Neuropsychological long-term sequelae after posterior fossa tumour resection during childhood

The importance of the cerebellum for non‐motor functions is becoming more and more evident. The influence on cognitive functions from acquired cerebellar lesions during childhood, however, is not well known. We present follow‐up data from 24 patients, who were operated upon during childhood for benign cerebellar tumours. The benign histology of these tumours required neither radiotherapy nor chemotherapy. Post‐operatively, these children were of normal intelligence with a mean IQ of 99.1, performance intelligence quotient (PIQ) of 101.3 and verbal intelligence quotient (VIQ) of 96.8. However, 57% of patients showed abnormalities in subtesting. In addition, more extensive neuropsychological testing revealed significant problems for attention, memory, processing speed and interference. Visuo‐constructive problems were marked for copying the Rey figure, but less pronounced for recall of the figure. Verbal fluency was more affected than design fluency. Behavioural deficits could be detected in 33% of patients. Attention deficit problems were marked in 12.5%, whereas others demonstrated psychiatric symptoms such as mutism, addiction problems, anorexia, uncontrolled temper tantrums and phobia. Age at tumour operation and size of tumour had no influence on outcome. Vermis involvement was related to an increase in neuropsychological and psychiatric problems. The observation that patients with left‐sided cerebellar tumours were more affected than patients with right‐sided tumours is probably also influenced by a more pronounced vermian involvement in the former group. In summary, this study confirms the importance of the cerebellum for cognitive development and points to the necessity of careful follow‐up for these children to provide them with the necessary help to achieve full integration into professional life.

The Vulnerable Animals That Therefore We Are : (Non-)Human Animals in D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love

Central to animal studies is the question of words and how they are used in relation to wordless beings such as non-human animals. This issue is addressed by the writer D.H. Lawrence, and the focus of this thesis is the linguistic vulnerability of humans and non-humans in his novel Women in Love, a subject that will be explored with the help of the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s text The Animal That Therefore I Am. The argument is that Women in Love illustrates the human subjection to and constitution in language, which both enables human thinking and restricts the human ability to think without words. This linguistic vulnerability causes a similar vulnerability in non-human animals in two ways. First, humans tend to imagine others, including non-verbal animals, through words, a medium they exist outside of and therefore cannot be defined through. Second, humans are often unperceptive of non-linguistic means of expression and they therefore do not discern what non-human animals may be trying to communicate to them, which often enables humans to justify abuse against non-humans. In addition, the novel shows how this shared but unequal vulnerability can sometimes be dissolved through the likewise shared but equal physical vulnerability of all animals if a human is able to imagine the experiences of a non-human animal through their shared embodiment rather than through human language. Hence the essay shows the importance of recognizing the limitations of language and of being aware of how the symbolizing effect of words influences the human treatment of its others.

A Comunicação Não-Verbal: especial relevância à função espaço-território da (comunicação) proxémica"

Aristotle said "Man is a social animal," that does not know how to live isolated and need interaction with their peers. Over several millenniums the man was found many ways to communicate – from smoke signals to sign language or even writing – and this need not slowed down over the years, instead of this, became increasingly glaring. Communication has become increasingly imperative in our lives. But the communication has long ceased to be seen merely as a transmission of words. Nowadays, in the today's society, the man relates to others through two levels: verbal and non-verbal. These two dimensions of communication arise often together, completing or in opposition to, even if the human being does not realize it. Proxemics, as one of the areas covered in Non-Verbal Communication is responsible for studying the distances and proximities that are between people and spaces and how each of us do to protect and defend their personal territory. Will be the Gender, Age, Profession or the Barriers to Communication able to significantly influence the proxemic? The present study will answer to these questions.

Event related potential (ERP) evidence for selective impairment of verbal recollection in abstinent recreational methylenedioxymethamphetamine (“Ecstasy”)/polydrug users

Objectives Ecstasy is a recreational drug whose active ingredient, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), acts predominantly on the serotonergic system. Although MDMA is known to be neurotoxic in animals, the long-term effects of recreational Ecstasy use in humans remain controversial but one commonly reported consequence is mild cognitive impairment particularly affecting verbal episodic memory. Although event-related potentials (ERPs) have made significant contributions to our understanding of human memory processes, until now they have not been applied to study the long-term effects of Ecstasy. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of past Ecstasy use on recognition memory for both verbal and non-verbal stimuli using ERPs. Methods We compared the ERPs of 15 Ecstasy/polydrug users with those of 14 cannabis users and 13 non-illicit drug users as controls. Results Despite equivalent memory performance, Ecstasy/polydrug users showed an attenuated late positivity over left parietal scalp sites, a component associated with the specific memory process of recollection. Conlusions This effect was only found in the word recognition task which is consistent with evidence that left hemisphere cognitive functions are disproportionately affected by Ecstasy, probably because the serotonergic system is laterally asymmetrical. Experimentally, decreasing central serotonergic activity through acute tryptophan depletion also selectively impairs recollection, and this too suggests the importance of the serotonergic system. Overall, our results suggest that Ecstasy users, who also use a wide range of other drugs, show a durable abnormality in a specific ERP component thought to be associated with recollection.

A deficit in encoding the order of visual sequences in developmental dyslexia: a non -phonological deficit

The present thesis tested the hypothesis of Stanovich, Siegel, & Gottardo (1997) that surface dyslexia is the result of a milder phonological deficit than that seen in phonological dyslexia coupled with reduced reading experience. We found that a group of adults with surface dyslexia showed a phonological deficit that was commensurate with that shown by a group of adults with phonological dyslexia (matched for chronological age and verbal and non-verbal IQ) and normal reading experience. We also showed that surface dyslexia cannot be accounted for by a semantic impairment or a deficit in the verbal learning and recall of lexical-semantic information (such as meaningful words), as both dyslexic subgroups performed the same. This study has replicated the results of our published study that surface dyslexia is not the consequence of a mild retardation or reduced learning opportunities but a separate impairment linked to a deficit in written lexical learning, an ability needed to create novel lexical representations from a series of unrelated visual units, which is independent from the phonological deficit (Romani, Di Betta, Tsouknida & Olson, 2008). This thesis also provided evidence that a selective nonword reading deficit in developmental dyslexia persists beyond poor phonology. This was shown by finding a nonword reading deficit even in the presence of normal regularity effects in the dyslexics (when compared to both reading and spelling-age matched controls). A nonword reading deficit was also found in the surface dyslexics. Crucially, this deficit was as strong as in the phonological dyslexics despite better functioning of the sublexical route for the former. These results suggest that a nonword reading deficit cannot be solely explained by a phonological impairment. We, thus, suggested that nonword reading should also involve another ability relating to the processing of novel visual orthographic strings, which we called 'orthographic coding'. We then investigated the ability to process series of independent units within multi-element visual arrays and its relationship with reading and spelling problems. We identified a deficit in encoding the order of visual sequences (involving both linguistic and nonlinguistic information) which was significantly associated with word and nonword processing. More importantly, we revealed significant contributions to orthographic skills in both dyslexic and control individuals, even after age, performance IQ and phonological skills were controlled. These results suggest that spelling and reading do not only tap phonological skills but also order encoding skills.

Detecting deception: Identifying differences in liars' and truth tellers' verbal strategies

Deception research has traditionally focused on three methods of identifying liars and truth tellers: observing non-verbal or behavioral cues, analyzing verbal cues, and monitoring changes in physiological arousal during polygraph tests. Research shows that observers are often incapable of discriminating between liars and truth tellers with better than chance accuracy when they use these methods. One possible explanation for observers' poor performance is that they are not properly applying existing lie detection methods. An alternative explanation is that the cues on which these methods — and observers' judgments — are based do not reliably discriminate between liars and truth tellers. It may be possible to identify more reliable cues, and potentially improve observers' ability to discriminate, by developing a better understanding of how liars and truth tellers try to tell a convincing story. ^ This research examined (a) the verbal strategies used by truthful and deceptive individuals during interviews concerning an assigned activity, and (b) observers' ability to discriminate between them based on their verbal strategies. In Experiment I, pre-interview instructions manipulated participants' expectations regarding verifiability; each participant was led to believe that the interviewer could check some types of details, but not others, before deciding whether the participant was being truthful or deceptive. Interviews were then transcribed and scored for quantity and type of information provided. In Experiment II, observers listened to a random sample of the Experiment I interviews and rendered veracity judgments; half of the observers were instructed to judge the interviews according to the verbal strategies used by liars and truth tellers and the other half were uninstructed. ^ Results of Experiment I indicate that liars and truth tellers use different verbal strategies, characterized by a differential amount of detail. Overall, truthful participants provided more information than deceptive participants. This effect was moderated by participants' expectations regarding verifiability such that truthful participants provided more information only with regard to verifiable details. Results of Experiment II indicate that observers instructed about liars' and truth tellers' verbal strategies identify them with greater accuracy than uninstructed observers. ^

A poética do corpo não-verbal: um olhar para a comicidade em cena

Throughout our history as an actor, director and teacher, we appreciate comedic performances they proposed a dialogue with the public through the body language of the performers whose performances abdicate the use of speech of the actors. This way of representing, in the silence of the stage, caught our attention and sparked our curiosity about the subject, which is directly related to the poetic constructions of the body on the scene. Before initial readings on the subject, we begin to understand that for a long time in human history, especially in the West, understanding body was constructed from various epistemological looks disregarded the body as a unit, an incarnation of the subject in all . This kind of thinking, reflecting the philosophy of modernity, reverberated strongly about the aesthetic issues of art making, here specifically in Theatre. For several centuries the theatrical make up molded from various aesthetic elements, but ignoring the potential of embodiment of the artist, ie the theatrical text, for example, was considered for a long time, as the main element of the scene and gave little emphasis on dramaturgy elaborate body. With the emergence of reflections on the subject, brought especially from the early twentieth century, the perception of the body as a creative element and creator, also began to gain ground. Over time artistic practices began to glimpse the creative possibilities of the body, including rethinking its relationship with the text written with the spoken word. And as part of these new reflections on the body in the creation process, we proposed this research, we have entitled "A poetics of non-verbal body: a look at the comic on the scene." In our research on this subject, also seek to understand how the corporeality of the actor may give us clues to realize / build nonverbal body and comical scene. From this perspective we can analyze how could the construction of a comical and non-verbal dramaturgy from the phenomenology of laughter. And with that look, we want to point out some aspects and procedures, arising from reflections on corporeality and comedy, that constitute, among other possible, non-verbal construction methodology scenic.

Building autonomous sensitive artificial listeners (Extended abstract)

This paper describes a substantial effort to build a real-time interactive multimodal dialogue system with a focus on emotional and non-verbal interaction capabilities. The work is motivated by the aim to provide technology with competences in perceiving and producing the emotional and non-verbal behaviours required to sustain a conversational dialogue. We present the Sensitive Artificial Listener (SAL) scenario as a setting which seems particularly suited for the study of emotional and non-verbal behaviour, since it requires only very limited verbal understanding on the part of the machine. This scenario allows us to concentrate on non-verbal capabilities without having to address at the same time the challenges of spoken language understanding, task modeling etc. We first summarise three prototype versions of the SAL scenario, in which the behaviour of the Sensitive Artificial Listener characters was determined by a human operator. These prototypes served the purpose of verifying the effectiveness of the SAL scenario and allowed us to collect data required for building system components for analysing and synthesising the respective behaviours. We then describe the fully autonomous integrated real-time system we created, which combines incremental analysis of user behaviour, dialogue management, and synthesis of speaker and listener behaviour of a SAL character displayed as a virtual agent. We discuss principles that should underlie the evaluation of SAL-type systems. Since the system is designed for modularity and reuse, and since it is publicly available, the SAL system has potential as a joint research tool in the affective computing research community.

Turing's menagerie:Talking lions, virtual bats, electric sheep and analogical peacocks: Common ground and common interest are necessary components of engagement

This theoretical paper attempts to define some of the key components and challenges required to create embodied conversational agents that can be genuinely interesting conversational partners. Wittgenstein's argument concerning talking lions emphasizes the importance of having a shared common ground as a basis for conversational interactions. Virtual bats suggests that-for some people at least-it is important that there be a feeling of authenticity concerning a subjectively experiencing entity that can convey what it is like to be that entity. Electric sheep reminds us of the importance of empathy in human conversational interaction and that we should provide a full communicative repertoire of both verbal and non-verbal components if we are to create genuinely engaging interactions. Also we may be making the task more difficult rather than easy if we leave out non-verbal aspects of communication. Finally, analogical peacocks highlights the importance of between minds alignment and establishes a longer term goal of being interesting, creative, and humorous if an embodied conversational agent is to be truly an engaging conversational partner. Some potential directions and solutions to addressing these issues are suggested.

Dimensão intercultural da linguagem não-verbal em contexto de sala de aula: um estudo com uma turma de espanhol

O presente relatório tem como principal objetivo desenvolver a competência da interculturalidade no âmbito da linguagem não-verbal de alunos portugueses, do 3º ciclo do ensino básico, com frequência à disciplina de Espanhol. A Linguagem não-verbal tem um contributo preponderante na comunicação e, quando há a pretensão de se conhecer outra cultura, é forçoso que se interpretem os diferentes sistemas onde cada indivíduo se integra e interage, porque comunicar eficazmente com o outro implica um conhecimento das estruturas simbólicas e dos códigos culturais intrínsecos, não só à cultura de um outro específico, mas também ao seu próprio contexto sociocultural, histórico-cultural e económico-cultural. Este trabalho faz apologia de um ensino intercultural que promova o diálogo entre culturas, sabendo-se de antemão que há representações que devem ser desconstruídas, bem como uma linguagem não-verbal específica que pode interferir na pragmática da interculturalidade. Trata-se de uma investigação-ação demarcada por dois momentos distintos: um primeiro estudo vocacionado para a consciencialização dos alunos de que a comunicação não-verbal é uma competência que se ensina e se aprende e um segundo estudo dedicado a aspetos culturais diferenciadores, entre Espanha e Portugal, na linguagem não-verbal , com enfoque nos gestos culturais e no tratamento do tempo. Os dados a analisar são: a transcrição de uma aula gravada, onde foram aplicados vários recursos audiovisuais e escritos consentâneos com as unidades programáticas, e as respostas a um questionário dirigido à turma de intervenção e a uma turma de nacionalidade espanhola que com ela colaborou. A implementação destas atividades/estratégias didáticas permitiu concluir que, por um lado, os alunos interpretam os diferentes códigos não -verbais à luz de uma perspetiva universal, por outro, há uma forte influência de estereótipos herdados e filtrados, a partir de diferentes marcos histórico-temporais. Este estudo sobre o não- verbal também se traduziu num alicerce bastante hábil para motivar à aprendizagem em geral e para enriquecer o conhecimento sobre a cultura do outro e a sua própria cultura, através da aquisição de códigos não- verbais comunicativo-funcionais.

Evidências de validade e propriedades psicométricas do SON-R 6-40

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Psicologia, 2016.

Comunicação não verbal e estilo instrucional em treinadores de futebol

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Social e das Organizações.

Audio-Visual Information Processing across different age groups

People possess different sensory modalities to detect, interpret, and efficiently act upon various events in a complex and dynamic environment (Fetsch, DeAngelis, & Angelaki, 2013). Much empirical work has been done to understand the interplay of modalities (e.g. audio-visual interactions, see Calvert, Spence, & Stein, 2004). On the one hand, integration of multimodal input as a functional principle of the brain enables the versatile and coherent perception of the environment (Lewkowicz & Ghazanfar, 2009). On the other hand, sensory integration does not necessarily mean that input from modalities is always weighted equally (Ernst, 2008). Rather, when two or more modalities are stimulated concurrently, one often finds one modality dominating over another. Study 1 and 2 of the dissertation addressed the developmental trajectory of sensory dominance. In both studies, 6-year-olds, 9-year-olds, and adults were tested in order to examine sensory (audio-visual) dominance across different age groups. In Study 3, sensory dominance was put into an applied context by examining verbal and visual overshadowing effects among 4- to 6-year olds performing a face recognition task. The results of Study 1 and Study 2 support default auditory dominance in young children as proposed by Napolitano and Sloutsky (2004) that persists up to 6 years of age. For 9-year-olds, results on privileged modality processing were inconsistent. Whereas visual dominance was revealed in Study 1, privileged auditory processing was revealed in Study 2. Among adults, a visual dominance was observed in Study 1, which has also been demonstrated in preceding studies (see Spence, Parise, & Chen, 2012). No sensory dominance was revealed in Study 2 for adults. Potential explanations are discussed. Study 3 referred to verbal and visual overshadowing effects in 4- to 6-year-olds. The aim was to examine whether verbalization (i.e., verbally describing a previously seen face), or visualization (i.e., drawing the seen face) might affect later face recognition. No effect of visualization on recognition accuracy was revealed. As opposed to a verbal overshadowing effect, a verbal facilitation effect occurred. Moreover, verbal intelligence was a significant predictor for recognition accuracy in the verbalization group but not in the control group. This suggests that strengthening verbal intelligence in children can pay off in non-verbal domains as well, which might have educational implications.

Aspetos da comunicação não-verbal usados pelo psicomotricista para o sucesso da sua intervenção terapêutica – um estudo de caso

Resumo: A psicomotricidade tem como objeto de estudo o corpo e as suas relações com o exterior. Inserido num determinado contexto ambiental, o corpo é um dos veículos centrais na transmissão de mensagens. O conhecimento do psicomotricista, acerca da utilização e identificação dos aspetos não-verbais, é determinante para melhorar a qualidade da intervenção, especialmente quando estamos perante a psicomotricidade com enfâse na qualidade da relação. Neste trabalho temos como objetivo conhecer a ocorrência não-verbal, toque e sua tipologia, a partir de Watson (1975), operada nos braços de uma criança, com paralisia cerebral (hemiparesia direita), pelo psicomotricista durante a sua intervenção. Esta análise consiste num estudo de caso realizado através da visualização sistemática e sistematizada de um vídeo durante uma sessão, na qual o psicomotricista interage com a criança com fins terapêuticos. A recolha de dados foi feita por vídeo-gravação e transcritos, verbalmente, para o papel e analisados e categorizados, posteriormente. Os resultados obtidos levaram-nos a concluir que o psicomotricista utilizou todos os aspetos não-verbais relacionados com o toque nos braços. A maioria destes toques foi do tipo Instrumental/Afetivo. Emergiram dados os quais se revelaram pertinentes como contributos para a melhoria da qualidade da intervenção, quando conhecidos e utilizados, adaptadamente, pelo psicomotricista.Abstract: The object of psychomotricity is the study of the body and its relationships with the outside world. Within a certain environmental context, the body is one of the central vehicles in the transmission of messages. The psychomotricity therapist's knowledge about the use and identification of non-verbal aspects is the key to improve the efficiency of the intervention, especially when we face psychomotricity with emphasis on the quality of the relationship . The aim of this work is to reckon the non-verbal happening of touch and its typology, according to Watson(1975), operated by the psychomotricist on the arms of a child with cerebral palsy,(right hemiparesis) during his/her intervention. This analysis consists of a case study based on the systematic and systematized viewing of a video made during one session, in which the therapist interacts with the child for therapeutic purposes. The collection of data was made through vídeo recording and verbally set down transcrptions for later analysis and categorization. The results obtained let us conclude that the psychomotricity therapist used all the non-verbal aspects related to arm touching . Most of these touches were of the instrumental/affective kind. Data have emerged that were considered relevant as contributing to improve the quality of the intervention if they are known and aproppriately used by the psychomotricity therapist.

O corpo e seus textos : o estetico, o politico e o pedagogico na dança

Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Faculdade de Educação Física