NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-07-15DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109220
Victoria Liu , Sharon Uretzky , Asaf Gilboa
{"title":"The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and intention representation in prospective memory","authors":"Victoria Liu , Sharon Uretzky , Asaf Gilboa","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109220","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109220","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Prospective memory (PM) consists of (i) a retrospective component, i.e. memory for the intentions and for the cues that should trigger an action, and (ii) a prospective component of monitoring and identifying these cues and the timely execution of the action. Here, we tested patients with damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC; N = 5) and matched controls (N = 12) for (i) the presence of an intention superiority effect (ISE) indexing prieviliged processing of memories associated with intended actions (retrospective PM) and (ii) the cognitive cost that monitoring for a prospective cue exerts on performing an ongoing task (prospective PM). We found that control participants showed a clear ISE, which was absent in patients as a group, and individually absent in 4 out of the 5 patients whose lesions encroached on posterior vmPFC. A patient with more anterior mPFC damage had normal ISE. Conversely, all patients showed normal reaction time cost for an ongoing task when a prospective task was added, if the prospective cue was aligned with the ongoing task focus of attention. When prospective cues were outside the focus of attention of the ongoing task, one patient with additional damage to the Caudate Nucleus failed the PM task completely. The other 4 patients continued to perform within normal controls' range. Together these data suggest a unique role for sub-callosal vmPFC in PM, bolstering the implicit processing of environmental cues that are relevant for realizing future intentions. This is consistent with vmPFC's role in context-sensitive value processing based on prior experiences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109220"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144659718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-07-15DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109229
Karen R Konkoly, Daniel Morris, Matthew Cho, Kaitlyn Hurka, S Gabriela Torres-Platas, Lourdes Baehr, Ken A Paller
{"title":"Investigating dreams by strategically presenting sounds during REM sleep to reactivate waking experiences.","authors":"Karen R Konkoly, Daniel Morris, Matthew Cho, Kaitlyn Hurka, S Gabriela Torres-Platas, Lourdes Baehr, Ken A Paller","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109229","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Dreams may partially reflect the memory reorganizing that occurs nightly, improving the usefulness of what we learn each day. However, solid evidence has yet to link dreaming with adaptive overnight memory reorganization. Establishing this link faces several challenges, including the difficulty of experimentally controlling dream content and the susceptibility of dream reports to distortion and forgetting upon awakening. Fortunately, memory consolidation can be systematically manipulated using Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR), whereby sensory stimulation during sleep can influence previously acquired memories, often reducing forgetting. Stimuli presented during sleep can also be incorporated into dreams, but the extent to which reactivating memories with TMR can influence dream content is still unclear. In the present study, we enlisted TMR to strategically influence dreams. In the evening, participants performed two distinct tasks designed to be readily incorporated into dreams, each associated with a unique sound. The associations between the two tasks and the two (counterbalanced) sounds were further reinforced in a conditioning phase just prior to sleep. The experimenter then presented one of the two sounds when participants were in REM sleep. Dream reports revealed more incorporation of task elements from the cued task than from uncued task, though incorporation was high for both tasks. Furthermore, dreaming of a task was linked with decreased negative valence and increased creativity. We conclude that this approach to dream curation provides a promising way to investigate the influence of dreaming on memory storage and other cognitive functions.</p>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":" ","pages":"109229"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144659716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-07-15DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109221
Manon Spigarelli , Hugo Massé-Alarie , Pascale Tremblay , Maximiliano A. Wilson
{"title":"The effects of intermittent theta burst stimulation on video action naming in healthy young adults","authors":"Manon Spigarelli , Hugo Massé-Alarie , Pascale Tremblay , Maximiliano A. Wilson","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109221","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109221","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109221"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144659717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-07-14DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109219
Marco C.H. Lai , Ellie Abrams , Sherine Bou Dargham , Jacqui Fallon , Ebony Goldman , Miriam Hauptman , Alicia Parrish , Sarah F. Phillips , Alejandra Reinoso , Liina Pylkkänen
{"title":"Changes in auditory evoked responses at different levels of linguistic processing in adults and school-age children: An MEG study","authors":"Marco C.H. Lai , Ellie Abrams , Sherine Bou Dargham , Jacqui Fallon , Ebony Goldman , Miriam Hauptman , Alicia Parrish , Sarah F. Phillips , Alejandra Reinoso , Liina Pylkkänen","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109219","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109219","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While the development of speech processing begins early in life, adult-level language proficiency takes a significant amount of time to emerge. How children comprehend speech with their immature auditory systems and how they gradually achieve adult-like language proficiency remains poorly understood. The present study used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine developmental changes during auditory processing of language in school-age children and adults at multiple levels of representation. Twenty-one children (ages 7–15 years) and twenty-five adults (ages 18–40 years) listened to repeated sounds (e.g., “<em>mmm mmm</em>”), one-word sounds (e.g., “<em>mmm glass</em>”), and adjective-noun phrases (e.g., “<em>green glass</em>”) and afterwards selected a matching picture at the end of each trial. Our results show that at the basic sound level, both children and adults exhibited adaptation to repeated sounds. At the word level, children's N100m responses to lexicality in the left hemisphere correlated with their age, suggesting an enhancement in the efficiency of phonological processing with increasing age. Finally, at the phrase level, children showed increased N400m responses to words in phrasal contexts than to those without a context in the right temporal lobe. This suggests greater involvement of right hemisphere in children during phrase-level speech comprehension.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109219"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144649920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-07-12DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109218
Emiko J. Muraki , Penny M. Pexman
{"title":"Simulation in the ‘Blind’ mind: Examining unconscious mental imagery in aphantasia","authors":"Emiko J. Muraki , Penny M. Pexman","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109218","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109218","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Aphantasia is the absence of conscious mental imagery, but it is unclear to what extent aphantasia also implicates unconscious mental imagery. Embodied theories of concept knowledge propose that word meaning involves simulation of sensory and motor experiences; thus, examining simulation can refine our understanding of imagery deficits in aphantasia and clarify whether simulation shares mechanisms with conscious and/or unconscious mental imagery. In the present study we examined whether individuals with aphantasia show sensorimotor simulation effects during language processing. We recruited 104 aphantasics and 104 age-, gender-, and education-matched controls who completed two semantic processing tasks, a parity judgement task, and a series of mental imagery questionnaires. We observed simulation effects (i.e., faster responses to words associated with more sensorimotor experience) with both aphantasia and control participants. Our results suggest that simulation during semantic processing can occur in the absence of conscious mental imagery. The findings show that unconscious mental imagery, by way of simulation, may be preserved in aphantasia. The findings also limit the extent to which conscious mental imagery and sensorimotor simulation are likely to share underlying mechanisms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109218"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144637672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-07-07DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109217
D. Samuel Schwarzkopf
{"title":"In defence of empirical reductionism – Rejecting the hidden dualism of irreducible brain complexity","authors":"D. Samuel Schwarzkopf","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109217","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109217","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109217"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144579898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-07-02DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109213
Sena Er , Hüseyin O. Elmas , Ayse P. Saygin , Burcu A. Urgen
{"title":"The interplay of prior information and motion cues in resolving visual ambiguity in agent perception","authors":"Sena Er , Hüseyin O. Elmas , Ayse P. Saygin , Burcu A. Urgen","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109213","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109213","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Agent perception is essential for social interaction, allowing individuals to interpret and respond to the actions of others within dynamic environments. In this study, we examined whether and if so how prior information and motion information influence the temporal dynamics of perceiving agents. We presented short videos and images of three agents (a human, a robot, and an android) performing various actions while recording EEG. Using temporal representational similarity analysis (RSA) on EEG recordings, we analyzed the representation of agent identities under varying conditions: Still versus Moving stimuli and Prior versus Naive contexts. Our findings revealed that prior information and motion information interact to produce distinct temporal patterns of neural representation of agent identity. In the Naive condition (when no prior knowledge is available), agent processing was prolonged during still presentations compared to moving ones. These results demonstrate how the interplay between prior information and motion information shapes the temporal dynamics of agent perception.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109213"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144564948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-06-30DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109215
Violeta Pina , Víctor M. Campello , James R. Booth , Javier Fenollar-Cortés
{"title":"Radiomics neurobiomarkers for distinguishing mathematical-related areas in children with elevated ADHD symptoms","authors":"Violeta Pina , Víctor M. Campello , James R. Booth , Javier Fenollar-Cortés","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109215","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109215","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children with ADHD symptoms are at higher risk of experiencing mathematical difficulties. Individuals with ADHD often exhibit lower mathematical accuracy and rely on more basic strategies, even without comorbid learning disorders. In this study, we aim to identify whether this higher risk is associated with general (e.g. executive function) or specific (e.g. calculation) mathematical abilities by analyzing brain areas in structural imaging with radiomics. We used a public brain imaging dataset of mathematical development in children to define two subgroups: one with ADHD symptoms and a control group, matched for age mean and variance. Then, we explore the differences in brain regions related to mathematical performance between these groups using radiomics features in structural imaging. Our results confirm a lower mathematical performance in the group with ADHD symptoms in the behavioral analysis. Structurally, we found differences between the groups in key brain regions associated with attention and memory, including the inferior and middle frontal cortex bilaterally, the right posterior cingulate cortex, and the left hippocampus. Features related to shape demonstrated the highest predictive power. We hypothesize that children with ADHD symptoms might have difficulties with 'number attention' and propose future studies in this area.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109215"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144523265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-06-20DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109214
Albert E. Kim , Valerie J. Langlois , Tal Ness , Madeleine Wade , Jared M. Novick
{"title":"Resolving conflicting interpretations: Theta band oscillations and the role of cognitive control","authors":"Albert E. Kim , Valerie J. Langlois , Tal Ness , Madeleine Wade , Jared M. Novick","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109214","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109214","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While processing language, readers and listeners frequently encounter conflicting cues and must select the most plausible interpretation from incompatible alternatives. We tested the hypothesis that cognitive control aids in resolving representational conflicts by biasing processing toward the correct interpretation when multiple analyses of linguistic input are possible. Participants read temporarily ambiguous sentences alongside semantically and syntactically anomalous sentences. Ambiguous sentences, such as “While Anna dressed the baby spit up on the bed,” require resolving conflicts between competing interpretations, whereas semantic and syntactic anomalies, though they increase processing demands, do not involve such conflicts. Building on evidence from non-linguistic tasks, we used EEG to assess whether neural oscillations in the theta band (4–8 Hz) serve as a real-time index of cognitive control in resolving conflicting interpretations of linguistic input. Our findings revealed increased theta-band activity over right frontal electrodes during the processing of ambiguous sentences, indicating cognitive control engagement. Additionally, a neural decoding analysis showed that theta-band activity reliably distinguished between correctly and incorrectly understood ambiguous sentences, suggesting that theta activity not only reflects cognitive control engagement but also guides comprehenders toward the correct interpretation. In contrast, ERP analyses showed the expected P600 effects for syntactic anomalies and N400 effects for semantic anomalies, confirming the processing complexity associated with these sentences; however, theta power did not increase for these items. The results support the hypothesis that theta-band oscillations specifically reflect cognitive control processes involved in resolving representational conflicts in language comprehension, helping to prevent interpretation errors and providing insights into the temporal dynamics of cognitive control during sentence processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"217 ","pages":"Article 109214"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144369020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}