Amygdala activation during masked presentation of emotional faces predicts conscious detection of threat-related faces

It has been argued that critical functions of the human amygdala are to modulate the moment-to-moment vigilance level and to enhance the processing and the consolidation of memories of emotionally arousing material. In this functional magnetic resonance study, pictures of human faces bearing fearful, angry, and happy expressions were presented to nine healthy volunteers using a backward masking procedure based on neutral facial expression. Activation of the left and right amygdala in response to the masked fearful faces (compared to neutral faces) was significantly correlated with the number of fearful faces detected. In addition, right but not left amygdala activation in response to the masked angry faces was significantly related to the number of angry faces detected. The present findings underscore the role of the amygdala in the detection and consolidation of memory for marginally perceptible threatening facial expression.     

Longitudinal electromyography findings in abstinent alcoholics

Polyneuropathies by long term alcohol dependent Patients are characterized by "axonal" and "demyelinized" type. By abstinence we found a diminution of symptoms.     

Electrodermal activity as an indicator of information processing in a nonaversive differential classical conditioning paradigm

Most investigations of information processing in human Pavlovian autonomic conditioning focussed on the role of awareness of the contingency of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). While in these studies only the qualitative information of the CS (UCS occurring vs not occurring) was varied, the present experiment was designed to vary the quantitative information of the CS. In a differential conditioning paradigm, using a letter reproduction task as nonaversive UCS, electrodermal responses to different degrees of CS information content were investigated. Twenty subjects experienced two different conditions in a within subject design. In one condition only the number of letters used in the following UCS was presented as CS+, while in the other condition the CS already contained the whole UCS information. Both conditions led to significant differences in magnitudes of electrodermal responding.     

Syntactic loss versus processing deficit: an assessment of two theories of agrammatism and syntactic comprehension deficits

This research evaluated Grodzinsky's (1984, 1986a) syntactic loss and Kolk and van Grunsven's (1985) working memory impairment explanations of syntactic comprehension deficits in agrammatic aphasics. Four aphasic patients were evaluated who showed different patterns of impairment on morphological and structural aspects of production. The comprehension tasks compared performance on full and truncated passive sentences. The syntactic loss hypothesis predicted worse performance on truncated than full passives, while the working memory deficit hypothesis predicted the reverse. Neither hypothesis was supported, as the patients performed at a similar level on both types of passives. In addition, there was little relation between the patients' production indices and their comprehension level. The results argue against any global theory of agrammatism that attempts to attribute all agrammatic speech and co-occurring syntactic comprehension deficits to the same source.     

Preferences as expectation-driven inferences: effects of affective expectations on affective experience

Presents a model arguing that affect and emotion are often formed in an expectation-driven fashion. A pilot study and 2 experiments manipulated undergraduate Ss' affective expectations (e.g., how funny they expected a set of cartoons to be) and whether Ss' expectations were confirmed (e.g., whether the cartoons really were funny). When the value of a stimulus was consistent with an affective expectation, people formed evaluations relatively quickly. Even when the value of a stimulus was discrepant from an affective expectation, people sometimes assimilated the value of the stimulus to their expectations. Other times, such as when making a more fine-grained evaluation of the cartoons, people noticed that they were discrepant from their affective expectations. Under these conditions, people appeared to have more difficulty forming preferences. They took longer to evaluate and spent more time thinking about the cartoons.     

The role of action plans and other cognitive factors in motion extrapolation: A modelling study

When observers are asked to remember the final location of an object undergoing apparent or implied motion, a forward displacement is observed. The magnitude of this form of motion extrapolation is known to depend on various factors including stimulus attributes, action plans, and other cognitive cues. Here we present a modelling approach that aims at bridging different existing theories of displacement within a single theoretical framework. A network model consisting of interacting excitatory and inhibitory cell populations coding for stimulus attributes like position or orientation is used to study the response to motion displays. The intrinsic network dynamics can be modulated by additional information sources representing action plans directed at the moving target or cognitive cues such as prior knowledge about the trajectory. These factors decide the extent to which the dynamic representation overshoots the final position. The model predictions are quantitatively compared with the experimental findings. The results are discussed in relation to theoretical ideas about processing principles underlying motion extrapolation and a comparison with neurophysiological findings linked to movement prediction is made.     

Possible States of Affairs

Philosophical Studies -     

Oral Motor Abilities Are Task Dependent: A Factor Analytic Approach to Performance Rate

Measures of performance rates in speech-like or volitional nonspeech oral motor tasks are frequently used to draw inferences about articulation rate abnormalities in patients with neurologic movement disorders. The study objective was to investigate the structural relationship between rate measures of speech and of oral motor behaviors different from speech. A total of 130 patients with neurologic movement disorders and 130 healthy subjects participated in the study. Rate data was collected for oral reading (speech), rapid syllable repetition (speech-like), and rapid single articulator movements (nonspeech). The authors used factor analysis to determine whether the different rate variables reflect the same or distinct constructs. The behavioral data were most appropriately captured by a measurement model in which the different task types loaded onto separate latent variables. The data on oral motor performance rates show that speech tasks and oral motor tasks such as rapid syllable repetition or repetitive single articulator movements measure separate traits.