Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 526-539 Abstract “Default mode network (DMN) functional connectivity is thought to occur primarily in low frequencies (<0.1 Hz), resulting in most studies removing high frequencies during data preprocessing. In contrast, subtractive task analyses include high frequencies, as these are thought to be task relevant. An emerging line of research explores resting fMRI data at higher-frequency bands, examining the possibility that functional connectivity is a multiband phenomenon. Furthermore, recent studies suggest DMN involvement in cognitive processing; however, without a systematic investigation of DMN connectivity during tasks, its functional contribution to… Read More
The Neural Basis of Successful Word Reading in Aphasia
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 514-525 Abstract “Understanding the neural basis of recovery from stroke is a major research goal. Many functional neuroimaging studies have identified changes in brain activity in people with aphasia, but it is unclear whether these changes truly support successful performance or merely reflect increased task difficulty. We addressed this problem by examining differences in brain activity associated with correct and incorrect responses on an overt reading task. On the basis of previous proposals that semantic retrieval can assist pronunciation of written words, we hypothesized that recruitment of semantic areas… Read More
Hearing Shapes: Event-related Potentials Reveal the Time Course of Auditory–Visual Sensory Substitution
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 498-513 Abstract “In auditory–visual sensory substitution, visual information (e.g., shape) can be extracted through strictly auditory input (e.g., soundscapes). Previous studies have shown that image-to-sound conversions that follow simple rules [such as the Meijer algorithm; Meijer, P. B. L. An experimental system for auditory image representation. Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 39, 111–121, 1992] are highly intuitive and rapidly learned by both blind and sighted individuals. A number of recent fMRI studies have begun to explore the neuroplastic changes that result from sensory substitution training. However, the time course of cross-sensory information… Read More
Event-related Electroencephalographic Lateralizations Mark Individual Differences in Spatial and Nonspatial Visual Selection
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 482-497 Abstract “Selective attention controls the distribution of our visual system’s limited processing resources to stimuli in the visual field. Two independent parameters of visual selection can be quantified by modeling an individual’s performance in a partial-report task based on the computational theory of visual attention (TVA): (i) top–down control α, the relative attentional weighting of relevant over irrelevant stimuli, and (ii) spatial bias wλ, the relative attentional weighting of stimuli in the left versus right hemifield. In this study, we found that visual event-related electroencephalographic lateralizations marked interindividual differences… Read More
Oscillatory Mechanisms of Response Conflict Elicited by Color and Motion Direction: An Individual Differences Approach
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, 468-481 Abstract “Goal-directed behavior requires control over automatic behavior, for example, when goal-irrelevant information from the environment captures an inappropriate response and conflicts with the correct, goal-relevant action. Neural oscillations in the theta band (∼6 Hz) measured at midfrontal electrodes are thought to form an important substrate of the detection and subsequent resolution of response conflict. Here, we examined the extent to which response conflict and associated theta-band activity depend on the visual stimulus feature dimension that triggers the conflict. We used a feature-based Simon task to manipulate conflict by motion… Read More
Does Extensive Training at Individuating Novel Objects in Adulthood Lead to Visual Expertise? The Role of Facelikeness
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 449-467 Abstract “Human adults have a rich visual experience thanks to seeing human faces since birth, which may contribute to the acquisition of perceptual processes that rapidly and automatically individuate faces. According to a generic visual expertise hypothesis, extensive experience with nonface objects may similarly lead to efficient processing of objects at the individual level. However, whether extensive training in adulthood leads to visual expertise remains debated. One key issue is the extent to which the acquisition of visual expertise depends on the resemblance of objects to faces in… Read More
Control Changes the Way We Look at the World
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 603-619 Abstract “The feeling of control is a fundamental aspect of human experience and accompanies our voluntary actions all the time. However, how the sense of control interacts with wider perception, cognition, and behavior remains poorly understood. This study focused on how controlling an external object influences the allocation of attention. Experiment 1 examined attention to an object that is under a different level of control from the others. Participants searched for a target among multiple distractors on screen. All the distractors were partially under the participant’s control (50%… Read More
Cross-frequency Phase–Amplitude Coupling as a Mechanism for Temporal Orienting of Attention in Childhood
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 594-602 Abstract “Temporal orienting of attention operates by biasing the allocation of cognitive and motor resources in specific moments in time, resulting in the improved processing of information from expected compared with unexpected targets. Recent findings have shown that temporal orienting operates relatively early across development, suggesting that this attentional mechanism plays a core role for human cognition. However, the exact neurophysiological mechanisms allowing children to attune their attention over time are not well understood. In this study, we presented 8- to 12-year-old children with a temporal cueing task… Read More
Memory Contextualization: The Role of Prefrontal Cortex in Functional Integration across Item and Context Representational Regions
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 579-593 Abstract “Memory recall is facilitated when retrieval occurs in the original encoding context. This context dependency effect likely results from the automatic binding of central elements of an experience with contextual features (i.e., memory “contextualization”) during encoding. However, despite a vast body of research investigating the neural correlates of explicit associative memory, the neural interactions during encoding that predict implicit context-dependent memory remain unknown. Twenty-six participants underwent fMRI during encoding of salient stimuli (faces), which were overlaid onto unique background images (contexts). To index subsequent context-dependent memory, face… Read More
Sex, Sleep Deprivation, and the Anxious Brain
Published in: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2018, 565-578 Abstract “Insufficient sleep is a known trigger of anxiety. Nevertheless, not everyone experiences these effects to the same extent. One determining factor is sex, wherein women experience a greater anxiogenic impact in response to sleep loss than men. However, the underlying brain mechanism(s) governing this sleep-loss-induced anxiety increase, including the markedly different reaction in women and men, is unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that structural brain morphology in a discrete network of emotion-relevant regions represents one such explanatory factor. Healthy participants were assessed across sleep-rested and sleep-deprived… Read More