Published in: Brain and Cognition, Volume 122, April 2018, 17-25 Abstract “It is still unclear which role the right hemisphere (RH) preference for perceptually specific and the left hemisphere (LH) bias towards abstract memory representations play at the level of episodic memory retrieval. When stimulus characteristics hampered the retrieval of abstract memory representations, these hemispheric asymmetries have previously only modulated event-related potential (ERP) correlates of recollection (late positive complex, LPC), but not of familiarity (FN400). In the present experiment, we used stimuli which facilitated the retrieval of abstract memory representations. With the divided visual field technique, new items, identical repetitions and… Read More
Visual awareness negativity is an early neural correlate of awareness: A preregistered study with two Gabor sizes
Published in: Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, Volume 18, Issue 1, 176-188 Abstract “Electrophysiological recordings are commonly used to study the neural correlates of consciousness in humans. Previous research is inconsistent as to whether awareness can be indexed with visual awareness negativity (VAN) at about 200 ms or if it occurs later. The present study was preregistered with two main aims: First, to provide independent evidence for or against the presence of VAN, and second, to study whether stimulus size may account for the inconsistent findings. Subjects were shown low-contrast Gaussian filtered gratings (Gabor patches) in the four visual quadrants. Gabor… Read More
Predicting risk decisions in a modified Balloon Analogue Risk Task: Conventional and single-trial ERP analyses
Published in: Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, Volume 18, Issue 1, 99-116 Abstract “Event-related potential (ERP) has the potential to reveal the temporal neurophysiological dynamics of risk decision-making, but this potential has not been fully explored in previous studies. When predicting risk decision with ERPs, most studies focus on between-trial analysis that reflects feedback learning, while within-trial analysis that could directly link option assessment with behavioral output has been largely ignored. Suitable task design is crucial for applying within-trial prediction. In this study, we used a modified version of the classic Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). In each trial of the… Read More
On the predictability of event boundaries in discourse: An ERP investigation
Published in: Memory & Cognition, Volume 46, Issue 2, 315-325 Abstract “When reading a text describing an everyday activity, comprehenders build a model of the situation described that includes prior knowledge of the entities, locations, and sequences of actions that typically occur within the event. Previous work has demonstrated that such knowledge guides the processing of incoming information by making event boundaries more or less expected. In the present ERP study, we investigated whether comprehenders’ expectations about event boundaries are influenced by how elaborately common events are described in the context. Participants read short stories in which a common activity (e.g.,… Read More
Emotional enhancement of error detection—The role of perceptual processing and inhibition monitoring in failed auditory stop trials
Published in: Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, Volume 18, Issue 1, 1-20 Abstract “The first aim of the present study was to test whether arousing, aversive sounds can influence inhibitory task performance and lead to increased error monitoring relative to a neutral task condition. The second aim was to examine whether the enhancement of error monitoring in an affective context (if present) could be predicted from stop-signal-related brain activity. Participants performed an emotional stop-signal task that required response inhibition to aversive and neutral auditory stimuli. The behavioral data revealed that unpleasant sounds facilitated inhibitory processing by decreasing the stop-signal reaction time… Read More
Individual differences in verbal working memory underlie a tradeoff between semantic and structural processing difficulty during language comprehension: An ERP investigation
Published in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Volume 44, Issue 3, 406-420 Abstract “This study investigated the processes reflected in the widely observed N400 and P600 event-related potential (ERP) effects and tested the hypothesis that the N400 and P600 effects are functionally linked in a tradeoff relationship, constrained in part by individual differences in cognitive ability. Sixty participants read sentences, and ERP effects of semantic anomaly, relative to plausible words, were calculated for each participant. Results suggested qualitatively different ERP patterns across participants: Some individuals generated N400-dominated effects, whereas others generated P600-dominated effects, for the same stimuli. To… Read More
Languages flex cultural thinking
Published in: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Volume 21, Issue 2, 219-227 Abstract “Recent studies have revealed remarkable interactions between language and emotion. Here, we show that such interactions influence judgments made regarding cultural information. Balanced Welsh–English bilinguals categorized statements about their native Welsh culture as true or false. Whilst participants categorized positive statements as true when they were true, they were biased towards categorizing them as true also when they were false, irrespective of the language in which they read them. Surprisingly, participants were unbiased when categorizing negative statements presented in their native language Welsh, but showed a reverse bias… Read More
The costs of target prioritization and the external requirements for using a recall-to-reject strategy in memory exclusion tasks: a meta-analysis
Published in: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Volume 24, Issue 6, December 2017, 1844-1855 Abstract “In event-related potential (ERP) studies, the left-parietal old/new effect is commonly considered as a neural correlate of recollection. In memory exclusion tasks, the effect is usually observed when the targeted information is identified, but it is not necessarily present when studied items are rejected as nontargets. Interestingly, both the presence and the absence of such old/new effects to nontargets have been regarded as indicator for strategic retrieval. We reviewed previous ERP studies using memory exclusion tasks to analyze the reaction time (RT) pattern in such studies, as… Read More