Neuropsychologia

Journal: Neuropsychologia

Abbreviation

Neuropsycho

Publisher

Elsevier

ISSN

1873-3514
0028-3932

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Publications 1 - 10 of 32

To retrieve or to calculate?
Grabner, Roland H.; Ansari, Daniel; Koschutnig, Karl; et al. (2009)
Neuropsychologia
Gesture in the eye of the beholder: An eye-tracking study on factors determining the attention for gestures produced by people with aphasia
van Nispen, Karin; Sekine, Kazuki; van der Meulen, Ineke; et al. (2022)
Neuropsychologia
Co-speech hand gestures are an ubiquitous form of nonverbal communication, which can express additional information that is not present in speech. Hand gestures may become more relevant when verbal production is impaired, as in speakers with post-stroke aphasia. In fact, speakers with aphasia produce more gestures than non-brain damaged speakers. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that speakers with aphasia produce gestures that convey information essential to understand their communication. In the present study, we addressed the question whether these gestures catch the attention of their addressees. Healthy volunteers (observers) watched short video clips while their eye movements were recorded. These video clips featured speakers with aphasia and non-brain damaged speakers describing two different scenarios (buying a sweater or having witnessed an accident). Our results show that hand gestures produced by speakers with aphasia are on average attended to longer than gestures produced by non-brain damaged speakers. This effect was significant even when we controlled for the longer duration of the gestural movements in speakers with aphasia. Further, the amount of information in speech was also correlated with gesture attention. That is gestures produced by speakers with less informative speech were attended to more frequently. In conclusion, our findings suggest that listeners reallocate their attention and focus more strongly on non-verbal information from co-speech gestures if speech comprehension becomes challenging due to the speaker's verbal production deficits. These findings support a communicative function of co-speech gestures and advocate for instructing people with aphasia to communicate things in the form of gestures that cannot be expressed verbally because interlocutors take notice of these gestures.
Person perception involves functional integration between the extrastriate body area and temporal pole
Greven, Inez M.; Ramsey, Richard (2017)
Neuropsychologia
The majority of human neuroscience research has focussed on understanding functional organisation within segregated patches of cortex. The ventral visual stream has been associated with the detection of physical features such as faces and body parts, whereas the theory-of-mind network has been associated with making inferences about mental states and underlying character, such as whether someone is friendly, selfish, or generous. To date, however, it is largely unknown how such distinct processing components integrate neural signals. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and connectivity analyses, we investigated the contribution of functional integration to social perception. During scanning, participants observed bodies that had previously been associated with trait-based or neutral information. Additionally, we independently localised the body perception and theory-of-mind networks. We demonstrate that when observing someone who cues the recall of stored social knowledge compared to non-social knowledge, a node in the ventral visual stream (extrastriate body area) shows greater coupling with part of the theory-of-mind network (temporal pole). These results show that functional connections provide an interface between perceptual and inferential processing components, thus providing neurobiological evidence that supports the view that understanding the visual environment involves interplay between conceptual knowledge and perceptual processing.
Interacting effects of frontal lobe neuroanatomy and working memory capacity to older listeners & rsquo; speech recognition in noise
Giroud, Nathalie; Keller, Matthias; Meyer, Martin (2021)
Neuropsychologia
Many older adults are struggling with understanding spoken language, particularly when background noise interferes with comprehension. In the present study, we investigated a potential interaction between two wellknown factors associated with greater speech-in-noise (SiN) reception thresholds in older adults, namely a) lower working memory capacity and b) age-related structural decline of frontal lobe regions. In a sample of older adults (N = 25) and younger controls (N = 13) with normal pure-tone thresholds, SiN reception thresholds and working memory capacity were assessed. Furthermore, T1-weighted structural MRimages were recorded to analyze neuroanatomical traits (i.e., cortical thickness (CT) and cortical surface area (CSA)) of the cortex. As expected, the older group showed greater SiN reception thresholds compared to the younger group. We also found consistent age-related atrophy (i.e., lower CT) in brain regions associated with SiN recognition, namely the superior temporal lobe bilaterally, the right inferior frontal and precentral gyrus, as well as the left superior frontal gyrus. Those older participants with greater atrophy in these brain regions showed greater SiN reception thresholds. Interestingly, the association between CT in the left superior frontal gyrus and SiN reception thresholds was moderated by individual working memory capacity. Older adults with greater working memory capacity benefitted more strongly from thicker frontal lobe regions leading to better SiN recognition. Overall, our results fit well into the literature showing that age-related structural decline in auditory- and cognition-related brain areas is associated with greater SiN reception thresholds in older adults. However, we highlight that this association changes as a function of individual working memory capacity. We therefore believe that future interventions to improve SiN recognition in older adults should take into account the role of the frontal lobe as well as individual working memory capacity.
Age-related changes in brain activation underlying single- and dual-task performance: visuomanual drawing and mental arithmetic
Van Impe, A.; Coxon, J.P.; Goble, D.J.; et al. (2011)
Neuropsychologia
Nonconscious formation and reactivation of semantic
Henke, K.; Mandadori, CRA and; Treyer, V.; et al. (2003)
Neuropsychologia
The rewarding value of good motor performance in the context of monetary incentives
Lutz, Kai; Pedroni, Andreas; Nadig, Karin; et al. (2012)
Neuropsychologia
Prion protein M129V polymorphism affects retrieval-related brain activity
Buchmann, Andreas; Mondadori, Christian R.A.; Haenggi, Juergen; et al. (2008)
Neuropsychologia
Neural signatures of Trail Making Test performance: Evidence from lesion-mapping and neuroimaging studies
Varjacic, Andreja; Mantini, Dante; Demeyere, Nele; et al. (2018)
Neuropsychologia
The Trail Making Test (TMT) is an extensively used neuropsychological instrument for the assessment of set-switching ability across a wide range of neurological conditions. However, the exact nature of the cognitive processes and associated brain regions contributing to the performance on the TMT remains unclear. In this review, we first introduce the TMT by discussing its administration and scoring approaches. We then examine converging evidence and divergent findings concerning the brain regions related to TMT performance, as identified by lesion-symptom mapping studies conducted in brain-injured patients and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies conducted in healthy participants. After addressing factors that may account for the heterogeneity in the brain regions reported by these studies, we identify future research endeavours that may permit disentangling the different processes contributing to TMT performance and relating them to specific brain circuits.
Limb apparent motion perception: Modification by tDCS, and clinically or experimentally altered bodily states
Saetta, Gianluca; Ho, Jasmine T.; Bekrater-Bodmann, Robin; et al. (2021)
Neuropsychologia
Limb apparent motion perception (LAMP) refers to the illusory visual perception of a moving limb upon observing two rapidly alternating photographs depicting the same limb in two different postures. Fast stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) induce the more visually guided perception of physically impossible movements. Slow SOAs induce the perception of physically possible movements. According to the motor theory of LAMP, the latter perception depends upon the observer's sensorimotor representations. Here, we tested this theory in two independent studies by performing a central (study 1) and peripheral (study 2) manipulation of the body's sensorimotor states during two LAMP tasks. In the first sham-controlled transcranial direct current stimulation between-subject designed study, we observed that the dampening of left sensorimotor cortex activity through cathodal stimulation biased LAMP towards the more visually guided perception of physically impossible movements for stimulus pairs at slow SOAs. In the second, online within-subject designed study, we tested three participant groups twice: (1) individuals with an acquired lower limb amputation, either while wearing or not wearing their prosthesis (2) individuals with body integrity dysphoria (i.e., with a desire for amputation of a healthy leg) while sitting in a regular position or binding up the undesired leg (to simulate the desired amputation); (3) able-bodied individuals while sitting in a normal position or sitting on one of their legs. We found that the momentary sensorimotor state crucially impacted LAMP in individuals with an amputation and able-bodied participants, but not in BID individuals. Taken together, the results of these two studies substantiate the motor theory of LAMP.

Publications 1 - 10 of 32

Journal: Neuropsychologia

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