Showing papers in "Trends in Cognitive Sciences in 2009"

TL;DR: A free-energy formulation that advances Helmholtz's agenda to find principles of brain function based on conservation laws and neuronal energy is reviewed, which rests on advances in statistical physics, theoretical biology and machine learning to explain a remarkable range of facts about brain structure and function.

TL;DR: Differences in attention and cognition impact on emotions, decisions, behaviors and interpersonal interactions that can contribute to the association between loneliness and cognitive decline and betweenoneliness and morbidity more generally.

TL;DR: These studies indicate that SES is an important predictor of neurocognitive performance, particularly of language and executive function, and that S ES differences are found in neural processing even when performance levels are equal.

TL;DR: A unifying model in which insula cortex supports different levels of representation of current and predictive states allowing for error-based learning of both feeling states and uncertainty is proposed.

TL;DR: The 'dual competition' framework proposes that emotion and motivation affect both perceptual and executive competition, and the anterior cingulate cortex is hypothesized to be engaged in attentional/effortful control mechanisms and to interact with several other brain structures in integrating affectively significant signals with control signals in prefrontal cortex.

TL;DR: Recent work that has begun to delineate a neurobiology of visual expectation is reviewed, and the findings are contrasted with those of the attention literature to explore how these two central influences on visual perception overlap, differ and interact.

TL;DR: It is proposed that important commonalities exist with the understanding of neuronal processes and that much could be learned by considering collective animal behavior in the framework of cognitive science.

TL;DR: What are the minimally sufficient conditions for the appearance of a phenomenal self, that is, the fundamental conscious experience of being someone?

TL;DR: Converging findings show that when people make decisions based on experience, rare events tend to have less impact than they deserve according to their objective probabilities.

TL;DR: It is hypothesize that perceived eye contact is initially detected by a subcortical route, which then modulates the activation of the social brain as it processes the accompanying detailed sensory information.

TL;DR: This perspective with the role of the insula in interoception, self-awareness and drug craving, the anterior cingulate in behavioral monitoring and response selection and drug-related stimuli that predict emotional behavior in addicted individuals are integrated.

TL;DR: An account of auditory perception suggesting that representations of predictable patterns, or 'regularities', extracted from the incoming sounds serve as auditory perceptual objects that generate hypotheses about the causal structure of the world.

TL;DR: The study of higher-order topographic cortex promises to yield unprecedented insights into the neural mechanisms of cognitive processes and, in conjunction with parallel studies in non-human primates, into the evolution of cognition.

TL;DR: The human language function is based on the grey matter of circumscribed brain regions in the frontal and the temporal cortex but moreover on the white matter fiber tracts connecting these regions, which are considered to be crucial for the evolution of human language, which is characterized by the ability to process syntactically complex sentences.

TL;DR: This work asks how attention training and attention state training might be similar and different in their training methods, neural mechanisms and behavioral outcomes.

TL;DR: It is shown how bringing together the diverse, often disconnected, theoretical and methodological approaches illuminates the applicability of herding to many domains of cognition and suggests that cognitive neuroscience offers a novel approach to its study.

TL;DR: Although the neuroscience of happiness is still in its infancy, further advances might be made through mapping overlap between brain networks of hedonic pleasure with others, such as the brain's default network potentially involved in the other happiness ingredient, eudaimonia or life meaning and engagement.

TL;DR: Based on recent studies at multiple sites, using diverse methods and participants of different autism subtypes, ages and cognitive levels, no consistent evidence for cognitive flexibility deficits was found.

TL;DR: Recent neuroimaging studies demonstrate that the wavelength, duration and intensity of light exposure modulate brain responses to (non-visual) cognitive tasks and light emerges as an important modulator of brain function and cognition.

TL;DR: Evidence is discussed that the approximate number system (ANS) bears a set of behavioral and brain signatures that are universally displayed across animal species, human cultures and development, and whether the ANS constitutes a specialized cognitive and neural domain.

TL;DR: It is shown that a statistical summary of recent neuroimaging studies reveals a widespread neural network for gaze processing that subserves visual analysis of social attention cues, and imitative attention shifts and mental state attributions from these cues.

TL;DR: Findings from this rapidly evolving field linking intrinsic brain oscillations to distinct sensory, motor and cognitive operations emphasize that brain rhythms are causally implicated in cognitive functions.

TL;DR: Recent work on the neural mechanisms underlying multistable perception and how such work has contributed to understanding the neural correlates of consciousness is reviewed.

TL;DR: A novel neurophysiological correlate of the fMRI signal, the slow cortical potential (SCP), is discussed, which also seems to modulate the power of higher-frequency activity, the more established neurophysiology correlate of this signal.

TL;DR: Continuous hand movements during target choice reaching tasks reveal the temporal evolution of hidden internal events and the direction of curved reaching trajectories elucidates the flow of earlier cognitive states into motor outputs.

TL;DR: A general framework of the cognitive and neural processes involved in movement intention and motor awareness is put forward and it is proposed that during movement execution it is their initial intentions that the authors are mainly aware of.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss emerging evidence for the impact of these neuropeptides on the regulation of the social brain and examine the putative role of allelic variation in candidate genes on individual differences in social cognitive processing and associated social behaviour.

TL;DR: The limits of embodiment in social cognition are shown and the most interesting being the thesis that mental representations in bodily formats (B-formats) have an important role in cognition.

TL;DR: This work proposes that conflict situations such as Stroop incongruent-stimuli lead to arousal and noradrenalin release throughout the brain, which facilitates binding between task-relevant cortical areas.

TL;DR: It is argued that the current neurological, behavioral, developmental and evolutionary evidence is insufficient to demonstrate that emotion is necessary for making moral judgments, and suggests instead that the source of moral judgments lies in the authors' causal-intentional psychology.