Differential interference effects of negative emotional states on subsequent semantic and perceptual processing

Past studies have revealed that encountering negative events interferes with cognitive processing of subsequent stimuli. The present study investigates whether negative events affect semantic and perceptual processing differently. Presentation of negative pictures produced slower reaction times than neutral or positive pictures in tasks that require semantic processing, such as natural or man-made judgments about drawings of objects, commonness judgments about objects, and categorical judgments about pairs of words. In contrast, negative picture presentation did not slow down judgments in subsequent perceptual processing (e.g., color judgments about words, size judgments about objects). The subjective arousal level of negative pictures did not modulate the interference effects on semantic or perceptual processing. These findings indicate that encountering negative emotional events interferes with semantic processing of subsequent stimuli more strongly than perceptual processing, and that not all types of subsequent cognitive processing are impaired by negative events.

Decreasing the interference of visual-based P300 BCI using facial expression changes

Interferences from the spatially adjacent non-target stimuli evoke ERPs during non-target sub-trials and lead to false positives. This phenomenon is commonly seen in visual attention based BCIs and affects the performance of BCI system. Although, users or subjects tried to focus on the target stimulus, they still could not help being affected by conspicuous changes of the stimuli (flashes or presenting images) which were adjacent to the target stimulus. In view of this case, the aim of this study is to reduce the adjacent interference using new stimulus presentation pattern based on facial expression changes. Positive facial expressions can be changed to negative facial expressions by minor changes to the original facial image. Although the changes are minor, the contrast will be big enough to evoke strong ERPs. In this paper, two different conditions (Pattern_1, Pattern_2) were used to compare across objective measures such as classification accuracy and information transfer rate as well as subjective measures. Pattern_1 was a “flash-only” pattern and Pattern_2 was a facial expression change of a dummy face. In the facial expression change patterns, the background is a positive facial expression and the stimulus is a negative facial expression. The results showed that the interferences from adjacent stimuli could be reduced significantly (P<;0.05) by using the facial expression change patterns. The online performance of the BCI system using the facial expression change patterns was significantly better than that using the “flash-only” patterns in terms of classification accuracy (p<;0.01), bit rate (p<;0.01), and practical bit rate (p<;0.01). Subjects reported that the annoyance and fatigue could be significantly decreased (p<;0.05) using the new stimulus presentation pattern presented in this paper.

Progress report from the strategic sanctuary for the destruction of free will

Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will presents a new work combining film, music and installation that juxtaposes the setting of the institution with the aesthetics of psychedelia.Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will is an installation, film and sound work that takes over the gallery. Using plain white card, it distorts the structure of the gallery’s architecture, producing a paranoid shrunken space. Inside this space, performers in cardboard costumes re-enact abstracted, broken gestures drawn from video documentation of acid trips, psychedelic dancing, rehab sessions and radical psychotherapy workshops. Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will has been formed through Pil and Galia Kollectiv’s research into the anti-psychiatry movement, their interests in counter cultural movements and their studies around biopolitics and the proliferation of societal medication. In 1958, having had a life changing experience with LSD, former alcoholic Charles Dederich founded Synanon, a drug rehabilitation program based on residential care and an aggressive form of group therapy called ‘The Game’. The organisation gradually evolved into a controversial alternative community, described in a critical pamphlet as creating Strategic Sanctuaries for the Destruction of Free Will, “a subversive program for mixing delinquents and lefties”. In 1984, anti-psychiatrist R. D. Laing described tranquillizers as chemical straight jackets. With our growing understanding of the plasticity of the brain and the potential to shape it, the tension between liberation and control in the struggle over the mind continues to define our relationship to labour, culture and production. Interrogating these ideas, the exhibition poses the question of whether a collective body can overcome the solipsism of the incommunicable experience of the individual mind.