Current Poster Table
| Poster Session | Number | Presenter | Authors | Abstract Title | Abstract | Keyword | Add to Calendar | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 1 | Jonah Kember, Brock University | Paige Vaccarella, Brock University; Erin Panda, Brock University; Donna Coch, Dartmouth College | More modular EEG functional networks during single-word reading with development | Prior studies have found that cognitive processing decreases the relative independence of large-scale functional networks (graph-theoretical 'modularity'). As skills become automatized, this decrease attenuates (neural-efficiency hypothesis). However, few studies have examined this attenuation during single-word reading development or associations with reading-related skills. We recorded 32-channel EEG while children (n=72, grades 3-5) and adults (n=24, ages 18-24) viewed words, pseudowords, letter-strings, and false-fonts. Networks were created [Nodes: sensors, Edges: across-trial phase-lag index of theta (4-7Hz) signal], baseline-corrected (-500 to -300ms), and weighted/asymmetrically signed modularity was calculated over time for each condition. In the 200-400ms window, we found: (1) greater modularity in adults vs. children across conditions, (2) greater modularity for words vs. letter-strings in children, and (3) greater modularity for words vs. pseudowords in adults (ps<.05). For significant condition contrasts, modules (sub-networks) associated with word (but not word-like) stimulus processing were identified from the consensus partition that maximized modularity of the grand-average difference network and permutation tested for significance. In children, the modularity effect of 'words vs. letter-strings' (mc-p=.037) was driven by modules over frontal, left-central, and posterior regions. Controlling for global connectivity, additional connectivity for words (mean PLI+) within/between each module was correlated with children's reading-related skills: connectivity within frontal modules increased with rapid automatized naming scores (r=.25, p=.038) and connectivity between frontal and left-central modules decreased with receptive vocabulary scores (r=-.28, p=.017). This pattern for word reading?of more information transfer within cortical systems and less transfer between as reading-related skills develop?is consistent with the neural-efficiency hypothesis. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA1 - More modular EEG functional networks during single-word reading with developmentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 2 | Kenneth Paap, San Francisco State University | Regina Anders-Jefferson, San Francisco State University; John Majoubi, San Francisco State University; Kathy Wannaviroj, San Francisco State University; Brandon Zimiga, San Francisco State University | Does bilingualism delay the onset or incidence of dementia? Not as well as other cognitive activities | The first studies on the possible effects of bilingualism on dementia used retrospective reports of patients at memory clinics and showed that bilingualism delayed the onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in a range of 4.7 to 7.3 years. But anomalous results began to trickle in: Chertoff et al. (2010) reported that in native Canadian cohorts it was the bilinguals who were diagnosed earlier. Also, a comparison of English-speaking monolinguals to French-speaking monolinguals showed that speaking only English was associated with a 5.3-year delay in dementia diagnosis compared to speaking only French. The bilingual and monolingual comparisons in many of the retrospective studies showing a bilingual advantage were confounded with respect to immigrant status (Bialystok et al., 2007) or educational and occupational attainment (Alladi et al., 2013). In contrast, the set of five prospective studies that tracked longitudinal cohorts of older adults yield completely consistent results: no differences between bilinguals and monolinguals on either onset of cognitive impairment or dementia diagnosis. The debate on bilingualism's potential contribution to cognitive reserve has neglected to consider if other types of cognitively stimulating experiences produce robust evidence of cognitive reserve. Our systematic review of the longitudinal studies using longitudinal cohorts shows that these designs are very sensitive to the protective effects of stimulating mental activities at the grain size of specific activities (e.g., computer use) or larger and diverse sets of activities. Ironically, bilingualism is the rare cognitive activity that does not produce cognitive reserve in longitudinal studies. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA2 - Does bilingualism delay the onset or incidence of dementia? Not as well as other cognitive activitiesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 3 | Gaia Molinaro, UCL; University of California, Berkeley | Irene Cogliati Dezza, UCL; Ghent University; Tali Sharot, UCL | How Children Decide Which Information to Seek | From an early age, children are tasked with gathering information to learn about their environment. As the available information is vast, children must prioritize what they want to know. However, deciding which knowledge to pursue can be difficult because information can serve several, sometimes competing, purposes. Here, we examine how children integrate multiple motives to decide which information to seek, and how this process changes with development. One-hundred and four children (aged 4-12) and 28 adults (aged 18 or older) performed a novel information-seeking task. The findings reveal that, starting from age 6, children integrate 'internal motives' and 'external motives' to guide information-seeking behavior. In particular, they select information that can (i) make them feel better, (ii) reduce their uncertainty (internal motives), and (iii) help them select actions that will maximize extrinsic reward (external motives). In contrast, preschoolers (4-5 years old) solely prioritize information that can guide action to improve external outcomes. The results suggest that children progressively attune to different needs as they grow older. Specifically, motives related to attaining external outcomes (such as resources), which are necessary for survival, emerge first, followed by choices that can help regulate emotion and reduce uncertainty. Our findings could be useful for framing critical information in a way that increases the likelihood it will be consumed by children of different ages. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA3 - How Children Decide Which Information to SeekDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 4 | Nicholas Phillips, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital | Kayla Stratton, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; AnnaLynn Williams, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; Tim Ahles, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Kirsten Ness, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; Kim Edelstein, Princess Margaret Cancer Center; Kevin Oeffinger, Duke University School of Medicine; Eric Chow, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Rebecca Howell, MD Anderson Cancer Center; Gregory T. Armstrong, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; Wendy Leisenring , Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Kevin Krull, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital | Late Onset Cognitive Decline in Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer: A Report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study | Unimpaired adult survivors of pediatric CNS tumors may be at elevated risk for late-onset cognitive decline. Longitudinal follow-up of 512 CCSS CNS tumor survivors (52.3% female, mean [SD] 30.6 [7.1] years at T1) and 232 siblings (57.8% female, 34.2 [8.4] years at T1) examined the prevalence of late-onset neurocognitive impairments using the Neurocognitive Questionnaire (NCQ) at two timepoints (mean interval 11.6 [0.7] years). Treatment exposures were abstracted from medical records. Chronic health conditions were self-reported and graded according to CTCAE v4.3. Relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) estimated associations between treatment and chronic condition using generalized linear models. Mediation analysis examined treatment impact on neurocognitive impairment through chronic conditions. Among CNS tumor survivors unimpaired at T1, more survivors vs. siblings had impairments in memory (34.7% vs.7.8; RR [95% CI] 4.2, [2.6-6.9]), emotional regulation (15.5% vs.5.0%; 2.8, [1.5-5.3]), task efficiency (22.7% vs.7.0%; 2.9, [1.7-5.2]), and organization (14.5% vs.2.9%; 4.9, [2.1-11.0]) by T2. Memory decline was associated with exposure to craniospinal (RR [95% CI] 1.9, [1.3-2.8]) and focal irradiation (1.6, [1.1-2.3]). Serious/disabling/life-threatening neurologic conditions at T2 were associated with declines in memory (2.3, [1.6-3.3]) and task-efficiency (3.25, [1.5-6.8]). Cardiopulmonary conditions predicted decline in organization (2.0, [1.1-3.7]). Neurologic conditions mediated associations among cranial radiation, memory (p=0.046) and task efficiency (p=0.008). Anxiety, depression, smoking, low educational attainment, and low physical activity were associated with elevated risk for neurocognitive declines. CNS tumor survivors who escape initial impairment after treatment continue to be at elevated risk for late-onset neurocognitive impairment. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA4 - Late Onset Cognitive Decline in Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer: A Report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor StudyDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 5 | Brooke Yeager, University of Iowa | Nandakumar Narayanan, University of Iowa; Jordan Schultz, University of Iowa; Joel Bruss, University of Iowa; Rachel Cole, University of Iowa | Functional Network Alterations in Parkinson's Disease | Background: The brain-network origins of cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's Disease are unclear. We set out to understand the changes to the brain's functional architecture that result in cognitive dysfunction in PD by analyzing within- and between-network functional connectivity of neural networks that support cognition: default mode network (DMN), frontoparietal network (FPN), and salience network (SN). We hypothesize PD patients with cognitive impairments (PD-MCI) have differences in connectivity of these networks. Methods: Neuroimaging data were used from the Parkinson's Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI) dataset (N = 103). FMRI data were processed and analyzed using the CONN toolbox in MATLAB, where seed-to-voxel measures were computed for within-network connectivity and ROI-ROI measures were computed for between-network connectivity. Using Pearson's correlation coefficients as the measure of functional connectivity, we compared connectivity strength between each group: controls (n = 20), PD patients (n = 63), and PD-MCI (n = 15). Results: We found no differences in within-node connectivity in the DMN, FPN, or SN. We did find decreased between-network connectivity of the DMN and FPN in PD-MCI. A linear mixed effects model to evaluate the effect of group on DMN-FPN connectivity showed a significant main effect (p = 0.03), with a post-hoc comparison correcting for multiple comparisons revealing that PD-MCI patients have less functional connectivity between the DMN and FPN than PD without MCI (p = 0.04). Conclusions: We provide evidence that functional connectivity is lowered in specific neural networks that support cognition in PD, which may contribute to cognitive dysfunction in PD patients. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA5 - Functional Network Alterations in Parkinson's DiseaseDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 6 | Milena Rmus, UC Berkeley | Alex He, MIT; Beth Baribault, UC Berkeley; Elena Festa, Brown University; Anne Collins, UC Berkeley; Matthew Nassar, Brown University | Reinforcement learning and working memory changes across lifespan: bridging cognition, computation and neuroscience | Our ability to make goal-directed choices declines as we get older. It is challenging to disentangle whether this decline stems from reduced capacity to learn based on the choice outcomes (reinforcement learning, RL), or to maintain relevant information (working memory, WM). Furthermore, the biological basis of such declines remains unknown. We apply computational modeling to data from a RL-WM task which is optimized to disentangle RL and WM mechanisms to investigate how they change across lifespan, in combination with magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to better understand their biological bases. We administered the RL-WM task to 42 old adults (Mean(SD) Age= 68(8.6)) and 38 young adults (Mean(SD) Age= 21(4.6)). Participants learned a varying number of rewarding stimulus-response associations, permitting us to separate the contribution of RL and resource-limited WM to overall performance. Using hierarchical Bayesian modeling, we measured how RL and WM-specific parameters differ between young and old adults. Individual differences in neurochemistry were assessed with MRS in three brain regions (PFC, Parietal cortex, striatum). We found evidence of age-related decline in both RL and WM parameters. Furthermore, cortical levels of glutamate were also reduced with increased age, and related to performance measures and model parameters. Our results reveal that learning declines in older age are partially attributable to working memory deficits, and potentially related to reductions in cortical glutamate levels. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA6 - Reinforcement learning and working memory changes across lifespan: bridging cognition, computation and neuroscienceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 7 | Jiook Cha, seoul national university | Junghoon Park, seoul national university; Eunji Lee, seoul national university; Gyeongcheol Cho, McGill University; Heungsun Hwang, McGill University; Yoonjung Y. Joo, Korea University | Gene-Environment Causal Pathway to Impoverished Cognitive Development Contributes to Psychotic-Like Experience in Youth | Identifying the social and biological mechanisms of cognitive and psychological development of children is essential for optimizing preventive and educational efforts. However, the causal pathways by which genetic and environmental factors affect cognitive and psychiatric outcomes remain unknown, especially in early childhood. We examined the causal relationships among genes, the environment, intelligence, and psychotic-like experiences in 7,632 multiethnic (5,905 with European ancestry) children aged 9-10 years old from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. Using up-to-date computational causal analysis and robust path modeling, we found a significant causal influence of residential, family, and school environments and genome-wide polygenic scores of cognitive capacities on preadolescents' psychotic-like experiences mediated by intelligence. Mitigation of good parenting behavior and positive school environments on psychotic-like experiences dominated the pernicious effects of genetic and residential adversities. Our findings support that intelligence may be a biological resilience factor for psychosis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to identify casual trajectories of neurocognitive development in early childhood and the first to provide empirical evidence that positive parenting behavior and school environment can impose a considerable degree of causal impact on children's cognitive and psychiatric outcomes. We suggest the implementation of socioeconomic policies to improve family and school environments and promote local economic development to enhance children's cognitive ability and mental health. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA7 - Gene-Environment Causal Pathway to Impoverished Cognitive Development Contributes to Psychotic-Like Experience in YouthDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 8 | Skylar Brooks, Boston Children's Hospital | Kaitlynn Cooper, Carnegie Mellon University; Catherine Stamoulis, Harvard Medical School/Boston Children's Hospital | Dynamic connectome fluctuations in early adolescence are correlated with higher cognitive flexibility and control | Spontaneous fluctuations in resting-state functional networks measured with fMRI may play an important role in information processing and cognitive flexibility, but remain poorly understoodin the developing brain. This study investigated relationships between dynamic fluctuations of topological properties of resting-state networks and cognitive performance in 5566 children (52.1% female, median age = 120.0 months) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. Functional connectivity was estimated from resting-state time series using instantaneous covariance, leading to dynamically-varying correlation patterns. Topological properties, including global community structure (clustering), efficiency, median connectivity and robustness were estimated from thresholded time-dependent connectivity matrices. Temporal variability was calculated for each property using multiple measures, including the coefficient of variation and dispersion, to ensure method-independence. Statistical models evaluated the relationship between these measures and age-adjusted scores in the Flanker, Dimensional Card Sort, and Matrix Reasoning tasks. Higher temporal fluctuation of topological efficiency, robustness, global clustering, and median connectivity across the entire brain was associated with better performance in the Card Sort task (p < 0.01). Higher temporal fluctuations of these properties in bilateral dorsal and ventral attention, frontoparietal control, and reward networks were correlated with better performance in the Flanker (p ‰?_ 0.04) and Card Sort tasks (p‰?_ 0.01). The latter was also positively correlated with fluctuations in bilateral default-mode (p‰?_ 0.01) and right temporoparietal (p<0.04) networks. No statistical associations were estimated for the Matrix Reasoning task. These results suggest that dynamic network changes in the developing brain may be associated with higher cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control and executive | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA8 - Dynamic connectome fluctuations in early adolescence are correlated with higher cognitive flexibility and controlDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 9 | Noelia Calvo, York University | John Anderson, Carleton University; Ellen Bialystok, York University | Disentangling sex and bilingualism as contributors to cognitive reserve | Understanding factors that contribute to cognitive reserve (CR) is crucial given North America's current demographics. Around 6 million Americans are currently living with dementia and almost two thirds of those already diagnosed are women. Moreover, dementia deaths have increased by 16% during the COVID19 pandemic. The pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease (AD) is still unclear, but it is altered by changes in sex hormones (e.g., loss of estrogen during menopause), genetic profile (e.g., ?4 allele of Apolipoprotein E), non-modifiable risk factors (e.g., comorbidities, heart failure), modifiable factors (e.g., smoking, physical inactivity) and protective lifestyle factors (e.g., education, bilingualism). In the current study, we analyzed the interactive effect of sex and bilingualism in cognitive reserve. We examined cortical thickness in terms of language status (bilingual, monolingual) and sex (men, women) in a healthy older adult population. Overall, results showed that all participants had similar cognitive status, but women had thinner cortex than men and bilinguals had thinner cortex than monolinguals- all brain differences were shown in the right hemisphere. The interaction was that bilingual women had less cortical thickness than monolingual women despite similar cognitive levels. These findings replicate previous research showing the role of bilingualism as a CR factor and are the first to report cortical thickness differences between bilingual and monolingual women. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA9 - Disentangling sex and bilingualism as contributors to cognitive reserveDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 10 | Zhongzheng Fu, CALTECH | Danielle Beam, NYU Langone Health; Jeffrey Chung, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; Chrystal Reed, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; Adam Mamelak, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; Ralph Adolphs, CALTECH; Ueli Rutishauser, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center | The geometry of domain-general performance monitoring in the human medial frontal cortex | Controlling behavior to flexibly achieve desired goals depends on the ability to monitor one's own performance. It is unknown how performance monitoring can be both flexible to support different tasks and specialized to perform well on each. We recorded single neurons in the human medial frontal cortex while subjects performed two tasks that involve three types of cognitive conflict. Neurons encoding predicted conflict, conflict, and error in one or both tasks were intermixed, forming a representational geometry that simultaneously allowed task specialization and generalization. Neurons encoding conflict retrospectively served to update internal estimates of control demand. Population representations of conflict were compositional. These findings reveal how representations of evaluative signals can be both abstract and task-specific and suggest a neuronal mechanism for estimating control demand. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA10 - The geometry of domain-general performance monitoring in the human medial frontal cortexDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 11 | Anna C. Thompson, University of Texas at Dallas | Yumika Tayama, University of Texas at Dallas; Giuseppe G. Miranda, University of Texas at Dallas; Marci M. Horn, University of Texas at Dallas; Alyssa Ortega, University of Texas at Dallas; DaYeon Moon, University of Texas at Dallas; Karen M. Rodrigue, University of Texas at Dallas; Kristen M. Kennedy, University of Texas at Dallas | Association of genetic influence on telomere length and cognitive aging | Investigation into various effects of telomere length has increased recently, particularly in the context of longevity, senescence, and disease risk. Studies report that possessing either extreme in telomere length may increase the likelihood of developing adverse health issues, with longer lengths associated with development of certain cancers and shorter lengths associated with development of age-related neurodegenerative diseases. This suggests that telomere action may be nonlinear, with an advantage for intermediate length and increased risk for shorter or longer lengths. Telomere length is controlled in part by a single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the TERT gene (rs2736100) with T/G carriers possessing intermediate length, T/T shortest, and G/G longest telomere lengths. Based on the pattern of disease risk, we hypothesized that TERT may influence cognitive aging, conferring protection for heterozygotes. N=194 healthy adults (aged 20-87 years) completed multiple cognitive tests that were used to create cognitive composite scores for executive function, memory, processing speed, and were genotyped for rs2736100. Linear models predicting cognition from TERT genotype and age were conducted for each cognitive composite. Results demonstrated that TERT significantly impacts performance on cognitive control measures, whereby TERT heterozygotes exhibited highest performance, significantly higher than their homozygote counterparts. No significant differences were identified between T homozygotes and G homozygotes, suggesting a nonlinear action of the TERT polymorphism. This effect was not observed in memory or processing speed scores. These preliminary findings suggest that genetic influences on telomere length may contribute to individual differences in cognitive performance across adulthood. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA11 - Association of genetic influence on telomere length and cognitive agingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 12 | Vanessa R. Alschuler, University of Minnesota | Paul F. Collins, University of Minnesota; Samuel D. Klein, University of Minnesota; Peter M. Grund, University of Minnesota; Monica Luciana, University of Minnesota | The Dual-System Model as Indexed by Executive Functions, Reward Sensitivity, and White Matter Tractography: Impacts of Age and Sex | The dual-systems model posits distinct developmental trajectories in reward (i.e., quadratic) and executive (i.e., linear and/or inverse) systems through adolescence and early adulthood, resulting in elevated reward sensitivity relative to executive control in adolescence. Whether these putative developmental trajectories differ by sex remains equivocal. Accordingly, this cross-sectional analysis aimed to investigate whether sex differences in age-related changes of reward and executive function are compatible with the dual-systems model. A sample of age-matched males (n=75; mean age=17.77 ±3.70 years, range=11.38-24.93) and females (n=90; mean age=18.45±4.28 years, range=11.25-25.70) completed questionnaire measures of reward sensitivity (Behavioral Activation System; BAS), and assessments of verbal working memory (Digit Span; DS), nonverbal working memory (CANTAB Spatial Working Memory; SWM), and delay discounting (DD) as part of a longitudinal neuroimaging study. Curve-fitting procedures compared whether linear, quadratic, or inverse effects best approximated age-related patterns of development for each measure in males and females. Males showed a quadratic age effect for reward sensitivity (BAS Total t=-2.5, p=0.017) and linear age effects for working memory (DS t=3.8, p<0.001; SWM t=-4.4, p<0.001) and discounting (DD t=3.7, p<0.001), while females showed inverse age effects across all measures (BAS Total t=-1.8, p=0.077; DS t=-3.7, p<0.001; SWM t=-2.0, p=0.046; DD t=-0.4, p=0.69). These findings imply that the dual-system framework may be more relevant for males and that reward sensitivity develops differently in females. Further analyses are currently underway to test this model in relation to white matter development using probabilistic tractography of accumbofrontal and frontodorsostriatal tracts. Implications for adolescent risk-taking will be discussed. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA12 - The Dual-System Model as Indexed by Executive Functions, Reward Sensitivity, and White Matter Tractography: Impacts of Age and SexDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 13 | Samantha Penhale, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Yasra Arif, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Chloe Meehan, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Mikki Schantell, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Tony Wilson, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Age modulates the oscillatory neural dynamics serving fluid intelligence | Fluid intelligence (Gf) encompasses logical reasoning and novel problem-solving skills and is often assessed using abstract reasoning tasks like Raven's progressive matrices. Previous work has reported an age-related decline in fluid intelligence capabilities, and although many studies have sought to identify the underlying mechanisms, our understanding of the critical brain regions and dynamics remains largely incomplete. In this study, we utilized magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate 78 individuals, ages 20 ? 65 years, as they completed an abstract reasoning task. MEG data was transformed into the time-frequency domain and the resulting neural oscillations were imaged using a beamformer. We found worsening behavioral performance with age, including prolonged reaction times and reduced accuracy. MEG analyses indicated robust oscillations in the theta, alpha/beta, and gamma range underlying abstract reasoning. Our primary results included stronger alpha/beta oscillations with increasing age in the right superior parietal cortex, a key area previously found to be implicated in intelligence and reasoning. In addition, whole brain correlation analysis using age revealed a similar relationship in bilateral parietal and left frontal cortices, both regions thought to be involved in Gf. Follow-up connectivity analyses using these regions as seeds revealed increasing parieto-frontal connectivity with age. Importantly, our findings are consistent with the parieto-frontal integration theory of intelligence (P-FIT). These results further suggest that as people age, there may be a compensatory effect that is spectrally specific, such that older people exhibit stronger alpha/beta oscillations across the parieto-frontal network to solve abstract reasoning tasks. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA13 - Age modulates the oscillatory neural dynamics serving fluid intelligenceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 14 | Chandramallika Basak, The University of Texas at Dallas | G. Hulon Sherard, The University of Texas at Dallas; Paulina Skolasinska, The University of Texas at Dallas; Evan Smith, The University of Texas at Dallas; Shuo Qin, The University of Texas at Dallas; Andrew Sun, The University of Texas at Dallas; Paul Fishwick, The University of Texas at Dallas; Denise C. Park, The University of Texas at Dallas; Chandramallika Basak, The University of Texas at Dallas | White matter integrity changes in left fronto-parietal regions are associated with cognitive control training | LšvdŽn et al. (2010) describe a framework of cognition that distinguishes cognitive flexibility (changes in cognitive resources that may produce changes in functionality) from cognitive plasticity (changes in brain structure that are caused by changes in functionality). The aim of the current study was to evaluate if cognitive control training in healthy aging leads to cognitive plasticity, or to mere cognitive flexibility, by assessing changes in white matter integrity (WMI) after the cognitive control training. Forty older adults trained for several sessions in a laboratory-developed game called Birdwatch, which involved maintenance and coordination of multiple visual items in working memory, and updating relevant information in our working memory based on the probe-cue context while ignoring irrelevant distractors. White matter Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) data (using 64 collinear directions, multi-band factor = 2) were taken prior to and immediately after the training sessions. Learning rates on the Birdwatch game were also calculated for each individual. Post-training increases in the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the left Superior and Posterior Corona Radiata (SCR and PCR) were observed. Furthermore, increases in FA had a marginal correlation with overall learning rates for the left SCR and PCR, providing evidence for cognitive plasticity. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA14 - White matter integrity changes in left fronto-parietal regions are associated with cognitive control trainingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 15 | Alina Sophie Nostadt, University Hospital Bergmannsheil / Ruhr-University Bochum | Silke Lissek, University Hospital Bergmannsheil / Ruhr-University Bochum; Martin Tegenthoff, University Hospital Bergmannsheil / Ruhr-University Bochum; Oliver Wolf, Ruhr-University Bochum; Christian Merz, Ruhr-University Bochum | Cortisol influences behaviour and brain activity during extinction learning and renewal | Conditioned responding gradually stops during successful extinction learning. The renewal effect refers to the recovery of the extinguished conditioned response when context changes after extinction. The stress hormone cortisol is known to have an influence on extinction memory and associative learning with respect to stress timing, duration, and intensity. The neurobiological mechanisms of the renewal effect and the influence of cortisol on extinction learning, renewal and its behavioural and neurobiological correlates are still unknown. We investigated the effects of cortisol on behavioural performance as well as brain activations, using a 3T MRI scanner, in extinction learning and renewal during a predictive learning task. Participants learned, extinguished, and recalled associations between stimuli, presented in distinct contexts, and outcome in three different task phases. 20mg of hydrocortisone or placebo was administered 20min before the initial learning phase. We observed differences in learning performances between the treatment groups in the extinction and recall phase. The cortisol group showed higher renewal rates and retrieval errors in conditions where context change occurred. Imaging analysis revealed differences in activation patterns of both groups for extinction related brain areas during acquisition and extinction learning. In the recall phase, we found reduced activation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex for the cortisol group, indicating impaired recall of context and extinction learning memory. Our findings illustrate that cortisol might influence processing of context information due to impaired activation in brain regions that are crucially involved in encoding and updating context information and recall of context information, as well as extinction memory. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA15 - Cortisol influences behaviour and brain activity during extinction learning and renewalDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 16 | Robert Astur, University of Connecticut | Areej Sayeed, University of Connecticut; Skyler Sklenarik, University of Connecticut; Tanushree Biswas, University of Connecticut; Julianne Kelly, University of Connecticut; Ashna Prakash, University of Connecticut; Ken Thompson, University of Connecticut; Stephane Bouchard, University of Quebec in Outaouais; Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, Yale School of Medicine; Robert Astur, University of Connecticut | Using Virtual Reality to Reduce E-Cigarette Dependence and Cravings in College Students | Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use is highly prevalent and increasing dramatically among young adults. Previously, we demonstrated that immersing smokers in a virtual environment in which they crush virtual cigarettes significantly improved real-life smoking cessation (Girard et al., 2009). The goal of the current study is to investigate the efficacy of a similar intervention in reducing e-cigarette dependence. This intervention consists of 4 sessions over a 2-week period. Each 20-minute session consists of participants being immersed in a VR world filled with either 100 floating e-cigarettes (experimental condition) or 100 floating tennis balls (control condition). Participants in the experimental condition search for and destroy 60 e-cigarettes using a virtual hand. In the control condition, e-cigarettes are replaced with virtual tennis balls. Participants also complete validated assessments to quantify vaping dependence, including the Penn State Electronic Cigarette Dependence Index (PSECDI), the Electronic Cigarette Dependence Scale (EDS), the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND), and the Questionnaire of Vaping Craving (QVC). To date, 8 participants with medium/high e-cigarette dependence have completed the experimental condition. From session 1 to session 4, participants demonstrated a significant (p < 0.05) reduction in vaping dependence and cravings. Specifically, we observed a 35% reduction in PSECDI scores, a 43% reduction in EDS scores, a 57% reduction in FTND scores, and a 31% reduction in QVC scores from baseline. Data collection is ongoing, and results from the control condition will be critical in elucidating the efficacy of this intervention. Implications of these promising pilot data will be discussed. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA16 - Using Virtual Reality to Reduce E-Cigarette Dependence and Cravings in College StudentsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 17 | Joshua Ahn, University of Western Ontario | Benjamin Tari, University of Western Ontario; Mustafa Shirzad, University of Western Ontario; Connor Dalton, University of Western Ontario; James Van Riesen, University of Western Ontario; Anisa Morava, University of Western Ontario; Matthew Heath, University of Western Ontario; Harry Prapavessis, University of Western Ontario | Exercise-based mitigation of executive function deficits following mental fatigue ? A Pilot Investigation | Sustained attentional demand produces a state of mental fatigue (MF) resulting in deficits in reaction time (RT), subjective task exertion, and physical performance. Additionally, MF negatively impacts each core component of executive function (EF) (i.e., response inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility). In turn, a single bout of aerobic, resistance or passive exercise has been shown to reliably and transiently (i.e., < 60-min) improve EF. It is, however, unclear whether a single bout of passive exercise can mitigate the negative impact of MF on EF. Here, participants (n = 9) completed separate 20-min sessions of a non-exercise control (i.e., sitting) or passive cycling (i.e., 70 rpm) while concurrently performing the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT); i.e., a sustained-attention RT task that reliably induces MF. EF was assessed via pro- and antisaccade trials completed prior to, immediately after, and 30-min post-PVT. Prosaccades require a saccade to veridical target location, whereas antisaccades require a response mirror-symmetrical to a target. The non-standard nature of antisaccades is executively demanding and the task is supported via prefrontal executive networks that show task-dependent changes following acute and chronic exercise. Results demonstrated that the PVT induced MF and lengthened post-PVT antisaccade RTs in controls at each post-PVT interval. In contrast, passive exercise reduced the magnitude of fatigue induction and shortened antisaccade RTs at each post-PVT interval. Notably, post-PVT prosaccade RTs remained unaffected across either condition. Accordingly, these pilot data suggest that an acute bout of passive cycling may mitigate the deleterious effects of mental fatigue on executive function. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA17 - Exercise-based mitigation of executive function deficits following mental fatigue ? A Pilot InvestigationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 18 | Christopher Cagna, Rutgers University - Newark | Ahmet Ceceli, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Joshua Sandry, Montclair State University; Jamil Bhanji, Rutgers University - Newark; Elizabeth Tricomi, Rutgers University - Newark; Ekaterina Dobryakova, Center for Traumatic Brain Injury, Kessler Foundation | Altered Cortico-Striatal and Striato-Temporal Connectivity During Performance Feedback Learning in Multiple Sclerosis | Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune, neurodegenerative disease that disrupts central nervous system transmission, resulting in significant physical and cognitive impairments. A highly prevalent symptom is cognitive fatigue (CF), or difficulty engaging and maintaining mental effort due to chronic exhaustion. Neuroimaging studies have linked CF to altered cortico-striatal functioning among the ventral striatum (VS), caudate nucleus, and prefrontal regions. These connections largely overlap with circuitry that facilitates feedback-based learning (FBL) in neurotypical (NT) individuals. The present study investigated FBL in MS, as well as possible underlying differences in cortico-striatal activity and connectivity. MS and NT participants completed an fMRI paired-word association task during which they received trial-by-trial monetary, non-monetary, and uninformative performance feedback. Despite reporting significantly greater CF, MS participants displayed comparable task performance to NTs. fMRI analyses revealed recruitment of cortico-striatal regions - including the VS, caudate, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) - by both groups during FBL. Generalized psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed significantly reduced functional connectivity between the caudate and cortical regions, including the vmPFC and dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) in MS participants, compared to NTs, during positive feedback (correct responses). Reduced caudate-dACC connectivity in MS participants was related to greater CF. MS participants also displayed significantly stronger connectivity between the VS and potential task-specific regions, including the left angular gyrus and right superior temporal gyrus, compared to NTs. Findings implicate a potential role of a cortico-striato-temporal network that may have buffered the effects of CF, thus enabling effective FBL and associative memory performance in this MS sample. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA18 - Altered Cortico-Striatal and Striato-Temporal Connectivity During Performance Feedback Learning in Multiple SclerosisDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 19 | Adam Weinberger, University of Pennsylvania | Adam Green, Georgetown University | Dynamic development of intuitions and explicit knowledge during implicit learning | Implicit learning refers to learning without conscious awareness of the content acquired. Theoretical frameworks of human cognition suggest that intuitions develop based on incomplete perceptions of regularity during implicit learning and, in turn, lead to the development of more explicit, consciously-accessible knowledge. Surprisingly, however, this putative information processing pathway (i.e., implicit learning ? intuition ? explicit knowledge) has yet to be empirically demonstrated. The present study investigated the relationship between implicit learning, intuitions, and explicit knowledge using a modified Serial Reaction Time Task. Results indicate that intuitions of implicitly-learned patterns emerge prior to the development of explicit knowledge. Moreover, intuition timing and accuracy were significantly associated with accuracy of explicit reports. We did not, however, find that stronger implicit learners developed more accurate intuitions. Our findings suggest a crucial role of intuition in the formation of explicit knowledge from implicit learning. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA19 - Dynamic development of intuitions and explicit knowledge during implicit learningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 20 | James Van Riesen, Western University | Mustafa Shirzad, Western University; Benjamin Tari, Western University; Chloe Edgar, Western University; Leena Shoemaker, Western University; Kevin Shoemaker, Western University; Matthew Heath, Western University | The Effects of Reduced Cerebral Perfusion on Executive Function ? Currently in Progress | A 10-min single-bout of aerobic exercise improves (i.e., < 60-min) executive function and is a benefit that has been attributed to an exercise-related increase in cerebral blood flow (CBF) that improves neural efficiency and effectiveness. In turn, age- and disease-related decreases in CBF have been shown to impair executive function. It is, however, unknown whether a transient reduction in CBF in healthy young adults negatively impacts executive function. Here, participants will complete two separate 10-min sessions of lower body negative pressure (LBNP: -30 and -50 mmHg) and a separate 10-min non-LBNP control session. LBNP redistributes blood flow to the lower extremities and provides a safe and reliable means to transiently reduce CBF. During all sessions, CBF will be measured via a transcranial Doppler ultrasound and near infrared spectroscopy of blood velocity through the middle cerebral artery. Notably, prior to and immediately following each session, executive function will be assessed via the antipointing task. Antipointing is an executive-demanding task requiring that an individual point mirror-symmetrical to an exogenously presented target and the fronto-parietal mechanisms supporting antipointing have been shown to demonstrate task-based improvements following acute and chronic exercise. We hypothesize that LBNP will reduce CBF and that the magnitude of CBF reduction will influence the magnitude of a post-LBNP decrement in antipointing reaction time; that is, we predict that a transient decrease in CBF will negatively impact executive function efficiency and effectiveness. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA20 - The Effects of Reduced Cerebral Perfusion on Executive Function ? Currently in ProgressDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 21 | Trevor Jackson, University of New Mexico | Darin R. Brown, Pitzer College; James F Cavanagh, University of New Mexico | Modelling the Reward Positivity with Half-Cosine Delta Simulations: It Has Its Ups and Downs | The reward positivity (RewP) is a feedback-related ERP component dominated by delta-band activity and commonly computed by contrasting reward and punishment signals. This computation is problematic, as these signals have independent variance. Instead, we hypothesized that reward-related processing is an additive, temporally independent signal that occurs within the same time window as the classic, tri-phasic motif found in obligatory ERP signals, including punishment processing. To test this, we manipulated feedback modality (sight/sound) to leverage changes in the latency of reward-specific activity relevant to the obligatory background ERP modulated by punishment. In study one (N=24), participants received visual or auditory feedback (rewards/punishments) separately to establish that the RewP peaks earlier in auditory conditions. In study two (N=24), participants received combined visual/auditory feedback to establish that auditory RewP latency is privileged over visual feedback. In study three (N=41), participants received auditory feedback with different delays to establish that the RewP can similarly be delayed. Two artificial half-cosine bursts in the delta range (a positive burst to model reward-related processing in the 200-350 ms. range and a negative burst to model P3-related effects) were trained on a dataset (N=24) with separate modality feedback and added to punishment conditions to approximate the RewP; this model was compared to separate positive half-cosine and full-cosine models. In all studies, the RewP was best characterized by fitting two artificial half-cosine bursts to the obligatory background ERP. These findings suggest that rewards elicit an independent brain response unrelated to punishment-sensitive obligatory background ERPs, suggesting an independent spatial generator. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA21 - Modelling the Reward Positivity with Half-Cosine Delta Simulations: It Has Its Ups and DownsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 22 | Brandon Michael Zimiga, San Francisco State University | Nithya Balakrishnan, San Francisco State University; John Majoubi, San Francisco State University; Meagan Della Zoppa, San Francisco State University; Evan Santos, San Francisco State University; Kathy Wannaviroj, San Francisco State University; Regina Ander-Jefferson, San Francisco State University; Kenneth Paap, San Francisco State University | The relationship between executive functioning and the perception of music: implications for what makes a mind musical. | Do executive functioning abilities play a role in the understanding of music? It has been shown that areas of the prefrontal cortex, the brain region believed to be responsible for our EF abilities, are activated when one must resolve incongruent musical stimuli. Based on this previous finding, it is a natural next step to examine if these cognitive abilities play a role in how well an individual may manage and perceive the different aspects of music. The purpose of this examination was to determine whether or not measures of fluid intelligence and EF, specifically Inhibitory control and working memory tasks, predict one's musical ability as determined by the Profile of Music Proficiency Scale (PROMS). Contrary to the original hypothesis, there was no relation found between any objective measure of intelligence or EF and musical ability. However, there were significant correlations found between past musical experience, in both playing of an instrument and knowledge of musical theory, and musical ability. One conclusion suggested by the results above is that the ability to understand music is not domain specific. That is, it is not based on our cognitive abilities, but developed within a specific mental module that is honed and developed through continuous use. Such a finding narrows the concept of 'musical sleepers', those who do not have any musical training but demonstrate superior musical abilities. Showing that one must continuously use the mental module associated with the perception and management of musical structure in order to reap tangible benefits. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA22 - The relationship between executive functioning and the perception of music: implications for what makes a mind musical.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 23 | SEYDANUR TIKIR, Albert Einstein College of Medicine | Michael J. Crosse, Trinity College Dublin; Sophie Molholm, Albert Einstein College of Medicine | Certainty of Predictions in Autism: Insights from Two EEG Studies in Passive and Active Settings | Predicting what comes next is highly advantageous, allowing for top-down facilitated information processing. Likewise, tuning the level of certainty of predictions is essential for adaptive behavior. Given that individuals with autism resist even trivial changes in everyday life, we hypothesized that autistic individuals are impaired in their ability to flexibly tune the confidence of predictions based on changes in the stimulus statistics. To test this, we conducted two EEG studies in adults with and without autism. For the first, participants performed a probabilistic task where cue-target validity varied between 100%, 86%, 66%, and 33%. The ability to represent and update different levels of cue validity was assessed through analyses of the contingent negative variation (CNV), the P300, and the Slow Wave (SW) brain responses. While the control group showed systematically graded modulation of the CNV, P3 and SW that was proportional to cue validity level, the autism group did not. For the second study, we presented a passive auditory oddball paradigm in which the probability of deviant tones was 4%, 8%, or 16% in different blocks. Analyses of the mismatch negativity (MMN) to deviants revealed that the brain is able to preattentively calculate stimulus statistics in autism. Taken together, these data suggest that the specific problem with predictive processing in autism is not in registering environmental statistics, but in flexibly applying the statistics to making predictions. This research holds implications for facilitating autism diagnosis and the development of targeted therapies, including prediction-based cognitive-behavioral approaches that may ameliorate symptoms of autism. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA23 - Certainty of Predictions in Autism: Insights from Two EEG Studies in Passive and Active SettingsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 24 | Assel Al-Bayati, York University | Ryan Cortez, York University; Holly Clayton, York University; Marius 't Hart, York University; Denise Henriques, York University | The effect of frequent cannabis use on the main components of executive functioning | The legalization of recreational cannabis-use in Canada has raised many questions regarding its immediate and sustained effect on various brain functions. To investigate the sustained effect, we created a task battery that assess the main components of executive functioning involved in daily activities. Here, we discuss findings of five tasks. (1) Visual search (set-sizes: 6, 12, 18), which assesses visual attention. No performance differences were found between frequent users (N=144), infrequent users (N=98), and non-users (N=421) which indicates that cannabis-use does not impair visual attention. (2) Go/No-Go (80% go, 20% no-go), which measures motor impulse inhibition. Findings indicate that frequent users (N=144), infrequent users (N=111), and non-users (N=469) performed similarly which suggests an absence of an impairment of cannabis on impulse inhibition. (3) Spatial N-Back (1, 2, & 3-Back), which assesses spatial working memory. We found that performance of frequent-users (N=93), infrequent users (N=58), and non-users (N=253) was similar, which suggests that cannabis-use is not associated with working memory impairments. (4) Trail-Making test (Trail-B) which assesses set-shifting. We found that frequent users (N=111), infrequent users (N=81), and non-users (N=351) performed similarly which suggests no impairment of cannabis on set-shifting. (5) Task-switching, which assesses ability to switch between two tasks (single-task & mixed-task blocks). No performance differences were found between frequent users (N=118), infrequent users (N=104), and non-users (N=472) which indicates that cannabis-use does not impair task-switching abilities. While there might be immediate effects of cannabis-use, our results show that cannabis-use does not impair the main components of executive functioning. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA24 - The effect of frequent cannabis use on the main components of executive functioningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 25 | Alannah Wallace, University of British Columbia | David Turk, University of Bristol; Todd Handy, University of British Columbia | Executive function and self-regulation strategies in university students: A multiple group comparison | Executive functions help us to manage distractions, focus our attention, set goals and prioritize tasks. Students can develop cognitive and behavioural strategies to help regulate their use of executive functions and optimize control of attention to cope with the demands of a university setting. Previously, exploratory factor analysis of the Strategy Awareness and Use Questionnaire (SAUQ) suggested a seven-factor model was optimal to measure different domains of strategy use in university students: Comprehension Monitoring, Planning/Organization, Self-Reward, Self-Regulation, Organization with Mobile Phone Technology, Regulating Technology, and Organization of Materials. The current study evaluates this model of strategy use in 223 students from the University of British Columbia and 198 students from the University of Bristol with the use of confirmatory factor analysis. Results confirm moderate to high factor loadings and sufficient goodness of fit statistics for each group. The current study supports utilization of the SAUQ to evaluate strategic use of executive functions in both students from Canada and the United Kingdom. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA25 - Executive function and self-regulation strategies in university students: A multiple group comparisonDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 26 | Amrita Lamba, University | Oriel FeldmanHall, Brown University; Matthew Nassar, Brown University | Shared representational geometry across the frontoparietal network supports credit assignment during social learning | Learning in naturalistic and ever-changing environments can unfold efficiently when the outcomes of our actions are attributed to the appropriate causes -a process known as credit assignment. Human social interactions, for instance, often entail learning precise causal mappings because the same action with different individuals can produce variable outcomes. In such situations, aptly assigning credit to our actions allows us to evaluate the boundary conditions of acquired learning rules and to build internal models of how associative links change across contexts. Little is currently understood about the cognitive or neural processes required for credit assignment. In the current study, participants performed a multi-player social learning task (the Trust Game) and a matched nonsocial task, which required learning how much money to invest with a set of partners/slot machines (targets) that varied in their reward rates. Results reveal that faster learning exhibited in the social task can be attributed to better credit assignment. We use a representational similarity analysis approach to compare the content of target-representations with behavioral performance. We find that the extent to which participants correctly execute target-selective responses predicts increasingly distinct neural representations in the frontoparietal network, aligning with prior work in macaques. Using trial-wise analyses we find that shared variance in the representational geometry during choice and value-encoding phases within this frontoparietal network was linked with better credit assignment. These findings provide novel evidence that the frontoparietal network is a critical hub for organizing how associative links should operate, allowing us to behave flexibly in naturalistic environments. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA26 - Shared representational geometry across the frontoparietal network supports credit assignment during social learningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 27 | Christopher Pirrung, University of New Mexico | Garima Singh, University of New Mexico; Davin Quinn, University of New Mexico; James Cavanagh, University of New Mexico | Reward Positivity-locked Hypoactivation of Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Major Depressive Disorder | The Reward Positivity (RewP) is an event-related potential (ERP) component that is elicited ~250-350 ms following rewarding outcomes. The RewP is smaller in major depression (MDD+), but the source of this effect remains unknown. Thus far, magnetoencephalography (MEG) data have been collected for sixty-eight participants (MDD+=41, Control=27) while completing a probabilistic selection task (PST). Using minimum norm estimation (MNE), we found preliminary results showing that activation in the time region of interest was greatest in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), in line with the vast majority of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research on valuation. After identifying the source of this signal, group differences were examined, showing that activation was diminished in the vmPFC in the MDD+ group (p=.042, d=.642). In spite of attenuated reward responsivity, the MDD+ group have not shown any behavioral differences on the PST. This implies that the MDD+ group is still capable of recognizing and learning from reward; however, they either do not find the rewards as rewarding as the control group or they do not care about receiving a reward. These findings indicate that anhedonia may drive diminished vmPFC activation following reward. Future analyses will examine the correlation between anhedonic symptoms and vmPFC hypoactivation. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA27 - Reward Positivity-locked Hypoactivation of Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Major Depressive DisorderDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 28 | Tracy Jordan, Stanford University | Ellie Ghasemi, University of British Columbia; Megan Mullis, Stanford University; Jamie Sundstrom, Stanford University; Vanessa Alschuler, University of Minnesota; Gregory Witkin, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Nicole DiVirgilio, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Alice Wiscount, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Lara Foland-Ross, Stanford University; Judith Ross, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Allan Reiss , Stanford University | Cognition, Executive Function, Academic Achievement, and Behavior in School-Aged Boys with Klinefelter Syndrome | Klinefelter syndrome (KS, 47, XXY), the most common sex chromosome aneuploidy in males, is characterized by testicular failure and testosterone deficiency as well as a variety of cognitive, social, and emotional characteristics. Boys with KS may be at increased risk for experiencing language problems, learning difficulties, and executive function deficits. This cross-sectional study is designed to better understand these symptoms in school-aged boys, particularly as they relate to academic achievement, adaptive behavior, and quality of life. We compared 50 boys with KS (7-16 years of age) to 55 performance IQ-matched boys without KS on standardized, age-normed measures of cognition, executive function, academic achievement, adaptive behavior, and quality of life using separate MANOVAs for each domain. In exploratory analyses, we examined associations between testicular volume and outcomes within the KS group. As expected, boys with KS demonstrated a significantly different profile of cognition, executive function, academic achievement, adaptive behavior, and quality of life compared to typically developing peers with, on average, lower levels of functioning (p's < 0.05). Within the KS group, testicular volume was not significantly correlated with measures of cognition, executive function, academic achievement, adaptive behavior, or quality of life. Findings suggest that school-aged boys with KS are at increased risk for experiencing difficulties with cognition and executive function, which may impact academic achievement, adaptive behavior, and quality of life. Ongoing longitudinal analyses currently being conducted by our group may help clarify the trajectory of these difficulties through the pubertal transition. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA28 - Cognition, Executive Function, Academic Achievement, and Behavior in School-Aged Boys with Klinefelter SyndromeDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 29 | Boman Groff, University of Colorado Boulder | Hilary Traut, University of Colorado Boulder; Rebecca Helmuth, University of Colorado Boulder; Harry Smolker, University of Colorado Boulder; Louisa Smith, University of Colorado Boulder; Mark Brown, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Hannah Snyder, Brandeis University; Benjamin Hankin, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Marie Banich, University of Colorado Boulder | Brain activation during goal-related selection is predicted by individual differences in prefrontal GABA+ concentration | Prior work suggests that GABAergic mechanisms, which control inhibitory neural dynamics, can influence how quickly a choice between multiple task-relevant options (goal-related selection) occurs. For instance, administering the GABA agonist midazolam increases the ability to select amongst competing task-relevant options in a verb generation task, most notably when such selection is difficult (Snyder et al., 2010). Moreover, individuals with a relatively higher concentration of GABA+ compared to glutamate/glutamine (Glx) in lateral prefrontal cortex (LFPC) show less of a decrement in selection abilities under difficult conditions (de la Vega et al., 2014). While this prior work focused on associations between GABAergic mechanisms and behavior, the present study tested whether individual differences in neurotransmitter concentration in LPFC were associated with brain activation during a verb generation task. In a sample of youth and emerging adults (N=64, 32 males/32 females, age range: 16-25 years), PRESS and MEGAPRESS spectroscopy sequences determined resting GABA+ and Glx concentrations in two separate voxels (dorsal LPFC, ventral LPFC). Participants then underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a verb generation task that manipulated the difficulty (high, low) of goal-related selection. Individuals who had higher resting concentrations of GABA+ in ventral LPFC exhibited less of a difference in prefrontal activation for hard vs. easy conditions. This finding is similar to what we previously observed in a group of middle-aged women who were in a parallel study. Hence, the current findings suggest that the association between GABA+ and goal-related selection is robust and consistent across different age groups. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA29 - Brain activation during goal-related selection is predicted by individual differences in prefrontal GABA+ concentrationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 30 | Nicholas Angelides, University of Pennsylvania | Kelly Lopez, University of Pennsylvania; Michael Platt, University of Pennsylvania | Predicting injury, behavior, and on-field performance with resting-state frontal EEG in collegiate athletes | Extant personality, behavioral, and neural markers of predisposition to concussion may confound typically post-hoc assessments of sports-related concussion (SRC). Similarly, there is little prospective data regarding such measures in athletes leading up to SRC incidence, which precludes cause and effect determinations. We aim to address this gap by analyzing electrophysiological signatures of collegiate soccer players at rest and during lab-based behavioral tasks. All athletes (n=43) completed two resting-state sessions (eyes-open, eyes-closed) and two behavioral assays: sustained attention to response task and a dynamic, competitive virtual soccer game called 'Penalty Kick' (PK). Using an ambulatory electroencephalography (EEG) headband with four frontal electrodes, we collected EEG and behavior at three timepoints: before, during, and after one season of collegiate soccer. In addition to in-depth demographics and on-field performance metrics, athletes also submitted three self-report measures related to motivation, behavioral approach, and mood/anxiety. From all timepoints, three aggregate EEG metrics, based on power in specific frequency bands, were computed: alpha-asymmetry (AA), activation index (theta/beta ratio (TBR)), and arousal index (beta/alpha). All metrics were submitted to cross-correlation and linear regression analyses. We found TBR during the eyes-open resting period was highly predictive of both trait impulsivity (R = .62, p < .001), which is associated with increased concussion incidence; and PK final move timing (R = .45, p = .012), previously shown to predict on-field performance in professional soccer players. The use of EEG summary metrics is a promising assessment for off-field behavior, and may also aid in predicting early markers of concussion. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA30 - Predicting injury, behavior, and on-field performance with resting-state frontal EEG in collegiate athletesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 31 | Megan Boudewyn, University of California, Santa Cruz | Cameron Carter, University of California, Davis | Increased Sensitivity to Sentence Context Following Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of Left Prefrontal Cortex | One of the most reliable findings in electrophysiological research on language comprehension is the N400 effect of predictability: the N400 waveform that is elicited by words that fit well in context is smaller than the N400 elicited by words that do not fit well in context. This effect is thought to reflect the relative ease of semantic processing for predictable words that are easily integrated into context compared to unpredictable words that are not. A great deal of recent research has investigated the extent to which this effect reflects pre-activation of words as opposed to facilitation of word processing. Less attention has been paid to examining how the brain keeps track of and uses the context that makes a word predictable or unpredictable. We hypothesize that, during language comprehension, the developing meaning representation of the current context is maintained by prefrontally mediated cognitive control mechanisms, in the same way that task goals are maintained in cognitive control experiments. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) experiment in which participants (N=23) received 2 mA of stimulation targeting left prefrontal cortex (lPFC). EEG was then recorded while participants read sentences containing predictable and unpredictable words. The N400 effect of predictability was significantly increased following lPFC stimulation compared to sham stimulation (p<0.05). This result is consistent with our hypothesis, and demonstrates that lPFC stimulation increased sensitivity to sentence context during language comprehension. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA31 - Increased Sensitivity to Sentence Context Following Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of Left Prefrontal CortexDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 32 | Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga, BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language | Manuel Carreiras, BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language; Pedro Maria Paz-Alonso, BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language | Characterization of the right ventral occipito-temporal reading network | The left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOTC) has been extensively studied for its involvement in reading-related processes (Dehaene and Cohen 2011). Previous multimodal work has characterized in detail the left vOTC and showed converging evidence of its segregation in at least two sub-regions: a posterior region involved in visual feature extraction, and a more anterior one involved in integrating words with the language network (Lerma-Usabiaga et al., 2018). Historically, the right vOTC has received less attention, but there is growing evidence of its involvement in reading-related processes (Harris et al. 2016; Zhao et al. 2017). In the present work we provide a multimodal characterization of the right VOTC using behavioral, functional MRI, diffusion and quantitative MRI data from right-handed young adults (N=66) applying state-of-the-art analytical approaches. Results revealed a dissociation between a posterior and anterior right vOTC sub-regions, but with a differentiated functional pattern relative to left vOTC. Structurally, results did not reveal significant differences between the left and right vOTC. Our future work will focus on combining and modeling the role of the left and right hemispheres in reading, and the present work is a necessary stepping stone in this direction. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA32 - Characterization of the right ventral occipito-temporal reading networkDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 33 | Chu-Hsuan Kuo, University of Washington | Chantel Prat, University of Washington | Investigating the Role of General Cognitive and Language-Specific Factors in Natural Language and Programming Language Learning | Recent research has shown that natural language aptitude measures also predict individual differences in the ability to learn programming languages. The construct of 'language aptitude' is multifaceted, however, including specific measures such as grammatical sensitivity and phonological coding, and broader cognitive factors such as fluid intelligence, declarative learning, and working memory. This begs the question of whether the relation between natural language aptitude and learning programming languages is solely underpinned by general learning mechanisms. To further explore this question, we tested 20 native English speakers using both a French training program and a Python training program, in varying orders. Prior to training, participants completed the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT), as well as several standardized cognitive tests (e.g. working memory, fluid intelligence, and executive functioning). Afterward, participants were assessed on both French and Python learning outcomes. When outcomes of the two training protocols were correlated, French vocabulary was significantly positively related to several Python learning outcomes, including coding proficiency, learning rate, and declarative post-test scores. In contrast, neither learning rate nor grammatical proficiency in French was related to Python outcomes. However, subsequent attempts to partial out measures of fluid intelligence or working memory capacity from the correlations between French and Python outcomes did not significantly change the correlations, and the residuals were still significant. These results extend our previous research relating natural language aptitude measures to programming languages by showing that outcomes in both natural and programming language learning are related and not completely explained by general cognitive measures. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA33 - (See full title provided under Poster Title)Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 34 | Raya Meri, Technion, Israel institute of technology | Scott Holland, University of Cincinnati; Rola Farah, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology; Tamara Rohana, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology; Narmeen Haj, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology; Tzipi Horowitz-kraus, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology | Language first, cognition later: Different trajectories of sub-components of the future-reading network in processing na | Narrative comprehension is a linguistic ability that has a critical role in language processing. According to the Simple View of Reading model, reading is acquired through intact decoding and linguistic comprehension and hence language processing quality pre-reading age is critical. Several brain networks support reading abilities, including semantic, phonological, visual, syntactic processing and executive functions networks, and overlap with networks involved in processing narratives. The aim of this study was to determine the involvement of the reading network in processing narratives from pre-reading to proficient reading age using a fMRI. Functional MRI data were collected from 32 healthy children ages 5-18 years scanned while listening to stories (for up to 12 years). Behavioral age-appropriate batteries that assess cognitive and language abilities were administered. Changes in within and between functional connectivity of the networks that comprise the reading network were calculated and compared between the years. A hierarchical linear regression analysis revealed that at pre-reading age the networks related to basic language processing (i.e., visual, phonological, syntactic) were more involved, and at age 17, the involvement of more complex networks (i.e., executive functions) was predominant. Our results suggest that networks composing the future-reading network are highly involved in processing narratives along development. Networks related to semantic, phonological and syntactic processing predict reading ability earlier in life, and more complex networks (such as executive functions) predict reading proficiency later in life. These results strengthen the involvement of EF in the simple view of reading model together with the language processing component. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA34 - Language first, cognition later: Different trajectories of sub-components of the future-reading network in processing naDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 35 | Ingrid Finger, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul | Cristiane Ely Lemke, IENH/ UFRGS; Janaina Weissheimer, UFRN; Nat·lia Mota, UFRJ | The effects of early biliteracy on syntactic complexity and thought organization in written and oral production by 9 to | This paper presents the results of a longitudinal study that aimed to compare the levels of syntactic complexity and thought organization in written and oral production in Portuguese and in English. We predicted that both variables would correlate in the two languages, showing no negative effects of early biliteracy. One hundred children enrolled in 4h, 5th and 6th grades in a bilingual curriculum school in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, screened for proficiency and cognitive development, constituted the cohort of the study. Participants were asked to write a narrative based on a sequence of five images (Cambridge Assessment, 2018) one in English (their L2) and one in Portuguese (their L1), in a counterbalanced order. To analyze their oral production, participants were asked to tell a story based on two different sequences of five images(Cambridge Assessment, 2018), in English and in Portuguese. The analysis of syntactic complexity involved the assessment of T-Units (Hunt, 1965) and thought organization was measured through the analysis of graph trajectories performed with the computational tool Speech Graphs (Mota et al., 2016, 2019). Results indicated a moderate positive correlation in the attributes of thought connectivity in both languages, demonstrating that, as children advance in the development of more complex writing and speaking strategies in Portuguese, they progress in their production in English to the same extent, confirming our initial predictions. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA35 - The effects of early biliteracy on syntactic complexity and thought organization in written and oral production by 9 toDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 36 | Malayka Mottarella, University of Washington | Chantel Prat, University of Washington | Examining Training-Related Changes in Resting-State EEG Following Second-Language Learning in Adults | Previous research suggests that resting-state EEG (rsEEG), particularly in the beta frequency range (13-30 Hz), is both predictive of second-language (L2) learning, and modulated by past language experience. Here we extend this work to investigate whether: 1) acute L2 training can change rsEEG, and 2) training-related rsEEG changes are predictive of L2 learning outcomes. Monolinguals were divided into L2 training (N = 38) and control (N = 29) groups. Eyes-closed rsEEG was recorded from both groups at the start of the experiment and after L2 training concluded. Between the rsEEG sessions, the L2 group completed eight hours of immersive goal-directed French training. The control group completed either a low-effort executive functioning training (N = 13) or no training (N = 16); these groups were combined as no differences were found between them. Training-related changes in resting-state beta coherence were computed for the L2 group relative to the control group. Results indicated that beta coherence over frontal regions increased in the L2 group, but not in the control group, following French training. Next, beta coherence changes were correlated with individual differences in declarative post-test performance and learning rate. Results showed that individual differences in post-test accuracy and learning rate were significantly negatively correlated with the degree to which beta coherence changed in frontal regions following L2 learning. Together these results demonstrate that rsEEG indices can be modulated by acute L2 training and that a smaller degree of change in beta coherence over frontal regions is associated with better L2 learning. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA36 - Examining Training-Related Changes in Resting-State EEG Following Second-Language Learning in AdultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 37 | Jamie Renna, San Diego State University | Lee Holcomb, University of California, Davis; Phillip Holcomb, San Diego State University | In Progress: Spatial Cueing Effects on ERP Masked Repetition Priming | The ERP masked repetition priming technique has been widely used to examine the temporal dynamics of visual word recognition processes. A sequence of three ERP components (N/P150, N250 and N400) have been shown to be sensitive to the cascade of visuo-linguistic processes involved in word processing. The current study combined masked priming with a visual covert cueing manipulation in order to explore the impact of exogenous spatial priming on the neural processes involved in word processing. Participants engaged in a go/no-go semantic categorization task in two sessions, each of which included 50 critical trials containing four factorial conditions (repeated vs unrelated; valid vs invalid cueing). In one session, target words were always in the validly cued location and primes were 50% validly cued. In the other session, primes were always validly cued and targets were validly cued only 50% of the time. To date 10 participants have been run in the 100% target validity session. Preliminary data reveal clear repetition priming effects on all three masked priming sensitive ERP components when the prime and target were in the same validly cued location. These results are very similar to previous masked priming studies with centrally presented primes and targets. Interestingly, there were also clear N250 and N400 effects (sub-lexical and lexico-semantic), but no evidence of a feature-based N/P150 effect when prime and target words were in different locations and only the target was validly cued. These findings and those from the 100% prime validity session will be discussed. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA37 - In Progress: Spatial Cueing Effects on ERP Masked Repetition PrimingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 38 | Ludmila Ciochina, University of California, Davis | Cristina Sewel, University of California, Davis; Kayla Vodacek, University of California, Davis; David Corina, University of California, Davis; Center for Mind and Brain | White Matter Morphometry Differences in Multilingual Speakers | Language processing relies on the communication between brain regions that is achieved through several white matter tracts, part of the dorsal and ventral language pathways (Friederici & Gierhan, 2013; Hickok & Poeppel, 2007), and a medial pathway involved in language control (Coggins et al., 2004; Luk et al., 2011). While changes in white matter tract morphology have been reported as a function of second language learning in bilinguals, little is known about changes that may be present in multi-language users. Here we investigate white matter morphometry in a group of highly proficient multilinguals, (individuals with proficiency in four or more languages), compared to a group of monolinguals. White matter morphometry was quantified using a fixel-based analysis (Raffelt et al., 2015, 2017; Tournier et al., 2007). Higher fiber cross-section (FC) and lower fiber density (FD) values were observed for the multilinguals, in the dorsal pathways (superior longitudinal fasciculus and arcuate fasciculus) and the ventral pathway, including the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, and the uncinate fasciculus. Segments of the corpus callosum, the fornix and the cortico-spinal tract showed decreases in all three morphometry measures for multilinguals. We report associations between ages of acquisition and observed white matter changes. The findings suggest differential efficiencies in neural communication between domain-specific language regions and domain-general cognitive processes underlying multi-lingual language acquisition and use. We discuss the results in relation to bilingual Anterior to Posterior and Subcortical Shift (BAPSS) hypothesis (Grundy et al., 2017) and the Dynamic Restructuring Model (DRM; Pliatsikas, 2020). | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA38 - White Matter Morphometry Differences in Multilingual SpeakersDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 39 | Lena Henke, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Ashley G. Lewis, Radboud University; Lars Meyer, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Fast and Slow Rhythms of Reading Revealed by Simultaneous Eye-Tracking and EEG | Rhythmic electrophysiological processes may support speech processing. Neural oscillations may not only inherit acoustic rhythms, but also reflect intrinsic temporal preferences of linguistic processing. If this is the case, rhythmic activity should also emerge for linguistic stimuli that do not contain rhythmic structure. We here tested whether eye movements during naturalistic reading (i.e., saccades and fixations) exhibit rhythmic patterns that link to neural oscillations in the electroencephalogram (EEG). We analyzed the Zurich Cognitive Language Processing Corpus (Hollenstein et al., 2018) where participants read sentences while their eye movements and EEG were recorded simultaneously. In line with recent reports (Gagl et al., 2021), frequency analysis of eye movements revealed word-locked saccades at 4?5 Hertz (i.e., theta band), which displayed frequency-selective coherence with the EEG. To also assess the integration of words into larger units (i.e., chunks), we tested for periodicity of abrupt changes in fixation durations between adjacent words; such changes have previously been found during non-linguistic visual chunking (Tosatto, Fagot, Nemeth, & Rey, 2021). Indeed, we observed abrupt changes in fixation durations approximately every 2.5 seconds; these also showed frequency-selective coherence at roughly 1 Hertz (i.e., delta band) with the EEG at occipital sensors. Specific phase angles were associated with sentence endings, suggesting a relationship with linguistic chunking. Taken together, eye movements during reading contain rhythmic patterns that occur in synchrony with oscillatory brain activity. This suggests that linguistic processing imposes preferred processing time scales on reading, independent of actual physical rhythms in the linguistic stimulus. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA39 - Fast and Slow Rhythms of Reading Revealed by Simultaneous Eye-Tracking and EEGDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 40 | Jane Couperus, Mt. Holyoke | Alejandra Lorenzo, Mt. Holyoke College; Grace Wallsigner, Mt. Holyoke College; Lauren Selkin, Mt. Holyoke College; Wenqi Zhang, Mt. Holyoke College; Cindy Bukach, University of Richmond; Cathy Reed, Claremont McKenna College | Individual Differences in Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status, and the N400 | Previous research suggests one's socioeconomic environment has a significant impact on language development and processing (Hoff, 2003). Research has also demonstrated a relation between one's socioeconomic environment and the neural correlates of language learning and processing as indexed by the N400 ERP, specifically in children (Ralph et al., 2020). The current study examines the relation of both objective and subjective measures of socioeconomic status to language processing in young adults. Participants (n=171) completed a word pair judgement task evaluating semantic congruity of word pairs while event related potentials were collected. Separately, participants provided information regarding objective socioeconomic status (measured using the Hollingshead Index, 1984). Participants also completed the MacArthur Subjective Socioeconomic Status scale, indicting where they placed themselves in relation to others in the U.S.. A linear regression with objective and subjective measures of socioeconomic status as predictors of N400 Difference Wave amplitude was significant (R2=.096, F(2, 169)=9.01, p<.001). Consistent with previous research in children, results demonstrate a relation between objective socioeconomic status and N400 Difference wave amplitude. Moreover, a subjective measure of socioeconomic status was also related to N400 difference wave amplitude, with higher subjective perceptions of socioeconomic status related to a larger N400 Difference Wave. These finding suggest that one's socioeconomic environment, be it objective or subjective, is an important factor in language processing into adulthood. Additionally, this research suggests socioeconomic factors across development can have long term implications for language processing. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA40 - Individual Differences in Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status, and the N400Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 41 | Joey Hsu, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | Catherine Liegeois-Chauvel, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Valerie Chanoine, Aix-Marseille University; ILCB; Witold Lipski, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Francois-Xavier Alario, Aix-Marseille University; CNRS; Jorge Gonzalez-Martinez, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | Comparison of hippocampal activity during picture recognition and naming helps disentangle the language-memory crossroad | The hippocampus has classically been regarded as subserving mnemonic processes such as recognition memory. However, focal epilepsy patients who have undergone anterior temporal lobectomy often experience postoperative word retrieval deficits. In addition, neurophysiological work has demonstrated hippocampal activation during picture naming tasks, fueling a discussion on a role of the hippocampus in an expanded language network. To explore this potential intersection of memory and language processes, we compared intracerebral hippocampal recordings from 20 focal epilepsy patients while they performed visual picture recognition and naming tasks during presurgical evaluation. The recognition memory task elicited a negative-positive complex occurring around 400 and 600 ms, which was modulated as a function of repetition; repeated stimuli (retrieval) elicited larger P600 than their first presentation (encoding) or lures. This 'old/new' effect was observed in half of the patients. Picture recognition and naming activities were then compared. In the anterior hippocampus, a significantly greater proportion of patients demonstrated ERP differences between retrieval vs. second naming block than between encoding vs. first naming block (75% vs. 35%, Fisher's exact test: p < 0.05; N = 20). In the posterior hippocampus, no significant difference in proportions was observed (N = 12). Finally, in the entorhinal cortex, a trend-level difference was observed (67% vs. 25%, p < 0.1; N = 12). These results suggest that hippocampal involvement in naming might be incidental during first presentation and a result of different retrieval processes during second presentation. Furthermore, these differential processes are mainly linked to the head of hippocampus. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA41 - Comparison of hippocampal activity during picture recognition and naming helps disentangle the language-memory crossroadDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 43 | Emily Saunders, San Diego State University | Phillip J. Holcomb, San Diego State University; Katherine J. Midgley, San Diego State University; Karen Emmorey, San Diego State University | Assessing the strength of the morpho-orthographic segmentation route for deaf readers using event-related potentials | Grainger and Ziegler (2011) propose that complex words are decomposed through two parallel processing routes: a coarse-grained morpho-semantic route and a fine-grained morpho-orthographic segmentation route. Event-related potentials (ERPs) show evidence of the latter route when true complex words ('farmer') are compared to pseudo-complex words with apparent roots and suffixes ('beaker'). Both word types elicit similar ERP profiles at early stages of processing (190-220ms), compared to simplex words ('freeze') which elicit larger negative amplitudes than both word types (Lavric et al., 2012). This pattern indicates that words are initially segmented into their apparent morphological units (i.e., 'beak' + '-er'), reflected in orthography but not meaning. Given that sensitivity to orthography correlates more strongly with reading skill for deaf readers than for hearing readers (Emmorey & Petrich, 2012), the current in-progress experiment investigates the strength of this morpho-orthographic segmentation process for deaf readers. Participants made unprimed lexical decisions to simplex, pseudo-complex, and complex words. Preliminary data from 10 hearing and 10 deaf participants show that simplex words elicit more negative-going deflections in the P2 region than complex and pseudo-complex words. This pattern appears earlier (190-280ms) and has a more anterior scalp distribution for deaf readers compared to hearing readers (225-300ms). Hearing participants also show larger anterior N400 amplitudes to pseudo-complex words, a pattern not apparent in the deaf group. These preliminary data indicate that morphological segmentation is blind to semantics and begins earlier for deaf readers who may also be less sensitive to the semantic conflict arising from inappropriately segmented pseudo-complex words. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA43 - Assessing the strength of the morpho-orthographic segmentation route for deaf readers using event-related potentialsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 44 | Sadie Camilliere, San Diego State University | Katherine Midgley, San Diego State University; Phillip Holcomb, San Diego State University; Karen Emmorey, San Diego State University | Masked morphological priming in deaf and hearing readers: an ERP study. | Phonological awareness is a strong predictor of reading ability in hearing individuals, but phonological information is not as easily accessible for deaf people. Morphology, which takes advantage of spelling to meaning connections, provides an alternative route to reading which deaf readers may prioritize. Grainger and Ziegler (2011)'s dual route model of orthographic processing describes a morpho-semantic route in which coarse-grained, whole-word recognition allows for fast access to semantic information, and a morpho-orthographic route through which complex words can be broken down into their component parts. Previous studies in hearing readers show that the event-related potentials (ERP) visual masked priming paradigm is sensitive to both morpho-orthographic and morpho-semantic processing, with graded effects of priming for semantically transparent prime-target pairs (hunter-HUNT), semantically opaque pairs (corner-CORN), and orthographically related pairs (scandal-SCAN) (Morris et al., 2007). The current study adopts this paradigm to investigate how deaf readers utilize specific morphological processes in reading. If deaf readers rely more on morphology than hearing readers, they may exhibit greater morphological priming, indicated by greater reductions in the N250 ERP component (orthographic processing) and the N400 component (lexico-semantic processing) in related vs. unrelated trials. If deaf readers rely primarily on the whole-word morpho-semantic route, we expect priming effects for opaque and orthographic trials would not differ. Initial data (deaf, N=1; hearing, N=3) display the expected masked priming components (N250 and N400), and suggest potential differences between deaf and hearing participants. However, more data collection is necessary to draw any conclusions. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA44 - Masked morphological priming in deaf and hearing readers: an ERP study.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 45 | Lucia Manso-Ortega, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language | Manuel Carreiras, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language; Inigo Pomposo, Biocruces Research Institute; Santiago Gil-Robles, Hospital Universitario Quirónsalud; Ileana Quinones, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language | L1 and L2 are spatially dissociated within the temporal lobe for bilingual tumour patients and healthy subjects | Bilingualism has raised concern about how languages are represented in the brain. Neuroimaging and electrocortical stimulation studies have shown identical cortical representations for the native (L1) and second language (L2), variable overlap or no overlap at all. Our aim was to identify and compare cortical representations for L1 and L2 within the temporal cortex considering its relation with language. We tested 5 Spanish-Basque bilingual low-grade glioma patients with left temporal tumours through intraoperative mapping and 20 healthy bilingual subjects with neuroimaging methods using a standardised multilingual picture naming test (MULTIMAP). Healthy participants showed a common system for L1 and L2, with the left middle and superior temporal areas responding differently in terms of activation. While the middle temporal gyrus showed higher activation for L1 than for L2, the superior temporal gyrus was recruited only for L1. Patients showed language specific sites for L1 in the superior temporal gyrus and for L2 in the middle temporal gyrus. Evidence combined suggests representations for both languages may involve functionally independent populations within the left temporal territory explored and underlies the importance of testing multiple languages to prevent possible deficits, moving towards individually tailored interventions. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA45 - L1 and L2 are spatially dissociated within the temporal lobe for bilingual tumour patients and healthy subjectsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 46 | Alberto Furgoni, BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language | Alberto Furgoni, BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language; Anastasia Klimovich-Gray, BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language; Giorgio Piazza, BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language; Clara D. Martin, BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language | Time-Course and Brain Correlates of the Orthographic Consistency Effect: a Magnetoencephalography study. | The Orthographic Consistency Effect (OCE) suggests that consistent (i.e., unambiguous) sound-to-spelling mappings invoke less cognitive effort compared to inconsistent (i.e., ambiguous) mappings (Ziegler et al., 2008). In a behavioral study we found that during auditory lexical decision task (LDT) Spanish words with consistent phonemes were recognized faster than those with inconsistent phonemes. This pattern was not observed in pseudowords. To address a debated issue of whether OCE effect is routed on the phonemic or lexical level and to uncover when and what brain areas are involved, we ran a follow-up MEG experiment with the same task. Previous EEG studies (e.g., Perre & Ziegler, 2008) found an ERP component which was interpreted as a prelexical OCE. We intend to make sure that this finding can be replicated in an experiment using another language (i.e., Spanish) and a different manipulation (i.e., phoneme-to-grapheme mappings). As for the brain areas involved by the OCE, two accounts will be taken into account: the restructuring account -involving mainly the Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG)- and the co-activation account -involving both Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) and IFG. In the poster, we will preliminary present sensor level results which focus on the timing of the OCE effect within the neural signature of the word processing. Follow up source level activity and connectivity analyses are planned. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA46 - Time-Course and Brain Correlates of the Orthographic Consistency Effect: a Magnetoencephalography study.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 47 | Lynne Nygaard, Emory University | Simon Lacey, Penn State College of Medicine; Ana Maria Hoffmann, Emory University; Kaitlyn Matthews, Emory University; K. Sathian, Penn State College of Medicine | Voice parameters underlying sound-symbolic mapping of auditory pseudowords to different domains of meaning | Sound-symbolic correspondences can be used to infer word meaning and occur in numerous natural languages. Previously we showed that shape ratings of auditory pseudowords were significantly correlated with six selected measures of voice quality: the fraction of unvoiced frames (FUF), shimmer, jitter, the mean harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR), pulse number, and the mean autocorrelation (Lacey et al., Cog Sci, 2020, 44, e12883). But how these voice parameters relate to other possible meaning domains is unknown. Here, participants rated auditory pseudowords on scales representing categorical opposites across seven meaning domains: shape (rounded/pointed), size (small/big), brightness (bright/dark); weight (light/heavy), texture (hard/soft), arousal (calming/exciting) and valence (good/bad). Ratings of the categorical opposites within each domain were converted to a single scale and correlated with the voice parameter values. These correlations replicated our previous findings for shape (except for a switch in the relative importance of FUF and pulse number). HNR and jitter were, respectively, the voice parameters that most and least strongly correlated with perceptual ratings for shape, arousal, texture, and valence; for weight, HNR and FUF were the most and least strongly correlated. For these domains, the relative importance of the other voice parameters varied depending on the domain. However, brightness ratings were only correlated with ‰?? from most to least strongly ‰?? HNR, FUF, pulse number, and mean autocorrelation, and uncorrelated with shimmer and jitter; moreover, none of the voice parameters were correlated with size ratings. Thus, vocal properties of spoken pseudowords contribute differentially to sound-symbolic mapping depending on the meaning domain. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA47 - Voice parameters underlying sound-symbolic mapping of auditory pseudowords to different domains of meaningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 48 | Ian A. Martindale, San Diego State University | Sofia E. Ortega, San Diego State University; Emily M. Akers, San Diego State University; Katherine J. Midgley, San Diego State University; Phillip J. Holcomb, San Diego State University | Kilo-picture processing: An even-related potential (ERP) study ('In Progress') | A number of previous studies have used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the temporal dynamics of the neural systems involved during the recognition of diverse categories of known stimuli. Such 'megastudies' have focused on understanding the role of various classification schemes on the neural responses to auditory and visual words in hearing adults, but more recently on American Sign Language (ASL) signs in deaf adults. The current study expands this approach to the neural processes involved in visual object recognition. Pilot data were collected for an initial sample (n=7) of right-handed English speakers with no known history of neurological conditions or impairment. Each participant engaged in a no-go/go object decision task wherein they pressed a button to occasional (10%) unfamiliar objects embedded in a stream of 900 more familiar objects. The real objects were drawn from a variety of categories to facilitate comparisons across different classification schemes (e.g., man-made/natural, animals/non-animal living, high/low familiarity). ERPs were recorded to each stimulus and preliminary averages were formed to examine differences in processing between high and low familiarity objects. An N400 (a component often related to lexico-semantic processing) effect of familiarity was observed with lower familiarity pictures producing a larger N400 amplitude. Existing ERP research in visual and auditory modalities observed N400 modulation to word frequency. Lower frequency words had higher average observed N400 amplitude. Picture stimuli do not have a frequency measure, although familiarity may serve as a different yet comparable variable of interest. Additional classification schemes will be discussed at the conference. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA48 - Kilo-picture processing: An even-related potential (ERP) study ('In Progress')Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 49 | Brennan Terhune-Cotter, San Diego State University | Stephen McCullough, San Diego State University; Karen Emmorey, San Diego State University | Comparing neural activation at the lexical, syntactic, and narrative levels of American Sign Language comprehension | As part of an ongoing project to develop fMRI localizer tasks for American Sign Language (ASL) comprehension, we collected data on neural activation in response to ASL stimuli at the lexical, syntactic, and narrative levels. The lexical condition consists of lists of twenty nouns or verbs presented in a random order (blocked by lexical class). The syntactic condition rearranges those same twenty signs into thematically unrelated sentences. The narrative condition consists of excerpts from 'Alice in Wonderland' that use narrative prosody, dialogue, and classifier constructions typical of ASL storytelling. Each of these conditions is directly contrasted with each other as well as with a shared baseline condition (degraded video, i.e. heavily blurred, versions of the same stimuli). We predict that direct contrasts will activate areas uniquely associated with syntactic processing for sentences vs. word lists; or with narrative processing, including spatial linguistic constructions unique to signed languages, for narratives vs. sentences. Data collection with deaf signers is ongoing. Preliminary results with 8 participants reveal robust activation in bilateral frontotemporal language areas when each condition is contrasted with baseline. A preliminary direct contrast of noun and verb lists reveals activation in bilateral postcentral and precentral gyri for nouns, whereas verbs activate left inferior/middle frontal gyri and left inferior parietal lobule. Once initial data collection is complete, a group-constrained subject-specific analysis will be used to localize individual regions of interest and assess how they vary as a function of interindividual variation in language experiences. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA49 - Comparing neural activation at the lexical, syntactic, and narrative levels of American Sign Language comprehensionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 50 | Jayden Lee, Boston University | Terri Scott, Boston University; Yaminah Carter, Boston University; Ja Young Choi, Harvard University; Tyler Perrachione, Boston University | Functional selectivity and structural connectivity of the cortical language network are intact in dyslexia | Developmental dyslexia is characterized by a specific reading impairment for which the underlying cause is still heavily debated. While reading-related neural circuitry has been extensively studied in neuroimaging studies of dyslexia, the function of core language comprehension regions independent from the task of reading remains largely unexplored. In this study, we employed fMRI and diffusion tractography analyses to characterize the language processing network in dyslexia. First, we used the spoken language to identify the cortical regions selectively responsive to higher-level linguistic processing in adults with dyslexia and typically reading controls. Participants listened to intact naturalistic speech and acoustically-degraded speech (Scott et al., 2017). We compared the activation patterns between the two groups using both univariate and group-constrained subject-specific analyses and found (1) no significant differences between groups for whole-brain activation to the intact vs. degraded speech contrast, (2) similar parcellation of the language network, identifying the same functional nodes in both groups, and (3) no group difference in the selectivity of the functional regions-of-interest (fROIs) for language vs. spatial working memory tasks. This pattern of results suggests that the functionality of the core language network is fundamentally similar in dyslexia. Finally, we used probabilistic diffusion tractography to examine structural connectivity among the individually-defined language fROIs. The resulting ROIxROI structural connectivity matrix showed no differences between groups. These findings suggest that the functional neuroanatomy of the brain's ecological spoken language comprehension network is fundamentally intact in dyslexia. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA50 - Functional selectivity and structural connectivity of the cortical language network are intact in dyslexiaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 51 | Rocio Norman, University of Texas Health San Antonio | Tara Flaugher, University of Texas at San Antonio; Antonio Allevato, University of Texas at San Antonio; Jena Hermes, University of Texas Health San Antonio; Nicole Wicha, University of Texas at San Antonio | Indexes of Language Performance After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: An Event-related Potential Study | Yearly, an estimated sixty-nine million individuals will sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) worldwide, and the majority will be mild in severity. In recent years, the public has become more aware of the often invisible effects of mTBI; cognitive and psychological long-term consequences that are associated with negative long-term outcomes, including persistent neurobehavioral symptoms (NBS). NBS, such as pain, slow processing speed, headache, and sleep problems have been associated with poor language performance, but the underlying neural correlates remain largely unknown. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used to investigate non-linguistic cognitive processing after mTBI but few studies have examined language-related ERP components like the N400 and P600. To investigate linguistic processing after mTBI, ERP and behavioral measures were administered to 43 community-dwelling adults with (+mTBI, n=19; Female=11) and without (-mTBI, n=24; Female=14), mean age (+mTBI=26.74 years, -mTBI=22.46 years). Using a self-paced-reading ERP paradigm, adapted from Osterhout & Nicol (1999), we measured the N400 and P600 responses to semantic and syntactically anomalous sentences, respectively. ERPs and reading times will be compared between groups. NBS, sleep, and communication problems will be used as correlates to determine how these factors relate to the modulation of these brain and behavioral measures of reading comprehension. Our findings will expand the limited methodological knowledge of self-paced reading ERP paradigms, begin to elucidate the real impacts of mTBI on language function and establish a baseline for future application of ERPs to investigate language processing in mTBI. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA51 - Indexes of Language Performance After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: An Event-related Potential StudyDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 52 | Linda Hoffman, Temple University | Rachel Mis, Temple University; Tania Giovannetti, Temple University; Ingrid Olson, Temple University | Concussion Status Moderates the Effect of Semantic Processing Speed on School Performance | Research suggests the long-coursing axons of the corpus callosum (CC) are particularly susceptible to damage following concussion. These injuries should result in long-term deficits in interhemispheric processing speed, as efficient reaction time relies on integrity of white matter pathways. The present study evaluated interhemispheric semantic processing speed following concussion in a sample of collegiate athletes on a task previously linked to integrity of the CC. Additionally, since efficiency of processing speed is necessary for keeping pace in an academic environment, we also investigated the link between interhemispheric semantic processing speed, CC connectivity, and concussion status on GPAs. Moderated meditations were performed on a dataset of 51 athletes to see if concussion status moderated the indirect effect of CC splenium FA on the relation between the bilateral processing advantage (BPA) on a word-matching task and GPA. The total effect of word-BPA on GPA was significant, b<.001, z=2.50, p=.012. Although splenium FA did not mediate the relation between word-BPA and GPA, splenium FA significantly predicted GPA, b=2.11, z=2.07, p=.039. Moreover, the relation between word-BPA and GPA was moderated by concussion history, such that BPA predicted GPA only for participants with a history of concussion, b<.001, z=2.72, p=.006. Concussion does not directly affect the integrity of the CC, BPA, or GPA; however, a history of concussion may strengthen the association between semantic processing and academic outcome. Follow-up analyses will reveal whether whole-brain FA better accounts for the effects on GPA, and if GPA may be interchangeable with IQ. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA52 - Concussion Status Moderates the Effect of Semantic Processing Speed on School PerformanceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 53 | Cristiano Cuppini, University of Bologna | Melissa Monti, University of Bologna; Mauro Ursino, University of Bologna; Ladan Shams, University of California | A Hebbian model of the lexical-semantic memory helps explain the multisensory benefit in learning name-face association | Associating names and faces, a task which we perform in our daily lives, is challenging since faces and names lack a semantic relationship. Investigating the benefit of multisensory integration in such a task, Murray and colleagues (2022) reported improvement of the memory for name-face pairings, when vocalizations of names (individuals introducing themselves) were concurrently presented with nametags. Nevertheless, the mechanisms mediating this multisensory benefit are not clear yet. Here we extend a model developed to study the semantic and lexical memory (Ursino et al., 2011) to simulate these results, and analyze the benefit of multisensory encoding in learning and memory. A first network in the model includes three regions coding different name representations: auditory trace, lip movements, and written form. Faces are stored in a distinct network. Elements belonging to different areas are linked through excitatory and/or inhibitory connections, realized using a Hebbian learning paradigm, allowing potentiation and depression of synapses. First, excitatory synapses within the first network are created simulating past experience in which name representations are provided together. Next, connections between names representations and faces are formed during a one-shot presentation period, simulating the 'encoding phase' in Murray experiment. Finally, the model was tested for its ability to recall names associated with faces. The model accounts for the empirical findings, including the critical role of temporal and semantic congruence between names' auditory and written representations, and suggests that effective connections among names' representations are the likely mechanism exploited by the brain to facilitate face-name associations during multisensory encoding. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA53 - A Hebbian model of the lexical-semantic memory helps explain the multisensory benefit in learning name-face associationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 54 | Melissa Troyer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Kara Federmeier, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Marta Kutas, University of California San Diego | Late positive brain potentials vary with individual-level knowledge and item-level retrieval difficulty during reading | How do differences in knowledge influence the processes that underlie and/or accompany sentence comprehension? Recent work shows that differences in knowledge of a fictional domain (Harry Potter; HP) can have a near-immediate influence on neural correlates (N400 brain potentials) of processing a word's meaning as people attempt to understand sentences about that domain in real time. We analyzed three datasets to ask whether and (if so) when ERPs to contextually supported words differ in their sensitivity to item-level retrieval difficulty (operationalized as group-level accuracy on an offline cloze-type task) for individuals with high vs. low HP knowledge. For low-knowledge individuals, retrieval difficulty ('cloze') showed the canonical inverse relationship with N400 amplitudes but little relation to post-N400 LPC amplitudes, consistent with (relatively) passive comprehension. By contrast, for high-knowledge individuals, N400 amplitudes were reduced across all items and LPCs (hypothesized to be part of the P300 family and consistent with recollection processes) were larger for items which were increasingly more difficult to recall. For high-knowledge individuals, this correlation was present even among trials that were indicated as unknown (in real time). These findings suggest that knowledgeable participants were more likely to actively make use of critical words when presented, potentially comparing them to predictions and updating knowledge representations accordingly-i.e., they used the input as a learning experience. Extant domain/content knowledge may thus facilitate in-the-moment learning from language. Future work could examine whether LPCs during language comprehension predict downstream item-level learning/memory as a function of individuals' domain knowledge. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA54 - Late positive brain potentials vary with individual-level knowledge and item-level retrieval difficulty during readingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 55 | Meghan E. McGarry, SDSU, UCSD | Katherine J. Midgley, SDSU; Phillip J. Holcomb, SDSU; Karen Emmorey, SDSU | How (and why) does iconicity impact lexical retrieval during sign production? | Iconicity refers to the presence of a structured mapping between form and meaning in a word or sign. Growing evidence suggests that iconicity plays a role in the lexical retrieval and/or production of signs; specifically, iconic signs are produced more quickly than non-iconic signs in picture-naming paradigms. To explore the possible mechanisms for this facilitation effect, we conducted an event-related potential (ERP) study with deaf users of American Sign Language (ASL) who performed picture-naming and an English-to-ASL translation task, comparing iconic and non-iconic signs. The inclusion of both picture-naming and translation tasks allows us to investigate whether iconicity effects are driven by 1) the semantic network for iconic signs, which may include richer representations of the referent's sensory-motoric features, or 2) by an overlap between visual features of the picture and visual features depicted in the sign. The first hypothesis predicts iconicity effects in both tasks, while the second predicts effects only in the picture-naming task. Preliminary ERP results suggest that both hypotheses may hold. For the translation task, we found a larger N400 negativity for iconic than non-iconic signs, suggesting a more robust semantic network for iconic signs that is activated upon reading the English translation. For the picture-naming task, we observed a smaller N400 amplitude for iconic than non-iconic signs. Because we selected pictures that maximized the visual overlap between the sign and picture, we interpret this result as a priming effect from the visual features of the picture to the visual features of the iconic sign. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA55 - How (and why) does iconicity impact lexical retrieval during sign production?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 56 | Ashwin Harimohan, Western University | Sarah Hollywood, Western University; Adrian Owen, Western University; Bobby Stojanoski, Ontario Tech University; Laura Batterink, Western University | Intact semantic processing of a continuous narrative story during sleep | Sleep represents an altered state of consciousness, marked by a reversible reduction in responsiveness to the external world. Nonetheless, previous research has shown that the sleeping brain continues to monitor the environment for important salient events and to engage in surprisingly high-level cognitive processes, including semantic processing of individual words. Here, we probed the limits of the sleeping brain's capacity for language, investigating the extent to which a naturally spoken, continuous narrative story is processed during sleep. Participants were exposed to an intact and scrambled narrative story while they either slept or lay awake. A temporal response function (TRF) mapped the relationship between participants' EEG neural responses and the semantic dissimilarity of words within the narrative. During both wake and sleep, a TRF negativity was observed as a function of semantic dissimilarity. This negativity shared similar characteristics to the classic N400 event-related potential, a well-established marker of semantic processing. Importantly, the effect during sleep was similar to that observed during wake, but with a delayed latency. These findings suggest that the sleeping brain is capable of high-level, semantic processing of fully natural, complex narrative speech. Our results provide initial evidence that natural language processing remains remarkably intact during sleep. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA56 - Intact semantic processing of a continuous narrative story during sleepDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 58 | Katarzyna Jankowiak, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan | Marcin Naranowicz, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan; Guillaume Thierry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan & Bangor University | On how mood modulates creative language processing in bilingualism | Previous monolingual event-related potential (ERP) studies have often suggested that positive and negative moods differently modulate lexico-semantic processes. However, little is known about how mood influences creative meaning construction, as reflected in novel metaphoric meaning comprehension, and how this effect is modulated by the native (L1) and non-native (L2) language. In the present ERP study, 48 Polish‰??English (L1‰??L2) bilingual speakers made meaningfulness judgments to L1 and L2 novel metaphoric, literal, and anomalous sentences during an EEG session featuring positive and negative mood-inducing clips. The ERP results revealed that while anomalous and novel metaphoric sentences evoked an increased N400 response relative to literal sentences, novel metaphors converged with literal sentences in the LPC time window, the effects being stronger in L1 than L2. Such results point to a more taxing processing of novel metaphors yet mostly during the lexico-semantic stage, as reflected in the N400 response. At the stage of meaning integration, indexed by the LPC response, novel metaphoric meanings were however processed similarly to the literal condition, indicating their successful integration. Crucially, the results also yielded a language-independent interaction between mood and sentence type. Namely, unlike in the positive mood, anomalous sentences converged with literal and novel metaphoric sentences in the negative mood condition, indicating that a negative mood might promote a more attentive and detail-oriented thinking style that may lead to a decreased meaning re-evaluation of not only literal and novel metaphoric but also anomalous sentences. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA58 - On how mood modulates creative language processing in bilingualismDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 59 | Marcin Naranowicz, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan | Marcin Naranowicz, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan; Katarzyna Jankowiak, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan; Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan; Guillaume Thierry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan | In a bilingual mood: Mood affects semantic processes differently in the native and non-native language | Previous electrophysiological (EEG) research has shown that positive and negative moods (i.e., affective background states of low intensity) may differently modulate semantic processes in the native language (L1) (Chwilla et al., 2011). Accumulating evidence from bilingual speakers, however, has only pointed to dampened sensitivity to affective stimuli in the non-native language (L2) (Jonczyk et al., 2017), not yet accounting for mood effects on L2 processing. Therefore, the present study aimed to?determine?whether and how?mood?tunes semantic processing in L1 and L2. Twenty-two unbalanced Polish?English bilinguals made meaningfulness judgments to L1 and L2 sentences during two EEG recording sessions, featuring either positive or negative mood-inducing films. We observed attenuated N400 (300?500 ms) amplitudes for meaningless sentences in a positive compared to negative mood in L1, with no between-mood differences in L2. This evinces that though a positive mood facilitates semantic processing in L1 (e.g., Pinheiro et al., 2013), L2 semantic processing remains unaffected by mood changes, possibly due to increased activation of emotion regulation strategies when processing L2 (Morawetz et al., 2017). Then, unlike in a positive mood, we observed increased LPC (600?800 ms) amplitudes for meaningful L2 relative to L1 sentences in a negative mood, with no between-language differences for meaningless sentences. Such results point to involuntary activation of suppression mechanisms upon encountering a potentially upsetting stimulus in L2, thereby inhibiting full activation spread through the semantic network (Wu & Thierry, 2012) during semantic re-analysis. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA59 - In a bilingual mood: Mood affects semantic processes differently in the native and non-native languageDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 60 | Julien Dirani, New York University | Liina Pylkkänen, New York University | Modality Independent Representations of Conceptual Categories in Object Naming and Word Reading | Conceptual knowledge can be accessed from many different input modalities. A consistent finding is that images of objects show activation of semantic category representations in neural data. However, we do not yet know the extent to which such findings depend on perceptual differences between the stimulus pictures or the explicit categorization task that is commonly used in this research. Here we addressed both questions by asking participants to name objects and read words aloud during an MEG measurement and by decoding for a tool vs. animal distinction in the MEG data with generalization both across time and stimulus modality. Crucially, the visual forms of the words did not contain information about category-membership and the language production task did not explicitly require a categorization judgement. This allowed us to investigate whether and when modality-independent conceptual representations spontaneously come online in each of the two tasks. We found that while evidence of modality-specific category representations emerges at 75ms post-stimulus onset for object naming and at 95ms for word reading, modality independent representations are active slightly later at 125ms for objects and at 180ms for words. Further, modality-specific representations appeared to evolve as a feedforward process for both modalities, while modality independent representations were found to evolve in parallel earlier in the timecourse, before being delayed in object naming compared to word reading. These findings provide evidence for the spontaneous activation of modality-independent representations of categories in object naming and word reading, thus supporting theories of concepts in which modality independent representations exist. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA60 - Modality Independent Representations of Conceptual Categories in Object Naming and Word ReadingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 61 | W. Tyler Ketchabaw, Georgetown University School of Medicine | Andrew DeMarco, Georgetown University School of Medicine; Sachi Paul, Georgetown University School of Medicine; Candace van der Stelt, Georgetown University School of Medicine; Peter Turkeltaub, Georgetown University School of Medicine | The organization of individually mapped structural and functional semantic networks in typically aging adults | Language function in the brain, once thought to be highly localized, is now appreciated as relying on a connected but distributed network. In the language domain, the semantic system is of particular interest because of its hypothesized integration of information across multiple cortical regions. Previous work in healthy individuals has focused on group-level functional connectivity (FC) analyses of the semantic system, which may obscure interindividual differences driving variance in performance. Further, these FC studies don't consider the contributions of white matter networks to semantic function. Here, we identified semantic network nodes at the individual level with a semantic decision fMRI task in 53 typically-aging adults, characterized hub regions and modules using structural connectivity (SC), and quantified the segregation and integration of the network using FC. Hub regions were identified in left inferior frontal gyrus but not anterior temporal lobe. The semantic network was composed of three interacting modules: 1) default-mode module characterized by bilateral medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate regions and also including right-hemisphere homotopes of language regions; 2) left frontal module extending dorsally from inferior frontal gyrus to pre-motor area; and 3) left temporoparietal module extending from temporal pole to inferior parietal lobule. FC within the temporoparietal module and integration of the entire network related to a semantic verbal fluency task, but not a matched phonological task. These results support and extend the tri-network semantic model (Xu et al., 2017) and the controlled semantic cognition model (Chiou et al., 2018) of semantic function. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA61 - The organization of individually mapped structural and functional semantic networks in typically aging adultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 62 | Arianna Zuanazzi, New York University | Pablo RipollÈs, New York University; Wy Ming Lin, University of Tuebingen; Laura Gwilliams, UC San Francisco; Jean-RÈmi King*, PSL University, CNRS; David Poeppel*, New York University | At first, 'not good' is 'good': Behavioral and neural dynamics of negation | In natural language, negation (e.g., 'no', 'not') can invert or mitigate the meaning of a word or sentence, and thus offers unique insights into semantic representation. Previous psycholinguistic studies have focused on how and when in time such change takes place (e.g., two-steps model). However, few studies addressed this foundational cognitive and linguistic operation from a neural perspective (and mostly within the context of action representation). Here, we conducted a behavioral (continuous mouse tracking trajectories, 78 participants) and a magnetoencephalography (MEG, 26 participants) experiment to investigate whether and when negation reverses the meaning of adjectives across different dimensions (e.g., 'good' to 'bad', 'loud' to 'quiet' etc.). Mouse trajectories show that participants initially interpreted negated phrases (e.g., 'not good') as affirmative phrases (e.g., 'good'), and then deviated towards the opposite interpretation (e.g., 'bad'). Similarly, MEG decoding analyses show that the brain initially encodes the semantic representation of the adjective even when the adjective is negated, and that negation can be decoded after the processing of the adjective (in the alpha/beta band). Together, our results suggest that (1) negation does not reverse the meaning of a scalar adjective but changes it to a different representation along the semantic scale and that (2) negation operates after the processing of the adjective. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA62 - At first, 'not good' is 'good': Behavioral and neural dynamics of negationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 63 | Songhee Kim, Medical College of Wisconsin | Vahab Youssofzadeh, Medical College of Wisconsin; Jeffrey Binder, Medical College of Wisconsin | How composition of unexpected meaning unfolds in the brain | While N400 studies have elucidated neural responses to semantic unexpectedness, the question of how unexpected content engages the semantic composition network remains unclear. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine how composition of unexpected meaning unfolds in the brain by comparing sentences that end with Expected ('The barber clipped the HAIR'), Unexpected ('?HEDGES'), or Anomalous ('?TRAIN') words. Our hypotheses targeted two brain areas, left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) and left angular gyrus (LAG), which have been implicated in semantic composition. Given prior evidence for engagement of LATL at 200-400ms during simple phrase composition (i.e., composing only a few words that incur no anomaly/unexpectedness), we predicted greatest engagement of the LATL for Expected. We also hypothesized that Unexpected would engage LAG, rather than LATL, given evidence that the LAG may be responsible for more complex semantic composition involving event representation. MEG evoked responses from 18 participants showed the N400 effect in the left pars triangularis, greater activation in LATL for Expected against Anomalous at 250-350ms, and greater activity in LAG for Unexpected against Expected/Anomalous at 325-450ms, and at 325-375ms, respectively. There was also a late effect (800-900ms) in LAG such that both Expected and Unexpected showed greater activation than Anomalous, suggesting a late stage of semantic composition. Our results suggest a different spatiotemporal course of composition for unexpected compared to expected meaning, and different composition processes in LATL and LAG, such that LATL computes meanings that arise automatically from expected combinations, whereas LAG participates in more effortful and extended composition. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA63 - How composition of unexpected meaning unfolds in the brainDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 64 | Yushuang Liu, The Pennsylvania State University | Janet van Hell, The Pennsylvania State University | Listening to a foreign friend in a noisy restaurant: Neural correlates of listening to foreign-accented speech in noisy | In today's globalized world, people increasingly encounter speakers with a foreign accent. Moreover, natural speech communication rarely takes place in ideal listening conditions, as we often listen to others when surrounded by background noise. Processing and comprehending foreign-accented speech in noisy backgrounds has thus become a common characteristic of everyday communication in our multicultural and multilingual society. We examined the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of native-accented and foreign-accented sentences embedded in background noise. Using a semantic violation paradigm, 32 American English monolingual young adults without any substantial exposure to foreign-accented speech listened to American-accented (native) and Chinese-accented (foreign) sentences in quiet or embedded in noise, with or without semantic anomalies, while EEG/ERPs were recorded. Preliminary analyses revealed that listening to native-accented semantically anomalous sentences in the quiet condition elicited the largest N400, followed by native-accented anomalous sentences in noise which in turn elicited a larger N400 than foreign-accented sentences in quiet; this suggests that foreign accent casted a more negative impact on online semantic access than background noise. Lastly, semantically anomalous sentences in the foreign-accented condition in noise elicited the smallest N400 effect, indicating that semantic access is most challenging when encountering both foreign accent and background noise. If the outcomes of these preliminary analyses hold in the full dataset (the presentation will include more fine-tuned ERP analyses of the full dataset), then this suggests that initial implicit binding between the auditory stimuli and semantics is impeded to different degrees by foreign accents and background noise. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA64 - Listening to a foreign friend in a noisy restaurant: Neural correlates of listening to foreign-accented speech in noisyDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 65 | Ekaterina Delikishkina, Northwestern University | Rutvik Desai, University of South Carolina; Vicky Tzuyin Lai, University of Arizona | The effects of metaphoric instruction on neural representations of scientific concepts | According to Lakoff & Johnson (1980), metaphors are essential for abstract knowledge, and this notion is supported by science educators, who widely use metaphors in the classroom (Amin, 2015). Our study compared the effects of metaphoric and literal instruction on the neural representations of scientific concepts. 26 subjects (mean age 22.4 years) participated in online training, during which an instructor explained to them the meaning of 40 biology concepts using either a literal (LIT) definition ('Glutamate is a chemical that excites neurons by increasing the likelihood of their firing') or its metaphoric (MET) counterpart ('Glutamate is a cheerleader that gets neurons all fired up to help them perform at top capacity'). After the training, subjects underwent fMRI, during which they were instructed to think about a concept while its name was presented on the screen. We compared the blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in response to LIT and MET concepts in four bilateral ROIs implicated in semantic memory (Binder et al., 2009), including the lateral anterior temporal lobes (latATL), medial anterior temporal lobes, angular gyri (AG) and posterior cingulate cortices (PCC). The group maps were thresholded at voxelwise p < 0.01 and corrected by estimating the cluster size threshold for each of the ROIs at p < 0.05. Clusters in the left AG, right latATL and bilateral (mostly left) PCC showed significantly greater BOLD activations in response to MET as compared to LIT concepts, attesting to the fact that metaphoric instruction resulted in better consolidation of novel concepts in long-term memory. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA65 - The effects of metaphoric instruction on neural representations of scientific conceptsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 66 | Jia-Qing Tong, Medical College of Wisconsin | Leonardo Fernandino, Medical College of Wisconsin; Stephen Mazurchuk, Medical College of Wisconsin; Lisa Conant, Medical College of Wisconsin; Jeffrey Binder, Medical College of Wisconsin | A Common Neural Mechanism Underlying Object and Event Concept Representation | Functional neuroimaging studies have provided evidence for differential representation of object and event concepts in the brain, but the mechanisms underlying these differences are unclear. Embodiment theories posit that categories reflect systematic similarities in the experiential content of similar concepts. We tested this claim using a 65-dimensional experiential model of conceptual content and fMRI data from 39 participants who viewed 160 object nouns and 160 event nouns while performing a familiarity judgment task. Our question was whether an encoding model trained to predict the neural activation patterns of the object concepts would also predict the neural patterns of the event concepts, and vice versa. Such a finding would be strong evidence that both categories are represented by the same underlying experiential features. Participants processed each word 6 times across 3 fMRI sessions. A univariate contrast between event and object conditions identified distinct networks associated with each. A neural representational dissimilarity matrix (RDM) for each category was computed for each network. We then trained an encoding model for each network to map from the experiential model RDMs (one RDM per dimension) to either the object or event neural RDM, then tested whether the trained model predicted the neural RDM of the other category. Both encoding models significantly predicted the neural similarity structures across categories in both networks (p <.0001). These results indicate that object and event representations rely on the same experiential dimensions, suggesting that object vs. event differences arise from quantitative differences in the experiential content of these concept categories. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA66 - A Common Neural Mechanism Underlying Object and Event Concept RepresentationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 67 | Stephen Mazurchuk, Medical College of Wisconsin | Leonardo Fernandino, Medical College of Wisconsin; Jia-Qing Tong, Medical College of Wisconsin; Lisa Conant, Medical College of Wisconsin; Jeffrey Binder, Medical College of Wisconsin | An Experiential Basis for Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus Body Part Concept Representation | Although there are reports of patients with selective impairment or preservation of body-part knowledge relative to other semantic categories, little is known about the basis of this category-specific effect. Here we investigated the representational structure of body part concepts using multivariate analysis of fMRI data. We tested the hypothesis that an encoding model based on 65 experiential features of word meaning could predict activation patterns for specific body part concepts. METHODS: 19 healthy adults were scanned while performing concept familiarity judgments on 300 nouns belonging to 6 categories (animals, artifacts, body parts, human traits, foods, and quantities). Nouns were presented visually in a rapid event-related design. FMRI time series were projected to a common cortical surface, word-specific activation maps were generated via GLM, and ridge regression was used to estimate the importance of each experiential feature, at each vertex, based exclusively on the 250 non-body-part concepts. We used this encoding model to predict the neural dissimilarity pattern for the body-part concepts and then evaluated its similarity to the observed neural data using an RSA searchlight approach. RESULTS: Significant correlations between the predicted and observed dissimilarity patterns were found in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, a region found in a previously reported univariate analysis to be more strongly activated for body parts than for other concrete objects. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that category-specific effects in conceptual processing of body parts can be explained by a componential model based on experiential features. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA67 - An Experiential Basis for Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus Body Part Concept RepresentationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 68 | Leonardo Fernandino, Medical College of Wisconsin | Jia-Qing Tong, Medical College of Wisconsin; Stephen Mazurchuk, Medical College of Wisconsin; Lisa Conant, Medical College of Wisconsin; Jeffrey Binder, Medical College of Wisconsin | Experiential features outperform taxonomic and distributional models in predicting neuroimaging and behavioral data | We previously showed that a set of 48 experiential features of word meaning predicts the similarity structure of fMRI activation patterns elicited by noun concepts in high-level heteromodal cortex. Here, we used random forest regression to rank those 48 features according to their respective contributions to decoding accuracy in an fMRI experiment where 36 participants performed semantic judgments on 320 nouns. A model based on the top ten features (value, manipulability, spatial proximity, visibility, shape, texture, smell, taste, brightness, and duration) was evaluated via representational similarity analyses (RSA) on data from two other fMRI experiments, which included different sets of words. In both experiments, this model significantly predicted the similarity structure of concepts in heteromodal cortex, outperforming all taxonomic and distributional models (Categorical, WordNet, word2vec, GloVe, LSA; FDR-corrected p < .05). We also evaluated the extent to which each of these models predicted automatic semantic priming in a study in which 31 participants performed a lexical decision task on 208 target words and 208 matched pseudowords. The 10-feature model achieved the highest correlation with priming (r = .56) among the models tested, and pairwise partial correlations showed that, once their correlation with the experiential model was controlled for, none of the taxonomic or distributional models predicted priming above chance level, while the experiential model remained strongly significant across all comparisons (p < .001). These results indicate that a relatively small set of experiential dimensions grounded in sensory-motor and affective systems successfully accounts for semantic effects across neuroimaging and behavioral data. | LANGUAGE: Semantic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA68 - Experiential features outperform taxonomic and distributional models in predicting neuroimaging and behavioral dataDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 69 | Malathi Thothathiri, George Washington University | Jeremy Kirkwood, Moss Rehab Research Institute; Erica Middleton, Moss Rehab Research Institute | Cognitive control and sentence processing in patients with agrammatism | One feature of agrammatism, a sub-profile of aphasia, is difficulty understanding sentences. Using contrastive case studies, we tested the hypothesis that deficits in cognitive control are a source of sentence comprehension impairment because such deficits undermine one's ability to choose between competing interpretations. Patients 1 and 2 were both agrammatic and had similar short-term and working memory abilities. They contrasted in their cognitive control abilities (Patient 1 worse in non-linguistic cognitive control (Flanker); Patient 2 worse in linguistic cognitive control (Auditory Stroop and Recent Negatives)). In Experiment 1 (sentence-picture matching), impairment in linguistic cognitive control corresponded with inability to accurately understand sentences where the interpretation arising from syntax conflicted with semantic knowledge about the world (e.g., The robber handcuffed the cop). Patient 2 performed significantly worse than Patient 1 (case-case comparison t = -2.799, p<.01. https://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/j.crawford/pages/dept/SingleCaseMethodology.htm). In Experiment 2 (acceptability judgment), Patient 2 performed at chance for sentences where syntax conflicted with semantic selectional restrictions (e.g., The stage admired the audience. The audience can admire the stage but the reverse is not possible). Patient 1 was above chance (we will undertake case-case comparison when we acquire control data for this task). Together, these data suggest (a) that linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive control are separable in patients with agrammatism; and (b) that deficits in linguistic cognitive control may contribute to difficulty in sentence comprehension, especially when syntax and semantics conflict. We plan to test two additional patients to evaluate the validity of these conclusions. | LANGUAGE: Syntax | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA69 - Cognitive control and sentence processing in patients with agrammatismDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 70 | Chia-Wen Lo, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognition and Brain Sciences | Chih Yeh, Max Planck School of Cognition; Lars Meyer, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognition and Brain Sciences | Do Segment Boundaries Disrupt the Processing of Non-Adjacent Dependencies? Evidence from Neural Frequency Tagging and ER | Introduction: Language processing requires comprehenders to link the words and phrases of sentences. This can result in non-adjacent dependencies (NADs) that can span multiple words. In the current study, we ask whether the learning of NADs is constrained by segment boundaries in the stimulus. In particular, it has been proposed that dependencies do not cross the boundaries of cognitive segments, which is what we test here (Christiansen & Chater, 2005). Experiment: We will analyze participants' EEG responses during an artificial-grammar experiment. Six-syllable strings in German are designed and recorded as isochronous speech. During the learning phase, participants listen to the strings that contain NADs either within or across segments. An 80-ms silence is inserted as a segment boundary between each chunk to ensure that participants learn the segments. Then, in the test phase, participants listen to the strings that either contain NADs or not, in both within‰?? and across-segment conditions. The experiment is still in progress. Prediction: For the learning phase, if segments are learned, six-syllable frequency peaks can be observed in the power spectrum. For the testing phase, the ERP to syllables that constitutes the second element of an NAD will be contrasted with the ERP to syllables that are not part of an NAD. If NAD processing across segments is more difficult, the effect between NADs and non-NADs will be smaller in the across-segment condition than the within-segment condition. The results can help better understand the relationship between segmentation and dependency formation in human language acquisition and processing. | LANGUAGE: Syntax | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA70 - Do Segment Boundaries Disrupt the Processing of Non-Adjacent Dependencies? Evidence from Neural Frequency Tagging and ERDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 71 | David Abugaber, University of Illinois - Chicago | Kara Morgan-Short, University of Illinois - Chicago | Disentangling EEG indices of implicit vs. explicit second language grammar processing via MVPA decoding | Learning new languages is a complex task involving both explicit and implicit processes (i.e., that do/do not involve awareness). A prior study using a semi-artificial language paradigm (Batterink et al., 2014) found that adult participants can learn grammatical regularities without awareness. Interestingly, distinct event-related potentials (ERPs) for rule-aware vs. rule-unaware learners suggested processing differences associated with implicit/explicit learning. However, the univariate nature of ERPs makes it impossible to determine whether/to what extent implicit processing occurred in rule-aware learners. Our study addresses this limitation using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA; Fahrenfort et al., 2018). Following Batterink et al., thirty-five participants performed a word-classification task that covertly tests for grammar learning by comparing responses to words that follow vs. violate an underlying pattern. Rule-awareness was assessed via systematic debriefing halfway through the task, at which point the rule was revealed and a final block of trials was performed. Slower reaction times and lower accuracies for rule-violating trials indicated learning even in rule-unaware participants, replicating Batterink et al. An MVPA decoder was trained to detect neural indices of grammar processing (operationalized as differences between rule-violating/rule-adhering trials) at times in the experiment after behavioral measures indicated rule-learning but before participants became rule-aware. This decoder was subsequently tested after participants became rule-aware. Our decoder did not show above-chance trial classification accuracy, providing no evidence for the co-occurrence of implicit/explicit grammar processing. Although data collection and analysis is ongoing, we expect these results to illustrate the potential of decoding-based methods for investigating the implicitness/explicitness of language learning. | LANGUAGE: Syntax | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA71 - Disentangling EEG indices of implicit vs. explicit second language grammar processing via MVPA decodingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 72 | Lars Meyer, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Mark Anderson, Cardiff University; Lena Henke, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences; Chiawen Lo, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Periodic Chunking of Language: Evidence from Self-Paced Reading | Introduction: Humans segment linguistic input into cognitive units to achieve comprehension. It has been argued that the period of the underlying rhythmic neuronal processes affects the pace of segmentation (Meyer et al. 2020; Henke and Meyer 2021). Periodic brain activity has been observed to accompany phrase-level language processing (Ding et al. 2016). It remains unclear whether this is behaviorally relevant for segmentation; moreover, it is not clear what type of cognitive units it reflects. We test whether segmentation behavior also shows a periodic pattern; we also assess whether periodicity links to cognitive units as formalized through natural language processing. Experiment: We analyzed self-paced reading (SPR) data from 180 participants (Futrell et al. 2021). To assess periodicity, we performed frequency analysis on word-by-word reaction times (RT). To focus on segmentation, we performed differencing of the time series on the RTs, highlighting abrupt changes from slow to fast RTs; these have been related to segmentation previously (Tosatto et al. 2021). We then statistically predicted the slow‰??fast changes from the cognitive units formalized by the chunk-and-pass model (Anderson et al. 2019). Results: Frequency analysis showed that abrupt slow‰??fast changes occur with a period of ~1 Hertz. Moreover, they cluster at sentence boundaries (Just and Carpenter 1980; Rayner et al. 2000), but also at the boundaries of the cognitive units predicted by the chunk-and-pass model. Our study shows that segmentation of linguistic input into second-long cognitive units is a periodic behavior, possibly related to the periodicity of the underlying neuronal processes. | LANGUAGE: Syntax | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA72 - Periodic Chunking of Language: Evidence from Self-Paced ReadingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 73 | Alice Bush, University of East Anglia | Louis Renoult, University of East Anglia | A new stimulus database to examine the underpinnings of rich and vivid memory recollection | Our memories seldom consist of singular sensory information. It is multimodal perceptual experiences that enable us to later recall rich and vivid episodes. Except for research into autobiographical memory, studies have tended to focus more heavily on memory for unimodal stimuli. However, memory accuracy has been shown to significantly improve following multisensory stimulus presentation, compared to unisensory. Further research is required to understand factors responsible for rich and vivid remembering. To answer these questions, we created a novel video stimulus dataset, depicting every-day environments, rich in multimodal detail. These were shot either from a 1st person perspective (1PP) or 3rd person perspective (3PP). Three behavioural studies were conducted to assess factors affecting rich and vivid re-experiencing of episodic events. Participants were asked to report familiarity to environments shown, their sense of presence and vividness after watching the videos. Finalised stimuli had to have overall high reported 'presence' to ensure they would be immersive enough to mimic episodic events. Familiar videos yielded significantly higher ratings of presence than non-familiar videos and a significant positive correlation was also found between presence and vividness at recall. No relationship was found between memory accuracy and vividness, familiarity or presence. Our investigations revealed a clear relationship between sense of presence and familiarity as well as presence and vividness during recollection, but not between presence and objective memory performance. Further analyses will be conducted to compare recollection between 1PP and 3PP videos, as well as between sensory modalities and their relationship to vividness, familiarity and presence. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA73 - A new stimulus database to examine the underpinnings of rich and vivid memory recollectionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 74 | Hannah Tarder-Stoll, Columbia University | Christopher Baldassano, Columbia University; Mariam Aly, Columbia University | Top-down modulation of multi-step anticipation in changing environments | Memories for sequences of events allow us to anticipate future experiences at multiple timescales. Past studies of multistep prediction investigated fixed sequences of events. However, predictions should be context-sensitive and flexible, changing depending on our top-down goals. How do we flexibly anticipate events at multiple timescales in the future in changing environments? Participants learned four sequences of rooms in immersive virtual reality. Pairs of sequences had the same rooms viewed in a different order, enabling context-specific learning. We then tested, during fMRI, participants' (N = 28) ability to flexibly predict multiple steps into the future based on top-down goals in two ways. First, participants generated context-specific predictions about upcoming rooms in a given (cued) sequence. Behaviourally, participants predicted rooms up to four steps ahead on the cued sequence with comparable accuracy, but were slower to predict rooms that were further ahead. Second, to find further evidence of flexible predictions, we asked how participants reconfigure predictions by having them learn a link between two sequences with different rooms, and predict upcoming rooms along this integrated sequence compared to an unaltered one. Participants showed gradual performance improvement in the integrated sequence, eventually reaching equivalent accuracy to the unaltered sequence. In ongoing fMRI analyses, we expect brain activity patterns during anticipation to represent upcoming rooms in a context-sensitive way, with progressively less multivariate evidence for rooms further in the future along the cued, but not the uncued, sequence. Overall, we show that multi-step predictions are sensitive to top down goals in changing environments. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA74 - Top-down modulation of multi-step anticipation in changing environmentsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 75 | Wonjun Kang, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) | Sue-Hyun Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) | Neural processing in the prefrontal cortex for information integration | The process of intergrating newly acquired information with existing information is an essential process for our adaptive behaviors. Prior memory studies suggest that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) are involved in the information integration process. However, how representation of original information changes to combine new information remains unclear. Here we performed an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to investigate the representational changes underlying information integration. In the experiment, participants were asked to conduct a two-phase learning session and a retrieval session. During the first phase of the learning session, they learned the first set of object pairs. After the first phase, they learned the second set of object pairs (second phase), which partially overlapped with the first set of object pairs. Using trial-by-trial similarity analyses, we found that during the second learning phase the degree of shared representations increased for both the second set of pairs and the indirect associations in the vmPFC and the lPFC. However, the degree of shared representations for the first set of pairs gradually decreased over time in the same prefrontal regions. These results suggest that memory integration involves a process of reorganizing original memory representation rather than simply adding new information in the original memory traces in the prefrontal cortex. This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program (NRF-2020R1A2C2007770) and the Neurological Disorder Research Program (NRF-2020M3E5D9079913) of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Korean government (MSIT). | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA75 - Neural processing in the prefrontal cortex for information integrationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 76 | Yeray Mera, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) | Eugenia Marin-Garcia, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) | Comparing the Efficacy of Pretesting Versus Post-Testing at Enhancing Learning | It is well established that introducing tests during learning benefits later correct-recall compared to simply restudying the information - the retrieval practice effect. Recent studies have shown that attempting to guess unknown information, even when many errors are being committed, is also more beneficial than simply restudying it - the pretesting effect. The goal of this study is to compare the efficacy of testing before or after the exposure to the study-material (pretesting vs. post-testing). For this purpose, participants were assigned into three groups: (1) the post-testing group started with a study-session of 108 word-pairs, then performed an initial cued-recall test followed by corrective feedback; (2) the pretesting group started with an initial cued-recall test followed by corrective feedback, then completed a study-session; and (3) the control or study group performed two consecutive study-sessions of word-pairs. Three groups completed the same final cued-recall test after a five minutes distracting task. This procedure assures the same amount of studying and testing for pretesting and post-testing groups but manipulating the moment of testing. Our results showed that even the pretesting group committed significantly more errors on the initial test, there were no significant differences between pretesting and post-testing groups on the final test performance. Thus, testing is beneficial for later correct-recall, regardless of the number of errors experienced during the test. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA76 - Comparing the Efficacy of Pretesting Versus Post-Testing at Enhancing LearningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 77 | Heidrun Schultz, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Roland G. Benoit, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Facilitating episodic memory with pre-existing knowledge: Complementary memory representations in the PFC and MTL. | As humans, we have the remarkable ability to retain rich episodic memories of unique events. In addition, we also extract commonalities across similar events in a more abstract fashion, e.g., as semantic or schematic memories. These latter memories constitute pre-existing knowledge that, in turn, influences how we encode and retrieve new episodic memories. Previous work has demonstrated that pre-existing knowledge facilitates the retrieval of episodic memories via interactions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) with the medial temporal lobe (MTL). However, it is unclear how information pertaining to pre-existing knowledge is represented in these structures. In the present in-progress study, we scanned 23 human participants (11 male; planned sample size: n=40) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 7T. On each trial, an abstract cue prompted participants to retrieve scene images from memory. Importantly, the cue predicted the scene category (houses or landscapes) in the knowledge condition, whereas it did not in the control condition. Behaviorally, pre-existing knowledge improved episodic memory retrieval. Preliminary univariate analyses of the fMRI data reveal differential involvement of the PFC and MTL in the knowledge and control conditions. Planned multivariate analyses will examine the neural representations of pre-existing knowledge and episodic memory, i.e. scene categories and exemplars. Here, we predict that the PFC represents general category knowledge, while the MTL represents episodic memories. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA77 - Facilitating episodic memory with pre-existing knowledge: Complementary memory representations in the PFC and MTL.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 78 | Michael Weigl, Saarland University | Qi Shao, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Enno Wang, Saarland University; Zhiwei Zheng, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Juan Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Jutta Kray, Saarland University; Axel Mecklinger, Saarland University | Not so different after all? An event-related potential study on item and source memory in German and Chinese adults | In recent years, several cross-cultural studies reported that Westerners focus more on central aspects of a scene (e.g., an object) relative to peripheral aspects (e.g., the background), whereas Easterners more evenly allocate attention to central and peripheral aspects. In memory tasks, Easterners exhibit worse recognition for the central object when peripheral aspects are changed, whereas Westerners are less affected by peripheral changes. However, most of these studies rely on hit rates without correcting for response bias, whereas studies accounting for response bias failed to replicate cultural differences in memory tasks. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, we investigated item and source memory for semantically unrelated object-scene pairs in German and Chinese young adults using memory measures corrected for response bias (i.e. the discrimination index Pr). Both groups completed study-test cycles with either item memory tests or source memory tests. In item memory blocks, participants completed an old/new recognition test for the central object. Source memory blocks entailed an associative recognition test for the association between object and background. Item memory was better than source memory in both cultures. However, as verified with frequentist and Bayesian analyses, neither item memory nor source memory performance was modulated by backgrounds. The ERP results revealed an old/new effect for the item memory task in both groups which was again not modulated by backgrounds. Our findings suggest that cultural differences in young adults do not manifest in intentional memory tasks probing memory for object-scene pairs without semantic relations when using bias-corrected memory measures. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA78 - Not so different after all? An event-related potential study on item and source memory in German and Chinese adultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 79 | Francesco Pupillo, Goethe University | Rasmus Bruckner, Freie Universität Berlin; Yee Lee Shing, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main | Prediction and Episodic Memory in Changing Environments | Our brain tries to predict upcoming events by extracting regularities in the environment and forming expectations. In many real world situations, however, the state of the environment can change unexpectedly, such that the internal model that generates future predictions must also be updated. In such situations, it has been shown that prediction updating is obtained computationally by an increase in the learning rate (LR), an effect that has been related to the activity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). However, little is known about the effects of state changes on episodic memory, a function that is important for updating and dependent on the hippocampus. The main goal of this study is to relate computationally distinct influences of changes in the environment to encoding of events and investigate its neural basis. In an incremental learning task, participants predict the category of objects that were probabilistically associated to different characters. Participants learned these associations through the presentation of trial-unique objects belonging to distinct categories. At different points during the experiment, the associations unexpectedly changed so that participants had to relearn them. Results of a subsequent surprise recognition task showed that the objects presented after the change points were more likely to be remembered compared to objects presented after the new associations were learned. Moreover, higher values of the computationally-derived LR at encoding were associated with better object recognition. Collection of neuroimaging data is ongoing. On the neural level, we expect a modulatory effect of LR on the connectivity between hippocampus and ACC. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA79 - Prediction and Episodic Memory in Changing EnvironmentsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 80 | Marta Marques de Almeida e Silva, University of Barcelona | Josep Marco, University of Barcelona; LluÌs Fuentemilla, University of Barcelona | Rapid neural signaling of hierarchical map-like representations during goal directed behavior | Goal-directed behavior relies on the ability to learn the relational structure of a complex environment. Prior research showed that humans can quickly acquire a map-like representation of multiple events that are associated by a uniform transition probability. Here, we examined how the acquisition of such topology structure can lead to the discovery of hierarchical representations hidden in a relational structure. We recorded scalp electroencephalography (EEG) while participants learned optimal paths that linked sequences of fractal pictures to a reward. Critically, picture sequences and paths coalesced around clusters or 'communities' of mutually predicting stimuli, thereby eliciting the emergence of hierarchical memory representations for picture images, those that linked within (i.e., nonboundaries) and between (i.e., boundaries) communities. A time-resolved EEG pattern classifier analysis showed that boundaries and nonboundary items representations occur rapidly, i.e., 200 ms from image onset and that they distinguished the community structure of the task. We also found that EEG patterns of current selected images and upcoming choice images showed an increase in neural similarity at 500 ms from image onset, suggesting that brain signals coding the general relational structure were followed by the reactivation of specific future choices in the task. Our findings offer novel insights into how cognitive maps emerged to support planning. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA80 - Rapid neural signaling of hierarchical map-like representations during goal directed behaviorDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 81 | Michael Dulas, University of Illinois | Emily Morrow, Vanderbilt University; Hillary Schwarb, University of Illinois; Neal Cohen, University of Illinois; Melissa Duff, Vanderbilt University | Temporal Order Memory Impairments in Individuals with Moderate-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury | Temporal order memory is a core cognitive function that contributes to day-to-day behavior. The ability to bind together and to reconstruct a sequence of information critically relies upon the hippocampal relational memory system. Recent work has suggested traumatic brain injury (TBI) may particularly impact hippocampal relational memory. However, it is unclear whether such deficits extend to temporal order memory and if such deficits arise only at large memory loads. The present study assessed temporal order memory performance in individuals with chronic, moderate-severe TBI across multiple set sizes. Individuals with TBI and Neurotypical Comparison participants studied sequences of three to nine objects. At test, items were re-presented in pseudorandom order, and participants indicated the temporal position in which each had appeared. Critically, we assessed both the frequency and the magnitude of errors across set sizes. Individuals with TBI were not impaired at the smallest set size, but showed significant impairments at 5+ items. While group differences in the frequency of errors were stable across larger set sizes, individuals with TBI displayed an increasing magnitude of these errors with increasing memory loads. Further, individuals with TBI showed relatively spared performance for the first object of each list (primacy) but were impaired on the last object (recency). Our findings demonstrate that TBI results in impaired temporal order memory for lists as small as five items, and that these impairments are exacerbated with increasing memory loads. These data highlight the importance of additional, sensitive measures in the assessment of cognitive impairments in TBI. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA81 - Temporal Order Memory Impairments in Individuals with Moderate-Severe Traumatic Brain InjuryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 82 | Maxi Becker, Humboldt University | Roberto Cabeza, Duke University | Neuronal mechanism for the insight memory effect | Increased evidence suggests that insight (sudden comprehension involving an AHA! experience) during problem solving enhances memory for those problems compared to those solved without insight (Danek et al., 2019; Kizilirmak et al., 2016). However, the underlying neuronal mechanism for this insight memory effect still remains unknown. One study investigating visual insight found activity in the anterior medial temporal lobes (MTL) predicting later memory for those problems (Ludmer et al., 2011). However, because the solution was induced and the AHA! experience was not assessed it remains unknown whether MTL activity is related to insight. We tested 30 subjects using a visual and verbal insight task in the MRI and asked them to rate how strongly they experienced an insight after each solution. Additionally, they performed a subsequent memory test (recognition of the insight problems from both tasks) four days later. On a behavioral level, we replicated the insight memory effect: subjects were more likely to remember the insight tasks the stronger they rated their insight during solution in the scanner. On a neuronal level, we found overall activity in medial prefrontal cortex, bilateral anterior lateral temporal and MTL regions (including hippocampus) during solution predicting later memory for verbal and visual insight combined. Importantly, activity in bilateral hippocampus was parametrically modulated by the amount of experienced insight during solution. This is first evidence for a neuronal mechanism of the insight memory effect: insight increases activity in the hippocampus necessary for binding content representations of the respective tasks into a durable memory representation. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA82 - Neuronal mechanism for the insight memory effectDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 83 | Serra Favila, Columbia University | Mariam Aly, Columbia University | Resolving competition during memory-guided visual attention | Memory allows us to use previous experiences to more efficiently allocate visual attention in complex scenes. Because many memories contain overlapping features, resolving competition between them is necessary for memory to adaptively guide attention. Here, we explore how the brain's memory and visual systems overcome memory competition to effectively guide attention and eye movements. On day 1 of our task, human participants learned associations between scenes and spatial locations. Scenes consisted of twelve pairs of highly similar images associated with different spatial locations. Scene similarity therefore imposed a high level of memory competition, which had to be resolved to learn the spatial locations. On day 2, participants performed a visual search task in which they had a limited time to find a small distorted patch within a scene on each trial. Critically, participants could use the scene-location associations learned on the prior day to predict the location of the distortion on the next trial. Participants could exploit this memory-derived prediction to improve search efficiency, but only if they had resolved interference between competing scenes. Behavioral analyses confirmed that participants experienced memory interference on day 1, which partially resolved over the session. Furthermore, participants effectively used memory to improve search performance: saccades were more accurate on trials for which predictions were valid, compared to when they were invalid or when no memory was available. Our ongoing fMRI analyses relate interference resolution in the hippocampus to the precision of memory-based spatial representations in visual cortex during the search task. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA83 - Resolving competition during memory-guided visual attentionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 84 | Alexandra Cohen, New York University | Camille Phaneuf, New York University; Morgan Glover, New York University; Xinxu Shen, New York University; Kristen Avallone, New York University; Lila Davachi, Columbia University; Catherine Hartley, New York University | Influences of reward on neural memory representations across development | Rewards influence behavioral and neural memory processes. Recent research suggests that reward enhances memory through differential engagement of mesocorticolimbic systems across development. However, few studies have examined multivariate representations of reward memories, or whether these representations exhibit systematic changes across development. Prior work conducted in adults has shown that rewards alter hippocampal activation patterns during encoding and that cortical pattern similarity between encoding and retrieval is associated with better memory for both neutral and emotional stimuli. Still, how reward influences encoding-retrieval similarity (ERS) and whether there are developmental changes in reward-related ERS remain unknown. To address these knowledge gaps, we had 89 participants ages 8 to 25 years-old complete a reward-motivated encoding and retrieval fMRI paradigm. We will use representational similarity analysis (RSA) to quantify and compare the degree of pattern similarity between individual high- and low-reward encoding and retrieval trials across age. We hypothesize that participants of all ages will show greater anterior hippocampal and cortical ERS for high- relative to low- reward trials, and that pattern similarity for low-reward trials will vary with age. We also predict that increased high-reward pattern similarity will be associated with better high-reward memory across age. This work will provide insights into how reward influences memory representations from childhood to adulthood. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA84 - Influences of reward on neural memory representations across developmentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 85 | Lauri Gurguryan, McGill University | Can Fenerci, McGill University; Mathilde Rioux, McGill University; Haopei Yang, University of Western Ontario; Stefan Köhler, University of Western Ontario; Signy Sheldon, McGill University | The effect of cue-evoked familiarity on the recollection of autobiographical memories | Recognition memory research distinguishes between two neurocognitive processes: recollection and familiarity. Although autobiographical memories (AMs) rely primarily on recollection, cue familiarity also influences their retrieval. Traditionally, the impact of familiarity is examined by manipulating the frequency of recent exposures (experimental familiarity). Outside the laboratory, familiarity emerges from cumulative lifetime exposures (lifetime familiarity). Although both engage similar brain regions, whether they similarly affect AM remains unclear. We recently found that high lifetime familiarity cues, relative to low, facilitate retrieving AMs. If lifetime and experimental familiarity activate overlapping neurocognitive processes, then increasing the latter should also impart a benefit for AM. In an online experiment, young adults first completed a familiarization task. They were presented with normatively rated high and low lifetime familiarity words either once or four times. Next, they were presented with a subset of words and instructed to retrieve a related AM as quickly as possible (reaction times estimated access) and rate it on multiple dimensions (date, vividness). AMs elicited by high lifetime familiarity cues were more recent and rated as more vivid. Only AMs elicited by low lifetime familiarity cues benefited from increased experimental familiarity-memories were accessed more quickly. Because aging is associated with impaired recollection but spared familiarity and a concurrent shift toward a reliance on familiarity, we are currently examining the impact of age on the reported pattern (data collection in progress). Findings will refine our understanding of the interactive neurocognitive processes that underlie AM and provide evidence for how familiarity processes can benefit their retrieval. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA85 - The effect of cue-evoked familiarity on the recollection of autobiographical memoriesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 86 | Eun Hyun Seo, Chosun University | Hyung-Jun Yoon, Chosun University | Different association between cognitive reserve and cognitive decline according to amyloid positivity | Background: It still remains to be elucidated if cognitive reserve (CR) effect is different according to amyloid-beta (a§) positivity. In the current study we investigated the associations between CR proxies (education, intelligence, structural and functional brain features) and future cognitive decline separately for a§ positivity. Methods: Demographic, clinical and neuropsychological data, functional MRI data at baseline, and follow-up clinical data were downloaded from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. In the final analysis, 84 nondemented people were included. Cognitive decline was measured by mini mental status examination (MMSE) change score from baseline and the last follow-up. Resting state function image data processing was carried out using FMRIB's Software Library and Brain Connectivity Toolbox. Cox proportional hazards models were conducted. Results: Forty-four were a§ negative(a§-); 40 were a§ positive(a§+). Mean follow-up month were 56.29. Based on MMSE change score, 22 and 19 were identified as decliners in a§+ and in a§- group, respectively. Among baseline CR proxies, education was significantly associated with future cognitive decline in a§+ group (HR=0.287, 95% CI 0.094-0.874). The possibility of cognitive decline in the individuals with high level education (>16 years) was about 3.5(1/0.287) times higher than in those with low level education. On the other hand, functional connectivity density was significantly associated factor in a§- group (HR=3.748, 95% CI 1.160-12.117). Discussion: A paradoxical effect of education on the cognitive decline was observed. Our preliminary results may indicate that once AD pathology reaches the certain threshold, individuals with high education would exhibit accelerated cognitive decline. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA86 - Different association between cognitive reserve and cognitive decline according to amyloid positivityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 87 | Asieh Zadbood, Columbia University | Uri Hasson, Princeton University; Kenneth Norman, Princeton University; Lila Davachi, Columbia University | How does surprise alter hippocampal-cortical network dynamics during encoding? | Our brain holds a set of expectations about the current state of the world. These expectations are shaped based on past experiences and are of adaptive value. In real life, where events unfold over time, a violation of these expectations (a surprising event) must be quickly resolved by the brain in the present context in order to enable prediction of the next moment. In turn, this shift in encoding could profoundly affect memory of the present and past. We aim to examine how surprise alters the brain dynamics during encoding by using naturalistic stimuli. Participants watched a movie (The Sixth Sense) in an fMRI scanner. In the last scene of the movie, a twist was introduced which would dramatically change the interpretation of the previous scenes. The second group of participants watched the same movie as the first group, but the twist was introduced upfront. The final scene was therefore not a surprise to these participants. After watching the movie, both groups performed a cued recall task, and overall memory and twist-incorporation scores were measured. We calculated functional connectivity between hippocampus and the regions in the default mode network during watching the final scene. Our preliminary results show an increase in connectivity between hippocampus and medial prefrontal and posterior medial cortical regions in the group that was surprised by the twist. Further analyses will determine whether changes in functional connectivity predict subsequent memory updating behavior. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA87 - How does surprise alter hippocampal-cortical network dynamics during encoding?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 88 | Wangjing Yu, Columbia University | Lila Davachi, Columbia University; Nathan Kline Institute | Emotional prediction errors trigger precise reactivation of related memories | Many daily experiences are interrelated but can sometimes contain emotionally contrasting information. However, how encountering an emotional prediction error during new learning impacts reactivation of prior contrasting memories remains unknown. To test this question, in our behavioral experiments, we asked participants to study two sets of related 'picnic' events, in which gifs of famous characters were paired with the same food item across events. However, the valence of the character's emotion towards the food might switch or stay the same from the first picnic to the second picnic. We examined during the learning of the second picnic, whether memory reactivation of the first picnic was enhanced when there was an emotional prediction error and whether this effect, if present, might be modulated by the memory strength of the prior experience. Thus, half of the first picnic events were presented three times while the other half only once. Replicating our results across two experiments, we show that a positive emotional prediction error (negative-to-positive switch) encountered during new learning triggers more precise reactivation of the prior related memory, as compared to when emotion stays consistent. This effect was observed when the first event was encountered only once, but not when it was encoded multiple times. Further, when prior memory is strong, there is a decreased need to update existing knowledge with new information, which might explain why in such cases precise reactivation is less necessary. Together, these results provide novel insights into how we adjudicate between existing memory and new, competing, information. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA88 - Emotional prediction errors trigger precise reactivation of related memoriesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 89 | Mrinmayi Kulkarni, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences | Jessica Robin, Winterlight Labs; Lydia Jiang, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences; Bradley R. Buchsbaum, Rotman Research Institute; University of Toronto; Rosanna K. Olsen, Rotman Research Institute; University of Toronto | Neural Correlates of Category-Specific Associative Memory | Episodic memory relies on the brain's ability to flexibly recombine disparate elements across episodes to form new associations. In this study, we examined whether the category of items that form the memory associations influences neural recruitment of the hippocampus. Participants completed interleaved study-test phases of an associative inference task while undergoing fMRI scanning. During study, they encoded overlapping scene-object or face-object pairs. During each block, 16 pairs were presented (8 AB pairs and 8 partially-overlapping BC pairs). A/C items were always objects, but the linking B item was either a face or a scene. During test, memory for the direct associations (AB and BC pairs) and indirect associations (AC inference pairs) was probed. Behavioral performance was similar across categories; however, fMRI data revealed that distinct brain regions were recruited for associative memory and inferences involving scenes and faces. Successful retrieval of face-object pairs was associated with increased activity in fusiform gyrus, whereas correct identification of scene-object pairs was associated with parahippocampal cortex (PHC) activity. Activity in the PHC persisted during tests of indirect associations involving scenes, even though only objects were presented. Anteromedial hippocampal activity was significantly greater for correctly identified indirect associations involving scenes, relative to incorrect trials. These results suggest that retrieval of indirect associations involves reactivation of temporal lobe regions involved in the initial sensory processing of the linking items. Associative inference involving scenes may recruit the hippocampus to a greater extent than faces to aid in spatial relational binding specific to scenes. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA89 - Neural Correlates of Category-Specific Associative MemoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 90 | John Thorp, Columbia University | Lila Davachi, Columbia University; Nathan Kline Institute | Context-mediated retroactive memory enhancements | Emotional arousal has been shown to not only shape our ongoing perception of and memory for strong learning events, but to also retroactively enhance memory for weakly encoded information related to the source of arousal. Just what features of prior experiences are most readily maintained, suppressed, or distorted by this future learning, however, has yet to be fully explored. Here, participants were shown images of objects within two separate contexts during a pre-conditioning phase, with each object being either congruent or incongruent within its presented context. During a conditioning phase immediately after, scenes belonging to one of these contexts were paired with mild shocks (CS+ context). 24 hours later, participants displayed enhanced high-confidence recognition memory for both congruent and incongruent objects presented in the CS+ context during pre-conditioning. These findings provide evidence that retroactive memory enhancements can be mediated through contextual representations and act ubiquitously across paired associates, regardless of prior thematic associations. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA90 - Context-mediated retroactive memory enhancementsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 91 | Claire Lauzon, York University | Stevenson Baker, York University; Elisa Ciaramelli, Universit‡ di Bologna; R. Shayna Rosenbaum, York University | Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Mnemonic Discrimination | Pattern separation-the neurobiological process of making overlapping mnemonic information more distinct-has been shown to depend on the hippocampus. The Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST; Stark et al., 2015) is a behavioural estimation of this process wherein participants must distinguish previously learned images of everyday objects from novel, highly similar images (lures) and dissimilar images (foils). Several studies have validated the use of the MST to infer hippocampal integrity, but the extent to which this task relies on other brain regions is unclear. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is involved in strategic aspects of memory encoding and retrieval, including 'feelings of rightness' and contextual memory organization. Individuals with lesions to the vmPFC have previously demonstrated inflated confidence in erroneous memories, possibly due to faulty meta-mnemonic monitoring after injury to this region. Using the MST, we examined if behavioural pattern separation critically depends on the vmPFC by testing individuals with selective lesions to this region. We also examined whether confidence in the accuracy of individual responses varied depending on stimulus type. Individuals with vmPFC lesions were selectively impaired in discriminating studied items from similar lures but not novel foils, resembling findings in individuals with hippocampal compromise. Furthermore, individuals with vmPFC lesion were highly confident when mischaracterizing similar lures, but not when responding incorrectly to novel foils and studied images. As such, deficits in lure discrimination may reflect faulty meta-mnemonic monitoring and an elevated 'feeling of rightness'-functions influenced by the vmPFC. These findings provide novel insight into non-hippocampal contributions to mnemonic discrimination. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA91 - Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Mnemonic DiscriminationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 92 | Haley Fritch, Boston College | Dylan Spets, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital; Scott Slotnick, Boston College | Functional connectivity with the anterior and posterior hippocampus during spatial memory | Evidence of differential connectivity and activity patterns across the long-axis of the hippocampus has led to many hypotheses about functional specialization between the anterior and posterior hippocampus, including a hypothesis linking the anterior hippocampus to memory encoding and the posterior hippocampus to memory retrieval. The hippocampal encoding/retrieval and network (HERNET) model of memory predicts that encoding should engage the anterior hippocampus and the attention network, whereas retrieval should engage the posterior hippocampus and the default network. In the current fMRI study, we investigated whether the spatial memory encoding activity in the anterior hippocampus and retrieval activity in the posterior hippocampus had a higher degree of connectivity to the attention network or the default network. During the study phase, abstract shapes were presented in each quadrant of the visual field and participants were instructed to remember each shape's location while maintaining central fixation. During the test phase, the same shapes were presented in the center of the screen and participants identified the previous location of each shape. Generalized psychophysiological interaction analyses were conducted between the anatomically-defined anterior and posterior hippocampus and the rest of the brain. This revealed preferential connectivity between the anterior hippocampus and regions of the attention network during encoding and between the posterior hippocampus and regions of the default network during retrieval. These results suggest that the anterior and posterior hippocampus interact with regions of the attention network and default network during spatial memory encoding and retrieval, respectively, and support the HERNET model of memory. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA92 - Functional connectivity with the anterior and posterior hippocampus during spatial memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 93 | Aroma Dabas, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Rasmus Bruckner, Freie Universität Berlin; Heidrun Schultz, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences; Roland Benoit, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Computational and neural mechanisms of simulation-based learning | Humans are remarkable in their capacity to vividly imagine hypothetical experiences. These episodic simulations are based on memories of our past that get recombined into novel events. Notably, recent evidence indicates that we also learn from simulated episodes much like we do from real past experiences. This in-progress poster further examines the computational and neural basis of such simulation-based learning. On each trial, participants first made a choice between two people that they were personally familiar with. They then had to imagine an interaction with the given person (say X; CS) in a presented scenario that was either pleasant (eating ice cream with X on a sunny day; positive US) or unpleasant (X breaks your mobile phone; negative US). Critically, one person was more often paired with a pleasant, and the other person with an unpleasant scenario. As predicted, over the course of the experiment, participants acquired a preference for people imagined more frequently in pleasant scenarios. Our preliminary analyses corroborate that this simulation-based learning can best be accounted for by a reinforcement-learning model, similar to learning based on real experiences. The fMRI data allow us to determine whether it is also based on a similar neural mechanism. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA93 - Computational and neural mechanisms of simulation-based learningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 94 | Shenyang Huang, Duke University | Leonard Faul, Duke University; Natasha Parikh, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Kevin S. LaBar, Duke University; Felipe De Brigard, Duke University | Multivariate neural patterns of counterfactual thinking-induced reconsolidation of autobiographical memory | When recalling autobiographical events, we often consider alternative outcomes by engaging in counterfactual thinking (CFT). Sometimes we imagine how a past event could have been better (upward CFT) and other times we imagine how it could have been worse (downward CFT). Generating counterfactual thoughts modifies the phenomenology of associated memories, yet the precise neural mechanisms underlying this reconsolidation process remains unclear. To address this open question, we designed a novel, multi-session experiment with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In the first session, participants (N=36) provided regretful autobiographical memories and rated them on phenomenological characteristics including valence, arousal, and detail. One week later, during fMRI, participants recalled these memories and engaged in either upward CFT, downward CFT, or neither. The next day, participants recalled all memories again during fMRI and re-rated their phenomenological characteristics. By computing neural pattern similarity, we first evaluated which brain regions tracked autobiographical memory specificity across the two fMRI sessions, which revealed core regions of the default network (e.g., ventral prefrontal cortex and angular gyrus). Next, we examined where multivariate neural patterns change significantly and progressively during CFT, finding these same regions as well as orbital and inferior temporal gyri. Taken together, we demonstrate a novel multivariate approach to examining the neural systems mediating autobiographical memory reconsolidation via CFT. Subsequent analyses will test whether changes in neural pattern similarity predict changes in phenomenological characteristics of regretful autobiographical memories. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA94 - Multivariate neural patterns of counterfactual thinking-induced reconsolidation of autobiographical memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 95 | Ricardo Adrogue, University of Pennsylvania | Noa Herz, University of Pennsylvania; Michael Kahana, University of Pennsylvania | Clinical Validation of Laboratory Memory Tasks (In Progress) | Much of our knowledge concerning the neural basis of human memory derives from list memory tasks, such as free recall, cued recall and item recognition. Clinicians use related neuropsychological memory assessments to diagnosis patients and evaluate therapies. While researchers optimize laboratory methods for scientific aims, they nonetheless seek to translate their findings to the clinical field. Here we sought to elucidate the relationship between laboratory studies of free recall with standard, normed, neuropsychological assessments of recall. We had participants take part in a multisession experiment in which they alternatively performed the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT) and laboratory-designed multi-trial delayed free recall task, administering each session a week and a half apart using Amazon's MTurk server. Preliminary results indicate a high degree of similarity between detailed behavioral measures obtained using both tasks, as well as a strong positive correlation between scores in the clinical and laboratory assessments. We use these data to define a scale through which we can translate findings from the laboratory into clinical score equivalents without having to obtain norms on the laboratory studies. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA95 - Clinical Validation of Laboratory Memory Tasks (In Progress)Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 96 | Camille Gasser, Columbia University | Lila Davachi, Columbia University; Nathan Kline Institute | Learned action sequences scaffold novel event memories | Throughout our lives, many of the actions we follow are highly familiar. And yet, layered upon these routine behaviors are novel episodic experiences. While on your morning commute, for example, you might pass by a new, unfamiliar dog. To date, a substantial body of research has explored how prior knowledge about the world affects our ability to learn novel, related pieces of information. Nevertheless, few studies (if any) have examined the common situation we describe here: how one's engagement in a well-learned sequence of actions might support their ability to remember new, unrelated information that is encountered in parallel. To investigate this question, we designed a novel behavioral paradigm in which participants encoded trial-unique item sequences while simultaneously making simple motor actions (button presses). Critically, these 'action sequences' belonged to two distinct conditions: in the predictable condition, the actions participants engaged in while viewing novel items always followed a fixed sequence, which was well-learned prior to encoding; in the random condition, action sequences were unpredictable. Across three experiments, we found that participants' temporal order memory, but not item or source memory, was significantly enhanced for novel items when they were learned alongside a predictable action sequence. Such results suggest that engagement in predictable behaviors during learning can scaffold temporal integration in memory, a critical feature of episodic experiences. Ongoing work is using fMRI to examine how interactions between the hippocampus and mPFC might underlie this scaffolding effect. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA96 - Learned action sequences scaffold novel event memoriesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 97 | Parisa Vahidi, Wayne State University | Elizabeth Johnson, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; Qin Yin, Wayne State University; Lingfei Tang, Wayne State University; Eishi Asano, Wayne State University; Noa Ofen, Wayne State University | Pediatric intracranial EEG recordings link encoding-retrieval pattern similarity to memory independent of age | The encoding specificity principle entails that similarity between conditions at encoding and retrieval supports memory. A candidate neural correlate for this principle is the similarity between neural activity patterns at encoding and retrieval, referred to as neural reinstatement. It is unknown whether neural reinstatement contributes to improvements in memory across development. We investigated the role of neural reinstatement in memory development by leveraging intracranial recordings from children and adolescents with implanted electrodes in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) (age range 5.9-20.5 years, n=21) who were undergoing direct cortical monitoring for seizure management. Subjects performed a recognition memory task with visual scenes. Neural reinstatement was evaluated by correlating encoding-retrieval spectral power patterns across a broadband frequency range (1.5-250 Hz) for subsequently recognized (hit) and subsequently forgotten (miss) scenes. Paired samples t-test revealed stronger neural reinstatement for hits than misses (t(20) = 2.72, p = .01). Reinstatement effects for hit and misses did not differ by age (|r| < .09, p > .69). However, MTL reinstatement for hits and misses trended to differentially predict memory accuracy across subjects (hits: r = .31, p = .18; misses: r = -.25, p = .27; Steiger's z test = 1.89, p = .059). These findings, obtained using rare pediatric intracranial EEG, point to a mechanistic role of MTL neural reinstatement in driving memory accuracy across development, independent of age. Furthermore, these findings suggest that MTL neural reinstatement plays a key role in children's memory performance. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA97 - Pediatric intracranial EEG recordings link encoding-retrieval pattern similarity to memory independent of ageDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 98 | Hannah Whitehead, University of Toronto | Gregory Brooks, Western University; Stefan Köhler, Western University | When Familiarity Not Novelty Motivates Information-Seeking | Research has shown that both novelty and familiarity can motivate information-seeking behaviour as a result of curiosity. While novelty preferences have been well-studied, our understanding of conditions under which familiarity trumps novelty in exploration remains limited. Recently, our lab reported that an unsuccessful recall attempt can bias subsequent information-seeking towards the exploration of familiar over novel items. Specifically, we found that feeling-of-knowing (FOK) experiences during unsuccessful recall bias participants' choices in information-seeking towards the exploration of familiar information. Such FOK experiences reflect predictions about whether information that could not be recalled would still be recognized if shown. Here, we conducted three experiments to identify critical retrieval factors that determine when familiarity preferences can be observed. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the presence of an unsuccessful recall attempt is a more important determinant of familiarity preferences than the inclusion of related predictions about future recognition performance. Experiment 2 revealed that the impact of a recent recall attempt on subsequent exploration of familiar information is not restricted to situations in which recall was unsuccessful. Experiment 3 showed that the level of confidence in the accuracy of any recalled information is a critical factor, with moderate levels of confidence leading to the strongest subsequent familiarity preference. Taken together, our findings indicate that task demands, as well as metacognitive retrieval experiences, determine whether a recent recall attempt leads to a familiarity preference in subsequent information-seeking. These findings can be interpreted within theoretical frameworks that emphasize the role of knowledge gaps in the induction of curiosity. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA98 - When Familiarity Not Novelty Motivates Information-SeekingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 99 | Xinxu Shen, Temple University | David Smith, Temple University; Vishnu Murty, Temple University | Dissociable effect of curiosity on memory during anticipation and outcome phase | Being in a state of curiosity has been shown to enhance memory, but less is known about how curiosity influences memory during different phases: anticipation phase, where curiosity is elicited, and the outcome phase, where curiosity is satisfied. To investigate this question, we designed a behavioral study where 40 participants (20 younger adults: 18-25, 20 older adults: 65-79) watched 10 magic clips (5 high curiosity, 5 low curiosity) and completed a free recall task after 24-hour of delay. A trained researcher segmented 40 participants' free recalls into clauses based on action segments in the magic clips, and scored each clause against an answer sheet. Another researcher classified each clause as prediction phase or outcome phase. We found a main effect of curiosity (F = 8.85, p < 0.01), such that there was better memory for high versus low curiosity clips, and a main effect of phase (F = 17.35, p < 0.01), such that there was better memory for the anticipation versus outcome phase. Interestingly, for the young group, we found an interaction between curiosity and phase (F = 4.17, p = 0.04), such that curiosity only enhanced memory during the anticipation phase. These findings suggest that curiosity may specifically target anticipatory processes of prediction to support memory, a process which may generalize to outcomes in older adults. In future analyses, we will apply a newly developed machine learning tool to extend this analysis to 100 participants to confirm the effect of curiosity on memory during different phases. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA99 - Dissociable effect of curiosity on memory during anticipation and outcome phaseDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 100 | Frederik Bergmann, University of Cambridge | Dace Apšvalka, University of Cambridge; Michael Anderson, University of Cambridge | Reorienting of Attention Underlies the Intrusion of Unwanted Memories | While memory retrieval is often voluntary, memories can also intrude into awareness against our will. In fact, memory intrusions are a hallmark of many psychological disorders, such as anxiety, OCD, and PTSD. Even though unwanted memories are of major clinical significance and also constitute a ubiquitous phenomenon in daily life, they have proven challenging to study. Here, we isolated instances of involuntary retrieval in four fMRI studies of retrieval suppression using the Think/No-Think (TNT) paradigm. We show that when involuntary retrieval occurs, activity arises in the right dorsal intraparietal lobule (IPL), a region of the fronto-parietal control network, often active in working memory and attention tasks. Critically, we dissociated this response to involuntary retrieval from activation associated with recollection, which activated the left angular gyrus (AG). By conducting a Posner spatial-cuing task in the same participants, we demonstrate co-localization of intrusion related activity with areas engaged during reflexive reorienting of attention to invalidly cued items. Using multi-voxel pattern analysis, we demonstrated a significant similarity in the activation patterns associated with reorienting caused by visual stimuli and intruding memories. Taken together, these findings suggest that common neural mechanisms contribute to perceptual and mnemonic attention, and that these mechanisms are supported by the right dorsal IPL. We propose that the functional overlap originates from a similarity of spatial reorienting and mnemonic reorienting processes. As such an intruding memory or thought may capture attention like a goal-relevant visual stimulus does, signalling the demand for control processes to purge the intruded memory from awareness. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA100 - Reorienting of Attention Underlies the Intrusion of Unwanted MemoriesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 101 | Carina Fan, University of Toronto / Rotman Research Institute | Brian Levine, Rotman Research Institute | (Less Visual) Mental Imagery in Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory | Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) is a recently discovered congenital syndrome in which individuals report an inability to subjectively re-experience past events that is unaccounted for by a neurological or psychiatric disorder. Evidence suggests SDAM overlaps with aphantasia (a congenital lack of mental imagery), aligning with research demonstrating the contributions of visual imagery to autobiographical memory retrieval. In this study, we examined a set of self-reported mental imagery questionnaires and their relation to SDAM in a sample of individuals who completed an online survey battery in response to media reports concerning SDAM. Of 5682 original respondents, 2245 records were retained following rigorous screening for response invalidity or other exclusions. 51% of the 1679 individuals identified as having SDAM scored within the range of aphantasia as assessed by the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), compared to 19% of non-SDAM individuals. SDAM individuals also reported less spontaneous use of visual mental imagery in everyday life, as measured by the Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale (SUIS). SDAM individuals tended to report lower imagery in other sensory domains on the Questionnaire Upon Mental Imagery (QMI), such as auditory and olfactory imagery, but group differences in these domains were smaller than they were for visual imagery. Interestingly, nearly a third of those endorsing SDAM rated their imagery as at least 'moderately vivid' on the VVIQ, suggesting that it is possible to have SDAM and normal imagery. These findings demonstrate that SDAM may overlap with aphantasia, particularly visual aphantasia, but this overlap is not complete. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA101 - (Less Visual) Mental Imagery in Severely Deficient Autobiographical MemoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 102 | Arianna Moccia, University of Sussex | Alexa Morcom, School of Psychology | Selective retrieval revealed by electroencephalographic neural pattern reinstatement | For past experiences to inform action, we need to select the information we retrieve from memory. To do so, control must be exerted prior to retrieval, but little is known about the timing, nature, and effects of this control. Here, we analyzed data from two electroencephalographic (EEG) experiments where people studied objects in picture or auditory word format, then memory was probed with either object names (Experiment 1, N=28) or line drawings (Experiment 2, N=28). We used multivariate decoding to quantify the reinstatement of study phase neural patterns when people successfully identified items studied in a currently designated target format, or non-targets, studied in the other format. In both experiments, when remembering items studied as auditory words versus pictures, participants reinstated distinct neural patterns which originated from earlier versus later study time-windows. In both experiments, this reinstatement was partially target-selective ? stronger for targets than non-targets ? and its degree of selectivity did not depend on the external cues. This contrasted with previous findings for the left parietal ERP effect, which may reflect processing downstream of initial reinstatement. We also tested for reinstatement of goal-directed states prior to retrieval cues, thought to drive selection of target memories. When cues were words in Experiment 1, there was strong evidence of this proactive reinstatement, but it was not detected when cues were pictures in Experiment 2. Together, the data suggest that selective recollection may occur at multiple points in the retrieval cascade and relies on both external cues and internal, goal-directed control. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA102 - Selective retrieval revealed by electroencephalographic neural pattern reinstatementDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 103 | Loris Naspi, Humboldt Universit‰t zu Berlin | Charlotte Stensholt, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin; Roberto Cabeza, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin/Duke University | Stronger semantic representations at encoding predict successful recall in older relative to young people | Visual and semantic properties are proposed to make distinct contributions to accurate memory. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we used representational similarity analysis (RSA) to uncover the representations involved in successful memory encoding. Encoding and retrieval were both scanned. During the encoding phase, thirty-five participants (18 young adults and 17 older adults) made a perceptual or semantic judgements about images of objects paired with the corresponding concept word. At retrieval, participants were presented with the concept word and were asked to recall the studied image while rating its vividness from 1 (low vividness) to 4 (high vividness). We modelled distributed brain activity in 4 regions of interest (ROIs) using two representational dissimilarity models (RDMs) capturing early visual attributes with a deep convolutional neural network (vgg16), and semantic properties via specific object features. In each ROI we first extracted multivoxel activity for all the studied trials. We used a one-sided Wilcoxon test to detect ROIs responsible for perceptual and semantic processing irrespective of memory encoding in both young and older adults. We then used a generalized linear mixed effects model to predict subsequent memory. Object-specific visual and semantic attributes coded in early visual and posterior ventral temporal cortex, including fusiform gyrus and lateral occipital cortex, were associated with object processing in both groups. However, semantic processing predictive of successful memory retrieval in the posterior ventral temporal cortex was greater in the older than young adults, suggesting that semantic processing can boost older adults' memory more than young. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA103 - Stronger semantic representations at encoding predict successful recall in older relative to young peopleDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 104 | Gregory Brooks, Western University | Stefan Kohler, Western University | Role of curiosity and reward in exploration following unsuccessful memory recall | Curiosity is an intrinsic motivational state tied to information-seeking behaviour. Relief of this state results in a sense of satisfaction in which the sought-out information acts as intrinsic reward. Prior work has revealed the role of the reward circuitry during the induction of state curiosity. Studies on state curiosity typically do not focus on the source of this motivational state. We recently demonstrated that metacognitive experiences during unsuccessful memory recall may reflect one such source as we found that these experiences shaped subsequent information-seeking behaviour. Whether this pattern of information-seeking is linked to experiences of curiosity, and whether subsequent access to information that could not be recalled is experienced as rewarding, has not been directly examined. We addressed these questions through two experiments that employed Feeling-of-Knowing (FOK) judgements for previously studied material, and probed either curiosity (Experiment 1), or assessed information-seeking and reward (Experiment 2). First, we show that FOK ratings for unrecalled names correlate with subsequent curiosity ratings. Next, we reveal that FOK ratings shape information-seeking in a manner that parallels their influence on reported curiosity. Finally, we demonstrate that FOK ratings relate to how rewarding subsequent access to unrecalled information is experienced when sought out. Together, these findings provide key evidence identifying metacognitive experiences during unsuccessful memory recall as a source of state curiosity. This is in line with the notion that unrecalled information may act as a motivationally salient reward. Future work is needed to examine whether the demonstrated links depend on the engagement of reward circuitry. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA104 - Role of curiosity and reward in exploration following unsuccessful memory recallDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 105 | Sucheta Chakravarty, Brown University | Shanti Mechery, Brown University; Elizabeth Sharp, Brown University; Hwamee Oh, Brown University | Differential neural correlates of top-down and bottom-up processing of visual information during categorical decisions | Visual information processing is known to involve hierarchically organized neural structures that may collectively support both the top-down and bottom-up processes of visual information. While several brain regions have been implicated in the top-down and bottom-up processes of visual information, differentiating neural correlates involved in each process remains challenging. Here, we performed an fMRI study using a simple visual categorization task with intact (INTACT) and scrambled (SCRAMBLED) visual images to manipulate the relative influence of top-down and bottom-up processes. Seventeen healthy young participants (mean age: 19 years, 10 females) performed the study, where they categorized centrally located, briefly presented images into faces or scenes. Intact or scrambled images were manipulated orthogonal to the categorical judgments. Participants responded faster to intact than scrambled images (p < 0.05), only for faces but not for scenes, with no accuracy differences across task conditions. Enhanced activity was found in right inferior and middle frontal gyri in SCRAMBLED conditions of both faces and scenes, while enhanced activity was found in the lateral occipital cortex and fusiform gyrus for intact faces, or right parahippocampal gyrus for intact scenes. Collapsing faces and scenes, compared to a baseline activity, SCRAMBLED conditions showed greater activations in the right frontal cortex and inferior parietal cortex bilaterally, while INTACT conditions showed greater activations in fusiform gyri and inferior occipital gyri bilaterally. These findings suggest that differential neural substrates underlie visual information processing of scrambled and intact images, which is potentially mediated by greater top-down and bottom-up processes for each image condition. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA105 - Differential neural correlates of top-down and bottom-up processing of visual information during categorical decisionsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 106 | Cortney Howard, Duke University | Mariam Hovhannisyan, University of Arizona; Shenyang Huang, Duke University; Simon Davis, Duke University; Roberto Cabeza, Duke University | Representational encoding-retrieval shifts of visual and semantic information support successful episodic memory | Our knowledge of what information is represented during memory retrieval is primarily based on encoding-retrieval similarity analyses. In other words, we only understand these retrieval phase representations based on their similarity to an encoding phase. However, recent evidence suggests representations may shift in content and cortical location with changes in memory phase. These studies found representations in visual-temporal regions during encoding and representations in frontal-parietal regions during retrieval. Additional evidence suggests memory phase changes cause shifts in content from visual at encoding to semantic at retrieval. Although previous studies investigated memory phase-dependent representational shifts by comparing representations for successfully remembered content at encoding and retrieval, it is unclear if shifts are episode-specific or to what extent shifts support successful memory retrieval. Here, we used representational similarity analysis (RSA) to examine how visual and semantic representations support successful memory at encoding (e.g., seeing an image of a cardinal) and retrieval (e.g., recalling seeing a cardinal). Itemwise similarity between brain (voxelwise similarity) and model (visual, semantic similarity) during encoding and retrieval were evaluated with a mixed-effect regression model. These analyses revealed two novel findings. First, we found representational shifts in cortical location (from visual-temporal at encoding to frontal-parietal at retrieval), but not shifts in content, support successful memory. Second, representations in parietal regions were more robust for subsequently forgotten trials during encoding but for remembered trials during retrieval, indicating an encoding-retrieval flip. Together these findings suggest that cortical representations that shift location with changes in memory phase support successful conceptual memory. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA106 - Representational encoding-retrieval shifts of visual and semantic information support successful episodic memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 107 | Aslihan Imamoglu, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | Sarrah Belhadj, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Aysenil Belger, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Christopher Wahlheim, University of North Carolina, Greensboro; Kelly Giovanello, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | Pattern Separation in Children and Adolescents at Risk for Schizophrenia | Episodic memory relies critically on the ability to recognize and subsequently organize perceptually similar inputs into distinct, non-overlapping representations, a process termed pattern separation. Prior research has demonstrated that pattern separation arises from the dentate gyrus, a subregion of the hippocampal formation. The dentate gyrus is structurally altered in individuals with schizophrenia, who also show widespread episodic memory impairments, as well as pattern separation deficits. Previously, we observed episodic memory impairments in children and adolescents genetically at-risk for schizophrenia in comparison to control participants. To date, no research has examined pattern separation in children who have genetic vulnerability to develop schizophrenia. The current study characterizes behavioral pattern separation (i.e., mnemonic discrimination) and visual discrimination ability in high-risk and age-matched control participants 9 to 17 years old. To date, data from 90% of our target recruitment number have been collected. We have two hypotheses: (1) those at genetic risk for schizophrenia will exhibit worse mnemonic discrimination, indicated by lower lure discrimination index scores, than those without genetic risk, and (2) both groups will demonstrate comparable visual discrimination performance. Understanding the nature of episodic memory deficits in high-risk youth offers a unique opportunity to track the developmental trajectory of schizophrenia-related behavioral changes, as these individuals do not exhibit the clinical symptoms of the disorder. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA107 - Pattern Separation in Children and Adolescents at Risk for SchizophreniaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 108 | Rosalie Samide, Boston College | Rose Cooper, Northeastern University; Elizabeth Kensinger, Boston College; Maureen Ritchey, Boston College | Retrieval-related brain processes supporting the lasting effects of emotion regulation on memory | Regulating negative emotions that arise while recalling an unpleasant event presents a persistent challenge. As a reconstructive process, recall offers an opportunity to ease the burden of repeated regulation by updating negative memories, with the potential for long-term reductions in the negative affect associated with a memory. However, little is known about the recall-related brain processes that support lasting effects of emotion regulation on episodic memories. The current study examined brain processes supporting memory reappraisal, which involves reframing a recalled event to render it less negative. In a two-day study, participants (n = 30) watched real-life news broadcast videos with emotionally negative content and rated their affective experience. Next, they were cued to recall each video while fMRI data were collected. For half the trials, they were then instructed to reappraise their memories, whereas for the other half, they were instructed to continue elaborating on their memories without reappraisal. The next day, they described each video from memory and rated the vividness and affect of their memory. As expected, memory reappraisal was associated with prefrontal activity, especially in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Next, we investigated which brain processes would be associated with lasting reappraisal-related changes in memory valence. Recall-related activity in lateral occipital cortex was associated with a reappraisal-mediated reduction in negative valence 24-hours after reappraisal. These results suggest that brain processes involved in the initial retrieval of negative content also support the emotion regulation of those memories, consistent with research showing that memory reactivation is critical for robust memory updating. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA108 - Retrieval-related brain processes supporting the lasting effects of emotion regulation on memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 109 | Ryan Hubbard, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Lili Sahakyan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Direct suppression, but not thought substitution, recruits top-down inhibitory control mechanisms | Humans can intentionally forget unwanted information. Intentional forgetting is often studied with an item-method directed forgetting task, in which study items are followed by cues to remember or forget that item. Intentional forgetting can be accomplished with different strategies, including direct suppression of to-be-forgotten items, and thought substitution, or mentally replacing items with other representations. These strategies may rely on different neural mechanisms; namely, direct suppression may induce pre-frontally mediated inhibition of information, whereas thought substitution relies on posterior driven context-shift mechanisms. Few studies have directly related top-down inhibitory processing to direct suppression during encoding, or tested its involvement in thought substitution-mediated forgetting. Here, we tested this hypothesis using a cross-task design, relating the behavioral and neural data from a stop signal task ? specifically tapping inhibitory processing? to an item-method directed forgetting task that included directed forgetting and thought substitution cues. Thirty-three participants completed both tasks while their EEG was recorded, and multiple analyses were conducted to relate inhibitory processing during the stop signal task to the memory task. Behavioral partial least squares demonstrated that right-frontal beta activity was correlated with stop signal reaction times and directed forgetting magnitude, but not thought substitution. Furthermore, classifiers trained on neural data to predict stopping in the stop signal task could also predict successful forgetting following directed forgetting cues, but not following thought substitution cues. Our research underscores the role of the right frontal cortex in top-down inhibitory control when suppressing unwanted thoughts, but not when substituting unwanted thoughts with other thoughts. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA109 - Direct suppression, but not thought substitution, recruits top-down inhibitory control mechanismsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 110 | Nelly Matorina, University of Toronto | James Drake, University of Toronto; Donald Mabbott, University of Toronto; Morgan Barense, University of Toronto | Sleep impairs memory in a patient with anterograde amnesia | Sleep benefits episodic memory (Aly & Moscovitch, 2010). Recent evidence suggests that hippocampal damage affects sleep physiology (Span˜ et al., 2020), but there is limited evidence regarding how sleep affects episodic memory in those with hippocampal system damage. We tested an amnesic patient (C.T.), whose family reported that her memory loss was paradoxically exacerbated by sleep. C.T. had undergone surgery for a low-grade intraventricular septum tumor, which was immediately above both fornices and appeared to invade the right fornix. We tested C.T. and 10 age-matched controls over two consecutive days. Participants were randomly assigned either to the nap condition on Day 1 and wake condition on Day 2 or the reverse arrangement. On each day, participants watched an episode of a TV show with a 100-minute interval between study and test, during which they either napped or stayed awake. C.T. completed the experiment twice. In a Bayesian mixed model, we found a significant main effect of group, such that C.T. recalled fewer details compared to controls in both conditions, 95% CI [-2.26 -0.54], and a significant interaction between condition and group, 95% CI [-1.54 -0.20], such that C.T. recalled significantly fewer details in the nap (0 details) vs wake conditions (9 and 11 details) compared to controls. These data suggest that C.T.'s memories become destabilized during sleep and that the fornix may play a key role in either episodic memory consolidation or retrieval. Furthermore, sleep may be a critical factor in understanding amnesia in some people with hippocampal system damage. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA110 - Sleep impairs memory in a patient with anterograde amnesiaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 111 | Lingfei Tang, Wayne State University | Kelsey Canada, Wayne State University; James Wairagu, Wayne State University; Roya Homayouni, Wayne State University; Christina Lee, Wayne State University; Noa Ofen, Wayne State University | Peri-encoding modulation of hippocampal functional connectivity supports memory development | An increase in memory performance across development is supported by the prefrontal cortex and its functional connectivity with high-level visual regions. Localized changes in brain functional connectivity after encoding is thought to reflect initial stages of memory consolidation and predict the magnitude of subsequent memory. Here, we investigated how changes in functional connectivity of the prefrontal cortex following encoding of visual scenes support scene memory development. Fifty-nine participants (8-20 years) studied 120 pictures depicting indoor or outdoor scenes and subsequently underwent a recognition test. Resting-state fMRI scans were collected immediately before and after the scenes encoding and changes in inferior frontal gyrus functional connectivity patterns were assessed using CONN toolbox. Memory performance increased with age (r=.31, p=.02). We observed an encoding-related change in IFG functional connectivity with both left and right occipital-temporal cortex that differed by age (p<.05 FDR-corrected); adults compared to children showed a reduced change in functional connectivity between IFG and lateral occipital lobe post encoding. Moreover, changes in localized IFG functional connectivity (pars triangularis) mediated age increases in the memory performance. These findings suggest that functional connectivity between IFG and high-level visual regions is involved in the early stages of memory consolidation that drives memory development. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA111 - PROP51428771Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 112 | Richard Addante, Florida Tech | Randall Waechter, Saint George University Medical School; Tara Hashemian, University of Florida; Evan Clise, Florida Institute Technology; Jessica Poskus, Florida Institute Technology; Delaney Bennet, Florida Institute Technology | ERP and behavioral evidence that context-familiarity is distinct from recollection and item-familiarity | Prior research (Addante, Ranganath, & Yonelinas, 2012, NeuroImage) reported the unique memory condition of low confidence recognition that maintained accurate source memory (source correct), identifying electrophysiologically distinct effects from the memory process of recollection (high confident recognition with correct source memory) and referring to it as 'context-familiarity'. The purpose of the current study was to expand the prior work via exploring its behavioral measures and assess how it may differ from conditions reflecting item-familiarity (high confident recognition without correct source memory). Item memory response time was reliably slower for the 'low-confidence item recognition with source correct' condition than 'high confidence recognition with 'source unknown' judgments. Source memory responses were reliably faster for the 'low confidence recognition with source correct' condition than 'high confidence recognition with 'source unknown'. These findings suggest that there is a behavioral difference between the memory processes supporting familiarity for items and that which supports familiarity for contexts. Electrophysiologically, we found a significant negative-going ERP effect occurring later in time (800-1200ms) in central-parietal sites for the context familiarity condition which was distinguished from effects for item familiarity (FN400) and those for recollection (LPC), consistent with prior findings of this memory pattern. Results suggest that this negative-going, later-onset ERP signal reflects an independent cognitive process, termed 'context familiarity', which is differentiated from both item-familiarity and recollection processes of episodic memory. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA112 - ERP and behavioral evidence that context-familiarity is distinct from recollection and item-familiarityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 113 | Emily Cowan, Temple University | Yiwen Zhang, University of Pittsburgh; Ben Rottman, University of Pittsburgh; Vishnu Murty, Temple University | The effects of spaced learning and encoding variability on associative memory | Our ability to recall long-term memories is critical for helping guide future behaviors. It's been shown that spacing or 'distributing' repeated learning sessions over time, compared to compressing learning into one session, leads to improved long-term memory. However, it remains debated why spacing confers such benefits. It's been hypothesized that with each exposure, the memory is encoded with slight differences, or greater 'encoding variability', resulting from factors like the slow drift in background context. On the other hand, spacing has also been hypothesized to provide an opportunity for consolidation, such that repeated exposure reactivates and further strengthens the stabilized memory trace. To adjudicate between these theories, we designed a study with a 24-day learning phase (1-4 sessions per day) and a test phase on day 25, which was completed entirely on participants' mobile phones. During the learning phase, participants encoded pairs consisting of one item shown with either four distinct scenes or one scene repeated four times. To modulate spacing, pairs were shown in a row in the same session, spread across the four sessions within the same day, or across sessions on four consecutive days. In addition to replicating the spacing effect (p<0.001), preliminary results (N=75) demonstrate greater memory for items paired with multiple scenes compared with items repeated with the same scene under massed learning conditions (p<0.001). However, when learning is spaced across days, there was no difference in item memory (p=0.13), suggesting memory may benefit from greater variability specifically under non-spaced conditions. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA113 - The effects of spaced learning and encoding variability on associative memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 115 | Nghi (Nick) Hoang, University of Toronto and Rotman Research Institute, Baycres | Rosanna K. Olsen, University of Toronto and Rotman Research Inst; Bradley R. Buchsbaum, University of Toronto and Rotman Research Inst | A novel paradigm to examine behavioural pattern separation and pattern completion in healthy young and older adults | Pattern separation and pattern completion are distinct computational mechanisms thought to support episodic memory. The Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST) measures behavioral pattern separation (BPS) through the manipulation of study-test image similarity. However, the MST does not directly probe for behavioral pattern completion (BPC), which can be examined through cueing degraded versions of studied items. Some researchers have associated BPC with false alarm responses to visually similar items (lures) in the MST. They have also inferred that healthy older adults' reduced ability to discriminate lures reflects an age-related bias toward BPC at the expense of BPS. The current study aimed to modify the MST to directly assess both BPC (by varying image degradation at test) and BPS (by varying image similarity at test). Healthy young (n=51) and older (n=33) participants made 'old'/'new' judgements to distinguish among repeated scene images (targets), completely new scenes (foils), and lure scenes. During each block, participants were tested on 12 targets, 12 foils, and 12 lures; each probe type was also degraded across three levels of white noise. Consistent with previous MST findings, older adults were more impaired than young adults at discriminating lures, especially those at higher degradation levels. Regardless of age, however, we showed a positive correlation between BPS and BPC, and no correlation between lure false alarms and BPC. Unlike the MST, the current paradigm indexes BPC separately from BPS, both of which decreased in older adults. Our findings suggest that BPS and BPC do not act in opposition, even in healthy aging. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA115 - A novel paradigm to examine behavioural pattern separation and pattern completion in healthy young and older adultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 116 | Nursima Ünver, Sabanci University | Eren Günseli, Sabanci University | The effects of divided attention on long-term memory retrieval | The role of attention in long-term memory (LTM) encoding is well-established in the literature, but results regarding the effect of attention during LTM retrieval are inconsistent. Some studies observed costs of divided attention on retrieval while others did not. Moreover, the effects of divided attention on precision and accessibility during retrieval have not been explored. We hypothesized that divided attention disrupts the precision and not the accessibility of memoranda. If so, inconsistent findings in the literature could be attributed to differences across tasks in their need for high precision representations. We applied mixture modeling on error distribution in a continuous report paradigm to test the effects of divided attention on accessibility and precision of long-term memory representations during retrieval. Participants (N=19) learned six object-orientation associations in each block. Later, they retrieved these orientations in either full attention (retrieval task alone) or divided attention conditions (together with a secondary visual search task). Contrary to our hypothesis, accessibility was lower under divided attention while precision was unaffected. Although our results do not explain why some studies failed to observe divided attention costs on retrieval, we show that divided attention, when detrimental for retrieval, primarily affects the accessibility of memories with no effect on their precision. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA116 - The effects of divided attention on long-term memory retrievalDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 117 | Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, University of Maryland School of Medicine | Muhammad Saleh, University of Maryland School of Medicine; Linda Chang, University of Maryland School of Medicine; Thomas Ernst, University of Maryland School of Medicine | Higher Frontal Brain Glutamate May Detect Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson's Disease; Evidence from MRS | Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) assessed excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission (glutamate, GABA, respectively) and antioxidant glutathione (GSH) to explore how metabolic changes contribute to clinical features of Parkinson's disease (PD). GSH, GABA and glutamate levels were evaluated in 10 PD patients (mean age=67) cognitively classified on the basis of normal cognition (PD-NC; n=4) or presence of mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI; n=6) based on a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. Edited MRS (HERMES; TE/TR = 80/2000ms; 320 averages) was conducted in frontal and parietal voxels (25 x 25 x 25 mm3) to obtain GABA and GSH levels. TE-averaged PRESS (TE 31 to 229 ms; TR=2s) quantified glutamate, glutamine, and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) using the water signal interpolated to TE=0 as a concentration reference. Step-wise regression evaluated which MRS concentrations predicted cognitive status, disease duration and motor severity (UPDRS) after controlling for age and sex. The results revealed that higher pooled glutamate-glutamine concentration levels in frontal cortex (p=.019) best predicted non-amnestic MCI status, while there were no significant predictors for motor severity. Disease duration was best predicted by frontal grey matter (p=.014), with additional variance explained with the addition of parietal NAA (p=.006). The findings highlight the sensitivity of MRS to detect early cognitive deficits in PD distinct from motor features of the disease, as well as the significance to disease duration associated with cognitive decline. In summary, metabolic markers have potential to improve understanding of pathogenesis in PD through identification of new therapeutic targets to improve non-motor features of the disease. | METHODS: Neuroimaging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA117 - Higher Frontal Brain Glutamate May Detect Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson's Disease; Evidence from MRSDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 118 | Jie Lisa Ji, Yale University | Jure Demsar, University of Ljubljana; Clara Fonteneau, Yale University; Zailyn Tamayo, Yale University; Aleksij Kraljic, University of Ljubljana; Andraz Matkovic, University of Ljubljana; Nina Purg, University of Ljubljana; Markus Helmer, Manifest Technologies; Stamatios Sotiropoulos, University of Nottingham; John Murray, Yale University; Alan Anticevic, Yale University; Grega Repovs, University of Ljubljana | QuNex: A Flexible and Scalable Environment for Comprehensive Neuroimaging Processing and Analysis. | A major gap in cognitive neuroimaging is the availability of flexible and easily deployable tools for large-scale integrated preprocessing and analysis. Currently, there is a lack of field-wide methods standardization, particularly across different neuroimaging modalities. This motivates the need for a comprehensive framework that allows scalable end-to-end workflows. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Here we present the Quantitative Neuroimaging Environment & Toolbox (QuNex), a software platform designed to simplify neuroimaging analyses and unify workflows by supporting multiple well-validated, commonly-used tools across neuroimaging modalities. QuNex supports multiple forms of input neural and behavioral data as well as popular community-developed tools including FSL FreeSurfer, HCP, PALM, and XTRACT. Additionally, QuNex includes a well-defined framework for informing the future integration of externally developed tools, and is publicly available as a container that contains all required dependencies for easy distribution, portability, and execution. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ We show that QuNex can robustly process neuroimaging datasets using 16 studies, totaling 10984 scans from 51 scanners. QuNex successfully preprocessed 10716 out of 10984 scans (98% success rate). Data from diverse neuroimaging datasets were consistently processed to produce standardized outputs and generate features from multiple neural modalities, including myelin, diffusion tractography, resting-state functional connectivity, and task activation maps. We demonstrate the native support for high-throughput processing, customizable parametrization, nonparametric statistical testing, and integrated multi-variate multi-modal analyses. _x000D__x000D_ Reliable standardized processing of neuroimaging data is a necessity for reproducible results in cognitive neuroimaging. QuNex provides a robust, scalable environment for consistent handling of diverse neuroimaging datasets, bridging an important gap in the field. | METHODS: Neuroimaging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA118 - QuNex: A Flexible and Scalable Environment for Comprehensive Neuroimaging Processing and Analysis.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 119 | Stephanie Noble, Yale University | Mandy Mejia, Indiana University Bloomington; Andrew Zalesky, University of Melbourne | Improving sensitivity in neuroimaging with broader-scale inference--is it worth the reduction in specificity? | Inference in neuroimaging typically occurs at the level of focal brain areas or circuits, despite accumulating evidence that areas do not act in isolation. We previously demonstrated a substantial improvement in power when using procedures that match a broader-scale perspective: namely, when increasing the level of inference and controlling the false discovery rate (FDR) instead of familywise error rate (FWER). Yet powerful procedures can have limited practical utility if they have low specificity, which can hinder the ability to pinpoint true effects. Here, we evaluated how specificity is affected by the level of inference and error rate under control using a comprehensive benchmarking procedure that resamples task-based connectomes from the Human Connectome Project. All procedures produced relatively few false positives (<0.5% of the connectome; <1% of all detected effects) and achieved valid control. As expected, FWER-controlling procedures were more conservative and showed very small FDR (<0.25%). Edge and cluster-level results showed perfect or near-perfect spatial specificity. Yet network-level procedures were not unreasonably imprecise--on average, 75% of edges in detected networks reflected true effects. For comparison, only broader-scale procedures have been shown to meet or surpass commonly targeted levels of power (80%) to detect an average effect, with >20% more power than edge- and cluster-level procedures. Altogether, the reduction in specificity for broader-scale inference and FDR-controlling procedures was relatively modest compared with the substantial gain in power. With power currently at a premium for typical neuroimaging studies, this decreased precision may be worth the opportunity to accelerate discovery in human neuroscience. | METHODS: Neuroimaging | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA119 - Improving sensitivity in neuroimaging with broader-scale inference--is it worth the reduction in specificity?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| A | 120 | Ryan Ash, Stanford University | Kerry Nix, Stanford University; Nolan Williams, Stanford University; Anthony Norcia, Stanford University | Stability and plasticity of steady-state visual-evoked potential contrast-response functions | A repeated measure of neural activity that is stable over time when unperturbed is needed to be able to meaningfully measure neuroplastic changes in the brain. We assessed the repeated-measure within-day and across-day stability of the steady-state visual-evoked potential (ssVEP), an exceptionally high signal-to-noise electrophysiological readout of neural activity in human visual cortex, in preparation for studies of visual cortical neuroplasticity. Data were re-analyzed from Dmochowski et al Neuroimage 2015, in which ssVEP contrast-sweep responses (90 trials, 17 subjects) were measured daily for 4 days using a 128-channel EGI hydrocel EEG system and custom xDIVA software. Reliable components analysis was used for dimensionality reduction. Response amplitudes were stable in individual subjects, with measured within-day and across-day coefficients of variation (CV= SD/ Mean) of 10±1% and 17±2%, respectively. A similar analysis in a new data set, in which ssVEP contrast response functions were recorded from left and right visual cortex simultaneously using bilateral frequency-tagged stimuli, showed a similar CV (9±2%, n=4 subjects). Overall our ssVEP protocols were powered to detect a 20% change with 7 subjects (statistical power= 0.8). We conclude that contrast-sweep steady-state VEPs are stable over time when unperturbed. Future work will quantify the contribution of background EEG (brain state), fixation, and task engagement to across-trial variability. We are currently developing methods to induce plasticity in ssVEP contrast-response functions using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial focused ultrasound. | METHODS: Electrophysiology | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesA120 - Stability and plasticity of steady-state visual-evoked potential contrast-response functionsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 1 | Daniel Levy, Reichman University | Limor Shtoots, Reichman University; Guy Doron, Reichman University | Optimizing CBT intervention for improving self-esteem via theta consolidation enhancement | Self-esteem ‰?? the evaluation of our own worth, talents and competencies ‰?? has been associated with numerous determinants of well-being. Although self-esteem is often considered a relatively stable trait, research findings suggest that it is malleable. In fact, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) interventions have been developed for dealing with individuals' beliefs about their own worth and abilities. Since CBT is based on learning principles, conducting CBT interventions under conditions that optimize learning may maximize its effects. A novel way to enhance memory consolidation is suggested by findings regarding the important role of brain oscillations in mnemonic processes: we have demonstrated that post-learning theta rhythm modulation promotes consolidation of new learning (motor sequence learning, episodic and spatial memory). Therefore, theta enhancement using audio-visual entrainment (AVE) may optimize stabilization of therapeutic learning and memory, including the enhancement of self-esteem using CBT techniques. We compared the immediate and long-term effects of a mobile-computerized intervention employing CBT techniques to improve self-esteem followed by theta AVE vs. control condition. We found that the long-term effects of the CBT intervention were enhanced by theta AVE. Post-treatment theta upregulation might be a useful tool for increasing the efficacy not only of self-esteem and well-being interventions, but also of a range of CBT techniques. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB1 - Optimizing CBT intervention for improving self-esteem via theta consolidation enhancementDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 2 | Zeyu Xue, Brandeis University | Teresa Mitchell, Brandeis University | Controlling Transgression through Disgust: The Effect of Visually Disgusting Stimuli on Moral Judgement and Decision | Disgust is a universal emotion that helps in avoiding harmful substances. More recent research has examined moral disgust, a negative reaction to violations of norms which is said to have developed out of the primitive core disgust system. Research on disgust has shown that perceived physical disgust elevates people's harshness evaluating morally ambiguous events. The current study aimed to test the effect of physical disgust on moral judgments and decision making by using visually disgusting images, collected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the Culpepper Disgust Image Set (C-DIS). We hypothesized that visually disgusting stimuli would elevate people's harshness evaluating moral violation vignettes and reduce the tendencies to make unethical decisions. We also explored any differences between varying types of disgust on moral judgment. Results showed that participants made harsher judgments of moral violations and made fewer unethical decisions after viewing disgusting images than after viewing neutral images. Differences between different types of disgust were also observed, where the images involving body-envelop violation, body waste elicited harshest moral judgment, the images involving snakes, insects, spiders, worms came second and the images involving corrupt food and hygiene issues (injectors, sneezing person) elicited the least harsh moral judgment. Future study could explore the fading of disgust perception over time, which was observed in the study. Replication with behavior measure of moral decision is also recommended to elevate ecological validity. Results from the current study suggest potential application of visual disgust as a convenient and flexible method to affect immoral behavior. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB2 - Controlling Transgression through Disgust: The Effect of Visually Disgusting Stimuli on Moral Judgement and DecisionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 3 | Alyssa Stephens, Belmont University | Rachelle Larivee, Belmont University; Sinead Doogan, Belmont University; Caroline Haynes, Belmont University; Carole Scherling, Belmont University | Are They Actually Smiling at Me?' Influence of Priming and Attentional Bias on Perception of Emotional Faces | Unconscious facial priming can manipulate emotional perception and expressions (Hermans et al., 2010; Mennen et al., 2019), and is useful in paradigms to minimize participant reactivity. The current study uses a within-subjects design, subliminally priming 53 participants (38 females; Mean age (SD)= 20 (1.39)) with happy or angry faces before judging neutral faces. In sequence, 3x4 matrices appeared for 200ms, either showing 12 happy (positive) or angry (negative) faces. Each subsequently presented a single neutral face for rating. Existing attentional biases were assessed by a Rosenberg scale. A non-parametric Wilcoxon revealed an effect of priming on neutral face ratings (z(53) = -3.381, p< 0.01), with positive and negative priming respectfully showing more positive and negative subsequent ratings. Similarly, the neutral faces were rated as more approachable after positive priming, compared to negative priming (z(53)= -3.281, p= 0.01). Correlational analyses considering existing attentional biases revealed interesting priming effects. For discrete emotion ratings, low self-esteem rated neutral faces as happier in both priming conditions (positive: ?(53)= 0.28, p= 0.04); negative: ?(53)= 0.27, p= 0.05). This suggests higher susceptibility to positive priming and decreased effects of negative priming. Yet, low self-esteem rated neutral faces as less approachable after negative priming (r(53)= 0.30, p= 0.03), suggesting a sensitivity to negative priming. These contrasting findings may be explained by the impersonal and personal involvement when answering questions probing discrete emotions versus approachability judgements. This contributes to emotional-priming literature, offers insight into existing attentional biases, and relays considerations of different sensitivities in impersonal and personal judgments. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB3 - Are They Actually Smiling at Me?' Influence of Priming and Attentional Bias on Perception of Emotional FacesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 4 | Abigail Mitchell, Belmont University | Rylie Cimino, Belmont University; Shannon Kelly, Belmont University; Carole Scherling, Belmont University | Music to Brighten Your Day: Emotionally-Charged Music Influences Attentional Bias Towards Positive Colors | Early-on, humans perceive music as happy or sad and demonstrate concordant emotional responses (Dalla Bella, 2001). Colors themselves are also intrinsic to emotional experiences. Respectively, bright and dark colors associate with positive and negative emotions, and people are attracted to stimuli matching current mood (Becker & Leinenger, 2011). The current study examined the influence of emotional music on color biases. A between-subjects design involved 32 undergraduate students completing a Dot-Probe attentional bias task while listening to positively- or negatively-valenced music, in addition to completing non-musical trials. We hypothesized that congruent music-color biases, as well as no effects in non-musical conditions. The task involved looking at the central screen, where 2 color squares would appear to the right and left, followed by the appearance of a target behind one color. Reaction times were recorded from target appearance to location identification through a button press, with shorter reaction times indicating a higher attentional draw. An eye-tracker served as a manipulation check. Reaction times were slower when the probe appeared behind negative colors, during positive and negative musical trials (t= -2.17, p< 0.05; t= -2.13, p< 0.05). No differences in reaction times were shown between musical types when appearing behind positive colors, nor between color-types during non-musical trials (p> 0.05). Results indicate that background music overall biases attention towards positive colors, and that music itself introduces a color biases. Further research is being completed in a confirmatory cohort. These findings may be useful in future affective studies and have applications in advertising. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB4 - Music to Brighten Your Day: Emotionally-Charged Music Influences Attentional Bias Towards Positive ColorsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 5 | Miroslaw Wyczesany, Jagiellonian University | Agnieszka K Adamczyk, Jagiellonian University; Tomasz S Ligeza, Jagiellonian University; Adam Labaza, Jagiellonian University; Michal Domagala, Jagiellonian University | Induction of implicit emotional regulation affects directional connectivity of prefrontal and attentional areas | Implicit and automatized forms of emotional regulation, although understudied, are recently considered crucial for psychological well-being. In the experiment we implicitly induced self-regulation goal using a task with word scrambles and then asked participants to passively watch emotional stimuli. We hypothesized that the implicit modulation of affective responses acts already at the very early phase of stimuli processing. We also expected that the attentional networks contribute to these modulatory effects, while being controlled by bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal regions already shown to activate during both implicit and explicit emotional regulation. The procedure has been previously validated using EEG and fMRI markers of emotional arousal. Current study involved 26 volunteers and consisted of neutral and goal-induction blocks, that differed with sentences to be put together from scrambles. They could be either neutral or include some self-control related content. EEG signal recorded during negative picture presentation was subjected to preprocessing, source reconstruction using minimum norm approach and directional connectivity analysis using the Directed Transfer Function estimated in the beta frequency band. Sources in bilateral medial frontal gyri along with nodes of the dorsal and ventral attentional networks were analyzed. Results demonstrated an increased bidirectional connectivity between both dorsolateral regions and also a higher top-down influence from these areas towards the right frontal eye field after induction of implicit control. It was accompanied by a strengthened effective connectivity within both attentional networks, which can reflect a modified attentional state that is responsible for modulating the depth of perceptual processing. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB5 - Induction of implicit emotional regulation affects directional connectivity of prefrontal and attentional areasDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 6 | Minhee Kim, Duksung Women's University | Youngwug Cho, Hanyang University; Kwanguk (kenny) Kim, Hanyang University; So-Yeon Kim, Duksung Women's University | Can looking at emotion-specific diagnostic regions modulate affective priming effects? | Affective priming effects can facilitate emotional valence judgment on facial expressions. However, when the valence between a target and a primer is different, the affective priming effect can disturb the emotional valence judgment of the target. Here, we investigated effects of emotion-specific diagnostic regions on affective priming effects on the facial valence judgment. Diagnostic regions on faces refer to key facial features which have the most emotion-specific information. Here, we hypothesized that searching for diagnostic regions for a target face would decrease possible affective priming effects caused by a briefly presented emotion face (a primer) on the valence judgment for the target. Specifically, we used surprise faces (neutral valence) as targets and the primers were either angry (negative) or happy (positive) faces. Participants were instructed to explore the target faces and responded the valence of the targets. The exploration patterns on the target were measured by the Moving Window Technique which provided blurred faces and a mouse-controlled window to explore the facial features through. The primers were briefly presented before the appearance of the targets. The results showed that the valence judgment was affected by the valence of primers. Notably, regression analyses showed that the amount of search time of the diagnostic regions significantly explained decreased priming effects. Such results indicate that exploration of the diagnostic regions can lead more precise judgment of emotional valence of the target despite affective priming or contexts. In sum, searching for the diagnostic regions on faces can decrease the effects of irrelevant emotional context. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB6 - Can looking at emotion-specific diagnostic regions modulate affective priming effects?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 8 | Zach Gray, University of Arkansas | Grant Shields, University of Arkansas; Stassja Sichko, University of California, Los Angeles; Theresa Bui, Tulane University; George Slavich, University of California, Los Angeles | You look fantastic today, and so does your brain! Striatal activity during positive social evaluation is associated with fewer depression symptoms and greater ¤-endorphin levels in adolescent girls | Understanding the etiological mechanisms that underlie depression in adolescence is critical for better understanding how to not only reactively treat depression, but to proactively safeguard against it. Blunted reward sensitivity is a known key characteristic of depression, and prior research has shown that blunted sensitivity to monetary rewards is a prospective predictor of the development of depression. However, the occurrence of depression is strongly related to social interactions-in particular, stressors-and to date, no studies have investigated how reward-related brain activity during positive social evaluation is related to depression symptoms. In the present study, 46 adolescent girls (12-17 years old; M = 14.9) were assessed for depression symptoms using a standardized clinical interview. They subsequently underwent a 10-minute social evaluation task while in the fMRI scanner. Girls also provided blood samples from which various analytes were assayed. As hypothesized, we found that greater striatal activity when receiving positive social evaluation (relative to neutral social evaluation) was associated with fewer clinician-determined depression symptoms, B = - .366, p < .001; the incidence rate ratio indicated that for every one standard deviation increase in this striatum activity, clinical depression symptoms decreased by 28.1%. Additionally, this striatum activity was positively associated with blood levels of the reward-related peptide beta-endorphin, r = .329, p = .036. Taken together, these results indicate that blunted neural activity in reward-related regions during social evaluation is strongly related to depression symptoms in adolescent girls, and, moreover, that striatal activity during positive social evaluation is associated with peripheral biomarkers | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB8 - You look fantastic today, and so does your brain! Striatal activity during positive social evaluation is associated with fewer depression symptoms and greater €-endorphin levels in adolescent girlsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 9 | Teodora Stoica, University of Arizona | Matt Grilli, University of Arizona; Eric Andrews, University of Arizona; Hannah Burns, University of Arizona; Ramsey Wilcox, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jessica Andrews Hanna, University of Arizona | Resting Functional Connectivity of the Ventral Salience Subsystem Relates to Positive Emotional Granularity | The adaptive influence of positive emotion on wellbeing may relate to emotional granularity, the ability to put feelings into words with a high degree of specificity. However, it remains unknown whether these correlates of wellbeing extend to one's experience during idle 'rest' states, and whether emotional granularity at rest may be reflected in patterns of resting state functional connectivity (rsFC). The present study addresses these questions with a focus on the ventral salience subsystem (vSN), specifically the ventral anterior insula, a brain region linked to salient affective experiences. Participants (N=47) completed the Ryff Wellbeing Questionnaire and vocalized their stream-of-consciousness thoughts across two resting state runs. Audio-recorded linguistic data were analyzed for Positive and Negative Emotional Granularity using a database of lemmas, and metrics of emotional granularity were computed for positively and negatively valanced words. Across participants, higher wellbeing was correlated with higher Positive but not Negative emotional granularity. Emotional granularity metrics were then explored in relation to rsFC during an independent silent rest run. Analyses showed that stronger rsFC between the ventral anterior insula and regions within the Ventral Attention, Somatomotor and Language Networks was related to higher Positive emotional granularity. Although speculative, these results suggest that Positive emotional granularity may arise from enhanced communication between brain networks supporting the verbal expression and embodied experience of salient emotional information. These findings advance our understanding of salience network functions and have potential implications for the development of novel psychological interventions involving emotional granularity training for promoting healthier emotion-regulation strategies and behaviors. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB9 - Resting Functional Connectivity of the Ventral Salience Subsystem Relates to Positive Emotional GranularityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 10 | Katherine Elwell, Northern Michigan University | Lin Fang, Northern Michigan University; Joshua Carlson, Northern Michigan University | Neural changes in cerebellar-ACC resting-state functional connectivity following attention bias modification training: a | A habitual symptom of anxiety is attention bias to threatening stimuli. Ample literature has indicated a significant relationship between attention bias and the maintenance of anxiety disorders-with similar neural mechanisms driving them. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is well-regarded for its role in attention allocation and has been shown to have altered resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in anxious populations. New and converging research provides empirical evidence that the cerebellum's functional connectivity and shared network structure with threat processing may contribute to the psychopathology of anxiety and attention deficits. Attention Bias Modification (ABM) is a treatment for anxiety disorders in which participants are unconsciously trained to divert their attention away from threatening stimuli, with the goal to reduce attention bias towards threat, and in doing so, anxiety. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to assess the effect of six weeks of ABM training on cerebellar-ACC rsFC changes in individuals exhibiting high trait anxiety and attention bias towards threat. Participants' (N = 41) functional connectivity was extracted from 10-minute resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) sessions: which were completed immediately prior to starting, and immediately following the completion of, ABM training. The results showed that relative to the control group, the ABM training group showed significant decreases in the cerebellar-ACC rsFC. These findings suggest that neural changes between the cerebellum and the ACC may underlie the ABM-related changes-such as decreased attention bias. This also implies that the cerebellum may contribute to the psychopathology of anxiety and attention bias. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB10 - Neural changes in cerebellar-ACC resting-state functional connectivity following attention bias modification training: aDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 11 | Ian O'Shea, Temple University | Samantha Resiman, University of Wisconsin-Madison; R. Alison Adcock, Duke University; Chelsea Helion, Temple University; Johanna Jarcho, Temple University; Vishnu Murty, Temple University | Influence of threat during encoding on the verbal communication of memory | Previous work has shown that accurate memory of past events is necessary for future adaptive behavior (Murty et al., 2016). However, the adaptive nature of memory is not limited to our ability to retrieve memories, but also to communicate memories to other individuals to share knowledge. Prior work has shown that contextual threat and individual sensitivity to threat can impact memory encoding, leading to distorted episodic memories. However, research has yet to explore whether the communication of memories to others, an adaptive behavior in itself, is affected by the presence of threat. In this study, participants (i.e., listeners, N=30) rated how confused they were when listening to the recordings of individuals (i.e., narrators) recalling threatening and neutral events. Importantly, narrators varied in physiological reactivity to threat and trait-based anxiety. Results showed a modest effect where listeners found narrators' retelling of threatening versus neutral memories more confusing (p<0.05). Additionally, regardless of valence, listeners found memories more confusing when narrators had high physiological threat reactivity (p<0.001), greater intolerance of uncertainty (p<0.001), and were biased towards reporting more perceptual details (p<0.05). These findings provide early evidence that individuals who have increased physiological reactivity to threat and heightened intolerance of uncertainty may be worse at communicating memories, regardless of context. These findings will be discussed in the context of their relevance to eyewitness testimony, as well as clinical therapies and diagnoses. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB11 - Influence of threat during encoding on the verbal communication of memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 12 | Jingyi Wang, University of California, Santa Barbara | Regina Lapate, University of California, Santa Barbara | Emotional state dynamics impacts temporal memory | Time unfolds continuously, but our temporal memories are fragmented. Emotion powerfully influences event memory, but precisely how it shapes temporal memory remains unclear. Prior studies show that contextual changes (event boundaries) typically lengthen the perceived temporal duration and reduce temporal order accuracy for events encoded across contexts. Emotional state changes differentially impact the neural correlates of emotional memory depending on the order in which they occur (Tambini et al. 2017). Here, we tested whether and how changes in emotional states modulate temporal memory across contexts. Participants viewed sequences of emotional and neutral images surrounded by a border. In an orthogonal design, we manipulated context (border color), emotional state (emotional picture valence), and the direction of emotional state shifts. After each picture sequence, participants judged the temporal interval and temporal order for image pairs presented within and across contexts. Overall, shifts in emotional states amplified subjective time, lengthening the perceived temporal interval between items presented across contexts. Critically, a shift from neutral to negative emotional states reduced temporal order accuracy for items presented across contexts. Conversely, temporal order memory was enhanced for items presented within negative (compared to neutral) emotional states. This study shows that emotional state dynamics matters when considering time-emotion interactions: First, emotional state shifts have a stronger effect on temporal interval memory compared to neutral (perceptual) contextual shifts. Moreover, while negative emotion can enhance temporal encoding overall, dynamic shifts to negative emotional states initially hinder temporal memory. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB12 - Emotional state dynamics impacts temporal memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 13 | Maël Mauchand, McGill University | How does the brain (use speech-related cues to) interpret complaints? | Third-party complaints serve a powerful social function: by increasing acoustic variation of the voice, speakers can convey a feeling of suffering that promotes listener affiliation, even when their utterances describe relatively innocuous events that don't reflect 'true' suffering. During speech processing, contextual expectations based on a speaker's vocal expressivity level should therefore influence how complaints are semantically evaluated, as indexed by N400 effects on the final critical word. To test this hypothesis, 26 French participants listened to statements describing either a painful or innocuous event ('He said I was outside/stupid'), produced in a neutral or expressive (complaining) tone of voice, while their brain activity was monitored with EEG. Participants evaluated the socio-affective state of the speaker (how hurt the speaker felt) based on available speech cues. Principal Component Analysis of Event-Related Potentials from final word onset isolated an N400 component that increased for innocuous (e.g., outside) vs. painful (e.g., stupid) target words. This difference was attenuated when critical words were preceded by a complaining vs. neutral tone of voice. These results demonstrate the contextual sensitivity of the N400 response to a speaker's vocal expression, which reduced demands on how listeners evaluated the social implications of innocuous statements that were expressed in a contextually relevant, complaining voice. Findings reaffirm the pragmatic importance of the tone of voice during online speech comprehension, while underlining that the 'how' often supersedes the 'what' in emotive communication acts such as complaints. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB13 - How does the brain (use speech-related cues to) interpret complaints?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details | |
| B | 14 | Jejoong Kim, Duksung Women's University | Minhee Kim, Duksung Women's University | Contextual influences of emotional facial expressions on processing biological motion | Contextual effects on emotion recognition have been well evidenced on various contextual stimuli. However, previous studies mostly focused on facial expressions. Although the facial expressions are important cue in emotional communication, bodily expressions are also one of the fundamental sources of emotional information especially when faces are hard to recognize. The present study examined contextual effects on emotional processing of the bodily expression. Given that the bodily expressions are inseparable from the facial expression, we aimed to examine contextual effects of faces on bodily expression. For bodily expression, we used point-light biological motion (BM) that depicts human movement and convey emotional information. In the affective priming paradigm, emotionally neutral BMs were presented as targets following the prime which was either happy, angry, or neutral face. To compare with the emotional processing of faces, the same experiment but with neutral face target was additionally conducted. Participants were told to rate emotional valence of the targets. The results showed that both the BM and face targets were affected by priming effects. Notably, the effects were much greater on BM than the face targets, indicating that BM was more influenced by contextual emotion. These suggest that BM perception may need greater integration of the emotional contextual information possibly due to insufficient its own emotional information compared to faces. To summarize, the present study newly revealed the affective contextual effect of facial expression on BM, and identified distinct property of emotional valence convey by BM compared with facial expressions. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB14 - Contextual influences of emotional facial expressions on processing biological motionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 15 | Alexandra E. Kelly, Drexel University | Priya Dudhat, Drexel University; Evangelia G. Chrysikou, Drexel University | Psychophysiological Evidence for a Role of Interoceptive Attention in Processing Emotion Concepts | Emotions are associated with particular bodily states that potentially necessitate context-specific embodied simulations for concept comprehension. Here, we manipulated attention to respiratory rate and used a property verification task to assess conceptual processing speed for emotion, concrete, and abstract (but non-emotion-related) concept-feature pairs. Half of the participants were guided through a mindful breathing exercise and instructed to practice mindful breathing for the duration of the experiment; at five intervals throughout the task, they reported an estimate of their respiration rate during the preceding minute, effectively increasing attention to physiological state throughout the task. The remaining participants tracked the appearance of a visual distractor at random points during stimulus presentation. Both groups of participants rated their confidence in these counts (number of breaths and number of visual distractors, respectively) each time they were prompted to enter a number. For the group participating in the breathing manipulation, actual respiration rate was recorded throughout the task and compared to estimates. Relative to the control group, participants who tracked and reported respiration rate took longer to verify properties for emotion concepts as compared to concrete and non-emotion abstract concepts. These results provide evidence that resources dedicated to the monitoring of physiological state may be recruited for the processing of emotion concepts. Results are also discussed in terms of the multi-dimensional framework dissociating interoceptive accuracy (i.e., the correspondence between the estimated and true respiration rate), from interoceptive awareness (i.e., the confidence in respiration rate estimates as related to accuracy; Garfinkel et al, 2015). | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB15 - Psychophysiological Evidence for a Role of Interoceptive Attention in Processing Emotion ConceptsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 16 | Mengsi Li, UCSB | Regina Lapate, UCSB | Temporal memory, time-emotion integration, and emotional wellbeing | Emotional experiences unfold over time. Accurate time-emotion binding should therefore be crucial for contextually appropriate causal attributions and may contribute to emotional wellbeing. However, prior work suggests that our time-emotion integration capacity is limited: when retrospectively evaluating temporally dynamic emotional episodes, participants often neglect the temporal dimension, and instead overly rely on peak and end emotional fluctuations (i.e., duration neglect and peak-end effect; Fredrickson & Kahneman, 1993). However, the mechanisms underlying time-emotion integration and their relationship with emotional wellbeing remain unclear. Here, we 1) examined the limits of time-emotion integration capacity, 2) tested whether temporal memory performance explained time-emotion integration capacity, and 3) assessed whether time-emotion integration and temporal memory performance were associated with emotional wellbeing. To do so, participants completed two tasks and mood questionnaires. In the emotion-sequences task, participants viewed sequences of affectively rich movie clips. They provided momentary emotion ratings throughout each sequence as well as a retrospective emotion rating following each sequence. In the temporal memory task, participants recollected the order of emotional clips they previously saw as well as the relative duration of negative versus positive episodes. We found that longer emotional-movie sequences produced greater retrospective emotion biases (duration neglect/peak-end effect). Moreover, distorted temporal memory, wherein emotional sequences were remembered as containing longer-lasting negative events, predicted greater retrospective emotion biases and higher dispositional negativity. These results suggest that time-emotion integration capacity is challenged by the duration of emotional episodes and correlates inversely with a propensity to amplify the subjective duration of negative events. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB16 - Temporal memory, time-emotion integration, and emotional wellbeingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 17 | Olivia Cook, University of Louisville | Jessi Kane, University of Louisville; Karisa Hunt, University of Louisville; Brendan Depue, University of Louisville | Emotion Regulation Training Induces Wide-Spread Changes in Functional Activation and Connectivity | Brain Training' programs are becoming more ubiquitous in mainstream society. However, there are relatively few studies exploring whether specific task related training leads to functional plasticity in the brain. Furthermore, no studies exist, to our knowledge, that explore training an individual's ability to down-regulate emotion reactivity. Importantly, understanding which neural regions show changes across training highlights important brain mechanisms involved in emotion regulation processes; processes which are critical to efficient daily functioning. We explored this question using fMRI before and after emotion regulation training. Eighteen undergraduate students were recruited in a 5-day training study. Participants were scanned on day 1 and day 5. The emotion regulation task and training consisted of a standard emotion regulation paradigm, in which participants were asked to down-regulate their physiological response to negatively valanced IAPS pictures. A subjective emotion ratings task was performed before (baseline) and approximately 30 minutes later (ER-rating) required participants to interrogate their subjective emotional feeling toward IAPS pictures. Behaviorally, a significant decrease in subjective negative emotion ratings occurred on day 5 compared to day 1 (p<.03; M=2.1/2.6). Functional analyses revealed decreased activation in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), right inferior and middle frontal gyri (rIFG/rMFG), and both ventral and dorsal amygdalae on day 5 compared to day 1. Conversely, increased activation was seen in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) on day 5 compared to day 1. Using the above regions in functional connectivity analyses, revealed that while functional activation decreased, increased functional connectivity was observed in the rMFG-OFC and OFC-amygdalae. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB17 - Emotion Regulation Training Induces Wide-Spread Changes in Functional Activation and ConnectivityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 18 | Dahlia Kassel, Northern Michigan University | Siraj Lyons, Northern Michigan University; Cassidy Girard, Northern Michigan University; Haley Gaboury, Northern Michigan University; Andrew Hauler, Northern Michigan University; Joshua Carlson, Northern Michigan University; Lin Fang, Northern Michigan University | Shared and Unique Patterns of Resting-State Functional Connectivity Linked to Attentional and Interpretation Biases | In the last decade, a growing number of studies have shown that cognitive biases, such as attentional bias and interpretational bias, are associated with the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety. Relative to healthy controls, individuals that are vulnerable for affective disorders are thought to prioritize their attentional focus on more negative stimuli and interpret ambiguous emotional information as more negative. A great effort has been dedicated in recent years to identifying the neural mechanisms of cognitive bias, especially attentional bias. However, evidence of how different types of cognitive biases are associated with each other and the neural mechanism of their interplay are still scarce. Therefore, in the current ongoing project, we included both measures of attentional bias and interpretation bias to assess the overlapping and distinct neural correlates. We assessed attentional and interpretational bias with an eye-tracking paradigm, the Scrambled Sentences Task, to directly measure an individual's focus of attention. In this task, six words were presented on the screen in a single line. Participants were instructed to mentally unscramble the sentence to form a grammatically correct and meaningful statement using five of the six words as quickly as possible. Moreover, to investigate the neural mechanism of cognitive bias, resting-state functional MRI data were collected. It is hypothesized that attentional and interpretation bias may share overlapping connectivity between cognitive control (e.g., superior frontal gyrus) and emotion processing regions (e.g., amygdala and insula), but also have their own unique subdivision connectivity patterns. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB18 - Shared and Unique Patterns of Resting-State Functional Connectivity Linked to Attentional and Interpretation BiasesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 20 | Lara Foland-Ross, Stanford University | Vanessa Alschuler, University of Minnesota; Jamie Sundstrom, Stanford University; Megan Mullis, Stanford University; Nicole DiVirgilio, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Alice Wiscount, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Victoria Reynolds, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Judith Ross, Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Allan Reiss, Stanford University | Sex chromosomal effects on social processing: A study of Klinefelter syndrome | Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is defined by the presence of an extra X chromosome in males (47,XXY), and represents the most common sex chromosome disorder. The behavioral phenotype of KS includes increased risk for withdrawal, anxiety, and impulsivity in social contexts. In the current longitudinal study of the brain and behavior, we sought to examine the neurocognitive factors that underly social dysfunction in KS versus age-matched control boys (ages 8-16 years), using the Social Distance Judgment Task. This social cognitive processing paradigm measures the illusion of de- or increasing distance of two running cartoon figures, based on the implicit processing of two social cues: body orientation and gaze direction. The underlying principle behind the task is that variations in body orientation and gaze direction will cause the distance between two cartoon figures to appear greater or smaller in comparison to two geometric shapes, even though the images are rigged to be the same distance apart. Using a key press, a total of 35 adolescents with KS (mean age 11.6 +/- 1.4 years) and 45 typically developing control subjects (mean age 11.1 +/- 1.7 years) indicated the perceived distance of the cartoon figures relative to the geometric shapes. Results demonstrated that whereas the control group showed the anticipated distance illusion (p=.02, partial-eta squared=.08), the KS group did not (p=.99, partial-eta squared=.001). These findings indicate altered processing of simple social cues in KS. Analyses testing associations between task performance and measures of daily social function, gonadal hormones and brain structure are in progress. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB20 - Sex chromosomal effects on social processing: A study of Klinefelter syndromeDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 21 | Ke Bo, Dartmouth College | Thomas Kraynak, University of Pittsburgh; Michael Sun, Dartmouth College; Peter Gianaros, University of Pittsburgh; Tor Wager, Dartmouth College | Deconstructing the neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal: A system-identification approach using Bayes factors | Reappraisal is an emotion regulation strategy that involves reinterpreting meaning and context to change emotion responding. Reappraisal and emotion-generation processes may interact non-additively, with brain regions involved in both. It remains unclear whether some regions are selectively activated by reappraisal or emotion-generation alone, which is an obstacle to developing brain measures of these processes. Here, we applied a systems identification approach to two large community samples (n=182 and 178), who viewed and reappraised images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) during fMRI scanning. We used Bayes factors to quantify evidence for both activation and null effects for emotion-generation (Look Negative ‰?? Look Neutral) and reappraisal (Reappraise ‰?? Look Negative) contrasts. This allowed us to take an axiomatic approach, identifying brain regions matching four potential system components: (1) Reappraisal only regions responding only to reappraisal demand, not negative images; (2) Common appraisal regions engaged by negative images and further increased during reappraisal; (3) Non-Modifiable emotion-generation regions engaged by negative images but unaffected by reappraisal;(4) Modifiable emotion-generation regions engaged by negative images and reduced by reappraisal. Our data identified regions consistently associated with each component across both datasets. Reappraisal-only regions included anterior prefrontal cortex and temporal-parietal junction. Common appraisal regions included fronto-parietal regions, nucleus accumbens, and medial prefrontal cortex. Among emotion generation-related regions, most subcortical regions were non-modifiable by reappraisal, including amygdala, brainstem, PAG, parabrachial complex, and thalamus, while visual and attention-related regions were modifiable by reappraisal. These findings revealed existence of distinct and common components of emotion and reappraisal | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB21 - Deconstructing the neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal: A system-identification approach using Bayes factorsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 22 | Delaney McDonagh, University of Denver | Timothy Sweeny, University of Denver | Implicitly-learned information about threat prevalence shifts negativity bias | Facial expressions are often nuanced, and the judgements people make about these expressions are thus made with an unavoidable degree of uncertainty. When making low-confidence evaluations, perceivers are typically biased to interpret facial expressions as negative, which potentially serves a protective function. When people make judgments about crowds-which are associated with increased potential for threat-negativity bias is even further amplified. It thus appears that negativity bias can be shaped by information learned about others over prolonged windows of time. If this bias truly is adaptive, however, it should also be flexible in the shorter term, capable of recalibrating as a na•ve perceiver implicitly learns about their dynamic visual environment. We tested this prediction using an emotion-categorization task in which perceivers discriminated between happy and angry expressions on briefly presented faces. We manipulated the prevalence of anger-in a block of trials, angry faces were present either 75% or 25% of the time. Using signal-detection measures, we confirmed that observers were indeed biased to evaluate the expressions of single faces and crowds as negative. Crucially, their bias increased as they learned-implicitly, with no feedback-that anger was more prevalent. A follow-up experiment indicated that this learning was not specific to context. That is, even when information regarding the prevalence of anger came only from crowd trials (or only from single face trials), adjustments to bias were applied generally across both conditions. This work thus indicates that negativity bias is flexible and receptive to short-term perceptual learning. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB22 - Implicitly-learned information about threat prevalence shifts negativity biasDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 23 | Erinda Morina, University of Massachusetts Boston | Vivian Ciaramitaro, University of Massachusetts Boston | The angry male/happy female bias in individuals high versus low in social anxiety. | Our perceptual system is especially tuned to identifying threatening information, such as angry faces (Hansen & Hansen, 1988). This is particularly prominent in social anxiety, where individuals fear negative evaluations (Clark & Wells, 1995). However, not all threatening social information is equal. For example, male faces are perceived more negatively than female faces (e.g., Harris et al., 2016; Korb & Massaccesi, 2020). Here we consider how face-sex influences perception of emotional faces in individuals high (HSA) versus low (LSA) in socially anxiety. Given that male faces are perceived more negatively and that socially anxious individuals are hypervigilant to threatening information, we hypothesized that male faces would be perceived as angrier in HSA vs LSA individuals, with no clear expectations regarding female faces. Participants, students from UMass Boston, viewed 8 face identities (4F, 4M) morphed along an emotional continuum from angry to neutral to happy (+/-80, 40, 20, 10%, and 0). They judged if a given face was happy or angry for a total of 72 possible faces. Social anxiety was classified using Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation survey. To quantify perceptual biases, for each participant we fit data with a cumulative normal for male and female faces separately and calculated the point of subjective equality (PSE), where a face is equally likely judged angry as happy. We found that HSA individuals perceive male faces as angrier than LSA individuals (more positive PSE) and tend to perceive female faces as angrier, with female faces perceived less negatively than male faces, overall. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB23 - The angry male/happy female bias in individuals high versus low in social anxiety.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 24 | Pei-Wen Yeh, Kaohsiung Medical University | Yun-Jie Tsai, Kaohsiung Medical University | An electrophysiological study of processing emotional words with facial expressions | Emotion can be expressed in terms of words. Previous work from adults has demonstrated different processing of emotion-laden (e.g., gift) and emotion-label words (e.g., happiness). However, little is known about the processing of emotional words that combines with other affective information. Therefore, the present study measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore if processing of emotion-laden and emotion-label words are modulated by facial expressions differently. In the study, Chinese two-character words were present in a valence decision task, with factors of word type (emotion-label versus emotion-laden words) and emotion valence (positive, negative). We also manipulated a factor of facial prime, either emotionally congruent with words or neutral valence, preceding each word. The current data from 16 adults have shown enhanced P2 amplitudes (220 to 280 ms after words) for positive emotion-label words with emotionally congruent faces than with neutral ones. Additionally, positive emotion-label words with emotionally matched faces elicited reduced N400 amplitudes (250 to 500 ms) when compared with neutral ones. However, both positive and negative emotion-laden words elicited larger N400 amplitudes in emotionally congruent faces than in neutral ones. These findings suggest that facial information could facilitate process of emotion-label words, particularly for positive words. Comparatively, the processing of emotion-laden words is likely to take more effort to be processed with affective facial expressions. We are continuing to have more data to examine the modulation on the processing emotional words individually. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB24 - An electrophysiological study of processing emotional words with facial expressionsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 25 | Philip Lai, University of Nebraska Kearney | Elaina Eddy, University of Nebraska at Kearney | Students' sociability and wellness preceding the pandemic and amidst the pandemic | The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an enormous toll on individuals' lives. Individual routines and the effects of social distancing have changed everyday stressors and social interactions. In this project, we investigated students' wellness by looking at data pre-pandemic (from another unrelated study) and during the pandemic. We wanted to see how the pandemic impacted students' mental health and well-being with respect to temperament and sociability. In this study, 102 participated with 36 in the pre-pandemic group and 66 during the pandemic group. Students completed three separate questionnaires: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Questionnaire, the Salk Institute Sociability Questionnaire and the Adult Temperament Questionnaire. For the negative questions on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Questionnaire, we found a statistically significant difference, whereas students during the pandemic scored lower than students pre-pandemic, reflecting a more negative mindset. The scores on the Salk Institute Sociability Questionnaire reflected comparable scores across the two groups in regards to sociability. For scores on temperament, the Adult Temperament Questionnaire reflected no differences between the two groups. Taken together, there were no measures where we saw more social engagement as time went on. The results from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Questionnaire potentially reflects difficulties in keeping a high moral during times of stress. One consequence of the pandemic includes quarantine in hopes of limiting contagion of this deadly virus. Overall, this life-changing event has had a major impact on one's day to day routine. In the future, follow up studies should be conducted to get a better sense of the impact of COVID-19. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB25 - Students' sociability and wellness preceding the pandemic and amidst the pandemicDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 26 | Elaina Eddy, University of Nebraska at Kearney | Philip Lai, University of Nebraska at Kearney | A longitudinal study investigating students' wellness and personality: A closer look at the impact of the pandemic | Students' lives have changed drastically due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As it is important to note the physical toll this pandemic has placed on individuals; it is vital to note the mental and psychological toll on individuals as well. A study by Gallagher and colleagues (2020) found that individuals who encountered COVID-19 experienced higher levels of stress and poorer mental health outcomes. In this longitudinal study, 23 students filled out three questionnaires all before the start of the outbreak of the pandemic. These students filled out these questionnaires targeting self-esteem, sociability, and temperament in 2018 and early 2019. The same 23 students filled out the same questionnaires in September and October of 2021. The first questionnaire was the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Questionnaire, and no differences were found pre-pandemic and amidst the pandemic. A significant difference was observed on the Salk Institute Sociability Questionnaire for the question, 'How is your general behavior in social situations?' It was found that students pre-pandemic scored higher than students during the pandemic (p=0.0011) reflecting greater social engagement. A third questionnaire, the Adult Temperament Questionnaire, resulted in no significant group differences. Our results are similar to a study by Hampshire and colleagues (2021) where they focused on individual's self-perceptions of mood and well-being. They found that anxiety was the most prominent factor in individuals during the pandemic which may lead to reduced social interactions. In our study, behaviors in social situations decreased during the pandemic highlighting the impact of the pandemic and its influence on social interactions. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB26 - A longitudinal study investigating students' wellness and personality: A closer look at the impact of the pandemicDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 27 | Tomasz Ligeza, Jagiellonian University in Krakow | Patrycja Kalamala, Jagiellonian University in Krakow; Miroslaw Wyczesany, Jagiellonian University in Krakow; Markus Junghofer, University of Muenster | The effects of a single aerobic exercise session on mood and neural emotional reactivity in depressed and healthy adults | Depression has been characterized by lowered mood and unfavorable changes in neural emotional reactivity (altered brain responses to emotional stimuli). Physical exercise is a well-established strategy to improve the mood of healthy and depressed individuals. Increasing evidence suggests that exercise might also improve emotional reactivity in healthy adults by increasing or decreasing brain responses to positive or negative stimuli, respectively. It is unknown, however, if exercise could also benefit emotional reactivity in depressed individuals. We investigated the effects of a single aerobic exercise session on mood and emotional reactivity in 24 depressed and 24 matched healthy young adults. Self-reported mood and neural reactivity to emotional pictures (indexed by the EEG late positive potential, LPP) were assessed before and after two experimental protocols: 1) exercise (36 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise) and 2) seated rest condition (36 minutes). In the healthy control group, exercise improved self-reported mood and neural emotional reactivity (increasing LPP to positive pictures). In the depressed group, exercise improved self-reported mood; however, it did not affect neural emotional reactivity. Additional analyses performed on both groups revealed that exercise-induced changes in emotional reactivity are associated with the severity of depressive symptoms: the effectiveness of exercise in improving emotional reactivity decreases with the severity of depressive symptoms. Overall, the study further strengthens the claim of a beneficial role of exercise on mood and emotional reactivity. It also suggests that a single aerobic exercise session might have a limited influence on neural emotional reactivity in depressed individuals. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB27 - The effects of a single aerobic exercise session on mood and neural emotional reactivity in depressed and healthy adultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 28 | Manuel Garcia-Garcia, Ipsos | Davide Baldo, Ipsos; Rich Timpone, Ipsos; Vinod Venkatraman, Temple University | Measurement of the Emotional Dimensions Valence, Arousal and Control Allows For Cross-Cultural Comparison | Emotions are defined not only by physiological experiences, but also because we attribute meaning to them. Emotional words are so dependent on context and culture that, even emotional constructs that were once believed universal, such as fear and anger, may differ in meaning across languages. Interestingly, Jackson et al. found supporting evidence for significant variation in networks of emotional concepts, predicted by proximity of language family; moreover, they showed a universal structure with all language families differentiating emotions primarily based on dimensions, the main ones being valence, arousal, and control (VAC). All these complexities led us to the testing of a dimensional system that, not only is comparable across cultures, but allows the development of a cross-cultural database of emotional words with potential for strong predictive power. Data collection was conducted across multiple countries (France, China, United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia). The study followed a completely within-subject design and included a sample of 100 for each country. For each test country, VAC ratings were compared across countries to determine the effect of culture on the emotional ratings. Additionally, we used VAC ratings along with the discrete emotion reported for each respondent and each image, to investigate the relationship between VAC ratings and discrete emotions across cultures. The VAC dimensional system of emotional measurement showed to be consistent across survey formats, devices and even cultures. It allows cross-cultural comparison and, therefore, the development of a cross-cultural database of emotional words with the potential to enhance the power of predictive models. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB28 - Measurement of the Emotional Dimensions Valence, Arousal and Control Allows For Cross-Cultural ComparisonDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 29 | Yelena Markiv, Stanford University | Lara C. Foland-Ross, Stanford University; Jamie Sundstrom, Stanford University; Vanessa Alschuler, Stanford University; Victoria Reynolds, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Nicole DiVirgilio, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Alice Wiscount, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Chijioke Ikomi, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Megan Mullis, Stanford University; Judith Ross, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children; Allan L. Reiss, Stanford University | Biases in the identification of emotional facial expressions in adolescents with Klinefelter syndrome | Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is defined by the presence of an extra X chromosome in males (47,XXY), and represents the most common sex chromosome disorder, occurring in an estimated 1 in 500-600 live male births. The behavioral phenotype of KS includes depression and anxiety as well as social withdrawal and impulsiveness in social settings. The current study sought to examine the neurocognitive factors that help explain characteristics of emotional and social function using an emotion recognition task. A total of 41 adolescents with KS (mean age 11.9 ± 1.8 years) and 43 typically developing control subjects (mean age 11.1 ± 1.7 years) completed the paradigm, in which faces displayed increasing degrees of emotional intensity, slowly changing from a neutral to a full-intensity happy, sad, angry, fearful, or disgusted expression. Results suggest that although boys with KS took less time in indicating that they recognized an emotion (p=.072), they were significantly less accurate than control subjects in correctly identifying that emotion (p=.005). These findings demonstrate that difficulties in the accurate identification of facial expressions may contribute to documented interpersonal difficulties and impairments in various aspects of social functioning. Ongoing analyses will test associations between task behavior and questionnaire measures of daily social and emotional functioning and the influence of treatment on these measures. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB29 - Biases in the identification of emotional facial expressions in adolescents with Klinefelter syndromeDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 30 | Sina Omyan, University of Arkansas | Ali Khatibi, University of Birmingham; Mahdi Mazidi, University of Western Australia | Empathic concern is associated with selective attention to painful facial expressions | People who behave altruistically may do so with or without empathy for others. Whereas some people might display altruism for its utility, others may feel empathy for another person and attend to their pain. Prior studies suggest that altruistic behaviors are associated with high levels of empathy. We tested the hypothesis that individuals who engage in altruistic behaviors would report high empathy, and in turn, selectively attend toward faces expressing pain. We recruited 50 volunteer blood donors. Half (n = 25) of the volunteers donated blood for a self-declared altruistic cause, and the other half (n = 25) of the volunteers donated blood for a health-related reason. We assessed the participants' self-reported empathy with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). We then measured the participants' selective attention toward faces expressing pain in a pictorial dot-probe task. Consistent with our hypothesis, participants who donated blood for an altruistic cause reported higher empathic concern on the IRI than those who donated blood for a health-related reason (t = 4.14, p < 0.001). The altruistic donors also had greater selective attention towards faces expressing pain (t = 2.81, p < 0.01). Moreover, among all donors, self-report empathic concern on the IRI was correlated with greater selective attention towards faces expressing pain (b = 3.79, t = 2.89, p < 0.01). These findings suggest that altruistic people not only show more empathic concern, but also attend more to the pain of others. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB30 - Empathic concern is associated with selective attention to painful facial expressionsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 31 | Mijin Kwon, Dartmouth College | Philip Kragel, Emory University; Lukas Van Oudenhove, KU Leuven; Tor Wager, Dartmouth College; Affective Neuroimaging Collaboratory, Dartmouth College | Common and selective representations of pain, emotion, and cognitive control in the insula | The insula has been associated with numerous mental functions. However, direct evidence for functional selectivity and generalizability across insula subregions is limited. This study aims to address how insular sub-regions respond across four domains of mental processes: pain, positive emotion, negative emotion, and cognitive control. First, we aggregated participant-level fMRI contrast maps from 36 studies and 540 participants. The sample was systematically constructed, with four domains, three subdomains per domain, three studies per subdomain, and 15 participants per study. This dataset was collected under the auspices of the Affective Neuroimaging Collaboratory, a collaborative data-sharing initiative. We used Bayes factors to quantify evidence for positive activation versus null effects for each domain. The subsequent conjunction analysis identified insular voxels that are generalizable across domains or specific to a subset of domains. Regions selective for one domain included regions in the mid-posterior insula for pain, the mid-dorsal and ventral insula for positive emotion, the anterior-ventral insula for negative emotion, and the anterior/mid-dorsal insula for cognitive control. Respectively, 12.06%, 6.45%, 3.55% of insular voxels were selective for one, two, and three domains. We also found a subregion in the anterior insula engaged across all four domains. Our results reveal a high degree of domain selectivity in the insula, but also support theories of integrative function in the anterior insula (e.g., Craig 2002). The combination of full voxel-level maps in a large sample and Bayesian evidence in support of null effects provides a more fine-grained picture of functional differentiation and integration in the insula. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB31 - Common and selective representations of pain, emotion, and cognitive control in the insulaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 32 | James Kryklywy, University of British Columbia | Amy Lu, University of British Columbia; Kevin Roberts, University of British Columbia; Matt Rowan, University of British Columbia; Rebecca Todd, University of British Columbia | Lateralization of electrodermal responding during limb-localized threat. | In times of stress or danger, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) signals the fight or flight response. Yet a body of research has demonstrated that electrodermal activity (EDA) - a common measure of autonomic activity - can differ between right and left body locations in response to different levels of arousal. Surprisingly, the metabolic function of such ANS asymmetry within the context of metabolic conservation has not been investigated. In the current study, we investigated whether asymmetric electrodermal responses could be induced by limb-specific threat. Mild electric shock was administered to either the left or right arm of participants, while monitoring bilateral EDA. Across participants, a strong ipsilateral EDA response bias was observed, with increased EDA response in the hand ipsilateral to stimulation. Within subjects, this effect remained observable in over half of the individuals tested. We believe that these results suggest autonomic functioning preparing not only the whole-body fight or flight response, but also a limb-localized flick. This latter action would allow an organism to effectively neutralize localized threat while minimizing global resource consumption. These findings provide insight into the evolutionary pathway of neural systems processing general arousal by linking observed asymmetry in the peripheral arousal response to a historical leveraging of neural structures organized to mediate responses to localized threat. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB32 - Lateralization of electrodermal responding during limb-localized threat.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 33 | Dylan Christiano, Stanford University | Lester Tong, Stanford University; Golijeh Golarai, Stanford University; Brian Knutson, Stanford University | Neural activity partially mediates the influence of candidate smiling on political endorsement | How do political candidates' facial expressions influence voters' endorsement, and by what mechanisms? An 'emotionality' hypothesis suggests that people infer emotion and long-term inferences on personality from faces (Knutson, 1996). We presented smiling or neutral faces of 15 U.S. Democratic presidential primary (DPP) candidates to 41 self-identified Democratic voters prior to DPP elections of 2020, during Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI). Subjects viewed 30 faces (each candidate presented twice) in each run. Within each run, all candidate images presented smiling or neutral facial expressions, order counterbalanced across participants. In each trial, subjects first saw a candidate's face, followed by their position on four issues. Then, subjects rated their endorsement and affect (valance and arousal) vis-a-vis the candidate. FMRI data were preprocessed (AFNI) and averaged raw activity time-courses (by trial type) were extracted from volumes of interest implicated in choice (Nucleus Accumbens, Anterior Insula, and Medial PreFrontal Cortex (MPFC); Knutson et al., 2007). Within subjects, viewing smiling (versus neutral) faces increased (i) endorsement, (ii) self-reported positive arousal and (iii) MPFC activity during the rating period. These latter effects each separately partially mediated the effects of smile on endorsement Ps<0.001. Supporting the 'emotionality' account, candidates' smiles increased endorsement via increased positively aroused affect and MPFC activity. Future research will examine the generalizability of these findings on voting behavior, political forecasting in the aggregate (Knutson & Genevsky, 2018) and across cultures. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB33 - Neural activity partially mediates the influence of candidate smiling on political endorsementDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 34 | Eric Andrews, University of Arizona | Brian Lord, University of Arizona; John JB Allen, University of Arizona | Using Transcranial Ultrasound for Modulation of Neural Responses to Threatening Visual Stimuli | Hypervigilance is an impairing symptom that cuts across diagnostic categories but is primarily seen in individuals diagnosed with anxiety and stress-related disorders. When surveying novel contexts, hypervigilant individuals can miss important environmental cues due to a heightened sensitivity toward potential threats and an impaired ability to disengage from fixation. Although psychotherapy is a common intervention for individuals with hypervigilance, the symptom itself may impair many individuals from being in a physiological and mental state where they can adequately engage ? leaving them at a treatment impasse. Transcranial Focused Ultrasound (tFUS) is a technique that has shown evidence of temporary and focally-specific neuromodulation in human and non-human animals. If cortical structures that help to govern hypervigilance could be effectively modulated by tFUS, then affected individuals may be more available to novel experiences and potential long-term change. A number of studies have shown that several components of an event-related potential (ERP) waveform differ between neutral and high-valence conditions ? presumably because the latter has motivational significance. For this study, healthy participants passively observe affective imagery that are either neutral or threatening in content. Half of the participants receive pulsed tFUS neuromodulation to the ventromedial prefrontal and rostral anterior cingulate cortex while the remainder receive sham modulation. The hypothesized outcome is that the treatment group, when compared to the control group, will display reduced vigilance as demonstrated by smaller ERP waveform differences between neutral and threatening conditions. This study is 'in progress' and our poster will present rationale, design, and preliminary data. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB34 - Using Transcranial Ultrasound for Modulation of Neural Responses to Threatening Visual StimuliDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 35 | Leehe Peled-Avron, University of California, San-Francisco | Joshua Woolley, University of California, San-Francisco | The effects of psilocybin ('magic mushrooms') on social touch perception in individuals with resistant depression | Individuals with depression often experience difficulties in social interactions. Social interactions consist of both verbal and non-verbal means of communication, among which is social touch which is used to convey several types of emotions. Depression is associated with negative attitudes towards social touch and these negative attitudes mediate interpersonal difficulties. Psilocybin, the active compound in several types of fungi ('magic mushrooms') has been shown to alleviate symptoms of depression. Yet its effects on social interaction and specifically on social touch have yet to be explored. In this ongoing study, we examine the effects of psilocybin administration on perception of social touch in individuals with resistant major depressive disorder. Participants watch photos of either humans or inanimate objects touching or not. Participants are then asked to rate their emotions towards the objects in the photos. The responses are recorded a week before and a week after administration of 25mg of synthetic psilocybin during psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. 4 participants have completed the treatment (2 were administered psilocybin and 2 placebo). Results demonstrate a significant increase in emotionality ratings in the human touch condition after psilocybin administration (Cohen's d=0.8), no such difference was found for the ratings of the control conditions or following placebo administration. These preliminary results point to a potential improvement of the attitudes towards social touch following a psychedelic intervention in depression and may suggest a possible mechanism through which psilocybin alleviates depressive symptoms. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB35 - The effects of psilocybin ('magic mushrooms') on social touch perception in individuals with resistant depressionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 36 | Tanya Wen, Duke University | Raphael Geddert, Duke University; Seth Madlon-Kay, Duke University; Tobias Egner, Duke University | Transfer of learned cognitive flexibility to novel stimuli and task sets | Adaptive behavior requires learning about the structure of the environment to derive optimal action policies, and previous studies have documented transfer of such structural knowledge to bias choices in new environments. Here, we asked whether people could also acquire and transfer more abstract knowledge across different task environments, in particular, expectations about demands on cognitive control. Over three experiments, participants performed a probabilistic card-sorting task in environments of either a low or high volatility of task rule changes (requiring low or high cognitive flexibility) before transitioning to a medium-volatility environment. Using reinforcement learning modeling, we consistently found that previous exposure to high task rule volatility led to faster adaptation to rule changes in the subsequent transfer phase. This transfer of expectations about demands on cognitive flexibility was both task- (Experiment 2) and stimulus- (Experiment 3) independent, thus demonstrating the formation and generalization of environmental structure knowledge to guide cognitive control. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB36 - Transfer of learned cognitive flexibility to novel stimuli and task setsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 37 | Bettina Bustos, University of Iowa | Jiefeng Jiang, University of Iowa | Task switch costs scale with dissimilarity between task rules in a cognitive map-like manner | Humans have the remarkable ability to retain knowledge of multiple tasks. However, the way in which these tasks are organized in the memory system remains unknown. Cognitive maps can promote adaptive learning and generalization by structuring relational information that scales with their physical or conceptual distance. In line with previous work (Schapiro et al., 2016), we test the hypothesis that mental representations of tasks are also organized in a cognitive map-like fashion, such that more distinct tasks are represented more differently. In the present study, we defined a set of perceptual decision-making tasks. On each trial, participants (n = 61) saw a reference arrow (i.e., the decision rule), followed by two arrows. Participants were instructed to choose the arrow closer to the reference. Five tasks were defined with different orientations of reference arrows. Thus, the conceptual difference between tasks is operationalized as the difference between reference arrows. Based on the cognitive map hypothesis, we predict that the degree of similarity between tasks will be reflected in a cognitive map and should subsequently be observed in behavioral task-switch costs that scale with the difference between previous and current tasks. A multiple linear regression with a parametric predictor for each of the possible transitions between tasks revealed that switch costs significantly increased as a function of the difference between tasks (p<.001, d=.437). These results provide behavioral evidence for the formation of relational task information into a cognitive map, further work will leverage EEG and fMRI to examine these representations neurally. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB37 - Task switch costs scale with dissimilarity between task rules in a cognitive map-like mannerDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 38 | Seongmin Park, UC Davis | Seongmin Park, UC Davis; Maryam Zolfaghar, UC Davis; Jake Russin, UC Davis; Douglas Miller, UC Davis; Randall O'Reilly, UC Davis; Erie Boorman, UC Davis | The geometry of neural representations of cognitive maps under dynamic cognitive control for flexible decision-making | Recent works have shown that abstract, non-spatial relationships between entities are organized into cognitive maps in the brain. However, an animal's objectives often depend on only a subset of features according to changing contexts or goals. To achieve flexible decision-making from the multidimensional cognitive maps, animals require cognitive control to select the features most relevant to current goals. Previous studies of cognitive control mainly have focused on the functional benefits of top-down control on explicitly presented categorical features rather than effects of control on cognitive maps retrieved from memory, and of representational geometry on decisions. Here we show complementary representational geometries for stable representation of relational structures, and for flexibly selecting goal-relevant attributes from those representations in both neural networks models and human fMRI. Consistent with models, the hippocampus-entorhinal cortex (HC-EC), and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) organized multidimensional relationships into 2D map-like representations although only one attribute was relevant for current goals. In parallel, orthogonal representations of task-relevant and compressed task-irrelevant attributes were identified in both models and the frontoparietal networks. The models also showed the warping in representations affected by cognitive control. The same phenomenon of warped representations was confirmed in the HC and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in correlation with individual differences in cognitive control. Further simulations, together with fMRI results, showed that this warped geometry was caused by the ineffective generalization of task-irrelevant relationships during learning. We provide evidence that an individual's representational geometry is both sculpted by and used for cognitive control when sampling from memory-based representations. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB38 - The geometry of neural representations of cognitive maps under dynamic cognitive control for flexible decision-makingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 39 | Hossein Mahjoubinia, San Francisco State University | Kenneth Paap, SF State University LACE Lab; Regina Theresa Anders-Jefferson, SF State University LACE Lab; Brandon Zimiga, SF State University LACE Lab | General Media Use Predicts Self-Reported Cognitive Control Deficits Above and Beyond Media Multitasking | There is increasing evidence that multitasking using digital devices and various forms of media & technology (e.g., television, social media, smartphone applications) can have a range of positive and negative effects on task performance and learning (Rosen et al., 2013). While the cognitive processes such as working memory capacity and task switching that accompany these effects are starting to be understood, the evidence that they impact workplace performance and learning contexts is mounting. The current study seeks to examine various forms of media and technology engagement in connection to executive functions (EF). Participants (n = 128) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and a University in the Western United States. The study consisted of a survey collecting demographic information, social media use, general technology habits and measures of cognitive processing (e.g., task switching, executive function, selective attention; Baron-Cohen et al., 2011; Hou, 2019; Rosen et al., 2013; Tangney et al., 2004). The results indicated that technology use was negatively correlated with self-control in that higher use of technology was associated with lower levels of self-control, r =.50, p < .001. Further examination using stepwise regression showed that the most substantial predictors of cognitive load and cognitive control were texting habits, smartphone usage, and social media activities. More specifically, we found that media multitasking, using two or more digital devices simultaneously was a significant predictor of deficiencies in self-reported measures of self-control. General media use remained robust as a predictor of self-control deficits after controlling for media multitasking. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB39 - General Media Use Predicts Self-Reported Cognitive Control Deficits Above and Beyond Media MultitaskingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 40 | Anisa Morava, Western University | Benjamin Tari, Western University; Josh Ahn, Western University; Mustafa Shirzad, Western University; Matthew Heath, Western University; Harry Prapavessis, Western University | A pilot investigation of the effects of stress and exercise on cognitive flexibility. | Executive function represents high-level cognitive processes mediated in part via prefrontal cortical (PFC) networks and includes the core components of response inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility. Evidence suggests that stress alters PFC activity and negatively impacts working memory and cognitive flexibility, with variable effects on response inhibition. In turn, a single bout of aerobic exercise improves task-based PFC activation and executive function. Here, we examined whether exercise provides a neuroprotective mechanism for a stress-related decrement in cognitive flexibility. Participants (n=20) completed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and were randomized into a 20-min single bout moderate intensity aerobic exercise (via cycle ergometer) group or a 20-min non-exercise control group. Cognitive flexibility was measured prior to and after the TSST and following the exercise and control interventions via pro- (i.e., saccade to veridical target location) and antisaccades (i.e., saccade mirror-symmetrical to target location) arranged in an AABB task-switching paradigm. The basis for the AABB paradigm is that reaction times (RT) for a prosaccade preceded by an antisaccade (i.e., task-switch trial) are longer than their task-repeat counterparts (i.e., unidirectional switch-cost). The TSST showed attenuation of the unidirectional switch-cost which re-emerged immediately following exercise and control interventions; albeit with a larger magnitude in the latter intervention. Accordingly, the immediate effects of stress on cognitive flexibility may be facilitative; however, a delay including exercise and control interventions may provide sufficient time for the time-dependent accumulation of stress hormones (i.e., cortisol) that negatively impact cognitive flexibility. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB40 - A pilot investigation of the effects of stress and exercise on cognitive flexibility.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 41 | Pria Daniel, University of California San Diego | Adam Aron, University of California San Diego | Sensorimotor beta oscillations in task switching: Does beta clear or maintain task-set rules? | Switching is a core component of cognitive control, important for everyday functioning and studied in the lab with task switching paradigms. Task switching plausibly depends on the ability to clear out prior task-set rules, but the functional role of neural oscillations in this process is unknown. Two theories about beta oscillations (12-30 Hz) make competing predictions about beta in switching, providing a compelling topic for empirical investigation. The 'status quo' framework (Engel & Fries, 2010) predicts beta should hinder switching by maintaining prior task-set rules; the 'clear-out' framework (Schmidt et al., 2019) predicts beta should support switching by clearing out prior rules. We designed an experiment to test these ideas. We took advantage of the knowledge that after movement, there is increased sensorimotor beta called the post-movement beta rebound (PMBR). We recorded scalp electroencephalography (EEG) from 3 pilot subjects during a standard task switching paradigm, and tested the relation of PMBR power following the button-press response on the previous trial to performance on the current trial. In each pilot subject we saw that switch trials with faster response times (RTs) were preceded on average by more PMBR power than switch trials with slower RTs. We did not see a similar difference for non-switch trials. This provides preliminary support for a clear-out role of sensorimotor beta in switching, to be tested in a larger sample. Better understanding the role(s) of beta in switching has implications for cognitive neuroscience and clinical populations, including Parkinson's patients who have switching deficits and pathological beta. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB41 - Sensorimotor beta oscillations in task switching: Does beta clear or maintain task-set rules?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 42 | Joshua Upshaw, University of Arkansas | Darya Zabelina, University of Arkansas | The Distracted and Creative Brain: The Effect of Smartphone Notifications on Cognitive Control as a Function of Divergen | Prior work demonstrates that smartphone notifications can negatively affect cognitive control processes. Separately, people with greater creative thinking ability (i.e., divergent thinking, DT) demonstrate enhanced executive functioning. Few studies have assessed the effects of smartphone notifications on executive processes in creative people. Previous work found an association between smartphone use and increased creative expression. However, increased DT was linked to less frequent engagement in social media use. The present study examined the effect of smartphone notifications on cognitive control as a function of DT. DT was assessed with the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. Cognitive control was assessed with a Navon letter oddball task. Here, a smartphone notification, control sound, or silence preceded each trial. In line with previous research, behavioral results indicated that people higher in fluency of DT had better cognitive control overall. Interestingly, higher fluency was also associated with slower responses on smartphone (vs. silent) trials. Cognitive control in terms of behavioral performance did not differ between the sound conditions as a function of DT. Higher originality of DT, on the other hand, was associated with a larger N2 oddball effect (i.e. better cognitive control) on smartphone trials. In conclusion, people higher in fluency of DT demonstrated better goal directed behavior yet were slower to respond when exposed to smartphone notifications. Higher originality of DT was linked with increased neural indices of cognitive control. Future work will examine how smartphone notifications affect different forms of creative cognition. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB42 - The Distracted and Creative Brain: The Effect of Smartphone Notifications on Cognitive Control as a Function of DivergenDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 43 | Xitong Chen, University of Iowa | Fang-Cheng Yeh, University of Pittsburgh; Juniper Hollis, University of Iowa; Evan Sorenson, University of Iowa; Dillan Cellier, University of California San Diego; Kai Hwang, University of Iowa | Thalamic convergence zones facilitate flexible cognitive control | The thalamus is globally connected with all cortical regions, and distributed cortical regions project to a thalamic nucleus. This one-to-many and many-to-one thalamocortical connectivity motif describes connectivity convergence zones in the thalamus. These thalamic convergence zones may serve as functional hubs, supporting distributed brain network processes and complex cognitive functions. However, findings from both functional and structural thalamocortical connectivity studies have not been explicitly compared with cognitive task activations. The current study aims to explore the role of thalamic convergence zones for cognitive flexibility. Thirty-nine of subjects were asked to perform a hierarchical control task demanding switching and updating task representations during fMRI scanning. We first analyzed resting-state functional connectivity data to identify functional convergence zones within the thalamus by computing the participation coefficient (PC), a graph-theoretic measure for mapping network hubs in brain networks. We found that the anterior, medial, and dorsal thalamus exhibited higher PC. When comparing connectivity motifs with task activity, we found that convergence zones in the thalamus also showed increased activity for task-switching conditions that required updating of task representations. We hypothesized that cortical representations would depend on thalamic convergence zones to update task representations to facilitate cognitive flexibility. To test this hypothesis, we modeled cortical representations as outputs of thalamic evoked responses outputting to cortical regions via thalamocortical connectivity. We found that this thalamocortical model successfully explained up to 70% of variances in cortical activity during task-switching conditions. Our results provide a mechanistic explanation of how thalamic hubs facilitate flexible cognitive control. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB43 - Thalamic convergence zones facilitate flexible cognitive controlDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 45 | Juan Balcazar, Texas A&M University | Joseph Orr, Texas A&M University | The Effect of Deterministic Reward on Voluntary Task Switching as revealed by Eye Tracking and EEG | Cognitive flexibility, defined as the brain's ability to adapt to an environment, is frequently measured via the voluntary task-switching (VTS) paradigm. In VTS, a higher proportion of switch trials compared to total is said to reflect higher cognitive flexibility. We examined VTS under deterministic reward conditions, in which participants used feedback to learn fixed point contingency values (1 or 10 cents) associated with cues. We used eye-tracking to investigate the pupillary dynamics and gaze fixations across each trial. In addition, EEG was collected and will be analyzed. Our preliminary results show pupil dilation was significantly greater for trials where reward increased vs. decreased relative to previous trial and when reward increased compared to when reward remained low, which is consistent with previous studies. While we had predicted increased fixations during the cue-to-target interval to the target location following high vs. low reward cues, preliminary analyses showed no differences. Increases in reward relative to the previous trial were associated with increased pupil dilation, suggesting increased anticipation when reward increased. For our ERP analyses, we hypothesize an enhanced P2 for high vs. low reward trials and a continuous strengthening of the CNV over time. These findings help reveal the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with VTS as a measure of overall cognitive flexibility. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB45 - The Effect of Deterministic Reward on Voluntary Task Switching as revealed by Eye Tracking and EEGDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 46 | Stephanie Leach, University of Iowa | Juniper Hollis, University of Iowa; Evan Sorenson, University of Iowa; Dillan Cellier, University of Iowa; Kai Hwang, University of Iowa | Mapping Representational Integration for Hierarchical Control | In our daily lives, we must determine what tasks to execute under different contexts. This context-to-task hierarchical control depends on the integration of task information across hierarchy levels (e.g., context, goals, stimulus-response mappings). Previous work by Badre and Nee (2018) has suggested that contextual information is represented in regions of the rostral prefrontal cortex and response information is represented in regions of the caudal prefrontal cortex. They also proposed that this information is then integrated in the mid-lateral prefrontal cortex. The goal of our study is to map how contextual and response representations interact to integrate context-to-task transfer. Most previous research designed different tasks with different stimuli and response requirements to create different levels of context, task, and response representations, and thus made it difficult to attribute differences in univariate responses to hierarchical representations. In contrast, the current study created a consistent design that embedded representations across different levels of hierarchy into all task conditions. We collected fMRI data on this task from 66 subjects. Beyond univariate analysis, we focused on multivariate representations of tasks and applied representational similarity analysis to map regions that encode contextual and response representations. We found that a mid-lateral rostral prefrontal region showed significant context representation. We are currently applying information connectivity analysis to explore how abstract context representation can be integrated with more concrete motoric representations. We predict that contextual representation will modulate response representation, mediating the context-to-task transfer necessary for hierarchical control. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB46 - Mapping Representational Integration for Hierarchical ControlDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 47 | WooTek Lee, University of Iowa | Eliot Hazeltine, University of Iowa; Jiefeng Jiang, University of Iowa | Interference and integration in hierarchical task learning | Human can utilize simple, subordinate tasks as building blocks to accelerate the learning of multiple complex, superordinate tasks. However, it is still not fully investigated how superordinate tasks sharing a same subordinate task affect the learning and memory of each other. Based on the prior associative memory literature, we hypothesized that (1) participants will build superordinate task representations by associating already trained subordinate tasks, and (2) shared subordinate tasks can cause both interference and facilitation between superordinate tasks. To investigate the hypotheses, we invented novel task paradigm which consisted of two phases: an initial subordinate task phase and a following superordinate task phase. In subordinate task phase, participants were required to attend to a cued feature out of multiple features of the stimulus, while superordinate task phase required participants to focus on two features together. Therefore, a superordinate task can be viewed as co-occurrence of two subordinate tasks. The co-occurrence is predicted to associate the two subordinate tasks. Across three experiments (sample size of 50, 50, and 84 each), we observed and replicated three major findings: (1) practicing superordinate task is accompanied by encoding of associations between involved subordinate tasks, (2) learning a new superordinate tasks that shares a subordinate tasks can impair the previously learned superordinate task representations, and (3) participants can integrate two trained superordinate tasks that shares a subordinate task to facilitate new superordinate task learning without direct experience. These findings shed light on the organizational principles of task knowledge and their consequences on task learning. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB47 - Interference and integration in hierarchical task learningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 48 | Chloe Edgar, University of Western Ontario | Benjamin Tari, University of Western Ontario; Connor Dalton, University of Western Ontario; Priyanka Persaud, University of Western Ontario; Matthew Heath, University of Western Ontario | The unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost: Investigating the temporal constraints of task-set inertia - In Progress | Antisaccades require an individual 'look' mirror-symmetrical to a target and the 'non-standard' nature of the response renders longer reaction times (RT) and increased directional errors compared to 'standard' prosaccades (i.e., 'look' to veridical target location). Interestingly, when pro- and antisaccades are arranged in an AABB task-switching paradigm, or when randomly interleaved, a prosaccade preceded by an antisaccade (i.e., task-switch trial) produces longer RTs than a prosaccade preceded by its same task-type (i.e., task-repeat trial), whereas antisaccade RTs do not vary across task-switch and task-repeat trials (i.e., unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost). Convergent behavioural and neuroimaging evidence by our group has demonstrated that the unidirectional switch-cost reflects lingering activation of a non-standard antisaccade task-set that proactively delays the planning of a subsequent prosaccade (i.e., task-set inertia). A salient question arising from previous work is for how long a task-set inertia influences oculomotor planning. Accordingly, this 'in progress' work will have participants (10 of 40 participants collected) complete an AABB (i.e., A= prosaccade, B= antisaccade) task-switching paradigm in separate ? and randomly ordered ? conditions wherein the delay between trials is 'short' (1000-2000 ms; i.e., the timeframe used in previous work), 'medium' (3000-4000 ms) and 'long' (5000-6000 ms). Contrasting the different delay intervals may provide a framework to examine for how long a task-set inertia elicits a unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost. In turn, if a switch-cost is observed across each delay interval then results would evince that a release of task-set inertia requires the implementation of a 'standard' prosaccade. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB48 - The unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost: Investigating the temporal constraints of task-set inertia - In ProgressDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 49 | Dolly Seeburger, Georgia Institute of Technology | Nan Xu, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology; Christine Godwin, Georgia Institute of Technology; Marcus Ma, Georgia Institute of Technology; Shella Keilholz, Georgia Institute of Technology; Eric H. Schumacher, Georgia Institute of Technology | Identifying the Neural Mechanisms of Zone State Performance using Time-varying Functional Connectivity Methods. | There is ambiguity in the literature about how large-scale brain networks contribute to focused attention. Part of the problem comes from a common assumption that attention is like a light switch ‰??either on or off, but a better metaphor is to equate attention to a candle that flickers ‰??even when it's lit, the flame varies. With this metaphor, we can better understand fluctuations in attention over time. This continuous change in attention is consistent with the dynamic changes in functional connectivity between brain regions involved in internal and external allocation of attention. Namely, the default mode network (DMN) and the task positive network (TPN) (Chang & Glover, 2010; Majeed et al., 2011; Liu & Dyun, 2013). In the current study study, we investigated how brain network activity varied across different levels of attentional focus (e.g., 'zones'). Participants performed a finger-tapping task and, guided by previous research (Esterman et al., 2013), in-the-zone was marked by low reaction time variability and out-of-the-zone as the inverse. Employing a novel method of time-varying functional connectivity, the quasi-periodic pattern (i.e., reliably observed spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations between the DMN and the TPN), we found that the neural activity between DMN and TPN was more anti-correlated during in-the-zone states versus out-of-the-zone states. Furthermore, the dorsal attention network (DAN) region of TPN drives the anti-correlation and not the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN). This adds to the existing knowledge of how inter-regional functional connectivity supports sustained attention within an individual. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB49 - Identifying the Neural Mechanisms of Zone State Performance using Time-varying Functional Connectivity Methods.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 50 | Sakshi Dhawan, Georgia Institute of Technology | Yunji Lee, Georgia Institute of Technology; Yeseul Heo, Georgia Institute of Technology; Final Patel, Georgia Institute of Technology; Eliot Hazeltine, The University of Iowa; Eric H. Schumacher, Georgia Institute of Technology | Investigating how task representation mediates dual-task interference from a neuroimaging perspective | Dual-task interference has been studied by comparing performance when making two responses to two stimuli vs. a single response to a single stimulus. Results typically show a decrease in performance for dual tasks with activation in the parietal, temporal, and prefrontal cortex. These studies involve comparing trials with different numbers of stimuli and responses. It is unclear how much of the behavioral and brain activity effects are due to processing two tasks vs. processing two stimuli and responses. We are investigating the effect of multiple task representations on dual-task performance. Data collection is in progress. We have collected pilot data from two conditions. Both required either one or two responses to two presented stimuli. In the relational condition, responses were determined by the conjunction of the presented stimuli. We hypothesized that this would lead to one task representation. In the independent condition, participants responded to the presentation of unrelated stimuli. This was a standard dual-task procedure, except that two stimuli were presented even when a single response was required. Participants were faster when making only one response than when making two responses in the independent condition (viz., there is dual-task interference), whereas this pattern was reversed in the relational condition. Brain activation in ventral anterior cingulate, left temporal, and left parietal cortex show more activity in independent bimanual and relational unimanual conditions as compared to independent unimanual and relational bimanual conditions. These results indicate that these regions mediate dual-task processing and not simply the activation of multiple stimulus-response associations. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB50 - Investigating how task representation mediates dual-task interference from a neuroimaging perspectiveDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 51 | Alexandria Meyer, Florida State University | Derek Nee, Florida State University | Causal Evidence Supports Hierarchical Organization in Prefrontal Cortex | The frontoparietal control network has been established as crucial in the successful implementation of cognitive control. Specifically, regions within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) have been shown to support the ability to flexibly coordinate demands of the external environment with internal goals. However, there is debate as to how these regions are functionally organized and if some regions are more influential than others within the network. One class of hypotheses theorize the PFC is hierarchically organized where regions higher in the hierarchy are presumed to exert more influence over the network. Within this class however, there is further debate as to which region is the most influential and thus the top of the hierarchy. Specifically, the lateral frontal pole (FPl) and the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) have been suggested to be at the top by two competing hierarchical models. The goal of this study was to provide a causal test of these hypotheses using transcranial magnetic stimulation followed by fMRI. Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) was applied to either the FPl, MFG, or a control site (S1) followed immediately with fMRI in a within-subjects, cross-over design. Preliminary results show that MFG-cTBS significantly altered cognitive control-related activations throughout the PFC more than when targeting the FPl or control site. These preliminary results support that the MFG is an area of high influence consistent with an apical role in control. The MFG may therefore be a critical intervention target for modulating cognitive control. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB51 - Causal Evidence Supports Hierarchical Organization in Prefrontal CortexDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 52 | Jean Ye, Yale University | Huili Sun, Yale University; Siyuan Gao, Yale University; Dustin Scheinost, Yale University | Brain dynamics during rest and task switching in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia | Nonlinear manifold learning can be used to create a low-dimensional space shared by multiple tasks from which representative brain states can be found. Putatively, neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia) are characterized by altered brain dynamics-or, the amount time spent in a given state. Here, we examined how brain dynamics in this space vary in BD and schizophrenia during rest and task switching. Timeseries fMRI data from the Human Connectome Project (N=390; 6 tasks) were embedded into a low-dimensional space using 2-step Diffusion Maps. Four states were identified with K-means clustering and characterized as high-cognition, low-cognition, cue, and fixation. The centroid of each cluster was identified as the representative timeframe. After extracting rest and task switching timeseries data from the UCLA Consortium for Neuropsychiatric Phenomics dataset, state contributions were measured by regressing representative timeframe from each volume using nonnegative least squares and dividing each state's summed coefficients across volumes by the sum of all coefficients. State contributions were next compared between groups using t-test. BD (N=35; 15 females) and schizophrenia (N=38; 9 females) had less fixation (p=0.0273; p=0.0375) but more low-cognition contributions (p=0.0315; p=0.0388) than control (N=105; 50 females) during rest. In task switching, both BD (N=48; 21 females) and schizophrenia (N=48; 12 females) showed less fixation (p=0.04; p=0.0118) and high-cognition (p=0.0276; p=0.0087) but more cue (p=0.0166; p=0.0092) and low-cognition contributions (p=0.0379; p=0.0113) than control (N=118; 57 females). These findings suggest altered brain dynamics in patients with BD and schizophrenia during rest and task switching. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB52 - Brain dynamics during rest and task switching in bipolar disorder and schizophreniaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 53 | Kevin Miller, University of Nebraska-Lincoln | James Blair, Copenhagen University; Nicholas Hubbard, University of Nebraska-Lincoln | Delayed striatal-frontoparietal functional connectivity coincides with slower instrumental learning in adolescents with substance use disorders | Altered instrumental learning processes may play a role in the development or maintenance of substance use disorders (SUD; Everitt and Robbins, 2016). Here, we examined instrumental learning and striatal functional connectivity in adolescents with an alcohol use disorder, cannabis use disorder, or both (SUD+; n = 66) and adolescents with neither (SUD-; n = 69). Participants completed a passive avoidance task (PAT) during fMRI, wherein they were rewarded or punished for responding to cues yoked to a probabilistic reinforcement schedule. We tested whether adolescent SUD was related to (1) slower acquisition of instrumental contingencies, and (2) whether this slower learning was accompanied by experience-related changes in striatal functional connectivity. The SUD+ group exhibited a slower decline in choice error rates over time, relative to the SUD- group-indicating slower learning of instrumental contingencies. The SUD+ group also exhibited an experience-related shift in their striatal functional connectivity patterns: whereas, the SUD- group exhibited strong functional connections between striatal and frontoparietal regions during the early phase of the PAT, the SUD+ group failed to demonstrate this effect until the late phase. Findings were exclusive to striatal-frontoparietal functional connections. Results demonstrated both slowed acquisition of instrumental contingencies and delayed striatal-frontoparietal functional connectivity associated with adolescent SUD. Both slower instrumental learning and delayed coupling between striatal and frontoparietal areas may reflect reduced transmission of reward prediction signals throughout cortical-striatal circuits related to adolescent SUDs (Aloi et al., 2021) or an insensitivity of this circuitry to dopaminergic inputs (Bloomfield et al., 2016). | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB53 - PROP51310237Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 54 | Christine Embury, Boys Town National Research Hospital/University of Nebraska | Grace Lord, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Andjela Drincic, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Cyrus Desouza, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Tony Wilson, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Impact of comorbidities and glycemic control on the neurophysiology underlying task switching in adults with T2D | Type 2 diabetes (T2D) negatively impacts higher order cognition and the brain. The mechanisms remain unclear, particularly whether these effects are driven by glycemic control levels or the comorbid conditions that commonly emerge in those with T2D. The current study used a task-switching paradigm and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) imaging to probe the dynamics underlying cognitive control in adults with T2D (N = 54, ages 55-73, 33 females), with and without additional comorbidities (i.e., cardiovascular disease, nephropathy, peripheral neuropathy, retinopathy). We hypothesized that the neural dynamics serving task performance would be differentially modulated by the level of glycemic control and the burden of additional comorbidities. We found separable, but widespread alterations in neural task-switch costs in T2D that were differentially attributable to glycemic control and the presence of comorbidities in both gamma and alpha frequency responses across frontoparietal, occipital and cerebellar regions (ps < .01). Further, early left cerebellar (r(44) = .34, p = .021) and late right parieto-occipital (r(44) = -.35, p = .017) gamma responses were related to behavioral switch costs. Interestingly, activity in these areas was distinctly related to comorbidity status (F(1,42) = 5.26, p = .027), as those with comorbidities drove the more detrimental left cerebellar pattern (increased neural switch costs -> increased behavioral switch costs), and those without comorbidities drove the more compensatory right parieto-occipital pattern (increased neural switch costs -> decreased behavioral switch costs). These findings provide insight on the neuropathology and may inform future treatment plans to curtail the neural impact of T2D. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB54 - Impact of comorbidities and glycemic control on the neurophysiology underlying task switching in adults with T2DDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 55 | Ivan Grahek, Brown University | Xiamin Leng, Brown University; Mahalia Prater Fahey, Brown University; Debbie Yee, Brown University; Amitai Shenhav, Brown University | Empirical and Computational Evidence for Reconfiguration Costs During Within-Task Adjustments in Cognitive Control | To achieve goals, people leverage cognitive control to adjust how they process information. When performing different tasks, frequent adjustments in the type of information people need to process give rise to task switching costs. However, many situations require not only changes in which information to process, but also adjustments of information processing strategies within a single task. Across two tasks, we show that reconfiguration costs can be found within a task, as the demand for readjusting a given control signal (e.g, response threshold) varies based on explicit instructions (Experiment 1) or incentives (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1 (N=44), participants performed a Stroop task while instructed to prioritize either speed or accuracy. In some blocks their instructed goal was held constant (e.g., prioritize speed), while in others these two goals varied. In Experiment 2 (N=69), performance goals were differentially incentivized by varying rewards for correct responses and penalties for errors. Within a block, one incentive type varied (e.g., reward), while the other was fixed. Across both experiments we found smaller adjustments in response thresholds between the relevant conditions in blocks that engendered more frequent control adjustments. We show that this pattern of findings can be accounted for with a model that maximizes reward rate while minimizing reconfiguration costs (the Euclidean distances between the previous and current control signals). These findings suggest that cognitive control adjustments are regularized to constrain larger changes in control, which has important implications for computational modeling and measurement of motivated cognitive control. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB55 - Empirical and Computational Evidence for Reconfiguration Costs During Within-Task Adjustments in Cognitive ControlDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 56 | Kellen McDonald, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Mikki Schantell, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Yasra Arif, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Christine M. Embury, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Seth D. Springer, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Madelyn P. Willett, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Hannah J. Okelberry, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Hallie J. Johnson, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Michaela R. Frenzel, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Jacob A. Eastman, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Pamela E. May, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Tony Wilson, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Altered functional connectivity serving cognitive flexibility in regular cannabis users | Cannabis is known to impact higher-order cognitive processes such as attention and executive function. However, little is known regarding the neural oscillatory dynamics serving cognitive flexibility, a component of executive function, in cannabis users. Thus, we recruited 25 participants who had used cannabis at least two to three times per week for the past three years and 30 demographically matched nonuser controls. Participants completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery, an interview regarding their current and past substance use, a urinalysis to confirm self-reported substance use, and a task-switch cognitive paradigm during magnetoencephalography (MEG). Time-frequency windows of interest were identified using a data-driven approach, spectrally specific neural activity was imaged using a beamformer, and whole-brain neural switch cost maps were computed by subtracting the switch condition from the no-switch condition per participant. Using the peak voxels in these neural switch cost maps as seeds, connectivity was computed using voxel-wise coherence. Our key results indicated that cannabis users exhibited altered functional connectivity between the visual cortices and regions in the frontoparietal network in theta, alpha, and gamma frequency ranges (all ps < 0.05, corrected). Additionally, by integrating the neuropsychological data, we found a significant group-by-attention performance interaction (p = 0.017) predicting alpha functional connectivity between the right visual cortex and right middle temporal gyrus, suggesting differential patterns of functional connectivity associated with attention performance in cannabis users compared to nonusers. These results indicate modified multispectral functional connectivity between visual cortices and brain structures underlying executive skills in cannabis users. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB56 - Altered functional connectivity serving cognitive flexibility in regular cannabis usersDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 57 | Audrey Siqi-Liu, Duke University | Tobias Egner, Duke University | Investigating task-specific adjustments of cognitive flexibility | Adaptive behavior often requires finding the optimal tradeoff between focusing on a current task-set (cognitive stability) and updating that task-set when the environment changes (cognitive flexibility). Dynamic adjustments of cognitive flexibility are observed in cued task-switching paradigms, where switch costs, or the response time difference between slower switch trials and faster repeat trials, decrease as the proportion of switch trials over blocks increases. We conducted three experiments to investigate the specific learning mechanisms underlying this effect, here referred to as the list-wide proportion switch (LWPS), and the degree to which it relies on task-level switch associations. Experiment 1 did not find the LWPS effect for an unbiased transfer task, which was equally associated with switches and repeats, suggesting that contextual-modulation of switch costs is task/item-specific. Building on this finding, Experiment 2 and 3 demonstrated that this task-specific learning does not depend on cue- or stimulus-level associations. In conjunction, these three experiments demonstrate that cognitive flexibility adaptations are reliably tied to the frequency learning of task-level statistics. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB57 - Investigating task-specific adjustments of cognitive flexibilityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 58 | Regina Anders-Jefferson, San Francisco State University | Brandon Zimiga, San Francisco State University; Kathy Wannaviroj, San Francisco State University; John Majoubi, San Francisco State University; Kenneth Paap, San Francisco State University | Is there a bilingual advantage in self-report measures of cognitive control? | Cognitive control plays a crucial role in goal-directed behavior and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It is up for debate that, under specific circumstances, bilingualism enhances cognitive control abilities. Although meta-analyses of performance measures show effect sizes that are not distinguishable from zero, we have also included self-report measures: Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone's (2007) brief self-control scale (BSC); Barkley's (2011) deficits in executive functioning scale (BDEFS); and Whiteside and Lynam's (2001) impulse-control subscales. Across five datasets from separate studies, we compared monolinguals and bilinguals from SFSU and mTurk and discovered that most samples showed no differences, some showed monolingual advantages in self-control, and one a bilingual advantage. Specifically, three of the four samples of SFSU students showed no significant differences, although they trended toward small bilingual advantages. The remaining sample of SFSU students showed a moderate-sized, significant bilingual advantage for both BSC and BDEFS and the perseverance subscale of impulsivity. There is no apparent reason why this student sample is different from the other three samples aside from the order of scales. Whatever the cause of the bilingual advantage in the one student sample, the true outliers are from three different samples of mTurk participants that yielded monolingual advantages. These inconsistencies may be related to the fact that the mTurk participants are older and have lower mean scores of fluid intelligence. Thus, additional research is needed to determine when bilingual advantages occur in self-report measures of cognitive control and why self-report and performance-based measures do not align. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Goal maintenance & switching | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB58 - Is there a bilingual advantage in self-report measures of cognitive control?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 59 | Casey Imperio, CUNY: The graduate center | Elizabeth Chua, Brooklyn College | Task-related limits of HD-tDCS induced improvements in metamemory monitoring | Prior work has shown that high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) improved metamemory monitoring accuracy during a semantic memory task. This was replicated across two experiments and different levels of task difficulty. Experiment 1 aimed to test whether these HD-tDCS induced improvements in metamemory monitoring accuracy had implications for metamemory control. To do this, the paradigm deviated from the typical Recall-Judgment-Recognition paradigm. To test metamemory control, participants were asked to select certain items to re-answer with a hint, after completing the recall and judgment tasks. After the cued recall task, in which participants were given the first letter as a hint to the answer, the recognition test was given. With these paradigm changes, HD-tDCS over the DLPFC showed no effect on metamemory monitoring accuracy. Exp. 2 examined which task changes were related to the failure to replicate prior work, which were those that resulted in changes to memory and/or metamemory performance without brain stimulation. Adding the cued recall test boosted recognition memory, which had downstream consequences for metamemory accuracy. Furthermore, changing the timing of the metamemory monitoring judgments, such that they were no longer given after the most recent memory attempt, changed the relationship between the judgment and recognition accuracy (i.e., it changed metamemory accuracy). Taken together, our work highlights that the effects of HD-tDCS over the DLPFC on metamemory accuracy are limited and sensitive to task changes that affect memory performance and the relationship of the judgment. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB59 - Task-related limits of HD-tDCS induced improvements in metamemory monitoringDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 60 | Yao Guan, University of Iowa | Jan Wessel, University of Iowa | Two types of motor inhibition after action errors in humans | According to the adaptive orienting theory of error processing (AOT), error processing involves two stages: a first, non-specific orienting stage, followed by an error-specific, strategic stage ? both of which purportedly involve motor inhibition. Specifically, the AOT predicts that in the orienting stage immediately after errors, the motor system is non-selectively suppressed, whereas inhibition during the preparation of the next response (strategic stage) should be specific to the responding effector. We tested this hypothesis across 4 experiments using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the motor system during a Simon task. To measure non-selective motor inhibition (Experiments 1-3), TMS was used to measure cortico-spinal excitability (CSE) from the first dorsal interosseous muscle of the hand while participants responded with their feet. In Experiment 1, CSE was non-selectively suppressed in the task-irrelevant muscle at 250ms following an error (i.e., in the post-error orienting stage). This was replicated in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, we found that such non-selective inhibition did not take place during the strategic phase ? i.e., during the preparation of the post-error response. In Experiment 4, we then tested whether CSE in this strategic phase was instead selectively suppressed. CSE was recorded from the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle used to respond in a manual version of the task. We found clear CSE suppression on post-error compared to post-correct trials. Taken together, these results suggest that errors are followed by two types of motor inhibition: non-selective inhibition immediately after errors, and effector-specific inhibition during the preparation of the next response. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB60 - Two types of motor inhibition after action errors in humansDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 61 | Sarah Brauer, San Francisco State University | Tala Elsabbagh, San Francisco State University; Dennis Lambert, San Francisco State University; Sabrina Bhangal, University of Missouri - Columbia; Ezequiel Morsella, San Francisco State University and UCSF | Habituation of Stimulus-Elicited Involuntary Cognitions: Implications for Neuroimaging and Psychopathology | Most of the contents of consciousness enter consciousness in an involuntary, reflexive manner. In one variant of the Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT), subjects are presented with visual objects and instructed to not subvocalize the names of these objects. Subjects often cannot suppress these subvocalizations. Knowledge of the boundary conditions of RIT effects illuminates the limitations of involuntary processes. Regarding boundary conditions, in a new analysis, we combined the data from two prior studies (n = 109) to corroborate that RIT effects can be decreased through the technique of habituation, in which the same stimulus is presented repeatedly (ten times). From the first instantiation to the tenth instantiation, the mean proportion of trials in which there was an RIT effect decreased systematically (SDs in parentheses): .73 (.25), .50 (.31), .42 (.33), .38 (.33), .37 (.35), .35 (.34), .36 (.34), .34 (.35), .34 (.35), .35 (.35). This paradigm is suitable for neuroimaging technologies that could identify the neural correlates of the habituation process. We discuss future directions of this 'habituation' variant of the RIT, including (a) a study that measures the duration of stimulus-specific habituation and involves verbal associations that are learned only in the laboratory, and (b) an experiment designed to detect the habituation, not of subvocalizations, but of a higher-level task set (adding numbers). We discuss the implications of this variant of the RIT for neuroimaging and psychopathological phenomena, wherein involuntary cognitions can be debilitating. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB61 - Habituation of Stimulus-Elicited Involuntary Cognitions: Implications for Neuroimaging and PsychopathologyDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 62 | Mustafa Shirzad, Western University | Benjamin Tari, Western University; Connor Dalton, Western University; James Van Riesen, Western University; Nikan Behboodpour, Western University; Michael Marsala, Western University; Glen Belfry, Western University; Matthew Heath, Western University | Postexercise benefits to executive function are independent of active muscle recruitment | A single bout of aerobic exercise benefits executive function for up to 60-min. A candidate mechanism for this benefit is an exercise-mediated increase in cerebral blood flow (CBF) that improves the efficiency of executive networks. The present study examined whether passive exercise ? via mechanically assisted cycle ergometer - improves executive function independent of the metabolic costs of active aerobic exercise. Twenty-eight participants completed three experimental sessions: a non-exercise control, passive cycling (i.e., 70 rpm) and light-intensity (25 W) active aerobic exercise. Cerebral blood velocity (BV) through the middle cerebral artery was assessed during all session via transcranial Doppler ultrasound (tCD). Pre- and post-session executive function was assessed via the non-standard antisaccade task. Antisaccades require a response mirror-symmetrical to an exogenously presented target and are mediated via frontoparietal executive networks that show task-based modulation following acute and chronic exercise. Results demonstrated that BV during passive and active sessions ? but not the control session (p=0.57, dz=0.11) ?increased from baseline (ps<0.001, all dz> -1.01), and that the change was largest in the active session (p<0.001, dz= -1.29). In turn, control session antisaccade reaction times (RT) did not vary pre- and post-intervention (p=0.85, dz= -0.04), whereas passive and active session RTs decreased post-intervention (ps<0.034, all dz>0.42) with the magnitude of the benefit being larger in the latter condition. Accordingly, our results provide convergent evidence that the postexercise benefit to executive function is ? in part ? related to cerebral autoregulation induced via peripheral muscle receptors | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB62 - Postexercise benefits to executive function are independent of active muscle recruitmentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 63 | Tommaso Curro, City, University of London | Beatriz Calvo Merino, City University of London; Matteo Candidi, Sapienza | Embodied inhibitory processes: behavioural and neural correlates of inhibitory cognitive control of body stimuli | Cognitive control allows adapting to the environment by inhibiting inappropriate responses. Embodied theories propose that body-related processes, triggered by the perception of body stimuli, affect cognitive processes. Whether and how inhibitory functions are affected by perceptual content is poorly understood. In two on-line behavioral studies using a Go/Nogo task we tested whether the ability to facilitate (Go trials) and inhibit (Nogo trials) a finger response is differently affected by the bodily (hand) or non-bodily (shapes and leaves) stimuli content. The results show how perceiving hands impairs (i.e., slower reaction times, lower accuracy) hand inhibition performance. To study the neural dynamics associated to this behavioural effect, we perform an EEG experiment on the modulation of perceptual and cognitive control electrophysiological correlates when healthy individuals perform the same task. We focus on time (ERPs) and time-frequency analyses and predict to observe in Nogo versus Go trials when perceiving hands compared to control stimuli: 1) a larger amplitude for frontal N2 (conflict elaboration) and P3 (inhibition processes); 2) stronger theta synchronization in frontal areas (reflecting the higher engagement of the control system to cope with the greater conflict due to the additional processes elicited by the perception of body stimuli); 3) stronger occipito-temporal theta synchronization; 4) stronger coupling of frontal and posterior theta activity to facilitate perception of hands. Our studies have implications for the understanding of the role of body representations in the brain and control functions and support interpretations of cognitive control as regulated by bottom-up context associative processes. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB63 - Embodied inhibitory processes: behavioural and neural correlates of inhibitory cognitive control of body stimuliDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 64 | Xin-Yu Chen, National Chengchi University | Ting-Ting Chang, National Chengchi University | Age-related differences of inhibitory control engagement underlying arithmetic abilities between children and adolescent | Inhibitory control (IC), the capacity to suppress an inappropriate prepotent response, plays a crucial role in building foundational cognitive skills, especially during the early stage of development. Although neuroimaging studies have provided abundant evidence that brain responses associated with inhibitory control are consistently implicated in children's mathematical learning, how IC develops across school stage into adolescence is still poorly understood. In this study we investigate this issue using fMRI methods. Brain responses of fifty-two children (ages 7-13) and twenty-two adolescents (ages 13-18) were acquired while they performed an arithmetic task comprised by large and small problems in the MRI scanner. All participants were categorized as higher and lower IC groups by median split using the performance of a flanker task administered outside the MRI scanner. Voxel-wise three-way ANOVA with problem size (large, small) as a with-subject factor and age (children, adolescents) as well as IC (high, low) as between-subject factors were examined across the whole brain. The results revealed three-way interaction, with children with higher IC show stronger activations in the frontal-parietal regions, including middle frontal gyrus and intraparietal sulcus, compared to those with lower IC. In contrast, adolescents with higher IC show more deactivations in default mode network, including precuneus, angular gyrus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, than the lower IC group. These results suggested that the cognitive and neural mechanisms of inhibitory control underlying arithmetic learning develops across essential school stages. Our study therefore provides insights into uncovering the biological underpinnings of the maturation of cognitive skill acquisition. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB64 - Age-related differences of inhibitory control engagement underlying arithmetic abilities between children and adolescentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 65 | Patrick Bissett, Stanford University | Ian Eisenberg, Credo AI; Henry Jones, University of Chicago; Mckenzie Hagen, University of Washington; Jaime Ali Rios, Stanford University; Sunjae Shim, Stanford University; Ayze Enkavi, CalTech; Jamie Li, Stanford University; Jeanette Mumford, Stanford University; James Shine, University of Sydney; David MacKinnon, Arizona State University; Lisa Marsch, Dartmouth College; Russell Poldrack, Stanford University | Toward a neuro-cognitive ontology of self-regulation | Cognitive neuroscience aims to link neural substrates with specific cognitive processes. In the present work, we take a step towards a neural ontology, or knowledge base, of the cognitive construct of self-regulation. We asked 110 participants to complete task-based fMRI on nine putative self-regulatory tasks (Attention Network, Columbia Card, Dot Pattern Expectancy, towers, delay-discounting, two stop-signal tasks, Stroop, and task-switching), and took a data-driven approach to evaluate the low-dimensional structure of the resulting brain maps. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied to the unthresholded second-level maps as a data-driven approach to identifying the networks underlying self-regulation. This revealed a 19-factor EFA solution, with some of the strongest factors capturing response inhibition and error monitoring, cue switching, and delay discounting. Then we generated sparse labels indicating for each fMRI contrast which cognitive processes were putatively engaged. We computed the euclidean pairwise distance between the group maps of the 24 contrasts (i.e., distance in functional space) and pairwise distance between the cognitive construct label vectors (i.e. distance in cognitive space). We found a strong correlation of the distances between brain maps and the distance between cognitive processes that are putatively engaged in those brain maps (r = .592), which exceeded a null model which preserved the relative sparsity of each contrast's cognitive labels (observed correlation >99.99th percentile of permuted distribution). This work demonstrates a relationship between a low-dimensional neural ontology of self-regulation with an existing cognitive ontology for self-regulation, taking the first step towards a neuro-cognitive ontology of self-regulation. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB65 - Toward a neuro-cognitive ontology of self-regulationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 66 | Caitlin O'Riordan, Bangor University | Debbie Mills, Bangor University | Bilingualism affects the plasticity of cognitive control mechanisms under high task demands in older adults | Bilinguals often outperform monolinguals on executive functioning tasks including measures of inhibitory control, task switching and working memory. Bialystok argues that the 'bilingual advantage' in executive function tasks results from use of domain-general executive functions to control the bilinguals' two languages. However, a bilingual advantage is not consistently observed, and the factors associated with the presence or absence of the bilingual advantage across development are not well understood. Brain imaging studies suggest older adults reach maximum brain activity at lower cognitive loads than younger adults; but this can be modified by training (Iordan et al., 2020). Here, we test the hypothesis that bilingualism enhances brain activity regulation in older adults. The present study examined how age, language experience, and task demands modulate the processes associated with the bilingual advantage in adults over age 65, using combined behavioural and event-related potential measures. Older adult monolinguals (n = 19) and bilinguals (n =25), with comparable background measures, performed a visual Go/NoGo task with a perceptual similarity manipulation to modulate conflict monitoring task demands. Three main results were obtained; (1) behavioural performance did not distinguish the two language groups, (2) language group differences were observed on neural indices of conflict monitoring (N2), but not attentional resource allocation (P3), (3) language group differences on conflict monitoring were only present when conflict monitoring demands were high. The findings support the hypothesis that bilingual language experience affects brain plasticity in older adults by increasing flexibility in the regulation of brain activity relative to task demands. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB66 - Bilingualism affects the plasticity of cognitive control mechanisms under high task demands in older adultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 67 | Eduardo Gonzales-Alemany | High-performance athletes in combat sports: understanding the neural bases of aggression. | Most neuroimaging studies of violence have focused on criminals or cases of antisocial behavior and/or psychopathy, samples essentially constituted by men. However, aggression could have positive connotations, for instance in combat sports, where violent behavior is not only accepted but, in fact, necessary to achieve the main objective of winning the competition. Thus, to gain a full understanding of the neurocognitive underpinnings of aggression in humans, it is imperative to determine to what extent the results obtained in pathological aggression also apply to "positive" aggression. First, aggressive traits were measured by applying a battery of scales to judo female athletes and three different control groups: athletes not involved in combat sports (weight lifting), non-athletes, and criminal offenders. Second, MRI was recorded in judo athletes and non-athletes controls, and VBM was used to compare gray matter between groups, and its relationship with the performance in aggressive scales. Athletes have the same levels of aggressiveness as female prisoners and are more aggressive than women who practice high-performance sports and female controls who do not practice any sport. Female judo fighters have a more efficient impulse control mechanism than female prisoners. Amygdala and hippocampus are reduced in judo athletes. The concentration of gray matter in the amygdala has an inverse relationship with the levels of aggressiveness in the sample. The neural bases of aggressive behaviors seem to be independent of social context and sex. Positive aggression seems to be associated with the same neural profile as antisocial aggression, but with greater impulse control. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB67 - High-performance athletes in combat sports: understanding the neural bases of aggression.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details | |
| B | 68 | Ted Maldonado, Indiana State University | Jessica Bernard, Texas A&M University | Inhibitory Cerebellar Stimulation Increases Cortical Activation: Evidence for Cerebellar Scaffolding of Cortical Process | The human cerebellum is involved in both motor and non-motor processing, supported by topographically distinct cerebellar activations and closed loop circuits between the cerebellum and the cortex. Disruptions to cerebellar function and network connectivity in aging or disease may in turn negatively impact prefrontal function. The specific contributions of the cerebellum to non-motor processing, however, are relatively unknown. One possibility is that the cerebellum allows for the offloading of cortical processing, providing support during task performance using internal models. Here we used transcranial direct current stimulation to modulate the cerebellum and investigated the impact on cortical activation patterns during motor sequence learning and working memory tasks. We employed a between-subjects design applying anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation to the cerebellum. We predicted that cathodal stimulation would improve task performance and cerebellar activation, whereas anodal stimulation would hinder performance and cerebellar activation, requiring cortical scaffolding to compensate. We found cerebellar cathodal stimulation resulted in improved task performance, and anodal stimulation hindered performance. This effect of anodal stimulation also resulted in increased cortical activation, which we suggest is a compensatory mechanism. Specifically, when cerebellar output is degraded by anodal stimulation, the scaffolding effect the cerebellum provides is reduced, requiring more cortical activation to compensate for the reduced cerebellar output. This suggests that if the cerebellum is not functioning optimally, there is a greater need for cortical resources. This work suggests the cerebellum may serve as a scaffolding structure for cortical processing, which has implications in remediation techniques in several clinical populations. | METHODS: Neuroimaging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB68 - Inhibitory Cerebellar Stimulation Increases Cortical Activation: Evidence for Cerebellar Scaffolding of Cortical ProcessDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 69 | Adam Morgan, NYU Langone | Werner Doyle, NYU Langone; Orrin Devinsky, NYU Langone; Adeen Flinker, NYU Langone | Visualizing lexical activation during speech production | Lexical retrieval is central to language, but the spatiotemporal neural codes that subserve it remain elusive. We employ direct neural recordings (ECoG) in humans to elucidate the neural instantiations of words' (1) activation and (2) discrete stages of representation (conceptual, phonological, articulatory; Indefrey, 2011). Four neurosurgery patients repeatedly produced 6 nouns (dog, ninja, etc.) in a picture naming block while electrical potentials were measured directly from cortex. Subsequently, patients described depicted scenes involving the same 6 nouns (e.g. 'The dog tickled the ninja'). We were able to predict above chance (p<0.05, permutation, accuracy ~=22%) which of the 6 nouns a subject was about to produce in the ~600ms leading to articulation using cross-validated multi-class classification. Accuracy increased leading up to production onset and then decreased, suggesting that the classifiers capture a neural process akin to lexical activation rather than signatures of articulatory processing (or early visual features which were removed from analysis). We tested generalizability by applying the same trained classifier to nouns produced in sentences, showing above-chance accuracy for the first noun in the sentence. Next, to test for discrete neural states corresponding to lexical stages, we employed a temporal generalizability approach: we trained classifiers on each time sample, then tested each of these on held-out trials from each time sample (following King & Dehaene, 2014; Gwilliams et al., 2020). Results provide direct evidence for 2-4 distinct lexical states likely supporting conceptual, phonological, and articulatory representations. This is an important step towards linking neural codes to theoretical lexical states. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB69 - Visualizing lexical activation during speech productionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 70 | Lingwei Ouyang, University of California, San Francisco | Adolfo Garcia, Universidad de San Andrés; Valentina Borghesani, Université de Montréal; Leighton Hinkley, University of California, San Francisco; Abigail Licata, University of California, San Francisco; Hannah Lerner, University of California, San Francisco; Kamalini Ranasinghe, University of California, San Francisco; Zachary Miller, University of California, San Francisco; John Houde, University of California, San Francisco; Maria Louisa Gorno-Tempini, University of California, San Francisco; Srikantan Nagarajan, University of California, San Francisco | Concreteness affects lexico-semantic interplay in a noun-verb generation task | The behavioral and neural correlates of different syntactic categories (e.g., nouns vs. verbs) have been a long-term interest in psycholinguistics and neuropsychology. Previous research studies have examined these word types separately, failing to reveal factors that may modulate interactions (Vigliocco et al., 2011). For instance, concreteness is known to influence single-word processing (Paivio, 1991), but its role in cross-syntactic lexical processing is unclear. We utilized a noun-to-verb generation task (Peterson, 1988) to assess how concreteness affects the interactions between nouns and verbs, while controlling for multiple psycholinguistic variables known to influence lexical selection and retrieval. We selected 208 concrete and 244 abstract nouns, which were controlled for syllabic length, familiarity, frequency, age of acquisition, biphoneme probability, and neighborhood density. Responses were collected (N = 107) from the online crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. Verbs were retained in root format and non-verb responses were excluded. Our findings suggest that abstract nouns have higher association competition (i.e., are fairly associated with multiple verbs) while concrete nouns have higher association strength (i.e., are strongly associated with few verbs). The observation of concreteness-modulated associations between nouns and verbs calls for refinements of models that postulate behavioral and neural representation specific to syntactic categories. It also warrants further investigations of the neural substrates that supports the interactions of nouns and verbs at the syntactic, lexical, and semantic level. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB70 - Concreteness affects lexico-semantic interplay in a noun-verb generation taskDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 71 | Lorenzo Titone, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | Sanne ten Oever, MPI for Psycholinguistics; Andrea E Martin, MPI for Psycholinguistics; Lars Meyer, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences | The role of oscillations for the prediction of when and what during language comprehension | Most research on the oscillatory correlates of prediction in language comprehension has investigated predictions of identity-the what-, but predictions of the when are poorly understood. Furthermore, it is largely unknown how when and what predictions interact. To fill this gap, this ongoing project combines magnetoencephalographic recordings with neural frequency tagging in a statistical learning paradigm. By manipulating syllable transitional probabilities (TPs), we generate contrasting random and structured syllables streams. From structured streams, trisyllabic pseudo-words may be learned. Following exposure, test trials present the streams to induce synchronous oscillatory activity. The effects of when and what predictions are assessed on subsequent target stimuli by a 2-by-2 design: Target trisyllables either violate the content prediction or not (altered versus known syllable triplets) and either violate the temporal prediction or not (aligned versus misaligned to the continuation of the entrained rhythm). Lastly, a one-back recognition task is presented. We hypothesize that TP-induced synchronous oscillatory activity associates with when and what predictions that surface in facilitated processing of a target that is aligned to an expected time point. We predict interactive modulations of pre-stimulus delta band (< 4 Hz) phase, oscillatory power dynamics in the alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta bands (13-20 Hz), and downstream effects on event-related fields, depending on target timing and identity. Thus, this study aims at showing that oscillatory dynamics at different timescales support rhythmic computations in internal models of speech and provide a mechanism for predicting when and what to optimize speech processing. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB71 - The role of oscillations for the prediction of when and what during language comprehensionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 72 | Emily M. Akers, San Diego State University | Katherine J. Midgley, San Diego State Univeristy; Phillip J. Holcomb, San Diego State University; Karen Emmorey, San Diego State University | The effects of iconicity on sign language learning in hearing adults: an ERP study | Iconicity is defined as a resemblance between the linguistic form of a word and its meaning. Since signed languages are visual languages, more opportunities for signs to manifest iconicity exist. In the present study, we taught 19 monolingual English speakers 106 American Sign Language (ASL) signs, half of which were highly iconic. Over three days participants were trained on each sign in two learning sessions and tested four times to monitor their progress. To track the temporal neural dynamics of sign learning, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to all signs before and after learning. Iconic signs were learned faster and more accurately than non-iconic signs: the average accuracy for iconic signs was 92% vs. 99% for the first and last tests, compared to 55% vs. 92% for non-iconic signs. During ERP recording before and after learning, participants performed a translation matching task, where an English prime word was followed by ASL target sign (half of the primes were unrelated and half were translations). Prior to learning, we saw an N400 translation priming effect (larger N400s for unrelated compared to translation targets) only for the iconic signs. After learning, the amplitude of the N400 increased for the iconic signs, and a weaker N400 emerged for the non-iconic signs. Taken together the behavioral and electrophysiological data indicate an advantage for learning iconic signs and that highly iconic (transparent) signs evoke an N400 response even prior to learning in hearing adults. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB72 - The effects of iconicity on sign language learning in hearing adults: an ERP studyDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 74 | Agnes (Yang) Gao, University of California Davis | Tamara Swaab, University of California Davis; Matthew Traxler, University of California Davis | The Role of Speech Production in Predictive Processing During Word Recognition | The production system may be necessary for generating lexical predictions during comprehension (Martin, Branzi, & Bar, 2018). We examined effects of prediction and semantic relatedness across two experiments, manipulating whether or not participants engaged in overt production. In experiment 1, participants (N=198) read 480 prime and target word pairs, while silently predicting the target after reading either a semantically related (circus-CLOWN) or an unrelated prime (trim-CLOWN), followed by a lexical decision task on the target. There were 125 filler sets of word-nonword pairs. We compared the target lexical decision RTs based on prediction accuracy and relatedness. Results showed significant effects of prediction accuracy that were greater than effects of association per se. Thus, pre-activation of lexical-semantic information through silent prediction benefits word recognition. In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of overt production on prediction and word recognition by asking participants (N=36) to speak the first word that came to mind before seeing the target, and to then perform a lexical decision on the target. The lexical decision RTs were compared across four conditions: accurately named related, alternatively named related, inaccurately named unrelated, no response. For trials with naming responses, we found a main effect of naming accuracy, but not of relatedness. However, the relatedness effect was present for the no response trials. Moreover, lexical decision RTs varied as a function of naming latencies. Therefore, without overt production, multiple lexical candidates remain activated while accessing the target, however, once production has occurred, activation narrows down to the named word. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB74 - The Role of Speech Production in Predictive Processing During Word RecognitionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 75 | Iva Ivanova, University of Texas at El Paso | When we reuse interlocutors' words: Does it make speaking easier, or harder? | Lexical entrainment is speakers' tendency to reuse the words of their interlocutors (e.g., call a piece of furniture 'sofa' instead of 'couch' after their interlocutor does the same). In a prominent theory, entrainment is usually an automatic process and makes speaking easier (Pickering & Garrod, 2004). However, entrainment may sometimes make speaking harder: one's own preferred word, if different from the interlocutor's word, may compete for selection with it and even need to be inhibited for entrainment to happen. This study in progress proposes to test this hypothesis using event-related potentials (ERPs) during overt production (Strijkers et al., 2010). Participants will take turns with confederates to name pictures for each other. On critical trials, confederates will name pictures with one of two possible (normed) names (e.g., sofa), and two trials later, participants will name the same pictures. Of interest is whether they will use the name said by the confederate (e.g., sofa), as a function of whether their own preferred name (established in a preliminary session) is the same (sofa) or different (couch). On control trials, participants will name critical pictures without the confederate naming them first. A preliminary behavioral experiment (N=36) established a significant entrainment effect of 30%. ERP predictions: if dispreferred entrained responses are associated with less accessible lexical representations, we predict an enhanced P2 (Strijkers et al., 2010), and if they are also associated with inhibitory processes, we predict an enhanced N2 component (Jackson et al., 2001), relative to control trials. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB75 - When we reuse interlocutors' words: Does it make speaking easier, or harder?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details | |
| B | 76 | Lillian Chang, Georgetown University Medical Center | Suneel Banerjee, Georgetown University Medical Center; Philip Cho, Georgetown University Medical Center; Vishnu Pendri, Georgetown University Medical Center; Plamen Nikolov, Georgetown University Medical Center; Srikanth Damera, Georgetown University Medical Center; Xiong Jiang, Georgetown University Medical Center; Josef Rauschecker, Georgetown University Medical Center; Maximilian Riesenhuber, Georgetown University Medical Center | Evidence for selective and modality-dependent functional connectivity and cross-modal activation between auditory and visual word form areas: A possible substrate to learn a visual lexicon? | Several studies have shown that the visual word form area (VWFA) contains lexical representations for written words (Glezer et al., Neuron, 2009; Kronbichler et al., Neuroimage, 2004; Lochy et al., PNAS, 2018). However, it is unclear how the VWFA develops such representations. One possibility is that the VWFA receives a top-down 'teaching signal' from auditory lexical representations as words are read, such as from an auditory word form area (AWFA) in the anterior superior temporal gyrus, which has recently been argued to be the auditory analogue of the VWFA, with lexical representations for auditory words (DeWitt & Rauschecker, PNAS, 2012; Damera et al., Soc Neurobiol Lang, 2019). Here, we tested this hypothesis by measuring activation in and functional connectivity (FC) between individually-defined (N=18) AWFA and VWFA ROI during the processing of visual and auditory words. Supporting our hypothesis, we found that the VWFA responded selectively to auditory words (whereas the AWFA did not respond to written words), and strong FC between AWFA and VWFA for auditory, but not written words. In addition, we re-analyzed MEG data from a large database (MOUS; Schoffelen et al., Sci Data, 2019) and used beamforming to calculate signal coherence between AWFA and VWFA, defined as spherical ROI around average coordinates from the literature. This analysis identified significant coherence between the VWFA and AWFA starting 300 ms after auditory word onset. These results support a model in which the AWFA provides a teaching signal to develop the written word lexicon in the VWFA. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB76 - Evidence for selective and modality-dependent functional connectivity and cross-modal activation between auditory and visual word form areas: A possible substrate to learn a visual lexicon?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 77 | Katherine Sendek, University of California - Davis | Tamara Swaab, University of California - Davis; David Corina, University of California - Davis; Deborah Cates, Iowa School for the Deaf; Mattew Traxler, University of California - Davis | Referential processing in deaf readers | Previous theories of anaphor resolution, such as the Information Load Hypothesis, have been developed almost exclusively using data from comprehenders with normal hearing. We have considerably less data from deaf readers, and hence do not know whether established models accurately reflect pronoun processing and interpretation in that population. Spatial systems of reference to actors within a narrative in American Sign Language (ASL) may be analogous to pronoun use in spoken language. However, it is unknown how this system translates to pronominal processing in written English for deaf readers, given that the form and frequency of referencing in ASL differ from that used within English. Our current study can help determine the degree to which deaf and hearing bilinguals respond to factors known to affect anaphoric processing in hearing readers, as well as the influence of first language experience on this processing in a second language. Our participants were 93 deaf ASL-English and 47 hearing Chinese-English bilinguals in a self-paced reading paradigm. Chinese-English bilinguals were used due to their similarities in letter-phoneme mapping and language experience as compared to ASL-English bilinguals. Analysis showed differences in reading time for first versus second/third person pronouns in deaf readers that correspond to ASL reference. Additionally, regression data show that referential processing in deaf readers was influenced by semantic distance differently than in their hearing counterparts. Current models of pronominal processing may not account for how certain factors influence anaphor resolution for different language backgrounds. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB77 - Referential processing in deaf readersDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 78 | Simon Lacey, Penn State College of Medicine | Kaitlyn Matthews, Emory University; Ana Maria Hoffmann, Emory University; K. Sathian, Penn State College of Medicine; Lynne C. Nygaard, Emory University | Perceptual and metaphorical clustering in sound-symbolic ratings of pseudowords | Sound-symbolic correspondences exist in multiple natural languages and are used to infer word meaning. But the range of possible meanings available via sound symbolism is unknown, as is whether correspondences are specific to particular meanings or are underpinned by mapping to a common abstract dimension, e.g., intensity. Here, participants rated auditory pseudowords on scales representing categorical opposites across seven meaning domains: shape (rounded/pointed), size (big/small), luminosity (bright/dark); weight (light/heavy), texture (soft/hard), arousal (calming/exciting) and valence (good/bad). Within each domain, the two scales were negatively correlated, indicating that they adequately reflected the categorical opposites. Across domains, sound-symbolic ratings exhibited both perceptual and metaphorical relationships. For example, among perceptual domains, bigness was associated with heaviness and, roundedness with softness. Metaphorical relationships were exemplified by the association of brightness and softness with goodness, but darkness and hardness with badness. Importantly, some domains were not related; e.g., shape and size; luminosity and weight; presumably reflecting the absence of formal physical or perceptual relationships between these domains. Linear regression showed that the contributions of phonetic features of the pseudowords tended to follow these relationships. For example, stops and fricatives were positively weighted for both bigness and heaviness, and for both darkness and badness; but the phonetic patterns for luminosity and weight shared fewer common features. These results show that sound-symbolic correspondences are not uniformly underpinned by a common abstract dimension but vary depending on the meaning domain, and also suggest that metaphoric language may have its origins in sound-symbolic mappings shared across several domains. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB78 - Perceptual and metaphorical clustering in sound-symbolic ratings of pseudowordsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 79 | Stacey Reyes, Western University | Stephen Van Hedger, Western University, Huron College, Brain and Mind Institute; Laura Batterink, Western University | Top-down attention and statistical learning of speech | Statistical learning (SL) refers to the ability to extract regularities in the environment and has been well-documented to play a key role in speech segmentation and language acquisition. Whether SL is automatic or requires top-down attention is an unresolved question. Here, we examined the role of both domain-general and domain-specific attention in SL, using implicit and explicit measures. Participants listened to an auditory speech stream made of repeating nonsense trisyllabic words, with their attention focused either on the speech stream or on a competing task. We used two different competing tasks, requiring either domain-general attention (visual object tracking) or language-specific processes (self-paced reading task). Following speech exposure, SL was assessed with an explicit familiarity rating task and an implicit reaction-time based memory task. On the explicit measure of learning, performance was unimpaired when domain-general attention was taxed, but reduced when domain-specific, language-related resources were taxed. On the more implicit measure of learning, performance was similar across conditions, with all groups showing evidence of SL. These results suggest than implicit aspects of SL are more robust to reductions in attention than explicit aspects of SL. In addition, our finding that even explicit SL knowledge is unimpaired when domain-general attention is diverted provides support for the relative automaticity of SL. These results suggest that language-based SL may occur while language learners are simultaneously engaged in competing tasks, as long as the task is not linguistic in nature. Our findings also offer insight into the neurocognitive underpinnings of SL. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB79 - Top-down attention and statistical learning of speechDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 80 | Marissa Marko, American University | Catherine Stoodley, American University | Cerebellar modulation of reading accuracy and speed | The cerebellum is traditionally associated with the control of coordinated movement, but it has been hypothesized that the cerebellum also supports fluent cognitive processing. Consistent with this, posterolateral cerebellar regions, including right lobule VII, have been implicated in rapid, automatic reading in typical readers. Right cerebellar regions have been associated with reading accuracy and phonemic decoding (i.e., sounding out words), while left-lateralized regions have been broadly associated with fluency, as measured by rapid automated naming (RAN) tasks. To determine whether the cerebellum is a key modulator of these reading processes, we are examining the impact of neuromodulation with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targeting right cerebellar lobule VII on reading accuracy and fluency. Typical readers (n = 18; aged 18-25 [M = 19.7 ± 2.5years]) completed a RAN task (fluency); the TOWRE-2's Sight Word Efficiency (SWE) and Phonemic Decoding Efficiency (PDE) tasks (speeded phonemic processing and reading), and WRAT-5's word reading task (untimed reading accuracy) after 20min of 2mA anodal (excitatory), cathodal (inhibitory), or sham tDCS. Preliminary analyses indicate that cathodal tDCS improved WRAT scores (p < 0.05), but did not influence RAN, PDE, or SWE measures. The current study is still collecting data, including data from individuals diagnosed with developmental dyslexia. Future analyses will compare neuromodulatory effects between typical and impaired readers. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB80 - Cerebellar modulation of reading accuracy and speedDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 81 | Yingying Wang, University of Nebraska-Lincoln | Yinbo Wu, University of Nebraska-Lincoln | Hemodynamics of Speech-evoked Networks in Adults: an fNIRS Study | Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive neuroimaging method and is well suited to paradigms using auditory stimuli. It has been used to track functional changes for cochlear implant (CI) research. CI research usually requires a longitudinal design. The question of whether neural networks supporting speech perception in typically-hearing adults changes over a short period is unknown. The present study investigated longitudinal changes of the speech-evoked network in seven typically-hearing adults. There were three sessions separated by about three months. All participants completed a block-design speech perception task. 16 sources and 20 detectors covered the left and right temporal and frontal regions of interest. All fNIRS channel data were preprocessed in Satori and in-house scripts were used for connectivity analysis. The connection between the inferior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus didn't change significantly from visits 1 to 3 at the group level. In summary, our results show that fNIRS can measure speech-evoked networks in adults and this network did not change significantly at the group level over a short period. This finding suggests that one data point of fNIRS measurements for the control group in a longitudinal rehabilitation CI study with a three-month interval may be sufficient. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB81 - Hemodynamics of Speech-evoked Networks in Adults: an fNIRS StudyDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 82 | Marta Rivera, CIMCYC, University of Granada | Daniela Paolieri, CIMCYC, University of Granada; Teresa Bajo, CIMCYC, University of Granada | Intrinsic and extrinsic factors modulating grammar learning at older ages. | Learning a second language (L2) late in life is a great challenge, but it is also accompanied by the social reward and by the promise of cognitive enhancement. However, while the learning processes seem to be harder for older than younger adults, the research trying to identify the sources of difficulty and possible modulating factors is scarce. Extrinsic (learning condition and complexity) and intrinsic factors (executive control and proactivity) have been related to L2-grammar learning in younger adults. In the present study, we aim to assess whether extrinsic and intrinsic factors are also modulating grammar learning in older adults. With this purpose, we compared the learning performance of younger and older adults in a L2 learning task. 162 Spanish native-speakers (81 young) learnt Japa–ol (Japanese syntaxis and Spanish lexicon) in either an intentional (metalinguistic explanation) or an incidental (comprehension of sentences) context. The complexity of the sentences was also manipulated learning sentences by introducing (or not) a subordinate clause. After the learning phase, where they were presented with sentences representing the grammatical rule, participants did a Grammatical Judgment Task where they answered if the presented sentences were (or not) grammatically correct. We calculated a discrimination index (d') representing the degree of learning. Individual differences in proactivity were measured with the AX-CPT task. Overall, better results were found for the intentional-condition than for the incidental-condition, and for younger than older adults. Interestingly, in the incidental condition, the effect of age was not significant, indicating similar performance between younger and older adults. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB82 - Intrinsic and extrinsic factors modulating grammar learning at older ages.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 83 | Lauren Fink, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics | Madita Hoerster, Philipps-University Marburg; David Poeppel, Ernst Struengmann Institute for Neuroscience; Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Pauline Larrouy-Maestri, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics | Bonfire happiness or a scratchy affair?: Patterns in free labelling and categorization of percussive stimuli | Listeners can easily distinguish between examples of dndœn drumming (a West-African talking drum capable of speech surrogacy) intended to be music or speech above chance. To make this categorical distinction, they rely on acoustic features, like the timing and loudness of tones. However, in previous studies, the labels 'speech' and 'music' were given to participants, whereas categorisation of our auditory environment is usually label-free. In the current study, we asked how listeners group the same percussive stimuli, when given no labels. One hundred eighty participants completed an online task where 30 stimuli (15 speech surrogate, 15 music) were presented as bubbles on a screen to be sorted into two unlabelled boxes. Subsequently, participants provided labels for the boxes. Participants' labels to describe their stimulus groupings spanned from instrument names, such as drum or bass, to timing characteristics (e.g., fast/slow, rhythmic/arhythmic), acoustic descriptors (e.g., high/low pitch), to creative concepts (see e.g., title of abstract). Despite this wide variety of labels, a cluster analysis on the dissimilarity matrix of stimulus groupings across participants revealed a high degree of consistency in the way listeners categorise the sounds. These clusters can be captured in a two-dimensional space and appear related to acoustic characteristics of the stimuli. On-going analyses linking acoustic features, labels, and stimulus clusters aim to further understand mechanisms underlying a crucial step from sounds to meaning during processing of our auditory environment. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB83 - Bonfire happiness or a scratchy affair?: Patterns in free labelling and categorization of percussive stimuliDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 84 | Agata Wolna, Jagiellonian University | Jakub Szewczyk, Radboud University; Michele Diaz, Pennsylvania State University; Aleksandra Domagalik, Jagiellonian University; Marcin Szwed, Jagiellonian University; Zofia Wodniecka, Jagiellonian University | Why exposure to a second language hampers access to the native language? Deconstructing neural bases of L2 after-effect. | When bilingual speakers switch back to speaking in their native language (L1) after having used the second language (L2) they often experience a difficulty in retrieving words in their L1: a phenomenon referred to as the L2 after-effect. The L2 after-effect, an instantiation of bilingual langauge control, most likely reflects an increased difficulty in accessing words in L1 as a consequence of control processes engaged during prior use of L2. However, it is unclear whether the L2 after-effect reflects increased demands imposed on the general cognitive control system or language-specific mechanisms. We addressed this question by measuring to what extent brain activity reflecting the L2 after-effect overlaps with different functional networks. Using a functional localizer approach we identified language and domain-general cognitive control brain networks at a subject level. Three additional localizers were used to further explore the question of the origin of the L2 after-effect by identifying task-specific brain networks engaged in interference resolution, lexical retrieval, and articulation. Forty-one Polish-English bilinguals performed a picture naming task in which we measured the brain response to naming in L1 after a short language production task in L2 or L1. We compared mean BOLD activations between the two conditions within subject-specific ROIs defined based on the localizer tasks. Overall, our results show that the L2 after-effect is driven by domain-general rather than language-specific mechanisms. What is more, we did not find evidence for increased engagement of interference resolution, lexical access and articulatory mechanisms in L1 production after L2. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB84 - Why exposure to a second language hampers access to the native language? Deconstructing neural bases of L2 after-effect.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 85 | Can Fenerci, McGill University | Lauri Gurguryan, McGill University; Nathan Spreng, McGill University; Signy Sheldon, McGill University | Common and distinct neural basis of autobiographical memory retrieval between younger and older adults: An ALE meta-anal | Retrieving autobiographical memories relies on a distributed network of brain regions, enabling the coherent and textured re-experiencing of the past. Converging lines of evidence suggest that healthy aging results in an attenuation in the richness of the recollected events. Less conclusive have been the investigations of age-related changes to the neural underpinnings of autobiographical memory retrieval. Here we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis using activation likelihood estimation (GingerALE 3.0.2) to identify brain activity reliably engaged by autobiographical memory retrieval tasks in younger and older adults across 45 studies (Nyounger = 24, 357 participants, 349 foci; Nolder = 21, 299 participants, 356 foci). We carefully matched the reference conditions as well as cueing methods to probe autobiographical memories across our two samples. Our results revealed overlapping recruitment in the canonical, left-lateralized regions of the autobiographical memory network, including the left hippocampus, posterior cingulate cortex, and angular gyrus. Between-group analyses showed greater recruitment of the right precuneus in younger adults, and greater bilateral activity in the hippocampus, left middle temporal gyrus, and posterior cingulate cortex in older adults. Together, these findings suggest that even though the key aspects of autobiographical memory retrieval are preserved in older age, subtle changes exist in how the brain supports the recollection of the past across the lifespan. We interpret these results in light of functional reorganization theories of cognitive aging, reflecting the commonly observed increased semantic processing and functional compensation in older age. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB85 - Common and distinct neural basis of autobiographical memory retrieval between younger and older adults: An ALE meta-analDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 86 | Jamie Snytte, McGill University | Can Fenerci, McGill University; Sricharana Rajagopal, Douglas Brain Imaging Centre; Camille Beaudoin, McGill University; Kiera Hooper, McGill University; Signy Sheldon, McGill University; Rosanna Olsen, Baycrest; M. Natasha Rajah, Douglas Brain Imaging Centre, McGill University | Hippocampal volume mediates context memory in healthy aging and is related to patterns of functional activity | Healthy aging is associated with episodic memory decline, particularly in the ability to encode and retrieve item-context associations (context memory). Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have highlighted the importance of the medial temporal lobes (MTL) in supporting episodic memory across the lifespan. However, given the functional heterogeneity of the MTL, volumetric declines in distinct regions may impact performance on specific episodic memory tasks, and affect the function of the large-scale neurocognitive networks supporting episodic memory encoding and retrieval. In the current study, we investigated how MTL structure may mediate age-related differences in performance on spatial and temporal context memory tasks (N = 125, age range = 19-76 years old). Standard T1-weighted MRIs were segmented into the perirhinal, entorhinal and parahippocampal cortices, as well as the anterior and posterior hippocampal subregions. We found that that volume of the posterior hippocampus fully mediated the association between age and memory performance on the spatial, but not temporal context memory task. Additionally, we found that older age and smaller volume of the posterior hippocampus was related to greater activity within lateral prefrontal, parietal and occipital regions, as well as within the anterior MTL. Our results highlight the heterogeneity of MTL contributions to episodic memory across the lifespan, and reveal how brain structure and functional activity interact in aging. Further, we provide support for the posterior-anterior shift in aging, and scaffolding theory of aging and cognition. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB86 - Hippocampal volume mediates context memory in healthy aging and is related to patterns of functional activityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 87 | Isabelle Ehrlich, Goethe University Frankfurt | Javier Ortiz-Tudela, Goethe University Frankfurt; Yee Lee Shing, Goethe University Frankfurt | Neural dedifferentiation in feedback signals across the lifespan. | Throughout the lifespan, our brain undergoes structural and functional changes. One prominent factor that contributes to age-related functional changes is neural dedifferentiation, which refers to less selective neural processing, and compromised fidelity of neural representations. So far, neural dedifferentiation has been investigated primarily in visual feedfoward signals. Yet, from a predictive processing point of view, perception relies heavily on internally generated feedback signals that travel from higher order brain regions down to the earliest sensory regions. Thus far, it is unclear to what extent neural dedifferentiation can also be observed in feedback signals. In a first functional MRI study with young adults, using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), we observed that feedback signals in non-stimulated regions of the primary visual cortex comprise not only concurrent contextual information, but also time-distant mnemonic information. Interestingly, episodic components explained significantly more variance of multivariate neural pattern compared to semantic components. Following this, an ongoing study further investigates age-related differences in feedback signals. By adopting the design of our previous study with a target sample size of 40 older (65-75 years) and 40 younger adults (18-30 years), we aim at testing the hypothesis that older adults show less differentiated feedback signals compared to younger adults. Particularly, we predict episodic components to be more prone to age-related dedifferentiation than semantic components in feedback signals. Dedifferentiation in feedforward and feedback signals are expected to be positively correlated. Our study will shed light on the complex interplay between memory and predictive processing, and the age differences therein. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB87 - Neural dedifferentiation in feedback signals across the lifespan.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 88 | Hilary Sweatman, McGill University | Xiaoqian Chai, McGill University | Development of brain activations associated with cued recall | Episodic memory retrieval has been associated with activations in the hippocampus (HC) and the 'core recollection network' comprising the parahippocampal cortex, posterior cingulate, precuneus, lateral parietal cortices, and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These regions overlap with the default mode network (DMN), activated during internally-oriented tasks. The development of the core recollection network and DMN in episodic memory retrieval has yet to be explored. The present study aimed to fill this gap in understanding using a cued recall paradigm in a sample of adults (n=22; 18-25 years) and children (n=23; 9-13 years). We predicted that activity in DMN regions would be greater for successful versus unsuccessful episodic memory retrieval for adults, with this difference less pronounced in children. Successful recall was associated with activations in DMN and core recollection network regions. Discriminatory activations in DMN regions between hit and miss trials varied in adults and children depending on the region. As hypothesized, we saw greater brain activity for hits versus misses in DMN and core recollection network regions in adults but not children, except for the mPFC which showed discriminatory activation for all ages. Developmental differences were also seen in the insula, HC, and triangularis. Furthermore, when controlling for age, participants with greater recall accuracy showed greater activation of core recollection network regions including the angular gyrus, HC, and precuneus. Therefore, engagement of the mPFC in episodic retrieval may already be mature by late childhood, while more posterior regions such as the LP, precuneus, and HC undergo a longer maturation process. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB88 - Development of brain activations associated with cued recallDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 89 | Nicholas Kathios, Northeastern University | Milena Quinci, Northeastern University; Psyche Loui, Northeastern University | When You Heard It First: Age of Exposure Affects Encoding of Music in the Default Mode Network | The 'reminiscence bump' describes the ability of older adults to recall a disproportionately high amount of autobiographical memories from adolescence and young adulthood compared to any other time across the lifespan. This effect holds true for music-evoked autobiographical memories: not only do older adults recall more autobiographical memories in response to music from their adolescence and young adulthood compared to music outside this time period, but they also show lifelong preferences for music from this time period. Here we explored the effect of developmental timing of music encoding on how it is represented in the brain. We collected fMRI data on older adults (n=17; ages 56-89) while they listened to both self-selected and researcher-selected musical excerpts. Whole-brain fMRI analyses across all music listening conditions revealed activation in auditory regions (superior temporal gyrus and Heschl's Gyrus) and the Default Mode Network (medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex). Compared to music released during childhood (ages 0-11) or adulthood (ages 19+), music released during adolescence (ages 12-18) showed greater activation in the Default Mode Network, specifically the posterior cingulate cortex, surviving FDR cluster-size correction at the 0.05 level. These results demonstrate how stimuli encoded during adolescence differ from those outside this time period, providing neuroscientific insight into the reminiscence bump effect and the development of lifelong preferences. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB89 - When You Heard It First: Age of Exposure Affects Encoding of Music in the Default Mode NetworkDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 90 | Iryna Schommartz, Goethe University Frankfurt | Philip Franz Lembcke, Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Angela M. Kaindl, Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Claudia Buss, Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Yee Lee Shing, Goethe University Frankfurt | Memory in Flux: Neural Correlates of Short- and Long-Delay Memory Consolidation in Children and Young Adults | Memory consolidation evolves over time and involves interaction between medial temporal lobe and neocortical structures. Thus far, little is known about how extended developmental trajectories of brain maturation may affect memory consolidation processes. In the present study, applying a targeted object-scene associative memory paradigm for children and adults and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined system-level memory consolidation one day (short delay) and two weeks (long delay) after learning, in 6-year-old children (n = 37, 15 females), and young adults (n = 36, 16 females). On the behavioural level, the following was observed: (i) short delay memory retention rates declined only in children but not in adults; (ii) long delay memory retention rates declined in both age groups with a stepper decrease in children compared to adults. On the neural level, the following patterns emerged: (i) posterior hippocampal activation remained stable over time in both groups, while anterior hippocampal activation increased over time only in children, remaining stable in adults; (ii) activation in posterior parahippocampal gyrus, lateral prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and lateral occipital cortex increased over time only in adults but not in children. Taken together, compared to adults, children showed lower retention rates of learned information after one night of sleep and over two weeks. Observed age-related differences in differential involvement of neural regions for retrieving consolidated memory demonstrate persistent involvement of hippocampus early on in childhood, with increasing involvement of neocortical regions across development and time. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB90 - Memory in Flux: Neural Correlates of Short- and Long-Delay Memory Consolidation in Children and Young AdultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 91 | Trevor McPherson, UCSD | Blanca Martin-Burgos, UCSD; Ryan Hammonds, UCSD; Bradley Voytek, UCSD | Nonlinear development of neuronal timescales in human cortical organoids and rat hippocampus dissociated cultures | To support complex cognition, neuronal circuits must integrate information across multiple durations, ranging from milliseconds to decades. Neuronal timescales describe the duration over which activity within a network persists, posing an explanatory mechanism for how information might be integrated over multiple temporal scales. Little is known about how timescales develop in human neural circuits or other model systems, limiting insight into how the functional dynamics necessary for cognition emerge. In our work we show that neuronal timescales follow an increasing and non-linear trajectory over development in human cortical organoids and rat hippocampal dissociated cultures. We employ power spectral parameterization of spiking activity to extract an estimate of neuronal timescale that is unbiased by oscillations. Cortical organoid timescales begin to increase around month 6 post-differentiation. Rat hippocampal timescales lengthen and contract fromÊin vitroÊday 13-23 before stabilizing to an increased value relative to early development. Cortical organoid development over the duration studied here likely reflects an earlier stage of a generalized developmental timeline in contrast to the rodent hippocampal cultures, potentially accounting for differences in timescale developmental trajectories. Since timescales generally increase with development, we speculate that expanding timescales might be an important developmental feature that could reflect increasing complexity and information capacity in neuronal circuits. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB91 - Nonlinear development of neuronal timescales in human cortical organoids and rat hippocampus dissociated culturesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 92 | Ryan, G. Monkman, Elon University | Sarah Ricupero, Pennsylvania State University; Catherine, M. Carpenter, Pennsylvania State University; Ashley Steinkrauss, Pennsylvania State University; Amy, A. Overman, Elon University; Nancy, A. Dennis, Pennsylvania State University | Neural distinctiveness and reinstatement in a unitization-promoting paradigm. | Unitization is a mechanism by which associative information is encoded as a single unit on ensemble. The current work aimed to examine the neural differences between an associative memory task with one condition in which participants visualized a person performing their job (doing; unitized) and a second condition in which participants visualized a face saying that they knew someone who had a particular job (speaking; non-unitized). Prior work has analyzed neuroimaging data using distinctiveness calculations (Haxby et. al., 2001) and category-level reinstatement (Hill et. al., 2021) to examine ways in which neural representations are similar or distinct from one another and how that affects memory performance. Based upon these analyses, we aimed to determine if unitization may benefit memory from encoding to retrieval in younger adults compared to non-unitized pairs and if neural representations are distinct between the two conditions. The results show that at encoding, distinctiveness in the unitized and non-unitized associative conditions is significantly greater than chance in the hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, and perirhinal cortex. However, unitized and non-unitized trials are not distinct from one another. Additionally, the two trial types are reinstated differently such that non-unitized trials have higher neural reinstatement from encoding to retrieval compared to unitized trials in the hippocampus. We conclude that unitized and non-unitized associative trials may share similar neural mechanisms resulting in a lack of distinctiveness between the two at encoding, however each requires different resources in order to be reinstated during retrieval. This may indicate that unitization promotes more efficient reinstatement. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB92 - Neural distinctiveness and reinstatement in a unitization-promoting paradigm.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 93 | Kyoungeun Lee, University of Texas at Austin | Taylor James, Emory University; Audrey Duarte, University of Texas at Austin | Impact of depressive symptoms and Covid19-related stress on Emotional memory across adult lifespan. | It has been reported that both age and depression can independently influence emotional episodic memory. However, little is known about the interaction between age and depression on emotional memory. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has created a unique environmental stressor that may reasonably influence one's emotional memory across adulthood, above and beyond the impact of one's baseline level of depression. In two studies, one fMRI and one large, online behavioral, we examined the influence of age, depression, and Covid19-related stress on emotional memory. Individuals ages 18-76 with a range of depressive symptoms were scanned as they viewed emotional images and subsequently completed a recognition task. Older participants with low depressive symptoms showed reduced memory discriminability for negative events compared to minimally depressed younger participants, which is consistent with the reduced negativity preference in healthy aging. By contrast, older participants with higher depression scores showed greater negative memory benefits than younger adults, suggesting that depression attenuates the typical reduced negativity preference in older adults. fMRI results suggest that depression-related alterations in PFC-amygdala functional connectivity patterns related to emotion regulation underlie this age x depression interaction in emotional memory. Covid19-related stress predicts greater negative event memory similarly across age, even after the impact of depressive symptoms was controlled. Collectively, these results suggest that age and depression have interactive effects on emotional memory while Covid19-related stress can additionally explain negatively biased memory across adulthood. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB93 - Impact of depressive symptoms and Covid19-related stress on Emotional memory across adult lifespan.Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 94 | Qin Yin, Wayne State University | Elizabeth L. Johnson, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; Lingfei Tang, Wayne State University; Kurtis Auguste, University of California, San Francisco; Robert T. Knight, University of California, Berkeley; Eishi Asano, Wayne State University; Noa Ofen, Wayne State University | Pediatric intracranial EEG recordings reveal age differences in occipital alpha oscillations and aperiodic activity | Intracranial EEG recordings provide invaluable information about the neurophysiological mechanisms of cognitive development. Electrophysiological data consist of oscillatory and aperiodic activity, however, and developmental differences in these two signals are largely unknown. We investigated age differences in neural oscillations and aperiodic activity using data from 154 electrodes implanted in the occipital cortex of 25 children and adolescents (6.20-20.50 years) who were undergoing direct cortical monitoring for seizure management. Subjects studied pictures of scenes in preparation for a memory recognition test. The power spectrum was calculated using Welch's method for each 3-s scene encoding trial and 0.45-s pre-trial baseline. Power spectra were averaged over trials (separately for subsequent hit, subsequent miss, and baseline period) then entered into the FOOOF algorithm to estimate neural oscillations (central frequency, power, bandwidth) and aperiodic activity (offset, exponent) from 1-30 Hz. Linear mixed-effects models with age and condition as fixed factors were used to test between-subjects' effects. The detected dominant oscillations overlapped with alpha range in all conditions (subsequent hit: 4.39-11.15 Hz; subsequent miss: 4.44-11.68 Hz; baseline: 4.76-11.40 Hz). Critically, in all conditions, age-related increases were observed in the oscillatory frequency (F(1,456)=14.02, p<.001) and bandwidth (F(1,456)=14.02, p<.001), but not in power (F(1,456)=1.57, p=.21). Furthermore, in all conditions, modest age-related decreases were observed in the offset (F(1,456)=4.12, p<.05) and exponent (F(1,456)=4.20, p<.05) of the aperiodic activity. These results highlight the age differences in narrow-band oscillation frequency and broad-band power, suggesting the importance of isolating oscillatory and aperiodic activity when studying the development of neurophysiological mechanisms of cognition. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB94 - Pediatric intracranial EEG recordings reveal age differences in occipital alpha oscillations and aperiodic activityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 95 | Cara I. Charles, Univeristy of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Caitlin R. Bowman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | How does age affect the distinctiveness of anterior versus posterior hippocampal brain networks? | The hippocampus is a brain structure critical for memory and one known to undergo age-related structural and functional decline. Previous research in both young animals and humans suggests that there is functional differentiation along the long axis of the hippocampus, including differences in patterns of cortical connections. Less is known about how patterns of functional connectivity in the anterior vs. posterior hippocampus change in healthy aging. To address this question, we used resting-state fMRI data from the Cambridge Center for Aging and Neuroscience lifespan database that includes 600+ subjects aged 18-88. In each subject, we measured the pattern of whole-brain functional connectivity associated with the anterior and posterior hippocampus separately, then correlated the respective maps to measure the distinctiveness of these brain networks. Results showed a significant relationship between age and network distinctiveness, with less similar whole-brain connectivity between the anterior and posterior hippocampus with increasing age. Future directions for this project include identification of specific hippocampal connections that differ across the lifespan and determining the extent to which differences in anterior vs. posterior functional connectivity are linked to age-related differences in cognitive abilities. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB95 - How does age affect the distinctiveness of anterior versus posterior hippocampal brain networks?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 96 | Samantha Tze Sum Wong*, McGill University | Sandy Stanutz*, McGill University; Shalini Sivathasan, McGill University; Emily Stubbert, McGill University; Jacob A. Burack, McGill University; Eve-Marie Quintin, McGill University | Musical memory is associated with mental ages of children on the autism spectrum but not of typically developing childre | One explanation for relatively enhanced music perception among persons on the autism spectrum (AS) would be that auditory working memory and visuospatial skills, both areas of strengths, are associated with advanced musical memory and discrimination abilities. The participants included children on the AS (N = 19) and with typical developmental histories (TD, N = 18), aged 7-13 years. In the first session, they learned melodies in specific keys that were each paired with a picture of an animal. One week later, they were presented the melodies in the original key and two new transposed keys, and then asked to identify 1) the key in which they originally learned each melody (pitch memory); and 2) the animal with which each melody was paired (melodic memory). Verbal, nonverbal, and auditory working memory mental ages (MAs) and music experience were accounted for in both groups. Positive correlations were found between music experience and pitch and melodic memory for both groups (AS group p < .05; TD group p < .01), but only the children on the AS showed positive correlations between pitch or melodic memory and non-verbal (p < .05), verbal (p < .05) and auditory working memory (p < .01) MAs. These findings suggest an alternate cognitive profile for children on the AS including commonalities between cognitive processes used for visuospatial, linguistic, auditory working memory and musical tasks. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB96 - Musical memory is associated with mental ages of children on the autism spectrum but not of typically developing childreDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 97 | Jordyn Cowan, Brandeis University | Yiwen Zhang, University of Pittsburgh; Ben Rottman, University of Pittsburgh; Vishnu Murty, Temple University | The influence of dopamine synthesis capacity on reward-related learning and memory in aging | Reward processing and memory are influenced by the dopamine system, which changes with age. While aging is generally associated with memory decline, previous research has demonstrated that memory for positively valenced information is preserved in aging. Defining the neural mechanisms underlying such positive memory biases in aging is an area of active investigation. Our prior research using the PET tracer 6[18F]fluoro-L-m-tyrosine revealed that dopamine synthesis capacity ([18F]FMT Ki) in the striatum is elevated in older adults, rather than reduced. Here, we examined relationships between [18F]FMT Ki in the ventral striatum (VST) and memory enhancement for reward-related stimuli. We developed a probabilistic reward learning task, the Real Estate Selling Task, in which participants learn the identities of 3 real estate agents as 'winning,' 'losing,' or neutral. A surprise memory test probed incidental encoding of house stimuli paired with reward, loss, or neutral outcomes. Older adults (n=49) showed a memory bias for houses paired with reward while young adults (n=30) showed a memory bias for houses paired with monetary punishment (age * valence interaction: F(2,154) = 3.485, p = .033). In older adults, individual differences in VST [18F]FMT Ki accounted for probabilistic learning of the identity of the 'winning' agent (r = -.38, p = .017), but was not related to memory biases for the rewarded houses. Ongoing analyses of event-related fMRI data will probe possible neuromodulatory effects of the dopamine system on hippocampal activation and functional connectivity. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB97 - The influence of dopamine synthesis capacity on reward-related learning and memory in agingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 98 | Lena Skalaban, Yale University | Ivan Chan, Yale University; Kristina Rapuano, Yale University; May Conley, Yale University; Richard Watts, Yale University; Qi Lin, Yale University; Erica Busch, Yale University; BJ Casey, Yale University | Similarity in neural representations of stimulus categories during working memory relates to subsequent recognition | Nearly 50 years of research has focused on neural representations of faces as a special stimulus category, and their emergence with development. The current study examines how similarities in neural representations of different types of face stimuli (neutral, happy, fearful) and their relative dissimilarity from representations of non-faces (places) relate to subsequent recognition memory during development. We used representational similarity analysis (RSA) and functional imaging data from 9- and 10- year old youth during an emotional n-back task from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD study¨ 3.0 release) to relate spatial patterns of neural similarity to subsequent recognition memory performance. We focused on face-and place-selective brain regions (fusiform face area [FFA], parahippocampal place area [PPA]) and non-selective regions (pericalcarine cortex as an anatomical approximation for primary visual cortex [V1]). Overall recognition accuracy was greater for places than faces. In the FFA, similarity in neural representations of different types of face stimuli and their relative dissimilarity from places was associated with higher recognition accuracy of new-but not old-faces. Conversely, dissimilarity between faces and places in the PPA was related to better recognition of old-but not new-places. Representational dissimilarity in V1 was not associated with behavioral performance. These findings highlight how the distinctiveness of neural representations of different stimulus categories in individual participants influence what information is subsequently prioritized in recognition memory during development. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB98 - Similarity in neural representations of stimulus categories during working memory relates to subsequent recognitionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 99 | Sagana Vijayarajah, University of Toronto | Margaret Schlichting, University of Toronto | Developmental refinements to neural state during semantic memory retrieval through adolescence | Children and adults retrieve different content from past experiences, with children remembering more perceptual details than adults. Although developmental changes in neural retrieval mechanisms may support this effect, it is unclear how different cognitive states also constrain retrieval. Here, we examine how semantically versus perceptually oriented states impact retrieval over development. We trained a multivoxel pattern classifier to identify whole-brain semantic and perceptual states using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activation patterns from a cued attention task in adults. The classifier successfully generalized these states across adults. We then applied the trained classifier to fMRI data from an independent group of children, adolescents, and adults to measure the engagement of semantic versus perceptual states during separate autobiographical, semantic, and episodic retrieval tasks. All trials were preceded by image cues held constant across tasks, allowing us to examine state biases in preparation for versus during retrieval. We predicted age-related increases in correspondence between semantic states and semantic retrieval, as well as perceptual states and episodic retrieval. Unlike our predictions, all age groups showed a semantic bias in all retrieval tasks and a perceptual bias in the non-mnemonic control task. However, examining preparatory versus retrieval periods showed developmental differences in semantic retrieval: adults showed a semantic bias during preparation, whereas adolescents showed such bias during retrieval. Our results suggest all age groups demonstrate a semantic bias that undergoes refinement beyond childhood. These findings suggest that in addition to expanding semantic knowledge, emerging semantic biases may also impact memory retrieval processes. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB99 - Developmental refinements to neural state during semantic memory retrieval through adolescenceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 100 | Sophia LoParco, McGill University | SriCharana Rajagopal, Douglas Mental Health University Institute; Stamatoula Pasvanis, Douglas Mental Health University Institute; Maria Natasha Rajah, McGill University | The effect of chronological age and menopause on resting state connectivity and episodic memory in women. | There is growing evidence that age-related decreases in episodic memory arise at midlife, a time when females menopause. For some, menopause is associated with memory changes, raising the question of how reproductive aging interacts with chronological age effects on memory and brain function. In the current study we explored how age and menopause status related to whole-brain patterns of resting-state functional connectivity in a sample of 82 females, 21 to 65 years of age (Mean age= 42, N=57 pre-menopausal, N = 25 post-menopausal) using multivariate behavioral partial least squares (PLS) connectivity analysis. We examined if the relationship between chronological age and whole-brain functional connectivity differed between pre- and post-menopausal participants, and if these connectivity patterns related to performance on a face-location source memory paradigm. Robust regressions predicting source memory retrieval from age and menopausal status revealed that menopause was a stronger predictor of memory performance, compared to age. The PLS connectivity results indicated that only in post-menopausal women, connectivity of visual network with hippocampus, dorsal and ventral attentional networks, and somato-motor network increased with age and was negatively correlated with source memory performance. In contrast, greater between network connectivity amongst visual, control, attentional and somato-moter networks was positively correlated with better source memory performance in middle-aged and young pre-menopausal women, and negatively correlated with age in pre-menopausal middle-aged women. Therefore, menopause affects source memory performance in women, and is associated with different patterns of resting state connectivity amongst visual, hippocampal and higher order attentional control networks compared to pre-menopausal women. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB100 - PROP51957897Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 101 | Greta Melega, University of East Anglia | Louis Renoult, University of East Anglia | Retrieval Switching in Autobiographical Memory Recall | Flexibility in the retrieval of specific and general memories is important for everyday functioning. In ageing, retrieval is less flexible and older adults' memories tend to be less specific and more semanticized, compared to younger adults. However, little is known about the costs of switching between different retrieval modes in autobiographical recall. In this study, we investigated the effect of retrieval switching on episodic and personal semantic memory recall in young and older adults. Participants were shown cue words with the instruction of recalling an episodic (unique event) or a categoric memory (repeated event). Every either two or three trials, the retrieval instruction changed (switch trials) followed by one or two trials of the same retrieval mode (non-switch trials). Participants' memories were scored as episodic, categoric, extended (event longer than a day), semantic associate (e.g., autobiographical fact) or omission. Memory performance was measured as the proportion of recollections coherent with instructions. We found that older adults performed worse than younger adults in switch trials but not in non-switch trials. In addition, when asked to recall categoric memories in switch and non-switch trials, older adults accuracy was lower than younger participants and characterised by higher production of semantic associates. We are now categorising each detail within memory as episodic, semantic (personal and general) or other (e.g., repetitions) to investigate whether higher task demands increase semanticisation within memories. Taken together, these findings should help gain a greater understanding of how retrieval flexibility in autobiographical memory influences memory semanticization typical of ageing. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB101 - Retrieval Switching in Autobiographical Memory RecallDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 102 | Julia Schorn, University of California Los Angeles | Catherine Walsh, UCLA; Alan Castel, UCLA; Barbara Knowlton, UCLA | The Effect of Retention Interval on Directed Forgetting in Older Adults | It is adaptive to selectively encode what is valuable and not commit unnecessary information to memory. Voluntary forgetting is an important cognitive control process that is impaired with aging (Zacks et al., 1996). Here, we examine the effect of retention interval on directed forgetting to investigate whether aging impacts the consolidation of to-be-forgotten information. Younger adults (YAs) and older adults (OAs) studied words associated with a low or high point value, followed by a cue to either 'Learn' the word for a later test or 'Forget' the word. After encoding, participants completed a recognition test with confidence ratings. Some participants (n= 65 YA and 28 OA) completed the test with no delay while others (n= 62 YA and 24 OA) completed it 24 hours later. A cue x delay x age interaction on corrected hit rate revealed a larger directed forgetting effect for YAs than OAs, where 'learn' words were more likely to be recognized than 'forget' words, and this group difference became larger after a delay (F(1,153)=4.91, p= .03). The directed forgetting effect increased with the delay in YA, with 'forget' words even less likely to be recognized after the delay. In contrast, recognition of 'forget' words by OAs did not decrease substantially during the delay, suggesting that OAs effectively encode and consolidate words they were instructed to forget. These results replicate prior work showing reduced intentional forgetting in aging and suggest that this effect is magnified across a retention interval. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB102 - The Effect of Retention Interval on Directed Forgetting in Older AdultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 103 | Claire Ciampa, Brandeis University | Jourdan Parent, Brandeis University; Theresa Harrison, University of California Berkeley; Jenna Adams, University of California Berkeley; Joseph Winer, Stanford University; Anne Maass, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases; Matthew Betts, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases; William Jagust, University of California Berkeley; Anne Berry, Brandeis University | Associations between catecholamine synthesis, Alzheimer's pathology, cognition, and locus coeruleus-entorhinal functiona | The locus coeruleus (LC) is the brain's major source of the neuromodulator norepinephrine and is among the first brain regions to accumulate Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related tau pathology. Preservation of LC neurochemical function may be critical to protecting against AD pathology and maintaining cognitive performance. We probed relationships between LC catecholamine synthesis capacity measured with [18F]Fluoro-l-m-tyrosine (FMT) PET, tau and beta-amyloid pathology measured with [18F]Flortaucipir and [11C]Pittsburgh compound B PET respectively, and memory in cognitively normal older adults (n=49, mean age=77). Higher LC [18F]FMT net tracer influx (Ki) was related to lower [18F]Flortaucipir SUVR in individuals with greater beta-amyloid burden (r=-.60, p=.04). LC synthesis capacity moderated the effect of tau on memory, with higher LC [18F]FMT Ki associated with preserved memory in subjects with high levels of tau. We next tested relationships between LC-entorhinal cortex functional connectivity measured with 3T resting state fMRI, LC [18F]FMT, and tau in participants with most beta-amyloid. Lower LC [18F]FMT net tracer influx (Ki) was related to higher functional connectivity between LC and anterolateral/transentorhinal cortex (t(44)=-2.09, p=.04), the first EC subregion to accumulate tau. Higher LC-EC functional connectivity was associated with higher temporal lobe [18F]Flortaucipir SUVR (t(39)=2.24, p=.03). These results are consistent with models proposing activity-mediated tau spread. Together, these findings implicate elevated LC synthesis capacity as a factor reducing one's susceptibility to AD pathology and aiding in maintained cognition. Future studies should investigate longitudinal relationships between catecholamine synthesis, functional connectivity, and AD pathology to better understand the influence of the LC-catecholamine system on aging trajectories. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB103 - Associations between catecholamine synthesis, Alzheimer's pathology, cognition, and locus coeruleus-entorhinal functionaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 104 | Kelsey L. Canada, Wayne State University | Roya Homayouni, Wayne State University; Qijing Yu, Wayne State University; Da'Jonae Foster, Wayne State University; Ana M. Daugherty, Wayne State University; Noa Ofen, Wayne State University | Hippocampal subfield volumes are differentially susceptible to household socioeconomic status during development | The hippocampus is composed of cytoarchitecturally-distinct subfields that support specific memory functions. Variations in total hippocampal volume across development have been linked to socioeconomic status (SES), a proxy for access to material resources, medical care, and quality education in one's environment. Low childhood household SES is associated with worse cognitive abilities in adulthood. Currently, it is not known whether household SES differentially impacts specific hippocampal subfields. Differential vulnerability of hippocampal subfields to variations in household SES across development was assessed in 157 (78 female) typically developing 5- to 25-year-olds. Bilateral Subiculum, CA1-2, and DG/CA3 volumes were derived manually using the protocol described in Homayouni et al. 2021. Raw volumes were adjusted for intracranial volume and age via analysis of covariance. Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation was used to estimate a composite household SES measure (paternal education, maternal education, and income-to-needs ratio). Across participants, household SES related to variations in CA1-2 (b=-22.59, p<.01) and DG/CA3 (b=-19.16, p=.02) volumes, accounting for age-related variations in hippocampal subfield volumes. Household SES did not predict individual variation in Subiculum volumes across development (p=.20). In a set of exploratory analyses, developmental specificity of these effects was examined. Household SES related to variations in DG/CA3 volume (b=-29.26, p<.05) in childhood (n= 68, 5-12 years) and CA1-2 (b=-23.25, p=.04) and DG/CA3 (b=-29.20, p=.03) volumes in adolescence (n=60, 13-17 years), but not adulthood (ps>.40). These data support the notion that hippocampal subfields show unique sensitivity to the effects of socioeconomic disparities over development, likely impacting specific cognitive functions. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB104 - Hippocampal subfield volumes are differentially susceptible to household socioeconomic status during developmentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 105 | Hillary Schwarb, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Aaron T Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Alexander M Cerjanic, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Nathanial Bouton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Grace M Clements, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Matthew DJ McGarry, Dartmouth University; Tracey M Wszalek, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Monica Fabiani, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Gabriele Gratton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Curtis L Johnson, University of Delaware; Bradley P Sutton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Neal J Cohen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Additive Value of Magnetic Resonance Elastography for Characterizing Structure-Function Relationships in Memory | It is well understood that aging is accompanied by characteristic declines in certain aspects of cognition as well as structural integrity of the brain. Structural integrity has typically been inferred from measures of brain volume and cortical thickness; however, these provide a gross measure of structural integrity that cannot account for smaller-scale changes that may be contributing to diminished cognitive outcomes. Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is an emerging tool for assessing the mechanical properties of biological tissue providing information about the microstructural health of the tissue. Here we assess the added value of including MRE-derived measures of structural integrity to characterize structure-function relationships in both working and relational memory. In Experiment 1, 50 participants (ages 18-79) completed the Operation Span Task as well as MRI/MRE imaging. Stepwise hierarchical regression assessed whether including MRE-derived measures of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) structural integrity explained additional variance in performance after accounting for age, sex, and cortical thickness. Data indicated that adding cortical thickness to the model did explain additional variance above age and sex alone; however, significantly more variance was explained after adding MRE-derived stiffness. In Experiment 2 (in progress; ages 45-85), the relationship between hippocampal-structure and Spatial Reconstruction Task performance was investigated. Preliminary data indicate that adding MRE-derived measures of hippocampal integrity to the model explained significantly more variance than age, sex, and volume alone. Together these data suggest that compared to standard structural measures, MRE measures provide additional explanatory power when investigating the impact of tissue integrity on cognitive performance. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB105 - Additive Value of Magnetic Resonance Elastography for Characterizing Structure-Function Relationships in MemoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 106 | Tory Worth, Duke University | Erin Welch, Duke University; Tuila Felinto, Duke University | Memory Training Using Autobiographical Stimuli Improves Fluid Cognition in Older Adults | Our study investigated the use of photos from life-logging cameras as stimuli for measuring and training autobiographical memory. One of our aims, explored here, is to determine whether such memory training can result in improvements in overall cognitive performance. Older adults (n = 30, 21 females) between 55 and 85 years old participated in three in-person lab visits separated by periods of at-home data collection and training. Participants were issued cameras to use in their daily lives, in conjunction with memory tasks. There were three experimental conditions: Autobiographical Memory (AM), List Memory (LM), and control. We administered the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery before and after memory training to capture changes in cognitive performance. Each condition had a different memory training task. The AM group performed an autobiographical memory task using images collected from their cameras. As a partial control condition, to ensure that performance differences between AM and control groups are not simply a result of concerted effort on a memory task, those in the LM group performed a memory task that featured non-autobiographical scene images. The control group performed a matching vocabulary task. Our preliminary findings show that the AM group significantly improved in their Fluid Cognition sub-scores on the NIH cognitive battery. Post-hoc analyses demonstrate that this improvement was significantly different from our control and partial control (LM) groups. Typically crystallized rather than fluid cognition is preserved in older adults, so our results allow us to make inferences about personal stimulus relevance as a determinant of cognitive performance. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB106 - Memory Training Using Autobiographical Stimuli Improves Fluid Cognition in Older AdultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 108 | Emma Rodrigues, Simon Fraser University | Abdoul Jalil Mahamadou, Universitaire des CÈzeaux; Violaine Antoine, Universitaire des CÈzeaux; Sylvain Moreno, Simon Fraser University | Profiling the healthy aging population: a machine learning approach | Differences in individual cognition in similar environmental contexts is a topic of considerable interest in the aging field. Previously, we investigated the relationship between cognition and lifestyle factors in older adults and identified two subgroups of the population: those who were environment-sensitive and those environment-resistant. A potential limitation of the method used ? ordinal logistic regression (OLR) ? is the single model design of the approach. This may have restricted our understanding of the different cognitive categories (CC). These CC refer to the measure of cognitive health - a variable with 5 ordinally- and equally-distributed groups. While OLR is a suitable approach to model ordinal data, machine learning methods may complement the prior analysis by providing a detailed description of each CC. Hence, our work aims to investigate: 1) the relationship between lifestyle factors and cognitive health; 2) if the subgroups identified in the older adult population can be captured by a machine learning model; 3) if the pattern associated to each subgroup is similar to the one previously obtained. To do so, we paired a stratification method with a generalized additive model: The Explainable Boosting Machine (EBM) algorithm on a sample of 3530 healthy older adults (>60y.o.). Results suggest that the lowest and highest CC appeared to be environment-sensitive, while category 3 is environment-resistant. The discovery of an environment-resistant portion of the human population has the potential to open new avenues of research on how we should study human cognition across the lifespan and its relationship with the environment. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB108 - Profiling the healthy aging population: a machine learning approachDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 109 | Tammy Tran, Stanford University | Kevin Madore, Stanford University; Shaw Hsu, Stanford University; Anthony Wagner, Stanford University | Lapses in Attention Predict Memory Variability in Young and Older Adults | Although aging is often associated with a decline in memory function, there are some individuals who retain memory function and some who show a decline. What factors explain why some older adults remember better than others? One set of processes that could contribute to episodic memory differences in aging is diminished attention processes that lead to memory decline. To address these questions, we investigated how individual differences in a sustained attention task (e.g. gradCPT) relate to memory performance for associative premise pairs (AB, BC) and associative inference / memory integration pairs (AC). Data were collected from a total of 74 young adults (M = 26.9 yrs, SD = 4.6) and 72 older adults (68.7 yrs, SD = 4.2). We computed two assays of lapsing from the gradCPT ?? (a) commission error rate on infrequent 'no go' trials and (b) reaction time (RT) variability for responses on 'go' frequent trials using a coefficient of variance metric. Analyses revealed that older adults demonstrated significantly lower memory for premise pairs and on inference/integration trials. On the gradCPT, the younger and older groups did not significantly differ in (a) commission errors or (b) RT variability. Linear regression models indicated that, as in younger adults, there were significant negative relationships between both commission error and RT variability and both premise pair and inference trial memory in older adults. These findings suggest that, while attention does not explain age-related differences in memory, individual differences in attention partially explain why some older adults remember better than others. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB109 - Lapses in Attention Predict Memory Variability in Young and Older AdultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 110 | Audrey Wong-Kee-You, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute | Haydée GarcÌa-L·zaro, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute; Santani Teng, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute | Decoding spatial and temporal order representations during explicit visual sequence learning in development | Memories of lived experiences involve not only the content, but also the spatiotemporal context: the location and time or temporal order (e.g., Healy et al., 1991). In development, relatively little is known about how spatial and temporal representations unfold during encoding. To this end, in the present study, we adopt a multivariate pattern classification analysis approach to decode electroencephalographic (EEG) signals recorded in children (9 to 10 years), adolescents (14 to 16 years) and adults (18+ years) while they memorized a fixed spatiotemporal sequence of circles flashing at distinct spatial locations on a monitor over 5 learning blocks. After each learning block, participants were asked to recall the spatiotemporal order of the sequence positions by mouse click. Collapsed across learning blocks, pairwise classification accuracy of spatial and temporal order positions was assessed at each timepoint of the EEG response -200 to 1000 ms relative to stimulus onset. Recall accuracy improved across learning blocks with no age group differences in performance. Pairwise classification accuracy for spatial and temporal order positions rose above chance post-stimulus onset in all age groups. However, for the classification of spatial positions, later and higher decoding was observed in adults compared to the younger age groups. Higher-latency and lower peak accuracy was also found in children for the classification of temporal order positions. Our results show that although memory for simple visual spatiotemporal sequences appears relatively adult-like early in development, how spatial and temporal information are represented during encoding may differ across development. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB110 - Decoding spatial and temporal order representations during explicit visual sequence learning in developmentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 111 | Prerna Dash, University of Delhi | Effect of Agenesis and damage of Corpus Callosum on Visual Memory | Earlier studies suggested that damage to the right hemisphere leads to cognitive impairment in spatial working memory, but recent studies show that the right hemisphere is not required for visual priming as evaluated on fragment completion or stem completion tasks with a single potential completion. The lack of specialized emotional processing in the Left Hemisphere may explain why the influences of Right Hemisphere presentation on memory for visual specificity conversed with emotion but not the effects of Left Hemisphere presentation on memory for comprehension information. According to the current study, the discrepancies were influenced by different retrieval tasks used. Specifically, the right hemisphere isn't required for visual priming as analyzed by fragment completion or stem completion tasks with a single possible completion. Damage to the right hemisphere, on the other hand, disrupts visual priming for word stems with multiple completions. This is a literature review that focuses on effect damage to the right hemisphere and its role in disruption of visual priming for word stems with multiple completions. In the absence of the anterior sections of the corpus callosum, visual working memory continues to remain unified. This indicates that visual working memory is not housed in the frontal cortex and/or is not unified via direct callosal connections between the frontal cortices. Keywords: Visual Memory, Corpus Callosum, Right Brain Damage, Spatial working memory, Callosal connections | OTHER | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB111 - Effect of Agenesis and damage of Corpus Callosum on Visual MemoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details | |
| B | 112 | Francesca Carota, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics & Donders Centre | Jan-Mathijs Schoffelen, Donders Institute for Cognitive Neuroimaging, RU; Robert Oostenveld, Donders Institute for Cognitive Neuroimaging; Peter Indefrey, Heinrich Heine University | Cascading neural events in language production: neuromagnetic evidence | Language production involves a complex set of computations, from conceptualisation to articulation, is thought to result from cascading neural events in the language network. However, recent neuromagnetic evidence suggests simultaneous meaning-to-speech mapping in picture naming tasks, as indexed by early parallel activation of fronto-temporal regions to lexical semantic, phonological and articulatory information. Here we asked to what extent such 'earliness' is a replicable property of the spatiotemporal dynamics of word production. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to record the neural responses elicited by overt naming (134 object images from 4 conceptual categories: animals, foods, tools, clothes). Within each semantic category, we co-varied word length (number of syllables in a word), and phonological neighbourhood density to target syllabification and phonetic encoding, respectively. Sensor space multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), locked to stimulus onset, distinguished the response to conceptual categories early on, from 150 ms after stimulus onset. Word length was decoded in left frontotemporal sensors around 200 ms later, followed by the latency of phonological neighbourhood density around 450ms post picture onset. Our results suggest a progression of neural activity from posterior to anterior language regions for the semantic and phonological/phonetic computations preparing overt speech, thus supporting serial cascading models of word production. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB112 - Cascading neural events in language production: neuromagnetic evidenceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 113 | Erin Maresh, University of Arizona | Andrea Coppola, University of Arizona; David Sbarra, University of Arizona; Jessica Andrews-Hanna, University of Arizona | Neural circuitry of empathy during incongruent affective states between the self and a romantic partner | Empathy is central to maintaining meaningful relationships. However, empathizing, even with a close partner, can sometimes be challenging, such as when an individual is experiencing an emotional state in conflict with their partner's. To date, little is known about the impact of affective incongruence between an individual and close partner on brain activity in empathy-related networks. To address this, we recruited 25 couples (N=50 total participants) in long-term romantic relationships to complete a novel fMRI task. In this task, participants viewed trials of social feedback purportedly made by other participants indicating acceptance or rejection of one or both members of the couple. Trials displayed acceptance/rejection feedback directed at either the self only, the partner only, or both the self and partner simultaneously. Viewing partner-only rejection elicited robust activity in regions associated with cognitive and affective empathy (e.g., dmPFC, vmPFC, PCC/precuneus, TPJ, ACC, insula). Viewing trials showing simultaneous partner rejection and self acceptance elicited overlapping but much more limited activity across empathy-related regions. In both conditions, self-reported trial-level negative affect positively covaried with greater activity in a subset of empathy regions. These findings suggest that experiencing incongruent emotions with a partner may limit activity in empathy-related brain regions. Additional analyses will examine individual differences in empathy-related brain activity during affective incongruence due to relationship and personality factors. | EMOTION & SOCIAL: Person perception | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB113 - Neural circuitry of empathy during incongruent affective states between the self and a romantic partnerDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 114 | Jin Wang, Vanderbilt University | Marc Joanisse, Western University; James Booth, Vanderbilt University | The reciprocal relation between reading skill and automatic orthographic activation during an auditory task | It is often assumed that phonological awareness only reflects children's phonological skill. However, automatic orthographic activation has been found during auditory tasks. Although previous longitudinal neural studies (i.e., Wang, Joanisse, & Booth, 2020; Wang et al., 2021) have addressed how phonological processing during auditory tasks is bidirectionally related to reading skill in developing children, we do not know how automatic orthographic activation plays a role. To address this gap, we measured children's reading skill and brain activity during an auditory phonological task at two time points in 40 younger (6-7.5 years) and 61 older children (7.5-9 years) using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found that in the younger cohort, earlier reading skill predicted their later functional connectivity during onset processing between the left superior temporal gyrus, a phonological region, and the left posterior ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT), an orthographic region representing letters. This finding suggests a sculpting effect in that learning to read strengthens the automatic mapping between phonemes and letters during auditory processing. In addition, we found that earlier brain activation for rhyme processing in the left anterior vOT predicted later reading skill, indicating a scaffolding effect in that automatic activation of large grain sizes in young children aids subsequent reading acquisition. We did not observe either scaffolding or sculpting effects in the older cohort. Overall, this study suggests a bidirectional relation between the engagement of the vOT and reading skill in young children. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB114 - The reciprocal relation between reading skill and automatic orthographic activation during an auditory taskDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 116 | Sanya Ahmed, SUNY Downstate College of Medicine | William Lytton, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University; Howard Crystal, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University | Computational Models of Age-Associated Cognitive Slowing | Objective: _x000D__x000D_ To explore multiple mechanisms of cognitive slowing using computational modeling of cortex to link neuronal activity with cognitive content. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Background: _x000D__x000D_ Cognitive slowing accompanies normal aging yet understanding is limited at the network and neuronal level. Age-related cognitive decline is characterized by an increase in reaction time (RT) to new stimuli. Stroop recognition task RT is one cognitive task which correlates with a degree of cognitive decline. Relating cognitive slowing to pathophysiological factors responsible for slowing requires multiscale computer modeling. Our models evaluate hypotheses about slowing and suggest therapies for severe slowing seen in dementia. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Design/Methods: _x000D__x000D_ We developed a simulation of Condition 1 of the Stroop recognition task using the Nengo system, a cognitive simulation environment. Nengo's semantic pointer architecture was specifically developed to model cognitive tasks using spiking neuronal networks. We explored the effects of multiple factors on RT: conduction velocity, axonal loss, ablation, feedback, input noise, and neuronal noise. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Results: _x000D__x000D_ Axonal loss and increased input noise produced the most profound slowing: 160 ms baseline to 498 ms, 450 ms respectively. Increased feedback within modules caused less slowing: 281 ms. Increased neuronal noise or conduction velocity produced no significant changes (< 30 ms). Neuronal ablation reduced memory duration which paradoxically produced a small (22 ms) RT decrease via the ability to respond more quickly by 'releasing' a prior memory. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Conclusions: _x000D__x000D_ Our simulations suggest that significant slowing could be caused by white matter loss (axonal loss) and vision loss (input signal degradation), rather than by neuronal loss or other factors. | PERCEPTION & ACTION: Vision | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB116 - Computational Models of Age-Associated Cognitive SlowingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 117 | Graham Flick, New York University | Liina Pylkkänen, New York University | A co-registered magnetoencephalography and eye-tracking study of natural reading | During reading, eye movements are influenced by the linguistic and cognitive demands of what is being read, indicating that the brain networks controlling eye movements, and those controlling the recognition and integration of individual words, must cooperate. Historically, neuroscientific studies of reading have tended to present stimuli in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), eliminating eye movements. This makes it unclear whether neurocognitive accounts of reading, when informed by RSVP studies, generalize to the natural behaviour of interest. Co-registered eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG), or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), studies have begun to address this issue, but each suffers from a weakness in spatial (EEG) or temporal (fMRI) resolution. Magnetoencephalography (MEG), when source estimation is informed by structural MRIs, is a promising alternative, with high temporal and relatively high spatial resolution to characterize neural activity during reading. In this work, currently in progress, we are using co-registered MEG and eye-tracking to examine natural reading and reading via RSVP. Participants complete (1) a localizer to isolate stages of visual word recognition in occipitotemporal cortex; (2) a factorial design manipulating frequency and predictability of words within 432 sentences, read naturally and in RSVP; and (3) a story-reading task consisting of short stories, presented one paragraph at a time, read naturally. By analyzing source-localized MEG responses, we are characterizing top-down (predictability) and bottom-up (frequency) influences in the visual word recognition pathway during natural reading with eye movements, and comparing the neural correlates of these influences to those observed in reading via RSVP. | LANGUAGE: Lexicon | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB117 - A co-registered magnetoencephalography and eye-tracking study of natural readingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 118 | jiaqiu sun, New York University, Shanghai | ziqing wang, East China Normal University; xing tian, NYU Shanghai | Manual Gestures Modulate Early Neural Responses in Loudness Perception | How different sensory modalities interact to shape perception is a fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience. Previous studies in audiovisual interaction have focused on abstract levels such as categorical representation (e.g., McGurk effect). It is unclear whether the cross-modal modulation can extend to low-level perceptual attributes. This study used motional manual gestures to test whether and how the loudness perception can be modulated by visual-motion information. Specifically, we implemented a novel paradigm in which participants compared the loudness of two consecutive sounds whose intensity changes around the just noticeable difference (JND), with manual gestures concurrently presented with the second sound. In two behavioral experiments and two EEG experiments, we investigated our hypothesis that the visual-motor information in gestures would modulate loudness perception. Behavioral results showed that the gestural information biased the judgment of loudness. More importantly, the EEG results demonstrated that early auditory responses around 100 ms after sound onset (N100) were modulated by the gestures. These consistent results in four behavioral and EEG experiments suggest that visual-motor processing can integrate with auditory processing at an early perceptual stage to shape the perception of a low-level perceptual attribute such as loudness, at least under challenging listening conditions. | PERCEPTION & ACTION: Multisensory | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB118 - Manual Gestures Modulate Early Neural Responses in Loudness PerceptionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 119 | John Nadra, University of California, Davis | Jesse Bengson, Center for Mind and Brain; Mingzhou Ding, University of Florida | Neural Mechanisms of Willed Attention in Overt Visual Search | In real world vision, attention can be guided by top-down (voluntary) or bottom-up (involuntary) influences, with (overt) or without (covert) concomitant eye movements. Cognitive neuroscience studies of covert attention have predominantly investigated top-down attention using attention-directing cues, although self-generated shifts of spatial attention (willed attention) have also been studied (e.g., Bengson et al., 2014). Studies of the precursor brain activity during willed attention have focused on signals that preceded shifts of covert spatial attention, but not other forms of attention. In an overt attention visual search paradigm, we assessed whether the direction of a first saccade after held fixation can be predicted by the pattern of brain electrical activity in the period prior to the onset of the search array and first saccade. The stimuli and task were designed so that the subjects could neither predict the timing of search array onset, nor was covert spatial attention sufficient to find the target in the array. Using support vector machine decoding of EEG alpha (8-12 Hz) oscillations in the foreperiod, we found that the scalp EEG pattern predicted the direction of the first saccade as early as 1400 milliseconds before the onset of the search array. The timing and pattern of the predictive EEG signals differed, however, from that found previously during covert willed attention. | ATTENTION: Spatial | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB119 - Neural Mechanisms of Willed Attention in Overt Visual SearchDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 120 | Wenkang An, Boston Children's Hospital | Megan Hartney, Boston Children's Hospital; Carol Wilkinson, Boston Children's Hospital | Neural response to repeated auditory stimuli is associated with language development in Fragile X syndrome | Background: _x000D__x000D_ Fragile X syndrome (FXS) causes symptoms like atypical sensory processing and impaired habituation, possibly through a mechanism of synaptic hyperexcitability in neural systems, a result suggested by previous animal studies. Here, we examine the neural habituation in children with FXS through their auditory evoked response and reveal how sensory hypersensitivity impacts early language development. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Methods: _x000D__x000D_ We designed an auditory oddball paradigm with repeated standard and deviant tones. Electroencephalography (EEG) were collected from 12 boys with FXS and 11 age-matched, typically developing (TD) boys. A spatial principal component (PC) analysis identified two major components that clustered near temporal and frontal regions, respectively. For each PC, we analyzed the P1 response evoked by the first ('1st') and the fifth ('5th') standard stimulus following each deviant, and their corresponding inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC). Regression models were built to explore the relationship between EEG measures and language scores. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Results: _x000D__x000D_ We observed greater P1 responses in FXS than in TD at the temporal PC, which might be caused by cortical hyperexcitability near the auditory region. Sensory habituation in ITPC, measured by its difference between '1st' and '5th', was only significant in TD. Regression analysis revealed that amplitude of frontal P1 was strongly and negatively associated with language scores, only in FXS. _x000D__x000D_ _x000D__x000D_ Conclusions: _x000D__x000D_ The FXS group exhibits stronger neural responses and less sensory habituation compared to TD. The negative association between EEG measures and language scores in FXS supports the hypothesis that excessive sensory sensitivity may interfere with auditory perception, and therefore hinders language learning. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB120 - Neural response to repeated auditory stimuli is associated with language development in Fragile X syndromeDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 121 | Andrea Gajardo-Vidal, University of California San Francisco | Diego Lorca-Puls, University of California San Francisco; Maria Luisa Mandelli, University of California San Francisco; Rian Bogley, University of California San Francisco; Bruce Miller, University of California San Francisco; Nina Dronkers, University of California, Berkeley; Joel Kramer, University of California San Francisco; Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini, University of California San Francisco | Left prefrontal regions mediate the influence of executive functioning on sentence comprehension and production in prima | Functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that many language tasks involve an interaction between language and executive control regions of the brain in healthy controls, and that enhanced activity in executive control networks can support language recovery in stroke patients. Furthermore, neuropsychological studies have shown that executive control contributes to performance on language tasks that pose high cognitive demands. This observed relationship suggests that variability in performance on language tasks across patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA, a neurodegenerative syndrome) is unlikely to be explained by linguistic ability alone. Here, we investigated whether executive functioning (EF) influences performance on language tasks and their neural substrates in a large cohort of 196 PPA patients. First, we found a significant, positive relationship between EF and performance on two of the most demanding language tasks: sentence comprehension (SC) and production (SP). Second, we identified two clusters located within the left middle frontal gyrus and left superior frontal gyrus that mediate this relationship. Third, resting-state fMRI data of healthy controls (n = 132) showed that these two regions are part of the fronto-parietal executive-control network. Finally, longitudinal data (n = 83) revealed that SC and SP performance was significantly better and declined significantly less over time in those patients with better than worse EF. Therefore, we conclude that EF supports language performance in PPA, primarily through two left dorsolateral prefrontal regions that are part of the fronto-parietal executive-control network. Our findings also indicate that EF might play a compensatory role as language abilities decline. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB121 - Left prefrontal regions mediate the influence of executive functioning on sentence comprehension and production in primaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| B | 122 | Diego Lorca-Puls, University of California San Francisco | Andrea Gajardo-Vidal, University of California San Francisco; Maria Luisa Mandelli, University of California San Francisco; Abigail Licata, University of California San Francisco; PLORAS Team, University College London; Thomas Hope, University College London; Alexander Leff, University College London; David Green, University College London; Nina Dronkers, University of California Berkeley; Cathy Price, University College London; Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini, University of California San Francisco | Univariate and multivariate mapping of the brain regions involved in word retrieval across stroke and neurodegeneration | The ability to retrieve a word one wants to say is a fundamental human skill that frequently breaks down after brain damage. Here, we sought to uncover the brain regions that are persistently necessary for successful word retrieval. Although many prior lesion studies have investigated its neural substrates, the validity of published findings has been called into question. This is because damage is not randomly distributed across the brain, creating a systematic spatial bias that affects the accuracy with which lesion-deficit mapping methods can localize critical lesion sites. Specifically, simulation studies have shown that lesion-deficit mapping techniques virtually always detect parts of the brain that are critical for the cognitive function under examination together with other irrelevant regions. To overcome such a limitation, we focused on two etiologies: stroke and neurodegeneration, under the assumption that each induces a spatial bias that is orthogonal to that of the other. Our task of interest was object naming, and we covaried out variance unrelated to word retrieval ability when performing equivalent voxel-based lesion-deficit analyses on two large cohorts of patients with stroke (N = 587) and neurodegenerative diseases (N = 205). Irrespective of analysis type (univariate versus multivariate) and etiology (stroke versus neurodegeneration), our lesion-deficit mapping approach identified a common region in the left mid-to-anterior superior temporal sulcus/middle temporal gyrus and underlying white matter. Our findings suggest that the entirety of this region is important for word retrieval, adding to the existing body of knowledge on the functional neuroanatomy of this language ability. | LANGUAGE: Other | 04/24/2022 8:00 AM04/24/2022 10:00 AMAmerica/Los_AngelesB122 - Univariate and multivariate mapping of the brain regions involved in word retrieval across stroke and neurodegenerationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 1 | Markus Kemper, German Institute of Hearing Aids, Lübeck, Germany | Hendrik Husstedt, German Institute of Hearing Aids; Jonas Obleser, Universität zu Lübeck | Dissecting invested versus experienced listening effort in behavioural, peripheral, and electrophysiological measures | Recent investigations on listening effort (LE) tried to model different sub-aspects and mainly differentiate between the recruitment of cognitive resources (invested effort) and the subjective magnitude of effort being spent on a task (experienced effort). Moreover, to put effort into a task, a degree of motivation is needed, which can be affected by performance feedback. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of task difficulty and (false) performance feedback on two physiological measures of invested effort (electroencephalography and pupil size) and a subjective measure of experienced effort (four-level rating scale). Additionally, we wanted to identify differences between electroencephalography and pupil size as measures of invested effort. In a fully crossed design, N=39 normal-hearing volunteers underwent a pitch-discrimination task at two levels of task difficulty (easy vs. hard) and feedback (matching vs. mismatching with task difficulty). An adaptive, weighted up-down-procedure kept performance at the two intended difficulty levels. In keeping with the feedback manipulation, participants intermittently received performance feedback and rated their momentarily experienced effort. Experienced effort increased with both, higher task difficulty and poor performance feedback. Occipito-parietal alpha power and pupil size increased significantly with higher task demand. Poor performance feedback led to significantly higher alpha power, indicating an effort investment as compensatory action. Pupil size was not affected by performance feedback. These findings suggest that measuring only self-reports of experienced effort may introduce confounds from listeners' perception of their own performance. Instead, alpha power and pupil size allow us to capture segregable dimensions of effort investment. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC1 - Dissecting invested versus experienced listening effort in behavioural, peripheral, and electrophysiological measuresDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 2 | Troby Ka-Yan Lui, University of Lübeck, | Jonas Obleser, Universität zu Lübeck; Malte Wöstmann, Universität zu Lübeck | Endogenous fluctuations of distractibility reflect in neural phase | Human environments comprise a plethora of sensory information. While it has been shown that rhythmic neural activity shapes attentional sampling of target stimuli, it is unclear which temporal dynamics underlie the suppression of distraction. Here, we investigated the temporal structure of distractibility by probing the correspondence between its neural and behavioural manifestations. Participants (N = 30) identified whether a delayed probe tone matched a previously encoded target tone in a pitch comparison task. A 25-Hz modulated distracting tone sequence was presented at varying onset times during the delay period. Distractibility was reflected behaviourally in pitch discrimination performance (perceptual sensitivity) and neurally in the amplitude of the 25-Hz distractor-evoked response. Linear mixed-effect models with sine- and cosine-transformed distractor onset time as predictors revealed that distractor onset co-modulated neural and behavioural responses to distraction at 3.5-5 Hz. Critically, pre-distractor neural phase in the same frequency band in left inferior frontal cortical regions predicted the extent of distractor interference. These findings suggest that rhythmic neural activity underlies fluctuations in distractibility. To furthermore test whether distractibility synchronizes with rhythmic sensory input, we conducted a series of behavioural follow-up experiments (total N = 90) with temporally regular versus irregular distractor streams in the delay period of different working memory tasks. Temporal regularity of distractor streams did not influence memory performance. In conclusion, vulnerability to distraction is here shown to be endogenously rhythmic but it does not sync to exogenous sensory input, which is consistent with the view that neural synchronization to sensory input requires attention. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC2 - Endogenous fluctuations of distractibility reflect in neural phaseDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 3 | Arnd Meiser, University of Oldenburg | Martin Bleichner, University of Oldenburg | Ear-EEG compares well to cap-EEG in recording auditory ERPs: a quantification of signal loss | Ear-EEG (Electroencephalography) allows to record brain activity using only a few electrodes located close to the ear. Ear-EEG is comfortable and easy to apply, facilitating beyond-the-lab EEG recordings in everyday life. The unobtrusive setup allows for unhindered EEG recordings in social situations. However, compared to classical cap-EEG, only small parts of the head are covered with electrodes. Most scalp positions known from established EEG research are not covered by ear-EEG electrodes, making the comparison between the two approaches difficult and might hinder the transition from cap-based lab studies to ear-based beyond-the-lab studies. We here provide a reference data-set comparing ear-EEG and cap-EEG directly for four auditory event-related potentials (ERPs): N100, MMN, P300 and N400. We show how ERPs are reflected when using only electrodes around the ears. We find that significant condition differences for all ERP-components were recorded using only ear-electrodes. The effect sizes were moderate to high on the single subject level. Morphology and temporal evolution of signals recorded from around-the-ear resemble highly those from standard scalp-EEG. We found a reduction in effect size (signal loss) for ear-EEG electrodes compared to cap-EEG of 21-44%. The amount of signal loss depended on the ERP-component; we observed the lowest percentage signal loss for the N400 and the highest for the N100. Our analysis further shows that no single channel position around the ear is optimal for recording all ERP-components or all participants, speaking in favor of multi-channel ear-EEG solutions. Our study provides reference results for future studies employing ear-EEG. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC3 - Ear-EEG compares well to cap-EEG in recording auditory ERPs: a quantification of signal lossDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 4 | Martin Orf, University of lübeck | Ronny Hannemann, Audiological Research Unit; Malte Wöstmann, Universität zu Lübeck; Jonas Obleser, Universität zu Lübeck | Does neural tracking of continuous speech indicate active distractor suppression? | A listener's ability to deal with challenging multi-talker situations hinges on their attentional resources. While the neural implementation of target enhancement is comparably well understood, processes that enable distractor suppression are less clear. Typically, attentional selection is quantified by the difference of the behavioural or neural response to distractors versus targets. However, such a difference can be driven by either target enhancement, distractor suppression, or a combination of the two. Here, we designed a continuous speech paradigm to differentiate target enhancement from active distractor suppression. In an electroencephalography (EEG) study, participants (N = 19) had to detect short repeats in the to-be-attend stream (target) and to ignore them in the two other speech streams. The distractor stream was task-relevant in the previous trial and was task-irrelevant in the present trial. The neutral stream was always task-irrelevant. We used phase-locking of the EEG signal to speech envelopes to investigate neural tracking via the temporal response function of the brain. Sensitivity of behavioural responses according to Signal Detection Theory revealed that the internal separation for target versus neutral speech was larger than for target versus distractor speech. Neurally, the target stream elicited a significantly enhanced tracking response compared to neutral and distractor stream. Unexpectedly, neural tracking did not reveal sizeable differences for neutral versus distractor stream. In sum, the present results show that the cognitive system processes distractor speech differently from neutral speech. However, this is not accompanied by active distractor suppression in the neural speech tracking response. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC4 - Does neural tracking of continuous speech indicate active distractor suppression?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 5 | Cheol Soh, University of Iowa | Jan Wessel, University of Iowa | Single-trial EEG analyses reveal common neural source activity during the suppression of auditory attention and action | Previous work has shown that the cross-modal interruption of visual selective attention by auditory surprising events is related to neural activity from independent neural signal components that also index successful inhibition in motoric action-stopping tasks (Soh & Wessel, 2021). This suggests that the brain's inhibitory control system may extend past the motor system to the inhibition of attentional representations. Here, we aimed to extend this work to the interruption of auditory selective attention by tactile surprising events. In a cross-modal distraction task, we binaurally presented amplitude-modulated sounds with two different modulation rates. Participants selectively attended to the spatially-cued auditory stream to detect a transient target. On a subset of trials, the response device unexpectedly vibrated during this attentional maintenance period. First, we found that the neural representation of ongoing auditory selective attention (the auditory steady-state response, ASSR) was broadly suppressed after unexpected tactile stimuli. Second, participants also performed a stop-signal task, which served to identify an independent signal component that indexed successful action-stopping. We found that activity of this independent component scaled with the degree of Bayesian surprise by the tactile stimulus in the cross-modal distraction task, as well as the suppression of the ASSR. This shows that the relationship between neural activity related to motor inhibition and attentional inhibition extends beyond audio-visual distraction and further corroborates the idea that there may be a universal system for the inhibition of multi-modal sensory and motoric representations. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC5 - Single-trial EEG analyses reveal common neural source activity during the suppression of auditory attention and actionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 6 | Kelsey Mankel, University of California, Davis | Daniel Comstock, University of California, Davis; Karim Abou Najm, University of California, Davis; Brett Bormann, University of California, Davis; Doron Sagiv, University of California, Davis; Hilary Brodie, University of California, Davis; Lee M. Miller, University of California, Davis | Role of auditory, neural, and cognitive factors in detecting hidden hearing loss on a novel speech comprehension task | Current standards of clinical practice often fail to explain why certain listeners struggle to understand speech in noisy environments despite otherwise 'normal' hearing. In addition to acoustic integrity of the signal, successful real-world speech comprehension depends on the interaction of auditory, neural, and cognitive factors. Our current work leverages behavioral, audiological, and electrophysiological assessment of these factors in combination with machine learning techniques to characterize neurobehavioral profiles that distinguish good versus poor listeners. EEG and eye-tracking are recorded simultaneously while listeners track short story narratives during a novel, dynamic spatial attention switching task. The stimulus acoustics are engineered using 'chirped speech', a blend of synthetic frequency sweep chirps and continuous speech, to rapidly assess auditory system function from brainstem to cortex. Participants are evaluated on several aspects of listening performance including narrative comprehension, embedded target word identification, ignoring competing talkers, fatigue, and perception of temporally degraded speech signals. Preliminary data reveal sensitivity to individual differences across multiple metrics on the speech task in healthy-hearing adult listeners. We predict that the combined analysis of behavioral, pupillometric, and neural responses-in addition to demographic (e.g., noise exposure history), cognitive (e.g., executive functions), and audiologic information-will yield a far more granular characterization of speech-in-noise comprehension ability than existing clinical methods. By elucidating the relative contributions of cognitive, auditory, and neural factors to individual speech comprehension performance on a naturalistic, complex listening task, these results lay the foundation for better identification and treatment of hearing profiles that signal current-or future-'hidden' hearing difficulties. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC6 - Role of auditory, neural, and cognitive factors in detecting hidden hearing loss on a novel speech comprehension taskDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 7 | Ashley Symons, Birkbeck, University of London; University College London | Fred Dick, Birkbeck, University of London; University College London; Adam Tierney, Birkbeck, University of London | Dimension-selective attention to verbal and non-verbal sound streams | Some theories of auditory categorization predict that category-diagnostic auditory dimensions become more salient, and moreover that such dimensional salience is context-dependent. However, there is relatively little neuroscientific evidence for such predictions, nor how they might interact with overt attention to different auditory dimensions. Here, we establish an electrophysiological measure of dimensional salience and dimension-selective attention. Listeners heard tone sequences varying along two dimensions, each changing at a different rate. Here, the degree of dimensional salience was assessed by comparing trial blocks with larger versus smaller pitch step sizes. Dimension-selective attention was manipulated by asking listeners to attend to pitch or spectral peak frequency and to monitored for repetitions in the attended dimension. We found cortical tracking of either dimension was enhanced by both dimensional salience and dimension-selective attention. In a follow-up experiment, we investigated differences in dimensional salience between verbal and non-verbal sound streams, this time comparing dimensions based on pitch versus duration differences. Relative duration versus pitch salience was greater in verbal sound streams compared to non-verbal sound streams. These findings suggest that auditory dimensions that are highly useful for categorization within a given domain acquire increased salience. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC7 - Dimension-selective attention to verbal and non-verbal sound streamsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 8 | Haydée G. García Lázaro, The Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute | Yavin Alwis, The Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute; Santani Teng, The Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute | Speech encoding modulated by task-relevance and reverberant acoustic statistics | Speech perception in noisy real-world environments is a scene analysis problem solved by segregating the desired signal from irrelevant acoustic objects, background noise, or other speakers. In reverberant environments, perceptual sensitivity to spectro-temporal regularities of reverberation[1] facilitates perceptual segregation and enables separable neural signatures for sound sources and reverberant spaces [2]. Auditory cortical responses correlate with spectral and temporal properties in the envelope and spectrogram of physical stimuli in single and multi-speaker conditions or noisy environments [3-6]. Here, we test the robustness with which the neural cortical response encodes the spectro-temporal properties of speech as a function of task relevance in several reverberant environments. We used as stimuli unique reverberant sounds consisting of 2-second excerpts of spoken sentences from TIMIT database[7] convolved with impulse responses (IRs) recorded in real-world spaces or synthesized with variant spectro-temporal features[1]. We recorded the EEG signal while participants listened to the same reverberant sounds performing two tasks: i) real versus synthetic reverberant space discrimination (experiment 1), and male versus female speaker gender discrimination (experiment 2). Perception of reverberant spaces (real vs. synthetic, 75%) and speaker gender (female vs. male, 95%) was reliably above chance. Using an encoding-model approach to estimating multivariate temporal response functions (mTRF)[6,8], we measure the fidelity of spectro-temporal feature encoding of anechoic speech samples, although participants only heard the reverberant versions. In this way, we examine and quantify the success of auditory scene segregation as a function of reverberant acoustics and task relevance. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC8 - Speech encoding modulated by task-relevance and reverberant acoustic statisticsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 9 | Lars Hausfeld, Maastricht University | Rosie Coppieters, Maastricht University; Ahmad Jibai, Maastricht University; Lars Riecke, Maastricht University | Investigating the effects of temporal and semantic predictability on the cortical speech-following response | A common element of current theories of speech perception are speech-following responses (speech envelope tracking), the alignment of neural activity to the slow amplitude fluctuations of a speech signal. These responses were shown to depend on acoustic and linguistic speech-signal features as well as cognitive factors. In the present study, we investigate whether cortical speech-following responses depend on the temporal and semantic predictability of the speech input. 23 normally-hearing participants listened to various 30-second passages of continuous natural speech, while their cortical responses to natural speech was measured using scalp electroencephalography (EEG). Predictability was experimentally manipulated by gradually increasing listeners' familiarity with the speech input over time; i.e., each speech passage was presented five times in direct succession. To disentangle effects of semantic and temporal predictability, a control condition allowing temporal, but not semantic, predictability was included (unintelligible noise-vocoded speech carrying the same envelope as the speech). Analysis of EEG responses across repetitions reveals higher similarity (i.e., positive correlations) among repetitions of natural speech than repetitions of vocoded speech. Weaker similarities are observed between repetitions of the same envelope in natural and vocoded form. In addition, higher similarity between consecutive repetitions of natural speech indicates predictive processes which are in line with behavioral responses. These preliminary results suggest that speech intelligibility strongly contributes to the cortical speech following response. In addition, by making use of the repetitions-based design, ongoing analysis investigate EEG signal prediction by multivariate TRFs relative to the performance (noise) ceiling observable in the data. | ATTENTION: Auditory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC9 - Investigating the effects of temporal and semantic predictability on the cortical speech-following responseDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 10 | Emanuele RG Plini, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience | Michael C Melnychuk, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience; Ilja Demuth, Charite, Universitätsmedizin, Berlin; Denis Gerstorf, Humboldt University, Berlin; Johanna Dreweilies, Humboldt University, Berlin; Simone Kühn, Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute; Sandra Düzel, Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute; Ulman Lindenberger, Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute; Gerd Wagner, German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), Berlin; Paul M Dockree, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience | Yearly dietary Tyrosine intake in relationship with Locus Coeruleus volume and neuropsychological measures | It is documented that low protein and amino-acid dietary intake is related to poorer cognitive health and increased risk of dementia [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Degradation of the neuromodulatory pathways, (comprising the cholinergic, dopaminergic, serotoninergic and noradrenergic systems) is observed in neurodegenerative diseases [7,8,9,10,11], and impairs the proper biosynthesis of key neuromodulators from micro-nutrients and aminoacids [12,13]. The Locus Coeruleus-Noradrenergic System (LC-NA) is the earliest structure affected in Alzheimer's disease [7,8,11]. LC-NA system is critical for supporting broad integrative function across brain networks to support attention. This study aimed to: 1)investigate whether the dietary intake of tyrosine, the key precursor for NA, was related to LC integrity and 2)whether LC volume mediates the reported association between tyrosine intake and higher cognitive performance [19,20,21,22,23]. Multiple regression voxel-based morphometry analyses were performed including 398 3T MRIs of healthy subjects from the BASEII study. The relationship between LC volume and yearly tyrosine intake (YTI) was tested. As control procedure, the same analyses were repeated on the serotoninergic, dopaminergic and cholinergic systems. Results showed that YTI was associated with LC volume. Greater YTI in grams was related with greater LC volume. Mediation analyses revealed that only LC volume, relative the other systems, mediated the relationship between YTI and attentional performances. These findings provide the first evidence linking Tyrosine intake with LC-NA system integrity and its intercorrelation with neuropsychological performance. These results provide groundwork for revising and updating future nutritional guidelines for prevention in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseased where LC-NA system is heavily affected. | ATTENTION: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC10 - Yearly dietary Tyrosine intake in relationship with Locus Coeruleus volume and neuropsychological measuresDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 11 | Courtney L Gallen, UCSF | Jessica W Younger, UCSF; Joaquin A Anguera, UCSF; Christa Watson, UCSF; Anna E Levy, UCSF; Jessica N Schachtner, UCSF; Mieke Voges, UCSF; Roger Anguera-Singla, UCSF; Jyoti Mishra, UCSD; Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini, UCSF; Adam Gazzaley, UCSF | Closed-loop digital attention intervention improves attention and reading in students with learning differences | Specific learning differences (SLDs) are prevalent in children and adolescents and have profound impacts on academic success. Standard academic interventions are effective for some students, but not all, perhaps due to the heterogeneity of how SLDs manifest across students. For example, problems with reading can co-exist with attention difficulties (as much as 40%), possibly indicative of a cognitive, attentional mechanism underlying one's reading abilities. Yet, it is unclear whether improving attention can be impactful for those with reading and language difficulties. Here, we examined the efficacy of a custom, closed-loop digital attention video game intervention developed by our center ? Engage. In partnership with a Northern California school specialized in serving children and adolescents with language-based SLDs (including dyslexia), 7th and 8th grade students (N = 28) played Engage in their classrooms on iPads over 7 weeks (approximately 7-11 hours of total game play). Using correlation-based analyses, we found that students who most improved on the Engage video game were those who also showed the most improvements on objective behavioral measures of attention (response time on a continuous performance task) and reading (sentence reading accuracy) following the intervention. These findings demonstrate that a targeted, digital attention intervention can improve domain-general attention skills that leads to downstream effects on reading in those with language-based SLDs. Further, our results suggest a mechanism for which students benefit from such attention interventions, laying the foundation for developing personalized interventions in future work. | ATTENTION: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC11 - Closed-loop digital attention intervention improves attention and reading in students with learning differencesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 12 | Victoria Mundorf, Columbia University | RP Auerbach, Columbia University; SS Ghosh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; A Henin, Massachusetts General Hospital; SG Hofmann, Boston University; DA Pizzagalli, McLean Hospital; A Yendiki, Martino's Center for Biomedical Imaging; S Whitfield-Gabrieli, Northeastern University; JDE Gabrieli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; NA Hubbard, University of Nebraska- Lincoln | Sensory neural network patterns evoked by fearful stimuli are more resistant to attentional modulation across a shared dimension of adolescent anxiety and depression | Depression and anxiety are associated with similar cognitive biases favoring the process of negative emotional information (Klein et al, 2018). Here, fMRI was used to newly test whether such biases in adolescent anxiety and depression may relate to an inability to use attention to modulate functional connectivity with sensory representation areas (cf. Baldauf and Desimone, 2014). Adolescents (ages 14-17; N=170) were recruited who had at least one anxious or depressive disorder, or neither disorder. Participants completed multiple self-report measures, used to isolate a shared, latent dimension of depressive and anxious symptoms (ADL). Participants completed a face network localizer and an Emotional Interference Task. These allowed us to assess changes in fusiform face area (FFA) functional connectivity patterns within the localized face network while adolescents were cued to attend to or ignore fearful face images. Increased expression of the ADL dimension was related to fewer changes in functional connectivity patterns with FFA while adolescents were cued to ignore fearful face images versus when cued to attend to these images. Findings were (1) exclusive to fearful face images, (2) exclusive to functional connections with FFA, and (3) observed alongside complementary performance deficits. Results revealed the shared dimension of adolescents' depressive and anxious symptoms was associated with decreased modulation of fear-evoked functional connectivity patterns with FFA by attention cues. Findings suggest that adolescent anxiety and depression may share a similar inability to use attention to flexibly adapt their communication patterns within sensory networks in the presence of negative emotional information. | ATTENTION: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC12 - PROP51254025Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 13 | Omid Kardan, University of Chicago | Andrew Stier, University of Chicago; Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, University of Chicago; Julia Pruin, University of Chicago; Taylor Chamberlain, University of Chicago; Wesley Meredith, University of California, Los Angeles; Xihan Zhang, University of Chicago; Emily Avery, Yale University; Qi Lin, Yale University; Kwangsun Yoo, Yale University; Marvin Chun, Yale University; Marc Berman, University of Chicago; Monica Rosenberg, University of Chicago | Connectome-based predictions reveal developmental change in the functional architecture of sustained attention and worki | Sustained attention (SA) and working memory (WM), or the ability to hold items in memory, are critical cognitive skills across the lifespan, but the features of brain organization supporting these processes in development are unknown. Here we characterized the functional brain architecture of these abilities in 9?11-year-old children and adults using models based on functional MRI connectivity (FC). We used patterns of predictive model generalizability to infer the development (or stability) of functional network predictors of sustained attention (SA) and working memory (WM) from pre-adolescence through adulthood. In particular, we asked whether connectome-based models built to predict SA and WM performance in adults generalize to capture inter- and intra-individual differences in these processes in pre-adolescents (n=1545). Results revealed that an adult model of SA predicted variations in SA, but not WM, in pre-adolescents just as well as the same model predicted SA in adults. An adult WM model, on the other hand, was less specific and predicted both SA and WM in pre-adolescents, though with lower predictive power than it predicted these abilities in adults. Partial Least Squares regression relating combined pre-adolescent and adult FC to performance-by-age demonstrated that many connections related to SA and WM performance are shared between pre-adolescents and adults. However, a subset of functional connections differentiate pre-adolescents from adults and simultaneously relate to better performance in pre-adolescents while predicting worse adult performance. Together these results suggest that functional connectivity patterns of WM and SA change over adolescence and into adulthood, with SA undergoing less change. | ATTENTION: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC13 - Connectome-based predictions reveal developmental change in the functional architecture of sustained attention and workiDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 15 | Bijurika Nandi, University of California, San Francisco | Vinith Johnson, University of California, San Francisco; Avery Ostrand, University of California, San Francisco; Tiffany Ford, University of California, San Francisco; Adam Gazzaley, University of California, San Francisco; Theodore Zanto, University of California, San Francisco | Musical training facilitates exogenous temporal attention via delta phase entrainment within a sensorimotor network | Temporal orienting of attention plays an important role in our day-to-day lives and can utilize timing information from exogenous or endogenous stimuli. Yet, it is unclear what neural mechanisms give rise to temporal attention and it is debated whether both exogenous and endogenous forms of temporal attention share a common neural source. In this study, older adult non-musicians were randomized to undergo 8 weeks of either musical rhythm training, which places demands on exogenous temporal attention, or word search training as a control. The goal was to assess (1) the neural basis of exogenous temporal attention and, (2) whether training-induced improvements in exogenous temporal attention can transfer to enhanced endogenous temporal attention abilities ? thereby providing support for a common neural mechanism of temporal attention. Pre and post-training, exogenous temporal attention was assessed using a rhythmic synchronization paradigm, whereas endogenous temporal attention was evaluated via a temporally-cued visual discrimination task. Results showed that rhythm training improved performance on the exogenous temporal attention task, which was associated with increased inter-trial coherence within the delta band as assessed by EEG recordings. Source localization revealed increased delta-band ITC arose from a sensorimotor network, including pre-motor cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, post-central gyrus, and the inferior parietal lobule. Despite these improvements in exogenous temporal attention, musical rhythm training did not transfer benefits to endogenous attentional ability. These results support the notion that exogenous and endogenous temporal attention utilize independent neural sources, with exogenous temporal attention relying on delta band oscillations within a sensorimotor network. | ATTENTION: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC15 - Musical training facilitates exogenous temporal attention via delta phase entrainment within a sensorimotor networkDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 16 | Yasra Arif, McGill University | Alex Wiesman, McGill University; Nicholas Christopher-Hayes, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Tony Wilson, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Altered age-related alpha and gamma prefrontal-occipital connectivity serving distinct cognitive interference variants | The presence of conflicting stimuli adversely affects behavioral outcomes, which could either be at the level of stimulus (Flanker), response (Simon), or both (Multisource). Briefly, flanker interference involves conflicting stimuli requiring selective attention, Simon interference is caused by an incongruity between the spatial location of the task-relevant stimulus and prepotent motor mapping, and multisource is the combination of both. Irrespective of the variant, interference resolution necessitates cognitive control to filter irrelevant information and allocate neural resources to task-related goals. Though previously studied in healthy young adults, the direct quantification of changes in oscillatory activity serving such cognitive control and associated inter-regional interactions in healthy aging are poorly understood. Herein, we used an adapted version of the multisource interference task and magnetoencephalography to investigate age-related neural dynamics uniquely governing both divergent and convergent cognitive interference in 78 healthy participants (age range: 20-66 years). We identified weaker alpha connectivity between bilateral visual and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC) and left dorsomedial prefrontal cortices (dmPFC), as well as weaker gamma connectivity between bilateral occipital regions and the right dmPFC during flanker interference with advancing age. Further, an age-related decrease in gamma power was observed in the left cerebellum and parietal region for Simon and differential interference effects (i.e., Flanker-Simon), respectively. Moreover, the super-additivity model showed decreased gamma power in the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ), with increasing age. Overall, our findings suggest age-related declines in the engagement of top-down attentional control secondary to reduced alpha and gamma coupling between prefrontal and occipital cortices. | ATTENTION: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC16 - Altered age-related alpha and gamma prefrontal-occipital connectivity serving distinct cognitive interference variantsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 17 | Nancy Rodas De Leon, University of California, Merced | Elif Isbell, University of California, Merced; Amanda Hampton Wray, University of Pittsburgh; Courtney Stevens, Willamete University; Jimena Santill·n, Harvard University; Eric Pakulak, Stockholm University | Emergent bilingualism and neurodevelopment of selective attention in children from lower socioeconomic status background | Associations between bilingualism and neurodevelopment of attention have been predominantly studied in children from higher socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. However, the experiences of bilingual children are typically not independent of their socioeconomic resources. Emergent bilinguals who share Hispanic/Latin cultural backgrounds and come from Spanish-speaking homes encounter more socioeconomic adversity than their English-monolingual peers. Therefore, the effects of bilingualism on attention development may not be as evident in emergent bilingual children from lower SES backgrounds. Contrary to this hypothesis, the proponents of 'bilingual advantage' argue that bilingualism enhances cognitive control skills, such as selective attention, as bilingual children frequently practice their selective attention skills to focus on the target language. Based on this framework, emergent bilingual children may show stronger selective attention skills compared to their monolingual peers, even in the context of socioeconomic adversity. To test these competing hypotheses, we examined the links between bilingualism and neurodevelopment of auditory selective attention in preschoolers (3.5-5 year-olds) from lower SES backgrounds. The participants were 39 English-monolingual and 46 Spanish-English emergent bilingual preschoolers who attended Head Start. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to assess neural indices of selective attention in a dichotic listening task, completed in English by the English-monolingual children and in Spanish by the emergent bilingual children who were more proficient in Spanish compared to English. All ERP data have been collected and are currently being prepared for the analyses. The findings of this study will enhance our understanding of how children's diverse experiences contribute to the neurodevelopment of selective attention. | ATTENTION: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC17 - Emergent bilingualism and neurodevelopment of selective attention in children from lower socioeconomic status backgroundDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 18 | Frauke Kraus, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany | Jonas Obleser, University of Lübeck; Björn Herrmann, Rotman Research Institute | Alpha power and pupil dilation index balanced audio-visual allocation of attention | Auditory and visual stimuli often occur concurrently in everyday life. Depending on the specific context, individuals may attend either to both modalities or to only one modality while filtering out information from the other. The current study is concerned with the underlying perceptual and neural mechanisms of attention in a demanding audiovisual situation. Twenty-four individuals (18-30 years) performed a visual multiple object-tracking task and an auditory gap-detection task, while the electroencephalogram (EEG) and pupil dilation were recorded. In the first of two sessions, participants performed the two tasks separately (single task). In the second session, they performed both tasks concurrently (dual task). Task difficulty (easy vs. difficult) was manipulated for both tasks. EEG analysis focused on neural alpha-oscillatory power (8-10 Hz). Participants performed better and faster in easy compared to difficult conditions. Both physiological measures (EEG alpha power and pupil dilation) showed task-difficulty effects (alpha decrease and pupil increase) in the single and in the dual task. We further observed an interaction in the dual task: Physiological responses increased with increasing visual difficulty when the concurrent auditory task was easy, whereas the physiological responses decreased with visual difficulty when the auditory task was difficult. A linear mixed effect model showed a significant relationship between pupil dilation and alpha power on a trial-by-trial basis. Larger pupil dilation at the beginning of a trial was associated with decreased alpha power. The results demonstrate that audio-visual attention is reflected in both physiological measures with a negative relationship between them. | ATTENTION: Multisensory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC18 - Alpha power and pupil dilation index balanced audio-visual allocation of attentionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 20 | Jens Madsen, City College of New York | Cognitive Processing of a Common Stimulus Synchronizes Hearts, Brains and Eyes | A wide range of neural, physiological and behavioral signals correlate between human subjects in a variety of settings. A great number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain this inter-subject correlation, however there is no clarity under which conditions or circumstances it arises, for which signals, or whether there is a common underlying mechanism. We hypothesized in this work that cognitive processing of a shared stimulus is the source of inter-subject correlation. We test this by presenting informative videos to participants in an attentive and distracted condition and subsequently measured recognition memory. Inter-subject correlation was observed for electro-encephalography, gaze position, pupil size and heart rate, but not respiration and head movements. The strength of correlation was co-modulated in the different signals, changed with attentional state, and predicted subsequent recognition of information presented in the videos. There was robust within-subject coupling between brain, heart and eyes, but not respiration or head movements. The theory that emerges is that inter-subject correlation is the result of cognitive processing of a shared stimulus, but can be observed only for those signals that exhibit a robust brain-body connection. While physiological and behavioral fluctuations may be driven by multiple features of the stimulus, correlation with other individuals is co-modulated by the level of attentional engagement with the stimulus. | ATTENTION: Multisensory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC20 - Cognitive Processing of a Common Stimulus Synchronizes Hearts, Brains and EyesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details | |
| C | 21 | Sydney Brannick, University of Hawaii at Manoa | Dorita Chang, The University of Hong Kong; Jonas Vibell, University of Hawaii at Manoa | EEG correlates of sound-modulations associated with stream/bounce perception | Two identical objects with opposite trajectories moving uniformly in a downwards motion along diagonals can, after the point of coincidence, be perceived as either 'streaming through' or 'bouncing off' each other. These perceptual judgments can be modulated with a brief sound introduced at the point of coincidence (i.e., sound increases 'bounce' percepts). This effect is known as the audiovisual bounce-inducing effect (ABE). Although the ABE has been studied extensively, the neurological underpinnings of the effect are poorly understood. The present study aimed to investigate the cross-modal neural activities underlying the ABE using electroencephalography (EEG). Two identical discs moving in downward directions were presented to observers. Sound was presented either synchronously with the point of coincidence or was absent. Participants indicated via button press whether they perceived the discs to be bouncing off or streaming through each other. Our results show that sound modulates our perceptual interpretations of the effect. Additionally, our findings reflect the role of posterior parietal regions in the ABE during the phenomenon. | ATTENTION: Multisensory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC21 - EEG correlates of sound-modulations associated with stream/bounce perceptionDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 22 | Lara C. Krisst, University of California, Davis | Steven J. Luck, University of California, Davis | ERP Decoding of Visual Awareness During Binocular Rivalry | EEG decoding provides a powerful tool for examining the temporal dynamics of representational content and can help adjudicate between models of consciousness that differ in whether awareness occurs rapidly or slowly. In an effort to isolate the neural correlates of consciousness and further understand the time course of conscious perception, we applied ERP decoding to a binocular rivalry paradigm, in which different orientations were briefly flashed to the two eyes and competed for awareness. Subjects were aware of one orientation and suppressed the other. We compared decoding accuracy for the orientation that was consciously perceived and the one that was suppressed. We tested two predictions: 1) if the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) is correct, conscious perception should occur ~300-500 ms after stimulus onset; 2) if the Visual Awareness Negativity (VAN) reflects conscious perception, conscious perception should occur at ~200 ms after stimulus onset. A red circle?shaped sinusoidal grating was flashed briefly to one eye and a green grating was simultaneously flashed to the other eye. Participants were instructed to report the color of the stimulus they perceived (red/green), and we separately decoded the orientation of the perceived and unperceived gratings. We could decode both gratings initially, but decoding accuracy increased for the perceived grating at ~200 ms, whereas decoding accuracy on the same trial for the unperceived grating decreased. Thus, awareness impacts the information that is available about a given stimulus relatively rapidly, consistent with the timing of the VAN and earlier than would be expected from GNWT. | ATTENTION: Multisensory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC22 - ERP Decoding of Visual Awareness During Binocular RivalryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 23 | Tyler Adkins, University of Michigan | Han Zhang, University of Michigan; John Jonides, University of Michigan; Taraz Lee, University of Michigan | What happens after an error? | People respond more slowly after committing an error. A prominent account of this post-error slowing is that people are more cautious after an error and, for example, require more evidence to decide what response to make. However, post-error effects are usually measured by free response times, which confound movement preparation and initiation. This leaves it unclear whether increased response caution is an adaptive response to impaired cognitive processing following an error or instead reflects a mere shift along the existing speed-accuracy tradeoff curve. In the present study, we examine post-error effects in a task in which response times-hence response thresholds-were experimentally controlled. We explain our data using a biologically-inspired model of response preparation that was recently developed in the motor control literature. We found that participants were less accurate after an error, even if they had ample time to prepare their responses. Our modeling results indicated that errors impaired subsequent processing, specifically the strength of connection between a prepared goal and a motor action. Thus, previously observed post-error slowing may reflect a compensatory mechanism which alleviates post-error impairments in goal efficacy. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC23 - What happens after an error?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 24 | Xueying Wang, University of Rochester | Reading Comprehension Constraints Word Reading: A Tongue Twister Study by Moderating Attentional Control | Numerous research shows the performance of word reading influences reading comprehension. Few studies investigate how reading comprehension influences word reading through behavioral experiments. The current study explores whether alleviating the attention required for reading comprehension correlates with a better word reading performance. Three types of tongue twister reading tasks that involve recall (RR), semantic priming (PP), and instructional focus on the phonological information (PF) all have a high demand for attention on word reading. Differently, the attention demanded by PP tasks on reading comprehension is smaller than RR and RF tasks. Numbers of speech errors are used to manifest the variability of these three attentional control modes. It is predicted that during tongue twister readings, the type of task demanding less attention on reading comprehension elicits fewer speech errors. Mixed and fixed effect Poisson regression analysis shows a highly significant correlation (p<.001) between total speech error numbers and PP tasks; no significant correlations between total speech error numbers and PF tasks. Together these results offer evidence that reducing the attention demanded on reading comprehension alleviates the attentional control strain and allows better performance on word reading. This study suggests understanding the dynamic interactions of the cognitive processes of reading through speech errors by including executive functions like attentional control could be a hopeful direction. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC24 - Reading Comprehension Constraints Word Reading: A Tongue Twister Study by Moderating Attentional ControlDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details | |
| C | 25 | Priyanka Persaud, Western University | Lauren Giuffre, Western University; Chloe Edgar, Western University; Matthew Heath, Western University | Postexercise executive function & cortical hemodynamics during the different phases of the menstrual cycle - In Progress | Increased cerebral blood flow (CBF) is a candidate mechanism for a single bout postexercise improvement to executive function (EF). During the luteal (LUT) phase of the menstrual cycle, CBF is increased compared to the follicular (FOL) stage, a finding attributed to estrogen-induced cerebral autoregulation. It is, however, unclear whether elevated CBF during the LUT phase differentially impacts a postexercise benefit to EF. In this 'in progress' study, 20 female participants will perform three experimental sessions: a VO2peak task providing a participant-specific measure of moderate intensity exercise and separate 20-min single-bouts of moderate intensity during FOL and LUT menstrual cycle phases. Prior to (i.e., baseline) and during each exercise session, blood velocity through the middle cerebral artery will be measured via transcranial Doppler ultrasound (tCD) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). EF will be assessed before and after exercise via the antisaccade task. Antisaccades involve a goal-directed saccade mirror-symmetrical to a target and are mediated via EF networks that show task-based changes following single and chronic exercise manipulations. Pilot work has shown a baseline increase in LUT phase CBF. Accordingly, one hypothesis is that exercise during the LUT phase may infer an additive CBF benefit rendering a larger postexercise EF improvement than the FOL phase. Alternatively, autoregulation of CBF during the LUT phase may not influence the magnitude of a postexercise EF improvement. Evidence favoring the latter hypothesis would evince that the phase of females' menstrual cycles should not affect their inclusion in exercise neuroscience research. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC25 - Postexercise executive function & cortical hemodynamics during the different phases of the menstrual cycle - In ProgressDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 26 | Heather Webber, University of New Mexico | James Cavanagh, University of New Mexico; Charles Green, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; Francesco Versace, MD Anderson Cancer Center; Scott Lane, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; Joy Schmitz, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston | Time frequency analysis of the reward positivity in cocaine use disorder: A pilot study | The Reward Positivity (RewP) is an event-related potential component that occurs in response to reward presentation and is thought to represent reward responsiveness. Time frequency analysis is used to isolate reward-specific aspects of the RewP in the delta-band. Individuals with substance use disorders are known to have altered reward responsiveness, yet no studies have used time-frequency analysis to analyze reward functioning in cocaine use disorder (CUD). The aims of the current study were to 1) use time-frequency analysis to asses loss-related theta and reward-related delta in individuals with CUD and 2) test if individual differences in theta and delta were related to cocaine use. CUD participants (N=16) completed a reward task before entering a clinical trial administering contingency management. Cocaine use was operationalized as the number of cocaine negative urines over 12 visits. Results indicated that wins elicited more positive ERP amplitudes than losses, theta was increased to losses, and delta was increased to wins. There was no evidence of a relationship between loss-related theta and cocaine use (r=.224, p=.405). Although the relationship between win-related delta and cocaine use was medium in magnitude (r=-.422, p=.108), it did not reach statistical significance. These preliminary findings indicate that individuals with higher reward responsiveness might do worse in treatment, potentially due to enhanced responsivity to extrinsic (cocaine) rewards. Future directions include extending these pilot findings in a larger sample to test the RewP as a surrogate biomarker of clinical responsivity and employing a design that can compare the RewP to different extrinsic rewards. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC26 - Time frequency analysis of the reward positivity in cocaine use disorder: A pilot studyDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 27 | Connor Dalton, Western University | Chloe Edgar, Western University; Lauren Giuffre, Western University; Mustafa Shirzad, Western University; Benjamin Tari, Western University; Matthew Heath, Western University | Executive function and cerebral hemodynamics during and after a single bout of passive and active exercise | An acute bout of aerobic exercise 'boosts' postexercise executive function (EF) and is a finding - in part - attributed to an exercise-induced increase in cerebral blood flow (CBF). Interestingly, EF is adversely impacted during exercise and is attributed to dual-task executive control and activation of large muscle groups, i.e., attentional and energy resources must be allocated to distinct task-types. In turn, passive exercise does not require attentional allocation to active muscle recruitment; however, such an environment increases CBF due to cerebral autoregulation. This 'in progress' study will determine whether passive exercise engenders the same impact on EF (during and postexercise) as active exercise. Accordingly, participants (6 of 25 completed) will complete three 20-min conditions: a resting control, passive cycling via mechanically assisted ergometer, and active light-intensity cycling. During each session CBF through the middle cerebral artery will be continuously estimated via transcranial Doppler ultrasound. EF will be assessed prior to each condition, at the 5-min interval of each condition, and following each condition. The EF task will entail goal-directed reaches mirror-symmetrical to a target (i.e., antipointing) and is a task mediated via EF networks that display task-based changes following acute exercise. We hypothesize that active and passive conditions will increase CBF and elicit a postexercise decrease in antipointing reaction times (RT). Further, by examining the relationship between CBF and antipointing RTs during and postexercise, we should be able to determine whether the magnitude/direction of an exercise-related EF modulation is influenced by the metabolic demands of the exercise intervention. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC27 - Executive function and cerebral hemodynamics during and after a single bout of passive and active exerciseDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 28 | Elizabeth Lydon, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Shraddha Shende, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Holly Panfil, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Sharbel Yako, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Raksha Mudar, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Conflict monitoring in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: Findings from a picture-word interference paradigm | Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is an intermediate stage between normal aging and dementia where individuals experience a notable decline in episodic memory but do not meet diagnostic criteria for dementia. Mounting evidence supports the presence of other cognitive alterations in aMCI including behavioral and neural alterations in conflict monitoring. Neural underpinnings of these changes have been captured through the use of electroencephalography (EEG) by most frequently examining event-related potentials (ERPs). Fewer studies have examined event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs) that underlie conflict processes in aMCI. In this study we examined differences between 17 individuals with aMCI (14 F, age: 72.76 ± 5.84, education: 16.53 ± 3.02) and 17 age- and education-matched cognitively healthy controls (HC; 11 F, age: 76.00 ± 4.08, education: 15.29 ± 2.93) using a novel picture-word interference paradigm. Stimuli for this task included line drawings of animals and objects with matched or mismatched word labels and participants judged the matches by pushing a button (matched/unmatched) on a response box while continuous EEG was recorded. Average reaction time and accuracy was recorded. Behavioral results indicate the aMCI group were less accurate than HC for both the animals and objects tasks. ERSP analysis is currently in-progress to compare mean spectral power in the theta, alpha, and beta bands. Based on behavioral differences and visual inspection of the time-frequency data, we expect to find differences in ERSP measures between aMCI and HC. Results will help clarify if there are neural changes in conflict monitoring in aMCI. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC28 - Conflict monitoring in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: Findings from a picture-word interference paradigmDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 29 | Amanda Peters, University of California, Merced | Elif Isbell, University of California, Merced; Jennie Grammer, University of California, Los Angeles | Neural indices of kindergartners' executive functioning in a modified go/no-go task | Go/No-Go tasks are frequently used to assess neural indices of children's executive functioning (EF). Classic Go/No-Go paradigms tend to elicit two event-related potential (ERP) components, N2 and P3, which are argued to index response conflict and attentional processes, respectively. The current study examined ERPs recorded during a modified Go/No-Go task (i.e., Zoo Game) from a sample of kindergartners (N = 185). Participants were instructed to press a button whenever they saw an animal (Go: 240 novel animal pictures), except for when they saw an orangutan (No-Go: 3 orangutan pictures). Results from the Zoo task yielded unexpected ERP morphology: instead of an N2 component, an earlier, positive, and more narrow frontal effect was evident between 250-350 ms. Additionally, later than the typical P3 component, a posterior positivity occurred around 450-750 ms. Consistent with past research, an experimental effect of larger amplitudes for the No-Go compared to Go condition was observed across the scalp during both time windows. The global processing required in the Zoo task may be related to increased allocation of attention to the evaluation and categorization of stimuli. Future studies should further examine how manipulations of visual complexity and task demands during Go/No-Go paradigms may modulate neural correlates of EF. Additionally, trends in the effect sizes from a subsample (n = 74) for whom we had socioeconomic status (SES) information suggested that parental education may be a stronger predictor of EF compared to income. The SES data was negatively skewed, highlighting the importance of utilizing socioeconomically diverse samples. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC29 - Neural indices of kindergartners' executive functioning in a modified go/no-go taskDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 30 | Natasza Orlov, Jagiellonian University | Natasza Orlov, Jagiellonian University; Mikolaj Compa, Jagiellonian University; Bartosz Kossowski, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology; Iana Markevych, Jagiellonian University; Aleksandra Domagalik, Jagiellonian University; Paulina Lewandowska, Univeristy of Gdansk; Malgorzata Lipowska, University of Gdansk; Clemens Baumbach, Jagiellonian University; Yarema Mysak, Jagiellonian University; James Grellier, Exeter University; Marcin Szwed, Jagiellonian University | NeuroSmog: Determining the Impact of Air Pollution on the Developing Brain | Exposure to airborne particulate matter (PM) may affect neurodevelopmental outcomes in children, in particular, cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, we aim to assess whether PM affects the developing brains of schoolchildren in Poland, a country characterized by high levels of PM pollution. Children aged from 10 to 13 years (n = 800) are recruited to participate in this case control study. Cases (children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are being recruited by field psychologists. Population-based controls are being sampled from local schools. The study area comprises 18 towns in southern Poland characterized by wide-ranging levels of PM. Comprehensive psychological assessments are conducted to assess cognitive and social functioning. Participants undergo structural, diffusion-weighted, task, and resting-state magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We will assess whether longterm exposure to PM affects brain function, structure, and connectivity in healthy children and in those diagnosed with ADHD. Here, we present an analysis of a sub-sample of the fMRI data (Go/Nogo task) in unmedicated children with ADHD and matched healthy children between 10-13 years old. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC30 - NeuroSmog: Determining the Impact of Air Pollution on the Developing BrainDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 31 | Zulkayda Mamat, Cambridge University | Michael Anderson, Cambridge University | Keep Calm, and Carry on: Suppression Training Improves Mental Health | Excess worries about future events can quickly take a toll on one's mental wellbeing. Whereas conventional wisdom points to avoiding one's worries through positive thinking, and to never suppress them, the effects of these coping strategies on mental health are not well understood. In addition, whereas evidence suggests that engaging the prefrontal cortex to suppress simulations of feared events as a coping strategy for attenuating apprehensiveness (Benoit, Davies, & Anderson, 2016), the learnability, applicability, and capability of such a suppression strategy improving mental health outcomes remains unknown. In context of the rise in anxiety globally as a reaction to the COVID19 pandemic, we developed a multi-day training study via videoconferencing to test the impact of suppressing intrusions of feared and worrisome future events on one's mental health. In our study, suppressing imagination of future worries impaired memory and reduced negative affect for the suppressed events. Participants reported a marked improvement in their mental health immediately after three sessions of suppression training and in a follow-up assessment 3 months later. Importantly, the severity of COVID19's impact on mental health at the start of training positively predicted the participant's frequency of use of the suppression strategy outside-of-lab and its subsequent mental health benefits. Comparatively, repeatedly suppressing imagination of future fears improved mental health outcomes significantly more than did that of neutral/routine future events. We show that not only can direct suppression of real-world worries be trained, but that it can also act as an effective intervention to improve and maintain mental wellbeing. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC31 - Keep Calm, and Carry on: Suppression Training Improves Mental HealthDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 32 | Mikki Schantell, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Yasra Arif, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Seth Springer, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Jennifer O'Neill, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Michaela Frenzel, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Jacob Eastman, Boys Town National Research Hospital; Pamela May, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Susan Swindells, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Tony Wilson, Boys Town National Research Hospital | Moderating effects of HIV and regular cannabis use on the neural dynamics serving cognitive control in the dorsolateral | Cannabis use and HIV are both associated with deficits in cognitive control. However, less is known regarding how HIV and regular cannabis use moderate the neural dynamics in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), which is a critical region for cognitive control processing. We hypothesized that cannabis and HIV will interact such that PWH who regularly use cannabis will have weaker (i.e., more optimal) spontaneous cortical activity and stronger (i.e., more optimal) oscillatory responses in the theta (3-7 Hz) rhythm in the dlPFC compared to PWH nonusers. Data from 100 participants including PWH who use cannabis (n=18), PWH who do not use cannabis (n=17), seronegative cannabis users (n=32), and seronegative nonusers (n=33) were used for analysis. Participants completed an interview regarding their current and past substance use, a urinalysis, and the Eriksen Flanker task during magnetoencephalography (MEG). MEG data underwent sensor- and source-level analyses. Time series were extracted from peak voxels of grand-averaged oscillatory maps of the flanker effect (i.e., incongruent-congruent), and a one-way ANOVA was conducted to assess group-level differences in spontaneous and oscillatory activity. PWH nonusers had stronger spontaneous theta activity (p=0.006) and weaker neural oscillatory theta activity (p=0.023) in the left dlPFC compared to all other groups. We also found differences in peak latency in the dlPFC by condition. A weaker flanker effect in peak latency was associated with more problematic cannabis use (r=-0.419, p=0.006). In conclusion, regular cannabis use appears to ameliorate the deleterious impact of HIV on the spontaneous and oscillatory theta activity in the dlPFC. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC32 - Moderating effects of HIV and regular cannabis use on the neural dynamics serving cognitive control in the dorsolateralDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 33 | Shireen Parimoo, University of Toronto, Rotman Research Institute | Cheryl Grady, University of Toronto, Rotman Research Institute; Rosanna Olsen, University of Toronto, Rotman Research Institute | Frontoparietal white matter differentially contributes to Go/No-go task activation in high- and low- performing adults | Older adults often over-recruit frontoparietal regions to support performance on executive control tasks, which can be compensatory or a marker of neural inefficiency. Aging is also associated with reductions in the microstructural integrity of white matter (WM) pathways that connect different regions of the brain. One possibility is that age-related differences in WM microstructure contribute, in part, to frontoparietal over-recruitment. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 146 healthy adults (18-86 years old) who underwent a diffusion-weighted imaging scan and completed a Go/No-go inhibition task while BOLD activity was recorded. We assessed whether age, task performance, and fractional anisotropy (FA; a measure of WM microstructural integrity) in frontoparietal regions predicted inhibition-related activation in these areas. High performers show greater activation than low performers, irrespective of age and FA. Among low-performing individuals, in contrast, older age is associated with higher activity when FA is low but not when FA is high. These results support the neural inefficiency account as older adults only show increased frontoparietal recruitment during inhibition when their WM microstructure and performance are below average. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC33 - Frontoparietal white matter differentially contributes to Go/No-go task activation in high- and low- performing adultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 34 | Ewa Beldzik, Jagiellonian University | Markus Ullsperger, Otto von Guericke University Madgeburg; Aleksandra Domagalik, Jagiellonian University; Tadeusz Marek, Jagiellonian University | Conflict- and error-related theta activities are coupled to BOLD signals in different brain regions | Both conflict and error processing in the human brain have been linked to the midfrontal theta (4-8 Hz) increase as indicated by EEG studies and greater hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as indicated by fMRI studies. Conveniently, the source of midfrontal cognitive theta was estimated in or nearby ACC. However, studies using concurrent EEG and fMRI recordings in resting-state found only a negative relationship of theta power and BOLD signal in other brain regions that typically show task-related deactivations. In this study, we used a simultaneous EEG-fMRI technique to investigate a trial-by-trial coupling between theta power and hemodynamic activity during the performance of two conflict tasks. The fMRI results revealed several brain regions showing greater activity for correct incongruent trials than congruent ones and far greater activity for erroneous trials, including pre-supplementary motor area, anterior insular cortex, and ACC. Despite the presence of these task-engaged regions, conflict theta showed only a negative correlation to BOLD signal in the midline area 9, a region exhibiting conflict-sensitive deactivation. Conversely, error-related theta showed a positive relationship to activity in the ACC. Our results provide evidence that pre-response midfrontal theta reflects cortical inhibition of area 9, and this process strongly affects the timing of the reactions and supports successful conflict resolution. In contrast, post-response theta reflects ACC activity, which signals the commitment of an error. Our findings highlight that conflict- and error-related theta oscillations represent fundamentally different processes. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC34 - Conflict- and error-related theta activities are coupled to BOLD signals in different brain regionsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 35 | Benjamin Rangel, Italian Institute of Technology | Giacomo Novembre, Italian Institute of Technology; Jan Wessel, University of Iowa | Isometric force measurements reveal global motor effects of action-stopping | Rapid action-stopping is known to have non-selective, 'global' effects on the motor system. The classic empirical demonstration of this fact is that successfully stopping an action - e.g., in the stop-signal task - leads to a suppression of motor activity even at task-unrelated muscles. This effect is typically demonstrated using motor evoked potentials - a measurement of cortico-spinal excitability that can be derived using single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of motor cortex. However, this method has several downsides: TMS can only be measured once every few seconds, cannot be used in some populations (e.g., epilepsy or deep-brain stimulation patients), and it can only be combined with neural measurements (EEG, fMRI) with severe compromises in data quality and/or study design. Here, we therefore aimed to quantify the purported global effects of action-stopping using a different technique: the measurement of isometric force. 31 adult participants held a force gauge in their right hand while performing a stop-signal task with both feet. They were instructed to exert steady pressure on the force gauge while performing (and sometimes stopping) foot responses in a stop-signal task. We found that when participants successfully stopped a foot response, the isometric force exerted with their hand was significantly reduced as well. Moreover, this reduction was highly predictive of stop-signal reaction time. These results confirm that action-stopping has global effects on the wider motor system, and establish isometric force measurements as a new method to quantify these effects - moreover, one that addresses the main problems of TMS-based methods. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC35 - Isometric force measurements reveal global motor effects of action-stoppingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 36 | Molly Rowlands, University of Cambridge | Michael Anderson, University of Cambridge | The retrieval stopping hypothesis of fear extinction: A meta-analysis of fMRI studies | Associating fear responses with predictors of negative outcomes is critical for survival. These associations become maladaptive when fear is elicited inappropriately, as observed in anxiety and stress-related disorders. Such circumstances require modification of learned associations to control the expression of fear, a process often studied via Pavlovian fear extinction. In fear extinction, a fear trigger is repeatedly exposed in a safe environment, gradually reducing emotional responding. In parallel, however, other work has focused on retrieval stopping as a mechanism by which people control unwanted memories. In retrieval stopping research, people are repeatedly exposed to reminders to an unwelcome memory and try to stop retrieval, a process that gradually reduces intrusions and alters negative affect for suppressed traces. Parallels between retrieval stopping and extinction have recently been highlighted in the retrieval stopping hypothesis of fear extinction (Anderson&Floresco, 2021). This theory posits that extinction spontaneously recruits retrieval stopping to control affect during exposure to triggers. Here, we assessed a key prediction of this hypothesis: neural networks engaged during retrieval stopping are engaged during extinction. Via a PROSPERO-registered fMRI meta-analysis of over 50 studies and 1,500 participants, we examine activations evoked during (i) fear extinction learning, and (ii) retrieval stopping. Using novel meta-analytic software (seed-based d-mapping) combining whole-brain statistical maps with peak co-ordinates, we test whether regions implicated in retrieval stopping (right dorsolateral and mid-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), are activated during extinction. By testing the retrieval stopping hypothesis, we aim to reconceptualise models of fear extinction to better understand effective treatments. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC36 - The retrieval stopping hypothesis of fear extinction: A meta-analysis of fMRI studiesDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 37 | Leo Zekelman, Harvard Medical School | Fan Zhang, Harvard Medical School; Nikos Makris, Harvard Medical School; Yogesh Rathi, Harvard Medical School; Alexandra J. Golby, Harvard Medical School; Lauren J. O'Donnell, Harvard Medical School | (Dis)inhibitory Control in the Cerebellar Parallel Fibers | Previous investigations of human cerebellar structure and function frequently reveal relationships between the cerebellum and executive functioning. Additionally, axon tracing investigations in primates demonstrate cerebellar connections with the prefrontal cortex, a region most classically associated with executive processes, via the thalamus. However, the precise neuroanatomical components of the human cerebellum that are associated with executive functioning remain poorly defined. In this study we leveraged a neuroanatomically curated diffusion MRI white matter atlas to identify the architecturally unique axon projections of the cerebellar granule cells, the parallel fibers, in 800 participants from the Human Connectome Project. We examined two commonly utilized assessments of executive function from the NIH Toolbox, namely the Dimensional Card Sort Test and the Flanker Inhibitory Control and Attention Test, which measure cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control respectively. Using multiple linear regression, we related these cognitive measures to three diffusion MRI measures of the parallel fibers (Fractional Anisotropy, Mean Diffusivity, and Number of Streamlines). Overall we find the microstructure of the parallel fibers negatively influences inhibitory control performance, and demonstrates a borderline significant relationship with cognitive flexibility. Our findings suggest that the granule cell axons may have a negative influence on executive function, and may relate more specifically to inhibitory control. This study is the first diffusion MRI study to identify the parallel fibers and link them to neuropsychological processes. Future investigations may examine the microstructure of the parallel fibers in patients with disorders that are characterized by altered granule cells and inhibitory control function (e.g. alcoholism). | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC37 - (Dis)inhibitory Control in the Cerebellar Parallel FibersDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 38 | Makayla Souza, University of California, Merced | Elif Isbell, University of California, Merced | Is the Anterior N2 ERP Component a Neural Correlate of Motor Inhibition? | One event-related potential (ERP) component considered to index motor inhibition is the anterior N2 (N2b), which is larger (i.e., more negative in amplitude) for No-Go trials when outnumbered by Go trials in classic Go/No-Go tasks. However, research that altered the probability of Go and No-Go trials led some to conclude that the N2b component observed in this task may reflect context monitoring. This study aims to address to what extent the N2 component may be considered a neural index of motor inhibition. We hypothesized that if the N2b is a neural correlate for motor inhibition, then we would observe an enhanced N2b for No-Go trials regardless of response type probability. However, if the N2b reflects context-monitoring then we would find an enhanced N2b for any low-probability response type and no enhancement in N2b if the Go and No-Go trials are of equal probability. To test these competing hypotheses, we are currently collecting ERP data from young adults (planned sample size N = 25) using a within-subject design with three different variations of the Go/No-Go paradigm in which participants are asked to press a button when shown 'Go' stimuli and withhold a response when shown 'No-Go' stimuli: (1) a classic version of the Go/No-Go task (80% Go, 20% No-Go); (2) a reverse probability condition (20% Go, 80% No-Go); (3) an equal probability condition (50% Go, 50% No-Go). The findings of this study will help inform cognitive models and advance our understanding of the neural indices of cognitive control. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC38 - Is the Anterior N2 ERP Component a Neural Correlate of Motor Inhibition?Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 39 | Beatrice Barbazzeni, University of Magdeburg, Germany | Emrah D‚zel, University of Magdeburg, Germany; Oliver Speck, University of Magdeburg, Germany | Cognitive training but not EEG-neurofeedback improves working memory in healthy volunteers | Working memory (WM) has been related to alpha suppression which can be enhanced by reward anticipation. In two double-blind studies, sixty participants were trained over 5 days to suppress alpha while receiving real-time or a control neurofeedback (NF) under high or low reward expectancies during a delayed (20 seconds) match-to-sample task for visual objects. We investigated whether NF training and monetary reward enhanced alpha suppression and WM performance and whether any enhancement transferred to unrelated cognitive tasks. During the 20 second maintenance period, participants performed mental calculation in study I and rehearsed the sample object in study II. Study I showed a significant training and reward-related enhancement of WM accuracy and reaction times (RTs). While alpha suppression during maintenance was not specific to NF, theta was suppressed in response to real-time NF and reward. Study II replicated improved WM performance with reward, although no related alpha or theta suppression was found. Neither study showed transfer. Across both studies, improving WM accuracy over 5 days was related to increasing right parietal beta during sample encoding. Speeding RTs over 5 days was related to increasing right parietal theta during encoding as well as increasing right parietal beta and decreasing the left parietal beta during maintenance. Hence, while we did not observe a benefit of NF training for WM, we have identified how training-related improvement of WM is related to oscillatory changes across days. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC39 - Cognitive training but not EEG-neurofeedback improves working memory in healthy volunteersDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 40 | Byoung-Kyong Min, Asan Medical Center | Hyun-Seok Kim, Asan Medical Center; Min-Hee Ahn, Hallym University | Fronto-occipital EEG alpha reduction by transcranial alternating current stimulation during working memory performance | Transcranial current stimulation is a potent neuromodulation technique used to enhance human cognitive function in a non-invasive manner. In this study, we investigated whether a cross-frequency coupled transcranial alternating current (CFC-tAC) stimulation modulated the EEG alpha activity, which might be associated with CFC-mediated improvement in working-memory performance. Eighteen healthy participants were recruited in this study: nine for a tAC-treated group and nine for a sham group of age-gender-matched controls. Participants were instructed to perform a modified Sternberg task, where a combination of letters and digits (7 items to be encoded) was presented before and after the tAC or sham stimulation. The stimulation group was treated with CFC-tAC stimulation for 20 minutes (input channel: F3, return channels: Fp1, Fz, F7, and C3). We analyzed the normalized differences (i.e., Z-scores) in EEG alpha power between pre- and post-treatment in two different time windows: the first half from 2000 to 1000 ms before the test-stimulus presentation and the second half from 1000 to 0 ms before the test-stimulus presentation. We observed that the tACS-treated group showed significantly less alpha power as compared to the sham group in both the frontal and occipital regions during the second half of the retention period. This finding may reflect that tACS plays a promotive role in facilitating the sustained maintenance of encoded information at the later stage of the retention phase for better working memory performance. The alpha suppression during the retention period may indicate tACS-mediated enhancement of attentional processes for better working memory performance. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC40 - Fronto-occipital EEG alpha reduction by transcranial alternating current stimulation during working memory performanceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 41 | Dongwei Li, Beijing Normal University | Yiqing Hu, Beijing Normal University; Chenguang Zhao, Beijing Normal University; Hongyu Liu, Beijing Normal University; Xuye Yuan, Beijing Normal University; Yan Song, Beijing Normal University | Temporal course of object-based attentional strengthening in the control of working memory | Although retro-cue benefits working memory precision is well-known, the underlying neural substrates remain unclear. Previous work proposed two possible hypotheses: target strengthening and distractor inhibition. In the present study, we recorded the electroencephalography (EEG) signals while 34 participants performed the retro-cue working memory task. Consistent with previous studies, retro-cue triggered robust behavioral benefits on response error and time. Then, multivariate pattern analysis was applied to decode the task-related features (target and distractor orientations) and task-irrelevant features (color and location). Results showed that target but not the distractor orientation was strengthened by retro-cue, which supports the target strengthening hypothesis. And both the color and location information binding with the target object could be decoded from scalp EEG signals but showed different coding characteristics and frequency contributions during retention and probe periods. Effective spatial location binding with the target object promoted high working memory precision. Altogether, these results provide a neurophysiological basis for target strengthening hypothesis of retro-cue benefits and emphasize the critical role of spatial location binding in the control of working memory. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC41 - Temporal course of object-based attentional strengthening in the control of working memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 42 | Elana Schettini, The Ohio State University | Zeynep Saygin, The Ohio State University | Comparison of selectivity of the Multiple Demand network between children and adults | Executive function is critical for higher-order cognitive processing. In adults, executive function seems supported by a domain-general bilateral network of frontal, parietal, cingular, and opercular brain regions, known as the multiple demand (MD) network. This network is engaged across executive function tasks and is distinct from the language network. However, it is unclear whether children recruit the same neural network as adults during cognitively demanding tasks. To address this question, we scanned young children and adults during a spatial working memory task. We defined subject-specific MD functional regions of interest (fROIs) for each participant and extracted percent signal change for Hard and Easy conditions. As expected, adults showed selectivity for Hard over Easy conditions (MD selectivity) in all bilateral fROIs. However, children ages 4-12 years only showed selectivity in bilateral parietal fROIs, but no frontal fROIs. A subset of children, who showed greater reaction time for Hard versus Easy trials, also show frontal MD selectivity, indicating that frontal engagement may be more related to effort even early in development. Finally, these developmental differences are not attributable to motion, as evidenced by a subset of adults who participated in additional 'high-motion wiggly' runs and who still showed expected MD selectivity. Some participants also completed a language task, and no MD fROIs were selective for language in either adults or kids. In summary, we show evidence of bilateral parietal engagement in MD tasks even in kids as young as 4 years, and evidence of prolonged frontal engagement in cognitively demanding tasks. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC42 - Comparison of selectivity of the Multiple Demand network between children and adultsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 43 | Daniel Pacheco, Ruhr University Bochum | Marie-Christin Fellner, Ruhr University Bochum; Lukas Kunz, Columbia University; Hui Zhang, Ruhr University Bochum; Peter Reinacher, University of Freiburg; Charlotte Roy, University of Freiburg; Andreas Schulze-Bonhage, University of Freiburg; Linglin Yang, Zhejiang University; Shuang Wang, Zhejiang University; Liu Jing, University of Hong Kong; Gui Xue, Beijing Normal University; Nikolai Axmacher, Ruhr University Bochum | Top-down control of multi-item working memory representations | Visual working memory depends on both material-specific posterior brain areas that support the representation of the to-be-maintained stimulus features and executive control areas in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). These two areas putatively support bottom-up (storage) vs. top-down (control) functions that rely on oscillations in the gamma and beta frequency bands, respectively. A previous intracranial EEG (iEEG) study combined representational similarity analysis (RSA) and deep neural networks (DNNs) as a model of the processing hierarchy along the ventral visual stream (VVS) and showed that maintenance of natural images relied on both high-level visual and semantic information (Liu et al., PNAS 2020). How selective attention prioritizes the representational formats of relevant working memory contents and suppresses irrelevant contents remains an open question, however. Here, we addressed this issue using a multi-item working memory task involving a retro-cue. We recorded iEEG activity from patients with electrodes in VVS, PFC, and/or hippocampus. We report a dissociation of the representational signatures across working memory stages: During encoding, item-specific information was selectively observed in VVS and hippocampus, but not in the PFC. During maintenance, the geometry of activity patterns in the PFC was captured by the deepest layers of a recurrent DNN model. This effect was transient, locked to the presentation of the cue, and was specific to the beta (16-28Hz) frequency band. Our results suggest that PFC represents task-relevant information in an abstract representational format, dynamically affecting distributed representations in the VVS and hippocampus through top-down inhibitory mechanisms. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC43 - Top-down control of multi-item working memory representationsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 44 | Aspen Yoo, UC Berkeley | Anne Collins, UC Berkeley | Isolating working memory in stimulus-response association learning tasks | Working memory (WM) refers to the short-term, active maintenance of information that is no longer perceptually available. While often studied in simple tasks with no sequential dependencies, there is experimental evidence that WM assists reinforcement learning (RL), a slow but integrative learning process, in the learning of stimulus-response associations from feedback. The exact dynamics of WM in learning, however, are somewhat difficult to characterize because of the parallel contributions of the RL process, and because the two processes may interact. Here, we asked if we can develop a dynamic decision making task, in which WM is used to adapt behavior in virtual isolation of RL. We designed an experiment in which participants learned, through correctness feedback, the correct key button response for different stimuli. The correct response changed over time, such that asymptotic performance of a particular stimulus triggered a change in the correct response for that stimulus. In this paradigm, a participant maximizes their performance by learning stimulus-response associations quickly, not by building more stable cached associations. We predicted that this task would reveal the contribution of WM to dynamic adaptation over that of RL. Computational modeling supported this prediction, showing that participants indeed used little to no RL when doing this task. This unique experimental paradigm allows us to more precisely investigate the temporal dynamics of WM during learning, and the nature of the information prioritized in WM, in the absence of RL confounds. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC44 - Isolating working memory in stimulus-response association learning tasksDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 45 | Marko Živanović, University of Belgrade | Jovana Bjekic, University of Belgrade; Sasa Filipovic, University of Belgrade | Neuromodulation of short-term associative memory: A comparison between constant anodal tDCS, oscillatory tDCS, and tACS | Transcranial electric stimulation (tES) techniques are promising tools for neuromodulation of memory functions. However, previous findings on effectiveness of tES are inconsistent and there have been very few studies directly contrasting different types of stimulation. Here we comparatively assess the effectiveness of constant anodal tDCS (1.5mA), oscillatory tDCS (otDCS, 1.5mA ± 0.5mA) at individual theta frequency (ITF)(4-8Hz) and tACS at ITF (0±1mA) over left posterior parietal cortex for the enhancement of short-term associative memory (STAM). In the sham-controlled cross-over experiment participants (N=40) underwent four conditions (tDCS/otDCS/tACS/sham) in counterbalanced order while they performed parallel forms of the STAM task. The STAM task consisted of digit-color association sequences in which single-digits (0-9) were presented sequentially on the colored cards (green/blue/yellow/red/pink/gray) and participants were instructed to remember digit-color associations. The sequence length varied between 3 (low-demand) to 5 stimuli (high-demand). At the end of each sequence, the participants were presented with one of the previously seen colored cards and they needed to recall the digit that was presented on a given card. Planed contrasts have shown that relative to sham, tDCS improved STAM in both low- [F(1,39)=7.39, p=.010, ?p2=.16] and high-demand sequences [F(1,39)=4.71, p=.036, ?p2=.11], while tACS [F(1,39)=4.42, p=.042, ?p2=.10] and otDCS [F(1,39)=4.79, p=.035, ?p2=.11] exclusively improved memory performance in high-demand sequences. The results suggest that different stimulation protocols affect different processes ? namely, tDCS effects seem to be mediated by facilitation of lower-level attentional processes while the effects of oscillatory protocols tend to affect memory processes in a more focal manner. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC45 - Neuromodulation of short-term associative memory: A comparison between constant anodal tDCS, oscillatory tDCS, and tACSDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 46 | Ivan Alekseichuk, University of Wisconsin-Madison | Catarina Saiote, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Seth Koenig, University of Minnesota; Miles Wischnewski, University of Minnesota; Taylor Berger, University of Minnesota; Jeanine Pebbles, University of Minnesota; Robert McGovern, University of Minnesota; Michael Park, University of Minnesota; Alexander Herman, University of Minnesota; David Darrow, University of Minnesota; Alexander Opitz, University of Minnesota | Beta oscillations in temporal cortex causally support working memory performance in epilepsy patients | Neural oscillations reflect and organize brain functions, such as working memory. Research in surgical epilepsy patients, who undergo invasive brain recordings, presents a unique opportunity to explore a mechanistic link between the directly measured neural oscillations and cognition. This link can be further strengthened by modulating the neural oscillations using transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) and observing causal changes in working memory performance. Here, neurosurgical patients were implanted with intracranial electrodes following clinical needs and guidelines. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and IRB regulations (University of Minnesota). Participants performed a 2-back working memory task while receiving placebo, beta (23 Hz), or theta (4 Hz) modulation at the bilateral temporal cortex. Five participants completed 45 experimental sessions, totaling over 5000 trials. The generalized linear mixed-effect model reveals a significant modulatory effect on memory performance (F(2,5178) = 8.9, p = 0.0001). Post-hoc t-tests show improvement (p < 0.05) following beta tACS compared to sham or theta modulation, while the latter induced no changes. Boosting beta rhythm improves the performance in all studied patients with an effect size of Hedge's g = 0.78. Bayesian hierarchical diffusion drift modeling attributes this to a specific improvement in the quality of the memory process (drift rate v; BF = 3.8). The present findings demonstrate a specific role of temporal beta oscillations in working memory and the feasibility of supporting cognitive functions via beta stimulation. This work is supported by the MnDRIVE initiative and NIH Brain Initiative (1RF1MH124909). | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC46 - Beta oscillations in temporal cortex causally support working memory performance in epilepsy patientsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 47 | Yao CongYun, ZheJiang Uniersity | Cai Ying, ZheJiang Uniersity; He Xianhui, ZheJiang Uniersity | Spatial processing mediates the effect of electrical stimulation over posterior parietal cortex on visual short-term mem | The causality between posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and visual short-term memory (VSTM) is still controversy. Accumulating studies found PPC played a critical role in spatial processing, and we examined whether spatial processing mediates the function of PPC in VSTM. Using within-subject design (n=30), we explored whether and how anodal electrical stimulations over PPC affected recall performance in delay estimation tasks for locations and colors. Every three days, subjects accepted PPC stimulation (P4 electrode in 10-20 EEG recording system, 2mA, 20min), occipital stimulation (active control: Oz, 2mA, 20min) and sham stimulation (passive control: half subjects in P4 and half in Oz, 2mA, 30s). Before and after each stimulation, subjects completed delay estimation tasks for locations and colors (set size = 8), and the 3-factor mixture model was used to estimate the recall precision, the probability of recalling target(pT), non-target (pNT) and random guessing (pU), respectively. Our results revealed, in the location WM task, the PPC stimulation decreased the random guessing comparing with occipital/sham stimulation (ps < 0.024), but didn't change recall precision (ps > 0.444). In contrast, in the color WM task, the PPC stimulation increased the recall precision comparing with the sham condition (p = 0.04; comparing with the occipital stimulation: p = 0.20), but didn't change random guessing (ps > 0.170). Moreover, the interaction effects between tasks and PPC-sham differences were significant (compared with sham: ps <0.03). Together, our results suggest PPC plays a general casual role in VSTM, but its specific function is mediated by spatial processing. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC47 - Spatial processing mediates the effect of electrical stimulation over posterior parietal cortex on visual short-term memDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 48 | Jacqueline Fulvio, University of Wisconsin - Madison | Qing Yu, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Bradley Postle, University of Wisconsin - Madison | Strategic control of location and ordinal context in visual working memory | Working memory task performance often requires a representation of an item's context (e.g., where or when it was presented) in addition to its identity. In this study, we varied context-binding demands along two dimensions -- high vs. low, and location vs. ordinal position -- while healthy young adults (n = 15) performed delayed-recognition-of-orientation during fMRI scanning. Each trial began with the sequential presentation (500 ms, 250 ms ISI) of three oriented-grating samples, each at a different location, followed by an 8-second delay, followed by a probe (orientation patch with a superimposed digit). Depending on the pretrial instruction cue, subjects decided whether the probe matched the sample that had appeared at the probe's LOCATION, at the location of the sample whose ordinal position corresponded to the digit ('ORDER'), or any of the three samples (context 'IRRELEVANT'). Delay-period signal in parietal cortex was higher for LOCATION and ORDER than for IRRELEVANT trials. Multivariate decoding revealed strong sensitivity to context binding requirements and to the critical dimension of context throughout the trial in both occipital and parietal areas. Multivariate inverted encoding modeling yielded 3 key results in occipital cortex: 1) robust reconstruction of the physical location of the probe; 2) robustly negative reconstruction of the location corresponding to the probe's digit; 3) failure to reconstruct the location of samples on IRRELEVANT trials. These results replicate evidence for a role for parietal cortex in context-binding and demonstrate that the neural representation of location context is subject to strategic control. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC48 - Strategic control of location and ordinal context in visual working memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 49 | Matthew Dougherty, University of Pennsylvania | Woohyeuk Chang, University of Pennsylvania; Michael Kahana, University of Pennsylvania | Searching memory in time and space | The order in which people recall items during memory search exhibits striking temporal and semantic organization. Here we investigated memory search during a hybrid spatial-episodic memory task in which subjects delivered objects to landmarks in a virtual environment and later recalled the delivered objects, either freely or in response to spatial cues. By analyzing the conditional probabilities of recall transitions, we demonstrate strong spatial organization of studied items. Further, we show neural biomarkers of successful memory encoding in this task match that observed in more traditional experiments involving word lists. Specifically, increases in high frequency activity, decreases in alpha band activity, and increases theta band activity mark periods of successful memory formation/retrieval. Finally, we discuss the neural correlates of spatial and temporal transitions and compare these to parallel findings in more traditional list memory tasks. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC49 - Searching memory in time and spaceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 50 | Edward Ester, University of Nevada, Reno | Valerie Handlos, University of Nevada, Reno; Subhosit Ray, Florida Atlantic University; Paige Pytel, Florida Atlantic University | Multiple Mechanisms are Responsible for Retrospective Cue Benefits in Working Memory | Working memory (WM) performance can be improved by an informative cue presented during storage. This finding ? termed a retrocue benefit ? has been used to study the process of selecting information stored in WM for action. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain retrocue benefits, including an attention-based strengthening of cue-matching information, insulation of cue-matching information from decay or interference, removal of cue non-matching information from WM, and enhanced read-out of cue-matching information. Importantly, delineating between these options based solely on behavioral measurements of memory performance has proved exceptionally difficult. Here, we tested several possible explanations for retrospective cue benefits by tracking location-specific representations of memoranda estimated from EEG signals while participants performed a retrospectively cued spatial WM task. Participants remembered the positions of three colored discs over a short delay, then reported the location of a probed disc via mouse click. During the intervening delay period, participants were shown either an uninformative (neutral trials) or informative (valid trials) retrospective cue. Across experimental blocks, retrocue reliability was varied between 50%, 75%, and 100%. Concurrent EEG measurements were used to decode the position of each remembered disc. To adjudicate between different explanations for retrocue benefits, we examined how cues influenced decoding performance for cue-matching and cue non-matching stimuli. Across several experiments, we find that retrospective cues improve the fidelity of cue-matching spatial WM representations and facilitate access to these representations. Moreover, both effects scaled with cue reliability. Thus, we conclude that multiple mechanisms are responsible for retrocue benefits in WM. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC50 - Multiple Mechanisms are Responsible for Retrospective Cue Benefits in Working MemoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 51 | Rachel Weese, University of Nevada, Reno | Edward Ester, University of Nevada, Reno | Serial selection of item-specific working memory content and item-specific motor plans | Working memory enables adaptive behavior by forming a temporal bridge between sensory events and anticipated actions. Prior research has shown that selective attention can be directed to items stored in memory in parallel with the selection and initiation of item-specific motor plans (i.e., a left- vs. right-hand response). However, it is unclear whether shifting attention to an item stored in memory facilitates access to task-relevant information, or whether increased access to task-relevant information occurs in parallel to the selection of item-specific motor plans. To test these possibilities, we recorded EEG while human volunteers remembered the orientations of two colored and lateralized gratings over a short delay. At the end of the trial, participants adjusted a probe grating to match the orientation of one of the remembered items. Following earlier work (van Ede et al., 2019), we linked different stimulus colors (blue/red) to different response affordances (left/right hands), which allowed us to independently manipulate and track the locus of spatial attention (left/right hemifield) and response planning via lateralized EEG alpha- and beta-band activity, respectively. We replicated earlier findings by showing that covert shifts of attention to task-relevant items and the selection of item-specific motor plans occurs in parallel. However, we demonstrate that access to to-be-reported memory information, indexed by multivariate orientation decoding, occurs independently of covert shifts of attention to stored items. Thus, we argue that access to task-relevant information stored in memory and the preparation of item-specific motor responses occur independently and with different time courses. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC51 - Serial selection of item-specific working memory content and item-specific motor plansDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 52 | Yun Ding, University of Wisconsin-Madison | Bradley Postle, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Freek van Ede, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | EEG and direction-of-gaze correlates of goal-directed vs. stimulus-driven selection in working memory | Previous work has shown that when multiple items are held in working memory, goal-directed and stimulus-driven factors can compete to influence selection. Subjects first encoded two oriented bars, left and right of fixation, each a different color, then a colored probe indicated which orientation to report. During the delay, a retrocue appeared in one of the two colors, indicating during 'pro' blocks the item that would be tested, during 'anti' blocks the item that would NOT be tested, and during 'null' blocks that either item could be tested (i.e., load remained 2). On 'anti' trials gaze bias toward the cued item, indicating selection, was delayed, indicating competition between exogenous and endogenous factors. Here we recorded EEG while replicating the behavioral and eye-tracking procedures. Behavioral results confirmed that informative retrocues benefited reaction time and precision. Location-specific ERPs to the retrocue indicated that selection was delayed on 'anti' relative to 'pro' trials, confirming the interpretation of the gaze bias results, and specifying a neural and temporal locus of the competition for selection. In the EEG, midline frontal theta was greater on 'anti' vs. 'pro' trials beginning at 150 msec after retrocue onset, and was greater on 'anti' vs. 'null' trials beginning at 800 msec after retrocue onset. These results are consistent with an elevated need for ongoing monitoring after selection-related conflict, a process that may differ from the demands on control of elevated working memory load. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC52 - EEG and direction-of-gaze correlates of goal-directed vs. stimulus-driven selection in working memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 53 | Simon Weber, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin | Kai Görgen, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Joram Soch, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Thomas Christophel, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; John-Dylan Haynes, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin | Mnemonic Signals in Visual Cortex During Working Memory Reflect Behavioral Precision, but Not Imagery | Visual Mental Imagery (VMI), the ability to generate depictive mental representations of visual content in the absence of external visual stimulation, has been proposed as a possible cognitive strategy to remember visual stimuli in Visual Working Memory (VWM) tasks. However, the ability to generate VMI varies substantially across individuals, leading to the hypothesis that individuals with high VMI vividness rely largely on sensory recruitment of visual areas to store visual inputs, while subjects with low VMI vividness might use alternative, non-visual cognitive strategies to solve VWM tasks. Accordingly, the cognitive strategy used to solve a VWM task would influence how much information about the stimulus is present in a given sensory store. Here, we systematically investigated the influence of VMI vividness on the strength of VWM representations in the visual cortex, using fMRI. Two groups of participants with high and low VMI vividness scores were tasked to maintain the orientation of a stimulus grating over a delay period of 10 seconds. Orientations were continuously sampled across 0-180¡. Using multitarget Support Vector Regression (mtSVR), a novel method to decode continuous periodic stimulus features from multivariate voxel patterns, we were able to reliably reconstruct remembered stimulus orientation from voxels in V1-V3 during the delay period. The reconstruction quality, however, did not differ between subjects with high and low VMI vividness. Instead, we observed a strong correlation between task performance and reconstruction quality. These findings suggest that behavioral precision, rather than VMI, predicts the strength of VWM representations in early visual areas. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC53 - Mnemonic Signals in Visual Cortex During Working Memory Reflect Behavioral Precision, but Not ImageryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 54 | Shirly Someck, Tel Aviv University | Hadas E. Sloin, Tel Aviv University; Eran Stark, Tel Aviv University | Investigating the neuronal patterns underlying short term memory using a novel tactile task for mice | During short term memory (STM), persistent and sequential activity patterns have been observed in multiple species and brain areas. However, a causal relation between neuronal patterns and STM maintenance has never been demonstrated. Here, we first developed a novel paradigm which includes discrimination and delayed discrimination tasks. The apparatus is a figure-8 maze with two pairs of motorized wheels, separated by a linear track. Every wheel holds five textures. In both tasks, mice learn to associate distinct textures with left and right turns. In the STM task, textures are presented at the start wheels, requiring memory maintenance throughout the track. Four mice learned the discrimination task within seven sessions (median success rate, 83%; trials, 133). Four mice learned the STM task within 16 sessions (66%, 110). Next, to link performance and network activity, we recorded multi-neuronal spiking from hippocampal region CA1 during learning of the discrimination task. Following learning, the fraction of place fields near the choice and reward regions increased, implying CA1 task involvement. To manipulate neuronal activity at a high spatiotemporal resolution, we implanted micro-LED probes in three mice. Recording and manipulation sessions were carried out in neocortex and CA1, producing synthetic multi-neuronal sequences. Three other mice were each implanted in CA1 bilaterally with fiber-coupled LDs, used to silence pyramidal cells specifically during memory maintenance. The recording and bi-directional manipulation of distinct CA1 circuit elements during the novel tactile STM task is expected to allow determining which neuronal patterns underlie STM. Funding: ERC #679253 | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC54 - Investigating the neuronal patterns underlying short term memory using a novel tactile task for miceDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 55 | Jorja Shires, University of Nevada, Reno | Arnab Biswas, University of Nevada, Reno; Ryan Durbin, University of Nevada, Reno; Alexandrea Kilgore-Gomez, National Institute of Health; Hector Arciniega, Harvard University; Marian Berryhill, University of Nevada, Reno | Categorizing prior history of mTBI and injury outcome using low- and high- density EEG | In progress: Head injury is a major public health issue. In the USA, traumatic brain injury causes 235,000 hospital visits yearly, most of them are categorized as mild (mTBI). Some individuals who experience an mTBI do not visit the hospital instead self-diagnosing their injury assuming full cognitive recovery within a few weeks. However, our previous findings suggest years post-injury visual working memory (VWM) deficits persist in self-reported mTBI. One challenge is identifying history of mTBI in self-reported cases. We reasoned resting-state EEG (rsEEG) would offer sufficient sensitivity to network distributions to objectively categorize mTBI versus healthy controls. We collected data from a commercial low-density EEG system to explore translational potential and compared findings with high density EEG. Both datasets classified control versus history of mTBI (logistic regression; low-density: sensitivity= 0.68; high-density: 0.7). To extend these findings, we focused on the heterogenous nature of the mTBI population, particularly their VWM deficits. The mTBI group was divided based on VWM performance using agglomerative clustering (high: N=72; low: N=31). High mTBI performed as well as controls (Dunn post-hoc: high versus controls: p = 1; high versus low: p < 0.0001; low versus control: p < 0.0001). Classification of high versus low mTBI subgroups was above chance using the low-density rsEEG (sensitivity: 0.63), but at chance with the high-density rs-EEG (sensitivity: 0.48). These rsEEG findings confirm detectible neural differences long after expected recovery. Rehabilitation protocols could build on these findings to identify mTBI in self-reported cases and who might benefit from continued cognitive intervention. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC55 - Categorizing prior history of mTBI and injury outcome using low- and high- density EEGDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 56 | René Freichel, University of California, Los Angeles | Nicolas Zink, University of California, Los Angeles; Robert Bilder, University of California, Los Angeles; James McGough, University of California, Los Angeles; James McCracken, University of California, Los Angeles; Sandra Loo, University of California, Los Angeles; Agatha Lenartowicz, University of California, Los Angeles | Alpha event-related desynchronization during encoding in adults with ADHD | Executive functioning deficits are central to established neuropsychological models of ADHD. Oscillatory activity, particularly the alpha rhythm (8-12 Hz) has been associated with cognitive impairments in ADHD. However, most studies examined such neural mechanisms underlying working-memory dysfunction in children and adolescents with ADHD. The current study aimed to investigate the role of alpha event-related decreases (ERD) during working memory processes in adults with ADHD. We collected electroencephalographic (EEG) data from 85 adults with ADHD and 105 healthy controls (aged 32-64), while they performed a continuous performance (CPT) and a Sternberg working memory task (SDRT). Time-frequency and independent component analysis was used to identify alpha (8-12 Hz) clusters to examine group and condition effects during working memory processes (encoding, maintenance, retrieval) and working memory loads (low and high). We observed no consistent group differences in alpha ERD. However, adults with ADHD showed trend-level attenuated alpha ERD effects during spatial working memory encoding. Working memory load was associated with stronger alpha ERD in both tasks and groups (ADHD, health controls). Alpha power correlated strongly across clusters and moderately between tasks. Importantly, we show that alpha power during encoding predicts inattention, but not hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms, thereby replicating effects consistent with previous studies on cognitive impairments in children with ADHD. We discuss potential reasons for a developmental shift in the role of working memory encoding from childhood to adulthood in ADHD. Our findings may offer fertile ground for theoretical advancements, including our understanding of the specificity of attenuated alpha decreases in children with ADHD. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC56 - Alpha event-related desynchronization during encoding in adults with ADHDDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 57 | Jason Scimeca, UC San Diego | Anastasia Kiyonaga, UC San Diego; Mark D'Esposito, UC Berkeley | Dissociating the causal contributions of frontal and parietal cortex in working memory capacity | Decades of neurophysiology and neuroimaging research indicate that fronto-parietal (FP) cortex supports working memory (WM). However, this research has been inconsistent regarding the precise roles of these regions, and patients with FP damage often present clinically with relatively spared WM performance. To address these inconsistencies, we conducted a large-scale, multi-modal Registered Report using fMRI, TMS, and quantitative modeling of behavior. On Day 1, we used fMRI to localize subject-specific regions within frontal and parietal cortex that are involved in the performance of two canonical visual WM tasks (N=120). On Days 2-5, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to perturb these regions and assessed the impact on WM performance (N=52). On each day, we applied continuous theta-burst TMS to either a baseline control site or one of three target sites: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), superior intraparietal sulcus (IPS), or inferior IPS. Following TMS, subjects completed the two WM tasks. We found that TMS to PFC and IPS largely spared WM function when task demands were low. Under increased memory load, however, TMS produced an impairment that dissociated between regions: IPS stimulation was more detrimental in a low-resolution (change detection) WM task while PFC stimulation was more detrimental in a high-resolution (continuous report) WM task. This causal manipulation therefore reveals distinct contributions of FP regions that only emerge under greater task demands. Furthermore, this Registered Report project provides a large, publicly available dataset of fMRI and TMS measures that can be leveraged to query the neurocognitive mechanisms of WM function. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC57 - Dissociating the causal contributions of frontal and parietal cortex in working memory capacityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 58 | Amy Proskovec, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center | Elizabeth Davenport, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Natalie Bell, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Heidi Rossetti, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Munro Cullum, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Jarett Berry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Joseph Maldjian, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center | Altered verbal working memory neural dynamics in preclinical and prodromal Alzheimer's disease | Background: In healthy adults, neural oscillatory dynamics within a predominantly left-lateralized network of brain regions underlies verbal working memory (VWM) performance, but how the preclinical (subjective memory complaint [SMC]) and prodromal (amnestic mild cognitive impairment [aMCI]) stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) impact these dynamics is not well characterized. We utilized magnetoencephalographic (MEG) brain imaging to investigate the effects of SMC and aMCI on the neural oscillations serving specific phases (i.e., encoding, maintenance) of VWM. Methods: Eighty-four adults (39 cognitively healthy [CH], 24 SMC, 21 aMCI, 44 female, M age = 63.1) completed a VWM task during MEG. All MEG data underwent standard preprocessing, were transformed into the time-frequency domain, and significant oscillatory responses relative to baseline were imaged using a beamformer. To determine the effect of group (CH, SMC, aMCI), ANCOVAs were performed on the resulting encoding and maintenance whole-brain maps with age as a covariate, and follow-up t-tests were performed. Results: Across groups, decreases in alpha-beta (9-16 Hz) activity were seen in left fronto-temporal regions throughout encoding and maintenance. Significant group differences emerged in the right anterior cingulate, inferior frontal, and superior temporal gyri during encoding (all p's < .05, corrected). Both SMC and, to a lesser degree, aMCI individuals exhibited increases in theta (4-7 Hz) activity within these regions, while these oscillatory responses were absent in CH individuals. Conclusions: Adults with preclinical and prodromal AD recruited additional right fronto-temporal regions during VWM performance. Our results offer supporting evidence for the compensation-related utilization of neural circuits hypothesis (CRUNCH). | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC58 - Altered verbal working memory neural dynamics in preclinical and prodromal Alzheimer's diseaseDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 60 | Isaiah Metcalf, University of Notre Dame | Nathan Rose, University of Notre Dame; Melanie Benitez, University of Notre Dame | The Effects of Caffeine and Caffeine Withdrawal on Working Memory Capacity and Control | Caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive substance in the world, likely because it is widely available and seems to increase alertness and subjective measures of cognition through the competitive inhibition of adenosine receptors. However, it is unclear if ingesting caffeine specifically enhances objective measures of working memory (WM). To address this, we conducted a randomized controlled trial in which both caffeine dependent and non-dependent (control) participants performed two WM change detection tasks before and after ingesting either a caffeine or placebo pill (counterbalanced across separate sessions). Behavioral measures of both WM capacity and the ability to filter irrelevant information from WM were measured with Pashler's k. We expected caffeine to increase WM capacity and filtering efficiency in both caffeine dependent and non-dependent groups, but also that the relationships may follow the inverted U-shape predicted by the Yerkes-Dodson law, with the caffeinated-control group performing worse in more mentally taxing setsizes than the caffeinated-dependent group. Preliminary results (N=32) suggest non-uniform enhancement, with larger improvements in change detection accuracy after consuming caffeine vs. placebo in the non-dependent group than the dependent group. Further, these results suggest that caffeine likely modulates the effects of neural inhibition on WM. These effects are likely to differ between the caffeine dependent and non-dependent individuals. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC60 - The Effects of Caffeine and Caffeine Withdrawal on Working Memory Capacity and ControlDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 61 | Isil Uluc, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch. | Isil Uluc, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Jennifer Fiedler, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Mohammad Daneshzand, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Fahimeh Mamashli, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Tori Turpin, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Kaisu Lankinen, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Lucia Navarro De Lara, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Padmavathi Sundaram, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Tommi Raij, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Aapo Nummenmaa, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; Jyrki Ahveninen, A.A. Martinos Center, Mass. Gen. Hospital, Harvard Med. Sch.; , | TMS Targeted at Superior Temporal Cortex Improves Decoding of Auditory Working Memory Content | Our ability to briefly maintain sound content within auditory working memory (WM) is a critical component of cognition. Classically, this function was attributed to sustained delay activity. This model has been recently challenged by a theory that WM is maintained via 'activity-silent' short-term plasticity. One way to probe these activity-silent WM states in humans is to use non-invasive neurostimulation techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Delivering a TMS pulse to the brain during WM maintenance evokes a response, which is modulated by the content held in the underlying neuronal population. This helps decoding of the memory content from EEG data. Whether these activity-silent processes occur in sensory areas of the brain, including auditory cortices, is still open to investigation. Here, we employed a retro cue paradigm with parametric ripple sounds as to-be-remembered stimuli during 64-channel EEG. Participants received single-pulse TMS to their left non-primary auditory cortex during the maintenance period. The results of our multivariate pattern analysis demonstrate that the decoding accuracy of WM content from the EEG significantly increased up to 500ms after the TMS pulses. The effect was clearly weaker during a subthreshold TMS control condition. Our results illustrate that local brain stimulation improves the decoding accuracy of WM content from EEG. Activity-silent mechanisms could contribute to WM maintenance in human non-primary auditory cortices. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC61 - TMS Targeted at Superior Temporal Cortex Improves Decoding of Auditory Working Memory ContentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 62 | Joseph Rudoler, University of Pennsylvania | James Bruska, University of Pennsylvania; Michael Kahana, University of Pennsylvania | Decoding and optimizing episodic memory | Electrophysiological studies in both animals and humans identify striking neural correlates of variable memory encoding and retrieval (Herweg et al., 2020). Recent invasive and non-invasive recording studies further demonstrate that machine learning classifiers can 'decode' these variable memory states, accurately predicting memory success in traditional list learning studies (e.g., Kragel et al., 2017; Li et al 2021, etc.). Here we asked whether a similar approach could be applied in a naturalistic memory task in which subjects played the role of a courier, experiencing items along a delivery route and subsequently recalling those items. Using spectral features of scalp EEG recordings as features, we accurately classify mnemonic success in out-of-sample cued recall and free recall data. To determine whether variability in classifier predictions causally influences successful memory encoding, we built a platform for triggering item presentation based upon EEG features evaluated in real time. We then tested subjects in subsequent closed-loop sessions where they experienced game-play under optimized timing conditions. We demonstrate superior recall when item presentation was timed to coincide with good classifier states, but only for subjects with poor level of recall performance. These results illustrate the potential therapeutic benefits of closed-loop, non-invasive brain stimulation, buttressing recent findings with invasive electrical stimulation protocols (e.g., Ezzyat et al., 2018). | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/23/2022 3:30 PM04/23/2022 5:30 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC62 - Decoding and optimizing episodic memoryDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 63 | Chandramallika Basak, University of Texas at Dallas | Paulina Skolasinska, University of Texas at Dallas; Evan Smith, University of Texas at Dallas; Shuo Qin, University of Texas at Dallas; Andrew Sun, University of Texas at Dallas; Glenn Sherard, University of Texas at Dallas; Denise Park, University of Texas at Dallas; Paul Fishwick, University of Texas at Dallas | High control working memory training improves cognition and left parietal-frontal grey matter structures in normal aging | The primary aim of the current Phase I clinical trial (NCT03988829) was to determine whether working memory training that requires higher cognitive control, compared to a similar training that requires lower cognitive control, results in greater cognitive enhancements in normal aging. If so, complimentary changes in brain structure would implicate cognitive plasticity, not just cognitive flexibility (LšvdŽn et al., 2010). Fifty-one older adults were randomized into three training arms, where cognitive control demands during working memory updating were systematically increased using game-based simulations. Given COVID interrupting the study, data was primarily collected on arms that used a in-house Birdwatch game, where either predictable (Low-Control) or unpredictable (High-Control) shifts of cued-attention were needed. Completed dataset, including neuroimaging and cognitive metrics, at both pre- and post-training assessment sessions were collected on 30 older participants, with game learning metrics on 28 participants. High-Control Training yielded significant gains in overall cognition when compared to Low-Control Training (Cohen's d for the ArmxSession interaction =1.21). These gains favoring High-Control Training were mainly observed for executive function and processing speed constructs. However, no differential improvements were observed in either game learning or psychosocial abilities. These differential cognitive gains were accompanied by significant increases in left lateral parietal gray matter volume (Cohen's d =0.87) and its cortical thickness (Cohen's d =0.88), and increases in left lateral frontal gray matter volume (Cohen's d =0.72) for High-Control, compared to Low-Control, Training. Our results suggests that high control cognitive training induces cognitive plasticity, not mere flexibility. | EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Working memory | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC63 - High control working memory training improves cognition and left parietal-frontal grey matter structures in normal agingDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 64 | Steven Meisler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | John Gabrieli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | A Large-Scale Investigation of White Matter Microstructural Associations with Reading Ability | Reading involves the functioning of a widely distributed brain network, and white matter tracts are responsible for transmitting information between constituent network nodes. Several studies have analyzed fiber bundle microstructural properties to shed insights into the neural basis of reading abilities and disabilities. Findings have been inconsistent, potentially due to small sample sizes and varying methodology. To address this, we analyzed a large data set of 686 children ages 5-18 using state-of-the-art neuroimaging acquisitions and processing techniques. We searched for associations between fractional anisotropy (FA) and single-word and single-nonword reading skills in children with diverse reading abilities across multiple tracts previously thought to contribute to reading. We also looked for group differences in tract FA between typically reading children and children with reading disabilities. FA of the white matter increased with age across all participants. There were no significant correlations between overall reading abilities and tract FAs across all children, and no significant group differences in tract FA between children with and without reading disabilities. There were associations between FA and nonword reading ability in older children (ages 9 and above). Higher FA in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and left inferior cerebellar peduncle (ICP) correlated with better nonword reading skills. These results suggest that letter-sound correspondence skills, as measured by nonword reading, are associated with greater white matter coherence among older children in these two tracts, as indexed by higher FA. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC64 - A Large-Scale Investigation of White Matter Microstructural Associations with Reading AbilityDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 65 | Sarah Berger, Western University | Laura Batterink, Western University | Developmental differences in the consolidation of linguistic regularities during sleep | Sleep has been shown to play an important role in memory consolidation in many different domains, including language learning. Compared to adults, children have a well-known advantage for learning new languages and linguistic regularities, which could be partially driven by their deeper sleep. Here, we examined the relationship between sleep and language learning across development. We presented children (8-10 years) and adults (18-35 years) with a novel article system that included both an instructed and a hidden grammatical rule. Participants listened to two-word phrases consisting of a novel article and a noun (e.g., ro shirt), and were asked to classify each phrase according to the instructed rule, with two of the novel articles indicating near, and the other two indicating far. Critically, participants were not informed that the novel articles also predicted noun animacy. A subset of 'generalization' trials included a nonsense noun (e.g., ro badupi), such that responses could only be determined by the novel article. Participants completed this task before and after a night of sleep while their EEG was monitored with a portable recording device. Consistent with our hypotheses, children's generalization of the hidden rule increased after sleep, whereas adults did not. Additionally, a greater proportion of children became explicitly aware of the hidden rule than adults. Finally, the strength of slow-oscillation and spindle coupling predicted improved rule generalization after sleep. These results suggest that children are better able to consolidate knowledge of linguistic regularities relative to adults, which may be partially driven by their deeper sleep. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC65 - Developmental differences in the consolidation of linguistic regularities during sleepDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 66 | Elizabeth Pierotti, University of California, Davis | Sharon Coffey-Corina, University of California, Davis; Lee Miller, University of California, Davis; David P. Corina, University of California, Davis | Seeing and hearing speech: ERPs of audiovisual word perception in typically hearing and cochlear implant-using children | Spoken language usually occurs in contexts where auditory and visual information is available, and behavioral evidence shows that audiovisual (A/V) speech is easier to comprehend than auditory speech alone. Little is understood about the neural basis for development of A/V speech perception in children, specifically those with differential early auditory experiences. With a focus on ERP components responsive to A/V speech (P1, P2, N400), we investigate A/V speech processing in congenitally deaf children who use cochlear implants (CIs). Continuous EEG data was collected from deaf children with CIs (n= 30; mean age= 81 months) and typical hearing children (n= 19; mean age= 75 months) during a word-picture priming paradigm. We presently explore neural responses to spoken audiovisual word primes. Results demonstrate greater P1 and P2 responses for CI-using children compared to controls (p=.017 and p=.043, respectively), and greater N400 responses for controls than CI children (p=0.006). We also explored age- and experience-related factors. P2 latency was found to decrease with age for controls (R= -0.199, p=.014), but not in the CI group (R= -0.07, p=.278). However, CI users' time-in-sound was positively correlated with P2 amplitude (R= 0.18, p=.005), suggesting differences in attentional mechanisms related to A/V speech in experienced CI users. In sum, audiovisual speech may evoke greater visual reactivity and differentially engage attention in CI users relative to controls. These early differences could influence downstream cognitive processes involved in comprehension, suggested by N400 differences. These findings inform our understanding of attentional and perceptual speech processing in CI children. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC66 - Seeing and hearing speech: ERPs of audiovisual word perception in typically hearing and cochlear implant-using childrenDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 67 | Yi-Chun Ko, National Taiwan University | Chih Yeh, Max Planck School of Cognition; Hsinjen Hsu, National Tsing Hua University; Chia-Lin Lee, National Taiwan University | Age-related differences in statistical learning of non-adjacent dependencies: evidence from ERPs | Detecting statistical regularities is key to language acquisition. Studies have shown that the capability of extracting statistical regularities from continuous strings such as speech exists in infancy and persists into adulthood. However, little is known about how this ability is affected by aging. To gain a basic understanding of statistical learning ability of older adults, the present study recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) of a group of young adults (YA, N = 29; age range = 20-24 years) and a group of older adults (OA, N = 24; age range = 61-83 yrs) who monaurally learned and judged the grammaticality of 3-element pseudoword strings generated according to predetermined artificial grammar rules. The experiment was conducted in four training-test cycles. The results showed that older adults were significantly less accurate in grammaticality judgment than were younger adults (averaged accuracy from the last two cycles: OA = 56% and YA = 84%). Nevertheless, like young adults, older adults showed a unilateral left-hemisphere P600 grammaticality effect. Relative to grammatical strings, ungrammatical strings elicited a P600 response when perceived through the right ear, but elicited a sustained negativity when perceived through the left ear. These data present an interesting contrast to prior observations of bilateral syntactic processing in older adults when processing native languages. Together, these findings suggest that aging influences different aspects of statistical learning. Older adults, while being able to implicitly distinguish strings that adhere to or violate the exposed regularity, are less able to make explicit grammatical judgments based on this knowledge. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC67 - Age-related differences in statistical learning of non-adjacent dependencies?evidence from ERPsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 68 | Shauni Van Herck, KU Leuven | Femke Vanden Bempt, KU Leuven; Maria Economou, KU Leuven; Jolijn Vanderauwera, UCL; Toivo Glatz, Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Maaike Vandermosten, KU Leuven; Pol Ghesquière, KU Leuven; Jan Wouters, KU Leuven | Neural synchronization to rise time cues in children who develop dyslexia | Neural synchronization to auditory input signals is of crucial importance for speech processing and associated processes such as learning to read. Onsets and increases of amplitudes in the speech envelope, quantified by rise times, reinforce neural synchronization by resetting neural oscillations. Deficits in neural synchronization have been proposed to underlie phonological difficulties in individuals with dyslexia. In adults with dyslexia, these deficits are specifically related to atypical rise time processing. The aim of the current study is to extend these findings to children. In a longitudinal study we assessed neural synchronization using Auditory Steady-State Responses at 4 and 20 Hz (syllable and phoneme rate). We included sinusoidal amplitude modulated and pulsatile stimuli as models for differing rise times. The children were tested twice at pre-reading age, and once at beginning reading age after approximately one year of formal reading instruction. These time points correspond to the testing phases of an intervention study in which all children participated. All children were at cognitive risk for dyslexia and were retrospectively classified into groups of dyslexic and typical readers. Analyses showed that responses at 4 Hz significantly differ between the two stimuli. At 20 Hz, responses differ from those of typical and dyslexic adults. Ongoing analyses of the children divided in typical and dyslexic reading groups will further explore whether neural synchronization profiles found in adult readers can be extended to pre-readers and beginning readers and whether this measure can act as a marker of dyslexia even before the start of reading acquisition. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC68 - Neural synchronization to rise time cues in children who develop dyslexiaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 69 | Bradley White, Gallaudet University | Joseph Palagano, Gallaudet University; Cryss Padilla, Gallaudet University; Laura-Ann Petitto, Gallaudet University | Evidence that sign-speech bilingualism supports optimal learning in deaf children | Hearing aids (HAs) and cochlear implants (CIs) are used worldwide to treat reduced hearing across the lifespan. The prevailing assumption is that these devices provide robust augmentation of sound, and, thus, optimal access to learning, especially learning language and reading. Are HAs and CIs enough for optimal learning? New findings challenge this prevailing view and demonstrate the deleterious impact of listening effort on the brain. Long-term HA and CI adults self-report high listening effort, and brain imaging shows adverse changes to neural networks underlying attention and language. Questions remain about the impact of listening effort with HAs and CIs during critical and sensitive periods in children. Contrary to HAs and CIs being paramount, our novel fNIRS brain imaging results (measuring cognition) during game-like tasks revealed that early sign-speech bilingual language exposure is key for optimal language, reading, and cognitive development in deaf children (pilot data; N=4, mean=6y2m±1m). Deaf sign-speech bilingual children performed faster and more accurately on a cognitive flexibility task than hearing monolingual children and showed greater neural activation in the prefrontal cortex for incongruent compared to congruent conditions (p<0.05). Also, deaf sign-speech bilingual children performed more accurately and with greater neural activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus for regular than irregular and nonsense words (p<0.05). The findings yield insight into cognitive development involving learning in young children (attention, language, reading). This work has broad scientific and translational impact by elucidating the optimal conditions that give rise to all children's school readiness for lifelong learning success. In progress. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC69 - Evidence that sign-speech bilingualism supports optimal learning in deaf childrenDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 70 | Michael Ullman, Potsdam University | Jana Reifegerste, Potsdam University; Lauren Russell, Georgetown University; David Balota, Washington University; Daniel Lipscomb, University of Virginia; George Luta, Georgetown University; Marcus Meinzer, University Medicine Greifswald; Michael Rugg, University of Texas at Dallas; Kyle Shattuck, Georgetown University; Peter Turkeltaub, Georgetown University; John VanMeter, Georgetown University; João Veríssimo, University of Lisbon; , | The neurocognition of word-finding abilities across the lifespan | Older adults commonly experience word-finding difficulties. Deficits of executive function, processing speed, and perceptual abilities have all been posited as explanatory accounts for these difficulties. However, it remains uncertain whether these accounts best explain the pattern of lexical declines, or are sufficient to explain them. We propose that word-finding declines in aging are largely explained by concomitant declines in declarative memory, in particular hippocampal-related declines: the declarative aging deficit (DAD) hypothesis. DAD predicts declines in lexical abilities that depend heavily on the hippocampus. Thus, particular declines should be found for words with later ages-of-acquisition, such as newer words in the language (e.g., 'sudoku'), which may not have undergone systems consolidation as much as established words (e.g. 'pretzel'). Moreover, lexical production (reliant on hippocampal-based recollection) should be more affected than comprehension (which can also rely on perirhinal-based familiarity). To test DAD we gave (thus far) 68 participants (ages 18-83) picture-naming (production) and word-picture matching (comprehension) tasks of both newer/recently-acquired and established/early-acquired words. Preliminary analyses revealed significant age-related lexical production declines for newer but not established words, whereas comprehension showed no declines at all. The analyses controlled for word frequency, word length, SES, education, amount of general lexical input, processing speed, and inhibitory control abilities, while also accounting for words unknown to each participant and screening for hearing/vision and MCI. Moreover, left hippocampal volumes (corrected for intracranial volumes) mediated the effect of age on the production of newer but not established words. Basic research and translational implications are discussed. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC70 - The neurocognition of word-finding abilities across the lifespanDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 71 | Beenish Mahmood, Rutgers University- Newark | April Benasich, Rutgers University- Newark | Power Spectral Density Composition in Pre-Linguistic Infants | Spontaneous brain oscillations have recently garnered much attention for their posited utility as early biomarkers of atypical neural development. Previous studies have shown that spontaneous electroencephalographic (sEEG) data from infants that are at high risk for developmental delay show differences in spectral power composition when compared to infants who are at low or no risk, and that these differences may correspond to later cognitive deficits. However, no study to date has examined whether spectral power composition can be altered as a result of early behavioral intervention. In the present study, we examine sEEG data collected from infants at 7, 9, 12 and 18 months. Infants in the Active group were presented with an interactive acoustic experience (IAE) between 4-7 months of age, while age-matched infants in the Na•ve group were not. We hypothesized Power Spectral Density (PSD) values in a given frequency range would differ by group. Absolute PSD values were calculated for each infant for alpha, beta, theta, and gamma frequency ranges and groups were compared across ages. Consistent with previous literature, preliminary results showed that Frontal PSD values in the higher frequency ranges increased with age. Group differences were seen in the higher frequencies at 12 and 18 months of age. Additionally, group differences were seen in cognitive assessment scores at 18 months of age. These findings begin to quantify how early experience can support the development of networks in a manner that can enhance later cognitive and language ability. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC71 - Power Spectral Density Composition in Pre-Linguistic InfantsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 72 | Juliana Baldo, VA Northern California Health Care System | Jas Chok, VA Northern California Health Care System; Sandy Lwi, VA Northern California Health Care System; Krista Schendel, VA Northern California Health Care System; Timothy Herron, VA Northern California Health Care System; Brian Curran, VA Northern California Health Care System; Kathleen Hall, Neurobehavioral Systems; Mike Blank, Neurobehavioral Systems; Garrett Williams, Neurobehavioral Systems; Kristi Geraci, Neurobehavioral Systems; Peter Pebler, Neurobehavioral Systems; Gabriel Sucich, Neurobehavioral Systems; David Woods, Neurobehavioral Systems | New Computerized Verbal Fluency Task for Longitudinal Assessment of Dementia | Previous studies have suggested that impaired verbal fluency is a sensitive measure of semantic impairment in dementia that appears several years prior to diagnosis. This early impairment has been associated with neural changes and altered activation in key regions of bilateral temporal and frontal cortex. In the current study, we report verbal fluency findings from a large group of healthy older adults (n = 270, ages 56-89) on a new computerized neuropsychological battery that utilizes advanced automatic speech recognition and transcription software. In an ongoing longitudinal study, we are testing healthy older participants on the California Computerized Assessment Battery (CCAB) every six months for three years, in order to track changes in cognition associated with aging, including evolution of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. The CCAB includes six semantic categories: Animals, vegetables, countries, sports, furniture, and fruit. Participants are given one minute per category to generate as many exemplars as possible. Online speech-to-text transcription was implemented using consensus automatic speech recognition (CASR) software, which utilizes six different speech recognition systems and chooses the most common transcription. In the baseline testing session, overall verbal fluency performance was significantly predicted by age. However, this effect was no longer significant when gender and education were entered into the regression model; females and more educated participants generated more exemplars across categories. These findings enhance understanding of aging effects on verbal fluency and serve as a critical baseline against which to monitor alterations in performance that coincide with the development of MCI and dementia. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC72 - New Computerized Verbal Fluency Task for Longitudinal Assessment of DementiaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 73 | Ting Qi, University of T‚bing; UCSF | Yulia Oganian, University of T‚bing; UCSF; Maria Luisa Mandelli, University of California San Francisco;Christa Watson Pereira, University of California San Francisco; Abigail Licata, University of California San Francisco; Rian Bogley, University of California San Francisco; Nicole Yabut, University of California San Francisco; Matthew Neylan, University of California San Francisco; Edward Chang, University of California San Francisco; Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini, University of California San Francisco | Cortical folding of the left superior temporal cortex associated with acoustic edge perception in developmental dyslexia | Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a neurodevelopmental reading disorder, generally associated with phonological deficits, as well as non-speech auditory impairments. For instance, perception of acoustic edges in sound amplitude modulations, a critical cue to syllable structure, is impaired in DD. Yet, little is known about the brain basis of auditory deficits in DD. Here, we examined the relationship between acoustic edge perception in DD and anatomical structures of the superior temporal gyrus (STG), a region strongly implicated in phonological and acoustic edge processing. Participants (50 children with DD, aged 7-15y) completed an amplitude rise-time discrimination task (RT), to assess acoustic edge perception, alongside a battery of phonological and reading tests. Brain surface measures were obtained from T1 images. We found that RT performance positively correlated with both reading and phonological abilities. Crucially, a higher local gyrification index in the left posterior STG was predictive of better RT performance, but was not related to phonological abilities. This dissociation suggests independent contributions of the STG to non-verbal and verbal deficits in DD. Furthermore, children with better RT performance had a larger surface area in the left posterior STG, as well as in other parts of the reading network, namely the inferior parietal cortex. Overall, our results show that the neurodevelopment of the left temporoparietal region may underlie individual variations in amplitude processing in DD. This constitutes the first evidence linking behavioral auditory deficits and brain structure in DD, providing a path towards understanding individual variability in DD. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC73 - Cortical folding of the left superior temporal cortex associated with acoustic edge perception in developmental dyslexiaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 74 | Florence Bouhali, University of Connecticut | Luxi Feng, University of Connecticut; Emilio Ferrer, University of California Davis; Tim Brown, University of California San Diego; Terry Jernigan, University of California San Diego; Richard Wagner, Florida State University; Fumiko Hoeft, University of Connecticut | Surface Area of the Fusiform Gyrus Constrains Reading Acquisition across Development | Literacy learning triggers functional and anatomical changes throughout the brain. A milestone of this development is the functional specialization of a region of the left fusiform gyrus (FG), within visual cortex, for recognizing letters and words. Reciprocally, the structure of this region before reading onset may predict the success of reading acquisition, suggesting complex bi-directional interactions between cortical structure and reading behavior across development. Here, we apply for the first time dual latent change score models to decipher causal influences between brain structure and reading behavior during reading acquisition. In a cohort of 209 children followed for up to 5 time points, from a median age of 6 to 11 years, we studied the interactions between word reading efficiency (TOWRE) and cortical structure of the FG. Surface area and cortical thickness, respectively reflecting more prenatal vs. postnatal influences, were derived using Freesurfer from the left FG (our region of interest), and from the right FG and whole cortex (serving as controls). Surface area of the left FG positively and significantly predicted future gains in word reading efficiency, while the reciprocal reading-to-brain influence was weak. The brain-to-reading coupling was weaker for the right than left FG surface area, and absent for the total cortical surface area. Similar but weaker trends were observed for cortical thickness of the left FG. Thus, our results support a strong role of the cortical structure of the left FG, especially surface area, as a leading indicator of changes in reading skills throughout primary school. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC74 - Surface Area of the Fusiform Gyrus Constrains Reading Acquisition across DevelopmentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 75 | Jia-Wei Kou, National Taipei University of Education | Li-Ying Fan, National Taipei University of Education; Hsin-Chin Chen, National Chung Cheng University; Shiou-Yuan Chen, University of Taipei; Tai-Li Chou, National Taiwan University | Neural substrates of phonological transfer in young Chinese-English bilingual children | Bilingualism relates to how children develop metalinguistic skills, being beneficial mostly for learning languages. For Chinese-English bilingual adults, learning an alphabetic language allows them to become more aware of the phonological knowledge in Chinese, compared to Chinese monolingual adults. The neural substrates of phonological transfer in young Chinese children learning English, however, are still unknown. This study recruited 28 Chinese monolingual and 65 Chinese-English bilingual first graders. They performed an auditory phonological judgment task during fNIRS (functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy) neuroimaging. During the task, children heard three words in series and decided which of the latter two shared the same onset with the first word. Two levels of difficulty were included, requiring segmentation of either syllables (easy) or phonemes (hard). Monolingual children completed only the Chinese task, whereas the bilinguals completed both Chinese and English tasks. The contrast of the hard versus control conditions was defined to reveal the hemodynamic activity in phonological processing. In the English task, bilingual children showed greater activation in the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG), demonstrating increased demands on phonological segmentation. In the Chinese tasks, bilingual children showed a trend of greater activation (p?0.061) in the right pIFG than monolingual children, suggesting more phonological segmentation engaged in bilingual children. The results indicate that learning English facilitates the development of phonological awareness, and this advantage may have been transferred to Chinese phonological processing in early development, with right lateralization in the frontal region. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC75 - Neural substrates of phonological transfer in young Chinese-English bilingual childrenDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 76 | Yuan Tao, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine | Kyrana Tsapkini, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Brenda Rapp, Johns Hopkins University | The relationship between functional and structural changes in post-stroke aphasia and primary progressive aphasia | The temporal trajectory of pathological neural processes is a pivotal factor in determining neuroplastic responses. We specifically investigated the coupling of functional and structural changes (relative to age-matched healthy controls; n=19) in two neurological diseases with distinct pathological trajectories: abrupt onset in post-stroke aphasia (PSA, n=22) and gradual development in primary progressive aphasia (PPA, n=72), in groups with similar language profiles and left-hemisphere damage distributions. Functional and structural changes have been well-documented for both diseases, although the degree of coupling between them has not been previously investigated. Here, for each group we examined the correlation of functional connectome (FC) changes (measured with resting-state fMRI) with both white matter structural connectivity (SC) changes (measured with DTI) and gray matter damage (GM) (stroke infarct or atrophy). For PSA, in the ipsi-lesional left-hemisphere we found strong correlations between FC changes and both SC and GM changes (r=0.52 and -0.39, p<.05). However, right-hemisphere FC changes were decoupled from SC changes (r=-0.17, p>.05). In PPA, FC changes were not correlated with GM atrophy in either hemisphere (r=-0.21 and -0.15, p>.05) but they were correlated with SC changes in both hemispheres (r=0.26 and r=0.55, p<.05). The results reveal that the abrupt damage that occurs in stroke can result in strong hemispheric differences in the coupling of functional-structural changes with FC decoupling from SC changes in the contra-lesional right-hemisphere. In contrast, the progressive damage in PPA can result in more symmetrical patterns of decoupling (FC-GM) and coupling (FC-SC) across the hemispheres. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC76 - The relationship between functional and structural changes in post-stroke aphasia and primary progressive aphasiaDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 78 | Isabel Nichoson, Haskins Laboratories | Sara Sanchez-Alonso, Haskins Laboratories; Richard Aslin, Haskins Laboratories, Univ. Connecticut, Yale Univ. | Modulation of language-related networks during movie-viewing using whole-head fNIRS | A key skill acquired by nearly all children in their first few postnatal years of life is the ability to understand their native language. The structure and organization of language-related cognitive networks has been extensively studied in adults via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Crucially, it is largely unknown how these networks form and develop during the first few years of life due to the methodological difficulties inherent in extending these fMRI studies to infants and young children. Here, we aim to characterize the development of the brain networks that support language comprehension by using a movie-viewing paradigm and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-a neuroimaging method both more robust to motion and less demanding of participants than fMRI. We present baseline results from adults for comparison to on-going data collection from children and infants. Each participant views movie clips whose audio track is either English (native language), Spanish (non-native language), or distorted (time-reversed) speech. On-going data collection (24 adults tested to date) of whole-head fNIRS signals (105 channels) has revealed parietal and temporal activation patterns that differ when listening to one's native language compared to non-native or distorted speech. In-progress analyses of functional connectivity (FC) patterns are expected to show distinctions during speech (native and non-native) versus non-speech in language network areas. We predict that these differences will be modulated by language contrasts (native versus non-native). Data collection from infants and children, currently interrupted by Covid, will enable us to chart the development of language-related networks. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC78 - Modulation of language-related networks during movie-viewing using whole-head fNIRSDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 79 | Andrea Burgess, Vanderbilt University | Laurie Cutting, Vanderbilt University | PROP52202297 | When learning to read, children typically engage left temporoparietal and inferior frontal regions for decoding written words. However, less is known about how early neural activity and network connectivity during word reading predict later reading comprehension (RC) success. To investigate these relationships, we collected fMRI data from 29 typically developing children after they completed first grade (M age = 7.6) and tracked RC ability following first and third grade. During fMRI data collection, children completed a reading task where they viewed short, scrambled phrases (e.g., 'field the other'). Compared to a fixation baseline, children displayed neural activity in a variety of reading, language, and visual regions. We were interested in exploring how 1) individual neural activations and 2) regional connectivity within the reading and language network predicted first and/or third-grade RC. We found that increased activity in the left angular gyrus (AG) related to higher RC in first grade and increased activity in the left superior temporal sulcus (STS) related to higher RC in later elementary school. We also saw that decreased connectivity between left STS and left AG was predictive of lower RC in later elementary school. Overall, we identified that left temporal and parietal regions, critical areas during early reading development, predict concurrent and longitudinal RC ability. We also showed that decreased neural coordination between these language regions during early word reading points toward poorer reading outcomes. Further investigations will ascertain how the connectedness and modularity of the broader reading and language network predict children's RC ability. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC79 - PROP52202297Description of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 80 | Maria Elizabeth Monica Carlier, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, UNAM | Thalia Harmony, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, UNAM | Impact of pre- and perinatal risk factors for brain damage in language development | In this work, we describe a dataset of 167 children born at risk for brain damage. The sample variables are 28 pre and perinatal risk factors, the initial magnetic resonance, evoked auditory and visual potential, birth weight, gestational weeks, and CELF-4 core language score applied between 6 and 8 years. The goal was to group patients with similar features to see the impact of the risk factors at birth in the language development of the children treated at the Neurodevelopment research unit. We used an unsupervised learning technique using the BIGML application. The results showed 4 clusters. Cluster 1 with 4 children who got a very low language score, characterized by low birth weight (<2500 gr), sepsis, antibiotics, hyperbilirubinemia, and phototherapy. Cluster 2 with 25 children with low language scores and characterized by maternal infections. Cluster 3 with 81 children who obtained average language score and presented the following risk factors: low birth weight (<2500 gr), helmet, sepsis, antibiotics, hyperbilirubinemia, and phototherapy. Cluster 4 with 57 children with superior language scores presented the following risk factors hyperbilirubinemia and phototherapy. The poor performance on children's language tests in cluster 2 is attributed to the bilateral superficial hipoacusia. More importantly, cluster 3 with the highest number of risk factors and average language performance and cluster 4 with the best performance in the language test can be attributed to the Katona and language treatment offered at the Neurodevelopment Research Unit. | LANGUAGE: Development & aging | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC80 - Impact of pre- and perinatal risk factors for brain damage in language developmentDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 81 | Lea Frank, University of Oregon | Dasa Zeithamova, University of Oregon | The contribution of anterior and posterior hippocampal connections to individual differences in memory specificity and g | The hippocampus aids in remembering individual experiences (memory specificity) as well as linking across those experiences to form generalized knowledge (memory generalization). How can the hippocampus support both memory functions? Prior work indicates functional dissociations between the anterior and posterior hippocampus such as distinct connectivity profiles and distinct levels of granularity in memory representations. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that anterior and posterior hippocampal connections will differentially predict behavior, such that anterior hippocampal connections will track with memory generalization while posterior hippocampal connections will track with memory specificity. A large sample of participants (n=167) completed a battery of memory assessments across two sessions that included measures of both memory specificity and generalization. Factor analysis was used to derive individual scores of memory specificity and generalization abilities. A subset of participants (n=62) returned for a third session to undergo MRI, including a resting-state scan. Individual differences in whole-brain connectivity with the anterior and posterior hippocampus during rest were correlated with individual differences in memory abilities. We found that memory generalization ability was predicted by only anterior hippocampal connectivity. Unexpectedly, no hippocampal connections predicted overall memory specificity ability. Instead, different hippocampal connections appeared to predict performance on individual tasks. These findings provide new probes into the hypothesized functional dissociations of anterior and posterior hippocampus and different aspects of memory. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC81 - The contribution of anterior and posterior hippocampal connections to individual differences in memory specificity and gDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 82 | Alina Tu, University of California, Irvine | Caitlin McIntyre, University of California, Irvine; Elizabeth Chrastil, University of California, Irvine | The relationship between hippocampal subfields and individual differences in navigation | Despite the need for successful navigation, humans vary greatly in their abilities to navigate. These individual differences may relate to differences in brain structure. Studies on navigation experts and older populations have shown a relationship between hippocampal volume and navigation ability, but this relationship in the healthy, young adult population has recently been called into question. Many of these studies did not analyze the volumes of anatomically-different subfields of the hippocampus. This study tested the abilities of young adults to successfully navigate a virtual desktop maze environment, and the participants' high-resolution anatomical brain images were segmented into four hippocampal subfields and three adjacent medial temporal lobe regions. We theorize that successful navigation correlates with the volumes of the Cornu Ammonis 3 (CA3) and Dentate Gyrus (DG) subfields since CA3 and DG volumes are related to pattern separation ability in humans. With the need to distinguish between similar-looking maze hallways and partially-overlapping routes, young adults who have stronger pattern separation ability may perform better in this task and have larger CA3 and DG volumes. Rodent literature informs us that the Cornu Ammonis 1 (CA1) and Entorhinal Cortex (ERC) activity are correlated with spatial ability and memory, suggesting a possible relationship between these areas and navigation performance. Our findings indicate that CA1 and DG subfield volumes positively correlated with maze performance, consistent with both a pattern separation account and the rodent literature. This result is informative to our future understanding of the link between brain and navigation behavior for healthy, young adults. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC82 - The relationship between hippocampal subfields and individual differences in navigationDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 83 | Sidni Justus, University of Texas at Austin | Soroush Mirjalili, University of Texas at Austin; Patrick Powell, Georgia Institute of Technology; Audrey Duarte, University of Texas at Austin | Different patterns of episodic neural reinstatement support intact context memory performance in adults, Autism Spectrum | Research on memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) finds a pattern of memory functioning in ASD similar to neurotypical aging, including diminished episodic memory. Individuals with ASD experience increased difficulty encoding contextual associations and potential underlying factors may include executive dysfunction and deficient metacognition. Using an aging framework, the present study tested the effects of selective attention on context memory in adults with ASD. During encoding, participants were presented with grayscale objects flanked by two opposing contexts (scene, color). Participants were told to attend to only one object-context relationship while ignoring the other. At retrieval, participants made both recognition and memory confidence judgments. Behavioral results revealed that adults with ASD performed similarly (i.e., no context memory impairment or deficient metamemory) to neurotypical adults. Encoding-retrieval similarity (ERS) comparisons of electroencephalography data collected as part of this study were then used to evaluate if reinstatement is reduced in adults with ASD despite comparable behavioral accuracy and confidence. ERS analyses revealed delayed neural reinstatement for adults with ASD compared to neurotypical adults. This pattern of results is similar to that seen in neurotypical aging. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC83 - Different patterns of episodic neural reinstatement support intact context memory performance in adults, Autism SpectrumDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 84 | Brian Levine, Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science | Soudeh Ardestani Khoubrouy, Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science; Carina Fan, University of Toronto; Anna Theresa Santiago, Baycrest Health Sciences; Divya Mistry, Baycrest Health Sciences; Ju-Chi Yu, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Aida Eslami, Laval University; HervÈ Abdi, The University of Texas at Dallas | The Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM): A mega-analysis of 31 studies and 25,000 participants | The Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM) assesses self-reported remote mnemonic capacities for episodic autobiographical memory, semantic memory, spatial navigation, and future thinking. Since its publication in 2013, the SAM has been used by researchers seeking measures of these mnemonic capacities at the trait level, as opposed to performance confined to a single session. We analyzed data from 31 studies, encompassing 25,422 participants, to assess the latent structure of the SAM, the psychometric properties of the subscales, and their relation to aging. To find the common latent structure and differences between the studies, we used DiSTATIS (a three-way generalization of metric multidimensional scaling). The latent structure analysis upheld prior published findings concerning the SAM's latent structure, particularly the separation of spatial navigation from other remote mnemonic capacities. A new finding was observed for the semantic subscale items, which separated into those concerned with remembering names of people vs facts, suggesting that these two elements of semantic memory are dissociable. The original SAM subscales were found to have good internal consistency. As reported previously, the latent structure of the SAM was consistent across younger and older groups. A brief (10-item) version of the SAM provides an acceptable alternative when reduced administration time is required. The SAM is a reliable and valid measure of individual differences in remote episodic, semantic, spatial, and future thinking abilities. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC84 - The Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM): A mega-analysis of 31 studies and 25,000 participantsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 85 | William Liu, Brigham and Women's Hospital | Leo Zekelman, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Laura Rigolo, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Alexandra Golby, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Yanmei Tie, Brigham and Women's Hospital | Functional connectivity of memory networks in epilepsy patients | Patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy who undergo neurosurgical interventions to control seizures are at risk for post-operative memory impairments. Mapping the functional organization of memory networks prior to surgery may allow for more favorable outcomes. We examined the functional connectivity of memory networks in twelve epilepsy patients using functional MRI (fMRI). Patients were scanned during a face-name association task, encoding 230 face-name pairs. Post-scan, patients performed a recognition memory test of matching names and faces as shown during encoding, and indicated their recognition confidence. fMRI data was preprocessed, and task activation was analyzed using the general linear model (GLM) with SPM software. Additionally, seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analyses were performed using both hippocampi as regions of interest (ROIs) separately as seeds, with DPABI software. A second-level analysis was performed using the connectivity maps of all subjects. Results indicated that the left hippocampus showed FC with the left and right lingual gyri, right hippocampus, left posterior fusiform gyrus, left inferior and medial occipital gyrus, left angular gyrus, right posterior cingulate gyrus and right paracentral lobule. The right hippocampus showed FC with the left hippocampus, left and right posterior fusiform gyri, left lingual gyrus, left inferior occipital gyrus, and right medial occipital gyrus. These results suggest that bilateral functional organization of memory networks in epilepsy patients can be mapped using a simple face-name association task. This paradigm should be further investigated for its usefulness in lateralization of memory function for epilepsy surgical planning. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC85 - Functional connectivity of memory networks in epilepsy patientsDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 86 | Marcia Bécu, NTNU | Tora Bonnevie, NTNU; Jonas Alexander Jarholm, Akershus University Hospital; Gøril Rolfseng Grøntvedt, St. Olavs University Hospital; Christian F. Doeller, NTNU | Entorhinal grid-like representation in early Alzheimer disease: association with CSF biomarkers and genetic risk factor | Early Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by spatial navigation impairments. These alterations are related to the brain damage occurring in the medial temporal lobes, including the entorhinal cortex (EC), where first pathological signs are observed. In humans, grid-like representations are measured with fMRI and serve as a potential proxy for grid cell coding in the EC. The objective of the current study is to characterize the impact of early AD on grid-like representation in humans. A sample of 80 participants (patients and controls) navigated a virtual environment and had to learn and retrieve the position of 4 objects inside a circular arena, while 3T functional magnetic resonance images were acquired. Participants were recruited both at St. Olavs University Hospital and Akerhus University Hospital, as part of the Dementia Disease Initiation cooperation in Norway and the K.G. Jebsen Center for Alzheimer's Disease at NTNU. Preliminary analyses are presented, which show how CSF biomarkers (AB42, total tau, phosphorylated tau) and genetic biomarker (APOE genotype) modulate grid-like coding in humans. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC86 - Entorhinal grid-like representation in early Alzheimer disease: association with CSF biomarkers and genetic risk factorDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 87 | Alexa Tompary, Brown University | Alice Xia, Brown University; H. Branch Coslett, University of Pennsylvania; Sharon L. Thompson-Schill, University of Pennsylvania | Disruption of anterior temporal lobe reduces distortions in memory from category knowledge | Memory retrieval does not provide a veridical recapitulation of past events, but instead an imperfect recombination of event-specific details and general knowledge. Integrating these sources of information introduces systematic errors if they are discrepant. However, it remains unclear whether retrieval relies on a mixture of signals from different memory systems, one supporting event-specific details and one that supports more general knowledge, like prior semantic knowledge. We developed a protocol that enabled us to tease apart the disparate reliance on event-specific details and semantic knowledge when retrieving a single event (Tompary and Thompson-Schill 2021). In these experiments, participants could integrate across newly encoded image-location associations to learn that images' locations often clustered by their category membership. We found that when an image's encoded location was far from its cluster of category neighbors, participants placed it closer to its category cluster at retrieval, suggesting a bias in memory due to semantic knowledge. Here, we use this procedure with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL). We predicted that disrupting ATL before retrieval would attenuate the extent of bias. With this within-subjects design (N=36), we found that TMS to ATL resulted in less bias in location memory, but only for atypical category members. Critically, the magnitude of error in memory was not impacted, suggesting that the fidelity of a memory can be decoupled from its distortion by semantic knowledge. This provides novel evidence that episodic memory retrieval is supported by the joint influence of separable, independent memory systems. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC87 - Disruption of anterior temporal lobe reduces distortions in memory from category knowledgeDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |
| C | 88 | James Antony, University of California, Davis | Xiaonan Liu, University of California, Davis; Yicong Zheng, University of California, Davis; Charan Ranganath, University of California, Davis; Randall O'Reilly, University of California, Davis | Temporal context drift produces spacing effects in an entorhinal-hippocampalmodel via error-driven learning | The entorhinal cortex (EC) may send information about temporal context to the hippocampus (HC) during the formation of episodic memories. Specifically, EC neurons 'drift', or change activity slowly across multiple timescales, from seconds to hours. We argue that modeling this drift could help explain the the spacing effect, or how distributing learning over time improves long-term memory. Specifically, differences between stored and current temporal representations should produce greater error and subsequently greater error-driven learning, strengthening elements common across learning examples, like slower-drifting temporal representations and/or paired associates; such a process would result in either temporal abstraction (strengthening of more abstract timescales) or decontextualization (direct cue-target strengthening). Here, we advanced a neurobiologically realistic model of the EC and HC with time-drifting properties that can explain spacing effects. We trained the model to learn cue-target pairs alongside temporal context vectors, simulating drift in these vectors over multiple timescales. We tested the model on paired associates after varying drift between successive learning episodes and/or before final retention intervals. Greater drift reproduced numerous spacing effects, including better memory benefits at longer retention intervals. Dissecting model mechanisms revealed that greater drift increased error (more error-driven learning), stronger weights in slower-drifting temporal context neurons (temporal abstraction), and greater strengthening of direct cue-target representations (decontextualization) in HC. Intriguingly, these results suggest that decontextualization - generally ascribed only to the neocortex - can occur within the hippocampus itself. Altogether, these results provide a mechanistic formalization for established learning concepts such spacing effects and errors during learning. | LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic | 04/24/2022 5:00 PM04/24/2022 7:00 PMAmerica/Los_AngelesC88 - Temporal context drift produces spacing effects in an entorhinal-hippocampalmodel via error-driven learningDescription of the eventPacific Concourse |
More details |