bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Ashkenazi Pentateuchal Chant: A Sixteenth-Century German-Christian Interpretation
Authors: Knapp Alexander 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
Much attention has been given to the pioneering achievements of the Christian Hebraists of the sixteenth century in transcribing the essential elements of traditional Torah chant into Western musical notation. One of these transcriptions, however, is unique. Johannes Reuchlin’s De Accentibus et Orthographia Linguae Hebraicae of 1518 contains not only the ‘accents of biblical recitation’ themselves, but also a complete four-part harmonization of these tropes by one of Reuchlin’s students, Christoph Schilling, in the German choral style of the period. Although Schilling’s arrangement of the individual accents has been mentioned in passing by numerous scholars, it has never been published in a modern edition, nor applied to the actual practice of chanting biblical texts. In this article, I discuss some of the general background to cantillation, accentuation, and the role of the German Humanists in preserving this oral tradition in written form. Comparisons between sixteenth-century and twentieth-century biblical chant are made in relation to the melodic and harmonic characteristics of Schilling’s notation, and this leads to an assessment of some of the problems concerning the realization of these raw materials for ‘live’ performance. Three short extracts from the Pentateuch are then presented as working examples based upon Schilling’s arrangement. In conclusion, the possible motives and intentions behind this intercultural phenomenon will be considered, as will its significance in the long history of Judeo-Christian syncretism in music.
The Christian Hebraist Christoph Helwig (1581–1617) and His Rendering of Jewish Stories in (His Work) Jüdische Historien
Authors: Riemer Nathanael 
Published: November 2012

Abstract
The lecture deals with life and works of the theologian and philologist Christoph Helwig (Helvicus), who was professor for Hebrew language at the University of Gießen, Germany. His scientific career is strongly connected both with the political and religious conflicts in Hessen in the beginning of the sixteenth century and with the Didactic reformer Wolfgang Ratke (Ratichus). The focus is directed upon the work “Jüdische Historien” (Jewish stories) which appeared in 1611 and 1612 and was absorbed by the fairy tale and legends researchers Brothers Grimm.
Detection performance for short visual stimuli depends on the duration of co-occuring auditory stimuli
Authors: Cecere Roberto , De Haas Benjamin , Cullen Harriett , Driver Jon , Romei Vincenzo 
Published: November 2012

There is converging evidence that the duration of an auditory event can affect the perceived duration of a co-occurring visual event. When a brief visual stimulus is accompanied by a longer auditory stimulus, the perceived visual duration stretches. If this reflects a genuine sustain of visual stimulus perception, it should result in enhanced perception of non-temporal visual stimulus qualities. To test this hypothesis, in a temporal two-alternative forced choice task, 28 participants were asked to indicate whether a short (∼24 ms), peri-threshold, visual stimulus was presented in the first or in the second of two consecutive displays. Each display was accompanied by a sound of equal or longer duration (36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96, 190 ms) than the visual stimulus. As a control condition, visual stimuli of different durations (matching auditory stimulus durations) were presented alone. We predicted that visual detection can improve as a function of sound duration. Moreover, if the expected cross-modal effect reflects sustained visual perception it should positively correlate with the improvement observed for genuinely longer visual stimuli. Results showed that detection sensitivity (d′) for the 24 ms visual stimulus was significantly enhanced when paired with longer auditory stimuli ranging from 60 to 96 ms duration. The visual detection performance dropped to baseline levels with 190 ms sounds. Crucially, the enhancement for auditory durations 60–96 ms significantly correlates with the d′ enhancement for visual stimuli lasting 60–96 ms in the control condition. We conclude that the duration of co-occurring auditory stimuli not only influences the perceived duration of visual stimuli but reflects a genuine sustain in visual perception.
Complexity of sensorimotor transformations alters hand perception
Authors: Sutter Christine , Ladwig Stefan , Sülzenbrück Sandra 
Published: November 2012

When using tools effects in body space and distant space often do not correspond or are even in conflict. The ideomotor principle holds that actors select, initiate and execute movements by activating the anticipatory codes of the movements’ sensory effects (Greenwald, 1970; James, 1890). These may be representations of body-related effects and/or representations of more distal effects. Previous studies have demonstrated that distant action effects dominate action control, while body-related effects are attenuated (e.g., Müsseler and Sutter, 2009). In two experiments, participants performed closed-loop controlled movements on a covered digitizer tablet to control a cursor on a monitor. Different gains perturbed the relation between hand and cursor amplitude, so that the hand amplitude varied and the cursor amplitude remained constant, and vice versa. Within a block the location of amplitude perturbation randomly varied (low predictability) or not (high predictability). In Experiment 1 both trajectories of hand and cursor followed the same linear path, in Experiment 2 a linear hand trajectory produced a curved cursor trajectory on the monitor. When participants were asked to evaluate their hand movement, they were extremely uncertain about their trajectories. Both, predictability of amplitude perturbation and shape of cursor trajectory modulated the awareness of one’s own hand movements. We will discuss whether the low awareness of proximal action effects originates from an insufficient quality of the humans’ tactile and proprioceptive system or from an insufficient spatial reconstruction of this information in memory.
Is maintaining balance during standing associated with inefficient audio–visual integration in older adults?
Authors: Stapleton John , Doheny Emer P. , Setti Annalisa , Cunningham Clodagh , Crosby Lisa , Kenny Rose A. , Newell Fiona N. 
Published: November 2012

It has previously been shown that older adults may be less efficient than younger adults at processing multisensory information, and that older adults with a history of falling may be less efficient than a healthy cohort when processing audio–visual stimuli (Setti et al., 2011). We investigated whether body stance has an effect on older adults’ ability to efficiently process multisensory information and also whether being presented with multisensory stimuli while standing may affect an individual’s balance. This experiment was performed by 44 participants, including both fall-prone older adults and a healthy control cohort. We tested their susceptibility to a sound-induced flash illusion (i.e., Shams et al., 2002), during both sitting and standing positions while measuring balance parameters using body-worn sensors. The results suggest that balance control in fall prone-adults was compromised relative to adults with no falls history, and this was particularly evident whilst they were presented with the auditory-flash illusion but not the non-illusory condition. Also, when the temporal window of the stimulus onset asynchrony was narrow (70 ms) fall-prone adults were more susceptible to the illusion during the standing position compared with their performance while seated, while the performance of older adults with no history of falling was unaffected by a change in position. These results suggest a link between efficient multisensory integration and balance control and have implications for interventions when fall-prone adults encounter complex multisensory information in their environment.
Effects of a secondary task and working memory load on multisensory hand position
Authors: Quinn Katrina , Acosta-Saltos Francia , de Fockert Jan W. , Spence Charles , Bremner Andrew J. 
Published: November 2012

Information about where our hands are arises from different sensory modalities; chiefly proprioception and vision. These inputs differ in variability from situation to situation (or task to task). According to the idea of ‘optimal integration’, the information provided by different sources is combined in proportion to their relative reliabilities, thus maximizing the reliability of the combined estimate. It is uncertain whether optimal multisensory integration of multisensory contributions to limb position requires executive resources. If so, then it should be possible to observe effects of secondary task performance and/or working memory load (WML) on the relative weighting of the senses under conditions of crossmodal sensory conflict. Alternatively, an integrated signal may be affected by upstream influences of WML or a secondary task on the reliabilities of the individual sensory inputs. We examine these possibilities in two experiments which examine effects of WML on reaching tasks in which bisensory visual-proprioceptive (Exp. 1), and unisensory proprioceptive (Exp. 2) cues to hand position are provided. WML increased visual capture under conditions of visual-proprioceptive conflict, regardless of the direction of visual-proprioceptive conflict, and the degree of load imposed. This indicates that task-switching (rather than WML load) leads to an increased reliance on visual information regardless of its task-specific reliability (Exp. 1). This could not be explained due to an increase in the variability of proprioception under secondary working memory task conditions (Exp. 2). We conclude that executive resources are involved in the relative weighting of visual and proprioceptive cues to hand position.
Crossmodal stimulation influences communication in visual-somatosensory cortical networks of the Brown Norway rat
Authors: Sieben Kay , Hanganu-Opatz Ileana 
Published: November 2012

Processing of most action goals and complete perception of the environment, like spatial localization of events, require integration of information from different sensory systems. The classical idea of a hierarchical sensory organization is challenged by recent evidence from both human and primate work showing that multisensory processing is already taking place in primary sensory cortices. However, the mechanisms underlying this multisensory processing and the role of primary sensory cortices in crossmodal communication and oscillatory coupling remain largely unknown. Congruent and incongruent uni- and bimodal visual (light spot) and tactile (whisker deflection) stimulation was performed simultaneously with extracellular multielectrode recordings in the primary visual (V1) and somatosensory (S1, barrel field) neocortices of adolescent Brown Norway rats in vivo. Tactile stimulation led after 10–30 ms to a phase-locked, large amplitude response in the contralateral S1 that is accompanied by prominent, layer-specific sinks and sources. Additionally, non-phase-locked oscillations were induced in different frequency ranges. Visual stimulation alone did not change the amplitude of oscillations compared to baseline activity in the contralateral S1, but reset the phase of ongoing oscillatory activity. Because of the visual impact in the S1, bimodal congruent stimulation led to an increase of the evoked response and changed the timing of amplitude enhancement of oscillations. These data indicate that networks in the barrel cortex are modulated by crossmodal visual input.
Within and cross-sensory interactions in the perceived attractiveness of unfamiliar faces
Authors: Cullen Brendan , Newell Fiona N. 
Published: November 2012

Major findings in attractiveness such as the role of averageness and symmetry have emerged primarily from neutral static visual stimuli. However it has increasingly been shown that ratings of attractiveness can be modulated within unisensory and multisensory modes by factors including emotional expression or by additional information about the person. For example, previous research has indicated that humorous individuals are rated as more desirable than their non-humorous equivalents (Bressler and Balshine, 2006). In two experiments we measured within and cross-sensory modulation of the attractiveness of unfamiliar faces. In Experiment 1 we examined if manipulating the number and type of expressions shown across a series of images of a person influences the attractiveness rating for that person. Results indicate that for happy expressions, ratings of attractiveness gradually increase as the proportional number of happy facial expressions increase, relative to the number of neutral expressions. In contrast, an increase in the proportion of angry expressions was not assocated with an increase in attractiveness ratings. In Experiment 2 we investigated if perceived attractiveness can be influenced by multisensory information provided during exposure to the face image. Ratings are compared across face images which were presented with or without voice information. In addition we provided either an auditory emotional cue (e.g., laughter) or neutral (e.g., coughing) cue to assess whether social information affects perceived attractiveness. Results shows that multisensory information about a person can increase attractiveness ratings, but that the emotional content of the cross-modal information can effect preference for some faces over others.
Two-point touch discrimination depends on the perceived length of the arm
Authors: Harris Laurence R. , D’Amour Sarah , Pritchett Lisa M. 
Published: November 2012

Two-point discrimination threshold depends on the number and size of receptive fields between the touches. But what determines the size of the receptive fields? Are they anatomically fixed? Or are they related to perceived body size? To answer this question we manipulated perceived arm length using the Pinocchio illusion. The test arm was held at the wrist and the holding arm was made to feel perceptually more extended than it was by applying vibration to the tendon of the biceps (cf. de Vignemont et al., 2005). For control trials the holding arm was vibrated elsewhere. An array of tactors, separated by 3 cm, was placed on the upper surface of the arm and covered with a cloth. Vibro-tactile stimulation was applied to either one or two tactors in two periods. Subjects identified which period contained two stimuli. A psychometric function was drawn through the probability of correct response as a function of tactor separation to determine the threshold distance. In a separate experiment, subjects estimated the perceived location of each tactor against a scale laid on top of the cloth. The estimated locations of the tactors on the tested arm were displaced by tendon vibration of the holding arm compatible with a perceptual lengthening of the arm. The threshold for two-touch discrimination was significantly increased from 4.5 (±0.6) cm with no tendon stimulation to 5.7 (±0.5) cm when the arm was perceptually extended. We conclude that two-point touch discrimination depends on the size of central receptive fields that become larger when the arm is perceptually lengthened.
Can maladaptive cortical plasticity form new sensory experiences? Revisiting phantom pain
Authors: Makin Tamar R. , Scholz Jan , Filippini Nicola , Henderson Slater David , Tracey Irene , Johansen-Berg Heidi 
Published: November 2012

Phantom pain has become an influential example of maladaptive cortical plasticity. According to this model, sensory deprivation following limb amputation allows for intra-regional invasion of neighbouring cortical representations into the former hand area of the primary sensorimotor cortex, which gives rise to pain sensations. Over the years, this model was extended to explain other disorders of pain, motor control and tinnitus, and has inspired rehabilitation strategies. Yet, other research, demonstrating that phantom hand representation is maintained in the sensorimotor system, and that phantom pain can be triggered by bottom-up aberrant inputs, may call this model to question. Using fMRI, we identified the cortical area representing the missing hand in a group of 18 arm amputees. This allowed us to directly study changes in the ‘phantom’ cortex associated with chronic phantom pain, using functional connectivity and voxel-based morphometry. We show that, while loss of sensory input is generally characterized by structural degeneration of the deprived sensorimotor cortex, the experience of persistent pain was associated with preserved intra-regional structure and functional organization. Furthermore, consistent with the dissociative nature of phantom sensations from other sensory experiences, phantom pain is also associated with reduced long-range inter-regional functional connectivity. We propose that this disrupted inter-regional connectivity may be consequential, rather than causal, of the retained yet isolated local representation of phantom pain. We therefore propose that, contrary to the maladaptive model, cortical plasticity occurs when powerful and long-lasting subjective sensory experience, most likely due to peripheral inputs, is decoupled from the external sensory environment.
ERP investigations into the effects of gaze and spatial attention on the processing of tactile events
Authors: Gherri Elena , Forster Bettina 
Published: November 2012

Previous research demonstrated that directing one’s gaze at a body part reduces detection speed (e.g., Tipper et al., 1998) and enhances the processing (Forster and Eimer, 2005) of tactile stimuli presented at the gazed location. Interestingly, gaze-dependent modulation of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs), are very similar to those observed in previous studies of tactile spatial attention. This might indicate that manipulating gaze direction activates the same mechanisms that are responsible for the covert orienting of spatial attention in touch. To investigate this possibility, gaze direction and sustained tactile attention were orthogonally manipulated in the present study. In different blocks of trials, participants focused their attention on the left or right hand while gazing to the attended or to the unattended hand while they had to respond to infrequent tactile targets presented to the attended hand. Analyses of the SEPs elicited by tactile non-target stimuli demonstrate that gaze and attention influence different stages of tactile processing. While gaze is able to modulate tactile processing already 50 ms after stimulus onset, attentional SEP modulations are only observed beyond 110 ms post-stimulus. This dissociation in the timing and therefore the associated locus of the effects of gaze and attention on somatosensory processing reveals that the effect of gaze on tactile processing is independent of tactile attention.
Synchronisation and correction of stepping to phase-perturbed multisensory metronome cues
Authors: Wright Rachel L. , Elliott Mark T. , Spurgeon Laura C. , Wing Alan M. 
Published: November 2012

When information is available in more than one sensory modality, the central nervous system will integrate the cues to obtain a statistically optimal estimate of the event or object perceived (Alais and Burr, 2004; Ernst and Banks, 2002). For synchronising movements to a stream of events, this multisensory advantage is observed with reduced temporal variability of the movements compared to unimodal conditions (Elliott et al., 2010, 2011; Wing et al., 2010). Currently, this has been demonstrated for upper limb movements (finger tapping). Here, we investigate synchronisation of lower limb movements (stepping on the spot) to auditory, visual and combined auditory-visual metronome cues. In addition, we compare movement corrections to a phase perturbation in the metronome for the three sensory modality conditions. We hypothesised that, as with upper limb movements, there would be a multisensory advantage, with stepping variability being lowest in the bimodal condition. As such, we further expected correction to the phase perturbation to be quickest in the bimodal condition. Our results show that while we see evidence of multisensory integration taking place, there was no multisensory advantage in the phase correction task — correction under the bimodal condition was almost identical to the auditory-only condition. Both bimodal and auditory-only conditions showed larger corrections for each step after the perturbation, compared to the visual-only condition. We conclude that rapid lower limb corrections are possible when synchronising with salient, regular auditory cues, such that integration of information from other modalities does not improve correction efficiency. However, if the auditory modality is less reliable it is likely that multisensory cues would become advantageous in such a task.
Electrical neuroimaging of memory discrimination based on single-trial multisensory learning
Authors: Thelen Antonia , Cappe Céline , Murray Micah M. 
Published: November 2012

Multisensory experiences influence subsequent memory performance and brain responses. Studies have thus far concentrated on semantically congruent pairings, leaving unresolved the influence of stimulus pairing and memory sub-types. Here, we paired images with unique, meaningless sounds during a continuous recognition task to determine if purely episodic, single-trial multisensory experiences can incidentally impact subsequent visual object discrimination. Psychophysics and electrical neuroimaging analyses of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) compared responses to repeated images either paired or not with a meaningless sound during initial encounters. Recognition accuracy was significantly impaired for images initially presented as multisensory pairs and could not be explained in terms of differential attention or transfer of effects from encoding to retrieval. VEP modulations occurred at 100–130 and 270–310 ms and stemmed from topographic differences indicative of network configuration changes within the brain. Distributed source estimations localized the earlier effect to regions of the right posterior temporal gyrus (STG) and the later effect to regions of the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Responses in these regions were stronger for images previously encountered as multisensory pairs. Only the later effect correlated with performance such that greater MTG activity in response to repeated visual stimuli was linked with greater performance decrements. The present findings suggest that brain networks involved in this discrimination may critically depend on whether multisensory events facilitate or impair later visual memory performance. More generally, the data support models whereby effects of multisensory interactions persist to incidentally affect subsequent behavior as well as visual processing during its initial stages.