EEG mu rhythm and imitation impairments in individuals with autism spectrum disorder

Imitation ability has consistently been shown to be impaired in individuals with autism. A dysfunctional execution/observation matching system has been proposed to account for this impairment. The EEG mu rhythm is believed to reflect an underlying execution/observation matching system. This study investigated evidence of differential mu rhythm attenuation during the observation, execution, and imitation of movements and examined its relation to behaviorally assessed imitation abilities. Fourteen high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 15 IQ- and age-matched typical adults participated. On the behavioral imitation task, adults with ASD demonstrated significantly poorer performance compared to typical adults in all domains of imitation ability. On the EEG task, both groups demonstrated significant attenuation of the mu rhythm when executing an action. However, when observing movement, the individuals with ASD showed significantly reduced attenuation of the mu wave. Behaviorally assessed imitation skills were correlated with degree of mu wave attenuation during observation of movement. These findings suggest that there is execution/observation matching system dysfunction in individuals with autism and that this matching system is related to degree of impairment in imitation abilities.     

Rhythms of dialogue in infancy: comments on Jaffe,Beebe, Feldstein,Crown, and Jasnow (2001)

Analysis of coordinated interpersonal timing has become an important tool for the study of infant-adult, peer, and marital interactions. Past research suggests that social coordination is informative about the quality of the caregiver-child social relationship. Does infant experience of certain types of coordination and pattern in early social interactions with caregivers predict better cognitive and social developmental outcomes? The recent monograph "Rhythms of dialogue in infancy" (Jaffe, Beebe, Feldstein, Crown, & Jasnow, 2001) provides the strongest evidence to date that it does. Moderately coordinated social interactions in early infancy predicted the most favorable developmental outcomes, and degree of coordination was influenced by contextual factors such as setting and nature of the relationship between the infant and its social interaction partner. This study provides a model for future research in this area and points toward important questions for future research on infant-caregiver social interactions.     

A hypothesis on the rhythm of becoming

An archetype of rhythms is set forth which tries to explain, simply and coherently, the quantum discontinuities which take place both in the evolutionary dynamics of the Macrocosmos—universal history—and in the Microcosmos—individual development.

The stationary waves and musical theory give us the key to understand those quantum leaps in the vibrating processes of unfurling and furling between the Nothing and the Whole: the successive 2nd harmonics (1/3) are generating sonorous novelties. This simple scheme fits, with surprising accuracy, all the basic bifurcations that paleontologists, anthropologists, historians and psychologists speak to us about.

It seems to be confirmed then that an emerging hierarchy of order could characterize the processes of the universe. Evolution would then be the temporal unfurling (‘explicate order“) of those intrinsic levels of potential stability of the non‐dual reality (‘implicate order“).     

Interpersonal Consequences of Expressing Personal or Team Affect for Team Success or Failure Among Turkish Students

Two experiments were conducted among Turkish students to explore the effects of team or personally oriented expressions of pride or shame for joint success or failure on evaluations of the outcome, team, and partner; causal attributions were also explored. In the second experiment, complying with a partner's choice of task and influencing the preference for future partners under high or low pressure were examined. Results indicated that for success outcomes, team expressions (relative to personal ones) caused more favorable evaluations of the outcome, team harmony, and the partner, and more causal attributions to the team as a unit. Nonsignificant but consistent opposite tendencies were observed for failure outcomes. The results of the second experiment further indicated that low pressure was more effective than high in increasing preference for personally oriented partners and was marginally effective in increasing agreement for future tasks under the personal expression condition.     

节奏在言语加工中的时间进程：来自元分析的证据

利用元分析考察了言语节奏在言语加工中起作用的时间进程及影响因素。对36篇脑电文献（共43个独立效应量）进行分析,发现节奏影响言语加工主要表现在早期阶段的N100和P200成分、中后期阶段的P300、LAN、N400和晚期正成分上;个体对节奏违反非常敏感,言语节奏加工早于句法加工,在言语加工的中后期阶段,节奏与语义和句法发生交互;任务类型调节言语节奏对言语加工过程的影响,在外显任务中,言语节奏对言语加工过程的影响大于内隐任务和同时包含多项任务要求的混合任务。注意和预期是言语节奏加工的内在机制,研究结果支持交互论的观点。     

Mother and infant coordinate heart rhythms through episodes of interaction synchrony

Animal studies demonstrated the powerful impact of maternal-infant social contact on the infant's physiological systems, yet the online effects of social interactions on the human infant's physiology remain poorly understood. Mothers and their 3-month old infants were observed during face-to-face interactions while cardiac output was collected from mother and child. Micro-analysis of the partners’ behavior marked episodes of gaze, affect, and vocal synchrony. Time-series analysis showed that mother and infant coordinate heart rhythms within lags of less than 1 s. Bootstrapping analysis indicated that the concordance between maternal and infant biological rhythms increased significantly during episodes of affect and vocal synchrony compared to non-synchronous moments. Humans, like other mammals, can impact the physiological processes of the attachment partner through the coordination of visuo-affective social signals.     

Infants show enhanced neural responses to musical meter frequencies beyond low-level features

Music listening often entails spontaneous perception and body movement to a periodic pulse-like meter. There is increasing evidence that this cross-cultural ability relates to neural processes that selectively enhance metric periodicities, even when these periodicities are not prominent in the acoustic stimulus. However, whether these neural processes emerge early in development remains largely unknown. Here, we recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) of 20 healthy 5- to 6-month-old infants, while they were exposed to two rhythms known to induce the perception of meter consistently across Western adults. One rhythm contained prominent acoustic periodicities corresponding to the meter, whereas the other rhythm did not. Infants showed significantly enhanced representations of meter periodicities in their EEG responses to both rhythms. This effect is unlikely to reflect the tracking of salient acoustic features in the stimulus, as it was observed irrespective of the prominence of meter periodicities in the audio signals. Moreover, as previously observed in adults, the neural enhancement of meter was greater when the rhythm was delivered by low-pitched sounds. Together, these findings indicate that the endogenous enhancement of metric periodicities beyond low-level acoustic features is a neural property that is already present soon after birth. These high-level neural processes could set the stage for internal representations of musical meter that are critical for human movement coordination during rhythmic musical behavior.

Research Highlights

• 5- to 6-month-old infants were presented with auditory rhythms that induce the perception of a periodic pulse-like meter in adults.
• Infants showed selective enhancement of EEG activity at meter-related frequencies irrespective of the prominence of these frequencies in the stimulus.
• Responses at meter-related frequencies were boosted when the rhythm was conveyed by bass sounds.
• High-level neural processes that transform rhythmic auditory stimuli into internal meter templates emerge early after birth.

     

Rhythm and Melody in Children and Adolescents after Left or Right Temporal Lobectomy

Rhythm (a pattern of onset times and duration of sounds) and melody (a pattern of sound pitches) were studied in 22 children and adolescents several years after temporal lobectomy for intractable epilepsy. Left and right lobectomy groups discriminated rhythms equally well, but the right lobectomy group was poorer at discriminating melodies. Children and adolescents with right lobectomy, but not those with left temporal lobectomy, had higher melody scores with increasing age. Rhythm but not melody was related to memory for the right lobectomy group. In neither group was melody related to age at onset of non-febrile seizures, time from surgery to music tests, or the linear amount of temporal lobe resection. Pitch and melodic contour show different patterns of lateralization after temporal lobectomy in childhood or adolescence.     

An electroencephalographic examination of the autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR)

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a perceptual phenomenon characterized by pleasurable tingling sensations in the head and neck, as well as pleasurable feelings of relaxation, that reliably arise while attending to a specific triggering stimulus (e.g., whispering or tapping sounds). Currently, little is known about the neutral substrates underlying these experiences. In this study, 14 participants who experience ASMR, along with 14 control participants, were presented with four video stimuli and four auditory stimuli. Half of these stimuli were designed to elicit ASMR and half were non-ASMR control stimuli. Brain activity was measured using a 32-channel EEG system. The results indicated that ASMR stimuli—particularly auditory stimuli—elicited increased alpha wave activity in participants with self-reported ASMR, but not in matched control participants. Similar increases were also observed in frequency bands associated with movement (gamma waves and sensorimotor rhythm). These results are consistent with the reported phenomenology of ASMR, which involves both attentional and sensorimotor characteristics.