1,721,139 research outputs found

    I like the way you move: how animate motion affects visual attention in early human infancy

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    The ability to detect animates (as compared with inanimates) rapidly is advantageous for human survival. Due to its relevance, not only the adult human brain has evolved specific neural mechanisms to discriminate animates, but it has been proposed that selection finely tuned the human visual attention system to prioritize visual cues that signal the presence of living things. Among them, animate motion—i.e., the motion of animate entities -, is one of the most powerful cues that triggers humans’ attention. From a developmental point of view, whether such specialization is inborn or acquired through experience is a fascinating research topic. This mini-review aims to summarize and discuss recent behavioral and electrophysiological research that suggests that animate motion has an attentional advantage in the first year of life starting from birth. Specifically, the rationale underlying this paper concerns how attention deployment is affected by animate motion conveyed both by the movement of a single dot and, also, when the single dot is embedded in a complex array, named biological motion. Overall, it will highlight the importance of both inborn predispositions to pay attention preferentially to animate motion, mainly supported by subcortical structures, and the exposure to certain experiences, shortly after birth, to drive the cortical attentional visual system to become the way it is in adults

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

    Strumenti per la valutazione del neonato

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    In questo capitolo vengono presentate alcune scale in grado di valutare l'intero assetto neurocomportamentale del neonato, quindi non soltanto l'integrità neurologica, ma anche alcune componenti sensoriali, motorie, cognitive e relazionali. Particolare rilievo è stato dato alla Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) che, tra le scale neurocomportamentali, è quella maggiormente utilizzata. Dopo avere delineato gli assunti teorici di base che caratterizzano la NBAS e le specificità che la somministrazione di questa scala richiede, sono stati presentati i principali ambiti applicativi nei quali la NBAS viene utilizzata, ovvero quello sperimentale e quello clinico. Sono state presentate infine altre tecniche comportamentali e di neuroimmagine oggi disponibili, volte alla valutazione di abilità cognitive di base quali l’attenzione e la memoria

    Variations on the Author

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    “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

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Covert orienting of attention in 3-month-old infants: The case of biological motion

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    Humans attend to different positions in the space either by moving their eyes or by moving covertly their attention. The development of covert attention occurs during the first year of life. According to Colombo's model of attention (2001), within the first years there is a significant change in infants’ visuo-spatial orienting mechanisms, from a predominantly overt form to a covert orienting starting from 4 to 5 months of life. The use of non-invasive brain imaging techniques can shed light on the origin of such mechanisms. In particular, EEG and ERP studies can directly investigate the neural correlates of covert attention in young infants. The present study investigated the neural correlates of covert attention employing a visuo-spatial cueing paradigm in 3-month-old infants. Infants were presented with a central point-light walker (PLD) followed by a single peripheral target. The target appeared randomly at a position either congruent or incongruent with the walking direction of the cue. We examined infants’ target-locked P1 component and the saccade latencies toward the peripheral target. Results showed that the P1 component was larger in response to congruent than to incongruent targets and saccade latencies were faster for congruent rather than incongruent trials. Moreover, the facilitation in processing sensory information (priming effects) presented at the cued spatial location occurs even before the onset of the oculomotor response, suggesting that covert attention is present before 4 months of age. Overall, this study highlights how ERPs method could help researchers at investigating the neural basis of attentional mechanisms in infants
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