The effect of fixation transitions on quiet eye duration and performance in the soccer penalty kick: instep versus inside kicks

Male goalkeepers of intermediate skill level attempted to stop penalty kicks executed with the instep and inside foot, in situ. A mobile eye tracker and an external camera were used to collect the gaze and motor behaviors of the goalkeepers, as well as the penalty takers’ motor behaviors and flight of the ball. Percent saves was greater during instep (28%) than inside foot kicks (12%), but we detected few differences in fixation frequency, location, duration, or transitions that could be attributed to the type of kick used. Fixation transitions (or the frequency of gaze shifts between locations) were significantly higher on goals than on saves. During the final phase of the kicking action, the quiet eye was located on the visual pivot and was longer during saves than goals. Furthermore, when the final fixation on the ball exceeded approximately 1,100 ms, then the likelihood of goals increased. The results are discussed in light of past studies in goaltending and the dual demands of motor tasks that require information be fixated both early and late at spatial locations that exceed the limits of focal vision.     

Predicting the Vote: Implicit Attitudes as Predictors of the Future Behavior of Decided and Undecided Voters

Two studies assessed the predictive validity of implicit political attitudes in relation to voting behavior. In Study 1 , we demonstrated the validity of the adopted measure (i.e., the IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998 ) with a sample of voters who clearly sided with one of the opposing parties. In Study 2 , implicit political preferences were measured in a sample of undecided voters one month before the election, and actual voting behavior was assessed immediately after the election. Results demonstrated that implicit political attitudes were good predictors of future voting behaviors. These findings support the hypothesis of the presence of embryonic attitudes even in the case of those voters who at the explicit and conscious level deny any preference for one of the two opposing candidates.     

Rigidity in social and emotional memory in the R6/2 mouse model of Huntington's disease

Four experiments were conducted to examine social and emotional memory in the R6/2 transgenic mouse model of Huntington’s disease. First, R6/2 mice were tested in a social transmission of food preference task where they had to acquire a preference for a flavoured food (acquisition) and subsequently to learn a preference for a different flavour (shifted reinforcement). R6/2 mice performed well in the acquisition trial. However, they were impaired in the shifted reinforcement trial and perseverated on the first preference learned. Second, mice were trained in an inhibitory avoidance paradigm, with either one or two footshocks delivered during the training. WT mice given one footshock showed retention levels lower than those of mice trained with two footshocks. By contrast, there was no difference in retention levels of R6/2 mice given either one or two footshocks. Third, mice were tested in an active avoidance task that paired a mild footshock with a warning light. R6/2 mice had a strong age-dependent deficit in this task. Finally, mice were tested in a conditioned taste aversion task that paired a saccharine solution with a nausea-inducing agent (LiCl). R6/2 mice displayed normal aversion, however this was not extinguished following repeated exposure to saccharine solution alone. Our data show that while R6/2 mice have functional hippocampus-based memory, they have deficits in striatum-based memory skills. Further, social and emotional memories appear to be encoded in a rigid way that is not influenced by subsequent learning or by arousal levels.     

Neuroscience today,Florence 25–27 March 2007: foreword

Currently in humor research, there exists a dearth of computational models for humor perception. The existing theories are not quantifiable and efforts need to be made to quantify the models and incorporate neuropsychological findings in humor research. We propose a new computational model (GraPHIA) for perceiving phonological jokes or puns. GraPHIA consists of a semantic network and a phonological network where words are represented by nodes in both the networks. Novel features based on graph theoretical concepts are proposed and computed for the identification of homophonic jokes. The data set for evaluating the model consisted of homophonic puns, normal sentences, and ambiguous nonsense sentences. The classification results show that the feature values result in successful identification of phonological jokes and ambiguous nonsense sentences suggesting that the proposed model is a plausible model for humor perception. Further work is needed to extend the model for identification of other types of phonological jokes.

Cueing the interpretation of a Necker Cube: a way to inspect fundamental cognitive processes

The term perceptual bistability refers to all those conditions in which an observer looks at an ambiguous stimulus that can have two or more distinct but equally reliable interpretations. In this work, we investigate perception of Necker Cube in which bistability consists of the possibility to interpret the cube depth in two different ways. We manipulated the cube ambiguity by darkening one of the cube faces (cue) to provide a clear cube interpretation due to the occlusion depth index. When the position of the cue is stationary the cube perceived perspective is steady and driven by the cue position. However, when we alternated in time the cue position (i.e. we changed the position of the darkened cube face) two different perceptual phenomena occurred: for low frequencies the cube perspective alternated in line with the position of the cue; however for high frequencies the cue was no longer able to bias the perception but it appears as a floating feature traveling across the solid with the cube whole perspective that returns to be bistable as in the conventional, bias-free, case.     

Manual Movement in Sign Languages: One Hand Versus Two in Communicating Shapes

In sign languages, the task of communicating a shape involves drawing in the air with one moving hand (Method One) or two (Method Two). Since the movement path is iconic, method choice might be based on the shape. In the present studies we aimed to determine whether geometric properties motivate method choice. In a study of 17 deaf signers from six countries, the strongest predictors of method choice were whether the shape has any curved edges (Method One), and whether the shape is symmetrical across the Y‐axis (Method Two), where the default was Method One. In a second study of ASL dictionary entries for which the movement path of the sign is iconic of an entity's shape, the same predictors surfaced. These tendencies are captured in the Lexical Drawing Principle, which is coherent with biological constraints on movement in general. Drawing in the air with two hands, however, is costly, both cognitively and biomechanically. Furthermore, it distinguishes signers from non‐signers, who draw shapes with only one hand. Signers assume this extra cost in the lexicon because of the enhanced iconicity the possibility of two hands offers; they assume it in drawing shapes in the air because they apply the same linguistic principle they use in the lexicon. Additionally, having a choice of methods allows the signer to benefit from over‐specification in providing redundant information about the shape, enhancing comprehensibility and resolving ambiguity.     

Short-term effects of a multi-disciplinary cardiac rehabilitation programme on psychological well-being, exercise capacity and weight in a sample of obese in-patients with coronary heart disease: a practice-level study

Given that many patients referred to cardiac rehabilitation (CR) are obese, diet therapy, exercise training, nutritional and psychological counselling for both obesity and psychological distress should be included as important components in all CR programmes. In this practice-level, observational study we evaluated the short-term within-group effects of a four-week multi-factorial inpatient CR programme specifically addressed to weight loss, fitness improvement and psychological health increase on 176 obese in-patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Outcome measures were exercise capacity measured with estimated metabolic equivalents (METs), body mass index (BMI) and psychological well-being (PGWBI). Results show statistically significant improvements in all the PGWBI sub-scales and total score, except in general health (p = 0.393). No moderation effects were found for BMI class, age, diabetes and ejection fraction (EF). METs significantly increased by 30.3% (p < 0.001) and BMI decreased by 1.37 points (p < 0.001). Significant correlations were found between BMI and weight reductions with PGWBI anxiety and total score improvements. This multi-disciplinary CR programme including diet therapy, exercise training and psychological counselling provides indication for short-term within-group effectiveness on functional exercise capacity, BMI and PGWBI in a sample of obese in-patients with CHD. However, controlled studies are needed to corroborate the results we found.     

Ferrajoli’s Argument for Structural Entrenchment

This paper engages with Ferrajoli’s contribution to the philosophical debate on constitutional democracy and in particular his conception of ‘structural entrenchment’, or the basis upon which one can defend the normativity of the Constitution as ‘higher law’, which can trump or limit legislation, without infringing democratic principles. Ferrajoli’s own understanding of ‘structural entrenchment’ is compared to Rawls’s and Dworkin’s arguments in support of it. Ferrajoli’s position is neither grounded on a philosophy of history, as in Rawls, nor on a version of moral realism, as for Dworkin, but on a formal understanding of the nature of fundamental rights, and in a conception of democratic sovereignty as ‘joint ownership.’