Eye movement patterns and consistency during face recognition are both associated with recognition performance. We examined whether they reflect different mechanisms through EEG decoding. Eighty-four participants performed an old-new face recognition task with eye movement pattern and consistency quantified using eye movement analysis with hidden…

Acquiring robust semantic representations of numbers is crucial for math achievement. However, the learning stage where magnitude becomes automatically elicited by number symbols (i.e., digits from 1 to 9) remains unknown due to the difficulty to measure automatic semantic processing. We used a frequency-tagging EEG paradigm targeting automatic…

Across development, experience has a strong impact on the way we think and adapt. School experience affects academic and social-emotional outcomes, yet whether differences in pedagogical experience modulate underlying brain network development is still unknown. In this study, we compared the brain network dynamics of students with different…

One of the basic tenets of predictive theories of language processing is that of misprediction cost. Post-N400 positive event-related potential (ERP) components are suitable for studying misprediction cost but are not adequately described, especially in older adults, who show attenuated N400 ERP effects. We report a secondary analysis of a…

Despite substantial improvements to memory precision in childhood, the neural mechanisms underlying these changes remain unclear. Here, 40 children (7-9 years; 22 females, 18 males; majority White) and 42 adults (24-35 years; 22 females, 20 males; majority White) modulated their approaches to memory formation--focusing on the specific details to…

The expanding field of affective neuroscience is redefining the role of emotions in cognition, reasoning, and judgment. This contradicts long-standing assumptions about cognition that consider emotions antithetical to learning. Emotions arose early in human brain development as essential to survival by directing the embodied brain toward…

The medial temporal lobe (MTL), including the hippocampus (HC), perirhinal cortex (PRC), and parahippocampal cortex (PHC), is central to memory formation. Reward enhances memory through interplay between the HC and substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SNVTA). While the SNVTA also innervates the MTL cortex and amygdala (AMY), their role in…

Second-language (L2) knowledge of English is an essential communication tool in the contemporary era of globalization in many research and business fields. Among the important tasks in English education is the measurement of student proficiency. While various tests purport to measure proficiency in learning English, repeated preparation and…

Chance favors the prepared mind, said Louis Pasteur. Sometimes, significant breakthroughs occur when we creatively integrate new information, leading to a creative insight or an Aha! moment, while at other times when we fail to use a clue, we remain stuck in our habitual thinking patterns. In this study, we hypothesized that the brain's transient…

The brain must strike a balance between reliable information processing and adaptation to an ever-changing environment. At a gross anatomical level, the brain's wiring diagram is believed to be relatively set after development. Therefore, a fundamental question arises: how does stereotyped wiring lead to flexible dynamics, computation, and…

Artificial intelligence (AI) driven chatbots provide instant feedback to support learning. Yet, the impacts of different feedback types on behavior and brain activation remain underexplored. We investigated how metacognitive, affective, and neutral feedback from an educational chatbot affected learning outcomes and brain activity using functional…

Previous studies tend to focus on two facets of creativity: everyday creativity (little-C) and actual creative achievement (Big-C). While little-C and Big-C both involve divergent thinking (DT), the role of DT in their relationship remains unclear. Here, we assessed the creativity scores of 64 adults, including the Creative Behavior Inventory…

Eyeblink conditioning is mediated by similar cerebellar pathways in humans and animals and is typically investigated using delay or trace protocols. These studies show that humans can easily acquire eyeblink conditioning within a single day of training whereas animals usually require around 3-10 days of acquisition training before they…

Purpose: We explore a new approach to the study of cognitive effort involved in listening to speech by measuring the brain activity in a listener in relation to the brain activity in a speaker. We hypothesize that the strength of this brain-to-brain synchrony (coupling) reflects the magnitude of cognitive effort involved in verbal communication…

Prosody is the fundamental organizing principle of spoken language, carrying lexical, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic information. It, therefore, provides highly relevant input for language development. Are infants sensitive to this important aspect of spoken language early on? In this study, we asked whether infants are able to discriminate…