Dezső Németh

Different strategies underlying uncertain decision making: higher executive performance is associated with enhanced feedback-related negativity.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of executive functions (EFs) in different strategies underlying risky decision making. Adult participants from a nonclinical sample were assigned to low or high EF groups based on their performance on EF tasks measuring shifting, updating, and inhibition. ERPs were recorded while participants performed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). In this task, each balloon pump was associated with either a reward or a balloon pop with unknown probability. The BART behavioral measures did not show between-group differences. However, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) associated with undesirable outcomes was larger in the high EF group than in the low EF group. Since the FRN represents salience prediction error, our results suggest that the high EF group formed internal models that were violated by the outcomes. Thus, we provided ERP evidence for EFs influencing risky decision-making processes.

High trait anxiety is associated with attenuated feedback-related negativity in risky decision making

Expectation biases could affect decision making in trait anxiety. Studying the alterations of feedback processing in real-life risk-taking tasks could reveal the presence of expectation biases at the neural level. A functional relevance of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) is the expression of outcome expectation errors. The aim of the study was to investigate whether nonclinical adults with high trait anxiety show smaller FRN for negative feedback than those with low trait anxiety. Participants (N=26) were assigned to low and high trait anxiety groups by a median split on the state-trait anxiety inventory trait score. They performed a balloon analogue risk task (BART) where they pumped a balloon on a screen. Each pump yielded either a reward or a balloon pop. If the balloon popped, the accumulated reward was lost. Participants were matched on their behavioral performance. We measured event-related brain potentials time-locked to the presentation of the feedback (balloon increase or pop). Our results showed that the FRN for balloon pops was decreased in the high anxiety group compared to the low anxiety group. We propose that pessimistic expectations triggered by the ambiguity in the BART decreased outcome expectation errors in the high anxiety group indicated by the smaller FRN. Our results highlight the importance of expectation biases at the neural level of decision making in anxiety.

Procedural learning in Tourette syndrome, ADHD, and comorbid Tourette-ADHD: Evidence from a probabilistic sequence learning task

HighlightsWe assessed procedural learning in children with TS, ADHD, TS‐ADHD, and TD children.Procedural learning of sequences is intact in both TS and ADHD.Basal ganglia‐related syndromes do not always show procedural learning deficits. Abstract Procedural memory, which is rooted in the basal ganglia, plays an important role in the implicit learning of motor and cognitive skills. Few studies have examined procedural learning in either Tourette syndrome (TS) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), despite basal ganglia abnormalities in both of these neurodevelopmental disorders. We aimed to assess procedural learning in children with TS (n = 13), ADHD (n = 22), and comorbid TS‐ADHD (n = 20), as well as in typically developing children (n = 21). Procedural learning was measured with a well‐studied implicit probabilistic sequence learning task, the alternating serial reaction time task. All four groups showed evidence of sequence learning, and moreover did not differ from each other in sequence learning. This result, from the first study to examine procedural memory across TS, ADHD and comorbid TS‐ADHD, is consistent with previous findings of intact procedural learning of sequences in both TS and ADHD. In contrast, some studies have found impaired procedural learning of non‐sequential probabilistic categories in TS. This suggests that sequence learning may be spared in TS and ADHD, while at least some other forms of learning in procedural memory are impaired, at least in TS. Our findings indicate that disorders associated with basal ganglia abnormalities do not necessarily show procedural learning deficits, and provide a possible path for more effective diagnostic tools, and educational and training programs.

Explicit instructions and consolidation promote rewiring of automatic behaviors in the human mind

One major challenge in human behavior and brain sciences is to understand how we can rewire already existing perceptual, motor, cognitive, and social skills or habits. Here we aimed to characterize one aspect of rewiring, namely, how we can update our knowledge of sequential/statistical regularities when they change. The dynamics of rewiring was explored from learning to consolidation using a unique experimental design which is suitable to capture the effect of implicit and explicit processing and the proactive and retroactive interference. Our results indicate that humans can rewire their knowledge of such regularities incidentally, and consolidation has a critical role in this process. Moreover, old and new knowledge can coexist, leading to effective adaptivity of the human mind in the changing environment, although the execution of the recently acquired knowledge may be more fluent than the execution of the previously learned one. These findings can contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive processes underlying behavior change, and can provide insights into how we can boost behavior change in various contexts, such as sports, educational settings or psychotherapy.

The Production of Nominal and Verbal Inflection in an Agglutinative Language: Evidence from Hungarian

The contrast between regular and irregular inflectional morphology has been useful in investigating the functional and neural architecture of language. However, most studies have examined the regular/irregular distinction in non-agglutinative Indo-European languages (primarily English) with relatively simple morphology. Additionally, the majority of research has focused on verbal rather than nominal inflectional morphology. The present study attempts to address these gaps by introducing both plural and past tense production tasks in Hungarian, an agglutinative non-Indo-European language with complex morphology. Here we report results on these tasks from healthy Hungarian native-speaking adults, in whom we examine regular and irregular nominal and verbal inflection in a within-subjects design. Regular and irregular nouns and verbs were stem on frequency, word length, and phonological structure, and both accuracy and response times were acquired. The results revealed that the regular/irregular contrast yields similar patterns in Hungarian, for both nominal and verbal inflection, as in previous studies of non-agglutinative Indo-European languages: the production of irregular inflected forms was both less accurate and slower than of regular forms, both for plural and past-tense inflection. The results replicate and extend previous findings to an agglutinative language with complex morphology. Together with previous studies, the evidence suggests that the regular/irregular distinction yields a basic behavioral pattern that holds across language families and linguistic typologies. Finally, the study sets the stage for further research examining the neurocognitive substrates of regular and irregular morphology in an agglutinative non-Indo-European language.

Procedurális tanulás és konszolidáció autizmus spektrum zavarban

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show altered learning and memory. A number of recent studies have debated whether procedural learning in ASD is intact or not. Our aim was to further assess the question of whether the implicit, non-conscious form of procedural learning in ASD children is intact or not, furthermore, how shifts towards a more explicit, attention-demanding task setting can alter this performance. We administered a modified version of the Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) Task to children with ASD and IQ- and age-matched typically developing (TD) children. The task consisted of alternating blocks of cued (explicit) and uncued (implicit probe) blocks, and was repeated after a 16-hour delay. We found that ASD and TD children showed similar sequence-specific learning in cued explicit blocks, however, on the uncued probe blocks ASD children performed better compared to TD children. After the 16-hour delay both groups showed retention of the previously acquired knowledge. Finally, when we investigated the performance in different parts of the blocks, we found that ASD children did not show an effect of fatigue by the second part of the blocks. Our results suggest that children with ASD have increased implicit procedural learning skills compared to TD children. Differences in cued (explicit) and uncued (implicit) settings indicate that children with ASD are not affected by the lack of explicit instructions in probe blocks, suggesting a resistance for changes in task settings. These findings can help in a more thorough planning of cognitive therapeutic setups for ASD children.

The role of cognitive training in the neurorehabilitation of a patient who survived a lightning strike. A case study

BACKGROUND Lightning-related injuries most often involve impairment of the functions of the central and peripheral nervous systems, usually including cognitive dysfunctions. We evaluated the cognitive deficit of a patient who had survived a lightning strike and measured the improvement after her cognitive training. This therapeutic method appears to be a powerful tool in the neurorehabilitation treatment. OBJECTIVE The aim of this case study was to prove the beneficial effects of cognitive training as part of the neurorehabilitation after a lightning strike. METHODS Six neuropsychological functions were examined in order to test the cognitive status of the patient before and after the 2-month cognitive training: phonological short-term memory (digit span test and word repetitions test), visuo-spatial short-term memory (Corsi Block Tapping Test), working memory (backward digit span test and listening span test), executive functions (letter and semantic fluencies), language functions (non-word repetition test, Pléh-Palotás-Lörik (PPL) test and sentence repetition test) and episodic memory (Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test and Mini Mental State Examination). We also utilized these tests in aged-matched healthy individuals so as to be able to characterize the domains of the observed improvements more precisely. RESULTS The patient exhibited a considerable improvement in the backward digit span, semantic fluency, non-word repetition, PPL, sentence repetition and Rivermead Behavioral Memory tests. CONCLUSIONS The cognitive training played an important role in the neurorehabilitation treatment of this lightning injury patient. It considerably improved her quality of life through the functional recovery.