Facial expressions and speech acts: experimental evidences on the role of the upper face as an illocutionary force indicating device in language comprehension

Language scientists have broadly addressed the problem of explaining how language users recognize the kind of speech act performed by a speaker uttering a sentence in a particular context. They have done so by investigating the role played by the illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs), i.e., all linguistic elements that indicate the illocutionary force of an utterance. The present work takes a first step in the direction of an experimental investigation of non-verbal IFIDs because it investigates the role played by facial expressions and, in particular, of upper-face action units (AUs) in the comprehension of three basic types of illocutionary force: assertions, questions, and orders. The results from a pilot experiment on production and two comprehension experiments showed that (1) certain upper-face AUs seem to constitute non-verbal signals that contribute to the understanding of the illocutionary force of questions and orders; (2) assertions are not expected to be marked by any upper-face AU; (3) some upper-face AUs can be associated, with different degrees of compatibility, with both questions and orders.     

The neuropsychological correlates of cognitive insight in healthy participants

Cognitive insight is the ability to monitor and correct one's own erroneous convictions. The Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS) assesses two sub‐dimensions of cognitive insight: self‐reflectiveness (SR), which is the attitude of questioning one's own judgments; and self‐certainty (SC), which is the unwillingness to modify and correct one's own convictions. There is little information about cognitive insight in healthy participants (HP). Here we investigated the socio‐demographic and neuropsychological correlates of cognitive insight in 50 HP who were administered the BCIS and a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. The global BCIS R‐C index correlated positively with age and WCST perseverative errors. SR correlated positively with age. These data support the hypothesis that a less self‐reflective and more self‐confident style is cognitively functional in HP. Thus, what has been found malfunctioning in mental illnesses is adaptive in HP. Future studies should consider a wider range of factors that might affect this complex construct. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Newborns' preference for goal-directed actions

The central role of sensory-motor representations in cognitive functions is almost universally accepted. However, determining the link between motor execution and its sensory counterpart and when, during ontogenesis, this link originates are still under investigation. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether at birth this link is already present and 2-day-old newborns are able to discriminate between visual cues indicating goal-directed or non-goal-directed actions. Here, with a preferential looking technique, a hand grasping a ball was the observed movement and we orthogonally manipulated the three factors necessary to successfully reach the goal: (a) presence of the ball, (b) direction of the arm movement, and (c) hand shaping. Results indicated that newborns orient more frequently and look longer at a hand shape for whole hand prehension but only when the movement is directed away from the body and toward the external world. In addition, newborns prefer the away from the body movement only when the object is present. We argue that newborns prefer a movement directed toward the external world only when it may develop into a purposeful movement because of the presence of the to-be-grasped object. Overall, our results support the existence of primitive sensory-motor associations since the first days after birth.     

Dynamic time warping: a new method in the study of poor handwriting

Poor handwriting is a diagnostic criterion for developmental coordination disorder. Typical of poor handwriting is its low overall quality and the high variability of the spatial characteristics of the letters, usually assessed with a subjective handwriting scale. Recently, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), a technique originally developed for speech recognition, was introduced for pattern recognition in handwriting. The present study evaluates its application to analyze poor handwriting. Forty children attending Dutch mainstream primary schools were recruited and based on their scores on the Concise Evaluation Scale for Children's Handwriting (Dutch abbreviation: BHK), 20 good and 20 poor writers (of whom 13 were scheduled for handwriting intervention) were identified. The groups were matched for age (7-9 years), school grade (grades 2 and 3) and handedness. The children subsequently wrote sequences of the letter "a" on a graphics tablet in three conditions (normal, fast, and accurate). Classical kinematics were obtained and for each individual letter DTW was used to calculate the distance from the mean shape. The DTW data revealed much higher variability in the letter forms of the poor writers that was independent of the kinematic results of larger trajectories, faster movements, and higher pen pressure. The current results suggest that DTW is a valid and objective technique for letter-form analysis in handwriting and may hence be useful to evaluate the rehabilitation treatments of children suffering from poor handwriting. In education research it may be exploited to explore how children (should) learn to write.     

Change detection evokes a Simon-like effect

The present experiment studied choice response context effects on the programming of response sequences using behavioural and electrophysiological methods. Participants were asked to produce responses differing in sequence length (1-key vs. 3-key responses) with either their left or right hand in a choice reaction time (RT) task. The choice response context was manipulated by a blocked or mixed execution of 1-key and 3-key responses. A sequence length effect on RT was observed in the blocked but not in the mixed condition. The time course of the lateralized readiness potential indicates a motoric locus of the sequence length effect, suggesting that the response hand is activated before the entire motor program is established.     

The role of working memory in the association between number magnitude and space

In two experiments, participants performed a magnitude comparison task in single and dual-task conditions. In the dual conditions, the comparison task was accomplished while phonological or visuospatial information had to be maintained for a later recall test. The results showed that the requirement of maintaining visuospatial information produced the lack of spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect. The SNARC effect was not found even when the performance in the comparison task did not decline, as indicated by a similar distance effect in all conditions. These results show a special role for the visuospatial component of working memory in the processing of spatial representation of numbers and an interesting dissociation between SNARC and distance effects.     

Expressed emotion and Milan systemic intervention: a pilot study on families of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia

This article presents the results of a pilot study carried out on families of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (high‐frequency users of psychiatric services) using a standardized version of systemic family intervention based on the Milan Approach (‘Circular Interview’). We used expressed emotion (EE) to compare and assess two homogeneous samples of families, a treatment group (n = 10) and a control group (n = 8). We found that families participating in circular interviews showed a reduction in criticism, while 30% of their members with a diagnosis of schizophrenia relapsed. Families not receiving treatment showed no changes in EE levels, while 62.5% of their members with a diagnosis of schizophrenia relapsed. Although the difference in relapse rates is not statistically significant, these results justify further studies on the use of nondirective systemic intervention with families of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.     

Movements execution in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

We evaluated the relationship between motor and neuropsychological deficits in subjects affected by amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) and early Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Kinematics of goal-directed movement of aMCI and AD subjects were compared to those of age-matched control subjects. AD showed a slowing down of motor performance compared to aMCI and controls. No relationships were found between motor and cognitive performances in both AD and aMCI. Our results suggest that the different motor behaviour between AD and aMCI cannot be related to memory deficits, probably reflecting the initial degeneration of parietal-frontal circuits for movement planning. The onset of motor dysfunction in early AD could represent the transition from aMCI to AD.     

Primacy and recency effects in immediate free recall of sequences of spatial positions

This study evaluated the serial position curve based on free recall of spatial position sequences. To evaluate the memory processes underlying spatial recall, some manipulations were introduced by varying the length of spatial sequences (Exp. 1) and modifying the presentation rate of individual positions (Exp. 2). A primacy effect emerged for all sequence lengths, while a recency effect was evident only in the longer sequences. Moreover, slowing the presentation rate increased the magnitude of the primacy effect and abolished the recency effect. The main novelty of the present results is represented by the finding that better recall of early items in a sequence of spatial positions does not depend on the task requirement of an ordered recall but it can also be observed in a free recall paradigm.     

The relevance of castration and circumcision to the origins of psychoanalysis: 1. The medical context1

In this paper the author outlines and discusses the origins and the decline of castration and circumcision as a cure for the nervous and psychic disturbances in women and little girls between 1875 and 1905. The author argues that the opposition to this medical practice affected the conception of hysteria, promoting a distinction between sexuality and the genital organs, and the emergence of an enlarged notion of sexuality, during the period from Freud’s medical education to the publication of the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. The hypothesis is put forward that Freud came directly in contact with the genital theory of the neurosis at the time of his training on the nervous disturbances in children with the paediatrician, Adolf Baginsky, in Berlin, in March 1886. It is hypothesized that this experience provoked in Freud an abhorrence of circumcision ‘as a cure or punishment for masturbation’, prompting an inner confrontation which resulted in a radical reorganization of the way of thinking about sexuality. It is also suggested that this contributed to Freud developing a capacity to stay with contradictions, something which would become a central quality of the psychoanalytic attitude.