!is paper presents a novel methodological approach of how to design, conduct and analyse robot-assisted play. !is approach is inspired by non-directive play therapy. !e experimenter participates in the experiments, but the child remains the main leader for play. Besides, beyond inspiration from non-directive play therapy, this approach enables the experimenter to regulate the interaction under ...

Earlier, we have studied computations possible by physical systems and by algorithms combined with physical systems. In particular, we have analysed the idea of using an experiment as an oracle to an abstract computational device, such as the Turing machine. The theory of composite machines of this kind can be used to understand (a) a Turing machine receiving extra computational power from a ph...

We investigated whether 16-month-old infants' past experience with a person's gaze reliability influences their expectation about the person's ability to form beliefs. Infants were first administered a search task in which they observed an experimenter show excitement while looking inside a box that either contained a toy (reliable looker condition) or was empty (unreliable looker condition). T...

Current methods for Northern blot analysis to determine mRNA abundance in tissues are tedious and utilize toxic chemicals. The requirement for chemicals of high purity, free of ribonucleases, and the lability of RNA, in comparison to DNA, are additional factors preventing wider use of the technique. For Northern blot analysis, RNA is generally denatured with glyoxal (1) or formaldehyde (2) prio...

This paper aimed to explore whether human beings can understand gestures produced by telepresence robots. If it were the case, they can derive meaning conveyed in telerobotic gestures when processing spatial information. We conducted two experiments over Skype in the present study. Participants were presented with a robotic interface that had arms, which were teleoperated by an experimenter. Th...

The influences of optimism and pessimism on ambiguity aversion were investigated in two tasks that manipulated the presence or absence of a potentially competitive experimenter. A total of 112 participants chose which option--ambiguous or known-risk--they preferred in the two slightly differing Ellsberg urns tasks. Optimism was measured using the Extended Life Orientation Test (ELOT). Highly op...

OBJECTIVE To determine the effects of surgeon-selected and experimenter-selected music on performance and autonomic responses of surgeons during a standard laboratory psychological stressor. DESIGN Within-subjects laboratory experiment. SETTING Hospital psychophysiology laboratory. PARTICIPANTS A total of 50 male surgeons aged 31 to 61 years, who reported that they typically listen to mus...

Reality monitoring refers to the process of discriminating between internally and externally generated information. Two different tasks have often been used to assess this ability: (a) memory for perceived versus imagined stimuli; and (b) memory for participant- versus experimenter-performed operations. However, it is not known whether these two reality monitoring tasks share neural substrates....

We investigated whether and how comprehending sentences that describe a social context influences our motor behaviour. Our stimuli were sentences that referred to objects having different connotations (e.g., attractive/ugly vs. smooth/prickly) and that could be directed towards the self or towards "another person" target (e.g., "The object is ugly/smooth. Bring it to you/Give it to another pers...