Andrea Peru

Poor Readers but Compelled to Read: Stroop Effects in Developmental Dyslexia

We studied a group of 24 children with dyslexia in second to fifth primary school grades by using a discrete-trial computerized version of the Stroop Color-Word Test. Since the classic Stroop effect depends on the interference of reading with color naming, one would expect these children to show no interference or, at least, less interference than normal readers. Children with dyslexia showed, however, a Stroop effect larger than normal readers of the same age. This suggests that reading, although difficult and slow, is an inescapable step that precedes naming both in poor and in normal readers.

When supine is better than upright: evidence from postural effects in extinction patients.

There is no clear consensus on the specific effects of gravitational inputs on the manifestations of neglect and extinction. While some studies provided evidence that neglect patients improved their performance in supine position, other studies supported instead the notion that the manipulation of body posture has no effect on neglect and extinction. To investigate the effects of the postural manipulation of the entire body in space on visual extinction, a total of 24 right- and left-brain-damaged patients (with or without signs of visual extinction) and 8 healthy control subjects were tested in a visual detection task in two different gravitational conditions: upright and supine. Two dependent variables were considered: accuracy and speed of response. The results were clear-cut. Changing body posture had only a mild effect on the performance of healthy controls and non-extinction patients, but it clearly modulated the performance of extinction patients. In fact, extinction patients markedly improved their performance on contralesional stimuli in supine position in terms of both accuracy and speed of response. This suggests that the reduction of gravitational inputs obtained by placing patients in supine position results in a significant amelioration of visual extinction.

Evidence from full-inclusion model: the social position and sense of belonging of students with special educational needs and their peers in Italian primary school

Almost uniquely, a full inclusion model spanning all educational levels has been present in the Italian school for more than 30 years. However, the availability of empirical data is still very limited, meaning that we know little about the social and academic outcomes of students with special educational needs (SEN). This study attempts to bridge the gap. The social position and inherent sense of belonging of 418 (122 SEN) primary school pupils, aged 8–11, was analysed using The social inclusion survey and The belonging scale. Within the group of typically developing students, the findings demonstrate that it pays to be proficient. Indeed, the higher the proficiency, the higher the peer acceptance and the sense of belonging to their own school. Within the group of SEN students, the results support the idea that they struggle to gain a good social position, are less accepted and more peripheral within the class and feel quite distant from their school. These findings are strongly consistent with data from countries following a significantly different approach towards inclusion, thus suggesting that the full inclusion of SEN students into ordinary schools is not sufficient, per se, to increase their social abilities.

Local (focussed) and global (distributed) visual processing in hemispatial neglect

In the present study we set out to investigate deficits of focussed and distributed attention (and their interaction) in brain-damaged patients. To this purpose, four left brain damaged (LBD) patients without signs of hemispatial neglect and six right brain damaged (RBD) patients with variable signs of hemispatial neglect were tested by means of an experimental paradigm comprising two embedded tasks performed on the same visual array. The first task (i.e. counting the number of shapes, 1–4, briefly displayed) mainly involved distributed attention rather than focussed attention. The second task was a typical target detection task, which emphasized the detailed analysis of each element in the array, thus mainly tapping focussed attention. Results clearly showed that: (1) LBD patients are slightly impaired at directing focussed attention to the contralesional visual hemifield; (2) in comparison to LBD patients, RBD patients with mild neglect show an exaggerated difficulty in orienting focussed attention toward the contralesional side, while they are similarly unimpaired in the deployment of distributed attention, i.e. in global processing; (3) RBD patients with the most severe neglect suffer from a deficit of both local and global visual processing, i.e. of both focussed and distributed attention. Taken together, these observations indicate that focussed and distributed components of visual attentional processing may be differentially affected in left and right brain-damaged patients with and without neglect.

To know what it is for, but not how it is: Semantic dissociations in a case of visual agnosia

We report the case of a woman who displayed impaired object recognition following a severe head injury. Her elementary visual functions were substantially preserved, allowing her a coherent percept. On the other hand, she was impaired in accessing stored knowledge from both visual and verbal input. In particular, she showed a dramatic dissociation between fully preserved access to functional knowledge, and severely impaired access to perceptual knowledge so that she could describe what objects are for, but not how they are. Our findings from this case suggest that different categories of object knowledge are represented independently in separate units within the semantic system.

Towards a Dynamic Assessment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect

RESEARCH ARTICLE Towards a Dynamic Assessment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect Andrea Peru, Alice Bollini, Sergio Costanzo, Monica Dainelli, Lea Landucci, Daniele Pezzatini, Alberto Del Bimbo and Maria Pia Viggiano Department of Neurosciences, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Health University of Firenze, Florence, Italy Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences University of Verona, Verona, Italy Presidio di Riabilitazione Intensiva Montedomini (PRIM) ASP Montedomini, Firenze, Italy MICC Media Integration and Communication Center University of Firenze, Florence, Italy

Inhibition of return at foveal and extrafoveal locations: re-assessing the evidence.

Inhibition of return (IOR) has been described as a hallmark of externally controlled orienting of attention using extrafoveal cues and targets. This paper describes an IOR like inhibition of reaction time for the detection of targets at the fovea that cannot be explained by shift of covert attention. This foveal RT inhibition adds to the evidence that challenges the view of IOR-like phenomena as obligatory expressions of orienting and attentional control.

Audio-visual integration effect in lateral occipital cortex during an object recognition task: An interference pilot study.

BACKGROUND Recent neuroimaging data support the hypothesis of a multisensory interplay at low-level sensory-specific cortex. OBJECTIVE We used an on-line interference approach by rTMS to investigate the role of the left lateral occipital cortex (LOC) in audio-visual (AV) object recognition process. METHODS Fifteen healthy volunteers performed a visual identification task of degraded pictures presented alone or simultaneously to coherent or non-coherent sounds. Focal 10-Hz rTMS at an intensity of 100% resting motor threshold was delivered simultaneously to the picture. Two blocks of 60 pictures were randomly displayed in two different experimental conditions: rTMS of the left LOC and over Cz. RESULTS rTMS of the left LOC produced a worsening of the accuracy compared to rTMS over Cz specifically in the coherent AV condition. CONCLUSION These data support the view that audio-visual interaction effect may occur at early stage of recognition processing.