Multisensory context portends object memory.

Multisensory processes facilitate perception of currently-presented stimuli and can likewise enhance later object recognition. Memories for objects originally encountered in a multisensory context can be more robust than those for objects encountered in an exclusively visual or auditory context [1], upturning the assumption that memory performance is best when encoding and recognition contexts remain constant [2]. Here, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to provide the first evidence for direct links between multisensory brain activity at one point in time and subsequent object discrimination abilities. Across two experiments we found that individuals showing a benefit and those impaired during later object discrimination could be predicted by their brain responses to multisensory stimuli upon their initial encounter. These effects were observed despite the multisensory information being meaningless, task-irrelevant, and presented only once. We provide critical insights into the advantages associated with multisensory interactions; they are not limited to the processing of current stimuli, but likewise encompass the ability to determine the benefit of one's memories for object recognition in later, unisensory contexts.

Perception of cardiovascular risk and comparison with actual cardiovascular risk.

BACKGROUND: Current guidelines recommend treating patients according to their absolute cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. We examined perception of CVD risk among adults and how it can be compared with actual CVD risk. METHODS: The perception of CVD risk was assessed by two questions asking about participants' 'risk to get a heart attack or a stroke over the next 10 years' using semiquantitative and quantitative answers in a population-based survey of 816 individuals aged 40-64 years in the Seychelles (African region). Actual CVD risk was calculated using a standard risk prediction score and 24% of adults aged 40-64 years had elevated risk. RESULTS: Only 59% of individuals could give an estimate of perceived CVD risk based on the semiquantitative question and 31% based on the quantitative question. Reporting a perceived CVD risk was strongly associated with high socio-economic status (SES; odds ratio = 9). Among individuals who reported a perceived CVD risk, 48% overestimated their perceived risk versus their actual risk. Reporting a high perceived CVD risk was associated with treatment for CVD risk factors, older age, low SES, and overweight. Reporting a low perceived CVD risk was associated with male sex, younger age, education, normal BMI, and leisure time exercise. CONCLUSION: Only half of the individuals could provide an estimate of their perceived CVD risk, and this perception was strongly associated with SES. Individuals under treatment perceived higher CVD risk than nontreated individuals. Further studies should determine how risk-related information can be better conveyed to individuals as a means to improve adherence to healthy lifestyles and/or treatment.

The role of auditory cortices in the retrieval of single-trial auditory-visual object memories.

Single-trial encounters with multisensory stimuli affect both memory performance and early-latency brain responses to visual stimuli. Whether and how auditory cortices support memory processes based on single-trial multisensory learning is unknown and may differ qualitatively and quantitatively from comparable processes within visual cortices due to purported differences in memory capacities across the senses. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) as healthy adults (n = 18) performed a continuous recognition task in the auditory modality, discriminating initial (new) from repeated (old) sounds of environmental objects. Initial presentations were either unisensory or multisensory; the latter entailed synchronous presentation of a semantically congruent or a meaningless image. Repeated presentations were exclusively auditory, thus differing only according to the context in which the sound was initially encountered. Discrimination abilities (indexed by d') were increased for repeated sounds that were initially encountered with a semantically congruent image versus sounds initially encountered with either a meaningless or no image. Analyses of ERPs within an electrical neuroimaging framework revealed that early stages of auditory processing of repeated sounds were affected by prior single-trial multisensory contexts. These effects followed from significantly reduced activity within a distributed network, including the right superior temporal cortex, suggesting an inverse relationship between brain activity and behavioural outcome on this task. The present findings demonstrate how auditory cortices contribute to long-term effects of multisensory experiences on auditory object discrimination. We propose a new framework for the efficacy of multisensory processes to impact both current multisensory stimulus processing and unisensory discrimination abilities later in time.

Justification du système économique et perception du travail en groupe

L'étude classique des attributions de responsabilité instiguée par Heider en psychologie sociale s'est principalement bornée à aborder ce processus psychosocial dans une perspective individualiste qui se cantonne aux niveaux intra-individuel et interpersonnel (selon la distinction opérée par Doise). Les réflexions et les travaux empiriques présentés dans cette thèse ont deux objectifs. Dans un premier temps, il s?agit d'élargir cette perspective aux autres niveaux sociologique et idéologique (en faisant notamment recours à l'approche des attributions sociales et aux propositions de Fauconnet sur les règles de responsabilité). Deuxièmement, il s?agit d'éprouver la pertinence d'une telle approche dans un contexte particulier : celui du travail en groupe dont la nature des rapports sociaux qui y étaient présentés ont été manipulés à l'aide de scénarii chez des étudiant-e-s de l?Université de Lausanne. L?objectif principal de cette thèse est donc de tester un modèle d?ancrage des attributions de responsabilité qui permette de souligner les dynamiques représentationnelles sous-jacentes en termes de légitimation ou de remise en cause de l?organisation des groupes. Dans l?ensemble les résultats indiquent que si la nature des rapports sociaux (re)présentés dans un groupe sont de puissants déterminants de la manière de légitimer ou de remettre en cause l?organisation des groupes, le niveau individuel d'adhésion à des croyances idéologiques dominantes, comme la justification du système économique, représente un modérateur des prises de position des répondant-e-s interrogé-e-s. De plus, il semble que ces processus évoluent dans le temps, faisant ainsi apparaître l'existence de phénomènes de socialisation relativement plus complexes que ne le laissent entendre les recherches actuellement effectuées dans ce domaine. En effet, si des connaissances idéologiques sur le monde sont acquises dans les filières universitaires et n?interviennent pas toujours dans les processus de formation des représentations du travail en groupe, des connaissances spécifiques aux disciplines et à la politique de sélection universitaire semblent intervenir dans le processus de légitimation des rapports sociaux dans les groupes au niveau des attributions. En tentant une articulation entre les concepts d?ancrage des représentations sociales, d?attribution et de socialisation, cette thèse permet ainsi de souligner la pertinence qu?il y a à insérer une problématique en termes de croyances idéologiques dans l?étude des groupes sociaux.<br/><br/>Heider?s approach of responsibility attributions almost exclusively emphasized on an individualistic point of view ; i.e. focusing at an intraindividual and interpersonnal level of analysis according to Doise?s distinction. The reflexions and empirical studies presented here firstly aim at broaden this perspective by taking socio-structural as well as societal levels of analysis into account. Secondly, it is to test this approach in the particular domain of organized groups. Manipulation of the structure of social relations in work groups on screenplays were undertaken (in a population of students from the Lausanne University). Hence, the main goal of these studies is to test the impact of the social ancoring of social representations in the responsibility processes in terms of legitimation or opposition to the group organization. All in all, the results show that social structures are powerfull predictors of the formation of social representations of a work situation and so forth of the attribution process. Nevertheless hegemonic ideological beliefs, such as Economical System Justification, do play a substantial moderating role in this process. It also proves to be evolving through time. The present findings show that a complexe process of socialization is occuring during the student?s university life. Indeed, the results let us believe that ideological beliefs may not interact anytime in the group?s perception and in the construction of the representation of the situation. In the same time, it seems that more discipline specific oriented knowledge and the impact of selection policy at the Lausanne University also predict the groupe legimation process and interfer with the ideological beliefs. Trying to articulate concepts of fields of research like social representations, attribution and socialization, the present thesis allows to underline the heuristic potential of reabilitating ideological beliefs at a dispositional level in the study of group process.

Brain surface non-rigid registration in auditory processing

Résumé: Le développement rapide de nouvelles technologies comme l'imagerie médicale a permis l'expansion des études sur les fonctions cérébrales. Le rôle principal des études fonctionnelles cérébrales est de comparer l'activation neuronale entre différents individus. Dans ce contexte, la variabilité anatomique de la taille et de la forme du cerveau pose un problème majeur. Les méthodes actuelles permettent les comparaisons interindividuelles par la normalisation des cerveaux en utilisant un cerveau standard. Les cerveaux standards les plus utilisés actuellement sont le cerveau de Talairach et le cerveau de l'Institut Neurologique de Montréal (MNI) (SPM99). Les méthodes de recalage qui utilisent le cerveau de Talairach, ou celui de MNI, ne sont pas suffisamment précises pour superposer les parties plus variables d'un cortex cérébral (p.ex., le néocortex ou la zone perisylvienne), ainsi que les régions qui ont une asymétrie très importante entre les deux hémisphères. Le but de ce projet est d'évaluer une nouvelle technique de traitement d'images basée sur le recalage non-rigide et utilisant les repères anatomiques. Tout d'abord, nous devons identifier et extraire les structures anatomiques (les repères anatomiques) dans le cerveau à déformer et celui de référence. La correspondance entre ces deux jeux de repères nous permet de déterminer en 3D la déformation appropriée. Pour les repères anatomiques, nous utilisons six points de contrôle qui sont situés : un sur le gyrus de Heschl, un sur la zone motrice de la main et le dernier sur la fissure sylvienne, bilatéralement. Evaluation de notre programme de recalage est accomplie sur les images d'IRM et d'IRMf de neuf sujets parmi dix-huit qui ont participés dans une étude précédente de Maeder et al. Le résultat sur les images anatomiques, IRM, montre le déplacement des repères anatomiques du cerveau à déformer à la position des repères anatomiques de cerveau de référence. La distance du cerveau à déformer par rapport au cerveau de référence diminue après le recalage. Le recalage des images fonctionnelles, IRMf, ne montre pas de variation significative. Le petit nombre de repères, six points de contrôle, n'est pas suffisant pour produire les modifications des cartes statistiques. Cette thèse ouvre la voie à une nouvelle technique de recalage du cortex cérébral dont la direction principale est le recalage de plusieurs points représentant un sillon cérébral. Abstract : The fast development of new technologies such as digital medical imaging brought to the expansion of brain functional studies. One of the methodolgical key issue in brain functional studies is to compare neuronal activation between individuals. In this context, the great variability of brain size and shape is a major problem. Current methods allow inter-individual comparisions by means of normalisation of subjects' brains in relation to a standard brain. A largerly used standard brains are the proportional grid of Talairach and Tournoux and the Montreal Neurological Insititute standard brain (SPM99). However, there is a lack of more precise methods for the superposition of more variable portions of the cerebral cortex (e.g, neocrotex and perisyvlian zone) and in brain regions highly asymmetric between the two cerebral hemipsheres (e.g. planum termporale). The aim of this thesis is to evaluate a new image processing technique based on non-linear model-based registration. Contrary to the intensity-based, model-based registration uses spatial and not intensitiy information to fit one image to another. We extract identifiable anatomical features (point landmarks) in both deforming and target images and by their correspondence we determine the appropriate deformation in 3D. As landmarks, we use six control points that are situated: one on the Heschl'y Gyrus, one on the motor hand area, and one on the sylvian fissure, bilaterally. The evaluation of this model-based approach is performed on MRI and fMRI images of nine of eighteen subjects participating in the Maeder et al. study. Results on anatomical, i.e. MRI, images, show the mouvement of the deforming brain control points to the location of the reference brain control points. The distance of the deforming brain to the reference brain is smallest after the registration compared to the distance before the registration. Registration of functional images, i.e fMRI, doesn't show a significant variation. The small number of registration landmarks, i.e. six, is obvious not sufficient to produce significant modification on the fMRI statistical maps. This thesis opens the way to a new computation technique for cortex registration in which the main directions will be improvement of the registation algorithm, using not only one point as landmark, but many points, representing one particular sulcus.

Perception of acceleration in motion-in-depth with only monocular and both monocular and binocular information

Observers are often required to adjust actions with objects that change their speed. However, no evidence for a direct sense of acceleration has been found so far. Instead, observers seem to detect changes in velocity within a temporal window when confronted with motion in the frontal plane (2D motion). Furthermore, recent studies suggest that motion-in-depth is detected by tracking changes of position in depth. Therefore, in order to sense acceleration in depth a kind of second-order computation would have to be carried out by the visual system. In two experiments, we show that observers misperceive acceleration of head-on approaches at least within the ranges we used [600-800 ms] resulting in an overestimation of arrival time. Regardless of the viewing condition (only monocular or monocular and binocular), the response pattern conformed to a constant velocity strategy. However, when binocular information was available, overestimation was highly reduced.