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Carmo JC, Filipe CN. Sub-second timing irregularities in a simple motor task in autism spectrum disorder: Preliminary effects of intermittent light stimulation. J Neuropsychol 2024; 18:190-202. [PMID: 37353990 DOI: 10.1111/jnp.12335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2023] [Revised: 06/09/2023] [Accepted: 06/14/2023] [Indexed: 06/25/2023]
Abstract
Several authors have contributed extensively to the neurocognitive understanding of timing. In Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on the contrary, internal timing and its functioning is not well understood. In this study, we have adapted a simple finger-tapping motor task, with a timing component, as we aim at understanding whether the processing of time is preserved in this population. We have tested a group of people on the autism spectrum without intellectual disabilities and a control sample recruited from the general population, matched for age, sex, schooling and general cognitive abilities on this task with a learning and testing phase. In the testing phase, we have added two exploratory conditions where participants were exposed to intermittent light stimulation of 4 and 8 Hz. Results show that both in the learning and testing phase, besides troubles in the motor component encountered by the people on the spectrum, their timing component performance was also problematic. This reveals to be especially true for time intervals below the 1 s range, as hypothesized, whereas performance in longer intervals is clearly preserved. It was also observed that the exposure to intermittent light stimulation specifically overcomes the difficulties observed in the autistic group, at the timing components at this millisecond time range. The observed timing difficulties in this group seem to be restricted to the system responsible for the processing of time intervals in the milliseconds range, which helps accommodate disparate findings in the literature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana C Carmo
- Lusófona University/HEI-Lab: Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Carlos N Filipe
- NOVA Medical School, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
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Carmo JC, Langus A, Filipe CN. Editorial: Bridging the initiation of a response hypothesis in autism: from language to motor action. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1281336. [PMID: 37818416 PMCID: PMC10561217 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1281336] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2023] [Accepted: 09/06/2023] [Indexed: 10/12/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Joana C. Carmo
- Digital Human-Environment Interaction Labs (HEI-Lab), Lusófona University, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Alan Langus
- Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Carlos N. Filipe
- NOVA Medical School, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
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Carmo JC, Filipe CN. Disentangling response initiation difficulties from response inhibition in autism spectrum disorder: A sentence-completion task. Front Psychol 2022; 13:964200. [PMID: 36225712 PMCID: PMC9548610 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.964200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
It has been proposed that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle both with response initiation and with response inhibition, both of which are functions of the executive system. Experimental tasks are unlikely pure measures of a single cognitive domain, and in this study we aim at understanding the contributions of response initiation difficulties to possible deficits in inhibitory control in autism. A sample of adults diagnosed with ASD and a control sample participated in this study. To participants it was asked to perform a sentence-completion task with two different condition: Part A—targeting response initiation and Part B—engaging inhibitory processes. Importantly, we have analyzed the B-A latencies that have been proposed for the removal of the response initiation confound effect. Results show that no differences between the groups were found in accuracy measures, either in Part A (ASD: M = 0.78; Controls: M = 0.90) nor Part B (ASD: M = 0.03; Controls: M = 0.02). However, in both conditions autistic participants were significantly slower to respond than the group of participants with typical development (Part A—ASD: M = 2432.5 ms; Controls M = 1078.5 ms; Part B—ASD M = 6758.3 ms; Controls M = 3283.9 ms). Critically, we show that when subtracting the response times of Part A from Part B (B-A latencies) no group differences attributable to inhibitory processes remained (ASD: M = 4325.76; Controls: M = 2205.46). With this study we corroborate the existence of difficulties with response initiation in autism and we question the existence of troubles in inhibition per se.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana C. Carmo
- CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
- *Correspondence: Joana C. Carmo,
| | - Carlos N. Filipe
- NOVA Medical School, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
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Beck AK, Czernochowski D, Lachmann T, Barahona-Correa B, Carmo JC. Is the dolphin a fish? ERP evidence for the impact of typicality during early visual processing in ultra-rapid semantic categorization in autism spectrum disorder. J Neurodev Disord 2022; 14:46. [PMID: 35999495 PMCID: PMC9400242 DOI: 10.1186/s11689-022-09457-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2021] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Neurotypical individuals categorize items even during ultra-rapid presentations (20 ms; see Thorpe et al. Nature 381: 520, 1996). In cognitively able autistic adults, these semantic categorization processes may be impaired and/or may require additional time, specifically for the categorization of atypical compared to typical items. Here, we investigated how typicality structures influence ultra-rapid categorization in cognitively able autistic and neurotypical male adults. METHODS Images representing typical or atypical exemplars of two different categories (food/animals) were presented for 23.5 vs. 82.3 ms (short/long). We analyzed detection rates, reaction times, and the event-related potential components dN150, N1, P2, N2, and P3 for each group. RESULTS Behavioral results suggest slower and less correct responses to atypical compared to typical images. This typicality effect was larger for the category with less distinct boundaries (food) and observed in both groups. However, electrophysiological data indicate a different time course of typicality effects, suggesting that neurotypical adults categorize atypical images based on simple features (P2), whereas cognitively able autistic adults categorize later, based on arbitrary features of atypical images (P3). CONCLUSIONS We found evidence that all three factors under investigation - category, typicality, and presentation time - modulated specific aspects of semantic categorization. Additionally, we observed a qualitatively different pattern in the autistic adults, which suggests that they relied on different cognitive processes to complete the task.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ann-Kathrin Beck
- Center for Cognitive Science, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany
| | | | - Thomas Lachmann
- Center for Cognitive Science, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany. .,Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain. .,University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
| | - Bernardo Barahona-Correa
- Champalimaud Research & Clinical Centre, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisboa, Portugal.,Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, NOVA Medical School, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.,CADIn - Neurodesenvolvimento e Inclusão, Cascais, Portugal
| | - Joana C Carmo
- Faculdade de Psicologia, Centro de Investigação Em Ciências Psicológicas, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
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Abstract
Common objects comprise living and non-living things people interact with in their daily-lives. Images depicting common objects are extensively used in different fields of research and intervention, such as linguistics, psychology, and education. Nevertheless, their adequate use requires the consideration of several factors (e.g., item-differences, cultural-context and confounding correlated variables), and careful validation procedures. The current study presents a systematic review of the available published norms for images of common objects. A systematic search using PRISMA guidelines indicated that despite their extensive use, the production of norms for such stimuli with adult populations is quite limited (N = 55), particularly for more ecological images, such as photos (N = 14). Among the several dimensions in which the items were assessed, the most commonly referred in our sample were familiarity, visual complexity and name agreement, illustrating some consistency across the reported dimensions while also indicating the limited examination of other potentially relevant dimensions for image processing. The lack of normative studies simultaneously examining affective, perceptive and semantic dimensions was also documented. The number of such normative studies has been increasing in the last years and published in relevant peer-reviewed journals. Moreover, their datasets and norms have been complying with current open science practices. Nevertheless, they are still scarcely cited and replicated in different linguistic and cultural contexts. The current study brings important theoretical contributions by characterizing images of common objects stimuli and their culturally-based norms while highlighting several important features that are likely to be relevant for future stimuli selection and evaluative procedures. The systematic scrutiny of these normative studies is likely to stimulate the production of new, robust and contextually-relevant normative datasets and to provide tools for enhancing the quality of future research and intervention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cristiane Souza
- Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Cis-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
| | | | - Joana C Carmo
- Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
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de Mendonça A, Cardoso S, Maroco J, Guerreiro M, Carmo JC. The update of semantic memories in amnestic mild cognitive impairment. J Neuropsychol 2020; 15 Suppl 1:27-40. [PMID: 32542952 DOI: 10.1111/jnp.12217] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2019] [Revised: 04/01/2020] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
It is still controversial to what extent neocortical consolidated memories are susceptible of change by processes of reconsolidation and transformation throughout experience, and whether the medial temporal lobes are necessary for this update of semantic consolidated memories, as they are for episodic remembering. We hypothesize that patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) who have deficits in episodic memory may also have difficulties in updating information on added new features of objects. Sixteen participants with aMCI and 20 healthy control participants performed a semantic word-to-picture task, in which they were asked to identify as belonging to a given semantic category NEW objects, that have incorporated novel features, as well as OLD items, semantically and visually SIMILAR items and UNRELATED items. Patients with aMCI made a greater percentage of errors than healthy controls. Participants globally made greater percentages of errors in difficult types of items, namely NEW and SIMILAR, as compared to easier ones, OLD and UNRELATED. Importantly, an item by diagnostic group interaction effect was observed, and post hoc analysis showed that patients with aMCI made a higher percentage of errors than controls in NEW items only. In conclusion, patients with aMCI had a particular difficulty in identifying the NEW items of the word-to-picture task as compared to the control participants, supporting the concept of a flexible and dynamic conceptual knowledge system, involving the update of semantic memories and the integration of new attributes in a constant transformation process, which is impaired in these patients.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - João Maroco
- Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa, Portugal
| | | | - Joana C Carmo
- Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
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Carmo JC, Martins F, Pinho S, Barahona-Correa B, Ventura P, Filipe CN. We see the orange not the lemon: typicality effects in ultra-rapid categorization in adults with and without autism spectrum disorder. J Neuropsychol 2018; 14:154-164. [PMID: 30511375 DOI: 10.1111/jnp.12176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2017] [Revised: 11/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Semantic meaning can be extracted from pictures presented very briefly, in the order of tens of milliseconds. This ultra-rapid categorization processing appears to respect a coarse-to-fine path where lower level representations of concepts, or more detailed information, need additional time. We question whether variations in the levels of typicality of the target-item would implicate additional processing for correct classification, both in neurotypical (NT) individuals and with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous research in ASD points out that atypical exemplars of a category might be abnormally processed (e.g., longer times in identifying a penguin as a bird), an observation that we further tested with a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. In this study, we applied a RSVP task, with four different presentation times (13, 27, 50, and 80 ms) and with typical and atypical exemplars to a group of NT individuals and a sample of individuals with ASD. We found, overall, a strong effect of typicality with a higher detection rate for typical items. In addition, we observed a group × typicality × duration interaction. We interpret these findings in the light of the competences of the feedforward sweep of information through our visual system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana C Carmo
- Centro de Investigação em Ciências Psicológicas, Faculdade de psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.,Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Algarve, Portugal
| | - Fábio Martins
- Centro de Investigação em Ciências Psicológicas, Faculdade de psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Sandra Pinho
- CADIn - Neurodesenvolvimento e Inclusão, Portugal
| | - Bernardo Barahona-Correa
- CADIn - Neurodesenvolvimento e Inclusão, Portugal.,NOVA Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal.,Champalimaud Clinical Centre, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Paulo Ventura
- Centro de Investigação em Ciências Psicológicas, Faculdade de psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Carlos N Filipe
- NOVA Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
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Ventura P, Carmo JC, Souza C, Martins F, Leite I, Pinho S, Barahona-Correa B, Filipe CN. Holistic processing of faces is intact in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Visual Cognition 2017. [DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2017.1370051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Paulo Ventura
- Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Joana C. Carmo
- Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Cristiane Souza
- Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Fábio Martins
- Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Isabel Leite
- Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade de Évora, Évora, Portugal
| | - Sandra Pinho
- CADIn - Centro de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Infantil, Cascais, Portugal
| | - Bernardo Barahona-Correa
- CADIn - Centro de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Infantil, Cascais, Portugal
- Nova Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
- Champalimaud Clinical Centre, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Carlos N. Filipe
- Nova Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
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Carmo JC, Souza C, Gonçalves F, Pinho S, Filipe CN, Lachmann T. Effects of categorical representation on visuospatial working memory in autism spectrum disorder. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 2016; 39:131-141. [DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2016.1207754] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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Carmo JC, Duarte E, Pinho S, Marques JF, Filipe CN. Verbal fluency as a function of time in autism spectrum disorder: An impairment of initiation processes? J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 2015. [DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2015.1062082] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
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Carmo JC, Rumiati RI, Siugzdaite R, Brambilla P. Preserved imitation of known gestures in children with high-functioning autism. ISRN Neurol 2013; 2013:751516. [PMID: 24062956 PMCID: PMC3767050 DOI: 10.1155/2013/751516] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2013] [Accepted: 07/25/2013] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
It has been suggested that children with autism are particularly deficient at imitating novel gestures or gestures without goals. In the present study, we asked high-functioning autistic children and age-matched typically developing children to imitate several types of gestures that could be either already known or novel to them. Known gestures either conveyed a communicative meaning (i.e., intransitive) or involved the use of objects (i.e., transitive). We observed a significant interaction between gesture type and group of participants, with children with autism performing known gestures better than novel gestures. However, imitation of intransitive and transitive gestures did not differ across groups. These findings are discussed in light of a dual-route model for action imitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana C. Carmo
- Area of Neuroscience, SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon, Alameda da Cidade Universitária, 1649-013 Lisboa, Portugal
| | | | - Roma Siugzdaite
- Area of Neuroscience, SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy
- Medical Image and Signal Processing Group, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University—iMinds, De Pintelaan 185, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
| | - Paolo Brambilla
- Department of Experimental and Clinical Medical Science (DISM), University of Udine, P.le Kolbe 3, 33100 Udine, Italy
- IRCCS “E. Medea” Scientific Institute, UDGEE, P.le S. Maria della Misericordia, 15 Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy
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Rumiati RI, Carmo JC, Corradi-Dell'Acqua C. Neuropsychological perspectives on the mechanisms of imitation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2009; 364:2337-47. [PMID: 19620105 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0063] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Cognitive neuroscientists have contributed to the understanding of imitation according to their expertise. Neuropsychologists first established over a century ago that lesions to the left hemisphere of right-handed individuals lead to a dramatic reduction of their ability to imitate gestures. In contrast, after frontal lobe damage, patients may experience severe difficulties in inhibiting their imitative tendency. These findings suggested that our tendency to imitate is mostly sustained by the left hemisphere and that we normally manage successfully to keep it under control. Neuropsychologists went on investigating other aspects of gesture imitation. These include the existence of putative mechanisms involved in imitating different types of gestures (e.g. meaningful and meaningless or transitive and intransitive), the strategic control over these mechanisms and whether there are differences in imitation depending on the action goal or the body part used. Based on neuropsychological findings, some cognitive models of gesture imitation have been forwarded, the most influential of which will be reviewed here. In particular, reference will be made to the dual route model and to accounts that associate the imitative deficit to putative degraded body representations.
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Carmo JC, Rumiati RI. Imitation of transitive and intransitive actions in healthy individuals. Brain Cogn 2009; 69:460-4. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2008.09.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2008] [Revised: 09/22/2008] [Accepted: 09/24/2008] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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Veneziano WH, da Rocha AF, Gonçalves CA, Pena AG, Carmo JC, Nascimento FAO, Rainoldi A. Confounding factors in water EMG recordings: an approach to a definitive standard. Med Biol Eng Comput 2006; 44:348-51. [PMID: 16937176 DOI: 10.1007/s11517-006-0039-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2005] [Accepted: 02/27/2006] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
This work presents a study on the influence of the aqueous environment on the surface EMG (sEMG) signal recorded in bipolar montage from the abductor pollicis brevis muscle, when only the forearm is immersed in water. Ten men, 30.1+/-4.0 (mean +/- SD) years old, performed ten 2-s 40% MVC isometric contractions of the abductor pollicis brevis muscle in two controlled environments (air and water, at a temperature of 32 degrees C). They were always equipped with electrodes protected with a waterproof adhesive tape. No significant variations (paired Wilcoxon test) due to the environments were observed in the median frequency of the power spectrum (MDF) and in the root mean square (RMS) value of the sEMG signal. These results allow us to assess the methodological criteria to properly record sEMG signals in water and provide the basis to explain different findings obtained by other authors.
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Affiliation(s)
- W H Veneziano
- Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil
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