Comparison of two plethysmography systems in assessment of forearm blood flow

Venous occlusion plethysmography is widely used to assess forearm blood flow (FBF). We compared the established Hokanson system (HEC4) with a newly developed Filtrass 2001 system (F2001). The HEC4 uses mercury-in-Silastic strain gauges, whereas F2001 detects volume changes with a nonmercury linear displacement device. The aim of this study was to evaluate the new F2001 against the HEC4 in terms of repeatability and systematic bias. Ten subjects were studied on 4 separate days in random order using either the HEC4 on both arms, the F2001 on both arms, the HEC4 on the right arm with the F2001 on the left, or the F2001 on the right arm and the HEC4 on the left. Stroop's colored word conflict test and postocclusive hyperemia were used to increase FBF, and lower body negative pressure was used to lower FBF. Stroop's colored word conflict test and lower body negative pressure increased (24.6 ± 1.5%, n = 240, P < 0.0001) and decreased (18.7 ± 0.8%, n = 240, P < 0.0001) FBF, respectively. Postocclusive hyperemia after occlusion times of 5, 8, and 13 min substantially increased FBF by 390 ± 86, 756 ± 217, and 851 ± 132%, respectively. Repeatability was not different between the devices (0.10 ± 2.37 vs. -0.47 ± 1.92 l/min, n = 125, P > 0.05), and there was no systematic bias. The F2001 is a newly developed plethysmography system that does not utilize mercury and is suitable for assessing changes of FBF in physiological studies.

Personal Profiles of Color Synesthesia: Developing a Testing Method for Artists and Scientists

The authors describe a practical method for assessing personal profiles of color:word, color:taste, color:music and color:odor synesthesia. The Netherlands Color Synesthesia (NeCoSyn) method is based on the Swedish Natural Color System and the test of genuineness for colored-word synesthesia developed by Baron-Cohen et al. The NeCoSyn method has been tested scientifically and shown to reliably distinguish different types of color synesthesia. It provides individual profiles of color synesthesia in the dimensions of hue, chroma and blackness. This article describes the method and discusses possible applications of NeCoSyn profiles in different fields of the arts and sciences.

The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task

A modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is described that is based on a comparison of performance on trials within a single task rather than on a comparison of performance on different tasks. In two experiments, participants saw white words that needed to be classified on the basis of stimulus valence and colored words that were to be classified on the basis of color. On trials where the colored word referred to a positive target concept (e.g., “flowers,” “self”), performance was superior when the correct response was the response that was also assigned to positive white words. The reverse was true on trials where the colored word represented a negative target concept (e.g., “insect”). This variant of the IAT is less susceptible to nonassociative effects of task recoding and can be used to assess single and multiple attitudes.

A Color-to-Spin Domino Schensted Algorithm

We describe the domino Schensted algorithm of Barbasch, Vogan, Garfinkle and van Leeuwen. We place this algorithm in the context of Haiman's mixed and left-right insertion algorithms and extend it to colored words. It follows easily from this description that total color of a colored word maps to the sum of the spins of a pair of $2$-ribbon tableaux. Various other properties of this algorithm are described, including an alternative version of the Littlewood-Richardson bijection which yields the $q$-Littlewood-Richardson coefficients of Carré and Leclerc. The case where the ribbon tableau decomposes into a pair of rectangles is worked out in detail. This case is central in recent work by D. White on the number of even and odd linear extensions of a product of two chains.