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Spatial Distortion in Perception and Cognition

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This post was contributed by Elena Azañón and Luigi Tamè, postdoctoral fellows in Birkbeck’s BodyLab

matthew-longoProf Matthew Longo gave his inaugural lecture about “Spatial Distortions in Perception and Cognition” on June 4th. He has been a lecturer in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London, since 2010, and has recently been appointed Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the same Department.

He completed his PhD at the University of Chicago in 2006 and spent several years at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London as a postdoctoral researcher before joining Birkbeck. The main focus of his research concerns the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying body representations, and how these affect all aspects of our mental lives.

Longo’s inaugural lecture was introduced by the Master of Birkbeck, Prof David S Latchman, who commented on Longo’s exceptional achievements during his remarkable career. Professor Latchman highlighted the high quality of his research and impressive publication record in high impact journals. Indeed, Longo has been recently awarded by two of the major internationally recognised early career awards, in Europe (i.e., the 2014 Experimental Psychology Society Prize) and overseas (i.e., the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career).

Pathological conditions

Longo started his lecture by highlighting that in many situations healthy people appear to have distorted representations of their bodies. However, despite these distortions, people are able to appropriately interact with the environment. Longo continued by describing several bizarre pathological conditions characterised by distortions in the representations of the body.

The underlying idea is that pathology is a continuum and, in one way or another, healthy people might share some features of these deficits. One of the paradigmatic examples he mentioned was the phantom limb experience, a condition in which a patient who has suffered the amputation of a limb, continues to experience the limb. In this respect, he recounted an elegant historical anecdote about Horatio Nelson’s phantom limb experience after loss of his arm, which was described by the admiral as proof of the immaterial soul.

He finally mentioned a patient, described by Oliver Sacks, who repeatedly fell out of her bed. When asked the reason of this behaviour, the patient complained that the nurses were secretly introducing a severed arm in the bed with her. The nurses finally realized that the patient was affected by somatoparaphrenia (i.e., the lack of awareness of a part of the body). It was the patient’s own left arm, which she believed was somebody else’s arm that she was throwing out of the bed!

Spatial distortions in perception

Before starting to describe his own work, he explained more about the idea of spatial distortions in perception. This is somehow a counterintuitive concept considering that the goal of perception is to create a veridical model of the world.

If people perceive a distorted world, how can they possibly act on it in an appropriate way? As an example of normal distortions, he described the representations at the level of the primary sensory and motor cortices in which the body parts are represented with different levels of magnification. Longo explained that these distortions are necessary steps to achieve complex behaviours.

Indeed, if we had homogenous tactile sensitivity across the body, then apparently simple tasks such as lacing up our shoes would be impossible. What allows us to perform everyday actions, which seem simple to us but are incredibly complex from a motor control perspective, is that different bits of the skin are represented differently in the brain. That is, bits of the skin able to produce fine-grained movements, such as the fingers, have extremely high tactile sensitivity, while others, such as the back of the leg have much less sensitivity.

Examining distortions

In the second half of the lecture he demonstrated that body representations are not only distorted at the level of the primary cortices, but also, though to a lesser degree, at higher levels of perceptual processing. Across several experiments, Longo made use of Weber’s illusion. In this illusion, the perceived distance between two touches is larger on skin regions of high tactile sensitivity than on those with lower acuity. His research suggests that the dorsum of the hand, but not the palm, is implicitly represented wider and squatter than it actually is. He argued that these distortions are partly explained by the shape of the tactile receptive fields of cortical neurons on the different parts of the hand.

Longo continued describing similar distortions of the representation of our bodies that are independent from touch. In order to isolate and measure this implicit body representation, Longo developed, jointly with his former supervisor, Professor Patrick Haggard from UCL, an elegant, simple and effective paradigm.

Participants used a long baton to judge the location of the knuckle and tip of each finger of their own occluded hand. By comparing the relative location of each landmark, he was able to construct implicit maps of the represented shape and size of the hand, which could then be compared to the actual hand shape. He found that these maps were drastically distorted, and in a highly consistent manner across individuals. In particular, across a number of studies, Longo revealed a general underestimation of finger length and an overestimation of hand width. These distortions are similar to those he found in the tactile modality. He further noted that this pattern of results was highly stable across body parts.

The event concluded with a final speech by Professor Martin Eimer. He thanked Longo for his exciting and entertaining lecture. He further highlighted the high productivity and creativity of Longo’s research during his early career, exalting the elegance of his experimental approach and design. He also highlighted that despite being a great scientist, he is likewise an excellent colleague, who is always available and willing to perform mundane duties that despite being unexciting, are fundamental for the department’s life.

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Cooperation key to tech cluster growth

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This post was contributed by Nick Eisen, School of Business, Economics and Informatics engagement correspondent.

CooperationLondon-based institutions such as Birkbeck could play a part in the development of tech start-ups and clusters outside London, even if that role is not the first thing that comes to mind when considering such development.

Addressing this possibility, ‪Emma Swift, Entrepreneur Relations Manager at digital business promoter Tech City UK, ‬ focused on one word: partnership.

Swift was one of a four-member panel at an event entitled “What must tech clusters outside London do to thrive?”.

Part of London Technology Week, the event on 15 June was organised by CE of Birkbeck Enterprise Hub, Ibrahim Maiga, chaired by Sureyya Cansoy, Director of Tech for Business and Consumer at techUK, and hosted by law firm Goodman Derrick at its offices in St Bride Street, five minutes’ walk from the London Stock Exchange.

What form any inside-outside London partnerships might take remained open, though Swift did refer to SETsquared, an enterprise collaboration between Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey universities that, according to its website “is a focus for enterprise activity and new business creation”.

In addition, what emerged from the afternoon implied possible outlines for such partnerships while not necessarily explicitly stating them.

Panel members noted that tech clusters outside London should avoid trying to copy it, and should instead continue to recognise and focus on developing what they are already doing well; and many of these clusters are indeed taking this approach.

Paul Smith, Managing Director of Newcastle-based accelerator Ignite100 noted the lower costs, good quality of life, coaching and building professional relationships that Newcastle could offer budding entrepreneurs compared with London. He also drew attention to Newcastle-based anchor firms such as business software solutions company Sage, the founders of which have gone on to support other start-ups: Sage itself having begun as a start-up in 1981.

Smith added that access to London is still useful for non-London businesses, for example, for being seen by potential investors and customers. However, as firms in Newcastle and other clusters show, that need not mean being based in London.

Richard Young, Director of the British Venture Capital Association in Manchester, remarked on the ability of his city’s entrepreneurs to take what they wanted from London back to their home base.

And Julian Blake, 
Editor of TechCityInsider.net, emphasised that universities are essential to the development of tech business.

From the audience, Helen Lawton Smith, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Centre for Innovation Management Research at Birkbeck’s Department of Management, emphasised that there are many very successful clusters outside London – such as Oxford and Cambridge – which have established large firms that recruit and supply labour and knowledge within their own localities.

Professor Lawton Smith added that, although there are many claims about the rapid increase in the number of tech firms in London, more evidence is needed on that number of firms and their performance, which will also inform policymakers about the demand for infrastructure, services and other requirements.

Perhaps then a wider focus is required. Could London universities offer platforms where non-London start-ups and clusters could showcase their activities, not in order to migrate to London or adopt a London way but to gain recognition and support for their own non-London ways in locations beyond London?

In turn, could such collaborations be another route for London institutions, among those in other parts of the UK, to help broaden perspectives, with knowledge transferring all ways – from and to different parts of the UK, including London?

For those who want to explore such topics further, on Wednesday 24 June, Birkbeck Clore Management Centre will host an event addressing the question: What is the role of universities in creating skills for the digital economy?

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Photo credit: NASA under CC from Flickr

Hopscotch in the Archives: Reflections from the Ben Uri Researcher in Residence

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This post was contributed by Dr Lily Ford, of Birkbeck University of London and researcher in residence at the Ben Uri Gallery. This article was originally posted on the Creativeworks London blog

Dr Lily Ford

Dr Lily Ford

In the summer of 1915, a group of Eastern European Londoners gathered around a charismatic newly arrived émigré and pledged their commitment to nurturing and disseminating Jewish art.

By the end of a July night at a Whitechapel restaurant, they had officially formed the ‘Jewish/Yiddish National Decorative Art Association Ben Ouri’. The Ben Uri has lasted a century, weathering changes of location, of emphasis, of context and indeed of name, yet always held together and steered by the passion and dedication of a small group of enthusiasts.

When it comes to finding out more about the society’s early years – my job as Researcher in Residence – the drawbacks of this endeavour are evident. Who archives a labour of love? All those involved in setting up the Ben Uri were already keeping their own small businesses going, and the society’s meetings were scheduled around busy lives, on Saturdays and Sundays, often at 9pm.

The minutes of these meetings were recorded at times conscientiously, and at times sporadically, with gaps going from a few months to a few years in duration. They were written in haste, and, between 1916 and 1924, in Yiddish. The society’s paperwork from this period – letters on headed paper, pamphlets and programmes, even major endeavours such as the inaugural Ben Uri album – survives in a haphazard manner. It is impossible to trace all the society’s activities in this period; instead, I play a game of hopscotch, leaping over the gaps to land on the primary and secondary evidence that is available, and inferring links and connections.

Judah Beach

The First World War cannot be blamed for this patchy record-keeping, though of course Ben Uri’s first three years of existence took place in a London deeply affected by events on the continent: not just the conflict with Germany, but the Russian Revolution and its implications for British attitudes towards the large minority of Eastern European Jews mostly resident in the capital.

It was I think, far more that Ben Uri committee members were always too tied up in the here and now – how to expand the art collection, who to appeal to for funds, where to find an institutional home – to bother with archival protocols. The one exception to this, and the reason that any work at all can be done on the society’s early years, is the Polish-born tailor and founder committee member Judah Beach.

It was Beach who penned the minutes that have, somewhat miraculously, come back to the Ben Uri after spending decades at YIVO in New York, where they were sent in the 1970s. Beach, too, was the only member in this period to collect cuttings about the society from London’s Yiddish press, which he pasted into an album, alongside scraps of correspondence and fragments of speeches. And it was Beach who offered the society’s growing collection of artworks a home, at his own residence in West Hampstead, during the many years between 1916 and 1929 when the Ben Uri had no base of its own.

Increasing access to the society’s history

Luckily for us, Beach had his counterparts as time went on, and the Ben Uri’s archive for the fascinating period of the 1930s, and for the second half of the twentieth century, is more complete. There is significant scholarship in existence already on these later periods, much of it the work of curator Rachel Dickson and head of collections Sarah MacDougall. The writer and historian David Mazower conducted his own investigations into the mysterious founder of the society, Lazar Berson, which took him across Europe to find the only known example of the Ben Uri’s first publication from 1916.

But recent developments have enabled increased access to the society’s history: over the last eighteen months the archive has been closely scrutinised and catalogued by a dedicated archivist, Claire Jackson, and the Yiddish material has been translated by a team of postdoctoral experts under Dr Helen Beer at UCL. This has provided a rich set of resources from which to reconstruct some of the stories and circumstances around the activities of these art-loving Londoners one hundred years ago.

The challenges

This is not to say that researching the Ben Uri is without its frustrations. From a documentary perspective, the founding members are difficult to profile. While some, notably the jeweller and Yiddish writer Moysheh Oved, published several books including an autobiography, in English, most of the active figures were less prolific, and less confessional.

Beach’s only published output, apart from contributions to Ben Uri catalogues, is a collection of Yiddish short stories (which had previously appeared in Yiddish literary journals), not available in English. Some of the names which appear most often in the minutes as keen contributors to the society’s activities between 1916 and 1926 – Miss Margolis, Madame Dr Zarchi, Mr Chechanover, Mr Lush – are absent from any other records I have been able to consult.

The challenges of transliteration from Yiddish add a layer of confusion: not only is the English spelling of a name decided by the translator or record keeper, and may vary each time it appears, but furthermore, Ben Uri members signed off with different versions of their names depending on the context. Judah Beach was the anglicised form of Yehudah Pshibish, which Beach sometimes used, but a third version of his name, Bietsch, is used in relation to his Yiddish literary work. Moysheh Oyved or Oved was a penname adopted in 1917 by Edward Good, who regretted having anglicised his name from Edouard Goodak when he set up his first business in London, but both Good and Oved are used interchangeably in Ben Uri’s minutes. Indeed one programme from 1922 lists him twice, as Edward Good, Ben Uri treasurer, and as Moysheh Oyved, poet.

Ben Uri’s brand of ‘national’ Jewish art

In a way, Good/Oved’s inhabiting of both roles tells us much about the complexion of the Ben Uri at this time, as an outlet for an immigrant community necessarily focused on establishing a secure living and a social and economic place in London. It was an outlet that permitted the expression of a deeply felt cultural and spiritual identity, one different to that of the more assimilated and non-Yiddish speaking Anglo-Jewish community of Central, North and West London.

Ben Uri’s brand of ‘national’ Jewish art was not straightforwardly Zionist, though the society maintained a relationship with the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem, and considered at one low point in the 1920s sending the collection there for good. It was by nature not religious, and always in contention with the orthodox Jewish veto on figurative art. It was, rather, concerned with expressing, as Lisa Tickner has noted, ‘a secular Yiddish culture under diasporic conditions’[1].

It is this remit, of furnishing a diasporic community with the cultural resources necessary to formulate and reflect upon identity, that makes the Ben Uri such a relevant organisation today. The present situation, in which the Ben Uri celebrates its centenary with a six-month residency in Somerset House, was certainly beyond the expectations of the founding committee, though not beyond its ambitions.

I hope that my own research, to be presented in July, will help reveal some of the fascinating conditions under which this story began one hundred years ago.

Out of Chaos: Ben Uri: 100 Years in London, runs from 2 July – 13 December 2015 at Somerset House.

 

Dr Lily ford did her PhD, ‘Airminded: the cultural impact of flight and aerial photography in 1920s Britain’, in Birkbeck’s Department of History of Art, finishing in March 2015. As a Birkbeck postgrad student she was eligible to apply for a Researcher-in-Residence grant in December 2014.

This allows an early career researcher from any of Creativeworks London’s partner universities to team up with a cultural institution/SME and spend up to six months carrying out a research project together.

The Ben Uri gallery was seeking a researcher to look into some newly translated archival material and find out more about their foundation 100 years ago in Whitechapel, and since the period mapped well with that of Dr Ford’s PhD research it was an ideal opportunity to explore a totally different aspect of early twentieth century cultural life.

She has been working with the gallery’s archive part time since February and will finish in July, when she will deliver a paper with her findings in their exhibition space and, with them, look into publication possibilities for a long article. 

Creativeworks London brings new collaborative research opportunities to London’s creative businesses. Comprising thirty-eight London-based universities, colleges, museums, libraries and archives, together, the members have unrivalled skills and expertise that can be of benefit to businesses who are interested in exploring areas such as entrepreneurial development, emerging markets, new ways of engaging London’s diverse audiences, and the development of digital resources and media content.

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[1] Lisa Tickner. Modern Life and Modern Subjects: British Art in the Early Twentieth Century. New Haven and London: Yale University Press (2000) p. 165.

Combating Match-Fixing

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This post was contributed by Noy Shani, The London Economic. The article was first posted at The London Economic on June 8

Match-fixing awareness is on the increase and a multitude of organisations are now involved in tackling the problem. The London Economic’s Noy Shani was at a special match-fixing seminar at Birkbeck, University of London and came back optimistic.

Match-fixing---FootballNew-found optimism was at its peak. Just ten minutes before the panellists and guests took their seats at the basement level of the Birkbeck lecture hall, the formerly ‘immortal’ Sepp Blatter had shocked the world of football with his decision to resign as the president of FIFA.

Seems like the perfect timing just ahead of a seminar talk about combating match-fixing in football, doesn’t it?

Two years ago Birkbeck started engaging with UEFA, the European Union and FIFPro, the world union for professional football players, and following some fascinating insight and research in the field, a new and glossy looking booklet titled ‘Don’t Fix It – Protect Our Game’ has been introduced.

The special seminar on a warm London evening featured special panel guests Kevin Carpenter – independent legal and sports consultant; Andrew Harvey – a Visiting Research Fellow from Birkbeck Sport Business Centre; and Tony Higgins – FIFPro’s European Division Vice-President.

Kicking off the panel discussion, Andy Harvey, said: “At the local level it is important to understand the main driving forces behind match-fixing.  Most of the time these are not discussed at all.  The best prevention was and remains education.

“Players need to have much more understanding about their responsibilities.  Those that get involved in match-fixing regret it afterwards, they realise they let their family members, team-mates and fans down.”

Match-fixing affects and distorts sporting events and lives worldwide.  It reduced the number of spectators watching football in countries such as Malaysia, had players banned for life and left a stain on team-mates and fans.

Worse of all, it still continues around the globe and is spreading.

Combating match-fixing

1,500 players from nine European countries were surveyed as part of the recent research.

There are of course differences between one country and another, says Tony from FIFPro.

“In some countries players do not have contracts, they are considered as entertainers and this can affect how they are getting paid.”

You will probably admit it.  If your employer stops paying you for months end, pretty soon you will be looking for some ‘side projects’.  Players in fact do the same.

“Some will resort to match-fixing so they can feed their families,” adds Tony.

No wonder than that the number one reason for players to be involved with match-fixing according to the survey is financial difficulties, topping the list with 27%, ahead of the fact it’s ‘easy money’, coming second with 22%.

Enforcement or education?

Billions are spent to combat issues like drug use and related transactions.  It does not necessarily eliminate drugs.  This model also applies to match-fixing.  Enforcement alone just won’t cut it.

There is a great deal of outside pressure on footballers from Eastern European or less developed countries, including sometimes threats to their or their loved ones’ lives, said Tony.

This is, he said, the reason why FIFPro got more involved.

So, what could still stop match-fixing?  The players surveyed believe that the number one factor, with 23%, is their personal honesty and integrity. This strengthens the view that educational programmes to combat match-fixing are the way forward.

The sort of people players trust the most in delivering such schemes are player unions and national associations.  However, reporting mechanism have proved basic or not practical, whilst organisations that do run designated hotlines don’t have enough trained staff to deal with the size of the problem.

Even if these were in place, would players actually trust them?  This remains doubtful.

36% of those surveyed said that they will not report an approach to fix a match or any suspicious of match-fixing because of lack of trust and confidentiality.

Confusion left, right and centre

The more I listen to the discussion it becomes apparent that stakeholder advocacy and involvement are required to make combating match-fixing a success.

Bear in mind, when I say success, I mean relative success.  After all, how would you even go about measuring it?  Counting the number of calls to ‘match-fixing hotlines’?

Confused?  There are many more contradicting issues also between the legal and regulatory aspects of combating match-fixing, says panellist Kevin Carpenter.

“Is there a justification for a life ban for footballers involved in match-fixing?  In criminal law you are not easily put in prison for long periods.

Carpenter also reckons that legal education in the field is too minimal.

“People don’t know how to prosecute it.  It is new and still vague.  And how do you enforce match-fixing cross borders if activity in one country affect yours?  It is not straightforward.  Some of the people involved don’t have the powers to issue warrants for instance.”

Where does this leave us?

Match-fixing and similar threats to football take many forms and involve complex sets of behaviour from many participants.

The problem cannot be resolved by one organisation or person, as the research suggests.

It requires an approach involving government, referees, fans, the European Union, clubs, FIFA and UEFA, law enforcement entities and universities.

Andy, Kevin and Tony believe there is much more awareness nowadays, more than there ever was.

“Five years ago there were a few cases but now it seems more prominent because society, football players, fans, clubs and authorities are no longer ignorant to the consequences of match-fixing,” they all agreed.

And with that awareness, they are all optimistic that match-fixing can be handled differently and more successfully than it ever was before.  I will take their word for it.

For more information on match fixing and the involvement of Birkbeck, Unviversity of London in sports  management, visit www.sportbusinesscentre.com

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