God:Do I have your attention?

Religion is commonly defined as a set of rules, developed as part of a culture. Here we provide evidence that practice in following these rules systematically changes the way people attend to visual stimuli, as indicated by the individual sizes of the global precedence effect (better performance to global than to local features). We show that this effect is significantly reduced in Calvinism, a religion emphasizing individual responsibility, and increased in Catholicism and Judaism, religions emphasizing social solidarity. We also show that this effect is long-lasting (still affecting baptized atheists) and that its size systematically varies as a function of the amount and strictness of religious practices. These findings suggest that religious practice induces particular cognitive-control styles that induce chronic, directional biases in the control of visual attention

Facilitators and Barriers to Adaptive Implementation of the Meeting Centers Support Program (MCSP) in Three European Countries; the Process Evaluation Within the MEETINGDEM Study

Background: In the MEETINGDEM project, the Meeting Centers Support Program (MCSP) was adaptively implemented and evaluated in three European countries: Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom. The aim of this study was to investigate overall and country-specific facilitators and barriers to the implementation of MCSP in these European countries. Methods: A qualitative multiple case study design was used. Based on the theoretical model of adaptive implementation, a checklist was composed of potential facilitators and barriers to the implementation of MCSP. This checklist was administered among stakeholders involved in the implementation of MCSP to trace the experienced facilitators and barriers. Twenty-eight checklists were completed. Results: Main similarities between countries were related to the presence of suitable staff, management, and a project manager, and the fact that the MCSP is attuned to needs and wishes of people with dementia and informal caregivers. Main differences between countries were related to: communication with potential referrers, setting up an inter-organizational collaboration network, receiving support of national organizations, having clear discharge criteria for the MCSP and continuous PR in the region. Conclusion: The results of this study provide insight into generic and country specific factors that can influence the implementation of MCSP in different European countries. This study informs further implementation and dissemination of MCSP in Europe and may also serve as an example for the dissemination and implementation of other effective psychosocial support interventions for people with dementia and their informal caregivers across and beyond Europe

The Impact of the Implementation of the Dutch Combined Meeting Centres Support Programme for Family Caregivers of People with Dementia in Italy, Poland and UK

Objectives: The MEETINGDEM research project aimed to implement the combined Dutch Meeting Centre Support Programme (MCSP) for community-dwelling people with dementia and caregivers within Italy, Poland and UK and to assess whether comparable benefits were found in these countries as in the Netherlands. Method: Nine pilot Meeting Centres (MCs) participated (Italy-5, Poland-2, UK-2). Effectiveness of MCSP was compared to usual care (UC) on caregiver outcomes measuring competence (SSCQ), mental health (GHQ-12), emotional distress (NPI-Q) and loneliness (UCLA) analysed by ANCOVAs in a 6-month pre-test/post-test controlled trial. Interviews using standardised measures were completed with caregivers. Results: Pre/post data were collected for 93 caregivers receiving MCSP and 74 receiving UC. No statistically significant differences on the outcome measures were found overall. At a country level MC caregivers in Italy showed significant better general mental health (p=0.04, d=0.55) and less caregiver distress (p=0.02, d=0.62) at post-test than the UC group. Caregiver satisfaction was rated on a sample at 3 months (n=81) and 6 months (n=84). The majority of caregivers reported feeling less burdened and more supported by participating in MCSP. Conclusion: The moderate positive effect on sense of competence and the greater mental health benefit for lonely caregivers using the MCSP compared to UC as found in the original Dutch studies were not replicated. However, subject to study limitations, caregivers in Italy using MCSP benefitted more regarding their mental health and emotional distress than caregivers using UC. Further evaluation of the benefits of MCSP within these countries in larger study samples is recommended

Processing of Hand-Related Verbs Specifically Affects the Planning and Execution of Arm Reaching Movements

Even though a growing body of research has shown that the processing of action language affects the planning and execution of motor acts, several aspects of this interaction are still hotly debated. The directionality (i.e. does understanding action-related language induce a facilitation or an interference with the corresponding action?), the time course, and the nature of the interaction (i.e. under what conditions does the phenomenon occur?) are largely unclear. To further explore this topic we exploited a go/no-go paradigm in which healthy participants were required to perform arm reaching movements toward a target when verbs expressing either hand or foot actions were shown, and to refrain from moving when abstract verbs were presented. We found that reaction times (RT) and percentages of errors increased when the verb involved the same effector used to give the response. This interference occurred very early, when the interval between verb presentation and the delivery of the go signal was 50 ms, and could be elicited until this delay was about 600 ms. In addition, RTs were faster when subjects used the right arm than when they used the left arm, suggesting that action–verb understanding is left-lateralized. Furthermore, when the color of the printed verb and not its meaning was the cue for movement execution the differences between RTs and error percentages between verb categories disappeared, unequivocally indicating that the phenomenon occurs only when the semantic content of a verb has to be retrieved. These results are compatible with the theory of embodied language, which hypothesizes that comprehending verbal descriptions of actions relies on an internal simulation of the sensory–motor experience of the action, and provide a new and detailed view of the interplay between action language and motor acts

Il ruolo della corteccia motoria primaria nell\u2019elaborazione di frasi contenenti parole concrete e astratte

Recenti proposte (Barsalou et al, 2008; Borghi&Cimatti 2009) suggeriscono che le parole attivano molteplici tipi di rappresentazioni: le parole astratte attiverebbero primariamente aree linguistiche, le parole concrete le aree sensori-motorie. Scopo del lavoro \ue8 verificare questa ipotesi, esplorando il ruolo della corteccia motoria primaria (M1) durante la comprensione di frasi concrete e astratte. I risultati indicano che l\u2019elaborazione del verbo modula il sistema motorio. Nel caso di verbi concreti la modulazione \ue8 precoce. Nel caso di verbi astratti si registra un\u2019attivazione ritardata, che merita di essere ulteriormente indagata per capire se si tratta di un effetto collaterale generato da un\u2019attivazione primaria di aree linguistiche

Object concepts and mental images

The paper focuses on mental imagery and concepts. First we discuss the possible reasons why the propositional view of representation was so successful among cognitive scientists interested in concepts. Then a novel perspective, the embodied view, is presented. Differently from the classic cognitivist view, this perspective acknowledges the importance of perceptual and motor imagery for concepts. According to the embodied perspective concepts are not given by propositional, abstract and amodal symbols but are grounded in sensorimotor processes. Neural and behavioral evidence favouring this perspective is presented. The paper discusses the continuity, but also the differences, between the imagery view and the embodied view of conceptual representation

Words as tools that extend our body

The body, as the subject or the object of our experience, mediates all our interactions with the world. In contrast with traditional views, recent studies have shown that our sense of body is plastic and can be modified. In this perspective, a number of psychological and neuroscientific studies have demonstrated that, when humans and monkeys use an instrument to reach a target-object, an extension of their peri-personal space occurs. This extension effect has been demonstrated with monkeys and humans, with neglect patients and with controls, and with a variety of paradigms. In the last years, both neuroscientists (e.g. Farne\u2019 et al., 2005) and philosophers (e.g., Clark, 2008) have proposed interesting parallels between tool-use and language. In this paper we intend to propose that words, similarly to tools, enlarge our space of action and modify the sense of our body. We will ground our proposal and discuss it also in light of recent evidence, obtained in our lab with kinematics and other behavioural studies, that shows that words use leads to an extension of our peri-personal space

Language and embodiment

The paper focuses on the embodied view of cognition applied to language. First we discuss what we intend when we say that concepts are “embodied”. Then we briefly explain the notion of simulation, addressing also its neurophysiological basis. In the main part of the paper we will focus on concepts mediated by language, presenting behavioral and neuro-physiological evidence of the action/perception systems activation during words and sentences comprehension

La sessualit\ue0 atipica in prospettiva etologica

L'etologia ha studiato ampiamente lo sviluppo delle preferenze e del comportamento sessuale negli animali, indagando anche alcuni meccanismi che possono portare ad esiti atipici. In questo articolo discutiamo l'applicabilit\ue0 delle idee etologiche allo studio della sessualit\ue0 atipica negli esseri umani. Ci soffermiamo in particolare sul concetto di imprinting sessuale, un meccanismo simile al pi\uf9 noto imprinting filiale (attraverso il quale i piccoli imparano le caratteristiche della madre) ma che riguarderebbe la sfera sessuale. Negli esseri umani l'esistenza e le modalit\ue0 dell'imprinting sessuale non sono ancora accertate, sebbene i dati empirici forniscano alcuni suggerimenti. Discutiamo qui alcuni studi rilevanti, le potenzialit\ue0 e criticit\ue0 del concetto e quale contributo potrebbe apportare alla comprensione della sessualit\ue0 atipica