Julia Elmers, Moritz Mückschel, Tjalf Ziemssen, Christian Beste
Adaptive behavior is central to coping with dynamic environmental changes. Although functional neuroanatomical and neurophysiological considerations suggest that information must be exchanged during adaptive behavior and similar predictions can be derived from cognitive science concepts, attempts to delineate the directed information transfer in theta and alpha networks during behavioral adaptation are rare. Using task switching as an experimental vehicle, we examined directed communication in theta and alpha band networks in n = 51 healthy individuals. We combined EEG-beamforming with an artificial neural network-based estimation of linear and nonlinear directed information transfer between cortical regions. We show increased theta and alpha band activities during switch trials, which aligns with the cognitive control demands of task switching. EEG-beamforming indicated oscillatory modulations in distinct brain-wide networks depending on frequency and time window, with theta and alpha activities strongly tied to task-set reconfiguration and inhibitory control. Directed connectivity analysis revealed overlapping alpha and theta clusters, highlighting their interplay in cognitive flexibility. Directed communication in a cortical alpha band network involving fronto-temporal, temporoparietal, occipital, and precentral activity clusters was critical when preparing for task switching. We observed a bidirectional information transfer across four neuroanatomical clusters with more substantial connectivity modulations correlating with better task performance. These findings emphasize the importance of directed information transfer in a cortical alpha band activity network in supporting adaptive behavior.
{"title":"Preparatory Alpha-band Modulations of Directed Information Transfer in Frontoparietal Circuits Support Adaptive Behavior.","authors":"Julia Elmers, Moritz Mückschel, Tjalf Ziemssen, Christian Beste","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.2485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/JOCN.a.2485","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Adaptive behavior is central to coping with dynamic environmental changes. Although functional neuroanatomical and neurophysiological considerations suggest that information must be exchanged during adaptive behavior and similar predictions can be derived from cognitive science concepts, attempts to delineate the directed information transfer in theta and alpha networks during behavioral adaptation are rare. Using task switching as an experimental vehicle, we examined directed communication in theta and alpha band networks in n = 51 healthy individuals. We combined EEG-beamforming with an artificial neural network-based estimation of linear and nonlinear directed information transfer between cortical regions. We show increased theta and alpha band activities during switch trials, which aligns with the cognitive control demands of task switching. EEG-beamforming indicated oscillatory modulations in distinct brain-wide networks depending on frequency and time window, with theta and alpha activities strongly tied to task-set reconfiguration and inhibitory control. Directed connectivity analysis revealed overlapping alpha and theta clusters, highlighting their interplay in cognitive flexibility. Directed communication in a cortical alpha band network involving fronto-temporal, temporoparietal, occipital, and precentral activity clusters was critical when preparing for task switching. We observed a bidirectional information transfer across four neuroanatomical clusters with more substantial connectivity modulations correlating with better task performance. These findings emphasize the importance of directed information transfer in a cortical alpha band activity network in supporting adaptive behavior.</p>","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-22"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146127375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Decisions are often thought of as an intermediary between perception and action, but the degree to which this assumption is integrated into different parts of cognitive neuroscience theory and practice varies. After examining these variations on the causal relationship between decisions and actions, this perspective will argue for the claim that decisions and decision processes do not cause actions. An argument will be made that, in place of decision processes, actions are caused by sensorimotor processes. Lastly, ideas are given for studying the sensorimotor processes involved in decisions and actions. The main recommendation is a move to more ecological testing environments that give participants agency over their actions and allow them to learn by continuously updating sensorimotor processes through active sensing.
{"title":"Sensorimotor Mechanisms of Decisions and Actions.","authors":"Thomas W James","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.2484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/JOCN.a.2484","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Decisions are often thought of as an intermediary between perception and action, but the degree to which this assumption is integrated into different parts of cognitive neuroscience theory and practice varies. After examining these variations on the causal relationship between decisions and actions, this perspective will argue for the claim that decisions and decision processes do not cause actions. An argument will be made that, in place of decision processes, actions are caused by sensorimotor processes. Lastly, ideas are given for studying the sensorimotor processes involved in decisions and actions. The main recommendation is a move to more ecological testing environments that give participants agency over their actions and allow them to learn by continuously updating sensorimotor processes through active sensing.</p>","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146127453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Brian C. Kavanaugh;Megan M. Vigne;Ryan Thorpe;Christopher Legere;W. Luke Acuff;Noah Vaughan;Eric Tirrell;Saskia Haegens;Linda L. Carpenter;Stephanie R. Jones
Oscillatory power across multiple frequency bands has been associated with distinct working memory (WM) processes. Recent research has shown that previous observations based on averaged power are driven by the presence of transient, oscillatory burst-like events, particularly within the alpha, beta, and gamma bands. However, the interplay between different burst events in human WM is not well understood. The current EEG study aimed to investigate the dynamics between alpha (8–12 Hz)/beta (15–29 Hz) and high-frequency activity (HFA; 55–80 Hz) bursts in human WM, particularly burst features and error-related deviations during the encoding and maintenance of WM in healthy adults. Oscillatory burst features within the alpha, beta, and HFA bands were examined at frontal and parietal electrodes in healthy young adults during a Sternberg WM task. Averaged power dynamics were driven by oscillatory burst features, most consistently the burst rate and burst power. Alpha/beta and HFA bursts displayed complementary roles in WM processes, in that alpha and beta bursting decreased during encoding and increased during delay, while HFA bursting had the opposite pattern, that is, increased during encoding and decreased during the delay. Critically, weaker variation in burst dynamics across stages was associated with incorrect responses and impaired overall task performance. Together, these results indicate that successful human WM is dependent on the rise-and-fall interplay between alpha/beta and HFA bursts, with such burst dynamics reflecting a novel target for the development of treatment in clinical populations with WM deficits.
{"title":"The Association between Oscillatory Burst Features and Human Working Memory Accuracy","authors":"Brian C. Kavanaugh;Megan M. Vigne;Ryan Thorpe;Christopher Legere;W. Luke Acuff;Noah Vaughan;Eric Tirrell;Saskia Haegens;Linda L. Carpenter;Stephanie R. Jones","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.87","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.87","url":null,"abstract":"Oscillatory power across multiple frequency bands has been associated with distinct working memory (WM) processes. Recent research has shown that previous observations based on averaged power are driven by the presence of transient, oscillatory burst-like events, particularly within the alpha, beta, and gamma bands. However, the interplay between different burst events in human WM is not well understood. The current EEG study aimed to investigate the dynamics between alpha (8–12 Hz)/beta (15–29 Hz) and high-frequency activity (HFA; 55–80 Hz) bursts in human WM, particularly burst features and error-related deviations during the encoding and maintenance of WM in healthy adults. Oscillatory burst features within the alpha, beta, and HFA bands were examined at frontal and parietal electrodes in healthy young adults during a Sternberg WM task. Averaged power dynamics were driven by oscillatory burst features, most consistently the burst rate and burst power. Alpha/beta and HFA bursts displayed complementary roles in WM processes, in that alpha and beta bursting decreased during encoding and increased during delay, while HFA bursting had the opposite pattern, that is, increased during encoding and decreased during the delay. Critically, weaker variation in burst dynamics across stages was associated with incorrect responses and impaired overall task performance. Together, these results indicate that successful human WM is dependent on the rise-and-fall interplay between alpha/beta and HFA bursts, with such burst dynamics reflecting a novel target for the development of treatment in clinical populations with WM deficits.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"281-298"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144856985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joshua D. Hoddinott;Molly J. Henry;Jessica A. Grahn
Humans spontaneously synchronize movements to a perceived underlying pulse, or beat, in music. Beat perception may be indexed by the synchronization of neural oscillations to the beat, marked by increases in EEG amplitude at the beat frequency [Nozaradan, S., Peretz, I., Missal, M., & Mouraux, A. Tagging the neuronal entrainment to beat and meter. Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 10234–10240, 2011]. Indeed, neural synchronization to the beat appears stronger for strong-beat than non-beat rhythms [Tal, I., Large, E. W., Rabinovitch, E., Wei, Y., Schroeder, C. E., Poeppel, D., et al. Neural entrainment to the beat: The “missing-pulse” phenomenon. Journal of Neuroscience, 37, 6331–6341, 2017] and may underlie the generation of an internal representation of beat. However, because we are exposed disproportionately to strong-beat rhythms (e.g., most Western music) in the environment, comparisons of neural responses to strong-beat and non-beat rhythms may be confounded by relative differences in familiarity. Here, we dissociated beat-related and familiarity-related neural responses by comparing EEG amplitudes during the perception of strong-beat and non-beat rhythms that were either novel or made familiar through training. First, we recorded EEG from participants while they listened to a set of strong-beat, weak-beat, and non-beat rhythms. Then, they were trained on half of the rhythms over four behavioral sessions by listening to and tapping along with them, such that half of the rhythms were familiar by the end of training. Finally, EEG responses to the full rhythm set (half now familiar, half still unfamiliar) were recorded posttraining. Results show no effect of training on EEG amplitude at beat or stimulus-related frequencies and little evidence of familiarity-driven changes in EEG amplitude for weak- and non-beat rhythms. This suggests that oscillatory entrainment to the beat is not driven by familiarity and therefore likely reflects beat processing.
人类会自发地将动作与音乐中感知到的潜在脉搏或节拍同步。节拍感知可以通过神经振荡与节拍的同步来索引，其标志是在节拍频率下脑电图振幅的增加[Nozaradan， S., Peretz， I., Missal， M., & Mouraux， A.标记神经元的节拍和节拍。神经科学学报，31 (1),2011 [j]。事实上，对于强节拍的神经同步似乎比非节拍节奏更强[Tal， I., Large， E. W., Rabinovitch， E., Wei， Y., Schroeder， C. E., Poeppel， D.，等]。神经对节拍的干扰：“脉搏缺失”现象。神经科学学报，37(6):631 - 631,2017]。然而，由于我们在环境中过多地接触到强拍节奏（例如，大多数西方音乐），比较神经对强拍和非强拍节奏的反应可能会因熟悉程度的相对差异而混淆。在这里，我们通过比较在感知强节拍和非节拍节奏时的脑电图振幅来分离与节拍相关和熟悉相关的神经反应，这些节奏要么是新的，要么是通过训练熟悉的。首先，我们记录了参与者在听一组强拍、弱拍和无拍节奏时的脑电图。然后，在四次行为训练中，他们通过听和跟着打拍子来训练一半的节奏，这样在训练结束时，一半的节奏就熟悉了。最后，在训练后记录对完整节奏组（一半熟悉，一半仍然不熟悉）的脑电图反应。结果表明，训练对搏动或刺激相关频率的脑电图振幅没有影响，并且几乎没有证据表明熟悉性导致弱和非搏动节奏的脑电图振幅变化。这表明对节拍的振荡卷入不是由熟悉度驱动的，因此可能反映了节拍处理。
{"title":"Experience-driven Predictability Does Not Influence Neural Entrainment to the Beat","authors":"Joshua D. Hoddinott;Molly J. Henry;Jessica A. Grahn","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.95","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.95","url":null,"abstract":"Humans spontaneously synchronize movements to a perceived underlying pulse, or beat, in music. Beat perception may be indexed by the synchronization of neural oscillations to the beat, marked by increases in EEG amplitude at the beat frequency [Nozaradan, S., Peretz, I., Missal, M., & Mouraux, A. Tagging the neuronal entrainment to beat and meter. Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 10234–10240, 2011]. Indeed, neural synchronization to the beat appears stronger for strong-beat than non-beat rhythms [Tal, I., Large, E. W., Rabinovitch, E., Wei, Y., Schroeder, C. E., Poeppel, D., et al. Neural entrainment to the beat: The “missing-pulse” phenomenon. Journal of Neuroscience, 37, 6331–6341, 2017] and may underlie the generation of an internal representation of beat. However, because we are exposed disproportionately to strong-beat rhythms (e.g., most Western music) in the environment, comparisons of neural responses to strong-beat and non-beat rhythms may be confounded by relative differences in familiarity. Here, we dissociated beat-related and familiarity-related neural responses by comparing EEG amplitudes during the perception of strong-beat and non-beat rhythms that were either novel or made familiar through training. First, we recorded EEG from participants while they listened to a set of strong-beat, weak-beat, and non-beat rhythms. Then, they were trained on half of the rhythms over four behavioral sessions by listening to and tapping along with them, such that half of the rhythms were familiar by the end of training. Finally, EEG responses to the full rhythm set (half now familiar, half still unfamiliar) were recorded posttraining. Results show no effect of training on EEG amplitude at beat or stimulus-related frequencies and little evidence of familiarity-driven changes in EEG amplitude for weak- and non-beat rhythms. This suggests that oscillatory entrainment to the beat is not driven by familiarity and therefore likely reflects beat processing.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"406-421"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12829885/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144977723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
John L. Graner;Leonard Faul;Joseph M. Diehl;David J. Madden;Moria J. Smoski;Kevin S. LaBar
Cognitive reappraisal and attentional distraction constitute two core strategies for regulating emotions. Prior studies have largely focused on young adults regulating simple laboratory stimuli, with few direct comparisons of brain regions that differentiate or mutually implement these strategies. Here, we expanded the typical age range of participants, compared reappraisal and distraction within participants, and used ecologically valid autobiographical memories as regulatory targets. Sixty-two healthy adults aged 35–75 years generated cue words for negative and neutral autobiographical memories and were trained to either reappraise, distract, or let their emotions flow naturally in response to cued memories. Strategy-specific contrasts were derived from whole-brain fMRI data using univariate analyses. For reappraisal, relative to flow, we observed activity in bilateral occipital cortex, right cerebellum, and cingulate cortex and primarily left-sided frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices. Distraction, relative to flow, engaged bilateral lateral prefrontal, medial parietal, cingulate, occipital, and retrosplenial regions and left cerebellum. Common areas of activation included midline occipital and posterior cingulate cortices. Direct comparisons yielded strategy differences across multiple cortical areas: distraction engaged paralimbic areas (insula and left parahippocampal gyrus), dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFC, and right inferior frontoparietal cortex, whereas reappraisal engaged dorsomedial PFC, left ventrolateral PFC, anterior temporal cortex, and left posterolateral PFC. In-scanner valence ratings verified the efficacy of the experimental manipulation and revealed a negative impact of age on reappraisal success, which was correlated with greater visual cortical processing. These findings extend knowledge regarding the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation across the adult lifespan for autobiographical events.
{"title":"Regulating Negative Autobiographical Memories: An fMRI Investigation of Reappraisal and Distraction in Middle-aged and Older Adults","authors":"John L. Graner;Leonard Faul;Joseph M. Diehl;David J. Madden;Moria J. Smoski;Kevin S. LaBar","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.88","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.88","url":null,"abstract":"Cognitive reappraisal and attentional distraction constitute two core strategies for regulating emotions. Prior studies have largely focused on young adults regulating simple laboratory stimuli, with few direct comparisons of brain regions that differentiate or mutually implement these strategies. Here, we expanded the typical age range of participants, compared reappraisal and distraction within participants, and used ecologically valid autobiographical memories as regulatory targets. Sixty-two healthy adults aged 35–75 years generated cue words for negative and neutral autobiographical memories and were trained to either reappraise, distract, or let their emotions flow naturally in response to cued memories. Strategy-specific contrasts were derived from whole-brain fMRI data using univariate analyses. For reappraisal, relative to flow, we observed activity in bilateral occipital cortex, right cerebellum, and cingulate cortex and primarily left-sided frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices. Distraction, relative to flow, engaged bilateral lateral prefrontal, medial parietal, cingulate, occipital, and retrosplenial regions and left cerebellum. Common areas of activation included midline occipital and posterior cingulate cortices. Direct comparisons yielded strategy differences across multiple cortical areas: distraction engaged paralimbic areas (insula and left parahippocampal gyrus), dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFC, and right inferior frontoparietal cortex, whereas reappraisal engaged dorsomedial PFC, left ventrolateral PFC, anterior temporal cortex, and left posterolateral PFC. In-scanner valence ratings verified the efficacy of the experimental manipulation and revealed a negative impact of age on reappraisal success, which was correlated with greater visual cortical processing. These findings extend knowledge regarding the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation across the adult lifespan for autobiographical events.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"299-318"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144856984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There has been much debate about whether salient stimuli have an automatic power to distract us, with many conflicting results. The attentional window account proposes a potential resolution by suggesting that capture depends on the breadth of attentional focus. According to this account, when attention is broadly focused, salient stimuli will fall inside the attentional window and generate a salience signal that captures attention. When attention is narrowly focused, salient stimuli presented outside the window of attention cannot generate a salience signal that attracts attention. If true, this could explain many otherwise-contradictory findings, but this account has not been widely tested. The present study used a shape discrimination task to manipulate the spread of spatial attention and tested whether salient distractors inside versus outside the attended region capture attention. Attentional capture was assessed by the N2pc component and behavioral measures. Contrary to the predictions of the attentional window account, we found no evidence that capture by salient distractors depended on whether the salient distractor was inside or outside the attended window. Instead, our findings support models of attention that allow feature-based control mechanisms to prevent capture by salient distractors.
{"title":"Ignoring Salient Distractors Inside and Outside the Attentional Window","authors":"Xiaojin Ma;Steven J. Luck;Nicholas Gaspelin","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.105","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.105","url":null,"abstract":"There has been much debate about whether salient stimuli have an automatic power to distract us, with many conflicting results. The attentional window account proposes a potential resolution by suggesting that capture depends on the breadth of attentional focus. According to this account, when attention is broadly focused, salient stimuli will fall inside the attentional window and generate a salience signal that captures attention. When attention is narrowly focused, salient stimuli presented outside the window of attention cannot generate a salience signal that attracts attention. If true, this could explain many otherwise-contradictory findings, but this account has not been widely tested. The present study used a shape discrimination task to manipulate the spread of spatial attention and tested whether salient distractors inside versus outside the attended region capture attention. Attentional capture was assessed by the N2pc component and behavioral measures. Contrary to the predictions of the attentional window account, we found no evidence that capture by salient distractors depended on whether the salient distractor was inside or outside the attended window. Instead, our findings support models of attention that allow feature-based control mechanisms to prevent capture by salient distractors.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"242-263"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145139504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Piotr P. Styrkowiec;William X. Q. Ngiam;Will Epstein;Ron Gneezy;Henry M. Jones;Edward Awh;Edward K. Vogel
Human visual processing is limited—we can only track a few moving objects at a time and store a few items in visual working memory (WM). A shared mechanism that may underlie these performance limits is how the visual system parses a scene into representational units. In the present study, we explored whether multiple-object tracking (MOT) and WM rely on a common item-based indexing mechanism. We measured the contralateral delay activity (CDA), an event-related slow wave that tracks load in an item-based manner, as participants completed a combined WM and MOT task, concurrently tracking items and remembering visual information. In Experiment 1, participants tracked one or two moving discs without needing to remember the discs' colors (track and ignore condition) or while also remembering the discs' colors (two or four colors in total; track and remember condition). In Experiment 2, participants attended either two static discs or two moving discs, while remembering the discs' colors (two or four colors). In both experiments, the CDA was largely determined by the tracking task—CDA amplitudes reflected the number of tracked discs and not the number of to-be-remembered colors. However, when the discs were static, the CDA amplitudes did reflect color load. We discuss this set of findings in relation to longstanding theories of visual cognition (fingers of instantiation and object files) and the implications for cognitive models of representation of visual information—that how a scene is parsed into item-based representations is a key mechanism in the operation of WM.
{"title":"Item-based Parsing of Dynamic Scenes in a Combined Attentional Tracking and Working Memory Task","authors":"Piotr P. Styrkowiec;William X. Q. Ngiam;Will Epstein;Ron Gneezy;Henry M. Jones;Edward Awh;Edward K. Vogel","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.96","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.96","url":null,"abstract":"Human visual processing is limited—we can only track a few moving objects at a time and store a few items in visual working memory (WM). A shared mechanism that may underlie these performance limits is how the visual system parses a scene into representational units. In the present study, we explored whether multiple-object tracking (MOT) and WM rely on a common item-based indexing mechanism. We measured the contralateral delay activity (CDA), an event-related slow wave that tracks load in an item-based manner, as participants completed a combined WM and MOT task, concurrently tracking items and remembering visual information. In Experiment 1, participants tracked one or two moving discs without needing to remember the discs' colors (track and ignore condition) or while also remembering the discs' colors (two or four colors in total; track and remember condition). In Experiment 2, participants attended either two static discs or two moving discs, while remembering the discs' colors (two or four colors). In both experiments, the CDA was largely determined by the tracking task—CDA amplitudes reflected the number of tracked discs and not the number of to-be-remembered colors. However, when the discs were static, the CDA amplitudes did reflect color load. We discuss this set of findings in relation to longstanding theories of visual cognition (fingers of instantiation and object files) and the implications for cognitive models of representation of visual information—that how a scene is parsed into item-based representations is a key mechanism in the operation of WM.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"264-280"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144977718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Augustin C. Hennings;Sophia A. Bibb;Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock;Joseph E. Dunsmoor
Fear conditioning and extinction generate conflicting memory representations for a conditioned stimulus (CS). Retrieval of either memory is largely determined by the context where the CS is encountered. While fear typically generalizes to CSs encountered in new contexts, extinction is specific to the environment in which it was learned. Here, we used an fMRI design (n = 30, 16 women) to tag and track the extent to which individual participants reinstated competing episodic mental contexts associated with threat conditioning and extinction. We examined whether reactivation of past encoding contexts influences threat expectancy behavior and neural responses to a threat-ambiguous CS encountered in a new context. Results showed that the relative balance between conditioning and extinction context reinstatement in higher-order visual cortex influenced threat expectancy and neural activity in canonical threat processing regions. The link between context reinstatement and fear-related processes was specific to an extinguished CS, as opposed to an unextinguished CS that had never been encountered in the extinction context. These effects were observed 24 hr later, but not after 3 weeks. Additionally, threat conditioning produced long-lasting changes in primary sensory cortex that persisted up to 3 weeks following extinction. These findings show that neural representations of threat can endure over long durations, even in the healthy brain. Our results indicate competition between divergent mental contexts determines feelings of danger or safety when the meaning of the CS is ambiguous and suggest a mechanism by which the brain resolves ambiguity by reinstating the more dominant context associated with either fear or extinction.
{"title":"Neural Reinstatement of Encoding Context Mediates the Switch between Fear and Extinction Recall","authors":"Augustin C. Hennings;Sophia A. Bibb;Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock;Joseph E. Dunsmoor","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.93","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.93","url":null,"abstract":"Fear conditioning and extinction generate conflicting memory representations for a conditioned stimulus (CS). Retrieval of either memory is largely determined by the context where the CS is encountered. While fear typically generalizes to CSs encountered in new contexts, extinction is specific to the environment in which it was learned. Here, we used an fMRI design (n = 30, 16 women) to tag and track the extent to which individual participants reinstated competing episodic mental contexts associated with threat conditioning and extinction. We examined whether reactivation of past encoding contexts influences threat expectancy behavior and neural responses to a threat-ambiguous CS encountered in a new context. Results showed that the relative balance between conditioning and extinction context reinstatement in higher-order visual cortex influenced threat expectancy and neural activity in canonical threat processing regions. The link between context reinstatement and fear-related processes was specific to an extinguished CS, as opposed to an unextinguished CS that had never been encountered in the extinction context. These effects were observed 24 hr later, but not after 3 weeks. Additionally, threat conditioning produced long-lasting changes in primary sensory cortex that persisted up to 3 weeks following extinction. These findings show that neural representations of threat can endure over long durations, even in the healthy brain. Our results indicate competition between divergent mental contexts determines feelings of danger or safety when the meaning of the CS is ambiguous and suggest a mechanism by which the brain resolves ambiguity by reinstating the more dominant context associated with either fear or extinction.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"319-339"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144977695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Davide F. Stramaccia;Frederik Bergmann;Katharina Lingelbach;Ole Numssen;Gesa Hartwigsen;Roland G. Benoit
A reminder of the past can trigger the involuntary retrieval of an unwanted memory. Yet, we can intentionally stop this process and thus prevent the memory from entering awareness. Such suppression not only transiently hinders the retrieval of the memory, it can also induce forgetting. Neuroimaging has implicated the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in initiating this process. Specifically, this region seems to downregulate activity in brain systems that would otherwise support memory reinstatement. Here, we probed the causal contribution of the right dlPFC to suppression by combining the think/no-think task with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Participants first learned pairs of cue and target words and then repeatedly recalled some of the targets (think condition) and suppressed others (no-think condition). We applied 10-Hz rTMS bursts to the right dlPFC during the suppression of half the no-think items and to the contralateral primary motor area (M1) as an active control site during the other half. As hypothesized, participants experienced less success at keeping the memories out of awareness with concurrent dlPFC than M1 stimulation. Similarly, a memory test yielded evidence for suppression-induced forgetting (SIF) following M1 but not dlPFC stimulation. However, the difference in forgetting between the stimulation conditions was not significant. The study thus provides causal evidence for the role of the dlPFC in preventing retrieval. Future work will need to conclusively establish the relationship between this transient effect and SIF.
{"title":"Hindering Memory Suppression by Perturbing the Right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex","authors":"Davide F. Stramaccia;Frederik Bergmann;Katharina Lingelbach;Ole Numssen;Gesa Hartwigsen;Roland G. Benoit","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.90","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.90","url":null,"abstract":"A reminder of the past can trigger the involuntary retrieval of an unwanted memory. Yet, we can intentionally stop this process and thus prevent the memory from entering awareness. Such suppression not only transiently hinders the retrieval of the memory, it can also induce forgetting. Neuroimaging has implicated the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in initiating this process. Specifically, this region seems to downregulate activity in brain systems that would otherwise support memory reinstatement. Here, we probed the causal contribution of the right dlPFC to suppression by combining the think/no-think task with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Participants first learned pairs of cue and target words and then repeatedly recalled some of the targets (think condition) and suppressed others (no-think condition). We applied 10-Hz rTMS bursts to the right dlPFC during the suppression of half the no-think items and to the contralateral primary motor area (M1) as an active control site during the other half. As hypothesized, participants experienced less success at keeping the memories out of awareness with concurrent dlPFC than M1 stimulation. Similarly, a memory test yielded evidence for suppression-induced forgetting (SIF) following M1 but not dlPFC stimulation. However, the difference in forgetting between the stimulation conditions was not significant. The study thus provides causal evidence for the role of the dlPFC in preventing retrieval. Future work will need to conclusively establish the relationship between this transient effect and SIF.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"340-352"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144856983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karen R. Konkoly;Saba Al-Youssef;Christopher Y. Mazurek;Remington Mallett;Daniel J. Morris;Ana Gales;Isabelle Arnulf;Delphine Oudiette;Ken A. Paller
Neuroscientific investigations of human dreaming have been hampered by reliance on dream recall after awakening. For example, a challenge of associating EEG features with post-waking dream reports is that they are subject to distortion, forgetting, and poor temporal precision. In this study, we used real-time reporting to investigate whether one of the most robust features of the waking visual system, increased alpha oscillations upon closing one's eyes, also applies when people dream of closing their eyes. We studied 13 people, four with narcolepsy and nine without, who experienced many lucid dreams—they were aware they were dreaming while remaining asleep. They reported on both their dream experiences (visual percepts present/absent) and dream-eyelid status (open/closed) using a novel communication technique; they produced distinctive sniffing patterns according to presleep instructions. We observed these signals in respiration recordings from a nasal cannula. These physiological signals enabled analyses of time-locked neural activity during REM sleep. We recorded 150 signals over 19 sessions from 11 individuals. Robust increases in alpha power were not found after signaled dream-eye closure. Remarkably, the experience of eye closure while dreaming was associated with fading visual content only about half the time. Comparing the presence versus absence of visual content was possible only in three participants, who showed increased alpha power in association with a momentary lack of visual content. Enlisting dreamers to actively control and report on ongoing dream experiences in this way thus opens new avenues for dynamic investigations of dreams—the illusory perceptions that haunt our sleep.
{"title":"Using Real-time Reporting to Investigate Visual Experiences in Dreams","authors":"Karen R. Konkoly;Saba Al-Youssef;Christopher Y. Mazurek;Remington Mallett;Daniel J. Morris;Ana Gales;Isabelle Arnulf;Delphine Oudiette;Ken A. Paller","doi":"10.1162/JOCN.a.107","DOIUrl":"10.1162/JOCN.a.107","url":null,"abstract":"Neuroscientific investigations of human dreaming have been hampered by reliance on dream recall after awakening. For example, a challenge of associating EEG features with post-waking dream reports is that they are subject to distortion, forgetting, and poor temporal precision. In this study, we used real-time reporting to investigate whether one of the most robust features of the waking visual system, increased alpha oscillations upon closing one's eyes, also applies when people dream of closing their eyes. We studied 13 people, four with narcolepsy and nine without, who experienced many lucid dreams—they were aware they were dreaming while remaining asleep. They reported on both their dream experiences (visual percepts present/absent) and dream-eyelid status (open/closed) using a novel communication technique; they produced distinctive sniffing patterns according to presleep instructions. We observed these signals in respiration recordings from a nasal cannula. These physiological signals enabled analyses of time-locked neural activity during REM sleep. We recorded 150 signals over 19 sessions from 11 individuals. Robust increases in alpha power were not found after signaled dream-eye closure. Remarkably, the experience of eye closure while dreaming was associated with fading visual content only about half the time. Comparing the presence versus absence of visual content was possible only in three participants, who showed increased alpha power in association with a momentary lack of visual content. Enlisting dreamers to actively control and report on ongoing dream experiences in this way thus opens new avenues for dynamic investigations of dreams—the illusory perceptions that haunt our sleep.","PeriodicalId":51081,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience","volume":"38 2","pages":"365-380"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145202027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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