Cognitive Neuropsychology Research Articles

Whither Neuropsychiatry?

Whither Neuropsychiatry?

Neural Correlates of Memory for Items and for Associations: An Event-related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Although results from cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and behavioral neuroscience clearly suggest that item and associative information in memory rely on partly different brain regions, little is known concerning the differences and similarities that exist between these two types of information as a function of memory stage (i.e., encoding and retrieval). We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess neural correlates of item and associative encoding and retrieval of simple images in 18 healthy subjects. During encoding, subjects memorized items and pairs. During retrieval, subjects made item recognition judgments (old vs. new) and associative recognition judgments (intact vs. rearranged). Relative to baseline, item and associative trials activated bilateral medial temporal and prefrontal regions during both encoding and retrieval. Direct contrasts were then performed between item and associative trials for each memory stage. During en- coding, greater prefrontal, hippocampal, and parietal activation was observed for associations, but no significant activation was observed for items at the selected threshold. During recognition, greater activation was observed for associative trials in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and superior parietal lobules bilaterally, whereas item recognition trials showed greater activation of bilateral frontal regions, bilateral anterior medial temporal areas, and the right temporo-parietal junction. Post hoc analyses suggested that the anterior medial temporal activation observed during item recognition was driven mainly by new items, confirming a role for this structure in novelty detection. These results suggest that although some structures such as the medial temporal and prefrontal cortex play a general role in memory, the pattern of activation in these regions can be modulated by the type of information (items or associations) interacting with memory stages.

Book Review: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology (2nd Edition)

Extracted from text ... 156 Book reviews Title: Cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology (2nd edition) Editor: M. T. Banich Date: 2004 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 0618122109 (hardback, 636 pages) This book provides a worthwhile addition to current neuropsychology textbooks focusing on cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience. The text provides an 'introduction to the neural basis of mental function' (p.xiii) for students of cognitive neuropsychology at the third or fourth year (South African) levels. The strength of this book lies in the integration of research and approaches that, in the past, have been presented separately. Firstly, the book draws together the fields of neuroscience, neuropsychology and cognitive psychology and attempts to integrate ..

Distinctions between manipulation and function knowledge of objects: evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging

A prominent account of conceptual knowledge proposes that information is distributed over visual, tactile, auditory, motor and verbal-declarative attribute domains to the degree to which these features were activated when the knowledge was acquired [D.A. Allport, Distributed memory, modular subsystems and dysphagia, In: S.K. Newman, R. Epstein (Eds.), Current perspectives in dysphagia, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1985, pp. 32–60]. A corollary is that when drawing upon this knowledge (e.g., to answer questions), particular aspects of this distributed information is re-activated as a function of the requirements of the task at hand [L.J. Buxbaum, E.M. Saffran, Knowledge of object manipulation and object function: dissociations in apraxic and non-apraxic subjects. Brain and Language, 82 (2002) 179–199; L.J. Buxbaum, T. Veramonti, M.F. Schwartz, Function and manipulation tool knowledge in apraxia: knowing ‘what for’ but not ‘how’, Neurocase, 6 (2000) 83–97; W. Simmons, L. Barsalou, The similarity-in-topography principle: Reconciling theories of conceptual deficits, Cognitive Neuropsychology, 20 (2003) 451–486]. This account predicts that answering questions about object manipulation should activate brain regions previously identified as components of the distributed sensory-motor system involved in object use, whereas answering questions about object function (that is, the purpose that it serves) should activate regions identified as components of the systems supporting verbal-declarative features. These predictions were tested in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which 15 participants viewed picture or word pairs denoting manipulable objects and determined whether the objects are manipulated similarly (M condition) or serve the same function (F condition). Significantly greater and more extensive activations in the left inferior parietal lobe bordering the intraparietal sulcus were seen in the M condition with pictures and, to a lesser degree, words. These findings are consistent with the known role of this region in skilled object use [K.M. Heilman, L.J. Gonzalez Rothi, Apraxia, In: K.M. Heilman, E. Valenstein (Eds.), Clinical Neuropsychology, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993, pp. 141–150] as well as previous fMRI results [M. Kellenbach, M. Brett, K. Patterson, Actions speak louder than functions: the importance of manipulability and action in tool representation, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15 (2003) 30–46] and behavioral findings in brain-lesion patients [L.J. Buxbaum, E.M. Saffran, Knowledge of object manipulation and object function: dissociations in apraxic and non-apraxic subjects, Brain and Language, 82 (2002) 179–199]. No brain regions were significantly more activated in the F than M condition. These data suggest that brain regions specialized for sensory-motor function are a critical component of distributed representations of manipulable objects.

Acquired Disorders of Reading and Writing: Cross-Script Comparisons

Aphasiologists have accumulated a sophisticated understanding of the language impairments among English speakers. Research in the field of cognitive neuropsychology has improved our knowledge about how language becomes impaired in English speakers following brain damage by generating conceptual frameworks for understanding why language impairments occur. A large proportion of the research evidence that supports these models comes from studies of patients who have acquired problems in spoken and written naming (anomia), reading (dyslexia) and writing (dysgraphia). The ultimate aim of this research is to enhance the lives of patients with aphasia by improving diagnosis of language impairments and by development of innovative rehabilitation strategies. One outstanding issue in the field is how to exploit our advances in knowledge to other languages. Crosslinguistic studies are rare but from what we do know there can be remarkably similar patterns of language impairment following damage to specific brain regions i.e., Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas that are known to be necessary for language comprehension and production [39,42,43]. However, the early work of pioneers such as Martin Albert, Liz Bates and Loraine Obler has taught us that communication disorders must be investigated in the context of the unique linguistic properties that characterize a particular language [1]. The challenge to researchers in the field of behavioural neurology is to document how these unique linguistic properties impact on specific communication abilities. Such reports may contribute to a cognitive neuropsychological framework used to interpret patterns of aphasia within languages. In addition to improving the lives of patients, this endeavor has the potential to lead to discoveries about how the brain adapts to different language environments. For example, we now know that distinct brain areas are implicated in dyslexia in different orthographies such as Chinese and English [54]. Much of the progress in our understanding of communication disorders in English comes from cognitive neuropsychological studies of patients with selective disorders of reading, spelling and writing. For example, acquired surface dyslexia in English refers to a selective impairment to the reading aloud of irregularly spelled words particularly if the words are low in frequency and have an abstract meaning e.g., indict. This impairment is accompanied by a preserved ability to read regularly spelled words and nonwords e.g. zint. Surface dyslexic reading is characterised by regularisation errors when reading word components e.g. yacht is pronounced ‘ya/tch/ed’. Acquired surface dysgraphic patients misspell irregularly spelled words e.g. yacht→ YOT and make homophone confusions in writing e.g. write the word stake when asked to write the sentence “He had steak for dinner”. The opposite pattern of reading impairment is acquired phonological dyslexia, which refers to impaired reading of nonwords together with a preserved ability to read irregular and regular

El agramatismo y su sintomatología

We present a review the issue of agrammatism in order to examine its symptoms, the regularity with which they are observed, and the proposals suggested within the framework of Cognitive Neuropsychology to account for them. First, we focus on the debate regarding the status of agrammatism as an aphasic category with both theoretical and clinical validity, presenting two confronted views. On the one hand, the view that argues against the category of agrammatism due the variable performance of agrammatic patients in linguistic tasks. On the other hand, we present the view of those authors who defend, despite the variability, the notion of agrammatism as an aphasic syndrome. In the second section of the paper, we discussed the different symptoms that, on the basis of the available evidence, have been associated to agrammatism and the proposed explanations. We start by discussing the symptoms that agrammatic patients present in language production; in particular, we highlight the following: a) problems related to grammatical morphemes; b) a reduced sentence length; c) a noun-verb dissociation, with a better performance with nouns; d) difficulties in sentence construction, and finally, e) alteration in word order. Then, we discuss the symptoms that agrammatic patients have shown in language comprehension. In general, on the basis of the different agrammatic symptoms we have discussed, we favour the view of agrammatism as multicomponential syndrome rather than unitary one, with deficits in both morpholexical and syntactic language components.

From Single-Channel Recordings to Brain-Mapping Devices: The Impact of Electroencephalography on Experimental Psychology.

Since its discovery in 1920, the electroencephalogram (EEG) has become a widely used tool in experimental psychology. Although originally the merits of the method were seen first of all in an improvement of medical diagnostics it was soon understood by psychologists that EEG can also be used to study psychic processes in healthy participants. This article summarizes important events in the history of EEG research that laid the ground for this development, as fast Fourier transformation to analyze the spontaneous activity and signal averaging to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The article shows how general technological developments were the prerequisite for these methodological improvements in EEG research and how they inspired new research questions. Key discoveries that proved unequivocally that psychic processes do become manifest in EEG signals are briefly reviewed, and the emerging paradigm of cognitive psychophysiology, which is closely linked to the development of EEG research, is described.

Face processing in humans is compatible with a simple shape–based model of vision

Understanding how the human visual system recognizes objects is one of the key challenges in neuroscience. Inspired by a large body of physiological evidence, a general class of recognition models has emerged, which is based on a hierarchical organization of visual processing, with succeeding stages being sensitive to image features of increasing complexity. However, these models appear to be incompatible with some well-known psychophysical results. Prominent among these are experiments investigating recognition impairments caused by vertical inversion of images, especially those of faces. It has been reported that faces that differ 'featurally' are much easier to distinguish when inverted than those that differ 'configurally'; a finding that is difficult to reconcile with the physiological models. Here, we show that after controlling for subjects' expectations, there is no difference between 'featurally' and 'configurally' transformed faces in terms of inversion effect. This result reinforces the plausibility of simple hierarchical models of object representation and recognition in the cortex.

The Parallel Brain: The Cognitive Neuroscience of the Corpus Callosum. Based on an institute held in Il Ciocco, Italy, 1–10 September 1996. Issues in Clinical and Cognitive Neuropsychology. Edited by Eran Zaidel and , Marco Iacoboni. A Bradford Book. Cambridge (Massachusetts): MIT Press. $95.00. xv + 551 p + 15 pl; ill.; name and subject indexes. ISBN: 0–262–24044–0. 2003.

Previous articleNext article No AccessNeural SciencesThe Parallel Brain: The Cognitive Neuroscience of the Corpus Callosum. Based on an institute held in Il Ciocco, Italy, 1–10 September 1996. Issues in Clinical and Cognitive Neuropsychology. Edited by Eran Zaidel and , Marco Iacoboni. A Bradford Book. Cambridge (Massachusetts): MIT Press. $95.00. xv + 551 p + 15 pl; ill.; name and subject indexes. ISBN: 0–262–24044–0. 2003.Joseph E BogenJoseph E BogenBiology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California Search for more articles by this author Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CaliforniaPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 79, Number 4December 2004 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/428249 Views: 11Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

¿Neurociencia Cognitiva o Cognición Incorporada? <BR>Cognitive Neuroscience or Embodied Cognition?

Three themes in Carles Escera article deserve particular discussion: the way the author uses the term paradigm, and the relation he establishes, on one side between cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology, and between cognitive neuroscience and psychobiology on the other side. In the context of this discussion, an effort is made to clarify the conceptual relationship between cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, as well as the relation between cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology and psychobiology as scientific disciplines.

Comment la psychologie expérimentale française est-elle devenue cognitive ?

How French Experimental Psychology Became Cognitive The French cognitive psychology derives from naturalistic branch of psychology, which defines itself at the end of XIXth century as physiological psychology and during the XXth century as experimental psychology. A brief historical reminder of institutionalization of psychology in France, of its different theoretical orientations and of the reattachment of the scientific psychology to the CNRS‘s life sciences department is followed by an evaluation of the french experimental psychology before the growth of the cognitive sciences. It emerges that in France, where, unlike the United States, behaviourism has never been hegemonic, we cannot describe cognitive revolution, since « gestaltist » and « piagetic » trends, often quoted as cognitivist before the concept had been invented, were well represented. However, if we refer to a definition of cognitive psychology that allows notions as information processing and storage to intervene in France, it is mainly at the end of 1960’s that this psychology is born alongside the development of Chomsky’s psycholinguistics. Actually, on the one hand, the generative grammar gives a formal description of mental abilities, that psychologists will try to validate, and on the other hand, psycholinguistics constitutes a first model of the cooperation between two disciplines that will be afterwards concerned in the cognitive sciences structuring. In 1975, a seminar about the question of relations between cognitive and biological structures brought together, around Piaget and Chomsky, specialists coming from various disciplinary fields. This seminar, that was memorable, prefigures the interdisciplinary collaboration that is pointed up by cognitive sciences. It is only in the early 1980’s that laboratory psychology moved up from cognitive processes study to definition of a cognitive psychology field ; this one was based on the problematics of information processing and on cooperation with other disciplines within the cognitive research association. Afterwards, as in cognitive sciences, will the opposition spread out the cognitive psychology between computational approach supporters and those who back up an approach based on working of brain. Since early 1990’s, because of functional cerebral imaging progress, a certain number of experimental psychology or cognitive psychology laboratories endeavor to develop cognitive neuropsychology. So they renew with the beginning of french psychology traditions, that indissolubly ties up psychology and nervous physiology.

Dépistage des troubles du langage oral chez l’enfant et leur classification

Early identification of disorders of oral and written language development is essential for effective action before the vicious circle of educational failure and psycho-social consequences becomes established. Although there are still few diagnostic tools and they have not been fully evaluated, considerable effort has been made in recent years to develop instruments for detection as well as creating batteries for precise diagnostic evaluation. Language disorders may be related to another primitive disability (such as mental deficiency or deafness…). The classification of language disorders between two groups: secondary or specific, is essential for treatment. There has been growing awareness among health and education professionals that the means of recognizing, treating and teaching children with specific oral language disorders are inadequate, particularly as developments in cognitive neuropsychology have provided new approaches and treatments for such language disorders.

The expert Neandertal mind

Cognitive neuropsychology, cognitive anthropology, and cognitive archaeology are combined to yield a picture of Neandertal cognition in which expert performance via long-term working memory is the centerpiece of problem solving. This component of Neandertal cognition appears to have been modern in scope. However, Neandertals' working memory capacity, which is the ability to hold a variety of information in active attention, may not have been as large as that of modern humans. This characteristic helps us understand features of the archaeological record, such as the rarity of innovation, and allows us to make empirically based speculations about Neandertal personality.

Singing in the Brain: Insights from Cognitive Neuropsychology

Singing abilities are rarely examined despite the fact that their study represents one of the richest sources of information regarding how music is processed in the brain. In particular, the analysis of singing performance in brain-damaged patients provides key information regarding the autonomy of music processing relative to language processing. Here, we review the relevant literature, mostly on the perception and memory of text and tunes in songs, and we illustrate how lyrics can be distinguished from melody in singing, in the case of brain damage. We report a new case, G.D., who has a severe speech disorder,marked by phonemic errors and stuttering, without a concomitant musical production disorder. G.D. was found to produce as few intelligible words in speaking as in singing familiar songs. Singing “la, la, la” was intact and hence could not account for the speech deficit observed in singing. The results indicate that verbal production, be it sung or spoken, is mediated by the same (impaired) language output system and that this speech route is distinct from the (spared) melodic route. In sum, we provide here further evidence that the autonomy of music and language processing extends to production tasks.

Does Harley Have a Point? Comments on Harley's‘Does Cognitive Neuropsychology have a Future?’

(2004). Does Harley Have a Point? Comments on Harley's ‘Does Cognitive Neuropsychology have a Future?’. Cognitive Neuropsychology: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 37-39.

Brain Imaging, Connectionism, and Cognitive Neuropsychology

(2004). Brain Imaging, Connectionism, and Cognitive Neuropsychology. Cognitive Neuropsychology: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 21-25.

Promises, Promises

In the target article I argued that cognitive neuropsychologists have increasingly deviated from the original goals and methods of the subject. In this reply to the commentators, I argue that future progress using neuropsychological approaches to understanding behaviour is most likely to be made by the use of converging sources of evidence that are garnered by an interdisciplinary methodology. Neuroimaging data may have a role to play in such an enterprise, but are unlikely to be prominent in cognitive psychological theorisation in isolation.

Does Cognitive Neuropsychology have a future?

Reflections stimulated by Rapp, B. (Ed.) (2001). ‘The handbook of cognitive neuropsychology: What deficits reveal about the human mind’. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

Reconnecting Cognitive Neuropsychology: Commentary on Harley's‘Does Cognitive Neuropsychology have a Future?’

Reconnecting Cognitive Neuropsychology: Commentary on Harley's‘Does Cognitive Neuropsychology have a Future?’

Cognitive Neuropsychology: A Road Map to Understanding Brain–Behavior Relationships

Cognitive Neuropsychology: A Road Map to Understanding Brain–Behavior Relationships