ABSTRACT This commentary highlights three common difficulties faced by the literature that aims to specify models of speech production based on the performance of aphasic speakers, taking as a springboard a recent study by Mailend et al. These include: (1) difficulties with theoretical assumptions which linki psycholinguistic effects unequivocally to one processing level; (2) difficulties using clinical

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to reposition synaesthesia as model system for understanding variation in the construction of the human mind and brain. People with synaesthesia inhabit a remarkable mental world in which numbers can be coloured, words can have tastes, and music is a visual spectacle. Key questions remain unanswered about why it exists, and how the study of synaesthesia might inform

ABSTRACT Executive control is recruited for language processing, particularly in complex linguistic tasks. Although the issue of the existence of an executive control specific to language is still an open issue, there is much evidence that executively-demanding language tasks rely on domain-general rather than language-specific executive resources. Here, we addressed this issue by assessing verbal

ABSTRACT This study investigated the nature of graphemic buffer functioning and impairment, through analysis of the spelling impairment shown by GEC, a man with acquired dysgraphia and clear characteristics of graphemic buffer impairment. We discuss GEC’s error patterns in relation to different processes of orthographic working memory. This is the first study to show the contribution of these processes

ABSTRACT The deficit in “interference control” found in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) could be due to two distinct processes, which are not disentangled in most studies: a larger susceptibility to activating prepotent response impulses and a deficit in suppressing them. Here, we investigated the effect of 1/ADHD and 2/ methylphenidate (MPH), on these two components of

ABSTRACT Interpreting others’ beliefs, desires and intentions is known as “theory of mind” (ToM), and is often evaluated using simplified measurement tools, which may not correctly reflect the brain circuits that are required for real-life ToM functioning. We aimed to identify the brain structures necessary to correctly infer intentions from realistic scenarios by administering The Awareness of Social

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a syndrome characterized by lifelong impairment in face recognition in the absence of brain damage. A key question regarding DP concerns which process(es) might be affected to selectively/disproportionally impair face recognition. We present evidence from a group of DPs, combining an overview of previous results with additional analyses important for understanding

We investigated the representation and breakdown of verb knowledge employing different syntactic and semantic classes of verbs in a group of individuals with probable Alzheimer's Disease (pAD). In an action naming task with coloured photographs (Fiez & Tranel, 1997. Standardized stimuli and procedures for investigating the retrieval of lexical and conceptual knowledge for action. Memory and Cognition

This study investigated the underlying nature of apraxia of speech (AOS) by testing two competing hypotheses. The Reduced Buffer Capacity Hypothesis argues that people with AOS can plan speech only one syllable at a time Rogers and Storkel [1999. Planning speech one syllable at a time: The reduced buffer capacity hypothesis in apraxia of speech. Aphasiology, 13(9-11), 793-805. https://doi.org/10.1

Developmental dyslexia is primarily a reading disorder, but recent studies have indicated that face processing problems may also be present. Using a case-series approach, we tested face recognition and visual word recognition in 24 high school students diagnosed with developmental dyslexia. Contrary to previous findings, no face recognition problems were found on the group-level. Rather, a significant

Connectionist simulation models and processing tree mathematical models of picture naming have complementary advantages and disadvantages. These model types were compared in terms of their predictions of independent language measures and their associations between model components and measures that should be related according to their theoretical interpretations. The models were tasked with predicting

People with aphasia demonstrate impaired production of bound inflectional morphemes, such as noun plurals and possession. They often show greater difficulty in marking possession versus plurality. Using a new tool for eliciting language, the Morphosyntactic Generation test, we assessed people with primary progressive aphasia and those in the acute and chronic phase following left hemisphere stroke

ABSTRACT Wybrow & Hanley (2015) reported that proportions of phonological and surface dyslexics change depending on how control groups are selected. This observation questions the appropriateness of the reading-level match design for establishing causality in cognitive studies of reading. Here, I focus on three features: (1) the lack of an explicit definition of the reading-level concept; (2) the metric

ABSTRACT Synaesthesia, a mixing of the senses, is more common in individuals with autism. Here, we review the evidence for the association between synaesthesia and autism with regard to their genetic background, brain connectivity, perception, cognitive mechanisms and their contribution to exceptional talents. Currently, the overlap between synaesthesia and autism is established most convincingly at

ABSTRACT The role that language plays in shaping non-linguistic cognitive and perceptual systems has been the subject of much theoretical and experimental attention over the past half-century. Understanding how language interacts with non-linguistic systems can provide insight into broader constraints on cognitive and brain organization. The papers that form this volume investigate various ways in

Franzon, Zanini and Rugani offer a useful clarification of their viewpoint expressed in earlier work. (Franzon et al., 2020; Franson et al. 2019) Their account might be encapsulated as follows: A) ...

In a recent article, Everett (2019) proposed a culture-centered account of the distribution of the observed values for an almost universal grammatical feature, morphological Number (Haspelmath, 201...

Single unit neurophysiological and anatomical studies have provided us with a fundamental understanding of the circuit-based mechanisms by which vestibular information is processed to ensure accura...

Vestibular cognition is a newly emerging field with exciting and unexpected implications for our understanding of how the brain works and our ability to provide therapies when neural processes are ...

(2020). In medio stat virtus: Integrating two functional models of vestibular cognition. Cognitive Neuropsychology: Vol. 37, No. 7-8, pp. 427-429.

Ferre and Haggard (this issue) provide a conceptual framework for understanding vestibular cognition, and articulate a clear research programme to substantially advance this field. Vestibular cogni...

ABSTRACT Although semantic system is composed of two distinctive processes (i.e., semantic knowledge and semantic control), it remains unknown in which way these two processes dissociate from each other. Investigating the white matter neuroanatomy underlying these processes helps improve understanding of this question. To address this issue, we recruited brain-damaged patients with semantic dementia

ABSTRACT This study investigates coherence of discourse in the production of autobiographical narratives by individuals with aMCI. Autobiographical interviews were analyzed to determine whether reduced episodic recall was related to deficits in discourse coherence. A coherence rating scale was used to evaluate relatedness of the autobiographical details produced by participants to the topic of discourse

ABSTRACT Face-selective cortical areas that can be divided into a ventral stream and a dorsal stream. Previous findings indicate selective attention to particular aspects of faces have different effects on the two streams. To better understand the organization of the face network and whether deficits in attentional modulation contribute to developmental prosopagnosia (DP), we assessed the effect of

This study investigates coherence of discourse in the production of autobiographical narratives by individuals with aMCI. Autobiographical interviews were analyzed to determine whether reduced episodic recall was related to deficits in discourse coherence. A coherence rating scale was used to evaluate relatedness of the autobiographical details produced by participants to the topic of discourse. Interviews

Face-selective cortical areas that can be divided into a ventral stream and a dorsal stream. Previous findings indicate selective attention to particular aspects of faces have different effects on the two streams. To better understand the organization of the face network and whether deficits in attentional modulation contribute to developmental prosopagnosia (DP), we assessed the effect of selective

ABSTRACT Modern approaches to the Whorfian linguistic relativity question have reframed it from one of whether language shapes our thinking or not, to one that tries to understand the factors that contribute to the extent and nature of any observable influence of language on perception. The current paper demonstrates that such understanding is significantly enhanced by moving the evidentiary basis

ABSTRACT This study employed a multi-dimensional (i.e., orthographic, phonological, and semantic) and bi-level (i.e., character and radical) approach to analyze the character writing of 120 Hong Kong Chinese children with developmental dyslexia in Grades 2–5 and 120 typically developing age-matched controls. Relative to their typically developing peers, children with dyslexia were less sensitive to

ABSTRACT This article describes some aspects of the underlying logic of the attention schema theory (AST) of subjective consciousness. It is a theory that distinguishes between what the brain actually, physically has, what is represented by information models constructed in the brain, what higher cognition thinks based on access to those models and what speech machinery claims based on the information

How we consciously perceive the external world has troubled humans since the beginning of the scientific inquiry. Pre-Socratic philosophers attempted to explain visual perception through two opposi...

ABSTRACT Vestibular information has been traditionally considered as a specialized input for basic orienting behaviours, such as oculo-motor adjustments, postural control and gaze orientation. However, in the past two decades a widespread vestibular network in the human brain has been identified, that goes far beyond the low-level reflex circuits emphasized by earlier work. Because this vestibular

ABSTRACT According to the original “hub-and-spoke” model of conceptual representations, the neural network for semantic memory requires a single convergence zone located in the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs). However, a more recent version of this model acknowledges that a graded specialization of the left and right ATLs might emerge as a consequence of their differential connectivity with language

Graziano and colleagues (2019) argue that “the hard problem of consciousness belongs fundamentally to the same category as auras, mind beams, soul, ka, chi, and spirit.” They begin by distinguishing between iand m-consciousness. The former refers to theories that focus on how information in the brain is selected, enhanced and processed; the latter, associated with the hard problem, refers to theories

I applaud the ambition and optimism with which the authors lay out their case for a “single, coherent explanation of consciousness” that can unite GW, HOT and illusionism into a “standard model” based on their Attention Schema Theory (AST). I think they are basically right, and although I have some misgivings about a few of their ways of putting things, and think they underestimate the scope and complexity

What Graziano and colleagues describe as the “attention schema” really is one special case of what I have called the “phenomenal model of the intentionality relation” (PMIR) since 1993 (Metzinger, 2003; chap. 6; Metzinger, 1993, 2000, 2005, 2006; Metzinger & Gallese, 2003). For example, we also find PMIRs in motor selection and consciously experienced volition (“the self in the act of selecting an

(2019). Correction. Cognitive Neuropsychology: Vol. 36, No. 7-8, pp. (i)-(i).

Graziano et al. (in press) sketch some suggestive ways in which Graziano’s attention-schema theory (AST) of consciousness (Graziano, 2013, 2019; Webb & Graziano, 2015) connects with three other theories: the global-workspace theory (GWT) of Baars (1997) and Dehaene and Naccache (2001), higher-order-thought (HOT) theory (Rosenthal, 2005), and illusionism (Frankish, 2016). According to Graziano and colleagues

Graziano and colleagues make clear progress towards a standard model of consciousness. To begin with, they aim at the right explanatory target. Most other theorists, by contrast, aim either too low...

In this article, Graziano, Guterstam, Bio, and Wilterson (2019) raise the claim that our intuitions about consciousness are very much guided by socially shared beliefs about conscious minds. They argue that these beliefs are in many respects misleading and must not be confused with reality. This commentary seconds the basic claim, but advances an entirely different view on relations between social

From visual awareness to consciousness without sensory input: The role of spontaneous brain activity Marine Vernet , Romain Quentin , Shruti Japee b and Leslie G. Ungerleider b IMPACT team, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (CRNL), CNRS UMR 5292, INSERM UMRS 1028, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France; Section on Neurocircuitry, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, NIMH/NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA;

ABSTRACT In the interesting and thought-provoking article Grazziano and colleagues argue for their Attention Schema Theory (AST) of consciousness. They present AST as a unification of Global Workspace Theory (GWT), Illusionism, and the Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theory. We argue it is a mistake to equate ‘subjective experience,’ ad related terms, with dualism. They simply denote experience. Also, as

Graziano and colleagues (this volume) have proposed a new theory of consciousness, called Attention Schema Theory (AST), both in an attempt to dissolve the “hard” problem of consciousness and as a ...

ABSTRACT Several thousand years ago, our human ancestors realized that the brain was the organ of the mind and movement. But, how does the brain generate a voluntary movement and adds consciousness to it? Here, we assume that these two processes can be explained by neuroscience, but a large proportion of our society -including some scientists- considers consciousness as some immaterial substance that

Regarding m-consciousness, Nagel (1974) claimed that an organism possesses this extra essence (that is, subjectivity) if there is something it is like to be that organism—something it is like, for example, to be human and experience pain or yellow afterimages. Similarly, Block (2007) claimed, “the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state” (p. 227). As noted by

In 1932, Bartlett introduced the term “schema” to Psychology and defined it as “an active organization of past reactions, or of past experiences … ” (p. 201). Across repeated, albeit slightly diffe...

I applaud Graziano and colleagues (2020) for their bold theoretical leap. Attention and consciousness have long been confused and their relationships confusing. A complex brain needs to deploy attention efficiently, and this requires an effective and constantly updated model of what it is attending to and how. This new approach—equating m-consciousness, or subjective experience, with the model of attention

There are a number of overlapping themes in the target article by Graziano and colleagues (Graziano et al. 2020), such as a defense of their attention schema theory (or AST), how people’s understanding of consciousness is shaped by an implicit theory of mind, and discussion of related theories of consciousness.Onecentral claim is that “... thepresent social cognitive approachmay be able to bridge between

ABSTRACT Abstract concepts differ from concrete concepts in several ways. Here, we focus on what we refer to as situational systematicity: The objects and relations that constitute an abstract concept (e.g., justice) are more dispersed through space and time than are those that typically constitute a concrete concept (e.g., chair); a larger set of objects and relations constitute an abstract concept

ABSTRACT Language is assumed to affect memory by offering an additional medium of encoding visual stimuli. Given that natural languages differ, cross-linguistic differences might impact memory processes. We investigate the role of motion verbs on memory for motion events in speakers of English, which preferentially encodes manner in motion verbs (e.g., driving), and Greek, which tends to encode path

ABSTRACT Neuropsychological studies from the past century have associated damage to the ventromedial frontal lobes (VMF) with impairments in a variety of domains, including memory, executive function, emotion, social cognition, and valuation. A central question in the literature is whether these seemingly distinct functions are subserved by different sub-regions within the VMF, or whether VMF supports

ABSTRACT Reading an action verb activates its corresponding motor representation in the reader’s motor cortex, but whether this activation is relevant for comprehension remains unclear. To quantify the contribution of motor representations to the conceptual processing of action verbs, we measured the efficiency of two participants with atypical motor experience due to congenitally severely reduced

ABSTRACT Many reaching actions involve both hands. An open question is whether two-handed reaching involves two simultaneous, independent unimanual reaches, or recruits additional or different processes than those mediating one-handed reaching. We tested optic ataxic patient MDK on a set of unimanual and bimanual reaching tasks. Although MDK was impaired in both types of reaching task, his bimanual

ABSTRACT Typical face perception is mediated by holistic processing (i.e., the simultaneous integration of face parts into a whole representation). People with Acquired Prosopagnosia (AP), who have lost the ability to recognise faces after a brain lesion, should thus show atypical holistic coding. Our aim is to use the composite-face effect (CFE) as a measure of holistic processing in ST, a 48-year-old

ABSTRACT We investigated the event-related potential (ERP) correlates of two metacognitive judgments, namely judgment of learning (JOL) and feeling of knowing (FOK) induced by a face-name recognition (FNR) task in 60 participants. The FNR produced N170 and P100 components at posterior, and an N100 component at anterior electrodes. Posterior P200, anterior N200 components were recorded during JOL and

ABSTRACT Healthy older adults show impaired relational learning, but improved transitive expression when inferences are made across pre-experimentally known premise relations. Here, we used the transitivity paradigm to ask whether the organizational structure within schemas facilitates the bridging of relations for novel inference for otherwise healthy older adults who are exhibiting early signs of

(2019). Publisher’s Note in regard to: Challenges to developing time-based signal detection models for word production, Royce Anders and F.-Xavier Alario. Cognitive Neuropsychology: Vol. 36, No. 5-6, pp. 225-225.

ABSTRACT Schematic knowledge about people helps us to understand their behaviour in novel situations. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and hippocampus play important, yet poorly understood, roles in schema-based processing. Here, we manipulated schematic knowledge by familiarizing participants over the course of a week to the two lead characters of one of two TV shows. Then during MRI scanning

ABSTRACT Schemas capture patterns across multiple experiences, accumulating information about common event structures that guide decision making in new contexts. Schemas are an important principle of leading theories of cognitive development; yet, we know little about how children and adolescents form schemas and use schematic knowledge to guide decisions. Here, we show that the ability to acquire

ABSTRACT Schemas are abstract mental representations that influence perceptual and memory processes. Schemas can aide memory for information that is related or congruent with a given schema (i.e., schematic information), yet it is unclear how schemas affect memory for information that does not directly relate to the schema (i.e., non-schematic information). Using a novel scene paradigm, the current

ABSTRACT Here we examine how people’s understanding of consciousness may have been shaped by an implicit theory of mind. This social cognition approach may help to make sense of an apparent divide between the physically incoherent consciousness we think we have and the complex, rich, but mechanistic consciousness we may actually have. We suggest this approach helps reconcile some of the current cognitive