Active Drumming Experience Increases Infants' Sensitivity to Audiovisual Synchrony during Observed Drumming Actions

In the current study, we examined the role of active experience on sensitivity to multisensory synchrony in six-month-old infants in a musical context. In the first of two experiments, we trained infants to produce a novel multimodal effect (i.e., a drum beat) and assessed the effects of this training, relative to no training, on their later perception of the synchrony between audio and visual presentation of the drumming action. In a second experiment, we then contrasted this active experience with the observation of drumming in order to test whether observation of the audiovisual effect was as effective for sensitivity to multimodal synchrony as active experience. Our results indicated that active experience provided a unique benefit above and beyond observational experience, providing insights on the embodied roots of (early) music perception and cognition

Longitudinal analysis of early semantic networks : preferential attachment or preferential acquisition?

ABSTRACT-Analyses of adult semantic networks suggest a learning mechanism involving preferential attachment: A word is more likely to enter the lexicon the more connected the known words to which it is related. We introduce and test two alternative growth principles: preferential acquisition-words enter the lexicon not because they are related to well-connected words, but because they connect well to other words in the learning environment-and the lure of the associates-new words are favored in proportion to their connections with known words. We tested these alternative principles using longitudinal analyses of developing networks of 130 nouns children learn prior to the age of 30 months. We tested both networks with links between words represented by features and networks with links represented by associations. The feature networks did not predict age of acquisition using any growth model. The associative networks grew by preferential acquisition, with the best model incorporating word frequency, number of phonological neighbors, and connectedness of the new word to words in the learning environment, as operationalized by connectedness to words typically acquired by the age of 30 months

Continental break-up mechanism; lessons from intermediate- and fast-extension settings

<p>Continental break-up mechanisms vary systematically between slow- and fast-extension systems. Slow-extension break-up has been established from studies of the Central Atlantic, European and Adria margins. This study focuses on the intermediate and fast cases from Gabon and East India, and draws from the interpretation of reflection seismic, gravimetric and magnetic data. </p> <p>Interpretation indicates continental break-up via continental mantle unroofing in all systems, with modifications produced by magmatism in faster-extension systems. Break-up of the intermediate-extension Gabon system involves partial upper continental crustal decoupling from continental mantle; whereas, in the fast East Coast India system, decoupled and lower-crustal regimes underwent upwarping in ‘soggy’ zones in the footwalls of major normal faults. Usually, upper-crustal break-up is affected by pre-existing anisotropies, which form systems of constraining ‘rails’ for extending continental crust. This modifies the local stress regimes. They regain a regional character as the function of constraining rails vanishes during progressive unroofing of the upper mantle. Different regions attain different amounts of upper-crustal stretching prior to the break-up. The break-up location is then controlled by the upper-crustal energy balance principle of ‘wound linkage’, by which the minimum physical work is performed for linking upper-crustal ‘wounds’, leading to successful upper-crustal break-up. </p