NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-03-22DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109134
Jing Wang , Zhongting Chen , Hailun Liu , Ciping Deng
{"title":"Prosodic intonation modulates semantic incongruence: Evidence from an electrophysiological study","authors":"Jing Wang , Zhongting Chen , Hailun Liu , Ciping Deng","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>People always make semantic predictions based on preceding contexts which, however, can be beyond semantic information. This study examines the role of prosodic intonation as a non-semantic cue in semantic prediction. To compare effects of different intonation conditions on attenuating semantic incongruence between preceding contexts and target utterances, we recorded electroencephalogram when the participants listened to emotional utterances with congruent or incongruent endings and focused on two event-related potential components, N400 and P600, which relate to semantic and pragmatic processing, respectively. Interestingly, we observed that surprising intonation can mitigate the N400 in response to semantic incongruence, and this modulation was strongly correlated (r = 0.78) with the increase of P600 amplitude induced by the same intonation across individual participants. These findings consistently indicate the importance of prosodic intonation in promoting semantic prediction by lessening listeners’ perceived semantic incongruence, broadening our understanding of how non-semantic cues affect human verbal communication.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109134"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143692741","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 : 2025-03-21DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109133
K. Weidacker , C. Kärgel , C. Massau , J. Konzok , Anna-Lena Brand , Kai Wetzel , Katharina Weckes , B.M. Kudielka , S. Wüst , H. Eisenbarth , B. Schiffer
{"title":"Superior temporal gyrus activation modulates revenge-like aggressive response tendencies in antisocial men after provocation: Evidence from an fMRI study using a modified Taylor aggression paradigm","authors":"K. Weidacker , C. Kärgel , C. Massau , J. Konzok , Anna-Lena Brand , Kai Wetzel , Katharina Weckes , B.M. Kudielka , S. Wüst , H. Eisenbarth , B. Schiffer","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109133","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109133","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is characterized by a disregard of others’ feelings, social norms, rules and obligations as well as increased reactive and proactive aggression among others. Experimental investigations of neural correlates of provocation and associated aggression often use competitive reaction time tasks played against a fictional opponent, such as the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP). However, previous TAP neuroimaging research mainly focused on aggression levels in healthy and not forensic populations. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study on monetary TAP (mTAP) provocation and aggression assesses 20 violent offenders with ASPD and compares behavioral and neural responses to 17 age and education-matched healthy community participants (HC). Behaviorally, no significant group differences emerged, all participants reacted with increased punishment when faced with high vs. low provocation. On the neural level, offenders showed significantly stronger right superior temporal gyrus (STG) activation than HC during provocation. Exploratory analyses indicated that this STG activation was behaviorally relevant, as those with ASPD who expressed stronger STG activation during provocation also responded with stronger unprovoked punishment during the aggression phase. In addition, during the aggression phase, provocation was accompanied by increased left superior parietal lobe activation in ASPD compared to HC. In sum, this first mTAP fMRI study in ASPD found enhanced neural processing of provocation in ASPD which was also associated with more unprovoked aggression. The increased neural processing of provocation in ASPD and its association with subsequent higher aggression could have clinical relevance. At least, cognitive processing of perceived provocation could be a worthwhile intervention target for reducing aggressive response tendencies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109133"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143692829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-03-21DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109127
Oshin Vartanian , Delaram Farzanfar , Dirk B. Walther , Pablo P. L. Tinio
{"title":"Where creativity meets aesthetics: The Mirror Model of Art revisited with fMRI","authors":"Oshin Vartanian , Delaram Farzanfar , Dirk B. Walther , Pablo P. L. Tinio","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109127","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109127","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How meaning is conveyed from creator to observer is debated in the psychology of art. The <em>Mirror Model of Art</em> represents a theoretical framework for bridging the psychological processes that underpin creative production and aesthetic appreciation of art. Specifically, it postulates that creating art and having an aesthetic experience are “mirrored” processes such that the early stage of aesthetic appreciation corresponds to the late stage of creative production, and conversely, that the late stage of aesthetic appreciation corresponds to the early stage of creative production. We conducted a meta-analysis of fMRI studies in the visual domain to test this hypothesis. Our results reveal that creative production engages the prefrontal cortex, which we attribute to its role in idea generation, whereas aesthetic appreciation engages the visual cortex, anterior insula, parahippocampal gyrus, the fusiform gyrus, and the frontal lobes, regions involved primarily in sensory, perceptual, reward and mnemonic processing. Their direct comparison revealed that creative production was associated with greater activation in the prefrontal cortex, whereas aesthetic appreciation was associated with greater activation in the visual cortex. This meta-analysis largely supports predictions derived from the <em>Mirror Model of Art</em>, by providing a snapshot of neural activity in the relatively early stages in art creators' and observers’ minds. Future studies that capture brain function across longer spans of time are needed to understand the expression of creativity and aesthetic appreciation in different stages of information processing in relation to the <em>Mirror Model of Art</em>.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"212 ","pages":"Article 109127"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143692782","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 : 2025-03-20DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109132
Paola Melani , Ludovic Fabre , Patrick Lemaire
{"title":"How negative emotions influence arithmetic problem-solving processes: An ERP study","authors":"Paola Melani , Ludovic Fabre , Patrick Lemaire","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109132","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109132","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigated the effects of negative emotions on arithmetic performance using ERPs. Participants were asked to verify complex multiplication problems that were either true (e.g., 3 × 23 = 69) or false (e.g., 5 × 98 = 485). Half the problems were five problems (e.g., 5 × 94 = 470) and half were non-five problems (e.g., 8 × 63 = 504). False five problems violated arithmetic rules (i.e., the five rule, e.g., 5 × 17 = 87, the parity-rule, e.g., 86 × 5 = 435, both the five- and parity-rules, e.g., 5 × 42 = 411) or no arithmetic rules (e.g., 13 × 5 = 45). Problems were displayed superimposed on emotionally neutral or negative pictures. Behavioral results showed that negative emotions (a) did not affect participants’ performance on true five and non-five problems, (b) influenced arithmetic performance on false five problems, and (c) impaired performance on problems that violated both the five- and parity-rules but improved performance on false five problems violating no arithmetic rules. Electrophysiological data revealed that negative emotions led to (a) earlier P1 peak when participants verified true, non-five problems, (b) lower P300 and P600 amplitudes in central brain regions when participants verified false five problems that violated no-rule, (c) earlier N2 peak latencies in central brain regions and larger LPC amplitudes in right parietal regions while participants verified parity-rule violation problems, and (d) earlier N2 peak latencies in central brain regions and later N2 peak latencies in the right prefrontal brain regions while participants verified false, five problems violating both the five- and parity-rules. These findings demonstrate that negative emotions significantly alter key stages of arithmetic problem-solving by modulating neural activity related to encoding, detection of rule violations, and strategic execution, as evidenced by changes in the amplitude and latency of ERP components such as P1, N2, P300, P600, and LPC.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109132"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143692827","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 : 2025-03-19DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109131
Sofia Bonventre , Martina De Cesaris , Massimo Bertoli , Francesca Graziano , Valentina Tomassini , Marcella Brunetti
{"title":"Investigating social cognition in Multiple Sclerosis: Does Implicit Biological Motion processing affect visuo-spatial attention?","authors":"Sofia Bonventre , Martina De Cesaris , Massimo Bertoli , Francesca Graziano , Valentina Tomassini , Marcella Brunetti","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109131","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109131","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The perception of Biological Motion (BM) is critical for understanding social cues. A limited number of moving light dots resembling a moving individual, can suggest social intention information, providing an attentional orienting. This ability to predict other's intentions from BM cues refers to social cognition, an ability impaired in several neurological diseases.</div><div>As in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) an impairment in visuo-spatial attention and social cognition has been observed, we aim to investigate the possible differences in the visuo-spatial attention between MS patients and healthy individuals by using BM stimuli as cues.</div><div>We tested 37 MS patients and 40 healthy controls (HC), who performed a modified central cue Posner task, using BM stimuli as cues that are not always predictive of the target location. They were represented by Point Light Walker (PLW) configuration, a series of dots arranged at the human joints and walking through the left or right of the screen, shown in the global (whole body) or local (two dots, indicating the feet of the PLW) configuration.</div><div>MS patients exhibited overall slower responses compared to HC. In MS patients, a weaker advantage of valid trial over invalid ones was evident when cue had a local than global BM configuration. Also, MS patients showed a slower performance than HC in valid trials with local BM cues. The difference between groups was attenuated when the cue had a global BM configuration. These findings suggest possible impairment of local BM cue processing in MS patients, possibly due to delays or deficits in interpreting feet motion as biological information, reducing the cue's predictive power.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109131"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143674235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-03-18DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109125
Hope H Kean, Alexander Fung, R T Pramod, Jessica Chomik-Morales, Nancy Kanwisher, Evelina Fedorenko
{"title":"Intuitive physical reasoning is not mediated by linguistic nor exclusively domain-general abstract representations.","authors":"Hope H Kean, Alexander Fung, R T Pramod, Jessica Chomik-Morales, Nancy Kanwisher, Evelina Fedorenko","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109125","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The ability to reason about the physical world is a critical tool in the human cognitive toolbox, but the nature of the representations that mediate physical reasoning remains debated. Here, we use fMRI to illuminate this question by investigating the relationship between the physical-reasoning system and two well-characterized systems: a) the domain-general Multiple Demand (MD) system, which supports abstract reasoning, including mathematical and logical reasoning, and b) the language system, which supports linguistic computations and has been hypothesized to mediate some forms of thought. We replicate prior findings of a network of frontal and parietal areas that are robustly engaged by physical reasoning and identify an additional physical-reasoning area in the left frontal cortex, which also houses components of the MD and language systems. Critically, direct comparisons with tasks that target the MD and the language systems reveal that the physical-reasoning system overlaps with the MD system, but is dissociable from it in fine-grained activation patterns, which replicates prior work. Moreover, the physical-reasoning system does not overlap with the language system. These results suggest that physical reasoning does not rely on linguistic representations, nor exclusively on the domain-general abstract reasoning that the MD system supports.</p>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":" ","pages":"109125"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143670442","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 : 2025-03-18DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109130
Joshua Sabio, Timothy Ballard, Hannah L. Filmer, Paul E. Dux
{"title":"The influence of tDCS on the speed-accuracy tradeoff and metacognitive decision making","authors":"Joshua Sabio, Timothy Ballard, Hannah L. Filmer, Paul E. Dux","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109130","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109130","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A fundamental tradeoff exists between speed and accuracy when performing a decision (speed-accuracy tradeoff, SAT). Metacognition allows for the adjustment, monitoring, and evaluation of one's own decisions and strategies. While these aspects of cognition are central to human behavioural performance, their respective causal neural underpinnings are not well understood. Here, we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to investigate the causal roles of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), superior medial frontal cortex (SMFC), and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in the SAT and metacognition. Subjects received active or sham tDCS before completing a perceptual task with explicit SAT cues and reported confidence in their decisions. We fit the linear ballistic accumulator model to behavioural data to extract latent decision variables and used confidence judgments to compute two common indices of metacognition: <em>meta-d’</em> and <em>m-ratio</em>. Stimulation influenced performance on the perceptual task but there was no meaningful evidence for an effect on metacognition. Specifically, PFC stimulation reduced subjects' response caution, especially when accuracy was emphasised; SMFC stimulation decreased response caution and increased the discriminability between choices; and PPC stimulation increased both response caution and discriminability. These results show that the impact of tDCS on the SAT critically depends on the frontoparietal region stimulated. In addition, there was little to no evidence of any effect of tDCS on metacognition, hinting at potential differences in the neural circuitry supporting aspects of <em>object</em>-level computation and <em>meta</em>-level processing. In sum, our findings provide further evidence that tDCS can alter decision making and strategic processes in the human brain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109130"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143670444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-03-18DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109128
Junjie Wang , Mingkun Guo , Jie Zhang , Yanru Bai , Guangjian Ni
{"title":"Early audiovisual integration in target processing under continuous noise: Behavioral and EEG evidence","authors":"Junjie Wang , Mingkun Guo , Jie Zhang , Yanru Bai , Guangjian Ni","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109128","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109128","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Multisensory integration is interconnected across various information reception. The stage and mechanism of brain response to audiovisual integration have not been fully understood. In this study, we designed audiovisual and unisensory experiments to investigate task performance and electrophysiological characteristics associated with audiovisual integration in a continuous background interference environment using materials collected from the underwater environment. Behavioral results showed that the reaction time (RT) was shorter, and the accuracy was higher in the audiovisual experiment. The cumulative distribution function (CDF) results of RT indicated that audiovisual integration supported the co-activation model. Event-related potential (ERP) results revealed shorter latency of the P1 and N1 components in the audiovisual experiment. Microstate analysis indicated that the parietal-occipital area may play a key role in audiovisual integration. Moreover, event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) results demonstrated the critical role of low-frequency oscillation in audiovisual integration at the early stage. Our findings support the view that the beneficial effect of audiovisual integration is predominantly upon the early stage of neural information processing, including task-independent information.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109128"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143670440","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 : 2025-03-18DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109129
Matthew Kolisnyk , Geoffrey Laforge , Marie-Ève Gagnon , Jonathan Erez , Adrian M. Owen
{"title":"Total recall: Detecting autobiographical memory retrieval in the absence of behaviour","authors":"Matthew Kolisnyk , Geoffrey Laforge , Marie-Ève Gagnon , Jonathan Erez , Adrian M. Owen","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109129","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109129","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Functional neuroimaging has fundamentally changed our understanding of disorders of consciousness (DoC). While many DoC patients exhibit minimal to no <em>behavioural</em> responsiveness, a significant minority show <em>neural</em> evidence of awareness and preserved cognitive functioning. Although several cognitive functions have been explored in DoC patients, autobiographical memory -- the ability to form and retrieve personal memories -- has yet to be investigated. To address this gap, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate autobiographical memory in one DoC patient. The patient viewed video clips across three conditions: (1) <em>Own -</em> clips recorded from their perspective during a recent mall visit; (2) <em>Other</em> - clips from a healthy control’s visit to the same mall; and (3) <em>Bookstore</em> - novel clips from an entirely different store that had not been visited. We trained a linear support vector classifier to associate fMRI activity in canonical autobiographical memory regions with each condition using data from twelve healthy participants. We then applied the trained model to the patient’s data to ’decode’ which condition their fMRI activity predicted. The model accurately distinguished between <em>Own</em>, <em>Other</em>, and <em>Bookstore</em> conditions in the patient (<em>Balanced Accuracy</em> = 0.448, <em>p</em> = .032), with performance within the control group range (<em>p</em> = .068). Similarly, the model distinguished between the <em>Own</em> and <em>Other</em> conditions above chance (<em>Balanced Accuracy</em> = 0.609, <em>p</em> = .032) and within the control group’s distribution (<em>p</em> = .620), suggesting that the patient was still able to differentiate personal experiences from visually similar scenes, despite being behaviourally unable to report that this was the case. These findings provide preliminary evidence that autobiographical memory processes, critical to conscious awareness and identity, remain intact in some DoC patients, shedding further light on their covert capabilities and inner experiences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109129"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143670460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeuropsychologiaPub Date : 2025-03-15DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109126
Y. Itaguchi , K. Waterloo , S.H. Johnsen , C. Rodríguez-Aranda
{"title":"Understanding the semantic organization of animal fluency in mild Alzheimer's disease through time-course analysis and LDA topic modelling","authors":"Y. Itaguchi , K. Waterloo , S.H. Johnsen , C. Rodríguez-Aranda","doi":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109126","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109126","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Deterioration of semantic memory represents an important feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which has been widely addressed in neuropsychological research. A way to understand semantic integrity in AD patients is through a detailed analysis of verbal fluency (VF) performance. In the present study, we used an innovative methodology that combines measures of between-words latencies together with automatized identification of semantic clusters via Latent Dirichlet Analysis (LDA) to acquire a more precise understanding of the dynamics and semantic organization of VF in patients at early stages of AD. Importantly, and diverging from customary procedures, we included VF errors (i.e., repetitions and intrusions) across analyses. For comparison, a group of healthy older adults and young individuals were also examined. Standard parameters including total correct answers, number of clusters, mean cluster size (MCS), cluster duration, and within and out-of-cluster intervals were calculated. These parameters were expressed as mean values in 1-min VF trials and by calculating mean values in four 15-s time windows. Results for the 1-min trial demonstrated significantly larger mean cluster sizes (MCS) and fewer generated answers in AD patients compared to the healthy groups. No additional group differences were found neither on time intervals (both within and out-of-clusters), nor on the 15-s time windows analyses. These data suggest that the clustering ability of mild AD patients might be affected by executive impairments promoting larger MCS. At the same time, we found similar semantic processes and timings in patients and healthy participants. The main difference resides in the structure of the patients' clusters, which encompassed erroneous answers. We advance the idea that production of errors might not only be a consequence of executive dysfunction or working memory deterioration, but also a sign that associative semantic mechanisms are still active early in the disease, despite an evident loss of information.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19279,"journal":{"name":"Neuropsychologia","volume":"211 ","pages":"Article 109126"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143648184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}