Francisco Ceric

Gesture and Metaphor Comprehension: Electrophysiological Evidence of Cross-Modal Coordination by Audiovisual Stimulation.

In recent years, studies have suggested that gestures influence comprehension of linguistic expressions, for example, eliciting an N400 component in response to a speech/gesture mismatch. In this paper, we investigate the role of gestural information in the understanding of metaphors. Event related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants viewed video clips of an actor uttering metaphorical expressions and producing bodily gestures that were congruent or incongruent with the metaphorical meaning of such expressions. This modality of stimuli presentation allows a more ecological approach to meaning integration. When ERPs were calculated using gesture stroke as time-lock event, gesture incongruity with metaphorical expression modulated the amplitude of the N400 and of the late positive complex (LPC). This suggests that gestural and speech information are combined online to make sense of the interlocutors linguistic production in an early stage of metaphor comprehension. Our data favor the idea that meaning construction is globally integrative and highly context-sensitive.

Elucidating the Relationship Between Negative Affectivity and Symptoms: The Role of Illness-Specific Affective Responses

Background: More than 20 years of research confirm a positive association of trait negative affect (NA) with reports of physical symptoms. As the mechanisms underlying the association of trait NA and symptom reporting have not been identified, the meaning of the association remains unclear.Purpose: We attempted to clarify the processes underlying this association by examining the relationship of trait NA and illness-specific worry to both vague, general symptoms and illness-specific symptoms. We tested the hypothesis that trait NA has both a “biasing-effect when ambiguous symptoms are interpreted as a sign of physical illness and an “accuracy-effect on the reports of illness-specific symptoms mediated by illness-specific worry.Method: We examined the relationship of trait and state NA to symptoms reports in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from inner-city adults with moderate and severe asthma.Results: Whereas high levels of trait NA were associated with reports of both asthma and nonasthma symptoms, only the relationship of trait NA to symptoms specific to asthma was mediated by asthma worry. In addition, these data showed that trait NA was not associated with the misattribution of symptoms to disease.Conclusions: We concluded that NA motivates individuals, through asthma worry, to be more aware of illness-specific symptoms and correctly report and attribute these symptoms to asthma.

Scanning electron and light microscopy study of the cervical mucus in women with polycystic ovary syndrome

Two types of cervical mucus are recognized, oestrogenic and gestagenic. These are constituted by different subtypes, and their characteristics change depending on variations in the hormonal levels and on the existence of several pathologies. Our aim was to identify the ultrastructure and crystallization characteristics of the cervical mucus in women suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome, and to compare these characteristics with those of normal control women. Cervical mucus samples were taken from 10 women, 4 control group women (with normal ovulatory menstrual cycles) and 6 suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome (2 with ovulatory and 4 with anovulatory cycles). This mucus was characterized according to its ultrastructure and crystallization. The type of mucus obtained was related to the levels of oestradiol and progesterone present when the samples were taken. As regards mucus ultrastructure, differences were found between the control women and those with polycystic ovary syndrome and anovulatory menstrual cycles. Such variations were evident in the type of mesh and the average diameter of the mucus pores. Mucus crystallization in control women showed the usual oestrogenic disposition: fern-like (L, P2), rectilinear (S) or a hexagonal structure (P6). On the other hand, in women with polycystic ovary syndrome, indefinite mucus crystallizations were found, as well as crystallization patches resembling oestrogenic and gestagenic-like mucus. This study shows that the ultrastructure and crystallization characteristics of the cervical mucus in polycystic ovary syndrome women are different from those of control women. The latter would be dependent on their levels of oestradiol and progesterone.

ADHD children outperform normal children in an artificial grammar implicit learning task: ERP and RT evidence

This study focuses on Implicit learning (IL) in children. One of the main debates in this field concerns the occurrence of IL indicators in experimental settings and its manifestation in different populations. In this research, we are looking for evidence of the occurrence of IL in normal children and in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), based on the relationship between accuracy, reaction time and event-related potentials (ERPs). Our results show differences between the analyzed groups with respect to markers for electrophysiological activity and reaction time, but not for accuracy. In consequence, we suggest that research in IL should explore different indicators and their relationship with the cognitive processing levels involved. In addition, IL might involve different forms of information processing in normal children and children with ADHD. We discuss the possible impact of these findings for future research.

Performance Errors of in Group/ Out Group Stimuli and Valence Association in the Implicit Association Test: Brain Bias of Ingroup Favoritism

The goal of this study is to assess the role of membership and valence effects on errors performed in a racial implicit association test indexed by event-related potentials (ERPs). Non-indigenous participants performed an implicit association test (IAT) paradigm emphasizing the feedback of error due to misclassification of ingroup (non-indigenous) and outgroup (indigenous) faces as well as positive and negative words. As expected, participants responded to the com- patible task with higher accuracy than to incompatible tasks. This is the first report demonstrating that IAT errors produce electrophysiological ERP modulation. Our results suggest that medial frontal negativity is modulated not only by IAT er- ror of membership and valence classifications but also by IAT compatible and incompatible tasks. These results provide a basis for the future use of the misclassification error in the IAT recorded simultaneously with ERPs in other classic social psychology contexts.

Ruta rápida versus ruta lenta: evidencias electrofisiológicas y conductuales de las vías del procesamiento emocional

Resumen Las investigaciones en el área del procesamiento neurocognitivo di las emociones, indican la posibilidad di dos vías segregadas a nivel cerebral. Estas corresponderían a una vía lenta (sensorio-talámica-cortical) y una vía rápida (sensorial- tálamo-límbica). En esta última el rol de la amígdala sería predominante. Esta investigación busca evaluar cómo influye el contexto emocional en el procesamiento de estímulos emocionales; específicamente, prueba cómo interactúan estas vías de procesamiento paralelo, mediante técnicas electrofisiológicas y de registro conductual, en una tarea de reconocimiento de incongruencias. Los resultados nos permiten apoyar la hipótesis de vías segregadas que se influyen mutuamente para la elaboración de una respuesta contextuada. Concluimos que, respecto a emociones, estas guían la toma de decisiones y se asocian con eventos externos. Dada una situación, se produce una respuesta corpórea determinada que contribuye a la evaluación de una situación; además, son parte del proceso cognitivo y constituyen el sustrato fisiológico de los sentimientos.