Emotional arousal amplifies competitions across goal-relevant representation: A neurocomputational framework.

Emotional arousal often facilitates memory for some aspects of an event while impairing memory for other aspects of the same event. Across three experiments, we found that emotional arousal amplifies competition among goal-relevant representations, such that arousal impairs memory for multiple goal-relevant representations while enhancing memory for solo goal-relevant information. We also present a computational model to explain the mechanisms by which emotional arousal can modulate memory in opposite ways via the local/synaptic-level noradrenergic system.

Arousal increases neural gain via the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system in younger adults but not in older adults.

In younger adults, arousal amplifies attentional focus to the most salient or goal-relevant information while suppressing other information. A computational model of how the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system can implement this increased selectivity under arousal and an fMRI study comparing how arousal affects younger and older adults' processing indicate that the amplification of salient stimuli and the suppression of non-salient stimuli are separate processes, with aging affecting suppression without impacting amplification under arousal. In the fMRI study, arousal increased processing of salient stimuli and decreased processing of non-salient stimuli for younger adults.

Multiple high-reward items can be prioritized in working memory but with greater vulnerability to interference.

Emerging literature indicates that working memory and attention interact in determining what is retained over time, though the nature of this relationship and the impacts on performance across different task contexts remain to be mapped. In the present study, four experiments examined whether participants can prioritize one or more high-reward items within a four-item target array for the purposes of an immediate cued recall task, and the extent to which this mediates the disruptive impact of a postdisplay to-be-ignored suffix. All four experiments indicated that endogenous direction of attention toward high-reward items results in their improved recall.

The Ventral Anterior Temporal Lobe has a Necessary Role in Exception Word Reading.

An influential account of reading holds that words with exceptional spelling-to-sound correspondences (e.g., PINT) are read via activation of their lexical-semantic representations, supported by the anterior temporal lobe (ATL).

[Development of the Japanese version of the Thought Control Ability Questionnaire and evaluation of its reliability and validity].

Intrusive thoughts and difficulty in controlling thoughts are common, not only for people with psychological disorders, but also for healthy people. Individual differences in thought control ability may underlie such problems. The Thought Control Ability Questionnaire (TCAQ), which consists of 25 items, was developed by Luciano et al.

An Extension of a Parallel-Distributed Processing Framework of Reading Aloud in Japanese: Human Nonword Reading Accuracy Does Not Require a Sequential Mechanism.

Humans can pronounce a nonword (e.g., rint).

Meta-analysis to integrate effect sizes within an article: Possible misuse and Type I error inflation.

In recent years an increasing number of articles have employed meta-analysis to integrate effect sizes of researchers' own series of studies within a single article ("internal meta-analysis"). Although this approach has the obvious advantage of obtaining narrower confidence intervals, we show that it could inadvertently inflate false-positive rates if researchers are motivated to use internal meta-analysis in order to obtain a significant overall effect. Specifically, if one decides whether to stop or continue a further replication experiment depending on the significance of the results in an internal meta-analysis, false-positive rates would increase beyond the nominal level.

Why Verbalization of Non-Verbal Memory Reduces Recognition Accuracy: A Computational Approach to Verbal Overshadowing.

Verbal overshadowing refers to a phenomenon whereby verbalization of non-verbal stimuli (e.g., facial features) during the maintenance phase (after the target information is no longer available from the sensory inputs) impairs subsequent non-verbal recognition accuracy.

Direct Exploration of the Role of the Ventral Anterior Temporal Lobe in Semantic Memory: Cortical Stimulation and Local Field Potential Evidence From Subdural Grid Electrodes.

Semantic memory is a crucial higher cortical function that codes the meaning of objects and words, and when impaired after neurological damage, patients are left with significant disability. Investigations of semantic dementia have implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) region, in general, as crucial for multimodal semantic memory. The potentially crucial role of the ventral ATL subregion has been emphasized by recent functional neuroimaging studies, but the necessity of this precise area has not been selectively tested.

The roles of long-term phonotactic and lexical prosodic knowledge in phonological short-term memory.

Many previous studies have explored and confirmed the influence of long-term phonological representations on phonological short-term memory. In most investigations, phonological effects have been explored with respect to phonotactic constraints or frequency. If interaction between long-term memory and phonological short-term memory is a generalized principle, then other phonological characteristics-that is, suprasegmental aspects of phonology-should also exert similar effects on phonological short-term memory.

What does visual suffix interference tell us about spatial location in working memory?

A visual object can be conceived of as comprising a number of features bound together by their joint spatial location. We investigate the question of whether the spatial location is automatically bound to the features or whether the two are separable, using a previously developed paradigm whereby memory is disrupted by a visual suffix. Participants were shown a sample array of four colored shapes, followed by a postcue indicating the target for recall.

Not lost in translation: generalization of the primary systems hypothesis to Japanese-specific language processes.

The emergentist-connectionist approach assumes that language processing reflects interaction between primary neural systems (Primary Systems Hypothesis). This idea offers an overarching framework that generalizes to various kinds of (English) language and nonverbal cognitive activities. The current study advances this approach with respect to language in two new and important ways.

The roles of the "ventral" semantic and "dorsal" pathways in conduite d'approche: a neuroanatomically-constrained computational modeling investigation.

Ever since the 19th century, the standard model for spoken language processing has assumed two pathways for repetition-a phonological pathway and a semantic pathway-and this idea has gained further support in the last decade. First, recent in vivo tractography studies have demonstrated both the "dorsal" (via arcuate fasciculus) and "ventral" (via extreme capsule and uncinate fasciculus) pathways connecting from the primary auditory area to the speech-motor area, the latter of which passes through a brain area associated with semantic processing (anterior temporal lobe). Secondly, neuropsychological evidence for the role of semantics in repetition is conduite d'approche, a successive phonological improvement (sometimes non-improvement) in aphasic patients' response by repeating several times in succession.

The role of visual representations within working memory for paired-associate and serial order of spoken words.

Caplan and colleagues have recently explained paired-associate learning and serial-order learning with a single-mechanism computational model by assuming differential degrees of isolation. Specifically, two items in a pair can be grouped together and associated to positional codes that are somewhat isolated from the rest of the items. In contrast, the degree of isolation among the studied items is lower in serial-order learning.

Lichtheim 2: synthesizing aphasia and the neural basis of language in a neurocomputational model of the dual dorsal-ventral language pathways.

Traditional neurological models of language were based on a single neural pathway (the dorsal pathway underpinned by the arcuate fasciculus). Contemporary neuroscience indicates that anterior temporal regions and the "ventral" language pathway also make a significant contribution, yet there is no computationally-implemented model of the dual pathway, nor any synthesis of normal and aphasic behavior. The "Lichtheim 2" model was implemented by developing a new variety of computational model which reproduces and explains normal and patient data but also incorporates neuroanatomical information into its architecture.

Disruption of visual feature binding in working memory.

In a series of five experiments, we studied the effect of a visual suffix on the retention in short-term visual memory of both individual visual features and objects involving the binding of two features. Experiments 1A, 1B, and 2 involved suffixes consisting of features external to the to-be-remembered set and revealed a modest but equivalent disruption on individual and bound feature conditions. Experiments 3A and 3B involved suffixes comprising features that could potentially have formed part of the to-be-remembered set (but did not on that trial).

Cognitive adaptations for gathering-related navigation in humans.

Current research increasingly suggests that spatial cognition in humans is accomplished by many specialized mechanisms, each designed to solve a particular adaptive problem. A major adaptive problem for our hominin ancestors, particularly females, was the need to efficiently gather immobile foods which could vary greatly in quality, quantity, spatial location and temporal availability. We propose a cognitive model of a navigational gathering adaptation in humans and test its predictions in samples from the US and Japan.

What goes through the gate? Exploring interference with visual feature binding.

A series of experiments explored the mechanisms determining the encoding and storage of features and objects in visual working memory. We contrasted the effects of three types of visual suffix on cued recall of a display of colored shapes. The suffix was presented after the display and before the recall cue.