Understanding preschoolers' word learning success in different scenarios: disambiguation meets statistical learning and eBook reading.

Children's ability to learn new words during their preschool years is crucial for further academic success. Previous research suggests that children rely on different learning mechanisms to acquire new words depending on the available context and linguistic information. To date, there is limited research integrating different paradigms to provide a cohesive view of the mechanisms and processes involved in preschool children's word learning.

Assignment strategies modulate students' academic performance in an online learning environment during the first and second COVID-19 related school closures.

A growing number of studies seek to evaluate the impact of school closures during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While most studies reported severe learning losses in students, some studies found positive effects of school closures on academic performance. However, it is still unclear which factors contribute to the differential effects observed in these studies.

Learning in the Single-Cell Organism : Effect of Propofol.

Propofol belongs to a class of molecules that are known to block learning and memory in mammals, including rodents and humans. Interestingly, learning and memory are not tied to the presence of a nervous system. There are several lines of evidence indicating that single-celled organisms also have the capacity for learning and memory which may be considered as basal intelligence.

A belief systems analysis of fraud beliefs following the 2020 US election.

Beliefs that the US 2020 Presidential election was fraudulent are prevalent despite substantial contradictory evidence. Why are such beliefs often resistant to counter-evidence? Is this resistance rational, and thus subject to evidence-based arguments, or fundamentally irrational? Here we surveyed 1,642 Americans during the 2020 vote count, testing fraud belief updates given hypothetical election outcomes. Participants' fraud beliefs increased when their preferred candidate lost and decreased when he won, and both effects scaled with partisan preferences, demonstrating partisan asymmetry (desirability effects).

Prioritizing research on over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids for age-related hearing loss.

Hearing aids are the most commonly used treatment for people with age-related hearing loss, however, hearing aid uptake is low, primarily due to high cost of the device, stigma, and a lack of perceived need. To address accessibility and affordability issues, the U.S.

Stronger neural response to canonical finger-number configurations in deaf compared to hearing adults revealed by FPVS-EEG.

The linguistic counting system of deaf signers consists of a manual counting format that uses specific structures for number words. Interestingly, the number signs from 1 to 4 in the Belgian sign languages correspond to the finger-montring habits of hearing individuals. These hand configurations could therefore be considered as signs (i.

Spillover effects of competition outcome on future risky cooperation.

There is growing evidence that risky cooperation is regulated by the experience of previous interactions with others. However, it is unclear how the evaluation of outcomes from competitive interactions can affect individuals' subsequent cooperative behavior. To address this issue, we examined how participants cooperated with a partner having just competed with them.

Crossmodal plasticity in hearing loss.

Crossmodal plasticity is a textbook example of the ability of the brain to reorganize based on use. We review evidence from the auditory system showing that such reorganization has significant limits, is dependent on pre-existing circuitry and top-down interactions, and that extensive reorganization is often absent. We argue that the evidence does not support the hypothesis that crossmodal reorganization is responsible for closing critical periods in deafness, and crossmodal plasticity instead represents a neuronal process that is dynamically adaptable.

EEG Alpha Band Responses Reveal Amplification Benefits in Infants with Hearing Loss.

Our objective was to examine the effects of hearing aid amplification on auditory detection and discrimination in nfants who were ard of earing (IHH) using a physiological measure of auditory perception. We recorded EEG from 41 sleeping IHH aged 1.04 to 5.

Using Automated Speech Processing for Repeated Measurements in a Clinical Setting of the Behavioral Variability in the Stroop Task.

The Stroop interference task is indispensable to current neuropsychological practice. Despite this, it is limited in its potential for repeated administration, its sensitivity and its demands on professionals and their clients. We evaluated a digital Stroop deployed using a smart device.

Cannabis Involvement and Demand in Frequent Concentrate Users Versus Predominantly Flower Users.

Objective: Cannabis concentrate products contain more of the intoxicating cannabinoid, tetrahydrocannabinol, than flower products and, thus, may produce greater harm. Indeed, concentrate use is associated with greater cannabis dependence and problems (e.g.

Hearing Healthcare Professionals' Views about Over-The-Counter (OTC) Hearing Aids: Analysis of Retrospective Survey Data.

Over-the-counter hearing aids have been available to consumers in the US since 17 October 2022 following a ruling by the Food and Drug Administration. However, their reception by hearing healthcare professionals (HHP) has been mixed, and concerns have been expressed by many HHPs. The aim of this study was to examine the concerns that HHPs have towards over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids.

The short-term effects of activity engagement on working memory performance in older age.

Does a single bout of activity engagement have short-term effects on cognition in daily life? Using a smartphone-based ambulatory assessment design, this study examined the duration of the effects of three types of activities (i.e., sociocognitive, passive leisure, and physical activities) on working memory performance.

An α7 nAChR approach for the baseline-dependent modulation of deviance detection in schizophrenia: A pilot study assessing the combined effect of CDP-choline and galantamine.

Background: Cognitive operations including pre-attentive sensory processing are markedly impaired in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) but evidence significant interindividual heterogeneity, which moderates treatment response with nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonists. Previous studies in healthy volunteers have shown baseline-dependency effects of the α7 nAChR agonist cytidine 5'-diphosphocholine (CDP-choline) administered alone and in combination with a nicotinic allosteric modulator (galantamine) on auditory deviance detection measured with the mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential (ERP).

Aim: The objective of this pilot study was to assess the acute effect of this combined α7 nAChR-targeted treatment (CDP-choline/galantamine) on speech MMN in patients with SCZ ( = 24) stratified by baseline MMN responses into low, medium, and high baseline auditory deviance detection subgroups.

Resting-state connectivity underlying cognitive control's association with perspective taking in callous-unemotional traits.

Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits are often associated with impairments in perspective taking and cognitive control (regulating goal directed behavior); and adolescents with CU traits demonstrate aberrant brain activation/connectivity in areas underlying these processes. Together cognitive control and perspective taking are thought to link mechanistically to explain CU traits. Because increased cognitive control demands modulate perspective taking ability among both typically developing samples and individuals with elevated CU traits, understanding the neurophysiological substrates of these constructs could inform efforts to alleviate societal costs of antisocial behavior.

Interdisciplinary views of fNIRS: Current advancements, equity challenges, and an agenda for future needs of a diverse fNIRS research community.

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an innovative and promising neuroimaging modality for studying brain activity in real-world environments. While fNIRS has seen rapid advancements in hardware, software, and research applications since its emergence nearly 30 years ago, limitations still exist regarding all three areas, where existing practices contribute to greater bias within the neuroscience research community. We spotlight fNIRS through the lens of different end-application users, including the unique perspective of a fNIRS manufacturer, and report the challenges of using this technology across several research disciplines and populations.

Amygdala and nucleus accumbens activation during reward anticipation moderates the association between life stressor frequency and depressive symptoms.

Background: Life stressors confer risk for depressive symptoms, but individuals vary in the extent of their sensitivity to life stressors. One protective factor may be an individual's level of reward sensitivity, e.g.

Neuronal stress granules as dynamic microcompartments: current concepts and open questions.

Stress granules are cytosolic, membraneless RNA-protein complexes that form in the cytosol in response to various stressors. Stress granules form through a process termed liquid-liquid phase separation, which increases the local concentration of RNA and protein within the granules, creates dynamic sorting stations for mRNAs and associated proteins, and modulates the availability of mRNA for protein translation. We introduce the concept that neuronal stress granules act as dynamic cytosolic microcompartments in which their components differentially cycle in and out, monitoring the cellular environment.

Deep Neural Networks and Visuo-Semantic Models Explain Complementary Components of Human Ventral-Stream Representational Dynamics.

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are promising models of the cortical computations supporting human object recognition. However, despite their ability to explain a significant portion of variance in neural data, the agreement between models and brain representational dynamics is far from perfect. We address this issue by asking which representational features are currently unaccounted for in neural time series data, estimated for multiple areas of the ventral stream via source-reconstructed magnetoencephalography data acquired in human participants (nine females, six males) during object viewing.

Similar behavioral but different endocrine responses to conspecific interactions in hand-raised wolves and dogs.

Domestication has altered dogs' conspecific social organization compared to their closest, non-domesticated relatives, gray wolves. Wolves live in packs whose survival depends on coordinated behavior, but dogs rely less on conspecifics, which predicts greater cohesiveness in wolf than dog packs. Endocrine correlates such as oxytocin and glucocorticoids modulate group cohesion resulting in species-specific differences in social interactions.

Cooking Interventions for Improving Diet Quality Among Black Americans: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Non-Hispanic Black Americans experience the highest, and most rapidly increasing, rates of obesity. Despite evidence that this is at least somewhat related to poor diet quality, we have yet to identify effective interventions for improving diet quality long-term. Restrictive diets can be ineffective and often harmful.

Daily activity diversity and daily working memory in community-dwelling older adults.

Objective: Cross-sectional and long-term longitudinal studies have shown that engagement in diverse activities benefits cognitive performance in older age, but it is unknown whether the beneficial effect holds within persons on a daily basis. This study examines the within-person association between activity diversity and working memory on the same day and its time-lagged directionality between days. It also examines the effects of potential moderators on the within-person association, including age, education, processing speed, and crystallized intelligence, to understand who may benefit more from daily activity diversity.

Attentional Bias for Sleep-Related Words as a Function of Severity of Insomnia Symptoms.

Attentional bias to sleep-related information is thought to be a core feature for developing and/or maintaining insomnia. This study used a hallmark measure of attentional bias, the dot-probe task, to determine whether this bias toward sleep-related stimuli was a function of the severity of insomnia symptoms. A sample of 231 volunteers (175 females; mean age of 26.

Using Social Media for Social Motives Moderates the Relationship between Post-Traumatic Symptoms during a COVID-19-Related Lockdown and Improvement of Distress after Lockdown.

Previous research reported inconsistent results on the relationship between social media (SM) use and psychological well-being, suggesting the importance of assessing possible moderators, e.g., motives for SM use.