Flexibility and development of mirroring mechanisms

The empirical support for the SCM is mixed. We review recent results from our own lab and others supporting a central claim of SCM that mirroring occurs at multiple levels of representation. By contrast, the model is silent as to why human infants are capable of showing imitative behaviours mediated by a mirror system. This limitation is a problem with formal models that address neither the neural correlates nor the behavioural evidence directly

Science, Technology, Society, and Law

Law and regulation increasingly interact with science, technology, and medicine in contemporary society. Law and social science (LSS) analyses can therefore benefit from rigorous, nuanced social scientific accounts of the nature of scientific knowledge and practice. Over the past two decades, LSS scholars have increasingly turned for such accounts to the field known as science and technology studies (STS). This article reviews the LSS literature that draws on STS. Our discussion is divided into two primary sections. We first discuss LSS literature that draws on STS because it deals with issues in which law and science interact. We then discuss literature that draws on STS because it sees law as analogous to science as a knowledge-producing institution amenable to social science analysis. We suggest that through both of these avenues STS can encourage a newly critical view within LSS scholarship.</jats:p

Attention modulates the specificity of automatic imitation to human actors

The perception of actions performed by others activates one’s own motor system. Recent studies disagree as to whether this effect is specific to actions performed by other humans, an issue complicated by differences in perceptual salience between human and non-human stimuli. We addressed this issue by examining the automatic imitation of actions stimulated by viewing a virtual, computer generated, hand. This stimulus was held constant across conditions, but participants’ attention to the virtualness of the hand was manipulated by informing some participants during instructions that they would see a “computer-generated model of a hand,” while making no mention of this to others. In spite of this attentional manipulation, participants in both conditions were generally aware of the virtualness of the hand. Nevertheless, automatic imitation of the virtual hand was significantly reduced––but not eliminated––when participants were told they would see a virtual hand. These results demonstrate that attention modulates the “human bias” of automatic imitation to non-human actors

Automatic imitation of biomechanically possible and impossible actions: effects of priming movements versus goals

Recent behavioral, neuroimaging, and neurophysiological research suggests a common representational code mediating the observation and execution of actions; yet, the nature of this representational code is not well understood. The authors address this question by investigating (a) whether this observation execution matching system (or mirror system) codes both the constituent movements of an action as well as its goal and (b) how such sensitivity is influenced by top-down effects of instructions. The authors tested the automatic imitation of observed finger actions while manipulating whether the movements were biomechanically possible or impossible, but holding the goal constant. When no mention was made of this difference (Experiment 1), comparable automatic imitation was elicited from possible and impossible actions, suggesting that the actions had been coded at the level of the goal. When attention was drawn to this difference (Experiment 2), however, only possible movements elicited automatic imitation. This sensitivity was specific to imitation, not affecting spatial stimulus–response compatibility (Experiment 3). These results suggest that automatic imitation is modulated by top-down influences, coding actions in terms of both movements and goals depending on the focus of attention

The unidimensional versus multidimensional approach to personality development and psychopathology

Recent reformulations of psychoanalytic theory have expanded the traditional model from a linear to a multidimensional framework. This study explores the differences between the unidimensional and multi-dimensional models of personality development and psychopathology. An empirical study was designed to demonstrate that there are people with psychological features who cannot be adequately understood within the unidimensional framework. One subject was found who met the experimental criteria. Kohut\u27s early view of a multidimensional approach which views personality development along dual independent lines, was proposed as a valid theory to deal with the complexity of the data

Toxic Narratives, Toxic Communities, and Enforcement of Environmental (In)justice

The United States has committed to enforce environmental justice in ways it never has before. A spate of new policies aims to increase resources for environmental agencies’ enforcement sections, improve training for environmental enforcement staff, and ensure community engagement in environmental enforcement decision-making. Yet there exists mounting evidence that enforcement of environmental laws happens less frequently and less vigorously in low-income and minoritized communities. We need to understand why that is happening. Many commentators, opining from a distance, point to insufficient resources for environmental enforcement and legal and political constraints on environmental agencies. While not discounting these reasons, this Article offers a different explanation—one grounded in more than two years of ethnographic observations, interviews, and review of written policies, memoranda, and legislation. Drawing on that research, I interrogate the cultural underpinnings of environmental enforcement as revealed through narratives told by enforcement staff about enforcement purposes and practices. Those narratives construct an ideal of enforcement as an objective, value-neutral practice that often stands at odds with the decisions and actions that would further environmental justice. Description and analysis of these narratives provide essential insight into how enforcement staff make everyday decisions and how the narratives that guide their decision-making contribute to inequitable enforcement practices. By integrating knowledge and theories from social science and the humanities, the Article expands traditional approaches to environmental enforcement, strengthens interdisciplinary bridges, and contributes to what many scholars have identified as an urgent need to generate more and better knowledge about the bureaucrats who power America’s institutions

Multisensory Motion Perception in 3\u20134 Month-Old Infants

Human infants begin very early in life to take advantage of multisensory information by extracting the invariant amodal information that is conveyed redundantly by multiple senses. Here we addressed the question as to whether infants can bind multisensory moving stimuli, and whether this occurs even if the motion produced by the stimuli is only illusory. Three- to 4-month-old infants were presented with two bimodal pairings: visuo-tactile and audio-visual. Visuo-tactile pairings consisted of apparently vertically moving bars (the Barber Pole illusion) moving in either the same or opposite direction with a concurrent tactile stimulus consisting of strokes given on the infant\u2019s back. Audio-visual pairings consisted of the Barber Pole illusion in its visual and auditory version, the latter giving the impression of a continuous rising or ascending pitch. We found that infants were able to discriminate congruently (same direction) vs. incongruently moving (opposite direction) pairs irrespective of modality (Experiment 1). Importantly, we also found that congruently moving visuo-tactile and audio-visual stimuli were preferred over incongruently moving bimodal stimuli (Experiment 2). Our findings suggest that very young infants are able to extract motion as amodal component and use it to match stimuli that only apparently move in the same direction

Effects of aging on biological motion discrimination

Peer reviewedPreprin

Is it me? Self-recognition bias across sensory modalities and its relationship to autistic traits

Background Atypical self-processing is an emerging theme in autism research, suggested by lower self-reference effect in memory, and atypical neural responses to visual self-representations. Most research on physical self-processing in autism uses visual stimuli. However, the self is a multimodal construct, and therefore, it is essential to test self-recognition in other sensory modalities as well. Self-recognition in the auditory modality remains relatively unexplored and has not been tested in relation to autism and related traits. This study investigates self-recognition in auditory and visual domain in the general population and tests if it is associated with autistic traits. Methods Thirty-nine neurotypical adults participated in a two-part study. In the first session, individual participant’s voice was recorded and face was photographed and morphed respectively with voices and faces from unfamiliar identities. In the second session, participants performed a ‘self-identification’ task, classifying each morph as ‘self’ voice (or face) or an ‘other’ voice (or face). All participants also completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). For each sensory modality, slope of the self-recognition curve was used as individual self-recognition metric. These two self-recognition metrics were tested for association between each other, and with autistic traits. Results Fifty percent ‘self’ response was reached for a higher percentage of self in the auditory domain compared to the visual domain (t = 3.142; P &lt; 0.01). No significant correlation was noted between self-recognition bias across sensory modalities (τ = −0.165, P = 0.204). Higher recognition bias for self-voice was observed in individuals higher in autistic traits (τ AQ = 0.301, P = 0.008). No such correlation was observed between recognition bias for self-face and autistic traits (τ AQ = −0.020, P = 0.438). Conclusions Our data shows that recognition bias for physical self-representation is not related across sensory modalities. Further, individuals with higher autistic traits were better able to discriminate self from other voices, but this relation was not observed with self-face. A narrow self-other overlap in the auditory domain seen in individuals with high autistic traits could arise due to enhanced perceptual processing of auditory stimuli often observed in individuals with autism

Spatial Attention to Social Cues is not a Monolithic Process

Social stimuli are a highly salient source of information, and seem to possess unique qualities that set them apart from other well-known categories. One characteristic is their ability to elicit spatial orienting, whereby directional stimuli like eyegaze and pointing gestures act as exogenous cues that trigger automatic shifts of attention that are difficult to inhibit. This effect has been extended to non-social stimuli, like arrows, leading to some uncertainty regarding whether spatial orienting is specialized for social cues. Using a standard spatial cueing paradigm, we found evidence that both a pointing hand and arrow are effective cues, but that the hand is encoded more quickly, leading to overall faster responses. We then extended the paradigm to include multiple cues in order to evaluate congruent vs. incongruent cues. Our results indicate that faster encoding of the social cue leads to downstream effects on the allocation of attention resulting in faster orientin