The Language ENvironment Analysis system (LENA): A validation study with Italian-learning children.

This study is a validation of the LENA system for the Italian language. In Study 1, to test LENA's accuracy, seventy-two 10-minute samples extracted from daylong LENA recordings were manually transcribed for 12 children longitudinally observed at 1;0 and 2;0. We found strong correlations between LENA and human estimates in the number of Adult Word Count (AWC) and Child Vocalisations Count (CVC) and a weak correlation between LENA and human estimates in Conversational Turns Count (CTC).

Emotional expression visual mismatch negativity in children.

Detection of changes in facial emotions is crucial to communicate and to rapidly process threats in the environment. This function develops throughout childhood via modulations of the earliest brain responses, such as the P100 and the N170 recorded using electroencephalography. Automatic brain signatures can be measured through expression-related visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), which reflects the processing of unattended changes.

Single or Double Patch-Clamp Recordings In Ex Vivo Slice Preparation: Functional Connectivity, Synapse Dynamics, and Optogenetics.

Patch-clamp recordings are the method of choice to define cell-type specific electrophysiological properties of single neurons and the synaptic connectivity between pairs of connected neurons in brain slices. In combination with optogenetic tools, patch-clamp recordings allow for the investigation of long-range afferent connectivity from identified distant brain areas. Here we describe the necessary equipment to carry out patch clamp recordings, surgical methods for dissection and preparation of horizontal brain slices containing the hippocampus, and a step-by-step guide for establishing patch clamp recordings in the whole-cell configuration.

Emergence of a consonant bias during the first year of life: New evidence from own-name recognition.

Recent evidence suggests that during the first year of life, a preference for consonant information during lexical processing (consonant bias) emerges, at least for some languages like French. Our study investigated the factors involved in this emergence as well as the developmental consequences for variation in consonant bias emergence. In a series of experiments, we measured 5-, 8-, and 11-month-old French-learning infants orientation times to a consonant or vowel mispronunciation of their own name, which is one of the few word forms familiar to infants at this young age.

The inter-relationships between cerebral visual impairment, autism and intellectual disability.

From birth, vision guides our movement, facilitates social interaction and accords recognition and understanding of the environment. In children, vision underpins development of these skills, and is crucial for typical development. Deficits in visual processing may lead to impairment of cognitive, motor, and social development, placing children at risk of developing features of autism.

Ophthalmological findings in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Purpose: Eye pathology could be related to atypical visual behaviours and impaired social communication through visual cues in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The main purpose of this prospective study was to assess ophthalmological disorders in children with ASD and to investigate the relationships with intellectual disability (ID) and ASD severity.

Methods: In this prospective study, comprehensive ophthalmological and oculomotor examinations were performed.

Reduced visual evoked potential amplitude in autism spectrum disorder, a variability effect?

Atypical sensory behaviours represent a core symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Investigating early visual processing is crucial to deepen our understanding of higher-level processes. Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) to pattern-reversal checkerboards were recorded in ASD children and age-matched controls.

In Vivo Intracerebral Stereotaxic Injections for Optogenetic Stimulation of Long-Range Inputs in Mouse Brain Slices.

Knowledge of cell-type specific synaptic connectivity is a crucial prerequisite for understanding brain-wide neuronal circuits. The functional investigation of long-range connections requires targeted recordings of single neurons combined with the specific stimulation of identified distant inputs. This is often difficult to achieve with conventional and electrical stimulation techniques, because axons from converging upstream brain areas may intermingle in the target region.

Trustworthiness and Dominance Personality Traits' Judgments in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social functioning, communication, and by the presence of repetitive behaviours and restricted interests. Abnormal processing of faces has also been described as a neuropsychological feature of ASD. We investigated the ability to judge two personality traits in adults with ASD in comparison to typically developed adults (TD).

Geometric categories in cognition.

At the scale in which we live, space is continuous. Nevertheless, our perception and cognition parse the world into categories, whether physical, like or or abstract, like or 7. The present study focuses on 2 categories of special angles in planar geometry, and and we evaluate how these categories might be reflected in adults' basic angle discrimination.

Atypical Sound Perception in ASD Explained by Inter-Trial (In)consistency in EEG.

A relative indifference to the human voice is a characteristic of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Yet, studies of voice perception in ASD provided contradictory results: one study described an absence of preferential response to voices in ASD while another reported a larger activation to vocal sounds than environmental sounds, as seen in typically developed (TD) adults. In children with ASD, an absence of preferential response to vocal sounds was attributed to an atypical response to environmental sounds.

Attention explores space periodically at the theta frequency.

Voluntary attention is at the core of a wide variety of cognitive functions. Attention can be oriented to and sustained at a location or reoriented in space to allow processing at other locations-critical in an ever-changing environment. Numerous studies have investigated attentional orienting in time and space, but little is known about the spatiotemporal dynamics of attentional reorienting.

Confidence Predictions Affect Performance Confidence and Neural Preparation in Perceptual Decision Making.

Decisions are usually accompanied by a feeling of being wrong or right - a subjective confidence estimate. But what information is this confidence estimate based on, and what is confidence used for? To answer these questions, research has largely focused on confidence regarding current or past decisions, for example identifying how characteristics of the stimulus affect confidence, how confidence can be used as an internally generated feedback signal, and how communicating confidence can affect group decisions. Here, we report two studies which implemented a novel metacognitive measure: predictions of confidence for future perceptual decisions.

Infants' statistical word segmentation in an artificial language is linked to both parental speech input and reported production abilities.

Individual variability in infant's language processing is partly explained by environmental factors, like the quantity of parental speech input, as well as by infant-specific factors, like speech production. Here, we explore how these factors affect infant word segmentation. We used an artificial language to ensure that only statistical regularities (like transitional probabilities between syllables) could cue word boundaries, and then asked how the quantity of parental speech input and infants' babbling repertoire predict infants' abilities to use these statistical cues.