The change in perceptual synchrony between auditory and visual speech after exposure to asynchronous speech.

Recent studies have shown that audiovisual synchrony is recalibrated after exposure to asynchronous auditory and visual signals. This temporal recalibration has been shown only under a dual-task situation for speech signals. Here we examined whether the temporal recalibration occurs for audiovisual speech in a single-task situation using an offline adaptation method. In the experiment, participants were exposed to synchronous or asynchronous audiovisual syllables (either congruent or incongruent) for 3 min. The adaptation phase was followed by test trials, in which participants judged whether the auditory or visual stimulus was presented first. Results showed shifts in the point of subjective simultaneity and the sensitivity. Our results suggest that attention to adaptation stimuli is necessary to induce temporal recalibration for speech.

Fascin expression is correlated with tumor progression of extrahepatic bile duct cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Fascin, an actin-crosslinking protein, participates in cell motility. Fascin over-expression induces a high potential for invasion and metastasis in various malignancies. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship of fascin expression to clinicopathological findings in patients with extrahepatic bile duct cancer. Furthermore, we investigated the correlation between fascin expression and intracellular adhesion molecular (E-cadherin and beta-catenin). METHODOLOGY: We evaluated the expression of fascin, E-cadherin and beta-catenin by immunohistochemistry in surgical specimens from 26 patients with extrahepatic bile duct cancer. RESULTS: Normal epithelial cells of the bile duct was not immunoreactive for fascin, and cancer cells often show immunoreactivity, which was found more frequently at the invasive tumor fronts than at other tumor areas. The present study demonstrated a statistically significant correlation between fascin expression and gender, tumor status, vascular invasion, and disease stage. We detected that increased immunoreactivity for fascin had tendencies to disrupt membranous immunoreactivity for E-cadherin and beta-catenin. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that fascin expression is correlated with tumor progression. The expression of fascin is frequently detected at the invasive tumor fronts, indicating that invading tumor cells express fascin abundantly. In tumor cells with an over-expression of fascin, E-cadherin and betacatenin expressions often disrupt membranous immunoreactivity.