Donna Zuckerberg, Not All Dead White Men. Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age

En raison de sa quête identitaire, l’extrême droite a toujours instrumentalisé ses « racines » antiques. Dans Not All Dead White Men : Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age, publié en 2018 par Harvard University Press, Donna Zuckerberg se penche sur un aspect contemporain de ce type de réception : la lecture et l’instrumentalisation de l’Antiquité, notamment des stoïciens et d’Ovide, sur les forums en ligne et dans les blogs masculinistes américains. Auteure d’une thèse sur Aristophane et ..

Ronald H. Fritze, Egyptomania. A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy

Ronald H. Fritze, professeur d’histoire à l’Université d’Athens (Alabama), est principalement connu pour son approche critique de la pseudo-histoire, terme aujourd’hui délaissé en France au profit de l’appellation en vogue «fake science» (son ouvrage Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions est paru en 2009). Le chercheur américain se penche ici sur l’égyptologie et les différentes manières dont elle a été perçue, détournée, instrumentalisée… dans un ouvrage riche,..

Density, climate and varying return points: an analysis of long-term population fluctuations in the threatened European tree frog

Experimental research has identified many putative agents of amphibian decline, yet the population-level consequences of these agents remain unknown, owing to lack of information on compensatory density dependence in natural populations. Here, we investigate the relative importance of intrinsic (density-dependent) and extrinsic (climatic) factors impacting the dynamics of a tree frog (Hyla arborea) population over 22years. A combination of log-linear density dependence and rainfall (with a 2-year time lag corresponding to development time) explain 75% of the variance in the rate of increase. Such fluctuations around a variable return point might be responsible for the seemingly erratic demography and disequilibrium dynamics of many amphibian population

A Cross-Sectional Study of Reminiscence Bumps for Music-Related Memories in Adulthood

Music is often intimately linked to identity, as evidenced by the high value many people place on musical activities and the way in which music can become seemingly effortlessly coupled to important memories from throughout one’s lifespan. Previous research has revealed a consistent reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory—the disproportionate recall of memories from between ages 10 to 30 years in comparison with other lifetime periods—which also appears to extend to music-related memories. The present study represents one of the largest explorations of the musical reminiscence bump across adulthood to date. Participants (N = 470; ages 18 to 82 years) were shown the titles and artists of 111 popular songs that had featured in the charts between 1950 and 2015 and rated the degree to which they had autobiographical memories associated with each song, as well as the degree to which they were familiar with and liked the song. We found a reminiscence bump in adolescence (peaking around age 14) for both ratings of the autobiographical salience of songs featured in the charts during that period and the familiarity of these songs. Liking ratings showed more divergent results depending on a participant’s current age, including evidence for a cascading reminiscence bump, in which liking ratings from young adults increased for music from their parents’ adolescent years. We also revealed new evidence that music-related autobiographical memories appear to invoke similar retrieval processes to the common methodology of eliciting autobiographical memories via word cues. We contextualize these results in relation to general theoretical accounts of the reminiscence bump, and age-related differences in the bump are discussed in relation to various sociocultural and technological changes in music listening habits

Metrical Presentation Boosts Implicit Learning Of Artificial Grammar

The present study investigated whether a temporal hierarchical structure favors implicit learning. An artificial pitch grammar implemented with a set of tones was presented in two different temporal contexts, notably with either a strongly metrical structure or an isochronous structure. According to the Dynamic Attending Theory, external temporal regularities can entrain internal oscillators that guide attention over time, allowing for temporal expectations that influence perception of future events. Based on this framework, it was hypothesized that the metrical structure provides a benefit for artificial grammar learning in comparison to an isochronous presentation. Our study combined behavioral and event-related potential measurements. Behavioral results demonstrated similar learning in both participant groups. By contrast, analyses of event-related potentials showed a larger P300 component and an earlier N2 component for the strongly metrical group during the exposure phase and the test phase, respectively. These findings suggests that the temporal expectations in the strongly metrical condition helped listeners to better process the pitch dimension, leading to improved learning of the artificial grammar

Recurrent boosting effects of short inactivity delays on performance: an ERPs study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent studies investigating off-line processes of consolidation in motor learning have demonstrated a sudden, short-lived improvement in performance after 5–30 minutes of post-training inactivity. Here, we investigated further this behavioral boost in the context of the probabilistic serial reaction time task, a paradigm of implicit sequence learning. We looked both at the electrophysiological correlates of the boost effect and whether this phenomenon occurs at the initial training session only.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Reaction times consistently improved after a 30-minute break within two sessions spaced four days apart, revealing the reproducibility of the boost effect. Importantly, this improvement was unrelated to the acquisition of the sequential regularities in the material. At both sessions, event-related potentials (ERPs) analyses disclosed a boost-associated increased amplitude of a first negative component, and shorter latencies for a second positive component.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Behavioral and ERP data suggest increased processing fluency after short delays, which may support transitory improvements in attentional and/or motor performance and participate in the final setting up of the neural networks involved in the acquisition of novel skills.</p

The importance of material used in speech therapy : two case studies in minimally conscious state patients

Speech therapy can be part of the care pathway for patients recovering from comas and presenting a disorder of consciousness (DOC). Although there are no official recommendations for speech therapy follow-up, neuroscientific studies suggest that relevant stimuli may have beneficial effects on the behavioral assessment of patients with a DOC. In two case studies, we longitudinally measured (from 4 to 6 weeks) the behavior (observed in a speech therapy session or using items from the Coma Recovery Scale—Revised) of two patients in a minimally conscious state (MCS) when presenting music and/or autobiographical materials. The results highlight the importance of using relevant material during a speech therapy session and suggest that a musical context with a fast tempo could improve behavior evaluation compared to noise. This work supports the importance of adapted speech therapy for MCS patients and encourages larger studies to confirm these initial observations