Pub Date : 2025-01-04DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.023
Yiyu Liu , Eden Moss , Fransisca Ting , Daniel C. Hyde
While pre-verbal infants may be sensitive to others' mental states, they are not able to accurately answer questions about them until several years later, an ability referred to as having a theory of mind. Here we ask whether infant social-cognitive sensitivity is subserved by the same brain mechanisms as those that support theory of mind in childhood. To do so, we explored the relationship between functional sensitivity of the right temporal-parietal junction to mental state processing in infancy, a region known to underlie theory of mind in older children, and explicit theory of mind reasoning in the same group several years later. In a small initial sample (N = 33), we find evidence of a longitudinal brain-behavioral link from infancy to childhood, providing preliminary support for a common mechanism for theory of mind across development. However, the brain metric that was predictive of individual differences was not the response to conditions that required tracking the beliefs, but instead, the response to a control condition where belief tracking was not obligatory to predict others' behavior. In hindsight, the ambiguity of this control condition may have best distinguished between infants who had different propensities to engage in belief tracking, suggesting a potential role for active experience in infancy contributing to individual differences in later theory of mind development in childhood. Given the exploratory nature of the study, other alternative explanations for these results must also be considered.
{"title":"Neural sensitivity to others' belief states in infancy predicts later theory of mind reasoning in childhood","authors":"Yiyu Liu , Eden Moss , Fransisca Ting , Daniel C. Hyde","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.023","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.023","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While pre-verbal infants may be sensitive to others' mental states, they are not able to accurately answer questions about them until several years later, an ability referred to as having a theory of mind. Here we ask whether infant social-cognitive sensitivity is subserved by the same brain mechanisms as those that support theory of mind in childhood. To do so, we explored the relationship between functional sensitivity of the right temporal-parietal junction to mental state processing in infancy, a region known to underlie theory of mind in older children, and explicit theory of mind reasoning in the same group several years later. In a small initial sample (<em>N</em> = 33), we find evidence of a longitudinal brain-behavioral link from infancy to childhood, providing preliminary support for a common mechanism for theory of mind across development. However, the brain metric that was predictive of individual differences was not the response to conditions that required tracking the beliefs, but instead, the response to a control condition where belief tracking was not obligatory to predict others' behavior. In hindsight, the ambiguity of this control condition may have best distinguished between infants who had different propensities to engage in belief tracking, suggesting a potential role for active experience in infancy contributing to individual differences in later theory of mind development in childhood. Given the exploratory nature of the study, other alternative explanations for these results must also be considered.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"184 ","pages":"Pages 96-105"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143001617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-03DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.12.012
Ainara Jauregi-Zinkunegi , Tobey Betthauser , Cynthia M. Carlsson , Barbara B. Bendlin , Ozioma Okonkwo , Nathaniel A. Chin , Sanjay Asthana , Rebecca E. Langhough , Sterling C. Johnson , Kimberly D. Mueller , Davide Bruno
Background
Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be diagnosed by in vivo abnormalities of amyloid-β plaques (A) and tau accumulation (T) biomarkers. Previous studies have shown that analyses of serial position performance in episodic memory tests, and especially, delayed primacy, are associated with AD pathology even in individuals who are cognitively unimpaired. The earliest signs of cortical tau pathology are observed in medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions, yet it is unknown if serial position markers are also associated with early tau load in these regions. This study of cognitively unimpaired older individuals examined whether serial position scores in word-list recall cross-sectionally predicted tau PET load in the MTL, and were able to discriminate between biomarker profiles, based on AT classification.
Methods
Data from 490 participants (mean age = 68.8 ± 7.2) were extracted from two cohorts, which were merged into one sample. Linear regression analyses were carried out with regional volume-controlled tau (18F-MK-6240) PET SUVR of the entorhinal cortex (EC), parahippocampal cortex (PHC) and hippocampus (H) as outcomes, cross-sectional memory scores from the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test as predictors (total and delayed recall, along with serial position scores) and control variables, in separate analyses for each outcome and predictor. The sample was then stratified by biomarker profile and ANCOVAs were conducted with the strongest scores from the regression analyses, AT groups as fixed factor and the covariates.
Results
Higher delayed primacy significantly predicted lower tau PET in EC, PHC, and H, cross-sectionally. Higher total recall scores predicted lower EC tau, but delayed primacy showed the best model fit, as indicated by AICs. ANCOVAs showed that AVLT metrics did not significantly discriminate between A−T− and A+T+, after correcting for multiple comparisons.
Conclusions
Serial position analysis of word-list recall, particularly delayed primacy, may be a valuable tool for identifying in vivo tau pathology in cognitively unimpaired individuals.
背景：阿尔茨海默病（AD）可以通过体内淀粉样β斑块（A）和tau堆积（T）生物标志物的异常来诊断。以往的研究表明，即使是认知功能未受损的人，在情节记忆测试中的序列位置表现分析，尤其是延迟的先验性，也与阿兹海默症的病理变化有关。在内侧颞叶（MTL）区域可以观察到皮质tau病理学的最早迹象，但序列位置标记是否也与这些区域的早期tau负荷有关，目前尚不清楚。本研究对认知功能未受损的老年人进行了研究，考察了词表回忆中的序列位置得分是否能横截面预测MTL中的tau PET负荷，并能根据AT分类区分不同的生物标志物特征：从两个队列中提取了 490 名参与者（平均年龄 = 68.8 ± 7.2）的数据，并将其合并为一个样本。以内侧皮层（EC）、海马旁皮层（PHC）和海马（H）的区域体积控制tau（18F-MK-6240）PET SUVR为结果，以Rey听觉言语学习测试的横断面记忆得分（总分和延迟回忆以及序列位置得分）和控制变量为预测因素，进行线性回归分析，对每个结果和预测因素分别进行分析。然后根据生物标志物特征对样本进行分层，并以回归分析中的最强得分、AT 组作为固定因子和辅助变量进行方差分析：从横截面上看，在EC、PHC和H组中，较高的延迟首要性可明显预测较低的tau PET。回忆总分越高，EC 的 tau PET 越低，但从 AICs 来看，延迟 primacy 的模型拟合度最高。方差分析结果表明，在校正多重比较后，AVLT 指标对 A-T- 和 A+T+ 没有显著的区分作用：结论：单词表回忆的序列位置分析，尤其是延时 primacy 分析，可能是识别认知功能未受损个体体内 tau 病理学的重要工具。
{"title":"Delayed primacy recall in AVLT is associated with medial temporal tau PET burden in cognitively unimpaired adults","authors":"Ainara Jauregi-Zinkunegi , Tobey Betthauser , Cynthia M. Carlsson , Barbara B. Bendlin , Ozioma Okonkwo , Nathaniel A. Chin , Sanjay Asthana , Rebecca E. Langhough , Sterling C. Johnson , Kimberly D. Mueller , Davide Bruno","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.12.012","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.12.012","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be diagnosed by <em>in vivo</em> abnormalities of amyloid-β plaques (A) and tau accumulation (T) biomarkers. Previous studies have shown that analyses of serial position performance in episodic memory tests, and especially, delayed primacy, are associated with AD pathology even in individuals who are cognitively unimpaired. The earliest signs of cortical tau pathology are observed in medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions, yet it is unknown if serial position markers are also associated with early tau load in these regions. This study of cognitively unimpaired older individuals examined whether serial position scores in word-list recall cross-sectionally predicted tau PET load in the MTL, and were able to discriminate between biomarker profiles, based on AT classification.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Data from 490 participants (mean age = 68.8 ± 7.2) were extracted from two cohorts, which were merged into one sample. Linear regression analyses were carried out with regional volume-controlled tau (18F-MK-6240) PET SUVR of the entorhinal cortex (EC), parahippocampal cortex (PHC) and hippocampus (H) as outcomes, cross-sectional memory scores from the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test as predictors (total and delayed recall, along with serial position scores) and control variables, in separate analyses for each outcome and predictor. The sample was then stratified by biomarker profile and ANCOVAs were conducted with the strongest scores from the regression analyses, AT groups as fixed factor and the covariates.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Higher delayed primacy significantly predicted lower tau PET in EC, PHC, and H, cross-sectionally. Higher total recall scores predicted lower EC tau, but delayed primacy showed the best model fit, as indicated by AICs. ANCOVAs showed that AVLT metrics did not significantly discriminate between A−T− and A+T+, after correcting for multiple comparisons.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>Serial position analysis of word-list recall, particularly delayed primacy, may be a valuable tool for identifying <em>in vivo</em> tau pathology in cognitively unimpaired individuals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"184 ","pages":"Pages 47-57"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142969943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.12.003
Robert D. McIntosh , Sarah E. MacPherson , Stefano Cappa
{"title":"Outside the box: A celebration of Sergio Della Sala’s contribution to neuropsychology and science dissemination","authors":"Robert D. McIntosh , Sarah E. MacPherson , Stefano Cappa","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.12.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.12.003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"182 ","pages":"Pages 1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143001629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.08.002
Michael D. Kopelman
This commentary will review recent findings regarding forgetting rates in patient groups, including observations from some older, less cited studies. It will draw attention to studies (and reviews) indicating faster forgetting of recalled or recollected memories, relative to recognition or familiarity-based memory. Secondly, it will focus upon the variability of findings in forgetting rate studies, including variability of performance between individuals within groups, inconsistency by individuals across test sessions and/or when tested many years apart, and discordance between equivalent or near-equivalent studies. Thirdly, it will consider the distinction between studies finding early forgetting or progressive/quantitative memory loss and those suggesting a later, ‘qualitative’ change in forgetting rate. The latter pattern, most commonly seen in epilepsy cases, may be relatively infrequent when appropriate account has been taken of variation in controls' performance, and effect sizes can be low. There is also a need for an adequate neurobiological account of this delayed (or ‘later’) forgetting. Fourthly, the major contributions of Sergio Della Sala, Alan Baddeley, and their colleagues will be reviewed, drawing our attention to important factors in experimental design, such as the presence or absence of repeated practice, recall of gist versus peripheral detail, and parallel forgetting curves from different levels of initial learning. The paper concludes with a summary of the major findings in (i) healthy participants (including studies of normal ageing), (ii) memory-disordered patients arising from focal lesions, (iii) Alzheimer and MCI patients, and (iv) epilepsy patients.
{"title":"The fickleness of forgetting: When, why, and how do patient groups differ (or not)?","authors":"Michael D. Kopelman","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.08.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.08.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This commentary will review recent findings regarding forgetting rates in patient groups, including observations from some older, less cited studies. It will draw attention to studies (and reviews) indicating faster forgetting of recalled or recollected memories, relative to recognition or familiarity-based memory. Secondly, it will focus upon the variability of findings in forgetting rate studies, including variability of performance between individuals within groups, inconsistency by individuals across test sessions and/or when tested many years apart, and discordance between equivalent or near-equivalent studies. Thirdly, it will consider the distinction between studies finding early forgetting or progressive/quantitative memory loss and those suggesting a later, ‘qualitative’ change in forgetting rate. The latter pattern, most commonly seen in epilepsy cases, may be relatively infrequent when appropriate account has been taken of variation in controls' performance, and effect sizes can be low. There is also a need for an adequate neurobiological account of this delayed (or ‘later’) forgetting. Fourthly, the major contributions of Sergio Della Sala, Alan Baddeley, and their colleagues will be reviewed, drawing our attention to important factors in experimental design, such as the presence or absence of repeated practice, recall of gist versus peripheral detail, and parallel forgetting curves from different levels of initial learning. The paper concludes with a summary of the major findings in (i) healthy participants (including studies of normal ageing), (ii) memory-disordered patients arising from focal lesions, (iii) Alzheimer and MCI patients, and (iv) epilepsy patients.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"182 ","pages":"Pages 12-28"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142260912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.008
Ana Vilotijević, Sebastiaan Mathôt
Pupil size is modulated by various cognitive factors such as attention, working memory, mental imagery, and subjective perception. Previous studies examining cognitive effects on pupil size mainly focused on inducing or enhancing a subjective experience of brightness or darkness (for example by asking participants to attend to/memorize a bright or dark stimulus), and then showing that this affects pupil size. Surprisingly, the inverse has never been done; that is, it is still unknown what happens when a subjective experience of brightness or darkness is eliminated or strongly reduced even though bright or dark stimuli are physically present. Here, we aim to answer this question by using perceptual fading, a phenomenon where a visual stimulus gradually fades from visual awareness despite its continuous presentation. The study contains two blocks: Fading and Non-Fading. In the Fading block, participants were presented with black and white patches with a fuzzy outline that were presented at the same location throughout the block, thus inducing strong perceptual fading. In contrast, in the Non-Fading block, the patches switched sides on each trial, thus preventing perceptual fading. Participants covertly attended to one of the two patches, indicated by a cue, and reported the offset of one of a set of circles that are displayed on top. We hypothesized that pupil size will be modulated by covert visual attention in the Non-Fading block, but that this effect will not (or to a lesser extent) arise in the Fading block. We found that covert visual attention to bright/dark does modulate pupil size even during perceptual fading (Fading block), but to a lesser extent than when the perceptual experience of brightness/darkness is preserved (Non-Fading block). This implies that pupil size is always modulated by covert attention, but that the effect decreases as subjective experience of brightness or darkness decreases. In broader terms, this suggests that cognitive modulations of pupil size reflect a mixture of high-level and lower-level visual processing.
{"title":"The effect of covert visual attention on pupil size during perceptual fading","authors":"Ana Vilotijević, Sebastiaan Mathôt","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pupil size is modulated by various cognitive factors such as attention, working memory, mental imagery, and subjective perception. Previous studies examining cognitive effects on pupil size mainly focused on inducing or enhancing a subjective experience of brightness or darkness (for example by asking participants to attend to/memorize a bright or dark stimulus), and then showing that this affects pupil size. Surprisingly, the inverse has never been done; that is, it is still unknown what happens when a subjective experience of brightness or darkness is eliminated or strongly reduced even though bright or dark stimuli are physically present. Here, we aim to answer this question by using perceptual fading, a phenomenon where a visual stimulus gradually fades from visual awareness despite its continuous presentation. The study contains two blocks: Fading and Non-Fading. In the Fading block, participants were presented with black and white patches with a fuzzy outline that were presented at the same location throughout the block, thus inducing strong perceptual fading. In contrast, in the Non-Fading block, the patches switched sides on each trial, thus preventing perceptual fading. Participants covertly attended to one of the two patches, indicated by a cue, and reported the offset of one of a set of circles that are displayed on top. We hypothesized that pupil size will be modulated by covert visual attention in the Non-Fading block, but that this effect will not (or to a lesser extent) arise in the Fading block. We found that covert visual attention to bright/dark does modulate pupil size even during perceptual fading (Fading block), but to a lesser extent than when the perceptual experience of brightness/darkness is preserved (Non-Fading block). This implies that pupil size is always modulated by covert attention, but that the effect decreases as subjective experience of brightness or darkness decreases. In broader terms, this suggests that cognitive modulations of pupil size reflect a mixture of high-level and lower-level visual processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"182 ","pages":"Pages 112-123"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142615867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.007
Robert H. Logie
The synergy between cognitive theory and neuropsychology is a hallmark of Sergio Della Sala’s research, of his 25 years as editor of Cortex, and of over 40 years of a Della Sala-Logie research collaboration. This short article highlights some of that completed and ongoing collaborative research focused on the cognition of memory in the healthy, ageing, and impaired brain.
认知理论和神经心理学之间的协同作用是塞尔吉奥·德拉·萨拉（Sergio Della Sala）研究的标志，是他担任《皮质》杂志编辑25年的标志，也是德拉·萨拉与逻辑学合作研究40多年的标志。这篇短文重点介绍了一些已经完成的和正在进行的合作研究，这些研究集中在健康、衰老和受损大脑的记忆认知方面。
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Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.006
Robert D. McIntosh , Stephanie Rossit , Nicoletta Beschin
The lateralised bias of spatial neglect can be modulated by concurrent non-lateralised impairments. For instance, people with left neglect may have spatial working memory deficits that prevent them from keeping track of locations visited in visual search tasks such as target cancellation. Not only do they omit targets in some parts of the array but they may revisit and re-cancel targets in other parts, and this re-cancellation behaviour increases dramatically in ‘invisible’ conditions, in which touching a target leaves no visible trace. It has been proposed that spatial memory deficits are the main reason for the rise of re-cancellation errors in invisible cancellation conditions. This idea predicts that spatial memory abilities should correlate with re-cancellation behaviour; but this expected relationship has never been demonstrated. The present study takes an exploratory approach to describing the behaviour of 18 people with left visual neglect, following right hemisphere stroke, on touchscreen tests of spatial working memory and target cancellation. We show that people with neglect who are less able to remember locations in a spatial memory task tend to make more re-cancellation errors in invisible cancellation conditions. We also describe an apparent trade-off, in which some people with neglect make many more re-cancellation errors, whilst others make many more target omissions. We suggest that the influence of spatial memory deficits on invisible cancellation tasks can be more fully captured by considering both types of errors, rather than re-cancellations only.
{"title":"Spatial working memory predicts re-cancellation behaviour in neglect","authors":"Robert D. McIntosh , Stephanie Rossit , Nicoletta Beschin","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The lateralised bias of spatial neglect can be modulated by concurrent non-lateralised impairments. For instance, people with left neglect may have spatial working memory deficits that prevent them from keeping track of locations visited in visual search tasks such as target cancellation. Not only do they omit targets in some parts of the array but they may revisit and re-cancel targets in other parts, and this re-cancellation behaviour increases dramatically in ‘invisible’ conditions, in which touching a target leaves no visible trace. It has been proposed that spatial memory deficits are the main reason for the rise of re-cancellation errors in invisible cancellation conditions. This idea predicts that spatial memory abilities should correlate with re-cancellation behaviour; but this expected relationship has never been demonstrated. The present study takes an exploratory approach to describing the behaviour of 18 people with left visual neglect, following right hemisphere stroke, on touchscreen tests of spatial working memory and target cancellation. We show that people with neglect who are less able to remember locations in a spatial memory task tend to make more re-cancellation errors in invisible cancellation conditions. We also describe an apparent trade-off, in which some people with neglect make many more re-cancellation errors, whilst others make many more target omissions. We suggest that the influence of spatial memory deficits on invisible cancellation tasks can be more fully captured by considering both types of errors, rather than re-cancellations only.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"182 ","pages":"Pages 135-146"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142791216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.014
Jean-Paul Fischer
The neurological process of mirror generalization in memory, also known as mirror symmetrization, presents a real dilemma for typically developing 5- to 6-year-olds when learning to write characters (digits and letters). Should they write the digit 3 oriented to the left, that is correctly, or to the right, which leads to its mirror image ? It has been anecdotally suggested that boys are more prone to mirror-writing than girls, but there is no scientific evidence for this idea. The present article gathers data from 691 children in the upper section of the French école maternelle (age between 5 and 6 ½), who each wrote the digits 0 to 9 four times under dictation and not necessarily in their natural order. Both simple and complex (mixed-effects linear regression) statistical comparisons on the percentages of digit reversal, show a substantial difference: girls produce more mirror reversals than boys. And yet the reversal curves as a function of the digits are quite similar between the two sexes (r = .97).
It has been proposed that mirror reversal of characters results from the left orientation of some of them (e.g., 3, 7, J, Z), that is, in an orientation contrary to the direction of writing in our Western cultures. The present investigation shows that (1) this character orientation hypothesis (choosing to write characters in the same orientation as sentence writing) better explains reversals than the counterclockwise hypothesis (children are trained to draw circles counter-clockwise to prepare for attached cursive writing); (2) the study of the stability of reversals additionally supports the explanation of mirror writing by the left orientation of the digits (1, 2, 3, 7 and, less obviously, 9); but (3) neither of the preceding findings (left-right orientation and stability) provided a convincing explanation for the aforementioned gender difference.
{"title":"Mirror writing of digits: Is there a difference between boys and girls?","authors":"Jean-Paul Fischer","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2024.10.014","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The neurological process of mirror generalization in memory, also known as mirror symmetrization, presents a real dilemma for typically developing 5- to 6-year-olds when learning to write characters (digits and letters). Should they write the digit 3 oriented to the left, that is correctly, or to the right, which leads to its mirror image <span><math><mrow><mo>ε</mo></mrow></math></span>? It has been anecdotally suggested that boys are more prone to mirror-writing than girls, but there is no scientific evidence for this idea. The present article gathers data from 691 children in the upper section of the French école maternelle (age between 5 and 6 ½), who each wrote the digits 0 to 9 four times under dictation and not necessarily in their natural order. Both simple and complex (mixed-effects linear regression) statistical comparisons on the percentages of digit reversal, show a substantial difference: girls produce more mirror reversals than boys. And yet the reversal curves as a function of the digits are quite similar between the two sexes (<em>r</em> = .97).</div><div>It has been proposed that mirror reversal of characters results from the left orientation of some of them (e.g., 3, 7, J, Z), that is, in an orientation contrary to the direction of writing in our Western cultures. The present investigation shows that (1) this character orientation hypothesis (choosing to write characters in the same orientation as sentence writing) better explains reversals than the counterclockwise hypothesis (children are trained to draw circles counter-clockwise to prepare for attached cursive writing); (2) the study of the stability of reversals additionally supports the explanation of mirror writing by the left orientation of the digits (1, 2, 3, 7 and, less obviously, 9); but (3) neither of the preceding findings (left-right orientation and stability) provided a convincing explanation for the aforementioned gender difference.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"182 ","pages":"Pages 124-134"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142754841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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