Physiological evidence for response inhibition in choice reaction time tasks

Inhibition is a widely used notion proposed to account for data obtained in choice reaction time (RT) tasks. However, this concept is weakly supported by empirical facts. In this paper, we review a series of experiments using Hoffman reflex, transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography to study inhibition in choice RT tasks. We provide empirical support for the idea that inhibition does occur during choice RT, and the implications of those findings for various classes of choice RT models are discussed.     

When the self represents the other: a new cognitive neuroscience view on psychological identification

There is converging evidence from developmental and cognitive psychology, as well as from neuroscience, to suggest that the self is both special and social, and that self-other interaction is the driving force behind self-development. We review experimental findings which demonstrate that human infants are motivated for social interactions and suggest that the development of an awareness of other minds is rooted in the implicit notion that others are like the self. We then marshall evidence from functional neuroimaging explorations of the neurophysiological substrate of shared representations between the self and others, using various ecological paradigms such as mentally representing one's own actions versus others' actions, watching the actions executed by others, imitating the others' actions versus being imitated by others. We suggest that within this shared neural network the inferior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere play a special role in the essential ability to distinguish the self from others, and in the way the self represents the other. Interestingly, the right hemisphere develops its functions earlier than the left.     

A foot-pointing task and spatiotemporal gait parameters during walking in sportsmen

Unlike many sports, karate imposes pointing to a target with the lower limb. The nature of each sport could influence gait variables of sportsmen. The aim of this study was to examine the pointing accuracy of limb swing and the spatial and temporal parameters of the walking cycle during walking in karate experts (Group K, n=6) compared to accuracy of nonkarate sportsmen (Group S, n = 11). The second aim of this study was to compare the influence of this skill on the spatial and temporal parameters of the walking cycle between the two groups. The analysis was performed with a device composed of a gait analysis system (locometer) coupled to a lighted walkway. This system provides a measurement of the motor skill and the spatial and temporal gait during walking. Analysis for the pointing task indicated no differences between the Karate and the Sportsmen Groups during walking. Moreover, neither the spatial nor temporal characteristics of walking differed between the two groups. Karate does not therefore seem to develop motor programs specific to enhanced performance on this pointing task during walking or alter the walking cycle as compared to some other competitive sports.     

Environmental Ethics as Applied to Outdoor Physical Practices: An Analysis Through the Lens of Hans Jonas

In times of social and moral crises, sport has often been called to boost individual moral development. By the same token, outdoor activities are viewed as good educational practices to enhance environmental responsibility. However, the present paper argues that these physical activities are currently following the same technological development trend as the mainstream society, and challenges this trend itself in terms of sustainability by critically asking this question: Do outdoor activities really enhance environmental responsibility? The research supporting this paper is based on a qualitative inquiry using interviews with outdoor activities practitioners: mountain guides and white water sports instructors. The findings of this research show that environmental responsibility development depends on the sport contexts. It is fostered in slow and none-technological activities (e.g. trekking) and lowered in fast and technological activities (e.g. canoeing, kayaking). The paper concludes with the following paradox reached by the preliminary research results: the birth of modern technology calls for greater need of environmental responsibility, but it may also prevent its development at the same time.     

Social feedback interferes with implicit rule learning: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

The human brain can learn contingencies built into stimulus sequences unconsciously. The quality of such implicit learning has been connected to stimulus social relevance, but results so far are inconsistent. We engaged participants in an implicit-intentional learning task in which they learned to discriminate between legal and illegal card triads on the sole basis of feedback provided within a staircase procedure. Half of the participants received feedback from pictures of faces with a happy or sad expression (social group) and the other half based on traffic light icons (symbolic group). We hypothesised that feedback from faces would have a greater impact on learning than that from traffic lights. Although performance during learning did not differ between groups, the feedback error-related negativity (fERN) was delayed by ~20 ms for social relative to symbolic feedback, and the P3b modulation elicited by infrequent legal card triads within a stream of illegal ones during the test phase was significantly larger in the symbolic than the social feedback group. Furthermore, the P3b mean amplitude recorded at test negatively correlated with the latency of the fERN recorded during learning. These results counterintuitively suggest that, relative to symbolic feedback, socially salient feedback interferes with implicit learning.     

François Noël’s Contribution to the Western Understanding of Chinese Thought: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Taiji sive natura</Emphasis> in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Philosophia sinica</Emphasis> (1711)

Jesuits in China adopted key Confucian terms to express Christian notions; for example, Tian 天 or Shangdi 上帝 was considered an equivalent for God, and guishen 鬼神 for angels. A Terms controversy started among the Jesuits and other missionaries and developed into the famous Rites Controversy. However, all the missionaries agreed in rejecting the Neo-Confucian concept of Taiji 太極, which was believed to be materialistic, pantheistic, or atheistic. The Flemish Jesuit François Noël (1651–1729), after a careful study of Neo-Confucian texts, interpreted Taiji with the Western concept of nature, and even claimed that it held theistic meaning. We shall analyze and evaluate here this early Western attempt in giving a positive meaning to Taiji.     

Vowel bias in Danish word‐learning: processing biases are language‐specific

The present study explored whether the phonological bias favoring consonants found in French‐learning infants and children when learning new words (Havy & Nazzi, 2009; Nazzi, 2005) is language‐general, as proposed by Nespor, Peña and Mehler (2003), or varies across languages, perhaps as a function of the phonological or lexical properties of the language in acquisition. To do so, we used the interactive word‐learning task set up by Havy and Nazzi (2009), teaching Danish‐learning 20‐month‐olds pairs of phonetically similar words that contrasted either on one of their consonants or one of their vowels, by either one or two phonological features. Danish was chosen because it has more vowels than consonants, and is characterized by extensive consonant lenition. Both phenomena could disfavor a consonant bias. Evidence of word‐learning was found only for vocalic information, irrespective of whether one or two phonological features were changed. The implication of these findings is that the phonological biases found in early lexical processing are not language‐general but develop during language acquisition, depending on the phonological or lexical properties of the native language.     

The bilingual brain turns a blind eye to negative statements in the second language

Neurobilingualism research has failed to reveal significant language differences in the processing of affective content. However, the evidence to date derives mostly from studies in which affective stimuli are presented out of context, which is unnatural and fails to capture the complexity of everyday sentence-based communication. Here we investigated semantic integration of affectively salient stimuli in sentential context in the first- and second-language (L2) of late fluent Polish–English bilinguals living in the UK. The 19 participants indicated whether Polish and English sentences ending with a semantically and affectively congruent or incongruent adjective of controlled affective valence made sense while undergoing behavioral and electrophysiological recordings. We focused on the N400, a wave of event-related potentials known to index semantic integration. We expected N400 amplitude to index increased processing demands in L2 English comprehension and potential language–valence interactions to reveal differences in affective processing between languages. Contrary to our initial expectation, we found increased N400 for sentences in L1 Polish, possibly driven by greater affective salience of sentences in the native language. Critically, language interacted with affective valence, such that N400 amplitudes were reduced for English sentences ending in a negative fashion as compared to all other conditions. We interpreted this as a sign that bilinguals suppress L2 content embedded in naturalistic L2 sentences when it has negative valence, thus extending the findings of previous research on single words in clinical and linguistic research.     

Visual-perceptual abilities in healthy controls, depressed patients, and schizophrenia patients

Previous studies have suggested a right hemineglect in schizophrenia, however few assessed possible visual-perceptual implication in this lateralized anomaly. A manual line bisection without (i.e., lines presented on their own) or with a local cueing paradigm (i.e., a number placed at one or both ends of the line) and the Motor-free Visual Perceptual Test-Vertical format (MVPT-V) were used to assess the visual-perceptual abilities of healthy controls, schizophrenia and depressed patients. Whereas healthy controls and depressed patients showed a non-significant leftward bias in manual line bisection, schizophrenia patients bisected significantly to the left of the true centre of the line. Interestingly, the pattern of performances in response to the local cueing paradigm was similar in depressed and schizophrenia patients such that both groups demonstrated a significant change in their bisection performance only in response to a cue placed at the right extremity of the line (control performance was modified by cues at either end of the line). Finally, in the MVPT-V, schizophrenia patients were impaired relative to the other two groups, especially in the spatial working memory and visual closure categories. These results suggest that: 1/a deficit towards the right hemifield, consistent with a mild form of right hemineglect, can be observed in schizophrenia; 2/lateralized anomalies could also be observed in depression using an appropriate tool such as manual line bisection; 3/performances in the MVPT-V suggested that a simple visual-perceptual deficit could not explain the lateralized anomaly observed in the manual line bisection, as it is the case in the hemineglect syndrome.