As Time Goes by: A rTMS Study on Age-Related Changes in Sentence Comprehension

It is well established that off-line sentence judgment tasks (oSJTs) typically rely on phonological working memory (WM), beyond specific linguistic processing. Nevertheless, empirical findings suggest that a juvenile level of performance in an oSJT could be associated with the recruitment of age-specific additional supportive neural network in healthy aging. In particular, in one of our previous study, healthy elderlies showed the additional activation of associative visual cortices when compared with young controls. We suggested that age-related hyperactivations, during an auditory sentence judgment task, might represent the neurofunctional correlate of the recruitment of compensatory strategies that are necessary to maintain a juvenile level of performance. To explicitly test this hypothesis we adopted repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Twelve healthy elderlies and 12 young participants were engaged in an off-line semantic plausibility judgment task while rTMS was delivered over: (1) the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG; i.e., a core region of the WM network); (2) the precuneus; and (3) a Control Site (vertex). Results showed a significant main effect of Stimulation Site and a significant Group-by-Stimulation Site interaction effect. In particular, the rTMS stimulation of the LIFG slowed down reaction times (RTs) both in young and healthy elderly participants, while only healthy elderlies showed an increment of RTs during the stimulation of the precuneus. Taken together our results further support the idea that the maintenance of a juvenile level of performance in graceful aging may be associated with task-specific compensatory processes that would manifest them-selves, from the neurofunctional point of view, by the recruitment of additional neural supportive regions

As Time Goes by: A rTMS Study on Age-Related Changes in Sentence Comprehension

It is well established that off-line sentence judgment tasks (oSJTs) typically rely on phonological working memory (WM), beyond specific linguistic processing. Nevertheless, empirical findings suggest that a juvenile level of performance in an oSJT could be associated with the recruitment of age-specific additional supportive neural network in healthy aging. In particular, in one of our previous study, healthy elderlies showed the additional activation of associative visual cortices when compared with young controls. We suggested that age-related hyperactivations, during an auditory sentence judgment task, might represent the neurofunctional correlate of the recruitment of compensatory strategies that are necessary to maintain a juvenile level of performance. To explicitly test this hypothesis we adopted repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Twelve healthy elderlies and 12 young participants were engaged in an off-line semantic plausibility judgment task while rTMS was delivered over: (1) the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG; i.e., a core region of the WM network); (2) the precuneus; and (3) a Control Site (vertex). Results showed a significant main effect of Stimulation Site and a significant Group-by-Stimulation Site interaction effect. In particular, the rTMS stimulation of the LIFG slowed down reaction times (RTs) both in young and healthy elderly participants, while only healthy elderlies showed an increment of RTs during the stimulation of the precuneus. Taken together our results further support the idea that the maintenance of a juvenile level of performance in graceful aging may be associated with task-specific compensatory processes that would manifest them-selves, from the neurofunctional point of view, by the recruitment of additional neural supportive regions

EXPRESS: Taking apart what brings us together: the role of action prediction, perspective-taking, and theory of mind in joint action

The ability to act together with others to achieve common goals is crucial in life, yet there is no full consensus on the underlying cognitive skills. While influential theoretical accounts suggest that interaction requires sophisticated insights into others' minds, alternative views propose that high-level social skills might not be necessary because interactions are grounded on sensorimotor predictive mechanisms. At present, empirical evidence is insufficient to decide between the two. This study addressed this issue and explored the association between performance at joint action tasks and cognitive abilities in three domains - action prediction, perspective-taking, and theory of mind - in healthy adults (N=58). We found that, while perspective-taking played a role in reading the behaviour of others independently of the social context, action prediction abilities specifically influenced the agents' performance in an interactive task but not in a control (social but non-interactive) task. In our study, performance at a theory of mind test did not play any role, as confirmed by Bayesian analyses. The results suggest that, in adults, sensorimotor predictive mechanisms might play a significant and specific role in supporting interpersonal coordination during motor interactions. We discuss the implications of our findings for the contrasting theoretical views described above and propose a way they might be partly reconciled

An experimental study on kind and generic readings across,languages: bare plural vs. definite plural

To express kind and generic readings, Romance languages like Italian have been reported to use definite plurals but Germanic languages like English make use of bare plurals (Krifka et al., 1995; Chierchia, 1998), where Greek patterns with Romance (Alexiadou et al., 2007). German is discussed as an exception, as both bare and definite plurals are used to express kind (Krifka et al., 1995) and generic (Longobardi, 1994) readings. We present results from an experimental study comparing English, German, Italian and Greek, focusing on two novel findings: i) German and English both express kind/generic readings with bare plurals; ii) the effect of speaker distance (Acton, 2019) makes the definite plural an additional option in German

The biased hand. Mouse-tracking metrics to examine the conflict processing in a race-implicit association test

In this study, we adapted a race-Implicit Association Test (race-IAT) to mouse-tracking (MT) technique to identify the more representative target observed MT-metrics and explore the temporal unfolding of the cognitive conflict emerging during the categorisation task. Participants of Western European descent performed a standard keyboard-response race-IAT (RT-race-IAT) and an MT-race-IAT with the same structure. From a behavioural point of view, our sample showed a typical Congruency Effect, thus a pro-White implicit bias, in the RT-race-IAT. In addition, in the MT-race-IAT, the MT-metrics showed a similar Congruency Effect mirroring the higher attraction of the averaged-trajectories towards the incorrect response button in incongruent than congruent trials. Moreover, these MT-metrics were positively associated with RT-race-IAT scores, strengthening the MT approach's validity in characterising the implicit bias. Furthermore, the distributional analyses showed that mouse trajectories displayed a smooth profile both in congruent and incongruent trials to indicate that the unfolding of the decision process and the raised conflict is guided by dynamical cognitive processing. This latter continuous competition process was studied using a novel phase-based approach which allowed to temporally dissect an Early, a Mid and a Late phase, each of which may differently reflect the decision conflict between automatic and controlled responses in the evolution of the mouse movement towards the target response. Our results show that the MT approach provides an accurate and finer-grained characterisation of the implicit racial attitude than classical RT-IAT. Finally, our novel phase-based approach can be an effective tool to shed light on the implicit conflict processing emerging in a categorisation task with a promising transferable value in different cognitive and neuropsychological fields

Music Education at School: Too Little and Too Late? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study on Music Training in Preadolescents

It is widely believed that intensive music training can boost cognitive and visuo-motor skills. However, this evidence is primarily based on retrospective studies; this makes it difficult to determine whether a cognitive advantage is caused by the intensive music training, or it is instead a factor influencing the choice of starting a music curriculum. To address these issues in a highly ecological setting, we tested longitudinally 128 students of a Middle School in Milan, at the beginning of the first class and, 1 year later, at the beginning of the second class. 72 students belonged to a Music curriculum (30 with previous music experience and 42 without) and 56 belonged to a Standard curriculum (44 with prior music experience and 12 without). Using a Principal Component Analysis, all the cognitive measures were grouped in four high-order factors, reflecting (a) General Cognitive Abilities, (b) Speed of Linguistic Elaboration, (c) Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests, and (d) Visuospatial and numerical skills. The longitudinal comparison of the four groups of students revealed that students from the Music curriculum had better performance in tests tackling General Cognitive Abilities, Visuospatial skills, and Accuracy in Reading and Memory tests. However, there were no significant curriculum-by-time interactions. Finally, the decision to have a musical experience before entering middle school was more likely to occur when the cultural background of the families was a high one. We conclude that a combination of family-related variables, early music experience, and pre-existent cognitive make-up is a likely explanation for the decision to enter a music curriculum at middle school

The Daily Linguistic Practice Interview: A new instrument to assess language use and experience in minority language children and their effect on reading skills

The increasing number of primary students with varying degrees of exposure to a family minority language requires a reflection on whether specific aspects of their daily language experience influence their learning. Indeed, Minority Language Children (MLC) often report difficulties in reading that must be better investigated to exclude neurodevelopmental conditions such as developmental dyslexia.To this aim, we developed a new instrument, the Daily Linguistic Practice Interview. It allows for collecting information about the linguistic practice and use in the family (Scale A) and extra-family context (Scale B), and about the child's linguistic preferences and habits (Scale C). The Interview further provides analogic quantitative measures of minority language active speaking with mother, father, and passive listening, in the form of clocks to paint.The relationship between these linguistic aspects and reading skills was investigated on 79 MLC aged 8 to 11 y.o.through a correlational approach and regression models. Our results show that family and extra-family language use influence accurate lexical recognition, moreover a “mother effect” broadly affects reading skills in the majority language.Our findings suggest that MLC deserve a more careful evaluation of learning disorders with ad hoc standardized tests, that incorporates information about the family language exposure

RAN as a universal marker of developmental dyslexia in Italian monolingual and minority language children

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is considered a universal marker of developmental dyslexia (DD) and could also be helpful to identify a reading deficit in minority-language children (MLC), in which it may be hard to disentangle whether the reading difficulties are due to a learning disorder or a lower proficiency in the language of instruction. We tested reading and rapid naming skills in monolingual Good Readers (mGR), monolingual Poor Readers (mPR), and MLC, by using our new version of RAN, the RAN-Shapes, in 127 primary school students (from 3rd to 5th grade). In line with previous research, MLC showed, on average, lower reading performances as compared to mGR. However, the two groups performed similarly to the RAN-Shapes task. On the contrary, the mPR group underperformed both in the reading and the RAN tasks. Our findings suggest that reading difficulties and RAN performance can be dissociated in MLC; consequently, the performance at the RAN-Shapes may contribute to the identification of children at risk of a reading disorder without introducing any linguistic bias, when testing MLC