Article
Neurosciences
Nils C. J. Muller, Nils Kohn, Mariet van Buuren, Nadia Klijn, Helene Emmen, Ruud M. W. J. Berkers, Martin Dresler, Gabriele Janzen, Guillen Fernandez
Summary: This study investigated differences in memory performance between children, adolescents, and adults using fMRI and found that differences in executive rather than associative abilities explain these differences. The results suggest that children's executive system is not as mature as in adolescents and adults, and therefore cannot facilitate memory performance in the same way.
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
(2021)
Article
Immunology
Jan Pieter Konsman, Collin J. Laaker, Kelsey R. Lloyd, Adam Hiltz, Brittany L. Smith, Marissa A. Smail, Teresa M. Reyes
Summary: The study found that adult mice exposed to leukemia chemotherapy in early life showed deficits in recognition memory and executive function. Inflammation-related gene expression changes in the prefrontal cortex and small intestine were associated with executive function deficits in mice.
BRAIN BEHAVIOR AND IMMUNITY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Theresa H. McKim, Theresa M. Desrochers
Summary: The impact of reward on cognitive sequence processing remains unexplored. Researchers investigated the role of the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) in sequence monitoring and integration of reward information. The study found that reward increased the influence on RLPFC ramping across sequence iterations and did not interact with memory.
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Yusuke Moriguchi
Summary: The study found that there may be differences in the neural basis of hot and cool executive function during early childhood, and there is no correlation between cool and hot EF tasks.
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2022)
Review
Psychiatry
Sara Fathabadipour, Zohreh Mohammadi, Fereshteh Roshani, Niloofar Goharbakhsh, Hadi Alizadeh, Fatemeh Palizgar, Paul Cumming, Tanja Maria Michel, Manouchehr Seyedi Vafaee
Summary: This article systematically reviews fMRI studies of the neural effects of intranasal oxytocin (IN-OXT) administration in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The results indicate that IN-OXT alters brain activation in individuals with ASD, but its implications for alleviating their social deficits remain uncertain.
JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Amanda E. Hernan, J. Matthew Mahoney, Willie Curry, Seamus Mawe, Rod C. Scott
Summary: The study reveals that neurons in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex form a functional network during spatial working memory tasks and are well modulated in time. However, animals with cortical malformation show poorly modulated neurons in time, leading to difficulties in encoding task parameters and integrating into a functional network.
Article
Neurosciences
Abigail Fiske, Carina de Klerk, Katie Y. K. Lui, Liam Collins-Jones, Alexandra Hendry, Isobel Greenhalgh, Anna Hall, Gaia Scerif, Henrik Dvergsdal, Karla Holmboe
Summary: Inhibitory control, a core executive function, develops rapidly from infancy and is supported by the right prefrontal and parietal cortices in 10-month-old infants.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Hannah Weibley, Mina Di Filippo, Xinran Liu, Lillian Lazenby, Jackson Goscha, Alyssa Ferreira, Laura Muscalu, Nancy Rader
Summary: The study used fNIRS to measure brain activity in the left prefrontal lobe of 8-14 month-old infants during crawling or strolling and passive attention or executive function tasks. Results showed differences in Oxy levels between crawling and strolling, and between EF and passive tasks, with higher total hemoglobin in the EF task. This supports the idea that both locomotion and EF engage the prefrontal cortex in early development.
FRONTIERS IN BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
William K. Lloyd, Jayne Morriss, Birthe Macdonald, Karin Joanknecht, Julie Nihouarn, Carien M. van Reekum
Summary: The study found that in elderly individuals, a decline in executive function over time is associated with increased activity in the PFC and amygdala when reappraising negative stimuli, rather than with a neural compensation mechanism characterized by increased PFC activation but no differential amygdala activation. Additionally, lower white matter integrity of the uncinate fasciculus was observed in individuals with greater decreases in executive function, highlighting the association between cognitive decline and brain structure and function related to emotion regulation.
Article
Clinical Neurology
Kevin M. Cook, Xiaozhen You, Joseph Bradley Cherry, Junaid S. Merchant, Mary Skapek, Meredith D. Powers, Cara E. Pugliese, Lauren Kenworthy, Chandan J. Vaidya
Summary: Our study in TD children and ASD groups showed that memory was strongest for schema-congruent object-scene pairs, followed by intermediate pairs, and lowest for schema-incongruent pairs. The trade-off between mPFC and MTL in TD children differed from adult reports, with mPFC supporting memory for intermediate schema-congruency and left anterior MTL supporting memory for schema-congruent pairs. In ASD, mPFC engagement interacted with flexibility, with activation supporting memory for intermediate schema-congruency varying with reported flexibility and being higher in more flexible individuals. Similar interactions were observed in the left dorsolateral and rostrolateral PFC in whole-brain analysis.
JOURNAL OF NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Tomoki Kaneko, Toshinori Nakamura, Akiko Ryokawa, Shinsuke Washizuka, Yoshihiro Kitoh, Yasunari Fujinaga
Summary: It is difficult for researchers to distinguish between depression with ASD (Depress-wASD) and without ASD (Depression) in adult patients. This study aimed to clarify the differences in brain connectivity between patients with Depress-wASD and Depression. The results showed that patients with Depress-wASD exhibited positive connections between the salience network and the right supramarginal gyrus, and negative connections between the salience network and the hippocampus and para-hippocampus compared to the Depression group.
Article
Neurosciences
JeYoung Jung, Matthew A. Lambon Ralph, Rebecca L. Jackson
Summary: The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), located in the human brain, plays significant roles in various executive functions. This study aimed to investigate whether there are functional subdivisions within the DLPFC. The researchers divided the DLPFC into seven regions and examined their structural and functional connectivity patterns. The findings suggest that the DLPFC may be subdivided along different axes, reflecting its integrative executive function.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Stacey A. Bedwell, Natalie Harrison, Sara Fradley, Matthew Brooks
Summary: Research shows that sibling relationships can influence cognitive development, specifically in terms of high-order processes involved in social functioning. However, it remains unclear how childhood experiences of sibling aggression contribute to decision-making styles and risky decision-making in adulthood. Two studies were conducted to investigate this relationship. Study 1 found that using sibling aggression to maintain dominance was associated with avoidant and spontaneous decision-making styles. Study 2 revealed that childhood sibling aggression did not predict performance in risky decision-making tasks. These findings suggest that childhood sibling aggression may influence the types of decisions made, but not the level of risk involved.
CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Geriatrics & Gerontology
Katharina M. Rischer, Fernand Anton, Ana M. Gonzalez-Roldan, Pedro Montoya, Marian van der Meulen
Summary: Growing evidence suggests that aging is associated with less efficient endogenous pain modulation. Little is known about potential age-related changes in cognitive pain modulation, such as distraction from pain. This study examined the effects of cognitive load on pain modulation in young and older adults and found that completing a high load task was associated with reduced perception of painful stimuli and decreased activation of pain processing brain regions. The study also found differences between young and older adults in the activation of specific brain regions during the task. Executive functions were found to predict neural pain modulation in older adults. These findings highlight the importance of cognitive pain modulation in older age and the role of executive functions in pain distraction.
FRONTIERS IN AGING NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Paula Kaanders, Hamed Nili, Jill X. O'Reilly, Laurence Hunt
Summary: In this study using fMRI, researchers investigate the neural basis of information sampling in economic choice. The activity of the medial frontal cortex (MFC) was found to predict further information sampling, while a distributed network of regions across the prefrontal cortex encoded key features of the sampled information.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Helio Clemente Cuve, Jennifer Murphy, Hannah Hobson, Eri Ichijo, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird
Summary: Although socioemotional difficulties are often considered universal in autism, increasing evidence suggests that they may be explained by alexithymia, a distinct yet frequently co-occurring condition. Through factor-analytic and network approaches, it has been shown that alexithymic traits and autistic traits are distinct. Assessment of alexithymia is crucial for diagnosis and personalized interventions in autism.
JOURNAL OF AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Mirta Stanti, Eri Ichijo, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird
Summary: The study found that autistic adults have difficulties with both face perception and face memory, with some autistic individuals scoring in the neurotypical range on these tasks.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Emma L. Thompson, Emily L. Long, Geoffrey Bird, Caroline Catmur
Summary: Action understanding is crucial for successful social interaction and involves inferential processing. This study used a dual-task paradigm to investigate whether the identification of others' actions and intentions depends on automatic or inferential processing. The results showed that both action identification and intention identification were disrupted by concurrent cognitive and perceptual processing, indicating the need for additional perceptual and cognitive resources.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Dawa Dupont, Qianmeng Zhu, Sam J. Gilbert
Summary: Individuals have the option to store intentions in internal memory or external stores. This study shows that individuals tend to offload high-value intentions to the external environment, resulting in improved memory for both high- and low-value content. The reallocation of internal memory to low-value content occurs when high-value content is offloaded. When the external store is removed, individuals have better memory for low-value content compared to high-value content.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
(2023)
Review
Psychology, Mathematical
Sam J. Gilbert, Annika Boldt, Chhavi Sachdeva, Chiara Scarampi, Pei-Chun Tsai
Summary: This article discusses how we remember delayed intentions and focuses on the role of intention offloading, as well as the decision-making process between storing intentions in internal memory and using external reminders. The article also reviews the changes in intention offloading across the lifespan and its relationship with underlying brain mechanisms.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Tegan Penton, Natalie Bowling, Aikaterini Vafeiadou, Claudia Hammond, Geoffrey Bird, Michael J. Banissy
Summary: Unemployment and underemployment are more common in autistic adults compared to non-autistic adults, possibly due to a lack of workplace accommodations. This study found that employed autistic individuals had more negative attitudes towards touch in the workplace, as well as higher levels of loneliness and reduced well-being compared to non-autistic individuals.
JOURNAL OF AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Helio Clemente Jose Cuve, Joseph Harper, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird
Summary: A central tenet of many theories of emotion is that emotional states are accompanied by distinct patterns of autonomic activity. However, experimental studies of coherence between subjective and autonomic responses during emotional states provide little evidence of coherence. The current study addressed this question using a multivariate dimensional approach to build a common autonomic-subjective affective space incorporating subjective responses and three different autonomic signals, and provides a framework for future multimodal emotion research, enabling both hypothesis- and data-driven testing.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Andrew J. Lampi, Rebecca Brewer, Geoffrey Bird, Vikram K. Jaswal
Summary: Autistic people's emotional expressions may be misunderstood by non-autistic individuals due to differences in their internal representations of emotion. However, three studies conducted with non-autistic college students in the US revealed that autistic expressions were recognized more accurately than non-autistic expressions in most cases. Furthermore, it was found that the autistic expressions were better and more intense examples of the intended emotions. The findings suggest that internal representations of emotional expressions are unlikely to be the main cause of misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic individuals.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Mirta Stantic, Jacob Knyspel, Akhina Gaches, Yining Liu, Geoffrey Bird, Caroline Catmur
Summary: This study shows that removing perceptual similarity judgments can significantly reduce administration time without affecting test performance.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Chris D. Frith
Summary: Our conscious experience is influenced by both top-down processes, such as prior beliefs, and bottom-up processes, such as sensations. The balance between these processes depends on their reliability, with more reliable estimates given more weight. We have the ability to modify these estimates at the metacognitive level, allowing us to prioritize either prior beliefs or sensations. However, this flexibility comes at a cost, as an excessive reliance on top-down processes can lead to distorted perceptions and false beliefs, as seen in conditions like schizophrenia. At the highest level of cognitive hierarchy, metacognitive control becomes conscious, allowing us to form beliefs about abstract entities based on limited direct experience and the experiences of others. Our confidence in these higher-level beliefs is heavily influenced by culture and social group, often at the expense of direct experience.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Mirta Stantic, Katie Brown, Eri Ichijo, Zoe Pounder, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird
Summary: This study found that face perception and face matching have independent impacts on face memory, and impaired face perception and memory were observed in individuals with autism.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2023)
Article
Gerontology
Pei-Chun Tsai, Chiara Scarampi, Matthias Kliegel, Sam J. Gilbert
Summary: Research suggests that older adults may have difficulties remembering delayed intentions. External reminders can help alleviate these difficulties, but little is known about age differences in cognitive offloading strategies. This study examined younger and older adults' performance on a memory task involving internal memory and external reminders. Results showed that older adults used more reminders overall, but only younger adults had a bias towards reminders. Therefore, while older adults use more external memory aids, they have a reduced preference for external memory support compared to their actual need.
PSYCHOLOGY AND AGING
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Pei-Chun Tsai, Chhavi Sachdeva, Sam J. Gilbert, Chiara Scarampi
Summary: Saving information onto external resources can enhance memory recall, but only when the saved information is presented after the to-be-remembered information. Participants in two online experiments preferred to save the first list of words but only recalled it after the second list, suggesting that people choose to offload the most advantageous information.
APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Gavin Chiu, Sam J. Gilbert
Summary: Intention offloading refers to using external reminders to help remember delayed intentions. Two experiments investigated how the cost of physical effort associated with reminder-setting influences strategic intention offloading under different levels of memory load. Results showed that reminder-setting was reduced when it was more effortful, and participants with less confidence in their memory abilities were more likely to set reminders. The physical costs of reminder-setting had the greatest impact when participants were uncertain about their strategy choice.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Mirta Stantic, Rebecca Brewer, Bradley Duchaine, Michael J. Banissy, Sarah Bate, Tirta Susilo, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird
Summary: Face processing tests aim to identify individual differences, including prosopagnosic individuals, typical performers, and super recognisers. The Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT) was developed to measure these differences across the full range of performance using facial recognition algorithms to obtain unbiased face pair similarity ratings. Results indicate that face perception and memory are poor in prosopagnosic individuals and good in super recognisers.
BEHAVIOR RESEARCH METHODS
(2022)
