A revisit to interactions of stimulus quality and semantic context on N400 in visual word recognition.

Much behavioral research has revealed interactive effects between stimulus quality and semantic priming in visual word recognition, practically in favor of the interactive activation model. However, the limited number of event-related brain potential (ERP) studies have yielded inconsistent results considering this interaction's impact on N400 amplitude. The current ERP study aimed to examine whether the joint effects of stimulus quality and semantic priming were specific to the lexical decision task. We used both behavioral measures and ERP recordings to evaluate the joint effects of stimulus degradation (i.e. highly vs. slightly degraded) and semantic priming (i.e. semantically related vs. unrelated) in a lexical decision task involving visual recognition of Chinese characters. The results showed significant degradation-by-priming interactions on response times and N400 amplitude ( P  < 0.05), with larger semantic priming effects on slightly degraded targets. These converging behavioral and electrophysiological findings provide evidence in accordance with the interactive activation models of visual word recognition, in which the early-stage visual processing (i.e. degradation) cascades into the later-stage semantic processing (i.e. priming), thus yielding interactions observed in N400 amplitude.

An fMRI study on alexithymia and affective state recognition in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test.

Recognizing others' affective states is essential for successful social interactions. Alexithymia, characterized by difficulties in identifying and describing one's own emotions, has been linked to deficits in recognizing emotions and mental states in others. To investigate how neural correlates of affective state recognition are affected by different facets of alexithymia, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with 53 healthy participants (aged 19-36 years, 51% female) using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) and three different measures of alexithymia [Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire]. In addition, we examined brain activity during the RMET and replicated previous findings with task-related brain activation in the inferior frontal and temporal gyri, as well as the insula. No association was found between alexithymia and behavioral performance in the RMET, possibly due to the low number of participants with high alexithymia levels. Region of interest based analyses revealed no associations between alexithymia and amygdala or insula activity during the RMET. At the whole-brain level, both a composite alexithymia score and the unique variance of the alexithymia interview (TSIA) were associated with greater activity in visual processing areas during the RMET. This may indicate that affective state recognition performance in alexithymia relies on a higher compensatory activation in visual areas.

Adaptation to Noise in Spectrotemporal Modulation Detection and Word Recognition.

Noise adaptation is the improvement in auditory function as the signal of interest is delayed in the noise. Here, we investigated if noise adaptation occurs in spectral, temporal, and spectrotemporal modulation detection as well as in speech recognition. Eighteen normal-hearing adults participated in the experiments. In the modulation detection tasks, the signal was a 200ms spectrally and/or temporally modulated ripple noise. The spectral modulation rate was two cycles per octave, the temporal modulation rate was 10 Hz, and the spectrotemporal modulations combined these two modulations, which resulted in a downward-moving ripple. A control experiment was performed to determine if the results generalized to upward-moving ripples. In the speech recognition task, the signal consisted of disyllabic words unprocessed or vocoded to maintain only envelope cues. Modulation detection thresholds at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio and speech reception thresholds were measured in quiet and in white noise (at 60 dB SPL) for noise-signal onset delays of 50 ms (early condition) and 800 ms (late condition). Adaptation was calculated as the threshold difference between the early and late conditions. Adaptation in word recognition was statistically significant for vocoded words (2.1 dB) but not for natural words (0.6 dB). Adaptation was found to be statistically significant in spectral (2.1 dB) and temporal (2.2 dB) modulation detection but not in spectrotemporal modulation detection (downward ripple: 0.0 dB, upward ripple: -0.4 dB). Findings suggest that noise adaptation in speech recognition is unrelated to improvements in the encoding of spectrotemporal modulation cues.

Age-related changes in emotion recognition across childhood: A meta-analytic review.

Children's ability to accurately recognize the external emotional signals produced by those around them represents a milestone in their socioemotional development and is associated with a number of important psychosocial outcomes. A plethora of individual studies have examined when, and in which order, children acquire emotion knowledge over the course of their development. Yet, very few attempts have been made to summarize this body of work quantitatively. To address this, the present meta-analysis examined the age-related trajectories of emotion recognition across childhood and the extent to which typically developing children's recognition of external emotional cues (in the face, voice, and body) is influenced by a host of participant-, task-, and stimulus-related factors. We analyzed children's emotion recognition overall (independent of specific emotion categories) and for specific basic emotions. In total, k = 129 individual studies, investigating a total of N = 31,101 2-12-year-old children's emotion recognition abilities were included in our analyses. Children's recognition accuracy across all emotion categories was significantly above chance and improved with age in the same manner for all emotions. Emotion recognition accuracy was also moderated by region of study and task type. The order in which children became proficient at identifying specific emotions was consistent with previous qualitative reviews: Happiness was the easiest emotion to recognize, and disgust and fear were the most difficult to recognize across age. Task- and stimulus-related moderator variables also influenced specific emotion categories in different ways. We contextualize these results with regard to children's socioemotional development more broadly, and we discuss how our findings can be used to guide researchers and practitioners interested in children's social skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Prior Negative Experience Biases Activity of Medial Amygdala during Interstrain Social Engagement in Male Rats.

Social recognition is an essential part of social function and often promotes specific social behaviors based on prior experience. Social and defensive behaviors in particular often emerge with prior experiences of familiarity or novelty/stress, respectively. This is also commonly seen in rodents toward same-strain and interstrain conspecifics. Medial amygdala (MeA) activity guides social choice based on age and sex recognition and is sensitive to social experiences. However, little is known about whether the MeA exhibits differential responses based on strain or how this is impacted by experience. Social stress impacts posterior MeA (MeAp) function and can shift measures of social engagement. However, it is unclear how stress impacts MeAp activity and contributes to altered social behavior. The primary goal of this study in adult male Sprague Dawley rats was to determine whether prior stress experience with a different-strain (Long-Evans) rat impacts MeAp responses to same-strain and different-strain conspecifics in parallel with a change in behavior using in vivo fiber photometry. We found that MeAp activity was uniformly activated during social contact with a novel same-strain rat during a three-chamber social preference test following control handling but became biased toward a novel different-strain rat following social stress. Socially stressed rats also showed initially heightened social interaction with novel same-strain rats but showed social avoidance and fragmented social behavior with novel different-strain rats relative to controls. These results indicate that heightened MeAp activity may guide social responses to novel, threatening, rather than non-threatening, social stimuli after stress.

Spatial-social familiarity complements the spatial-social interface: evidence from Yellowstone bison.

Social animals make behavioural decisions based on local habitat and conspecifics, as well as memorized past experience (i.e. 'familiarity') with habitat and conspecifics. Here, we develop a conceptual and empirical understanding of how spatial and social familiarity fit within the spatial-social interface-a novel framework integrating the spatial and social components of animal behaviour. We conducted a multi-scale analysis of the movements of GPS-collared plains bison (Bison bison, n = 66) residing in and around Yellowstone National Park, USA. We found that both spatial and social familiarity mediate how individuals respond to their spatial and social environments. For instance, individuals with high spatial familiarity rely on their own knowledge as opposed to their conspecifics, and individuals with high social familiarity rely more strongly on the movement of conspecifics to guide their own movement. We also found that fine-scale spatial and social phenotypes often scale up to broad-scale phenotypes. For instance, bison that select more strongly to align with their nearest neighbour have larger home ranges. By integrating spatial and social familiarity into the spatial-social interface, we demonstrate the utility of the interface for testing hypotheses, while also highlighting the pervasive importance of cognitive mechanisms in animal behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'The spatial-social interface: a theoretical and empirical integration'.

The modulation of temporal predictability on attentional boost effect.

INTRODUCTION: The attentional boost effect, characterized by better memory for background scenes coinciding with a detection target than a nontarget, is believed to stem from a temporary increase in attentional capacity at the time of an acute behavior-related event occurring. Sisk and Jiang's study found that the attentional boost effect also occurs when the target's appearance was predictable. Unfortunately, the duration of the predictive interval in Sisk and Jiang's study was fixed. Since different predictive intervals had different weakening degrees to the acuteness of the target, this fixed duration hindered further investigation into the impact of different levels of predictability on the attentional boost effect. METHOD: Using the encoding-recognition paradigm and the remembering/knowing paradigm, and setting target stimuli with different predictive interval in target detection tasks, the current study aimed to explore the influence of varying the duration of the predictive interval on the attentional boost effect. RESULTS: The attentional boost effect was observed only in the short and medium predictive duration conditions, but not in the long predictive duration condition. Moreover, as the duration of the predictive interval increased, participants' memory performance on target-paired words gradually declined, while their memory performance on distractor-paired and baseline-paired words gradually improved. CONCLUSIONS: Predictability may alter the task demands, allowing participants to more effectively allocate attentional resources to the two tasks at hand.

The Effect of Aging on Face-Name Recognition: An fMRI Study. / Yaslanmanin Yüz ve Isim Tanima Üzerindeki Etkisi: Bir fMRG Çalismasi.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to detect functional changes in the brain during the memory task with aging and the association between functional changes and memory performance. METHOD: The study consisted of Young Adult Group (YAG, n=20) aged 20 to 25 and Late Adult Group (LAG, n=18) aged 60 to 70. Individuals with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores above 21 and no family history of Alzheimer's Disease were included in the study. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanning was performed on all participants during a memory task including encoding (face and name), face and name recognition sub-tasks. RESULTS: Results indicated that LAG showed increased activity during face recognition task in left posterior cingulate cortex, left superior frontal cortex, left fusiform face area and another increased activity was found out during name recognition task in left superior frontal cortex, right prefrontal cortex, left anterior + posterior cingulate cortex. The accuracy of face recognition and name recognition memory tests were significantly lower in LAG (respectively, p=0.026; p=0.001). CONCLUSION: These results indicated that advanced age were associated with more widespread activation in brain during memory task. Thus with aging, individuals require more neuronal and cognitive resources during memory processing.

Thinking outside the red box: Does the simultaneous Showup distinguish between filler siphoning and diagnostic feature detection accounts of lineup/Showup differences?

Lineups are considered a superior method of identification to showups, but why is contested. There are two main theories: diagnostic feature detection theory, which holds that surrounding the suspect with fillers causes the eyewitness to focus on the features that are most diagnostic, and differential filler siphoning theory that claims that the fillers draw incorrect choices away from the suspect. Colloff and Wixted (2020) created a novel identification task, called a simultaneous showup, designed to prevent filler siphoning, while still allowing comparison to occur between members of the array. However, even in the simultaneous showup, it is possible that covert filler siphoning occurs. In Experiment 1, we replicated the simultaneous showup condition and also asked participants if the other photos affected their decision making; we found evidence that participants self-reported both diagnostic feature detection and covert filler siphoning. In Experiment 2, we replicated Colloff and Wixted (2020, Experiment 3) main findings. Additionally, we found that participants self-reported both diagnostic feature detection and covert filler siphoning. This led us to conclude that the simultaneous showup procedure could not fully exclude covert filler siphoning from occurring.

The influence of time of day on memory recognition for faces.

Time of day can alter memory performance in general. Its influence on memory recognition performance for faces, which is important for daily encounters with new persons or testimonies, has not been investigated yet. Importantly, high levels of the stress hormone cortisol impair memory recognition, in particular for emotional material. However, some studies also reported high cortisol levels to enhance memory recognition. Since cortisol levels in the morning are usually higher than in the evening, time of day might also influence recognition performance. In this pre-registered study with a two-day design, 51 healthy men encoded pictures of male and female faces with distinct emotional expressions on day one around noon. Memory for the faces was retrieved two days later at two consecutive testing times either in the morning (high and moderately increased endogenous cortisol levels) or in the evening (low endogenous cortisol levels). Additionally, alertness as well as salivary cortisol levels at the different timepoints was assessed. Cortisol levels were significantly higher in the morning compared to the evening group as expected, while both groups did not differ in alertness. Familiarity ratings for female stimuli were significantly better when participants were tested during moderately increased endogenous cortisol levels in the morning than during low endogenous cortisol levels in the evening, a pattern which was previously also observed for stressed versus non-stressed participants. In addition, cortisol levels during that time in the morning were positively correlated with the recollection of face stimuli in general. Thus, recognition memory performance may depend on the time of day and as well as on stimulus type, such as the difference of male and female faces. Most importantly, the results suggest that cortisol may be meaningful and worth investigating when studying the effects of time of day on memory performance. This research offers both, insights into daily encounters as well as legally relevant domains as for instance testimonies.

Neural basis of false recognition in Alzheimer's disease and dementia with lewy bodies.

In Alzheimer's disease (AD), reports on the association between false recognition and brain structure have been inconsistent. In dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), no such association has been reported. This study aimed to identify brain regions associated with false recognition in AD and DLB by analyzing regional gray matter volume (rGMV). We included 184 patients with AD and 60 patients with DLB. The number of false recognitions was assessed using the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale' word recognition task. Brain regions associated with the number of false recognitions were examined by voxel-based morphometry analysis. The number of false recognitions significantly negatively correlated with rGMV in the bilateral hippocampus, left parahippocampal gyrus, bilateral amygdala, and bilateral entorhinal cortex in patients with AD (p < 0.05, family-wise error [FEW] corrected) and in the bilateral hippocampus, left parahippocampal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, right basal forebrain, right insula, left medial and lateral orbital gyri, and left fusiform in those with DLB (p < 0.05, FWE corrected). Bilateral hippocampus and left parahippocampal gyrus were associated with false recognition in both diseases. However, we found there were regions where the association between false recognition and rGMV differed from disease to disease.

The role of facial distinctiveness in the prioritisation of targets in disjunctive dual-target face search.

Two experiments explored the search for pairs of faces in a disjunctive dual-target face search (DDTFS) task for unfamiliar face targets. The distinctiveness of the target was manipulated such that both faces were typical or distinctive or contained one typical and one distinctive target. Targets were searched for in arrays of eight faces. In Experiment 1, participants completed a DDTFS block with targets learnt over the block of trials. In Experiment 2, the dual-target block was preceded by two training blocks of single-target trials. Participants also completed the upright and inverted long-form Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT+). The results showed that searching for two typical faces leads to one target being prioritised at the expense of the other. The ability to search for non-prioritised typical faces was associated with scores on the CFMT+. This association disappeared when faces were learnt before completing DDTFS. We interpret the findings in terms of the impact of typicality on face learning, individual differences in the ability to learn faces, and the involvement of capacity-limited working memory in the search for unfamiliar faces. The findings have implications for security-related situations where agents must search for multiple unfamiliar faces having been shown their images.

Security officers (e.g. police officers) are often required to be on the lookout for specific individuals or suspects. The present study shows that there is a profound challenge in finding unfamiliar targets when searching for more than one face at the same time. Importantly, the nature of this challenge depends on two factors: first, the relative typicality of the faces that are being sought at the same time, and second, the face processing ability of the searchers. The findings have implications for the design of the job roles and the recruitment of security officers tasked with searching for specific individuals.

Mirror invariance in the subsequent acquisition of a script with separate forms for reading and writing.

PURPOSE: Does suppression of mirror-invariance in one script generalize to a subsequently learned script? METHOD: We examined mirror invariance in writing and recognition among native Latin-scriptal children and adults (n = 181) learning the Hebrew print script (for reading), and among a subset (n = 92) also learning the Hebrew cursive script (for writing). Hebrew-Latin biscriptal Israeli adults (n = 17) provided comparison. RESULTS: For the most part, mirror invariance was more evident in Hebrew print than in Latin in both writing and recognition among native Latin-scriptals. The number of previously acquired scripts had no effect. Letters' text-frequency inversely affected written mirror-error frequency. Written reversal errors were less frequent in cursive; orientation recognition was more fluent in print. CONCLUSIONS: Mirror-invariance suppression in one's native script does not generalize to a subsequently acquired script. Factors affecting mirror-invariance suppression in the subsequent script include its form and function and individual letters' text-frequency.

Feasibility and effectiveness of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) in awake mice.

AIMS: Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is widely used to treat a variety of disorders because it is noninvasive, safe, and well tolerated by awake patients. However, long-term and repetitive taVNS is difficult to achieve in awake mice. Therefore, developing a new taVNS method that fully mimics the method used in clinical settings and is well-tolerated by awake mice is greatly important for generalizing research findings related to the effects of taVNS. The study aimed to develop a new taVNS device for use in awake mice and to test its reliability and effectiveness. METHODS: We demonstrated the reliability of this taVNS device through retrograde neurotropic pseudorabies virus (PRV) tracing and evaluated its effectiveness through morphological analysis. After 3 weeks of taVNS application, the open field test (OFT) and elevated plus maze (EPM) were used to evaluate anxiety-like behaviors, and the Y-maze test and novel object recognition test (NORT) were used to evaluate recognition memory behaviors, respectively. RESULTS: We found that repetitive taVNS was well tolerated by awake mice, had no effect on anxiety-like behaviors, and significantly improved memory. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that this new taVNS device for repetitive stimulation of awake mice is safe, tolerable, and effective.

Cleaner fish with mirror self-recognition capacity precisely realize their body size based on their mental image.

Animals exhibiting mirror self-recognition (MSR) are considered self-aware; however, studies on their level of self-awareness remain inconclusive. Recent research has indicated the potential for cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus) to possess a sophisticated level of private self-awareness. However, as this study revealed only an aspect of private self-awareness, further investigation into other elements is essential to substantiate this hypothesis. Here, we show that cleaner fish, having attained MSR, construct a mental image of their bodies by investigating their ability to recall body size. A size-based hierarchy governs the outcomes of their confrontations. The mirror-naïve fish behaved aggressively when presented with photographs of two unfamiliar conspecifics that were 10% larger and 10% smaller than their body sizes. After passing the MSR test, they refrained from aggression toward the larger photographs but still behaved aggressively toward the smaller ones without re-examining their mirror images. These findings suggest that cleaner fish accurately recognize their body size based on mental images of their bodies formed through MSR. Additionally, mirror-experienced fish frequently revisited the mirror when presented with an intimidating larger photograph, implying the potential use of mirrors for assessing body size. Our study established cleaner fish as the first non-human animal to be demonstrated to possess private self-awareness.

Reflector variables in augmented reality lineups: Assessing eyewitness identification reliability in children and adults with confidence, response time, and proximity to the lineup.

Attending to the behaviors of eyewitnesses at police lineups could help to determine whether an eyewitness identification is accurate or mistaken. Eyewitness identification decision processes were explored using augmented reality holograms. Children (n = 143; Mage = 10.79, SD = 1.12 years) and adults (n = 152; Mage = 22.12, SD = 7.47 years) viewed staged crime videos and made identification decisions from sequential lineups. The lineups were presented in augmented reality. Children were less accurate than adults on the lineup task. For adults, fast response times and high post-identification confidence ratings were both reflective of identification accuracy. Fast response times were also reflective of accuracy for children; however, children's confidence ratings did not reflect the likely accuracy of their identifications. A new additional measure, the witness' proximity to the augmented reality lineup, revealed that children who made mistaken identifications moved closer to the lineup than children who correctly identified the person from the crime video. Adults who moved any distance towards the lineup were less accurate than adults who did not move at all, but beyond that, adults' proximity to the lineup was not reflective of accuracy. The findings give further evidence that behavioral indicators of deliberation and information-seeking by eyewitnesses are signals of low lineup identification reliability. The findings also suggest that when assessing the reliability of children's lineup identifications, behavioral measures are more useful than metacognitive reports.

Spatial dissociation between recognition and navigation in the primate hippocampus.

The primate hippocampus, crucial for both episodic memory and spatial navigation, remains an enigma regarding whether these functions share the same neural substrates. We investigated how identical hippocampal neurons in macaque monkeys dynamically shifted their representations between tasks. In a recognition memory task, a notable fraction of hippocampal neurons showed that rate modulation strongly correlated with recognition performance. During free navigation in an open arena, spatial view, rather than position, predominantly influenced the spatial selectivity of hippocampal neurons. Neurons selective for recognition memory displayed minimal spatial tuning, while spatially tuned neurons exhibited limited memory-related activity. These neural correlates of recognition memory and space were more pronounced in the anterior and posterior portions of the hippocampus, respectively. These opposing gradients extended further into the anterior and posterior neocortices. Overall, our findings suggest the presence of orthogonal long-axis gradients between recognition memory and spatial navigation in the hippocampal-neocortical networks of macaque monkeys.

Phonetic categorization in phonological lexical neighborhoods: Facilitatory and inhibitory effects.

Phonetic processing, whereby the bottom-up speech signal is translated into higher-level phonological representations such as phonemes, has been demonstrated to be influenced by phonological lexical neighborhoods. Previous studies show facilitatory effects of lexicality and phonological neighborhood density on phonetic categorization. However, given the evidence for lexical competition in spoken word recognition, we hypothesize that there are concurrent facilitatory and inhibitory effects of phonological lexical neighborhoods on phonetic processing. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants categorized the onset phoneme in word-nonword and nonword-word acoustic continua. The results show that the target word of the continuum exhibits facilitatory lexical influences whereas rhyme neighbors inhibit phonetic categorization. The results support the hypothesis that sublexical phonetic processing is affected by multiple facilitatory and inhibitory lexical forces in the processing stream.

Repeated postnatal sevoflurane exposure impairs social recognition in mice by disrupting GABAergic neuronal activity and development in hippocampus.

BACKGROUND: Repeated exposure to sevoflurane during early developmental stages is a risk factor for social behavioural disorders, but the underlying neuropathological mechanisms remain unclear. As the hippocampal cornu ammonis area 2 subregion (CA2) is a critical centre for social cognitive functions, we hypothesised that sevoflurane exposure can lead to social behavioural disorders by disrupting neuronal activity in the CA2. METHODS: Neonatal mice were anaesthetised with sevoflurane 3 vol% for 2 h on postnatal day (PND) 6, 8, and 10. Bulk RNA sequencing of CA2 tissue was conducted on PND 12. Social cognitive function was assessed by behavioural experiments, and in vivo CA2 neuronal activity was recorded by multi-channel electrodes on PND 60-65. RESULTS: Repeated postnatal exposure to sevoflurane impaired social novelty recognition in adulthood. It also caused a decrease in the synchronisation of neuronal spiking, gamma oscillation power, and spike phase-locking between GABAergic spiking and gamma oscillations in the CA2 during social interaction. After sevoflurane exposure, we observed a reduction in the density and dendritic complexity of CA2 GABAergic neurones, and decreased expression of transcription factors critical for GABAergic neuronal development after. CONCLUSIONS: Repeated postnatal exposure to sevoflurane disturbed the development of CA2 GABAergic neurones through downregulation of essential transcription factors. This resulted in impaired electrophysiological function in adult GABAergic neurones, leading to social recognition deficits. These findings reveal a potential electrophysiological mechanism underlying the long-term social recognition deficits induced by sevoflurane and highlight the crucial role of CA2 GABAergic neurones in social interactions.

A library for innovative category exemplars (ALICE) database: Streamlining research with printable 3D novel objects.

This paper introduces A Library for Innovative Category Exemplars (ALICE) database, a resource that enhances research efficiency in cognitive and developmental studies by providing printable 3D objects representing 30 novel categories. Our research consists of three experiments to validate the novelty and complexity of the objects in ALICE. Experiment 1 assessed the novelty of objects through adult participants' subjective familiarity ratings and agreement on object naming and descriptions. The results confirm the general novelty of the objects. Experiment 2 employed multidimensional scaling (MDS) to analyze perceived similarities between objects, revealing a three-dimensional structure based solely on shape, indicative of their complexity. Experiment 3 used two clustering techniques to categorize objects: k-means clustering for creating nonoverlapping global categories, and hierarchical clustering for allowing global categories that overlap and have a hierarchical structure. Through stability tests, we verified the robustness of each clustering method and observed a moderate to good consensus between them, affirming the strength of our dual approach in effectively and accurately delineating meaningful object categories. By offering easy access to customizable novel stimuli, ALICE provides a practical solution to the challenges of creating novel physical objects for experimental purposes.