Search results for "cognitive neuroscience"
showing 10 items of 1135 documents
Conditional reasoning by mental models: chronometric and developmental evidence
2000
The aim of this article is to verify two predictions resulting from the mental models theory of conditional reasoning. First, the denial of antecedent (DA) and modus tollens (MT) inferences should take longer to verify than modus ponens (MP) and affirmation of consequent (AC) because the former require subjects to flesh out the initial model whereas the latter do not. This prediction was confirmed in two reaction time experiments in adults. In line with Evans' proposal (Evans, J. St. B. T. (1993). The mental model theory of conditional reasoning: critical appraisal and revision. Cognition, 48, 1-20), there was a strong directionality effect: inferences from antecedent to consequent (MP and …
When nominal features are marked on verbs: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study
2006
It has been claimed that verb processing (as opposed to noun processing) is subserved by specific neural circuits in the left prefrontal cortex. In this study, we took advantage of the unusual grammatical characteristics of clitic pronouns in Italian (e.g., lo and la in portalo and portala 'bring it [masculine]/[feminine]', respectively)-the fact that clitics have both nominal and verbal characteristics, to explore the neural correlates of verb and clitic processing. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to suppress the excitability of the left prefrontal cortex and to assess its role in producing verb+det+noun and verb+clitic phrases. Results showed an interference ef…
The influence of scene and object orientation on the scene consistency effect
2019
Abstract Contextual regularities help us make sense of our visual environment. In scenes, semantically consistent objects are typically better recognized than inconsistent ones (e.g., a toaster vs. printer in a kitchen). What is the role of object and scene orientation in this so-called scene consistency effect? We presented consistent and inconsistent objects either upright (Experiment 1) or inverted (rotated 180°; Experiment 2) on upright, inverted, and scrambled background scenes. In Experiment 1, on upright scenes, consistent objects were recognized with higher accuracy than inconsistent ones, and we observed N300/N400 event-related potentials (ERPs) reflecting object-scene semantic pro…
Music-induced positive mood broadens the scope of auditory attention
2017
Previous studies indicate that positive mood broadens the scope of visual attention, which can manifest as heightened distractibility. We used event-related potentials (ERP) to investigate whether music-induced positive mood has comparable effects on selective attention in the auditory domain. Subjects listened to experimenter-selected happy, neutral or sad instrumental music and afterwards participated in a dichotic listening task. Distractor sounds in the unattended channel elicited responses related to early sound encoding (N1/MMN) and bottom-up attention capture (P3a) while target sounds in the attended channel elicited a response related to top-down-controlled processing of task-releva…
Erratum to typical asymmetry in the hemispheric activation during an fMRI verbal comprehension paradigm is related to better performance in verbal an…
2019
Chronic exposure to seizures in patients with left hemisphere (LH) epileptic focus could favor higher activation in the contralateral hemisphere during language processing, but the cognitive effects of this remain unclear. This study assesses the relationship between asymmetry in hemispheric activation during language fMRI and performance in verbal and non-verbal tasks. Whereas prior studies primarily used fMRI paradigms that favor frontal lobe activation and less prominent activation of the medial or superior temporal lobes, we used a verbal comprehension paradigm previously demonstrated to activate reliably receptive language areas. Forty-seven patients with drug-resistant epilepsy candid…
Interhemispheric cooperation for face recognition but not for affective facial expressions
2003
Abstract Interhemispheric cooperation can be indicated by enhanced performance when stimuli are presented to both visual fields relative to one visual field alone. This “bilateral gain” is seen for words but not pseudowords in lexical decision tasks, and has been attributed to the operation of interhemispheric cell assemblies that exist only for meaningful words with acquired cortical representations. Recently, a bilateral gain has been reported for famous but not unfamiliar faces in a face recognition task [Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1841]. In Experiment 1 of the present paper, participants performed familiarity decisions for faces that were presented to the left (LVF), the right (RVF), or…
Event-Related Potentials and Autonomic Responses to a Change in Unattended Auditory Stimuli
1992
Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses to occasional pitch and rise-time changes in a task-irrelevant auditory stimulus repeating at short intervals were measured while the subject performed a difficult intellectual task (Raven Matrices). It was found that deviant stimuli elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the ERP even when they elicited no ANS response. There was no significant difference in the mismatch negativity between trials in which the skin conductance response was or was not elicited. The pitch deviant tone also elicited heart rate deceleration, whereas the rise-time deviant tone tended to elicit a later heart rate accele…
Two systems of maintenance in verbal working memory: evidence from the word length effect.
2013
The extended time-based resource-sharing (TBRS) model suggested a working memory architecture in which an executive loop and a phonological loop could both support the maintenance of verbal information. The consequence of such a framework is that phonological effects known to impact the maintenance of verbal information, like the word length effect (WLE), should depend on the use of the phonological loop, but should disappear under the maintenance by the executive loop. In two previous studies, introducing concurrent articulation in complex span tasks barely affected WLE, contradicting the prediction from the TBRS model. The present study re-evaluated the WLE in a complex span task while co…
Linking planning performance and gray matter density in mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: Moderating effects of age and sex
2012
Abstract Planning of behavior relies on the integrity of the mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (mid-dlPFC). Yet, only indirect evidence exists on the association of protracted maturation of dlPFC and continuing gains in planning performance post adolescence. Here, gray matter density of mid-dlPFC in young, healthy adults (18–32 years) was regressed onto performance on the Tower of London planning task while accounting for moderating effects of age and sex on this interrelation. Multiple regression analysis revealed an association of planning performance and mid-dlPFC gray matter density that was especially strong in late adolescence and early twenties. As expected, for males better plannin…
Influence of cognitive-motor expertise on brain dynamics of anticipatory-based outcome processing.
2019
Motor experience plays an important role in the ability to anticipate action outcomes, but little is known about the brain processes through which it modulates the preparation for unexpected events. To address this issue, EEG was employed while table tennis players and novices observed videos of serves in order to predict the expected ball direction based on the kinematics of a model's movement. Furthermore, we manipulated the congruency between the model's body kinematics and the subsequent ball trajectory while assessing the cerebral cortical activity of novices and experts to understand how experts respond to unexpected outcomes. Experts were more accurate in predicting the ball trajecto…