Feel the Movement

Mabuhay!

In a world that is focused on technology that requires less movement, it takes constant and conscious effort to be filled with agility and enthusiasm to exercise. Before we become aware of it, minutes and hours have passed being in front of the computer or gadget screens. With a quick #throwback and reminiscing about one’s elementary and high school days, the experience of participating in a cheerdance routine, any dance performance or even sabayang pagbigkas na may kasamang kumpas for Buwan ng Wika has been a part of one’s growth experience. These activities prove that synchronization and hours of practice can become taxing. However, it is an amazing adaptation that we are able to incorporate muscle memory, physiological responses and corresponding feelings when we move.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0MYIZarlqTP6O9ry/giphy.gif

Recent research showed that proprioception or our bodily awareness is not just limited to movement and its physical manifestations. Interestingly, its associations with internal processing of memories and emotions are also explored. For example, it has been consistently proven that the movements of facial muscles, despite not explaining their meaning, induce particular emotions (Strack, Martin & Stepper, 1988; as cited in Stepper & Strack, 1997). Strack and colleagues tasked participants to use their mouths to hold a pen in place, in a manner by which a smile was formed or inhibited. After which they had to rate the funniness of cartoon clips, and their assessed amusement was in line with the assigned expression (either smile or frown).

The experience of “feeling” did not necessarily have to be positioned in the spectrum of negative or positive valence such as happiness and sadness. Researchers investigated the effect of non-interpreted proprioceptive cues on the subjective evaluation of new affective experience (Stepper & Strack, 1997). They focused on whether a change in posture can affect one’s feeling of pride. Citing the perspective of the evolutionary theory of Darwin, it has long been manifested that a straight posture shows pride. Disguising their experiment as one focusing on ergonomic working positions and its effects on task performance, they had to go through three tasks. First of which was to accomplish an achievement test, followed by a motor skills test and lastly, form-filing. The participants were given a heads-up that they will need to adjust to different positions for various tasks.

One is the controlled condition (no manipulation), upright-posture condition (outright instruction to keep a straight posture) while the other is the slumped-posture condition (subtle cues by utilizing a relatively low table. They measured the pride levels of the participants by using a subjective adjective scale, with filler adjectives such as cheerful, amused, depressed, angry and “pride” was one of the ten. They found that those in the upright-posture condition have higher pride ratings than those in the slumped-posture condition, when they are given successful. They were able to affirm that the co-occurrence of external positive feedback and internal cues of bodily awareness can produce the heightened feeling of pride. The researchers further acknowledged Helson’s findings (1964; as cited in Stepper & Strack, 1997) that the effect of posture is optimal in certain situation and decreases over time. With the natural flow of habituation, they stressed that it is the change in posture and not simply its occurrence (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1973; as cited in Stepper & Strack, 1997). Additionally, they concluded that the combined effect of physical movement and brain processing that allows for a complete emotional experience.

Smitt and Bird (2013) tackled how proprioception plays a significant role for dancers and musicians. He cited instances that improved awareness of one’s bodily positions and movements lessened the risk of injury. Cole and Montero (2007) further explored how professional dancers, athletes and musicians are able to gain pleasure from not only the aim, but also the means by which they reach that certain goal. Interestingly, they also mention that the level of processing is deepened when dancers cognitively become aware that the dance steps they do are aesthetic. They also mentioned of the role of mirror neurons that make us appreciate and find watching synchronized performances and movements to be pleasing (Gallese et al, 1996; as cited in Cole & Montero, 2007) They described it to be “the act of being able to internally mirror one’s movements,” as such in a groove of a dance performance (groove) or the replication of head movement in a soccer match (Cole & Montero, 2007).

First Time to Try Anti-Gravity Yoga! Ohm...

circa 2013

Defying Gravity

with the help of the hammock

Level-Up-Side-Down

circa 2015

In trying out anti-gravity yoga for the first time, which was developed by Christopher Harrison offered at Beyond Yoga here in Manila, there is a mix of excitement and nervousness involved. Do you trust the hammock to carry you and cradle you? We were assured that it may carry up to the weight of 2000 pounds or up to a baby elephant! It is a unique experience to be upside down and (yes, cue music – I’d like to try defying gravity). When doing inversions and other poses upside down, our yogis (or yoga teachers) also use concrete locational cues such as the studio side, mirror side and speakers side, instead of the typical “right and left” instructions. As to where we have to place our hands and feet is also a challenge when we are in a 180-degree tilt. After a few sessions of practice, there is a feeling of ease and familiarity already with the movement.

Moreover, benefits of this exercise includes a natural decompression of the spine due to the force from gravity (thanks, Physics + Psychophysics!), increased proprioceptive awareness and aiding the flow of blood to the brain, which is said to help make people look younger in general. There are also routines when we are allowed to simply swing back and forth, as if playing in the playground, and to maintain the swing by curling one’s legs backward and pointing our feet when moving forward. Those who are experiencing hypertension, heart ailments and certain eye conditions are discouraged from trying this out because of the sudden change in pressure.

The aforementioned studies also show how crucial the role of physical play is in developing proprioception. With the accessibility of free downloadable games and other virtual reality games, it is becoming rare that children are able to appreciate running around and interacting with their neighbors.

As the year is about to end, some points to ponder on would be:

How can one remain grounded, while being able to defy the challenges that come one’s way?

How do we encourage movement amidst the convenience that technology brings?

Cole, J., Montero, B. (2007). 9(2), 299-317. Affective Proprioception. Janus

Head. 300-317.

Smitt, M., Bird, H. (2013). Measuring and enhancing proprioception in

musicians and dancers. Clinical Rheumatology. 32(4), 469-473. doi:

10.1007/s10067-013-2193-7

Stepper, S. Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive Determinants of Emotional and

      Nonemotional Feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 64(2), 211-220. Doi: 0022-3514/93

Catch Me If You Can: (Not) The Movie

(It's watching you.)

In his well known book titled “Blink,” author Malcolm Gladwell had told one of the more invigorating modern stories about racial discrimination. It was the story about Amadou Diallo and how he was thought of as a criminal planning to trespass an apartment in New York. The officers called Diallo’s attention. Diallo turned around, with one hand in his pocket. Seven seconds upon being spotted by the officers, Diallo was bloodied on the floor as he was shot forty one times. Diallo, after all the screams and shots fired, was just pulling out his wallet. Gladwell viewed the incident as a result of the officers’ faulty thin slicing- a cognitive phenomenon where the subconscious takes over careful, deliberate thinking that the officers’ previous exposure and experience of black people are mostly criminals became implicitly associated with Diallo.

Inspired by the story, our group had aimed to look at the incident from a different perspective. That is, what if vigilance, or any degrees of it for that matter, caused the policemen to become neurotic and identify objects incorrectly? What if policemen have personality types unsuitable for agents of law? What if the over-vigilant nature of policemen caused them to make mistakes or to react unfavorably to the situation? To conduct the experiment, we sought 105 students from the University of the Philippines Diliman. We utilized a between-subjects design composed of three groups subjected to different forms of priming: Audiovisual Priming (auditory and visual presentation), Visual Priming (only visual presentation), and Auditory Priming (only auditory presentation) where each condition had 35 participants in it.

(Screenshot of news clip used for priming)

For the experiment proper, participants were primed according to their group conditions. The prime was a presentation of Philippine crime statistics taken from a news program. Participants in the visual condition were only shown the video via a laptop, while in the audio condition only listened through a set of earphones, and in the audiovisual condition participants viewed and listened to the program simultaneously. After which the participants were asked to perform a signal detection task. Their goal is to spot a silhouette of a thief, designed to be holding an ambiguous item, in various scenes of alleys, forests, and bays which were partitioned into a 9x9 grid. Detecting the signal meant using the mouse of the laptop to click on the grid where the silhouette is found. There are twenty scenes all in all, each flashed for only four seconds. A miss or an instance when the signal is not detected is indicated when the mouse is not clicked within the four-second time limit. After the test, participants were asked to remember and identify what the silhouette of a man was holding. Finally, they were asked to answer the HPI-Calmness HIC scale, and the NEO-PI-R Vulnerability scale while not being informed what specifically it was for. Participants were debriefed afterwards.

(Sample of an image presented in the signal detection task)

The current study found that a relatively moderate sensitivity in the audio-visual prime (AV) condition exists compared to the other two conditions. Moreover, a slightly liberal manifestation in signal detection for the AV condition was found. Meanwhile, there is a low sensitivity and neutral bias resulting from the audio-only and visual-only prime. Average reaction time of the participants is also considered as a measure of vigilance. Results showed that, audiovisual group respond the fastest, followed by visual group, and audio group. When reaction time is correlated with selected personality factors, calmness and vulnerability, it was found that there is a very weak correlation between these two variables. In other words, these personality factors do not have a significant relationship with reaction time. These findings generally showed consistencies with past studies that prove multi-modal cues connect neurons more efficiently, as compared to single modalities.

(c) Disney's Zootopia

Relating back to the case of Diallo, adding to Malcolm Gladwell’s view about the incident, that there are deep seated predispositions such as racial discrimination among people aiding in their snap judgments/ thin slicing, our study tells us that we can say that police officers’ personalities can somehow tell how they reacted, that more vulnerable people, as opposed to calm, are more vigilant; but this factor was found to have a weak correlation to vigilance to claim finality. The experiment also suggests that using the senses more actively, that is to have multimodal sensing of a particular stimulus, can result to better attention, and consequently, better vigilance. One interesting finding, however, is that majority of the participants identified the ambiguous object to be a deadly weapon, particularly a knife. Remember that identification of the object was done only after performing the signal detection task. Since it was shown to all conditions, it is hard to make distinctions between groups; but results show participants had increased vigilance before identifying the object. Similar to the incident, perhaps the officers were too vigilant that they misconceived Diallo’s wallet for a gun.

Amidst the lowering reported crime rates in the metro, there are still undeniably occurrences of extrajudicial killings and riding-in-tandem crimes. With the awareness of various factors that may influence subconscious reactions, the findings of the study, together with the case of Diallo, reinforce the significant role of the news reporting style and portrayal in mass media. The subtle cues may reinforce negative judgments not just on racial aspects but also on stereotypes based on clothing style, preferences and other demographic factors. It can be concluded that vigilance is an advantage and essential for survival. However, over-vigilance becomes a threat to the community.

With the Yuletide season approaching, how would you help make the world a just-right-type-of-vigilant place?

Reference:
Everyday Thomist. (2010). What Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink Teaches About Virtue. Retrieved from https://everydaythomist.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/what-malcolm-gladwells-blink-teaches-about-virtue/

When Poison Looks Heavenly: Food Presentation And Our Taste Expectations

"Flaky pastry smothered in butter, a pile of raspberry jam smeared over the top and a soft, giving bite as you sink in your teeth; there’s nothing not to love about this fatty, sweet breakfast food that must be married to a cup of strong coffee."

(c) The Kitchen Whisperer 2016

Lines like these are normally heard in television commercials, or found in dessert menus in cafes all over the world. Nothing beats learning about a dessert's texture or taste from the on the qualities of the food that they ate based on the first bite. They would usually talk about the ingredients used, the method of preparation, and the presentation that the chef thought of. On the other end, the viewers would have their mouths watering, or would feel their stomachs growl as they watch other people on screen taste the food that the chefs meticulously prepared.

However, these arrangements and color combinations that the chefs create sometimes show us only the exterior qualities of the food-- our minds are tricked into thinking that food that looks good also end up tasting the same. The truth is that what we see is not necessarily what we taste! I'm sure that most of us have experienced this sad truth in one way or another as we order something that looks delicious on the menu, but actually looks flimsy in reality.

(c) Roosevelt's Burgers

Looks and presentation do not define and predict taste. We should know that, but why do we somehow still fall prey to these false advertisements?

As the infamous chef Heston Blumenthal stated, a multisensory approach to eating is possible so that the sense of taste is altered by manipulating sound, smell, touch, and sight (2006). Scientists, gastronomists, and psychologists have all attempted to explore these relationships, and have reached conclusions such that changing the color of food changes the person's expectations of its taste, or that adding a strawberry or vanilla scent increases the perception of sweetness of the dish (Dematte, 2006; Spence et al. 2014). Sometimes, even the label and the name of the food affects our perception of its deliciousness. Meiselman and Waterman (1978) even went to the trouble of listing down the labels of food that were more favored than those that were more disliked. A food’s visual features not only affect the perception of the food itself but also play a crucial role in driving our food-related expectations and guiding our food choices. The presentation of food and how it appears to us may decide the very important factors for eating: is the food that we are about to eat edible or not, and will consuming it kill us?

(c) Disney's Snow White

In reality, it's not like we know what a poisoned apple looks like. Sometimes, our choice of the right food to eat goes beyond our senses' abilities.

Visual cues become reliable indicators of the actual flavor and quality of the food, both in terms of the overall recognition of the nature of the food and also whether the food is in an appropriate state to be ingested (Yeomans et al. 2008). However, when there is a lack of congruence between the expected and actual sensory quality of a food, this may lead to perceptual confusion and so alter the sensory experience itself. When this occurs, the contrast between the expected and the actual sensory qualities of the food will result in a strong, negative affective response, and an enhancement of the unexpected sensory qualities. Simply put, when the expected taste is not met, the individual will end up disliking the food.

This incongruence that exists needs to be examined further, as there are a lot more factors that can be placed into consideration, such as the presence or absence of visual cues ("restaurants-in-the-dark" seem to make full use of this), the orderliness and arrangement of the dish, the ethics that lie behind food preparation (the boundaries of which are fully explored in shows like "Heston's Feast"), and the effect of etiquette and table manners to the taste of the food itself.


We should take note that looks can be deceiving, especially when it comes to the food we eat. As Heston Blumenthal's customers would say, there exists a very fine line between gourmet and poison.

(c) SBS Heston's Feast Christmas Special 2015

References:

Michel, C., Velasco, C., Gatti, E., & Spence, C. (2014). A taste of Kandinsky: assessing the influence of the artistic visual presentation of food on the dining experience. Flavour Journal (1), 1.

Spence, C., & Piqueras-Fiszman, B. (2014).The perfect meal: the multisensory science of food and dining. John Wiley & Sons.

Yeomans, M. R., Chambers, L., Blumenthal, H., & Blake, A. (2008). The role of expectancy in sensory and hedonic evaluation: The case of smoked salmon ice-cream. Food quality and preference, 19 (6), 565-573.

Rapid Relief of Thalamic Pain Syndrome Induced by Vestibular Caloric Stimulation

Sometimes patients of stroke do not completely recover from their condition. Their stroke condition can lead to the lesioning of the lateral thalamus which coordinates to an unrelenting pain of half of the body.  This condition is called the Chronic Thalamic Pain; and is untreatable by any known medical means, at least for now.

A group of medical doctors and researchers headed by Neurologist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran thought about the relationship between human system discrepancies, as in deviation from the norm (in this case interference of pain), and its representation in the thalamus. Since vestibular signals also lead to the thalamus, the thalamus now is like a road resulting to the convergence of separate roads of pain and vestibular senses. The researchers thought of stimulating the vestibular senses to tap on and alleviate the pain felt by the patient.

Vestibular Caloric Stimulation Model

Method

The researchers asked for the informed consent of two patients suffering from Chronic Thalamic Pain; namely FY- an 87 year old man whose left side of his body is affected, and CC- a 69 year old woman whose right side of the body is affected.

To conduct the experiment, patients' ears are irrigated with either temperate (body temperature) for the control/placebo condition and cold (4°C) water for the actual experimental condition (see picture above). During the process, patients are asked to report any feelings of vertigo, change in perceived body pain on a scale of 0 (no pain at all) to 10 (most pain imaginable), and their eyes were checked for nystagmus.

Results

Both patients have reported decreased pain after being irrigated with cold water. While the expected placebo condition where they tell the patient that pain will be relieved, did not result to any effects; rather the patient still felt the same magnitude of pain. Inrerestingly, patients were checked after 7 weeks and the relief level is the same as the immediate post treatment. 

Discussion

The findings show and support the assumption that vestibular caloric stimulation can regulate thalamic pain in a theraputic fashion. The researchers discredits placebo effects playing a role in the experiment for  number of reasons: that pain relief has lasted for weeks after cold caloric irrigation for both patients; that the placebo conditions did not produce any significant manifestation, that neither patient experienced any pain relief after any epidural injections of local anesthetic designed to treat pain and that the patients knew its function beforehand, and; that the patients reported independent parts involved in pain reduction.

It should be remembered that thalamic pain is resistant to treatment; and so this may be considered as a medical breakthrough but only to be classified as a therapy. Nevertheless, this notorious condition has, for the first time in the history of neurology, became manageable and and moderated via non-invasive means.

Reference:
Ramachandran, Vilayanur S., McGeoch, Paul D., Williams, Lisa and Arcilla, Gerard (2007) 'Rapid Relief of Thalamic Pain Syndrome Induced by Vestibular Caloric Stimulation', Neurocase, 13:3, 185 - 188. Retrieved from http://cbc.ucsd.edu/pdf/rapid%20relief%20caloric.pdf

Amplify: Do You Hear EAT?

-Crack, crunch, munch!-

It's considerably part of the Filipino culture that we enjoy these delicacies.

Chicharon

(http://tenminutes.ph/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/chicharon.jpg)

Barquillos

(http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/62/7d/64/627d64d5bc3801eb4832fd9889c5989a.jpg)

Pinipig

(http://burntlumpia.typepad.com/burnt_lumpia/images/2008/04/23/img_3490.jpg)

Nakakagutom po ba?

[UPCAT]

"Puwede kumain, huwag lamang chicharon o iyong malutong, ha."

"Ang lutong naman niyan!"

Imagine yourself taking a standardized entrance exam for a University. You are told that you are allowed to eat, aside from crunchy food that can be deemed distracting. It is not only that chewing on crunchy food can be heard by other people. Something that is overlooked is that the overall experience of eating these “pika-pika” food or fingerfood may be associated with the sounds that we hear.

Oftentimes, these remarks seem on top of the head and shallow. The experience of eating is commonly linked to the sense of taste and smell. Past evaluation by food experts or "foodies" and chefs typically rank sound as the least considered sensory factor in rating a dish or drink. But interestingly, this is slowly evolving. A recent study verified that the sounds that we hear have an effect on our overall experience of the food that we eat! Charles Spence (2015) focused on the auditory aspect of a dining experience.  

Mr. Spence cited past studies in relation to crispness and crunchiness. One by Zata Vickers and her team (1981, as cited in Spence, 2015) found that food products that produce relatively high-pitched (5 kHz) biting sounds are often labeled as “crispy,” whereas crunchy food such as a raw carrot would yield 1-2 kHz. He also mentioned that this capability to acknowledge crispness can be associated to the evolutionary aspect – as we have to recognize what is fresh and what is not, for example, eating vegetables and salads. 

Zampini and Spence added that there are also sounds of carbonation, creaminess and squeakiness. Mermelstein and a few other researchers claim that subtle sounds contribute to one’s perception of creaminess (2013, as cited in Spence, 2015). Another unusual sound described is the one produced when eating halloumi cheese, which is described to be the stick-slip phenomenon, and produces a squeaky sound. Sonic cues are moreover, said to be readily present, whether we focus our attention or these or not.

Furthermore, we can observe that multi-national companies also highlight the auditory experience, such as the sound of carbonation and the refreshing component that it adds with Coca-cola’s new tagline – Taste the Feeling. This commercialization was also mentioned by Spence, particularly on the selling point of crunchy food – such as cereals and chips. Companies are said to claim that this crunch component aids in their success (Spence, 2015). 

The realm of auditory experience extends to the presence of background noise and its effect on our taste perception. Woods and co-researchers (2011) conducted a two-part experiment that evaluated the effect of background noise on ratings of saltiness, sweetness and liking and on flavor, crunchiness and liking. They found that in the presence of noise, characteristics unrelated to sound such as saltiness and sweetness were reported to be diminished. This is probably connected to why we tend to eat more in gatherings wherein a lot of people are talking and there is loud background music. However, properties related to sound such as crunchiness were perceived to be emphasized. The authors related such phenomenon to cross-modal contrasting or also known as attentional effect. 

When it comes to associations of sounds that we hear in our environment and chewing something, Spence (2015) shared about the experiment conducted by Jon Prinz. Prinz would out-of-the-blue play the breaking glass sound effects, or any similar unpleasant sound clips when the participants are about to bite the food provided. He reported that the participants’ jaws would freeze, and they associated this with the adaptive reflex that humans exhibit to survive. To further illustrate the effect of sonic clips, a group of Japanese researchers utilized recordings of participants chewing on rice crackers, with a crunchy texture and rice dumplings, with a chewy texture. Participants reported that the food eaten (whether it is a gummy candy, marshmallow, dumpling or rice cracker), when background rice cracker sounds were played, they described it as harder and dryer.

The auditory sense can also amplify other senses such as the sense of touch. Moreover, studies found that the sounds that we hear have various meanings depending on its context. 

The next time you eat your favorite snack, try to be more conscious and aware of how the crunch and crisp of each munch repackages the snacking experience. J

References:

Ro, T., Hsu, J., Yasar, N., C.,  & Beauchamp, M.  (2009). Sound enhances

touch perception. Experimental Brain Research. 195(1), 135-143. doi: 10.1007/s00221-009-1759-8

Spence, C. (2015). Eating with our ears: assessing the importance of the

sounds of consumption on our perception and enjoyment of

multisensory flavour experiences. Flavour Journal. doi: 10.1186/2044-7248-4-3

Woods, A., Poliakoff, E., Lloyd, D. M. Kuenzel, J., Hodson, R., Gonda, H.,

Batchelor, J., Dijksterhuis, G. B. and Thomas, A. (2011). Food Quality

and Preference. 22(1), 42-47. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2010.07.003