Balancing exploration and exploitation? The impact of cost and inhibitory control on information gathering in early childhood.

The information-seeking behaviour of adults focuses on optimizing the gathering and utilizing information to minimize search costs. In contrast, children tend to engage in information search during decision-making with less consideration for costs. This difference in behaviour is believed to be linked to the development of executive functions.

Effects of a 10-week musical instrument training on cognitive function in healthy older adults: implications for desirable tests and period of training.

Introduction: Previous studies have shown that musical instrument training programs of 16 or more weeks improve verbal memory (Logical Memory Test delayed recall), processing speed (Digit Symbol Coding Test), and executive function (Trail Making Test Part B) of musically untrained healthy older adults. However, it is unclear whether shorter-period instrument training can yield similar effects. We sought to (1) verify those results and (2) clarify if intervention effects could be detected using other measures such as reaction time.

Parental responsiveness and children's trait epistemic curiosity.

Curiosity, the desire to learn new information, has a powerful effect on children's learning. Parental interactions facilitate curiosity-driven behaviors in young children, such as self-exploration and question-asking, at a certain time. Furthermore, parenting quality predicts better academic outcomes.

Advanced aging effects on implicit motor imagery and its links to motor performance: An investigation via mental rotation of letters, hands, and feet.

This study focuses on changes in implicit motor imagery during advanced aging and these changes' co-occurrences with physical motor deficits. We administered a mental rotation (MR) task with letters, hands, and feet to 28 young adults (20-27 years) and to 71 older adults (60-87 years), and assessed motor skills (gait mobility and hand dexterity) and neuropsychological performance. Compared to young adults, older adults showed lower MR performance for all stimuli and stronger biomechanical constraint effects on both hand and foot rotation.

Relationship between preoperative anxiety and onset of delirium after cardiovascular surgery in elderly patients: focus on personality and coping process.

Background: Postoperative delirium is associated with increased mortality. Therefore, it is important to manage delirium during the entire perioperative period. Preoperative anxiety is associated with poor prognosis in postoperative patients who have undergone cardiovascular surgery.

Neural Advantages of Older Musicians Involve the Cerebellum: Implications for Healthy Aging Through Lifelong Musical Instrument Training.

This study compared 30 older musicians and 30 age-matched non-musicians to investigate the association between lifelong musical instrument training and age-related cognitive decline and brain atrophy (musicians: mean age 70.8 years, musical experience 52.7 years; non-musicians: mean age 71.

Impact of Early-Commenced and Continued Sports Training on the Precuneus in Older Athletes.

Intervention studies on sedentary older adults have demonstrated that commencing physical exercise at an older age has a positive effect on brain structure. Although this suggests that older athletes with lifelong sports training have larger gray matter volume (GMV) in some brain regions compared to age-matched non-athletes, evidence in the literature is scarce. Moreover, it remains unclear whether a larger GMV is associated with training intensity or period of training in life.

Prefrontal Plasticity after a 3-Month Exercise Intervention in Older Adults Relates to Enhanced Cognitive Performance.

This study examined exercise intervention effects on older adults' brain structures and function. Brain data were analyzed from 47 healthy adults between 61 and 82 years of age who, in a previous study, showed cognitive improvement following a 3-month intervention. The participants were assigned to a motor exercise intervention group (n = 24), performing exercise training programs for a 12-week period, or a waiting control group (n = 23), abstaining from any exercise program.

Selective attention to the mouth of a talker in Japanese-learning infants and toddlers: Its relationship with vocabulary and compensation for noise.

Infants increasingly gaze at the mouth of talking faces during the latter half of the first postnatal year. This study investigated mouth-looking behavior of 120 full-term infants and toddlers (6 months-3 years) and 12 young adults (21-24 years) from Japanese monolingual families. The purpose of the study included: (1) Is such an attentional shift to the mouth in infancy similarly observed in Japanese environment where contribution of visual speech is known to be relatively weak? (2) Can noisy conditions increase mouth-looking behavior of Japanese young children? (3) Is the mouth-looking behavior related to language acquisition? To this end, movies of a talker speaking short phrases were presented while manipulating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR: Clear, SN+4, and SN-4).

Musical instrument training program improves verbal memory and neural efficiency in novice older adults.

Previous studies indicate that musical instrument training may improve the cognitive function of older adults. However, little is known about the neural origins of training-related improvement in cognitive function. Here, we assessed the effects of instrumental training program on cognitive functions and neural efficiency in musically naïve older adults (61-85 years old).

Word scanning in native and non-native languages: insights into reading with declined accommodation.

This study investigated the effects of declined accommodation on reading performance in non-native and native languages. Eighteen native Japanese speakers participated: eight presbyopes and ten non-presbyopes. In the experiment, participants were asked to scan, or sequentially read six-word items presented in two-line texts, identify a non-word target as quickly as possible, and indicate its location.

Neural Correlates of Working Memory Maintenance in Advanced Aging: Evidence From fMRI.

Working memory (WM)-related brain activity is known to be modulated by aging; particularly, older adults demonstrate greater activity than young adults. However, it is still unclear whether the activity increase in older adults is also observed in advanced aging. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was designed to clarify the neural correlates of WM in advanced aging.

Improved Digit Span in Children after a 6-Week Intervention of Playing a Musical Instrument: An Exploratory Randomized Controlled Trial.

Previous studies have reported that music training not only improves children's musical skills, but also enhances their cognitive functions. However, there is a disagreement about what domain(s) might be affected. Moreover, effects of short-term ( View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Face-specific memory deficits and changes in eye scanning patterns among patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is a prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Previous studies have shown functional and structural degradation of the fusiform face area, which is a core region for face processing, in addition to medial temporal lobe degradation. We predicted that patients with aMCI exhibit a loss of face processing and/or face memory, accompanied by abnormal eye scanning patterns, since patients who have deficits in face perception (i.

Visuotactile interaction even in far sagittal space in older adults with decreased gait and balance functions.

Spatial proximity of signals from different sensory modalities is known to be a crucial factor in facilitating efficient multisensory processing in young adults. However, recent studies have demonstrated that older adults exhibit strong visuotactile interactions even when the visual stimuli were presented in a spatially disparate position from a tactile stimulus. This suggests that visuotactile peripersonal space differs between older and younger adults.

Language/Culture Modulates Brain and Gaze Processes in Audiovisual Speech Perception.

Several behavioural studies have shown that the interplay between voice and face information in audiovisual speech perception is not universal. Native English speakers (ESs) are influenced by visual mouth movement to a greater degree than native Japanese speakers (JSs) when listening to speech. However, the biological basis of these group differences is unknown.

Impact of language on functional connectivity for audiovisual speech integration.

Visual information about lip and facial movements plays a role in audiovisual (AV) speech perception. Although this has been widely confirmed, previous behavioural studies have shown interlanguage differences, that is, native Japanese speakers do not integrate auditory and visual speech as closely as native English speakers. To elucidate the neural basis of such interlanguage differences, 22 native English speakers and 24 native Japanese speakers were examined in behavioural or functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments while mono-syllabic speech was presented under AV, auditory-only, or visual-only conditions for speech identification.

The neural mechanism of biomechanical constraints in the hand laterality judgment task: A near-infrared spectroscopy study.

The mental rotation (MR) task is defined as a discrimination task between mirror-reversed images involving discrepancy in angular orientation. Various studies have shown that the MR task likely causes mental imagery, that is, visual and/or motor imagery, depending on stimulus types. When figures of rotated hands are presented to be identified as a left or right hand, reaction times (RTs) usually show an effect of biomechanical constraints (BC): a hand in a position difficult to reach with a real movement results in longer RTs.

Effects of Word Width and Word Length on Optimal Character Size for Reading of Horizontally Scrolling Japanese Words.

The present study investigated, whether word width and length affect the optimal character size for reading of horizontally scrolling Japanese words, using reading speed as a measure. In Experiment 1, three Japanese words, each consisting of four Hiragana characters, sequentially scrolled on a display screen from right to left. Participants, all Japanese native speakers, were instructed to read the words aloud as accurately as possible, irrespective of their order within the sequence.

Brain activation during visual working memory correlates with behavioral mobility performance in older adults.

Functional mobility and cognitive function often decline with age. We previously found that functional mobility as measured by the Timed Up and Go Test (TUG) was associated with cognitive performance for visually-encoded (i.e.

A 12-Week Physical and Cognitive Exercise Program Can Improve Cognitive Function and Neural Efficiency in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objectives: To investigate whether a 12-week physical and cognitive exercise program can improve cognitive function and brain activation efficiency in community-dwelling older adults.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Kyoto, Japan.

Strong biomechanical constraints on young children's mental imagery of hands.

Mental rotation (MR) of body parts is a useful paradigm to investigate how people manipulate mental imagery related to body schema. It has been documented that adult participants use 'motor imagery' for MR of hands: a behavioural indication is a biomechanical effect, that is, hand pictures in orientations to which imitative hand movement would be biomechanically difficult require longer response times to be visually identified as the left or right hand. However, little is known about the typical developmental trajectory of the biomechanical effect, which could offer clues to understanding how children acquire the ability to manipulate body schema.

Language specific listening of Japanese geminate consonants: a cross-linguistic study.

Various aspects of linguistic experience influence the way we segment, represent, and process speech signals. The Japanese phonetic and orthographic systems represent geminate consonants (double consonants, e.g.

Event-related potentials for better speech perception in noise by cochlear implant users.

Speech perception in noise is still difficult for cochlear implant (CI) users even with many years of CI use. This study aimed to investigate neurophysiological and behavioral foundations for CI-dependent speech perception in noise. Seventeen post-lingual CI users and twelve age-matched normal hearing adults participated in two experiments.