Stick Figure Research Articles

Relationship of Selected Kinematic Variables with the Performance of a Goal Kick Techniques in Football Goalkeeper

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.

Effectiveness and context dependency of social norm interventions: five field experiments on nudging pro-environmental and pro-social behavior.

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.

Children’s representation of specialized skilled movements: The cases of snowboarding and aikido

AbstractThis 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.

Drawing as thinking through: students’ use of collaborative drawing to examine ‘problemical’ situations

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 Depression and the Perception of Affective Instrumental and Expressive Gestures: An fMRI Investigation

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.

The impact of visual display of human motion on observers' perception of music performance.

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.

Towards automated video-based assessment of dystonia in dyskinetic cerebral palsy: A novel approach using markerless motion tracking and machine learning.

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 (8-23years, 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 1.5cm) 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

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

Curves and stick figures not contained in a hypersurface of a given degree

A stick figure $X\subset \mathbb{P}^r$ is a nodal curve whose irreducible components are lines. For fixed integers $r\ge 3$, $s\ge 2$ and $d$ we study the maximal arithmetic genus of a connected stick figure (or any reduced and connected curve) $X\subset \mathbb{P}^r$ such that $\deg (X)=d$ and $h^0(\mathcal{I}_X(s-1))=0$. We consider Halphen's problem of obtaining all arithmetic genera below the maximal one.

Sticks and STONES may build my bones: Deep learning reconstruction of limb rotations in stick figures

Sticks and STONES may build my bones: Deep learning reconstruction of limb rotations in stick figures

Generative Adversarial Neural Approach Towards Construction of Warli-stick Figure Aboriginal Artwork

Image Synthesis or generation is evolving at a high rate helping from diagnosis of diseases to traffic control. Deep Learning has touched a new height in which domains like Computer Vision have successfully developed Deep learning models for image generation. Recent improvements in deep learning enabled Generative Adversarial Networks or GANs to achieve a remarkable level of success in image synthesis. GANs help in generating significant and relevant outcomes from convoluted patterns as input. This piece of research aims at making a call towards conservation of tribal art culture through deploying neural models and computer vision techniques, in line with Warli tribal human synthetic stick figures of Asian tribes. This paper presents several methods for synthesizing human stick figures in Asian Tribal Art using modified GAN architecture. The modified GANs were quite different in terms of layers as well as the range and distribution of latent vector space. To provide input data for the training process, a customized data set was created based on spherical polar coordinates and the laws of coordinate geometry. The process of training the GAN architecture involves insertion of random vector points, and addition of neural layers, to generate outputs of higher and better resolution. The paper includes training of Generator and Discriminator following the concepts of Transfer learning and providing relevant affirmation to draw conclusions that the generated samples exhibit similarities and resemble the original input sample. Further work extends towards using of different color space data set images for generating outputs with better accuracy through the modified GAN models. The final generated output images along with other visualizations are also attached with this work to provide evidence for the fact that the output samples are analogous to the actual data. This piece of research tries to open a gate way of using artificial intelligence in terms of cultivating and protecting the traditional art cultures of various tribes across the globe. The proposed methodology performed quite well in terms of producing warli figures from given latent vector space, which is vindicated by the comparison of images at pixel level and image histograms.

THE INFLUENCE OF STICK FIGURES MEDIA ON ARABIC WRITING PROFICIENCY: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY AT MTsN 3 TANAH DATAR / تأثير وسيلة عصا الأرقام على مهارة الكتابة: بحث تجريبي في المدرسة الثانوية الإسلامية الحكومية الثالثة تانه داتار

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Stick Figure media on students’ Arabic writing skills at MTsN 3 Tanah Datar. The researcher used an experimental research method with a quasi-experimental Posttest Only Nonequivalent Control Group design. The sample of the research was 54 students chosen at random, who were then divided into two groups: the experimental group of 27 students and the control group of 27 students. Data collection technique was a test. Each group received a pre and post test.The t test was used to analyze the data. Based on the research findings, to is greater than tt, namely 0.46&gt; 0.273, indicating that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted and the null hypothesis (H0) is rejected. Based on the hypothesis test, it can be concluded that the use of Stick Figures media has an effect on students' Arabic writing skills at MTsN 3 Tanah Datar. As a result, the use of Stick Figure media in particular, and instructional media in general, can have an impact on students’ learning outcomes. Therefore, Arabic teachers are expected to always select and use appropriate media when teaching Arabic.

Deep generation of 3D articulated models and animations from 2D stick figures

Generating 3D models from 2D images or sketches is a widely studied important problem in computer graphics. We describe the first method to generate a 3D human model from a single sketched stick figure. In contrast to the existing human modeling techniques, our method does not require a statistical body shape model. We exploit Variational Autoencoders to develop a novel framework capable of transitioning from a simple 2D stick figure sketch, to a corresponding 3D human model. Our network learns the mapping between the input sketch and the output 3D model. Furthermore, our model learns the embedding space around these models. We demonstrate that our network can generate not only 3D models, but also 3D animations through interpolation and extrapolation in the learned embedding space. In addition to 3D human models, we produce 3D horse models in order to show the generalization ability of our framework. Extensive experiments show that our model learns to generate compatible 3D models and animations with 2D sketches.

Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability in Japanese children

Japan has a large gender gap; thus, this study examined whether Japanese 4- to 7-year-old children exhibit a “brilliance = males” stereotype and whether parental attitudes toward gender roles were related to children’s stereotypes. We also explored whether the children exhibited such stereotypes in response to various stimuli. We showed children photos (Study 1) and stick figures (Study 2) of men, women, boys, and girls, asking them to attribute traits (smart or nice) to each. Study 1 revealed overwhelming in-group positivity in girls, whereas the results for boys were rather mixed. In Study 2, girls generally attributed nice to their own gender compared to boys. However, “brilliance = males” stereotypical responses were observed from 7 years of age, when boys began to be more likely to attribute smartness to their own gender compared to girls. The new data in Study 3 replicated results of Study 1 and parts of the results of Study 2. Moreover, merging the Study 3 data with that of Studies 1 and 2 confirmed their findings. Furthermore, it replicated the “brilliance = males” stereotype among 7-year-olds in the stick figure task. Parental attitudes toward gender roles were unrelated to children’s gender stereotypes. The results indicated that Japanese children may acquire “brilliance = males” stereotypes later than American children (6-years-old). Furthermore, the results were clearer when children were presented with stick figure stimuli.

3D Shape Deformation Using Stick Figures

Obtaining new poses of an articulated character is a critical task in computer graphics. We address this issue with a new shape deformation approach consisting of two phases enabling the user to express the new pose as a simple stick figure, also called skeleton consisting of few bones. We interchangeably refer to this problem as shape transfer because the template shape is transferred to the independent stick figure that may be obtained from any source such as motion capture and 3D sketching. In the first phase, the stick figure is embedded into the template shape, resembling the rigging process of character skinning. Then, instead of computing blend weights as in skinning, the shape, discretized as a mesh, is augmented by adding extra edges between a subset of mesh vertices and the embedded stick figure. The second phase deforms the augmented mesh towards the new pose under the guidance of the embedded stick figure by minimizing an As-Rigid-As-Possible (ARAP) energy. The overall deformation is intuitive as skinning, preserves surface details as it is based on ARAP deformation yet has better volume preservation capability owing to the augmented mesh. Our results are validated both in terms of timing and accuracy in a comprehensive test suite that includes state-of-the-art deformation techniques. • Edges between mesh and its skeleton prevent from volume loss in ARAP deformation. • Two skeletons can be matched by minimizing a distance-based penalty function. • Distance-based skeleton matching method can be used as an automatic rigging method. • New poses of a shape can be created by using a stick figure and a template mesh.

A functional magnetic resonance imaging examination of audiovisual observation of a point-light string quartet using intersubject correlation and physical feature analysis.

We use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to explore synchronized neural responses between observers of audiovisual presentation of a string quartet performance during free viewing. Audio presentation was accompanied by visual presentation of the string quartet as stick figures observed from a static viewpoint. Brain data from 18 musical novices were obtained during audiovisual presentation of a 116 s performance of the allegro of String Quartet, No. 14 in D minor by Schubert played by the ‘Quartetto di Cremona.’ These data were analyzed using intersubject correlation (ISC). Results showed extensive ISC in auditory and visual areas as well as parietal cortex, frontal cortex and subcortical areas including the medial geniculate and basal ganglia (putamen). These results from a single fixed viewpoint of multiple musicians are greater than previous reports of ISC from unstructured group activity but are broadly consistent with related research that used ISC to explore listening to music or watching solo dance. A feature analysis examining the relationship between brain activity and physical features of the auditory and visual signals yielded findings of a large proportion of activity related to auditory and visual processing, particularly in the superior temporal gyrus (STG) as well as midbrain areas. Motor areas were also involved, potentially as a result of watching motion from the stick figure display of musicians in the string quartet. These results reveal involvement of areas such as the putamen in processing complex musical performance and highlight the potential of using brief naturalistic stimuli to localize distinct brain areas and elucidate potential mechanisms underlying multisensory integration.

Big Girls

Big Girls D.J. Thielke (bio) It being her birthday and a Friday, Bethany's mother talks her into swinging by Taco Bell after school. "You love Taco Bell," her mom reminds her as they pull into the parking lot. She's been doing that a lot, telling Bethany the things she loves in a goading, slightly baffled voice: you love Taco Bell, you love school, you love your Aunt Meryl! Aunt Meryl—who's sitting in the front even though it's Bethany's birthday—makes a face. "You love that dog food?" she says. But does that stop Aunt Meryl from shouldering her way through the door and up to the counter first? Ever since Aunt Meryl moved in with them a few months ago, Bethany's mom keeps saying how they need to be patient, gentle. "Your aunt's fragile right now," she says, but Aunt Meryl doesn't seem fragile; it seems as though fragile things should run, squealing porcelain peeps of terror, from big, blundering Aunt Meryl. Inside, the décor is comforting in the repetition: everywhere the pink and purple and yellow colors, everywhere the bell bursting free. Bethany orders and heads for a booth. She feels better in the booth: the table hiding most of her, the wide plastic bench with plenty of room, and she can put her backpack next to her, blocking anyone's view. Her mom and aunt arrive with the tray, the tacos in their wax paper stacked in their cheerleader pyramid, the strings of cheese on Meryl's Mexican pizza like prostrated stick figures, volcanic sacrifices. Bethany accepts her three burritos, starts in on the first. The first bite is mostly the crimped edges of overlapping tortilla folds, but the next bite is chaos, the goopey explosion peeking out below her teeth marks, and then she stops paying attention to each bite, lulled into the comforting stupor of the in and in and in of food. "So," her mom says, "your first day as a fourteen-year-old." She does a squirmy happy dance in her seat. "How was school?" She takes a bite of a soft taco and smiles at Bethany over the translucent spiked lettuce poking over the top. Bethany takes another bite of burrito so she doesn't have to answer and shrugs into the silence. In homeroom that day, J.C. Young, who sits behind Bethany, started kicking the sides of her butt that hang over the chair. She took the first time as an accident, but the white noses of his sneakers reappeared and batted—one, two, left, right—at her again. When she still didn't do anything, he pretended to pass her butt back and forth between his feet. J.C.'s a soccer player. Really good, apparently. Once, Bethany imagined Future Bethany saying in a speech, a bully toed my butt as if I were a soccer ball. This is how Bethany gets through stuff like J.C. —by thinking about what Future Bethany would say. Because Future Bethany? Future Bethany is great. More than great. Amazing. Future Bethany is always receiving an award or being interviewed, always smiling and explaining exactly what crap real Bethany is having to live through. When Future Bethany tells the story of J.C., the crowd gasps, boos— maybe J.C. is even in the audience, slumping down in his seat, feet twitching with shame. [End Page 64] I was so fat, Future Bethany explains, he put his feet on either side of me and jiggled, making motor sounds, pretending I was a boat. Again the crowd shakes their collective, sorrowful heads; again Future Bethany just smiles. Because there's nothing wrong with saying you were fat when you aren't fat anymore; nothing to be ashamed of when you look the way Bethany will look and have done the things Bethany will do. "Well, what do you know," her mom interrupts. She's smiling and pointing up. Bethany looks up, sees nothing, looks back at her mother, her insistent smile. "The song," her mom says. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" It's an INez song—a singer/songwriter Bethany likes okay. INez is...

Gorenstein points in {mathbb {P}}^{3} via Hadamard products of projective varieties

We show how to construct a stick figure of lines in {mathbb {P}}^3 using the Hadamard product of projective varieties. Then, applying the results of Migliore and Nagel, we use such a stick figure to build a Gorenstein set of points with given h-vector {varvec{h}}. Since the Hadamard product is a coordinate-wise product, we show, at the end, how the coordinates of the points, in the Gorenstein set, can be directly determined.

No faces, just body movements—Effects of perceived emotional valence of body kinetics and psychological factors on interpersonal distance behavior within an immersive virtual environment

In an immersive virtual environment, it was investigated how the perception of body kinetics contributes to social distance behavior when the facial expression and other physical properties of a social interaction partner cannot be perceived. Based on point light displays, both the subject and the social interaction partner were depicted as stick figures, both moving simultaneously in the same space. In addition, the effects of relevant psychological factors of the perceiver on social distance behavior were examined. The results were consistent with those from studies with facial expressions or realistic full-body interactants. A greater distance was maintained from characters with emotionally negative expressions of body kinetics. Stationary objects stimuli, which were also included in the study, were mostly passed closer than neutral agents. However, the results are not entirely clear and require further investigation. Depressive symptom burden and factors mainly related to anxiety and avoidance showed effects on social distance in an IVE. The CID, a test often used to assess the interpersonal distance at which a person is comfortable, correlated with that overt behavior. In summary, the results of the study provide experimental evidence that the perception of body kinetics has a similarly significant influence on the regulation of social distance as, for example, facial affect. Implementing this study in real life would be incredibly complex, if not impossible. It is interesting to see that the comparatively simple method used in this study to create and operate an immersive virtual environment turned out to be suitable for studying at least simple types of social behavior based on body movements.

Online Medical School: Unexpected Moments of Mentorship

My clinical research mentor is a breast surgeon, a researcher, a teacher, and mother to 2. As a first-year medical student during the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting with my mentor is often the most exciting part of my day. She is the closest I get to any surgeon, the closest I feel to any operating room. Our meetings about manuscripts and data are one of the few things in my slew of Zoom lectures that feels “medical”—for the good of something larger than my capacity to memorize electrolyte imbalances in the kidneys. This afternoon, my mentor logs on from a different part of her home. I can faintly make out the backyard behind her, rain coming down in sheets as she catches me up on her day. She props her chin into her hands, telling me about a young woman with invasive breast cancer and the hours she spent scraping away a tumor with her thoracic surgeon colleague. She sighs and I can hear her sons’ voices in the background. “Mommy,” I hear one whisper while she continues to listen to my laundry list of data use agreements and deadlines. “Mommy,” he whispers again, asking for more TV time with his brother. My mentor looks up and tells him no. When he persists, she explains that she is working and that he is being disrespectful to her students and herself because she cannot yell or scold him in front of her camera. I watch this exchange, enthralled by her calm voice as he asks for snacks and television and waves a Lego contraption across the kitchen island. I watch her straddle her roles as researcher, mentor, and mother. The pandemic has posed challenges for medical education and mentorship is no exception. I cannot shadow in the hospital or meet with my advisors in clinic. I cannot see what a day-to-day looks like in this specialty or that, or how research is tied into clinical practice and vice versa. There is no room for small talk in the hospital cafeteria line or bathroom run-ins where I hear about the more elusive parts of being a surgeon—when do you drop off your kids for childcare? Who picks them up? What is it like to raise 2 children, have a partner who also works, and maintain a healthy family? How do you do it all? Even in nonpandemic times, these questions were hard to ask. But building a relationship in-person allowed for students like myself to read the room and pick the right moment to ask questions that could inform my decisions, especially those categorized as taboo. My basic science professors often call this “the golden minute” in the lecture hall when students approach the podium and ask off-the-record questions about course content or lingering anxieties and aspirations. The golden minute in mentoring relationships, for me, has existed in time spent walking around the hospital with my advisors, grabbing a snack at the coffee cart together, or in conversations that arise from a family photo or stick figure drawing in their office spaces. These golden minutes are harder to find when relationships are reduced to emails or phone calls and Zoom fatigue sets in. In my years of preparation to become a doctor, I have never seen what it actually looks like to be the things I want to become—a juggler of surgical practice, clinical research, teaching, and family. But I realized, watching my mentor with her sons, that I was seeing exactly the things I had wanted to see and had, in fact, never had a chance to see in nonpandemic times. These golden minutes were not only setting a real-time example of intersecting roles and responsibilities but opening a window into a version of mentorship unique to virtual platforms, a kind of role-modeling that revealed granular moments of sacrifice, struggle, and negotiation. Virtual platforms can show the interstices of private and academic life that offer students invaluable opportunities for professional development if advisors are willing to let the students in. It is a mode of mentoring that I hope continues through and beyond the pandemic. “I’m so sorry, my sons are getting so smart,” she apologizes. They compromise: Her son will get another bowl of granola and will read a book to his brother instead of watching more TV. “Not at all,” I say. “Thank you.” Truly, thank you, I want to say again. Relief spreads across my face; a glimmer into her life was a vision of what my future could look like. Author’s Note: This essay was written in the fall of 2020 when the author was a first-year medical student and in-person classes had not yet resumed. Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank Dr. Oluwadamilola Fayanju for her continuous mentorship and permission to share this story.