Perceptual Domains Research Articles

Race, politics, and perceptions of anti-Black and anti-White discrimination over time

Race differences in perceptions of discrimination are well documented, but questions remain about contextual- and individual-difference moderators of when White and Black Americans see racial bias. We examined how temporal framing (focusing on past decades or not), race, political party, and domain of discrimination influence discrimination perceptions. Temporal framing did not moderate perceptions for White or Black participants (Study 1). Perceived anti-White and anti-Black discrimination converged over time (from the 1950s to the present), but especially so among White participants (Studies 1 and 2). Domain of discrimination moderated perceptions, with White respondents perceiving the steepest rise in anti-White discrimination and the steepest decline in anti-Black discrimination in the education and employment domains (Study 2). Across both studies, only White Republicans reported that White Americans face more discrimination than Black Americans. This research extends the literature on racial and political divides in discrimination perceptions, and highlights variability in perceptions across discrimination domains.

Brain tumor segmentation based on the dual-path network of multi-modal MRI images

Because of the tumor with infiltrative growth, the glioma boundary is usually fused with the brain tissue, which leads to the failure of accurately segmenting the brain tumor structure through single-modal images. The multi-modal ones are relatively complemented to the inherent heterogeneity and external boundary, which provide complementary features and outlines. Besides, it can retain the structural characteristics of brain diseases from multi angles. However, due to the particularity of multi-modal medical image sampling that increases uneven data density and dense structural vascular tumor mitosis, the glioma may have atypical boundary fuzzy and more noise. To solve this problem, in this paper, the dual-path network based on multi-modal feature fusion (MFF-DNet) is proposed. Firstly, the proposed network uses different kernels multiplexing methods to realize the combination of the large-scale perceptual domain and the non-linear mapping features, which effectively enhances the coherence of information flow. Then, the over-lapping frequency and the vanishing gradient phenomenon are reduced by the residual connection and the dense connection, which alleviate the mutual influence of multi-modal channels. Finally, a dual-path model based on the DenseNet network and the feature pyramid networks (FPN) is established to realize the fusion of low-level, middle-level, and high-level features. Besides, it increases the diversification of glioma non-linear structural features and improves the segmentation precision. A large number of ablation experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed model. The precision of the whole brain tumor and the core tumor can reach 0.92 and 0.90, respectively.

Health-related quality of life according to the presence of insulin resistance in ten years follow-up

Abstract Background Insulin resistance is the primary cause of metabolic syndrome, which in turn reflects a real variety of risk factors, closely linked to each other. Thus, we aimed to investigate health-related quality of life scores according to the presence of insulin resistance among citizens of Palanga in Lithuania, in the survey in 2003 and 2013. Methods A randomized epidemiological study was performed out for 835 subjects. All study participants were evaluated according to for socio-demographic characteristics, behavioral factors, health-related quality of life and self-perceived health using questionnaires. Fasting blood samples were draw from all participants for biochemical tests for the glucose and insulin. Insulin resistance was evaluated by the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance. Results All study participants were stratified into groups without and with insulin resistance in the survey in 2003 and 2013 years follow up. Participants with insulin resistance were more likely to be male, with higher body mass index, had lower than higher education, and with moderate self-related health. In subjects with insulin resistance, after adjusting with various factors, logistic regression analysis showed, that within 10 years, a significantly higher chance of deteriorating health-related quality of life in the areas of: physical functioning (odss ratio [OR] = 1.15, p < 0.001), emotional role limitations (OR = 1.07, p = 0.034), social functioning (OR = 1.26, p = 0.004), pain (OR = 1.09, p = 0.005) and general health perception (OR = 1.07, p = 0.022). Conclusions People with insulin resistance are significantly more likely to have a deterioration in their health-related quality of life in the areas of physical functioning, emotional role limitations, social functioning, pain and general health perception after 10 years period. Key messages Over the course of ten years, significant changes were observed in domains of physical functioning, social functioning and general health perception in subjects with insulin resistance. Results of this study provide evidence that individuals with insulin resistance have a significantly higher chance of deteriorating health-related quality of life within 10 years.

Assessment of the training program for Versius, a new innovative robotic system for use in minimal access surgery

ObjectivesThe Versius surgical system has been developed for use in robot-assisted minimal access surgery (MAS). This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Versius training program.DesignA 3.5-day program following...

Effectiveness of customised safety intervention programmes to increase the safety culture of hospital staff

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of customised safety interventions in improving the safety cultures of both clinical and non-clinical hospital staff. This was assessed using...

HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG ADULTS WITH INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE IS ASSOCIATED WITH REDUCTION IN SCHOOL AND WORK PRODUCTIVITY RATHER THAN PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDY.

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), comprising Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, are chronic inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract that often have their onset among adolescents and young adults (AYA). IBD are characterized by episodes of active disease interspersed with periods of remission, and its activity is inversely correlated with health-related quality of life (HRQL). This study aimed to determine whether AYA in remission or with low IBD activity would exhibit HRQL similar to that of age-matched healthy individuals, and whether demographic and disease factors could affect HRQL using a 'patient-reported outcome' instrument. This study enrolled only AYA with IBD, with low activity. This research included five multidisciplinary clinics of two academic hospitals: Paediatric Gastroenterology, Gastroenterology, Coloproctology, Paediatric Rheumatology and Adolescent divisions, São Paulo, Brazil. A total of 59 AYA with IBD (age, 13-25 years) and 60 healthy AYA (age, 13-25 years) completed the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 and 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey questionnaires and the visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain. Demographic data, extra-intestinal manifestations, treatment, and outcomes regarding CD and UC were evaluated. AYA with IBD and healthy controls were similar with respect to median ages (18.63 [13.14-25.80] years vs 20.5 [13.68-25.84] years, P=0.598), proportion of female sex (42% vs 38%, P=0.654), and percentage of upper middle/middle Brazilian socioeconomic classes (94% vs 97%, P=0.596). The school/work score was significantly lower in AYA with IBD than in healthy controls (70 [10-100] vs 75 [5-100], P=0.037). The 'general health-perception' score was significantly lower in AYA with IBD than in healthy controls (50 [10-80] vs 0 [25-90], P=0.0002). The median VAS, FACES pain rating scale, and total VAS scores were similar between the two groups (2 [0-10] vs 3 [0-9], P=0.214). No association between HRQL and clinical and demographic parameters was identified among IBD patients. AYA with low IBD activity reported poor HRQL in school/work and general health perception domains, which highlights a disability criterion in this vulnerable population.

Universal and macro-areal patterns in the lexicon

AbstractThis paper investigates universal and areal structures in the lexicon as manifested by colexification patterns in the semantic domains of perception and cognition, based on data from both small and large datasets. Using several methods, including weighted semantic maps, formal concept lattices, correlation analysis, and dimensionality reduction, we identify colexification patterns in the domains in question and evaluate the extent to which these patterns are specific to particular areas. This paper contributes to the methodology of investigating areal patterns in the lexicon, and identifies a number of cross-linguistic regularities and of area-specific properties in the structuring of lexicons.

The Impact of Auditory Perceptual Training on the Perception and Production of English Vowels by Cypriot Greek Children and Adults

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of auditory perceptual phonetic training on the identification and production of English vowels by Cypriot Greek children and adults. Another two groups of Cypriot Greek child and adult speakers served as controls. The trained groups participated in the pretest, training, and posttest phase, while the controls completed only the pretest and posttest phase. The results showed that perceptual training improved identification accuracy, with children showing greater gains than adults. Although the performance of adults was poorer than the performance of children, their phonological system did undergo substantial alteration through perceptual phonetic training as they significantly improved their identifications in the posttest. Also, the results support a common mental space for the speech perception and production domains since the perceptually-oriented training affected the learners’ productions. However, transfer of improvements in production was observed only to some extent in children and not in adults, suggesting that training has an impact mostly on the trained modality and that some production improvement after perceptual training might be more evident in younger learners.

Health-related quality of life of food-allergic children compared with healthy controls and other diseases.

Food allergy is a potentially life-threatening disease, affecting up to 10% of the pediatric population. The aim of our study was to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of food-allergic patients compared with the general population and patients with other chronic diseases with dietary or allergic burden, in a cross-sectional study. We recruited patients aged 8-17years diagnosed with food allergy and matched healthy controls recruited in schools. We also included patients with asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, diabetes, obesity, and eating disorders. We used the CHQ-CF87 questionnaire for generic HRQL assessment. Food allergy HRQL was also assessed using specific questionnaires: Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire (FAQLQ) and Food Allergy Independent Measure (FAIM). One hundred and thirty-five food-allergic children, 255 children with chronic diseases, and 463healthy controls were included in the analyses. Food-allergic patients had a better HRQL than healthy controls in the Behavior (BE), Bodily Pain (BP), Family Activities (FA), and Mental Health (MH) domains and a worse HRQL in the General Health Perception (GH) domain (p=.048). Food-allergic patients exhibited a better HRQL than patients affected by other chronic diseases, notably diabetes. Although an epinephrine autoinjector had been prescribed to 87.4% of the food-allergic children, only 54.2% of them carried it at all times. Food-allergic patients display overall good HRQL compared with the general population and those with other diseases with daily symptoms and treatments, in line with recent improvements in food allergy management.

The Effectiveness of Stroke Riskometer™ in Improving Stroke Risk Awareness in Malaysia: A Study Protocol of a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Stroke is considered the second leading cause of mortality and disability worldwide. The increasing burden of stroke is strong evidence that currently used primary prevention strategies are not sufficiently effective. The Stroke Riskometer^™ application (app) represents a new stroke prevention strategy distinctly different from the conventional high-cardiovascular disease risk approach. Objective: This proposed study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the Stroke Riskometer^™ app in improving stroke awareness and stroke risk probability amongst the adult population in Malaysia. Methods: A non-blinded, parallel-group cluster-randomized controlled trial with a 1:1 allocation ratio will be implemented in Kelantan, Malaysia. Two groups with a sample size of 66 in each group will be recruited. The intervention group will be equipped with the Stroke Riskometer^™ app and informational leaflets, while the control group will be provided with standard management, including information leaflets only. The Stroke Riskometer^™ app was developed according to the self-management model of chronic diseases based on self-regulation and social cognitive theories. Data collection will be conducted at baseline and on the third week, sixth week, and sixth month follow-up via telephone interview or online questionnaire survey. The primary outcome measure is stroke risk awareness, including the domains of knowledge, perception, and intention to change. The secondary outcome measure is stroke risk probability within 5 and 10 years adjusted to each participant’s socio-demographic and/or socio-economic status. An intention-to-treat approach will be used to evaluate these measures. Pearson’s χ² or independent t test will be used to examine differences between the intervention and control groups. The generalized estimating equation and the linear mixed-effects model will be employed to test the overall effectiveness of the intervention. Conclusion: This study will evaluate the effect of Stroke Riskometer^™ app on stroke awareness and stroke probability and briefly evaluate participant engagement to a pre-specified trial protocol. The findings from this will inform physicians and public health professionals of the benefit of mobile technology intervention and encourage more active mobile phone-based disease prevention apps. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT04529681.

Experience or attribution? Exploring the relationship between personal experience, political affiliation, and subjective attributions with mitigation behavioural intentions and COVID-19 recovery policy support

Scholars argue that personal experience with climate change related impacts can increase public engagement, with mixed empirical evidence. Previous studies have almost exclusively focussed on individuals’ experience with extreme weather events, even as scientific research on health impacts of climate change is burgeoning. This article extends previous research in the domain of public perceptions about climate-related public health impacts. Results from a nationally representative sample survey in New Zealand indicates that subjective attribution of infectious disease outbreaks to climate change and to human impact on the environment is positively associated with mitigation behavioural intentions and climate-focussed COVID-19 economic recovery policies. In contrast, knowledge about COVID-19 and self-reported economic impact due to COVID-19 is not associated with policy support. Moreover, significant interaction between political affiliation and subjective attribution to climate change on policy support indicate that learning about the links between health and climate change will particularly help increase mitigation engagement among right-leaning individuals. Subjective attribution may be the key to help translate personal experience to personal engagement.

Nursing-Sensitive Outcomes among Patients Cared for in Paediatric Intensive Care Units: A Scoping Review.

Measuring the effectiveness of nursing interventions in intensive care units has been established as a priority. However, little is reported about the paediatric population. The aims of this study were (a) to map the state of the art of the science in the field of nursing-sensitive outcomes (NSOs) in paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) and (b) to identify all reported NSOs documented to date in PICUs by also describing their metrics. A scoping review was conducted by following the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley. Fifty-eight articles were included. Publications were mainly authored in the United States and Canada (n = 28, 48.3%), and the majority (n = 30, 51.7%) had an observational design. A total of 46 NSOs were documented. The most reported were related to the clinical (n = 83), followed by safety (n = 41) and functional (n = 18) domains. Regarding their metrics, the majority of NSOs were measured in their occurrence using quantitative single measures, and a few validated tools were used to a lesser extent. No NSOs were reported in the perceptual domain. Nursing care of critically ill children encompasses three levels: improvement in clinical performance, as measured by clinical outcomes; assurance of patient care safety, as measured by safety outcomes; and promotion of fundamental care needs, as measured by functional outcomes. Perceptual outcomes deserve to be explored.

Safety culture in the perception of public-hospital health professionals.

ABSTRACTOBJECTIVE Evaluating safety culture in the perception of professionals working in public hospitals of the Unified Health System (SUS) of Distrito Federal, Brazil, three years after the implementation of the National Patient Safety Program (PNSP).METHODS Analytical cross-sectional study conducted in eleven public hospitals using the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) in electronic format. Stratified sampling was estimated according to the proportion of the total number of professionals in each hospital, as well as the representativeness of each professional group. The results of the total score and domains equal to or greater than 75 were considered positive. Descriptive and inferential analyses of professional groups and hospitals were carried out.RESULTS 909 professionals participated. The total score by professional group was negative (62.5 to 69.5) and the domains differed statistically in all cases. The eleven hospitals had a negative total score (61.5 to 68.6). The domains to attain positive performance were job satisfaction, stress recognition and teamwork climate. The lowest results were in working conditions and management perception domains, for which none of the hospitals had an average above 75. Differences were also found for domain means across hospitals, except in management perception.DISCUSSION Three years after the implementation of PNSP, the safety culture in eleven hospitals evaluated was weak, although the domains of job satisfaction, stress recognition and teamwork climate had positive results. The results can contribute to decision-making by managers, as safety culture is an essential element in the implementation of patient safety policy.

Adversity and Emotional Functioning.

Exposure to early adversity has been linked to variations in emotional functioning. To date, however, the precise nature of these variations has been difficult to pinpoint given widespread differences in the ways in which aspects of emotional functioning are defined and measured. Here, more consistent with models of emotional functioning in typically developing populations (e.g., Halberstadt et al., 2001), we propose defining emotional functioning as consisting of distinct domains of emotion expression, perception, knowledge, reactivity, and regulation. We argue that this framework is useful for guiding hypothesis generation about the specific impact of early adversity on children's emotional functioning. We operationalize the construct of emotional functioning, highlight what is currently known about the association between adversity exposure and each domain of emotional functioning, propose potential mechanisms for these associations, and set the stage for future research examining the development of emotional functioning in the context of early adversity.

The impact of lifetime interpersonal and intentional trauma on cognition and vulnerability to psychosis in bipolar disorder

Background Studies have shown that over half of individuals with bipolar disorder experience early-life trauma, which may influence clinical outcomes, including suicidality and presence of psychotic features. However, studies report inconsistent findings regarding the effect of trauma on cognitive outcomes in bipolar disorder. Aims Our study explores the effect of lifetime trauma on the level of vulnerability to psychosis and cognitive performance in participants with bipolar disorder. Method We evaluated lifetime trauma history in 236 participants with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder type 1 or 2, using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. We classified trauma types based on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's concept of trauma, which characterises the type of experienced trauma (e.g. interpersonal and intentional, accidental or naturally occurring). Our primary outcome measures of interest were vulnerability to psychosis (Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire), cognitive performance (MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery) and social functioning (Social Adjustment Scale Self-Report). Results Multivariate analysis of covariance showed a significant effect of trauma type on the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire cognitive–perceptual domain (F(3) = 6.7, P < 0.001). The no-trauma group had lower cognitive–perceptual schizotypal features compared with the accidental and intentional trauma (P < 0.001) and interpersonal and intentional trauma (P = 0.01) groups. Conclusions Our results highlight the need for careful trauma inquiry in patients with bipolar disorder, and consideration of how trauma-focused or -informed treatments may be an integral part of treatment planning to improve outcomes in bipolar disorder.

The extended present: an informational context for perception

Several previous authors have proposed a kind of specious or subjective present moment that covers a few seconds of recent information. This article proposes a new hypothesis about the subjective present, renamed the extended present, defined not in terms of time covered but as a thematically connected information structure held in working memory and in transiently accessible form in long-term memory. The three key features of the extended present are that information in it is thematically connected, both internally and to current attended perceptual input, it is organised in a hierarchical structure, and all information in it is marked with temporal information, specifically ordinal and duration information. Temporal boundaries to the information structure are determined by hierarchical structure processing and by limits on processing and storage capacity. Supporting evidence for the importance of hierarchical structure analysis is found in the domains of music perception, speech and language processing, perception and production of goal-directed action, and exact arithmetical calculation. Temporal information marking is also discussed and a possible mechanism for representing ordinal and duration information on the time scale of the extended present is proposed. It is hypothesised that the extended present functions primarily as an informational context for making sense of current perceptual input, and as an enabler for perception and generation of complex structures and operations in language, action, music, exact calculation, and other domains.

Enhanced biological motion perception in deaf native signers

We conducted two studies to test how deaf signed language users perceive biological motions. We created 18 Biological Motion point-light displays (PLDs) depicting everyday human actions, and 18 Scrambled control PLDs. First, we conducted an online behavioral rating survey, in which deaf and hearing raters identified the biological motion PLDs and rated how easy it was for them to identify the actions. Then, we conducted an EEG study in which Deaf Signers and Hearing Non-Signers watched both the Biological Motion PLDs and the Scrambled PLDs, and we computed the time-frequency responses within the theta, alpha, and beta EEG rhythms. From the behavioral rating task, we show that the deaf raters reported significantly less effort required for identifying the Biological motion PLDs, across all stimuli. The EEG results showed that the Deaf Signers showed theta, mu, and beta differentiation between Scrambled and Biological PLDs earlier and more consistently than Hearing Non-Signers. We conclude that native ASL users exhibit experience-dependent neuroplasticity in the domain of biological human motion perception.

Level of Knowledge and Perception Public of Forensic Odontology

Background: Awareness of the importance of forensic odontology and the need for national forensic odontology data collection is still lacking attention both in the community and at the government level. Aim: to determine the level of knowledge and public perceptions about forensic odontology. Method: This type of observational analytic study with cross sectional design with the population of Makassar City using snowball sampling technique. This research was conducted September 2020. This study has obtained ethics from the Health Research Ethics Committee of the Hasanuddin University Dental Hospital. This research tool was an online questionnaire. The knowledge domain consists of 10 questions and the perception domain consists of 10 questions. To assess knowledge, each indicator of knowledge is assessed using the Guttman scale. Total research sample is 213 respondent with the test equipment used chi-square and value p 0.05. Results: The average level of public knowledge was 6.15 ± 2.30 (moderate category), the perception level was 6.25 ± 2.13 (moderate category). Conclusion: The level of knowledge and perceptions about forensic odontology in Makassar City people aged ≥ 18 years is still around 60% who answered questions correctly and responded positively.

Structural connectivity predicts sequential processing differences in music perception ability.

To relate individual differences in music perception ability with whole brain white matter connectivity, we scanned a group of 27 individuals with varying degrees of musical training and assessed musical ability in sensory and sequential music perception domains using the Profile of Music Perception Skills-Short version (PROMS-S). Sequential processing ability was estimated by combining performance on tasks for Melody, Standard Rhythm, Embedded Rhythm, and Accent subscores while sensory processing ability was ascertained via tasks of Tempo, Pitch, Timbre, and Tuning. Controlling for musical training, gender, and years of training, network-based statistics revealed positive linear associations between total PROMS-S scores and increased interhemispheric fronto-temporal and parieto-frontal white matter connectivity, suggesting a distinct segregated structural network for music perception. Secondary analysis revealed two subnetworks for sequential processing ability, one comprising ventral fronto-temporal and subcortical regions and the other comprising dorsal fronto-temporo-parietal regions. A graph-theoretic analysis to characterize the structural network revealed a positive association of modularity of the whole brain structural connectome with the d' total score. In addition, the nodal degree of the right posterior cingulate cortex also showed a significant positive correlation with the total d' score. Our results suggest that a distinct structural network of connectivity across fronto-temporal, cerebellar, and cerebro-subcortical regions is associated with music processing abilities and the right posterior cingulate cortex mediates the connectivity of this network.

Factors influencing environmental perception: A Systematic Review

This paper is a systematic meta-analysis based on selected empirical studies to evaluate human-environmental perception. The research concentrates on Eye-tracking technology, electroencephalograph (EEG), electrocardiograph (ECG), and electrodermal activity (EDA). This study investigates the realm of human cognition and its engagement towards the environment. Nevertheless, the studies focus on the factors that enhance human perception towards the surrounding environment by exploring virtual reality. Methods of the review follow systematic meta-analysis guidelines. Meta-analysis is conducted from selected empirical articles, aligned with research questions, published in journals between 2005 and 2020 in the English language. ProQuest, MDPI, PubMed, and Google scholar are the Electronic databases used to extract research works till September 2020 for data analysis. The study analyses the scope for further research using multivariable investigation in the domain of human visual perception. Future explorations could focus on factors such as Semi Immersive technology, the Elderly category, and Color-based influence. Result also suggest the necessity of exploring EEG and Eye-tracking technology in the domain of environmental perception. This work would be a reference for the psycho-physiological researchers on human-environment studies.