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Yu X, Li J, Zhu H, Tian X, Lau E. Electrophysiological hallmarks for event relations and event roles in working memory. Front Neurosci 2024; 17:1282869. [PMID: 38328555 PMCID: PMC10847304 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1282869] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2023] [Accepted: 12/22/2023] [Indexed: 02/09/2024] Open
Abstract
The ability to maintain events (i.e., interactions between/among objects) in working memory is crucial for our everyday cognition, yet the format of this representation is poorly understood. The current ERP study was designed to answer two questions: How is maintaining events (e.g., the tiger hit the lion) neurally different from maintaining item coordinations (e.g., the tiger and the lion)? That is, how is the event relation (present in events but not coordinations) represented? And how is the agent, or initiator of the event encoded differently from the patient, or receiver of the event during maintenance? We used a novel picture-sentence match-across-delay approach in which the working memory representation was "pinged" during the delay, replicated across two ERP experiments with Chinese and English materials. We found that maintenance of events elicited a long-lasting late sustained difference in posterior-occipital electrodes relative to non-events. This effect resembled the negative slow wave reported in previous studies of working memory, suggesting that the maintenance of events in working memory may impose a higher cost compared to coordinations. Although we did not observe significant ERP differences associated with pinging the agent vs. the patient during the delay, we did find that the ping appeared to dampen the ongoing sustained difference, suggesting a shift from sustained activity to activity silent mechanisms. These results suggest a new method by which ERPs can be used to elucidate the format of neural representation for events in working memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinchi Yu
- Program of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
- Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
| | - Jialu Li
- Division of Arts and Sciences, New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
| | - Hao Zhu
- Division of Arts and Sciences, New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
| | - Xing Tian
- Division of Arts and Sciences, New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
| | - Ellen Lau
- Program of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
- Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
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Dell'Acqua R, Doro M, Brigadoi S, Drisdelle B, Simal A, Baro V, Jolicœur P. On target selection as reflected by posterior ERP components in feature-guided visual search. Psychophysiology 2022; 59:e14131. [PMID: 35766411 PMCID: PMC9788165 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14131] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Revised: 06/09/2022] [Accepted: 06/09/2022] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
The N2pc event-related potential is a widely studied ERP component that reflects the covert deployment of visuo-spatial attention to target stimuli displayed laterally relative to fixation. Recently, an analogous ERP component, named N2pcb, has been proposed as a marker of the deployment of visuo-spatial attention to targets displayed on the vertical midline. Two studies that investigated the N2pcb component found analogous results, using however two different algorithms to compute the amplitude of N2pcb. One study subtracted the ipsilateral activity elicited by a lateral target from the bilateral activity elicited by a target displayed on the vertical midline, whereas the other study subtracted the bilateral activity elicited by target-absent displays from the bilateral activity elicited by a target displayed on the vertical midline. Here we show both algorithms estimate properly the N2pc as well as the N2pcb components. In addition, we explored whether the singleton detection positivity (SDP) component, a posterior bilateral positivity temporally concomitant to N2pc recently reported in studies using singleton search, could be observed in the present study in which a target was defined by a combination of features. Given that such component was indeed found using feature search, we named this component posterior processing positivity (PPP), and showed that bilateral activity elicited by target-absent displays is an adequate baseline for its correct isolation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberto Dell'Acqua
- Department of Developmental PsychologyUniversity of PadovaPadovaItaly,Padova Neuroscience CenterUniversity of PadovaPadovaItaly
| | - Mattia Doro
- Department of Developmental PsychologyUniversity of PadovaPadovaItaly
| | - Sabrina Brigadoi
- Department of Developmental PsychologyUniversity of PadovaPadovaItaly
| | | | - Amour Simal
- Department of PsychologyUniversité de MontréalMontrealQuebecCanada
| | - Valentina Baro
- Padova Neuroscience CenterUniversity of PadovaPadovaItaly,Department of NeuroscienceUniversity of PadovaPadovaItaly
| | - Pierre Jolicœur
- Department of PsychologyUniversité de MontréalMontrealQuebecCanada
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Kim WS, Jolicœur P, Gagnon J. The effects of the activation of hostile and non-hostile schemas on intent attribution processes in non-aggressive individuals: An ERP study. Soc Neurosci 2021; 16:206-219. [PMID: 33583347 DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2021.1888790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
We investigated the influences of hostile and non-hostile schemas activations in non-aggressive individuals on their intent attribution processes in various social contexts. 38 non-aggressive participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, one primed with negative words, to be conditioned as temporarily hostile (TH), and the other with positive words, be conditioned as temporarily non-hostile (TNH). They were asked to read social scenarios composed of positive or negative behaviors of others whose intentions are ambiguous followed by a disambiguation of others' real intentions (hostile vs non-hostile) behind their behaviors. Neural activity related to spontaneous intent attribution processes was measured using electroencephalography (EEG). The results showed that when non-hostile intentions were revealed following ambiguous-negative behaviors of others, the N400 effect was observed only in the TH group. Similarly, when hostile intentions were revealed following ambiguous-positive behaviors of others, the N400 effect was observed only in the TNH group. In other words, non-aggressive individuals were led to attribute either hostile or non-hostile intentions to the same ambiguous behaviors of others depending on which concepts or thoughts (hostile vs non hostile) were activated and accessible in memory by priming at the time of social interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wan Seo Kim
- Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal Canada.,Laboratoire D'électrophysiologie En Neuroscience Sociale (LENS), Canada.,Centre De Recherche Interdisciplinaire En Réadaptation Du Montréal Métropolitain (CRIR), Canada.,Institut Universitaire De Gériatrie De Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, Canada
| | - Pierre Jolicœur
- Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal Canada.,Laboratoire D'électrophysiologie En Neuroscience Sociale (LENS), Canada.,Institut Universitaire De Gériatrie De Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, Canada.,International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montreal, Canada
| | - Jean Gagnon
- Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal Canada.,Laboratoire D'électrophysiologie En Neuroscience Sociale (LENS), Canada.,Centre De Recherche Interdisciplinaire En Réadaptation Du Montréal Métropolitain (CRIR), Canada
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Simal A, Bermudez P, Lefebvre C, Vachon F, Jolicœur P. Signal informativeness for sequence structure modulates human auditory cortical responses. Psychophysiology 2020; 58:e13745. [PMID: 33314147 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13745] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2019] [Revised: 11/09/2020] [Accepted: 11/18/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
We observed how information about the structure of tone sequences modulates cortical responses in the context of a standard short-term memory (STM) task. Participants heard two sequences of one, three, or five tones (203 ms on, 203 ms off) interspersed by a silent interval (2 s) and decided whether the sequences were the same or different. In experiment 1, sequence length was randomized between trials. During the first sequence, the amplitude of the auditory P2 was larger for the second tone in trials with three tones, and for the second and fourth tone in trials with five tones. We hypothesize the increase in P2 reflected a dynamic disambiguation process because these tones were predictive of a sequence longer than one or three tones. This hypothesis was supported by the absence of P2 amplitude modulation during the second sequence (when sequence length was known). In experiment 2, we blocked trials by sequence length to ensure the effects were not caused by some process related to encoding in STM. There was no P2 amplitude modulation in either the first or second sequences. Thus, tones 2 and 4 had a larger amplitude only when they provided new information about the length of the current tone sequence. To some extent, the auditory N1 also showed those modulations. Independent Component Analysis of the ERPs provided evidence the modulations in P2 amplitude could originate in auditory cortex. These results suggest a rapid dynamic adaptation of auditory cortical responses based on the local informativeness of auditory signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amour Simal
- Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.,Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.,Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | - Patrick Bermudez
- Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.,Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | - Christine Lefebvre
- Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.,Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.,Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | | | - Pierre Jolicœur
- Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.,Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.,Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
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