The sensitivity of receptor cells places a fundamental limit upon the sensitivity of sensory systems. For example, the signal-to-noise ratio of sensory receptors has been suggested to limit absolute thresholds in the visual and auditory systems. However, the necessity of optimally processing sensory receptor signals for behaviour to approach this limit has received less attention. We investigat...

objectives:the purpose of this study was to investigate of effects of sensory integration therapy (sit) on social interaction and sensory and motor performance in children with autism spectrum disorders (asd). methods:24 children with asd (22 boys, 2 girls), aged 6-12 years that matched on iq and gender, were randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. we requested participants of th...

Speed/accuracy trade-off is a ubiquitous phenomenon in motor behaviour, which has been ascribed to the presence of signal-dependent noise (SDN) in motor commands. Although this explanation can provide a quantitative account of many aspects of motor variability, including Fitts' law, the fact that this law is frequently violated, e.g. during the acquisition of new motor skills, remains unexplain...

Organisms continuously detect and process physical and chemical signals from their external and internal world, and they monitor their interaction with the environment. Aristotle was the first who defined the five external senses in humans: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In addition, we consider balance as the sixth external sense. Similarly important for the control of movement is th...

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) hypothesis testing based on the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast mechanism typically involves a search for a positive effect during a specific task relative to a control state. However, aside from positive BOLD signal changes there is converging evidence that neuronal responses within various cortical areas also induce negative BOLD ...

Successful perception depends on combining sensory input with prior knowledge. However, the underlying mechanism by which these two sources of information are combined is unknown. In speech perception, as in other domains, two functionally distinct coding schemes have been proposed for how expectations influence representation of sensory evidence. Traditional models suggest that expected featur...

Animals actively influence the content and quality of sensory information they acquire through the positioning of peripheral sensory surfaces. Investigation of how the body and brain work together for sensory acquisition is hindered by 1) the limited number of techniques for tracking sensory surfaces, few of which provide data on the position of the entire body surface, and by 2) our inability ...