Awareness of errors is reduced by sleep loss

The ability to detect and subsequently correct errors is important in preventing the detrimental consequences of sleep loss. The Error Related Negativity (ERN), and the error positivity (Pe) are established neural correlates of error processing. Previous work has shown sleep loss reduces ERN and Pe, indicating sleep loss impairs error-monitoring processes. However, no previous work has examined behavioral error awareness, in conjunction with EEG measures, under sleep loss conditions, and studies of sleep restriction are lacking. Using combined behavioral and EEG measures, we report two studies investigating the impact of total sleep deprivation (TSD) and sleep restriction (SR) on error awareness. Fourteen healthy participants completed the Error Awareness Task under conditions of TSD and 27 completed the same task under conditions of SR. It was found that TSD did not influence behavioral error awareness or ERN or Pe amplitude, however, SR reduced behavioral error awareness, increased the time taken to detect errors, and reduced Pe amplitude. Findings indicate individuals who are chronically sleep restricted are at risk for reduced recognition of errors. Reduced error awareness may be one factor contributing to the increased accidents and injuries seen in contexts where sleep loss is prevalent.

Proactive and Reactive Inhibitory Control Strategies: Exploring the Impact of Interindividual Variables on an ERP Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT)

According to the Dual Mechanisms of Control (DMC) framework, cognitive control can be divided into two strategies: proactive cognitive control, which relies mainly on the active maintenance of contextual information relevant to the ongoing task; and reactive cognitive control, which is a form of transient control triggered by an external cue. Although cognitive control has been studied extensively, little is known about the specificities of inhibition within the framework of the DMC model and the influence of interindividual variables on inhibitory control.Thanks to an inhibitory version of the continuous performance task (CPT), we studied behavioral performances and Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) related to proactive and reactive inhibition, and their links to psychological profile and cognitive performances. One hundred and five young adults underwent the task, along with a short clinical and cognitive evaluation.We were able to observe ERPs related to proactive (cue-N1, cue-N2, cue-P3, and the contingent negative variation) and reactive inhibitory control (target-N2 and target-P3). Our results showed that proactive strategies appeared to be linked with impulsivity, working memory abilities, dominant response inhibition, gender, and the consumption pattern of nicotine. Reactive strategies appeared to be linked with attentional and working memories abilities.Overall, the inhibitory AX-CPT allowed a specific investigation of cognitive control within the framework of the DMC based on behavioral and ERP variables. This provided us an opportunity to investigate the principal ERP components related to proactive and reactive inhibitory control strategies as well as to link them with specific clinical and cognitive variables.

Attention modulates early visual processing: An association between subjective contrast perception and early C1 ERP component

The question of whether spatial attention can modulate initial afferent activity in area V1, as measured by the earliest visual event-related potential (ERP) component "C1", is still the subject of debate. Because attention always enhances behavioral performance, previous research has focused on finding evidence of attention-related enhancements in visual neural responses. However, recent psychophysical studies revealed a complex picture of attention's influence on visual perception: attention amplifies the perceived contrast of low-contrast stimuli while dampening the perceived contrast of high-contrast stimuli. This evidence suggests that attention may not invariably augment visual neural responses but could instead exert inhibitory effects under certain circumstances. Whether this bi-directional modulation of attention also manifests in C1 and whether the modulation of C1 underpins the attentional influence on contrast perception remain unknown. To address these questions, we conducted two experiments (N = 67 in total) by employing a combination of behavioral and ERP methodologies. Our results did not unveil a uniform attentional enhancement or attenuation effect of C1 across all subjects. However, an intriguing correlation between the attentional effects of C1 and contrast appearance for high-contrast stimuli did emerge, revealing an association between attentional modulation of C1 and the attentional modulation of contrast appearance. This finding offers new insights into the relationship between attention, perceptual experience, and early visual neural processing, suggesting that the attentional effect on subjective visual perception could be mediated by the attentional modulation of the earliest visual cortical response.

The associations among sleep-related difficulties, anxiety, and error-related brain activity in youth

Given the high prevalence of anxiety disorders and their associated impairment, elucidating neural mechanisms related to these disorders has been increasingly prioritized. The error-related negativity (ERN) has been identified as a neural marker that indexes risk for anxiety across development. The ERN seems to confer risk for developing anxiety, especially in the context of stressful life events. The present study sought to examine sleep-related difficulties as another stressful factor that might impact the ERN. In a sample of 221 girls, aged 8 to 15 years old, we first examined the relationship between longer-term (i.e., over the past month) and shorter-term (i.e., over the past week) sleep difficulties and the ERN. We then investigated whether specific sleep difficulties uniquely predict the ERN. In exploratory analyses, we assessed whether sleep difficulties moderate the relationship between the ERN and anxiety. Results indicated that youth who report longer-term lower sleep duration, longer-term worse sleep, and shorter-term lower sleep duration on school days over the past week have a larger (i.e., more negative) ERN. Additionally, only shorter-term sleep duration on school days over the past week uniquely predicted the ERN. Finally, an elevated ERN predicted greater clinical anxiety in the context of longer-term sleep difficulties. Future studies should clarify the direction of these associations via longitudinal designs.

Evaluation of Event-Related Potentials in Somatic Diseases - Systematic Review

Many somatic illnesses (e.g. hypertension, diabetes, pulmonary and cardiac diseases, hepatitis C, kidney and heart failure, HIV infection, Sjogren's disease) may impact central nervous system functions resulting in emotional, sensory, cognitive or even personality impairments. Event-related potential (ERP) methodology allows for monitoring neurocognitive processes and thus can provide a valuable window into these cognitive processes that are influenced, or brought about, by somatic disorders. The current review aims to present published studies on the relationships between somatic illness and brain function as assessed with ERP methodology, with the goal to discuss where this field of study is right now and suggest future directions.

Neurophysiological responses to emotional faces predict dynamic fluctuations in affect in adolescents

The ability to accurately identify and interpret others' emotions is critical for social and emotional functioning during adolescence. Indeed, previous research has identified that laboratory-based indices of facial emotion recognition and engagement with emotional faces predict adolescent mood states. Whether socioemotional information processing relates to real-world affective dynamics using an ecologically sensitive approach, however, has rarely been assessed. In the present study, adolescents (N = 62; ages 13-18) completed a Facial Recognition Task, including happy, angry, and sad stimuli, while EEG data were acquired. Participants also provided ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data probing their current level of happiness, anger, and sadness for 1-week, resulting in indices of emotion (mean-level, inertia, instability). Analyses focused on relations between (1) accuracy for and (2) prolonged engagement with (LPP) emotional faces and EMA-reported emotions. Greater prolonged engagement with happy faces was related to less resistance to changes in happiness (i.e., less happiness inertia), whereas greater prolonged engagement with angry faces associated with more resistance to changes in anger (i.e., greater anger inertia). Results suggest that socioemotional processes captured by laboratory measures have real-world implications for adolescent affective states and highlight potentially actionable targets for novel treatment approaches (e.g., just-in-time interventions). Future studies should continue to assess relations among socioemotional informational processes and dynamic fluctuations in adolescent affective states.

Age-related similarities and differences in cognitive and neural processing revealed by task-related microstate analysis

We explored neural processing differences associated with aging across four cognitive functions. In addition to ERP analysis, we included task-related microstate analyses, which identified stable states of neural activity across the scalp over time, to explore whole-head neural activation differences. Younger and older adults (YA, OA) completed face perception (N170), word-pair judgment (N400), visual oddball (P3), and flanker (ERN) tasks. Age-related effects differed across tasks. Despite age-related delayed latencies, N170 ERP and microstate analyses indicated no age-related differences in amplitudes or microstates. However, age-related condition differences were found for P3 and N00 amplitudes and scalp topographies: smaller condition differences were found for in OAs as well as broader centroparietal scalp distributions. Age group comparisons for the ERN revealed similar focal frontocentral activation loci, but differential activation patterns. Our findings of differential age effects across tasks are most consistent with the STAC-r framework which proposes that age-related effects differ depending on the resources available and the kinds of processing and cognitive load required of various tasks.

Competition influences outcome processing involving social comparison: An ERP study

In a complicated social context, outcome evaluation involves not only oneself but also others in relation to the self (i.e., social comparison). Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have investigated the processing of social comparison-related outcomes when one's interests are independent of the interests of others (i.e., noncompetition circumstances). However, it is unclear how social comparison-related outcomes are processed in the brain when there are conflicts of interest between oneself and others (i.e., competition circumstances). To address this issue, participants in the current study were asked to perform an attentional task with several peers and were subsequently presented with self-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between the current trial and several preceding trials) and social comparison-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between oneself and their peer). Importantly, rewards and punishments were based on social comparison-related outcomes in the competition condition and on self-related outcomes in the noncompetition condition. ERP results revealed that in the competition condition, positive outcomes involving social comparison elicited a greater P300 response than negative outcomes, whereas this effect was not observed in the noncompetition condition. Additionally, there was generally a larger late positive potential (LPP) response to negative outcomes involving social comparison than to positive outcomes only when one obtained a self-related positive outcome in the competition condition. These findings suggest that competition might strengthen outcome processing involving social comparison at late time ranges relying on self-related outcomes to some extent.

Decoding speech sounds from neurophysiological data: Practical considerations and theoretical implications

Machine learning techniques have proven to be a useful tool in cognitive neuroscience. However, their implementation in scalp-recorded electroencephalography (EEG) is relatively limited. To address this, we present three analyses using data from a previous study that examined event-related potential (ERP) responses to a wide range of naturally-produced speech sounds. First, we explore which features of the EEG signal best maximize machine learning accuracy for a voicing distinction, using a support vector machine (SVM). We manipulate three dimensions of the EEG signal as input to the SVM: number of trials averaged, number of time points averaged, and polynomial fit. We discuss the trade-offs in using different feature sets and offer some recommendations for researchers using machine learning. Next, we use SVMs to classify specific pairs of phonemes, finding that we can detect differences in the EEG signal that are not otherwise detectable using conventional ERP analyses. Finally, we characterize the timecourse of phonetic feature decoding across three phonological dimensions (voicing, manner of articulation, and place of articulation), and find that voicing and manner are decodable from neural activity, whereas place of articulation is not. This set of analyses addresses both practical considerations in the application of machine learning to EEG, particularly for speech studies, and also sheds light on current issues regarding the nature of perceptual representations of speech.

Strong Prediction: Language Model Surprisal Explains Multiple N400 Effects

Theoretical accounts of the N400 are divided as to whether the amplitude of the N400 response to a stimulus reflects the extent to which the stimulus was predicted, the extent to which the stimulus is semantically similar to its preceding context, or both. We use state-of-the-art machine learning tools to investigate which of these three accounts is best supported by the evidence. GPT-3, a neural language model trained to compute the conditional probability of any word based on the words that precede it, was used to operationalize contextual predictability. In particular, we used an information-theoretic construct known as surprisal (the negative logarithm of the conditional probability). Contextual semantic similarity was operationalized by using two high-quality co-occurrence-derived vector-based meaning representations for words: GloVe and fastText. The cosine between the vector representation of the sentence frame and final word was used to derive contextual cosine similarity estimates. A series of regression models were constructed, where these variables, along with cloze probability and plausibility ratings, were used to predict single trial N400 amplitudes recorded from healthy adults as they read sentences whose final word varied in its predictability, plausibility, and semantic relationship to the likeliest sentence completion. Statistical model comparison indicated GPT-3 surprisal provided the best account of N400 amplitude and suggested that apparently disparate N400 effects of expectancy, plausibility, and contextual semantic similarity can be reduced to variation in the predictability of words. The results are argued to support predictive coding in the human language network.

In your skin? Somatosensory cortex is purposely recruited to situate but not simulate vicarious touch

Previous studies of vicarious touch suggest that we automatically simulate observed touch experiences in our own body representation including primary and secondary somatosensory cortex (SCx). However, whether these early sensory areas are activated in a reflexive manner and the extent with which such SCx activations represent touch qualities, like texture, remains unclear. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) of SCx's hierarchical processing stages, which map onto successive somatosensory ERP components, to investigate the timing of vicarious touch effects. In the first experiment, participants (n = 43) merely observed touch or no-touch to a hand; in the second, participants saw different touch textures (soft foam and hard rubber) either touching a hand (other-directed) or they were instructed that the touch was self-directed and to feel the touch. Each touch sequence was followed by a go/no-go task. We probed SCx activity and isolated SCx vicarious touch activations from visual carry over effects. We found that vicarious touch conditions (touch versus no-touch and soft versus hard) did not modulate early sensory ERP components (i.e. P50, N80); but we found effects on behavioural responses to the subsequent go/no-go stimulus consistent with post-perceptual effects. When comparing other- with self-directed touch conditions, we found that early and mid-latency components (i.e. P50, N80, P100, N140) were modulated consistent with early SCx activations. Importantly, these early sensory activations were not modulated by touch texture. Therefore, SCx is purposely recruited when participants are instructed to attend to touch; but such activation only situates, rather than fully simulates, the seen tactile experience in SCx.

Brain Signatures of Early and Late Neural Measures of Auditory Habituation and Discrimination in Autism and Their Relationship to Autistic Traits and Sensory Overresponsivity

Sensory differences are included in the DSM-5 criteria of autism for the first time, yet it is unclear how they relate to neural indicators of perception. We studied early brain signatures of perception and examined their relationship to sensory behaviors and autistic traits. Thirteen autistic children and 13 Typically Developing (TD) children matched on age and nonverbal IQ participated in a passive oddball task, during which P1 habituation and P1 and MMN discrimination were evoked by pure tones. Autistic children had less neural habituation than the TD comparison group, and the MMN, but not P1, mapped on to sensory overresponsivity. Findings highlight the significance of temporal and contextual factors in neural information processing as it relates to autistic traits and sensory behaviors.

The P300 wave is decomposed into components reflecting response selection and automatic reactivation of stimulus-response links

The parietal P300 wave of event-related potentials (ERPs) has been associated with various psychological operations in numerous laboratory tasks. This study aims to decompose the P3 wave of ERPs into subcomponents and link them with behavioral parameters, such as the strength of stimulus-response (S-R) links and GO/NOGO responses. EEGs (31 channels), referenced to linked ears, were recorded from 172 healthy adults (107 women) who participated in two cued GO/NOGO tasks, where the strength of S-R links was manipulated through instructions. P300 waves were observed in active conditions in response to cues, GO/NOGO stimuli, and in passive conditions when no manual response was required. Utilizing a combination of current source density transformation and blind source separation methods, we decomposed the P300 wave into two distinct components, purportedly originating from different parts of the parietal lobules. The amplitude of the parietal midline component (with current sources around Pz) closely mirrored the strength of the S-R link across proactive, reactive, and passive conditions. The amplitude of the lateral parietal component (with current sources around P3 and P4) resembled the push-pull activity of the output nuclei of the basal ganglia in action selection-inhibition operations. These findings provide insights into the neural mechanisms underlying action selection processes and the reactivation of S-R links.

Using multivariate pattern analysis to increase effect sizes for event-related potential analyses

Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approaches can be applied to the topographic distribution of event-related potential (ERP) signals to "decode" subtly different stimulus classes, such as different faces or different orientations. These approaches are extremely sensitive, and it seems possible that they could also be used to increase effect sizes and statistical power in traditional paradigms that ask whether an ERP component differs in amplitude across conditions. To assess this possibility, we leveraged the open-source ERP CORE data set and compared the effect sizes resulting from conventional univariate analyses of mean amplitude with two MVPA approaches (support vector machine decoding and the cross-validated Mahalanobis distance, both of which are easy to compute using open-source software). We assessed these approaches across seven widely studied ERP components (N170, N400, N2pc, P3b, lateral readiness potential, error related negativity, and mismatch negativity). Across all components, we found that multivariate approaches yielded effect sizes that were as large or larger than the effect sizes produced by univariate approaches. These results indicate that researchers could obtain larger effect sizes, and therefore greater statistical power, by using multivariate analysis of topographic voltage patterns instead of traditional univariate analyses in many ERP studies.

Using Multivariate Pattern Analysis to Increase Effect Sizes for Event-Related Potential Analyses

Multivariate pattern analysis approaches can be applied to the topographic distribution of event-related potential (ERP) signals to 'decode' subtly different stimulus classes, such as different faces or different orientations. These approaches are extremely sensitive, and it seems possible that they could also be used to increase effect sizes and statistical power in traditional paradigms that ask whether an ERP component differs in amplitude across conditions. To assess this possibility, we leveraged the open-source ERP CORE dataset and compared the effect sizes resulting from conventional univariate analyses of mean amplitude with two multivariate pattern analysis approaches (support vector machine decoding and the cross-validated Mahalanobis distance, both of which are easy to compute using open-source software). We assessed these approaches across seven widely studied ERP components (N170, N400, N2pc, P3b, lateral readiness potential, error related negativity, and mismatch negativity). Across all components, we found that multivariate approaches yielded effect sizes that were as large or larger than the effect sizes produced by univariate approaches. These results indicate that researchers could obtain larger effect sizes, and therefore greater statistical power, by using multivariate analysis of topographic voltage patterns instead of traditional univariate analyses in many ERP studies.

The effects of positions on deviant processing in mostly incompatible blocks in the flanker task

It is assumed that focused attention is induced by mostly incompatible (MI) blocks in the flanker task. This study aimed to examine the differences in deviant processing between positions of a stimulus in MI blocks. Thirty-nine adults participated in this study. Compatible and incompatible stimuli were classified into three types: typical (central and surrounding colors: black), central-deviant (central: red; surrounding: black), and surrounding-deviant (central: black; surrounding: red). Rare and equiprobable conditions were set for MI blocks. Central- and surrounding-deviant stimuli were presented with low probabilities in the rare condition and with identical probabilities to that of typical stimuli in the equiprobable condition. Deviant processing was evaluated by comparing between event-related potentials in rare and equiprobable conditions. The posterior negativity from 120 to 170 ms (i.e., N1) for central-deviant stimuli was significantly more negative in the rare condition than in the equiprobable condition, whereas there was no difference for surrounding-deviant stimuli. Conversely, the posterior negativity from 180 to 230 ms for both stimuli was significantly more negative in the rare condition than in the equiprobable condition, and the difference (i.e., visual mismatch negativity) was similar in central- and surrounding-deviant stimuli. These findings suggest that focused attention induced by MI blocks leads to differences in deviant processing between central and surrounding areas during the N1 time range. Therefore, evaluations of deviant processing can help examine processing in central and surrounding areas independently and are valuable for understanding cognitive control mechanisms in the flanker tasks.

Processing of Shakespearean functional shift as a semantic anomaly in L2 English: Evidence from an ERP study

Functional shift, a productive word formation in English, converts the functional status of a word without changing its form. A previous event-related potential study reported that functional shift elicited left anterior negativity (LAN) and P600 effects in first language processing, suggesting that shifted words triggered syntactic processes in native English speakers. Using the same materials and experimental methods, this study investigated the processing of functional shift in English as a second language, asking Korean learners of English to make acceptability judgments of sentences containing a functional shift, a semantic incongruity, a double violation, or no violation. The results revealed that functional shift elicited significant N400 effects, indicating that Korean participants processed functionally shifted words as semantic anomalies. Our finding points to the possibility that the mental representation of functional shift differs in L1 and L2.

Comparison with others influences encoding and recognition of their faces: Behavioural and ERP evidence

In daily life, faces are often memorized within contexts involving interpersonal interactions. However, little is known about whether interpersonal interaction-related contexts influence face memory. The present study aimed to understand this question by investigating how social comparison-related context affects face encoding and recognition. To address this issue, 40 participants were informed that they and another player each played a monetary game and were then presented with both of their outcomes (either monetary gain or loss). Subsequently, participants were shown the face of the player whom they were just paired with. After all the faces had been encoded, participants were asked to perform a sudden old/new recognition task involving these faces. The results showed that, during the encoding phase, another player's monetary gain, compared to loss, resulted in more negative responses in the N170 and early posterior negativity (EPN)/N250 to relevant players' faces when participants encountered monetary loss and a smaller late positive potential (LPP) response irrespective of self-related outcomes. In the subsequent recognition phase, preceding another player's monetary gain as compared to loss led to better recognition performance and stronger EPN/N250 and LPP responses to the faces of relevant players when participants had lost some amount of money. These findings suggest that the social comparison-related context, particularly self-disadvantageous outcomes in the context, influences the memory of comparators' faces.

The enhanced emotional negativity bias in parents of atypically developing children: Evidence from an event-related potentials study

Parents of atypically developing children such as parents of children with ASD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and intellectual disability experience higher levels of parenting stress than parents of typically developing children. However, whether they possess enhanced emotional negativity bias was unclear. In the present study, 28 parents of typically developing children and 29 parents of atypically developing children were recruited. The emotional Stroop task and event-related potentials were adopted to measure their emotional negativity bias, in which participants were required to respond to the borders' color of face pictures. Behaviorally, the impact of parenting stress on emotional negativity bias was not found. At the electrophysiological level, the P2 differential amplitude (negative minus positive) was greater in parents of atypically developing children than in parents of typically developing children, reflecting an enhanced early attentional bias toward negative faces. N2 amplitude for the emotionally negative face was smaller than the positive face in parents of atypically developing children, indicating a too weak attentional control to inhibit distractors. Furthermore, sustained attention to negative faces was observed in parents of atypically developing children, that is, the emotionally negative face elicited greater frontal P3 (300 ~ 500 ms) than the positive faces. These findings revealed that compared to parents of typically developing children, parents of atypically developing children owned an enhanced emotional negativity bias at the early and late stages of information processing.

Anaphoric distance dependencies in visual narrative structure and processing

Linguistic syntax has often been claimed as uniquely complex due to features like anaphoric relations and distance dependencies. However, visual narratives of sequential images, like those in comics, have been argued to use sequencing mechanisms analogous to those in language. These narrative structures include "refiner" panels that "zoom in" on the contents of another panel. Similar to anaphora in language, refiners indexically connect inexplicit referential information in one unit (refiner, pronoun) to a more informative "antecedent" elsewhere in the discourse. Also like in language, refiners can follow their antecedents (anaphoric) or precede them (cataphoric), along with having either proximal or distant connections. We here explore the constraints on visual narrative refiners created by modulating these features of order and distance. Experiment 1 examined participants' preferences for where refiners are placed in a sequence using a force-choice test, which revealed that refiners are preferred to follow their antecedents and have proximal distances from them. Experiment 2 then showed that distance dependencies lead to slower self-paced viewing times. Finally, measurements of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in Experiment 3 revealed that these patterns evoke similar brain responses as referential dependencies in language (i.e., N400, LAN, Nref). Across all three studies, the constraints and (neuro)cognitive responses to refiners parallel those shown to anaphora in language, suggesting domain-general constraints on the sequencing of referential dependencies.

Neurophysiological correlates of interpersonal discrepancy and social adjustment in an interactive decision-making task in dyads

Introduction

The pursuit of convergence and the social behavioral adjustment of conformity are fundamental cooperative behaviors that help people adjust their mental frameworks to reach a common goal. However, while social psychology has extensively studied conformity by its influence context, there is still plenty to investigate about the neural cognitive mechanisms involved in this behavior.

Methods

We proposed a paradigm with two phases, a pre-activation phase to enhance cooperative tendencies and, later, a social decision-making phase in which dyads had to make a perceptual estimation in three consecutive trials and could converge in their decisions without an explicit request or reward to do so. In Study 1, 80 participants were divided in two conditions. In one condition participants did the pre-activation phase alone, while in the other condition the two participants did it with their partners and could interact freely. In Study 2, we registered the electroencephalographical (EEG) activity of 36 participants in the social decision-making phase.

Results

Study 1 showed behavioral evidence of higher spontaneous convergence in participants who interacted in the pre-activation phase. Event related Potentials (ERP) recorded in Study 2 revealed signal differences in response divergence in different time intervals. Time-frequency analysis showed theta, alpha, and beta evidence related to cognitive control, attention, and reward processing associated with social convergence.

Discussion

Current results support the spontaneous convergence of behavior in dyads, with increased behavioral adjustment in those participants who have previously cooperated. In addition, neurophysiological components were associated with discrepancy levels between participants, and supported the validity of the experimental paradigm to study spontaneous social behavioral adaptation in experimental settings.

Music literacy improves reading skills via bilateral orthographic development

Considerable evidence suggests that musical education induces structural and functional neuroplasticity in the brain. This study aimed to explore the potential impact of such changes on word-reading proficiency. We investigated whether musical training promotes the development of uncharted orthographic regions in the right hemisphere leading to better reading abilities. A total of 60 healthy, right-handed culturally matched professional musicians and controls took part in this research. They were categorised as normo-typical readers based on their reading speed (syl/sec) and subdivided into two groups of relatively good and poor readers. High density EEG/ERPs were recorded while participants engaged in a note or letter detection task. Musicians were more fluent in word, non-word and text reading tests, and faster in detecting both notes and words. They also exhibited greater N170 and P300 responses, and target-non target differences for words than controls. Similarly, good readers showed larger N170 and P300 responses than poor readers. Increased reading skills were associated to a bilateral activation of the occipito/temporal cortex, during music and word reading. Source reconstruction also showed a reduced activation of the left fusiform gyrus, and of areas devoted to attentional/ocular shifting in poor vs. good readers, and in controls vs. musicians. Data suggest that music literacy acquired early in time can shape reading circuits by promoting the specialization of a right-sided reading area, whose activity was here associated with enhanced reading proficiency. In conclusion, music literacy induces measurable neuroplastic changes in the left and right OT cortex responsible for improved word reading ability.

Embracing beauty through leftward movements: An ERP study on metaphorical association between hand actions and aesthetic judgments

In this study, we examined the metaphorical association between aesthetic judgments of faces and horizontal hand movements as well as their cognitive neural mechanisms using a joint categorical response task. In the "aesthetic-action" metaphorical representation situation, participants were asked to classify beautiful/ugly faces by moving the mouse to the left or the right. The results showed that the joint categorization condition "judge beautiful-move mouse left, judge ugly-move mouse right" had a shorter reaction time than the "judge beautiful-move mouse right, judge ugly-move mouse left" condition, which was accompanied by larger amplitudes of the early component N170, EPN, and the late component P300. Combining the behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) results, the present study demonstrated a metaphorical association between horizontal hand actions and aesthetic judgments. It suggested that horizontal hand actions can affect the speed of aesthetic judgments by influencing processing fluency, emotional arousal level, categorization motivation, and attentional resources. These findings provide new perspectives to better understand the cognitive process of aesthetic judgments and provide a basis for applying embodied cognition and metaphor theory to the field of aesthetic psychology.

Emotional congruency between faces and words benefits emotional judgments in women: An event-related potential study

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of emotional congruency between faces and words on word evaluation through event-related brain potentials (ERPs). To this end, 20 women performed a face-word congruency task in which an emotional face was presented simultaneously with an affective word in a non-superimposed format. Participants had to evaluate the emotional valence of the word in three different conditions: congruent, incongruent, and control. The emotionally congruent words were categorized faster and more accurately than the incongruent ones. In addition, the emotionally congruent words elicited higher P3/LPP amplitudes than the incongruent ones. These results indicate a beneficial effect of emotional face-word congruency on emotional judgments of words.

Effort discounts reward-based control allocation: A neurodynamic perspective

The amount of cognitive and neural resources allocated to a task is largely determined by the reward we can expect. However, it remains under-appreciated how this reward-expectation-based control allocation is modulated by effort expenditure. The present event-related potential study investigated this issue through the lens of neural dynamics. Thirty-four participants completed an effort-based monetary incentive delay task while their EEG was recorded. Effort demand was manipulated by adding no (low effort) or much (high effort) noise to the target. Behaviorally, participants exhibited reward-related speeding regardless of effort expenditure, as revealed by faster RTs for reward than neutral trials. Our ERP results demonstrated a widespread facilitatory influence of reward expectation on neural dynamics extending from cue evaluation as indexed by the cue-P3, to control preparation as indexed by the contingent negative variation (CNV), and finally to control engagement as indexed by the target-P3. Critically, the neural facilitation was discounted by effort expenditure during both the control-preparation and control-engagement stages instead of the cue-evaluation stage. Overall, this study provides neurodynamic evidence that control allocation is determined by reward and effort via a cost-benefit analysis.

Neurocognitive reward processes measured via event-related potentials are associated with binge-eating disorder diagnosis and ecologically-assessed behavior

Altered reward processing has been implicated in the onset and maintenance of binge-eating disorder (BED). However, it is unclear which precise neurocognitive reward processes may contribute to BED. In the present study, 40 individuals with BED and 40 age-, sex-, and BMI-matched controls completed a reward (incentive delay) task while their neural activity was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). Individuals with BED also completed a 10-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol assessing binge-eating behavior in the natural environment. Event-related potential (ERP) analysis of the EEG indicated that individuals with BED had stronger anticipatory (CNV) and outcome-related (RewP) neural reward activity to food and monetary rewards, compared to controls. However, within the BED group, greater frequency of binge eating during the EMA protocol was associated with stronger anticipatory (CNV) but weaker outcome-related (RewP) neural reward activity. These associations within the BED group were unique to food, and not monetary, rewards. Although preliminary, these results suggest that both anticipatory ("wanting") and outcome ("liking") reward processes may be generally amplified in BED. However, they also suggest that among individuals with BED, disorder severity may be associated with increased anticipatory reward processes ("wanting"), but relatively decreased reward-outcome processing ("liking"), of food rewards specifically.

An explorative multiverse study for extracting differences in P3 latencies between young and old adults

It is well established that P3 latencies increase with age. Investigating these age-related differences requires numerous methodological decisions, resulting in pipelines of great variation. The aim of the present work was to investigate the effects of different analytical pipelines on the age-related differences in P3 latencies in real data. Therefore, we conducted an explorative multiverse study and varied the low-pass filter (4 Hz, 8 Hz, 16 Hz, 32 Hz, and no filter), the latency type (area vs. peak), the level of event-related potential analysis (single participant vs. jackknifing), and the extraction method (manual vs. automated). Thirty young (18-21 years) and 30 old (50-60 years) participants completed three tasks (Nback task, Switching task, Flanker task), while an EEG was recorded. The results show that different analysis strategies can have a tremendous impact on the detection and magnitude of the age effect, with effect sizes ranging from 0% to 88% explained variance. Likewise, regarding the psychometric properties of P3 latencies, we found that the reliabilities fluctuated between rtt  = .20 and 1.00, while the homogeneities ranged from rh  = -.12 to .90. Based on predefined criteria, we found that the most effective pipelines relied on a manual extraction based on a single participant's data. For peak latencies, manual extraction performed well for all filters except for 4 Hz, while for area latencies, filters above 8 Hz produced desirable results. Furthermore, our findings add to the evidence that jackknifing combined with peak latencies can lead to inconclusive results.

Electrophysiological signatures of visual temporal processing deficits in developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that affects reading ability despite normal intelligence and education. In search of core deficits, previous evidence has linked DD with impairments in temporal aspects of perceptual processing, which might underlie phonological deficits as well as inefficient graphemic parsing during reading. However, electrophysiological evidence for atypical temporal processing in DD is still scarce in the visual modality. Here, we investigated the efficiency of both temporal segregation and integration of visual information by means of event-related potentials (ERPs). We confirmed previous evidence of a selective segregation deficit in dyslexia for stimuli presented in rapid succession (<80 ms), despite unaffected integration performance. Importantly, we found a reduced N1 amplitude in DD, a component related to the allocation of attentional resources, which was independent of task demands (i.e., evident in both segregation and integration). In addition, the P3 amplitude, linked to working memory and processing load, was modulated by task demands in controls but not in individuals with DD. These results suggest that atypical attentional sampling in dyslexia might weaken the quality of information stored in visual working memory, leading to behavioral and electrophysiological signatures of atypical temporal segregation. These results are consistent with some existing theories of dyslexia, such as the magnocellular theory and the "Sluggish Attentional Shifting" framework, and represent novel evidence for neural correlates of decreased visual temporal resolution in DD.

Maximizing signal-to-noise ratio and statistical power in ERP measurement: Single sites versus multi-site average clusters

One important decision in every event-related potential (ERP) experiment is which electrode site(s) to use in quantifying the ERP component of interest. A common approach is to measure the ERP from a single electrode site, typically the site where the ERP component is largest. Alternatively, two or more electrode sites in a given spatial region are averaged together, and the ERP is measured from the resulting multi-site cluster. The goal of the present study was to systematically compare these two measurement approaches across a range of outcome measures and ERP components to determine whether measuring from a single electrode site or an average of multiple sites yields consistently better results. We examined seven common ERP components from the open-source ERP CORE dataset that span a range of neurocognitive processes: N170, mismatch negativity (MMN), N2pc, N400, P3, lateralized readiness potential (LRP), and error-related negativity (ERN). For each component, we compared ERP amplitude, noise level, signal-to-noise ratio, and effect size at two single electrode sites and four multi-site clusters. We also used a Monte Carlo approach to simulate within-participant and between-groups experiments with known effect magnitudes to compare statistical power at single sites and multi-site clusters. Overall, measuring from a multi-site cluster produced results that were as good as or better than measuring from a single electrode site across analyses and components, indicating that the cluster-based measurement approach may be beneficial in quantifying ERPs from a range of neurocognitive domains.

Event-related alpha power in early stage of facial expression processing in social anxiety: Influence of language context

Accurate interpretation of the emotional information conveyed by others' facial expressions is crucial for social interactions. Event-related alpha power, measured by time-frequency analysis, is a frequently used EEG index of emotional information processing. However, it is still unclear how event-related alpha power varies in emotional information processing in social anxiety groups. In the present study, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants from the social anxiety and healthy control groups viewed facial expressions (angry, happy, neutral) preceded by contextual sentences conveying either a positive or negative evaluation of the subject. The impact of context on facial expression processing in both groups of participants was explored by assessing behavioral ratings and event-related alpha power (0-200 ms after expression presentation). In comparison to the healthy control group, the social anxiety group exhibited significantly lower occipital alpha power in response to angry facial expressions in negative contexts and neutral facial expressions in positive contexts. The influence of language context on facial expression processing in individuals with social anxiety may occur at an early stage of processing.

Moving in response to an unseen visual stimulus

OBJECTIVE

Whether consciousness has a causal role in voluntary movements is not clear. Backward masking blocks a stimulus from becoming conscious, but it can trigger movement in a reaction time paradigm. We hypothesize that if backward masking is used in a choice reaction time paradigm, when the visible stimulus (S2) differs from the masked stimulus (S1), the movement will often differ from conscious intent. We did such a study employing electroencephalography (EEG) to explore the brain activity associated with this effect.

METHODS

Twenty healthy adults participated in a choice reaction time task with a backwardly masked stimulus and EEG. They moved right or left hand in response to the direction of an arrow. S2 was congruent or incongruent with S1. When incongruent, responses were frequently concordant with S1, with faster reaction time than when responding to S2 and thought to be a mistake.

RESULTS

We show that it is possible to trigger movements from the unperceived stimuli indicating consciousness is not causal since the movement was not in accord with intent. EEG showed information flow from occipital cortex to motor cortex.

CONCLUSIONS

Occipital activity was the same despite response, but the parietal and frontal EEG differed. When responding to S1, the motor cortex responded as soon as information arrived, and when responding to S2, the motor cortex responded with a delay allowing for other brain processing prior to movement initiation. While the exact time of conscious recognition of S2 is not clear, when there is a response to S1, the frontal cortex signals an "error", but this is apparently too late to veto the movement.

SIGNIFICANCE

While consciousness does not initiate the movement, it monitors the concordance of intent and result.

Music training affects listeners' processing of different types of accentuation information: Evidence from ERPs

Previous studies found that prolonged musical training can promote language processing, but few studies have examined whether and how musical training affects the processing of accentuation in spoken language. In this study, a vocabulary detection task was conducted, with Chinese single sentences as materials, to investigate how musicians and non-musicians process corrective accent and information accent in the sentence-middle and sentence-final positions. In the sentence-middle position, results of the cluster-based permutation t-tests showed significant differences in the 574-714 ms time window for the control group. In the sentence-final position, the cluster-based permutation t-tests revealed significant differences in the 612-810 ms time window for the music group and in the 616-812 ms time window for the control group. These significant positive effects were induced by the processing of information accent relative to that of corrective accent. These results suggest that both groups were able to distinguish corrective accent from information accent, but they processed the two accent types differently in the sentence-middle position. These findings show that musical training has a cross-domain effect on spoken language processing and that the accent position also affects its processing.

Orthographic and Phonological Code Activation in Deaf and Hearing Readers

Grainger et al. (2006) were the first to use ERP masked priming to explore the differing contributions of phonological and orthographic representations to visual word processing. Here we adapted their paradigm to examine word processing in deaf readers. We investigated whether reading-matched deaf and hearing readers (n = 36) exhibit different ERP effects associated with the activation of orthographic and phonological codes during word processing. In a visual masked priming paradigm, participants performed a go/no-go categorization task (detect an occasional animal word). Critical target words were preceded by orthographically-related (transposed letter - TL) or phonologically-related (pseudohomophone - PH) masked non-word primes were contrasted with the same target words preceded by letter substitution (control) non-words primes. Hearing readers exhibited typical N250 and N400 priming effects (greater negativity for control compared to TL or PH primed targets), and the TL and PH priming effects did not differ. For deaf readers, the N250 PH priming effect was later (250-350 ms), and they showed a reversed N250 priming effect for TL primes in this time window. The N400 TL and PH priming effects did not differ between groups. For hearing readers, those with better phonological and spelling skills showed larger early N250 PH and TL priming effects (150-250 ms). For deaf readers, those with better phonological skills showed a larger reversed TL priming effect in the late N250 window. We speculate that phonological knowledge modulates how strongly deaf readers rely on whole-word orthographic representations and/or the mapping from sublexical to lexical representations.

From Perugino to Picasso revisited: Electrophysiological responses to faces in paintings from different art styles

Behavioral research (Ventura, et al., 2023) suggested that pictorial representations of faces varying along a realism-distortion spectrum elicit holistic processing as natural faces. Whether holistic face neural responses are engaged similarly remains, however, underexplored. In the present study, we evaluated the neural correlates of naturalist and artistic face processing, by exploring electrophysiological responses to faces in photographs versus in four major painting styles. The N170 response to faces in photographs was indistinguishable from that elicited by faces in the renaissance art style (depicting the most realistic faces), whilst both categories elicited larger N170 than faces in other art styles (post-impressionism, expressionism, and cubism), with a gradation in brain activity. The present evidence suggest that visual processing may become finer grained the more the realistic nature of the face. Despite behavioral equivalence, the neural mechanisms for holistic processing of natural faces and faces in diverse art styles are not equivalent.

Dyadic cooperation with human and artificial agents: Event-related potentials trace dynamic role taking during an interactive game

Humans are highly co-operative and thus cognitively, affectively, and motivationally tuned to pursue shared goals. Yet, cooperative tasks typically require people to constantly take and switch individual roles. Task relevance is dictated by these roles and thereby dynamically changing. Here, we designed a dyadic game to test whether the family of P3 components can trace this dynamic allocation of task relevance. We demonstrate that late positive event-related potential (ERP) modulations not only reflect predictable asymmetries between receiving and sending information but also differentiate whether the receiver's role is related to correct decision making or action monitoring. Furthermore, similar results were observed when playing the game with a computer, suggesting that experimental games may motivate humans to similarly cooperate with an artificial agent. Overall, late positive ERP waves provide a real-time measure of how role taking dynamically shapes the meaning and relevance of stimuli within collaborative contexts. Our results, therefore, shed light on how the processes of mutual coordination unfold during dyadic cooperation.

Stability of steady-state visual evoked potential contrast response functions

Repetitive sensory stimulation has been shown to induce neuroplasticity in sensory cortical circuits, at least under certain conditions. We measured the plasticity-inducing effect of repetitive contrast-reversal-sweep steady-state visual-evoked potential (ssVEP) stimuli, hoping to employ the ssVEP's high signal-to-noise electrophysiological readout in the study of human visual cortical neuroplasticity. Steady-state VEP contrast-sweep responses were measured daily for 4 days (four 20-trial blocks per day, 20 participants). No significant neuroplastic changes in response amplitude were observed either across blocks or across days. Furthermore, response amplitudes were stable within-participant, with measured across-block and across-day coefficients of variation (CV = SD/mean) of 15-20 ± 2% and 22-25 ± 2%, respectively. Steady-state VEP response phase was also highly stable, suggesting that temporal processing delays in the visual system vary by at most 2-3 ms across blocks and days. While we fail to replicate visual stimulation-dependent cortical plasticity, we show that contrast-sweep steady-state VEPs provide a stable human neurophysiological measure well suited for repeated-measures longitudinal studies.

Decoding agency attribution using single trial error-related brain potentials

Being able to distinguish between self and externally generated actions is a key factor influencing learning and adaptive behavior. Previous literature has highlighted that whenever a person makes or perceives an error, a series of error-related potentials (ErrPs) can be detected in the electroencephalographic (EEG) signal, such as the error-related negativity (ERN) component. Recently, ErrPs have gained a lot of interest for the use in brain-computer interface (BCI) applications, which give the user the ability to communicate by means of decoding his/her brain activity. Here, we explored the feasibility of employing a support vector machine classifier to accurately disentangle self-agency errors from other-agency errors from the EEG signal at a single-trial level in a sample of 23 participants. Our results confirmed the viability of correctly disentangling self/internal versus other/external agency-error attributions at different stages of brain processing based on the latency and the spatial topographical distribution of key ErrP features, namely, the ERN and P600 components, respectively. These results offer a new perspective on how to distinguish self versus externally generated errors providing new potential implementations on BCI systems.

Graded and ungraded expectation patterns: Prediction dynamics during active comprehension

Language comprehension can be facilitated by the accurate prediction of upcoming words, but prediction effects are not ubiquitous, and comprehenders likely use predictive processing to varying degrees depending on task demands. To ascertain the processing consequences of prioritizing prediction, we here compared ERPs elicited when young adult participants simply read for comprehension with those collected in a subsequent block that required active prediction. We were particularly interested in frontally-distributed post-N400 effects for expected and unexpected words in strongly constraining contexts, which have previously been documented as two distinct patterns: an enhanced positivity ("anterior positivity") observed for prediction violations compared to words that are merely unpredictable (because they occur in weakly constraining sentences) and a distinction between expected endings in more constraining contexts and those same weakly constrained words ("frontal negativity" to the strongly predicted words). We found that the size of the anterior positivity effect was unchanged between passive comprehension and active prediction, suggesting that some processes related to prediction may engage state-like networks. On the other hand, the frontal negativity showed graded patterns from the interaction of task and sentence type. These differing patterns support the hypothesis that there are two separate effects with frontal scalp distributions that occur after the N400 and further suggest that the impact of violating predictions (as long as prediction is engaged at all) is largely stable across varying levels of effort/attention directed toward prediction, whereas other comprehension processes can be modulated by task demands.

Electrocortical correlates of hypersensitivity to large immediate rewards in sensation seeking

Sensation seeking and delay discounting are strong predictors of various risk-taking behaviors. However, the relationship between sensation seeking and delay discounting remains elusive. Here, we addressed this issue by examining how high sensation seekers (HSS; N = 40) and low sensation seekers (LSS; N = 40) evaluated immediate and delayed rewards with low and high amounts during a behavioral task and an EEG task of delay discounting. Although HSS and LSS exhibited comparable discounting preference at the behavioral level, HSS relative to LSS was associated with a greater delay discounting effect at the neural level when earned rewards were large. This abnormality of reward magnitude was further corroborated by an electrocortical hypersensitivity to large immediate rewards and a stronger neural coding of reward magnitude for HSS as compared to LSS. Our findings support both the hyperactive approach theory and the optimal arousal theory in sensation seeking and have implications for the prevention and intervention targeting sensation seeking to reduce maladaptive risk-taking behaviors.

Study on the influence mechanism of perceived benefits on unsafe behavioral decision-making based on ERPs and EROs

Introduction

Perceived benefits are considered one of the significant factors affecting an individual's decision-making process. Our study aimed to explore the influence mechanism of perceived benefits in the decision-making process of unsafe behaviors.

Methods

Our study used the "One Stimulus-Two Key Choice (S-K1/K2)" paradigm to conduct an EEG experiment. Participants (N = 18) made decisions in risky scenarios under high perceived benefits (HPB), low perceived benefits (LPB), and control conditions (CC). Time domain analysis and time-frequency analysis were applied to the recorded EEG data to extract ERPs (event-related potentials) and EROs (event-related oscillations), which include the P3 component, theta oscillations, alpha oscillations, and beta oscillations.

Results

Under the HPB condition, the theta power in the central (p = 0.016*) and occipital regions (p = 0.006**) was significantly decreased compared to the CC. Similarly, the alpha power in the frontal (p = 0.022*), central (p = 0.037*), and occipital regions (p = 0.014*) was significantly reduced compared to the CC. Under the LPB condition, theta power in the frontal (p = 0.026*), central (p = 0.028*), and occipital regions (p = 0.010*) was significantly reduced compared to the CC. Conversely, alpha power in the frontal (p = 0.009**), central (p = 0.012*), and occipital regions (p = 0.040*) was significantly increased compared to the HPB condition.

Discussion

The high perceived benefits may reduce individuals' internal attention and evoke individuals' positive emotions and motivation, leading individuals to underestimate risks. Consequently, they exhibited a greater inclination toward unsafe behaviors. However, the low perceived benefits may reduce individuals' memory review, resulting in a simple decision-making process, and they are more inclined to make fast decisions to avoid loss. The research results can help to provide targeted intervention measures, which are beneficial to reducing workers' unsafe behaviors.

The dissociation of semantically congruent and incongruent cross-modal effects on the visual attentional blink

Introduction

Recent studies have found that the sound-induced alleviation of visual attentional blink, a well-known phenomenon exemplifying the beneficial influence of multisensory integration on time-based attention, was larger when that sound was semantically congruent relative to incongruent with the second visual target (T2). Although such an audiovisual congruency effect has been attributed mainly to the semantic conflict carried by the incongruent sound restraining that sound from facilitating T2 processing, it is still unclear whether the integrated semantic information carried by the congruent sound benefits T2 processing.

Methods

To dissociate the congruence-induced benefit and incongruence-induced reduction in the alleviation of visual attentional blink at the behavioral and neural levels, the present study combined behavioral measures and event-related potential (ERP) recordings in a visual attentional blink task wherein the T2-accompanying sound, when delivered, could be semantically neutral in addition to congruent or incongruent with respect to T2.

Results

The behavioral data clearly showed that compared to the neutral sound, the congruent sound improved T2 discrimination during the blink to a higher degree while the incongruent sound improved it to a lesser degree. The T2-locked ERP data revealed that the early occipital cross-modal N195 component (192-228 ms after T2 onset) was uniquely larger in the congruent-sound condition than in the neutral-sound and incongruent-sound conditions, whereas the late parietal cross-modal N440 component (400-500 ms) was prominent only in the incongruent-sound condition.

Discussion

These findings provide strong evidence that the modulating effect of audiovisual semantic congruency on the sound-induced alleviation of visual attentional blink contains not only a late incongruence-induced cost but also an early congruence-induced benefit, thereby demonstrating for the first time an unequivocal congruent-sound-induced benefit in alleviating the limitation of time-based visual attention.

Cerebellum's Contribution to Attention, Executive Functions and Timing: Psychophysiological Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Since 1998, when Schmahmann first proposed the concept of the "cognitive affective syndrome" that linked cerebellar damage to cognitive and emotional impairments, a substantial body of literature has emerged. Anatomical, neurophysiological, and functional neuroimaging data suggest that the cerebellum contributes to cognitive functions through specific cerebral-cerebellar connections organized in a series of parallel loops. The aim of this paper is to review the current findings on the involvement of the cerebellum in selective cognitive functions, using a psychophysiological perspective with event-related potentials (ERPs), alone or in combination with non-invasive brain stimulation techniques. ERPs represent a very informative method of monitoring cognitive functioning online and have the potential to serve as valuable biomarkers of brain dysfunction that is undetected by other traditional clinical tools. This review will focus on the data on attention, executive functions, and time processing obtained in healthy subjects and patients with varying clinical conditions, thus confirming the role of ERPs in understanding the role of the cerebellum in cognition and exploring the potential diagnostic and therapeutic implications of ERP-based assessments in patients.

Context-specific effects of violated expectations: ERP evidence

A complete understanding of the predictive processing effect in sentence comprehension needs to understand both the facilitation effect of successful prediction and the cost associated with disconfirmed predictions. The current study compares the predictive processing effect across two types of contexts in Mandarin Chinese: the classifier-noun vs. verb-noun phrases, when controlling for the degree of contextual constraints and cloze probability of the target nouns across the two contexts. The two contexts showed similar N400 patterns for expected target nouns, indicative of an identical facilitation effect of confirmed contextual expectation. But in the post-N400 time window, the processing cost associated with the unexpected words differed between the two contexts. Additional differences between the two contexts were also revealed by the neural oscillation patterns obtained prior to the target noun. The differences between the classifier vs. verb contexts shed new light on the revision mechanism that deals with disconfirmed expectations.

Comparing monetary gain and loss in the monetary incentive delay task: EEG evidence

What is more effective to guide behavior: The desire to gain or the fear to lose? Electroencephalography (EEG) studies have yielded inconsistent answers. In a systematic exploration of the valence and magnitude parameters in monetary gain and loss processing, we used time-domain and time-frequency-domain analyses to uncover the underlying neural processes. A group of 24 participants performed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task in which cue-induced anticipation of a high or low magnitude of gain or loss was manipulated trial-wise. Behaviorally, the anticipation of both gain and loss expedited responses, with gain anticipation producing greater facilitation than loss anticipation. Analyses of cue-locked P2 and P3 components revealed the significant valence main effect and valence × magnitude interaction: amplitude differences between high and low incentive magnitudes were larger with gain vs. loss cues. However, the contingent negative variation component was sensitive to incentive magnitude but did not vary with incentive valence. In the feedback phase, the RewP component exhibited reversed patterns for gain and loss trials. Time-frequency analyses revealed a large increase in delta/theta-ERS oscillatory activity in high- vs. low-magnitude conditions and a large decrease of alpha-ERD oscillatory activity in gain vs. loss conditions in the anticipation stage. In the consumption stage, delta/theta-ERS turned out stronger for negative than positive feedback, especially in the gain condition. Overall, our study provides new evidence for the neural oscillatory features of monetary gain and loss processing in the MID task, suggesting that participants invested more attention under gain and high-magnitude conditions vs. loss and low-magnitude conditions.

Temporal dynamics of attitude decisions: A test of the iterative reprocessing model using event-related potentials

Although evaluative judgments are a central component of everyday decision making little is known about the temporal dynamics of the processes used to make them. The present study used the high temporal resolution of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to test Cunningham and Zelazo's (2007) posited differences in the timing of attitude tag retrieval relative to stimulus categorization for 'attitudes' and 'evaluations,' as well as tenets of their Iterative Reprocessing (IR) loop model. Participants made agree/disagree decisions about their attitudes and You/Not You decisions about their autobiographical memories in separate reaction time (RT) tasks while brain activity was recorded from 32 scalp sites. A median-split analysis on RT was used to separate fast and slow decisions. Decisions about autobiographical stimuli produced the typical results in which retrieval and stimulus categorization occurred together just before the response regardless of decision difficulty. By contrast, the relative timing of tag retrieval and categorization differed with difficulty for attitude decisions as predicted by the model. Fast attitude decisions were processed similarly to fast You decisions with retrieval and categorization timing coupled to the response. Slow attitude decisions, however, differed because, while tag retrieval timing was the same as for fast attitude decisions, post-retrieval processing delayed stimulus categorization and a response by 450 msec. ERP activity over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the pre-response interval was asymmetrical, with greater activity for attitude and autobiographical decisions over left and right hemispheres, respectively, while amplitude and duration increased with decision difficulty for both. Slow attitude decisions alone elicited a reduced pre-response positivity, a correlate of goal-directed response selection. The results provide empirical support for key aspects of Cunningham and Zelazo's (2007) attitude-evaluation dichotomy and the timing of the posited component processes in their IR model as well as novel information about the roles of stored tags and reflective processes in different attitude decisions.

To err is human- to understand error-processing is divine: Contributions of working memory and anxiety to error-related brain and pupil responses

Both anxiety and working memory capacity appear to predict increased (more negative) error-related negativity (ERN) amplitudes, despite being inversely related to one another. Until the interactive effects of these variables on the ERN are clarified, there may be challenges posed to our ability to use the ERN as an endophenotype for anxiety, as some have suggested. The compensatory error monitoring hypothesis suggests that high trait-anxiety individuals have larger ERN amplitudes because they must employ extra, compensatory efforts to override the working memory demands of their anxiety. Yet, to our knowledge, no ERN study has employed direct manipulation of working memory demands in conjunction with direct manipulations of induced (state) anxiety. Furthermore, little is known about how these manipulations affect other measures of error processing, such as the error-related pupil dilation response and post-error behavioral adjustments. Therefore, we manipulate working memory load and anxiety in a 2 × 2 within-subjects design to examine the interactive effects of working memory load and anxiety on ERN amplitude, error-related pupil dilation response amplitude, and post-error behavior. There were no effects of our manipulations on ERN amplitude, suggesting a strong interpretation of compensatory error-processing theory. However, our worry manipulation affected post-error behavior, such that worry caused a reduction in post-error accuracy. Additionally, our working memory manipulation affected error-related PDR magnitude and the amplitude of the error-related positivity (Pe), such that increased working memory load decreased the amplitude of these responses. Implications of these results within the context of the compensatory error processing framework are discussed.

The influence of volume-matched acute aerobic exercise on inhibitory control in late-middle-aged and older adults: A neuroelectric study

Acute aerobic exercise has been shown to benefit inhibitory control; however, less attention has been devoted to the effects of varying intensity and duration with a predetermined exercise volume. The current study assessed the influence of three distinct exercise conditions, each equated with a predesignated exercise volume but varied in terms of exercise durations and intensities, on inhibitory control utilizing both behavioral and neuroelectric measures obtained among late-middle-aged and older adults. Thirty-four adults (61.76 ± 0.80 years) completed three exercise conditions [i.e., a 30-min low-intensity exercise (LIE), a 20-min moderate-intensity exercise (MIE), and a 16-min high-intensity exercise (HIE)] and a non-exercise reading control condition (CON) on separate days. The exercise volumes of LIE and HIE were designed to match the exercise volume of MIE. Following cessation of each condition, the Stroop task was performed while event-related potentials were recorded. Improved behavioral performance (i.e., shorter response time, higher accuracy, and smaller interference scores) was observed after LIE, MIE, and HIE than CON (ps < .005). Additionally, whereas a larger P3b amplitude was only observed following MIE compared to CON (p < .01), larger N2 and smaller N450 amplitudes were observed following all three exercise conditions compared to CON (ps < .005). These findings suggested that while MIE may provide additional benefits for attentional resource allocation, exercise conditions volume matched to MIE resulted in superior inhibitory control, paralleled by modulations of the neural underpinnings of conflict monitoring/detection.

Feedback processing in cognitive and motor tasks: A meta-analysis on the feedback-related negativity

For motor learning, the processing of behavioral outcomes is of high significance. The feedback-related negativity (FRN) is an event-related potential, which is often described as a correlate of the reward prediction error in reinforcement learning. The number of studies examining the FRN in motor tasks is increasing. This meta-analysis summarizes the component in the motor domain and compares it to the cognitive domain. Therefore, a data set of a previous meta-analysis in the cognitive domain that comprised 47 studies  was reanalyzed and compared to additional 25 studies of the motor domain. Further, a moderator analysis for the studies in the motor domain was conducted. The FRN amplitude was higher in the motor domain than in the cognitive domain. This might be related to a higher task complexity and a higher feedback ambiguity of motor tasks. The FRN latency was shorter in the motor domain than in the cognitive domain. Given that sensory information can be used as an external feedback predictor prior to the presentation of the final feedback, reward processing in the motor domain may have been faster and reduced the FRN latency. The moderator variable analysis revealed that the feedback modality influenced the FRN latency, with shorter FRN latencies after bimodal than after visual feedback. Processing of outcome feedback seems to share basic principles in both domains; however, differences exist and should be considered in FRN studies. Future research is motivated to scrutinize the effects of bimodal feedback and other moderators within the motor domain.

A Behavioral and Event-Related Potentials Study of Food-Related Inhibitory Control in Probable Binge Eating Disorder

Background

Similar to addictive disorders, deficits on cognitive control might be involved in the onset and development of Binge Eating Disorder (BED). However, it remains unclear whether general or food-related inhibitory control impairments would be basically linked to overeating and binge eating behaviors. This study thus aimed to investigate behavioral performance and electrophysiological correlates of food-related inhibitory control among individuals with binge eating behavior.

Methods

Sixty individuals with probable BED (pBED) and 60 well-matched healthy controls (HCs) were assessed using the typical Stop-Signal Task, a revised Go/No Go Task, and a food-related Go/No Go Task. Besides, another separate sample, including 35 individuals with pBED and 35 HCs, completed the food-related Go/No Go Task when EEG signals were recorded with the event-related potentials (ERPs).

Results

The data revealed that the pBED group performed worse with a longer SSRT on the Stop-Signal Task compared with HCs (Cohen's d = 0.58, p = 0.002). Moreover, on the food-related Go/No Go Task, the pBED group had a lower success rate of inhibition in no-go trials (Cohen's d = 0.47, p = 0.012). The ERPs data showed that in comparison with HCs, the pBED group exhibited increased P300 latency (FC1, FC2, F3, F4, FZ) in the no-go trials of the food-related Go/No Go Task (Cohen's d 0.56-0.73, all p < 0.05).

Conclusion

These findings suggested that individuals with binge eating could be impaired in both non-specific and food-related inhibitory control aspects, and the impairments in food-related inhibitory control might be linked to P300 abnormalities, implying a behavioral-neurobiological dysfunction mechanism implicated in BED.

Promotion framing effects on the purchase of hedonic-utilitarian bundles: ERPs evidence of the moderating role of income source

Prior studies suggest that people are susceptible to the promotion framing effect. Yet it's still unknown if income source moderates the effect of promotion frame on consumer decision-making and the underlying neural responses. The current study applied the event-related potentials (ERPs) approach to exploring the moderating role of income source (hard-earned income and windfall income) on the promotion framing effect in a cross-category bundling context. Two promotion frames were created with identical total prices for a cross-category bundle that included both hedonic and utilitarian products. The behavioral results showed that income source moderated the effect of promotion frame on neural responses and purchase decision-making. When participants obtained a hard-earned income, they showed an attenuated N2, an enlarged LPP amplitude, and a higher purchase rate in the hedonic (vs. utilitarian) freebie condition; but when they obtained a windfall income, the effect of promotion frame disappeared. Overall, the conclusions have important ramifications for both theory and practice.