The number of databases that provide various measurements of lexical properties for psycholinguistic research has increased rapidly in recent years. The proliferation of lexical variables, and the ...multitude of associated databases, makes the choice, comparison, and standardization of these variables in psycholinguistic research increasingly difficult. Here, we introduce The South Carolina Psycholinguistic Metabase (SCOPE), which is a metabase (or a meta-database) containing an extensive, curated collection of psycholinguistic variable values from major databases. The metabase currently contains 245 lexical variables, organized into seven major categories: General (e.g., frequency), Orthographic (e.g., bigram frequency), Phonological (e.g., phonological uniqueness point), Orth-Phon (e.g., consistency), Semantic (e.g., concreteness), Morphological (e.g., number of morphemes), and Response variables (e.g., lexical decision latency). We hope that SCOPE will become a valuable resource for researchers in psycholinguistics and affiliated disciplines such as cognitive neuroscience of language, computational linguistics, and communication disorders. The availability and ease of use of the metabase with comprehensive set of variables can facilitate the understanding of the unique contribution of each of the variables to word processing, and that of interactions between variables, as well as new insights and development of improved models and theories of word processing. It can also help standardize practice in psycholinguistics. We demonstrate use of the metabase by measuring relationships between variables in multiple ways and testing their individual contribution towards a number of dependent measures, in the most comprehensive analysis of this kind to date. The metabase is freely available at go.sc.edu/scope.
The N170 ERP component has been widely identified as a face‐sensitive neural marker. Despite extensive investigations conducted to examine the neural sources of N170, there are two issues in prior ...literature: (a) few studies used individualized anatomy as head model for the cortical source analysis of the N170, and (b) the relationship between the N170 and face‐selective regions from fMRI studies is unclear. Here, we addressed these questions by presenting pictures of faces and houses to the same group of healthy adults and recording structural MRI, fMRI, and high‐density ERPs in separate sessions. Source analysis based on the participant's anatomy showed that the middle and posterior fusiform gyri were the primary neural sources for the face‐sensitive aspects of the N170. Source analysis based on regions of interest from the fMRI revealed that the fMRI‐defined fusiform face area was the major contributor to the N170. The current study suggests that the fusiform gyrus is a major neural contributor to the N170 ERP component and provides further insights about the spatiotemporal characteristics of face processing.
The N170 is a face‐sensitive ERP component. We recorded structural MRI, fMRI, and high‐density ERPs to presentations of pictures of faces and houses. We used individualized head models to localize the source of the N170 and explored the relationship between the N170 and face‐selective regions from participants’ fMRI data. The middle and posterior fusiform gyri as well as the fMRI‐defined fusiform face area were the neural sources of the N170 for faces. The current study confirms the cortical source of the N170 ERP component and suggests the timing sequence of the fusiform face area found in fMRI studies.
We do not memorize items in our surroundings with equal priority. Previous literature has widely shown that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral stimuli. However, given emotional ...stimuli and neutral stimuli often differ in both valence and arousal dimensions, it remains unclear whether the enhancement effects can be attributed to valence, or just to arousal. Importantly, most prior studies relied on a relatively small number of stimuli and non-emotional factors such as word length, imageability and other confounds were hard to control. To address these challenges, we analyzed multiple large databases of recognition memory and free recall tasks from previous research by items with many lexical and semantic covariates included, examining the effects of valence or arousal when controlling for each other. Our results showed a U-shaped relationship between valence and memory performance for both recognition and free recall, and a linear relationship between arousal and memory performance for both tasks. These findings showed that the memory enhancement effects can be attributed to both valence and arousal. We demonstrated these effects with generalizability across many stimuli and controlled for non-emotional factors. Together, these findings disentangle the contribution of valence and arousal in emotional memory enhancement effects and provide insights for current major theories of emotional memory.
•Emotional memory enhancement can be attributed to both valence and arousal.•Valence influenced memory quadratically.•Arousal influenced memory linearly.•These effects are generalizable across stimuli and not caused by non-emotional factors.
Creative thought relies on the reorganization of existing knowledge to generate novel and useful concepts. However, how these new concepts are formed, especially through the processing of novelty and ...usefulness (which are usually regarded as the key properties of creativity), is not clear. Taking familiar and useful (FU) objects/designs as the starting point or fundamental baseline, we modified them into novel and useless (NS) objects/designs or novel and useful (NU) ones (i.e., truly creative ones) to investigate how the features of novelty and usefulness are processed (processing of novelty: NU minus FU; processing of usefulness: NU minus NS). Specifically, we predicted that the creative integration of novelty and usefulness entails not only the formation of new associations, which could be critically mediated by the hippocampus and adjacent medial temporal lobe (MTL) areas, but also the formation of new concepts or categories, which is supported by the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). We found that both the MTL and the MTG were involved in the processing of novelty and usefulness. The MTG showed distinctive patterns of information processing, reflected by strengthened functional connectivity with the hippocampus to construct new concepts and strengthened functional connectivity with the executive control system to break the boundaries of old concepts. Additionally, participants’ subjective evaluations of concept distance showed that the distance between the familiar concept (FU) and the successfully constructed concept (NU) was larger than that between the FU and the unsuccessfully constructed concept (NS), and this pattern was found to correspond to the patterns of their neural representations in the MTG. These findings demonstrate the critical mechanism by which new associations and concepts are formed during novelty and usefulness processing in creative design; this mechanism may be critically mediated by the hippocampus-MTG connection.
•The neural correlates of novelty and usefulness in creative designs are dissociable.•The middle temporal gyrus and the medial temporal lobe were related to both features.•The medial temporal lobe was related to new association formation in creativity.•Distinct pathways to the middle temporal gyrus identify usefulness in novel designs.•The middle temporal gyrus implicated the formation of the new concepts in creativity.
Our brains can integrate emotional signals from visual and auditory modalities, which is important for our daily social interactions and survival. Although behavioral effects of facilitation or ...interference of visual and auditory affective signals have been widely demonstrated, the underlying neural substrates remain unclear. We identified brain activation related to audiovisual affective processing at a whole-brain level in healthy adults with a quantitative coordinate-based meta-analysis, combining data from 306 participants across 18 neuroimaging studies. The meta-analysis identified a core audiovisual affective processing network including the right posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG/STS), left anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG/STS), right amygdala, and thalamus. These results support the involvement of STG/STS but not sensory-specific brain regions in audiovisual affective processing, consistent with the supramodal hypothesis. To further characterize these identified regions with regard to their connectivity and function, we conducted meta-analytic connectivity modeling and automated meta-analyses. Across both analyses, results showed co-activation profiles of the identified brain regions and their associations with emotion and audiovisual processes. These findings revealed the brain basis of audiovisual affective processing and can help guide future research in further examining its neural correlates.
Background
Previous studies have investigated the time course of visual object processing using event‐related potential (ERP) and the masked repetition priming paradigm. However, it is unclear how ...the ERP correlates associated with masked repetition priming differentiate from masked conceptual priming of visual objects.
Method
The present study used semantically related picture pairs of visual objects to compare the ERPs associated with masked repetition and conceptual priming of visual objects.
Results
The results revealed that masked repetition priming was associated with N/P190 and N400 effects, whereas masked conceptual priming was only associated with N400 effect. Moreover, the topography of repetition N/P190 effect was different from repetition and conceptual N400 effects, whereas the topography of repetition N400 effect was similar to conceptual N400 effect.
Conclusions
These results indicated that masked repetition and conceptual priming were associated with spatiotemporally different ERP effects and that the N400 of visual objects was sensitive to automatic semantic spreading.
We compared the event‐related potentials associated with masked repetition and conceptual priming for visual objects. The results revealed that masked repetition priming of visual objects was associated with N/P190 and N400 effects. Masked conceptual priming of visual objects was associated with N400 effect. N/P190 reflects perceptual processing, and N400 reflects semantic processing.
Recent research has provided formulae for estimating the maximum likelihood (ML) RMSEA when mean or mean and variance, corrections for non-normality are applied to the likelihood ratio test ...statistic. We investigate by simulation which choice of corrections provides most accurate point RMSEA estimates, confidence intervals, and p-values for a test of close fit under normality, and in the presence of non-normality. We found that, overall, any robust corrections (choices MLM, MLMV, and MLR) provide better results than ML, which assumes normality. When they err, all choices tend to suggest that the model fits more poorly than it really does. Choice MLMV (mean and variance corrections) provided the most accurate RMSEA estimates and p-values for tests of close fit results but its performance decreases as the number of variables being modeled increases.
Hypervigilance and attentional bias to threat faces with low‐spatial‐frequency (LSF) information have been found in individuals with social anxiety. The vigilance–avoidance hypothesis posits that ...socially anxious individuals exhibit initial vigilance and later avoidance to threatening cues. However, the temporal dynamics of these two processes in response to various LSF threats in social anxiety remain unclear. In the current study, we presented faces containing anger, disgust, and fear in high and low spatial frequencies and compared the neural correlates with sensory perception and attention in individuals with high versus low social anxiety (HSA/LSA, n = 24). A visual search task was used to investigate the attentional effects of threats and spatial frequencies, and event‐related potentials, particularly, the visual components of P1 and P250, were measured to index visual perceptual and attentional processes, respectively. We found that HSA individuals showed pronounced P1 and reduced P250 to LSF (vs. HSF) faces, regardless of emotion type, suggesting a general pattern of initial vigilance and later avoidance to LSF faces in social anxiety. Furthermore, while LSA individuals showed enhanced P250 to both fear and disgust (vs. neutral) faces, HSA individuals showed pronounced P250 to disgust faces alone. Our results, thus, elucidate the temporal profile of early vigilance and later avoidance in social anxiety, highlighting its broad implication for all faces and predominance in the low spatial frequency. Considering individual threats, our results demonstrate specific attentional avoidance of fear faces in social anxiety.
Although some behavioral research has suggested socially anxious individuals have an attentional bias towards low‐spatial‐frequency (LSF) faces, the current study revealed the temporal dynamic of initial hypervigilance and later avoidance toward LSF faces using P1 and P250. Considering individual threats, our results demonstrate specific attentional avoidance of fear faces in social anxiety.
Retrieval can not only assess what was learned in a prior episode but also strengthen memory retention. Episodic context account posited that the act of thinking back to an original study episode ...(i.e. being in a retrieval mode) is the mechanism of retrieval practice effect. However, whether the retrieval practice effect could be influenced by emotional arousal is still unclear. We aim to investigate the role of retrieval mode and emotional arousal on retrieval practice effect by using event-related potentials. Using negative and neutral items, participants were asked to either restudy or perform a source memory test, and then a final source memory test was conducted. The behavioral results revealed that memory of neutral and negative items similarly benefited from the retrieval practice condition. Consistently, event-related potential results revealed that retrieval mode effect was found for both the neutral and negative items. These findings suggested that emotion arousal might not influence testing effect when source memory test was applied for the retrieval practice condition, and retrieval mode plays an important role in these effects.
•Perceptual and conceptual fluency were manipulated independently in one experiment.•Perceptual and conceptual fluency had different effects on recognition memory.•The effect of these two types of ...fluency were captured by distinct ERP correlates.•Conceptual fluency could decrease the latency of LPC.
Recognition memory can be driven by both perceptual and conceptual fluency, but when and to what extent they contribute to recognition memory remains an open question. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neural correlates of perceptual and conceptual fluency, when they gave rise to recognition. We manipulated the perceptual and conceptual fluency of retrieval cues in the recognition test independently to obtain the effects of different types of fluency. Behavioral results showed that perceptual fluency selectively affected K hits, while conceptual fluency affected R hits and K false alarms. In addition, conceptual fluency facilitated the response times of R hits. The ERP results showed that perceptual fluency effect appeared at 100–200 ms and conceptual fluency effect appeared at 300–500 ms. The parietal LPC peaked earlier for conceptually primed trials compared to unprimed trials. These results suggest that perceptual and conceptual fluency had different effects on recognition judgments, and these two types of fluency can be delineated by distinct ERP correlates. The current finding indicates that unconscious memory processes can support recognition and have provided insights into the underlying mechanism involved in recognition memory.
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