A framework to support automated classification and labeling of brain electromagnetic patterns.

This paper describes a framework for automated classification and labeling of patterns in electroencephalographic (EEG) and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data. We describe recent progress on four goals: 1) specification of rules and concepts that capture expert knowledge of event-related potentials (ERP) patterns in visual word recognition; 2) implementation of rules in an automated data processing and labeling stream; 3) data mining techniques that lead to refinement of rules; and 4) iterative steps towards system evaluation and optimization. This process combines top-down, or knowledge-driven, methods with bottom-up, or data-driven, methods.

Evidence accumulation and the moment of recognition: dissociating perceptual recognition processes using fMRI.

Decision making can be conceptualized as the culmination of an integrative process in which evidence supporting different response options accumulates gradually over time. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activity leading up to and during decisions about perceptual object identity. Pictures were revealed gradually and subjects signaled the time of recognition (T(R)) with a button press.

Evidence for neural accommodation to a writing system following learning.

Native English speakers with no knowledge of Chinese were trained on 60 Chinese characters according to one of three mapping conditions: orthography to pronunciation and meaning (P + M), orthography to pronunciation (P), and orthography to meaning (M). Following the training, fMRI scans taken during passive viewing of Chinese characters showed activation in brain regions that partially overlap the regions found in studies of skilled Chinese readers, but typically not found in alphabetic readers. Areas include bilateral middle frontal (BA 9), right occipital (BA 18/19), and fusiform (BA 37) regions.

When are tutorial dialogues more effective than reading?

It is often assumed that engaging in a one-on-one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested the interaction hypothesis under the constraint that (a) all students covered the same content during instruction, (b) the task domain was qualitative physics, (c) the instruction was in natural language as opposed to mathematical or other formal languages, and (d) the instruction conformed with a widely observed pattern in human tutoring: Graesser, Person, and Magliano's 5-step frame.

Event-related potential indicators of text integration across sentence boundaries.

An event-related potentials (ERPs) study examined word-to-text integration processes across sentence boundaries. In a two-sentence passage, the accessibility of a referent for the first content word of the second sentence (the target word) was varied by the wording of the first sentence in one of the following ways: lexically (explicitly using a form of the target word); conceptually (using a paraphrase of the target word), and situationally (encouraging an inference concerning the referent of the target word). A baseline condition had no coreference between the two sentences.

Culture and race in provider-client relationships.

Given that minority group members are underrepresented in the teaching, medical, and legal professions, minority group members often have White teachers, doctors, and lawyers. This is frequently the case even when students, patients, and clients would prefer service providers similar to them in racial or ethnic background. This paper identifies possible cultural barriers to effective one-on-one relationships between White teachers, doctors, and lawyers and those who receive their services; explores the potential for biased expectations to influence the services provided and outcomes attained; and contrasts the goals of White and minority educators, doctors, and lawyers, arguing that these differences have potentially negative implications for minority service recipients.

An electrophysiological investigation of semantic and phonological processing in skilled and less-skilled comprehenders.

The most prominent theories of reading consider reading comprehension ability to be a direct consequence of lower-level reading skills. Recently however, research has shown that some children with poor comprehension ability perform normally on tests of lower-level skills (e.g.

Hemispheric differences in strong versus weak semantic priming: evidence from event-related brain potentials.

Goals: Research with lateralized word presentation has suggested that strong ("close") and weak ("remote") semantic associates are processed differently in the left and right cerebral hemispheres [e.g., Beeman, M.

Expertise in ill-defined problem-solving domains as effective strategy use.

Expertise consists of many different cognitive structures. Lemaire and Siegler (1995) have proposed a four-layered account of expertise from a strategies perspective: Experts have better strategies, tend to use strategies that are better overall more often, are better able to select the circumstances to which a strategy best applies, and are better able to execute a given strategy. Originally, this account came from work in simple, well-defined domains.

The role of discourse context in developing word form representations: a paradoxical relation between reading and learning.

To acquire representations of printed words, children must attend to the written form of a word and link this form with the word's pronunciation. When words are read in context, they may be read with less attention to these features, and this can lead to poorer word form retention. Two experiments with young children (ages 5-8 years) confirmed this hypothesis.

Word learning and individual differences in word learning reflected in event-related potentials.

Adults learned the meanings of rare words (e.g., gloaming) and then made meaning judgments on pairs of words.

The impact of rater effects on weighted composite scores under nested and spiraled scoring designs, using the multifaceted Rasch model.

Constructed-response or open-ended tasks are increasingly used in recent years. Since these tasks cannot be machine-scored, variability among raters cannot be completely eliminated and their effects, when they are not modeled, can cast doubts on the reliability of the results. Besides rater effects, the estimation of student ability can also be impacted by differentially weighted tasks/items that formulate composite scores.

Cross-cultural effect on the brain revisited: universal structures plus writing system variation.

Recognizing printed words requires the mapping of graphic forms, which vary with writing systems, to linguistic forms, which vary with languages. Using a newly developed meta-analytic approach, aggregated Gaussian-estimated sources (AGES; Chein et al. [2002]: Psychol Behav 77:635-639), we examined the neuroimaging results for word reading within and across writing systems and languages.

The time course of brain activity in reading English and Chinese: an ERP study of Chinese bilinguals.

Chinese bilinguals performed a delayed naming task, reading both Chinese characters and English words, while EEGs were recorded by a 128-channel system. Principle component analysis (PCA) of Event Related Potentials (ERP) from the onset of the stimulus suggested a temporal unfolding of graphic, phonological, and semantic processing that depended on both language and word frequency. At 150 msec, Chinese produced an earlier and higher amplitude shift (N150) than English.

Re-representing consciousness: dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness.

A distinction is drawn between non-conscious (unexperienced), conscious (experienced), and meta-conscious (re-represented) mental processes. There is evidence for two types of dissociations between consciousness and meta-consciousness, the latter being defined as the intermittent explicit re-representation of the contents of consciousness. Temporal dissociations occur when an individual, who previously lacked meta-consciousness about the contents of consciousness, directs meta-consciousness towards those contents; for example, catching one's mind wandering during reading.

Parents explain more often to boys than to girls during shared scientific thinking.

Young children's everyday scientific thinking often occurs in the context of parent-child interactions. In a study of naturally occurring family conversation, parents were three times more likely to explain science to boys than to girls while using interactive science exhibits in a museum. This difference in explanation occurred despite the fact that parents were equally likely to talk to their male and female children about how to use the exhibits and about the evidence generated by the exhibits.

Bridging the gap between neuroimaging and neuropsychology: using working memory as a case-study.

Neuropsychology and neuroimaging both provide information about the relationship between brain structure and function, and thus attempt to understand if the neural basis of cognition should benefit from converging results obtained across the two methods. However, serious attempts to integrate the two methodologies face several challenges, such as differences in basic paradigm designs. To illustrate these points, this article will review neuropsychological and neuroimaging research in the area of working memory.

Cognitive skill acquisition.

Cognitive skill acquisition is acquiring the ability to solve problems in intellectual tasks, where success is determined more by subjects' knowledge than by their physical prowess. This review considers research conducted in the past ten years on cognitive skill acquisition. It covers the initial stages of acquiring a single principle or rule, the initial stages of acquiring a collection of interacting pieces of knowledge, and the final stages of acquiring a skill, wherein practice causes increases in speed and accuracy.

Verbal vulnerability of perceptual expertise.

Three experiments explored the role of perceptual expertise in mediating the finding (termed verbal overshadowing) that describing a face can impair later recognition. In Experiment 1, verbalization impaired White participants' recognition of White faces (expert domain) but not African American faces (novice domain). In Experiment 2, judges attempted to identify targets on the basis of the verbal descriptions generated in Experiment 1.

Preschoolers' reasoning about density: will it float?

Density is a complex concept found to appear late in development. However, density has a readily apparent empirical consequence--buoyancy. Early scientific understanding of density arose through Archimedes' discovery of water displacement as a function of density, and young children have experience playing with objects in water.

An on-line method in studying music parsing.

Listening to music entails the construction of a mental representation based on partial and ambiguous information. This study examines an experimental method that reflects such parsing decisions on-line by detecting the cognitive load resulting from temporary parsing failures. The method investigated was a divided attention paradigm in which listening to music was the primary task and click detection was a concurrent secondary task.