The detection of psychiatric illness by questionnaire

Body Image: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice

Everyday, people flexibly perform different categorizations of common faces, objects and scenes. Intuition and scattered evidence suggest that these categorizations require the use of different visual information from the input. However, there is no unifying method, based on the categorization performance of subjects, that can isolate the information used. To this end, we developed Bubbles, a general technique that can assign the credit of human categorization performance to specific visual information. To illustrate the technique, we applied Bubbles on three categorization tasks (gender, expressive or not and identity) on the same set of faces, with human and ideal observers to compare the features they used.

Bubbles: A Technique to Reveal the Use of Information in Recognition Tasks EOA Report

Developmental instability: Causes and consequences

外反母趾の Biomechanical analysis-靴のヒール高との関連

Male movements serve as courtship signals in many animal species, and may honestly reflect the genotypic and/or phenotypic quality of the individual. Attractive human dance moves, particularly those of males, have been reported to show associations with measures of physical strength, prenatal androgenization and symmetry. Here we use advanced three-dimensional motion-capture technology to identify possible biomechanical differences between women's perceptions of 'good' and 'bad' male dancers. Nineteen males were recorded using the 'Vicon' motion-capture system while dancing to a basic rhythm; controlled stimuli in the form of avatars were then created in the form of 15 s video clips, and rated by 39 females for dance quality. Initial analyses showed that 11 movement variables were significantly positively correlated with perceived dance quality. Linear regression subsequently revealed that three movement measures were key predictors of dance quality; these were variability and amplitude of movements of the neck and trunk, and speed of movements of the right knee. In summary, we have identified specific movements within men's dance that influence women's perceptions of dancing ability. We suggest that such movements may form honest signals of male quality in terms of health, vigour or strength, though this remains to be confirmed.

Male dance moves that catch a woman's eye.

https://northumbria-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/document/268282

Distorted body image influences body schema in individuals with negative bodily attitudes

A core feature of anorexia nervosa is an over-estimation of body size. However, quantifying this over-estimation has been problematic as existing methodologies introduce a series of artefacts and inaccuracies in the stimuli used for judgements of body size. To overcome these problems, we have: (i) taken 3D scans of 15 women who have symptoms of anorexia (referred to henceforth as anorexia spectrum disorders, ANSD) and 15 healthy control women, (ii) used a 3D modelling package to build avatars from the scans, (iii) manipulated the body shapes of these avatars to reflect biometrically accurate, continuous changes in body mass index (BMI), (iv) used these personalized avatars as stimuli to allow the women to estimate their body size. The results show that women who are currently receiving treatment for ANSD show an over-estimation of body size which rapidly increases as their own BMI increases. By contrast, the women acting as healthy controls can accurately estimate their body size irrespective of their own BMI. This study demonstrates the viability of combining 3D scanning and CGI techniques to create personalised realistic avatars of individual patients to directly assess their body image perception.

/pdf/body-size-estimation-in-women-with-anorexia-nervosa-and-29p1bl23c4.pdf

Body size estimation in women with anorexia nervosa and healthy controls using 3D avatars

The traditional assumption within the research literature on human sexually dimorphic traits has been that many sex differences have arisen from intersexual selection. More recently however, there has been a shift towards the idea that many male features, including for example male lower-pitched voices, and male beard growth, might have arisen predominantly through intrasexual selection: that is, to serve the purpose of male-male competition instead of mate attraction. In this study, using a unique set of video stimuli, we measured people’s perceptions of the dominance and attractiveness of men who differ both in terms of voice pitch (four levels from lower to higher pitched) and beard growth (four levels from clean shaven to a month’s hair growth). We found a non-linear relationship between lower pitch and increased attractiveness; men’s vocal attractiveness peaked at around 96 Hz. Beard growth had equivocal effects on attractiveness judgements. In contrast, perceptions of men’s dominance simply increased with increasing masculinity (i.e. with lower-pitched voices and greater beard growth). Together, these results suggest that the optimal level of physical masculinity might differ depending on whether the outcome is social dominance or mate attraction. These dual selection pressures might maintain some of the documented variability in male physical and behavioral masculinity that we see today.

/pdf/a-lover-or-a-fighter-opposing-sexual-selection-pressures-on-1fuiqmq9xt.pdf

A lover or a fighter? Opposing sexual selection pressures on men's vocal pitch and facial hair.

https://northumbria-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/document/269383

Dissociations in semantic cognition: Oscillatory evidence for opposing effects of semantic control and type of semantic relation in anterior and posterior temporal cortex.

Kristofor McCarty

Papers

Male dance moves that catch a woman's eye.

Distorted body image influences body schema in individuals with negative bodily attitudes

Body size estimation in women with anorexia nervosa and healthy controls using 3D avatars

A lover or a fighter? Opposing sexual selection pressures on men's vocal pitch and facial hair.

Dissociations in semantic cognition: Oscillatory evidence for opposing effects of semantic control and type of semantic relation in anterior and posterior temporal cortex.