The study analyzes how visual thinking and artificial intelligence can be integrated into business education to strengthen anticipatory, strategic, and creative skills from the perspective of the triad of economics, production, and productivity. The problem centers on the scarcity of methodologies that combine artificial intelligence, digital art, and the discipline of foresight as new executive arms that generate the necessary symbiosis where technology acts as a complement to human beings, who in turn absorb and replicate the results thanks to the work of their creative matrix. The purpose is to demonstrate that visual representation through the strokes of a drawing in a monochromatic style and stick figures (people represented in a simple way) improves systemic understanding and innovative decision-making. The development process of the exercise involves 92 students from the University of Ibagué, using a mixed methodology structured in three phases: visual exploration, digital modeling, and analysis of emerging capabilities. This analysis shows that the use of drawings and AI tools enhances sustainable business strategies under a replicable approach between art, technology, and foresight.

[Purpose] This study aimed to elucidate the usefulness of stick figure images as visual feedback in recognizing the “elbow dropped”position among baseball players and to identify the optimal filming angle for such recognition. [Participants and Methods] Studyparticipants were 51 male baseball players aged 11–15 years who had been diagnosed with throwing-related shoulder or elbow injuries and whoalso exhibited the “elbow dropped” position. Shadow throwing was filmed from four angles (front, rear, ventral, and dorsal), converted intostick figure images using SPLYZA Motion, and presented in three formats: standard playback, frame-by-frame, and still images. The ease ofrecognizing the “elbow dropped” position was evaluated using a Visual Analog Scale. [Results] The stick figure images were significantlyeasier for participants to interpret than the actual throwing videos. The front and dorsal filming angles provided the clearestvisualization, followed by the rear and ventral filming angles. [Conclusion] Filming from a front or dorsal angle is the most effectivemethod for teaching baseball players to recognize the “elbow dropped” position. Stick figure images may enhance the players’ understandingof proper throwing mechanics.

ABSTRACT An important accomplishment in systemic consultations and interventions is helping the family's coparents—individuals mutually responsible for the child's care and upbringing—to become more mindful about ways they can ally together to support their children. One means of stimulating coparenting dialogues is to guide intentional reflection on coparenting‐related actions related to engagement, teamwork, conflict and child focus. One instrument designed to evoke such reflection, the Coparenting Scale, is effective in triggering parent insights and dialogues about coparenting behaviours and dynamics if used intentionally by therapists. The instrument is uniquely designed to provide visuals for parents (stick figure cartoons) portraying two adults and a child in everyday activities connoting signs of affection and togetherness, handling discipline in the family, differences of opinion with the coparent and actions engaged in when alone with the child which affect the solidarity of the coparenting alliance (covert coparenting). Reflection on these items builds insight into behaviour not always consciously in mind, and dynamics not typically discussed openly or effectively with their coparent. Primed to enable such conversation, while resolute about the meaning of coparenting behaviour for children's family‐level security, practitioners can help coparents strengthen determination to mindfully engage in behavioural changes to promote greater family integrity at home through teamwork and to reduce child‐related conflict. Cases from Italy, Sweden, the United States and Israel illustrate implementation variations and impact.

It has been suggested that stage fright may be musicians’ greatest psychological stressor. This study aims to develop various mental and physical practices that form an easy-to-use “manual” for musicians with stage fright by using stick figures and concise, short, instructive texts. The recommended practices were developed based on discussions between expert researchers working with musicians’ stage fright. The manual was tested on a musician to manage unpleasant thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations caused by stage fright. Eighteen steps, rooted in self-awareness and mindfulness, gave the musician a tool to embrace stage fright as a steppingstone to greater self-expression and artistry. The manual with the 18 stick figures will be further evaluated and tested in a controlled bigger sample. The discussions revealed that by observing and accepting one’s feelings without judgment and catastrophizing, it is possible to learn to understand the needs of the body and to respond compassionately. A manual of 18 easy-to-use practical strategies could be one way to deal with stage fright.

Thomas is a 12-year-old boy with Trisomy 21, hypothyroidism, and hearing loss. During a recent follow-up visit to the multidisciplinary Down syndrome clinic, his parents expressed concern regarding changes related to Thomas's overall functioning and increasing problematic self-talk behavior. Thomas's parents report that he has talked to "imaginary friends" (e.g., "no, don't do that" or "that's not nice") since he was in preschool. Previously, parents have been reassured that this behavior is likely externalized self-talk and have been advised to not be concerned by the behavior as it is fairly common in youth with Down syndrome.His parents shared that he has always been "in his own world," but over the past 6 months, the frequency of self-talk behavior has increased, and the content of self-talk has focused more on "bad men" (e.g., "bad men do bad things"). Thomas's parents have also noticed that it has become difficult to engage him in conversation or other tasks, including preferred activities, because of his preoccupation with "talking to imaginary friends." In addition, Thomas has begun picking at his skin to the point of bleeding, his artwork/drawings have become more rudimentary (now drawing stick figures), his sleep onset and maintenance have reduced, and he refuses to go into his bedroom because of "whispers in the walls."At school, Thomas's teachers have reported that his speech has become more difficult to understand, and he has been increasingly distracted by "talking to imaginary friends," including in the middle of class time. Classroom behavioral interventions (e.g., positive reinforcement program) have not been helpful.When asked about recent stressors, Thomas's parents shared that there was a string of car break-ins in the neighborhood around 7 months ago and have wondered if overhearing about this event could have affected Thomas in some way.Given this history, what would you consider in development of a differential diagnosis and what would be your next steps in providing care for Thomas?

Recognizing goal-directed actions is a computationally challenging task, requiring not only the visual analysis of body movements, but also analysis of how these movements causally impact, and thereby induce a change in, those objects targeted by an action. We tested the hypothesis that the analysis of body movements and the effects they induce relies on distinct neural representations in superior and anterior inferior parietal lobe (SPL and aIPL). In four fMRI sessions, participants observed videos of actions (e.g. breaking stick, squashing plastic bottle) along with corresponding point-light-display (PLD) stick figures, pantomimes, and abstract animations of agent–object interactions (e.g. dividing or compressing a circle). Cross-decoding between actions and animations revealed that aIPL encodes abstract representations of action effect structures independent of motion and object identity. By contrast, cross-decoding between actions and PLDs revealed that SPL is disproportionally tuned to body movements independent of visible interactions with objects. Lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) was sensitive to both action effects and body movements. These results demonstrate that parietal cortex and LOTC are tuned to physical action features, such as how body parts move in space relative to each other and how body parts interact with objects to induce a change (e.g. in position or shape/configuration). The high level of abstraction revealed by cross-decoding suggests a general neural code supporting mechanical reasoning about how entities interact with, and have effects on, each other.

Recognizing goal-directed actions is a computationally challenging task, requiring not only the visual analysis of body movements, but also analysis of how these movements causally impact, and thereby induce a change in, those objects targeted by an action. We tested the hypothesis that the analysis of body movements and the effects they induce relies on distinct neural representations in superior and anterior inferior parietal lobe (SPL and aIPL). In four fMRI sessions, participants observed videos of actions (e.g. breaking stick, squashing plastic bottle) along with corresponding point-light-display (PLD) stick figures, pantomimes, and abstract animations of agent-object interactions (e.g. dividing or compressing a circle). Cross-decoding between actions and animations revealed that aIPL encodes abstract representations of action effect structures independent of motion and object identity. By contrast, cross-decoding between actions and PLDs revealed that SPL is disproportionally tuned to body movements independent of visible interactions with objects. Lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) was sensitive to both action effects and body movements. These results demonstrate that parietal cortex and LOTC are tuned to physical action features, such as how body parts move in space relative to each other and how body parts interact with objects to induce a change (e.g. in position or shape/configuration). The high level of abstraction revealed by cross-decoding suggests a general neural code supporting mechanical reasoning about how entities interact with, and have effects on, each other.

Human observers can often judge emotional or affective states from bodily motion, even in the absence of facial information, but the mechanisms underlying this inference are not completely understood. Important clues come from the literature on "biological motion" using point-light displays (PLDs), which convey human action, and possibly emotion, apparently on the basis of body movements alone. However, most studies have used simplified and often exaggerated displays chosen to convey emotions as clearly as possible. In the current study we aim to study emotion interpretation using more naturalistic stimuli, which we draw from narrative films, security footage, and other sources not created for experimental purposes. We use modern algorithmic methods to extract joint positions, from which we create three display types intended to probe the nature of the cues observers use to interpret emotions: PLDs; stick figures, which convey "skeletal" information more overtly; and a control condition in which joint positions are connected in an anatomically incorrect manner. The videos depicted a range of emotions, including fear, joy, nurturing, anger, sadness, and determination. Subjects were able to estimate the depicted emotion with a high degree of reliability and accuracy, most effectively from stick figures, somewhat less so for PLDs, and least for the control condition. These results confirm that people can interpret emotion from naturalistic body movements alone, and suggest that the mechanisms underlying this interpretation rely heavily on skeletal representations of dynamic shape.

This projective assessment for studying perceptions of self and family during COVID-19 was part of a project examining the adult decision-making process during the pandemic. For this research project, 110 adults aged 18-82 from the United States and Canada completed a background questionnaire and 30 pandemic-related questionnaire items. In addition, 84 participants (76%) each uploaded four projective drawings, with their accompanying written associations, of self and family as envisioned both prior to and during the pandemic, for a total of 336 drawings collected. These drawings represented Self Pre-Pandemic (SP); Self During Pandemic (SD); Family Pre-pandemic (FP) and Family During Pandemic (FD). Two coders rated each drawing with the accompanying associations for a) type of drawing: (stick figures; full figures; abstract/object-only/ non-peopled; faces only) b) figures depicted with masks c) drawings expressing affect d) activities possible before or during the pandemic e) relationship experiences and f) body image representations. Coder reliabilities were over 90% agreement. Happy faces and positive associations were dramatically more frequent for drawings and associations before versus during the pandemic, whereas ubiquitous expressions of isolation and negative affect were associated with SD and FD drawings. Examples of representative drawings with concomitant associations, for each of the four conditions (SP; FP; SD; FD) are presented, illustrated and discussed. Overall, we found that detailed, evocative expressions of affect were most prevalent in response to the projective drawings in contrast with questionnaire items, suggesting their utility for exploring experiences for persons affected by the pandemic and similar events.

Body perception plays a fundamental role in social cognition. Yet, the neural mechanisms underlying this process in humans remain elusive given the spatiotemporal constraints of functional imaging. Here, we present intracortical recordings of single- and multiunit spiking activity in two epilepsy surgery patients in or near the extrastriate body area, a critical region for body perception. Our recordings revealed a strong preference for human bodies over a large range of control stimuli. Notably, body selectivity was driven by a distinct selectivity for body parts. The observed body selectivity generalized to nonphotographic depictions of bodies including silhouettes and stick figures. Overall, our study provides unique neural data that bridge the gap between human neuroimaging and macaque electrophysiology studies, laying a solid foundation for computational models of human body processing.

Curriculum ideological and political education is an important way to cultivate college students in the new era with socialist core values. This study focuses on constructing the implementation strategy of ideological and political education in preschool education curriculum, especially by analyzing the examples of "children's stick figure drawing" curriculum, demonstrating the urgent need of integrating ideological and political education into preschool education majors, and exposing the main challenges encountered in the current practice of this field. According to the characteristics of the "children's stick figure painting" course content, the ideological and political education content is organically combined with the course content, in order to cultivate preschool educators with socialist core values.

Introduction: A goal kick is awarded when the whole of the ball passes over the goal line, on the ground or in the air, having last touched a player of the attacking team, and a goal is not scored. The purpose of this study was to find out the relationship of selected angular kinematic variables with the performance of goal kick technique of soccer goalkeepers in Ethiopia's higher premier league. Method: Purposive sampling technique was used for choosing highly skilled goalkeepers. In the present study, a total of seventeen male goalkeepers (18 to 30 years of age) who had participated in the Ethiopian premier league participated. Goal kick technique was divided into three phases, such as the stance phase, the execution phase and the follow-through phase. All goalkeepers were given three trials and the best trial was used for analysis. Each participant performed three goal kicks with maximum strength that were video recorded with a camera (nikon d3200) positioned 9 m away from the place of the kick at the height of 0.95m. The silicon coachpro 7 and kinovea software were used for analyzing the data. The Joint Point Method was used in order to obtain the values of selected angular kinematic variables by developing a stick figure. The height of the Center of Gravity was calculated by segmentation method. The relationship of selected angular & linear kinematic variables with the performance of goal kick soccer goalkeeper was obtained by spearman rank correlation method. Conclusion: During stance phase, hip joint (left and right), ankle joint right, shoulder joint right and elbow joint left, do have a significant relationship with the performance of goal kick in soccer goalkeeper. At the time of execution phase, angular kinematic variables such as ankle joint left, hip joint right, shoulder joint right and elbow joint right do show a significant relationship with the performance of goal kick in soccer goalkeeper. Whereas the elbow joint left and wrist joint left were insignificant relationships. At the time of follow-through phase, ankle joint right, elbow joint left and hip joint were significant.

Attending to and tacting stimuli in a situation may facilitate recall of that situation. To evaluate this, we showed varied slide decks of 25 black-and-white stick figures engaged in actions to four adolescents and one child with autism. Ten minutes later, we asked them to name the pictures they remembered. Using a multielement design, we compared three conditions in the picture viewing context wherein we (a) instructed the participant to view the pictures quietly, (b) prompted and reinforced tacts of the pictures, or (c) required the participant to repeat a series of letters and numbers (i.e., a blocking procedure). For four of the participants, recall was highest in the condition in which we prompted and reinforced tacts of the pictures. These data provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that prompting and reinforcing tacting stimuli enhances recall with respect to those stimuli, though several limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Social norm interventions hold the potential to change people's behavior. Five field experiments (N = 1,163) examined the effects of a simple and easily realizable social norm nudge based on the social media format "Be like Bill." The nudge consisted of a stick figure named Toni that communicated descriptive and injunctive norms regarding pro-environmental or pro-social behaviors. Nudge conditions were compared to no-intervention control conditions. Experiment 1 (N = 179) focused on paper towel consumption in a women's restroom at a German university. The nudge condition used less paper towels than the control condition, d = 0.48. Experiment 2 (N = 183) replicated this result (d = 0.32) in a more diverse setting of a women's restroom at a German Christmas market. Experiment 3 (N = 250) examined differences in the effects of prescriptive (i.e., 'do-norm') versus proscriptive (i.e., 'do not-norm') social norms on paper towel consumption again in a university women's restroom. The effectiveness of both social norm nudge conditions was shown in comparison to the control condition (d = 0.46; d = 0.40), while the prescriptive and proscriptive social norm manipulations did not differ. Experiment 4 (N = 206) applied the nudging approach to the use of plastic lids in a coffee shop, where no effect was found. Finally, Experiment 5 (N = 345) focused on the pro-social behavior of mask wearing in a bakery toward the end of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions in Germany. In the nudge condition, more visitors put on face masks compared to the control group, d = 0.39. Limitations and contextual factors regarding the applicability of our social norm nudge are discussed.

This article investigates children’s graphic representation of two complex motor skills, snowboarding and aikido, from the perspective of drawing flexibility research. In particular, the role of working memory capacity in the development of drawing flexibility is examined. A total of 127 children in the age range 5.7–11.9 years were shown short videos of snowboarding and aikido and were required to make drawings of them. In addition, participants were administered Goodenough’s Draw-a-man Test (that measures the ability to draw detail and proportion in the human figure) and two working memory tests (the Mr. Cucumber test and the Backward Digit Span). The snowboarding and aikido drawings were scored for 19 or 13 features, respectively, on which they could differ from the participant’s standard drawing of a person. The snowboarding and aikido scores were correlated, also controlling for age and Draw-a-man scores, indicating a common variance for drawing flexibility. The drawing flexibility scores increased with age, and were correlated with working memory capacity, also controlling for age and Draw-a-man scores. These results are consistent with a neo-Piagetian model of drawing flexibility development. Detailed analyses are also provided on children’s production of stick figures and “transparencies,” and on the relation of each single modified feature with age and working memory capacity.

ABSTRACT Collaborative drawing is a multimodal approach to examining problems within small groups of individuals when the perspectives of multiple stakeholders should be considered. Collaborative drawing can be useful for helping students visualize and analyze a challenging problem from different world views and provide opportunities to confront, discuss, and identify potential resolutions. Rich Pictures (RPs), the artifacts created through collaborative drawing, were used in two fourth-year undergraduate internship classes (n = 48) to prompt student discussion about potential workplace dilemmas and provide a site for reflecting on professional challenges. Students used graphic objects, icons, and stick figures or ‘actors’ playing distinct roles, to map out a problematic workplace scenario. The RPs created by the students illustrated the emotional complexities inherent in complex problems through spatial organization, commonly used symbols and emojis, and narrative vignettes. The RPs provided a space for students to surface their emotional responses to the problem scenarios, examine the inherent power dispositions, and illustrate the nuanced and complex perspectives to consider in professional environments. The findings contribute insight on multimodal strategies for facilitating opportunities for students to develop their professional identities, and present innovative methodologies for researchers in Higher Education to study that development.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with biased perception of human movement. Gesture is important for communication and in this study we investigated neural correlates of gesture perception in MDD. We hypothesised different neural activity between individuals with MDD and typical individuals when viewing instrumental and expressive gestures that were negatively or positively valenced. Differences were expected in brain areas associated with gesture perception, including superior temporal, frontal, and emotion processing regions. We recruited 12 individuals with MDD and 12 typical controls matched on age, gender, and handedness. They viewed gestures displayed by stick figures while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed. Results of a random effects three-way mixed ANOVA indicated that individuals with MDD had greater activity in the right claustrum compared to controls, regardless of gesture type or valence. Additionally, we observed main effects of gesture type and valence, regardless of group. Perceiving instrumental compared to expressive gestures was associated with greater activity in the left cuneus and left superior temporal gyrus, while perceiving negative compared to positive gestures was associated with greater activity in the right precuneus and right lingual gyrus. We also observed a two-way interaction between gesture type and valence in various brain regions.

In investigating the influence of body movement in multimodal perception, human motion displays are frequently used as a means of visual standardization and control of external confounders. However, no principle is established regarding the selection of an adequate display for specific study purposes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of adopting 4 visual displays (point-light, stick figure, body mass, skeleton) on the observers' perception of music performances in 2 expressive conditions (immobile, projected expressiveness). Two hundred eleven participants rated 8 audio-visual samples in expressiveness, match between movement and music, and overall evaluation. The results revealed significant isolated main effects of visual display and expressive condition on the observers' ratings (in both, p < 0.001), and interaction effects between the two factors (p < 0.001). Displays closer to a human form (mostly skeleton, sometimes body mass) exponentiated the evaluations of expressiveness and music-movement match in the projected expressiveness condition, and of overall evaluation in the immobile condition; the opposite trend occurred with the simplified motion display (stick figure). Projected expressiveness performances were higher rated than immobile performances. Although the expressive conditions remained distinguishable across displays, the more complex ones potentiated the attribution of subjective qualities. We underline the importance of considering the variable display as an influencing factor in perceptual studies.

Introduction: Video-based clinical rating plays an important role in assessing dystonia and monitoring the effect of treatment in dyskinetic cerebral palsy (CP). However, evaluation by clinicians is time-consuming, and the quality of rating is dependent on experience. The aim of the current study is to provide a proof-of-concept for a machine learning approach to automatically assess scoring of dystonia using 2D stick figures extracted from videos. Model performance was compared to human performance.Methods: A total of 187 video sequences of 34 individuals with dyskinetic CP (8–23 years, all non-ambulatory) were filmed at rest during lying and supported sitting. Videos were scored by three raters according to the Dyskinesia Impairment Scale (DIS) for arm and leg dystonia (normalized scores ranging from 0–1). Coordinates in pixels of the left and right wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee and ankle were extracted using DeepLabCut, an open source toolbox that builds on a pose estimation algorithm. Within a subset, tracking accuracy was assessed for a pretrained human model and for models trained with an increasing number of manually labeled frames. The mean absolute error (MAE) between DeepLabCut’s prediction of the position of body points and manual labels was calculated. Subsequently, movement and position features were calculated from extracted body point coordinates. These features were fed into a Random Forest Regressor to train a model to predict the clinical scores. The model performance trained with data from one rater evaluated by MAEs (model-rater) was compared to inter-rater accuracy.Results: A tracking accuracy of 4.5 pixels (approximately 1.5 cm) could be achieved by adding 15–20 manually labeled frames per video. The MAEs for the trained models ranged from 0.21 ± 0.15 for arm dystonia to 0.14 ± 0.10 for leg dystonia (normalized DIS scores). The inter-rater MAEs were 0.21 ± 0.22 and 0.16 ± 0.20, respectively.Conclusion: This proof-of-concept study shows the potential of using stick figures extracted from common videos in a machine learning approach to automatically assess dystonia. Sufficient tracking accuracy can be reached by manually adding labels within 15–20 frames per video. With a relatively small data set, it is possible to train a model that can automatically assess dystonia with a performance comparable to human scoring.

We Made It in Venice! But Then …? Reversing Notions of Center and Periphery