Having a different pointing of view about the future:The effect of signs on co-speech gestures about time in Mandarin–CSL bimodal bilinguals

Mandarin speakers often use gestures to represent time laterally, vertically, and sagittally. Chinese Sign Language (CSL) users also exploit signs for that purpose, and can differ from the gestures of Mandarin speakers in their choices of axes and direction of sagittal movements. The effects of sign language on co-speech gestures about time were investigated by comparing spontaneous temporal gestures of late bimodal bilinguals (Mandarin learners of CSL) and non-signing Mandarin speakers. Spontaneous gestures were elicited via a wordlist definition task. In addition to effects of temporal words on temporal gestures, results showed significant effects of sign. Compared with non-signers, late bimodal bilinguals (1) produced more sagittal but fewer lateral temporal gestures; and (2) exhibited a different temporal orientation of sagittal gestures, as they were more likely to gesture past events to their back. In conclusion, bodily experience of sign language can not only impact the nature of co-speech gestures, but also spatio-motoric thinking and abstract space-time mappings

Does Mandarin spatial metaphor for time influence Chinese deaf signers’ spatio-temporal reasoning?

In Mandarin Chinese, the space-time word “前/qian” is used to express both the spatial concept of front/forward and the temporal concept of early/before (e.g., “前天/qian-tian”, literally front day, meaning the day before yesterday). This is consistent with the fact that Mandarin speakers can gesture to the front of the body to refer to a past event, and more generally can have past-in-front space-time mappings. In Chinese Sign Languages, however, the spatial front/forward and the temporal early/before are signed differently as the sign for spatial front is only used for the spatial concept of forward, and the sign for before/past is directed to the back. In this study we investigate whether the Mandarin sagittal spatial metaphors for time influence Chinese deaf signers’ spatio-temporal reasoning. In two experiments, we found that Chinese deaf signers with higher Mandarin proficiency were more likely to interpret the Mandarin word “前/qian” as the temporal conception of past (Study 1), and to perform past-in-front space-time mappings (Study 2) as opposed to signers with lower Mandarin proficiency. The findings of the study not only provide within-culture evidence for the influence of language on thought, but also demonstrate that even cross-modal space-time metaphors can have an impact on deaf-signers’ spatio-temporal reasoning

Which is in front of Chinese people: Past or Future?:A study on Chinese people’s space-time mapping

Recent research shows that Chinese, when they gesture about time, tend to put the past “ahead” and the future “behind”. Do they think of time in the way as suggested by their gestures? In this study we investigate whether Chinese people explicitly have such past-in-front mappings. In experiment 1 we show that when time conceptions are constructed with neutral wording (without spatial metaphors), Chinese people are more likely to have a pastin-front-mapping than Spaniards. This could be due to cultural differences in temporal focus of attention, in that Chinese people are more past-oriented than Europeans. However, additional experiments (2 & 3) show that, independent of culture, Chinese people’s past-in-front mapping is sensitive to the wording of sagittal spatial metaphors. In comparison to a neutral condition, they have more past-in-front mappings when time conceptions are constructed with past-in-front spatial metaphors (“front day”, means the day before yesterday), whereas fewer pastin-front mappings are constructed with future-in-front metaphors. There thus appear to be both long-term effects of cultural attitudes on the spatialization of time, and also immediate effects of the space-time metaphors used to probe people’s mental representations

Which is in front of Chinese people, past or future?:The effect of language and culture on temporal gestures and spatial conceptions of time

The temporal‐focus hypothesis claims that whether people conceptualize the past or the future as in front of them depends on their cultural attitudes toward time; such conceptualizations can be independent from the space–time metaphors expressed through language. In this paper, we study how Chinese people conceptualize time on the sagittal axis to find out the respective influences of language and culture on mental space–time mappings. An examination of Mandarin speakers' co‐speech gestures shows that some Chinese spontaneously perform past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back (besides future‐in‐front/past‐at‐back) gestures, especially when gestures are accompanying past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back space–time metaphors (Exp. 1). Using a temporal performance task, the study confirms that Chinese can conceptualize the future as behind and the past as in front of them, and that such space–time mappings are affected by the different expressions of Mandarin space–time metaphors (Exp. 2). Additionally, a survey on cultural attitudes toward time shows that Chinese tend to focus slightly more on the future than on the past (Exp. 3). Within the Chinese sample, we did not find evidence for the effect of participants' cultural temporal attitudes on space–time mappings, but a cross‐cultural comparison of space–time mappings between Chinese, Moroccans, and Spaniards provides strong support for the temporal‐focus hypothesis. Furthermore, the results of Exp. 2 are replicated even after controlling for factors such as cultural temporal attitudes and age (Exp. 3), which implies that linguistic sagittal temporal metaphors can indeed influence Mandarin speakers' space–time mappings. The findings not only contribute to a better understanding of Chinese people's sagittal temporal orientation, but also have additional implications for theories on the mental space–time mappings and the relationship between language and thought

Coercivity Mechanisms of Single-Molecule Magnets

Magnetic hysteresis has become a crucial aspect for characterizing single-molecule magnets, but the comprehension of the coercivity mechanism is still a challenge. By using analytical derivation and quantum dynamical simulations, we reveal fundamental rules that govern magnetic relaxation of single molecule magnets under the influence of external magnetic fields, which in turn dictates the hysteresis behavior. Specifically, we find that energy level crossing induced by magnetic fields can drastically increase the relaxation rate and set a coercivity limit. The activation of optical-phonon-mediated quantum tunneling accelerates the relaxation and largely determines the coercivity. Intra-molecular exchange interaction in multi-ion compounds may enhance the coercivity by suppressing key relaxation processes. A single-occupant bond in mixed-valence complexes compromises coercivity, and pre-spin-flip of the bonding electron facilitates the overall magnetization reversal. Underlying these properties are magnetic relaxation processes modulated by the interplay of magnetic fields, phonon spectrum and spin state configuration, which also proposes a fresh perspective for the nearly centurial coercive paradox.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Physiological Ischemic Training Promotes Brain Collateral Formation and Improves Functions in Patients with Acute Cerebral Infarction

Objectives: To observe the effectiveness and mechanisms of physiological ischemic training (PIT) on brain cerebral collateral formation and functional recovery in patients with acute cerebral infarction.Methods: 20 eligible patients with acute cerebral infarction were randomly assigned to either PIT group (n = 10) or Control group (n = 10). Both groups received 4 weeks of routine rehabilitation therapy, while an additional session of PIT, which consisted of 10 times of maximal voluntary isometric handgrip for 1 min followed by 1 min rest, was prescribed for patients in the PIT groups. Each patient was trained with four sections a day and 5 days a week for 4 weeks. The Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA), the Modified Barthel Index (MBI), and the short-form 36-item health survey questionnaire (SF-36) were applied for the evaluation of motor impairment, activity of daily living, and quality of life at the baseline and endpoint. MRI was applied to detect the collateral formation in the brain. The concentration of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) number in plasma were also tested at the endpoint.Results: Demographic data were consistent between experimental groups. At the endpoint, the scores of the FMA, MBI, and SF-36 were significantly higher than that at baseline. As compared to the Control group, the score of FMA and SF-36 in PIT group was significantly higher, while no significant difference was detected between groups in terms of MBI. Both groups had significantly higher cerebral blood flow (CBF) level at endpoint as compared to that at baseline. Moreover, the CBF level was even higher in the PIT group as compared to that in the Control group after 4 weeks of training. The same situations were also found in the plasma VEGF and EPCs assessment. In addition, positive correlations were found between FMA score and CBF level (r = 0.686, p < 0.01), CBF level and VEGF concentration (r = 0.675, p < 0.01), and VEGF concentration and EPC number (r = 0.722, p < 0.01).Conclusion: PIT may be effective in increasing the expression of VEGF and recruitment of EPCs and in turn promote the formation of brain collateral circulation. The positive correlations may demonstrate a potential association between biological and functional parameters, and PIT may be able to improve the motor function, activity of daily living, and quality of life in patients with stroke.Interdisciplinary Division of Biomedical Engineerin

Individualized analysis reveals CpG sites with methylation aberrations in almost all lung adenocarcinoma tissues

Additional file 1: Table S1. Stable and reversal CpG site pairs identified in the samples measured by two platforms