Medical Humanities最新文献

{"title":"Disability, digital technologies and the ambivalent allure of posthumanist/transhumanist futures.","authors":"Margrit Shildrick","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013020","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013020","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Technologies, both simple and sophisticated, have always played a major role in the negotiation of a range of disabilities that are assumed to impede the expression of autonomous selfhood. Whether deployed as mechanical aides to ideally normalise physical differences, as organic-and often internal-supplements to bolster the performance of body and mind, or as digital enhancements that override the supposed shortcomings of neurodiversity, the widely accepted claim is that such technologies have a clear therapeutic value. It conjures the illusion of an unproblematised sequence of more complex technologies leading to increasingly enhanced function and the advent of superior selfhood. Those who identify as having disabilities, either physical or cognitive, are assured of a better future in which anomalies are sufficiently offset to the extent that they no longer attract disvalue.My paper offers a less conventional perspective that leaves behind the desire for individual autonomy and opens up the question of the transhuman and the posthuman. Rather than focusing on the bounded self at the centre of humanist thought, I ask what is at stake when human embodiment becomes intricately entangled with non-human materialities and digital coding. It is likely that the major developments in such 'prosthetic' technologies will strongly impact the field of disability. Beyond a merely functional usage, which is likely to dominate in the short term, urgent questions arise about the extent to which the category of the human can or should be sustained as the anchor of continuing life. In exploring the practical, philosophical and bioethical implications of newly emerging technologies, I distinguish between the motivation of transhumanism, which focuses on self-perfectibility and mastery, and a posthumanism that in seeking to radically decentre the very notion of human privilege and hierarchical distinctions offers an optimistic view of disability futures.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"685-693"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Edges of perception: balancing sensory loss and potential in assistive technology.","authors":"Femke Krijger","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013023","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013023","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Being deafblind means my perception differs profoundly from those who are conventionally sighted and have non-impaired hearing. A lot of hidden knowledge is to be found in the disparity between these differing experiences that could be of great value in developing assistive technologies that have a broad scope to engage with both disabled and non-disabled users. This article explores the balancing act between sensory loss and the potential inherent in all of us and how this should be part of the design process of haptic assistive technology.Facing the true impact of my sensory loss, I realised it held the unexpected gift of a-literally-different perspective. I am losing sights and sounds, but the world still reveals itself to me in many ways. Exploring my sensory potential, I combine daily life experiences and theoretical knowledge to better understand how to get the most out of my sensory processing systems. The goal is not to compensate what is lost, but stay connected in a way that enables me to live my life to the fullest.I undertake sensory life hacks based on the brain's unmatched capacity to adjust to circumstances and work with <i>any</i> kind of input. Both predicting processing and neuroplasticity offer an operating system of highly evolved flexibility that allows and even encourages creative solutions. I adjust my coping strategies to align them with these processes shaping my perceptual experience, balancing sensory loss and sensory gain.I believe there is great potential to enrich daily life experiences with haptic assistive technology, building on the natural sensory abilities we have as human beings, co-creating life. However, this comes with challenges: researchers who are not sensorily impaired should consider through experience that we all have limited perception in a way. At the edges of the familiar, you have to face your perceptual limits, pushing you out of your comfort zone and in doing so space is being created for growth; researchers used to the dominance of sight and hearing are less used to consciously experiencing the power of sensory proximity, such as touch and proprioception. These bodily tactile senses, however, are grounding senses in all of us and display a broad scope of sensations to be experienced.The hereditary disease that causes deafblindness forced me to explore the edges of my perception, and instead of devastating loss I discovered a richness of sensory abilities. This article is a plea to dive into this, using my lived experience and critical knowledge. Realising this potential can mean that inclusive research on assistive technologies might really do what it promises, co-creating technologies to enhance life experiences.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"601-609"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142839793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"That's me at my best\": perspectives of older adults on involvement in technology research.","authors":"Susanna E Martin, Cindy C Zhang, Mallorie T Tam, Julie M Robillard","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013030","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013030","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Creating assistive technology for older adults requires a deep understanding of their needs, values and preferences. Human-centred approaches can be used to engage older adults in technology research to help ensure that end solutions are ethically aligned, relevant and responsive to their priorities. However, the value of cocreation is not universally acknowledged. Older adults continue to receive negative stereotyping and are limited from engaging in research. With the growing demand for assistive technologies that effectively meet end-user needs, it is important that we deepen our knowledge about engagement and promote inclusion of older adults in technology research. To learn more, we asked members of a research advisory group for assistive technologies, specifically social robots, to tell us about their experiences of engagement and the impact it has on their lives, to speculate whether participation in research may promote human flourishing. Our findings reveal that engagement is more than knowledge exchange: it is a multifaceted, dynamic process that creates rich and meaningful experiences for older adults. Experiences of engagement dovetail with interpretations of flourishing and improved well-being, which include outcomes related to empowerment, autonomy and connectedness to self and others. Older adults also report finding purpose and satisfaction in knowing that their contributions to research may be used to develop technologies that can benefit others. This work amplifies the voice of lived experiences to deepen our understanding of the impacts of participation and prompts us to reimagine how older adults may be meaningfully engaged in technology research.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"648-656"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142886306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deaf futurity: designing and innovating hearing aids.","authors":"Jaipreet Virdi","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013011","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013011","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>One of the tenets of a posthuman vision is the eradication of disability through technology. Within this site of 'no future', as Alison Kafer describes, the disabled body is merged with artificial intelligence technology or transformed into a prosthetic superhuman. These imaginative possibilities are materialised in a future-oriented mindset in contemporary technological innovation, including hearing aids and other devices-such as vibrating vests to 'feel sounds' or sign language gloves, what design critic Liz Jackson defines as 'disability dongles'-designed to bypass deafness that simultaneously provide a 'cure' and create a 'post-deaf reality'. Bringing together material culture with crip futurity, history of science, medicine and technology (HSTM), this paper investigates how hearing devices for deaf people have embodied futurity through design and technological features. While mid-20th century analogue hearing aids incorporated fashion through colour and style, 21st century digital hearing aids favour a sleek, industrial aesthetic borrowed from modern architecture, jewellery and automotive design. Yet discretion remains a persistent and common design feature, meant to diminish obvious symptoms of deafness. Applying what I refer to as the 'disabled gaze'-an autonomous claiming of identity that draws attention to, rather than camouflages, disability-this paper attempts to understand how expanding the breadth of hearing aid design beyond discretion will open possibilities for imagining deaf futurity to radically disintegrate ableist stereotypes and transform how disabled people are represented in society.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"678-684"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142886330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Imagining alternative futures with augmentative and alternative communication: a manifesto.","authors":"Darryl Sellwood, Lateef McLeod, Kevin Williams, Katie Brown, Graham Pullin","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013022","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013022","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This manifesto seeks to challenge dominant narratives about the future of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Current predictions are mainly driven by technological developments-technologies usually being developed for different markets-and are often based on ableist assumptions. In online conversations and a discussion panel at the 2023 International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication conference, we explored alternative futures by adopting different starting positions. Our case is presented under five headings: questioning the dominance of predictions that artificial intelligence and brain-computer interfaces will define the future of AAC; resisting disability being framed medically, as a problem to be solved, yet acknowledging both the pleasures and pains of being disabled; declaring that people who use AAC-as cyborgs of necessity rather than choice-should have choice and ownership of our technologies; challenging notions of independence as the necessary end goal for disabled bodies and considering interdependence as a human right; imagining alternative futures in which all people who use AAC are accepted and embraced for our communication and self-expression. This manifesto is an invitation for further discussion, and we welcome responses. While our focus is AAC, and three of the authors use AAC, we believe that our stance could be relevant to other disability communities in turn. This paper is about who gets to imagine disability futures and whose voices are left out. It is about how uncritical these futures can be, often presuming values that disabled people, in all their diversity, may not share.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"620-623"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142559116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Beyond the fingertips: imagining haptic technologies for a deafblind future.","authors":"Russ Palmer, Riitta Lahtinen, Raymond Holt","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013025","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this paper, we imagine how future technologies could support people who have severe hearing and visual impairment or a deafblind condition. Much effort has gone into assistive technologies to improve access for people with visual or hearing impairments, and while some of these systems will work for people with dual sensory loss, this is not always the case. Fewer systems have been developed specifically for this group. To this end, we imagine what technologies might look like in the future if they were designed specifically for people with dual sensory impairment, based on the experiences of two of the authors in accessing various displays and events related to space and astronomy. Dual sensory loss can cover a very wide range of situations, and the precise history of each individual will have a strong effect on how they use residual senses and technologies. We therefore start by reviewing literature on deafblindness, looking at current efforts to make museums accessible to people with vision and hearing impairments and social-haptic communication, a method of augmenting vision and hearing with touch signals that has developed from the deafblind community. We move on to consider three case studies, each representing a different situation: the Rocket Garden at Kennedy Space Centre; visits to observatories to view constellations and planets and engagement with the livestreamed launch of the Mars 2020 mission. For each case study, we consider the challenges faced, and the way existing technologies have been adapted or new strategies improvised to provide access to these situations. We finish by considering where these technologies might usefully go in the future-we set out some desired characteristics for future technologies, imagine some technologies for the future and how these might have been applied to the three case studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"610-619"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142689220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deaf-led alarm design: technology and disability in home, work and parenthood.","authors":"Gretchen Von Koenig","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013029","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Domestic alarms are highly personal technological appendages that help us achieve an individual sense of safety and familial well-being-like baby monitors that help us care for children and alarm clocks that ensure a daily routine and help us get to work on time. Alarms can be understood as technologies that extend our eyes, ears, and memory to monitor our homes and ourselves in various ways beyond typical human capacity. The designs of domestic alarms tend to favour audible forms of alerting, and disabled users and inventors have hacked and redesigned alarms to fit their own families' needs. Alarm design can tell us what type of domestic futures designers and technologists have imagined, casting visions about who is fit for parenthood and who is a reliable worker, and what types of futures disabled users imagined for themselves. As the future of these technologies becomes subsumed into smartphones and other IoT devices, a look into their predigital material forms uncovers episodes of disability agencies that assert a right to disability futures of domestic bliss and safety. Through the archives of The Deaf American and other deaf community publications, this research reviews the postwar alarm designs of Emerson Romero, a Cuban-American deaf activist and engineer, to show how deaf-led alarm designs are forms of material rhetoric that assert a right to a domestic future for disabled parents and workers.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"639-647"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142773537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring cultural imaginaries of robots with children with brittle bone disease: a participatory design study.","authors":"Christina E Stimson","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2024-013039","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A symbiotic relationship exists between narrative imaginaries of and real-life advancements in technology. Such cultural imaginings have a powerful influence on our understanding of the potential that technology has to affect our lives; as a result, narrative-based approaches to <i>participatory design</i> (PD) of technology are an active area of investigation.In this ongoing study, the following research questions are addressed: how can PD be optimised for the fields of robotics and assistive technology, particularly with regard to fostering empowerment and eliciting how people imagine the role of technology in their own futures? How can the symbiotic relationship between (popular) cultural imaginaries and real-life technological advancements be acknowledged within the PD process?The study synthesises fictional inquiry and science fiction prototyping methodologies and processes over multiple workshops. Its aim is to explore and develop conceptions of robotics and assistive technology of children with <i>osteogenesis imperfecta</i> (OI, commonly known as brittle bone disease) and their families, as these populations are under-represented in collaborative research and stand to benefit from future robotics development. Narrative-based approaches are complemented by participants' direct interaction with contemporary robots during each workshop and a 'robot home visit' to unite experiential understandings of robots and their current capabilities with possible futures, as well as foster mutual learning between stakeholders and designers. The study deploys a mixed methods research design with a critical posthumanist theoretical lens.This inclusive co-designed methodology should establish a rich, nuanced picture of how people currently imagine robots in their future and facilitate all involved to deepen these conceptions. It is anticipated that everyone taking part will empower themselves to imagine fully the range of possibilities in their own personal futures in our increasingly technologised world.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":"50 4","pages":"705-714"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142923313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why robot embodiment matters: questions of disability, race and intersectionality in the design of social robots.","authors":"Mark Paterson","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013028","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A growing minority of those with disabilities are people of color (POC), with, for example, autism diagnosis rates now higher for children of color than for white children in the USA. This trend underscores the need for assistive technologies, especially socially assistive robots, to be designed with intersectional users in mind. Outside of Japan, most robots are designed with white synthetic skin and able-bodied features, failing to reflect the diverse users they are meant to assist. This paper explores the concept of the \"engineering imaginary,\" the historical and cultural influences that shape these designs, and which tend to limit robot embodiment to white, able-bodied forms. Drawing on work from scholars like Lucy Suchman, Jennifer Rhee, Neda Atanasoski and Kalindi Vora, the paper critiques this engineering bias. A key historical moment in the production of the engineered imaginary of artificial humans is provided by Ovid's myth of Pygmalion and its influence on representations across literature, film, and then robotics. Furthermore, the physicality of the robot, and its role in the production of nonverbal communication (NVC) for more inclusive interaction with humans is explored, seeing these as steps toward what some roboticists are calling Artificial Empathy (AE). Through case studies like Bestic, Bina48, and HuggieBot 3.0, the paper explores what I call <i>the poverty of the engineering imaginary</i>, how current robotics design fails to properly address issues of race, gender, and disability. Ultimately, the paper argues for more inclusive robot designs that accommodate diverse bodies and social dynamics, questioning the pervasive norm of white, able-bodied robotic embodiment.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"694-704"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142523349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards distributed facilitation in research teams: an example from itDf.","authors":"Orla Cronin","doi":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013027","DOIUrl":"10.1136/medhum-2024-013027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This essay argues that facilitation is a valuable tool for research teams. It suggests that an external facilitator is particularly helpful for more complex gatherings, and that for smaller or more routine gatherings, building skills within teams to enable the distribution of facilitation across team members is a viable alternative to hiring an external facilitator. Distributed facilitation is a way of supporting internal facilitators by helping to mitigate the time and effort it takes them to manage both process and content.</p>","PeriodicalId":46435,"journal":{"name":"Medical Humanities","volume":" ","pages":"635-638"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142693789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}