Memory retrieval can involve activity in the same sensory cortical regions involved in perception of the original event, and this neural "reactivation" has been suggested as an important mechanism of memory retrieval. However, it is still unclear if fragments of experience other than sensory information are retained and later reactivated during…

Two distinctly different maturational processes--cortical thinning and white matter maturation--take place in the brain as we mature from late childhood to adulthood. To what extent does each contribute to the development of complex cognitive functions like working memory? The independent and joint contributions of cortical thickness of regions of…

Objective: Adult major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with reduced cortico-limbic functional connectivity thought to indicate decreased top-down control of emotion. However, it is unclear whether such connectivity alterations are also present in early-childhood-onset MDD. Method: A total of 51 children 7 through 11 years of age who had…

The presence of peers increases risk taking among adolescents but not adults. We posited that the presence of peers may promote adolescent risk taking by sensitizing brain regions associated with the anticipation of potential rewards. Using fMRI, we measured brain activity in adolescents, young adults, and adults as they made decisions in a…

To identify neural regions that automatically respond to linguistically structured, but meaningless manual gestures, 14 deaf native users of American Sign Language (ASL) and 14 hearing non-signers passively viewed pseudosigns (possible but non-existent ASL signs) and non-iconic ASL signs, in addition to a fixation baseline. For the contrast…

Using the mismatch negativity (MMN) response, we examined how Standard French and Southern French speakers access the meaning of words ending in /e/ or /[epsilon]/ vowels which are contrastive in Standard French but not in Southern French. In Standard French speakers, there was a significant difference in the amplitude of the brain response after…

We examined the ERP correlates of familiarity and recollection and their development in 8- to 10-year-old children and a control group of young adults. Capitalizing on the different temporal dynamics of familiarity and recollection, we tested recognition memory in both groups with a speeded and nonspeeded response condition. Consistent with the…

One of the classic categorical divisions in the history of memory research is that between short-term and long-term memory. Indeed, because memory for the immediate past (a few seconds) and memory for the relatively more remote past (several seconds and beyond) are assumed to rely on distinct neural systems, more often than not, memory research…

The concept of reflection is common to a range of learning theories and therefore carries various meanings and differing significance. Within theories of adult education, reflection is predominantly conceptualized as the rational analytical process through which human beings extract knowledge from their experience. This article critiques this…

Perceptual asymmetries for tasks involving aesthetic preference or line bisection can be affected by asymmetrical neurological mechanisms or left/right reading habits. This study investigated the relative contribution of these mechanisms in 100 readers of Japanese and English. Participants made aesthetic judgments between pairs of mirror-reversed…

Atypical development of face processing is a major characteristic in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which could be due to atypical interactions between subcortical and cortical face processing. The current study investigated the saccade planning towards faces in ASD. Seventeen children with ASD and 17 typically developing (TD) children observed a…

Much functional neuroimaging evidence indicates that autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate marked brain abnormalities in face processing. Most of these findings were obtained from studies using tasks related to whole faces. However, individuals with ASD tend to rely more on individual parts of the face for identification than on the…

The present study examined the memory performance and cortical connectivity of children with ASD, and investigated whether the memory deficits exhibited by these children were associated with the cortical connectivity. Twenty-one children with ASD and 21 children with normal development (NC), aged 5-14 years, participated in the study. Each child…

Executive function (EF) skills are the attention-regulation skills that make it possible to sustain attention, keep goals and information in mind, refrain from responding immediately, resist distraction, tolerate frustration, consider the consequences of different behaviors, reflect on past experiences, and plan for the future. As EF research…

Background: We prospectively followed an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n = 140) and a matched comparison sample (n = 88) from childhood through young adulthood to evaluate developmental trajectories of executive functions (EF) and associations between EF trajectories…