Across three experiments, we investigated how people process important but complex information and how this may change with age. Using an adaptation of the value-directed remembering (VDR) paradigm for sentences that varied in constraint and predictability, younger and older adults read sentences associated with high or low value for subsequent memory tests. Behavioral measures of recall and recognition were collected, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during reading to examine the processing strategies engaged during sentence comprehension. Behaviorally, both younger and older adults used value information to prioritize memory, showing better recall for high- than low-value sentences, alongside patterns consistent with prediction-based memory distortions (e.g., increased false recognition for predictable but unseen items). At the neural level, across age groups, a post-N400 anterior positivity elicited by unexpected words in strongly constraining sentences, a pattern associated with revising disconfirmed predictions, was not modulated by value. In contrast, value reliably influenced a late frontal negativity elicited by moderately to strongly expected words and thought to reflect message-level integration, with larger effects for high-value sentences. Younger adults also showed enhanced N400 expectancy effects for high-value items, indicating increased semantic facilitation, whereas older adults did not show value-based modulation of the N400. Sorting ERPs by subsequent recall revealed little evidence that sentence-final word processing robustly predicted later memory in either group. Together, these findings suggest that both younger and older adults use value information to prioritize processing, with particularly clear evidence for enhanced message-level integration. At the same time, sensitivity to prediction violations, and the predictive processes that give rise to them, appeared relatively insensitive to value, consistent with the idea that predictive processing operates in a state-like manner. Notably, with sufficient task support, older adults showed evidence of engaging prediction-related processes typically reduced in aging, although this engagement did not extend to modulation of earlier semantic facilitation and did not fully eliminate age-related differences in comprehension.
The false fame effect occurs when previously encountered nonfamous names are later misidentified as famous because, although people no longer remember the circumstances in which the names were encountered, the names remain familiar and that familiarity is mistakenly attributed to fame. The present study examined whether shifting participants' internal context through autobiographical daydreaming would increase susceptibility to the false fame effect, and whether larger context shifts would produce greater memory distortions. Across two experiments, participants first studied a list of nonfamous names before completing a task designed to induce either a near or far shift in internal context. In Experiment 1, participants mentally reconstructed either their own home or their parents' home. In Experiment 2, they described either a recent domestic vacation or an international vacation. Control participants completed a reading task that did not encourage mental context change. Participants then studied a list of famous names and completed a fame judgment task. Across both experiments, participants who experienced a far context change made significantly more false fame judgments than those who experienced a near context change, who in turn made more false fame judgments than control participants. Moreover, across the near and far context-change conditions, the number of “mental miles” traveled during the daydreaming task was positively correlated with false fame judgments in both experiments. Thus, greater mental distance was associated with greater susceptibility to false fame. Signal detection analyses likewise revealed reduced discrimination between famous and nonfamous names following larger context shifts. Together, these findings demonstrate that greater internal contextual change increases susceptibility to the false fame effect, providing further support for a contextual change account.
Understanding how expert performers translate expressive intent into sound remains a central question in the neuroscience of music. We recorded continuous 128-channel EEG from a professional, internationally active concert pianist during a concert-like, uninterrupted performance (~27 min) of six works by Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin. From the continuous recording, 99 two-second clean EEG segments were extracted and assigned to one of six previously validated performance-emotion categories based on independent listener evaluations (Joy, Peacefulness, Melancholy, Argumentative, Tension, Power). Each 2-s fragment contained 1,024 time points per channel, yielding 131,072 EEG data points. Cortical and subcortical source generators were reconstructed with standardized weighted Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (swLORETA), and activation was quantified both as frequency of occurrence and as dipole magnitude across three macro-regions (anterior, posterior, subcortical). A chi-square test on activation frequencies showed a significant association between cortical/subcortical region and emotional category. Repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed significant region- and emotion-dependent differences in dipole magnitude. Across virtually every emotional category, the left basal ganglia, left thalamus, and left precentral gyrus (BA4) emerged as the most consistently recruited generators, indicating a stable left-lateralized fronto-striato-thalamic axis subserving fine motor control within this performance. Superimposed on this stable motor substrate, emotion-specific modulations emerged: Joy was associated with the highest subcortical activation magnitude, while Melancholy showed the lowest subcortical magnitude together with a selective recruitment of right-hemisphere generators (right BA10, right somatosensory cortex, right insula), consistent with valence-based hemispheric asymmetry accounts. Pearson correlations further linked activation of the left basal ganglia, left thalamus, and left premotor cortex (BA6) to objective performance parameters (gestures per second, notes per phrase, acoustic intensity), suggesting that neurofunctional engagement scales with the motor complexity of the material performed. These findings provide a performer-side perspective complementary to models of music-evoked emotion largely derived from listeners, and suggest that, in this elite performer, expressive intent was instantiated in a specialized, left-dominant sensorimotor-limbic network modulated by affective valence. The study is complemented by animated audiovisual materials that dynamically trace the moment-to-moment evolution of LORETA source activity in synchrony with the unfolding musical passage.
Jeffrey M. Pavlacic, Averi N. Gaines, Sara M. Witcraft, Allie Freshley, Erin M. Buchanan, Bernadette Cortese, Christopher Sege, Alyssa A. Rheingold, Thomas Uhde, Laura J. Dixon
Anxiety sensitivity (AS) and distress tolerance (DT) are emotional-vulnerability factors driving emotion dysregulation. AS and DT may amplify misophonia. Research examining transdiagnostic factors predicting misophonia is largely cross-sectional. We examined relations between AS, DT, and longitudinal misophonia symptoms, adjusting for clinical variables. Fifty-eight individuals recruited from soQuiet endorsing clinical misophonia symptoms completed baseline and daily surveys 3x daily for 30 days. Bivariate analyses suggested baseline AS was associated with elevated longitudinal misophonia symptoms during and not during triggers, while baseline DT was associated with higher misophonia symptoms during triggers. Baseline AS, momentary emotion dysregulation, and baseline misophonia were predictors of longitudinal misophonia during triggers, adjusting for momentary emotion dysregulation, baseline misophonia, and baseline obsessions and compulsions. An alpha correction suggested an attenuated AS effect. Null effects for DT may be explained by analyses supporting emotion dysregulation as a mediator of the relation between DT and misophonia. Effects of obsessive-compulsive symptoms were null. Results inform longitudinal relations between transdiagnostic factors and misophonia. A predominant limitation is sample homogeneity. Misophonia symptom fluctuations appear contextualized, likely impacted by environmental and emotional-vulnerability factors. Results inform ongoing advancements to misophonia assessment and, pending further investigation, clinical interventions targeting malleable transdiagnostic factors.
Katrina A. Milbocker, Sabrina S. Vander Wiele, Curtis L. Johnson
Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) non-invasively quantifies brain tissue mechanical properties and has revealed an intriguing relationship between regional viscoelasticity and cognitive function across the lifespan. However, the biological basis of this relationship remains poorly understood as it is not yet clear which microstructural features generate the mechanical signal, whether brain mechanics are primarily structural or also dynamic on cognitive timescales, or how generalizable the current relationships observed in humans are across different brain regions and functions. We argue that resolving these questions requires preclinical MRE in rodents, where mechanical measurements can be linked directly to complementary analyses of cellular components and where structure and function can be experimentally perturbed. Although rodent MRE is well-established and has been productively applied to disease models, it has been little used in the contexts in which the human MRE-cognition findings are most concentrated including normal development and aging and cognitive variation in the otherwise-healthy brain. We review the human MRE-cognition literature, summarize what preclinical MRE has revealed to date, and outline experimental frameworks organized around the open questions through which rodent MRE could begin to clarify why brain mechanics relate to brain function.
