Attentional network deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Statement Of Purpose: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often demonstrate deficient attentional ability, but the specific nature of the deficit is unclear. The Attention Networks model provides a useful approach to deconstruct this attentional deficit into its component parts.

Method: Fifty-two neurotypical (NT) children and 14 children with ASD performed the child version of the Attention Network Test (ANT).

Developmental dissociation in the neural responses to simple multiplication and subtraction problems.

Mastering single-digit arithmetic during school years is commonly thought to depend upon an increasing reliance on verbally memorized facts. An alternative model, however, posits that fluency in single-digit arithmetic might also be achieved via the increasing use of efficient calculation procedures. To test between these hypotheses, we used a cross-sectional design to measure the neural activity associated with single-digit subtraction and multiplication in 34 children from 2nd to 7th grade.

Fractionating the neural substrates of transitive reasoning: task-dependent contributions of spatial and verbal representations.

It has long been suggested that transitive reasoning relies on spatial representations in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Previous neuroimaging studies, however, have always focused on linear arguments, such as "John is taller than Tom, Tom is taller than Chris, therefore John is taller than Chris." Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we demonstrate here that verbal representations contribute to transitive reasoning when it involves set-inclusion relations (e.

Spatial and visuospatial working memory tests predict performance in classic multiple-object tracking in young adults, but nonspatial measures of the executive do not.

An individual-differences approach was used to investigate the roles of visuospatial working memory and the executive in multiple-object tracking. The Corsi Blocks and Visual Patterns Tests were used to assess visuospatial working memory. Two relatively nonspatial measures of the executive were used: operation span (OSPAN) and reading span (RSPAN).

Distinct representations of subtraction and multiplication in the neural systems for numerosity and language.

It has been proposed that recent cultural inventions such as symbolic arithmetic recycle evolutionary older neural mechanisms. A central assumption of this hypothesis is that the degree to which a preexisting mechanism is recycled depends on the degree of similarity between its initial function and the novel task. To test this assumption, we investigated whether the brain region involved in magnitude comparison in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), localized by a numerosity comparison task, is recruited to a greater degree by arithmetic problems that involve number comparison (single-digit subtractions) than by problems that involve retrieving number facts from memory (single-digit multiplications).