Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

How to Do Things With Words

The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory

The theory of affordances

人教版高中英语新课程教材中,语言运用（Using Language）是每个单元必不可少的部分,提供了围绕单元中心话题的听、说、读、写的综合性练习,是单元中心话题的延续和升华.如何设计Using Language部分的教学,使自己的教学模式既不落俗套,又能真正体现新课程标准所倡导的教学理念,正是广大一线英语教师一直努力探索的问题.

打磨Using Language,倡导新理念

Mechanisms of Hebbian‐like plasticity in the ventral premotor – primary motor network

Motor overload: GABAergic index of parallel buffer costs.

The ability of “looking into the future” – namely, the capacity of anticipating future states of the environment or of the body – represents a fundamental function of human (and animal) brains. A goalkeeper who tries to guess the ball’s direction; a chess player who attempts to anticipate the opponent’s next move; or a man-in-love who tries to calculate what are the chances of her saying yes – in all these cases, people are simulating possible future states of the world, in order to maximize the success of their decisions or actions. Research in neuroscience is showing that our ability to predict the behaviour of physical or social phenomena is largely dependent on the brain’s ability to integrate current and past information to generate (probabilistic) simulations of the future. But could predictive processing be augmented using advanced technologies? In this contribution, we discuss how computational technologies may be used to support, facilitate or enhance the prediction of future events, by considering exemplificative scenarios across different domains, from simpler sensorimotor decisions to more complex cognitive tasks. We also examine the key scientific and technical challenges that must be faced to turn this vision into reality.

Predictive Technologies: Can Smart Tools Augment the Brain's Predictive Abilities?

Role of sensorimotor areas in early detection of motor errors: An EEG and TMS study.

During a conversation, neural processing of speech production and speech perception in both speakers temporally overlap and is continuously modulated in real time, based on conversation dynamics, context, expectations, and quality of the interaction. Recently, a growing interest in the neural dynamics underlying interactive tasks, in particular in the language domain, has mainly tackled the temporal aspects of turn-taking in dialogues. Beside temporal coordination, an under-investigated phenomenon is the neural correlate of implicit convergence towards a shared phonetic space. Here, we used dual electroencephalography (dual-EEG) to record brain signals from subjects involved in a relatively constrained interactive task where they were asked to take turns in chaining words according to a phonetic rhyming rule. We quantified participants' initial phonetic fingerprints and tracked their convergence during the interaction via a robust and automatic speaker verification technique. Results show that phonetic convergence is characterized by a left anterior alpha/low-beta desynchronization in the speech motor preparation phase and by high beta suppression before and during listening to speech in right central and left frontal sectors, respectively. With this work, we provide evidence that during turn-taking verbal interaction, alpha and beta oscillatory dynamics are linked to the coordination of the " how " rather than the " when " interaction takes place. We suggest therefore that speech-based interaction, besides affecting the temporal pattern of turn-taking, leads to a critical change in speech phonetic targets. These changes in how we generate the speech output, are reflected in specific preparatory neural markers demonstrating that during a conversation, speech perception and production are highly interdependent and co-constructed by participants.

/pdf/the-neural-oscillatory-markers-of-phonetic-convergence-4c7zoth1wc.pdf

Alessandro D'Ausilio

Papers

Mechanisms of Hebbian‐like plasticity in the ventral premotor – primary motor network

Motor overload: GABAergic index of parallel buffer costs.

Predictive Technologies: Can Smart Tools Augment the Brain's Predictive Abilities?

Role of sensorimotor areas in early detection of motor errors: An EEG and TMS study.

The neural oscillatory markers of phonetic convergence during verbal interaction