Several studies showed evidence supporting the possibility of hand trajectory decoding from low-frequency electroencephalography. However, the decoding in the source space via source localization is scarcely investigated. In this study, we tried to tackle the problem of collinearity due to the higher number of signals in the source space by two folds: first, we selected signals in predefined regions of interest ; second, we applied dimensionality reduction techniques to each ROI. The dimensionality reduction techniques were computing the mean, principal component (...) analysis, and locality preserving projections. We also investigated the effect of decoding between utilizing a template head model and a subject-specific head model during the source localization. The results indicated that applying source-space decoding with PCA yielded slightly higher correlations and signal-to-noise ratios than the sensor-space approach. We also observed slightly higher correlations and SNRs when applying the subject-specific head model than the template head model. However, the statistical tests revealed no significant differences between the source-space and sensor-space approaches and no significant differences between subject-specific and template head models. The decoder with Mean and PCA utilizes information mainly from precuneus and cuneus to decode the velocity kinematics similarly in the subject-specific and template head models. (shrink)

Establishing the basic knowledge, methodology, and technology for a framework for the continuous decoding of hand/arm movement intention was the aim of the ERC-funded project “Feel Your Reach”. In this work, we review the studies and methods we performed and implemented in the last 6 years, which build the basis for enabling severely paralyzed people to non-invasively control a robotic arm in real-time from electroencephalogram. In detail, we investigated goal-directed movement detection, decoding of executed and attempted movement trajectories, grasping correlates, (...) error processing, and kinesthetic feedback. Although we have tested some of our approaches already with the target populations, we still need to transfer the “Feel Your Reach” framework to people with cervical spinal cord injury and evaluate the decoders’ performance while participants attempt to perform upper-limb movements. While on the one hand, we made major progress towards this ambitious goal, we also critically discuss current limitations. (shrink)

For years now, phase-amplitude cross frequency coupling (CFC) has been observed across multiple brain regions under different physiological and pathological conditions. It has been suggested that CFC serves as a mechanism that facilitates communication and information transfer between local and spatially separated neuronal populations. In non-invasive brain computer interfaces (BCI), CFC has not been thoroughly explored. In this work, we propose a CFC estimation method based on Linear Parameter Varying Autoregressive (LPV-AR) models and we assess its performance using both synthetic (...) data and electroencephalographic (EEG) data recorded during attempted arm/hand movements of spinal cord injured (SCI) participants. Our results corroborate the potentiality of CFC as a feature for movement attempt decoding and provide evidence of the superiority of our proposed CFC estimation approach compared to other commonly used techniques. (shrink)

CYBATHLON is an international championship where people with severe physical disabilities compete with the aid of state-of-the-art assistive technology. In one of the disciplines, the BCI Race, tetraplegic pilots compete in a computer game race by controlling an avatar with a brain-computer interface. This competition offers a perfect opportunity for BCI researchers to study long-term training effects in potential end-users, and to evaluate BCI performance in a realistic environment. In this work, we describe the BCI system designed by the team (...) Mirage91 for participation in the CYBATHLON BCI Series 2019, as well as in the CYBATHLON 2020 Global Edition. Furthermore, we present the BCI’s interface with the game and the main methodological strategies, along with a detailed evaluation of its performance over the course of the training period, which lasted 14 months. The developed system was a 4-class BCI relying on task-specific modulations of brain rhythms. We implemented inter-session transfer learning to reduce calibration time, and to reinforce the stability of the brain patterns. Additionally, in order to compensate for potential intra-session shifts in the features’ distribution, normalization parameters were continuously adapted in an unsupervised fashion. Across the aforementioned 14 months, we recorded 26 game-based training sessions. Between the first eight sessions, and the final eight sessions leading up to the CYBATHLON 2020 Global Edition, the runtimes significantly improved from 255 ± 23 s to 225 ± 22 s, respectively. Moreover, we observed a significant increase in the classifier’s accuracy from 46 to 53%, driven by more distinguishable brain patterns. Compared to conventional single session, non-adaptive BCIs, the inter-session transfer learning and unsupervised intra-session adaptation techniques significantly improved the performance. This long-term study demonstrates that regular training helped the pilot to significantly increase the distance between task-specific patterns, which resulted in an improvement of performance, both with respect to class separability in the calibration data, and with respect to the game. Furthermore, it shows that our methodological approaches were beneficial in transferring the performance across sessions, and most importantly to the CYBATHLON competitions. (shrink)

Introduction: Advantageous effects of biological motion detection, a low-perceptual mechanism that allows the rapid recognition and understanding of spatiotemporal characteristics of movement via salient kinematics information, can be amplified when combined with motor imagery, i.e., the mental simulation of motor acts. According to Jeannerod’s neurostimulation theory, asynchronous firing and reduction of mu and beta rhythm oscillations, referred to as suppression over the sensorimotor area, are sensitive to both MI and action observation of BM. Yet, not many studies investigated the use (...) of BM stimuli using combined AO-MI tasks. In this study, we assessed the neural response in the form of event-related synchronization and desynchronization patterns following the observation of point-light-walkers and concordant MI, as compared to MI alone.Methods: Twenty right-handed healthy participants accomplished the experimental task by observing BM stimuli and subsequently performing the same movement using kinesthetic MI. We recorded an electroencephalogram with 32 channels and performed time-frequency analysis on alpha and beta frequency bands during the MI task. A two-way repeated-measures ANOVA was performed to test statistical significance among conditions and electrodes of interest.Results: The results revealed significant ERD/S patterns in the alpha frequency band between conditions and electrode positions. Post hoc comparisons showed significant differences between condition 1 and condition 3 over the left primary motor cortex. For the beta band, a significantly less difference in ERD patterns was detected only between condition 3 and condition 4.Discussion: Our results confirmed that the observation of BM combined with MI elicits a neural suppression, although just in the case of jumping. This is in line with previous findings of AO and MI eliciting a neural suppression for simulated whole-body movements. In the last years, increasing evidence started to support the integration of AOMI training as an adjuvant neurorehabilitation tool in Parkinson’s disease.Conclusion: We concluded that using BM stimuli in AOMI training could be promising, as it promotes attention to kinematic features and imitative motor learning. (shrink)

Electroencephalographic correlates of movement have been studied extensively over many years. In the present work, we focus on investigating neural correlates that originate from the spine and study their connectivity to corresponding signals from the sensorimotor cortex using multivariate autoregressive models. To study cortico-spinal interactions, we simultaneously measured spinal cord potentials and somatosensory evoked potentials of wrist movements elicited by neuromuscular electrical stimulation. We identified directional connections between spine and cortex during both the extension and flexion of the wrist using (...) only non-invasive recording techniques. Our connectivity estimation results are in alignment with various studies investigating correlates of movement, i.e., we found the contralateral side of the sensorimotor cortex to be the main sink of information as well as the spine to be the main source of it. Both types of movement could also be clearly identified in the time-domain signals. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to implement a Riemannian geometry -based algorithm to detect high mental workload and mental fatigue using task-induced electroencephalogram signals. In order to elicit high MWL and MF, the participants performed a cognitively demanding task in the form of the letter n-back task. We analyzed the time-varying characteristics of the EEG band power features in the theta and alpha frequency band at different task conditions and cortical areas by employing a RG-based framework. MWL and MF (...) were considered as too high, when the Riemannian distances of the task-run EEG reached or surpassed the threshold of the baseline EEG. The results of this study showed a BP increase in the theta and alpha frequency bands with increasing experiment duration, indicating elevated MWL and MF that impedes/hinders the task performance of the participants. High MWL and MF was detected in 8 out of 20 participants. The Riemannian distances also showed a steady increase toward the threshold with increasing experiment duration, with the most detections occurring toward the end of the experiment. To support our findings, subjective ratings and behavioral measures were also considered. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Text umreißt Janna R. Wielands Arbeits- und Denkweise als ethnographisch forschende Kulturwissenschaftlerin, deren Blick durch raumtheoretische Ansätze und Ansätze des New Materialism gerahmt wird. Auf diese Weise wird eine Lesart zu den sich aus der Forschung heraus materialisierenden Darstellungsweisen in diesem Band gegeben. Für das Format dieser Methodenreflektion wurde die Ich-Perspektive gewählt, um die disziplinäre Situiertheit der Forscherin und ihre Auseinandersetzung mit den Methoden des Feldes sowie ihrer eigenen und im Kontext des Projekts (weiter)entwickelten methodischen Zugänge (insbesondere unter (...) Einbezug des Zeichnens und der Arbeit mit Bildern) zu verdeutlichen. (shrink)

In diesem Fazit & Ausblick werden nun die in der Einleitung formulierten Themenfelder, in denen wir auch die Anschlüsse an Arbeiten und Forschungsgebiete der Historischen Anthropologie gegeben sahen, wieder aufgegriffen. Dies geschieht entlang von Aspekten, die durch die responses aufgeworfen wurden, und die wir hinsichtlich unserer Forschung zu Arenen transkultureller Bildung weiterdenken. Ein wichtiger Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf den Transmissionseffekten, die sich im Forschungsprozess, auch unter Einbezug der responses, zwischen den Forschungsfeldern – den Arenen Theater und Schule – ergeben haben. (...) Daran anschließend formulieren wir die Implikationen, die sich daraus für die Weiterentwicklung unserer Methoden ergeben haben, sowie einen Ausblick, der sich den Möglichkeiten der Erweiterung der Forschung zu kultureller Bildung unter Einbezug postkolonialer und transkultueller Analyseperspektiven widmet. Wir haben in den drei Method Labs„Method Mixing: Methoden der Praxis in postmigrantischen Kontaktzonen“ (November 2017); „Towards new methodologies in transcultural education: Performativity of the digital, Material Feminism and transcultural analysis” (Juni 2018) und “Arenas of transcultural Education: artistic research, art based methods, New Materialism and Sensory Ethnography“ (Januar 2019). Praktiker*innen und Wissenschaftler*innen, die aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen und Forschungsschwerpunkten kommen und in verschiedenen europäischen Universitäten und Institutionen forschen und arbeitenSound Studies, Historische und pädagogische Anthropologie; Allgemeine Erziehungswissenschaft, Anglistik und Postcolonial Studies, Global Childhood & Youth Studies, International Childhood Studies, Grundschulpädagogik, Theaterpädagogik und Dramaturgie sowie Lehrerbildung, künstlerische Forschung und kulturelle Bildung., eine Auswahl des über drei Jahre im Feld erhobenen Materials, das Method Mixing der beiden Arenen Schule und Theater, sowie unsere diffraktionellen Analysen, die entstandenen Interferenzen, und das sich daraus entwickelnde Method Mixing des Projekts vorgestellt. Nach intensiven, über zwei Tage andauernden Diskussionen über das unseren Gästen der Method Labs vorgestellte Material haben wir diese um eine Verschriftlichung ihrer responses gebeten. Die Wahl des Themas sowie des Umfangs und der Form wurden dabei freigestellt. Herausgekommen sind sehr unterschiedliche, und, wie wir finden, im Kern ebenfalls diffraktionell operierende Antworten, die in den vorangegangen Kapiteln vorgestellt wurden. (shrink)

Das vorliegende Beispiel aus dem dritten Method Lab zeigt einen Arbeitsstand der ethnographisch forschenden Kulturwissenschaftlerin Janna R. Wieland (in diesem Band: Wieland, S. 34) am Beispiel des Probenprozesses und explizit zur Text- und Skriptproduktion der Inszenierung Lam Gods von Milo Rau am NTGent im Zeitraum 2018-2019. Sie greift auf eigens erhobene ethnographische Forschungsdaten (Feldnotizen, Memos, Zeichnungen, Bild- und Soundaufzeichnugengen etc.), sowie auf InterviewsJebelli, N. (20.12.2018) und Bläske, S. (20.12.2018) im Interview zu Lam Gods am NTGent, geführt von Janna (...) R. Wieland, sowie Forschungsdaten des BMBF-Forschungsprojekt Transkulturelle Praktiken im postmigrantischen Theater und in der Schule – Method Mixing als Transmission, an der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg und an der Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. mit dem Schauspieler Nima Jebelli und dem Dramaturgen Stefan Bläske zurück. Im vorliegenden Beispiel beschreibt sie wie sich der Erstehungsprozess des Stücks Lam Gods in einem finalen Text materialisiert, der wiederum mit ästhetischen und medialen Elementen auf der Bühne inszeniert wird. Welche Rolle und Wirkkraft (agency) hat das im Prozess entwickelte sozio-materielle räumliche Setting mit seiner spezifischen Materialität auf die biographische Textproduktion? Welche Differenzen oder Machtverhältnisse können durch diese Auseinandersetzung und der Form des Arbeitsprozesses sichtbar gemacht werden? Ausgehend davon, dass Räume als relationale performative Gefüge durch prozessuale Dynamiken zwischen Handlungen und Materiellem entstehen, fokussiert sich Wieland in der konkreten Feldforschungssituation besonders auf jene Handlungen, die sich einerseits in den zwischenmenschlichen, wie auch jenen zwischen Menschen, Materialitäten, Klängen und Medien zeigen und die durch das sich zeigen auch bildlich oder materiell erfassbar werden (siehe die Zeichnungen in diesem Beispiel). (shrink)

The general Kantian claim that certain traits of the object of knowledge may be known a priori is reduced here to the scientific object. Scientific experience proceeds through certain operations, by which the life-world phenomena are transformed into scientific objects. These operations impose upon scientific objects certain formal structures. The latter cannot be empirical because data production is possible only on the basis of them. On the other side, they determine how and to what degree mathematics are applicable to the (...) data. (shrink)

Ist Geschichtsdarstellung ein transparentes Fenster zu einer faktischen Vergangenheit? Oder verlieren Fakten ihre Verbindlichkeit zugunsten der Repräsentation? Der vorliegende Band weist einen vermittelnden Weg zwischen diesen Extremen. Jenseits der positivistisch verstandenen historischen Fakten sowie der infolge des linguistic turn häufig behaupteten Unzugänglichkeit und Unentscheidbarkeit der faktischen Vergangenheit wird die Geschichtsdarstellung selbst als das eigentlich Greifbare zur Geltung gebracht. Geschichte ist demnach in ihrer Darstellung zu suchen – unabhängig davon, ob es sich um historiographische Quellen, literarische Texte, Gemälde oder um Museen (...) als mediale Darstellungsräume handelt. Die Beiträge gehen einem breiten Spektrum unterschiedlicher Dimensionen von Geschichtsdarstellung nach. Medien, Methoden und Strategien bilden dabei die zentralen Koordinaten, anhand derer Geschichtsdarstellung mit ihren narrativen und bildlichen Ausdrucksformen exemplarisch erörtert wird. Mit Beiträgen von Wolfgang Frühwald, Werner Goez, Thomas Kirchner, Wolfgang Müller-Funk, Otto Gerhard Oexle, Antonios Rengakos, Hermann Schäfer, Jörg Schönert, Howard Weinbrot, Horst Wenzel und Gernot R. Wieland. (shrink)

Abstract: An indirect report typically takes the form of a speaker using the locution “said that” to report an earlier utterance. In what follows, I introduce the principal philosophical and pragmatic points of interest in the study of indirect reports, including the extent to which context sensitivity affects the content of an indirect report, the constraints on the substitution of co-referential terms in reports, the extent of felicitous paraphrase and translation, the way in which indirect reports are opaque, and the (...) use of indirect reports as pragmatic vehicles for other speech acts such as humor, insult, or irony. Throughout I develop several positions: (i) that a semantic analysis of indirect reports is insufficient, (ii) that the distinction between direct and indirect reports is not clear and that indirect reports are the predominate way of reporting while direct reports may be a para-linguistic variation on them, (iii) that most questions about the semantics and pragmatics of indirect reports will rely on a full understanding of the nature of what is reported and how it gets reported, (iv) that an analysis of reporting requires the pragmatic tools of metarepresentation and a social, inter-personal understanding of relevance and shared knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract: A self-abnegating person lacks contact with their agency. This can be against their will, in absence of their will, or voluntarily. This does not mean that they cannot provide reasons for or a narrative about their actions. It’s just that the reasons or narrative are someone else’s. People abnegate parts of their agency regularly; for example, within hierarchical institutions. In other cases, the self-abnegation is all-encompassing; for example, a victim of brainwashing. An agent in such a position can completely (...) fail to understand themselves or be understood by others as having a self. I focus on two problems related to self-abnegation. The first is whether there is a conception of a self that can reliably discriminate between strong selves and abnegated selves. The second is whether a person with an abnegated self should be treated as a person with a strong self. I conclude that the good of respecting derived or instrumental agency comes in putting that person in a position to agentially flourish and in maintaining the structural conditions and expectations of agency. (shrink)

Recently, several philosophers have recast feminist arguments against pornography in terms of Speech Act Theory. In particular, they have considered the ways in which the illocutionary force of pornographic speech serves to set the conventions of sexual discourse while simultaneously silencing the speech of women, especially during unwanted sexual encounters. Yet, this raises serious questions as to how pornographers could (i) be authorities in the language game of sex, and (ii) set the conventions for sexual discourse - questions which these (...) speech act-theoretic arguments against pornography have thus far failed to adequately answer. I fill in this gap of the argumentation by demonstrating that there are fairly weak standards for who counts as an authority or convention-setter in sexual discourse. With this analysis of the underpinnings of a speech act analysis of pornography in mind, I discuss a range of possible objections. I conclude that (i) the endorsement of censorship by a speech act analysis of pornography competes with its commitment to the conventionality of speech acts, and, more damningly, that (ii), recasting anti-pornography arguments in terms of linguistic conventions risks an unwitting defence of a rapist's lack of mens rea - an intolerable result; and yet resisting this conclusion requires that one back away from the original claim to women's voices being 'silenced'. (shrink)

Die zentrale Rolle des Gedächtnisses in der Entwicklung von Lebewesen wurde von Biologen wie Ernst Haeckel, Ewald Hering und Jakob von Uexküll erkannt, wobei zwischen einem Artgedächtnis und einem individuellen Gedächtnis unterschieden wird. Ersteres ist für die Aufrechterhaltung und Weiterentwicklung einer artspezifischen Erscheinungsform verantwortlich, letzteres gestaltet die Erinnerung an individuelle Erfahrungen. Im vorliegenden Band werden die Vorstellungen dieser Biologen mit Ideen der Philosophen G.W.F. Hegel, Alfred N. Whitehead, John Dewey, Ernst Cassirer, Henri Bergson und Reto L. Fetz in einer kohärenten (...) Theorie der Organismen, die auch den Menschen und seine Geschichte umfasst, aufeinander abgestimmt. (shrink)

Semantic Minimalists make a proprietary claim to explaining the possibility of utterances sharing content across contexts. Further, they claim that an inability to explain shared content dooms varieties of Contextualism. In what follows, I argue that there are a series of barriers to explaining shared content for the Minimalist, only some of which the Contextualist also faces, including: (i) how the type-identity of utterances is established, (ii) what counts as repetition of type-identical utterances, (iii) how it can be determined whether (...) semantically minimal content has been repeated, and (iv) what the nature of such content is. (shrink)