Research investigating risk perception suggests that not only the quantitative parameters used in technical risk assessment (i.e., frequency and severity of harm) but also "qualitative" aspects such as the dread a hazard provokes or its controllability influence risk judgments. It remains to be elucidated, however, which neural mechanism underlie…

It is generally well known that linguistic perseveration is a common symptom in individuals with brain damage and that its manifestation may be at the phonological, syntactic and/or semantic levels. The influence of perseveratory behavior on a subject's response to test stimuli and in therapeutic process has triggered the interests of the speech…

I advance the hypothesis that the earliest phases of language acquisition--the developmental transition from an initial universal state of language processing to one that is language-specific--requires social interaction. Relating human language learning to a broader set of neurobiological cases of communicative development, I argue that the…

Early experience preserves and refines many capabilities that emerge prenatally. Here we describe another role that it plays--establishing the neural substrate for capabilities that emerge at a much later point in development. The evidence comes from sleeper effects: permanent deficits when early experience was absent in capabilities that normally…

In the adult human brain, the presence of a system matching the observation and the execution of actions is well established. This mechanism is thought to rely primarily on the contribution of so-called "mirror neurons", cells that are active when a specific gesture is executed as well as when it is seen or heard. Despite the wealth of evidence…

It has been proposed that specific language impairment (SLI) is the consequence of low-level abnormalities in auditory perception. However, studies of long-latency auditory ERPs in children with SLI have generated inconsistent findings. A possible reason for this inconsistency is the heterogeneity of SLI. The intraclass correlation (ICC) has been…

We measured long-term memory for a narrative film. During the study session, participants watched a 27-min movie episode, without instructions to remember it. During the test session, administered at a delay ranging from 3 h to 9 mo after the study session, long-term memory for the movie was probed using a computerized questionnaire that assessed…

Spatially lateralised deficits that typically define the hemispatial neglect syndrome have been shown to co-occur with other non-lateralised deficits of attention, memory, and drawing. However even a simple graphic task involves multiple planning components, including the specification of drawing start position and drawing direction. In order to…

The function of suppression of context-inappropriate meanings during lexical ambiguity resolution was examined in 25 adults with prefrontal cortex damage (PFCD) localized to the left (N = 8), right (N = 6), or bilaterally (N = 11); and 21 matched Controls. Results revealed unexpected inverse patterns of suppression between PFCD and Control groups,…

This article describes a dynamic, short-term art therapy approach that has been developed for the treatment of trauma related disorders. Using a modified Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) protocol with alternating tactile and auditory bilateral stimulation, associations are rapidly brought to conscious awareness and expressed in…

As a result of their disease, its treatment, and late effects, children treated for brain tumors are at risk for developing problems in social functioning in terms of social competence and peer acceptance, poor social skills, and social isolation. Despite research suggesting the effectiveness of social skills training interventions in improving…

Although many articles have addressed the relationship of neuroscience and education at a theoretical level, none has considered as a practical matter how one integrates neuroscientific data into a behavioral theory that uses hypothetical constructs. We describe 4 techniques by which researchers may do so: (a) direct observation of hypothetical…

This "Monograph" reports theoretically relevant behavioral, biological, and self-report assessments of a sample of 14-17-year-olds who had been classified into one of four temperamental groups at 4 months of age. The infant temperamental categories were based on observed behavior to a battery of unfamiliar stimuli. The infants classified as high…

The nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM) is known to be involved in the memorization of several conditioned responses. To investigate the role of the NBM in fear conditioning memorization, this neural site was subjected to fully reversible tetrodotoxin (TTX) inactivation during consolidation in adult male Wistar rats that had undergone fear…

Prolonged visual deprivation from early childhood to maturity is believed to cause permanent visual impairment. However, there have been case reports of substantial improvement of binocular vision in human adults following lifelong visual impairment or deprivation. These observations, together with recent findings of adult ocular dominance…