Prior knowledge structures (or schemas) confer multiple behavioral benefits. First, when we encounter information that fits with prior knowledge structures, this information is generally better learned and remembered. Second, prior knowledge can support prospective planning. In humans, memory enhancements related to prior knowledge have been suggested to be supported, in part, by computations in prefrontal and medial temporal lobe cortex. Moreover, animal studies further implicate a role for the hippocampus in schema-based facilitation and in the emergence of prospective planning signals (...) following new learning. To date, convergence across the schema-enhanced learning and memory literature may be constrained by the predominant use of hippocampally dependent spatial navigation paradigms in rodents, and non-spatial list-based learning paradigms in humans. Here, we targeted this missing link by examining the effects of prior knowledge on human navigational learning in a hippocampally dependent virtual navigation paradigm that closely relates to foundational studies in rodents. Outside the scanner, participants overlearned Old Paired Associates (OPA – item-location associations) in multiple spatial environments, and they subsequently learned New Paired Associates (NPA – new item-location associations) in the environments while undergoing fMRI. We hypothesized that greater OPA knowledge precision would positively affect NPA learning, and that the hippocampus would be instrumental in translating this new learning into prospective planning of navigational paths to NPA locations. Behavioral results revealed that OPA knowledge predicted one-shot learning of NPA locations, and neural results indicated that one-shot learning was predicted by the rapid emergence of performance-predictive prospective planning signals in hippocampus. Prospective memory relationships were not significant in parahippocampal cortex and were marginally dissociable from the primary hippocampal effect. Collectively, these results extend understanding of how schemas impact learning and performance, showing that the precision of prior spatial knowledge is important for future learning in humans, and that the hippocampus is involved in translating this knowledge into new goal-directed behaviors. (shrink)

Stawarczyk, Bezdek, and Zacks offer neuroscience evidence for a midline default network core, which appears to coordinate internal, top‐down mentation with externally‐triggered, bottom‐up attention in a push‐pull relationship. The network may enable the flexible pursuance of thoughts tuned into or detached from the current environment.

Declarative memory abilities change across adulthood. Semantic memory and autobiographic episodic knowledge can remain stable or even increase from mid- to late adulthood, while episodic memory abilities decline in later adulthood. Although it is well known that prior knowledge influences new learning, it is unclear whether the experiential growth of knowledge and memory traces across the lifespan may drive favorable adaptations in some basic memory processes. We hypothesized that an increased reliance on memory integration may be an adaptive mechanism to (...) handle increased interference from accumulating memory traces and knowledge across adulthood. In turn, this may confer an improved ability for integration, observable in middle-age, before the onset of major aging-related declines. We further tested whether the hypothesized increase would be associated with previously observed reductions in memory discrimination performance in midlife. Data from a sample of healthy middle-aged and younger adults did not support the hypothesis of improved integration, as assessed by an associative inference paradigm. Instead, age-equivalent performance on both integration and discrimination measures were observed [Bayes factors 10 = 0.19–0.25], along with expected higher verbal knowledge and slower perceptual speed for middle-aged [10 = 8.52–73.52]. The results contribute to an increased understanding of memory processing in midlife, an understudied portion of the lifespan, and suggest that two core episodic memory processes, integration and discrimination, can be maintained in healthy middle-aged adults. (shrink)

The theoretical debate on the nature of narrative has been mainly concerned with literary narratives, whereas forms of non-literary and especially pictorial narrativity have been somewhat neglected. In this paper, however, I shall discuss narrativity specifically with regard to pictorial objects in order to clarify how pictorial storytelling may be based on the activation of mentally stored action and scene schemas. Approaches from cognitive psychology, such as the work of Schank, Roger C. & Robert P. Abelson. 1977. Scripts, plans, goals (...) and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Mandler, Jean Matter. 1984. Stories, scripts, and scenes: Aspects of schema theory. London/hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Schank, Roger C. 1995. Tell me a story: Narrative and intelligence. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, suggest that cognition crucially depends on the storage and retrieval of action scripts or schemata, that is, narrative structures, which may occur at various levels of abstraction. These schemas incorporate generalized knowledge about event sequences, such as the order in which specific events will take place; causal, enabling, or conventionalized relations between these events, and what kind of events occur in certain action sequences. There also are scene schemas that are characterized by spatial rather than temporal relations. Further kinds of schemas seem also to play a decisive role. Drawing upon considerations from schema and script theory, I will focus on some concrete examples of pictorial narration, more specifically depictions of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, where narrative schema structures become involved and, indeed, the comprehensibility of the pictures as such presuppose mental script representations. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 3, March 2022.

Syntactic templates serve as schemas, allowing speakers to describe complex events in a systematic fashion. Motion events have long served as a prime example of how different languages favor different syntactic frames, in turn biasing their speakers toward different event conceptualizations. However, there is also variability in how motion events are syntactically framed within languages. Here, we measure the consistency in event encoding in two languages, Spanish and Swedish. We test a dominant account in the literature, namely that variability within (...) a language can be explained by specific properties of the events. This event-properties account predicts that descriptions of one and the same event should be consistent within a language, even in languages where there is overall variability in the use of syntactic frames. Spanish and Swedish speakers (N= 84) described 32 caused motion events. While the most frequent syntactic framing in each language was as expected based on typology (Spanish: verb-framed, Swedish: satellite-framed, cf. Talmy,2000), Swedish descriptions were substantially more consistent than Spanish descriptions. Swedish speakers almost invariably encoded all events with a single syntactic frame and systematically conveyed manner of motion. Spanish descriptions, in contrast, varied much more regarding syntactic framing and expression of manner. Crucially, variability in Spanish descriptions was not mainly a function of differences between events, as predicted by the event-properties account. Rather, Spanish variability in syntactic framing was driven by speaker biases. A similar picture arose for whether Spanish descriptions expressed manner information or not: Even after accounting for the effect of syntactic choice, a large portion of the variance in Spanish manner encoding remained attributable to differences among speakers. The results show that consistency in motion event encoding starkly differs across languages: Some languages (like Swedish) bias their speakers toward a particular linguistic event schema much more than others (like Spanish). Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the typology of event framing, theories on the relationship between language and thought, and speech planning. In addition, the tools employed here to quantify variability can be applied to other domains of language. (shrink)

Disconcerting findings from nascent sociological research suggest that Western youth are developing subjectivities that reflect neoliberal discursive formations of self-interest, competitiveness, and materialism. However, propositions about: (1) the cognitive-affective mechanisms that explain how youth acquire and reproduce neoliberal ideology, or (2) the dispositions and behaviours that typify a neoliberal subject, remain vague. Therefore, this article provides a novel conceptualization of these two psychosocial facets that can help advance understandings and investigations of the emerging modes and societal consequences of neoliberal subjectification, (...) Specifically, it reviews major theoretical tenets from the respective literatures on neurocognitive development, social cognition, neoliberalism, and neoliberal hegemony. It then synthesizes these tenets within a modified habitus formulation to sketch a testable cognitive-sociological model to explain and explore some of the distinct dispositional values, attitudes, and practices that youth raised in societies with institutionally and culturally prevalent neoliberal norms and discourses potentially may develop and enact. (shrink)

Surgical expertise does not have a clear definition and is often culturally associated with power, authority, prestige, and case number rather than more objective proxies of excellence. Multiple models of expertise progression have been proposed including the Dreyfus model, however, they all currently require subjective evaluation of skill. Recently, efforts have been made to improve the ways in which surgical excellence is measured and expertise is defined using artificial intelligence, video recordings, and accelerometers. However, these aforementioned methods of assessment are (...) still subjective or indirect proxies of expertise, thus uncovering the neural mechanisms that differentiate expert surgeons from trainees may enhance the objectivity of surgical expertise validation. In fact, some researchers have already suggested that their neural imaging-based expertise classification methods outperform currently used methods of surgical skill certification such as the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery scores. Such imaging biomarkers would not only help better identify the highest performing surgeons, but could also improve residency programs by providing more objective, evidence-based feedback and developmental milestones for those in training and perhaps act as a marker of surgical potential in medical students. Despite the potential advantages of using neural imaging in the assessment of surgical expertise, this field of research remains in its infancy. This systematic review identifies studies that have applied neuromonitoring in assessing surgical skill across levels of expertise. The goals of this review are to identify the strongest neural indicators of surgical expertise, the limitations of the current literature on this subject, the most sensible future directions for further study. We found substantial evidence that surgical expertise can be delineated by differential activation and connectivity in the prefrontal cortex across multiple task and neuroimaging modalities. Specifically, novices tend to have greater PFC activation than experts under standard conditions in bimanual and decision-making tasks. However, under high temporal demand tasks, experts had increased PFC activation whereas novices had decreased PFC activation. Common limitations uncovered in this review were that task difficulty was often insufficient to delineate between residents and attending. Moreover, attending level involvement was also low in multiple studies which may also have contributed to this issue. Most studies did not analyze the ability of their neuromonitoring findings to accurately classify subjects by level of expertise. Finally, the predominance of fNIRS as the neuromonitoring modality limits our ability to uncover the neural correlates of surgical expertise in non-cortical brain regions. Future studies should first strive to address these limitations. In the longer term, longitudinal within-subjects design over the course of a residency or even a career will also advance the field. Although logistically arduous, such studies would likely be most beneficial in demonstrating effects of increasing surgical expertise on regional brain activation and inter-region connectivity. (shrink)

This article introduces a process-oriented approach for improving present moment conceptualization in psychotherapy that is in alignment with neuroscience: the Temporospatial movements of mind model. We elaborate on seven temporal movements that describe the moment-to-moment morphogenesis of emotional feelings and thoughts from inception to maturity. Temporal refers to the passage of time through which feelings and thoughts develop, and electromagnetic activity, that among other responsibilities, bind information across time. Spatial dynamics extend from an undifferentiated to three dimensional experiences of emotional (...) and cognitive processes. Neurophysiologically, spatial refers to structures within the brain and their varying interactions with one another. This article culminates in the development of an atheoretical temporospatial grid that may help clinicians conceptualize where patients are in their cognitive and emotional development to further guide technique. (shrink)

Mental time travel is defined as projecting the self into the past and the future. Despite growing evidence of the similarities of remembering past and imagining future events, dominant theories conceive of these as distinct capacities. I propose that memory and imagination are fundamentally the same process – constructive episodic simulation – and demonstrate that the ‘simulation system’ meets the three criteria of a neurocognitive system. Irrespective of whether one is remembering or imagining, the simulation system: acts on the same (...) information, drawing on elements of experience ranging from fine-grained perceptual details to coarser-grained conceptual information and schemas about the world; is governed by the same rules of operation, including associative processes that facilitate construction of a schematic scaffold, the event representation itself, and the dynamic interplay between the two ; and is subserved by the same brain system. I also propose that by forming associations between schemas, the simulation system constructs multi-dimensional cognitive spaces, within which any given simulation is mapped by the hippocampus. Finally, I suggest that simulation is a general capacity that underpins other domains of cognition, such as the perception of ongoing experience. This proposal has some important implications for the construct of ‘MTT’, suggesting that ‘time’ and ‘travel’ may not be defining, or even essential, features. Rather, it is the ‘mental’ rendering of experience that is the most fundamental function of this domain-general simulation system enabling humans to re-experience the past, pre-experience the future, and also comprehend the complexities of the present. (shrink)