Understanding economical outcomes with the mental number line

With this study we provide evidence that the cognitive processes involved in addition/subtraction, mapped along the mental number line, seem to mediate our understanding of trading verbs. When left-to-right culture participants read "loss" verbs, cognitive activation moves "leftward" as in arithmetical subtraction, while reading "gain" verbs activates a mental rightward space as in addition. 
 We test this hypothesis by asking to a group of participants to use their left and right hand in judging (as correct of not) the syntactic form of several verbs meaning financial outcomes. Results show that processing “gain verbs” was associated with shorter latencies when responding with the right hand similarly when performing an addition task, while processing “loss verbs” was associated with shorter latencies when responding with the left, similarly when performing a subtraction task. This finding suggests that understanding language denoting economics outcomes covertly engages the arithmetical system in a spatially left-right dimension. 
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Reaction time to judge the temporal inequality of digits numbers

Several studies had consistently lighted mechanisms about the relation between spatial and numerical cognition; parallel to this, a separate research line begin to document similar relationships for the representation of time and quantity as well. However there are still few studies that explore cognitive mechanisms subserving this relation. Starting from the evidence of the SNARC effect (Dehaene et al., 1993), here we investigate about the presence of similar effect in the processing of temporal and numerical information. We studied the effects of numerical exposure when participants are asked to perform a visual detection task in which temporal information is explicitly or implicitly conveyed. The main result shows that, during explicit timing, low digits exposure improve reaction time in the judgment of shorter duration whereas big digits exposure improve reaction time in judgment of longer duration. No interaction between temporal and numerical information is documented when participants perform implicit timing task. Results suggest a role quantity exposure for timing task-dependent attentional orientation. 

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Selective bias in temporal bisection task by number exposition

Temporal experience can be modulated by a number of environmental factors such as quantity. Here I show that merely looking at numbers causes a bias in imaginative (but not perceptual) time bisection task that depends on the number’s magnitude. This suggests that automatic shifts of spatial attention to the left and right side, as a result of exposure to numbers, modulates temporal as well as spatial behaviour (2,3,4). This finding suggests that the representation of time and space produce certain patterns in neural maps that are decoded by means of the similar neural mechanisms

Simultaneous electronic and the magnetic excitation of a ferromagnet by intense THz pulses

The speed of magnetization reversal is a key feature in magnetic data storage. Magnetic fields from intense THz pulses have been recently shown to induce small magnetization dynamics in Cobalt thin film on the sub-picosecond time scale. Here, we show that at higher field intensities, the THz electric field starts playing a role, strongly changing the dielectric properties of the cobalt thin film. Both the electronic and magnetic responses are found to occur simultaneously, with the electric field response persistent on a time scale orders of magnitude longer than the THz stimulu

Selective bias in temporal bisection task by number exposition

Temporal experience can be modulated by a number of environmental factors such as quantity. Here I show that merely looking at numbers causes a bias in imaginative (but not perceptual) time bisection task that depends on the number's magnitude. This suggests that automatic shifts of spatial attention to the left and right side, as a result of exposure to numbers, modulates temporal as well as spatial behaviour (2,3,4). This finding suggests that the representation of time and space produce certain patterns in neural maps that are decoded by means of the similar neural mechanisms

High energy terahertz pulses from organic crystals: DAST and DSTMS pumped at Ti:sapphire wavelength

High energy terahertz pulses are produced by optical rectification (OR) in organic crystals DAST and DSTMS by a Ti:sapphire amplifier system centered at 0.8 microns. The simple scheme provides broadband spectra between 1 and 5 THz, when pumped by collimated 60 fs near-infrared pump pulse and it is scalable in energy. Fluence-dependent conversion efficiency and damage threshold are reported as well as optimized OR at visible wavelength.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure