Working Memory Maintenance of Visual and Auditory Spatial Information Relies on Supramodal Neural Codes in the Dorsal Frontoparietal Cortex.

The frontoparietal attention network plays a pivotal role during working memory (WM) maintenance, especially under high-load conditions. Nevertheless, there is ongoing debate regarding whether this network relies on supramodal or modality-specific neural signatures. In this study, we used multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to evaluate the neural representation of visual versus auditory information during WM maintenance. During fMRI scanning, participants maintained small or large spatial configurations (low- or high-load trials) of either colour shades or sound pitches in WM for later retrieval. Participants were less accurate in retrieving high- vs. low-load trials, demonstrating an effective manipulation of WM load, irrespective of the sensory modality. The frontoparietal regions involved in maintaining high- vs. low-load spatial maps in either sensory modality were highlighted using a conjunction analysis. Widespread activity was found across the dorsal frontoparietal network, peaking on the frontal eye fields and the superior parietal lobule, bilaterally. Within these regions, MVPAs were performed to quantify the pattern of distinctness of visual vs. auditory neural codes during WM maintenance. These analyses failed to reveal distinguishable patterns in the dorsal frontoparietal regions, thus providing support for a common, supramodal neural code associated with the retention of either visual or auditory spatial configurations.

Cross-cultural differences in intercultural mindreading: Evidence from a sample of Palestinian, Italian, and German adolescents.

Despite the fact that the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test (RMET) is now available in more than 20 languages, there are only very few cross-cultural researchers using this test, and these researchers generally focus on North American versus East Asian cultures. Considering that the RMET stimuli were selected and constructed in the United Kingdom, this research explored cross-cultural differences in intercultural mindreading with a large sample of adolescents from Palestine (PAL), Italy (ITA), and Germany (GER). In addition to significant main effects of age (younger < older) and gender (male < female), we found a significant main effect of country (PAL < ITA < GER) and a significant interaction between gender and country. Individualism was not related to mindreading in any of the three countries whereas collectivism was positively related in PAL, but not in ITA or GER, accounting only for a very small amount of the variance. Our results suggest that (a) there may be cultural ingroup effects on mindreading, (b) the known female superiority in mindreading may be moderated by cultural factors, and (c) depending on cultural factors, individualism and collectivism may be differently related to mindreading.

Abnormal visual scanning and impaired mental state recognition in pre-manifest Huntington disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder that affects not only the motor but also the cognitive and the neuropsychiatric domain. In particular, deficits in mental state recognition may emerge already at early pre-manifest stages of the disease. The aim of this research was to explore the relation between visual scanning behavior and complex mental state recognition in individuals with pre-manifest HD (preHD). Eighteen preHD and eighteen age- and gender-matched healthy controls took the revised "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test while their eye-movements were tracked. In addition to the expected deficits in mental state recognition, preHD showed abnormalities concerning all three scanning variables we considered, namely the absolute number of fixations (FC), the average fixation duration (AFD), and the percentage of time spent fixating (FTR). In preHD, FC and FTR but not AFD predicted mental state recognition over and beyond general disease-related declines in cognition and motor functioning. Notably, preHD showed abnormal vertical and horizontal fixation patterns, and these patterns predicted mental state recognition, suggesting the involvement of mechanisms related to the embodied processing of emotional stimuli. Overall, our results suggest that impaired facial mental state recognition in pre-manifest HD is partly due to emotional-motivational factors affecting the visual scanning of facial expressions.

Recent Technology-Aided Programs to Support Adaptive Responses, Functional Activities, and Leisure and Communication in People With Significant Disabilities.

This paper presents an overview of recent technology-aided programs (i. e., technology-aided support tools) designed to help people with significant disabilities (a) engage in adaptive responses, functional activities, and leisure and communication, and thus (b) interact with their physical and social environment and improve their performance/achievement. In order to illustrate the support tools, the paper provides an overview of recent studies aimed at developing and assessing those tools. The paper also examines the tools' accessibility and usability, and comments on possible ways of modifying and advancing them to improve their impact. The tools taken into consideration concern, among others, (a) microswitches linked to computer systems, and aimed at promoting (i.e., through positive stimulation) minimal responses or functional body movements in individuals with intellectual disabilities and motor impairments; (b) computer systems, tablets, or smartphones aimed at supporting functional activity engagement of individuals with intellectual disabilities or Alzheimer's disease; and (c) microswitches with computer-aided systems, elaborate communication devices, and specifically arranged smartphones or tablets, directed at promoting leisure, communication, or both.

The format of mental imagery: from a critical review to an integrated embodied representation approach.

The issue of the format of mental imagery is still an open debate. The classical analogue (depictive)-propositional (descriptive) debate has not provided definitive conclusions. Over the years, the debate has shifted within the frame of the embodied cognition approach, which focuses on the interdependence of perception, cognition and action. Although the simulation approach still retains the concept of representation, the more radical line of the embodied cognition approach emphasizes the importance of action and clearly disregards the concept of representation. In particular, the enactive approach focuses on motor procedures that allow the body to interact with the environment, whereas the sensorimotor approach focuses on the possession and exercise of sensorimotor knowledge about how the sensory input changes as a function of movement. In this review, the embodied approaches are presented and critically discussed. Then, in an attempt to show that the format of mental imagery varies according to the ability and the strategy used to represent information, the role of individual differences in imagery ability (e.g., vividness and expertise) and imagery strategy (e.g., object vs. spatial imagers) is reviewed. Since vividness is mainly associated with perceptual information, reflecting the activation level of specific imagery systems, whereas the preferred strategy used is mainly associated with perceptual (e.g., object imagery) or amodal and motor information (e.g., spatial imagery), the format of mental imagery appears to be based on dynamic embodied representations, depending on imagery abilities and imagery strategies.

Why Early Tactile Speech Aids May Have Failed: No Perceptual Integration of Tactile and Auditory Signals.

Tactile speech aids, though extensively studied in the 1980's and 1990's, never became a commercial success. A hypothesis to explain this failure might be that it is difficult to obtain true perceptual integration of a tactile signal with information from auditory speech: exploitation of tactile cues from a tactile aid might require cognitive effort and so prevent speech understanding at the high rates typical of everyday speech. To test this hypothesis, we attempted to create true perceptual integration of tactile with auditory information in what might be considered the simplest situation encountered by a hearing-impaired listener. We created an auditory continuum between the syllables /BA/ and /VA/, and trained participants to associate /BA/ to one tactile stimulus and /VA/ to another tactile stimulus. After training, we tested if auditory discrimination along the continuum between the two syllables could be biased by incongruent tactile stimulation. We found that such a bias occurred only when the tactile stimulus was above, but not when it was below its previously measured tactile discrimination threshold. Such a pattern is compatible with the idea that the effect is due to a cognitive or decisional strategy, rather than to truly perceptual integration. We therefore ran a further study (Experiment 2), where we created a tactile version of the McGurk effect. We extensively trained two Subjects over 6 days to associate four recorded auditory syllables with four corresponding apparent motion tactile patterns. In a subsequent test, we presented stimulation that was either congruent or incongruent with the learnt association, and asked Subjects to report the syllable they perceived. We found no analog to the McGurk effect, suggesting that the tactile stimulation was not being perceptually integrated with the auditory syllable. These findings strengthen our hypothesis according to which tactile aids failed because integration of tactile cues with auditory speech occurred at a cognitive or decisional level, rather than truly at a perceptual level.

On the Relationship Between Attention Processing and P300-Based Brain Computer Interface Control in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Our objective was to investigate the capacity to control a P3-based brain-computer interface (BCI) device for communication and its related (temporal) attention processing in a sample of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients with respect to healthy subjects. The ultimate goal was to corroborate the role of cognitive mechanisms in event-related potential (ERP)-based BCI control in ALS patients. Furthermore, the possible differences in such attentional mechanisms between the two groups were investigated in order to unveil possible alterations associated with the ALS condition. Thirteen ALS patients and 13 healthy volunteers matched for age and years of education underwent a P3-speller BCI task and a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. The RSVP task was performed by participants in order to screen their temporal pattern of attentional resource allocation, namely: (i) the temporal attentional filtering capacity (scored as T1%); and (ii) the capability to adequately update the attentive filter in the temporal dynamics of the attentional selection (scored as T2%). For the P3-speller BCI task, the online accuracy and information transfer rate (ITR) were obtained. Centroid Latency and Mean Amplitude of N200 and P300 were also obtained. No significant differences emerged between ALS patients and Controls with regards to online accuracy (p = 0.13). Differently, the performance in controlling the P3-speller expressed as ITR values (calculated offline) were compromised in ALS patients (p < 0.05), with a delay in the latency of P3 when processing BCI stimuli as compared with Control group (p < 0.01). Furthermore, the temporal aspect of attentional filtering which was related to BCI control (r = 0.51; p < 0.05) and to the P3 wave amplitude (r = 0.63; p < 0.05) was also altered in ALS patients (p = 0.01). These findings ground the knowledge required to develop sensible classes of BCI specifically designed by taking into account the influence of the cognitive characteristics of the possible candidates in need of a BCI system for communication.

From "Einfühlung" to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience.

Is there a relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience? This question is motivated not only by the fact that historically experiences of both kinds have often been accounted for in terms of "empathy", the English translation of the German term "Einfühlung", but also by the fact that some contemporary theories refer to mechanisms underlying both aesthetic and interpersonal experience. In this Editorial introducing the special section titled "From 'Einfühlung' to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience", we briefly sketch these two motivations and the relationship between the different mechanisms that have been associated with both aesthetic and interpersonal experience.

Usability and Workload of Access Technology for People With Severe Motor Impairment: A Comparison of Brain-Computer Interfacing and Eye Tracking.

BACKGROUND: Eye trackers are widely used among people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and their benefits to quality of life have been previously shown. On the contrary, Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are still quite a novel technology, which also serves as an access technology for people with severe motor impairment. OBJECTIVE: To compare a visual P300-based BCI and an eye tracker in terms of information transfer rate (ITR), usability, and cognitive workload in users with motor impairments. METHODS: Each participant performed 3 spelling tasks, over 4 total sessions, using an Internet browser, which was controlled by a spelling interface that was suitable for use with either the BCI or the eye tracker. At the end of each session, participants evaluated usability and cognitive workload of the system. RESULTS: ITR and System Usability Scale (SUS) score were higher for the eye tracker (Wilcoxon signed-rank test: ITR T = 9, P = .016; SUS T = 12.50, P = .035). Cognitive workload was higher for the BCI (T = 4; P = .003). CONCLUSIONS: Although BCIs could be potentially useful for people with severe physical disabilities, we showed that the usability of BCIs based on the visual P300 remains inferior to eye tracking. We suggest that future research on visual BCIs should use eye tracking-based control as a comparison to evaluate performance or focus on nonvisual paradigms for persons who have lost gaze control.

Technology-aided programs for post-coma patients emerged from or in a minimally conscious state.

Post-coma persons in a minimally conscious state (MCS) or emerged/emerging from such state (E-MCS), who are affected by extensive motor impairment and lack of speech, may develop an active role and interact with their environment with the help of technology-aided intervention programs. Although a number of studies have been conducted in this area during the last few years, new evidence about the efficacy of those programs is warranted. These three studies were an effort in that direction. Study I assessed a technology-aided program to enable six MCS participants to access preferred environmental stimulation independently. Studies II and III assessed technology-aided programs to enable six E-MCS participants to make choices. In Study II, three of those participants were led to choose among leisure and social stimuli, and caregiver interventions automatically presented to them. In Study III, the remaining three participants were led to choose (a) among general stimulus/intervention options (e.g., songs, video-recordings of family members, and caregiver interventions); and then (b) among variants of those options. The results of all three studies were largely positive with substantial increases of independent stimulation access for the participants of Study I and independent choice behavior for the participants of Studies II and III. The results were analyzed in relation to previous data and in terms of their implications for daily contexts working with MCS and E-MCS persons affected by multiple disabilities.

Questioning the dichotomy between vegetative state and minimally conscious state: a review of the statistical evidence.

Given the enormous consequences that the diagnosis of vegetative state (VS) vs. minimally conscious state (MCS) may have for the treatment of patients with disorders of consciousness, it is particularly important to empirically legitimate the distinction between these two discrete levels of consciousness. Therefore, the aim of this contribution is to review all the articles reporting statistical evidence concerning the performance of patients in VS vs. patients in MCS, on behavioral or neurophysiological measures. Twenty-three articles matched these inclusion criteria, and comprised behavioral, electroencephalographic (EEG), positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures. The analysis of these articles yielded 47 different statistical findings. More than half of these findings (n = 24) did not reveal any statistically significant difference between VS and MCS. Overall, there was no combination of variables that allowed reliably discriminating between VS and MCS. This pattern of results casts doubt on the empirical validity of the distinction between VS and MCS.

Insula and inferior frontal triangularis activations distinguish between conditioned brain responses using emotional sounds for basic BCI communication.

In order to enable communication through a brain-computer interface (BCI), it is necessary to discriminate between distinct brain responses. As a first step, we probed the possibility to discriminate between affirmative ("yes") and negative ("no") responses using a semantic classical conditioning paradigm, within an fMRI setting. Subjects were presented with congruent and incongruent word-pairs as conditioned stimuli (CS), respectively eliciting affirmative and negative responses. Incongruent word-pairs were associated to an unpleasant unconditioned stimulus (scream, US1) and congruent word-pairs were associated to a pleasant unconditioned stimulus (baby-laughter, US2), in order to elicit emotional conditioned responses (CR). The aim was to discriminate between affirmative and negative responses, enabled by their association with the positive and negative affective stimuli. In the late acquisition phase, when the US were not present anymore, there was a strong significant differential activation for incongruent and congruent word-pairs in a cluster comprising the left insula and the inferior frontal triangularis. This association was not found in the habituation phase. These results suggest that the difference in affirmative and negative brain responses was established as an effect of conditioning, allowing to further investigate the possibility of using this paradigm for a binary choice BCI.

Where is uphill? Exploring sex differences when reorienting on a sloped environment presented through 2-D images.

One of the spatial abilities that has recently revealed a remarkable variability in performance is that of using terrain slope to reorient. Previous studies have shown a very large disadvantage for females when the slope of the floor is the only information useful for encoding a goal location. However, the source of this sex difference is still unclear. The slope of the environment provides a directional source of information that is perceived through dissociable visual and kinesthetic sensory modalities. Here we focused on the visual information, and examined whether there are sex differences in the perception of a slope presented through 2-D images with a desktop computer connected to an eye-tracking device. Participants had to identify and point to the uphill direction by looking at different orientations of two virtual, slanted environments (one indoor and one outdoor). Men were quicker and more accurate than women, indicating that the female difficulty with slope emerges at an early, unisensory, perceptual level. However, the eye-tracking data revealed no sex differences in the slope cues used, providing no support to the hypothesis of sex-specific, visual-processing strategies. Interestingly, performance correlated with a test of mental rotation, and we speculate that the disadvantage in mental rotation ability might be an important factor responsible for females' difficulty using slope.

Assessing learning as a possible sign of consciousness in post-coma persons with minimal responsiveness.

A learning test procedure based on operant principles may be useful in the diagnosis (and eventually rehabilitation) of post-coma persons with minimal responsiveness. This study was aimed at extending the evaluation of such a procedure with seven participants who presented with very limited behavior and apparently severe disorders of consciousness. The procedure was evaluated through an ABACB design, in which A represented baseline phases without stimulation, B intervention phases with brief stimulation periods contingent on specific responses of the participants, and C a control phase in which stimulation was available all the time. Increased responding during the B phases, as opposed to the A and C phases, was taken to indicate learning and possibly a non-reflective expression of phenomenal consciousness. All participants were also evaluated with the coma recovery scale-revised (CRS-R) prior to the start of the learning test procedure and at the end of it. The results of the learning test showed that all participants had significantly higher responding levels during the B phases. The CRS-R scores suggested minimally conscious state for four of them prior to the learning test and for five of them after the completion of the learning test. The implications of the findings are discussed in terms of potential and time cost of the learning test.

Technology-based intervention programs to promote stimulation control and communication in post-coma persons with different levels of disability.

Post-coma persons in a minimally conscious state and with extensive motor impairment or emerging/emerged from such a state, but affected by lack of speech and motor impairment, tend to be passive and isolated. A way to help them develop functional responding to control environmental events and communication involves the use of intervention programs relying on assistive technology. This paper provides an overview of technology-based intervention programs for enabling the participants to (a) access brief periods of stimulation through one or two microswitches, (b) pursue stimulation and social contact through the combination of a microswitch and a sensor connected to a speech generating device (SGD) or through two SGD-related sensors, (c) control stimulation options through computer or radio systems and a microswitch, (d) communicate through modified messaging or telephone systems operated via microswitch, and (e) control combinations of leisure and communication options through computer systems operated via microswitch. Twenty-six studies, involving a total of 52 participants, were included in this paper. The intervention programs were carried out using single-subject methodology, and their outcomes were generally considered positive from the standpoint of the participants and their context. Practical implications of the programs are discussed.

Microswitch-aided programs with contingent stimulation versus general stimulation programs for post-coma persons with multiple disabilities.

OBJECTIVE: Assessing the impact of microswitch-aided programs with contingent stimulation on response engagement (Study I) and post-session alertness (Study II) of post-coma participants with multiple disabilities. METHOD: Study I included three participants whose scores on the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) were 11 or 13. Study II included three participants whose CRS-R scores were 19, 13, and 14. In both studies, the participants received sessions with contingent stimulation (i.e., sessions in which activation of a microswitch with an eyelid or hand response produced 15 s of preferred stimulation) and sessions with general, non-contingent stimulation (i.e., stimulation lasted throughout the sessions). RESULTS: Study I showed an increase in response engagement/frequencies only during the contingent stimulation sessions. Study II showed that the participants' level of vigilance after those sessions was higher than after non-contingent stimulation sessions. CONCLUSION: Microswitch-aided programs with contingent stimulation would be more beneficial than programs with general/non-contingent stimulation.

Technology-based intervention to help persons with minimally conscious state and pervasive motor disabilities perform environmentally relevant adaptive behavior.

Persons with a diagnosis of minimally conscious state and pervasive motor disabilities tend to be passive and isolated. A way to help them improve their adaptive behavior (relate to their environment) involves the use of intervention packages combining assistive technology with motivational strategies. The types of assistive technology included in those packages may consist of (a) microswitches allowing direct access to environmental stimuli, (b) combinations of microswitches and voice output communication devices (VOCAs) allowing stimulus access and calls for caregivers' attention, respectively, and (c) computer presentations of stimulus options and microswitches allowing choice among those options and access to them.