Cognitive Basis Research Articles

Age differences in the neural processing of semantics, within and beyond the core semantic network

Aging is associated with functional activation changes in domain-specific regions and large-scale brain networks. This preregistered Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated these effects within the domain of semantic cognition. Participants completed 1 nonsemantic and 2 semantic tasks. We found no age differences in semantic activation in core semantic regions. However, the right inferior frontal gyrus showed difficulty-related increases in both age groups. This suggests that age-related upregulation of this area may be a compensatory response to increased processing demands. At a network level, older people showed more engagement in the default mode network and less in the executive multiple-demand network, aligning with older people’s greater knowledge reserves and executive declines. In contrast, activation was age-invariant in semantic control regions. Finally, older adults showed reduced demand-related modulation of multiple-demand network activation in the nonsemantic task but not the semantic tasks. These findings provide a new perspective on the neural basis of semantic cognition in aging, suggesting that preserved function in specialized semantic networks may help to maintain semantic cognition in later life.

The mediating role of default mode network during meaning-making aroused by mental simulation between stressful events and stress-related growth: a task fMRI study

BackgroundStressful events and meaning-making toward them play an important role in adolescents’ life and growth. However, ignoring positive stressful events leads to negativity bias; further, the neural mechanisms of meaning-making are unclear. We aimed to verify the mediating role of meaning-making in stressful events and stress-related growth and the function of the default mode network (DMN) during meaning-making in this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study.MethodsParticipants comprised 59 university students. Stressful life events, meaning-making, and stress-related growth were assessed at baseline, followed by fMRI scanning during a meaning-making task aroused by mental simulation. General linear modeling and psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses were used to explore the activation and functional connectivity of DMN during meaning-making.ResultsMental simulation triggered meaning-making, and DMN activity decreased during meaning-making. Activation of the DMN was negatively correlated with coping flexibility, an indicator of stress-related growth. PPI analysis showed that meaning-making was accompanied by diminished connectivity in the DMN. DMN activation during meaning-making can mediate the relationship between positive stressful events and coping flexibility.ConclusionsDecreased DMN activity and diminished functional connectivity in the DMN occurred during meaning-making. Activation of the DMN during meaning-making could mediate the relationship between positive stressful events and stress-related growth, which provides a cognitive neural basis for the mediating role of meaning-making in the relationship between stressful events and indicators of stress-related growth.ImplicationsThis study supports the idea that prosperity makes heroes, expands the meaning-making model, and suggests the inclusion of enhancing personal resources and meaning-making in education. This study was the first to validate the activation pattern and functional connectivity of the DMN during meaning-making aroused by mental simulation using an fMRI task-state examination, which can enhance our sense of meaning and provide knowledge that can be used in clinical psychology interventions.Trial RegistrationThe study protocol was pre-registered in Open Science Framework (see osf.io/ahm6e for details).

Specialized Networks for Social Cognition in the Primate Brain.

Primates have evolved diverse cognitive capabilities to navigate their complex social world. To understand how the brain implements critical social cognitive abilities, we describe functional specialization in the domains of face processing, social interaction understanding, and mental state attribution. Systems for face processing are specialized from the level of single cells to populations of neurons within brain regions to hierarchically organized networks that extract and represent abstract social information. Such functional specialization is not confined to the sensorimotor periphery but appears to be a pervasive theme of primate brain organization all the way to the apex regions of cortical hierarchies. Circuits processing social information are juxtaposed with parallel systems involved in processing nonsocial information, suggesting common computations applied to different domains. The emerging picture of the neural basis of social cognition is a set of distinct but interacting subnetworks involved in component processes such as face perception and social reasoning, traversing large parts of the primate brain.

Connectivity reveals homology between the visual systems of the human and macaque brains.

The visual systems of humans and nonhuman primates share many similarities in both anatomical and functional organization. Understanding the homology and differences between the two systems can provide important insights into the neural basis of visual perception and cognition. This research aims to investigate the homology between human and macaque visual systems based on connectivity, using diffusion tensor imaging and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to construct structural and functional connectivity fingerprints of the visual systems in humans and macaques, and quantitatively analyze the connectivity patterns. By integrating multimodal magnetic resonance imaging, this research explored the homology and differences between the two systems. The results showed that 9 brain regions in the macaque visual system formed highly homologous mapping relationships with 11 brain regions in the human visual system, and the related brain regions between the two species showed highly structure homologous, with their functional organization being essentially conserved across species. Finally, this research generated a homology information map of the visual system for humans and macaques, providing a new perspective for subsequent cross-species analysis.

Evaluating the ecological vulnerability of Chongqing using deep learning.

This study used deep learning to evaluate the ecological vulnerability of Chongqing, China, discuss the deep learning evaluations of ecological vulnerability, and generate vulnerability maps that support local ecological environment protection and governance decisions and provide reference for future studies. The information gain ratio was used to screen the influencing factors, selecting 16 factors that influence ecological vulnerability. Deep neural network (DNN) and convolutional neural network (CNN) methods were used for modeling, and two ecological vulnerability maps of the study area were generated. The results showed that the mean absolute error and root mean square error of the DNN and CNN models were relatively small, and the fitting accuracy was high. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the CNN model was 0.926, which was better than that of the DNN model (0.888). Random forest was applied to calculate the importance of the influencing factors in the two models. Because the main factor was geological features, the relative ecological vulnerability was mainly affected by karst topography. Through the analysis of the ecological vulnerability map, the areas with higher vulnerability are the karst mountains of Dabashan, Wushan, and Qiyaoshan in the northeast and southeast, as well as the valley between mountains and cities in the center and west of the study area. According to the investigation of these areas, the primary ecological problems are low forest quality, structural irregularities caused by self-geological factors, severe desertification, and soil erosion. Human activity is also an important factor that causes ecological vulnerability in the study area. In conclusion, deep learning, particularly CNN models, can be used for ecological vulnerability assessments. The ecological vulnerability maps conformed to the basic cognition of field surveys and can provide references for other deep learning vulnerability studies. While the overall vulnerability of the study area is not high, ecological problems that lead to its vulnerability should be addressed by future ecological protection and management measures.

Listening to Yourself and Watching Your Tongue: Distinct Abilities and Brain Regions for Monitoring Semantic and Phonological Speech Errors.

Despite the many mistakes we make while speaking, people can effectively communicate because we monitor our speech errors. However, the cognitive abilities and brain structures that support speech error monitoring are unclear. There may be different abilities and brain regions that support monitoring phonological speech errors versus monitoring semantic speech errors. We investigated speech, language, and cognitive control abilities that relate to detecting phonological and semantic speech errors in 41 individuals with aphasia who underwent detailed cognitive testing. Then, we used support vector regression lesion symptom mapping to identify brain regions supporting detection of phonological versus semantic errors in a group of 76 individuals with aphasia. The results revealed that motor speech deficits as well as lesions to the ventral motor cortex were related to reduced detection of phonological errors relative to semantic errors. Detection of semantic errors selectively related to auditory word comprehension deficits. Across all error types, poor cognitive control related to reduced detection. We conclude that monitoring of phonological and semantic errors relies on distinct cognitive abilities and brain regions. Furthermore, we identified cognitive control as a shared cognitive basis for monitoring all types of speech errors. These findings refine and expand our understanding of the neurocognitive basis of speech error monitoring.

Smart self-propelled particles: a framework to investigate the cognitive bases of movement.

Decision-making and movement of single animals or group of animals are often treated and investigated as separate processes. However, many decisions are taken while moving in a given space. In other words, both processes are optimized at the same time, and optimal decision-making processes are only understood in the light of movement constraints. To fully understand the rationale of decisions embedded in an environment (and therefore the underlying evolutionary processes), it is instrumental to develop theories of spatial decision-making. Here, we present a framework specifically developed to address this issue by the means of artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms. Specifically, we investigate a simple task in which single agents need to learn to explore their square arena without leaving its boundaries. We show that agents evolve by developing increasingly optimal strategies to solve a spatially embedded learning task while not having an initial arbitrary model of movements. The process allows the agents to learn how to move (i.e. by avoiding the arena walls) in order to make increasingly optimal decisions (improving their exploration of the arena). Ultimately, this framework makes predictions of possibly optimal behavioural strategies for tasks combining learning and movement.

Sustainability Reporting Practices in Bangladesh: Insights from Upper Echelons Theory

The objective of this paper is to explore and understand how the top management team (TMT)'s, namely the CEO/ MD/ Board of Directors (BOD) and Executive Committee Members, observable attributes and cognitive traits influence the strategic choices, such as adopting the Sustainability Reporting (SR) practices in the organization. This qualitative study conducts 12 semi-structured in-depth interviews with the Top Management Team, including CEOs of publicly listed companies from different industries in Bangladesh. Using the Upper Echelons theory, the author provides an alternative theoretical lens to the motivations of SR practices in Bangladesh. There has been a number of studies on the relationship between CEO attributes and strategic decisions in management literature, primarily in the developed country context. However, the influence of CEO and TMT traits on strategic choices like SR practices in emerging countries is scant. The overall analysis reveals that cognitive bases like values and beliefs, philosophies, and vision of the top management team (TMT), as well as the observable traits like education and background, career track, functional and financial expertise, international exposure or orientation, views, and understanding of the SDGs and their disclosure influence the strategic choice of organizations like the adoption of SR practices. Demographic traits largely shape the values, views, and attitudes of the top management (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), which help them develop or change their perceptions and eventually influence their strategic choice. This paper contributes to sustainability reporting literature by providing an insight into how the top management characteristics shape the SR practices in an emerging economy like Bangladesh.

Grip selection without tool knowledge: end-state comfort effect in familiar and novel tool use.

A well-known phenomenon for the study of movement planning is the end-state comfort (ESC) effect: When they reach and grasp tools, individuals tend to adopt uncomfortable initial hand postures if that allows a subsequent comfortable final posture. In the context of tool use, this effect is modulated by tool orientation, task goal, and cooperation. However, the cognitive bases of the ESC effect remain unclear. The goal of this study was to determine the contribution of semantic tool knowledge and technical reasoning to movement planning, by testing whether the ESC effect typically observed with familiar tools would also be observed with novel tools. Twenty-six participants were asked to reach and grasp familiar and novel tools under varying conditions (i.e., tool's handle downward vs. upward; tool transport vs. use; solo vs. cooperation). In our findings, the effects of tool orientation, task goal and cooperation were replicated with novel tools. It follows that semantic tool knowledge is not critical for the ESC effect to occur. In fact, we found an "habitual" effect: Participant adopted uncomfortable grips with familiar tools even when it was not necessary (i.e., to transport them), probably because of the interference of habitual movement programming with actual movement programming. A cognitive view of movement planning is proposed, according to which goal comprehension (1) may rely on semantic tool knowledge, technical reasoning, and/or social skills, (2) defines end-state configuration, which in turn (3) calibrates beginning-state comfort and hence the occurrence of the ESC effect.

The role of emotions in educational processes: the conceptions of teacher educators.

The research shows that a very important part of initial teacher education is to reformulate the beliefs that student teachers bring with them from their school experience. These beliefs, which are intuitive in nature, deal with different educational topics and one area that is currently of great importance, due to the emotional turn that the educational system is experiencing, are the beliefs that student teachers hold about the role of emotions in educational processes. In a world full of views that portray emotions as discrete states that are separate from cognitive processes, it is a priority for initial teacher development to train future teachers to hold conceptions that consider the deep emotional-cognitive integration that exists in the human brain. At the same time, this process requires teacher educators (hereafter referred to as TEs) who hold conceptions on this topic that are aligned with the most current scientific knowledge on the subject. However, we do not know how the conceptions that TEs maintain on this topic are, since, until now, research on conceptions has focused on other types of educational topics. Considering the foregoing, this study aimed to evaluate the conceptions that TEs have on this topic, using a questionnaire of dilemmas that was applied to 68 TEs from different universities. The results obtained show that the TEs maintain perspectives on the role of emotions in the teaching and learning processes that oscillate between dualism and emotional-cognitive integration. In addition, it was found that TEs' perspectives tend to be more integrative when considering attitudinal learning than when considering verbal learning. Finally, the study shows that maintaining integrative perspectives is more difficult when educational situations involve emotions of positive valence that may constitute an obstacle for teaching and learning. The results are discussed, and a series of reflections are elaborated in order to analyze to what extent the beliefs held by TEs are adequate as a cognitive basis for reformulating the conceptions held by student teachers on this issue.

Linguo-Conceptual Studies of Literary Text: Evolution of Theoretical and Methodological Approaches

Introduction. The article presents the results of an analytical review of scientific papers reflecting the stages of formation and development of cognitive poetics as an interdisciplinary research area in Russian linguistics. The purpose of the article is to systematize and critically analyze approaches, concepts and methodological principles of the study of concepts that constitute the cognitive basis of literary texts, authors’ idiostyles and, by extension, of poetic sociolects and literary genres.Methodology and sources. The paper reviews theoretical concepts and approaches (developed by R. Tsur, P. Stockwell, I.A. Tarasova, N.S. Bolotnova, L.O. Butakova, etc.), which served as the foundations of cognitive poetics. A comparative analysis of works focusing on the structure of literary concepts, their textual representation aspect and categorization criteria is carried out. The studies which concentrate on the application of corpus methods in order to analyze literary texts, including the works by B. Fischer-Starcke, D. Siepmann, A. Stefanowitsch, M. Mahlberg, etc., also formed the methodological basis for the analytical review.Results and discussion. As a result of the review study, the evolution of theoretical and methodological approaches to literary concepts and literary texts’ ideospheres is demonstrated. The main concepts that influenced the formation of cognitive poetics are identified; the relevant problems of cognitive studies of poetic and prose texts are analyzed. It’s shown that it is necessary to further consider the problem of identifying dominant concepts of authors’ idiostyles describing cognitive mechanisms that underlie the semantic variability of individual concepts. The importance of using corpus methodology in the study of literary discourse in its synchronic and diachronic perspective is discussed.Conclusion. It is shown that, despite the fact that the author's creative consciousness has been studied intensively and for a long time in Russian cognitive poetics, there are still problems that need further consideration. The following aspects must be analyzed: the criteria for choosing the method of modeling a literary concept, taking into consideration its type; the elaboration of uniform terminology in existing approaches; the development of the algorithms for describing the structure of literary concepts and identifying conceptual dominants of authors’ ideospheres. A conclusion was made regarding the potential of applying corpus research methods in the field of cognitive poetics. A range of the tasks related to the cognitive research of literary texts that could be solved by using statistical methods of corpus linguistics was determined.

Simple View of Reading Across the Transition from Kindergarten to Grade 1 in a Transparent Orthography

ABSTRACT Purpose This longitudinal study investigated the simple view of reading (SVR) model and its cognitive basis in a transparent orthography of the Lithuanian across the transition from kindergarten to Grade 1. Method The language and early literacy skills of 229 children (Mage = 6.79, SD = .47) were tested at the end of kindergarten (vocabulary, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and RAN); listening comprehension and word reading fluency were tested at the start of Grade 1; and reading comprehension was measured at the end of Grade 1. Results Together with parental education, word reading fluency and listening comprehension predicted reading comprehension (R2 = 43.2%). The second model, which also included language and early literacy skills, showed that vocabulary and phonological awareness indirectly predicted reading comprehension via listening comprehension, while phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) indirectly predicted reading comprehension via word reading fluency (R2 = 43.6%). However, after allowing the direct paths from language and early literacy skills in kindergarten to reading comprehension, listening comprehension and word reading fluency were no longer significant predictors of reading comprehension, whereas vocabulary and letter knowledge were (R2 = 58.9%). Conclusion The results provided support for the SVR model in transparent Lithuanian orthography in that linguistic and decoding components are important for early reading comprehension. However, the results also suggested that, in the Lithuanian context, kindergarten vocabulary and letter knowledge are stronger measures in predicting reading comprehension than listening comprehension and word reading fluency in Grade 1.

Creative or not? Hierarchical diffusion modeling of the creative evaluation process.

When producing creative ideas (i.e., ideas that are original and useful) two main processes occur: ideation, where people brainstorm ideas, and evaluation, where they decide if the ideas are creative or not. While much is known about the ideation phase, the cognitive processes involved in creativity evaluation are less clear. In this article, we present a novel modeling approach for the evaluation phase of creativity. We apply the drift diffusion model (DDM) to the Creative-or-Not task (CON-task) to study the cognitive basis of evaluation and to examine individual differences in the extent to which people take originality and utility into account when evaluating creative ideas. The CON-task is a timed decision-making task where participants indicate whether they find uses for certain objects creative or not (e.g., using a book as a buoy). The different uses vary on the two creativity dimensions "originality" and "utility." In two studies (n = 293, 17,806 trials; n = 152, 9,291 trials), we found that stimulus originality was strongly related to participants' drift rates but found only weak evidence for an association between stimulus utility and the drift rate. However, participants differed substantially in the effects of originality and utility. Furthermore, the implicit weights assigned to originality and utility on the CON-task were associated with self-reported importance ratings of originality and utility and with divergent thinking performance in the Alternative Uses task (AUT). This research provides a cognitive modeling approach to creativity evaluation and underlines the importance of communicating rating criteria in divergent thinking tasks to ensure a fair assessment of creative ability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Brain atrophy and cognitive decline in bipolar disorder: Influence of medication use, symptomatology and illness duration

Bipolar disorder (BPD) is a chronic condition characterized by recurrent episodes of mania and depression. To date, the association of biological and psychopathological processes in BPD has not been extensively studied on a cognitive and cortical basis at the same time. We investigated whether brain atrophy (in prefrontal, temporal and occipital cortices) was associated with cognitive, biological and clinical processes in patients with BPD and healthy controls (HCs). A total of 104 participants (56 with BPD) completed tasks that measured attention, memory, information processing speed, inhibitory control, visuospatial working memory and cognitive flexibility. In addition, structural brain scans were obtained using high-resolution MRI. Outcomes of the measurements were examined using robust multiple mediation analyses. BPD patients showed greater cortical atrophy across all regions of interest when compared to HCs, linked to cognitive decline. BPD patients had slower reaction times and markedly increased errors of commission on the tasks. The outcomes were significantly influenced by medication use, symptomatology and illness duration. The findings showcase the complexity of brain structures and networks as well as the physiological mechanisms underlying diverse BPD symptomatology and endophenotypes. These differences were pronounced in patients with BPD, motivating further investigations of pathophysiological mechanisms involved in brain atrophy and cognitive decline.

APPROACHES TO ACCELERATE COMMUNICATION IN THE FROCESS OF STUDENTS FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING OF THE NON-LINGUISTIC FACULTIES

The article investigates theoretical and methodological basis to increase the effectiveness of using foreign language for professional business communication in non-languages specialized higher educational institutions. This will contribute to the guidelines forming in the field of communication. The use of collective forms of organizing cognitive activity at the stage of preparing students for professional communication contributes to the effectiveness of achieving the goal. An important aspect of preparing students for communication is the process of forming their social values in the field of business communication: attitude to each partner of communication as an aimed user, not as a means; interest in the process of communication, not just its result; attitude to communication as a dialogue, not a monologue; tolerance to the ideas of partners; orientation to not only receive in the communication process, but also to give as much as possible to the partner. The social attitudes forming in the sphere of communication becomes real only when it is carried out in the course of the entire educational job of the entire higher educational institution, directly related to the attitudes that teachers implement in their communication with students, that is, in the process of pedagogical communication. The method of communicative approach to learning a foreign language, in particular, for its use in the professional sphere, is considered to be one of the most effective. Namely, the emphasis is provided on collective forms of students’ cooperation, such as role-playing, group discussions, socio-dramas. Due to socio-drama it is possible to practice grammar (cognitive basis of communication skills) when the need to respond appears and the ability to produce grammatical sentences in the process of communicative interaction follows. The essence of this means of teaching communication is that the communicative task is solved by the participants of the role-playing game through improvised acting out of a certain situation, in particular from the real professional sphere. The ability to “read” non-verbal movements of a partner-interlocutor is also extremely important from a professional point of view for a specialist. It was experimentally proven the effectiveness of implementing in foreign language classes the use of both: text and audio materials, as well as collective forms of students’ cooperation. We also used and verified the significance of collective forms. They were aimed at strengthening the development of business and professionally oriented speech.

Методика проведения агротехнических исследований в опытах с масличными культурами (Сообщение 1. Исследования в опытах с соей)

There are stated methodic peculiarities of investigations in experiments with oil crops: the basis of the scientific cognition and a choice of directions of sci-entific researches, methods of scientific researches, planning and organization of an experiment. The basic elements of the methodology of a field experiment are described. There are presented observations and accounts in the field experiments with soybean: plant structure, growth, and development; phenology and biometrics; the diagnostic of mineral nutrition for soybean; the determination of elements of yield structure; the determination of a number and weight of nodules on plant roots; analytic observations in laboratory; yield account and the calculation of the consumption of nutrients, oil and protein yields, and seed yield. The article is based on a published book “Methodology of agricultural and chemical investigations in experiments with oil crops” by Lukomets V.M., Tishkov N.M., and Semerenko S.A. (Krasnodar, 2022).

Научное наследие профессора В. Е. Гольдина: о книге избранных работ ученого

The review is dedicated to the book of selected works by Professor V. E. Goldin, Linguistic Consciousness. Speech Communication (Saratov, Saratov State University Publ., 2020), prepared for publication by O. Kryuchkova and A. Sdobnova. The scientific interests of V. E. Goldin were extremely broad. The list of his scientific works includes studies on the Russian dialectology, problems of the general theory of language, speech communication, speech genres, the problems of psycholinguistics and applied linguistics. This variety of focuses of the scientific attention is also reflected in the book of his selected works. The book includes works by V. E. Goldin, related to the three most important areas of his scientific interests: the associative-verbal network of a native speaker, problems of speech communication, communicative and corpus dialectology. The composition of the book expresses the idea of linguistic consciousness as a deep cognitive basis of verbal communication and, accordingly, of verbal communication as a verbal embodiment of linguistic consciousness. Such an understanding of the relationship between linguistic consciousness and speech communication stems from the complexity of the scientific research by V. E. Goldin, and is the result of summing up the scientific heritage of the scientist. The publication outlines the chronology of the development of V. E. Goldin’s scientific interests – from individual spheres of speech communication to its holistic understanding and further to linguistic consciousness. Such a development of the researcher’s scientific work allowed him to gradually build up and enlarge theoretical generalizations, build them on a solid foundation of comprehensive specific empirical material. The review presents V. E. Goldin’s most significant scientific ideas: the principles of communicative dialectology; the construction, scientific and cultural significance of dialect corpora, the need for a holistic study of the Russian speech in the sum of all its social and functional varieties; the criteria for an effective cultural and language policy; problems of studying the semantics of communication; tasks of genre studies; the method of conducting associative experiments, associative dictionaries, the heuristic potential of verbal associations and associative fields.

Cognitive and neural bases of visual-context-guided decision-making

Humans adjust their behavioral strategies based on feedback, a process that may depend on intrinsic preferences and contextual factors such as visual salience. In this study, we hypothesized that decision-making based on visual salience is influenced by habitual and goal-directed processes, which can be evidenced by changes in attention and subjective valuation systems. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a series of studies to investigate the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying visual salience-driven decision-making. We first established the baseline behavioral strategy without salience in Experiment 1 (n = 21). We then highlighted the utility or performance dimension of the chosen outcome using colors in Experiment 2 (n = 30). We demonstrated that the difference in staying frequency increased along the salient dimension, confirming a salience effect. Furthermore, the salience effect was abolished when directional information was removed in Experiment 3 (n = 28), suggesting that the salience effect is feedback-specific. To generalize our findings, we replicated the feedback-specific salience effects using eye-tracking and text emphasis. The fixation differences between the chosen and unchosen values were enhanced along the feedback-specific salient dimension in Experiment 4 (n = 48) but unchanged after removing feedback-specific information in Experiment 5 (n = 32). Moreover, the staying frequency was correlated with fixation properties, confirming that salience guides attention deployment. Lastly, our neuroimaging study (Experiment 6, n = 25) showed that the striatum subregions encoded salience-based outcome evaluation, while the vmPFC encoded salience-based behavioral adjustments. The connectivity of the vmPFC-ventral striatum accounted for individual differences in utility-driven, whereas the vmPFC-dmPFC for performance-driven behavioral adjustments. Together, our results provide a neurocognitive account of how task-irrelevant visual salience drives decision-making by involving attention and the frontal-striatal valuation systems. Public significance statementHumans may use the current outcome to make behavior adjustments. How this occurs may depend on stable individual preferences and contextual factors, such as visual salience. Under the hypothesis that visual salience determines attention and subsequently modulates subjective valuation, we investigated the underlying behavioral and neural bases of visual-context-guided outcome evaluation and behavioral adjustments. Our findings suggest that the reward system is orchestrated by visual context and highlight the critical role of attention and the frontal-striatal neural circuit in visual-context-guided decision-making that may involve habitual and goal-directed processes.

The effect of cognitive load on code-switching

Aims and objectives: This study explores the effect of cognitive load on code-switching (CS), by examining whether an increase in cognitive load can lead to a different amount and/or pattern of CS use, and whether there is an interplay between the effect of cognitive load and the effect of social factors (i.e., language and use, and attitudes towards CS). Methodology: Thirty-one Chinese-English bilinguals participated in a picture recall experiment consisting of three sessions, with an incremental increase in cognitive load which was achieved by manipulating the number of attentional targets that should be attended to. The increase in cognitive load was validated by a self-report survey adapted from Paas. Information on social variables was collected by a language use questionnaire. Data and analysis: The amount and pattern (intraclausal vs interclausal) of CS were coded and quantified. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to compare the within-participant use of CS across the sessions. Hierarchal regression analyses were also conducted to examine how cognitive load and the social variables of interest predicted the between-participant variation of CS in each session. Findings/conclusions: The results showed that the participants used significantly less intraclausal CS in Session 3, in which they reported the highest degree of cognitive load. In addition, the results of hierarchical regression analyses for overall CS use in Session 2 confirmed the significant effect of cognitive load. The influence of attitudes towards CS was also shown to be another significant predictor with large effect size. However, in the more demanding Session 3, none of the factors of interest could predict between-participant variation in CS use. Originality: This study is among the first to examine how cognitive load affects nonlaboratory CS. Significance/implications: This study argues for a recognition of the cognitive processing basis of socially driven language use, linking sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives on the use of CS.

Formulaicity and formulaic expressions in Japanese: an introduction

AbstractFormulaic expressions pervade everyday language. While this has caught the attention of pedagogically oriented researchers due to its benefit in foreign language instruction, the centrality of formulaic expressions in actual language use, along with their emerging nature and plasticity, has only been marginally recognized and thus remains largely unexplored, especially in languages other than English. We propose to fill this gap by highlighting the cognitive and interactional basis of formulaicity in Japanese. We place full weight on formulaic language in actual use, which includes conversational discourse and social networking services such as Twitter posts. Each contribution highlights how formulaic expressions are based on and shaped by usage in context and how they are deployed in unfolding discourse.