Naïve theories of behavior hold that actions are caused by an agent's intentions, and the subsequent success of an action is measured by the satisfaction of those intentions. However, when an action is not as successful as intended, the expected causal link between intention and action may distort perception of the action itself. Four studies found evidence of an intention bias in perceptions o...

Observing hand postures interacts with the preparation of similar actions. This may be due to motor encoding of the observed displays and/or to enhanced visual processing induced by motor planning. We studied the effects of the observer's perspective on motor representation, using a visuomotor priming task with simple responses. Participants were asked to grasp a bar in horizontal or vertical o...

this study examined the effect of the zpd-based discourse scaffolding on efl learners' co-construction of l2 metadiscourse performing collaborative writing tasks and explored the discourse scaffolding dynamics. the participants were 160 efl students that were assigned to four different treatment conditions: (i) formal teaching, (ii) input enhancement, (iii) non-zpd interaction, and (iv) zpd-bas...

We introduce a transformation which allows the fermionization of operators of any onedimensional spin-chain. This fermionization procedure is independent of any eventual integrable structure and is compatible with it. We illustrate this method on various integrable and non-integrable chains, and deduce some general results. In particular, we fermionize XXC spin-chains and study their symmetries...

Learning to read requires the acquisition of an efficient visual procedure for quickly recognizing fine print. Thus, reading practice could induce a perceptual learning effect in early vision. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in literate and illiterate adults, we previously demonstrated an impact of reading acquisition on both high- and low-level occipitotemporal visual areas,...

Despite the prominence of emotional dysfunction in psychopathology, relatively few experiments have explicitly studied emotion regulation in adults. The present study examined one type of emotion regulation: voluntary regulation of short-term emotional responses to unpleasant visual stimuli. In a sample of 48 college students, both eyeblink startle magnitude and corrugator activity were sensiti...

Emotional perception has been extensively studied, but only a few studies have investigated the brain activity preceding exposure to emotional stimuli, especially when they are triggered by the subject himself. Here, we sought to investigate the emotional expectancy by means of movement related cortical potentials (MRCPs) in a self-paced task, in which the subjects begin the affective experienc...

Memory tends to be better for emotionally arousing information than for neutral information. Evidence from animal studies indicates that corticosteroids may be necessary for this memory enhancement to occur. We extend these findings to human memory performance. Following administration of cortisol (20 mg) or placebo, participants were exposed to pictures varying in emotional arousal. Incidental...

Emotionally charged materials have been found to elicit higher levels of recall in many studies. However, the use of slow presentations and/or uncontrolled retention intervals may have allowed subjects to rehearse emotional materials preferentially. The authors presented a series of 5 pictures (1 emotionally charged) at a rate of 4 pictures per second, precluding selective rehearsal. In Experim...

Two models of the interaction between scene meaning and object identification were tested: the description enhancement model and the criterion modulation model. The former proposes that the early activation of a scene schema facilitates the initial perceptual analysis of schema-consistent objects, the latter that schema activation modulates the amount of information necessary to indicate the pr...