@article{VenturaBortWirknerWendtetal.2021,
  author    = {Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Wirkner, Janine and Wendt, Julia and Hamm, Alfons O. and Weymar, Mathias},
  title     = {Establishment of emotional memories is mediated by vagal nerve activation},
  series = {The journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience},
  volume    = {41},
  journal   = {The journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience},
  number    = {36},
  publisher = {Society for Neuroscience},
  address   = {Washington, DC},
  issn      = {1529-2401},
  doi       = {10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2329-20.2021},
  pages     = {7636 -- 7648},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Emotional memories are better remembered than neutral ones, but the mechanisms leading to this memory bias are not well under-stood in humans yet. Based on animal research, it is suggested that the memory-enhancing effect of emotion is based on central nor-adrenergic release, which is triggered by afferent vagal nerve activation. To test the causal link between vagus nerve activation and emotional memory in humans, we applied continuous noninvasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) during exposure to emotional arousing and neutral scenes and tested subsequent, long-term recognition memory after 1 week. We found that taVNS, compared with sham, increased recollection-based memory performance for emotional, but not neutral, material. These findings were complemented by larger recollection-related brain potentials (parietal ERP Old/New effect) during retrieval of emotional scenes encoded under taVNS, compared with sham. Furthermore, brain potentials recorded during encoding also revealed that taVNS facilitated early attentional discrimination between emotional and neutral scenes. Extending animal research, our behavioral and neu-ral findings confirm a modulatory influence of the vagus nerve in emotional memory formation in humans.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{RabovskySchadAbdelRahman2021,
  author    = {Rabovsky, Milena and Schad, Daniel and Abdel Rahman, Rasha},
  title     = {Semantic richness and density effects on language production},
  series = {Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition},
  volume    = {47},
  journal   = {Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {American Psychological Association},
  address   = {Washington},
  issn      = {0278-7393},
  doi       = {10.1037/xlm0000940},
  pages     = {508 -- 517},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Language production ultimately aims to convey meaning. Yet words differ widely in the richness and density of their semantic representations, and these differences impact conceptual and lexical processes during speech planning. Here, we replicated the recent finding that semantic richness, measured as the number of associated semantic features according to semantic feature production norms, facilitates object naming. In contrast, intercorrelational semantic feature density, measured as the degree of intercorrelation of a concept's features, presumably resulting in the coactivation of closely related concepts, has an inhibitory influence. We replicated the behavioral effects and investigated their relative time course and electrophysiological correlates. Both the facilitatory effect of high semantic richness and the inhibitory influence of high feature density were reflected in an increased posterior positivity starting at about 250 ms, in line with previous reports of posterior positivities in paradigms employing contextual manipulations to induce semantic interference during language production. Furthermore, amplitudes at the same posterior electrode sites were positively correlated with object naming times between about 230 and 380 ms. The observed effects follow naturally from the assumption of conceptual facilitation and simultaneous lexical competition and are difficult to explain by language production theories dismissing lexical competition.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{HiltonWartenburgerElsner2021,
  author    = {Hilton, Matthew and Wartenburger, Isabell and Elsner, Birgit},
  title     = {Kinematic boundary cues modulate 12-month-old infants' segmentation of action sequences},
  series = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience},
  volume    = {159},
  journal   = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0028-3932},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107916},
  pages     = {9},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Human infants can segment action sequences into their constituent actions already during the first year of life. However, work to date has almost exclusively examined the role of infants' conceptual knowledge of actions and their outcomes in driving this segmentation. The present study examined electrophysiological correlates of infants' processing of lower-level perceptual cues that signal a boundary between two actions of an action sequence. Specifically, we tested the effect of kinematic boundary cues (pre-boundary lengthening and pause) on 12-month-old infants' (N = 27) processing of a sequence of three arbitrary actions, performed by an animated figure. Using the Event-Related Potential (ERP) approach, evidence of a positivity following the onset of the boundary cues was found, in line with previous work that has found an ERP positivity (Closure Positive Shift, CPS) related to boundary processing in auditory stimuli and action sequences in adults. Moreover, an ERP negativity (Negative Central, Nc) indicated that infants' encoding of the post-boundary action was modulated by the presence or absence of prior boundary cues. We therefore conclude that 12-month-old infants are sensitive to lower-level perceptual kinematic boundary cues, which can support segmentation of a continuous stream of movement into individual action units.},
  language  = {en}
}