Is the LAN effect in morphosyntactic processing an ERP artifact?

Available online 4 February 2019.The left anterior negativity (LAN) is an ERP component that has been often associated with morphosyntactic processing, but recent reports have questioned whether the LAN effect, in fact, exists. The present project examined whether the LAN effect, observed in the grand average response to local agreement violations, is the result of the overlap between two different ERP effects (N400, P600) at the level of subjects (n = 80), items (n = 120), or trials (n = 6160). By-subject, by-item, and by-trial analyses of the ERP effect between 300 and 500 ms showed a LAN for 55% of the participants, 46% of the items, and 49% of the trials. Many examples of the biphasic LAN-P600 response were observed. Mixed-linear models showed that the LAN effect size was not reduced after accounting for subject variability. The present results suggest that there are cases where the grand average LAN effect represents the brain responses of individual participants, items, and trials.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry [PSI 2014-54500- P; IJCI-2016-27702; PSI2017-82941-P]; the Basque Government [PI_2015_1_25]; and the Severo Ochoa [SEV-2015-0490]

CeLL, an agent based model for exploring the spatial influence influence of climate change on Lobesia botrana population dynamics

International audienceThe European Grapevine moth (Lobesia botrana) is one of the most noxious vineyard-pests in the European and Mediterranean area. Its larvae feed on grapevine flowers and berries, and usually cause considerable damage, also by facilitating saphrophytic infections to berries.The biology of L. botrana has been investigated since the 80s. A number of studies has tested its physiology and behaviour in experimental conditions (Hurtrel et Thiéry 1999), in field conditions (Stockel et al. 1994), and using mathematical modelling techniques. Whereas the modelling approaches that have been proposed in the literature are hetereogeneus they generally focus on the phenology and population dynamics of L. botrana, rather than analysing the role of spatial variability on its infestations and mating behaviour. For this reason we propose here an agent based model (CeLL model), where we take into consideration spatial effects on L.botrana infestation dynamics. Our aim is to gain further insight into the processes and interactions occurring at the vineyard, population and individual level.The use of agent based modelling allows us to integrate population dynamics within a spatial frame (the vineyard) where individual insects act by following development, movement and mating “rules”. In its first version, CeLL (Confusion Landscape Lobesia) focused on the identification of processes involved in pest infestations, necessary for the accurate simulation of infestation dynamics, as observed by the Groupement de Développement Agricole (GDA) of the cru Banyuls et des Albères. Here we attempt to obtain a more accurate simulation of the present situation in the same region, and make projections for the future, by the following actions:1. We refine CeLL simulations by using accurate temperature input data, obtained by spatialising the high temporal frequency data from the TERVICLIM network2. We apply climate change scenario to CeLL, to assess potential effects of climate changes on infestation dynamics and integrated pest management strategies

La persona humana: razón y fe al servicio del hombre (II): La comunidad humana

Human nature is “communional”. Man’s likeness to God, to the Trinity, lies not only in his spirituality, but in his sociability. The root of this interpersonal unity is the link of man with Christ; and its bases are the spiritual substance of the person and its capacity for self-transcendence. The person reaches its own fulfillment only in communication with the other persons, to which it naturally tends, it being the final and end cause of the history of humanity. The formal cause of this communicatio in humanitate, which reaches its maximum expression in self-giving, is the reciprocal affirmation of personal dignity. Also, the communional nature of the person is fulfilled in the union of man and woman —in the first instance—, in the political community —with certain limitations— and, finally, in the heavenly Jerusalem.La naturaleza humana es comunional. La semejanza del hombre con Dios, con la Trinidad, no solo estriba en su espiritualidad, sino también en su sociabilidad. La raíz de esta unidad interpersonal está en el nexo que el hombre tiene con Cristo; y sus supuestos son la sustancialidad espiritual de la persona y su capacidad de autotrascendencia. La persona no puede encontrar su propia plenitud sino en la comunicación con las demás personas, a la que tiende por naturaleza como causa final última de la historia de la humanidad. La causa formal de esta communicatio in humanitate, que tiene en la entrega su punto culminante, es la recíproca afirmación de la dignidad personal. La naturaleza comunional de la persona, por lo demás, se cumple en la unión varón-mujer —como primera forma—, en la comunidad política —con ciertas limitaciones— y, definitivamente, en la Jerusalén celestial. &nbsp

La familia como ámbito de desarrollo humano

The person has two constitutive characteristics: singularity and capacity for relations. The development or genealogy of the human person has an originary environment or “locus” which is the family. The human family originates in the supreme act of freedom by which a man and a woman decide to give themselves to one another for life. In this created environment, each child comes into the world as “well-come”: this is the basis for an harmonic development of its freedom and capacity for love, or in other words, for his formation as a person.La persona goza de dos caracteres constitutivos: su singularidad y su relacionalidad. El desarrollo o genealogía de la persona humana tiene un ámbito o «lugar» originario, que es la familia. La familia humana se origina mediante el acto supremo de libertad por el que un varón y una mujer deciden entregarse mutuamente de por vida. En el contexto así creado, cada hijo llega a este mundo como el «bien-venido»: esto constituye la base para un desarrollo armónico de su libertad y de su capacidad de amar o, lo que viene a ser lo mismo, de su formación como persona. &nbsp

La libertad humana en la concepción cristiana I. El origen y el destino de la libertad

Hegel, Kierkegaard, Thomas Aquinas and the Christian revelation are the inspiration for this paper. Here we show how human freedom can only be ensured when there is an act of supreme Love in its Origin and when its Destiny is the full participation of that love from which it originates. Human freedom is “something serious” when, through temporal choices, man places his eternal destiny at risk.Hegel, Kierkegaard, Tomás de Aquino y la revelación cristiana son los inspiradores de este artículo. En él se muestra cómo la libertad del hombre sólo puede asegurarse cuando en su Origen hay un acto libérrimo de Amor y cuando su Destino no es otro que participar plenamente del amor del que ha surgido. La libertad humana es “algo serio” cuando, a través de las elecciones temporales, el hombre se juega su destino eterno. &nbsp

Apuntes para una metafísica de la educación.

Today’s dominant culture, relativist and antimetaphysicist, proposes as a challenge the task of educating. Educators must answer to this challenge trying to bring to reality to those who pretend to educate: proposing an answer to their unstoppable yearning for truth and goodness. Family constitutes the first and main educational environment because in it occurs the interpersonal encounter that allows those who arrive to this world to discover a Presence that gives it meaning and value.La cultura hoy dominante, relativista y antimetafísica, plantea como un reto la tarea de educar. Los educadores han de responder a ese desafío, intentando anclar en la realidad a quienes pretenden formar: proponiendo una respuesta a sus anhelos irrefrenables de verdad y de bondad. La familia constituye el principal y primer ámbito educativo porque en ella tiene lugar el encuentro interpersonal que permite descubrir a quienes llegan a este mundo una Presencia que lo dota de significado y de valor. &nbsp

La persona humana: razón y fe al servicio del hombre (I)

The current diversity of debates can be reduced to a pair of fundamental positions, both derived from opposing conceptualizations of man: either man is one more element of the physical nature in its distinct level of evolution, or man is elevated over everything that is just material, with a substantive difference that places him in a radically different and higher position. That is the difference signaled by the term Person. This article analyzes the metaphysical and constitutive origin of the superiority of Person, as well as the main ways to notice that greatness. All that departing from facts that we can all experience in ourselves and in those that surrounds us.Los diversos debates contemporáneos pueden reducirse a un par de posturas fundamentales, derivadas de dos concepciones del hombre opuestas entre sí: o bien el hombre es un elemento más de la naturaleza corpórea, aunque en distinto grado de evolución; o bien se eleva por encima de todo lo simplemente material, con una diferencia sustantiva, que lo coloca en una posición radicalmente distinta y más alta. Esa diferencia es la que señala el término persona. El artículo analiza el origen metafísico y constitutivo de la superioridad de la persona, así como los caminos principales para advertir esa grandeza. Todo ello, a partir de hechos que cada uno podemos experimentar en nosotros mismos y en quienes nos rodean. &nbsp