Space and time in the parietal cortex: fMRI Evidence for a meural asymmetry

How are space and time related in the brain? This study contrasts two proposals that make different predictions about the interaction between spatial and temporal magnitudes. Whereas ATOM implies that space and time are symmetrically related, Metaphor Theory claims they are asymmetrically related. Here we investigated whether space and time activate the same neural structures in the inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and whether the activation is symmetric or asymmetric across domains. We measured participants’ neural activity while they made temporal and spatial judgments on the same visual stimuli. The behavioral results replicated earlier observations of a space-time asymmetry: Temporal judgments were more strongly influenced by irrelevant spatial information than vice versa. The BOLD fMRI data indicated that space and time activated overlapping clusters in the IPC and that, consistent with Metaphor Theory, this activation was asymmetric: The shared region of IPC was activated more strongly during temporal judgments than during spatial judgments. We consider three possible interpretations of this neural asymmetry, based on 3 possible functions of IPC

Observing, performing, and understanding actions : revisiting the role of cortical motor areas in processing of action words

Language content and action/perception have been shown to activate common brain areas in previous neuroimaging studies. However, it is unclear whether overlapping cortical activation reflects a common neural source or adjacent, but distinct, sources. We address this issue by using multivoxel pattern analysis on fMRI data. Specifically, participants were instructed to engage in five tasks: (1) execute hand actions (AE), (2) observe hand actions (AO), (3) observe nonbiological motion (MO), (4) read action verbs, and (5) read nonaction verbs. A classifier was trained to distinguish between data collected from neural motor areas during (1) AE versus MO and (2) AO versus MO. These two algorithms were then used to test for a distinction between data collected during the reading of action versus nonaction verbs. The results show that the algorithm trained to distinguish between AE and MO distinguishes between word categories using signal recorded from the left parietal cortex and pre-SMA, but not from ventrolateral premotor cortex. In contrast, the algorithm trained to distinguish between AO and MO discriminates between word categories using the activity pattern in the left premotor and left parietal cortex. This shows that the sensitivity of premotor areas to language content is more similar to the process of observing others acting than to acting oneself. Furthermore, those parts of the brain that show comparable neural pattern for action execution and action word comprehension are high-level integrative motor areas rather than low-level motor areas

The genealogy of judgement: towards a deep history of academic freedom

The classical conception of academic freedom associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt and the rise of the modern university has a quite specific cultural foundation that centres on the controversial mental faculty of 'judgement'. This article traces the roots of 'judgement' back to the Protestant Reformation, through its heyday as the signature feature of German idealism, and to its gradual loss of salience as both a philosophical and a psychological concept. This trajectory has been accompanied by a general shrinking in the scope of academic freedom from the promulgation of world-views to the offering of expert opinion

Adaptable Categorization of Hands and Tools in Prosthesis Users.

Some theories propose that tools become incorporated into the neural representation of the hands (a process known as tool embodiment; Maravita & Iriki, 2004). Others suggest that conceptual body representation is rigid and that experience with one’s own body is insufficient for adapting bodily cognition, as shown in individuals born without hands (Vannuscorps & Caramazza, 2016) and in amputees with persistent phantom hand representation (Kikkert et al., 2016). How sharp is the conceptual boundary between hands and tools? This question is particularly relevant for individuals who have lost one hand and use prosthetic hands as tools to supplement their missing hand function. Although both congenital one-handers (i.e., amelia patients) and one-handed amputees are encouraged to use prostheses, the former show a greater tendency than the latter to use prosthetic hands in daily tasks (Jang et al., 2011). One-handers have a fully functional remaining hand (allowing them to use handheld tools, etc.), which makes them less likely to show semantic distortions in hand and tool representation. However, their bodies and their interactions with their environment are fundamentally altered by their disability (Makin et al., 2013; Makin, Wilf, Schwartz, & Zohary, 2010). To determine how real-world experience shapes conceptual categorization of hands, tools, and prostheses, we recruited one-handers with congenital or acquired unilateral hand loss to take part in a study involving a priming task. We predicted that one-handers, particularly congenital one-handers, would show more conceptual blurring between hands and tools than control participants would, as a result of less experience with a hand and more reliance on prostheses (which are essentially tools) for typical hand functions. We further predicted that individual differences in prosthesis usage would be reflected in implicit categorization of hands, manual tools, and prostheses

Limits on prediction in language comprehension: A multi-lab failure to replicate evidence for probabilistic pre-activation of phonology

In current theories of language comprehension, people routinely and implicitly predict upcoming words by pre-activating their meaning, morpho-syntactic features and even their specific phonological form. To date the strongest evidence for this latter form of linguistic prediction comes from a 2005 Nature Neuroscience landmark publication by DeLong, Urbach and Kutas, who observed a graded modulation of article- and noun-elicited electrical brain potentials (N400) by the pre-determined probability that people continue a sentence fragment with that word ('cloze'). In a direct replication study spanning 9 laboratories (N=334), we failed to replicate the crucial article-elicited N400 modulation by cloze, while we successfully replicated the commonly-reported noun-elicited N400 modulation. This pattern of failure and success was observed in a pre-registered replication analysis, a pre-registered single-trial analysis, and in exploratory Bayesian analyses. Our findings do not support a strong prediction view in which people routinely pre-activate the phonological form of upcoming words, and suggest a more limited role for prediction during language comprehension

Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension

Do people routinely pre-activate the meaning and even the phonological form of upcoming words? The most acclaimed evidence for phonological prediction comes from a 2005 Nature Neuroscience publication by DeLong, Urbach and Kutas, who observed a graded modulation of electrical brain potentials (N400) to nouns and preceding articles by the probability that people use a word to continue the sentence fragment (‘cloze’). In our direct replication study spanning 9 laboratories (N=334), pre-registered replication-analyses and exploratory Bayes factor analyses successfully replicated the noun-results but, crucially, not the article-results. Pre-registered single-trial analyses also yielded a statistically significant effect for the nouns but not the articles. Exploratory Bayesian single-trial analyses showed that the article-effect may be non-zero but is likely far smaller than originally reported and too small to observe without very large sample sizes. Our results do not support the view that readers routinely pre-activate the phonological form of predictable words

Sickonomics : Diagnoses and remedies

Original article can be found at: http://www.tandfonline.com/ Copyright Taylor & FrancisIn their recent analysis of the alleged decay in modern economics, Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis claim to find its source and origin in the "marginal revolution" of the 1870s. They argue that this development led to "methodological individualism" and the detachment of economics from society and history. I contest their account of the marginal revolution and of the role of Alfred Marshall among others. They also fail to provide an adequate definition of methodological individualism. I suggest that neoclassical economics adopted a denuded concept of the social rather than removing these factors entirely. No such removal is possible in principle. It is also mistaken to depict neoclassical economics as the science of prices and the market. In truth, neoclassical economics fails to capture the true nature of markets. I consider some sketch an alternative explanation of the sickness of modern economics, which focuses on institutional developments since World War II.Peer reviewe

From North Africa to Latin America and back: comparative findings and theoretical reflections

Taking the different case studies of the book together, one general observation stands out: Key agents of socioeconomic contention, including movements by organized labor and the unemployed that were important in the run-up to the uprisings and that saw their political opportunities open up in the immediate aftermath of the revolutions, have since been effectively marginalized as political actors. The concluding chapter reflects on the causes of this weakness of socioeconomic contention by identifying comparative insights that emerge from the contributions to this volume and by situating them in the context of broader comparative and theoretical debates on the relationship between social movements and political change. More specifically, the chapter first discusses Egypt’s and Tunisia’s post-revolutionary trajectories from a comparative perspective. Second, it discusses these comparative findings in the light of experiences in Latin America. Third, drawing again on comparative scholarship on Latin America, the chapter offers a theoretical interpretation of some of the main dynamics observed in Egypt and Tunisia based on the notion of a popular-sector incorporation crisis. Fourth and finally, the chapter concludes with general implications and an outlook

World-system position and democracy, 1972–2008

Global levels of democracy are higher than ever before, and democratic principles are now institutionalized as a world cultural norm. Nevertheless, a number of countries continue to feature governing systems that restrict political rights. Against this backdrop, I revisit traditional claims by world-system theory regarding the impact of the core/periphery hierarchy on national political systems. In doing so, I draw attention to the uneven character of democratic growth across world-system zones. Using an updated trichotomous measure of world-system position, and drawing from Freedom House and Polity IV ratings of democracy, I construct an annual time-series dataset producing a maximum of 5445 observations across 161 countries during the 1972–2008 period. Employing a series of random-effects tobit models with year-by-covariate interaction terms, I compare democratic growth among nations in the core, semiperiphery, and periphery. The results indicate significant gaps in democracy between core and non-core nations that are not dissipating over time, and that are perhaps growing slightly larger. In a series of robustness checks, I find that using an alternative measure of world-system position, an alternative measure of democracy, and an alternative estimation strategy produce similar results. In sum, despite the global spread of democracy, world-system boundaries remain fundamental in hindering cross-national convergence.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Distant from input : Evidence of regions within the default mode network supporting perceptually-decoupled and conceptually-guided cognition

The default mode network supports a variety of mental operations such as semantic processing, episodic memory retrieval, mental time travel and mind-wandering, yet the commonalities between these functions remains unclear. One possibility is that this system supports cognition that is independent of the immediate environment; alternatively or additionally, it might support higher-order conceptual representations that draw together multiple features. We tested these accounts using a novel paradigm that separately manipulated the availability of perceptual information to guide decision-making and the representational complexity of this information. Using task based imaging we established regions that respond when cognition combines both stimulus independence with multi-modal information. These included left and right angular gyri and the left middle temporal gyrus. Although these sites were within the default mode network, they showed a stronger response to demanding memory judgements than to an easier perceptual task, contrary to the view that they support automatic aspects of cognition. In a subsequent analysis, we showed that these regions were located at the extreme end of a macroscale gradient, which describes gradual transitions from sensorimotor to transmodal cortex. This shift in the focus of neural activity towards transmodal, default mode, regions might reflect a process of where the functional distance from specific sensory enables conceptually rich and detailed cognitive states to be generated in the absence of input