You talkin' to me? Communicative talker gaze activates left-lateralized superior temporal cortex during perception of degraded speech.

Neuroimaging studies of speech perception have consistently indicated a left-hemisphere dominance in the temporal lobes' responses to intelligible auditory speech signals (McGettigan and Scott, 2012). However, there are important communicative cues that cannot be extracted from auditory signals alone, including the direction of the talker's gaze. Previous work has implicated the superior temporal cortices in processing gaze direction, with evidence for predominantly right-lateralized responses (Carlin & Calder, 2013). The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the lateralization of responses to talker gaze differs in an auditory communicative context. Participants in a functional MRI experiment watched and listened to videos of spoken sentences in which the auditory intelligibility and talker gaze direction were manipulated factorially. We observed a left-dominant temporal lobe sensitivity to the talker's gaze direction, in which the left anterior superior temporal sulcus/gyrus and temporal pole showed an enhanced response to direct gaze - further investigation revealed that this pattern of lateralization was modulated by auditory intelligibility. Our results suggest flexibility in the distribution of neural responses to social cues in the face within the context of a challenging speech perception task

Steroid hormone profiles and relative body condition of calling and satellite toads: implications for proximate regulation of behavior in anurans

Males of most anuran species (frogs and toads) vocalize to attract mates. However, individuals of many vocal species may also adopt alternative noncalling "satellite" tactics. Satellite males characteristically remain in close proximity to calling conspecifics and attempt to intercept incoming females attracted to advertising males. Emerson proposed that alternation between calling and noncalling behavior in anurans is mediated by a reciprocal interaction between circulating levels of corticosterone and androgens that is driven by depletion of energy reserves during vocalization. We tested this hypothesis by examining steroid hormone profiles and the relative body condition of calling and satellite Woodhouse's toads (Bufo woodhousii) and Great Plains toads (B. cognatus). Consistent with Emerson's hypothesis, callers had significantly higher circulating corticosterone levels and were in better condition than satellites. However, levels of testosterone and dihydrotestosterone did not differ significantly between satellites and callers, and we found no evidence that high levels of corticosterone had an inhibitory effect on androgen production in either species. These data thus support a relationship between corticosterone levels and depletion of energy reserves during bouts of vocalization but suggest that alternation between calling and satellite behavior may be associated with direct effects of corticosterone on brain vocal control centers. We propose a model that incorporates relationships among energy reserves, androgens, corticosterone, and arginine vasotocin-producing neurons in the telencephalon to explain transitions between calling and satellite tactics in toads. Copyright 2004.alternative mating tactics; anurans; body condition; hormones; satellite behavior; steroids

Reconsiderando gramsci: hegemonia no direito global Gramsci reconsidered: hegemony in global law

"Entre direitos iguais, a força decide", proferiu karl marx ao descrever a antinomia do direito em situações antagônicas das relações de produção capitalistas, em que "o direito [oferece resistência] ao direito" nesse ponto, marx aborda uma questão que se situa no centro de todas as teorias jurídicas críticas: que tipo de violência é velada por meio do mecanismo de ocultação denominado "direito"? Para responder a esta questão, tentar-se-á, a seguir, tornar a teoria da hegemonia de antonio gramsci e seu modelo de direito hegemônico produtivos para o campo da teoria do direito. Tal tarefa tem de lidar com a dupla dificuldade de que, por um lado, gramsci não foi um teórico do direito no sentido mais estrito, razão pela qual o potencial de sua teoria para uma análise do direito raramente foi utilizada. Por outro lado, sua abordagem só pode ser empregada por meio de uma crítica às restrições relacionadas a seu tempo. isso se aplica especialmente à sua concepção de economia como a base e a núcleo essencialista oculto (laclau; mouffe, 2001:69), assim como à sua ideia de 'classismo' sob a forma de um enfoque unilateral das classes, em que há preferencialmente mais de um "pluralismo de poder" e inúmeras lutas (litowitz, 2000: 536). Recuperar-se-á, consequentemente, argumentos-chave, ampliando-os pela utilização das recentes descobertas feitas pelas abordagens feminista e neomaterialista da teoria jurídica, bem como as análises de foucault acerca das tecnologias de poder. por fim, uma interpretação da teoria sistêmica das autonomizações comunicativas.<br>"Between equal rights, force decides," said karl marx, describing the antinomy of law in antagonistic situations of capitalist production relations, in which "law [stands] against law". he here addresses a question that lies at the centre of all critical legal theories: what violence is blurred in the medium of the concealment mechanism called 'law'? To answer this question, we shall attempt below to make antonio gramsci's hegemony theory and his model of a hegemonic law fertile for the theory of law. This task has to cope with the twofold difficulty that on the one hand gramsci was no theoretician of law in the narrower sense, which is why the potential of his theory for an analysis of law has only seldom been made use of. On the other, his approach can only be taken up through a critique of restrictions associated with his times. This applies particularly to his conception of the economy as the basis and as the concealed essentialist core (laclau/mouffe 2001: 69), as well as to his 'classism' in the form of a one-sided focusing on classes, where there is instead more of a "pluralism of power" and a multiplicity of struggles (litowitz 2000: 536). We shall accordingly regain key arguments by extending them using current findings of feminist and neo-materialist approaches to legal theory, as well as foucault's analyses of power technologies and finally a systems-theory interpretation of communicative autonomizations