Multisensory processing and proprioceptive plasticity during resizing illusions.

Bodily resizing illusions typically use visual and/or tactile inputs to produce a vivid experience of one's body changing size. Naturalistic auditory input (an input that reflects the natural sounds of a stimulus) has been used to increase illusory experience during the rubber hand illusion, whilst non-naturalistic auditory input can influence estimations of finger length. We aimed to use a non-naturalistic auditory input during a hand-based resizing illusion using augmented reality, to assess whether the addition of an auditory input would increase both subjective illusion strength and measures of performance-based tasks.

Distinct neural signatures of multimodal resizing illusions.

Illusory body resizing typically uses multisensory integration to change the perceived size of a body part. Previous studies associate these multisensory body illusions with frontal theta oscillations and parietal gamma oscillations for dis-integration and integration of multisensory signals, respectively. However, recent studies also support illusory changes of embodiment from unimodal visual stimuli.

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

There is now a considerable body of evidence to suggest that internal representations of the body can be meaningfully separated into at least two general levels; body image as a perceptual construct and body schema as a motor metric. However, recent studies with eating disordered individuals have suggested that there may in fact be more interaction between these two representations than first thought. We aimed to investigate how body image might act to influence body schema within a typical, healthy population.

Changing hands: persistent alterations to body image following brief exposure to multisensory distortions.

The dynamic flexibility of body representation has been highlighted through numerous lines of research that range from clinical studies reporting disorders of body ownership, to experimentally induced somatic illusions that have provided evidence for the embodiment of manipulated representations and even fake limbs. While most studies have reported that enlargement of body parts alters somatic perception, and that these can be more readily embodied, shrunken body parts have not been found to consistently alter somatic experiences, perhaps due to reduced feelings of ownership over smaller body parts. Over two experiments, we aimed to investigate the mechanisms responsible for altered somatic representations following exposure to both enlarged and shrunken body parts.

Multisensory distortions of the hand have differential effects on tactile perception.

Research has suggested that altering the perceived shape and size of the body image significantly affects perception of somatic events. The current study investigated how multisensory illusions applied to the body altered tactile perception using the somatic signal detection task. Thirty-one healthy volunteers were asked to report the presence or absence of near-threshold tactile stimuli delivered to the index finger under three multisensory illusion conditions: stretched finger, shrunken finger and detached finger, as well as a veridical baseline condition.

Cross-cultural differences in crossmodal correspondences between basic tastes and visual features.

We report a cross-cultural study designed to investigate crossmodal correspondences between a variety of visual features (11 colors, 15 shapes, and 2 textures) and the five basic taste terms (bitter, salty, sour, sweet, and umami). A total of 452 participants from China, India, Malaysia, and the USA viewed color patches, shapes, and textures online and had to choose the taste term that best matched the image and then rate their confidence in their choice. Across the four groups of participants, the results revealed a number of crossmodal correspondences between certain colors/shapes and bitter, sour, and sweet tastes.

Increased somatic sensations are associated with reduced limb ownership.

Objective: Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are increasingly being thought of as resulting from dysfunctional modulation of interoceptive sensory signals by top-down cognitive processes. The current study investigated whether individuals with a tendency toward MUS would be more susceptible to visual illusions that suggest tactile sensation on the skin in the absence of any actual somatosensory input.

Method: Participants viewed real-time-mediated reality video images of their own hand, either un-manipulated or digitally altered to display moving pixelated 'static' effect, the crawling skin illusion.

Cross-cultural color-odor associations.

Colors and odors are associated; for instance, people typically match the smell of strawberries to the color pink or red. These associations are forms of crossmodal correspondences. Recently, there has been discussion about the extent to which these correspondences arise for structural reasons (i.

Ambulance use is associated with higher self-rated illness seriousness: user attitudes and perceptions.

Objectives: The objective was to study the role and effect of patients' perceptions on reasons for using ambulance services in Queensland, Australia.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted of patients (n = 911) presenting via ambulance or self-transport at eight public hospital emergency departments (EDs). The survey included perceived illness severity, attitudes toward ambulance, and reasons for using ambulance.

Can SNOMED CT as implemented in New South Wales, Australia be used for road trauma injury surveillance in emergency departments?

The introduction of Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) for diagnosis coding in emergency departments (EDs) in New South Wales (NSW) has implications for injury surveillance abilities. This study aimed to assess the consequences of its introduction, as implemented as part of the ED information system in NSW, for identifying road trauma-related injuries in EDs. It involved a retrospective analysis of road trauma-related injuries identified in linked police, ED and mortality records during March 2007 to December 2009.

Quantity of documentation of maltreatment risk factors in injury-related paediatric hospitalisations.

Background: While child maltreatment is recognised as a global problem, solid epidemiological data on the prevalence of child maltreatment and risk factors associated with child maltreatment is lacking in Australia and internationally. There have been recent calls for action to improve the evidence-base capturing and describing child abuse, particularly those data captured within the health sector. This paper describes the quantity of documentation of maltreatment risk factors in injury-related paediatric hospitalisations in Queensland, Australia.

Physical symptom reporting is associated with a tendency to experience somatosensory distortion.

Objective: Theory suggests that a tendency to experience distortions in somatosensory awareness is associated with physical symptom reporting (i.e., somatization) but empirical evidence for this is lacking.

Classifying external causes of injury: history, current approaches, and future directions.

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is used to categorize diseases, injuries, and external causes of injury, and it is a key epidemiologic tool enabling storage and retrieval of data from health and vital records to produce core international mortality and morbidity statistics. The ICD is updated periodically to ensure the classification system remains current, and work is now under way to develop the next revision, ICD-11. It has been almost 20 years since the last ICD edition was published and over 60 years since the last substantial structural revision of the external causes chapter.

Investigating the mechanisms of visually-evoked tactile sensations.

When attempting to detect a near-threshold signal, participants often incorrectly report the presence of a signal, particularly when a stimulus in a different modality is presented. Here we investigated the effect of prior experience of bimodal visuotactile stimuli on the rate of falsely reported touches in the presence of a light. In Experiment 1, participants made more false alarms in light-present than light-absent trials, despite having no experience of the experimental visuotactile pairing.

Neural correlates of an illusory touch experience investigated with fMRI.

When asked to judge the presence or absence of near-threshold tactile stimuli, participants often report touch experiences when no tactile stimulation has been delivered ('false alarms'). The simultaneous presentation of a light flash during the stimulation period can increase the frequency of touch reports, both when touch is and is not present. Using fMRI, we investigated the BOLD response during both light-present and light-absent false alarms, testing predictions concerning two possible neural mechanisms underlying these illusory touch experiences: activation of a tactile representation in primary somatosensory cortex (SI) and/or activation of a tactile representation in late processing areas outside of sensory-specific cortex, such as medial prefrontal cortex (MPC).

Assessing the concordance of health and child protection data for 'maltreated' and 'unintentionally injured' children.

Objectives: To quantify the concordance of hospital child maltreatment data with child protection service (CPS) records, and identify factors associated with linkage.

Methods: Multivariable logistic regression analysis was conducted following retrospective medical record review and database linkage of 884 child records from 20 hospitals and the CPS in Queensland, Australia.

Results: Nearly all children with hospital assigned maltreatment codes (93.

Reliability of routinely collected hospital data for child maltreatment surveillance.

Background: Internationally, research on child maltreatment-related injuries has been hampered by a lack of available routinely collected health data to identify cases, examine causes, identify risk factors and explore health outcomes. Routinely collected hospital separation data coded using the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) system provide an internationally standardised data source for classifying and aggregating diseases, injuries, causes of injuries and related health conditions for statistical purposes. However, there has been limited research to examine the reliability of these data for child maltreatment surveillance purposes.

Using routinely collected hospital data for child maltreatment surveillance: issues, methods and patterns.

Background: International data on child maltreatment are largely derived from child protection agencies, and predominantly report only substantiated cases of child maltreatment. This approach underestimates the incidence of maltreatment and makes inter-jurisdictional comparisons difficult. There has been a growing recognition of the importance of health professionals in identifying, documenting and reporting suspected child maltreatment.

Now you feel it, now you don't: how robust is the phenomenon of illusory tactile experience?

Recent studies have reported that in normal healthy individuals, the perception of illusory sensations in one modality can be induced by the presentation of a stimulus in another modality. These illusory sensations may arise from the activation of a tactile representation in memory induced by the non-target stimulus, in a process mirroring that thought to be responsible for many forms of medically unexplained symptoms. The reliability of illusory-touch reports was investigated here in two experiments with a novel perceptual paradigm designed to simulate the occurrence of somatoform symptoms in the laboratory.

Identifying work related injuries: comparison of methods for interrogating text fields.

Background: Work-related injuries in Australia are estimated to cost around $57.5 billion annually, however there are currently insufficient surveillance data available to support an evidence-based public health response. Emergency departments (ED) in Australia are a potential source of information on work-related injuries though most ED's do not have an 'Activity Code' to identify work-related cases with information about the presenting problem recorded in a short free text field.

Identification of alcohol involvement in injury-related hospitalisations using routine data compared to medical record review.

Objective: To quantify the extent that alcohol related injuries are adequately identified in hospitalisation data using ICD-10-AM codes indicative of alcohol involvement.

Method: A random sample of 4,373 injury-related hospital separations from 1 July 2002 to 30 June 2004 were obtained from a stratified random sample of 50 hospitals across four states in Australia. From this sample, cases were identified as involving alcohol if they contained an ICD-10-AM diagnosis or external cause code referring to alcohol, or if the text description extracted from the medical records mentioned alcohol involvement.

The use of narrative text for injury surveillance research: a systematic review.

Objective: To summarise the extent to which narrative text fields in administrative health data are used to gather information about the event resulting in presentation to a health care provider for treatment of an injury, and to highlight best practise approaches to conducting narrative text interrogation for injury surveillance purposes.

Design: Systematic review.

Data Sources: Electronic databases searched included CINAHL, Google Scholar, Medline, Proquest, PubMed and PubMed Central.