ERP Evidence for Scarce Rule Representation in Older Adults Following Short, but Not Long Preparatory Intervals

The focus of the present study was to examine the cognitive processes comprising advance preparation – rule representation, task-set updating, and task-set reconfiguration – in young (20–25 years) and older adults (61–83 years). Specifically, this study aimed at further characterizing age-related differences in advance preparation, and evaluating how additional time to prepare might reduce behavioral costs in older adults. In line with previous findings, reaction time mixing costs were slightly larger for older compared to young adults, whereas behavioral switch costs were age-invariant. Following short preparation (600 ms), smaller antero-frontal event-related potential (ERP) correlates of rule representation were associated with pronounced congruency costs in older adults. Centro-parietal ERP correlates of task-set updating and task-set reconfiguration were not delayed, but smaller in magnitude for older compared to young adults. Longer preparation (1200 ms) enabled older adults to re-activate relevant task rules, as evident in reduced congruency costs, and temporally sustained ERP correlates of task-set updating and rule representation well beyond 600 ms. Age-invariant switch costs appear related to additional, potentially compensatory frontal activity recruited by older adults to overcome difficulties in task-set reconfiguration

Motivational Influences on Performance Monitoring and Cognitive Control Across the Adult Lifespan

Cognitive control refers to the ability to regulate cognitive processing according to the tasks at hand, especially when these are demanding. It includes maintaining and updating relevant information in working memory, inhibiting irrelevant information, and flexibly switching between tasks. Performance monitoring denotes the processing of feedback from the environment and the detection of errors or other unexpected events and signals when cognitive control needs to be exerted. These two aspects of behavioral adaptation critically rely on the integrity of the frontal lobes, which are known to show pronounced age-related performance decrements. By contrast, there is evidence that processing of rewards remains relatively intact across the adult lifespan. Hence, motivation may play an important role in modulating or even counteracting age-related changes in cognitive control functions. To answer this question, neuroscientific data can be particularly useful to uncover potential underlying mechanisms beyond behavioral outcome. The aims of this article are twofold: First, to review and systematize the extant literature on how motivational incentives can modulate performance monitoring and cognitive control in young and older adults. Second, to demonstrate that important pieces of empirical data are currently missing for the evaluation of this central question, specifically in old age. Hence, we would like to stimulate further research uncovering potential mechanisms underlying motivation-cognition interactions in young and in particular in older adults and investigating whether or not those can help to ameliorate age-related impairments

Is the dolphin a fish? ERP evidence for the impact of typicality during early visual processing in ultra-rapid semantic categorization in autism spectrum disorder

Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. JCC was fnanced by national funding through FCT — Fundação para a Ciência e a Tec nologia and I. P. on the scope of Norma Transitória DL57/2016/CP1439/CT02 and through the Research Center for Psychological Science of the Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon (UIDB/04527/2020; UIDP/04527/2020). A-KB was supported by the Rhineland-Palatinate Research Initiative (Potentialbere ich Cognitive Science) of the Federal Ministry of Science, Further Education and Culture (MWWK).BACKGROUND: Neurotypical individuals categorize items even during ultra-rapid presentations (20 ms; see Thorpe et al. Nature 381: 520, 1996). In cognitively able autistic adults, these semantic categorization processes may be impaired and/or may require additional time, specifically for the categorization of atypical compared to typical items. Here, we investigated how typicality structures influence ultra-rapid categorization in cognitively able autistic and neurotypical male adults. METHODS: Images representing typical or atypical exemplars of two different categories (food/animals) were presented for 23.5 vs. 82.3 ms (short/long). We analyzed detection rates, reaction times, and the event-related potential components dN150, N1, P2, N2, and P3 for each group. RESULTS: Behavioral results suggest slower and less correct responses to atypical compared to typical images. This typicality effect was larger for the category with less distinct boundaries (food) and observed in both groups. However, electrophysiological data indicate a different time course of typicality effects, suggesting that neurotypical adults categorize atypical images based on simple features (P2), whereas cognitively able autistic adults categorize later, based on arbitrary features of atypical images (P3). CONCLUSIONS: We found evidence that all three factors under investigation - category, typicality, and presentation time - modulated specific aspects of semantic categorization. Additionally, we observed a qualitatively different pattern in the autistic adults, which suggests that they relied on different cognitive processes to complete the task.publishersversionpublishe

PAPER Age-related changes in the control of episodic retrieval: an ERP study of recognition memory in children and adults

Abstract We examined developmental aspects of the ability to monitor the temporal context of an item's previous occurrence while eventrelated potentials (ERPs) were recorded. In a continuous recognition task, children between 10 and 12 years and young adults watched a stream of pictures repeated with a lag of 10-15 intervening items and indicated recurrences. In a second run, these already familiar pictures were repeated as non-targets along with new pictures, while subjects were instructed to indicate only recurrences within the run. Young adults were able to maintain high performance levels in both tasks, whereas children had longer response times and committed a large number of false alarms to non-targets. ERPs in both age groups showed similar parietal old ⁄ new effects for target repetitions within runs. In addition, adults' ERPs showed similar old ⁄ new effects at frontal electrodes for repetitions and non-targets, presumably reflecting assessments of familiarity, whereas for children repeated relative to first presentations were associated with more negative-going waveforms at anterior frontal recording sites. Together, these results suggest a continuing maturation of the brain networks assessing novelty or familiarity. Recollection as indexed by parietal old ⁄ new effects appeared similar between young adults and children, but the development of controlled episodic retrieval, resulting in recollection of non-target information, appears to continue well into adolescence

Neuronal oscillations reveal the processes underlying intentional compared to incidental learning in children and young adults.

This EEG study investigated the neuronal processes during intentional compared to incidental learning in young adults and two groups of children aged 10 and 7 years. Theta (3-8 Hz) and alpha (10-16 Hz) neuronal oscillations were analyzed to compare encoding processes during an intentional and an incidental encoding task. In all three age groups, both encoding conditions were associated with an increase in event-related theta activity. Encoding-related alpha suppression increased with age. Memory performance was higher in the intentional compared to the incidental task in all age groups. Furthermore, intentional learning was associated with an improved encoding of perceptual features, which were relevant for the retrieval phase. Theta activity increased from incidental to intentional encoding. Specifically, frontal theta increased in all age groups, while parietal theta increased only in adults and older children. In younger children, parietal theta was similarly high in both encoding phases. While alpha suppression may reflect semantic processes during encoding, increased theta activity during intentional encoding may indicate perceptual binding processes, in accordance with the demands of the encoding task. Higher encoding-related alpha suppression in the older age groups, together with age differences in parietal theta activity during incidental learning in young children, is in line with recent theoretical accounts, emphasizing the role of perceptual processes in mnemonic processing in young children, whereas semantic encoding processes continue to mature throughout middle childhood

The role of divided attention and expertise in melody recognition

When attention is divided during memory encoding, performance tends to suffer. The nature of this performance decrement, however, is domain-dependent and often governed by domain-specific expertise. In this study, 111 participants with differing levels of musical expertise (professional musicians, amateur musicians, and non-musicians) were presented with novel melodies under full- or divided-attention conditions in a continuous melody-recognition task. As hypothesized, melody recognition was modulated by musical expertise, as greater expertise was associated with better performance. Recognition performance increased with every additional presentation of a target melody. The divided-attention condition required concurrently performing a non-music related digit-monitoring task while simultaneously listening to the melodies. Memory performance decreased universally in all groups in the divided-attention condition; however, intriguingly musicians also performed significantly better in the concurrent digit-monitoring task than non-musicians. Results provide insight into the role of expertise, attention, and memory in the musical domain, and are discussed in terms of attentional resource models. In light of resource models, an asymmetrical non-linear trade-off between two simultaneous tasks is proposed to explain the present findings

Performance feedback enhances test-potentiated encoding

20 April 2023Introduction: Long-term memory retention is enhanced after testing compared to restudying (testing effect). Notably, memory retrieval further improves when correct-answer feedback is provided after the retrieval attempt (test-potentiated encoding–TPE). Methods: To evaluate whether explicit positive or negative feedback further enhances memory performance beyond the effect of TPE, in two experiments additional explicit positive or negative performance-contingent feedback was presented before providing correct-answer feedback. After an initial exposure to the full material, 40 participants learned 210 weakly associated cue-target word pairs by either restudying or testing (Experiment 1). Depending on the accuracy of the retrieval attempt, the tested word pairs were followed by positive or negative performance feedback (50%) or no feedback (50%). Irrespective of the type of repetition, trials were followed by a restudy opportunity. Participants returned to perform a final cued-recall test (Day 2). Results: Final test results replicated the testing effect (better memory performance for tested compared to restudied items). Explicit performance feedback in addition to correct-answer feedback increased retrieval performance, but only on Day 2. This pattern of results was replicated in Experiment 2 in an independent sample of 25 participants. To assess the specific effects of learning history, we also examined retrieval accuracy and reaction times during repetition cycles: Explicit feedback improved retrieval for material successfully encoded in the initial study phase (consistent positive feedback) as well as for material learned during the repetition phase (mixed positive and negative feedback). Discussion: Performance feedback improves learning beyond the effects of retrieval practice and correct-answer feedback, suggesting that it strengthens memory representations and promotes re-encoding of the material.PL was supported by the Rhineland-Palatinate Research Initiative (Potentialbereich Cognitive Dynamics) of the Federal Ministry of Science, further Education and Culture (MWWK). PP-A was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2021-123574NB-I00), the Basque Government (PIBA-2021-1-0003), and a grant from “la Caixa” Banking Foundation (under the project code LCF/PR/HR19/52160002PID2019-105520GB-100) to PP-A. BCBL acknowledges funding from the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program and by the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation CEX2020-001010-S

When binding matters: An ERP analysis of the development of recollection and familiarity in childhood

Dual process models of recognition memory assume that memory retrieval can be based on two distinct processes: an assessment of a context-free feeling of familiarity or on the reinstatement of specific context attributes that have been bound together to form a representation of the study episode during encoding (recollection). Recent neurophysiological evidence suggests that familiarity and recollection are mediated by different medial temporal lobe circuitries and accomplished by different binding mechanisms. The assessment of familiarity has been associated with intra-item binding mechanisms of the perirhinal cortex, whereas the explicit retrieval of specific details of a study episode depends on inter-item binding mechanisms mediated by the hippocampal formation and the prefrontal cortex. A related line of evidence for the independence of these memory processes comes from the examination of patients with selective lesions: Vargha-Khadem et al. (1997) reported three cases of early bilateral hypoxic lesions restricted to the hippocampus. Although these patients were unable to acquire and to retrieve episodic information, they were unlike most adult amnesics clearly able to acquire semantic knowledge after their injury. We examined the developmental aspects of recollection and familiarity by means of an event-related potential (ERP) study in two groups of children (6–8 years, 10–12 years) and young adults (20–29 years). Topographical differences of ERP components between the age groups were found in the memory task, but not in an auditory discrimination (oddball) task, suggesting that ERP differences between groups can be ascribed to differential memory processes rather than to general age differences. Our findings support the view of a differential development of recollection and familiarity. We discuss these findings in the light of different memory strategies in children as indicated by a generally lower performance level and a more conservative response criterion