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Abstract: Understanding how structure and motion information contribute to the perception of biological motion is often studied with masking techniques. Current techniques in masking point-light walkers typically rely on adding surrounding masking dots or altering phase relations between joints. Here, we demonstrate the use of novel stimuli that make it possible to determine the noise level at which the local motion cues mask the opposing configural cues without changing the number of overall points in the display. Results show improved direction discrimination when configural cues are present compared to when the identical local motion signals are present but lack configural information. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are developmental disorders which are thought primarily to affect social functioning. However, there is now a growing body of evidence that unusual sensory processing is at least a concomitant and possibly the cause of many of the behavioural signs and symptoms of ASD. A comprehensive and critical review of the phenomenological, empirical, neuroscientific and theoretical literature pertaining to visual processing in ASD is presented, along with a brief justification of a new theory which may help to explain some of the data, and link it with other current hypotheses about the genetic and neural aetiologies of this enigmatic condition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Background: Individual structural imaging studies in the pre-psychotic phases deliver contrasting findings and are unable to definitively characterize the neuroanatomical correlates of an increased liability to psychosis and to predict transition to psychosis. Method: Ninenteen voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies of subjects at enhanced risk for psychosis and healthy controls were included in an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis. Results: The overall sample consisted of 701 controls and 896 high risk subjects. Subjects at high risk for psychosis showed reduced gray matter (GM) volume as compared to controls in the right superior temporal gyrus, left precuneus, left medial frontal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral parahippocampal/hippocampal regions and bilateral anterior cingulate. High risk subjects who later developed a psychotic episode showed baseline GM volume reductions in the right inferior frontal gyrus and in the right superior temporal gyrus. Conclusions: GM volume reductions in temporo-parietal, bilateral prefrontal and limbic cortex are neuroanatomical correlates of an enhanced vulnerability to psychosis. Baseline GM reductions in superior temporal and inferior frontal areas are associated with later transition to psychosis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]