Rightward Movement Research Articles

Oculomotor control after hemidecortication: A single hemisphere encodes corollary discharges for bilateral saccades

Patients who have had a cerebral hemisphere surgically removed as adults can generate accurate leftward and rightward saccadic eye movements, a task classically thought to require two hemispheres each controlling contralateral saccades. Here, we asked whether one hemisphere can generate sequences of saccades, the success of which requires the use of corollary discharges. Using a double-step saccade paradigm, we tested two hemidecorticate subjects who, by definition, are contralesionally hemianopic. In experiment 1, two targets, T1 and T2, were flashed in their seeing hemifield and subjects had to look in the dark to T1, then T2. In experiment 2, only one target was flashed; before looking at it, the subject had first to saccade voluntarily elsewhere. Both subjects were able to complete the tasks, independent of first and second saccade direction and whether the saccades were voluntarily or visually triggered. Both subjects displayed a strategy, typical in hemianopia, of making multiple-step saccades and placing, at overall movement-end, the recalled locations of T1 and T2 on off-foveal locations in their seeing hemifield, in a retinal area typically spanning a 5–15° window, depending on the subject, trial type and target eccentricity. In summary, a single hemisphere monitored the amplitude and direction of the first multiple-step saccade sequence bilaterally, and combined this information with the recalled initial retinotopic location of T2 (no longer visible) to generate a correct target-directed second saccade sequence in the dark. Unexpectedly, our hemidecorticate subjects performed better on the double-step task than subjects with isolated unilateral parietal lesions, reported in the literature to have marked deficiencies in monitoring contralesional saccadic eye movements. Thus, plasticity-dependent mechanisms that lead to recovery of function after hemidecortication are different than those deployed after smaller lesions. This implies a reconsideration of the classical links between behavioural deficits and discrete cortical lesions.

Microphysical and Dynamical Characteristics of Low-Precipitation and Classic Supercells

Abstract The sensitivity of supercell morphology to the vertical distribution of moisture is investigated in this study using a cloud-resolving model with 300-m horizontal grid spacing. Simulated storms are found to transition from classic (CL) to low-precipitation (LP) supercells when the strength of elevated dry layers in the environmental moisture profile is increased. Resulting differences in the microphysical and dynamical characteristics of the CL and LPs are analyzed. The LPs produce approximately half of the accumulated surface precipitation as the CL supercell. The precipitating area in the LPs is spatially smaller and overall less intense, especially in the rear-flank downdraft region. The LPs have smaller deviant rightward storm motion compared to the CL supercell, and updrafts are narrower and more tilted, in agreement with observations. Lower relative humidities within the dry layers enhance evaporation and erode the upshear cloud edge in the LPs. This combination favors a downshear distribution of hydrometeors. As a result, hail grows preferentially along the northeastern side of the updraft in the LPs as hail embryos are advected cyclonically around the mesocyclone, whereas the primary midlevel hail growth mechanism in the CL supercell follows the classic Browning and Foote model. The differing dominant hail growth mechanisms can explain the variations in surface precipitation distribution between CLs and LPs. While large changes in the microphysical structure are seen, similarities in the structure and strength of the updraft and vorticity indicate that LP and CL supercells are not dynamically distinct storm types.

Eliminating Rightward Movement: Extraposition as Flexible Linearization of Adjuncts

We propose an account of adjunct extraposition that does not invoke rightward movement. Instead, the noncanonical placement of adjuncts at the right edge of a sentence arises from the very same mechanisms that allow adjuncts to behave flexibly with respect to basic constituency tests and to avoid reconstruction. The system we propose naturally explains the locality restrictions on extraposition and certain interactions between extraposition and movement, and dovetails with an analysis of how adjuncts semantically compose with their hosts.

Listening to music primes space: pianists, but not novices, simulate heard actions

Musicians sometimes report twitching in their fingers or hands while listening to music. This anecdote could be indicative of a tendency for auditory-motor co-representation in musicians. Here, we describe two studies showing that pianists (Experiment 1), but not novices (Experiment 2) automatically generate spatial representations that correspond to learned musical actions while listening to music. Participants made one-handed movements to the left or right from a central location in response to visual stimuli while listening to task-irrelevant auditory stimuli, which were scales played on a piano. These task-irrelevant scales were either ascending (compatible with rightward movements) or descending (compatible with leftward movements). Pianists were faster to respond when the scale direction was compatible with the direction of response movement, whereas novices' movements were unaffected by the scale. These results are in agreement with existing research on action-effect coupling in musicians, which draw heavily on common coding theory. In addition, these results show how intricate auditory stimuli (ascending or descending scales) evoke coarse, domain-general spatial representations.

Direction detection thresholds of passive self-motion in artistic gymnasts

In this study, we compared direction detection thresholds of passive self-motion in the dark between artistic gymnasts and controls. Twenty-four professional female artistic gymnasts (ranging from 7 to 20 years) and age-matched controls were seated on a motion platform and asked to discriminate the direction of angular (yaw, pitch, roll) and linear (leftward-rightward) motion. Gymnasts showed lower thresholds for the linear leftward-rightward motion. Interestingly, there was no difference for the angular motions. These results show that the outstanding self-motion abilities in artistic gymnasts are not related to an overall higher sensitivity in self-motion perception. With respect to vestibular processing, our results suggest that gymnastic expertise is exclusively linked to superior interpretation of otolith signals when no change in canal signals is present. In addition, thresholds were overall lower for the older (14-20 years) than for the younger (7-13 years) participants, indicating the maturation of vestibular sensitivity from childhood to adolescence.

Foundational roles for action representations: Comment on “Action semantics: A unifying conceptual framework for the selective use of multimodal and modality-specific object knowledge” by van Elk, van Schie, and Bekkering

Embodiment of conceptual knowledge is one of the most influential ideas to sweep the landscape of cognitive psychology in recent decades [1,2] and as the review by van Elk, van Schie, and Bekkering [6] makes clear, it has deeply affected related subfields as well. We have substantial evidence to support the proposal that sensory and motor representations can affect perceptual and cognitive experiences and that these representations are likely to be integrated in some way with conceptual knowledge. The hard work of distinguishing the functional and epiphenomenal contributions that sensorimotor representations make to processes such as object identification and language comprehension must now begin in earnest [3]. Toward that end, van Elk et al. have provided a framework for understanding some of the contextual influences that govern the involvement of action representations in conceptual processing. They suggested that this framework generates testable predictions regarding the distinction between multimodal and modality-specific representations and the hierarchical control of action. Genuine predictions are very hard to come by when working with frameworks rather than computational models, and what van Elk et al. deliver actually turns out to be suggestions for research questions that might be addressed rather than clear predictions about the results that experiments should produce. Such caution is wise because it is becoming clear that what might be seen as clear and straightforward predictions about the nature and function of action representations often fail when put to empirical test (see [4] for examples involving mental simulation and language comprehension). A striking case of failed expectations regarding action representations comes from a single-cell recording study of hand movements in monkeys [5]. Animals were trained to move their hand forward and to the right or left to contact an illuminated target. They did so while viewing a video image of their hand and the indicated target, rather than viewing the hand and target directly. Distinct populations of neurons in premotor cortex fired when the hand moved to the left versus the right. Rather than coding hand movements directly, however, these populations were actually coding a higher level action goal. This fact was cleverly revealed when the experimenters displayed on the monkey’s monitor not a literal image of their moving hand, but rather a mirror image. Thus, a rightward movement of the hand effected a leftward movement of the image of the hand on the monitor. To capture a target appearing on the left side of the monitor, therefore the monkey was required to make a physical movement of the hand to the right. Under

Quantifier Float, Focus, and Scope in Thai

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:Quantifier Raising (QR) has been independently claimed to possess similar proper-ties as Q(uantifier)-float. I argue elsewhere that Q-float and QR share these properties in Thai because Q-float is overt QR in Thai (Jenks 2011). Here I argue that Q-float is driven by focus on the floated quantifier, following Simpson (2011). This is unsurprising, as other rightward movement phenomena such as heavy-NP shift and subject inversion are associated with focus on the rightward element.

Stepping Experiment and Characteristics Analysis of a Novel Biaxial Piezoelectric Actuated Stage

In this research, our research team used the self-designed piezoelectric actuator to achieve the micro/nanometer level precise positioning biaxial piezoelectric actuated stage through the redesign of stage mechanism. A novel piezoelectric actuator structure - 4-9-9-14 piezoelectric actuator is constructed, and it is made of piezoelectric buzzer to drive the stage. The movement of the piezoelectric actuated stage is read and analyzed by means of NI PCI-6115 data acquisition card and LabVIEW software operating in conjunction with a linear encoder. The new consideration of tuning time Ton is used to place of traditional method of changing the magnitude of driving voltage to control the stepping distance of the stage. Under a constant driving voltage, the displacement of the stage increases with time Ton, and the displacement of the stage decreases with time Ton. The aforesaid phenomenon occurs to leftward or rightward movement of the upper stage and forward or backward movement of the lower stage. Given a constant time Ton, the displacement of the stage in motion decreases with the driving voltage, and the displacement of the stage in motion increases with the driving voltage.

On ellipsis structures involving a wh-remnant and a non-wh-remnant simultaneously

The goal of this work is to provide an account of the licensing of what we call Sluice-Stripping, an under-studied elliptical construction where a wh-phrase and a non-wh-phrase appear fragmentally. This construction, attested across Romance languages and beyond them, is apparently a combination of Sluicing (ellipsis with a wh-remnant) and Stripping (ellipsis with a non-wh-remnant). Through a detailed study of its properties, we propose that there are two distinct types of Sluice-Stripping, namely, (i.) Why-Stripping, where the wh-element is restricted to why, and the non-wh remnant is typically identical to its antecedent in the preceding clause; (ii.) Wh-Stripping, which involves a wh-remnant other than why and a non-wh-remnant which contrasts with its antecedent in the antecedent clause. We establish the following claims through a detailed study of the syntax of Spanish: (a) Why-Stripping involves a base-generated why and leftward movement of a focused non-wh-element followed by clausal ellipsis; (b) Wh-Stripping involves wh-movement followed by rightward movement of the focused non-wh-element and clausal ellipsis.

The Myth of the Bernheim Syndrome

The Bernheim syndrome has been a topic of discussion for over a century. It has been reported to be caused by severe rightward movement of the ventricular septum resulting in compression of the right ventricular cavity leading to right-sided heart failure without pulmonary congestion. Hemodynamic findings have been described in a few patients with the so-called Bernheim syndrome. We describe a patient in whom the ventricular septum dramatically decreased the size of the right ventricular cavity and yet peak systolic pressures in both the right ventricle and pulmonary trunk were identical. Thus, it is difficult to view the Bernheim syndrome as a real entity.

플랫폼 다이빙 앞으로 서서 앞으로 11/2회전 동작의 운동역학적 분석

This study was to perform the kinetic analysis of forward <TEX>$1\frac{1}{2}$</TEX> somersault on the platform diving. Six men's diving players of the Korea national reserve athletes participated in this study. The variables were analyzed response time, velocity, center of mass (COM), angle, center of pressure (COP) and ground reaction force (GRF) of motion. For measure and analysis of this study, used to synchronized to 4 camcorder and 1 force plate, used to the Kwon3D XP (Ver. 4.0, Visol, Korea) and Kwon GRF (Ver. 2.0, Visol, Korea) for analyzed of variables. The results were as follows; Time factor were observed in maximum knee flexion depending on the extent of use at phase 1 of take-off to execute the somersault. This enabled the subject to secure the highest possible body position in space at the moment of jumping to execute the somersault and prepare for the entry into the water with more ease. Regarding the displacement of COM, all subjects showed rightward movement in the lateral displacement during technical execution. Changes in forward and downward movements were observed in the horizontal and vertical displacements, respectively. In terms of angular shift, the shoulder joint angle tended to decrease on average, and the elbow joints showed gradually increasing angles. This finding can be explained by the shift of the coordinate points of body segments around the rotational axis in order to execute the half-bending movement that can be implemented by pulling the lower limb segments toward the trunk using the upper limb segments. The hip joint angles gradually decreased; this accelerated the rotational movement by narrowing the distance to the trunk. Movement-specific shifts in the COP occurred in the front of and vertical directions. Regarding the changes in GRF, which is influenced by the strong compressive load exerted by the supporting feet, efficient aerial movements were executed through a vertical jump, with no energy lost to the lateral GRF.

Stepping Experiment Analysis of a Biaxial Piezoelectric Actuated Stage

In this research, our research team used the self-designed piezoelectric actuator to achieve the micro/nanometer level precise positioning biaxial piezoelectric actuated stage through the redesign of stage mechanism. A novel piezoelectric actuator structure - 4-9-9-14 piezoelectric actuator is constructed, and it is made of piezoelectric buzzer to drive the stage. The movement of the piezoelectric actuated stage is read and analyzed by means of NI PCI-6115 data acquisition card and LabVIEW software operating in conjunction with a linear encoder. The new consideration of tuning time Tonis used to place of traditional method of changing the magnitude of driving voltage to control the stepping distance of the stage. Under a constant driving voltage, the displacement of the stage increases with time Ton, and the displacement of the stage decreases with time Ton. The aforesaid phenomenon occurs to leftward or rightward movement of the upper stage and forward or backward movement of the lower stage. Given a constant time Ton, the displacement of the stage in motion decreases with the driving voltage, and the displacement of the stage in motion increases with the driving voltage.

Mental representation of arm motion dynamics in children and adolescents.

Motor imagery, i.e., a mental state during which an individual internally represents an action without any overt motor output, is a potential tool to investigate action representation during development. Here, we took advantage of the inertial anisotropy phenomenon to investigate whether children can generate accurate motor predictions for movements with varying dynamics. Children (9 and 11 years), adolescents (14 years) and young adults (21 years) carried-out actual and mental arm movements in two different directions in the horizontal plane: rightwards (low inertia) and leftwards (high inertia). We recorded and compared actual and mental movement times. We found that actual movement times were greater for leftward than rightward arm movements in all groups. For mental movements, differences between leftward versus rightward movements were observed in the adults and adolescents, but not among the children. Furthermore, significant differences between actual and mental times were found at 9 and 11 years of age in the leftward direction. The ratio R/L (rightward direction/leftward direction), which indicates temporal differences between low inertia and high inertia movements, was inferior to 1 at all ages, except for the mental movements at 9 years of age, indicating than actual and mental movements were shorter for the rightward than leftward direction. Interestingly, while the ratio R/L of actual movements was constant across ages, it gradually decreased with age for mental movements. The ratio A/M (actual movement/mental movement), which indicates temporal differences between actual and mental movements, was near to 1 in the adults' groups, denoting accurate mental timing. In children and adolescents, an underestimation of mental movement times appeared for the leftward movements only. However, this overestimation gradually decreased with age. Our results showed a refinement in the motor imagery ability during development. Action representation reached maturation at adolescence, during which mental actions were tightly related to their actual production.

Extraposition of relative clauses: Phonological solutions

The paper investigates whether extraposition of relative clauses is phonologically conditioned. It examines extraposition in focus neutral sentences, in sentences with prosodically light constituents at the right periphery as well as in sentences with variable focus structure. Since these sentences induce different prosodic structures, it is expected that certain phonological constraints are violated by the canonical word order, which could be remedied by rightward movement. It will be shown that only phonological interface constraints, which are needed for an account of phonological phrasing, are responsible for extraposition. Violations of phonological well-formedness constraints are generally avoided by recursive prosodic structures and not by rightward movement.

Impact of planned movement direction on judgments of visual locations

The present study examined if and how the direction of planned hand movements affects the perceived direction of visual stimuli. In three experiments participants prepared hand movements that deviated regarding direction ("Experiment 1" and "2") or distance relative to a visual target position ("Experiment 3"). Before actual execution of the movement, the direction of the visual stimulus had to be estimated by means of a method of adjustment. The perception of stimulus direction was biased away from planned movement direction, such that with leftward movements stimuli appeared somewhat more rightward than with rightward movements. Control conditions revealed that this effect was neither a mere response bias, nor a result of processing or memorizing movement cues. Also, shifting the focus of attention toward a cued location in space was not sufficient to induce the perceptual bias observed under conditions of movement preparation ("Experiment 4"). These results confirm that characteristics of planned actions bias visual perception, with the direction of bias (contrast or assimilation) possibly depending on the type of the representations (categorical or metric) involved.

Biases in evaluation of neutral words due to motor compatibility effect

This study aims to demonstrate the effect of action fluency on emotional evaluation, specifically to show that neutral words can be evaluated positively or negatively depending on motor activity and evaluative setting. Right-handers naturally tend to associate positive (negative) valence to the right (left) part of space (Casasanto, 2009). We extend these associations to lateralized behaviors by studying the combined effect of motor fluency of lateral arm movements and the evaluative scale on the subjective evaluation of neutral words. Three experiments evidenced that, for right-handers, the realization of fluent rightward arm movements and the use of an evaluative scale congruent with their valence/laterality associations (left negative, right positive) led to a positive evaluation of neutral words, while non-fluent leftward movements and an incongruent scale led to a negative evaluation. This study demonstrates that emotion–action associations are experience-based, and influenced by functional and situational constraints.

The Syntax and Semantics of It-clefts

The main purpose of the article lies in proposing a novel structure for English it-clefts. I argue that Reeves(2010) ambiguity problem with respect to the antecedent of the cleft-clause does not arise, since according to the proposed structure the cleft-clause is originally generated in the adjunct position of the cleft-pronoun it, and then undergoes rightward movement at PF. With the proposed structure where no functional head Eq is postulated and the copula be is analyzed as an equative verb requiring two arguments I show that the semantics of it-clefts can be computed compositionally.

Movement planning and attentional control of visuospatial working memory: evidence from a grasp-to-place task

In this study, we have investigated the influence of available attentional resources on the dual-task costs of implementing a new action plan and the influence of movement planning on the transfer of information into visuospatial working memory. To approach these two questions, we have used a motor-memory dual-task design in which participants grasped a sphere and planned a placing movement toward a left or right target according to a directional arrow. Subsequently, they encoded a centrally presented memory stimulus (4×4 symbol matrix). While maintaining the information in working memory, a visual stay/change cue (presented on the left, center or right) either confirmed or reversed the planned movement direction. That is, participants had to execute either the prepared or the re-planned movement and finally reported the symbols at leisure. The results show that both, shifts of spatial attention required to process the incongruent stay/change cues and movement re-planning, constitute processing bottlenecks as they both reduced visuospatial working memory performance. Importantly, the spatial attention shifts and movement re-planning appeared to be independent of each other. Further, we found that the initial preparation of the placing movement influenced the report pattern of the central working memory stimulus. Preparing a leftward movement resulted in better memory performance for the left stimulus side, while the preparation of a rightward movement resulted in better memory performance for the right stimulus side. Hence, movement planning influenced the transfer of information into the capacity-limited working memory store. Therefore, our results suggest complex interactions in that the processes involved in movement planning, spatial attention and visuospatial working memory are functionally correlated but not linked in a mandatory fashion.

Multiple Sluicing in English?

AbstractSeveral cases have been discovered where syntactic violations seem to be “repaired” by sluicing. One such case is repair of island violations, first observed by Ross (1969). Another is situations in which a normally obligatory movement fails to apply and the derivation is seemingly salvaged by ellipsis. Another potential instance of repair by ellipsis involves cases where an element moves although it should not have, but the violation is seemingly ameliorated by sluicing. That type is the focus of this article. In particular, English does not generally allow multiple wh‐movement, but under some circumstances it seems to allow multiple sluicing. I explore the properties of this apparent multiple sluicing in English and argue instead for a rightward movement account of the second wh‐expression, especially based on “Right Roof” effects and on a constraint on P‐stranding.

Differences in evoked potentials during the active processing of sound location and motion

Difference in the processing of motion and static sounds in the human cortex was studied by electroencephalography with subjects performing an active discrimination task. Sound bursts were presented in the acoustic free-field between 47° to the left and 47° to the right under three different stimulus conditions: (i) static, (ii) leftward motion, and (iii) rightward motion. In an active oddball design, subject was asked to detect target stimuli which were randomly embedded within a stream of frequently occurring non-target events (i.e. ‘standards’) and rare non-target stimuli (i.e. ‘deviants’). The respective acoustic stimuli were presented in blocks with each stimulus type presented in either of three stimulus conditions: as target, as non-target, or as standard. The analysis focussed on the event related potentials evoked by the different stimulus types under the respective standard condition. Same as in previous studies, all three different acoustic stimuli elicited the obligatory P1/N1/P2 complex in the range of 50-200ms. However, comparisons of ERPs elicited by static stimuli and both kinds of motion stimuli yielded differences as early as ∼100ms after stimulus-onset, i.e. at the level of the exogenous N1 and P2 components. Differences in signal amplitudes were also found in a time window 300-400ms (‘d300-400ms’ component in ‘motion-minus-static’ difference wave). For motion stimuli, the N1 amplitudes were larger over the hemisphere contralateral to the origin of motion, while for static stimuli N1 amplitudes over both hemispheres were in the same range. Contrary to the N1 component, the ERP in the ‘d300-400ms’ time period showed stronger responses over the hemisphere contralateral to motion termination, with the static stimuli again yielding equal bilateral amplitudes. For the P2 component a motion-specific effect with larger signal amplitudes over the left hemisphere was found compared to static stimuli.The presently documented N1 components comply with the results of previous studies on auditory space processing and suggest a contralateral dominance during the process of cortical integration of spatial acoustic information. Additionally, the cortical activity in the ‘d300-400ms’ time period indicates, that in addition to the motion origin (as reflected by the N1) also the direction of motion (leftward/ rightward motion) or rather motion termination is cortically encoded. These electrophysiological results are in accordance with the ‘snap shot’ hypothesis, assuming that auditory motion processing is not based on a genuine motion-sensitive system, but rather on a comparison process of spatial positions of motion origin (onset) and motion termination (offset). Still, specificities of the present P2 component provides evidence for additional motion-specific processes possibly associated with the evaluation of motion-specific attributes, i.e. motion direction and/or velocity which is preponderant in the left hemisphere.