Frontiers in CognitionPub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2023-06-22DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1207428
Alexander J Simon, Courtney L Gallen, David A Ziegler, Jyoti Mishra, Elysa J Marco, Joaquin A Anguera, Adam Gazzaley
{"title":"Quantifying attention span across the lifespan.","authors":"Alexander J Simon, Courtney L Gallen, David A Ziegler, Jyoti Mishra, Elysa J Marco, Joaquin A Anguera, Adam Gazzaley","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1207428","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1207428","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Studies examining sustained attention abilities typically utilize metrics that quantify performance on vigilance tasks, such as response time and response time variability. However, approaches that assess the duration that an individual can maintain their attention over time are lacking.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Here we developed an objective attention span metric that quantified the maximum amount of time that a participant continuously maintained an optimal \"in the zone\" sustained attention state while performing a continuous performance task.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In a population of 262 individuals aged 7-85, we showed that attention span was longer in young adults than in children and older adults. Furthermore, declines in attention span over time during task engagement were related to clinical symptoms of inattention in children.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>These results suggest that quantifying attention span is a unique and meaningful method of assessing sustained attention across the lifespan and in populations with inattention symptoms.</p>","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"2 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10621754/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71430472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Frontiers in CognitionPub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2023-08-03DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1211525
Alina Lesnovskaya, Hayley S Ripperger, Shannon D Donofry, Jermon A Drake, Lu Wan, Alexa Poniatowski, Patrick T Donahue, Mary E Crisafio, Alysha D Gilmore, Emily A Richards, George Grove, Amanda L Gentry, Susan M Sereika, Catherine M Bender, Kirk I Erickson
{"title":"Cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with hippocampal resting state connectivity in women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.","authors":"Alina Lesnovskaya, Hayley S Ripperger, Shannon D Donofry, Jermon A Drake, Lu Wan, Alexa Poniatowski, Patrick T Donahue, Mary E Crisafio, Alysha D Gilmore, Emily A Richards, George Grove, Amanda L Gentry, Susan M Sereika, Catherine M Bender, Kirk I Erickson","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1211525","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1211525","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Breast cancer and its treatment are associated with aberrant patterns of resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the hippocampus and several areas of the brain, which may account for poorer cognitive outcomes in patients. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) has been associated with enhanced rsFC and cognitive performance; however, these associations have not been well studied in breast cancer. We examined the relationship between CRF, rsFC of the hippocampus, and cognitive performance among women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Thirty-four postmenopausal women newly diagnosed with Stage 0-IIIa breast cancer (<i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 63.59 ± 5.73) were enrolled in a 6-month randomized controlled trial of aerobic exercise vs. usual care. During baseline assessments, participants completed functional brain imaging, a submaximal CRF test, and cognitive testing. Whole-brain, seed-based analyses were used to examine the relationship between CRF and hippocampal rsFC, with age, years of education, and framewise displacement included as covariates. Cognition was measured with a battery of validated neurocognitive measures, reduced to seven composite factors.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Higher CRF was positively associated with greater rsFC of the hippocampus to a cluster within the dorsomedial and dorsolateral frontal cortex (<i>z</i>-max = 4.37, <i>p</i> = 0.003, cluster extent = 1,020 voxels). Connectivity within cluster peaks was not significantly related to cognitive factors (all <i>p</i>s > 0.05).</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>CRF was positively associated with hippocampal rsFC to frontal cortex structures, comprising a network of regions commonly suppressed in breast cancer. Future longitudinal research is needed to explore whether baseline rsFC predicts long-term cognitive resilience in breast cancer.</p>","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"2 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10516482/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41167471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spike-based statistical learning explains human performance in non-adjacent dependency learning tasks","authors":"Sophie Lehfeldt, Jutta L. Mueller, G. Pipa","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2022.1026819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2022.1026819","url":null,"abstract":"Grammar acquisition is of significant importance for mastering human language. As the language signal is sequential in its nature, it poses the challenging task to extract its structure during online processing. This modeling study shows how spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) successfully enables sequence learning of artificial grammars that include non-adjacent dependencies (NADs) and nested NADs. Spike-based statistical learning leads to synaptic representations that comply with human acquisition performances under various distributional stimulus conditions. STDP, therefore, represents a practicable neural mechanism underlying human statistical grammar learning. These findings highlight that initial stages of the language acquisition process are possibly based on associative learning strategies. Moreover, the applicability of STDP demonstrates that the non-human brain possesses potential precursor abilities that support the acquisition of linguistic structure.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79284892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mini review: Individual differences and domain-general mechanisms in object recognition","authors":"I. Gauthier, Oakyoon Cha, Ting Chang","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2022.1040994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2022.1040994","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past three decades, object recognition moved away from domain-general questions, favoring investigation of putative category-specific mechanisms. But growing interest in individual differences in object recognition is putting the spotlight back on domain-general mechanisms, supporting their existence rather than simply assuming them. We reflect on the relative progress in three areas of visual cognition—visual object recognition, ensemble perception, and holistic processing. The study of visual object recognition abilities, based on latent variable modeling, provides strong evidence for domain-general mechanisms with neural correlates in visual areas and contributions to many real-world visual problems. The study of ensemble perception includes evidence for interesting individual differences but the structure of abilities is unclear, with a need for multivariate investigation. The study of individual differences in holistic processing has been unable to establish the construct validity of its measures. Each of these areas is at a different stage of understanding relevant underlying abilities, each one helping to illustrate different challenges that may be unfamiliar to experimentalists.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86724437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}