Speech-Gesture Matching and Schizotypal Traits: A Network Approach.

Background And Hypothesis: Impaired speech-gesture matching has repeatedly been shown in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Here, we tested the hypothesis that schizotypal traits in the general population are related to reduced speech-gesture matching performance and reduced self-reports about gesture perception. We further explored the relationships between facets of schizotypy and gesture processing in a network model.

Age effects on predictive eye movements for action.

When interacting with the environment, humans typically shift their gaze to where information is to be found that is useful for the upcoming action. With increasing age, people become slower both in processing sensory information and in performing their movements. One way to compensate for this slowing down could be to rely more on predictive strategies.

Aging attenuates the memory advantage for unexpected objects in real-world scenes.

Across the adult lifespan memory processes are subject to pronounced changes. Prior knowledge and expectations might critically shape functional differences; however, corresponding findings have remained ambiguous so far. Here, we chose a tailored approach to scrutinize how schema (in-)congruencies affect older and younger adults' memory for objects embedded in real-world scenes, a scenario close to everyday life memory demands.

Cross-modal metacognition: Visual and tactile confidence share a common scale.

Humans can judge the quality of their perceptual decisions-an ability known as perceptual confidence. Previous work suggested that confidence can be evaluated on an abstract scale that can be sensory modality-independent or even domain-general. However, evidence is still scarce on whether confidence judgments can be directly made across visual and tactile decisions.

Age-related differences in visual confidence are driven by individual differences in cognitive control capacities.

Visual perception is not only shaped by sensitivity but also by confidence, i.e., the ability to estimate the accuracy of a visual decision.

Age-related effects on the neural processing of semantic complexity in a continuous narrative: Modulation by gestures already present in young to middle-aged adults.

The processing of semantically complex speech is a demanding task which can be facilitated by speech-associated arm and hand gestures. However, the role of age concerning the perception of semantic complexity and the influence of gestures in this context remains unclear. The goal of this study was to investigate if age-related differences are already present in early adulthood during the processing of semantic complexity and gestures.

Age effects on sensorimotor predictions: What drives increased tactile suppression during reaching?

Tactile suppression refers to the phenomenon that tactile signals are attenuated during movement planning and execution when presented on a moving limb compared to rest. It is usually explained in the context of the forward model of movement control that predicts the sensory consequences of an action. Recent research suggests that aging increases reliance on sensorimotor predictions resulting in stronger somatosensory suppression.

Motion perception as a model for perceptual aging.

Research on functional changes across the adult lifespan has been dominated by studies related to cognitive processes. However, it has become evident that a more comprehensive approach to behavioral aging is needed. In particular, our understanding of age-related perceptual changes is limited.

Motivational Modulation of Age-Related Effects on Reaching Adaptation.

Previous studies have provided consistent evidence that adaptation to visuomotor rotations during reaching declines with age. Since it has been recently shown that learning and retention components of motor adaptation are modulated by reward and punishment, we were interested in how motivational feedback affects age-related decline in reaching adaptation. We studied 35 young and 32 older adults in a reaching task which required fast shooting movements toward visual targets with their right hand.

Individual differences in processing resources modulate bimanual interference in pointing.

Coordinating both hands during bimanual reaching is a complex task that can generate interference during action preparation as often indicated by prolonged reaction times for movements that require moving the two hands at different amplitudes. Individual processing constraints are thought to contribute to this interference effect. Most importantly, however, the amount of interference seems to depend considerably on overall task demands suggesting that interference increases as the available processing resources decrease.

Age Effects on Visuo-Haptic Length Discrimination: Evidence for Optimal Integration of Senses in Senior Adults.

Demographic changes in most developed societies have fostered research on functional aging. While cognitive changes have been characterized elaborately, understanding of perceptual aging lacks behind. We investigated age effects on the mechanisms of how multiple sources of sensory information are merged into a common percept.

Links between Gestures and Multisensory Processing: Individual Differences Suggest a Compensation Mechanism.

Speech-associated gestures represent an important communication modality. However, individual differences in the production and perception of gestures are not well understood so far. We hypothesized that the perception of multisensory action consequences might play a crucial role.

Age effects on saccadic adaptation: Evidence from different paradigms reveals specific vulnerabilities.

Saccadic eye movements provide an opportunity to study closely interwoven perceptual, motor, and cognitive changes during aging. Here, we investigated age effects on different mechanisms of saccadic plasticity. We compared age effects in two different adaptation paradigms that tap into low- and high-level adaptation processes.

Healthy aging is associated with decreased risk-taking in motor decision-making.

Healthy aging is associated with changes in both cognitive abilities, including decision-making, and motor control. Previous research has shown that young healthy observers are close to optimal when they perform a motor equivalent of economic decision-making tasks that are known to produce suboptimal decision patterns. We tested both younger (age 20-29) and older (age 60-79) adults in such a task, which involved rapid manual aiming and monetary rewards and punishments contingent on hitting different areas on a touch screen.

Keeping Safe: Intra-individual Consistency in Obstacle Avoidance Behaviour Across Grasping and Locomotion Tasks.

Successful obstacle avoidance requires a close coordination of the visual and the motor systems. Visual information is essential for adjusting movements in order to avoid unwanted collisions. Yet, established obstacle avoidance paradigms have typically either focused on gaze strategies or on motor adjustments.

The Role of Dopamine in Anticipatory Pursuit Eye Movements: Insights from Genetic Polymorphisms in Healthy Adults.

There is a long history of eye movement research in patients with psychiatric diseases for which dysfunctions of neurotransmission are considered to be the major pathologic mechanism. However, neuromodulation of oculomotor control is still hardly understood. We aimed to investigate in particular the impact of dopamine on smooth pursuit eye movements.

Association between COMT genotype and the control of memory guided saccades: Individual differences in healthy adults reveal a detrimental role of dopamine.

The neural circuits involved in oculomotor control are well described; however, neuromodulation of eye movements is still hardly understood. Memory guided saccades have been extensively studied and in particular neurophysiological evidence from monkey studies points to a crucial functional role of prefrontal dopamine activity. We exploited individual differences in dopamine regulation due to the well established COMT (catechol-O-methyltransferase) ValMet polymorphism to explore the link between prefrontal dopamine activity and memory guided saccades in healthy subjects.

Avoiding unseen obstacles: Subcortical vision is not sufficient to maintain normal obstacle avoidance behaviour during reaching.

Previous research found that a patient with cortical blindness (homonymous hemianopia) was able to successfully avoid an obstacle placed in his blind field, despite reporting no conscious awareness of it [Striemer, C. L., Chapman, C.

Robust Underestimation of Speed During Driving: A Field Study.

Traffic reports consistently identify speeding as a substantial source of accidents. Adequate driving speeds require reliable speed estimation; however, there is still a lack of understanding how speed perception is biased during driving. Therefore, we ran three experiments measuring speed estimation under controlled driving and lighting conditions.

Challenges to normal neural functioning provide insights into separability of motion processing mechanisms.

There is a long history of attempts to disentangle different visual processing mechanisms for physically different motion cues. However, underlying neural correlates and separability of networks are still under debate. We aimed to refine the current understanding by studying differential vulnerabilities when normal neural functioning is challenged.

Effects of subcortical vascular ischemic dementia and aging on negative and neutral word list learning.

Background: Subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (SIVD) represents an important subgroup of vascular dementia. Besides characteristic cognitive deficits, particular emotional problems support the diagnosis. Emotional disturbances in SIVD are not well understood.

Age effects on the perception of motion illusions.

Anomalous motion illusions represent a popular class of illusions and several studies have made an effort to explain their perception. However, understanding is still inconsistent. Age-related differences in susceptibility to illusory motion may contribute to further clarification of the underlying processing mechanisms.

Cortical networks for motion processing: effects of focal brain lesions on perception of different motion types.

Neuropsychological studies in humans provide evidence for a variety of extrastriate cortical areas involved in visual motion perception. Multiple mechanisms underlying processing of different motion types have been proposed, however, support for cortical specialization has remained controversial so far. We therefore studied motion perception in 23 patients with focal lesions to various cortical areas and considered translational motion, heading from radial flow, as well as biological motion.

Motion processing at low light levels: Differential effects on the perception of specific motion types.

While many aspects of human vision at low light levels have been studied in great detail, motion perception has rarely been investigated so far. Here we address differential effects of light level on the perception of coherent motion, heading from radial flow, and biological motion. We determined detection thresholds under photopic, mesopic, and scotopic conditions.