CortexPub Date : 2024-05-29DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.03.016
Julian Klingbeil , Martin Mühlig , Emma Bahr, Florian Welle, Tim Ritter, Anika Stockert, Max Wawrzyniak, Dorothee Saur
{"title":"Undoubtedly unaware of homonymous hemianopia: The contribution of overconfidence to anosognosia of hemianopia","authors":"Julian Klingbeil , Martin Mühlig , Emma Bahr, Florian Welle, Tim Ritter, Anika Stockert, Max Wawrzyniak, Dorothee Saur","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.03.016","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.03.016","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A new functional deficit caused by a stroke can be understood as a situation of uncertainty that has to prompt deficit discovery and subsequent incorporation into an altered self-perception. Anosognosia for visual field deficits is frequent after stroke. For hemiplegia, patients' performance in a riddle test provided evidence that the inability to generate and adjust beliefs in face of uncertainty contributes to anosognosia for hemiplegia. In this prospective study, the same riddles are used in patients with homonymous hemianopia due to a first-ever stroke in the posterior cerebral artery territory and in an age-matched control cohort. The riddles create a situation of uncertainty that is resolved with five successive clues which progressively delimit the target word. After each clue, patients have to guess the target word and rate their confidence in the answer's correctness. Patients were tested once during the hospital stay. According to the Bisiach score for anosognosia, 12 out of 29 patients were unaware of their visual field deficits. All patients with anosognosia for hemianopia had right hemisphere lesions. Patients with and without anosognosia did not differ significantly in global cognitive impairment, mental flexibility or memory function. Importantly, patients with anosognosia showed higher confidence ratings than patients without anosognosia and controls in the first two clues (situations of uncertainty). This was demonstrated by a significant interaction effect in a mixed ANOVA with the factors group (anosognosia, nosognosia, controls) and riddle clues. An exploratory lesion subtraction analysis showed a high proportion of deficit unawareness in patients with lesions in the right fusiform and (para)hippocampal gyri. Our findings suggest that overconfidence in situations of uncertainty might contribute to the appearance of anosognosia for hemianopia. Because this has been demonstrated before in anosognosia for hemiplegia, we suggest that overconfidence is a supra-modal contributor to deficit unawareness.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945224001448/pdfft?md5=25f060795d26f2a5ff6857253dbb72b3&pid=1-s2.0-S0010945224001448-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CortexPub Date : 2024-05-29DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.01.015
Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza , Jorge Moll , Roland Zahn , Paul Eslinger
{"title":"Late recovery from acquired sociopathy in a boy with a left frontopolar injury","authors":"Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza , Jorge Moll , Roland Zahn , Paul Eslinger","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.01.015","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.01.015","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The long-term outcome of acquired sociopathy with preservation of cognition is still unknown. Here, we present the long-term outcome of a severe antisocial change in personality that followed a traumatic left frontopolar injury in a previously gentle, loving, and introverted adolescent. Nine years after the accident, antisocial behaviors gradually became sporadic, while, at the same time, the patient's sense of responsibility and care for his family increased. He became more extroverted and assertive, yet flexible enough to deal with the hardships of his poor socioeconomic background. His “new personality” was, in fact, more adjusted than ever. We argue that his late recovery reflected a conjunction of factors, especially (i) his early age, (ii) the static nature of the injury, (iii) the preservation of the ventromedial frontal cortices and related basal forebrain regions, and (iv) an unusual asymmetric representation of social cognition in the cerebral hemispheres. Our case and the case of Franz Binz indicate that social recovery is possible after gross prefrontal injuries, even when they are no longer expected to occur. It also emphasizes the importance of reporting on the long-term follow-up of brain-injured patients.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Alpha and theta rhythm support perceptual and attentional sampling in vision","authors":"Jessica Gallina , Luca Ronconi , Gianluca Marsicano , Caterina Bertini","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.020","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.020","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The visual system operates rhythmically, through timely coordinated perceptual and attentional processes, involving coexisting patterns in the alpha range (7–13 Hz) at ∼10 Hz, and theta (3–6 Hz) range, respectively. Here we aimed to disambiguate whether variations in task requirements, in terms of attentional demand and side of target presentation, might influence the occurrence of either perceptual or attentional components in behavioral visual performance, also uncovering possible differences in the sampling mechanisms of the two cerebral hemispheres. To this aim, visuospatial performance was densely sampled in two versions of a visual detection task where the side of target presentation was fixed (Task 1), with participants monitoring one single hemifield, or randomly varying across trials, with participants monitoring both hemifields simultaneously (Task 2). Performance was analyzed through spectral decomposition, to reveal behavioral oscillatory patterns. For Task 1, when attentional resources where focused on one hemifield only, the results revealed an oscillatory pattern fluctuating at ∼10 Hz and ∼6–9 Hz, for stimuli presented to the left and the right hemifield, respectively, possibly representing a perceptual sampling mechanism with different efficiency within the left and the right hemispheres. For Task 2, when attentional resources were simultaneously deployed to the two hemifields, a ∼5 Hz rhythm emerged both for stimuli presented to the left and the right, reflecting an attentional sampling process, equally supported by the two hemispheres. Overall, the results suggest that distinct perceptual and attentional sampling mechanisms operate at different oscillatory frequencies and their prevalence and hemispheric lateralization depends on task requirements.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001094522400145X/pdfft?md5=00bfa39c76344dbfcf50bf4f84564158&pid=1-s2.0-S001094522400145X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CortexPub Date : 2024-05-28DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.004
Steffen Riemann , Jil van Lück , Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells , Agnes Flöel , Marcus Meinzer
{"title":"The role of frontal cortex in novel-word learning and consolidation: Evidence from focal transcranial direct current stimulation","authors":"Steffen Riemann , Jil van Lück , Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells , Agnes Flöel , Marcus Meinzer","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Previous studies have demonstrated that conventional transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can enhance novel-word learning. However, because of the widespread current that is induced by these setups and lack of appropriate control conditions, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms. In the present double-blinded and sham-tDCS controlled study, we investigated for the first time if regionally precise focal tDCS targeting two key nodes of the novel-word learning network at different time points would result in regionally and temporally distinct effects. 156 participants completed a contextual novel-word-learning paradigm and learning success was probed immediately after the acquisition period and 30-min later. Participants were randomly assigned to six stimulation conditions: Active tDCS (1.5 mA) was administered to left inferior frontal (IFG) or middle temporal gyrus (MTG), either during acquisition or delayed recall. Control groups received sham-tDCS either during acquisition or delayed recall (50% IFG/MTG). Data were analyzed with a generalized linear mixed model with a binomial link function in a Bayesian framework. Our results showed that frontal tDCS selectively increased accuracy gains from immediate to delayed recall, irrespective of timing of the stimulation. There was no evidence for beneficial effects of middle temporal gyrus tDCS. Our findings confirm that IFG tDCS can enhance novel-word learning in a regionally, but not timing specific way. Tentatively, this may be explained by enhancement of semantic selection processes resulting in more effective consolidation and/or retrieval. Future studies using longer time intervals between assessments are required to clarify the potential contribution of neurophysiological after-effects of IFG tDCS administered during acquisition to enhanced consolidation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945224001370/pdfft?md5=23a397cf78499c66e2a35a5627929d05&pid=1-s2.0-S0010945224001370-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CortexPub Date : 2024-05-28DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.019
Shani Friedman , Trafton Drew , Roy Luria
{"title":"The effect of context on pointer allocation in visual working memory","authors":"Shani Friedman , Trafton Drew , Roy Luria","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.019","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.019","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Visual working memory (VWM) can hold a limited amount of visual information and manipulate it. It encodes this information and forms representations of each one of the relevant objects. When an object changes, VWM can either update or reset its representation to account for this change. To access a specific representation VWM relies on a pointer system associating each representation with the corresponding object in the environment. While previous studies described these processes as reacting to a change in the object status, this study investigated the adaptability of the pointer system to the task context. We measured the contralateral delay activity (CDA; an electrophysiological marker of VWM) as a marker of updating and resetting. In two experiments we used a shape change detection task (similar to Balaban & Luria, 2017) and manipulated the proportion of the resetting and updating trials to create different task contexts. Experiment 1 indicated that VWM can adapt to a resetting mode in which it performs resetting in conditions that triggered updating in previous studies. However, Experiment 2 revealed that the pointer system cannot adapt to an updating mode and perform updating in conditions that trigger resetting. These results suggest that VWM can strategically perform resetting, but once a pointer is lost, it's impossible to update the representation and a resetting process is mandatory triggered regardless of the context.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CortexPub Date : 2024-05-28DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.007
Albert E. Kim , Shannon M. McKnight , Akira Miyake
{"title":"How variable are the classic ERP effects during sentence processing? A systematic resampling analysis of the N400 and P600 effects","authors":"Albert E. Kim , Shannon M. McKnight , Akira Miyake","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although event-related potential (ERP) research on language processing has capitalized on key, theoretically influential components such as the N400 and P600, their measurement properties—especially the variability in their temporal and spatial parameters—have rarely been examined. The current study examined the measurement properties of the N400 and P600 effects elicited by semantic and syntactic anomalies, respectively, during sentence processing. We used a bootstrap resampling procedure to randomly draw many thousands of resamples varying in sample size and stimulus count from a larger sample of 187 participants and 40 stimulus sentences of each type per condition. Our resampling investigation focused on three issues: (a) statistical power; (b) variability in the magnitudes of the effects; and (c) variability in the temporal and spatial profiles of the effects. At the level of grand averages, the N400 and P600 effects were both robust and substantial. However, across resamples, there was a high degree of variability in effect magnitudes, onset times, and scalp distributions, which may be greater than is currently appreciated in the literature, especially for the P600 effects. These results provide a useful basis for designing future studies using these two well-established ERP components. At the same time, the results also highlight challenges that need to be addressed in future research (e.g., how best to analyze the ERP data without engaging in such questionable research practices as <em>p</em>-hacking).</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CortexPub Date : 2024-05-28DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.003
Ana F. Palenciano , Carlos González-García , Jan De Houwer , Baptist Liefooghe , Marcel Brass
{"title":"Concurrent response and action effect representations across the somatomotor cortices during novel task preparation","authors":"Ana F. Palenciano , Carlos González-García , Jan De Houwer , Baptist Liefooghe , Marcel Brass","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Instructions allow us to fulfill novel and complex tasks on the first try. This skill has been linked to preparatory brain signals that encode upcoming demands in advance, facilitating novel performance. To deepen insight into these processes, we explored whether instructions pre-activated task-relevant motoric and perceptual neural states. Critically, we addressed whether these representations anticipated activity patterns guiding overt sensorimotor processing, which could reflect that internally simulating novel tasks facilitates the preparation. To do so, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data while female and male participants encoded and implemented novel stimulus-response associations. Participants also completed localizer tasks designed to isolate the neural representations of the mappings-relevant motor responses, perceptual consequences, and stimulus categories. Using canonical template tracking, we identified whether and where these sensorimotor representations were pre-activated. We found that response-related templates were encoded in advance in regions linked with action control, entailing not only the instructed responses but also their somatosensory consequences. This result was particularly robust in primary motor and somatosensory cortices. While, following our predictions, we found a systematic decrease in the irrelevant stimulus templates’ representational strength compared to the relevant ones, this difference was due to below-zero estimates linked to the irrelevant category activity patterns. Overall, our findings reflect that instruction processing relies on the sensorimotor cortices to anticipate motoric and kinesthetic representations of prospective action plans, suggesting the engagement of motor imagery during novel task preparation. More generally, they stress that the somatomotor system could participate with higher-level frontoparietal regions during anticipatory task control.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141195115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CortexPub Date : 2024-05-28DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.005
Shuaixia Li , Yihan Zhang , Hui Li , Bin Hao , Weiqi He , Wenbo Luo
{"title":"Is processing superiority a universal trait for all threats? Divergent impacts of fearful, angry, and disgusted faces on attentional capture","authors":"Shuaixia Li , Yihan Zhang , Hui Li , Bin Hao , Weiqi He , Wenbo Luo","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Fearful, angry, and disgusted facial expressions are evolutionarily salient and convey different types of threat signals. However, it remains unclear whether these three expressions impact sensory perception and attention in the same way. The present ERP study investigated the temporal dynamics underlying the processing of different types of threatening faces and the impact of attentional resources employed during a perceptual load task. Participants were asked to judge the length of bars superimposed over faces presented in the center of the screen. A mass univariate statistical approach was used to analyze the EEG data. Behaviorally, task accuracy was significantly reduced following exposure to fearful faces relative to neutral distractors, independent of perceptual load. The ERP results revealed that the P1 amplitude over the right hemisphere was found to be enhanced for fearful relative to disgusted faces, reflecting the rapid and coarse detection of fearful cues. The N170 responses elicited by fearful, angry, and disgusted faces were larger than those elicited by neutral faces, suggesting the largely automatic and preferential processing of threats. Furthermore, the early posterior negativity (EPN) component yielded increased responses to fearful and angry faces, indicating prioritized attention to stimuli representing acute threats. Additionally, perceptual load exerted a pronounced influence on the EPN and late positive potential (LPP), with larger responses observed in the low perceptual load condition, indicating goal-directed cognitive processing. Overall, the early sensory processing of fearful, angry, and disgusted faces is characterized by differential sensitivity in capturing attention automatically, despite the importance of these facial signals for survival. Fearful faces produce a strong interference effect and are processed with higher priority than angry and disgusted ones.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CortexPub Date : 2024-05-24DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.018
Michael H. Connors , Jessica Gibbs , Matthew M. Large , Peter W. Halligan
{"title":"Delusions in postpartum Psychosis: Implications for cognitive theories","authors":"Michael H. Connors , Jessica Gibbs , Matthew M. Large , Peter W. Halligan","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.018","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.018","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Postpartum psychosis is a rare but serious condition that can affect women after childbirth. We present a case study of an individual with no comorbidities or psychiatric history who developed postpartum psychosis characterised by prominent misidentification delusions whilst admitted to hospital. The woman recovered quickly with medication and showed no evidence of relapse over the following three years. Whilst still symptomatic and after recovery, the patient was able to provide a detailed description of her experiences. Contemporaneous interviews and observations during her hospital admission and a subsequent detailed retrospective account provide a unique, comprehensive window into her experience of these time-limited delusions. Her case reveals important insights including the triggers for her misidentification delusions, the role of social and contextual influences on delusional beliefs, and her recall of active involvement in evaluating and discarding delusional hypotheses. These insights highlight the complexity of delusional beliefs, challenge existing theories of delusions, and help inform broader theories of belief formation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945224001382/pdfft?md5=b6b5c8db12cf6cab8c53dfffa39db507&pid=1-s2.0-S0010945224001382-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141132530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}