environmental is-sues concern them the most. On the otherhand, they comewith quite new and uniqueset of characteristics, preferences and apti-tudes. Because they show high aversion toads, remarkably short attention span andare highly intrigued by interactivity [3], theyrepresent an even bigger challenge to themarketers.

Fields of neuromarketing and sustainabilityare quite new, hence researches incorporat-ing both are relatively sparse. For that itis planned to intertwine some psychologi-cal studies and marketing researches to fillin the gaps and get a more complete pic-ture. As a result of all the data gatheredand synthetized, the end goal is to pro-duce one all-encompassing report with con-cise and straight forward green advertisingguidelines apt for the future.

References

[1] I. S. Vezich, B. C. Gunter and M. D. Lieber-man, “The mere green effect: An fMRI studyof pro-environmental advertisements,” So-cial Neuroscience, vol. 12, no. 4, May.,pp. 400-408, 2017.

[2] L. A. Casado-Aranda, M. Martínez-Fiestasand J. Sánchez-Fernández, “Neural effectsof environmental advertising: An fMRI analy-sis of voice age and temporal framing,” Jour-nal of Environmental Management, vol. 206,15 Jan., p. 664-675, 2018.

[3] D. Southgate, “The emergence of genera-tion Z and its impact in advertising,” Journalof Advertising Research, vol. 57, no. 2, 1 Jun.,pp. 227-235, 2017.

26

Posters

Does the Source Affect the Degreeto Which You Believe Fake News?

Lubica KomarovaComenius University in Bratislava

Introduction

Fakenews is not a new ideaor phenomenon.Pennycook and Rand claim fake new hasbecome major aspect of modern media[1]. With wide popularization of fake newsand fake media we need to ask a questionwhy people believe such made up storiesfrom a cognitive perspective which includesdecisionmaking. For example, political fakenews seems to bemostly driven by partisan-ship [2]. Secondly, people tend to believenews aligned with their own personal be-liefs [2].

Methodology

Wewanted to take a look at the sourceof thefalse stories and whether it affects reliabil-ity of the received story. We have conductedfour hypotheses in this study, three ofwhichhave been proven right. Firstly, we estab-lished thatnewswith legitimate sourcehavehigher reliability, then we claimed faultysource is less reliable. We thought newswith no source are less reliable and also thatpeoplebelieving in conspiracy theories tendto believe fake news.

For the methodology, we have created anonline questionnaire. Questionnaire is con-sistent of three parts, first is a demographicdata. Second parts portraits different condi-tions. We have chosen one legitimate news-paper andoneonlinemagazineknown tobefaulty for expressing the source. Our thirdoption is news with no source visible. Eachone includes two articles. Onemade up andone true. News with the source simulatesposts from the social media. News with nosource is implanted between articles from

unknownmagazine web page. After each ofthese six questions there is a question aboutwhether the participant is willing the sharethese articles on their social media. Thirdpart consists of five questions from knownconspiracy theories.

Results

We have conducted a Two Sample t-test todetermine whether the legitimate news ismore reliable and also whether news withfaulty source is less reliable. Both haveproven right with p-value = 0.038 for legiti-mate source and p-value = 0.037 for faultysource. With the correlation test we haveproven strong positive correlation of valuer = 0.55 and p-value 0.01 between believ-ing in conspiracy theories andbelieving fakenews.

Discussion

Follow up questions about sharing the con-tent on participant’s own social media canbe used in further research. Here, we see abig opportunity to find out if people believ-ing what they see on their social media aremore likely to share the same content. Fromthe gathered demographic data, we can ex-tend this research to finding a group morelikely to believe in such stories.

References

[1] G. Pennycook and D. Rand, “Who falls forfake news? The roles of bullshit receptivity,overclaiming, familiarity, and analytic think-ing”, Journal of Personality, vol. 88, no. 2,pp. 185-200, 2019.

[2] G. Pennycook and D. Rand, “Lazy, not bi-ased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news isbetter explained by lack of reasoning thanbymotivated reasoning”, Cognition, vol. 188,pp. 39-50, 2019.

27


Effects of Mindfulness MeditationTechniques

Wilma KonradComenius University Bratislava

Originating in ancient Buddhist meditation,mindfulness meditation (MM) has found itsway to the western world. It relies on fo-cused attention on present moment sensa-tions. This kind of non-judgmental aware-ness has been found to have beneficial ef-fects on health and well-being. MM em-phasizes the connection of the mind andthe body and has proven helpful in therapyof psychological disorders like depression,anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder[1].

This study tries to answer the questionwhatabout this simple task of paying attention toone’smomentary experiences has so power-ful effects on the body and the mind. We fo-cused on the original instructions from tra-ditional Buddhist texts. In accordance withthese instructions a subdivision into threecategories was done, namely the Mindful-ness of Body, Feelings and the Mind. Inorder to answer the research question, anextensive review of relevant literature wasconducted, the findingswere comparedandsummarized. This review study aims to pro-vide a novel insight into the physiologicalmechanisms that underlie MM.

For ‘Mindfulness of Body’, studies showeda connection between breath, emotion andthemind. This is underlined by a neural con-nection between attention, - and arousalcentres and breath control regions in thebrain. According to this a calm breath willinduce a calm state of mind, resulting inemotions of calmness and relaxedness [2].Similar has been found for the suggestedseating position. Studies point toward thefact that body language and seating posi-tion are strongly influenced by mood and

vice versa. Hence a straight, upright seat-ing position will result in positive emotionswhereas a crooked seating positionwill gen-erate less positive feelings. Concerning the‘Mindfulness of Feelings’, a strong similar-ity between the traditional instructions forthe meditation and the well-established in-tervention of cognitive behavioural therapysuggest psycho -social benefits of the medi-tation practice [1]. With respect to the ‘Mind-fulness of Mind’, we found that MM can leadto meta-awareness of internal, - and con-scious states. Meta-awareness in turn cangive rise to increased self-awareness andhas been found to improve general life sat-isfaction [3].

In addition to the theoretical research, weare working on an experimental design thatwill use transcranial electrical stimulationto improve the progress of MM practice innovice meditators.

References

[1] M. Wheeler, D. Arnkoff and C. Glass,“The Neuroscience of Mindfulness: HowMindfulness Alters the Brain and Fa-cilitates Emotion Regulation”, Mindful-ness, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 1471-1487, 2017.DOI:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2014.02.012.

[2] M. C. Melnychuck, P. M. Dockree, R. G.O’Connell, P. R. Murphy, J. H. Balsters andI. H. Robertson, ”Coupling of respirationand attention via the locus coeruleus: Ef-fects of meditation and pranayama,” Psy-chophysiology, vol. 55, pp. 1 – 17 2018.DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13091.

[3] P. Holas and T. Jankowski, “Acognitive perspective on mindful-ness”, International Journal of Psychol-ogy, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 232-243, 2013.DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2012.658056.

28

Posters

Can the Effects of Alcohol onMotor Task Performance be

Negated By the Effects of Cocaine?

Michal KováčComenius University in Bratislava

Introduction

Stimulants and depressants are classes ofdrugs that increase and decrease centralnervous system activity accordingly. Withseemingly opposite effects an unansweredquestion of what happens to cognitionwhen these substances aremixed arises. Wefocused on fine motor task performance(FMT-perf), measured by keyboard typingspeed. We chose alcohol as a depressantand cocaine as a stimulant. This choice wasmade for a set of reasonsmost important ofwhich are high popularity [1] and proven ef-fect of decrease [2]/increase [3] in FMT-perf.A no-compromises experiment design wascreated first and then simplified to an extentnecessary to allow us to conduct it.

Methods

The experiment was done on recreationalcocaine users. Participants were foundon anonymous Internet forums and havedone the experiment by following instruc-tions, self-administering the drugs and re-porting the results. Informed consent wasobtained in thebeginningof the experiment.Dosages were set to 0.6 g of pure alcoholand 1.4 mg of cocaine per body weight kilo-gram. Instructions included pauses that al-lowed the drugs to take full effect. The key-board typing performance wasmeasured incharacters per minute using a standardizedtool. Each participant did three measure-ments: sober, on first substance, on bothsubstances. The substance order was ran-domized. An in-depth description of the

methods and adiscussion about the reliabil-ity are a part of a separate document linkedin the Supplementary Resources.

Results and Discussion

The hypothesis was that cocaine can can-cel out negative alcohol effects on FMT-perf.So far, we haven’t recruited enough partic-ipants to do a meaningful statistical evalu-ation. Preliminary data (N = 7) show thatthe average effect on FMT-perf was 17% foralcohol, +7% for cocaine and 9% combined.Cocaine increased and alcohol decreasedtheFMT-perf in all participants.Doing theno-compromises versionof the experimentwasbeyond themeans of this project because offormal and budget requirements. However,the simplified version suggests this topic isworth studying.

Supplementary Resources

Full methods are available on this URL:http://davinci.fmph.uniba.sk/~kovac254/cogsci/semproj/methods.pdf

References

[1] European Union and European Monitor-ing Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Eu-ropean drug report: trends and develop-ments 2019. Luxembourg: Publications Of-fice of the European Union, 2019.

[2] G. J. Connors and S. A. Maisto, ‘Effects ofAlcohol, Instructions and Consumption Rateon Motor Performance’, p. 9, 1980.

[3] S. T. Higgins, W. K. Bickel, J. R. Hughes,M. Lynn, M. A. Capeless, and J. W. Fen-wick, ‘Effects of intranasal cocaineon human learning, performance andphysiology’, Psychopharmacology (Berl.),vol. 102, no. 4, pp. 451–458, Dec. 1990, doi:10.1007/BF02247124.

29


Subjective Cognitive Complaint:Predictive Markers for

Progression to Mild CognitiveImpairment and Alzheimer’s

Dementia

Nina LangUniverza Ljubljana

Introduction

As the population grows old, the number ofpeople with dementia rises. Subjective Cogni-tive Complaint [1] is a recently proposed phe-nomenon that has been acknowledged as a po-tential predecessor of Mild Cognitive Impair-ment (MCI) and could be the first preclinical signof Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD) [2]. Among othercognitivedeficits, patientswithSCC,MCI, andADshow working memory deficits, so understand-ing of working memory function might be cru-cial for early diagnostics of AD. Altered theta-gamma coupling (TGC) in electroencephalo-graphic recordings is thought tobeaneurophysi-ologicalmarker ofworkingmemorydisturbance.It has been found that TGC lowworkingmemoryperformance is accompanied by progressivelydecreased TGC levels in subjects with MCI andAD [3]. The purpose of this study is to apply theaccumulated knowledge about behavioral andneurophysiological changes in patientswithMCIand AD to explore if those changes are alreadypresent within the senior population with SCC.The main goal is the possible determinationof biomarkers that would help in non-invasiveearly diagnosis of individuals whose cognitivedecline will progress to dementia.

Methods

Approximately 50 people with SCC and a similarnumber of healthy individuals of matched agetook part in the study and their cognitive sta-tuswas confirmedwith a standardneuropsycho-logical battery. The subjects’ brain activity wasmeasured with electroencephalography duringrest and while they performed a working mem-ory task. A 64-channel EEG system with active

actiCap electrodes was used (BrainAmp, BrainProducts). The exact conditions of the N-backworking memory task were adjusted to enableTGC observation and included visual and spa-tial modality. Stimulus (letters and/or coloredsquares)were shownona3x3matrix. Thepartic-ipant had to determine if the appearing stimulusis the sameor different from the stimulus shownN - attempts back. Stimuli were presented on acomputer screen, one by one on a static back-ground. Each letter was shown on the screenfor 250 milliseconds, which was followed by thereaction time period of 3000 milliseconds. Con-ditions 0 and 2 - back were presented in contin-uous 15-minute blocks of presentations of stim-uli.

Implications

The results could have good applicable valuefor the identification of individuals in the earlystages of neurodegenerative disease.

References

[1] R. Stewart, “Subjective cognitive impair-ment,” Current Opinion in Psychiatry, vol. 25, no.6, pp. 445–450, 2012.

[2] B. Reisberg, M. B. Shulman, C. Torossian, L.Leng, andW. Zhu, “Outcome over seven years ofhealthy adults with and without subjective cog-nitive impairment,” Alzheimers Dementia, vol. 6,no. 1, pp. 11–24, 2010.

[3] M. S. Goodman, S. Kumar, R. Zomorrodi,Z. Ghazala, A. S. M. Cheam, M. S. Barr, Z. J.Daskalakis, D. M. Blumberger, C. Fischer, A. Flint,L. Mah, N. Herrmann, C. R. Bowie, B. H. Mul-sant, and T. K. Rajji, “Theta-Gamma Couplingand Working Memory in Alzheimer’s Dementiaand Mild Cognitive Impairment,” Frontiers in Ag-ing Neuroscience, vol. 10, 2018.

30

Posters

When Emotions Go Viral – anAnalysis of the COVID-19

Infodemic

Constanze LeebUniversity of Vienna & Complexity Science

Hub [email protected]

Introduction

Even though, historically, pandemics seemto be the rule rather than the exception,the scope of the COVID-19 outbreak posesnovel challenges due to the high global in-terconnectivity nowadays. But it is notonly the disease that spreads rapidly. Theterm infodemic emphasizes the critical roleof the spreading of (mis)information [2].The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted lives pro-foundly. The global population is facingchallenges that can lead to worries andsometimes even fear. Anxiousness and inse-curity are common in difficult times. In thequickly changing (social) media landscapethis leads to uninformed beliefs, the spreadof fake news [1] and sometimes even con-spiracy theories. People’s behavior and so-cial response can be influenced, altering theepidemic process and effectiveness of coun-termeasures [2] which is why social mediaanalysis becomes essential. Our focus isAustria and we hope to gain valuable infor-mation about the spread of conspiracy the-ories. What topics play an important role forAustrians in the firstmonths of the COVID-19outbreak? Do conspiracy theories emergeand if so, which ones do, how prevalent arethey and who is spreading them?

Methods

We analyze the comments on the Live-Tickers of “der Standard” from 25/02/2020to 17/05/2020. We use topicmodeling to getan impression of the relevant topics for peo-ple active online. In collaboration with the

domain experts of an Austrian fact-checkingwebsite [3], we build up background knowl-edge on conspiracy theories. We visualizetime series of the mentions of terminologyconnected to narratives of conspiracy theo-ries. Furthermore, we extract users associ-ated with the narratives and look at their ac-tivities andwith LIWC analysis at their posts,maybe identifying specific traits that makethemsusceptible to conspiracy theories andtrigger their spreading of such content.

Outlook

Based on the project at hand it is possible toget a first impression of the topics relevantfor Austrians active online and the spread ofnarratives of conspiracy theories in times ofCOVID-19. The same analysis can be donefor other Austrian social media platforms orother countries. Comparing these findingswill reveal interesting insights into the dy-namics of groups susceptible to these con-tents and those spreading them. Further-more, the larger analysis of associateduserswill help to understand their behavior andthe spread of (mis)information better.

References

[1] D. Garcia V. Galaz and S. Daume, ”EAT-Lancet vs. yes2meat: the digital backlashto the planetary health diet,” The Lancet,vol. 394, no. 10215, pp. 2153 – 2154,2019. [Online]. Available: 10.1016/s0140-6736(19)32526-7

[2] M. Cinelli et al., ”The COVID-19 SocialMedia Infodemic”, arXiv.org, 2020. [Online].Available: https:arxiv.org/abs/2003.05004 [Accessed: April24, 2020][3] “Mimikama/ZDDK-Vereinzur Aufklärung über Internetmissbrauch”,mimikama, 2020. [Online]. Available:https://www.mimikama.at [Accessed: May26, 2020]

31


Processing of Nonwords withDifferent Morphological Violationsin Slovenian, Greek and Russian

Nina Leonova, Eleni Tsaprouni, ChristinaManouilidou


Introduction

The current crosslinguistic research is fo-cused on the similarities and differences be-tween processing of pseudowords in Rus-sian, Greek and Slovenian. Previous stud-ies [1] and [2] have stressed the importanceof thematic and categorical morphosyntac-tic features in lexical processing. The studyaims at finding out the factors that affectcomprehension of deverbal adjectives, aswell as the corresponding neural responsesduring lexical processing.

## Selection of nonwords

Four different types of violations are usedin pseudowords: categorical violation refersto construction of a nonword from an ad-jective suffix and a typically nominal stem,instead of a verbal one (“chairable”). The-matic violation is created by a combinationof an adjective suffix and verbal stems thatare not normally combined with such suf-fixes (“goable”). Aspectual violation refersto a combination of an adjectival suffix anda verbal stem being in the opposite aspectof which the suffix is normally combinedwith (“бросанный —to be throwing+able”).Finally, novel nonwords describe pseudo-words that were created without any viola-tions (“bringable”).

Methods

Data is acquired by a lexical decision taskand EEG recordings. Native speakers ofGreek, Russian or Slovenian with no cogni-tive or language impairments are presented

with nonwords of four types. They are in-structed to decide whether these words arepermissible in their native language. Thelanguage decision task measures the levelof acceptance and reaction time to differ-ent nonwords, while EEG helps define corre-sponding neural activity of the brain duringword processing.

Interdisciplinarity

Following the interdisciplinary approach,the research merges topics and methodsfrom linguistics with those from neuro-science.

Expected Results

We expect the reaction times to be theshortest for categorical nonwords followedby thematic nonwords, then aspectual andlastly novel ones, as found in the previousstudies [1]. The opposite patterns are pre-dicted for the level of acceptance,with great-est acceptance for novel nonwords followedby aspectual, thematic and finally categor-ical categories. As for EEG results, we ex-pect to find larger N400 responses whichwould mark the mechanisms of semanticprocessing of pseudo-words violating differ-ent derivational constraints.

References

[1] C. Manouilidou, “Thematic constraints indeverbal word formation: psycholinguisticevidence from pseudo-words.” Proceedingsof the 7th International Conference on GreekLinguistics. 2007.

[2] U. Janssen, R. Wiese, and M. Schle-sewsky. “Electrophysiological responses toviolations of morphosyntactic and prosodicfeatures in derived German nouns.” Journalof Neurolinguistics, vol.19, no. 6, pp. 466-482, 2006.

32

Posters

Homeorhesis in the Context ofGeneralized Anxiety Disorder

Tzu nung LinUniversity of Vienna

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is onekind of mental disorder that is clearly de-fined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Man-ual of Mental Disorders [1]. In psychia-try, treating GAD is to prescribe patientsantidepressant drugs such as serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). However, a pa-per from Moncrieff indicates that little evi-dence shows that antidepressant drugs canreverse or correct the patient’s brain froman abnormal state to a normal brain state[2]. The idea that the antidepressant drugcan reverse the brain state is based on thedisease-centred-model which is originatedin the homeostasis concept. The distinguishbetween homeostasis and homeorhesis iscritical when understanding how the organ-ism constantly stabilizes in an environment.From the perspective of the homeostasis,the organism will return to its original con-figuration and therefore protect itself in astable internal environment. As for thehomeorhesis, it illustrates the mechanismofhowtheorganismarrives inadifferent tra-jectory to stabilize itself. The visualizationofthe interaction between genes and the envi-ronmentwhichcreatesdevelopmentalpath-ways differentiation within the cells can bedefined as an epigenetic landscape [3]. Inthis thesis, we will use an age-old concepthomeorhesis which is originated in the epi-genetic landscape from Waddington [3] toexplain why the phenomenon of the antide-pressant drug action in the context of curingGADwill not reverseone’spatientbrain statebut transfer into a novel brain state which issuggested in the drug-centred-model [2].

References

[1] Diagnostic and statistical manual ofmen-tal disorders: DSM-5. Washington, D.C.:American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013.

[2] Moncrieff, J., 2017. Research on a ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatric drug treat-ment: assessing the impact of mental andbehavioural alterations produced by psychi-atric drugs. Epidemiology and PsychiatricSciences, vol. 27, no. 2, pp.133-140.

[3] C. H. Waddington, The Strategy of theGenes: A Discussion of Some Aspects of The-oretical Biology. London: Allen & Unwin,1958.

33


Effects of Caffeine on BrainActivity Using the AuditoryOddball Task Paradigm

Tjasa Moze,Matej PoljakUniversity of [email protected]

Introduction

The aim of the research was to examinechanges in the brain networks when per-forming the auditory oddball task after re-ceiving a psychoactive substance (coffee).Inclusion criteria required participants to beregular coffee drinkers with no history ofany neurological disorders and are placedin left hemispheric dominance according tothe Edinburgh handedness inventory withnormal EEG activity. Half of the participantsdrank either decaffeinated coffee with onlyplacebo or decaffeinated coffee in which adose of caffeine was measured dependingon the participant’s bodyweight. The equiv-alent of 200 - 500 mg of caffeine (6 mg / kgbody weight) dissolved in 150 ml of instantdecaffeinated coffee was used. The studywas performed under randomized, double-blind crossover conditions. Auditory odd-ball paradigm II was recorded 20 min afteradministration.

Method

EEG is a method used to measure the elec-trical activity of the brain with electrodesplaced directly on the scalp. Activity is dis-played in the form of waves with differentamplitudesand frequencies. Repeatedmea-surements according to a specific task pro-duce a wave which is called an event re-lated potential (ERP). The oddball paradigmis a commonlyusedexperimental designuti-lized for studying cognitive functions. Par-ticipants are presented with sequences of

repetitive stimuli which are infrequently in-terrupted by a deviant stimulus and the re-action of the participant to this “oddball”stimulus is recorded. Data obtained fromprevious caffeine studies show that caffeineis linked to shorter reaction times andbetterperformance on cognitive tasks.

Implications

Similar studies [2] with hypotheses similartoours suggest thatwecanexpect improvedsustained attention, showing less changesin performance from the beginning to endof the task and cognitive effort as well as re-duced motor response time (right-hand in-dex fingerpressureon the response trackingdevice) to stimulus after caffeine consump-tion, result of a reduced target evoked po-tential (P300) latency, associatedwithapos-itive potential over the frontal cortex [1] anda higher P300 amplitude in participants re-ceiving caffeine than in participants only re-ceiving placebo [2].

References

[1] A. Diukova et al., “Separating neural andvascular effects of caffeine using simulta-neous EEG–FMRI: Differential effects of caf-feine on cognitive and sensorimotor brainresponses”, NeuroImage, vol. 62, no. 1,pp. 239-249, 2012.

[2] S. Bruce, K. Werner, B. Preston and L.Baker, “Improvements in concentration,working memory and sustained atten-tion following consumption of a naturalciticoline–caffeine beverage”, InternationalJournal of Food Sciences and Nutrition,vol. 65, no. 8, pp. 1003-1007, 2014.

[3] S. Jern, M. Pilhall, C. Jern and S. Carls-son, “Short-term reproducibility of a men-tal arithmetic stress test”, Clinical Science,vol. 81, no. 5, pp. 593-601, 1991.

34

Posters

Build[ing] Experience

Lena Müller-NaendrupUniversity of Vienna

Context

Architecture has always served as both anexpression of aesthetic art and functional-ity. In contrast, the relation between built-environments and the human mind andbody has only gained attention recently [1].Furthermore, growing cities demand moreand more functional spaces that shelter,transport, educate, administrate, and enter-tain their inhabitants. However, not uncom-monly the intended functions of spaces donot meet the users’ experiences.

Previous researchhasmainly involved struc-tural analyses of entire urban neighbour-hoods such as Kevin Lynch’s theory of ur-ban perception [2]. Lynch attempted toinvestigate people’s subjective perceptionof the built-environment by studying theirmemories of such spaces [2]. However,how exactly our experience is shaped bythe structural aspects constituting the built-environment and to what extent this ex-perience can be analysed and understoodby examining individuals’ memory recall ofthe specific environment, has yet remainedunanswered. Thus, the project aims at de-veloping a mixed-methods approach com-prising a new empirical tool to disentanglethe human-environment relation.

Project

Essentially, Lynch’s approach to understandhumanperception andmemory recall of thebuilt-environment has been expanded withtheoretical concepts from enacted and em-bodied cognition that have been proven rel-evant in context of human-environment dy-namics [1]. While Lynch’s mental maps tech-nique serves as the empirical tool to gather

subjective, first-person data, the newly in-cluded theoretical concepts provoke an an-alytical shift to aspects such as the role ofthe body and body memory, possibilities-providing structural affordances, embodiedaction and enacted experiences [1]. Further-more, besides studying the user’s subjec-tive experience in a space, the originally in-tended function of such space and the pub-lic’s expectations have to be incorporatedas well [3]. Therefore, large-scale surveysexamining users’ expectations in combina-tion with a couple of in-depth interviewsaddressing the individually sketched men-talmaps are included in themethodologicalframework.

Implications

This mixed method will provide a tool tofurther unfold how built-environmentsare shaping individuals’ perception and todisclose potential discrepancies betweenusers’ experiences and a space’s purpose.Consequently, discovered dysfunction-alities or positively perceived structuralelements can be used to restructure alreadyexisting buildings or build new ones byfollowing a more human-centred designapproach.

References

[1] A. Jelic, G. Tieri, F. De Matteis, F. Babiloni,and G. Vecchiato, “The Enactive Approachto Architectural Experience: A Neurophysio-logical Perspective on Embodiment, Motiva-tion, and Affordances”, Frontiers in Psychol-ogy, 2016,7

[2] K. Lynch, The image of the city (The MITPress, 1960)

[3] Gensler, “Gensler Experience Index”, inEditor: Book Gensler Experience Index(Gensler Research Institute, 2017), pp. 1-29

35


Discovering Language Biases WithWord Embeddings

Marko NaratUniversity of Ljubljana

[email protected]

Introduction

Word embeddings are a framework used to rep-resent, analyse and discover relationships be-tween words. The approach is used in the con-textofnatural languageprocessing (NLP) - a fieldof computer science that explores the process-ing of natural spoken and written language withcomputers, primarily using machine learning.Wordembedding is a representationofwordsus-ing vectors. Adding and subtracting these vec-tors allows us to encode and understand analo-gies such as “London is to England as Paris isto x” in which case the correct answer is France.The reason the embeddings can give the cor-rect answer is that subtraction of vectors for theword “London” and “England” is parallel to thevector difference between Paris and France[1].The captured analogies provoke a list of interest-ing research questions, some of which concernword biases - is the distance between “woman”and “doctor” different from “man” and “doc-tor”? Biases in language canprovide insight intotopics of social sciences. In the aforementionedresearch it hasbeen shown that thebiases foundin different embeddings “can be used to quan-tify historical trends and social change”[1].

Inmy apprenticeship, I use word embeddings todiscover language biases in Slovenian language.I concentrated on gender biases in word embed-dings of Slovene language.

Methods

To conduct my research I used a pre-trainedword embedding model published by JožefStefan Institute (Word embeddings CLARIN.SI-embed.sl 1.0) and explored it using Python 3.7and the Gensim Python library. The Gensim li-brary has many features that allow developersto work with NLP. I used it to load the CLARIN.

SI model and compare distances between fem-inine and masculin words to specific words forprofessions.

Results

The results show many strong biases for cer-tain occupations, for example auctioneer, math-ematician and postman where the appropri-ate feminine word was rarely found when sub-tracting vectors. There was also an interestingbias found with words physicist and chemist,where the feminine word for the professionwas not found, but the most frequently foundword was still the feminine version of scientist(znanstvenica).

Conclusion

There are many biases to be found in embed-dings, and there are many more embeddingsof the Slovenian language to explore. This ap-prenticeship was based on the study of Garg,Schiebinger, Jurafsky, Zou[1], who showed thatbiases in word embeddings correlate to histori-cal trends in the United States. Further researchshould be conducted on word embedding mod-els from different decades and explore how bi-ases in Slovenian texts have changed throughtime.

References

[1] N. Garg, L. Schiebinger, D. Jurafsky and J.Zou, “Word embeddings quantify 100 years ofgender and ethnic stereotypes”, Proceedings oftheNational Academyof Sciences, vol. 115, no. 16,pp. E3635-E3644, 2018.

36

Posters

Multilingual Language Experienceand Heschl’s Gyrus Structure

Anna Palmann, Narly GolestaniUniversity of Vienna

Introduction

Different aspects of multilingual language expe-rience, such as number of languages, and ageof acquisition/proficiency of these have beenfound to be related to structural differences in avariety of brain areas [1].

For example, in the auditory cortex, a higher vol-ume of Heschl’s gyri (HG) has been reported inbilinguals compared to monolinguals [2]. Yet,it remains unclear what these structural differ-ences arise from exactly, which shall be ad-dressed in the present research.

The Present Study

In existing structuralMRI brain scansof 86mono-, bi- and multilingual subjects with diverse lan-guagebackground,wewill explore relationshipsbetween anatomical measures of HG, such asvolume, surface area, thickness and curvature,and language-experiencemeasures like numberand proficiency of spoken languages, as well asage of acquisition and duration of exposure.

TASH, a new toolbox for the automated segmen-tation of HG [3], allows amore precise and repro-ducible assessment ofHGanatomycompared totraditional manual segmentation methods, en-abling a more detailed exploration of relation-ships in this study.

Expected Results

Weexpect to find larger HG volume, surface areaand thickness measurements in bi- and multi-linguals compared to monolinguals and accord-ingly, also a positive correlation with the num-ber of languages spoken. This is for both, totalnumber of languages, as well as number spokenmore proficiently or learnt earlier.

Implications

This study will help to elucidate the precisestructural features of HG that differ as a func-tion of a number of aspects of multilingual lan-guage experience. Evidence for differences inthe strength of such relationships may shedlight on the relative contributions of nature ver-sus nurture of language experience on brainanatomy.

Results may also help to explain contradic-tory findings in the literature. Such may arisefrom differences in the language experience-measures tested and/or from differences in theactual language combinations spoken in multi-linguals and subsequent incoherencies in sam-ple selection or classification.

References

[1] P. Li, J. Legault, and K.A. Litcofsky, ”Neuro-plasticity as a function of second language learn-ing: Anatomical changes in the human brain,”Cortex, vol. 58, pp. 301-324, 2014.

[2] V. Ressel, C. Pallier, N. Ventura-Campos, B.Díaz, A. Roessler, C. Àvila, and N. Sebastián-Gallés, ”An Effect of Bilingualismon the AuditoryCortex,” Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 32, no. 47,pp. 16597-16601, 2012.

[3] J. L. D. D. Rocha, P. Schneider, J. Benner,R. Santoro, T. Atanasova, D. V. D. Ville, and N.Golestani, ”TASH: Toolbox for the AutomatedSegmentation of Heschl’s gyrus,” Scientific Re-ports, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1-15, 2020.

37


Artificial(ly) Talent(ed) - UsingComparative Swarm Simulationsto Define Individual Qualities

Kevin PurkhauserComenius University in Bratislava

Introduction

In order to get scientifically significant data tounderstand qualitative phenomena, in this casetalent, various logical and comprehensible defi-nitions are tested and implemented as a param-eter in anAI algorithm. TheseAI’s can thenbeob-served and comparatively analyzed in order to il-lustrate if there is significant change of behavior,which could then be redefined as the qualitativeconfirmationof the phenomena thatwas lookedfor.

Walkthrough

In anticipation to detect a certain, but arbitrar-ily initialized value for talent (τ) [2] a particleswarm optimization (PSO) model is used [3].The swarm intelligence acts in a comparativestate while all particles are urging for one aim(global minimum) and start from the edge of atopological quadratic environment, which guar-antees equal radii to the center for every individ-ual. After the first series of runs the data getscollected (null hypothesis). Since hitherto therewas no variable τ included, this follows for thesecond series of runs. Depending on the priordefinition of τ it reveals a slight advantage intime (dt), or in direction (dx) towards the cen-ter. The detection of each individual presup-poses the usage of a particle filter. Therewiththe behavior of every particle can be observedindependently [1]. Afterwards the particles getcompared by using performance landscapes toillustrate the variances.

Interdisciplinary

The highly interdisciplinary approach lies in thedifferent perspectives and techniques. There-fore this project seeks a meta-heuristic analysisof an abstract question. Hence a rather linguistic

approach that deals with the etymological partleads to a mathematical function, which in turnruns a computationalmodel to tie in an interpre-tation in analytical philosophy of language.

Results, Discussion

The results mainly show that at a certain in-crease of the factor τ the consequences are get-ting effectual, but for small changes (2%) it re-mains arbitrary. Likewise there is no remarkabledifference if τ is representedasa factor of timeordirection.

Following this findings it remains necessary tocollect loads of data to be able to draw preciseregression at which value of presupposition theconsequences are inevitable and then stressingif this can still be defined as talent. So far the ex-periment strengthens the critics that argue: tal-ent isnothingbutadescriptivewayofdescribinga quality that is not entirely understood. Bachonce claimed it is 2% talent, the rest is practice.Finally this findings should emphasize to put thefocus on the being, thinking and acting, insteadof trusting I.Q., GMAT, or hidden variables.

References

[1] J. Kennedy and R. Eberhart, “Particle swarmoptimization,” Proceedings of ICNN’95 - Inter-national Conference on Neural Networks, Perth,WA, Australia, 1995, pp. 1942-1948

[2] “Standardized tests: Aptitude, Intelli-gence, Achievement”. psychology.ucdavis.edu.Retrieved 2016-08-03

[3] Swarm Intelligence tutorial:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUHAypWn1Ro. Retrieved 2016-08-03

38

Posters

The Influence of Listening toMusic on the PsychophysicalWell-being of the Elderly

Katja RašlUniversity of [email protected]

Context

Music has calming or activating effects onthe autonomic nervous system (ANS) [1]. Bystimulating emotions, music affects the ac-tivity of brain structures and causes conse-quent changes in cardiac activity, includingheart rate, heart rate variability, respiratoryrate and blood pressure [2]. Heart rate vari-ability (HRV),which is an indicator of cardiacvagal tone index (parasympathetic nerve),is widely used in psychophysiological re-search and is significantly associated withsurvival as well as self-regulation in the cog-nitive, emotional and social domains [3].

Purpose

With this study we will compare ANS re-sponse in the elderly to two types of music(self-selectedmusic andpre-selectedmusic,based on specific tempo and music genres -Gregorian coral, baroque, classical and am-bient music, that have the most positive ef-fects) in comparison with silence and checkthe practical use of listening to music inelderly. We will monitor the influence ofmusical background of individuals and col-lect data about psychological well-being be-fore and after recording. We hypothesizethat self-selectedmusicwill have decreasedmodulatory activity of parasympathetic (va-gal) autonomic nervous functionwhen com-pared to silence or pre-selected music andthat self-selected music will be more pleas-ant for the participants than pre-selectedmusic or silence.

Method

30 elderly (60+ years) participants will par-ticipate in the study. First, we will gather in-formation about their musical backgroundand medical condition, using MoCA andSOC tests. Participants’ physiological re-sponses to stimuli will be measured underthree different conditions: in silence with-out music, while listening to pre-selectedmusic and while listening to individuallypre-prepared music. Participants will be ly-ing on their back with earphones on, whilewe will record their HRV, HR, breathing fre-quency and galvanic skin response. BiopacM35 (Biopac Systems) will be used for phys-iological measurements. Statistical analy-sis will be performed in statistical program-ming language R.

Implications

This study aims to contribute to the under-standingof the impact thatmusic has on theANS, thepsychophysicalwell-beingof theel-derly, and the practical aspects of music ap-plication in nursing homes.

References

[1] S. Finn and D. Fancourt, “The biologi-cal impact of listening to music in clinicaland nonclinical settings: A systematic re-view”, Progress in Brain Research, pp. 173-200, 2018.

[2] S. Koelsch and L. Jäncke, “Music and theheart”, European Heart Journal, vol. 36, no.44, pp. 3043-3049, 2015.

[3] S. Laborde, E. Mosley and J. Thayer,“Heart Rate Variability and Cardiac VagalTone in Psychophysiological Research – Rec-ommendations for Experiment Planning,Data Analysis, and Data Reporting”, Fron-tiers in Psychology, vol. 08, 2017.

39


Determining the Structure of theDMT Experience

(Neurophenomenology ofEntropic Mind)

Jelena RosicUniversity of Vienna

Introduction

Following from the first-ever placebo-controlled investigation of the effects ofDMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, a fast-actingtryptamine psychedelic) on spontaneoushuman brain activity via multivariate EEG[1], the aim of this study is to further inves-tigate the related structure of experientialdimensions [1]. Using phenomenologicalmethods alongside the analysis of neuralbases of consciousness transitions underDMT can help further elucidate the neurobi-ology of consciousness while significantlyadvancing our understanding ofmind-brainrelationship [1]. This methodological bridgepresents the main objective for a compre-hensive scientific study of consciousnessinstantiated by Francisco Varela’s neurophe-nomenological research programme incognitive science.

Method: micro-phenomenology

Themicro-phenomenological method [2] inthis research context is designed for elicitingaspects of experience (pre-reflective) thatsuspends pre-defined categories of experi-ence. This first-person data can be usedto detect, guide and interpret neural corre-lates and form a joint analysis with third-person data (brain and behaviour; quan-titative). As a trained practitioner in themicro-phenomenological method [2], I willperform the part of the analysis of first-person interview data from the DMT study(collected by Millière and Timmermann [1]towards the larger collaborative project on

the structure of DMT experience). As an it-erative and explorative study, the processof data analysis will be first organised as in-variant phenomenological categories withsynchronic (in-depth) and diachronic (overtime) dimensions of experience and furthermodelled by specifically defined operationsof clustering by iteration [2].

Significance: Structure and complexityof the DMT experience

It has been proposed with “the entropicbrain hypothesis” and supported by grow-ing empirical evidence [3] that “subjectivequality of any given conscious state, andspecifically its “richness”, can be indexed bya quantitative measure of the magnitude ofentropy (in the information theoretic sense)in a given parameter of spontaneous brainactivity” [3]. The method prosed here offirst-person data analysis would present thestep towards the idea of “entropic mind”that follows from the entropic brain hypoth-esis pointing to the need of improving map-pings between spontaneous brain andmindphenomena as a major scientific challengethat can contribute to treating psychiatricand neurological disorders [3].

References

[1] C. Timmermann et al., “Neural correlatesof the DMT experience assessed with multi-variate EEG”, Scientific Reports, vol. 9, no. 1,2019

[2] C. Petitmengin, A. Remillieux and C.Valenzuela-Moguillansky, “Discoveringthe structures of lived experience” Phe-nomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 691-730, 2018.

[3] R. Carhart-Harris, “The entropic brain- revisited”, Neuropharmacology, vol. 142,pp. 167-178, 2018.

40

Posters

Normative Data for SemanticallyAssociated SloveneWord ListsThat Create False Memories

Minea Rutar, Jaša ČerneUniversity of [email protected]

Introduction

Interest in false memory research skyrocketedafter the publication of Roediger and McDer-mott’s seminal work on in 1995 [1]. Manystudies since then have investigated remember-ing events that never happened or remember-ing them quite differently from the way theyhappenedusing theDeese-Roediger-McDermott(DRM) task to measure the proportion of falselyrecalled and falsely recognized words [2]. Re-search shows up to 66% of words participantsrecalled were lures (critical words related to butnot present on the lists), which represent falsememories [2,3].

The goal of this research was threefold: 1) to cre-ate a Slovene version of the DRM task because itis important the task uses participants’ mothertongue and 2) to test whether we can detect thesame effect as prior research.

Methods

The study was carried out online using thePsychoPy platform for conducting experiments.The data was acquired on 90 subjects (73% fe-male; M= 22,34; SD = 3,62). Three groups of30 randomly assigned participants listened to 12different lists of 15 semantically related wordswhich are associations of one critical word, notpresented on the list. They then wrote downthe recalled words and completed the recogni-tion test (noting whether they recognized theword on the test from the list or not). The pro-portion of accurately recalled and recognizedwords, critical and unrelated words was mea-sured as well as their response time. The wordlists will additionally be used for comparing thephenomenology of correctly and falsely recalledand recognized words.

Results

Preliminary results indicate a lower rate of falserecall (of critical or unrelated words) than thatin the original study but overall indicate statisti-cal significance. The rate for critical word recallranges from0 up to 46% in some cases. Analysisstill has to be conducted but preliminary resultsindicate the Slovene adaptation of the task wassuccessful.

Conclusion

Creating a Slovene version of the DRM task con-tributes to the development of false memory re-search in Slovenia. The obtained rates of falserecall and recognition, lower than in the origi-nal study, indicate that false memory creationmight not be so prevalent or is specific to par-ticular word lists. Further research is needed todetermine why certain lists create high levels offalse memories while other do not create any.

References

[1] E. Pardilla-Delgado, J.D. Payne. “TheDeese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) task: Asimple cognitive paradigm to investigate falsememories in the laboratory,” JoVE (Journal ofVisualized Experiments), 119. 2017. Available:https://www.jove.com/video/54793/the-deese-roediger-mcdermott-drm-task-simple-cognitive-paradigm-to. [Accessed Feb. 20,2020].

[2] H.L. Roediger, K.B. McDermott. “Creat-ing false memories: Remembering wordsnot presented in lists,” Journal of experi-mental psychology: Learning, Memory, andCognition, vol. 21, no. 4, 1995. Available:https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1995-42833-001.[Accessed Feb. 20, 2020].

[3] M.A. Stadler, H.L. Roediger, K.B. McDermott.“Norms for word lists that create false mem-ories,” Memory cognition, vol. 27, no. 3, 1999.Available: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03211543. [Accesse Feb. 20,2020].

41


Implementing Full BodyMovement into Virtual Reality

Cognitive Training

Viktor SojkaComenius University in Bratislava

Virtual Reality and Cognitive Training

Thesubjectof a cognitive trainingusingavir-tual reality (VR), in this case, using VR witha head mounted display (HMD) has been atarget of multiple studies. We would liketo continue research to expand the poten-tial of this technology. As already shown ina recent study [1], VR has the ability to im-prove immersion, presence ina taskandpar-ticipants are generally excited from VR usein cognitive training. In order to fully im-plement movement into VR, we need to ad-dress multiple problems that arise from us-ing VR, most notably, nausea caused by in-correct tracking of movement in VR [2].

Implementation of Full Body Motion –Experiment Proposal

Based on previous study [3], we would liketo find out, whether adding an omnidirec-tional treadmill, a specialised treadmill thatallows user to move in all directions, to cog-nitive training with HMD will positively af-fect cognitive training. The plan is to com-pare full body movement in virtual realitywith conventional means of movement inthe virtual environment, such as teleporta-tion. We propose an experiment with a sim-ple task of solving a virtual maze with anadded task of finding 5 objects inside themaze before finding the exit. This will be1st part that will be considered as a spa-tial training exercise done in VR. After 24hours, participants will be tasked to solvethe same task, however this time in reallife. Wewillmeasuremultiple variables suchas: nausea caused by VR, memorisation of

maze objects, spatial orientation and mem-ory and most importantly which type of lo-comotion will better transfer informationfrom the training exercise to the real world.Our hypothesis is, that using the treadmillwill yield better spatial memory in 2nd task,thus participants will solve real life mazefaster and with fewer errors.

References

[1] K.-T. Huang, “Exergaming Executive Func-tions: An Immersive Virtual Reality-BasedCognitive Training for Adults Aged 50 andOlder,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and So-cial Networking, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 143–149,Mar. 2020, doi: 10.1089/cyber.2019.0269.

[2] L. A. Shaw, B. C. Wünsche, C. Lutteroth, S.Marks, and R. Callies, “Challenges in virtualreality exergame design,” vol. 162, Jan. 2015,Accessed: Apr. 14, 2020. [Online]. Available:https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/handle/10292/8787.

[3] E. Langbehn, P. Lubos, and F. Steinicke,“Evaluation of Locomotion Techniques forRoom-Scale VR: Joystick, Teleportation,and Redirected Walking,” in Proceedings ofthe Virtual Reality International Conference -Laval Virtual on - VRIC ’18, Laval, France, 2018,pp. 1–9, doi: 10.1145/3234253.3234291.

42

Posters

The Effects of GrammaticalGender on Processing

Occupational Role Names inSlovene: An ERP Study

Anja Terglav, Jasna Mikić, AndražMatkovič


Context

Recent experimental research [1, 2] hasfocused on investigating the use of genderinformation in role name processing. Gen-der stereotypes influence occupationalrole perception in languages with semanticgender systems (e.g. English). Howeverin languages with grammatical gender(e.g. Slovene) the effects of violation of for-mal grammatical gender agreement havebeen studiedmore commonly. Our researchstudied gender agreement rules and their vi-olations with event-related potentials (ERP)method. Specific gender markedness ofSlovenian language has led to adaptationsin study design, where in comparison toprevious studies, we observed (masculineand feminine) marked verbs (instead ofnominals). Our aim was to investigate therelations between the gender of antecedentand anaphora, and its influence on reader’smental representations.

Hypotheses and Method

We anticipated that difficulties in resolvingthe anaphor will point to a mismatch be-tween the anaphor and the antecedent andinform about which features of antecedentguided the understanding. Three hypothe-ses were made, referring to whether viola-tions of occupational role representationswould occur. Based on previous studies weanticipated that P600wouldbe evokedwith

syntactic violations and N400 with seman-tic. Violations were expected to occur incases with feminine verbs following an an-tecedent in plural generic form. In caseswith masculine verbs and in cases with ei-ther of the gender marked verbs follow-ing an antecedent in gender-balanced form,no violations were expected.Twenty-six stu-dents (aged 18-23), participated in the study.Their mother tongue was Slovene. Pairsof sentences were presented on a screenin front of them word-by-word. After ev-ery pair of sentences, participants answeredwhether sentences appeared logically co-herent, by pressing a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ button.Whilst they were solving the task, EEG activ-ity was recorded.

Conclusion

As the research has not been finally pub-lished, results should not be discussed. Spe-cific design of this project could offer newforms of understanding the extent to whichlanguage influences occupational role rep-resentations. Further, it would be interest-ing to explore longitudinal effects of thisstudy in connection to brain plasticity con-cept.

References

[1] A. Garnham, U. Gabriel, O. Sarrasin,P. Gygax and J. Oakhill, “Gender Rep-resentation in Different Languages andGrammatical Marking on Pronouns: WhenBeauticians, Musicians, and MechanicsRemain Men”, Discourse Processes, vol. 49,no. 6, pp. 481-500, 2012. Available:10.1080/0163853x.2012.688184 [Accessed 5May 2020].

[2] L. Irmen and N. Roßberg, “GenderMarkedness of Language”, Journal ofLanguage and Social Psychology, vol. 23,no. 3, pp. 272-307, 2004. Available:10.1177/0261927x04266810 [Accessed 5 May2020].

43


The Effect of Testosterone inPublic Prosocial Learning

Carina UferUniversity of Vienna

Introduction

Testosterone is commonly associated withphysical aggression and it is often believedto cause egoistic, antisocial behavior. How-ever, in humans testosterone was found topromote prosocial behavior in terms of fair-ness and cooperation. Therefore, [1] ar-gue that the traditional view of testosteroneneeds to be reassessed, suggesting that thebehavior modulation is better explained associal status seeking. Human status seek-ing strategies can take complex formswhereit can be adaptive to act pro-socially to ac-quire a higher status. This becomes espe-cially important in public situations withsocial interaction. Until now, the causaleffect of testosterone on prosocial learn-ing driven by social status seeking has notbeen investigated. Therefore, a placebo-controlled single-dose testosterone admin-istration study was conducted. We ad-dressed the question whether testosteronecanpromoteprosocial learning and if this ef-fect is especiallypresent in situationsofpub-lic recognition.

Methods

A probabilistic learning paradigm (two-armed bandit) was adopted from [2] whereparticipants can gain rewards dependingon their chosen option. Throughout 16 con-secutive trials they learned that one optionwas rewarded with a higher probability(75% / 25%). Participants performed thetask six times, alternately gaining rewardsfor themselves or an NGO which servedas prosocial condition. Moreover, as abetween factor participants played thetask either in private or with an observer.

The latter creates an interactive situationwhere we hypothesized that status seekingmotivation is triggered. The results areanalyzed with a computational model usinga reinforcement learning approach whichis established in social neuroscience. Thedata were fitted to an actor critique modelusing a value-based learning algorithm toguide decision preferences and a SoftMaxfunction for action selection.

Results

In general, participants learn to maximizetheir reward above chance level in all con-ditions. The group level learning curvesshow that the percentage of correctly takenchoices was around 75% for all conditions.The data was fitted to the model and learn-ing rate and inverse temperature parameterwere estimated with a maximum likelihoodfunction. We expect to find differences inthe estimated parameters between groupsthat account for the interaction of testos-terone and public performance. This inter-disciplinary research can provide causal evi-dence and will help refine the role of testos-terone in humans.

References

[1] C. Eisenegger, J. Haushofer, and E. Fehr,“The role of testosterone in social interac-tion,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 15,no. 6. Elsevier Current Trends, pp. 263–271,2011.

[2] P. L. Lockwood, M. A. J. Apps, V. Valton,E. Viding, and J. P. Roiser, “Neurocompu-tational mechanisms of prosocial learningand links to empathy,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.,vol. 113, no. 35, pp. 9763 LP – 9768, 2016.

44

Posters

I Like to Move It

Eva UrbančičUniversity of Ljubljana

The kinaesthetic approach to teaching isbased on findings that bodymovement pro-motes learning and understanding of com-plex concepts. It is based on the embod-ied view of cognition that includes the sen-sorimotor system as a part of our cognition.Therefore, we should explore all the possi-bilities it can offer us in terms of improvingteaching methods. In this study we will tryto include the body, as a valuable requisitein the process of learning about electricalengineering concepts in high schools.

After finishing my degree (BSc in ElectricalEngineering), I got the opportunity to teachelectrical engineering subjects in a highschool. I started implementing the learning-by-moving (kinaesthetic) method in my lec-tures and gained insight into the executionof themethod and the results it brings. Withmy mentor, we came up with a case studywhere I would deliver lectures using kinaes-thetic method to a class of students (exper-imental group) and using with ex-cathedraapproach to another class (control group)of the same study year. We want to ex-plore the possible advantages that kinaes-thetic teaching brings to high school stu-dents of electrical engineering. We expectthe kinesthetic teaching approach wouldlead to greater participation of students, en-hance the social relations between studentsand help them understand sometimes diffi-cult and abstract concepts better.

The study methodology includes the lec-tures and questionnaires to evaluate the ef-fects. After the lectures, both groups of stu-dents would answer a short questionnaire(such as was used in the referenced study[1]) about their experiencewith the teachingprocess and their subjective perception on

the knowledge they gained. With the anal-ysis of the qualitative data collected duringthe study we would obtain valuable detailsof students’ experience with the creativemovement method [1]. All the movement-based presentations of concepts and theresearch plan are prepared and ready andwaiting for the re-opening of schools.

I want to follow through with the plannedstudy. I am continuing with the develop-ment of different movement-based presen-tations of electrical and mathematical con-cepts and I am studying diverse optionsfor possible future research (e.g. collectingdata from students wearing bio-metric sen-sors). Mygoal is to furtherdeepenmyknowl-edge of the creativemovement approach toteaching and use it inmy future teaching op-portunities.

References

[1] V. Geršak and G. Geršak, “A kinaestheticapproach to teaching electrical engineer-ing”, World Transactions on Engineering andTechnology Education, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 366-373.

45


A Social Robot in the Role asNovice for the Learning by

Teaching Approach

Jan-OveWiesnerUniversity of Vienna

Social robots in education

Social robots have different roles in educa-tional contexts and have been shown to beeffective at increasing cognitive and affec-tive outcomes. While in the scientific com-munity the roles of social robots primarilyas tutors or teachers are investigated (90%of research), the roles of social robots aspeers or novices (10% of research) fall be-hind [1].

Considerable educational benefits are ob-tained from a robot that takes the role of anovice, allowing the student to take on therole of a tutor for the robotic tutee. This con-cept iswidely knownas learningby teachingin human education [2].

To implement this concept into a socialrobot, a Pepper robot [3] was chosen forits human-like embodiment, its ability toexpress emotions and its capacity to com-municate a wide range of autonomous be-haviours, such as speech output and ges-tures.

Project

In this project behavioural animations forthe Pepper robot, that present it as a noviceto the domain of arithmetical calculations,will be developed. Thereby the robot willpresent faulty calculations on its tablet andits corresponding behaviour should invite10- to 12-year-old children to identify themistakeandcorrect it according to the learn-ing by teaching approach.

The aim is to model how the mind of anovice, that makes certain mistakes when

solving arithmetical calculations, would be-have. Therefore typical mistakes in this do-main will be analysed to simulate the learn-ing process and task improvement of therobot tutee.

The theoretical considerations will be im-plemented as animations of the robot andwill be tested as part of a Pepper robotdemonstration in a one-to-one interactiondialogue with 10- to 12-year-old children astutors. The interaction will be guided by thepresenter of the demonstration.

Implications

This project contributes to understandingcritical aspects of educational interactionsbetween 10- to 12-year-old children and thesocial robot Pepper in the learning by teach-ing approach.

References

[1] T. Belpaeme, J. Kennedy, A. Ramachan-dran, B. Scassellati, and F. Tanaka, “Socialrobots for education: A review,” ScienceRobotics, vol. 3, no. 21, pp. 1–10, 2018.

[2] F. Jamet, O. Masson, B. Jacquet, J.-L. Stilgenbauer, and J. Baratgin, “Learningby Teaching with Humanoid Robot: A NewPowerful Experimental Tool to Improve Chil-dren’s Learning Ability,” Journal of Robotics,pp.1-11, 2018.

[3] A. K. Pandey and R. Gelin, “A Mass-Produced Sociable Humanoid Robot: Pep-per: The First Machine of Its Kind,” IEEERobotics Automation Magazine, vol. 25, no.3, pp. 40–48, 2018.

46

Posters

Towards Computational CognitiveModelling of Fighting Game

Players

André ZitterbartUniversity of Vienna

In Video fighting games, opponents con-trolled by artificial intelligence (AI) often ap-pear predictable, dumb, or unrealistic. Toavoid these shortcomings, my first step to-wards an AI controlling fighting games char-acters similar to how human players do it,is to research computational cognitivemod-els (CMs) of a human playing rock-paper-scissors (RPS). RPS is a valid starting pointbecause fighting games are based on itsme-chanics (e.g., in Street Fighter II,attack beatsgrab, grab beats block and block beats at-tack).

A CM consists of a cognitive architecture,whose fixed, interrelated components andprocesses embody a cognitive theory, con-figured with knowledge about the tasks tobemodelled [1, p. 76]. OnewayhumansplayRPS is through sequence learning: trackingand modelling the opponent‘s last choicesto predict their next move. Lebiere andWest [2] created related CMs. Pitted againsteach other, each CM learned the sequencesof hands thrown by its opponent and choseits actions accordingly. ACMable to learn se-quences of three hands showed similar pat-tern of wins and losses as humans did whenpittedagainst the same typeofCM. In follow-up work, West and Lebiere [3] showed thatassigning different payoffs to RPS outcomes(i.e., win / loss / draw) results in modelsof humans playing aggressively (trying toforce wins by avoiding sequences that ledto draws in the past). This exemplifies howaspects of personality can be captured in aCM.

I want to expand on these findings by scan-ning the literature for CMs that (partially)

exhibit further human factors (HF), likee.g. emotions and motivation. From this re-search, I am gaining knowledge about howalgorithmic and implemen-tational changesto CMs influence the behaviour they exhibit.Using these insights, I aim to conceptualizehow other aspects of HFs relevant for fight-ing game players (e.g. tolerance of frustra-tion or thrill seeking) could each bemade toemerge from one CM’s behaviour. Finally, Imay try to integrate the CMs found in the lit-erature and those I conceived myself into asingle, more comprehensive CM in a soundmanner, studying related theory and bestpractices.

Given the limited size of this project, I do notexpect to necessarily complete such integra-tion, nor to carry out (substantial) empiricalevaluations. Irrespective of that, the projectallows me to employ my background exper-tise in psychology through another of cogni-tive science’s coredisciplines: AI. In thisway,I amgaininga first impressionof the realitiesof interdisciplinary work. Additionally, I amacquiring knowledge and skills that shouldserve me well for my further career as a re-searcher in any field.

References

[1] D. Vernon, Artificial Cognitive Systems:A Primer. Cambridge, MA and London, Eng-land: The MIT Press, 2014.

[2] C. Lebiere and R. West, “A dynamic ACT-R model of simple games,” in Proceedingsof the Twenty-first Conference of the Cogni-tive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum,1999, pp. 296-301.

[3] R. West and C. Lebiere, “Simple gamesas dynamic, coupled systems: Randomnessand other emergent properties,” CognitiveSystems Research, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 221-239,2001.

47

Talks

48

Talks

CoordinationWithout ExplicitIntentions

Kemal Ozan AybarUniversity of Vienna

Context

In philosophy of mind, one prominent lineof inquiry concerns how individuals are ableto do things together. This is studied un-der the heading of collective intentionality.Relevant phenomena include diverse socialinteractions like playing a game of chess,preparing a meal together, co-authoringa scientific article. Prominent works inthe field of collective intentionality developanalyses of interactions where the agentshave more or less explicitly decided to co-ordinate their actions. But as pointed outby some critics, there are social interactionswhich we neither intended to initiate, normadeplans to continue and yetwe takepartin them [1]. Situations of emergent and im-plicit coordination can be reviewed underthis domain [2]. In brief, current researchin collective intentionality focuses too nar-rowly on activities that result from explicitintentions.

Purpose

In this study, I will discuss aspects of col-lective intentionality which appear to be un-derstudied. To that end, I will argue thatindividuals are able to coordinate their ac-tions even in the absence of explicit inten-tions to do so. To show how implicit co-ordination is possible, I need to discusshow intentions can be implicit but still rel-evant for guiding actions. Recently, certainphilosophers have introduced a distinctionbetween manifest and operative intentions[2]. Intentions that we recognize as guid-ing our behaviours have been called man-ifest intentions while intentions that actu-ally guide our behaviours are called opera-

tive intentions. When operative intentionsexceed manifest intentions, we can say thatthere are implicit intentions that guide thebehaviour. My claim is that having sharedimplicit intentions makes it possible for usto coordinate our activities without explic-itly agreeing to do so.

Methods

Expectations I will conduct a literature re-view on the relevant topics of collective in-tentionality, shared activities and implicitcoordination. I expect to find that currentanalyses of shared activity rely extensivelyon synchronic and explicitly coordinated ac-tions, demonstrating a neglect for many so-cial activities that fall beyond this scope.

Implications

This argument implies that a substantivepart of social life is overlooked in the philo-sophical debates and in turn, philosoph-ically informed experimental research onjoint activity suffers from blind spots. Hav-ing amore complete picture of shared inten-tionality will allow us to examine social ac-tivities that are not necessarily explicitly co-ordinated by the participants.

References

[1] A. C. Baier, “Doing Things With Others:The Mental Commons” in Commonality andParticularity in Ethics. 1st Ed. L.Alanen, S.Heinämaa, T. Wallgren, Eds. London: Pal-grave Macmillan, 1997, 15-43

[2] J. Martens and L. Roelofs, “Implicit Co-ordination: Acting Quasi-Jointly on ImplicitShared Intentions”, Journal of Social Ontol-ogy, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 93-120, 2018.

49


Fake Vs. Real News: Interaction ofCognitive and Social Factors inAccepting Fake News in Politics

Hansoo BaeComenius University in Bratislava

Introduction

Why are some people good at discerningfake news well but some people not? It isbecoming increasingly important to inves-tigate the cognitive factors for wide-spreadacceptance of fake news, especially in thecontext of rising social media influence onpeople’s beliefs. Fake news doesn’t sim-ply delivermisinformation to the public, butalso sometimes it causes social problems.In this research, we will focus on politi-cal news, regarding that it is important forour society and it is understudied. It hasbeen suggested that accepting political fakenews is based on the bias from partisan-ship[1][2]. In other words, People use moti-vated reasoning for the information againsttheir political ideology to argue the infor-mation is incorrect whereas people uncriti-cally accept information supports their po-litical ideology. Another possible explana-tion is connected to the dual- process the-ory, people who accept fake news mightuse the autonomous thinking system ratherthananalytical thinking system. Theanalyti-cal is correlatedwith the cognitive reflectiontest(CRT), which demands more analyticalthinking.

If the phenomenon is explained better byanalytical thinking, CRT score will show anegative correlation in accepting fake news.If the partisanship can explain the phe-nomenon better, political ideology will pre-dict how people accept fake news.

This study will replicate the previous re-search [3] on Slovak population. Consid-ering the differences between Slovakia and

U.S.A, we will use political news related toimmigration in order to replicate in a similarcondition.

Method

We will have one thousand participantsfrom online who are above 18 years old andusing social media.

The attitude to immigration will be mea-sured with 8 questions in the scale from 1to 6. If the participants support conserva-tive or liberal will be also measured. Therewill be 30 news headlines (15fake, 15 realnews). Participants will be asked to do theextended version of CRT first, then they willrate the news headlines how likely the head-linewill be true by the scale from 1 to 5 scale.There will be extra questions such as if theylike to share the news in social media and ifthey share such a thing often.

References

[1] J Haidt, The righteous mind: Whygood people are divided by politics andreligion.New York, NY: Paragon, 2012.

[2] A. A Strickland, C. S. Taber, M. LodgeMoti-vated reasoningandpublic opinion. Journalof Health Politics, Policy and Law 36(6), 89–122, 2011.

[3] G Pennycook , ” Lazy, not biased: Sus-ceptibility to partisan fake news is betterexplained by lack of reasoning than bymotivated reasoning,” Cognition 188,39-50,2019.

50

Talks

The Effect of ContextualInformation on Art ViewingBehavior and Exhibition

Reflections

Flora BakondiEötvös Loránd University, University of

[email protected]

Introduction

The way art is presented in museums andgalleries influences how visitors perceive it[1]. When composing the exhibition space,curators have a powerful instrument in theirtoolbox: they can decide about the amountand form of contextual information visitorsreceive. In 2018 the permanent collectionof the Austrian Belvedere Gallery was re-displayed, and four paintings that were ex-hibited both before and after the rearrange-ment received an additional interpretive la-bel (i.e. a short description about the back-grounds, themes and styles of the paint-ings). This occasion provided a great op-portunity to examine the effect of theseadditional interpretive panels on how vis-itors look at art and how they rememberit. My thesis work is part of the large-scaleBelvedere Before and After project [2].

Research questions andmethodology

The thesis is founded on three researchquestions: RQ1) How did the viewing timesof artworks and label areas change after therearrangement? RQ2) How did the scanningpattern of artworks and label areas changeafter the rearrangement? RQ3) How didthe interpretive labels alter visitors’ memo-ries in their exhibition reflections? Mobileeye-tracking data of before and after the re-arrangement were compared using a non-parametric significance test (Mann-WhitneyU-test). Unstructured interview transcriptswere analysed.

Results

It was found that at least a segment of visi-tors read the interpretive labels, and usuallyvisitors read these explanations only once,even though they often return to artworksto observe them again. However, the view-ing times of artworks and their scanningpat-terns could not be shown to be differentwhen interpretive labelswereprovided. Thepossible reasons are discussed, themost im-portant being the complexity of the uncon-trolled museum environment (compared tolab-based empirical studies on the topic,e.g. [3]) that offer various sources of distrac-tions in the process of observing art. Thememories visitors formed in the exhibitionrooms were slightly influenced by the nar-rative of the label when the artworks werelesser known. In case of well-known pieces,even though many visitors have read the la-bels, they were unlikely to reflect on them,possibly because they already had richmen-tal representations of the paintings prior totheir visit.

References

[1] M. Pelowski, M. Forster, P. P. L. Tinio, M.Scholl, and H. Leder, “Beyond the lab: Anexamination of key factors influencing inter-action with ‘real’ and museum-based art.,”Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and theArts, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 245–264, 2017.

[2] T. Santini, H. Brinkmann, L. Reitstätter,H. Leder, R. Rosenberg, W. Rosenstiel, and E.Kasneci, “The art of pervasive eye tracking,”Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Perva-sive Eye Tracking and Mobile Eye-Based In-teraction - PETMEI 18, 2018.

[3] F. Lin and M. Yao, “The Impact of Accom-panyingText onVisual Processing andHedo-nic Evaluation of Art,” Empirical Studies ofthe Arts, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 180–198, 2017.

51


Brain Computer Interfaces inStroke Rehabilitation: A MachineLearning-Based Meta-Analysis

Anna Cornelia Barbulescu,MoritzGrosse-Wentrup

University of Vienna

Stroke is a debilitating medical condition thataffects approximately 14 million people world-wide on a yearly basis, often causing severemotor impairments [1]. Despite its high preva-lence and scientists’ efforts to identify appropri-ate treatments, the development of effective re-habilitative strategies remains an active area ofresearch. Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) aresuggested as a novel approach to neurorehabil-itation, providing tools for a therapy in whichactivity-dependent brain plasticity can be in-duced [2]. The project aims to examine the con-ditions under which BCI-based rehabilitation issuccessful.

Methods and Results

Studies using BCIs in post-stroke rehabilitationwere compiled in a review and meta-analysiswith the goal of evaluating their efficacy in mo-tor recovery. The data collection resulted inan operationalized dataset of patient and treat-ment details. The studies’ results were cate-gorized based on outcome (significant improve-ment/no significant improvement), as reportedby the authors. Pearson correlations and per-mutation tests were conducted. 56 studieswith 761 patients were included in the analysis.With twice as many male compared to femaleparticipants, 580 patients (55.1±9.6 years old,32.4±49.9 months since stroke, mean±SD) un-derwent BCI rehabilitation and 181 (58±4.9 yearsold, 14.2±17.1 months since stroke, mean±SD)were allocated to control groups (CGs). Predom-inantly used in experimental groups (EGs) areBCIs conjoined with visual feedback (71%), elec-trical stimulation (33%) or exoskeletons (28.5%).CGs mostly received electrical stimulation (19%)or robotic assisted movement (25%). Physicaltherapy is used in 47.6% of EGs and 81.2% of

CGs. Significant improvement of motor func-tion was reported in 65% of EGs and 68% of CGsand no improvement in 35% and 32%, respec-tively. Preliminary results show significant cor-relations (p0.05) betweenoutcomeandphysicaltherapy, age, gender and impairment side. Nosignificant correlations between BCI type andoutcome were identified.

Considerations and Impact

The generally positive results for both EGs andCGs can be explained by the fact that researchwith insignificant results is less likely to be sub-mitted for publication [3]. Unavailability of allnecessary data required imputation methodswhichmay affect the results reliability. Nonethe-less, the comprehensive review andoperational-izeddataset can serve as abasis formethodolog-ical and practical considerations in applicationsof BCIs for post-stroke rehabilitation, highlight-ing indicators of success and possible researchbiases.

References

[1] World Stroke Organization. [Online].Available:https://www.world-stroke.org/ [Ac-cessed Apr. 20, 2020]

[2] M. Grosse-Wentrup, D. Mattia K.Oweiss.“Using brain-computer interfacesto induce neural plasticity and restore function”.Journal of neural engineering, Vol. 8, No.2,2011.

[3] A. Tatsioni, A. Ioannidis.“Meta-Analysis”.International Encyclopaedia of Public Health,2008.

52

Talks

Experience and Time

Julian Lyles Bass-KruegerUniversity of Vienna

This thesis will investigate how time struc-tures experience and consequently how ex-perience structures time. This broad ques-tion will be examined across three experi-ments.

I. The first experiment uses a standard-ized task to compare two of the mostestablished phenomenological methods—Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) andmicro-phenomenology [1, 2]. DES involvesinterviewing participants about experiencethat occurs directly preceding randombeeps. Micro-phenomenology involvesinterviewing participants by creating anevocation state of a past experience. Herewe examine both methods using a mentalimagery elicitation task. As a result, DESand micro-phenomenology reveal differentaspects of experience. Temporal scope isa major factor for these differing aspects.How then can altering temporal scopereveal new facets of experience?

II. The second experiment establishes a newmethod: dynamic Descriptive ExperienceSampling (dDES). This method adds a moredirect temporal dimension to DES. Insteadof asking about just onemoment before thebeep, here we will ask about two moments,as well as the temporal relation betweenthese moments. Results include a varietyof such temporal relations, which can thenbe grouped into categories (e.g. transforma-tion, overlapping). How can this method beuseful to the rest of cognitive science?

III. The third experiment tests out dDESwithan established psychological study—the Li-bet task, investigating free will [3]. This taskinvolves participants freely choosing whento press a button. Neuroactivation shows a

response (the readiness potential), preced-ing the reported time of free decision. Whatare participants’ experiences like over timecourses that correspond to this readinesspotential? Results include findings thatmaychallenge phenomenological assumptionsof the Libet setup, for example the assump-tion that there is nothing leading up to a de-cision before its reporting.

The first experiment surveys the scope of ex-isting methods. The second experiment in-troduces a new method to investigate tem-poral experience. The third experimentshows the applicability of our new methodand helps question its validity. These threeexperiments help address further philo-sophical concerns, including existing mod-els of temporal consciousness.

References

[1] R.T. Hurlburt, and C. L. Heavey, ExploringInner Experience: The Descriptive ExperienceSampling Method. Amsterdam: John Ben-jamins, 2006.

[2] C. Petitmengin, “Describing One’s Sub-jective Experience in the Second Person. AnInterview Method for the Science of Con-sciousness,” Phenomenology and the Cog-nitive Sciences, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 229-269,2006.

[3] B. Libet, C. A. Gleason, E. W. Wright, andD. K. Pearl, “Time of conscious intentionto act in relation to onset of cerebral activ-ity (readiness-potential): The unconsciousinitiation of a freely voluntary act,” Brain,vol. 106, no. 3, pp. 623–642, 1983.

53


Effects of Acoustic Parameters inVoice on Language Perception

Žiga BogatajUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

The phonaesthetic preferences of any givenlistener are assumed to be influenced bymultiple factors, e. g. phonetical charac-teristics of a language, familiarity with thelanguage, tempoof speech andacoustic fea-tures of the voice [1], such as: (i) fundamen-tal frequency (F0); (ii) an approximate fre-quency of the (quasi-)periodic structure ofvoiced signals that we subjectively perceiveas “pitch”; (iii) fluctuations of amplitude(shimmer); and (iv) frequency (jitter) [2]. Arecent study [1] showed that attributes usedinpsycholinguistic researchof languageper-ception can be reduced to five main com-ponents: “Beauty”, “Culture/status”, “Eros”,“Orderliness”, “Sweet/soft”. In the study,English language was perceived as themost cultural and orderly, whereas Frenchpeaked in other categories. However, the ef-fect of acoustic parameters of the voice wasnot systematically investigated. This bringsus to our research question: How acousticfeatures of the voice interact with languageperception? Theaimof this study is to some-what disentangle the seemingly inseparablebond between the human voice and its per-ception.

Methods

Our goal is to find 16 participants ofeach language-family group (Romance,Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric, isolatedEuropean languages).

Recordings of a fable “The North Wind andthe Sun” in 15 European languages will beused as stimuli. Acoustic parameters of

stimuli will be preliminary analyzed. Par-ticipants will listen to all stimuli in randomorder and will have to choose one from apair of descriptive attributes, referring toabove mentioned components. The proce-dure will be repeated until all combinationswill be fulfilled for each stimulus. At the end,a questionnaire about familiarity with theheard languageswill be added. The taskwillbe implemented in an online platform.

Expected results

Weexpect to find significant correlations be-tween “Beauty”, “Eros”, “Sweet/soft” andRomance languages and an interactionwithF0 and jitter. Furthermore, “Culture/status”and “Orderliness” are expected to signifi-cantly correlate with Germanic languages,also an interaction with F0 and jitter is plau-sible.

Implications

Our potential findings might open up newdimensions of multidisciplinary research infields of psycholinguistics andpsychoacous-tics. Another implication would be opti-mizing the marketing industry. Further re-search, including the factor of speech aes-thetics and more thorough breakdown ofphonemes, would be needed for the lat-ter.

References

[1] S. M. Reiterer, V. Kogan, A. Seither-Preisler, and G. Pesek, “Foreign languagelearning motivation: Phonetic chill or Latinlover effect? Does sound structure or so-cial stereotyping drive FLL?,” in Psychologyof Learning and Motivation, 2020.

[2] A. Wagner, and A. Braun, “Is voice qual-ity language dependent? Acoustic analy-ses based on speakers of three different lan-guages,” In Proc. 15th ICPHS the FifteenthInternational Congress of Phonetic Sciences,pp. 3-9. 2003.

54

Talks

Assessment of SustainedAttention with Neurobeans

Cognitive Tool

Gregor BohnecCognitive Science, University of Ljubljana

Sustained attention is basic cognitive abil-ity that is foundation formore complexmen-tal activities like learning, problem solvingand social interaction. The performance ofthis ability is therefore linked to importantoutcomes such as school performance andcareer success [1]. Being able to evaluatechildren’s ability to sustain attention with-out the need of professional assistance andin simple non-technical way could help tomotivate activities to increase attentionalperformance and therefore enable betterschool performance. Even though there is aneed in the field of solutions for attentionalproblems the proper tools for simple and re-liable evaluation in school related domainhave not been developed yet

Goal

In this research we are interested in evalua-tion of newly developed cognitive tool Neu-robeans that promises to accurately assesscognitive ability of sustained attention witha specific cognitive task and recurring timemeasurements. The benefit of Neurobeansmethod comparing to similar tools and testsis that it is simple toconductand is thereforeappropriate for wide usage, is not computerbasedand thereforenotbiased towardsdigi-tal influence and it involvesmovement. Theresults will be compared towidely used con-tinues performance test (CPT) Test of Vari-ables of Attention (T.O.V.A.) that have beenproved reliable to measure attentional do-mains [2].

Method

The study will involve 7th grade pupils fromelementary schools. Participants will beasked tocompletea surveyandconduct twocognitive tests on two different days. Onone day they will do Neurobeans test andon the other day they will do TOVA test.Both tests measure a variety of attentionalvariables such as inattention/distractibility,impulsivity, performance drop, etc. [2].We will analyse correlations between cor-responding variables in aim to detect theability of Neurobeans to assess attentionaldomains. Additionally, the results willbe paired with pupil’s school performance,learning problems and digital usage in aimto see wider usability of both tests.

Expected Results

The researchwill showwhetherNeurobeansmethod measures the same domain asTOVA test. Results will enable further de-velopment and optimization of the new ap-proach to measuring the ability to sustainattention. More broadly, the results of theresearch will contribute to a better under-standing of measuring attentional domain,added value of movement component andvalue of focused attention on an objectplaced in working memory.

References

[1] A. Lundervold, T. Bøe and A. Lunder-vold, “Inattention in primary school is notgood for your future school achievement—A pattern classification study”, PLOS ONE,vol. 12, no. 11, p. e0188310, 2017. Available:10.1371/journal.pone.0188310.

[2] L. Greenberg and I. Waldmant, “Devel-opmental Normative Data on The Test ofVariables of Attention (T.O.V.A.?)”, Journalof Child Psychology and Psychiatry, vol. 34,no. 6, pp. 1019-1030, 1993. Available:10.1111/j.1469-7610.1993.tb01105.x.

55


Finding the Best Arm Position forMuscle Relaxation: Implication forTremor Recording in Patients withParkinson’s Disease and Patients

with Essential Tremor

Ena Bratić,Maja KojovićUniversity of Ljubljana (Faculty of

Education)

Introduction

Tremor is the most commonmovement dis-order in a population of patients with mo-bility disorders [1]. It is defined as involun-tary rhythmic movement of a body part, oc-curring at rest, typical for Parkinson’s dis-ease or during voluntary muscle activation,as a characteristic of essential tremor (ET)[1]. There is a common diagnostic dilemma,whether a patient has ET or Parkinsoniantremor (PT) since almost a fifth of individu-als with ET also have a rest tremor compo-nent [2].

Purpose

In clinical practice, the occurrence of tremordepends on the position of limbs during theexamination. We hypothesize that the resttremor component in patients with ET ap-pears due to patient’s failure to relax. Thereis nodata in the literatureonwhat is thebestposition to achieve relaxation, especiallywhenexamining thepatient in the sittingpo-sition, which is the most common scenarioin clinical practice. This research is compar-ing a standing, lying, and four sitting posi-tions with the aim of defining the best po-sition with complete relaxation of the armmuscles. Themaingoal is to allowamore re-liable differentiation between ET and PT pa-tients, which is currently possible only withexpensive functional imaging. ## Method-The study will include 18 participants with-out tremor, 10PTpatients and 10ETpatients

whoalsohave tremorat rest. Muscle activityismeasuredwith EMGsurface electrodes ad-hered to the following muscles: m. bicepsbrachii, m. triceps brachii, m. extensor carpiradialis andm. flexor carpi radialis. For eachindividual, measurements are performed insix different positions for two minutes: (1)standing, arms along the body, (2) lying onthe back, arms in supination, sitting: (3)arms on thighs in supination, (4) arms onthighs between supination and pronation,(5) arms on chair arms, hands hanging inpronation, (6) arms along the body. Thethird position will also include subtractionfrom 100 (by one) for 30 seconds to provideadditional data during cognitive effort.

Conclusion

We expect to find a position in participantswithout tremor, in which it is possible toachieve (almost) complete relaxation of theupper limb muscles. Furthermore, PT willbe the most prominent in this position,while the rest tremor component in ET willbecome less notable. These findings are im-portant for clinical practice, as they wouldreduce the influence of external factors andwill help in differential diagnosis betweenET and PT.

References

[1] V. Kragelj, D. Georgiev, Z. Pirtošek, and S.Ribaric, “Tremor,” Zdravniški vestnik, vol. 81,no. 1, pp. 61-69, 2012.

[2]O. Cohen, S. Pullman, E. Jurewicz, D.Wat-ner and E.D. Louis, “Rest Tremor in Patientswith Essential Tremor: Prevalence, Clini-cal Correlates, and Electrophysiologic Char-acteristics,” Archives of Neurology, vol. 60,pp. 405-410, 2003.

56

Talks

Role of Gamma in VisualPerception

Jan Anton Bregant, Zoltán NádasdyUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

The study stems from the idea that electri-cal patterns of brain rhythms, which can bemeasured by EEG, are organizing principlesin cognitive activity of humans. The syn-chronization patterns of certain brain oscil-lationshavebeen shown innumerous cogni-tive tasks as important indicators of the neu-ronal activity [1].

This particular research is trying to evalu-ate the role of brain oscillations in the cer-tain gamma frequency (≈40 Hz), in relationto the cognitive process of conscious visualperception. Different aspects of gammabrain activity were a subject of debate overthe years [2].

We suggest that gamma rhythms are an en-abling factor of information transfer in thevisual information flow. We hypothesizethat they have a specific role in the encod-ing process and are indeed a causative fac-tor rather than an emergent event during vi-sual perception.

Methods

By presenting a set of pictures in a limitedtime frame, we will measure spectral powerof the oscillations. The participants (5-10healthy volunteers, balanced demograph-ics)wearinganEEGgel capwill bepresentedwith a rapid sequence of pictures within acertain category. After this quick display ofthe pictures, the participants will be askedto recognize previously flashedobjects froma gallery. The rapid flashing sequence ba-sically limits the processing of individualimages, thus also restricting the person’sability for recognition to only few of them.

By measuring time with a photo sensitivediode, wewill establish the phase of the cur-rent gamma oscillation for each individualframe. The stimuli itself will be generatedbyMatlab using Psychtoolbox, for data anal-ysis wewill use ASA software. Wewill aim tocompute averagegammaphase, gammaon-set and coherence across different stimuluslevels and conditions.

Expected Results

Preliminary results suggest that the de-sign of the task is acceptable for furtherexpansion with supplementary equipmentand slight modifications in methodical ap-proach. The important finding was a signif-icant phase difference between recognizedand unrecognized images from the previ-ously described task. The latency or the on-set of the significant phase difference hap-pened as early as 10-15ms after the stimulusonset, which is well earlier than the latencyof the visually evoked response in the visualcortex. As for now, we are in the process ofgathering experimental data, but we antici-pate to be able to reproduce those early re-sults as well as expand on them by takingeye movement conditions into account.

References

[1] Buzsaki, Rhythms of the Brain. Cary: Ox-ford University Press, Incorporated, 2011.

[2] C. Başar-Eroglu, D. Strüber, M. Schür-mann, M. Stadler, E. Başar, “Gamma-bandresponses in the brain: a short reviewof psy-chophysiological correlates and functionalsignificance” International Journal of Psy-chophysiology, vol. 24, Issues 1–2, Novem-ber, Pages 101-112, 1996.

57


Sense of Embodiment inHuman-Robot Interface Design

Patricija BrečkoUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

Rubber hand illusion (RHI) shows that in hu-mans sense of embodiment can be elicitedfor different extracorporeal objects [1]. Thisis important for human-robot interface de-sign, as the feeling of being embodied intoa robot supposedly increases teleoperationperformance, but more studies are neededon the topic [1]. Our aim is to research thesense of embodiment by comparing two dif-ferent types of user interfaces to a roboticarm. The first interface will mirror the ac-tions of the user as precisely as possible(the congruent condition), meanwhile thesecond interfacewill kinematically translatethe user’s movements, so it will be less in-tuitive to use (the incongruent condition).We subsequently believe that the congruentcontrolwill allow for successful use from thebeginning and the incongruent won’t. Bothgroups will have to do a simple motor task.We hypothesize that the congruent controlwill elicit a stronger sense of embodimentthan the incongruent without any training.Our second goal is to investigate whethersense of embodiment changes when a hu-man adapts to incongruent control, whichis why we will give the incongruent grouptime to practice after the first test. Herewe hypothesize that with enough training,the incongruent interface will elicit roughlythe same degree of embodiment as the con-gruent interface. The last goal is to assessthe task execution proficiency, whichwe be-lieve will be equal for both conditions aftertraining.

Method

Participants will be split into two groups,one for each condition. The motor task inboth cases will be to move the end-effectorof the robotic arm along a designated trajec-tory displayed on the screen. We will mea-sure task performance by calculating thearea between the executed and desired tra-jectory. To assess elicited sense of embodi-ment we will use a questionnaire and mea-sure skin conductance response, which hasalso been used in some other studies [2].Measures of task performance and sense ofembodiment will be done once for the con-gruent group and before, during and aftertraining for the incongruent group.

Conclusion

If the degree of embodiment will be similarin both conditions, it seems that with learn-ing, human brain can embody objects evenif they do not completely reflect the mor-phology of the human body. By connect-ing the fields of robotics and psychology,we hope to learn more about the cognitivemechanism of determining what belongs tothe body.

References

[1] A. Toet, I. A. Kuling, B. N. Krom, and J. B. F.van Erp, “Toward Enhanced TeleoperationThrough Embodiment,” Frontiers in Roboticsand AI, vol. 7, February, 2020. [Online serial].Available: https:www.frontiersin.org/article/10.338/frobt.2020.00014 [Accessed May 7, 2020].

[2] L. Aymerich-Franch, D. Petit, G. Ganesh,and A. Kheddar, “Non-human LookingRobot Arms Induce Illusion of Embod-iment,” International Journal of SocialRobotics, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 479-490, 2017.

58

Talks

Transformation of Consciousnessand Self in Meditation and During

Psychadelic Drug Use andNeuroscientific Findings

Izabela ButFaculty for Education, University of

Ljubljana

Introduction

Questions about the human consciousnessand the self are very interesting and com-plex. There are many different theories onwhat is consciousness or the self and alsowhether they exist. I think our conscious-ness is just a phenomenological base for fur-ther phenomena, such as the self. And theself, in my opinion, is complex and time-persistent cognitive entity. On the otherhand, Buddhists say that there are no suchphenomena as the self and that our con-sciousness is only apart of anatman, a stringof constantly changing mental states with-out solid and changeless base. [2] I de-cided to investigate how the consciousnessand the self are changing during the Bud-dhistmindfulnessmeditation andduringus-age of psychedelic drugs. by changing theconsciousness and the self, I mean, howour brain activity changes, how our percep-tion of ourselves changes and how can bothprocesses influence our brain and what arethe consequences. I posed a few hypothe-ses. The first hypothesis is that brain imagesfrom fMRI studies are similar for peoplewhopractice meditation and people who usepsychedelic drugs during the observation.Next hypothesis is that long term medita-tion can have a positive effect on better self-perspective. The last hypothesis in this re-search is that the use of certain psychedelicdrugs might have a positive effect in curingsome of the psychological disorders, suchas PTSD and depression.

Methods

As a cognitive science student, I decidedto combine the philosophical knowledge ofthe problem and the analysis of neuroscien-tific evidence on already done research.Thisis a meta-research of existing researches onthe topic. Firstly, I found several pieces ofliterature on considered topics. Then, I ex-amined them to decide which would be themost useful for my research. Further stepswill include evaluating and comparing theresults of suitable researches.

Results

Since I haven’t finished my work yet, I can-not present any results. Although, I expect Iwill confirmmy hypotheses.

Conclusion

I chose this topicdue tomypersonal interestin it. I amexpecting to confirm the posed hy-potheses and I think that problems as com-plex as human consciousness should be ex-amined from different points of view.

References

[1] Gazzaniga, M. S., et al. (2014). CognitiveNeuroscience: The Biology of the Mind. NewYork: W. W. Norton Company.

[2] King, R. (1999). Indian Philosophy: An in-troduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

[3] Milliere, R. et al, »Psychadelics,Meditation, and Self-Consciousness«,Frontiers, September 2018, doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475

59


What Is It like to Have aDissolution Experience?

Jaya CaporussoUniversity of Vienna

Phenomenon of Interest and ResearchQuestions

We are conducting an exploratory empiricalphenomenological study whose aim is to in-vestigate what we call “dissolution experi-ences”, i.e. experiences during which thereis a feeling of dissolution of the psycholog-ical and/or sensory boundaries or salienceof the self and/or a feeling of unity and/oridentification with the surrounding environ-ment, with other people or objects, or withsomething perceived as “bigger” [1].

Dissolution experiences have been reportedin scientific and non-scientific literature inrelation to different contexts, such as med-itative practices, use of psychedelic sub-stances and artistic creativity [e.g. 1,2], andunder different names: dissolution of thesense of boundaries, ego death, oceanicfeeling, self-transcendent experiences, andso on.

The investigation is focusing on what it islike to experience these phenomena, andincludes a comparative phenomenologicalanalysis of descriptions of dissolution expe-riences across subjects and contexts.

Method

We are conducting one-hour-long phe-nomenological interviews with personsreporting on dissolution experiences, thatthey experienced at any moment of theirlife. The interview technique is informedby micro-phenomenology, “an interviewmethod which enables us to bring a person,who may not even have been trained, tobecome aware of his or her subjective

experience, and describe it with great preci-sion” [3]. We expect this technique to allowthe interviewer to reach descriptions ofsubjective experience beyond the context-bound conceptualisations often used indescribing target phenomena. We plan toconduct interviews on approximately thirtyexperiences that occurred in different typesof contexts.

Research questions and methodology arebased on a pilot study that we have alreadyconcluded and that showed promising re-sults.

Expected Results and Implications

We aim to provide a phenomenological andconceptual clarification of dissolution expe-riences, which have recently become ob-ject of growing interest in the scientific com-munity, consequently enabling further re-search. Our findings could also be relevantfor current trending topics in cognitive sci-ence, e.g. the discussion about the sense ofself, and the epistemological and method-ological issues in first-person research.

References

[1] D. B. Yaden, J. Haidt, R. W. Hood Jr, D.R. Vago, and A. B. Newberg, “The varietiesof self-transcendent experience,” Review ofgeneral psychology, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 143-160, 2017.

[2] Y. Ataria, Y. Dor-Ziderman, and A.Berkovich-Ohana, “How does it feel tolack a sense of boundaries? A case studyof a long- term mindfulness meditator,”Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 37,pp. 133-147, 2015.

[3] C. Petitmengin, “Describing one’s subjec-tive experience in the second person: Aninterview method for the science of con-sciousness,” Phenomenologyand theCogni-tive Sciences, vol. 5, no. 3–4, pp. 229–269,2006.

60

Talks

Understanding the HeadlessRider: Awareness and IntentCommunication as Common

Language Between AutonomousVehicles and Other Road Users

Julia ForkeUniversity of Vienna

Context

Autonomously driving vehicles (AVs) are nei-ther an idea from science fiction, nor arethey a vision for our far future anymore. Thedevelopment of such “headless riders” is soadvanced that they are already tested in thefield in several European cities. Therefore,research on the implementation and accep-tance of this technology in our society can-not be postponed any longer and has to betackled now. One challenge for AVs and hu-man roadusers is the changeof communica-tion culture in traffic situations: Where oncea humandriver sat,making his or her aware-ness of other road users and also his or herintentions clear through eye-contact, facialexpressions or gestures, there is nothing be-hind thewindshieldof autonomousvehiclescommunicating. At the beginning of the im-plementation at least, this sudden and com-plete omission of informal communicationbetween other road users (ORUs) and AVswill lead toa stronglydecreasedgeneral feel-ing of safety andmight lead to a rejection ofthe new technology in society at first [1].

Research Aim

Awareness and intent communication pro-vides a promising tool to compensate forthe lack of information. The aim of thisproject is to analyse alreadyexistingdesignsand develop a new screen-based approachto awareness and intent communication ofAVs. Furthermore, the research is aimedon examining the effect of awareness and

intent communication on ORUs’ feeling ofsafety and their trust in AVs.

Methods

For this purpose, two field studies are car-ried out: the first study will focus on in-ternal communication of an autonomousminibus with its passengers. In the scopeof this study a questionnaire is used tomea-sure passengers’ needs and preferences forinternal communication. In the secondstudy, a between-subject experiment, onegroup of participants will be confrontedwith only awareness communication via anLCD-display in the windshield, whereas theother group will be confronted with aware-ness and intent communication, while be-ing pedestrians on a test track of suchan autonomous bus. Subsequently partic-ipants have to fill out a questionnaire as-sessing their comprehension of the AV’s ac-tions, their feeling of safety, their trust andacceptability of AVs. For both studies anautonomous minibus already implementedas part of the public transport on a two-kilometre-long test track in Aspern, Viennais used.

Hypothesis

It is hypothesized that the more informa-tion about the AV’s actions and intentionsis given, the more trust and stronger feelingof safety in participants arises and with thattheir acceptability of AVs increases.

References

[1] L. Zwicker et al., ‘Kommunikationzwischen automatisierten Kraftfahrzeugenund anderen Verkehrsteilnehmern – Wasbrauchen wir überhaupt?’, In R. Bruder & H.Winner (Eds.) Hands off, Human Factors off?Welche Rolle spielen Human Factors in derFahrzeugautomation?, p. 47 - 57, 2019.

61


Magnetic Resonance Imaging forIdentifying Activity in DistinctBrain Regions During Tadpole

Transport

Barbara Furdi, Eva RinglerUniversity of Ljubljana

Parental care is a key element of socialbehaviour in many vertebrate species thatinduces behavioural and physiologicalchanges in both parents and offspring.Neuronal mechanisms behind and corebrain regions controlling the behaviour areweakly investigated outside lactating mam-mals and laboratory rodents. Most studiesavailable focus on the neurobiology andneuroanatomy of the maternal mammalianbrain within a non-pair bonding systemand paternal brain of a biparental system,in which parents form a bond and investin their offspring. It remains unknownwhether the same or different brain areasmediate parental behaviour in uniparentalsystems, where care is predominantlyprovided by one sex.

This study aimed to identify and comparebrain regions involved inparental behaviourin male poison frogs. Our study species, theNeotropical poison frog Allobates femoralis,naturally exhibits tadpole transport as theonly form of parental care and is predomi-nantly performed by the male [1, 2]. To vi-sualize the neuronal representation of tad-pole transport behaviour we used in-vivomanganese-enhanced magnetic resonanceimaging (MEMRI) on anaesthetised animals.The method provided us with T1 weighted,3D echo-spin images of high resolution thatenabled to monitor the increased accu-mulation of paramagnetic manganese ions(Mn2+) [3] in response to tadpole trans-port. To simulate transport, we transferredtadpoles to the frogs’ backs with a brush,

whereas in the control condition no tad-poles were transferred. Images obtainedon 6 male frogs will be used for a compari-son between experimental conditions. Sim-ilar to findings in other vertebrates, we ex-pect to find enhanced brain activation, dur-ing parental care, within the preoptic area(POA), hypothalamus, lateral septumand/ormedial pallium.

References

[1] E. Ringler, A. Pašukonis, W. Fitch, L.Huber, W. Hödl and M. Ringler, “Flexiblecompensation of uniparental care: femalepoison frogs take over when males disap-pear”, Behavioral Ecology, vol. 26, no. 4,pp. 1219-1225, 2015. Available: 10.1093/be-heco/arv069.

[2] E. Ringler, A. Pašukonis, M. Ringler andL. Huber, “Sex-specific offspring discrimina-tion reflects respective risks and costs ofmisdirected care in a poison frog”, AnimalBehaviour, vol. 114, pp. 173-179, 2016. Avail-able: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.02.008.

[3] A. Silva, J. Lee, I. Aoki and A. Koretsky,“Manganese-enhancedmagnetic resonanceimaging (MEMRI): methodological and prac-tical considerations”, NMR in Biomedicine,vol. 17, no. 8, pp. 532-543, 2004. Available:10.1002/nbm.945.

62

Talks

Evaluation of Heart Rate andElectrodermal Activity as

Objective Indicators of SimulatorSickness in Virtual Reality

Environments

Vesna Fülle, Jože GunaUniversity of Ljubljana

Context

Virtual reality is a technology that has beengaining in popularity in recent years. Itis becoming more frequently used and hasapplications in areas such as professionaltraining for medical, military and aviationpurposes, as well as in education, therapyand entertainment [1].Simulator sickness,a syndrome similar to motion sickness, isoften experienced during exposure to vir-tual reality environments and as such posesan obstacle to efficient learning, therapyand obtaining data. Several theories tryto explain simulator sickness in differentways, most commonly either as discrepan-cies between different sensory systems (vi-sual, vestibular, proprioceptive) or a mis-match between received sensory informa-tion and prior knowledge based on pastlived experiences [2]. Identified symptomsof simulator sickness include nausea, oculo-motor disturbance and disorientation [2].

Measurements of simulator sickness can beboth qualitative via the Simulator SicknessQuestionnaire or quantitative via severalphysiological measurements, such as heartrate, electrodermal activity and respiratoryfrequency.

Purpose

In this research study we aim to investigateheart rate and electrodermal activity andexamine whether they can be used as ob-jective indicators of simulator sickness invirtual reality environments. The goal is

to compare obtained physiological resultswith results provided by the Simulator Sick-ness Questionnaire and investigate the pos-sible correlation and co-occurrence of boththe subjective and objective symptoms ofsimulator sickness.

Implications

The findings are potentially importantacross all applications of virtual reality, asimprovement of user experience is crucialin order to provide users with efficientand safe tools for therapy, education orimmersive entertainment.

References

[1] Guna et al., “Virtual Reality Sicknessand Challenges Behind Different Tech-nology and Content Settings”, MobileNetworks and Applications, 2019. Available:10.1007/s11036-019-01373-w.

[2] N. Dużmańska, P. Strojny and A. Strojny,“Can Simulator Sickness Be Avoided? A Re-view on Temporal Aspects of Simulator Sick-ness”, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, 2018.Available: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02132.

63


The Use of Psychophysiology inthe Study of the Syllabus

Difficulty, Synchronization andUse of Kinaesthetic Learning

Tina GiberUniversity of Ljubljana

The rather complex process of learning istraditionally understood as a purely mentalprocess, separated from bodily states andactions. Conventionally, children’s brainshave been viewed as an empty cup in towhich static knowledge can be poured in, re-sulting in a sedentary, traditional approachof learning, where children sit still for hours,day after day, year after year, expected toperceive visual and auditory information [1].However, trying to reduce the sedentarytimeof childrenand to improve learningout-comes, pedagogy nowadays tries to incor-porate the findings from other fields, for ex-ample, learning with bodily movement [2].As several studieshave shown, learningwithmovement activates many of our mental ca-pacities. Therefore, when children use theirbodies to express, form and create educa-tional content, they learn more efficiently[3].

For the general comparison of the tradi-tional and kinaesthetic learning approach,observation of the physiology changes fordifferent lesson difficulties and synchroniza-tion of children’s physiology, we will bemeasuring the physiological changes of fifthgraders during Science classes, which willbe taught in traditional and kinaestheticway. Throughout the class the children andthe teacher will be wearing the wearables;devices that measure energy expenditure,intensity of movements, electrodermal ac-tivity (EDA), body heat flux and skin tem-perature [2]. In order to compare the ob-tained measurements, we will also be gath-ering data with an observing protocol, ques-

tionnaires about feelings and attitudes anda written examination.

In general, we expect to find differences be-tween the learning approaches. In additionto the general comparison, we foresee to ob-serve higher electrodermal activity formoredifficult lessons – which can be interpretedas higher psychological activity; and also,synchronisation (EDA) of children’s physiol-ogywhen learningusing thekinaesthetic ap-proach –we assume children aremore emo-tionally engaged in that kind of learning en-vironment,which can lead to synchronyandmore effective learning.

References

[1]E. Osgood-Campbell, “Investigating theEducational Implications of Embodied Cog-nition: A Model Interdisciplinary Inquiry inMind, Brain, and Education Curricula”, Mind,Brain, and Education, vol.9, no. 1, pp. 3-9, 2015. Available: 10.1111/mbe.12063 [Ac-cessed 10 May 2020].

[2]V. Geršak, H. Vitulić, S. Prosen, G. Starc,I. Humar and G. Geršak, “Use of wearabledevices to study activity of children in class-room; Case study — Learning geometryusing movement”, Computer Communica-tions, vol. 150, pp. 581-588, 2020.Available:10.1016/j.comcom.2019.12.019 [Accessed 10May 2020].

[3]V. Geršak and G. Geršak, “A kinaestheticapproach to teaching electrical engineer-ing”,WorldTransactionsonEngineeringandTechnology Education Vol.14, No.3, 2016.

64

Talks

Learning in Children ThroughSerious Games Compared toLearning With an Educator

Ana GodecUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

Over the last 20 years, we have witnessedamajor growth of multimedia technologies.Today’s children are born into a world of allkinds of software products and video games(VG). They are called the “Digital Native” or“Net Generation”. “Serious games” (SG) areVG which purpose is not just pure entertain-ment [1]. Children in schools are requiredto interact with the computer and some ev-idence suggests that using VG as learningtools ismore effective than traditionalmeth-ods [2].

The research goal is: (i) to explore the child’sattitude towards learning new words in aforeign languagewith twodifferent learningmethods; (ii) to compare the learning per-formance of self-directed learning throughSG with the learning through similar butanalogue games with an educator; and (iii)what are the differences between the twogroups of participants, in terms of attitudetowards learningmethodsand in their learn-ing performance.

Methods

The participants (age 6 - 8) will be healthychildren and children with motor impair-ments. At the beginning of the experiment,we will pre-test the prior knowledge of thechosen content. We will include two typesof learning (LT): 1. learning through SG and2. learning through similar but analoguegames with an educator. Half of the par-ticipants will first make use of the 1. LT for15 minutes and will then take a mini-testin order to examine their newly acquired

knowledge. Then, they will learn with the2. LT for 15 minutes and again complete amini-test after. The other half of the partic-ipants will follow the same procedure withthe opposite order. We will finish the exper-iment with the Intrinsic Motivation Inven-tory (to test the process of learning, their ef-fort, motivation …). We will also conductan interview where we will ask about thechild’s well-being, which LT he or she likedthe most, how they perceived the tasks, thepresence of an educator etc. Throughoutthe experiment,wewill perform themethodof direct observation (observing their ef-fort, mood at learning, possible difficulties,sweating, frustrations…).

Conclusion

We propose that learning will be more effi-cient when an educator is involved in theprocess. However, children might enjoy thenovel LT through SG more and find it moremotivating. The findings could be used toimprove learning processes in lower gradesof schools, for example, to make lessonsmore interactive andmotivational.

References

[1] C. Girard, J. Ecalle, A. Magnan, “Seriousgames as new educational tools: How effec-tiveare they? Ameta-analysis of recent stud-ies,” Journal of Computer Assisted Learning,29(3), 207–219, 2013.

[2] J. J. Vogel, D. S. Vogel, J. Cannon-Bowers,G. A. Bowers, K. Muse, M. Wright, “Com-puter gaming and interactive simulationsfor learning: Ameta-analysis,” Journal of Ed-ucational Computing Research, 34(3), 229–243, 2006.

65


Deep Learning for DetectingInterictal EEG Biomarkers toAssist Epilepsy Diagnosis

Laura Pauline GschwandtnerComenius University Bratislava

Background

Diagnosis of epilepsy is tedious and time-consuming. Long-term video EEG moni-toring (VEM) is necessary to differentiateepilepsy from organic or psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES). Current state ofthe art is to wait until a seizure (ictal event)is captured by VEM and thoroughly ana-lyze the recording. Only then a diagnosiscan be attempted. Additional biomarkershavebeen identified in interictal EEG record-ings, but have not yet proven enough re-liability, being ambiguous or tricky to de-tect. However, research suggests that aunique combination of such interictal EEGbiomarkers could provide high diagnosticvalue [1]. It could enable faster evaluationof potential epilepsy patients, rule out non-epileptics from lengthy examination and in-effective treatment with physical or psycho-logical side effects could be avoided. Identi-fication of suitable EEG biomarkers requireshighly complex pattern detection. Thus, wechose to utilize Deep Learningmethods thathave proven to be successful in previous re-search [2].

Ethical issues of applying AI to the field ofmedicine are a major focus of this thesis.High accuracy and transparency should beparticularly valued in medical diagnostics.Medical practitioners can only gain trust, ifautomated decisions are logical and the rea-soning process can be explained. As this isnot inherently the case in Deep Learning al-gorithms, we explore the concept of Explain-ableAI (XAI) andattempt its implementation[3].

Methods

307 EEG recordings of epileptics and con-trols are provided by five clinical sources.The recordings do not include any epilepticseizure activity. We built a supervised Con-volutional Neural Network (CNN) with resid-ual structure in TensorFlow. This network isused to classify the rawEEGdata into epilep-tic and non-epileptic patients. Three com-mon approaches to XAI are tested and com-pared. Results are cross-validated and sta-tistically analyzed.

Findings

We aim to develop an explainable AI algo-rithm that can reliably differentiate interic-tal epileptic from non-epileptic EEG record-ings. XAI provides insight on what the CNNis paying attention to in the data and of-fers guidance to create more valuable AI.Further, novel knowledge about the type ofbrain activity that might trigger ictogenesiscould be acquired.

References

[1] J. Engel, A. Bragin and R. Staba, “Nonic-tal EEG biomarkers for diagnosis and treat-ment,” Epilepsia Open, vol. 3(Suppl Suppl 2),pp. 120-126, 2018.

[2] E. Bagheri, J. Jin, J. Dauwels, S. Cash,and M. Westover, “A fast machine learn-ing approach to facilitate the detectionof interictal epileptiform discharges in thescalp electroencephalogram,” Journal ofNeuroscience Methods, vol. 326, pp. 108362,2019.

[3] A. Adadi and M. Berrada, “Peeking Insidethe Black-Box: A Survey on Explainable Ar-tificial Intelligence (XAI),” IEEE Access, vol. 6,pp. 52138-52160, 2018.

66

Talks

Digital Literacy andPseudoscience in Crisis Response.The Case of COVID-19 in Austria.

Rita GsengerUniversity of Vienna, Vienna University of

[email protected]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, whichreached Europe in January 2020, expla-nations of the origins, dangers and curesof the respiratory disease caused by theCorona virus surged in great numbers onsocial media and the Internet. Informationcontradicting official sources such as scien-tists and health care officials is spreadingeven more abundantly and becomingincreasingly mainstream. Such informationis however often pseudoscientific. The defi-nition of pseudoscience is under discussion,it might be defined as sound conclusionsdrawn from invalid premises [1].

Cognitive Biases and Digital Literacy

Cognitive biases [2] as well as lacking sci-entific literacy [3] play a fundamental rolein the formation of pseudoscientific beliefs.The medium of the Internet, however, re-quires additional skills in order to identifythe accuracy of information. What role dig-ital literacy plays in the formation of pseu-doscientific beliefs is the central researchquestion of this thesis. The main hypothe-ses are that people with lower digital liter-acy are more prone to adopt pseudoscien-tific beliefs and digital literacy itself is de-pendent on socio-cultural factors. Further-more, effective crisis communication wouldreduce the adoption of pseudoscientific be-liefs. In order to answer the research ques-tions, pseudoscience during the COVID-19pandemic in Austria needs to be investi-gated and other factors such as the societal

context of users, as well as crisis communi-cation need to be taken into account. Un-derstanding the formation of beliefs and thefactors that influence them might providevaluable insights for future crisis communi-cation in Austria.

Methods

Theoretically, this research is influenced byweak social constructivism, assuming thatbeliefs and scientific knowledge are con-structed, emphasizing their social nature.Moreover, it is based on attribution theoryin social cognition, stressing the social con-text of human decision-making and assum-ing that human beings are prone to biases.Empirically, themaster thesis is using an on-line questionnaire based on a digital liter-acy and pseudoscience scale, whereby thelatter is updated to include pseudoscientifictheories, which surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results in accordance withthe hypotheses would provide insights inthe possibilities of effective crisis communi-cation and reduction of prevalence of pseu-doscientific belief adoption.

References

[1] A. Thaler and D. Shiffman, “Fishtales: Combating fake science in popu-lar media”, Ocean Coastal Management,vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 88-91, 2015. Available:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.04.005.

[2] C. Lack and J. Rousseau, Critical thinking,science, and pseudoscience. Why we can’ttrust our brains. New York: Springer, 2016.

[3] J. H. Taylor, R. A. Eve, F. B. Harrold, “Whycreationists don’t go to psychic fairs: differ-ential sources of pseudoscientific beliefs”,Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 19, no. 6, 1995.

67


Investigation of the Perception ofEconomic Inequality Using a NovelOnline Experimental Paradigm

Hooman HabibniaEötvös Loránd University

Introduction

While economic inequality hits its highestrecord in many countries and around theworld, some studies indicate that peopleunderestimate the level of inequality [1, 2].To predict people’s behaviors, attitudes andtendencies towards different welfare poli-cies, it is crucial to understand and evaluatetheir perception of inequality. In this study,by using a novel experimental paradigm,weaim to assess two potential reasons under-lying the economic inequality underestima-tion:

1. While people learn about the distribu-tion of income through their personalexperiences, theyunderestimate the ef-fect of rare events, the income of thetop 1% rich people.

2. Scale insensitivity may reinforce thepeople’s misperception of super-richincomes.

Method

Previous studies assessed people’s under-standing of economic inequality by askingthem to estimate the level of inequalitywithrespect to the society that they are livingin [1, 2]. In contrast, we conducted a web-based behavioral experiment in two roundswith students of Eotvos Lorand University(533 participants in total). The experimentconsisted of two similar phases. In eachphase, subjects learned about the incomesof 100 people, by clicking on avatars wereshown to them. Afterward, we assessedtheir perception of income distribution by

asking them to estimate either 1) average in-come in different chunks of the population,or 2) the total share of income. The distri-butions in the two phaseswere identical, ex-cept in two differences. One of the changeswas that distribution was multiplied by aconstant (7), and the other was that we re-placed the highest income in one distribu-tion (5% of the total income distribution),with a roughly 10 times higher number (35%of the total incomedistribution). We labeledthese numbers as “rare events.”

Results and Further Studies

Thedata indicated that participants ignoredthe impact of rare events in their estima-tions. Their estimations of total shares ofincome in different chunks of the popula-tion were almost the same in two distribu-tions; however, the rare events had a hugeinfluence on the income distribution objec-tively.

In the next step, we want to replicate thestudy with different inequality perceptionmeasurements. Moreover, we would liketo use the same experience-based inequal-ity perception to investigate people’s risk-taking preferences in different economicpopulations.

References

[1] O. Hauser and M. Norton,“(Mis)perceptions of inequality”, Cur-rent Opinion in Psychology, vol. 18, pp. 21-25,2017.[2]M. Norton and D. Ariely, “Buildinga Better America—One Wealth Quintileat a Time”, Perspectives on PsychologicalScience, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 9-12, 2011.

68

Talks

The Role of Working Memory inControlled Semantic Cognition

Klára HorváthováComenius University in Bratislava

The semantic system is crucial for context-relevant behaviour. The controlled seman-tic cognition framework [1] proposes thatthis system is not just the storage of con-ceptual knowledge, but it consists of an-other system responsible for control. It issuggested that this semantic-specific con-trol system interacts with general-domaincognitive control and working memory toexecutively manipulate the retrieval of se-mantic representations that fit the currentdemands or situation. Our aim is to studythe interaction between working memoryand semantic retrieval using the Associa-tive chain test (ACT) [2], a novel experimen-tal paradigm assessing automatic and con-trolled lexical-semantic retrieval. We hy-pothesised that a concurrent workingmem-ory load will increase the average retrievallatency in both retrieval conditions (auto-matic and controlled), but this impairmentwill be more substantial for controlled pro-cessing.

Method

We recruited 45 healthy young adults (age22, SD = 3), all native Slovak speakers. Thetask contained two blocks (working mem-ory (WM) measures, main task). The maintask - ACT utilizes the word production ap-proach in two conditions, automatic andcontrolled producing associates and disso-ciates, respectively. Producing dissociatesdemands the inhibition of automatically re-trieved associations and thus employs con-trolled mechanisms. In this task, we manip-ulated the cognitive load by introducing aconcurrent task engaged in loading the WMcapacity (no, low, high). The response time

wasmeasured for eachword production. Todetermine the WM capacity, we used Back-wardDigit SpanandOperationSpan tasks atthe beginning of the experiment. The effectof retrieval condition and the loadwasmod-elled using LMEM.

Findings

The main finding showed a significant ef-fect of the response type (associate, disso-ciate) and WM load (no, low, high). The la-tency of responses in controlled (dissociate)condition was substantially higher than inautomatic (associate) condition. Although,higher load correlated with higher responselatency, the effect was similar in both condi-tions. Thus, we have not found a significantinteraction effect of response type and WMload.

Discussion

WM load affected both retrieval conditionswhich may suggest that WM is part of adomain-general system facilitating also se-mantic activation and inhibition. Further re-search is needed to elucidate the role of WMin controlled semantic retrieval.

References

[1] M. Ralph, E. Jefferies, K. Patterson andT. Rogers, “The neural and computationalbases of semantic cognition”, Nature Re-views Neuroscience, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 42-55,2016. Available: 10.1038/nrn.2016.150

[2] M. Marko, D. Michalko and I. Riečan-ský, “Remote associates test: An empiricalproof of concept”, Behavior Research Meth-ods, vol. 51, no. 6, pp. 2700-2711, 2018. Avail-able: 10.3758/s13428-018-1131-7

69


Test-Retest Reliability Of EmotionRegulation Networks In The

Resting-State

Lucas Jeay-Bizot, Stella Berboth, CarmenMorawetz


Background:

Emotion Regulation (ER) is the ability to al-ter the emotional impact of a stimulus or sit-uation. The reaction to a stimulus generatesan emotional response, which can, in turn,bemodulated by changing thewaywe thinkabout the emotion. Thus, this process con-sists of emotion generative (EG) and regula-tory (ER) processes. In our study, we investi-gated the resting-state functional connectiv-ity (i.e. how strongly two brain regions areconnected during rest) underlying EG andER networks using functional magnetic res-onance imaging (fMRI). Identifying biomark-ers for ER in the brain could help in the diag-nosis and treatment of several affective dis-orders that involve dysfunctional ER, suchas depressive or anxiety disorders. Biomark-ers can only be established based on reli-able metrics. Thus, we test the reliability ofthe connectivity of EG and ER networks dur-ing rest to set the foundations for biologicalmarkers of ER.

Method:

28 healthy participants (23f, mean age =22.8 ± 3.1) underwent three resting-statefMRI sessions, eyes open (rs-fMRI) with a 1-week test-retest interval.Besides 6 minutesof rs-fMRI, a condition during which partici-pantsareonly instructed to fixateacross, foreach session, participants also performeda standard ER task during which they wereasked to down-regulate their emotions in re-sponse to aversive images [1]. The behav-ioral performance during this task was used

as covariate for the rs-fMRI analysis (ER suc-cess).In the analysis, we focused on 4 pre-defined networks involved in EG and ER [2].EG networks included subcortical regionslike the amygdala, which is implicated inemotion processing. ER networks includedmainly lateral prefrontal regions, importantfor attention, working memory, and lan-guage. Reliability was tested by calculatingthe intraclass correlation coefficient, an in-dicator of how likely it is for a measurementto be repeated in a new session and sub-ject.

Results:

Reliability analysis revealed that ER net-works were more reliable than EG networksduring rest. Covariate analysis revealed thatthe rs-fMRI connectivity between the amyg-dala and the right dorsomedial prefrontalcortex covaried with ER success.

Conclusion:

Our results demonstrate that brain regionsinvolved in ER are reliably connected dur-ing rest. In addition, evidence for poten-tial rs-fMRI biomarkers for ER success wasidentified in our covariate analysis.Our re-sults support the idea of reliable networksinvolved in ER that could be used in fu-ture studies with the main scope to exploreresting-state networks in both healthy andpatient populations.

References:

[1] S. Berboth, C. Morawetz, “Canwe reliablymeasure emotion regulation with fMRI?”, inAnnual conference of the Society of AffectiveScience, 2020.

[2] C. Morawetz, M. C. Riedel, T. Salo, A. R.Laird, S. B. Eickhoff, and N. Kohn, “Meta-analytic brain networks underlying emotionregulation,” in Annual Meeting of the Socialand Affective Neuroscience Society, 2018.

70

Talks

Looping Effects of Violence RiskPrediction

Katarina JevšenakUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

In the early 19th century, the distinctionwasmade between individuals whowere said tohave innate, biological criminal tendenciesand those, who merely acted in a violentway by force of circumstance. From sucha dichotomous division a new domain wasestablished within the legal system, whosegoal was concerned with the prediction offuture dangerous behaviour. [1] The ten-dency to biologically explain complex cog-nitive phenomena that seems to permeatethe scientific, political and social spheres re-sulted in a number of attempts to identifyfunctional or structural brain abnormalitiesthat can be correlated with the symptomsof different behavioural disorders, that aresaid to correspond to the onset of violence.There is a growing hope, that the use ofsuch information will lead to more effectiveprevention and intervention strategies, butthere are also many potential pressing con-sequences to such endeavours. I will mostlyfocus on how these new modes of expla-nation influence the individual’s sense ofself.

Methods

I will use critical discursive analysis as myprimarymethodological approach, becausethemain goal is analysing theways inwhichexisting scientific and political narrativesestablish, reproduce and influence individ-ual’s self-understanding and identity con-struction.

Goals

As Hacking (1995) noted, different historicalcontexts and different environments bringabout newoptions for constructingpeople’sidentities. [2] The shift from a “disciplinarysociety” as termed by Foucault, to whatBeck called “the risk society” gave rise tonew ways of governing, new technologiesand newways of dealing with “deviant” andabnormal patterns of human behaviour. Myfirst goal is placing this rising field of us-ing biological information for violence pre-diction in the current social background ofrisk society. I will then try to critically eval-uate this new dimension of risk assessmentthrough the lensofHacking’s loopingeffectsof human kinds and consider the possibleconsequences of such categorizations. Theproblemof “looping” is particularly relevantwithin this specific framework, because la-belling an individual as biologically predis-posed to violent behaviour can lead to ex-treme stigmatizations and to maintainingdichotomous “us and them” divisions thatonly reproduce and reinforce existing socialpatterns and prejudices.

References

[1] D.W. Denno, “Behavioral genetics evi-dence in criminal cases,” in The impact ofbehavioural sciences on criminal law, OxfordUniversity press, p. 317-254, 2009.

[2] I. Hacking, “The looping effect of hu-man kinds,” in Causal cognition: A multidis-ciplinary debate. Oxford: Clarendon Press,p. 351–383, 1995.

71


Disruptifying Expectications:Exploring Factors That Impact theProcessing of Morphologically

Complex Words

Georgia KnellUniversity of Vienna

The cognitive nature of grammar in lan-guage is still widely debated, primarily be-tween generative grammarians, who seegrammar as a computational and indepen-dent process in the mind, and cognitivegrammarians, who see it as more similar toand dependent upon other cognitive pro-cesses [1]. Although grammar is usuallystudied in terms of the combinatorial possi-bilities of words, there is also a rich thoughless-understood facet of grammar that con-strains the formation of words themselves,namely that of morphology. The rulesconstraining such word formation are usu-ally attributed to the relationship betweenmorphology and other grammatical compo-nents, especially phonology, syntax, andsemantics. Speakers tend to follow theserules inherently without explicit knowledgeof their nature or even existence. Previ-ous research indicates thatmorphologicallycomplexwords are processed by decompos-ing them into constituent morphemes [2].The processing of a word should thereforeinclude rapid access to the grammatical as-pects specific to a word’s constituent mor-phemes, such that also restrict word for-mation [3]. This study considers how suchfactors present themselves in and impactupon the cognitive processing of complexwords.

To do this, three sets of pseudowords werecreated, each based on a violation of a theo-rizedmorphological constraint. These pseu-dowords are presented along with existingcomplex English words and nonwords ina lexical decision task, where participants

must decide whether each letter string is anEnglish word. Rejection rates measure the“strength” of the violation, while reactiontimes indicate the mediating effect of eachviolation and its associated information onthe decomposition process.

The results should provide insight into thetype of information accessed during wordprocessing and the nature of the associatedmental lexicon. Moreover, this is the firstof such studies to use words with two-suffixcombinations as stimuli and consider fac-tors specific to these words. Finally, thisstudy is one of few to compare these effectsbetween native and non-native speakers ofEnglish, in order to consider the similaritiesor differences between a first and secondlanguage in this particular phenomenon.These various aspects help contribute tothe general understanding of cognitive lan-guage processing, as well as broader impli-cations with regard to grammar as a cogni-tive mechanism.

References

[1] G. Lakoff, “Cognitive vs generativelinguistics: How commitments influenceresults,” Language Communication,11(1/2),pp. 53-62, 1991

[2] M. Taft K. Forster, “Lexical storage andretrieval of prefixed words,” Verbal Learningand Verbal Behavior, 14, pp. 638-647, 1975

[3] C. Manouilidou L. Stockall, “Teasingapart syntactic category vs. argument struc-ture information in deverbal word forma-tion,” Rivista di Linguistica, 26(2), pp. 71-98,2014

72

Talks

The Influence of CulturalCognition on Improvisationwithin

Emergency Response Teams

Lauren KondratievComenius University in Bratislava

Organizational improvisation, or OI, is con-sidered to be improvisation employed bymultiple individuals at varying hierarchicallevels within any given organization [1]. OIis regarded as amind-set, rather than an iso-lated concept. This mind-set may include,but is not limited to bricolage, strategic rea-soning, expertise, intuition, and spontane-ity.

Thegoalof thisparticular thesiswork is to fo-cus on organizational improvisation withinemergency response teams. The differencebetween a life saved or lost can at timesdepend strictly on a team member’s or theoverall team’s improvised action to an event[2].

If we can advance our understanding of howimprovisation is employed in such organiza-tions – lives could be saved. This thesis aimsto investigate what organizational ecosys-tems encourage or hinder the use of impro-visation in teams. The work strives to doso by looking at what types of internal rela-tionshipswithin emergency response teamslay a foundation of trust. The work will alsopeer into what level of expertise one mayfeel adequate enough to improvise at, andhow organizational memory influences OI.These phenomena will be explored underthe lens of cognitive distribution. Meaninga framework wherein cognitive distributionis a cultural ecosystem of human cognition.This will guide the current work to examineand study how closely intertwined are vary-ing factorsof a crisis team’s culture to its pro-clivity for organizational improvisation. Asposited by Hutchins, distributed cognition

or the cultural-cognitive ecosystem essen-tially looks at cognition as “a dynamical sys-tem in which certain configurations of ele-ments emerge preferentially,” [3].

The majority of this work’s insights will begained through interviews compiled usingthe critical decision method interview style,which prompts the interviewee to engagein a hypothetical scenario that would beplausible in his or her everyday professionallife. This scenario would incite the expert tomake critical decisions in demanding situa-tions. Membersof various firebrigades,whohave fought the recent bushfires through-out Australia, will be the interview sub-jects.

References

[1] A. L. Hadida, W. Tarvainen, J. Rose, “Or-ganizational Improvisation: A ConsolidatingReview and Framework”, International Jour-nal of Management Reviews, vol. 17, no. 4,pp. 437-459, 2015, Available: https:doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12047

[2] E. K. Weick, “The Collapse of Sensemak-ing in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Dis-aster”, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol38, no. 4, pp. 628-652, 1993, Available:https://doi.org/10.2307/2393339

[3] E. Hutchins, “The Cultural Ecosys-tem of Human Cognition,” PhilosophicalPsychology, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 34-49, Avail-able: https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2013.830548

73


Comparison of Preferences forRepetition or Meter in Humansand Budgies (Mellopsitacus

undulatus)

Jan KopačUniversity of Ljubljana

In this research I will be focusing on exploringthe effect of meter and repetition on preferencetowards auditory stimuli. I will be expandingon a previous research by Hoeschele and Bowl-ing [1] which has shown that female budgeri-gars (Mellopsitacus undulatus) and humans pre-fer rhythmic auditory patterns to arrhythmic. In-stead I will be focusing on preference for me-ter and repetition in auditory stimuli. Meter isan inferred or imposed meta-structure of pat-terns possible in different modalities based ona cognitive capacity for perception and antici-pation of elements in time, that allows synchro-nization of movement with external source stim-uli [2]. Repetition of sonical elements on theother hand induces in us a sense of flow, asis demonstrated with the speech to song illu-sion, which essentially consists of a repeatedspoken phrase percieved as sung [3]. The exper-iment will be conducted on both humans andfemale budgies which are vocal-learning aviansfrom the parrot family. Relevance of the study isin understanding if meter and repetition affectour preferences for auditory stimuli along withacross species comparison.

The research will consist of two experiments. Inboth I will be making use of the place prefer-ence paradigm. First one will focus on budgiesand will be conducted on a sample of 12 femalebudgies. I will be using an apparatus designedby Sharzad Afroozeh. The apparatus consists ofa hexagonal cage with three perches equippedwith infra-redbeamsandconnectedspeakersonthe exterior side of the cage. Everything oper-ates through a microprocessor and is run by anexperiment script. When a bird lands on a perchit triggers specific auditory stimuli that areeithermetric or repetitive or both. Preference towards

repetition ormeter is then assessed through sta-tistical analysis of the time different birds spentwith a particular stimuli.

The second experiment will be on human partic-ipants (N=30), both males and females. Exclu-sion criteria are all hearing impairments. Exper-imental design is roughly the same as with thefirst experiment. Exceptions are that it will beconducted in a sound proof room. Room will in-clude three chairs equippedwith infra-red beamand the rest of the setup will be identical to thefirst experiment. The participants will receive in-structions to sit in different chairs. Preferencewill again be determined through the overalltime spent listening to particular auditory stim-uli.

The stimuli will be created using a MatLab scriptto create a metrical grid with consequently dis-placing elements off the grid to make it non-metrical and repeat or prevent repetition ofphrases in the case of repetative stimuli. Stim-uli created for the budgie experiment will con-sist of Praat generated chips based on record-ings of budgie vocalization while the humanstimuli will consist of different percussion sam-ples. The auditory patterns will be createdwith all possible permutations of the two vari-ants to create stimuli such as repetative/metric,non-repetative/metric etc. This will allow us totest different conditions and determinewhetherthese is anactual preference for either of the twovariants in question.

References

[1] M. Hoeschele, D. L. Bowling, “Sex Differ-ences in Rhythmic Preferences in the Budgerigar(Melopsittacus undulates): A Comparative Studywith Humans”, Front. Psych., 2016

[2] J. London, Hearing in Time: Psychological As-pects of Musical Meter, Oxford University Press,2004

[3] E.H. Margulis, R. Simchy-Gross, “RepetitionEnhances The Musicality of Randomly Gener-ated Tone Sequences”,Music Perception, Vol. 33,pp. 509-514, 2016

74

Talks

Is Cognitive Information in theEye of the Beholder?Information-Theoretic

Foundations of the Free EnergyPrinciple

Moritz KrieglederUniversity of Vienna

The free energy principle is a neuroscien-tific theory that aims to explain how cog-nitive systems maintain their order in a dy-namic and complex environment [1]. Itis a mathematical model of cognition thatassumes that the brain minimises free en-ergy to reduce the difference between itsinternal model of the world and sensoryinformation. By borrowing concepts fromthermodynamics, artificial intelligence, andBayesian probability theory the free energyprinciple provides a unified framework ofaction and perception called active infer-ence.

Free energy is an information quantity thatdepends on how surprising sensory statesare to the predictions of the cognitive sys-tem. However, the role of information inthe principle is still debated. Is sensory in-formation a property of the observed envi-ronment that is processed by the brain ordoes the agent construct this information tomake sense of the environment?

To analyse the foundations of the free en-ergy principle, I will use methods of the phi-losophy of information to identify how in-formation is used in the equations and ap-plications of the principle to cognitive phe-nomena [2]. After this analysis, I can com-pare the theory to paradigms in cognitivescience and see if it fits into cognitivist orenactivist approaches to cognition. Cogni-tivism assumes that the brain is a processor

of external information and enactivism envi-sions cognition as a dynamic interaction ofagent and environment [3].

By borrowing mathematical ideas fromBayesian probability theory, I argue thatthe free energy principle is an agent-basedtheory. The probabilities which representthe predictions of the incoming sensorystates are beliefs of the cognitive agentabout the environment. Therefore, the in-formationused is a subjective construct thatcognitive systems use in sense-making.

So far, the role of information and the use ofBayes rule in the free energy principle havenot been clarified. I argue that a Bayesianinterpretation of information suggests thatthe beliefs of the cognitive agent are purelysubjective and therefore constructive by na-ture. Butt to fully incorporate enactivismin the free energy the concept of cognitiveinformation has to be extended into an en-acted quantity between agent and environ-ment. In my project, I will discuss the pos-sibilities and limitations of an enactive con-cept of information and it’s fundamentalrole in the free energy principle.

References

[1] K. Friston, “The free-energy principle: aunified brain theory?,” Nat Rev Neurosci,vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 127–138, Feb. 2010, https:www.nature.com/articles/nrn2787

[2] L. Floridi, The Philosophy of Information.Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press,2011.

[3] E. Thompson, Mind in Life. Harvard Uni-versity Press, 2007.

75


Breaking the Barriers ofPro-Environmental Behaviour

Lucia KubíčkováComenius University

With increasing carbon dioxide emissions,energy use, and rapid growth of the hu-man population, humankind is more of-ten facing the urge to start acting pro-environmentally. Yet, numerous actionsare hindered by factors, individuals facewhen they try to acquire amore sustainablelifestyle. The barriers that are holding peo-ple up from pro-environmental behaviourmight include structural, social, cultural, orpsychological aspects. The presence of bar-riers is often influenced by several internalfactors such as lack of self-efficacy or miss-ing cognitive resources. Self-efficacy refersto the belief that an individual can executebehaviours that are necessary for success-ful outcomes of the tasks. Studies haveshown that this belief has a positive impacton achieving the goals when people can ob-tain favourable outcomes after initiating ac-tivity to improve the environment. [1] Theeffect of cognitive resources has been ad-dressedmainly by the role of working mem-ory as a successful indicator of the ability toovercome obstacles of pro-environmentalbehaviour. [2] We have decided to comparethe effect of preceding factors, to discover,whether the greater influence is psychologi-cal or lies in our cognitive development.

The experiment will consist of twomeasure-ments executed on 90participants. The firstmeasurement will assess the participant’scognitive resources through the cognitivereflection test which is, similarly as work-ingmemory associated with intelligence. Atthe same time, we will measure their self-efficacy in connection with environmentaltopics. Furthermore, through theDIPB scale

[3] we will examine the participant’s barri-ers towards pro-environmental behaviour.Before the second measurement, we willdivide participants into three groups: a, acontrol group; b, a group with self-efficacytraining through the set of facts that demon-strate the effects of one’s actions; c, a groupenhancement of their cognitive resourcesthrough the sets of mathematical tasks.

We believe that this study can contributeto broadening the knowledge of reasons be-hind the barriers of pro-environmental be-haviour. As well, we hope our results willbe a valuable indicator for future research inthis problematic.

References

[1] D. Sawitri, H.HadiyantoandS.Hadi, “Pro-environmental Behavior fromaSocialCogni-tive Theory Perspective”, Procedia Environ-mental Sciences, vol. 23, pp. 27-33, 2015.Available: 10.1016/j.proenv.2015.01.005

[2] B. Langenbach, S. Berger, T. Baumgart-ner and D. Knoch, “Cognitive ResourcesModerate the Relationship BetweenPro-Environmental Attitudes and GreenBehavior”, Environment and Behavior,p. 001391651984312, 2019. Available:10.1177/0013916519843127

[3] K. Lacroix, R. Gifford and A. Chen,“Developing and validating the Dragonsof Inaction Psychological Barriers (DIPB)scale”, Journal of Environmental Psychol-ogy, vol. 63, pp. 9-18, 2019. Available:10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.03.001

76

Talks

Linguistic Effects of Huntington’sDisease Across Languages

Rebecca Rose LebensComenius University

Introduction

Linguistic data is presumed to be dividedinto two components in the brain, the men-tal lexicon and the mental grammar. Themental lexicon is the mind’s dictionary andthe mental grammar is the set of rules andprinciples that govern the lexicon. Bilingualspeakers are presumed to be weaker thanmonolinguals in retrieving lexical informa-tion and in the application of grammaticalrules. It is unknown whether this weaknessis due to competition between languages,a difference in mental organization, or an-other cause.In the context of certain types ofbrain damage, tasks such as pluralization inEnglish allow for comparison between reg-ular grammar rules and irregular lexical re-trieval. One example is Huntington’s Dis-ease, a neurological degenerative disorderthat causes impairments in rule application,possibly due todamage in frontostriatal andfrontotemporal regions [1]. Further researchinto this impairment may improve under-standing of the neural structures involved ingrammatical and lexical processing as wellas the processes themselves [2]. It also hasthe potential to allow for earlier diagnosis ofthe disease [3].

Question

HypothesisIs there a significant differencein the organization and processing of themental lexicon andmental grammar in bilin-guals compared to monolinguals? I hypoth-esize that there will be a difference in sub-regular rules, which are less frequent thanregular rules and follow semi-predictablepatterns unlike irregular forms.

Methodology

Participants will perform sentence comple-tion tasks that test rule application and lex-ical retrieval following the methods of pre-vious studies [3]. The results will be ana-lyzed to determine whether there is any sig-nificant difference between the linguistic ef-fects between languages aswell as betweenmonolinguals and bilinguals.

Discussion

Investigations into the mental lexicon andthe mental grammar of bilinguals may helpto better understand neuroligical changescausedby learningmultiple languages. Vari-ations between languages and individualsmay provide evidence of whether rule appli-cation and irregular retrieval are equal be-tween languages and monolinguals versusbilinguals.

References

[1] M. Azambuja, M. Radanovix and M. Had-dad, ”Language Impairment inHuntington’sDisease,” Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatriavol. 70 no. 6 pp. 410 – 415 2012

[2] M. Ullman, S. Corkin, M. Coppola, etal, ”A Neural Dissociation within Language: Evidence that the Mental Lexicon Is Partof Declarative Memory, and that Grammat-ical Rules Are Processed by the ProceduralSystem,” Journal of Cognitive Neurosciencevol. 9 no. 2 pp. 266-276 1997

[3] D. Nemeth, C. Dye, and T. Sefcsik , ”Lan-guage deficits in pre-symptomatic Hunting-ton’s Disease, evidence from Hungarian,”Brain and Language vol. 121 no. 3 pp. 248 –253 2012

77


Cues to Joint Agency - ATheoretical and Empirical

Investigation of the Sense ofAgency in Joint Action

Maximilian MarschnerUniversity of Vienna

Perceiving oneself as the author of one’s ac-tions and their resulting effects in the en-vironment - the sense of agency (SoA) - isa central feature of human experience andself-awareness. As previous research onSoA has mainly addressed actions carriedout by single individuals, an open questionis, how SoA is constituted during joint ac-tion. Recent proposals suggest that peo-ple’s agentive experience in joint action re-flects a sense of joint agency, meaning thatthe experienced unit of agency extends be-yond the individual to the group as a whole[1]. Although recent studies provide evi-dence for this proposal [2], still very little isknown about the sources and mechanismsunderlying the sense of joint agency. Target-ing this gap, it was explored what cues peo-ple use to sense agency in different joint ac-tion contexts.

An experimentwas conducted to investigatethe influence of sensorimotor, perceptual,and cognitive cues to agency in a joint se-quence reproduction task. Pairs of partici-pants coordinated finger taps under differ-ent coordination demands (high: alternat-ing tapping; low: sequential tapping) to re-produce the tempoof a short tone sequenceand reported whether tones heard duringtapping had been controlled by them (jointcontrol) or by the computer (external con-trol). Additionally, participants rated theiragentive experience after each sequence onascale that ranged fromshared to individualcontrol.

Overall, participants reported stronger feel-ings of shared as opposed to individual con-trol, indicating that people do experiencejoint agency during joint action. Againstfindings from previous studies, coordina-tion demands were not found to moderatethis effect. Coordination demands had alsono effect on participants’ ability to distin-guish between joint and external controlmode. Response-locked analysis of partici-pants tapping performance revealed that in-dependent of coordination demands, bothsensorimotor and perceptual cues wereused to sense agency. Additionally, therewas evidence for an influence of cognitivecues on participants’ responses, again irre-spective of coordination demands.

The results suggest that the sense of jointagency stems from an integration of bothprivate sensorimotor cues and publiclyaccessible perceptual and cognitive cueswhich is in line with hierarchical models ofaction planning and control in joint actionand extends their explanatory value toresearch on agency. Against theoreticalassumptions, the analyzed joint action con-texts did not seem to alter the strength ofjoint agency nor the weighting of differentagency cues. Implications of the findings forthe theoretical conception of joint agencyare discussed.

References

[1] E. Pacherie, “How does it feel to act to-gether?,” Phenomenol. Cogn. Sci., vol. 13, no.1, pp. 25–46, 2014.

[2] N. K. Bolt, E. M. Poncelet, B. G. Schultz,and J. D. Loehr, “Mutual coordinationstrengthens the sense of joint agency incooperative joint action,” Conscious. Cogn.,vol. 46, pp. 173–187, 2016.

78

Talks

Attitudes in the Enaction ofKnowledge, Thinking and

Communication - Content andRelationship Level

Jar Žiga MarušičUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

Different participants of the same commu-nicative situation can experience it differ-ently. One can experience it as an exchangeof information,whereas anothermay view itas a way of maintaining a friendly relation-ship. I propose the name experiential at-titude to refer to the phenomenological as-pect of intention that we attribute to enac-tion of knowledge, communication or think-ing. In simpler terms, experiential attituderefers to theway a person experiences a par-ticular situation.

Model

In mymaster’s work I will propose a spectreof attitudes or orientations, that spans be-tween two poles/levels - the content leveland the relationship level. A person isrelationship-oriented when a situation is ex-perienced as a means to form and main-tain social relationships or to build consen-sus. Conversely, when someone is content-oriented when a situation is experienced asan exchange of information or a search fortruth. I believe that the concept of experi-ential attitudes can bridge the gap betweenseemingly unconnected theories and mod-els from various fields of psychology andcognitive science, including Piaget’s theoryof cognitive development (1) and Baron Co-hen’s E-S theory (2).

Methodology

In order to examine the validity ofmymodelIwill first conductameta-analysisof thevari-ous theories that include something approx-imating a binary distinction - for example adistinction between two modes of thought,two types of understanding, two separatefunctions of a phenomenon etc in order tosee if it can be said that the concept of expe-riential attitudes underpins a large amountof these theories. Baron Cohen’s E-S the-ory is an excellent example. He proposesthe existence of systemizers (people whotend toward working with objects and sys-tems with well defined rules) and empathiz-ers (people who tend toward working withpeople and excel in social situations, wherethe rules are less explicit) (2). When this isviewed through the lens of experiential at-titudes, one might say the systemizers arecontent-oriented, whereas empathizers arerelationship-oriented.

The second part of my research will in-clude a two-stage phenomenological study,where I will first provide participants witha questionnaire that explores their under-standing of experiential attitudes (the ques-tions will be descriptions of a person expe-riencing a particular situation and the re-sponses will be different interpretations ofthe person’s experience). A small number ofthese participants will then be asked to par-ticipate in a series of phenomenological in-terviews, where I will try to validate the con-cept of experiential attitudes in practice.

References

[1] Piaget, J., Inhelder, B. (1972) Psychologyof the child. Ingram Publisher services US.

[2] Baron-Cohen, S. (2002). The extrememale brain theory of autism. Trends in Cog-nitive Sciences, 6(6), 248–254. doi:

79


Analysis of Stress in Chess PlayersThrough Physiological Responses

Matej Mencin, Ivan BratkoUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

The chess game was traditionally used as a cog-nitive model to study cognitive processes likeproblem-solving, decisionmaking, memory, etc.[1,2]. However, there is notmuch research aboutstress in chess, even if stress can significantly af-fect a person’s cognition and, consequently, thechess player’s performance.

The purpose of this study is to explore the chessplayer’s physiological response in stress situa-tions resulting from time pressure, chessboardsituation, mistakes, and other factors. Withphysiological and chess data we will build astress detection model, using machine learn-ing algorithms, that will successfully predict,whether or not a chess player is stressed. Be-sides that, we also aim to find out, if there is anyeffect of recorded stress on the quality of play.

Methods

In this study, we investigate 44 chess players (35± 16 years) playing 103 chess games. Subjectswere subjectively healthy andwere classified ac-cording to the ELO ranking system (2108 ± 154ELO). The study was conducted in serious chesscompetition (1. League West) in Slovenia whichlasts for nine competition days.

Through the duration of whole chess game (upto around 5 hours), we continuously recordedsubjects’ physiological data (heart rate, electro-dermal activity, and skin temperature) usinga wrist device, and chess positions/time usingdigital chessboard. At the end of each game,the subject filled up a questionnaire answeringquestions about his or her general mood andmost stressful chess positions throughout thegame.

For preprocessing physiological data, we willuse a pipeline that was used in [3]. For theevaluation of the chess position, we will use a

chess engine Stockfish 11. Later, in further analy-ses,wewill inspect stress fromphysiological andchess data. For hypothesis testing and for build-ing a stress detection model, we will use differ-ent statistical methods andmachine learning al-gorithms.

Results

The study is still in theprocess of analyses; there-fore no quantitative results are available. Quali-tative changes in stress response are clearly visi-ble at decisive stages of the games.

Significance

We could use these findings to develop toolsor instruments to help players monitoring andlearn about their stress, or to assist chesscoaches in the preparation of chess training.

References

[1] J. P. Fuentes-García, T. Pereira, M. A. Castro,A. C. Santos, and S. Villafaina, “Psychophysio-logical stress response of adolescent chess play-ers during problem-solving tasks,” Physiologybehavior, 209, 112609, 2019.

[2] I. Bratko, D. Hristova, M. Guid. “Search versusknowledge in human problem solving: a casestudy in chess. In: L. Magnani, C. Casadio (eds.),”Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technol-ogy: Logical, Epistemological, and Cognitive Is-sues, Springer, 2016, pp. 569-583.

[3] M. Gjoreski, M. Luštrek, M. Gams, and H.Gjoreski, “Monitoring stress with a wrist deviceusing context,” Journal of biomedical informat-ics, 73, 159-170, 2017.

80

Talks

Children’s Attachment andRelationships in the Times of

Social Distancing

Marjeta Merjasec, Tina BregantUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

The attachment bond was first used to de-scribe the relationship where the child ex-plores theenvironment fromandseekscom-fort in the attachment figure (mother) [2].The attachments can vary in quality as theydepend on the care a child receives. Theyare thought to shape an individual’s cogni-tion and behaviour in relationships through-out life [2, 3]. Attachment figures changein the development of a child and may in-clude peers, teachers and others [2]. Therehave been mixed reports in the literatureregarding the stability and continuity of at-tachment quality [3]. Changes in the envi-ronment, such as negative experiences andstress, may result in a change in attachmentsecurity [3].

In the times of the Covid-19 pandemic theworld is experiencing uncertainty, stressand anxiety. Moreover, the most effec-tive and widely applied measure in fight-ing Covid-19 has been social distancing andisolation, which may bear multiple nega-tive consequences [1]. While children arenot the most vulnerable group in the pan-demic, their environments have changedsignificantly. This study aspires to use this“natural laboratory” to investigate whetherandhowchildren’s attachment and relation-ships change with the Covid-19 health pre-cautions.

Methods

The study aims to gather data of one hun-dred primary school children. An online sur-vey will be employed and interviews on the

experience may be conducted. The partic-ipants will complete questionnaires on thechild’s attachment to parents and children-teacher relationships. Additionally, factorslike socio-economic status and characteris-tics of the interactions during online school-ing will be included in the survey. The datawill be collected at two time-points, withinthe firstmonth of the children being back toschool and after 5 months.

Results

The research is still in its initial stage, hence,there are no results available yet. Nonethe-less, it is predicted that certain changes inthe attachments and relationships will beobserved. Upon the normalisation of ev-eryday life, reduction of stress and higheraccessibility of attachment figures, it is ex-pected that the quality of relationships willbe better and that the attachmentswill havehigher security-related traits.

References

[1] S. Galea, R. M. Merchant, N. Lurie, “Themental health consequences of COVID-19and physical distancing: The need for pre-vention and early intervention,” JAMA Inter-nal Medicine, 2020.

[2] A. C. Seibert, K. A. Kerns, “Attachmentfigures in middle childhood,” InternationalJournal of Behavioral Development, 33(4),347-355, 2009.

[3] T. E. Sutton, “Review of attachmenttheory: Familial predictors, continuity andchange, and intrapersonal and relationaloutcomes,” Marriage Family Review, 55(1), 1-22, 2019.

81


Categorisation and Three Kinds ofReasoning

Martyna MeyerUniversity of Vienna

Context

A comprehensive theory of categorisation isbound to account for the vast variety of cat-egorisation scenarios we find in the worldaround us. The most prevalent theoriesrarely take under consideration the com-plexity of the categorisation processes; theydepict it accurately in some scenarios butfail in others. On the other hand, theoriesthat do account for a broader set of scenar-ios, seem not to tell us much about the pro-cess itself.

Purpose

After a careful reviewof accounts suchas theclassical theory, the exemplar theory, theprototype theory and the theory-theory aswell as the neurological findings supportingthem,we come tobelieve that (1) categorisa-tion is amulti-level process, and (2) the onlytheory able to account for the vastness andthe complexity of the categorisation scenar-ios is theory-theory—in a form that incorpo-rates elements from other prevalent theo-ries. The purpose of this project is to takethis investigation one step further and ex-amine the “layers” of the categorisation pro-cess.

Method

Theory-theory has two major interpreta-tions: (1) the categories we learn are simi-lar to specialised scientific theories; (2) hu-mans posses a holistic ”theory of theworld”,similar to a scientific theory. Some scien-tists combine the first and the second inter-pretation, claiming that humans posses a

holistic theory of the world which addition-ally consists of smaller, specialised theo-ries that correspond todifferent concepts [1].The comparison between the process of cat-egorisation and a scientific theory is centralto our investigation. In order to establishfurther similarities, we refer to C.S. Peirce’saccount on the methodology of science: ev-ery scientific inquiry follows theabduction—deduction—induction pattern [2]. Throughan analysis of the three kinds of reasoningin different categorisation scenarios, we ex-amine their role in the categorisation pro-cess and their fitness to serve as the “layers”of categorisation. Furthermore, we analysethe usefulness of Peirce’s framework as aprototype for the architecture of the cate-gorisation process.

Results

We believe that Peirce’s account of method-ology of science offers many insights en-riching our understanding of categorisation.Three kinds of reasoning: induction, de-duction and abduction are easily detectablewithin all examined categorisation scenar-ios, leading us to confirm their relevance.Pierce’s model of scientific inquiry offersmanyparallels to the categorisationprocessandadds to our account of categorisation asa dynamic andmulti-level phenomenon.

References

[1] E. Margolis and S. Laurence, “LearningMatters: The Role of Learning in Concept Ac-quisition”, Mind Language, vol. 26, no. 5,pp. 507-539, 2011. Available: 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2011.01429.x.

[2] C. S. Peirce, “A theory of probable infer-ence”, In C. S. Peirce (Ed.), Studies in logicby members of the Johns Hopkins University,pp. 126–181, 1883. Available: 10.1037/12811-007

82

Talks

The Analysis ofNeurophysiological Correlates ofSpatial Working Memory and

Filtering Ability

Barbora MichalkováComenius University in Bratislava

Introduction

The contralateral delay activity (CDA) is an event-related potentials (ERP) waveform scanned byEEG over posterior areas of the brain that rep-resents a well-known correlate of visuospatialworking memory capacity [1]. It is definedas a sustained negative voltage over the hemi-sphere that is contralateral to the memorizedhemifield, its amplitude increases significantlywith the number of representations being heldin the memory and reaches a limit at each indi-vidual’s memory capacity [2]. To achieve maxi-mum usage of working memory capacity possi-ble, it is necessary to be able to filter out all irrel-evant stimuli efficiently, which is a skill that canbe improvedby training [3]. Wehypothesize thatcognitive training in virtual reality (VR) can im-prove behavioral performance in working mem-ory (tested offline in a different task outside VR)and that this effect will be visible on its neuralcorrelate - the amplitude of CDA.

Methods

The experimental groupplayed a shooting gamein VR designed to train filtering ability for twoweeks. Pre-, mid-, and post-training, their EEGwas measured while performing a lateralizedchange detection task (CDT). In CDT, partici-pants have to remember the orientation of tar-get items on relevant hemifield and ignore dis-tractors. CDA is calculated as a difference ofthe averaged contralateral activity (from the op-posite side as relevant hemifield) and the aver-aged ipsilateral (from the same side as relevanthemifield). The control groupwasmeasured thesame way excluding the training.

Results

This study is part of a bigger project. My part willfocus on a fine analysis of recorded EEG in termsof final ERPs to extract the CDA waveforms withthe emphasis on the punctual pre-processing ofthe data using Brain Vision Analyzer software.Preliminary results showed that the number oftargets and distractors affected the behaviouralperformance, however, there was no improve-ment detected in time.

Discussion

This study examines the aspects of workingmemory performance that result in CDA am-plitude modulations associated with the num-ber of remembered items. We expect the pre-cise method of ERPs will help to reveal subtlechanges caused by training in VR.

Acknowledgement

Supported by APVV-0668-12.

References

[1] C. Li, X. He, Y. Wang, Z. Hu and C. Guo,“Visual Working Memory Capacity Can Be In-creased by Training on Distractor Filtering Ef-ficiency”, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, 2017.Available: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00196.

[2] E. Vogel, A. McCollough and M. Machizawa,“Neural measures reveal individual differencesin controlling access to working memory”, Na-ture, vol. 438, no. 7067, pp. 500-503, 2005. Avail-able: 10.1038/nature04171.

[3] R. Luria, H.Balaban, E. AwhandE. Vogel, “Thecontralateral delay activity as a neural measureof visual working memory”, Neuroscience Biobe-havioral Reviews, vol. 62, pp. 100-108, 2016.

83


Exploring Cerebello-CorticoFunctional Connectivity in Autism

Spectrum Disorder

Alexandra Diana Mindu, Christian Gold,Giorgia Silani


Introduction

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neu-rodevelopmental disorder typically charac-terised by social and communication diffi-culties, alongside repetitive behaviours andnarrow interests, sensory hypersensitivity,and difficulties in coping with unexpectedchange [1]. Although the pathophysiologyof ASD has received increased attention inthe functional neuroimaging literature, onearea of functional connectivity (FC) whichremains fairly underexamined is cerebello-cortico FC. Given the cerebellum’s role inmotor processing, as well as cognition andaffective responses, and its documentedrole in ASD neuropathology [2], dysconnec-tivity between the cerebellum and corticalstructures might underlie social and non-social features of ASD. Using resting-statefunctional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data, the present study aims to in-vestigate cortico-cerebellar FC in individu-alswith ASD, relative to typically developingcontrols (TDs).

Method

Our study uses data from the Autism BrainImaging Data Exchange, an online, publiclyavailable repository of 2226 rs-fMRI datasets acquired on 1060 participants with ASDand 1166 TDs. Screening and selection pro-cedures such as exclusion of individualswith too much head motion or insufficientbrain coverage will be employed to ensurethatonlygood-quality rs-fMRIdatawill be in-cluded in the analyses.

Analysis and Expected Results

Seed-basedcorrelationanalysiswill beusedto estimate FC between cerebellar regionsof interest and cortical areas. In addi-tion, brain-behaviour relationships will beassessed by regressing FC measures withsymptom severity derived from the AutismDiagnostic Observation Schedule and theSocial Responsiveness Scale. Associationsbetween the imaging phenotypes and de-mographic factors such as age and gen-der will also be explored. We expectto find that FC between sub-partitions ofthe cerebellum and cortical areas is dis-rupted in ASD. Furthermore, such FC differ-encesmightbepredictiveof symptomsever-ity and may contribute to impaired social-communicative skill development in individ-uals with ASD.

Impact

Working towards a better understandingof the brain differences between autisticand neurotypical individuals facilitates thedevelopment of treatments and therapiesthat could help autistic individuals betternavigate their lives and the world aroundthem.

References

[1] American Psychiatric Association, Diag-nostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Dis-orders (DSM-5). American Psychiatric Pub,2013.

[2] A. M. D’Mello and C. J. Stood-ley, “Cerebro-cerebellar circuits inautism spectrum disorder,” Fron-tiers in Neuroscience, vol. 9, 2015.DOI=10.3389/fnins.2015.00408

84

Talks

Dialogical Self in Action: Can ItLead to a Change in Attitude?

Mustafa MohammedUniversity of Vienna

Background

Inner speech, a tool at our disposal, is a wayof accessing our thoughts. Many scholars agreethat inner speech has a self-regulation and self-guidance function. Inner speech can be dialog-ical, according to the Self Dialogic Theory (DST)[1]. DST states that there is a multiplicity of posi-tions, parts, or voices that have a dialogical re-lationship in the self. In this sense, the innerdialogue includes questions and answers, argu-ments and counterarguments, or assertions andnegations among its parts. Inner speech is in therealm of the ‘inner’ experiences. One possibil-ity to trigger and externalize the inner dialogueis through a game of acting the roles of the dif-ferent positions with moderator or director tofacilitate the process, as used in a one-to-onepsychodrama session [2]. The role-play methodacknowledges the situated, enactive, embodiedview to cognition.

Objectives

My proposal is to explore the role of inner dia-logue as a tool to negotiate a topic. According toDST and applications of psychodrama, the pro-posed interventionwill lead togainnewperspec-tives, changeof attitude, andmaybegain insight.The goal is to measure the effectiveness of theintervention in a case study. Nevertheless, theintervention will open the possibility for a widerange of applications.

Method

A quasi-experiment will be conducted betweentwo samples (25 each). One sample will getthe intervention while the control group getsno intervention. The Method is mixed, quanti-tative, and qualitative, what so-called embed-ded design. The quantitative part will be used

with Likert-scale based questionnaires to mea-sure -subjectively- the participants’ attitude to-wards an issue. To operationalize this study, Ichoose a case study of the attitude towards hu-man dominance over nature. The survey will beconducted pre and post-intervention for the ex-periment groupandwill be compared to the con-trol group (with no intervention). The qualita-tive part will compare text-response-questionsbefore and after the intervention. This part willshowwhether the intervention affects the learn-ing outcome.

Intervention

Inspired by the psychodrama method (See [2]),a role-playing game will be used to trigger andsimulate a dialogue among the different posi-tions of the self, according to DST.

Expected Results

The pre to post self-assessment would show amore positive attitude change toward human-nature relationships. Otherwise, I expect at leasta shift of attitude as a result of the interventionin comparison to the control group. Moreover, Iexpect the qualitative analysis between the text-response-question would show that the partici-pants show more confidence response, gain ad-ditional knowledge, deepened understanding,change in perspective.

References

[1] T. Gieser and H. J. M. Hermans, Handbook ofDialogical Self Theory. 2012.

[2] A. Blatner, Foundations of psychodrama: his-tory, theory, and practice, 4th ed. New York:Springer Pub. Co, 2000.

85


Driving Simulator-basedAssessment of NeurologicalPatients’ Driving Abilities

Lenart MotnikarUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

The assessment of neurological patients’driving abilities is a complex and difficulttask, limited by time and cost constraints onone side and methodological inadequacyon the other. In recent years, driving simu-lators have emerged as a possible alterna-tive toexistingassessmentmethods (e.g. be-havioral, cognitive, functional, and on-roadtesting), as they offer the ability of a fast,standardized, and ecologically valid evalua-tion. Though the effects of neurological dis-orders have been studied in several driving-simulation studies, no study has so far com-pared patients deemed able and unable todrive as determined by some establishedstandard.

To fill this gap in the literature, this researchanalyzes driving characteristics of neurolog-ical patients undergoing a standard driver’slicense renewal procedure at a competentrehabilitation facility.

Methods

The study included 91 patients with variousneurological disorderswho, based on amul-tidisciplinary evaluation procedure, weredetermined to be fit- (n=32), unfit- (n=31),or conditionally-fit-to-drive (n=28). The sub-jects drove through three independent driv-ing scenarios, simulating rural, highway,and urban environments. The analyzed vari-ables included reaction times and a vari-ety of vehicular control, traffic rule compli-ance, and eye-tracking parameters. One-way ANOVA was used for group compar-ison, independently for each driving sce-

nario, and the most discriminative param-eters were combined in various machine-learning classifiers.

Results

Reaction times were the only variablewhere significant differences (p0.01) wereobserved in all scenarios. Regardingvehicular control and rule complianceparameters, significant differences (p0.05)were observed in signaling and steering onthe highway and in lane position variability,speeding, and crash rates in the urbanscenario. No significant differences (p0.05)in eye-tracking variables were observed,although somevisible trends emerged. Posthoc analyses showed that the observedsignificant differences were mostly drivenby discrepancies between the fit and theunfit group, whereas the conditional grouponly deviated from the fit group in someinstances. The best-performing classifier(SVM), tested with 10-fold cross-validation,achieved a classification accuracy of55%, which increased to 78% when theconditional subjects were excluded.

Conclusions

The results show that driving simulators cansuccessfully capture differences in the driv-ing abilities of neurological patients andhave a potential role in future assessmentprotocols. Except for reaction times, no vari-able exhibited differences in more than onescenario, which suggests that environmentsshouldbe carefully designed tobest capturethe desired measure. The apparent trendsbut lack of significance in eye-tracking pa-rameters call for a more nuanced investiga-tion of the patients’ visual exploration.

86

Talks

Correlation Between AdverseChildhood Experiences (ACEs) andEmpathy in Children in the First

Triad of Primary Schools IncludingChildren with Motor Impairment

Katja PegancUniversity of Ljubljana

Context

Empathy refers to the process of individ-ual’s sharing and understanding anotherperson’s emotions, feelings, and thoughts.It plays an important role in communicationand, interaction, and can be influenced byseveral factors such as gender, genetics, par-enting style, relationships, traumatic braininjuries, personality, adverse childhood ex-perience, etc. Empathy is develop by adult-hood, however, one of the most importantperiods of its development is childhood. Lit-tle is known about how significant stress-ful or traumatic experiences before the ageof 18, known as Adverse Childhood Expe-riences (ACEs) influence empathy, despitethe fact that they have a dose-response re-lationship with numerous poor health out-comes [1]. Furthermore, there is a lack of re-searchonempathydevelopment in childrenwith motor impairment, that is the the par-tial or total loss of function of a body part.Since they and their parents experiencedad-ditional stress, it is hypothesized this can af-fect their empathy.

Goal

An analysis of existing literature revealedthat no studies have been published on em-pathy in childrenwhoexperiencedACEs andhave motor impairment. Thus, the goal ofthis study is to provide answers to the fol-lowing questions. How does empathy de-velop in children between 7 and 10 years old(as empathy is robustly developed by the

age of 7)? How many ACEs did children ex-perience in the first triad of primary school?Does the number of ACEs influence the de-velopment of empathy? Are there any differ-ences in empathy development and/or thenumber of experienced ACEs between chil-drenwithmotor impairment and thosewith-out?

Methods

In a sample of 80 children (20 with mo-tor impairment, 60 without), empathy willbe checked through story recapitulation,EmQue-CA questionnaire and EmQue ques-tionnaire for parents. Both questionnaireswill be translated to Slovenian, double-checked and sent to the author for ap-proval. With a standardized ACE ques-tionnaire, which was recently evaluated forSlovenian population, adverse childhoodexperiences will be tested. The question-naire will be filled out by children and theirparents.

Expected Results

I expect to confirm that physically chal-lenged children show less empathy thanchildren without physical handicap sincethey went through numerous stressful andpainful procedures since early childhood. Ialso assume that those who score higher onACE questionnaire will be less empathic.

References

[1] V. J. Felitti, R. F. Anda, D. Nordenberg,D. F. Williamson, A. M. Spitz, V. Edwards, M.P. Koss and J. S. Marks, “The relationshipof adult health status to childhood abuseand household dysfunction. The adversechildhood experiences (ACE) Study” Ameri-can Journal of Preventive Medicine, vol. 14,no. 4, pp. 245-258, 1998

87


Verb Production andComprehension in Patients with

Chronic Aphasia

Grega Pignar, Christina ManouilidouUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

Aphasia is an acquired language disorder thatis most often caused by a stroke or brain injury.Aphasic individuals exhibit different patterns oflanguage deficits. There are two main types ofaphasia: fluent and non-fluent. Patients withfluent aphasia usually have impaired compre-hension and intact production of speech, whilethose with non-fluent type have poor and effort-ful speech production but relatively intact com-prehension. Many studies [1], [2], [3] reportedproblemswith verb production and comprehen-sion in aphasic patients. These problems havebeen often attributed to properties of the verbs,such as argument structure. However, only fewstudies have been done for Slavic languages,which have some special properties that couldreveal more about those problems [1].

The reason for investigating verbs is that theyplay a crucial role in sentence production andcomprehension and it is therefore important forunderstanding sentence deficits in aphasic pa-tients [2].

Method

Our study will include 15-20 patients withchronic (at least 6 months post-stroke) non-fluent aphasia with agrammatism and thesame number of age-matched controls. Allour participants will have to be monolingualnative speakers of Slovene. We will assessparticipants’ ability to name and understandverbswith two tests: verb naming test (VNT) andverb comprehension test (VCT). Both tests willbe adapted into Slovene fromTheNorthwesternAssessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS),which is a test battery designed to investigatesyntactic deficits in aphasia [2]. Both VNT andVCTwill include pictures used in NAVS and verbs

of Slovene language that will differ by argumentstructure and the optionality of arguments. Inour study, wewill follow the standard procedurefor NAVS [2]. In VNT, we will present an actionpicture and tell a participant to name the actionon the picture. In VCT, we will show a picturewith four actions and name one action for theparticipant to identify by pointing.

Expected results

Based on the previous findings [1] we expectto find that aphasic patients with agramma-tism will perform worse than healthy controlsin both VNT and VCT tests, although we pre-dict they will perform better in VCT than inVNT. We also expect that aphasic participantswill perform better when using one-argumentunergative verbs (e.g. tekati – to run) comparedto two-argument transitive verbs (e.g. rezati –to cut). We assume the aphasic patients willhavemostdifficulties innaming three-argumentverbs (e.g. pošiljati - to send).

References

[1] O. Dragoy and R. Bastiaanse, “Verb produc-tion and word order in Russian agrammaticspeakers”, Aphasiology, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 28-55,2009.

[2] S. Cho-Reyes and C. Thompson, “Verb andsentence production and comprehension inaphasia: NorthwesternAssessment of Verbs andSentences (NAVS)”, Aphasiology, vol. 26, no. 10,pp. 1250-1277, 2012.

[3] E. Barbieri, A. Basso, M. Frustaci and C. Luz-zatti, “Argument structure deficits in aphasia:New perspective on models of lexical produc-tion”, Aphasiology, vol. 24, no. 11, pp. 1400-1423,2010.

88

Talks

Experiencing the Decision-MakingProcess to Go Jogging

Maša Rebernik, Toma StrleUniversity of Ljubljana

Introduction

Decision making, usually understood as choos-ing between two or more options, has tradition-ally been studied as a behavioral process that ex-ists separately from individual decision-makers.However, the third-person perspective on deci-sion making does not give us a comprehensiveinsight into this cognitive process – it lacks thesubjective account of the decision-maker. Simi-larly, in the field of sports and exercise psychol-ogy, where research mostly focuses on the psy-chological factors that influence physical activ-ity performance [1], a first-person perspective isneeded to better understand how we approachand perceive physical activity.

In my research, I aim to understand howmy par-ticipants experience the process of deciding togo jogging. With that, I will study how they expe-rienceadecision-makingprocess, aswell ashowthey approach a form of exercise.

Methods

The study will involve 10 participants who jogrecreatively (i.e., in their leisure time) and are in-terested in exploring their own experience. Forone month, they will keep a journal document-ing their experience during moments in whichthey thought about or decided to go jogging.The purpose of the journal is for the partici-pants to memorize those moments more eas-ily, as we will explore them in four interviewsbased on the micro-phenomenological method.Micro-phenomenology is a first-person qualita-tive method of studying an individual’s lived ex-perience, the aim of which is to obtain a de-scription of the dimensions of experience inthe researched experiential episode [2]. Theinterviews will be recorded for later analysis,the product of which will be experiential cate-gories that will encompass the participants’ ex-periences as they unfold through time.

Expected Results

It is difficult to predict the results as the studyis exploratory in nature. Nevertheless, since re-search has shown that seemingly similar deci-sion situations can be experienced differentlyby individuals [3], I expect that the participantswill experience their deciding in different ways.Some might experience it as decision making,while others may experience it as somethingelse entirely.

Implications

The study will prove useful in providing moreinsight into the first-person perspective in theareas of decision making as well as sports andexercise. More broadly, it might be able to un-cover some experiential structures of the mind,adding to the growing knowledge base of under-standing subjective experience.

References

[1] A. P. Moran, Sport and Exercise Psychology:A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge,2004.

[2] C. Petitmengin, “Describing one’s subjectiveexperience in the second person: An interviewmethod for the science of consciousness,” Phe-nomenol. Cogn. Sci., vol. 5, no. 3–4, pp. 229–269,2006.

[3] M. A. VanManen, “On ethical (In)decisions ex-perienced by parents of infants in neonatal in-tensive care,” Qual. Health Res., vol. 24, no. 2,pp. 279–287, 2014.

89


Comparing Four Versions of theEnactive Approach

Tess RoderUniversity of Vienna

The enactive approach (EA) is often por-trayed as a single theory, whereas in fact,different thinkers of the EA adhere to dif-ferent, sometimes even incompatible philo-sophical frameworks, which is reflected inhow they conceive of consciousness, mindand cognition. Central to the EA is the an-tirepresentational view of cognition as em-bodied action, which straddles brain, bodyand environment. The original proposal ofthe EA by Varela, Thompson and Rosch inThe Embodied Mind (TEM) [1] arose from aconcern regarding cognitive sciencemovingaway from lived experience. They arguedfor closer collaboration between scientificand phenomenological study of the mind,and argued for a middle way between re-alism and idealism, in which neither mindnor world forms a ground, but in whichthe two are fundamentally interdependent.Some thinkers, building on this initial pro-posal, have largely neglected this concernor even opposed the broader epistemologi-cal andmethodological claimsmade inTEM,whereas others remained more in line withthe initial proposal. Thus, it remains impor-tant to keep in mind the diversity of the dif-ferent versions of the EA.

In light of this, a comparison of four ver-sions of the EA will be made, namely, theone proposed in the TEM [1], sensorimotorenactivismasput forth byNoë [2], the EAde-scribedbyGallagher, and radical enactivismpresented by Hutto and Myin [3]. It must benoted that these are not the only versionsof the EA circulating in the cognitive sciencecommunity. However, including more ver-sions is beyond the scope of this thesis. The

thesis will discuss the philosophical frame-works in which these versions of the EA areembedded, as well as the role of lived ex-perience in the different versions, whetherthey allow for any form of representationand how exactly central concepts, such asperception, action, cognition and structuralcoupling, are viewed. A more refined focuson a few of these aspects will be developedover time.

For now, the following can be said. Gal-lagher remains mostly in line with the orig-inal ideas from TEM and expands on whatthe EAhas to say aboutmore complex formsof cognition. Noë assumesdirect realism [2],which contrasts sharplywith themiddlewayof TEM. Hutto and Myin criticize other ver-sions of the EA for still using some form ofrepresentationalism and put forth the ideathat minds do not need to have content tofunction [3]. It is expected that a compre-hensive overview of the differences and sim-ilarities of the EAs could inform current de-bates in 4E cognition, as well as prevent usfrom losing sight of the broader frameworkinwhich the EAwas originally proposed andthe concerns surrounding it.

References

[1] F. Varela, E. Thompson and E. Rosch, Theembodied mind: cognitive science and thehuman experience, 1st ed. MIT press, 1991.

[2] A. Noë, Action in perception. MIT press,2020.

[3] D. Hutto and E. Myin, Radicalizing enac-tivism: Basic minds without content. MITpress

90

Talks

Post-Trauma Embodiment;Proposition of Upgraded

Embodiment Model in a Context ofTrauma

Matija RupčićComenius University, Bratislava

Background

Embodiment, also referred to as embodiedcognition, is one of the most important re-search areas in modern cognitive sciencedue to the belief that cognitive processesare influenced by body morphology, emo-tions, and sensorimotor systems. The ideaemerges from a notion about the depen-denceof cognitionon thebodyand researchon causal and physically constitutive rolesthe body plays in cognition [1].

Motivation

The body can be seen as a regulator of cog-nition in terms of a feedback-driven role incognitive processing. Body structures infor-mation flow and creates data that solve en-vironment interacting problems [3] by facil-itating real-time execution of complex be-haviors as a response to complex environ-mental problems. While embodiment the-ories deal with a general array of environ-mental problems, there is no perspective di-rected exclusively to the problem of disrup-tive nature such as trauma, any negative lifeevent that occurs in a position of relativehelplessness [2].

Goal

The aim is to extend the current perspec-tive of embodiment in cognitive science re-search and to focus on how trauma affectsthe body in the long run and to focus onconsequences for mental as well as medi-cal health, and the interaction between thetwo.

Hypothesis

Through the exploration of the big corpusof research from various science fields, thistheoretical research will try to discover iftrauma causes disturbing somatic sensa-tions, feeling of pain, chronic stress in abody, and other medical issues; if traumacauses disturbances in body awareness andsense of ownership, and finally if pain,chronic stress, and other medical health is-sues cause traumatic emotions and mem-ory to trigger.

Prediction and Implication

Considering there trauma holds neurobio-logical consequences, it is expected thatone of the crucial effects of trauma has onthe body is inflammation - that being ex-posed to threatful and stressful triggers, thebodywill produceproteins that facilitate thebody responds to it. There is a visible dys-regulation of the immune system expectedtobepresent in the caseof traumasurvivors.The main effect of trauma is expected to besevere discomfort followedbydisturbing so-matic sensations.

References

[1] A. Clark, “Supersizing the Mind: Em-bodiment, action and cognitive extension”,Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.2008

[2] R. Scaer, Shapiro, L., (2010). EmbodiedCognition, in Oxford Handbook of Philoso-phy and Cognitive Science, E. Margolis, R.Samuels, and S. Stich (eds.), Oxford Univer-sity Press.

[3] L. Shapiro, “Trauma Spectrum”, Norton& Co. (eds.), New York, Norton ProfessionalBooks. 2010

91


The Impact of Culture on SocialUnderstanding

Milagros Rocío Saldaña TumbayUniversity of Vienna

The capacity of understanding other mindsis a corecomponent to studyingsocial cogni-tionbecause it allows the individual tomain-tain successful interactions in complex so-cial environments. Developmental psychol-ogists and philosophers of mind have ex-tensively explained this capacity in terms oftheory of mind, according to which socialunderstanding is dependent on the individ-ual’s capacity to attribute mental states toothers [1]. Likewise, enactive and embod-iedapproachesof cognitionhaveattemptedto address this phenomenon as an interac-tive sense of others and the environment.Despite the efforts to explain social under-standing, there is still no agreement regard-ing the cognitive mechanisms underlying itas well as lack of understanding of how cul-tural factors could shape it.

Theories of mind suggest that the capacityof understanding other minds depends onthe development of a set of inferential abil-ities and the use of our own mental statesto gain an understanding of others. In con-trast to this perspective, enactive and em-bodied approaches to cognition argue thatit is limited to conceiving of social under-standing as a mere prediction of others’ be-havior through the attribution of mentalstates and as a primarily individual and in-ternal cognitive process. These views ap-proach social understanding as a dialogueand coordinated interaction between theagents and their environment by directlyperceiving others’ feelings, intentions, andbodily cues as well as situating their ac-tions in a shared social environment thathas been co-created through participatorysense-making [2].

A central claim of these approaches is thatthe environment from which the individu-als make sense of is already full of infor-mation that affords certain possibilities foraction and constrains the way we under-stand others’ behavior. Following this per-spective, I will do theoretical research inwhich I propose that cultural information ofthe environment afford different opportuni-ties for action such as the strategies indi-viduals use to understand others’ behavior.For instance, in the context of social under-standing, collectivist and individualist atti-tudes afford different strategies, apart fromattributing mental states, to accomplish un-derstanding others’ behavior [3]. In thisregard, I will explore further other culturalcharacteristics that might play a role in so-cial understanding as well as how they im-pact different styles of interaction.

References

[1] D. Premack and G. Woodruff, “Premackand Woodruff : Chimpanzee theory ofmind,” Behav. Brain Sci., vol. 4, no. May,pp. 515–526, 1978.

[2] H. De Jaegher, “Social understandingthrough direct perception? Yes, by inter-acting,” Conscious. Cogn., vol. 18, no. 2,pp. 535–542, 2009.

[3] J. S. Lavelle, “The impact of culture onmindreading,” Synthese, 2019.

92

Talks

Are Kea Parrots capable ofunderstanding the

Ephemeral-Reward Task?

Peter SebanComenius University

Introduction

We explore the cognitive abilities of NewZealand kea parrot (Nestor Notabilis). Fromtheperspective of cognitive psychology, ourresearch is focused on learning, inhibitionof action, planning, and ability to general-ize. These cognitive domains are consid-ered from the perspective of cognitive bi-ology. The emphasis on the ecological ap-proach is elaborated from the perspectiveof enactivism, which introduces a complexunderstanding of the interaction of brain,body, and environment.

Methods

In the ephemeral-reward task, a subject hasan option to choose between stimuli A andB. Eachof themcontainsan identical reward(food). The subject can opt for the stimulusAwhichwould result inobtaining the rewardlinked to A and the trial is finished (rewardB is removed). The same applies when thesubject opts for the stimulus B. It receivesthe reward linked to B. However, here thesubject can get also a reward linked to A (re-ward A is not removed) [1,2]. Therefore, theideal scenario for a subject is to select thestimulus B. In the experiment 1, we used asimple setting in which subjects were ableto directly see the food rewards. The dis-tancebetween the stimulus A (black coloredsquaredplate) and the stimulusB (white col-ored squared plate) was set to be one bodylength of Kea. The setting of the experiment2 did not allow the subject to directly seethe rewards. Rewards were placed behinda wall-like structure. Here, the bird had tochoose one of the sides (differentiated by

the color of the squared plate – black orwhite) where to go first.

Discussion

Previous studies on primates showed thissetting with not directly visible rewards wasbeneficial for the task comprehension [3].We expect the same may apply for kea par-rots. The main reason is the fact that theinability to directly see the rewards inhibitsthe perceptual power of the food rewardand does not deplete entire cognitive ca-pacity to gain the reward. Hence, it pro-vides time for “thinking” and cognitive ca-pacity can be utilized for assessing the task[1]. Thanks to these types of experiments,we can witness that remarkable cognitiveabilities that previously were assigned ex-clusively to humanbeings are present in var-ious only distantly related species.

References

[1] T.R. Zentall and J.P. Case, “TheEphemeral-Reward Task: Optimal Per-formance Depends on Reducing ImpulsiveChoice,” Current Directions in Psych. Sciencevol. 27 no. 2 pp. 1 – 7 2018

[2] R. Bshary and A.S. Grutter, ” Experimen-tal evidence that partner choice is a drivingforce in the payoff distribution among coop-erators or mutualists: the cleaner fish case,”Ecological Letters no. 5 pp. 130 – 136 2002

[3] L. Prétot, R. Bshary, S.F. Brosnan, ” Fac-tors influencing the different performanceof fish and primates on a dichotomouschoice task,” AnimalBehavior no. 119pp. 189- 199 2016

93


A Cross-Cultural Examination ofHedonic and EudaimonicComponents of Happiness

Lori SlivnikUniversity of Ljubljana

1. Introduction

With my MT I would like to answer the ques-tion whether people from different countriesperceive, define and experience happiness dif-ferently. The aims of the study are: (1) to exam-ine the psychological and contextual definitionsof happiness described by an international sam-ple of participants; (2) to explore the relation-ship between happiness definitions and demo-graphic features; (3) to investigate the relation-ship between happiness definitions and countrymembership cultural dimensions.

2. Methods

I decided to use both qualitative and quantita-tivedata collectionmethods, a so-called “mixed-method approach” with open-ended questionsand scaled ratings being its main parts (DelleFave 2011, 2016).

2.1 Participants

In contrast with previous research, I am inter-ested in adults from countries not investigatedbefore and from all continents (Antarctica ex-cluded).

2.2 Measures

Participants will be asked to fill several ques-tionnaires: (1) the Eudaimonic and HedonicHappiness Investigation (EHHI; Delle Fave 2011),that explores various dimensions of well-beingthrough Likert scales and open-ended ques-tions. In my research, I will focus only on theopen-ended questions, inviting participants todefine happiness in their ownwords; (2) the Sat-isfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) which quanti-tatively assess the hedonic dimension of hap-piness; (3) a Socio-Demographic Questionnaireproviding information on their gender, age, level

of education etc. (4) Additionally, I will ask par-ticipants whether their mother tongue has spe-cific words for happiness (so called »untranslat-able words ») and if so, I will ask them to writethem down.

3. Results

Qualitative data analysis method will begrounded theory. Based on the results from pre-vious studies, happiness will bemost frequentlydescribed by codes “family/social relations”and “harmony/balance”. I expect some corre-lation and regression between meaningfulness(eudaimonia), life satisfaction (hedonia) andhappiness. Additionally, I aniticipate somecorrelation between number of laguage specificexpressions and level of happiness.

4. Conclusion

I find it important to conduct this type of re-search as cross-country differences and similar-ities in the evaluation of happiness represent astill rather underexplored area and because an-thropology is often forgotten within cognitive-science research although it is its central pillar.Another strong point of the study is its interdisci-plinarity, as it tries to link (positive) psychology,philosophy (phenomenology, pragmatism), an-thropology and linguistics. One possible limita-tionmight be the small sample size compared toprevious research (Delle Fave 2016).

5. References

[1] A. Delle Fave, I. Brdar, T. Freire, “The eu-daimonic and hedonic components of happi-ness: Qualitative and quantitative findings,” So-cial indicators research, vol. 100, no.2, pp.185-207, 2011.

[2] A. Delle Fave, I. Brdar, M. P. Wissing, U. Araujo,“Lay definitions of happiness across nations:The primacy of inner harmony and relationalconnectedness,“ Frontiers in psychology, vol. 7,pp. 30, 2016.

94

Talks

Strange Dream: ExperiencingUnnatural Narratives

Mariette SoulatUniversity of Vienna

Background

Contemporary narratology is divided intotwo main conceptual perspectives: thesecond-generation cognitive approach andthe unnatural approach. The first strand isgreatly influenced by cognitive paradigmssuch as embodiment and enactivism andputs the emphasis on the reader’s body andits role in experiencing andmaking sense ofliterary narratives. Studies on the embodi-ment of language suggest that reading ver-bal cues evoke the activation of “experien-tial traces”, derived from past engagementwith the environment. Stories would cuereaders to draw on their experiential tracesto engage with and enact narratives bymeansof similar cognitive strategies used toengage with the world daily. These notionsof enactment and embodiment reflect read-ers’ quasi-physical presence in the fictionalworld [1].

However, proponents of unnatural narratol-ogy disagree with this view, disapproving ofattempts to universalize reading experiencewhich disregards the variety and richnessof literary texts. They claim that unnatu-ral narratives, defined as unsolvable riddlesthat go beyond human experience, seemto obstruct rather than cue embodiment[2]. Unnatural narratives are usually asso-ciated with defamiliarization and estrange-ment, where the attention of the readeris directed to the artificiality of the con-structedworld, emphasising the discontinu-ity between physical and storyworld. Cogni-tive theories are critizised for their mimeticbias and a propension to conceptualize the

reader as a sense-making machine, under-mining the complexity of engagement withartistic creation.

Aim

This project will be based on a case study ofHenry Miller’s “Into the nightlife” [3], a sur-realist dream-like novel that fits the unnat-ural definition of narratives. The goal is todetermine whether the hypotheses held byunnatural narratologists are necessary as aseparate paradigm to explain readers’ expe-riences while reading stories like “Into thenightlife”.

Methods

Based on self-report of my own reading ex-perience and the existing literature, I will ex-plore the above-mentioned topics, in orderto establish the claims, limitations and chal-lenging aspects of the two theories and as-sess whether their differences are irreconcil-able. I expect to identify the unnaturalist in-sights and methodology that would allow acognitive reading of unnatural texts such as“Into the nightlife”.

Conclusion

This project can help further investigationtowards a better understanding of readingexperiences and perhaps expanding cogni-tive narratology to unnatural narratives.

References

[1] M. Caracciolo, The Experientiality of Nar-rative. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014

[2] J. Alber, M. Caracciolo, S. Iversen, K.Kukkonen, H.S. Nielsen, “Unnatural andCognitive Perspectives on Narrative (A The-ory Crossover)”. Poetics Today, vol. 39, no. 3,2018

[3] H. Miller, “Into the nightlife”, in The Cos-mological Eye. New York: Grove Press,1961

95


How to Represent theNonrepresentational: The Role of

Affect in Documentary Film

Constanze Maria SpringinsfeldUniversity of Vienna

Background

In the current context, the issue of represen-tation is of twofold nature. Firstly, docu-mentary film has been primarily defined interms of audiovisual content that refers toontologically prior entities or events [1]. Sec-ondly, the cognitive sciences traditionallyemploy linguaformal and, more recently,structural resemblance-based accounts ofinternal representations. Affect, however,might be best conceptualized as the quali-tative experienceof nonconceptual informa-tion [2]. Under this assumption, complexaffective experiences such as trauma canbe regarded nonrepresentational and, thus,cannot be optimally conveyed through doc-umentary film if characterized by its repre-sentational functionalities.

The present study aims to identify waysin which the sensory properties of audiovi-sual content can be used to transact emo-tional experience rather than to commu-nicate it through signs. Potential candi-dates include experimental stylistic strate-gies such as blurred figments of colour andmovement, quick editing, grainy analoguefilm, excessive duration of takes and time-lapse. It will be empirically tested whetherthose and other stylistic elements are ableto support classical narratives – defined byrepresentational elements and cause-effectrelationships amongst them – in convey-ing the nonrepresentational phenomenonof traumatic experience. Results will in-dicate if some experimental strategies en-able the viewer to perceive the audiovisualcontent itself rather than primarily inferring

meaning from it or categorizing and inter-preting it with respect to something onto-logically prior. The effects of experimentalstrategies on the viewers and on their per-ception of the wider narrative whole will becompared and related to the effects of con-ventional narration by itself.

Study Design

Participants will view two extracts from anexperimental documentary film containingappropriate stylistic elements. The first ex-tract will contain conventional narrative ele-ments only, whereas the second extract willcontain a combination of conventional nar-rative and experimental elements. Each par-ticipant will view both extracts with an in-terval of oneweek between sessions, wherethe order of the extracts will be reversed forone half of the subjects. Qualitative contentanalysis of post-viewing episodic interviewswill disclose potential differences in the filmviewing experience.

Results can be a directive for documentaryfilmmakers as theywill showwhether exper-imental techniqueshave the capacity topro-mote and deepen the viewer’s comprehen-sion of traditional narrative elements.

References

[1] F. Daniels-Yeomans, “Trauma, affect andthe documentary image: towards a nonrep-resentational approach,” Stud. Doc. Film,vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 85–103, May 2017, doi:10.1080/17503280.2017.1281719.

[2] S. Van De Cruys, “Affective Value inthe Predictive Mind,” in Philosophy and Pre-dictive Processing, T. K. Metzinger and W.Wiese, Eds. Frankfurt amMain: MIND Group,2017.

96

Talks

Training and Protocol DesignEffects on Contralateral DelayActivity Components andBehavioral Performance

Viera ŠteckováComenius University in Bratislava

Visualworkingmemory (VWM) retains visualdata in memory for a short time and allowsmanipulation with them. Grasp of the in-fluence of VWM training on subjects’ behav-ioral performance and neurophysiologicalresponse contributes to the understandingof VWM [1].

The protocol of contralateral delayed activ-ity (CDA) is focused on the study of event-related potentials (ERPs) representing rapidsensory responses of the brain to a vi-sual stimulus, as well as slower cognitiveresponses representing the neural mecha-nism of processing and storing the contentof stimuli in VWM[1,2]. During the CDA pro-tocol, the point of gaze is centeredwhile thevisual stimuli are shown in both hemifieldsand are perceived peripherally. The goal isto memorize only the cued hemifield andafter the retention interval this memorizingability is tested [2].

The first aim of the master’s thesis is to an-alyze early and late ERP components as afactor of stimuli type and effects of subjects’training in the environment of mixed real-ity. We will study effects of different pre-processing methods applied to recordedelectroencephalographic (EEG) data and an-alyzed ERPs. The findings will set the finalprotocol of extracting ERP components andrepresentative endpoints of these compo-nents will be computed and statistically an-alyzed. These steps will be carried out usingthe MATLAB and SAS software.

Second, as a sub-task of evaluating the be-havioral performance of the CDA task, we

will study the effect of visual lateralizationduring the testing and response periods ofeach CDA trial. Following indirect measuresof this effect, we hypothesize that if thememory period of CDA is followedby lateral-ized gaze on test stimuli the behavioral per-formance will not change. This would al-low us to treat trials with eye-movementsduring the test and response period differ-ently and not to exclude them from com-puted statistics. To test this hypothesisthe participantswill be instructed to changethe point of gaze following the cued hemi-field. In the first group of participants, thevisual stimuli will be synchronized with eye-tracking recordings to validate the directionof gaze. With the aim of increasing the sam-ple size, the second group of participantswill use the modified CDA protocol withouteye-tracking. This modified CDA protocolwill be distributed to participants with theaim to carry out a series of tests at the home-based condition.

In summary, the contribution of this studyis a better understanding of changes in se-lected ERP components associated with thetraining of VWM, as well as the gazing ef-fects affecting the behavioral success of sub-jects.

References

[1] S. Luck, An introduction to the event-related potential technique. Cambridge(MA): The MIT Press, 2014.

[2] E. Vogel andM.Machizawa, “Neural activ-ity predicts individual differences in visualworkingmemory capacity”,Nature, vol. 428,no. 6984, pp. 748-751, 2004. Available:10.1038/nature02447.

97


Modeling the Spatial WorkingMemory Employing the Simple

Model of Spiking Neurons

Adam ŠtefunkoComenius University

Context

In 2000, Compte andhis colleagues [1] proposeda model of spatial working memory used tosimulate an oculomotor delayed-response task[2].

In this task, a subject fixates a central pointduring a presentation of a peripheral stimulusfor a period of .5 s and a delay period of 1-6 s. After the delay period, the subject doesa saccadic eye movement and points on thespot where the stimulus was presented withtheir eyes. Location-tuned elevated activity wasfound in neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontalcortex (PFC) during thewhole delay period [1].

The model [1] consisted of excitatory pyrami-dal cells and inhibitory interneurons, with pyra-midal cells being 4 times more numerous thaninterneurons. Cells were spatially distributedaccording to their preferred cue angle. Leakyintegrate-and-fireneuronswereemployed in themodel. External excitatory inputs fromother cor-tical areas were modeled as uncorrelated Pois-son spikes. Excitatory inputs to the cells werereceived via AMPA and NMDA receptors and in-hibitory inputs via GABAAR-mediated transmis-sion.

The SimpleModel of Spiking Neurons [3] is a sys-tem of ordinary differential equations with anafter-spike reset. This model enables the repre-sentation of diverse types of neurons present inthe mammalian cortex.

Purpose

This project aims to show that the model of spa-tial working memory [1] can be implementedusing the Simple Model of Spiking Neurons [3]instead of leaky integrate-and-fire units with-out major adjustments to the working memory

model [1]. We implement thismodel andemploythe simulation protocol used by Compte and hiscolleagues [1].

Results

Our results show elevated activity in stimulatedneurons which persists during the delay period.This activity accounts for memorizing the loca-tion of the presented cue [1]. We show how wehad to adjust the implementation of the model[1] tomake itworkwith theSimpleModel of Spik-ing Neurons [3].

Conclusion

There are multiple computational models ofneurons,whichcanbeused to form largerneuralnetworks. Although these models can simulatethe behavior of various types of neurons in themammalian cortex, it might not be straightfor-ward to use them interchangeably to form theselarger networks. We try to investigate how alarger neural network model has to be adaptedin order to work properly when a different neu-ronmodel is employed.

References

[1] A. Compte, “Synaptic Mechanisms andNetwork Dynamics Underlying Spatial WorkingMemory in a Cortical Network Model,” CerebralCortex, vol. 10, no. 9, pp. 910–923, Jan. 2000.

[2] S. Funahashi, C. J. Bruce, and P. S. Goldman-Rakic, “Mnemonic coding of visual space in themonkeys dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,” Jour-nal of Neurophysiology, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 331–349, Jan. 1989.

[3] E. Izhikevich, “Simple model of spiking neu-rons,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks,vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 1569–1572, 2003.

98

Talks

How Are You Feeling? EnhancingEmpathic Interaction by Auxiliary

Emotional Cues inComputer-mediatedCommunication

Dinara TalypovaUniversity of Vienna

For the last decades, cognitive science ismoving away from representational mindtoward a dynamic cooperative system.However, most works concentrate on cogni-tion and do not focus on emotional aspects.Affective interaction approach is one of theways to fill this gap. The interactional ap-proach seeks to help people make sense ofeach other’s emotional expressions in open-ended ways, that might be ambiguous andsensitive to context [1].

This research is based on the assumptionthat emotions are dynamic, socially con-structed, and constituted through interac-tions. Additionally, I apply Gärdenfors’ cog-nitive model of conceptual spaces [2]. Thatis, quality dimensions of emotions can berepresented in the particular coordinateswithin a conceptual space. A system of co-ordinates has 2Dvalence-arousal (v-s) spaceaccording to Russell’s Circumplex model ofemotions [3]. Here, I define empathy basedon the simulation theory, i.e. understandingpartner’s emotions by experiencing themoneself.

In the experiment, I try to measure theempathic interaction between two partici-pants mediated by technology. I ask part-ners to communicate through audio head-set. During the conversation, each of themuses a display of a smartphone to manipu-late the screen with two sliders on the v-ascale. Each point maps to an image thatreflects “emotional state” in real-time. Ac-cording to my hypothesis, emotional states

(coordinate points in the v-a scale) of par-ticipants that share emotional signal (theimage) to their partners in interactive waywill approach closer to each other than inthe control group (audio conversation with-out extra interactive signal). Hereby, I as-sume that auxiliary emotional cueswill helpto enhance empathic interaction betweenusers. V-a scale was created especially forthis research. It is based on the answers of320 respondents that rated images using a7-point Likert scale for either the valence orthe arousal dimension.

The research combines quantitative andqualitative methods of studying subjectiveexperience: statistical analysis of coordi-nates in the scale and satisfactory reports.This coupling makes the research so aspir-ing – without applying conceptual spacesconcept it was quite challenging tomeasureempathic interactions since they are viewedas the relational processes of collective dy-namics.

This work is an opportunity to better un-derstand emotional processes by applyinga new way of measurement. In case of suc-cess, it would also serve as an additional ar-gument in favor of affective interaction ap-proach.

References

[1] K.Boehner et al., “How emotion is madeand measured”, International Journal ofHuman-Computer Studies, vol.65, no.4,pp.275-291, 2007.

[2] P.Gärdenfors, “Induction, ConceptualSpaces and AI”, Philosophy of Science, vol.57,no.1, pp.78-95, 1990.

[3] J.Russell, “A circumplexmodel of affect.”,Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,vol.39, no.6, pp.1161-78, 1980.

99


The Role of Executive Attention inControlled Semantic Cognition

Danijela Topic VizcayaComenius University in Bratislava

Semantic retrieval, necessary for the com-prehension of various properties in differ-ent circumstances, is enabled by two inter-acting neural systems, that are referred toas the controlled semantic cognition (CSC)[1]. The first system, in charge of creatingand storing concepts in complex semanticnetworks, is automatic and the second sys-temof control supports and coordinates thefirst system. Recent findings suggest thatthe executive attention system may play acrucial role in semantic retrieval. To clar-ify this functional interaction, the dual-taskparadigm was used loading the executiveattention during continuous retrieval. Wehypothesized that simultaneous load on at-tention would inhibit the processing and re-trieval supported by the semantic controlsystem.

Methods

We recruited 45 healthy students (f=26,mean age= 22,68 years), all native Slovakspeakers. We used a recently developed As-sociative Chain Test (ACT), engaging auto-matic and controlled lexical-semantic pro-cessing [2]. The ACT task consisted of twoconditions: associative and dissociative se-mantic retrieval. To see whether semanticretrieval engages executive functions we in-troduced a secondary task, the continuousperformance task (CPT)with two conditions– the monitoring load (concurrent with theACT) and switching load (switching ACT con-ditions). Participants also solved two entrytasks on cognitive interference (Stroop taskand Response Inhibition task).

Results

For the analysis of the main task we usedthe linear mixed effects model (LMEM). Thereaction times (RTs) for the dissociative re-sponses were higher in all conditions thanfor the associative ones. The concurrentmonitoring load had a similar negative ef-fect on both retrieval conditions (i.e. inhibit-ing both associative and dissociative simi-larly). Both retrieval conditions were alsosignificantly affected by the switching load,but the controlled (dissociative) processingwas more impaired than the automatic (as-sociative) processing. Neither of the twocontrol measures (Stroop and response in-hibition task) were correlated with the re-trieval performance.

Discussion

These findings can be seen as a novel in-dication proposing that executive attentionplays an important role in semantic re-trieval. However, further research is neces-sary for pinpointing the exact contributionof different attentional functions.

References

[1] M.A.L. Ralph, E. Jefferies, K. Pattersonand T. T. Rogers, “The neural and computa-tional bases of semantic cognition”, NatureReviews Neuroscience, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 42-55, 2016. Available: 10.1038/nrn.2016.150.

[2] M. Marko, D. Michalko and I. Riečan-ský, “Remote associates test: An empiricalproof of concept”, Behavior Research Meth-ods, vol. 51, no. 6, pp. 2700-2711, 2018. Avail-able: 10.3758/s13428-018-1131-7.

100

Talks

Offline Reactivation ofHippocampal Place Cell

Assemblies: Changes in TrajectoryReplay and Oscillations Caused by

Learning

Rebecca Varga, Jozsef CsicsvariUniversity of Vienna

Introduction

Navigation plays a role in living creatures’everyday lives. O’Keefe and Dostrovsky dis-covered in 1971 that particular cells [placecells] in the hippocampus fire when a rat isat a specific location [1]. After this discov-ery, several studies focused on place cells.Findings suggest that place cells in the hip-pocampus encode a cognitive map, whichis unique for each environment that hasbeen explored. Sequential activations ofthese place cells can encode entire trajec-tories. However, place cells also fire dur-ing offline periods [i.e. sleep]. This trajec-tory replay has dual roles. During paus-ing, trajectory replay plays a role in de-cision making [2]. During sleep, it con-tributes to memory consolidation. How-ever, in addition to task-specific memory re-call, it may also be involved in wider pro-cesses, such as stabilizing place neuronalrepresentations, strengthening the associa-tion of hippocampal representation to cor-tex, or schema learning.

Problem

Several studies aimed to uncover how placecell firings and trajectory replay in rats con-tribute to task-performance. However, asfar as I know, there have not been directstudies so far of hippocampal reactivationduring sleep with a change in the con-figuration in spatial learning tasks involv-ing complex mazes. In this thesis, I at-tempt to investigate how learning and task-

performance affect trajectory replay and os-cillations which occur during sleep.

Method

An already existing dataset will be analyzed,which contains data about hippocampalplace cell firings of rats during sleep aftera goal-directed spatial learning task in aneight-arm maze. First, assembly activity-based probabilitymaps are generated usinga Bayes decoding method. Then, informa-tion about replayed trajectories is extractedfrom the probability maps. The informa-tion about the replayed trajectory and theoscillations will be utilized to identify thechanges that have occurred due to learn-ing.

Outcome

The results of the data analysis are expectedto show that the reactivation of place cell as-semblies during sleep is modulated by thelearning performance and predicts subse-quent recall. Moreover, spatial learning isexpected to lead to altered oscillations insubsequent sleep. The thesis aims to fur-ther the knowledge about trajectory replayand its function.

References

[1] J. O’Keefe and J. Dostrovsky, “The hip-pocampus as a spatialmap. Preliminary evi-dence fromunit activity in the freely-movingrat,” Brain Research, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 171-175, 1971.

[2] H. Xu, P. Baracskay, J. O’Neill, andJ. Csicsvari, “Assembly Responses of Hip-pocampal CA1 Place Cells Predict LearnedBehavior in Goal-Directed Spatial Tasks onthe Radial Eight-ArmMaze,”Neuron, vol. 101,no. 1, pp. 119-132, 2019.

101


The Art of Enaction: BetweenEnactivism and the Philosophical

Anthropology of HelmuthPlessner

Primoz VidovicFaculty of Education, University of

Ljubljana

Introduction

While the explanatory gap between the neu-robiological and experiential levels of cogni-tion has already been acknowledged, witha number of approaches trying to reconcilethem, there is a similar disconnect betweenthe individual and cultural dimensions ofcognition. The tacit assumption seems tobe that once we have figured out the for-mer, the nature of the latter will reveal it-self also. However, in the literature anthro-pology’s position within cognitive scienceremains detached and cultural treatmentsof cognition rather rudimentary, limited forthe most part to basic social interaction.

Connecting the enactivist paradigm withthe philosophical anthropology of HelmuthPlessner may get us a promising alliance tobridge this gap. They share a dynamic un-derstandingof organismsas entities that de-fine their boundaries, sustain themselves,and build their own realms of meaning inrelation to their environment. Enactivismprovides a robust framework for the studyof cognition grounded in contemporary sci-ence [1]. Plessner, on the other hand,takes a step further, and elaborates on theunique, excentric position humans assume,resulting in a natural artificiality that servesas the kernel of culture [2]. The purpose ofthis researchproject is tocompare these the-ories and find their similarities and discrep-ancies.

Methods

Thenature of the project beingmainly philo-sophical, the primary methods used will beconceptual and comparative analysis of thetheories of enactivismandphilosophical an-thropology. Following a literature review onthe status quo, the key ideas of both theo-ries will be presented, first separately andthen in comparison, concluding with a syn-thesis.

Expected Results

It is expected therewill be a substantial over-lap between the two theories, with similari-ties both on a methodological and concep-tual level. Most likely they will balance andcomplete each other, opening up new av-enues of research.

Discussion

Putting the aforementioned theories to-gether, it is hoped a framework may be con-structed that could be useful both in amorecognitive approach to culture, and a morecultural approach to cognition. Future re-search could make use of it to connect it tothe wider field of philosophical anthropol-ogy and its implications for the study of re-ligion, art, history, and other areas [3].

References

[1] F. J. Varela and E. Thompson, The Embod-iedMind: CognitiveScienceandHumanExpe-rience, Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,2016.

[2] H. Plessner, Levels of Organic Life and theHuman: An Introduction to Philosophical An-thropology. New York: Fordham UniversityPress, 2019.

[3] B. Ošlaj, Homo diaphoricus: uvod v filo-zofsko antropologijo, 2nd ed. Ljubljana:Filozofska fakulteta, Oddelek za filozofijo,2004.

102

Talks

Psychological Support forHemodialysis Patients: One in the

Field but Without Shield

Viktoriia VinokurovaUniversity of Vienna

Persons with End-Stage Renal Disease un-dergoing hemodialysis (HD) tend to faceunique psychological difficulties, manage-ment of which remains insufficient. [2] Pre-liminary literature reviewandpersonal com-munication with HD patients (pts) suggesttwo major issues in research and medicalpractices that led to this problem.

Firstly, the majority of research works arefocused on statistical representation of pts’data, such as suicide rates – 2,4 timeshigher than in the general population [1],– or rates of prevalence of affective disor-ders/depression – 39,3%-62,3% [3]. Whilethese numbers provide clear evidence to as-sert the existence and severity of the prob-lem, they potentially indicate that the HDpts are mainly seen as subjectswhose expe-riences are expressed statistically.

Secondly, review of studies of the past tenyears suggests that a considerable amountof conclusions drawn from the interpreta-tion of the collected data is suboptimal atbest: the offered solutions patch up the leakinstead of fixing it. E.g. in one study, afterestablishing that the most popular methodof suicide among the ptswas cuttingHD vas-cular access, the researchers concluded thatpts should be advised on a different dialysismodality instead of suggesting ways to helpthem with psychological problems that ledto a decision to commit suicide in the firstplace. [1]

With this theoretical research I expect tomake the first step towards bestowing ptswith the voice, and the opportunity to stop

their dehumanization. Pts are not just med-ical subjects. These are people who, likeanybody else, have problems, experienceand feelings. HD simply magnifies a lot ofalready existing problems. The existing re-search tends to neglect their significance toindividuals, potentially marginalizing them.This project’s aim is to break the habit ofgiving an impartial researchers’ advice; tochange the existing practices of interpret-ing patients’ words for the sake of statisticalinterpretation; and to substitute the latterwith transformation of patients’ words intorecommendations and solutions for medi-cal professionals.

References

[1] I. Chen et al., “Suicide deaths amongpatients with end-stage renal diseasereceiving dialysis: A population-basedretrospective cohort study of 64,000patients in Taiwan”, Journal of AffectiveDisorders, vol. 227, pp. 7-10, 2018. Available:10.1016/j.jad.2017.10.020.

[2] F. Taylor et al., “Integrating emotionaland psychological support into the end-stage renal disease pathway: a protocolfor mixed methods research to identifypatients’ lower-level support needs andhow these can most effectively be ad-dressed”, BMC Nephrology, vol. 17, no. 1,2016. Available: 10.1186/s12882-016-0327-2.

[3] B. Čengić and H. Resić, “Depres-sion in Hemodialysis Patients”, BosnianJournal of Basic Medical Sciences,vol. 10, no. 1, p. 73, 2010. Available:10.17305/bjbms.2010.2653.

103


The Role of Precedence inCoordination Games

Liubov Voronina, Christophe HeintzUniversity of Ljubljana

In pure coordination games, two anony-mous players are presented with a set ofequally attractive choice options. They bothwin if they choose an identical option. Oth-erwise, they both lose. Even in the ab-sence of communication, players tend toconcentrate their answers around some ofthe options at a rate significantly higherthan chance [1,2,3].

Heads or tails? Heads, obviously.

It is not, however, obvious at all, what ex-actly makes “heads” stand out as a choiceof strong preference for the vast majority ofrespondents [1,2]. Such recognizable promi-nence of one alternative over another, thatresults in a stable solution, is called focalpoint or salience.

There are two major theories that aim toexplain the phenomenon of saliency [3].Cognitive hierarchy theory differentiates be-tweenprimary (“what appeals tome”or justpicking) and secondary salience (“what I be-lieve you are most likely to pick” or guess-ing).

In contrast, Schelling salience suggests thatpeople look for such selection rule amongmany, that can single out a successful coor-dination strategy. This approach was orig-inally proposed by Schelling [1] and is cur-rently representedby the theoryof teamrea-soning (“what should we do?” or coordinat-ing). Both theories keep getting mixed re-sults and look toward a unified account toyield more robust predictions [3].

In our project we would like to study oneway to achieve Schelling salience, namelyprecedence. To our best knowledge, it has

not yet been empirically tested. The goal ofour experiment is to show how the historyof their previous interactions is being usedby the participants to determine the rule ofcoordination. We hypothesize that the strat-egy that has led to successful coordinationin thepastwill itself becomea focal point forfurther interactions.

To test our hypothesis we have developeda mobile application with a set of coordi-nation games to be played by randomly as-signed partners online. We predict that thejoint history of play will facilitate accuratemutual expectations and enhance players’performance. Moreover, the solutions theywill converge onwill be congruentwith theirsuccessful strategies from the past.

Coordination, as seamless as it appears ineveryday life, easily evades formal analysisyet remains themain stabilizing factor of so-cial interactions. By investigating the wayjoint history shapes future outcomes wehope to contribute some valuable empiricalevidence to the game theoretical perspec-tive on the emergence of social norms.

References

[1] T. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1960.

[2] J.Mehta, C. Starmer, andR. Sugden, “Thenature of salience: An experimental inves-tigation of pure coordination games,” TheAmerican Economic Review, vol. 84, no. 3,pp. 658-673, 1994.

[3] N. Bardsley, J. Mehta, C. Starmer andR. Sugden, “Explaining Focal Points: Cogni-tive Hierarchy Theory versus Team Reason-ing,” The Economic Journal, vol. 120, no. 543,pp. 40-79, 2010.

104

Talks

Semi-automatic Extraction ofImage Schemas fromNatural

Language

Lennart WachowiakUniversity of Vienna

Background

Image schemas were introduced by John-son [1] and Lakoff [2] in 1987 and receivedattention fromvariousdisciplines of the cog-nitive sciences, e.g. cognitive linguistics, de-velopmental psychology, or neuroscience.They describe cognitive building blocks, of-ten called spatio-temporal relations, whichare learned during infancy through physicalinteractions with the environment. Thesebuilding blocks not only help us generalizeto new and unseen situations but are alsohypothesized to shape our abstract think-ing and reasoning, as well as the languagethrough which we express it.

Problem

Automatically extracting image schemasfrom natural language is still an unsolvedproblem. Gromann and Hedblom [3] pro-pose a semi-automatedmethodwhich iden-tifies verb-preposition occurrences whichserve as indicators for spatio-temporalstructures in language. The extracted verb-preposition pairs are then grouped by acluster analysis based on their coocurrringnouns. This way, spatial and non-spatialstructures are divided, while text basedon the same image schemas is clusteredtogether, e.g. “continue along road” shouldbe clustered with other instances of theimage schema source-path-goal. The goalof the present study is to contribute to theenhancement of this method.

Method

In this research, we build on the approachproposedbyGromannandHedblom [3] andaim to improve it bymakinguseof recent ad-vancements made in natural language pro-cessing. This includes using deep learningmethods, e.g. learned word embeddings,which can be used to provide features tothe clustering method that carry semanticmeaning.

Outcome

The outcome of this research will be anevaluation of the improvedmethodology re-garding its effectiveness in extracting imageschemas. In addition, a repository of imageschemas extracted from a domain specificcorpus will be provided.

Impact

A procedure for extracting image schemaseasily andaccurately from large text corporawould help researchers to further investi-gate how they shape our language and pro-vide the means to analyze the contexts inwhich image schemas occur in different lan-guages.

References

[1] M. Johnson, The body in the mind: Thebodily basis of meaning, imagination, andreason. University of Chicago Press, 1987.

[2] G. Lakoff, Women, Fire, and DangerousThings. What Categories Reveal about theMind. University of Chicago Press, 1987.

[3] D. Gromann, and M. M. Hedblom, “Body-mind-language: Multilingual knowledge ex-traction based on embodied cognition”. In:Diakidoy, I.-A., Kakas, A. C., Lieto, A. Loizos,M. (eds): Proceedings of the 5th Interna-tional Workshop on Artificial Intelligenceand Cognition (AIC). CEUR Workshop Pro-ceedings, 2090, 20–33, 2018.

105


Learning Music: Does Observingan Expert Affect HowWe Play?

Elisa Gabrielle WiedemannUniversity of Vienna

Evidence has shown that we modulate thekinematics of our actions to convey our in-tentions. For instance, when demonstratinga new action for a child or naïve observer tolearn, we slowdownourmovements and ex-aggerate their height or punctuality. Suchkinematic modulations, or cues, are alsoused to discriminate other people’s inten-tions from their actions [1].

These findings are particularly relevant forunderstanding the process of social learn-ing, that is, “learning that is facilitatedbyob-servation of, or interaction with, another in-dividual or its products” [2]. There has beenan ongoing debate as to how social learningis to be understood. Some see it as a pro-cessof high-fidelity copying,whereasothersemphasize reconstruction and take it to bea transformative process, in which relevantaspects are abstracted.

In response to this debate, researchershave started to develop empirical frame-works to test predictions derived fromthese accounts. In one such experiment,researchers found that novices’ behaviorwhen learning a piece ofmusicmatched thepredictions of reconstruction accounts bet-ter than ones that emphasize high-fidelitycopying [3].

Following up on this research, the presentstudy investigates the role of kinematic cuesin social learning. To do so, a conceptualreplication of [3] was implemented in an on-line environment. This online experimentaimed to test how the observation of an ex-pert demonstrator’s actions affects novices’learning of a short piece of music.

Participants were non-musicians with noformal musical training. Their task was tolearn toplay a short pieceofmusic (12 beats)on a virtual instrument (a ‘drum set’ thatproduced four different tones on a penta-tonic scale). One group learned to play thepiece bywatching a video of an expertmusi-cian demonstrating it (as in [3]). The othergroup learned to play it by listening to asoundtrack of the musician demonstratingthe piece (taken from the same recording).The centralmanipulation of this experimentwas that only one group had (visual) accessto the demonstrator’s movements.

Participants’ taps were recorded as theylearned to play the piece. Their timing andthe number of errors made are the main de-pendent variables for analysis. Preliminaryresults show that participants who learnedfrom the video (N=32) made significantlyfewer mistakes (t(50.58)=4.66, p0.001, Co-hen’s d=1.15) than audio learners (N=33).Analysis of timing is under way.

References

[1] L. McEllin, N. Sebanz, and G. Knoblich,“Identifiying others’ informative intentionsfrom movement kinematics,” Cognition,vol. 180, pp. 246-258, 2018.

[2]W. Hoppitt and K. N. Laland, Social Learn-ing: An Introduction toMechanisms,Methods,and Models. Princeton and Oxford: Prince-ton University Press, 2013.

[3] J. W. A. Strachan, M. D. Constable, A.Curioni, G. Knoblich, and M. Charbonneau,”A methodology for distinguishing copyingand reconstruction in cultural transmissionepisodes,” submitted.

106

Workshops

107


Ethics of Intelligent Technologies

Martin Takáč

Comenius University in Bratislava,Bratislava, Slovakia

The workshop supplements the lecture ”Intelligent technologies and society: risks andopportunities” by Martin Takáč for those who want to go deeper into selected topics. Theparticipants can choose between:

1. Ethical values for developing intelligent virtual assistants - exploration of your own val-ues and a practical task of creating an ethical policy document for a fictional companydeveloping intelligent visual assistants

2. Fair use of predictive algorithms in justice - discussion about issues, biases and fairnessin predictive algorithms with a practical tasks of creating guidelines for fair and unbiaseduse of such algorithms in justice (a fictional government policy).

108

Author Index

Author Index

AArias Sutil, María, 11Aybar, Kemal Ozan, 49

BBae, Hansoo, 50Bakondi, Flora, 51Barbulescu, Anna Cornelia, 52Bass-Krueger, Julian Lyles, 53Berboth, Stella, 70Bergant, Ajda, 12Bogataj, Žiga, 54Bohnec, Gregor, 55Bojkovska, Isidora, 13Boyadzhieva, Asena, 14Božiček, Evita, 15Bratić, Ena, 56Bratko, Ivan, 80Brečko, Patricija, 58Bregant, Jan Anton, 57Bregant, Tina, 81Brezovnik, Neža, 16But, Izabela, 59

CCaporusso, Jaya, 60Cserjan, David, 17Csicsvari, Jozsef, 101Csikyová, Flávia Lujza, 18

ČČepon, Darja, 15Černe, Jaša, 41

DDincer, Aylin, 19Dreo, Jurij, 15

FFerlinc, Zala, 20Filipič, Andrej, 21

Fülle, Vesna, 63Forke, Julia, 61Furdi, Barbara, 62

GGiber, Tina, 64Godec, Ana, 65Gold, Christian, 84Golestani, Narly, 37Gömöri, Tamas, 22Grüner, Markus, 11Grosse-Wentrup, Moritz, 52Gschwandtner, Laura Pauline, 66Gsenger, Rita, 67Guna, Jože, 63

HHabibnia, Hooman, 68Heintz, Christophe, 104Horváthová, Klára, 69Hutinski, Severin, 23

JJakaj, Sara, 24Javorič, Anja, 12Jeay-Bizot, Lucas, 70Jevšenak, Katarina, 71Jug, Jan, 15

KKalckert, Andreas, 7Knell, Georgia, 72Knöbel, Surya, 25Kojović, Maja, 56Kolenc, Tanja, 26Komarova, Lubica, 27Kondratiev, Lauren, 73Konrad, Wilma, 28Kopač, Jan, 74Kováč, Michal, 29Kriegleder, Moritz, 75

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Kroflič, Niko, 20Kubíčková, Lucia, 76

LLang, Nina, 30Lebens, Rebecca Rose, 77Leeb, Constanze, 31Leonova, Nina, 32Ličen, Mina, 26Lin, Tzu nung, 33

MManouilidou, Christina, 32, 88Marschner, Maximilian, 78Marušič, Jar Žiga, 79Matkovič, Andraž, 43Mencin, Matej, 80Merjasec, Marjeta, 81Meyer, Martyna, 82Michalková, Barbora, 83Mikić, Jasna, 43Mindu, Alexandra Diana, 84Močilnik, Vanesa, 20Mohammed, Mustafa, 85Müller-Naendrup, Lena, 35Morawetz, Carmen, 70Motnikar, Lenart, 86Moze, Tjasa, 34

NNarat, Marko, 36Nádasdy, Zoltán, 57

OOgrin, Ajda, 20

PPalmann, Anna, 37Pavlovčič, Tisa, 15Pečan, Janja, 21Peganc, Katja, 87Pignar, Grega, 88Poljak, Matej, 34Primožič, Maša, 20Purkhauser, Kevin, 38

RRašl, Katja, 39Rebernik, Maša, 89

Ringler, Eva, 62Roder, Tess, 90Rosic, Jelena, 40Rupčić, Matija, 91Rutar, Minea, 41

SSakić, David, 15Saksida, Amanda, 23Saldaña Tumbay, Milagros Rocío, 92Seban, Peter, 93Sebanz, Natalie, 8Silani, Giorgia, 84Slivnik, Lori, 94Smolka, Eva, 19Sojka, Viktor, 42Soulat, Mariette, 95Springinsfeld, Constanze Maria, 96Sterle, Miha, 16Strle, Toma, 89

ŠŠtecková, Viera, 97Štefunko, Adam, 98Štrempfel, Teja, 24

TTakáč, Martin, 9, 108Talypova, Dinara, 99Terglav, Anja, 43Topic Vizcaya, Danijela, 100Tsaprouni, Eleni, 32

UUfer, Carina, 44Urbančič, Eva, 45

VVarga, Rebecca, 101Vidovic, Primoz, 102Vinokurova, Viktoriia, 103Voronina, Liubov, 104

WWachowiak, Lennart, 105Wiedemann, Elisa Gabrielle, 106Wiesner, Jan-Ove, 46

ZZitterbart, André, 47

110

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