Publications by authors named "Irune Fernandez-Prieto"
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
June 2023
Article Synopsis
- * A study with 50 participants tested their olfactory perception under two states: satiated and fasted, by repeatedly exposing them to food and nonfood odours and having them rate the intensity and pleasantness.
- * Results showed that perceived intensity of nonfood odours decreased over time, while pleasantness of food odours decreased more significantly, confirming that the edibility of an odour influences olfactory habituation.
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Article Synopsis
- The brain can adjust how we perceive the timing of sensory signals based on their associations with one another.
- In an experiment, participants were exposed to a circle that was always followed by a tone and a triangle that appeared at random times.
- Results showed that after 5 minutes, participants were better at judging the timing of the circle and tone together, but not for the triangle, suggesting that learned associations influence our perception of time even when we're not consciously aware of them.
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- Current neuropsychological assessments miss subtle motor deficits in cognitively normal individuals who have amyloid-β positivity, indicating a need for improved measurements.
- The study involved 72 right-handed participants categorized by their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker profiles, including controls and those with amyloid-β positivity, using a modified Finger Tapping Task to evaluate tapping speed and variability.
- Results showed significant differences in tapping speed and variability between groups, with those positive for amyloid-β displaying slower speeds and more variability, suggesting that these motor difficulties might be early indicators of dementia risk related to Alzheimer's disease.
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Neuropsychologia
August 2018
Article Synopsis
- Musical melodies have distinct "peaks" and "valleys," which are related to pitch but are not fully understood in terms of mental representation.
- The study explored how past experiences with melodies influence crossmodal interactions, affecting perception and attention.
- Results showed that congruent visual stimuli (aligned with melody predictions) led to quicker responses, while incongruent stimuli (which violated predictions) caused a stronger 'surprise' response, indicating that repeated exposure to melodies shapes how we interpret other sensory information.
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- Higher frequency and louder sounds are connected to higher spatial positions, while lower frequency and quieter sounds relate to lower positions, with different language terms used for these associations in English versus Catalan/Spanish.
- English uses "high" and "low" for both pitch and loudness, while Catalan/Spanish have distinct words for pitch and loudness.
- A study assessing how language affects sound perception showed that both English and Spanish/Catalan speakers recognized these sound associations, but English speakers were more influenced by pitch, indicating linguistic background impacts perception.
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J Neuropsychol
March 2017
Article Synopsis
- Individuals with preclinical Alzheimer's disease (Pre-AD) may show subtle cognitive difficulties, even when standard tests indicate normal performance; this study aimed to detect these issues using a new visuomotor coordination task (VMC).
- The VMC task revealed that Pre-AD participants had slower response times compared to cognitively normal controls, indicating early visuomotor difficulties, which were also related to Alzheimer's biomarkers and subjective cognitive decline.
- The findings suggest that the VMC task could serve as an effective tool for distinguishing Pre-AD individuals from healthy controls and may highlight visuomotor dysfunction as an early indicator of Alzheimer's development.
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Infant Behav Dev
February 2015
Article Synopsis
- Researchers studied how 4- and 6-month-old infants connect pitch with the size of objects.
- The results showed that only the 6-month-olds demonstrated a clear connection between these two senses.
- This indicates that older infants have more experience or developmental maturity, which helps them make these crossmodal associations better than younger infants.
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- The study explores how the brain aligns visual and auditory signals that are not perfectly synchronized, specifically focusing on temporal realignment when such signals have a 706 ms delay.
- Participants were exposed to these stimuli in different spatial arrangements and took a simultaneity judgment task afterward, revealing that temporal realignment occurs when visual stimuli lead the auditory stimuli.
- The findings indicate that even with differing spatial positions and asynchrony, the brain can recalibrate sensory inputs, influenced by common experiences where vision typically precedes sound in real-world settings.
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