Familiar People Research Articles

Residents’ perspectives of mobile X-ray services in support of healthcare-in-place in residential aged care facilities: a qualitative study

BackgroundMobile X-ray services (MXS) could be used to investigate clinical issues in aged care residents within familiar surroundings, reducing transfers to and from emergency departments and enabling healthcare to be delivered in residential aged care facilities. There is however little research exploring consumer perspectives about such services. The objective of this research was to explore the perspectives and preferences of residents about the provision of MXS in residential aged care facilities, including their knowledge about the service, perceived benefits, and factors that require consideration for effective implementation.MethodsA qualitative study design was used. The setting for the study included four residential aged care facilities of different sizes from different parts of a South Australian city. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants. 16 residents participated in semi-structured interviews that were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were inductively derived using thematic analysis.ResultsParticipants had a mean age of 85 years, 56% were female, 25% had dementia and 25% had had a mobile X-ray in the last 12 months. Four themes were developed. Participants preferred mobile X-rays, provided as healthcare-in-place, to improve accessibility to them and minimize physical and psychological discomfort. Participants had expectations about the processes for receiving mobile X-rays. Costs of X-rays to people, family and society were a consideration. Decision making required residents be informed about mobile X-rays.ConclusionsResidents have positive views of MXS as they can receive healthcare-in-place, with familiar people and surroundings. They emphasised that MXS delivered in residential aged care facilities need to be of equivalent quality to those found in other settings. Increased awareness of mobile X-ray services is required.

Simulation-based learning influences real-life attitudes

Humans can vividly simulate hypothetical experiences. This ability draws on our memories (e.g., of familiar people and locations) to construct imaginings that resemble real-life events (e.g., of meeting a person at a location). Here, we examine the hypothesis that we also learn from such simulated episodes much like from actual experiences. Specifically, we show that the mere simulation of meeting a familiar person (unconditioned stimulus; US) at a known location (conditioned stimulus; CS) changes how people value the location. We provide key evidence that this simulation-based learning strengthens pre-existing CS-US associations and that it leads to a transfer of valence from the US to the CS. The data thus highlight a mechanism by which we learn from simulated experiences.

Familiarity mediates apes' attentional biases toward human faces.

In zoos, primates experience markedly different interactions with familiar humans, such as the zookeepers who care for them, compared with those with unfamiliar humans, such as the large volume of zoo visitors to whom they are regularly exposed. While the behaviour of zoo-housed primates in the presence of unfamiliar, and to a lesser extent familiar, humans has received considerable attention, if and how they spontaneously distinguish familiar from unfamiliar people, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying the relationships they form with familiar and unfamiliar humans, remain poorly understood. Using a dot-probe paradigm, we assessed whether primates (chimpanzees and gorillas) show an attentional bias toward the faces of familiar humans, with whom the apes presumably had a positive relationship. Contrary to our predictions, all subjects showed a significant attentional bias toward unfamiliar people's faces compared with familiar people's faces when the faces showed a neutral expression, both with and without a surgical face mask on, but no significant attentional bias when the faces showed a surprised expression. These results demonstrate that apes can spontaneously categorize humans based on familiarity and we argue that the attentional biases the apes showed for unfamiliar human faces reflect a novelty effect.

“Conjoint Communicated Experience”: Art as an Instrument of Democracy

“Conjoint Communicated Experience”: Art as an Instrument of Democracy

‘Going home when it was not home’: Jamais Vu in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction

Abstract ‘Jamais vu’ is a strange mnemonic disturbance that we continue to experience today, though few of us know what to call it. French for ‘never seen,’ jamais vu is the opposite of déjà vu (‘already seen’), and is defined as the temporary inability to recognize familiar things, people, and/or contexts. This essay comprises, to my knowledge, the first literary history of jamais vu. I begin by describing the complex features of this mnemonic disturbance, and uncovering its lost Victorian scientific archive. Though jamais vu went without a name until the 1920s, I also find it hiding in plain sight in nineteenth-century novels as early as Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, as well as in the work of Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, George Eliot, and Elizabeth Gaskell. From here, I follow jamais vu’s trajectory from realist accounts of everyday life into mid-century representations of the haunted house, where it becomes something more than a mnemonic disturbance. By attending to literary representations of jamais vu avant la lettre, I demonstrate its importance not just as a lost Victorian scientific concept, but also as a rich interdisciplinary category that is of great interest to scholars of the nineteenth century and beyond. Specifically, I show that jamais vu was integral to the development and popularity of the Victorian gothic, through which movement it exceeded its status as a mnemonic disturbance, re-emerging as a pervasive modern affect that we have inherited from the Victorians.

Culture-dependent and universal constructs and promoting factors for the process of personal recovery in users of mental health services: qualitative findings from Japan

BackgroundThe conceptualization of personal recovery began in Europe and North America and has spread worldwide. However, the concept of personal recovery in addition to recovery-promoting factors may be influenced by culture. We explored how users of mental health services in Japan perceive their own personal recovery and the factors that promote it.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews with individuals using mental health services. The interview data were analysed using thematic analysis with a grouped framework analysis approach. We used a coding framework based on the existing CHIME framework (connectedness, hope and optimism about the future, identity, meaning in life, and empowerment).ResultsData were obtained from 30 users of mental health services (mean age: 40.4 years; 46.7% women; 50.0% with schizophrenia). “Compassion for others” was newly extracted in “Connectedness”, and “Rebuilding/redefining identity not being as shaped by social norms” was newly extracted in “Identity” as personal recovery. “Positive experiences in childhood” (including positive parenting support from neighbours) was newly extracted as a recovery-promoting factor.ConclusionsOur unique findings on the rebuilding identity/defining identity free from conformity to social norms due to interactions with familiar people, including peers, may be culture dependent. This study raises overarching questions regarding how socio-cultural values influence the development of identity and personal values and how they are in turn reflected in personal recovery.

The 15-minute city: interpreting the model to bring out urban resiliencies

In a globally connected world and increasingly smart cities, the demand for living in a physical neighborhood where one can walk and cycle among familiar people and a variety of services is always alive. It is a quality of life which meets the deep desire of community and place identity. In this regard, the 15-minutes city is the contemporary version of the classical “human measure”. The model offers a refreshing chrono-centric vision for the city that prioritizes people’s time, energy and physio-psychological health by relieving their daily commutes. The recent pandemic clearly showed this potential; the daily outdoor movement by soft mobility allowed for social life even during lockdown periods. The paper is subdivided into two main components: a theoretical discussion of the 15-minute city model as part of a broader sustainable urban planning narrative, and a practical application mapping the potentials of Milan as a 15-minute city, focusing on population distribution and urban fabric structure as a measure of performance evaluation. The emergence of the 15-minute model rebalances the building volume concentration of the consolidated Transit Oriented Development paradigm; suggesting an innovative and more articulated vision. The 15-minute approach, rooted in the organic planning of the ‘60, is pushed by the covid-19 emergency, making treasure of the experience of urban regeneration masterplans of the last decade. The approach falls in line with real estate strategies for place making, which aim to create new sustainable urban districts that are pedestrian oriented and carbon free. After interpreting the international framework of urbanism trends with respect to the 15-minute model, the paper focuses on the Milan case. The potentials for neighborhoods across the city of Milan is investigated to conform to an inclusive 15-minute city model, using fully-fledged and innovative mapping of proximity. This analysis aims to explore the resilience of urban resources to support walkable living environments with a guaranteed basic level of accessibility to daily needs by walking. The support to this model offered by soft mobility modes and micro-mobility devices is also raised. The results show, in a number of urban neighborhoods, a limited level of walkability although related to a spatial city structure which is able to be regenerated as a dense and effective network of 15-minute neighborhoods through tactical urbanism actions on existing open spaces and soft mobility policies, combined with long term strategies (infrastructure capacity and digital upgrading). It is a first methodological test which opens up the research towards a new inclusive concept of accessibility.

Behavioral Responses to Familiar Versus Unfamiliar Older People as a Source of Disgust.

Disgust, as a part of the behavioral immune system, leads people to avoid behaviors of pathogens so as to reduce the probability of infection. Disgust also shows the source effects based on familiarity. However, these source effects have not been tested on the older population. Thus, we tested the source effects of emotional and behavioral reactions from the disgust toward older adults and the possible moderating effects of filial piety on disgust. In the first study, we employed the self-report method to test the source effects of emotional feelings of disgust amongst undergraduates. In the second study, we measured whether filial piety among community adults produced moderating effects of the disgust toward older adults. In the third study, we employed the shape discrimination task to test the source effects of behavioral avoidance to older adults among undergraduates. The first and third studies show stronger negative emotional/avoidance reactions towards unfamiliar older adults than familiar older adults, affirming the source effects of disgust towards older adults that we expected. However, we did not find moderating effects of filial piety associated with disgust. These findings can help us understand the evolutionary origin of disgust toward older adults, which is likely activated more intensely and quickly in response to unfamiliar individuals as compared with familiar individuals.

Personalized landmark adaptive visualization method for pedestrian navigation maps: Considering user familiarity

AbstractLandmark‐based pedestrian navigation can assist pedestrians in navigating successfully. Previous studies have investigated the factors affecting the cognitive efficiency of landmark visualization in terms of both the visual salience of landmarks and the personal characteristics of users. However, empirical studies and applications that consider the influence of spatial familiarity on landmark representation are limited. In this article, we propose a personalized landmark adaptive visualization method for pedestrian navigation maps considering user familiarity. We first explore the influence of spatial familiarity on landmark salience and symbols using cognitive experiments. The results showed that unfamiliar people preferred strong visual salience landmarks and image‐based symbols, while familiar people preferred strong semantic salience landmarks and text‐based symbols. Based on these results, a mathematical model of landmark salience for selecting personalized landmarks is proposed, and association rules between landmark salience and symbols are mined. Finally, the framework of a landmark visualization method is proposed based on the rules. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, a prototype system is developed, and a comparative experiment is conducted with a Baidu map. Experimental results showed that the proposed method has direct practical implications for the development of pedestrian navigation systems, depending on different target users.

Ask - Adapt - Collaborate: An Approach to Individualizing Acute Care for People with Dementia

People with dementia comprise a growing share of the hospital patient population, often receiving care in medical, surgical and critical care units as opposed to behavioral health settings. Dementia confers a greater reliance on familiar people, stimuli and surroundings to support physical and cognitive function.

Trying: On Teaching Empathy.

Trying: On Teaching Empathy.

Avatars with faces of real people: A construction method for scientific experiments in virtual reality

Experimental psychology research typically employs methods that greatly simplify the real-world conditions within which cognition occurs. This approach has been successful for isolating cognitive processes, but cannot adequately capture how perception operates in complex environments. In turn, real-world environments rarely afford the access and control required for rigorous scientific experimentation. In recent years, technology has advanced to provide a solution to these problems, through the development of affordable high-capability virtual reality (VR) equipment. The application of VR is now increasing rapidly in psychology, but the realism of its avatars, and the extent to which they visually represent real people, is captured poorly in current VR experiments. Here, we demonstrate a user-friendly method for creating photo-realistic avatars of real people and provide a series of studies to demonstrate their psychological characteristics. We show that avatar faces of familiar people are recognised with high accuracy (Study 1), replicate the familiarity advantage typically observed in real-world face matching (Study 2), and show that these avatars produce a similarity-space that corresponds closely with real photographs of the same faces (Study 3). These studies open the way to conducting psychological experiments on visual perception and social cognition with increased realism in VR.

Do Situations Influence the Environmentally Responsible Behaviors of National Park Visitors? Survey from Shennongjia National Park, Hubei Province, China

Natural ecological protection in protected areas involves the restriction of land use patterns and their intensity. Typically, the goal of land use is to balance environmental protection with community development. Nature education and ecological experiences in protected areas encourage visitor environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) which supports the sustainable use of land in national parks and reduces the degradation of natural environments. The existing research literature has a focus on ways of facilitating ERB through rational and external influences. However, individual behaviors are contextual and specific situations affect behavior. This research used environmental knowledge as a rational factor and situations were viewed as a moderator in stimulating ERB based on situational cognition theory. A knowledge-situation-behavior latent variable moderator model was constructed and tested with visitor survey data from Shennongjia National Park, Hubei Province, China. The findings showed that situations had a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between environmental knowledge and ERB. Books, articles, authors and familiar people had a significant positive moderating effect on ERB, as did environmental interpretation and staff guidance. Precise measures to promote the ERB of national park visitors were proposed.

Laser acupuncture

Nowadays, interest in innovative treatment procedures has grown significantly. New variants of needleless methods are increasingly common in medical and cosmetic centers. The purpose of this report is to find out how familiar people are with laser acupuncture as a method of treatment and what their feedback is on the procedure. We conducted a survey trough a questionnaire, the purpose of which is to provide information about the feedback on the procedure and how well it is known to people. In the survey participated 100 people aged 18 and older up to 40+, of which 80 women and 20 men. The majority of respondents are young people and many of them had not heard of the procedure, but they showed interest after realizing that it was a needleless variation of classical acupuncture. Those who tried the procedure gave positive feedback and would recommend it.

Rain, reindeer, digging and tundra: children’s visual perception of an archaeological expedition to Northernmost Sápmi (Finnish Lapland)

ABSTRACT In this paper Idiscuss aset of photographs taken by my daughters with disposable cameras, to consider how they perceived an archaeological expedition to northernmost Sápmi (Finnish Lapland). My daughters’ photographic documentation illustrates the views that children from southern Finland have on archaeological fieldwork in an extreme northern environment. Their photographs resemble partly the tourism promotional imagery and Instagram posts, which place emphasis on the impressive landscape, engaging activities, and the gear related to those activities. Based on these imageries, and my personal impressions, thegenius loci of this area for outsiders are largely defined by the mountainous scenery and midsummer snow, both unique to this region within Finland. My daughters’ imagery conveys amixture of familiarity and alienation. There is an awe of facing the new and alien, immersive mountain landscape and the novelty of, e.g., ahelicopter ride to the study site in the middle of aroadless wilderness, and afascination in the familiar expedition activities together with trusted people which creates asense of at-homeness. The familiar actions carried out by familiar people appear to act as important means for placemaking and securing the being-in-the-world, which carries also wider importance beyond this case study.

Social isolation and its psychosocial factors in mild lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional survey of the Japanese population

ObjectiveThis study investigated the sociodemographic, behavioural and psychological characteristics of socially isolated individuals during the ‘mild lockdown’ period of COVID-19 in Japan.DesignA cross-sectional study.SettingThe seven prefectures where the emergency declaration...

Social isolation and psychosis: an investigation of social interactions and paranoia in daily life

Social isolation has been suggested to foster paranoia. Here we investigate whether social company (i.e., being alone vs. not) and its nature (i.e., stranger/distant vs. familiar other) affects paranoia differently depending on psychosis risk. Social interactions and paranoid thinking in daily life were investigated in 29 patients with clinically stable non-affective psychotic disorders, 20 first-degree relatives, and 26 controls (n = 75), using the experience sampling method (ESM). ESM was completed up to ten times daily for 1 week. Patients experienced marginally greater paranoia than relatives [b = 0.47, p = 0.08, 95% CI (− 0.06, 1.0)] and significantly greater paranoia than controls [b = 0.55, p = 0.03, 95% CI (0.5, 1.0)], but controls and relatives did not differ [b = 0.07, p = 0.78, 95% CI (− 0.47, 0.61)]. Patients were more often alone [68.5% vs. 44.8% and 56.2%, respectively, p = 0.057] and experienced greater paranoia when alone than when in company [b = 0.11, p = 0.016, 95% CI (0.02, 0.19)]. In relatives this was reversed [b = − 0.17, p < 0.001, 95% CI (− 0.28, − 0.07)] and in controls non-significant [b = − 0.02, p = 0.67, 95% CI (− 0.09, 0.06)]. The time-lagged association between being in social company and subsequent paranoia was non-significant and paranoia did not predict the likelihood of being in social company over time (both p’s = 0.68). All groups experienced greater paranoia in company of strangers/distant others than familiar others [X2(2) = 4.56, p = 0.03] and being with familiar others was associated with lower paranoia over time [X2(2) = 4.9, p = 0.03]. Patients are frequently alone. Importantly, social company appears to limit their paranoia, particularly when being with familiar people. The findings stress the importance of interventions that foster social engagement and ties with family and friends.

Perceived disturbance and predictors thereof in studies using the experience sampling method

Intensive repeated momentary diary techniques, such as the experience sampling method (ESM), place considerable burden on study participants by repeatedly prompting them to fill in a questionnaire several times throughout the day. The objective of this study was to investigate the level of disturbance reported by participants and predictors thereof using a pooled dataset of seven ESM studies including 1319 healthy participants and individuals with different mental health conditions. All studies used a design of 10 prompts per day over the course of 4 to 6 days. Participants reported no disturbance at 37% of the measurement occasions and the overall level of disturbance was relatively low. Also, clinical samples did not report significantly different levels of disturbance compared to the healthy participants. However, higher levels of disturbance were found for later study days, in the morning, and on weekends. Also, younger participants reported feeling more disturbed by the prompts. In terms of momentary states, higher levels of activity, activity stress, and tiredness were associated with higher disturbance. Also, participants experienced more disturbance when in company compared to when alone, and the level of disturbance increased when in company with less familiar people. Our findings suggest that studies using high-frequency ESM protocols can be used in mental health research, but researchers should be aware of the possible disturbance caused by their research design.

Mass Self-Isolation and the Imaginary World of the Future: Visions and Time Spans Reflected in Memes

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic as well as the restrictions and measures that were taken to fight it had a great effect on the society. Thus, a lot of memes were created the authors of which frequently related their visions and ideas about mass self-isolation to a particular time span within and after this period. This paper focuses on such polycode texts and considers the ideas and visions that are expressed in them. As the results of the research demonstrate, the image of the world during and after the mass self-isolation period depicted in memes is often opposed to the familiar reality people were accustomed to. The very first days, weeks and months of social isolation, the post-mass-self-isolation months that followed, years of the near and distant future were put into context. The authors mentioned the changes that they thought occurred or would occur in relation to the behaviour, habits, appearance and psychological state of a person, social interaction, etc., expressing concerns, mentioning problems and joking about them. Some of these visions were not far from the truth, while others were far from reality. Due to the exaggeration and hyperbolization of these ideas and metaphorical and figurative perception of the observed phenomena, an image of alternative conceivable reality and imaginary world was constructed, parts of which might be distorted or merely fictional. From the early days of mass self-isolation and after it, vaccines were considered to be a means of getting the world back to normal. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic as well as the restrictions and measures that were taken to fight it had a great effect on the society. Thus, a lot of memes were created the authors of which frequently related their visions and ideas about mass self-isolation to a particular time span within and after this period. This paper focuses on such polycode texts and considers the ideas and visions that are expressed in them. As the results of the research demonstrate, the image of the world during and after the mass self-isolation period depicted in memes is often opposed to the familiar reality people were accustomed to. The very first days, weeks and months of social isolation, the post-mass-self-isolation months that followed, years of the near and distant future were put into context. The authors mentioned the changes that they thought occurred or would occur in relation to the behaviour, habits, appearance and psychological state of a person, social interaction, etc., expressing concerns, mentioning problems and joking about them. Some of these visions were not far from the truth, while others were far from reality. Due to the exaggeration and hyperbolization of these ideas and metaphorical and figurative perception of the observed phenomena, an image of alternative conceivable reality and imaginary world was constructed, parts of which might be distorted or merely fictional. From the early days of mass self-isolation and after it, vaccines were considered to be a means of getting the world back to normal.

Exploring the autism spectrum: Moderating effects of neuroticism on stress reactivity and on the association between social context and negative affect.

Neuroticism is associated with increased stress reactivity. In autism spectrum disorders (ASD), emotional stress reactivity is increased and there is some evidence for an increased negative affect (NA) when with less familiar people. The aim of this study was to compare adults with ASD and controls on levels of neuroticism and on interactions between neuroticism and appraised stress or social context in models of NA. This is a cross-sectional observational study comprising a group of 50 adults with ASD and 51 controls. Experience sampling method (ESM) reports were collected for 10 days to measure daily life stress, mood, and social context. Multilevel regression analyses revealed significantly higher neuroticism levels in ASD than in controls. Adults with ASD who scored high on neuroticism showed a significantly stronger association between activity/social stress and NA (i.e., higher stress reactivity) than those with low scores. Furthermore, the association between neuroticism and NA was stronger when adults with ASD were with less familiar people compared with being alone or with familiar people. No consistent corresponding significant interactions were found in the control group. In conclusion, in ASD, neuroticism moderates the association between appraised stress and NA as well as the association between social context and NA.