1
|
Pupil size variations reveal covert shifts of attention induced by numbers. Psychon Bull Rev 2022; 29:1844-1853. [PMID: 35384595 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-022-02094-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
The pupil light response is more than a pure reflexive mechanism that reacts to the amount of light entering the eye. The pupil size may also react to the luminance of objects lying in the visual periphery, revealing the locus of covert attention. In the present study, we took advantage of this response to study the spatial coding of abstract concepts with no physical counterpart: numbers. The participants' gaze was maintained fixed in the middle of a screen whose left and right parts were dark or bright, and variations in pupil size were recorded during an auditory number comparison task. The results showed that small numbers accentuated pupil dilation when the darker part of the screen was on the left, while large numbers accentuated pupil dilation when the darker part of the screen was on the right. This finding provides direct evidence for covert attention shifts on a left-to-right oriented mental spatial representation of numbers. From a more general perspective, it shows that the pupillary response to light is subject to modulation from spatial attention mechanisms operating on mental contents.
Collapse
|
2
|
Glutamatergic modulation of auditory cortex connectivity with attentional brain networks in unpredictable perceptual environment. Sci Rep 2020; 10:15059. [PMID: 32929186 PMCID: PMC7490710 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-72044-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2019] [Accepted: 07/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In a stable environment the brain can minimize processing required for sensory input by forming a predictive model of the surrounding world and suppressing neural response to predicted stimuli. Unpredicted stimuli lead to a prediction error signal propagation through the perceptual network, and resulting adjustment to the predictive model. The inter-regional plasticity which enables the model-building and model-adjustment is hypothesized to be mediated via glutamatergic receptors. While pharmacological challenge studies with glutamate receptor ligands have demonstrated impact on prediction-error indices, it is not clear how inter-individual differences in the glutamate system affect the prediction-error processing in non-medicated state. In the present study we examined 20 healthy young subjects with resting-state proton MRS spectroscopy to characterize glutamate + glutamine (rs-Glx) levels in their Heschl’s gyrus (HG), and related this to HG functional connectivity during a roving auditory oddball protocol. No rs-Glx effects were found within the frontotemporal prediction-error network. Larger rs-Glx signal was related to stronger connectivity between HG and bilateral inferior parietal lobule during unpredictable auditory stimulation. We also found effects of rs-Glx on the coherence of default mode network and frontoparietal network during unpredictable auditory stimulation. Our results demonstrate the importance of Glx in modulating long-range connections and wider networks in the brain during perceptual inference.
Collapse
|
3
|
Faye A, Jacquin-Courtois S, Reynaud E, Lesourd M, Besnard J, Osiurak F. Numerical cognition: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging, transcranial magnetic stimulation and brain-damaged patients studies. NEUROIMAGE-CLINICAL 2019; 24:102053. [PMID: 31795045 PMCID: PMC6978218 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2019.102053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2019] [Revised: 10/01/2019] [Accepted: 10/21/2019] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
We review neuroimaging, TMS, and patients studies on numerical cognition. We focused on the predictions derived from the Triple Code Model (TCM). Our findings generally agree with TCM predictions. Our results open avenues for the study of the neural bases of numerical cognition.
This article offers the first comprehensive review examining the neurocognitive bases of numerical cognition from neuroimaging, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and brain-damaged patients studies. We focused on the predictions derived from the Triple Code Model (TCM), particularly the assumption that the representation of numerical quantities rests on a single format-independent representation (i.e., the analogical code) involving both intraparietal sulci (IPS). To do so, we conducted a meta-analysis based on 28 neuroimaging, 12 TMS and 12 brain-damaged patients studies, including arithmetic and magnitude tasks in symbolic and non-symbolic formats. Our findings generally agree with the TCM predictions indicating that both IPS are engaged in all tasks. Nonetheless, the results of brain-damaged patients studies conflicted with neuroimaging and TMS studies, suggesting a right hemisphere lateralization for non-symbolic formats. Our findings also led us to discuss the involvement of brain regions other than IPS in the processing of the analogical code as well as the neural substrate of other codes underlying numerical cognition (i.e., the auditory-verbal code).
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alexandrine Faye
- Laboratoire d'Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université de Lyon, France.
| | - Sophie Jacquin-Courtois
- Integrative, Multisensory, Perception, Action, & Cognition Team (INSERM-CNRS-UMR 5292), Université de Lyon, France; Mouvement et Handicap, Hospices Civils de Lyon et Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, Hôpital Henry Gabrielle, St Genis Laval, France
| | - Emanuelle Reynaud
- Laboratoire d'Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université de Lyon, France
| | - Mathieu Lesourd
- Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LNC, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, Marseille, France; Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, Fédération 3C, Marseille, France
| | - Jérémy Besnard
- Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire (EA 4638), Université de Nantes et d'Angers, France
| | - François Osiurak
- Laboratoire d'Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université de Lyon, France; Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Huberle E, Brugger P. Altered time judgements highlight common mechanisms of time and space perception. Cogn Neuropsychol 2018; 35:458-470. [PMID: 30497331 DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2018.1549027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
Space, numbers and time share similar processing mechanisms mediated by parietal cortex. In parallel to the spatial representation of numbers along a horizontal line, temporal information is mapped on a horizontal axis with short intervals (and the past) represented to the left of long intervals (and the future). Little is known about the representation of time in the presence of visuo-spatial deficits. We here report two experiments on the comparative judgment of time. Experiment 1 required patients with left-sided neglect to indicate which of two consecutively presented silent intervals was longer. Their judgments were better if the first interval was longer and they judged the first interval longer on trials in which the two intervals were equally long. These results were not present in right-hemispheric damaged patients without neglect and healthy controls. They are in line with a previously reported finding in a single patient with neglect, but not readily compatible with findings of neglect patients' comparative length judgments. In Experiment 2, healthy participants' performance on an identical task improved for trials with a first-longer interval after caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) of the right ear with warm water.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Elisabeth Huberle
- a Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Neurology , University Hospital Zurich , Zürich , Switzerland
| | - Peter Brugger
- a Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Neurology , University Hospital Zurich , Zürich , Switzerland
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Zhao T, He X, Zhao X, Huang J, Zhang W, Wu S, Chen Q. The influence of time units on the flexibility of the spatial numerical association of response codes effect. Br J Psychol 2018; 109:299-320. [PMID: 29044461 PMCID: PMC5947571 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12273] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2016] [Revised: 09/21/2017] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
The Spatial Numerical/Temporal Association of Response Codes (SNARC/STEARC) effects are considered evidence of the association between number or time and space, respectively. As the SNARC effect was proposed by Dehaene, Bossini, and Giraux in 1993, several studies have suggested that different tasks and cultural factors can affect the flexibility of the SNARC effect. This study explored the influence of time units on the flexibility of the SNARC effect via materials with Arabic numbers, which were suffixed with time units and subjected to magnitude comparison tasks. Experiment 1 replicated the SNARC effect for numbers and the STEARC effect for time units. Experiment 2 explored the flexibility of the SNARC effect when numbers were attached to time units, which either conflicted with the numerical magnitude or in which the time units were the same or different. Experiment 3 explored whether the SNARC effect of numbers was stable when numbers were near the transition of two adjacent time units. The results indicate that the SNARC effect was flexible when the numbers were suffixed with time units: Time units influenced the direction of the SNARC effect in a way which could not be accounted for by the mathematical differences between the time units and numbers. This suggests that the SNARC effect is not obligatory and can be easily adapted or inhibited based on the current context.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Tingting Zhao
- Center for Studies of Psychological Application and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive ScienceSchool of PsychologySouth China Normal UniversityGuangzhouGuangdong ProvinceChina
| | - Xianyou He
- Center for Studies of Psychological Application and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive ScienceSchool of PsychologySouth China Normal UniversityGuangzhouGuangdong ProvinceChina
| | - Xueru Zhao
- Center for Studies of Psychological Application and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive ScienceSchool of PsychologySouth China Normal UniversityGuangzhouGuangdong ProvinceChina
| | - Jianrui Huang
- Center for Studies of Psychological Application and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive ScienceSchool of PsychologySouth China Normal UniversityGuangzhouGuangdong ProvinceChina
| | - Wei Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building ScienceGuangdong Engineering & Technology Research Center for Modern Architecture DesignSchool of ArchitectureSouth China University of TechnologyGuangzhouChina
| | - Shuang Wu
- Personnel DivisionGuangdong Polytechnic Normal UniversityGuangzhouChina
| | - Qi Chen
- Center for Studies of Psychological Application and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive ScienceSchool of PsychologySouth China Normal UniversityGuangzhouGuangdong ProvinceChina
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Macnamara A, Keage HAD, Loetscher T. Mapping of non-numerical domains on space: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Exp Brain Res 2018; 236:335-346. [PMID: 29279982 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-017-5154-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2017] [Accepted: 12/12/2017] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
The spatial numerical association of response code (SNARC) effect is characterized by low numbers mapped to the left side of space and high numbers mapped to the right side of space. In addition to numbers, SNARC-like effects have been found in non-numerical magnitude domains such as time, size, letters, luminance, and more, whereby the smaller/earlier and larger/later magnitudes are typically mapped to the left and right of space, respectively. The purpose of this systematic and meta-analytic review was to identify and summarise all empirical papers that have investigated horizontal (left-right) SNARC-like mappings using non-numerical stimuli. A systematic search was conducted using EMBASE, Medline, and PsycINFO, where 2216 publications were identified, with 57 papers meeting the inclusion criteria (representing 112 experiments). Ninety-five of these experiments were included in a meta-analysis, resulting in an overall effect size of d = .488 for a SNARC-like effect. Additional analyses revealed a significant effect size advantage for explicit instruction tasks compared with implicit instructions, yet yielded no difference for the role of expertise on SNARC-like effects. There was clear evidence for a publication bias in the field, but the impact of this bias is likely to be modest, and it is unlikely that the SNARC-like effect is a pure artefact of this bias. The similarities in the response properties for the spatial mappings of numerical and non-numerical domains support the concept of a general higher order magnitude system. Yet, further research will need to be conducted to identify all the factors modulating the strength of the spatial associations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Anne Macnamara
- School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
| | - Hannah A D Keage
- School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
| | - Tobias Loetscher
- School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Masson N, Letesson C, Pesenti M. Time course of overt attentional shifts in mental arithmetic: Evidence from gaze metrics. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2018; 71:1009-1019. [PMID: 28399712 DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2017.1318931] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Processing numbers induces shifts of spatial attention in probe detection tasks, with small numbers orienting attention to the left and large numbers to the right side of space. This has been interpreted as supporting the concept of a mental number line with number magnitudes ranging from left to right, from small to large numbers. Recently, the investigation of this spatial-numerical link has been extended to mental arithmetic with the hypothesis that solving addition or subtraction problems might induce attentional displacements, rightward or leftward, respectively. At the neurofunctional level, the activations elicited by the solving of additions have been shown to resemble those induced by rightward eye movements. However, the possible behavioural counterpart of these activations has not yet been observed. Here, we investigated overt attentional shifts with a target detection task primed by addition and subtraction problems (2-digit ± 1-digit operands) in participants whose gaze orientation was recorded during the presentation of the problems and while calculating. No evidence of early overt attentional shifts was observed while participants were hearing the first operand, the operator or the second operand, but they shifted their gaze towards the right during the solving step of addition problems. These results show that gaze shifts related to arithmetic problem solving are elicited during the solving procedure and suggest that their functional role is to access, from the first operand, the representation of the result.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas Masson
- Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques and Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Clément Letesson
- Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques and Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Mauro Pesenti
- Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques and Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Masson N, Pesenti M, Dormal V. Impact of optokinetic stimulation on mental arithmetic. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2016; 81:840-849. [DOI: 10.1007/s00426-016-0784-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2015] [Accepted: 06/19/2016] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
|
9
|
Hemispatial Neglect Shows That "Before" Is "Left". Neural Plast 2016; 2016:2716036. [PMID: 27313902 PMCID: PMC4903131 DOI: 10.1155/2016/2716036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2015] [Revised: 02/12/2016] [Accepted: 04/10/2016] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent research has led to the hypothesis that events which unfold in time might be spatially represented in a left-to-right fashion, resembling writing direction. Here we studied fourteen right-hemisphere damaged patients, with or without neglect, a disorder of spatial awareness affecting contralesional (here left) space processing and representation. We reasoned that if the processing of time-ordered events is spatial in nature, it should be impaired in the presence of neglect and spared in its absence. Patients categorized events of a story as occurring before or after a central event, which acted as a temporal reference. An asymmetric distance effect emerged in neglect patients, with slower responses to events that took place before the temporal reference. The event occurring immediately before the reference elicited particularly slow responses, closely mirroring the pattern found in neglect patients performing numerical comparison tasks. Moreover, the first item elicited significantly slower responses than the last one, suggesting a preference for a left-to-right scanning/representation of events in time. Patients without neglect showed a regular and symmetric distance effect. These findings further suggest that the representation of events order is spatial in nature and provide compelling evidence that ordinality is similarly represented within temporal and numerical domains.
Collapse
|
10
|
Prismatic Adaptation Induces Plastic Changes onto Spatial and Temporal Domains in Near and Far Space. Neural Plast 2016; 2016:3495075. [PMID: 26981286 PMCID: PMC4769764 DOI: 10.1155/2016/3495075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2015] [Revised: 01/08/2016] [Accepted: 01/13/2016] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
A large literature has documented interactions between space and time suggesting that the two experiential domains may share a common format in a generalized magnitude system (ATOM theory). To further explore this hypothesis, here we measured the extent to which time and space are sensitive to the same sensorimotor plasticity processes, as induced by classical prismatic adaptation procedures (PA). We also exanimated whether spatial-attention shifts on time and space processing, produced through PA, extend to stimuli presented beyond the immediate near space. Results indicated that PA affected both temporal and spatial representations not only in the near space (i.e., the region within which the adaptation occurred), but also in the far space. In addition, both rightward and leftward PA directions caused opposite and symmetrical modulations on time processing, whereas only leftward PA biased space processing rightward. We discuss these findings within the ATOM framework and models that account for PA effects on space and time processing. We propose that the differential and asymmetrical effects following PA may suggest that temporal and spatial representations are not perfectly aligned.
Collapse
|