汉字识别的时间进程：来自字谜任务的ERP证据

通过“学习-测试-判断”的三阶段实验范型, 采用事件相关电位（ERP）技术探讨了猜谜任务中对谜底答案（单个汉字）识别的脑内时程动态变化。结果发现：语义识别与字形识别下,汉字刺激均诱发了明显的N1、P2和N2成分,其中语义识别下的P2波幅表现为更加正性,可能与汉字语义的早期加工有关;随后,300-400ms内,语义识别比字形识别诱发了一个更加正性的ERP成分,该成分可能属于P300成分,反映了对汉字语义的进一步整合加工;最后,500-600ms内,语义识别比字形识别同样诱发了一个更加正性的ERP成分,可能反     

物体分类任务中线索效应的ERP研究

本实验采用ERP技术,对图片分类任务中的线索效应进行研究。实验任务为:图形形状判断、动物/非动物判断。靶刺激图片前呈现线索。线索分为有效线索、无效线索和中性线索。结果发现:(1)有效线索条件下对靶刺激的早期知觉再认得到易化——知觉加工成分波幅下降;(2)有效线索条件下,靶刺激中与任务相关的信息得到加工——任务相关的特异性成分增强。有效线索易化对靶刺激的知觉辨认,提取与线索提供背景相关的信息,促进行为反应。     

Neural underpinnings of the relationships between sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescents

There is little neurological evidence linking sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescence, which is characterised as an emotionally fluctuant period. The present study examined the relationship between sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescents. Electroencephalograms were recorded from 22 high sensation-seeking adolescents (HSSs, M_age = 12.36) and 24 low sensation-seeking adolescents (LSSs, M_age = 12.84) during the reactivity and regulation-image task. Group differences in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) associated with the regulation of negative and neutral stimuli were analysed. The results showed that (a) the P2 of HSSs were larger than LSSs during emotion regulation; (b) in down-regulation conditions, the LPP in all time windows were smaller than no-regulation in LSSs. However, there was no significant difference in HSSs; (c) the LPP 300–600 and LPP 1000–1500 of down-regulation were smaller in LSSs than HSSs; (d) for LPP 600–1000, HSSs induced larger LPP than LSSs in the negative down-regulation and negative no-regulation conditions. The results provide neurological evidence that higher sensation seeking is related to the high reactivity to emotional stimuli and poor cognitive control during the regulation of emotions.     

冲突适应独立于意识：来自行为和ERP的证据

尽管已有研究发现诸如抑制控制和任务转换等认知控制功能独立于意识, 但是对冲突适应是否需要意识的参与目前还存在激烈的争论。为了进一步探讨此问题, 本研究记录了18名被试在完成箭头偏对比掩蔽任务(meta-contrast masking task)时的行为和脑电数据。结果显示, 在有意识和无意识条件下在反应时和额中N2和中顶P3波幅上均表现出了显著的冲突适应效应。这不仅表明冲突控制独立于意识, 而且也表明先前无意识经验对人类信息加工系统的适应性调节作用。本研究对认识认知控制和意识的本质具有重要意义, 也为建构认知控制与意识关系的理论提供了启示。     

An ERP study of sensory mismatch expressions in Japanese

Combinations of different sensory words produce mismatch expressions like smooth color and red touch in contrast to normal expressions like red color and smooth touch. Concerning these sensory mismatch expressions, results of three experiments are reported. Experiment 1 revealed that (i) mismatch expressions were less comprehensible than normal expressions, and that (ii) there were two patterns among mismatch expressions: the high-comprehensible mismatch expression (HighCME, e.g., smooth color) and the low-comprehensible mismatch expression (LowCME, e.g., red touch). Experiment 2 revealed that the mismatch expressions produced a significantly greater N400 amplitude than the normal expressions. Experiment 3 implied that the difference between High/LowCME was reflected in a later latency band or in a topographical difference of N400, although the statistical significance was marginal. It is argued that the processes to integrate linguistic elements (e.g., combining adjectives and nouns) are not homogeneous.     

Alterations in error-related brain activity and post-error behavior over time

This study examines the relation between the error-related negativity (ERN) and post-error behavior over time in healthy young adults (N=61). Event-related brain potentials were collected during two sessions of an identical flanker task. Results indicated changes in ERN and post-error accuracy were related across task sessions, with more negative ERN associated with greater improvements in post-error accuracy. This relationship was independent of any cross-sectional relationships between overall task performance, individual difference factors, including personality and self-efficacy, and indices of self-regulatory action monitoring. These results indicate that the relation between ERN and post-error accuracy remains intact and consistent regardless of variation in this set of individual difference factors previously associated with both of these indices of self-regulatory action monitoring, providing support for the strength, robustness, and persistence of this relationship in the process of adaptively controlling behavior to enhance task performance.     

Mighty metaphors: behavioral and ERP evidence that power shifts attention on a vertical dimension

Thinking about the abstract concept power may automatically activate the spatial up-down image schema (powerful up; powerless down) and consequently direct spatial attention to the image schema-congruent location. Participants indicated whether a word represented a powerful or powerless person (e.g. ‘king’ or ‘servant’). Following each decision, they identified a target at the top or bottom of the visual field. In Experiment 1 participants identified the target faster when their spatial position was congruent with the perceived power of the preceding word than when it was incongruent. In Experiment 2 ERPs showed a higher N1 amplitude for congruent spatial positions. These results support the view that attention is driven to the image schema congruent location of a power word. Thus, power is partially understood in terms of vertical space, which demonstrates that abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor processing.     

条件推理中否定前件下信念偏差发生阶段的ERP研究

以日常生活中的条件推理语句为实验材料,采用大、小前提和结论依次呈现的“推断-判断”范式,利用事件相关电位(event-related brain potential, ERP)技术探讨了条件推理中否定前件下信念偏差效应的脑内时程动态变化。结果发现：在行为反应上,较信念促进,信念阻碍下的正确率更低反应时更长;在脑电上,两条件(信念阻碍和信念促进)诱发的ERP波形仅在大前提加工阶段出现明显的分离。这表明该推理下的信念偏差效应可能早在对大前提的语义表征阶段就已发生。     

Neural dynamics of animacy processing in language comprehension: ERP evidence from the interpretation of classifier-noun combinations

An event-related potential experiment was conducted to investigate the temporal neural dynamics of animacy processing in the interpretation of classifier-noun combinations. Participants read sentences that had a non-canonical structure, object noun + subject noun + verb + numeral-classifier + adjective. The object noun and its classifier were either (a) congruent, (b) incongruent, but matching in animacy, or (c) incongruent, mismatching in animacy. An N400 effect was observed for both incongruent conditions, but not for additional mismatch in animacy. When only data from participants who accepted the non-canonical structure were analyzed, the animacy mismatch elicited a P600 but still no N400. These findings suggest that animacy information is not used immediately for semantic integration of nouns and their classifiers, but is used in a later analysis reflected by P600. Thus, the temporal neural dynamics of animacy processing in sentence comprehension may be modulated by the relevance of animacy to thematic interpretation.     

Space and Time in the Child's Mind: Evidence for a Cross-Dimensional Asymmetry

What is the relationship between space and time in the human mind? Studies in adults show an asymmetric relationship between mental representations of these basic dimensions of experience: Representations of time depend on space more than representations of space depend on time. Here we investigated the relationship between space and time in the developing mind. Native Greek‐speaking children watched movies of two animals traveling along parallel paths for different distances or durations and judged the spatial and temporal aspects of these events (e.g., Which animal went for a longer distance, or a longer time?). Results showed a reliable cross‐dimensional asymmetry. For the same stimuli, spatial information influenced temporal judgments more than temporal information influenced spatial judgments. This pattern was robust to variations in the age of the participants and the type of linguistic framing used to elicit responses. This finding demonstrates a continuity between space‐time representations in children and adults, and informs theories of analog magnitude representation.     

Interplay between acoustic/phonetic and semantic processes during spoken sentence comprehension: an ERP study

When listening to speech in everyday-life situations, our cognitive system must often cope with signal instabilities such as sudden breaks, mispronunciations, interfering noises or reverberations potentially causing disruptions at the acoustic/phonetic interface and preventing efficient lexical access and semantic integration. The physiological mechanisms allowing listeners to react instantaneously to such fast and unexpected perturbations in order to maintain intelligibility of the delivered message are still partly unknown. The present electroencephalography (EEG) study aimed at investigating the cortical responses to real-time detection of a sudden acoustic/phonetic change occurring in connected speech and how these mechanisms interfere with semantic integration. Participants listened to sentences in which final words could contain signal reversals along the temporal dimension (time-reversed speech) of varying durations and could have either a low- or high-cloze probability within sentence context. Results revealed that early detection of the acoustic/phonetic change elicited a fronto-central negativity shortly after the onset of the manipulation that matched the spatio-temporal features of the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) recorded in the same participants during an oddball paradigm. Time reversal also affected late event-related potentials (ERPs) reflecting semantic expectancies (N400) differently when words were predictable or not from the sentence context. These findings are discussed in the context of brain signatures to transient acoustic/phonetic variations in speech. They contribute to a better understanding of natural speech comprehension as they show that acoustic/phonetic information and semantic knowledge strongly interact under adverse conditions.     

Individual differences in ERPs during mental rotation of characters: Lateralization,and performance level

The cognitive process of imaging an object turning around is called mental rotation. Many studies have been put forward analyzing mental rotation by means of event-related potentials (ERPs). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during mental rotation of characters in a sample (N = 82) with a sufficient size to obtain even small effects. A bilateral ERP amplitude modulation as a function of angular displacement was observed at parietal leads without any lateralization. Sex had no effect on mental rotation of characters, neither with respect to performance nor with respect to brain potentials. When the sample was split into groups of high- and low-performers, however, the results indicated (a) in line with the idea of neural efficiency substantially larger amplitudes for low-performers; (b) that the smaller amplitudes of the high-performers involved larger parietal networks; and (c) a left-parietal disengagement of neural activity for high-performers but a right-parietal disengagement for low-performers. The latter finding became evident through an analysis of internal consistencies of ERP amplitudes across conditions and performance levels, showing that internal consistencies were reduced at all three leads in the high-performance group for the biggest rotation angle, relative the other conditions and the low-performing group.     

Behavioural and ERP Effects of Cognitive and Combined Cognitive and Physical Training on Working Memory and Executive Function in Healthy Older Adults

Cognitive and physical training have been shown to be effective in improving older adults’ cognition. However, it is not yet clear whether combined cognitive and physical training offers an advantage compared to cognitive training alone. Twenty-two older adults performed cognitive or combined cognitive and physical training in order to compare their effects on working memory event-related potentials (ERPs) and on working memory and executive function performance. Before and after eight weeks of training, performance in Plus Minus, Flanker, Updated Span, and Complex Span tasks was measured, and ERPs were registered during performance of an n-back task (0-back, 2-back, and 3-back). Post-training behavioural improvement was observed in Updated Span, Complex Span, and n-back tasks. During the n-back task, the N2/P3 complex was modulated by training, with a decrease in N2 amplitude and an increase in P3 amplitude in the posttraining session compared to the pretraining session. These changes in ERP components suggest that both types of training potentially reduce the need for attentional control to perform the tasks correctly and increase working memory capacity. Thus, based on our data, no conclusion can be reached on the direct advantage of combined training, either at behavioural or at neural level. However, the present study might suggest an indirect advantage of such a combined training, because the cognitive benefit was found to be highly similar in both types of training. Using combined cognitive and physical training may produce a potential improvement in general fitness and an increased appeal of training.     

Context and Complexity in Incremental Sentence Interpretation: An ERP Study on Temporal Quantification

The present event-related potential (ERP) study used picture–sentence verification to investigate the neurolinguistic correlates of the online processing of compositional-semantic information. To this end, we examined context effects on sentences involving temporal adverbial quantification likeJana war jeden Morgen schwimmen an den Arbeitstagen (“Jana went for a swim every morning during the working week”). We tested whether the conceptual complexity associated with quantifying over time intervals leads to delayed predictions regarding the upcoming words in a sentence. The present study replicated previous results relating to quantification over individuals, which are conceptually less complex than time intervals. Analogous to previous studies, false vs. true sentences elicited an N400 whenever contextual cues did not permit a potential revision of a locally assigned truth value. The present results are compatible with an approach under which contextual cues are immediately considered for predicting how a sentence continues. The fact that the contextual complexity did not lead to processing delays indicates that the processing system quickly abstracts away from the conceptual complexity associated with the linguistic input if such an abstraction is possible.     

Early processing of emotional faces in children with autism: An event-related potential study

Social deficits are one of the most striking manifestations of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Among these social deficits, the recognition and understanding of emotional facial expressions has been widely reported to be affected in ASDs. We investigated emotional face processing in children with and without autism using event-related potentials (ERPs). High-functioning children with autism (n = 15, mean age = 10.5 ± 3.3 years) completed an implicit emotional task while visual ERPs were recorded. Two groups of typically developing children (chronological age-matched and verbal equivalent age-matched [both ns = 15, mean age = 7.7 ± 3.8 years]) also participated in this study. The early ERP responses to faces (P1 and N170) were delayed, and the P1 was smaller in children with autism than in typically developing children of the same chronological age, revealing that the first stages of emotional face processing are affected in autism. However, when matched by verbal equivalent age, only P1 amplitude remained affected in autism. Our results suggest that the emotional and facial processing difficulties in autism could start from atypicalities in visual perceptual processes involving rapid feedback to primary visual areas and subsequent holistic processing.     

Comparison of brain mechanisms underlying the processing of Chinese characters and pseudo-characters: an event-related potential study

Most Chinese characters are composed of a semantic radical on the left and a phonetic radical on the right. The semantic radical provides the semantic information; the phonetic radical provides information concerning the pronunciation of the whole character. The pseudo‐characters in the study consisted of different sub‐lexical parts of real Chinese characters and consequently they also had the semantic radical and the phonetic radical. But they were not readable and had no actual meaning. In order to investigate the spatiotemporal cortical activation patterns underlying the orthographic, phonological and semantic processing of Chinese characters, we used event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) to explore the processing of Chinese characters and pseudo‐characters when 14 healthy Chinese college students viewed the characters passively. Results showed that both Chinese characters and pseudo‐characters elicited an evident negative potential peaking around 120 ms (N120), which appeared to reflect initial orthographic distinction and evaluation. Then, Chinese pseudo‐characters elicited a more positive ERP deflection (P220) than did Chinese characters 200–250 ms after onset of the stimuli. It was similar to the recognition potential (RP) and might reflect the integration processes of phonological and semantic processing on the basis of early orthographic information. Dipole source analysis of the difference wave (pseudo‐characters minus characters) indicated that a generator localized in the left temporal‐occipital junction contributed to this effect, which was possibly related to phonological and perceptual–semantic information integration. Between 350–450 ms, a greater negativity (N360) in pseudo‐characters as compared to characters was found over midline fronto‐central scalp regions. Dipole analysis localized the generator of N360 in the right parahippocampal cortex. Therefore, the N360 might be an N400 component and reflect the higher‐level semantic activation on the basis of orthographic, phonological and perceptual–semantic processing.     

Cognitive control of language production in bilinguals involves a partly independent process within the domain-general cognitive control network: evidence from task-switching and electrical brain activity

In highly proficient, early bilinguals, behavioural studies of the cost of switching language or task suggest qualitative differences between language control and domain-general cognitive control. By contrast, several neuroimaging studies have shown an overlap of the brain areas involved in language control and domain-general cognitive control. The current study measured both behavioural responses and event-related potentials (ERPs) from bilinguals who performed picture naming in single- or mixed-language contexts, as well as an alphanumeric categorisation task in single- or mixed-task context. Analysis of switch costs during the mixed-context conditions showed qualitative differences between language control and domain-general cognitive control. A 2 × 2 ANOVA of the ERPs, with domain (linguistic, alphanumeric) and context (single, mixed) as within-participant factors, revealed a significant interaction, which also suggests a partly independent language-control mechanism. Source estimations revealed the neural basis of this mechanism to be in bilateral frontal-temporal areas.     

Diagnosis and repair of negative polarity constructions in the light of symbolic resonance analysis

In a post hoc analysis, we investigate differences in event-related potentials of two studies (Drenhaus et al., 2004, Drenhaus et al., to appear, Saddy et al., 2004a and Saddy et al., 2004b) by using the symbolic resonance analysis (Beim Graben & Kurths, 2003). The studies under discussion, examined the failure to license a negative polarity item (NPI) in German: Saddy et al. (2004a) reported an N400 component when the NPI was not accurately licensed by negation; Drenhaus et al., 2004 and Drenhaus et al., to appear considered additionally the influence of constituency of the licensor in NPI constructions. A biphasic N400-P600 response was found for the two induced violations (the lack of licensor and the inaccessibility of negation in a relative clause). The symbolic resonance analysis (SRA) revealed an effect in the P600 time window for the data in Saddy et al., which was not found by using the averaging technique. The SRA of the ERPs in Drenhaus et al., showed that the P600 components are distinguishable concerning the amplitude and latency. It was smaller and earlier in the condition where the licensor is inaccessible, compared to the condition without negation in the string. Our findings suggest that the failure in licensing NPIs is not exclusively related to semantic integration costs (N400). The elicited P600 components reflect differences in syntactic processing. Our results confirm and replicate the effects of the traditional voltage average analysis and show that the SRA is a useful tool to reveal and pull apart ERP differences which are not evident using the traditional voltage average analysis.     

Keeping the end in mind: Preliminary brain and behavioral evidence for broad attention to endpoints in pre-linguistic infants

Infants must learn to carve events at their joints to best understand who is doing what to whom or whether an object or agent has reached its intended goal. Recent behavioral research demonstrates that infants do not see the world as a movie devoid of meaning, but rather as a series of sub-events that include agents moving in different manners along paths from sources to goals. This research uses behavioral and electrophysiological methods to investigate infants’ (10–14 months) attention to disruptions within relatively unfamiliar human action that does not rely on goal-objects to signal attainment (i.e., Olympic figure skating). Infants’ visual (Study 1, N = 48) and neurophysiological (Study 2, N = 21) responses to pauses at starting points, endpoints, and within-action locations were recorded. Both measures revealed differential responses to pauses at endpoints relative to pauses elsewhere in the action (i.e., starting point; within-action). Eye-tracking data indicated that infants’ visual attention was greater for events containing pauses at endpoints relative to events with pauses at starting points or within-actions. ERP activity reflecting perceptual processes in early-latency windows (<200 ms) and memory updating processes in long-latency windows (700−1000 ms) showed differential activation to disruptions at the end of a figure-skating action compared to other locations. Mid-latency windows (250−750 ms), in contrast, showed enhanced activation at frontal regions across conditions, suggesting electrophysiological resources may have been recruited to encode disruptions within unfamiliar dynamic human action. Combined, results hint at broad sensitivity to endpoints as a mechanism that supports infants’ proclivity for carving continuous and complex event streams into meaningful units. Findings have potential implications for language development as these units are mapped onto budding linguistic representations. We discuss empirical and methodological contributions for action perception and address potential merits and pitfalls of applying behavioral techniques in conjunction with brain-based measures to study infant development.     

Missing piece of the puzzle in the science of consciousness: Resting state and endogenous correlates of consciousness

Consciousness still stands as one of the most interesting and the most elusive problems of neuroscience. Finding its correlates is the first step toward its satisfactory explanation. Several theories have proposed its correlates but none of them seem to be generally accepted even though most of them share some very similar elements. These elements are the activity of the thalamus, which is considered by some as the central region for consciousness, and gamma synchronization, which should be the general principal for the emergence of conscious experience. However, all of these proposed theories share one characteristic and that is that they do not take into consideration the recently discovered endogenous activity of the brain, which is generally associated with the default mode network. Although the activity of this large scale brain network is in correlation with various levels of consciousness it is still missing in discussions of consciousness. This review recognizes the importance of endogenous activity and points out the important discoveries of endogenous activity that could be an important step toward a satisfactory explanation of consciousness.