1,721,089 research outputs found
Early blindness modulates haptic object recognition
No full textHaptic object recognition is usually an efficient process although slower and less accurate than its visual counterpart. The early loss of vision imposes a greater reliance on haptic perception for recognition compared to the sighted. Therefore, we may expect that congenitally blind persons could recognize objects through touch more quickly and accurately than late blind or sighted people. However, the literature provided mixed results. Furthermore, most of the studies on haptic object recognition focused on performance, devoting little attention to the exploration procedures that conducted to that performance. In this study, we used iCube, an instrumented cube recording its orientation in space as well as the location of the points of contact on its faces. Three groups of congenitally blind, late blind and age and gender-matched blindfolded sighted participants were asked to explore the cube faces where little pins were positioned in varying number. Participants were required to explore the cube twice, reporting whether the cube was the same or it differed in pins disposition. Results showed that recognition accuracy was not modulated by the level of visual ability. However, congenitally blind touched more cells simultaneously while exploring the faces and changed more the pattern of touched cells from one recording sample to the next than late blind and sighted. Furthermore, the number of simultaneously touched cells negatively correlated with exploration duration. These findings indicate that early blindness shapes haptic exploration of objects that can be held in hands
Development of visuo-auditory integration in space and time
No full textAdults integrate multisensory information optimally (e.g. Ernst & Banks, 2002) while children are not able to integrate multisensory visual haptic cues until 8-10 years of age (e.g. Gori, Del Viva, Sandini, & Burr, 2008). Before that age strong unisensory dominance is present for size and orientation visual-haptic judgments maybe reflecting a process of cross-sensory calibration between modalities. It is widely recognized that audition dominates time perception, while vision dominates space perception. If the cross sensory calibration process is necessary for development, then the auditory modality should calibrate vision in a bimodal temporal task, and the visual modality should calibrate audition in a bimodal spatial task. Here we measured visual-auditory integration in both the temporal and the spatial domains reproducing for the spatial task a child-friendly version of the ventriloquist stimuli used by Alais and Burr (2004) and for the temporal task a child-friendly version of the stimulus used by Burr, Banks and Morrone (2009). Unimodal and bimodal (conflictual or not conflictual) audio-visual thresholds and PSEs were measured and compared with the Bayesian predictions. In the temporal domain, we found that both in children and adults, audition dominates the bimodal visuo-auditory task both in perceived time and precision thresholds. Contrarily, in the visual-auditory spatial task, children younger than 12 years of age show clear visual dominance (on PSEs) and bimodal thresholds higher than the Bayesian prediction. Only in the adult group bimodal thresholds become optimal. In agreement with previous studies, our results suggest that also visual-auditory adult-like behaviour develops late. Interestingly, the visual dominance for space and the auditory dominance for time that we found might suggest a cross-sensory comparison of vision in a spatial visuo-audio task and a cross-sensory comparison of audition in a temporal visuo-audio task
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Children do not recalibrate motor‐sensory temporal order after exposure to delayed sensory feedback
No full textProlonged adaptation to delayed sensory feedback to a simple motor act (such as pressing a key) causes recalibration of sensory-motor synchronization, so instantaneous feedback appears to precede the motor act that caused it (Stetson, Cui, Montague & Eagleman, 2006). We investigated whether similar recalibration occurs in school-age children. Although plasticity may be expected to be even greater in children than in adults, we found no evidence of recalibration in children aged 8-11 years. Subjects adapted to delayed feedback for 100 trials, intermittently pressing a key that caused a tone to sound after a 200 ms delay. During the test phase, subjects responded to a visual cue by pressing a key, which triggered a tone to be played at variable intervals before or after the keypress. Subjects judged whether the tone preceded or followed the keypress, yielding psychometric functions estimating the delay when they perceived the tone to be synchronous with the action. The psychometric functions also gave an estimate of the precision of the temporal order judgment. In agreement with previous studies, adaptation caused a shift in perceived synchrony in adults, so the keypress appeared to trail behind the auditory feedback, implying sensory-motor recalibration. However, school children of 8 to 11 years showed no measureable adaptation of perceived simultaneity, even after adaptation with 500 ms lags. Importantly, precision in the simultaneity task also improved with age, and this developmental trend correlated strongly with the magnitude of recalibration. This suggests that lack of recalibration of sensory-motor simultaneity after adaptation in school-age children is related to their poor precision in temporal order judgments. To test this idea we measured recalibration in adult subjects with auditory noise added to the stimuli (which hampered temporal precision). Under these conditions, recalibration was greatly reduced, with the magnitude of recalibration strongly correlating with temporal precision
Audio-visual temporal perception in children with restored hearing
No full textIt is not clear how audio-visual temporal perception develops in children with restored hearing. In this study we measured temporal discrimination thresholds with an audio-visual temporal bisection task in 9 deaf children with restored audition, and 22 typically hearing children. In typically hearing children, audition was more precise than vision, with no gain in multisensory conditions (as previously reported in Gori et al. (2012b)). However, deaf children with restored audition showed similar thresholds for audio and visual thresholds and some evidence of gain in audio-visual temporal multisensory conditions. Interestingly, we found a strong correlation between auditory weighting of multisensory signals and quality of language: patients who gave more weight to audition had better language skills. Similarly, auditory thresholds for the temporal bisection task were also a good predictor of language skills. This result supports the idea that the temporal auditory processing is associated with language development
Designing a Multisensory Social Serious-Game for Primary School Mathematics Learning
No full textPsychophysical and developmental psychology evidence shows that children have a preferential sensory channel to learn specific concepts, highlighting the need of a multisensory approach to education. Despite such a potential for a positive impact, in education technology research multisensory learning has been often penalised and limited by design choices. In this work, we present the requirements and the design of an implementable prototype of serious-game aimed at teaching children a precise mathematical concept: Angles. The game is based on the interaction between different sensory modalities, in particular movement, vision, and sound
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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