Search results for "Sensory cue"
showing 10 items of 62 documents
Association between nutritional values of hays fed to horses and sensory properties as perceived by human sight, touch and smell
2019
International audience; Although hay is the foundation of most equine diets, horse owners rarely ask for biochemical analysis and the routine practice is to choose hay based on its 'perceived' nutritional value. The present study aimed at exploring the relationship between sensory properties as perceived by sight, touch and smell, and the nutritional value of hay measured by biochemical analysis using a 'free sorting task' method. Fifty-four non-expert participants were asked individually to: (1) observe 21 hays samples, (2) group together hays that they perceived as similar for each of the three modalities (hay appearance, odour or texture) and (3) characterize each formed group with a max…
Modulation of premotor mirror neuron activity during observation of unpredictable grasping movements.
2004
Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, we explored the properties of premotor mirror neurons during the passive observation of a reaching-grasping movement in human subjects. Two different experiments were run using video-clips as visual stimuli. Video-clips showed a normally performed (control stimulus) or an anomalous reaching-grasping movement executed by delaying the time of the appearance of the maximal finger aperture (experiment 1), or substituting it with an unpredictable closure (experiment 2). Motor evoked potentials were recorded at different time-points during the observation of the video-clips. Profiles of cortical excitability were drawn and compared with the kinematic profi…
Does viotin activate violin more than viocin? On the use of visual cues during visual-word recognition.
2013
The vast majority of neural and computational models of visual-word recognition assume that lexical access is achieved via the activation of abstract letter identities. Thus, a word’s overall shape should play no role in this process. In the present lexical decision experiment, we compared word-like pseudowords like viotín (same shape as its base word: violín) vs. viocín (different shape) in mature (college-aged skilled readers), immature (normally reading children), and immature/impaired (young readers with developmental dyslexia) word-recognition systems. Results revealed similar response times (and error rates) to consistent-shape and inconsistent-shape pseudowords for both adult skille…
Influence of proprioceptive information on space orientation on the ground and in orbital weightlessness
1989
Conscious space orientation depends on afferent information from different sense organs including the labyrinth, the eyes, tactile cues from the skin, joint receptors, muscle spindles, tendon organs and possibly viscera. An important role is played by impulses from the cervical position receptors in interaction with concomitant information from the otolith system. In order to isolate the effect of cervical position receptors from that of the otolith system, space experiments in orbital weightlessness and in parabolic aircraft flight were performed. It was found that stimulation of the neck receptors in weightlessness markedly influences the perception of the subjective vertical and horizont…
EEG Spectral Generators Involved in Motor Imagery: A swLORETA Study
2017
In order to characterize the neural generators of the brain oscillations related to motor imagery (MI), we investigated the cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar localizations of their respective electroencephalogram (EEG) spectral power and phase locking modulations. The MI task consisted in throwing a ball with the dominant upper limb while in a standing posture, within an ecological virtual reality (VR) environment (tennis court). The MI was triggered by the visual cues common to the control condition, during which the participant remained mentally passive. As previously developed, our paradigm considers the confounding problem that the reference condition allows two complementary analys…
Testing <em>Drosophila</em> Olfaction with a Y-maze Assay
2014
Detecting signals from the environment is essential for animals to ensure their survival. To this aim, they use environmental cues such as vision, mechanoreception, hearing, and chemoperception through taste, via direct contact or through olfaction, which represents the response to a volatile molecule acting at longer range. Volatile chemical molecules are very important signals for most animals in the detection of danger, a source of food, or to communicate between individuals. Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most common biological models for scientists to explore the cellular and molecular basis of olfaction. In order to highlight olfactory abilities of this small insect, we describ…
Foragers of the stingless bee Plebeia droryana inform nestmates about the direction, but not the distance to food sources
2020
The tropical stingless bees have evolved intricate communication systems to recruit nestmates to food locations. Some species are able to accurately communicate the location of food, whereas others simply announce the presence of food in the environment. Plebeia droryana is a tiny Neotropical stingless bee that, until recently, was thought to use a solitary foraging strategy, that is without the use of a recruitment communication system. However, recent research has indicated that P. droryana might be able to recruit nestmates to specific food source locations. We tested this by studying whether foragers can guide nestmates in the direction and the distance of artificial feeders placed in t…
Postattack deimatic display in the mountain katydid, Acripeza reticulata
2015
Prey use many strategies to avoid being detected by their predators. However, once detected and identified as potentially palatable, prey must employ a second line of defence such as performing a deimatic (startle) display. During the predation sequence, composed of the stages encounter, detection, identification, approach, subjugation and consumption, such defences should be deployed as the predator approaches, but before prey are brought under the predator's control (i.e. before subjugation). We tested this assumption in the mountain katydid (or bush cricket), which is cryptic at rest, but when disturbed flashes spectacular abdominal colours by lifting its wings, and is chemically defende…
Comparing Tangible and Fully Virtual Haptic Systems for HMI Studies in Simulated Driving Situations
2019
International audience; The contribution of tangible and intangible feedback is compared for virtual tactile car Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) design, to measure their performance both in static conditions and while driving. A subjectively calibrated transparent glass provides tangible passive haptics, and visual cues are used to study sensory substitution-based intangible interactions. The results show that the performance of the subjects was significantly improved in driving conditions as they interacted faster, more accurately and with a higher satisfaction. In addition, our findings highlight that the contribution of tangible systems is significantly lower in driving conditions, raisin…
Crisis communication, anticipated food scarcity, and food preferences: Preregistered evidence of the insurance hypothesis
2021
Abstract Whereas large-scale consumption of energy-dense foods contributes to climate change, we investigated whether exposure to climate change-induced food scarcity affects preferences toward these foods. Humans’ current psychological mechanisms have developed in their ancestral evolutionary past to respond to immediate threats and opportunities. Consequently, these mechanisms may not distinguish between cues to actual food scarcity and cues to food scarcity distant in time and space. Drawing on the insurance hypothesis, which postulates that humans should respond to environmental cues to food scarcity through increased energy consumption, we predicted that exposing participants to climat…