Using a word association paradigm we examined the extent to which readers can overcome the specific interpretation of the grammatical masculine form in French when instructed to embrace its generic meaning. In two experiments participants were to decide whether a person introduced by a kinship term (e.g. aunt) could be part of a group represented by a role name (e.g. musicians). After the completion of the first half of the experiment, participants were explicitly reminded about the generic interpretation and use of the masculine form. Although the reminder resulted in some level of generic interpretation, there were still strong traces of the specific interpretation in the response times, regardless of participants' inhibition capacities (Experiment 1). Adding a supplementary constraint by exposing readers to distractor role names in feminine forms (Experiment 2) did not reveal any different effects.The results indicated that although readers can be motivated to elaboratively activate the generic interpretation of the masculine form, the latter can not completely overrule a more passively activated specific one. <164 words>

The inhibition of the contralesional M1 or the reduction of interhemispheric interactions was not clinically useful in the heterogeneous group of subjects with subacute stroke. An early modulation of perilesional oscillation coherence seems to be a more promising strategy for brain stimulation interventions.

Whether an object captures attention depends on the interplay between its saliency and current behavioral predispositions of the observer. Neuroimaging work has implied a ventral attention network, comprising the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) and the insula, in attentional orienting toward salient events. Activity of the TPJ is driven by novel and unexpected objects, while the lateral prefrontal cortex is involved in stimulus-driven as well as goal-directed processing. The insula in turn, is part of a saliency network, which has been implicated in detecting biologically salient signals. These roles predict that damage to the TPJ, lPFC, or insula should affect performance in tasks measuring the capture of attention by salient and behaviorally relevant events. Here, we show that patients with lesions to the right TPJ have a characteristic increase of attentional capture by relevant distracters. In contrast, damage to the lPFC or insular cortex only increases reaction times, irrespective of the task-relevant properties of distracters. These findings show that acquired damage to the TPJ pathologically amplifies the capture of attention by task-relevant information, and thus indicate that the TPJ has a decisive role in goal-directed orienting.

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Visual attention can be deployed in space-based or object-centered reference frames. Right-hemisphere damage may lead to distinct deficits of space- or object-based processing, and such dissociations are thought to underlie the heterogeneous nature of spatial neglect. Previous studies have suggested that object-centered processing deficits (such as in copying, reading or line bisection) result from damage to retro-rolandic regions while impaired spatial exploration reflects damage to more anterior regions. However, this evidence is based on small samples and heterogeneous tasks. Here, we tested a theoretical model of neglect that takes in account the space- and object-based processing and relates them to neuroanatomical predictors. One hundred and one right-hemisphere-damaged patients were examined with classic neuropsychological tests and structural brain imaging. Relations between neglect measures and damage to the temporal-parietal junction, intraparietal cortex, insula and middle frontal gyrus were examined with two structural equation models by assuming that object-centered processing (involved in line bisection and single-word reading) and space-based processing (involved in cancelation tasks) either represented a unique latent variable or two distinct variables. Of these two models the latter had better explanatory power. Damage to the intraparietal sulcus was a significant predictor of object-centered, but not space-based processing, while damage to the temporal-parietal junction predicted space-based, but not object-centered processing. Space-based processing and object-centered processing were strongly intercorrelated, indicating that they rely on similar, albeit partly dissociated processes. These findings indicate that object-centered and space-based deficits in neglect are partly independent and result from superior parietal and inferior parietal damage, respectively.