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Difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories is known as overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM). OGM has been related with clinical psychopathology (e.g., depression, schizophrenia, etc.). People presenting an OGM style usually recall more repetitive summary-type memories, so-called categoric memories, (e.g., "each time I saw her") rather than specific memories (events occurring on a specific day whose duration does not exceed 24 hours; e.g., "the day I met her"). Differences in brain activation in the search phase of the retrieval process of specific and categoric autobiographical memories are examined using EEG techniques. Fourteen younger adults performed an Autobiographical Memory Task. Results show significant differences in the activation between specific and categoric memories mainly in frontal areas during the 2.5 seconds before the memory recovery. Specific memories were associated with an increased activation of the left prefrontal cortex, while brain activation for categoric memories was less intense. These results support the idea that the activation of prefrontal areas is required to facilitate the process of elaborating specific memories.

Flexible updating of information in Visual Working Memory (VWM) is crucial to deal with its limited capacity. Previous research has shown that the removal of no longer relevant information takes some time to complete. Here, we sought to study the time course of such removal by tracking the accompanying drop in load through behavioral and neurophysiological measures. In the first experimental session, participants completed a visuospatial retro‐cue task in which the Cue‐Target Interval (CTI) was manipulated. The performance revealed that it takes about half a second to make full use of the retro‐cue. In a second session, we sought to study the dynamics of load‐related electroencephalographic (EEG) signals to track the removal of information. We applied Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) to EEG data from the same task. Right after encoding, results replicated previous research using MVPA to decode load. However, especially after the retro‐cue, results suggested that classifiers were mainly sensitive to a selection component, and not so much to load per se. Additionally, visual cue variations, as well as eye movements that accompany load manipulations can also contribute to decoding. These findings advise caution when using MVPA to decode VWM load, as classifiers may be sensitive to confounding operations. It takes half a second to remove visuospatial information from working memory. Applying MVPA to decode working memory load from EEG data can be confounded by selection decoding. Selection of visual information from the environment or from working memory is similarly supported by eye movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research aims to assess literacy acquisition in children becoming bilingual via second language immersion in school. We adopt a cognitive components approach, assessing text-level reading comprehension, a complex literacy skill, as well as underlying cognitive and linguistic components in 144 children aged 7 to 14 (72 immersion bilinguals, 72 controls). Using principal component analysis, a nuanced pattern of results was observed: although emergent bilinguals lag behind their monolingual counterparts on measures of linguistic processing, they showed enhanced performance on a memory and reasoning component. For reading comprehension, no between-group differences were evident, suggesting that selective benefits compensate costs at the level of underlying cognitive components. Overall, the results seem to indicate that literacy skills may be modulated by emerging bilingualism even when no between-group differences are evident at the level of complex skill, and the detection of such differences may depend on the focus and selectivity of the task battery used.

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The present research explores working memory (WM) development in monolingual as well as emergent bilingual children immersed in an L2 at school. Evidence from recent years suggests that bilingualism may boost domain-general executive control, but impair nonexecutive linguistic processing. Both are relevant for verbal WM, but different paradigms currently in use vary in the degree to which they reflect these subprocesses. We found that only younger immersion students outperformed monolinguals on the n-back task, a measure of executive WM updating, but showed a relative deficit in L1 rapid naming and, to a lesser degree, reading span scores. Age effects suggest that, rather than ultimate performance levels, bilingualism alters the developmental course of WM processes. We conclude that emergent bilingualism may modulate WM development in school-aged children at the subcomponent level, but detecting this modulation is contingent on task selection.

In the present study, we investigated developmental trajectories of alerting, orienting, and executive attention networks and their interactions over childhood. Two cross-sectional experiments were conducted with different samples of 6-to 12-year-old children using modified versions of the attention network task (ANT). In Experiment 1 (N = 106), alerting and orienting cues were independently manipulated, thus allowing examination of interactions between these 2 networks, as well as between them and the executive attention network. In Experiment 2 (N = 159), additional changes were made to the task in order to foster exogenous orienting cues. Results from both studies consistently revealed separate developmental trajectories for each attention network. Children younger than 7 years exhibited stronger benefits from having an alerting auditory signal prior to the target presentation. Developmental changes in orienting were mostly observed on response accuracy between middle and late childhood, whereas executive attention showed increases in efficiency between 7 years and older ages, and further improvements in late childhood. Of importance, across both experiments, significant interactions between alerting and orienting, as well as between each of these and the executive attention network, were observed. Alerting cues led to speeding shifts of attention and enhancing orienting processes. Also, both alerting and orienting cues modulated the magnitude of the flanker interference effect. These findings inform current theoretical models of human attention and its development, characterizing for the first time, the age-related course of attention networks interactions that, present in adults, stem from further refinements over childhood.

A major health and societal challenge nowadays is how to ameliorate and/or delay the onset of cognitive decline in humans suffering from diverse pathologies. Often, solutions can be found in basic science conducted in the laboratory through the use of very well-known experimental procedures. In the present review article, we set out to present the main findings from a research line focused on an experimental procedure originally discovered in animal studies investigating associative learning; namely, the differential outcomes procedure (DOP). Here we review the main findings of the DOP that relate to the different processes involved in associative learning and memory from a neuropsychological perspective. We take a step forward to illustrate how the DOP can be applied to real life settings to address important issues such as treatment adherence. Briefly, we first show how the DOP can be adapted to enhance discriminative learning and memory retention in children of different ages, younger adults, and healthy as well as pathological aging. Next, we illustrate how the DOP can be a cost-effective approach to tackle health challenges such as adherence to medical prescriptions in older people suffering from multiple morbidities. Finally, we discuss digital, mobile-based applications using the DOP to promote autonomy in older adults. Future directions in the DOP applications to health issues are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study validated the four mathematics tests of the Spanish version of the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III) Achievement (ACH) battery for use in the first six grades of school in Spain. Developmental effects and gender differences were also examined. Participants were a normal population sample of 424 (216 boys) children aged 6 to 13 years. Results showed that the tests have good test-retest and internal reliability and good construct and criterion-related validity. Significant main effects of schooling were obtained with scores increasing across the six school grades, but scores between fourth and fifth graders did not differ significantly. Overall, boys scored higher than girls on all tests but the effect sizes of these gender differences were small (d less than or equal to 0.12). (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

The main objective of this article is to provide new evidence regarding the impact of bilingualism on the attentional system. We approach this goal by assessing the effects of bilingualism on the executive and orienting networks of attention. In Experiment 1, we compared young bilingual and monolingual adults in a numerical version of the Stroop task, which allowed the assessment of the executive control network. We observed more efficient performance in the former group, which showed both reduced Stroop Interference and larger Stroop Facilitation Effects relative to the latter. Conversely, Experiment 2, conducted with a visual cueing task in order to assess the orienting network, revealed similar Cueing Facilitation and Inhibition (Inhibition of Return--IOR) Effects for both groups of speakers. The implications of the results of these two experiments for the origin and boundaries of the bilingual impact on the attentional system are discussed.

In this study, 24 individuals (ages 6-37) with down syndrome had to learn a symbolic conditional discrimination task. Participants showed better terminal accuracy and faster learning of the task when the alternative correct responses were each followed by unique different outcomes than when nondifferential outcomes were arranged. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)