School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

About: School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences is a facility organization based out in Villejuif, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Context (language use). The organization has 1230 authors who have published 2084 publications receiving 57740 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales & EHESS.

Optical Brain Imaging Reveals General Auditory and Language-Specific Processing in Early Infant Development

Abstract: This study uses near-infrared spectroscopy in young infants in order to elucidate the nature of functional cerebral processing for speech. Previous imaging studies of infants’ speech perception revealed left-lateralized responses to native language. However, it is unclear if these activations were due to language per se rather than to some low-level acoustic correlate of spoken language. Here we compare native (L1) and non-native (L2) languages with 3 different nonspeech conditions including emotional voices, monkey calls, and phase scrambled sounds that provide more stringent controls. Hemodynamic responses to these stimuli were measured in the temporal areas of Japanese 4 month-olds. The results show clear left-lateralized responses to speech, prominently to L1, as opposed to various activation patterns in the nonspeech conditions. Furthermore, implementing a new analysis method designed for infants, we discovered a slower hemodynamic time course in awake infants. Our results are largely explained by signal-driven auditory processing. However, stronger activations to L1 than to L2 indicate a language-specific neural factor that modulates these responses. This study is the first to discover a significantly higher sensitivity to L1 in 4 month-olds and reveals a neural precursor of the functional specialization for the higher cognitive network.

Elliptic Eigenvalue Problems with Large Drift and Applications to Nonlinear Propagation Phenomena

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the asymptotic behaviour of the principal eigenvalue of some linear elliptic equations in the limit of high first-order coefficients. Roughly speaking, one of the main results says that the principal eigenvalue, with Dirichlet boundary conditions, is bounded as the amplitude of the coefficients of the first-order derivatives goes to infinity if and only if the associated dynamical system has a first integral, and the limiting eigenvalue is then determined through the minimization of the Dirichlet functional over all first integrals. A parabolic version of these results, as well as other results for more general equations, are given. Some of the main consequences concern the influence of high advection or drift on the speed of propagation of pulsating travelling fronts.

Motion and Form Coherence Detection in Autistic Spectrum Disorder: Relationship to Motor Control and 2:4 Digit Ratio

Abstract: Children with autistic spectrum disorder and controls performed tasks of coherent motion and form detection, and motor control. Additionally, the ratio of the 2nd and 4th digits of these children, which is thought to be an indicator of foetal testosterone, was measured. Children in the experimental group were impaired at tasks of motor control, and had lower 2D:4D than controls. There were no group differences in motion or form detection. However a sub-group of children with autism were selectively impaired at motion detection. There were significant relationships between motion coherence detection and motor control in both groups of children, and also between motion detection, fine motor control and 2D:4D in the group of children with autistic spectrum disorder.

Pragmatism and the Capability Approach Challenges in Social Theory and Empirical Research

Abstract: This article asks about the conditions of a sociological operationalization of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Raising the question of freedom and social opportunities, the capability approach has so far mainly been discussed by economists and philosophers. In order to adopt this approach for a sociological and pragmatist perspective, it engages with methodological and theoretical issues. Whereas capabilities have until now mainly been studied within quantitative frameworks, the author opts for a qualitative method of inquiry that draws on a pragmatist and configurational approach. Such a shift towards qualitative inquiry is a key condition for a better sociological understanding of notions like freedom and opportunities that stand at the core of the capability approach.

What Do Mirror Neurons Contribute to Human Social Cognition

Abstract: According to an infl uential view, one function of mirror neurons (MNs), fi rst discovered in the brain of monkeys, is to underlie third-person mindreading. This view relies on two assumptions: the activity of MNs in an observer ' s brain matches (simulates or resonates with) that of MNs in an agent ' s brain and this resonance process retrodictively generates a representation of the agent ' s intention from a perception of her movement. In this paper, I criticize both assumptions and I argue instead that the activity of MNs in an observer ' s brain is enhanced by a prior representation of the agent ' s intention and that their task is to predictively compute the best motor command suitable to satisfy the agent ' s intention.