Name agreement in picture naming: An ERP study

Name agreement is the extent to which different people agree on a name for a particular picture. Previous studies have found that it takes longer to name low name agreement pictures than high name agreement pictures. To examine the effect of name agreement in the online process of picture naming, we compared event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded whilst 19 healthy, native English speakers silently named pictures which had either high or low name agreement. A series of ERP components was examined: P1 approximately 120ms from picture onset, N1 around 170ms, P2 around 220ms, N2 around 290ms, and P3 around 400ms. Additionally, a late time window from 800 to 900ms was considered. Name agreement had an early effect, starting at P1 and possibly resulting from uncertainty of picture identity, and continuing into N2, possibly resulting from alternative names for pictures. These results support the idea that name agreement affects two consecutive processes: first, object recognition, and second, lexical selection and/or phonological encoding.

Phase resetting as a mechanism of ERP generation: evidence from the power spectrum

A Neural Mass model is coupled with a novel method to generate realistic Phase reset ERPs. The power spectra of these synthetic ERPs are compared with the spectra of real ERPs and synthetic ERPs generated via the Additive model. Real ERP spectra show similarities with synthetic Phase reset ERPs and synthetic Additive ERPs.

The roles of feature-specific task set and bottom-up salience in attentional capture: An ERP study

We investigated the roles of top-down task set and bottom-up stimulus salience for feature-specific attentional capture. Spatially nonpredictive cues preceded search arrays that included a color-defined target. For target-color singleton cues, behavioral spatial cueing effects were accompanied by cueinduced N2pc components, indicative of attentional capture. These effects were only minimally attenuated for nonsingleton target-color cues, underlining the dominance of top-down task set over salience in attentional capture. Nontarget-color singleton cues triggered no N2pc, but instead an anterior N2 component indicative of top-down inhibition. In Experiment 2, inverted behavioral cueing effects of these cues were accompanied by a delayed N2pc to targets at cued locations, suggesting that perceptually salient but task-irrelevant visual events trigger location-specific inhibition mechanisms that can delay subsequent target selection.

Visuotactile learning and body representation: an ERP study with rubber hands and rubber objects

We studied how the integration of seen and felt tactile stimulation modulates somatosensory processing, and investigated whether visuotactile integration depends on temporal contiguity of stimulation, and its coherence with a pre-existing body representation. During training, participants viewed a rubber hand or a rubber object that was tapped either synchronously with stimulation of their own hand, or in an uncorrelated fashion. In a subsequent test phase, somatosensory event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to tactile stimulation of the left or right hand, to assess how tactile processing was affected by previous visuotactile experience during training. An enhanced somatosensory N140 component was elicited after synchronous, compared with uncorrelated, visuotactile training, irrespective of whether participants viewed a rubber hand or rubber object. This early effect of visuotactile integration on somatosensory processing is interpreted as a candidate electrophysiological correlate of the rubber hand illusion that is determined by temporal contiguity, but not by pre-existing body representations. ERPmodulations were observed beyond 200msec post-stimulus, suggesting an attentional bias induced by visuotactile training. These late modulations were absent when the stimulation of a rubber hand and the participant’s own hand was uncorrelated during training, suggesting that pre-existing body representations may affect later stages of tactile processing.

ERP correlates of shared control mechanisms involved in saccade preparation and in covert attention

We investigated whether attention shifts and eye movement preparation are mediated by shared control mechanisms, as claimed by the premotor theory of attention. ERPs were recorded in three tasks where directional cues presented at the beginning of each trial instructed participants to direct their attention to the cued side without eye movements (Covert task), to prepare an eye movement in the cued direction without attention shifts (Saccade task) or both (Combined task). A peripheral visual Go/Nogo stimulus that was presented 800 ms after cue onset signalled whether responses had to be executed or withheld. Lateralised ERP components triggered during the cue–target interval, which are assumed to reflect preparatory control mechanisms that mediate attentional orienting, were very similar across tasks. They were also present in the Saccade task, which was designed to discourage any concomitant covert attention shifts. These results support the hypothesis that saccade preparation and attentional orienting are implemented by common control structures. There were however systematic differences in the impact of eye movement programming and covert attention on ERPs triggered in response to visual stimuli at cued versus uncued locations. It is concluded that, although the preparatory processes underlying saccade programming and covert attentional orienting may be based on common mechanisms, they nevertheless differ in their spatially specific effects on visual information processing.

Manual response preparation and saccade programming are linked to attention shifts: ERP evidence for covert attentional orienting and spatially specific modulations of visual processing

The premotor theory of attention claims that attentional shifts are triggered during response programming, regardless of which response modality is involved. To investigate this claim, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants covertly prepared a left or right response, as indicated by a precue presented at the beginning of each trial. Cues signalled a left or right eye movement in the saccade task, and a left or right manual response in the manual task. The cued response had to be executed or withheld following the presentation of a Go/Nogo stimulus. Although there were systematic differences between ERPs triggered during covert manual and saccade preparation, lateralised ERP components sensitive to the direction of a cued response were very similar for both tasks, and also similar to the components previously found during cued shifts of endogenous spatial attention. This is consistent with the claim that the control of attention and of covert response preparation are closely linked. N1 components triggered by task-irrelevant visual probes presented during the covert response preparation interval were enhanced when these probes were presented close to cued response hand in the manual task, and at the saccade target location in the saccade task. This demonstrates that both manual and saccade preparation result in spatially specific modulations of visual processing, in line with the predictions of the premotor theory.

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Based on a wide bibliographic apparatus, and on a discourse-analysis approach, but written in a very accessible way to reach also a non-specialist audience, the pamphlet focuses on misleading and biased representations – through every-day stereotypes, media clichés, political speeches – of migration and migrants in today’s Italy, and is exciting a national debate about the strong relationship between language abuses, political and social misrepresentation, lack of citizenship for migrants and asylum seekers in Italy.

Mutamenti politico-istituzionali nella Venezia Giulia e a Trieste tra Tito e gli americani alla luce delle nuove testimonianze documentarie da Washington, 1944-1954

“La questione di Trieste”, ovvero la questione del confine italo-yugoslavo all’indomani della seconda guerra mondiale costituisce da lungo tempo oggetto di attenzione e di esame da parte della storiografia italiana e straniera. Con alcune importanti eccezioni, la ricostruzione complessiva di quelle vicende ha visto il più delle volte il prevalere di un approccio storico-diplomatico che ha reso difficile comprendere con chiarezza i rapporti e le interdipendenze fra contesto locale, contesto nazionale e contesto internazionale. Attraverso la lettura incrociata dell’ampia documentazione proveniente dai fondi dei National Archives Records Administration (NARA) questo studio tenta una rilettura delle varie fasi di sviluppo della questione nel periodo compreso tra il giugno del 1945 e l’ottobre del 1954 secondo una duplice prospettiva: nella prima parte si concentra sulla politica americana a Trieste, guardando nello specifico a due aspetti interni tra loro strettamente correlati, la gestione dell’ordine pubblico e la “strategia” del consenso da realizzarsi mediante il controllo dell’informazione da un lato e la promozione di una politica culturale dall’altro. Sono aspetti entrambi riconducibili al modello del direct rule, che conferiva al governo militare alleato (GMA) piena ed esclusiva autorità di governo sulla zona A della Venezia Giulia, e che ci appaiono centrali anche per cogliere l’interazione fra istituzioni e soggetti sociali. Nella seconda parte, invece, il modificarsi della fonte d’archivio indica un cambiamento di priorità nella politica estera americana relativa a Trieste: a margine dei negoziati internazionali, i documenti del fondo Clare Boothe Luce nelle carte dell’Ambasciata mostrano soprattutto come la questione di Trieste venne proiettata verso l’esterno, verso l’Italia in particolare, e sfruttata – principalmente dall’ambasciatrice – nell’ottica bipolare della guerra fredda per rinforzare il sostegno interno alla politica atlantica. Il saggio, dunque, si sviluppa lungo due linee: dentro e fuori Trieste, dentro 1945-1952, fuori 1953-1954, perché dalle fonti consultate sono queste ad emergere come aree di priorità nei due periodi. Abstract - English The “Trieste question”, or the question regarding the Italian - Yugoslav border after the Second World War, has been the object of careful examination in both Italian and foreign historiography for a long time. With a few important exceptions, the overall reconstruction of these events has been based for the most part on historic and diplomatic approaches, which have sometimes made it rather difficult to understand clearly the relationships and interdependences at play between local, national and international contexts. Through a comparative analysis of a large body of documents from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park MD, this essay attempts a second reading of the various phases in which the question developed between June 1945 and October 1954, following a twofold perspective: the first part focuses on American policy for Trieste, specifically looking at two internal and closely linked aspects, on the one hand, the management of ‘law and order’, as well as a ‘strategy’ of consent, to be achieved through the control of all the means of information , and, on the other, the promotion of a cultural policy. Both aspects can be traced back to the ‘direct rule’ model, which gave the Allied Military Government (AMG) full and exclusive governing authority over Venezia Giulia’s Zone A. These issues are also fundamental to a better understanding of the relationships between institutions and social subjects. In the second part of the essay , the change in archival sources clearly indicates a new set of priorities in American foreign policy regarding Trieste: outside any international negotiations for the settlement of the question, the Clare Boothe Luce papers held in the Embassy’s archives, show how the Trieste question was focused on external concerns, Italy in particular, and exploited – above all by the ambassador – within the bi-polar optic of the Cold War, in order to strengthen internal support for Atlantic policies. The essay therefore follows two main lines of inquiry: within and outside Trieste, within in 1945-1952, and outside 1953-1954, since, from the archival sources used, these emerge as priority areas in the two periods.

Individual differences and the role of the L1 in L2 processing: an ERP investigation

This study used ERP (event-related potentials) to examine both the role of the L1 and the role of individual differences in the processing of agreement violations. Theories of L2 acquisition differ with regard to whether or not native-like acquisition of L2 features is possible (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994, 1996; Tsimpli and Mastropavlou, 2007), and the results of previous ERP studies are inconsistent when it comes to whether or not native-like processing is observed in response to L2 agreement violations (e.g., Sabourin, 2003; Tokowicz and MacWhinney, 2005). Furthermore, studies of learners in early stages of L2 acquisition have found variability in the emergence of native-like responses (e.g., McLaughlin et al., 2010; Tanner et al., 2009), but sources of variability have not been investigated. The current study examines responses to gender and number agreement violations in English-speaking learners of Spanish (n=24). Stimuli targeted agreement in three conditions: subject-verb agreement (el barco flota/*flotan), which is similar in Spanish and English; number agreement on adjectival predicates (la isla rocosa/*rocosas), a context in which agreement is not instantiated in English; and gender agreement on adjectival predicates (la isla rocosa/*rocoso), which is unique to Spanish. Grammaticality judgments and ERP responses were also tested for correlations with aptitude scores on the Modern Languages Aptitude Test (MLAT; Carroll and Sapon, 1959) and the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1965). Results are in line with theories that claim native-like processing is acquirable, since learners demonstrated similar ERP responses to a control group of native Spanish-speakers (n=8) with regard to all three agreement types. Additionally, the MLAT (but not the Raven) was significantly correlated with sensitivity to number violations, both in terms of grammaticality judgments and ERP amplitudes, indicating a role for verbal but not nonverbal aptitude in L2 processing.