@article {1687, title = {How struggling adult readers use contextual information when comprehending speech: Evidence from event-related potentials.}, journal = {Int J Psychophysiol}, volume = {125}, year = {2018}, month = {2018 03}, pages = {1-9}, abstract = {

We investigated how struggling adult readers make use of sentence context to facilitate word processing when comprehending spoken language, conditions under which print decoding is not a barrier to comprehension. Stimuli were strongly and weakly constraining sentences (as measured by cloze probability), which ended with the most expected word based on those constraints or an unexpected but plausible word. Community-dwelling adults with varying literacy skills listened to continuous speech while their EEG was recorded. Participants, regardless of literacy level, showed N400 effects yoked to the cloze probability of the targets, with larger N400 amplitudes for less expected than more expected words. However, literacy-related differences emerged in an earlier time window of 170-300 ms: higher literacy adults produced a reduced negativity for strongly predictable targets over anterior channels, similar to previously reported effects on the Phonological Mapping Negativity (PMN), whereas low-literacy adults did not. Collectively, these findings suggest that in auditory sentence processing literacy may not notably affect the incremental activation of semantic features, but that comprehenders with underdeveloped literacy skills may be less likely to engage predictive processing. Thus, basic mechanisms of comprehension may be recruited differently as a function of literacy development-even in spoken language.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Brain Mapping, Comprehension, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Female, Humans, Literacy, Male, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Reading, Speech, Young Adult}, issn = {1872-7697}, doi = {10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2018.01.013}, author = {Ng, Shukhan and Payne, Brennan R and Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L and Federmeier, Kara D} } @article {203, title = {Gamma band activity and the P3 reflect post-perceptual processes, not visual awareness.}, journal = {Neuroimage}, volume = {101}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Nov 1}, pages = {337-50}, abstract = {

A primary goal in cognitive neuroscience is to identify neural correlates of conscious perception (NCC). By contrasting conditions in which subjects are aware versus unaware of identical visual stimuli, a number of candidate NCCs have emerged; among them are induced gamma band activity in the EEG and the P3 event-related potential. In most previous studies, however, the critical stimuli were always directly relevant to the subjects{\textquoteright} task, such that aware versus unaware contrasts may well have included differences in post-perceptual processing in addition to differences in conscious perception per se. Here, in a series of EEG experiments, visual awareness and task relevance were manipulated independently. Induced gamma activity and the P3 were absent for task-irrelevant stimuli regardless of whether subjects were aware of such stimuli. For task-relevant stimuli, gamma and the P3 were robust and dissociable, indicating that each reflects distinct post-perceptual processes necessary for carrying-out the task but not for consciously perceiving the stimuli. Overall, this pattern of results challenges a number of previous proposals linking gamma band activity and the P3 to conscious perception.

}, keywords = {Adult, Attention, Awareness, Consciousness, Electroencephalography, Event-Related Potentials, P300, Female, Gamma Rhythm, Humans, Male, Psychomotor Performance, Visual Perception, Young Adult}, issn = {1095-9572}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.07.024}, author = {Pitts, Michael A and Padwal, Jennifer and Fennelly, Daniel and Mart{\'\i}nez, Ant{\'\i}gona and Hillyard, Steven A} } @article {208, title = {Inhibitory motor control based on complex stopping goals relies on the same brain network as simple stopping.}, journal = {Neuroimage}, volume = {103}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Dec}, pages = {225-34}, abstract = {

Much research has modeled action-stopping using the stop-signal task (SST), in which an impending response has to be stopped when an explicit stop-signal occurs. A limitation of the SST is that real-world action-stopping rarely involves explicit stop-signals. Instead, the stopping-system engages when environmental features match more complex stopping goals. For example, when stepping into the street, one monitors path, velocity, size, and types of objects and only stops if there is a vehicle approaching. Here, we developed a task in which participants compared the visual features of a multidimensional go-stimulus to a complex stopping-template, and stopped their go-response if all features matched the template. We used independent component analysis of EEG data to show that the same motor inhibition brain network that explains action-stopping in the SST also implements motor inhibition in the complex-stopping task. Furthermore, we found that partial feature overlap between go-stimulus and stopping-template led to motor slowing, which also corresponded with greater stopping-network activity. This shows that the same brain system for action-stopping to explicit stop-signals is recruited to slow or stop behavior when stimuli match a complex stopping goal. The results imply a generalizability of the brain{\textquoteright}s network for simple action-stopping to more ecologically valid scenarios.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Brain, Brain Mapping, Electroencephalography, Female, Goals, Humans, Inhibition (Psychology), Male, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Young Adult}, issn = {1095-9572}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.09.048}, author = {Wessel, Jan R and Aron, Adam R} } @article {1675, title = {Using single-trial EEG to predict and analyze subsequent memory.}, journal = {Neuroimage}, volume = {84}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Jan 01}, pages = {712-23}, abstract = {

We show that it is possible to successfully predict subsequent memory performance based on single-trial EEG activity before and during item presentation in the study phase. Two-class classification was conducted to predict subsequently remembered vs. forgotten trials based on subjects{\textquoteright} responses in the recognition phase. The overall accuracy across 18 subjects was 59.6\% by combining pre- and during-stimulus information. The single-trial classification analysis provides a dimensionality reduction method to project the high-dimensional EEG data onto a discriminative space. These projections revealed novel findings in the pre- and during-stimulus periods related to levels of encoding. It was observed that the pre-stimulus information (specifically oscillatory activity between 25 and 35Hz) -300 to 0ms before stimulus presentation and during-stimulus alpha (7-12Hz) information between 1000 and 1400ms after stimulus onset distinguished between recollection and familiarity while the during-stimulus alpha information and temporal information between 400 and 800ms after stimulus onset mapped these two states to similar values.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Brain, Electroencephalography, Humans, Male, Memory, Young Adult}, issn = {1095-9572}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.09.028}, author = {Noh, Eunho and Herzmann, Grit and Curran, Tim and de Sa, Virginia R} } @article {202, title = {Visual processing of contour patterns under conditions of inattentional blindness.}, journal = {J Cogn Neurosci}, volume = {24}, year = {2012}, month = {2012 Feb}, pages = {287-303}, abstract = {

An inattentional blindness paradigm was adapted to measure ERPs elicited by visual contour patterns that were or were not consciously perceived. In the first phase of the experiment, subjects performed an attentionally demanding task while task-irrelevant line segments formed square-shaped patterns or random configurations. After the square patterns had been presented 240 times, subjects{\textquoteright} awareness of these patterns was assessed. More than half of all subjects, when queried, failed to notice the square patterns and were thus considered inattentionally blind during this first phase. In the second phase of the experiment, the task and stimuli were the same, but following this phase, all of the subjects reported having seen the patterns. ERPs recorded over the occipital pole differed in amplitude from 220 to 260 msec for the pattern stimuli compared with the random arrays regardless of whether subjects were aware of the patterns. At subsequent latencies (300-340 msec) however, ERPs over bilateral occipital-parietal areas differed between patterns and random arrays only when subjects were aware of the patterns. Finally, in a third phase of the experiment, subjects viewed the same stimuli, but the task was altered so that the patterns became task relevant. Here, the same two difference components were evident but were followed by a series of additional components that were absent in the first two phases of the experiment. We hypothesize that the ERP difference at 220-260 msec reflects neural activity associated with automatic contour integration whereas the difference at 300-340 msec reflects visual awareness, both of which are dissociable from task-related postperceptual processing.

}, keywords = {Adult, Attention, Awareness, Brain, Brain Mapping, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Visual, Female, Humans, Male, Perceptual Masking, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Visual Perception}, issn = {1530-8898}, doi = {10.1162/jocn_a_00111}, author = {Pitts, Michael A and Mart{\'\i}nez, Ant{\'\i}gona and Hillyard, Steven A} } @article {194, title = {Atypical face versus object processing and hemispheric asymmetries in 10-month-old infants at risk for autism.}, journal = {Biol Psychiatry}, volume = {66}, year = {2009}, month = {2009 Nov 15}, pages = {950-7}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have documented atypicalities in face/object processing in children and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). To investigate whether such atypicalities may reflect a genetically mediated risk factor present early in development, we measured face/object processing in 10-month-old high-risk infants who carry some of the genes associated with ASD because they have an older sibling diagnosed with the disorder.

METHODS: We employed event-related potentials (ERPs) to measure cortical responses to pictures of faces and objects, the objects being toys. Latencies and amplitudes of four ERP components (P100, N290, P400, and Nc) were compared between 20 high-risk infants and 20 low-risk control subjects (infants with no family history of ASD).

RESULTS: Responses to faces versus objects differed between high- and low-risk infants for the latencies of the N290 and P400. Differences were driven by faster responses to faces than objects in low-risk, but not high-risk, infants (P400) and, conversely, faster responses to objects than faces in high-risk, but not low-risk, infants (N290). Object responses were also faster in high-risk than low-risk infants (both N290 and P400). Left versus right hemisphere responses also differed between high- and low-risk infants for the amplitudes of the P100, N290, and P400; collapsed across faces/objects, low-risk, but not high-risk, infants exhibited hemisphere asymmetries.

CONCLUSIONS: Genetic risk for ASD is associated with atypical face versus object processing and an atypical lack of hemispheric asymmetry early in life. These atypicalities might contribute to development of the disorder.

}, keywords = {Analysis of Variance, Autistic Disorder, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Child, Child, Preschool, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Face, Female, Fourier Analysis, Functional Laterality, Humans, Infant, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Risk}, issn = {1873-2402}, doi = {10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.07.031}, author = {McCleery, Joseph P and Akshoomoff, Natacha and Dobkins, Karen R and Carver, Leslie J} }