Articulatory/phonetic sequencing at the level of the anterior perisylvian cortex: a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study

Damage to the anterior peri-intrasylvian cortex of the dominant hemisphere may give rise to a fairly consistent syndrome of articulatory deficits in the absence of relevant paresis of orofacial or laryngeal muscles (apraxia of speech, aphemia, or phonetic disintegration). The available clinical data are ambiguous with respect to the relevant lesion site, indicating either dysfunction of the premotor aspect of the lower precentral gyrus or the anterior insula in the depth of the Sylvian fissure. In order to further specify the functional anatomic substratum of this syndrome, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed during reiteration of syllables differing in their demands on articulatory/phonetic sequencing (CV versus CCCV versus CVCVCV). Horizontal tongue movements and a polysyllabic lexical item served as control conditions. Repetition of the CV and CCCV monosyllables elicited a rather bilateral symmetric hemodynamic response at the level of the anterior and posterior bank of the central sulcus (primary sensorimotor cortex), whereas a more limited area of neural activity arose within this domain during production of lexical and nonlexical polysyllables, significantly or exclusively lateralized toward the left hemisphere. There is neurophysiological evidence that primary sensorimotor cortex mediates the "fractionation" of movements. Assuming that the polysyllables considered are organized as coarticulated higher-order units, the observed restricted and lateralized cortical activation pattern, most presumably, reflects a mode of "nonindividualized" motor control posing fewer demands on "movement fractionation." These findings may explain the clinical observation of disproportionately worse repetition of trisyllabic items as compared to monosyllables in apraxia of speech. The various test materials failed to elicit significant activation of the anterior insula. If at all, only horizontal tongue movements yielded a hemodynamic reaction extending beyond the sensorimotor cortex to premotor areas. Since limbic projections target the inferior dorsolateral frontal lobe, the enlarged region of activation during horizontal tongue movements might reflect increased attentional requirements of this task.     

The effects of different aperture-viewing conditions on the recognition of novel objects

The process of learning the structure of novel objects involves the selective use of information available in the distal stimulus. By allowing participants to explore the object within a limited field of view, we were able to examine more rigorously what regions of the object are actually selected in the learning process. Participants explored objects either by moving a circular aperture over a stationary novel object (the aperture-movement condition), or by moving the object behind a stationary aperture (the object-movement condition). Given the differences in how the spatial layout of object parts is revealed in the two study conditions, we expected that exploration would be more systematic in the aperture-movement condition than it would be in the object-movement condition, and would lead to better object recognition. We show evidence that in the aperture-movement condition exploration patterns were more related to the structure of the object and, as a consequence, the aperture-movement condition resulted in more accurate recognition in a later old--new discrimination test.     

Reconnecting cognition in the lab and cognition in real life: The role of compensatory social and motivational factors in explaining how cognition ages in the wild

The papers in this Special Issue compellingly show that older adults' everyday cognitive life is governed not by the decline in elementary cognitive processes as measured in the lab, but by a multitude of compensatory mechanisms, most of which are of the social/motivational variety. Much of this compensatory behavior can be elicited with no or only little experimental prodding, underscoring the self-organizing or self-initiated nature of this type of behavior, even in advanced old age. We suggest that the study of compensation and the orchestration of cognitive, social, and motivational compensatory mechanisms in effective and healthy aging provides a meaningful challenge to traditional ways of examining developmental changes in cognitive performance.     

Referentiality and Matrix Semantics

Referential semantics importantly subscribes to the programme of theory of logical calculi. Defined by Wójcicki in [8], it has been subsequently studied in a series of papers of the author, till the full exposition of the framework in [9] and its intuitive characterisation in [10].     

Spatiality and the Performance of Belief: The Public Square and Collective Mourning for John Paul II

Abstract

The outburst of collective mourning for the death of Pope John Paul II in April 2005 in Pi?sudski Square in Warsaw presented an exceptional case of intense religious emotions, expressed through an unprecedented variety of visual forms in a secular public space beyond the limitations of domestic and traditional worship spheres. Using displays of this emotion as a focus, this article considers how complementary theoretical frameworks can generate nuanced accounts of the dynamic intersection of such a space and the performance of belief in late modernity. Drawing on Danièle Hervieu-Léger’s concepts of strategies of religious spatialisation, Jeffrey Alexander’s theory of space as a mise-en-scene for cultural performance, and Erika Fischer-Lichte’s understanding of effects of space in shaping the nature of performance art, I argue that space must be understood as integral to such acts of believing. The meanings and uses of space should be understood as subject to the continuation or disruption of particular chains of memory, the operation of particular institutional strategies and resources, and the ways in which the material environment itself enables or precludes different forms of religious and cultural performance. Space as a condition of performance of belief thus binds together various levels of analysis: from the macro-level of institutional strategies to the micro-dynamics of individual behaviour. These levels of the theoretical framework will be followed along the analysis of stages in the material transformation of the Square. This perspective challenges privatised, propositional accounts of belief, further demonstrating that belief is inseparable from embodied emotion and action, the negotiation of various forms of institutional power, and the affordance of space and material objects.