Cognitive Mechanisms Research Articles

Aberrant functional connectivity of the salience network in adult patients with tic disorders: a resting-state fMRI study.

Tic disorders (TD) are characterized by the presence of motor and/or vocal tics. Common neurophysiological frameworks suggest dysregulations of the cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) brain circuit that controls movement execution. Besides the common tics, there are other "non-tic" symptoms that are primarily related to sensory perception, sensorimotor integration, attention, and social cognition. The existence of these symptoms, the sensory tic triggers and the modifying effect of attention and cognitive control mechanisms on tics may indicate the salience network's involvement in the neurophysiology of TD. Resting-state functional MRI measurements were performed in 26 participants with TD and 25 healthy controls. The group differences in resting-state functional connectivity patterns were measured based on seed-to-voxel connectivity analyses. Compared to healthy controls, patients with TD exhibited altered connectivity between the core regions of the salience network (insula, ACC and TPJ) and sensory, associative, and motor-related cortices. Furthermore, connectivity changes were observed in relation to the severity of tics in the TD group. The salience network, particularly the insula, is likely to be an important site of dysregulation in TD. Our results provide evidence for large-scale neural deviations in TD beyond the CSTC pathologies. These findings may be relevant for developing treatment targets.Significance statement Tic disorders (TD) are associated with a variety of symptoms beyond typical motor and vocal tics that affect sensory perception, attention, and social cognition. The presence of such non-tic symptoms suggests the potential involvement of the salience network in the pathophysiology of TD. While previous studies have predominantly focused on the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) circuitry, which is known to underlie tic generation and expression, we conducted resting-state fMRI to investigate the functional connectivity of the salience network in TD. Notably, we observed impaired connectivity of the salience network with relations to the tic symptom severity. Our research provided important evidence that the pathophysiology of TD involves the salience network, which is highly relevant for developing treatment strategies.

THE FORMATION OF COLOR ASSOCIATIONS THROUGH STABLE UNITS FORMED WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF WORDS EXPRESSING COLOR

This research investigates the formation of color associations through stable units formed with the participation of words expressing color. Language plays a significant role in shaping our perception of colors, and the formation of stable units—linguistic constructs involving color words—provides a framework for understanding how these associations are established and maintained. Through a combination of linguistic analysis and experimental methods, this study explores how stable units influence color perception, categorization, and conceptualization. By uncovering the cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation of color associations through stable linguistic units, this research contributes to our understanding of the intricate interplay between language and cognition.

Lagged Effect of Parental Warmth on Child-to-Parent Violence through Moral Disengagement Strategies.

Empirical evidence supports the simultaneous relationship between parental warmth and child-to-parent violence (CPV). However, no studies analyze the lagged effects of perceived parental warmth and the potential impact of cognitive mechanisms legitimizing immoral behavior on this relationship. This study aimed to examine the mediating role of moral disengagement strategies (reconstruction of immoral behavior, obscuring personal responsibility, misrepresenting injurious consequences, and blaming the victim) in the relationship between the perceived paternal and maternal warmth dimensions (warmth-communication and criticism-rejection) during childhood and CPV towards the father and mother. The sample included 2122 Spanish adolescents (57.7% female) aged 13 to 18 years. The Child-to-Parent Violence Questionnaire (CPV-Q), the Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Scale (MMDS-S), and the Warmth Scale were used as assessment instruments. The results indicate that paternal and maternal warmth-communication is negatively associated with CPV, whereas paternal and maternal criticism-rejection and moral disengagement strategies are positively related to CPV. The mediation models show that the reconstruction of immoral behavior plays a crucial mediation role in the relationship between paternal and maternal warmth-communication and CPV as well as in the relationship between maternal criticism-rejection and CPV. The results emphasize the necessity of early prevention programs for parents promoting positive parenting practices, including parental warmth, to foster children's adaptive socio-cognitive development. In addition, addressing moral disengagement in adolescents could help prevent or stop a pattern of violent behavior toward parents.

The typical and atypical developing mind: a common model.

We present a theory of atypical development based on a developmental theory of the typical mind integrating developmental, cognitive, and psychometric theory and research. The paper comprises three parts. First, it outlines the theory of typical development. The theory postulates central cognitive mechanisms, such as relational integration, executive and inferential processes, and domain-specific processes underlying different environmental relations, such as visuospatial or quantitative relations. Cognitive development advances in cycles satisfying developmental priorities in mastering these systems, such as executive control from 2-6 years, inferential control from 7-11 years, and truth control from 12-18 years. Second, we discuss atypical development, showing how each neurodevelopmental disorder emerges from deficiencies in one or more of the processes comprising the architecture of the mind. Deficiencies in relational integration mechanisms, together with deficiencies in social understanding, yield autism spectrum disorder. Deficiencies in executive processes yield attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Deficiencies in symbolic representation yield specialized learning difficulties, such as dyslexia and dyscalculia. Finally, we discuss clinical and educational implications, suggesting the importance of early diagnosis of malfunctioning in each of these dimensions and specific programs for their remediation.

Americans’ attitudes toward British accents: the role of social categorisation, perceived group prototypicality, and processing fluency

ABSTRACT The present research examined whether American listeners express different attitudes toward different British accents (i.e. RP, Northern, Scottish, and Welsh) and, if so, which cognitive mechanisms underlie that attitudinal variation. Across two studies, we found that Americans’ attitudes toward British accents were differentiated. RP-accented speakers were consistently rated more favourably than speakers of regional British accents, with some regional accents (e.g. Northern) denigrated more than others (e.g. Scottish). This attitudinal variation was associated with variation in how speakers of different accents were categorised (Study 1), how prototypical of their respective groups they were perceived to be (Study 2), and how much difficulty listeners experienced processing their speech (Studies 1 and 2). These findings contribute to our understanding of language attitudes processes and have methodological implications for the elicitation of language attitudes using audio stimuli.

Fuser: An enhanced multimodal fusion framework with congruent reinforced perceptron for hateful memes detection

As a multimodal form of hate speech on social media, hateful memes are more aggressive and cryptic threats to the real life of humans. Automatic detection of hateful memes is crucial, but the images and texts in most memes are only weakly consistent or even irrelevant. Although existing works have achieved the initial goal of detecting hateful memes with pre-trained models, they are limited to monolithic inference methods while ignoring the semantic differences between multimodal representations. To strengthen the comprehension and reasoning of the hidden meaning behind the memes by combining real-world knowledge, we propose an enhanced multimodal fusion framework with congruent reinforced perceptron for hateful memes detection. Inspired by the human cognitive mechanism, we first divide the extracted multisource representations into main semantics and auxiliary contexts based on their strength and relevance, and then precode them into lightly correlated embeddings with unified spatial dimensions via a novel prefix uniform layer, respectively. To jointly learn the intrinsic correlation between primary and secondary semantics, a congruent reinforced perceptron with brain-like perceptual integration is designed to seamlessly fuse multimodal representations in a shared latent space while maintaining the feature integrity in the sub-fusion space, thereby implicitly reasoning about the subtle metaphors behind the memes. Extensive experiments on four benchmark datasets fully demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of our architecture compared with previous state-of-the-art methods.

Social environment-based opportunity costs dictate when people leave social interactions

There is an ever-increasing understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying how we process others’ behaviours during social interactions. However, little is known about how people decide when to leave an interaction. Are these decisions shaped by alternatives in the environment – the opportunity-costs of connecting to other people? Here, participants chose when to leave partners who treated them with varying degrees of fairness, and connect to others, in social environments with different opportunity-costs. Across four studies we find people leave partners more quickly when opportunity-costs are high, both the average fairness of people in the environment and the effort required to connect to another partner. People’s leaving times were accounted for by a fairness-adapted evidence accumulation model, and modulated by depression and loneliness scores. These findings demonstrate the computational processes underlying decisions to leave, and highlight atypical social time allocations as a marker of poor mental health.

A thin line between conflict and reaction time effects on EEG and fMRI brain signals

Abstract The last two decades of electrophysiological and neuroimaging research converged that the activity in the medial frontal cortex plays a pivotal role in cognitive control processes. Notably, the midfrontal theta (MFT) oscillatory EEG power as well as activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) or pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA) were consistently proclaimed as markers of conflict processing. However, these brain signals are strongly correlated with response time (RT) variability in various non-conflict tasks, which overshadows the true nature of their involvement. Our previous study (Beldzik et al., 2022) successfully identified these brain signals during a simultaneous EEG-fMRI experiment implementing Stroop and Simon tasks. Based on the assumption that overcoming the habitual prepotent response during high interference trials requires additional neural resources beyond simple decision variable represented in RTs, here we aim to verify if these markers exhibit a congruency effect beyond RT variations. Furthermore, we explored if these brain signals represent either proactive or reactive cognitive control mechanisms by investigating two widely known behavioral phenomena observed in conflict tasks: proportion congruency and congruency sequence effects. The results revealed partially null findings for MFT activity, yet a distinct cognitive control specialization between aMCC and preSMA. Our study provides novel evidence that the former is involved in proactive control mechanisms, possibly contingency learning, whereas the latter reflects reactive control mechanisms by exhibiting a strong congruency effect regardless of RT variation and responding to adaptive behavior.

The relationship between approximate number system and mathematical achievement in 5–6 years children: a parallel mediation analysis

ABSTRACT Studies have demonstrated a significant correlation between the approximate number system (ANS) and early mathematical achievement. However, various explanations exist regarding the underlying cognitive mechanisms that underpin this association. The present study investigated whether the two hypotheses of inhibition control and visual form perception could explain the relationship between kindergarteners’ ANS and mathematical achievements. In spring, data were collected from a sample of 180 kindergarteners (Mage = 5.77 years, SD = 0.59). A parallel mediation analysis was conducted to investigate the role of inhibition control and visual form perception in the link between ANS and math achievement. The results indicated an indirect effect of ANS on mathematical achievements through both inhibition control and visual form perception, with both mediators exhibiting a comparable magnitude. These findings highlight the significance of distinct cognitive abilities that can potentially enhance early mathematical advancement.

Intertextual satire in media discourse

Abstract The paper investigates intertextual satire in media discourse from the cognitive linguistic perspective. Within the frameworks of conceptual blending theory and the theory of precedent-related phenomena, we examine the cognitive processes of producing and understanding intertextual satire. By modelling conceptual integration networks, we aim to specify the cognitive mechanisms and operations involved in decoding intertextual satirical articles, drawing on examples from Private Eye magazine. The study demonstrates that the basic cognitive mechanism involved in creating intertextual satire is blending, and, in contrast to ironic utterances, which involve two contexts, in intertextual satire one and the same scenario unfolds in three contexts: real, fictional, and satirical. Thus, the blend that occurs as a result of combining real and fictional scenarios is verbalised and obvious to the recipient. The emergent structure, based on the blend, represents the intended (non-verbalised) meaning of intertextual satire, namely indirect criticism of the real situation under focus.

Divergent and Convergent Creativity Are Different Kinds of Foraging.

According to accounts of neural reuse and embodied cognition, higher-level cognitive abilities recycle evolutionarily ancient mechanisms for perception and action. Here, building on these accounts, we investigate whether creativity builds on our capacity to forage in space ("creativity as strategic foraging"). We report systematic connections between specific forms of creative thinking-divergent and convergent-and corresponding strategies for searching in space. U.S. American adults completed two tasks designed to measure creativity. Before each creativity trial, participants completed an unrelated search of a city map. Between subjects, we manipulated the search pattern, with some participants seeking multiple, dispersed spatial locations and others repeatedly converging on the same location. Participants who searched divergently in space were better at divergent thinking but worse at convergent thinking; this pattern reversed for participants who had converged repeatedly on a single location. These results demonstrate a targeted link between foraging and creativity, thus advancing our understanding of the origins and mechanisms of high-level cognition.

Cognitive and neural mechanisms of learning and interventions for improvement across the adult lifespan: A systematic review protocol.

There continues to be growing interest in the Science of Learning including identifying applications for findings from this work outside the laboratory to support learning. Presently, there exists a gap in our understanding of learning during healthy adulthood as well as effective ways in which that learning can be improved. Developing a more comprehensive understanding of learning during adulthood, and effective ways of improving that learning, are crucial goals given the impact of a rapidly aging global population. The main objective of the proposed systematic review is to identify and synthesize all recent cognitive and brain research investigating learning across the adult lifespan. Searches will be performed across Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest databases. Both published and unpublished literature will be screened for inclusion. Included articles will be limited to research in healthy adult samples reporting measures of learning-related cognition, brain structure or function and their relationship with age, or the impact of interventions to improve learning. All steps of the review will be performed by three trained reviewers. Tabular, narrative, and quantitative syntheses will be provided based on the characteristics of included studies. Findings from the proposed review will contribute to our understanding of learning in adulthood. Additionally, this review will identify research gaps in need of further investigation and relevant findings for translation, informing the scope of future funding priorities in the Science of Learning.

Framing the predictive mind: why we should think again about Dreyfus

AbstractIn this paper I return to Hubert Dreyfus’ old but influential critique of artificial intelligence, redirecting it towards contemporary predictive processing models of the mind (PP). I focus on Dreyfus’ arguments about the “frame problem” for artificial cognitive systems, and his contrasting account of embodied human skills and expertise. The frame problem presents as a prima facie problem for practical work in AI and robotics, but also for computational views of the mind in general, including for PP. Indeed, some of the issues it presents seem more acute for PP, insofar as it seeks to unify all cognition and intelligence, and aims to do so without admitting any cognitive processes or mechanisms outside of the scope of the theory. I contend, however, that there is an unresolved problem for PP concerning whether it can both explain all cognition and intelligent behavior as minimizing prediction error with just the core formal elements of the PP toolbox, and also adequately comprehend (or explain away) some of the apparent cognitive differences between biological and prediction-based artificial intelligence, notably in regard to establishing relevance and flexible context-switching, precisely the features of interest to Dreyfus’ work on embodied indexicality, habits/skills, and abductive inference. I address several influential philosophical versions of PP, including the work of Jakob Hohwy and Andy Clark, as well as more enactive-oriented interpretations of active inference coming from a broadly Fristonian perspective.

Memory capacity as the core mechanism of the development of space–time interferences in children

This study investigated the development of spatiotemporal perceptual interactions in 5-to-7 years old children. Participants reproduced the temporal and spatial interval between sequentially presented visual stimuli. The time and spacing between stimuli were experimentally manipulated. In addition, cognitive capacities were assessed using neuropsychological tests. Results revealed that starting at 5 years old, children exhibited spatial biases in their time estimations and temporal biases in their spatial estimations, pointing at space–time interference. In line with developmental improvement of temporal and spatial abilities, these spatiotemporal biases decreased with age. Importantly, short-term memory capacity was a predictor of space–time interference pointing to shared cognitive mechanisms between time and space processing. Our results support the symmetrical hypothesis that proposes a common neurocognitive mechanism for processing time and space.

Uncovering the origins of mental images about the concept of light: the difference between novice and expert mediation levels profile

This study investigates the mental imagery formed by two Physics undergraduates following their interaction with a mobile application analyzing emission and absorption light spectra. The tool, an instance of extracerebral cognitive processing, served to illuminate the internal cognitive mechanisms the students employed to understand novel knowledge. Guided by the Cognitive Networks Mediation Theory (CNMT), which underscores the significance of external tools in facilitating cognition, and drawing upon Bachelard's Epistemological Profile and Mortimer's Conceptual Profile, a novel 'Mediation Level' Profile is proposed. This profile represents the preferred type of mediation each student employed to elucidate their observations and understandings. The research utilized the Report Aloud Protocol to analyze students' verbal and gestural communications, revealing a complex pattern of various mental images developed through interaction with external objects via different levels of mediation. Notably, the psychophysical and hypercultural mediation levels stood out among the students. The implications of these findings for Physics education and future research directions are discussed, underscoring the utility of mobile applications as a supplementary tool in laboratory settings and the complexity of mental imagery in understanding physical phenomena.

Role of Intuition in Philosophical Inquiry

Purpose: This study sought to examine the role of intuition in philosophical inquiry. Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library. Findings: The findings reveal that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to the role of intuition in philosophical inquiry. Preliminary empirical review revealed that philosophers frequently relied on intuition as a heuristic tool for generating hypotheses and evaluating arguments. The study also highlighted significant cross-cultural variations in the conceptualization and utilization of intuition in philosophical reasoning. Moreover, neuroscientific methods revealed the neural mechanisms underlying intuitive processing during philosophical tasks. Overall, the study deepened our understanding of the complexities of philosophical inquiry and identified avenues for future research to enhance the quality and rigor of philosophical research. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Reflective Equilibrium theory, Foundationalism and Coherentism may be used to anchor future studies on the role of intuition in philosophical inquiry. The study made several recommendations, contributing to theory, practice, and policy. It suggested further exploration into the nature of intuition, including its cognitive mechanisms and neural correlates, and recommended integrating empirical methods into philosophical research. Additionally, the study emphasized the importance of cultivating metacognitive awareness among philosophers and promoting ethical guidelines for the responsible use of intuition in research and dissemination. It also advocated for the integration of diverse perspectives and voices in philosophical inquiry to foster inclusivity and enrich discourse. Overall, these recommendations aimed to advance theoretical understanding, inform practical interventions, and guide policy initiatives in the field of philosophical inquiry. Keywords: Intuition, Philosophical Inquiry, Metacognitive Awareness, Ethical Guidelines, Cognitive Mechanisms, Neural Correlates, Interdisciplinary, Diversity, Inclusivity, Discourse, Responsible, Advancement

Budgeting Behavior: Indonesian Local Government Budget Predictions

Objective: The behaviors of overreaction and underreaction exhibited by public sector budget planners have an impact on the disparity between the initial budget set at the beginning of a period and the actual budget realization at the end of the period. This study aims to examine how budget planners in Indonesia predict budgets for local governments, specifically whether there is a difference in the overreaction or underreaction behavior of public sector budget planners among districts and cities in the South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia. Theoretical Framework: This study aims to elucidate the cognitive mechanisms of representativeness bias and the anchoring-adjustment heuristic, which may impact the behavior of individual budget planners in determining budget amounts for future periods and their reliance on past information. Method: This research employs a quantitative approach with a causal and explanatory study design. In this study, the independent variable is the behavior of public sector budget builders, while the accuracy of their predictions for the future budget of the public sector constitutes the dependent variable. The quantitative approach was selected because it aligns with the research's objective of discerning potential misestimations in the behavior of budgeting teams when determining the budgetary allocations for the upcoming year in various patterns or conditions. The research's respondents are the budgeting teams from various districts and cities in the South Sulawesi Province. To test the research subjects, a heuristic of representativeness and anchoring-adjustment is followed when utilizing patterns of revenue realization from previous years (time series). Results and Discussion: This study found that the average Uncertainty in Budget Planner Predictions for Local Governments in each district and city in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, is consistent and does not exhibit significant differences. This research is highly significant as it can provide a valuable contribution to public sector budget planners in Indonesia when establishing budget amounts for the forthcoming period. Research Implications: This study seeks to contribute to advancing research in the realm of public sector budgeting in South Sulawesi, particularly by providing an overview of the occurrence of overreaction and underreaction behaviors among the planners of Local Own-Source Revenue (PAD) budgets in South Sulawesi Province. Originality/Value: The novelty of this study lies in the empirical validation of the utilization of the concepts of representativeness and anchoring-adjustment in the behavior of public sector budget planners when determining the budget amounts for the upcoming period.

Value-based decision-making in regular alcohol consumers following experimental manipulation of alcohol value

BackgroundDevaluation of alcohol leads to reductions in alcohol choice and consumption; however, the cognitive mechanisms that underpin this relationship are not well-understood. In this study we applied a computational model of value-based decision-making (VBDM) to decisions made about alcohol and alcohol-unrelated cues following experimental manipulation of alcohol value. Method: Using a pre-registered within-subject design, thirty-six regular alcohol consumers (≥14 UK units per week) completed a two-alternative forced choice task where they chose between two alcohol images (in one block) or two soft drink images (in a different block) after watching videos that emphasised the positive (alcohol value), and separately, the negative (alcohol devalue) consequences of alcohol. On each block, participants pressed a key to select the image depicting the drink they would rather consume. A drift–diffusion model (DDM) was fitted to reaction time and choice data to estimate evidence accumulation (EA) processes and response thresholds during the different blocks in each experimental condition. Findings: In the alcohol devalue condition, soft drink EA rates were significantly higher compared to alcohol EA rates (p = 0.04, d = 0.31), and compared to soft drink EA rates in the alcohol value condition (p = 0.01, d = 0.38). However, EA rates for alcoholic drinks and response thresholds (for either drink type) were unaffected by the experimental manipulation. Conclusions: In line with behavioural economic models of addiction that emphasise the important role of alternative reinforcement, experimentally manipulating alcohol value is associated with changes in the internal cognitive processes that precede soft drink choice.

Feature selection for multilabel classification with missing labels via multi-scale fusion fuzzy uncertainty measures

Numerous high-dimension multilabel data are generated, posing a challenge for multilabel learning. Building effective learning models with discriminative features is essential to improve the performance of multilabel learning. Multilabel feature selection can filter out the discriminative features according to their contribution to classification. However, ambiguity, uncertainty, and missing labels coexist in real-life multilabel data, which brings adverse effects to multilabel feature selection. The multi-scale fuzzy rough set gives an effective way to mine intrinsic knowledge hidden in uncertain data. This paper first extends the multi-scale learning to multilabel data with missing labels and proposes a feature selection method for multilabel classification with missing labels via multi-scale fusion fuzzy uncertainty measures called FSMML. The missing label space construction and feature evaluation metric are carefully investigated in the framework of multi-scale learning. A multilabel multi-scale learning strategy is formalized with the fuzzy granularity cognitive mechanism as the core, and the multi-scale fusion fuzzy label learning is given to reconstruct the missing label space. Then, a novel multilabel multi-scale fuzzy rough sets with missing labels is developed, and the significance of each scale is quantified. Moreover, some multi-scale fusion fuzzy uncertainty measures are defined by capturing the sample fuzzy similarity in the feature and reconstructed label spaces. Accordingly, the relevance between features and label set and the interactivity and redundancy between features in feature evaluation are discussed. Finally, FSMML chooses high-quality features to maximize relevance and interactivity and minimize redundancy. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of FSMML on fifteen datasets with missing labels.

Different smartphone tasks and traffic complexity affect pedestrian awareness of co-existing road objects and cerebral oxygenation during shared space walking

Distraction, primarily owing to the widespread use of cell phones and mobile devices while walking, is a contributing factor to pedestrian injuries. Pedestrians distracted by smartphones exhibit decreased situational awareness, influenced by the nature of concurrent tasks. However, little is known about the neural correlations between smartphone use and pedestrian responses to safety–critical events in a walking environment. This study recruited 30 young adults to investigate pedestrians’ ability to selectively respond to road objects while using smartphones (texting and reading) while walking in an immersive virtual environment system. The level of traffic complexity for the road conditions was manipulated by varying the number of safety–critical road objects coexisting in the environment at any given time and the number of required responses to the number of objects. During each 7-min task condition, cerebral oxygenation was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Furthermore, smartphone task performance, response times to road objects, and perceived workload were also measured. The participants exhibited reduced texting speed and reading performance when responding sequentially to coexisting road objects. Compared with other road conditions, those requiring two responses to four objects resulted in an increased workload and longer object response times. Participants perceived a higher workload in conditions involving tasks with smartphones than those without smartphones. More importantly, increased concentrations of oxygenated hemoglobin in the prefrontal cortex were observed when participants were concurrently performing smartphone and pedestrian tasks. Compared to smartphone reading, smartphone texting induced greater cerebral oxygenation in the bilateral frontopolar cortex. These results suggest that continuously texting while walking may demand additional cognitive resources for executive function. The findings of this study represent an initial step towards elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying attentional impairments experienced during smartphone distraction and working towards a viable solution to mitigate pedestrian risk.