Newswise — Researchers from the University at Buffalo have developed a virtual-reality driving simulator that may help car-accident survivors recover from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- a prevalent, but commonly untreated, condition associated with serious car accidents.
The UB researchers are using the simulator to treat survivors of serious car accidents as part of a study to test its effectiveness as a therapeutic tool. Their goal is to develop a comprehensive treatment program using the simulator, and make available nationwide a virtual-reality treatment software program.
"To be successful, you need a virtual-reality system that taps into the fear structure of the patient," explains UB researcher Gayle Beck. "We've developed a very flexible software system that puts the patient in scenarios reminiscent of, or directly related to, their accident."
GEOGRAPHY: A NEW SCIENCE PREDICTS TERRORISM, TRACKS DISEASE EPIDEMICS, AND HELPS SOLVE OTHER SOCIETAL PROBLEMS
Geography isn't just about maps anymore. The "new geography" is about predicting potential targets for terrorism, tracking outbreaks of the flu or determining how people perceive snowstorms and other natural phenomena that travel across the landscape.
The ancient study of physical space has been updated for the digital age with the emergence of a new high-tech discipline called geographic information science. This science uses computer technologies to address the geographic and spatial attributes of social, environment and economic problems, while also seeking to understand how humans perceive and are influenced by geographic phenomena.
And like forensic science, geographic information science - with its high-tech emphasis and intriguing problem-solving bent -- is becoming a very popular area of study on many college campuses.
UB graduate students are working on several interesting projects, including:
§ A study of the geographic nature of terrorism, analyzing why geographical icons may be the object of terrorist acts.
§ A study of how people experience the weather versus how it is commonly represented on weather maps and in other technical formats.
§ Computer simulations of groundwater flow and contaminant transport to show what happens when contaminants spill into groundwater, either as the result of industrial pollution or even a deliberate act of bioterrorism.
§ A study of the demographic changes in neighborhoods and their effect on long-time residents.
PROFESSOR WORKS TO UNRAVEL MYSTERIES OF KHIPU: COLORED, KNOTTED STRINGS USED BY THE ANCIENT INCAS
Although the ancient Inca are renowned for their highly organized society and extraordinary skill in working with gold, stone and pottery, few are familiar with the khipu -- an elaborate system of colored, knotted strings and cords that many researchers believe was used by the ancient conquerors to record census, tribute, genealogies and calendrical information.
Because the Inca didn't employ a recognizable system of writing, researchers like Galen Brokaw, assistant professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences, have focused on the khipu as a way to further illuminate Inca history and culture.
Brokaw doesn't adhere to the strict view held by some researchers that the khipu is solely mnemonic in nature, instead maintaining the possibility that these intricate specimens are historiographic in nature.
Deciphering the mysteries of the khipu depends upon researchers discovering a Rosetta Stone of sorts that would allow them to decode the meaning of the cords and knots, Brokaw says.
"There's a certain kind of mystery about it that's intriguing," Brokaw adds, noting that while there is a tendency among some researchers to overly romanticize the khipu as some kind of writing system, he believes -- after reading texts comprised, in part, of biographies of Inca kings -- that it's easy to see how the khipu might have represented more complex, discursive structures than being simply records of tribute.
NEW RESEARCH FINDS SOME ANIMALS SHOW DOUBT
New research from the University at Buffalo shows that some animals feel "doubt," or they "know when they don't know something."
One of the important questions in the field of animal and human psychology is whether this metacognitive capacity is uniquely human, or whether animals could demonstrate a capacity for metacognition if they could report their uncertainty or doubt when confronted with a difficult trial or situation. "The key innovation in this research was to grant animals an 'uncertain' response so that they could decline to complete any trials of their choosing," says lead researcher John David Smith, associate professor in the Department of Psychology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. "Given this option, animals might choose to complete trials when they are confident they know, but decline them when they feel something like uncertainty. To show this behavioral pattern, though, animals would have to monitor some psychological signal of confidence or uncertainty and respond adaptively to it."
The study, "The Comparative Psychology of Uncertainty Monitoring and Metacognition," is published in the December issue of The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, one of the premier journals in the field of cognitive science.
The article describes studies with humans, a group of Rhesus monkeys and one bottlenose dolphin that used behavioral, nonverbal measures of metacognition, In these tasks, animals experienced a mix of "hard" and "easy" perceptual or memory trials. If they completed the trial, the subjects earned a reward when correct or a timeout period when wrong.
Smith and his co-researchers have shown that the monkeys and the dolphin used the "uncertain" response in a pattern that is essentially identical to the pattern with which uncertain humans use it.
RSS