COGNITION INSTITUTE · Cognition Institute conference programme Thursday 7th July Friday 8th July...

1

COGNITIONINSTITUTE

IMAGINEWITHPLYMOUTHUNIVERSITY

CONFERENCE7th - 8th July 2016

Roland Levinsky BuildingPlymouth University

Cognition Institute conference programme

Thursday 7th July Friday 8th July

09:00 Tea & Coffee Tea & Coffee

09:30 LT1 Language learning and bilingualism LT1 Innovations and developments in cognition and health

11:0

0 B

reak LT2 Psychology of artistic creativity LT2 Multi-process theories of learning

JCC MDTs in action: why, how, what and so what?

12:45 Lunch & Posters Lunch & Posters

13:30 LT1 The design and evaluation of complex interventions for participants with poor mental health and wellbeing

LT1 Cognition meets Marine: From health and well-being benefits to conserving marine environments

15:0

0 B

reak LT2 Clinical Workshops

• Inter-professional Student-Led Learning

• Science and Practice of Social Responsibility for Wellbeing

LT2 From sensorimotor processes to social perception

16:45 Close Close

18:00 - BBQ Reservoir Café 17:00 - Drinks RLB terrace

(LT1/2: Lecture Theatre 1/2, JCC: Jill Craigie Cinema, RLB: Roland Levinsky Building)

Cognition Institute Conference 2016 Page: 1

Language learning and bilingualism (chair: Allegra Cattani)

Lecture Theatre 1 (Thursday morning)

9:30 Allegra Cattani PlymouthUniversity

Introduction

9:40 Janine Just University ofLincoln

The creation of the standardized UK-Communicative Development Inventory: a parent-report tool for infants between 8-18months

10:00 Allegra Cattani PlymouthUniversity

British normative data of early word learning: Words in Game test

10:20 Ewa Haman University ofWarsaw

Looking for equivalent assessment of lexical knowledge across languages: Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks CLT for preschool children

10:40 Ludovica Serratrice University ofReading

English language proficiency in a heterogeneous group of bilingual children

11:00 Break & Posters

11:20 Yvonne Wren UWE Bristol Speech sound acquisition in children growing up in multilingual environments

11:40 Caroline Floccia PlymouthUniversity

Factors predicting vocabulary knowledge in bilingual toddlers at age 2: a large scale study

12:00 Jeremy Goslin PlymouthUniversity

The effect of linguistic distance on bilingual speech acquisition

12:20 Chair Round table discussion

12:45 Lunch & Posters


Psychology of artistic creativity (chair: Jon May)

Lecture Theatre 2 (Thursday morning)

9:30 Jon May Plymouth University

The Psychology of Artistic Creativity

10:00 David Sargeant Plymouth University

Thinking through Fiction

10:30 Emma Redding / Lucie Clements

Trinity Laban Can we measure a dancer's creativity?


11:15 John Matthias Plymouth University

A musician's apology: An adventure in collaborative creativity

11:45 Frank Loesche Plymouth University

How do architects create?

12:15 Sara Reed / Becca Weber

Coventry University

Pedagogical perspectives on developing creativity in dance students:



MDTs in action: why, how, what and so what? (chair: Cordett Smart)

Jill Craigie Cinema (Thursday Morning)

9:30 Sifiso Maghla and Jennifer Dickenson

Plymouth University

The Clinical Case for Understanding MDT function in Mental Health: Avoiding misdiagnosis, ineffective intervention and neglect

9:45 Cordet Smart Plymouth University

A discursive understanding of MDT function: What it is; Why it is important; What it looks like

10:15 Tahlia and Ihesha Discussion Need and model: Panel SM, JD, CS

10:25 Nancy Froomberg Plymouth University

‘For the benefit of the tape’: Methodological issues in studying MDT meetings using naturalistic talk

10:40 CS, MT, SM, JD Plymouth University

Healthcare meetings where the patient is absent: The ethical and values based implications for research.


11:15 Tahlia and Ihesha Discussion Method: Panel NF, CS, MT, SM, JD

11:30 Kat Peckitt Plymouth University

How might clinical team formulations be studied discursively

11:45 Madeleine Tremblett Plymouth University

Raising a ‘concern’ in MDT meetings: Research to inform practice

12:00 Chair Discussion Clinical Implications: Panel KP, MT

12:10 Mandeep Kallu Plymouth University

Learning from reflective groups to empower hostel staff working with homeless populations: Practice to inform research

12:25 Laura Tozer Plymouth University

A service evaluation of reflective groups: Staff and Service User perspectives

12:40 Tahlia and Ihesha Discussion Clinical Applications: Panel MK, LT. (Closing comments.)



The design and evaluation of complex interventions for participants with poormental health and wellbeing (Chair: Tom Thompson)

Lecture Theatre 1 (Thursday afternoon)

13.30 Felix Gradinger Plymouth University

Implementation Science – What evidence counts in real-world settings?

13.50 Tom Thompson Plymouth University

A systematic Review of Physical Activity for Substance and Alcohol UsedDisorders with Stakeholder Engagement and Public and Patient Involvement

14.10 Cath Quinn Plymouth University

Improving the common mental health problems of male prisoners near to, and after, release: The Engager project.

14.30 Tim Kirkpatrick Plymouth University

Outcome measure development

14.50 Discussion Plymouth University

Opportunities for evidence synthesis in applied health research.

15.00 Break & Posters

15.15 Adrian Taylor Plymouth University

Common components in health behaviour change interventions: Examples from 3 NIHR funded RCTs

15.35 Emma Hazeldine Plymouth University

The role of Peer Researchers in STRENGTHENing research

15.55 Lynne Callaghan Plymouth University

STRENGTHEN: Piloting a Health Trainer Intervention for men and women receiving Community Supervision

16.15 Chair Open discussion around possible collaboration

16.45 Close


Workshop

Bridges: a student-led interdisciplinary learning project (chair: Sophie Homer)

Lecture Theatre 2 (Thursday afternoon)

13:30 Hannah Gooding & Charlotte Doidge



Innovations and developments in cognition and health (chair Catherine Deeprose)

Lecture Theatre 1 (Friday morning)

9:30 Thea Dominey Plymouth University

PD-Tap: A simple and automated measure of Parkinson' Disease severity

10:00 Stephen Smith University of York

The application of evolutionary computation to the diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson's disease

10.30 Craig Newman Plymouth University

Can epilepsy related deaths be reduced with an eHealth solution? The EpSMon project (Epilepsy Self-Monitor)

11.00 Break & Posters

11:15 Alyson Norman Plymouthg University

Face IT: A psychosocial tool for adults with visible difference

11:45 Jackie Andrade Plymouth University

New Ways to Motivate Behaviour Change

12:10 Linda Solbrig Plymouth University

Functional Imagery Training for weight loss and motivating physical activity

12:25 Joana Galvao Gomes Da Silva

Plymouth University

New technologies for behaviour change



Multi-process theories of learning (Chair Andy Wills)

Lecture Theatre 2 (Friday morning)

9:30 Andy Wills Plymouth University

Neural correlates of similarity and rule-based generalization

9:50 Ingmar Visser University of Amsterdam

Development of similarity and rule based category learning: News from the front

10:15 Fraser Milton University of Exeter

Does deferred feedback sharply dissociate implicit and explicit category learning?

10:40 Charlotte Edmunds Plymouth University

Some thoughts and concerns about a dual-system approach to categorylearning


11:15 Ian McLaren University of Exeter

Inhibition, Learning and the Associative / Cognitive Distinction: The Dissociable Effects of Explicit Instruction and Experienced Contingency

11:40 Maartje Raijmakers Leiden University

Learning models show how stimulus similarity differentially affects the learning process of pigeons and adults

12:05 Tina Seabrooke Plymouth University

The role of outcome value in human Pavlovian-instrumental transfer.

12:25 Chris Berry Plymouth University

Recognition, priming, and source memory: One system or multiple?



Cognition meets marine: from health and well-being benefits to conserving marineenvironments (chair Sabine Pahl)

Lecture Theatre 1 (Friday afternoon)

13:30 Robert J Stone University of Birmingham

Cognition Meets Marine and Healthcare Meets Heritage: The Virtual Wembury Project

14:00 Mark Briffa Plymouth University

Of crabs and men: Ritualised aggression in evolutionary biology

14:20 Mathew P White University of Exeter

Capturing the direct benefits to health and well-being from the marine environment: Methodological advances and remaining challenges

14:40 Kayleigh Wyles Plymouth Marine Laboratory

A Psychological Approach to Marine Litter: The Impacts Litter has on Human Well-Being and What Individuals Can Do About It


15:15 Sabine Pahl Plymouth University

Using Marine Environments in Healthcare: A virtual walk on a beach reduces pain in dental patients

15:35 Deborah Cracknell National Marine Aquarium

The Potential Role of Public Aquariums and Human Health and Well-being

16:55 John Griffin / Tom Fairchild

Swansea University

Experimental approachesto isolate the psychological benefits of specific biodiversity components

16:15 Richard C Thompson Plymouth University

Linking Social and Environmental Sciences to help address policy needs in the marine environment

16:45 Close


From sensorimotor processes to social perception (Chair Patric Bach)

Lecture Theatre 2 (Friday afternoon)

13:30 Stephen Hall Plymouth University

Sensorimotor Brain Rhythms and Movement Impairment in Parkinson’s’ disease

14:00 Edward Rhodes Plymouth University

The Neural Oscillations of Motor Control

14:20 Dimitrios Kourtis Central European University

“Self”, “Other” and “We” representations in joint action planning: Evidence from EEG studies


15:15 Marcello Costantini University of Essex

The role of the body and ongoing brain activity in sensory-motor processing

15:45 James Colton Plymouth University

From Ideomotor Suggestions to Motor Control

16:05 Marlene Meyer Radboud University

The developing brain in action: How young children learn from and interact with others

16:35 Katrina McDonough Plymouth University

Missing in Action: Prior expectations bias perception of vanishing goal-directed hand actions.

16:45 Close


Abstracts


The psychology of artisticcreativity

The psychology of artistic creativity

Jon May

School of Psychology, Cognition Institute, PlymouthUniversity

Now that chimps can use sign language and crows can use tools, robots can beat us as chess and neural networks can play the stock market, artistic creativity is humanity’s last claim to a unique ability. I will quickly review this science’s failure to understand, explain, measure or support the arts, indicate ways in which it might be making progress, and introduce the rest of the presenters.

Thinking through fiction

David Sergeant

School of English and Creative Writing, PlymouthUniversity

Fiction can be entertaining, informative, instructive; but what kinds of thinking might narrative allow for or encourage, and what kinds of cognitive limits might be hardwired into it? With a particular focus on the

relationship between space and time, this talk will explore fiction’s ability to represent complex systems such as societies and the environment: why it might want to do so, particularly at this juncture in history, and the problems it encounters in this attempt. The Dalai Lama, global environmental crisis, the utopian city and medieval mysticism will all get at least a mention.

Can we measure a dancer's creativity?

Lucie Clements & Emma Redding

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance

Based on our experiences of working with contemporary dance students we will question what it means to be creative in contemporary dance education, how we can measure creativity in this pedagogical setting and whether these values and beliefs align with the assumptions of standard creativity measures. We will discuss findings from interviews with creative practice teachers in a leadingvocational contemporary dance school, where their expert understanding of identifying and assessing creativity has been used to underpin our research into creativity in contemporary dance education.


A musician's apology: an adventure incollaborative creativity

John Matthias

School of Art and Media, Plymouth University

Beginning with the well-known mathematical collaboration of GH Hardy and JE Littlewood, documented in Hardy's book 'A Mathematician's Apology', this talk will focus on some of the processes which have enabled creative collaborations. Hardy and Littlewood engineered some very interesting protocols between them to constrain (and enable) their collaborative process. I will elaborate upon these constraints and also consider more general ideas of interpersonal knowledge and combined cultural contexts within some of my own collaborative compositional practice which have enabled or prevented successful collaborations.

How do architects create?

Frank Loesche

School of Psychology, Cognition Institute, PlymouthUniversity

The study at hand is based on interviews with second and third year architecture students who were involved in a lengthy creative process: during a project-based course they had to produce artefacts throughout the year and combine them in a final presentation. We assume this process is similar to what the fine arts students, who took

part in the study by Sawyer (2016), experienced. In his study Sawyer concludes that the observed creative process had to be iterative and cyclic. As a result of applying Sawyer’s framework to our data, we propose an additional model of interpreting the outcome. We attempt to build an argument for our proposed interpretation to be valid in these cases as well as similar scenarios. Consequently we provide an idea of how to narrow the gap between different previously proposed models of creative problem solving by interpreting observations in a novel multilayered approach.

Pedagogical perspectives on developingcreativity in dance students

Becca Weber & Sara Reed

C-DARE, Coventry University

How do dance teachers think about the role of creativity development in their teaching choices, for example the choice of teaching materials and activities?

This paper will look at the choices that teachers make when preparing for the teaching of choreographic and improvisational sessions with their dance students. The data used is based on the pedagogical practice and reflections of three experienced teachers, including the authors of this paper. Illustrative examples of practices willbe given and some arts based definitions of creativity and how these relate to those used within cognitive psychologywill be explored.


Innovations and TechnologicalDevelopments in Health and

Wellbeing

PD-Tap: A simple and automated measure ofParkinson' Disease severity

Thea Dominey

Plymouth University, School of Psychology

The current gold standard for assessment and monitoring of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the unified PD rating scale (UPDRS). While a useful evaluation tool, its application forresearch is limited by the need for an experienced rater, intra and inter-rater reliability and a 5-point scale. The UPDRS is time-consuming with the specific motor assessment taking >15minutes to administer. Rapid, objective tools are needed to aid monitoring of PD for research utility. A finger-tapping app (PD-Tap), developed for use on an iPod Touch, was used to test finger tapping performance in 16 patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (mean age 66 years and disease duration 12months) and 16 age-matched-controls (AMC). A fast finger-tapping task taking <1minute to complete, was found to distinguish PD patients from AMC (t(30)=2.27, p=0.03). Moreover, PD-Tap scores showed high correlation with UPDRS motor scores (r=.69, p=.003). These results support the use of the tool in a research

setting. PD-Tap is quick to administer, meaning there is potential to provide a more sensitive indicator of motor function than a 15minute UPDRS assessment. The app-based nature of the tool is practical, and reproducible in a research environment. Future research aims to define the sensitivity of PD-Tap to evaluate motor fluctuations.

The application of evolutionary computationto the diagnosis and monitoring of

Parkinson's disease

Stephen Smith

University of York, Department of Electronics

The application of evolutionary computation to problems inmedicine has increased rapidly over the past five years, but there are specific issues and challenges that distinguish it from other real-world applications. Obtaining reliable and coherent patient data, establishing the clinical need and demonstrating value in the results obtained are all aspects that require careful consideration. This presentation will describe the application of genetic programming to the diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson's disease, illustrated with results from clinical studies undertaken in the UK, USA and Australia.


Workshop

Bridges: a student-led interdisciplinarylearning project

Sophie Homer, 1st Year MPhil/PhD in PsychologyStudent, Hannah Gooding, 2nd Year Trainee Clinical

Psychologist and Charlotte Doidge, 2nd Year ParamedicStudent. Plymouth University

Overview of Bridges: Bridges is an interdisciplinary learning project formed at Plymouth University in 2013, bringing students and staff from different health and social care disciplines together. Our aim is that we can learn witheach other and from each other's perspectives to develop a more holistic understanding of human health and the care that different professions offer. Our hope is that this shared learning can contribute to a workforce of people, who are not just able to work well together, but who can actively contribute to the kind of joined up services we all want and need.

This workshop hopes to provide you with an introduction to what Bridges is, how we have evolved and how you canbe involved. We will explore how you can apply your own learning and knowledge in your chosen subject area to interdisciplinary working.

The design and evaluation ofcomplex interventions for

participants with poor mentalhealth and wellbeing

Implementation science – what evidencecounts in real-world settings?

Dr Felix Gradinger

Researcher in Residence (Integrated Care), Torbay andSouth Devon NHS Foundation Trust, Research FellowUniversity of Plymouth, University of Exeter Honorary

Research Fellow

Background/Objectives: The number of papers with claims about the effectiveness of Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is growing steadily, which has been informing best practice guidance in UK countries. Little is known about how this is translated into clinical practice, and how practice-based evidence might be used, created


and evolving through implementation and adaptation in local contexts.

Methods: This was a two-phase, mixed qualitative, exploratory and explanatory research study across 40 NHS trusts in the UK, of which 10 were in-depth case studies. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders involved in accessing, commissioning, managing and implementing services across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Interview, observational and documentary materials were processed using framework analysis.

Results: We conducted 68 in-depth interviews in Phase 1 and an additional 127 in Phase 2, with a mix of stakeholders of 81 Mindfulness teachers, 73 Managers, 23Commissioners/Referrers, 18 Service users. Assuring the quality and integrity of services depended on effective strategies to reach the hearts and minds of stakeholders by marrying practice-based evidence with evidence-basedpractice. This included the use of experiential and anecdotal evidence as well as scientific and local service evidence and outcomes, representing an opportunity of transfer between local and wider evidence in the complex process of adapting, developing, and improving interventions.

Implications: A complex and new picture was emerging highlighting issues around access, fit, evidence use, quality and integrity of service provision. Describing and explaining the ways implementers are using and generating evidence when developing mindfulness-based

services in the NHS has the potential to support effective implementation.

A systematic review of physical activity forsubstance and alcohol used disorders with

stakeholder engagement and public andpatient involvement

Dr Tom Thompson

Clinical Trials and Population Studies, Plymouth UniversityPeninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry

Physical activity offers a viable alternative to prevent and treat substance and alcohol use disorders. Physical activity has the potential to address a variety of addictive substance use through biophysical and psychosocial mechanisms. To date, there is little rigorous empirical evidence examining its impact in the prevention, reduction,and treatment of substance and alcohol use disorders. This presentation focuses on an NIHR Research for Patient Benefit funded systematic review of such interventions. It presents plans for a novel approach to systematic reviews, where stakeholders, service providers, and service users will be consulted with throughout the project to formulate search strategies, interpret findings in meaningful ways, and aid in the appropriate dissemination to directly impact on patient care.


Improving the common mental healthproblems of male prisoners near to, and

after, release: The Engager project.

Dr Cath Quinn


Our previous work had shown that men serving justice sentences in prison and the community in the UK, self-reported similar levels of health needs for substance misuse and mental distress. Although they received care for their substance misuse needs, they received comparatively little for their mental health needs. Time before and after prison release was identified as an opportunity for engagement and a critical time for sustained support.

We aimed, therefore, to develop and evaluate an intervention for prisoners, with common mental health problems, near to and after release; adopting a Realist Evaluation informed, mixed methods approach. This two phase project has used focus groups, case studies, a livedexperience group and an embedded formative evaluation and pilot trial to develop both a theoretically informed intervention and a way of delivering it. The key processes underpinning the intervention are building a shared understanding, working collaboratively in a non-stigmatising way, meeting people on the day of release and assertive ongoing engagement; these are supported by a Mentalisation based approach.

The intervention is currently being tested in a two-arm, two-site randomised control trial with a parallel process evaluation which will further explore how it is working. The current lack of effective evidence based mental health interventions, addressing the complexity of offenders’ lives, has necessitated the development of this intervention which involves working collaboratively to match available resources around offenders’ goals and building on offenders’ strengths.

Outcome measure development

Dr Tim Kirkpatrick


Prisoners with common mental health problems have complex needs that are challenging within a clinical trial context. The selection of outcomes for an intervention thataims to bring about a broad range of benefits also requirescareful consideration with regard to the relevance, acceptability and psychometric properties of the measures.

We report the findings from a pilot trial that tested a range of trial procedures and potential outcome measures. Our aim was to develop a scientifically robust trial protocol to evaluate the Engager Intervention for male offenders with common mental health problems, near to and after release.


120 participants were recruited across two prisons and attempts made to follow-up in the community at 3 months post release. Outcomes measure relating to mental healthproblems, social inclusion and substance misuse were tested for acceptability and psychometric viability, and trial procedures were tested. Results suggested many of the measures tested were not psychometrically viable for use in the trial. Acceptable levels of recruitment and retention were achieved. All participants randomized continued to participate in study, regardless of which arm they were allocated to. Maintaining blinding of researchers was almost impossible. The pilot trial provided essential baseline data that led to the exclusion of a number of measures that we had considered as potential primary or secondary outcome measures. Adopting a flexible approach to follow-up was important in achieving acceptable levels of retention.

Common components in health behaviourchange interventions: Examples from 3

NIHR funded RCTs

Professor Adrian Taylor


The presentation will briefly identify the aims and methods involved in a currently recruiting (e-coachER), an in-set-up(STRENGTHEN), and a recently awarded trial (TARS), butfocus on the rationale for and use of psychological theory

(eg, Self-determination Theory) and behaviour change techniques to inform the respective intervention development and process evaluation.

The role of peer researchers inSTRENGTHENing research

Dr Emma Hazeldine


The STRENGTHEN intervention provides men and women receiving Community Supervision with support from a Health Trainer to reduce smoking, reduce alcohol consumption, improve their diet or increase their physical exercise and enhance their mental wellbeing. In seeking tounderstand the world in which the STRENGTHEN intervention will be delivered, it is important to understand the perspective of the population for whom the interventionis intended and to integrate those views into the development of the intervention and the research. The STRENGTHEN study utilises the expert knowledge of two groups of Peer Researchers comprising men and women with lived experience of community supervision who meet regularly to contribute to the study. This presentation reports on what happens in the Peer Researcher groups, methods used to ensure meaningful engagement, the contributions of the Peer Researchers to intervention and research design and delivery and the benefits to the Peer Researchers themselves.


STRENGTHEN: piloting a health trainerintervention for men and women receiving

community supervision

Dr Lynne Callaghan


People receiving community supervision have greater healthcare needs, but tend to access healthcare less frequently, contributing to lower health and wellbeing compared to the general population. Mental health and substance misuse problems are particularly common and people in this population are more likely to face homelessness and unemployment. Uncertainty about basic needs can make it difficult to pay attention to behaviours such as smoking, alcohol use, diet and exercise which all contribute to health and wellbeing. Littleis known about the effectiveness of support to improve thehealth and well-being of people serving community sentences, due to a lack of routine data collection and challenges of retention and follow-up. Health Trainers, withan understanding of the client group and basic training in effective behaviour change techniques, may be able to support clients by helping to build motivation and confidence to make important changes. The STRENGTHEN intervention will provide people receiving community supervision with a chance to receive Health Trainer support for up to 12 sessions. This presentation describes the development of the STRENGTHEN intervention, its implementation and plans for evaluation through a forthcoming pilot randomised controlled trial

Cognition meets marine: fromhealth and well-being benefits toconserving marine environments

Cognition meets marine and healthcaremeets heritage: the Virtual Wembury project

Robert J Stone

University of Birmingham, School of Electronic, Electricaland Systems

Since 2010, the Virtual Wembury project has been delivering unique Virtual Reality experiences to a wide range of end users, based on an interactive 3D reconstruction of Wembury Bay in South Devon. The projects that have benefited, and, indeed, still are benefiting from human exposure to this virtual coastal scene are incredibly diverse. They include cognitive and physical restoration/rehabilitation for intensive care patients, psychological investigations of VR for dental anxiety alleviation, virtual rockpool exploration, providing local villagers with an experience of what might have been, had a plan to construct a huge dock gone ahead in 1909, and even the exploitation of virtual scenes of nature for alleviating the boredom of long-duration missions in remote and hostile locations, from the Arctic to future space travel. This presentation will review the background to the Virtual Wembury project and present just some of


the results and lessons learned to date. The presentation will conclude with a look to the future, based on the “resurrection” of interest one is witnessing today in the Virtual and Augmented Reality arenas.

Of crabs and men: ritualised aggression inevolutionary biology

Mark Briffa

Plymouth University, School of Marine Science andEngineering

Animals are constantly subject to competition for limited resources such as food, shelter, territory and mates. This competition frequently manifests as contest behaviour, or ‘fighting’. Given its near ubiquity in the animal kingdom, the evolution of aggressive behaviour has been the subject of intense research interest, with a particular focuson an evolutionary puzzle at the heart of the topic: If Natural Selection produces selfish individuals, why do theytypically show restraint during fights? Rather than fights being resolved through fatalities or serious injury, in most examples we see ritualised contests that allow losers to terminate the contest by making a decision to give up. In my group we test hypotheses about this giving up decision, focussing on the roles of assessment, motivationand energetic costs, and integrating theory from the related areas of animal communication and animal personality. Our study systems include hermit crabs, sea anemones, wood ants, crickets and data form interstate warfare in humans.

Capturing the direct benefits to health andwell-being from the marine environment:Methodological advances and remaining

challenges

Mathew P White

University of Exeter, Medical School

Recent years has seen rapid advancements in the measurement of potential health and well-being benefits from marine ecosystems. This talk will discuss four broad methodologies used to capture these benefits including: a)Quantitative Spatial Mapping, b) Preference Based Utility Estimates, c) Experiential Elicitation and d) Experimental Investigation. Continued challenges of using the data generated from each method for policy purposes will be discussed. It is argued that until we can ‘translate’ these findings into a language understood by policy makers and implementers, integrating information about the potential effects on health of policies affecting the marine environment will remain elusive.

A Psychological Approach to Marine Litter:The Impacts Litter has on Human Well-Being

and What Individuals Can Do About It

Kayleigh Wyles

Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Sea and Society


Coastal visits are not only beneficial to human health and well-being but can also contribute to the accumulation of rubbish. Marine litter is a global, persistent, and increasingthreat to the marine environment and its wildlife. However, we know less about how the presence of litter may interfere with the health and well-being benefits for humans. Consequently, two studies will be summarised that begin to look at the impact and also solution to marinelitter: 1) what are the health and well-being impacts of marine litter on individuals, and 2) what are the consequences of participating in a beach clean are for the individual?

Using marine environments in healthcare: avirtual walk on a beach reduces pain in

dental patients

Sabine Pahl

Plymouth University, School of Psychology

Natural environments can provide psychological benefits but is not accessible in many healthcare settings. We tested how exposure to a marine environment affected pain experience and recollection in patients undergoing dental treatment. Interacting with a virtual marine environment reduced pain and this effect remained one week later. Importantly, the findings only held for nature VR and were not replicated by the urban VR. This research shows that nature can improve patient

experiences, and VR provides an opportunity to do so in the absence of real views or experiences.

The potential role of public aquariums andhuman health and well-being

Deborah Cracknell

National Marine Aquarium Research Lead

Many people visit public aquariums for entertainment and educational purposes, yet evidence suggests that some people also gain health and well-being benefits from visiting these attractions. Studies were undertaken that sought to investigate people’s preferences for different types marine life in public aquariums and how these preferences influenced people’s ‘restorative experiences’ (psychological and physiological responses). Overall, public aquarium exhibits were able to provide restorative experiences that appeared to be influenced by biodiversitycharacteristics, such as species richness and abundance. Public aquariums may therefore provide valuable opportunities for easy and regular access to the benefits ofa restorative environment.

Experimental approaches to isolate thepsychological benefits of specific

biodiversity components

John Griffin / Tom Fairchild


Swansea University, Department of Biosciences

Recent studies on the interface of psychology and ecologyaddress the benefits of natural or semi-natural ecosystemsfor human mental and physical well-being. This field must now pin-down exactly what qualities of ecosystems maximise human psychological benefits. Here we discuss the potential role of biodiversity. This ‘slippery’ concept is best reserved for the variation among living things as described in terms of the number of different biological entities (e.g., species) and, increasingly, their functional or evolutionary differences. We argue that 20 years of ecological experiments in biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research provide a framework of designs that can be adapted to robustly isolate the effects of biodiversity on psychological response variables. In doing so, we will develop a more complete understanding of howbiodiversity influences human well-being.

Linking Social and Environmental Sciencesto help address policy needs in the marine

Environment

Richard C Thompson

Plymouth University, School of Marine Science andEngineering

The marine environment faces a diverse array of challenges. Environmental Science can provide evidence on the extent and severity of these issues. However, understanding the underlying social drivers relating to both

problems and the solutions is also of fundamental importance when weighing up the evidence in order to reach an informed decision on appropriate policy measures.

From sensorimotor processes tosocial perception

Sensorimotor Brain Rhythms and MovementImpairment in Parkinson’s disease

Stephen D. Hall

School of Psychology, Plymouth University

Brain rhythms arising in the somatosensory and motor cortex have been measured for almost a century. In particular, spontaneous and ongoing oscillations are observed at mu (10Hz) and beta (15-30Hz) frequencies at rest. During movement, a specific signature of power reduction and increase, termed ‘event related desynchronization’(ERD) and ‘post movement beta rebound’ (PMBR) are seen. While the precise function of these oscillations is unclear, differences are observed in various motor disorders, including Parkinson’s disease (PD), which offer insights into their purpose.

Here I will describe a series of experiments, which compare the profile of spontaneous and functional motor


rhythms in PD and healthy control participants. I will summarise the pathological changes that occur in the betarhythm and describe the impact of effective therapeutics on oscillatory power, alongside improvements in motor function. Finally, I will discuss the potential of GABAergic projections in the motor system as novel targets for treatment in PD, beyond prevailing dopaminergic medications.

Neural Oscillations of Motor Control

Edward Rhodes

Plymouth University

Neural oscillations have been evident in recordings of electrical brain activity since the invention of electroencephalography (EEG) by Hans Berger in 1928. However, up until the late 20th century oscillations had been largely dismissed as a by-product of neural activation, with neuroimaging research focussing instead on event-related potentials. Pfurtscheller and colleagues found that both during the planning and the execution of a hand action beta (13-30Hz) oscillations originating from the motor cortex desynchronise. This was described as anevent-related desynchronisation (ERD). During this talk I will discuss a new EEG study, designed by my supervisor Dr Stephen Hall and I, that used an established paradigm to investigate the extent to which beta ERD is modulated by directional uncertainty and whether the power of beta and mu (8-12Hz) oscillations prior to movement can be used to predict movement performance. We demonstrate

a novel synchronous feature that corresponds with the motor-planning process and propose a model of network recruitment that underpins the ERD process. Finally, I will describe a brain stimulation experiment in which artificial brain rhythms, tailored to each participant, were introduced during the motor-planning period. Preliminary results suggest that frequency-specific stimulation can selectively interfere with neural process involved in the recruitment of networks required to initiate movement. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the role of network oscillations in the healthy brain and in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease.

“Self”, “Other” and “We” representations injoint action planning:Evidence from EEG

studies

Dimitrios Kourtis

Department of Cognitive Science, Central EuropeanUniversity, Budapest, Hungary

Successful human interaction benefits from and often depends on the formation of a joint action plan, which mayinclude in addition to the representation of one’s own action, the representation of the actions of the other persons, who are involved in the interaction. I will discuss findings from EEG studies, which show that people employ their sensorimotor system to represent the action of a co-actor during the planning phase of simple everyday


joint tasks. Interestingly, such representations seem to depend on the specific task of each co-actor and they onlyconcern the aspects of the action that are necessary for the successful performance of the joint task. In addition, more recent findings suggest that people may form representations of the interpersonal configuration of actions before the performance of a joint task, irrespective of whether their action has been specified or not. Taken together, these studies provide support for the notion that during joint action planning the involved actors not only they form representations of their own actions, but they also form task-specific representations of their co-actors’ actions, and possibly of the interpersonal configuration of actions - which may facilitate the effective performance of a joint task.

The role of the body and ongoing brainactivity in sensory-motor processing

Marcello Costantini

Centre for Brain Science, Department of Psychology,University of Essex, Colchester, UK. Department ofNeuroscience and Clinical Sciences, University “G.

d’Annunzio”, Chieti, Italy

Beyond the trivial assumption that without a body we can no gather sensory information from the environment and we cannot act upon it, our particular body, right here, right now, both enables and constrains our perception of possibilities for action. In this talk I will provide empirical support to the idea that our physical body can narrow the

set of our possible interactions with the environment, by shaping the way we perceive objects and actions around us. I will also propose that such effects are contributed by the effect of our physical body on

The developing brain in action: how young children learn from and interact with others

Marlene Meyer

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour,Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

From early in life children are eager to interact with their environment. Despite their eager engagement, they still face difficulties in successfully carrying out goal-directed actions with objects and in coordination with others. In thistalk, I will present research on how infants learn from their parents’ action kinematics to perform new actions and on which neurocognitive processes might play a role in coordinating one’s own actions successfully with others.

Learning from others’ actions: When demonstrating actions to their infants, parents adjust not only their speech but also exaggerate their movements. This ‘motionese’ is suggested to heighten infants’ visual attention and to stimulate their object exploration. Yet, whether and how parents’ action kinematics during infant-directed actions affect their infants’ learning of new actionsis unclear to date. In a motion-tracking study with 14-month-old infants and their parents, we investigated parents’ action kinematics and their potential effects on


infants’ learning. The findings indicate that infants’ learningand memory of new actions were affected by parents’ action kinematics, particularly by parents’ proximity to infants and action duration.

Interacting with others: Coordinating actions successfully with others involves several neurocognitive processes such as controlling one’s own actions, as well as predicting and monitoring others’ actions. Converging evidence shows that the neural motor system is involved in the execution and control of own actions as well as the monitoring and prediction of others’ actions. In an EEG study, we tested how toddlers monitor a joint action partner. The data show a context-specific involvement of the motor system during observation of an action partner which was related to the children’s joint action performance. In addition, we investigated how inhibitory action control and action prediction are related to toddlers’ joint coordination. The findings indicate a distinctive role ofaction prediction and inhibitory control for different aspectsof action coordination (timing variability & accuracy). Together, these findings suggest that diverse functions of the motor system substantially contribute to developing successful joint actions.

Missing in Action: Prior expectations biasperception of vanishing goal-directed hand

actions

Katrina McDonough

School of Psychology, Plymouth University

Action observation was previously understood as a bottom-up process whereby the perception of an action is driven primarily by the action kinematics. More recent research suggests that this is only half the story. Action observation is actually a predictive process, whereby our perception of an action is not only representative of the sensory information available, but is also influenced by ourexpectation of the action. We used a Representational Momentum (RM) paradigm to investigate how prior expectations of an action can alter our perception of that action. Participants viewed simple goal-directed hand movements which took either a rational or irrational trajectory. When the actions suddenly disappeared, participants were required to indicate their final position using a touch screen. Results showed that when the hand moved with an unexpected (irrational) trajectory, responses were biased in the direction of the expected (rational) trajectory. This provides evidence for a top-down influence of prior expectation on action observation, suggesting that our conscious experience of others’ actions is derived from an integration of bottom-up sensory information and high-level abstract information.


COGNITION INSTITUTE · Cognition Institute conference programme Thursday 7th July Friday 8th July...

Documents

Transcript of COGNITION INSTITUTE · Cognition Institute conference programme Thursday 7th July Friday 8th July...