Classics as a discipline was the bedrock of an elite education in the UK for some time. To some minds, it still holds on to that position, not least because there is a certain mystique and aura around the two dominant languages of early Europe and their literature. The discipline of learning these languages, so the argument went, could improve our ability to analyse questions, and think about our own language, thereby increasing our potential in future life. This sort of intellectual exercise was said to be valuable: by learning a language which we could not actually use in day-to-day life, we could also learn other, modern languages more effectively, and we could sharpen our minds to face the challenges of the world in front of us.

Spatial descriptions such as “The spider is behind the bee” inform the listener about the location of the spider (the located object) in relation to an object whose location is known (i.e., the bee, also called the reference object). If the geometric properties of the reference object have been shown to affect how people use and understand spatial language (Carlson & Van Deman, 2008; Carlson-Radvansky & Irwin, 1994), the geometric features carried by the located object have been deemed irrelevant for spatial language (Landau, 1996; Talmy, 1983). This view on the (ir)relevance of the located object has been recently questioned by works showing that presenting the located object in misalignment with the reference object has consequences for spatial language understanding (Burigo, Coventry, Cangelosi, & Lynott, 2016; Burigo & Sacchi, 2013). In the reported study we aimed to investigate which geometric properties of the located object affect the apprehension of a spatial description, and to disentangle whether the information concerning its orientation (axis), direction (front/rear), or a combination of the two gives rise to conflict. The outcomes of three placing tasks suggest that only the information concerning the direction of the located object is critical for spatial language use.

Despite the general consistency in the treatment of international humanitarian law by international courts and tribunals, recent decisions have seen significant disagreement regarding the scope of indirect responsibility for individuals and States for the provision of aid or assistance to non-State actors that perpetrate war crimes. The divisions at the international criminal tribunals with regard to the “specific direction” element of aiding and abetting are reminiscent of the divergence between the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on the question of State responsibility for supporting or assisting non-State actors that engage in violations of international law. This article analyzes this jurisprudence on individual and State responsibility for the provision of support to non-State actors that breach international humanitarian law, and considers the interaction and interrelationship between these related but distinct forms of responsibility.

It is well established that cortical neurons frequently show different preferred drift directions for random dots and gratings. Dot stimuli often produce two preferred directions which are arranged symmetrically on either side of the preferred directions for gratings. Based on their filter properties in three-dimensional (3-D) Fourier space and on the 3-D power spectra of drifting dot patterns, we estimated the optimal direction to drifting dots for ten neurons in the striate cortex of five adult cats. These estimates frequently gave two optimal directions, one on either side of the optimal direction to gratings. The angle between the two estimated peaks increases with drift speed. Predicted and actual angles were in reasonably good agreement. We conclude, therefore, that the directional selectivity of cortical neurons to drifting random dot patterns can be understood from linear filtering properties. For this reason, the directional tuning to drifting dot patterns seems to reflect the same mechanisms that mediate the responses to sinusoidal gratings and do not require a separate directional mechanism.

A series of experiments investigated perceived direction of motion and depth segregation in motion transparency displays consisting of two planes of dots moving in different directions. Direction and depth judgments were obtained from human observers viewing these "bi-directional" animation sequences with and without explicit stereoscopic depth information. We found that (1) misperception of motion direction ("direction repulsion") occurs when two spatially intermingled directions of motion are within 60 deg of each other; (2) direction repulsion is minimal at cardinal directions; (3) perception of two directions of motion always results in separate motion planes segregated in depth; and (4) stereoscopic depth information has no effect on the magnitude of direction repulsion, but it does disambiguate the depth relations between motion directions. These results are developed within the context of a two-stage model of motion transparency. On this model, motion directions are registered within units subject to inhibitory interactions that cause direction repulsion, with the outputs of these units pooled within units selective for direction and disparity.

Contrary to the traditional view that receptive fields are limited in spatial extent, recent studies have indicated that the response of neurons to a local stimulus within the receptive field can be modulated by stimulation of the surrounding region. Here we quantified the nature of these contextual effects on visual motion responses of neurons in the pigeon's optic tectum using standard extracellular recording techniques. All of the cells tested responded well to a test spot moving across their receptive fields. When a background pattern was moved in the same or in a similar direction as that of the test spot, the responses of most deep tectal neurons to the test spot were maximally inhibited. Movement of the background in the opposite or near opposite direction produced minimal inhibition or even facilitation. For some deep tectal neurons, this directionally selective modulation by the moving background was maintained when the background motion was paired with different movement directions of the test spot (including both the preferred and least preferred directions). Thus, this selectivity for opposing motion was independent of the absolute direction of either the test spot or the background, a finding which is consistent with the results reported by Frost and Nakayama (1983), although they did not include all test spot directions. For some other neurons, identified here for the first time, the background movement selectively modulated the response only when the test spot moved in the neuron's preferred directions. These neurons lost selectivity for opposing motion when the test spot moved in nonpreferred directions. The significance of these contextual effects on the motion response of tectal neurons may be related to how the brain distinguishes self-induced motion from object motion and segregates figure from ground.