From embodying tool to embodying alien limb: sensory-motor modulation of personal and extrapersonal space

Years ago, it was demonstrated (e.g., Rizzolatti et al. in Handbook of neuropsychology, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 2000) that the brain does not encode the space around us in a homogeneous way, but through neural circuits that map the space relative to the distance that objects of interest have from the body. In monkeys, relatively discrete neural systems, characterized by neurons with specific neurophysiological responses, seem to be dedicated either to represent the space that can be reached by the hand (near/peripersonal space) or to the distant space (far/extrapersonal space). It was also shown that the encoding of spaces has dynamic aspects because they can be remapped by the use of tools that trigger different actions (e.g., Iriki et al. 1998). In this latter case, the effect of the tool depends on the modulation of personal space, that is the space of our body. In this paper, I will review and discuss selected research, which demonstrated that also in humans: 1 spaces are encoded in a dynamic way; 2 encoding can be modulated by the use of tool that the system comes to consider as parts of the own body; 3 body representations are not fixed, but they are fragile and subject to change to the point that we can incorporate not only the tools necessary for action, but even limbs belonging to other people. What embodiment of tools and of alien limb tell us about body representations is then briefly discussed.

     

The child's conceptions about means of production and their owners

Investigated the child's social ideas, namely notions about production means (factory, public transportation, farmland) and family influence on notion acquisition. 120 children of jive age groups (4 to 13 years) were clinically interviewed (sensu Piaget). Children's parents, workers and housewives of an Italian industrial centre, answered to questionnaires inquiring background information on parents and child and appraisal of child's level of understanding. Interview answers were classified on ten level sequences concerning father's job, home ownership, function and ownership of production means and produce. Correlational analyses and separate ANOVAs [5(age) × 2(sex) × 3(production mean)] in three subject areas (owner of production mean, of produce, and produce use) of interview answers reveal that children's ideas about different production means develop with differing rhythms through the same level sequences, which are clearly related to the general characterstics of intelligence described by Piaget. Questionnaires show that parents tend to furnish their children with the degree of information concerning jobs appropriate to the level of development at which the parents believe their children to be.     

The understanding of sadness, guilt, and shame in 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children

Children's understanding of sadness and guilt and of guilt and shame were examined in two separate studies, each involving a total of 60 Italian children aged 5-6, 7-8, and 9-10 years. For each emotion, the children were individually interviewed; they were asked to describe antecedents, thoughts characterizing the emotion that was the subject of the interview, and the action tendencies a person might use in response to the emotion. The children were also asked if, and if so, how, the presence of a parent might affect the emotion, and how they would cope with the situation. Results showed that at all the ages considered in this study, the children knew about the three emotions, although there were some age differences related to the depth of their understanding. Such data show that children's understanding of social emotions occurs earlier than claimed in previous studies that have focused mainly on antecedents.     

Engagement in the university context: exploring the role of a sense of justice and social identification

The aim of this study was to investigate how a sense of justice, university identification and student engagement emerge within the educational context and the reciprocal relationships among these constructs. Two correlational studies were conducted: (1) a pilot study aimed at validating the constructs of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional aspects), social identification and student engagement (rule-abiding and extra-role aspects), within the university context (N \(=\) 280); (2) a study exploring the robustness of and the relationships between those constructs (N \(=\) 429). The results confirmed the presence of a four-factor solution involving a sense of overall justice (comprising distributive, procedural and interactional aspects), social identification, and two types of student engagement (rule-abiding and extra-role behaviours). A sense of justice was found to be related to students’ rule-abiding behaviour and, at the same time, it was related to students’ extra-role behaviour, only for closely identified students. In other words, student identification with the university moderated the relationship between sense of justice and extra-role behaviours. Our results showed the important role of sense justice in promoting student engagement (in both aspects of rule-abiding and extra-role behaviour), providing useful insights for the management of the university level educational system towards a better involvement of students in the attainment of higher academic performances and institutional commitment.     

Age-related changes in amplitude,latency and specialization of ERP responses to faces and watches

ABSTRACT

Healthy aging is associated with impairments in face recognition. While earlier research suggests that these impairments arise during memory retrieval, more recent findings suggest that earlier mechanisms, at the perceptual stage, may also be at play. However, results are often inconsistent and very few studies have included a non-face control stimulus to facilitate interpretation of results with respect to the implication of specialized face mechanisms vs. general cognitive factors. To address these issues, P100, N170 and P200 event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during processing of faces and watches. For faces, age-related differences were found for P100, N170 and P200 ERPs. For watches, age-related differences were found for N170 and P200 ERPs. Older adults showed less selective and less lateralized N170 responses to faces, suggesting that ERPs can detect age-related de-differentiation of specialized face networks. We conclude that age-related impairments in face recognition arise in part from difficulties in the earliest perceptual stages of visual information processing. A working model is presented based on coarse-to-fine analysis of visually similar exemplars.