Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience: Simply AWESOME

I just spent some time browsing the articles lined up for forthcoming publication in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. As a researcher who is looking for good research that links my primary are of interest (intelligence and measurement of intelligence) with underlying brain mechanisms, I think I have found the pot-o-gold at the end of the brain-behavior rainbow. Below is the list of articles the journal currently has "waiting in the wings." The depth and breadth is amazing. I have added this journal to my RSS feed so I can stay up-to-date when articles are published.

What a way to start my day. Finding this will sipping my morning java. Now if I could only fine time to read just a 1/4 of these articles.

Well MIT Press.

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Research Bytes: Neuro-imaging research--brain networks and public interest

Beck, D. M. (2010). The Appeal of the Brain in the Popular Press. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(6), 762-766.

Since the advent of human neuroimaging, and of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in particular, the popular press has shown an increasing interest in brain-related findings. In this article, I explore possible reasons behind this interest, including recent data suggesting that people find brain images and neuroscience language more convincing than results that make no reference to the brain (McCabe & Castel, 2008; Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson, & Gray, 2008). I suggest that part of the allure of these data are the deceptively simply messages they afford, as well as general, but sometimes misguided, confidence in biological data. In addition to cataloging some misunderstandings by the press and public, I highlight the responsibilities of the research scientist in carefully conveying their work to the general public.


Gonsalves, B. D., & Cohen, N. J. (2010). Brain Imaging, Cognitive Processes, and Brain Networks. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(6), 744-752.


McDonald, R. P. (2010). Structural Models and the Art of Approximation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(6), 675-686

Structural equation models have provided a seemingly rigorous method for investigating causal relations in nonexperimental data in the presence of measurement error or multiple measures of putative causes or effects. Methods have been developed for fitting these very complex models globally and obtaining global fit statistics or global measures of their approximation to sample data. Structural equation models are idealizations that can serve only as approximations to real multivariate data. Further, these models are multidimensional, and the approximation is itself multidimensional. Tests of “significance” and global indices of approximation do not provide an adequate basis for judging the acceptability of the approximation. Standard applications of structural models use a composite of two models—a measurement (path) model and a path (causal) model. Separate analyses of the measurement model and the path model provide an informed judgment, whereas the composite global analysis can easily yield unreasonable conclusions. Separating the component models enables a careful assessment of the actual constraints implied by the path model, using recently developed methods. An empirical example shows how the conventional global treatment yields unacceptable conclusions


Poldrack, R. A. (2010). Mapping Mental Function to Brain Structure: How Can Cognitive Neuroimaging Succeed? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(6), 753-761

The goal of cognitive neuroscience is to identify the mapping between brain function and mental processing. In this article, I examine the strategies that have been used to identify such mappings and argue that they may be fundamentally unable to identify selective structure–function mappings. To understand the functional anatomy of mental processes, it will be necessary for researchers to move from the brain-mapping strategies that the field has employed toward a search for selective associations. This will require a greater focus on the structure of cognitive processes, which can be achieved through the development of formal ontologies that describe the structure of mental processes. In this article, I outline the Cognitive Atlas Project, which is developing such ontologies, and show how this knowledge could be used in conjunction with data-mining approaches to more directly relate mental processes and brain function.


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Research byte: Population clocks model of motor timing (Buonomano & Laje, 2010)

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Buonomano and Laje (2010) have presented an interesting description of a population clocks model to explain motor timing. The article is a hard read....and if it is too difficult, just do what I did....enjoy the lovely graphic figures. Seriously...this is an important contribution to understanding motor timing in motor performance. I will need to digest it more than once. Probably the most useful aspect of the article is the nice intro overview of the various theoretical models that have been advanced to explain the human brain clock.



The PDF article includes highlights and notes as per the IQs Reading blog feature.

The article will be added to the Key Research Articles section of this blog.


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iPost: The basics of brain development--nice overview article

See link below


http://www.springerlink.com/content/g551601215g44j30/


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More research on possible brain centers of "IQ brain clock" and pacemaker-accummulator model of time-keeping

Wittmann, M., Simmons, A. N., Aron, J. L., & Paulus, M. P. (2010). Accumulation of neural activity in the posterior insula encodes the passage of time. Neuropsychologia, 48(10), 3110-3120.


Abstract

• A number of studies have examined the perception of time with durations ranging from milliseconds to a few seconds, however the neural basis of these processes are still poorly understood and the neural substrates underlying the perception of multiple-second intervals are unknown. Here we present evidence of neural systems activity in circumscribed areas of the human brain involved in the encoding of intervals with durations of 9 and 18 s in a temporal reproduction task using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During the encoding there was greater activation in more posterior parts of the medial frontal and insular cortex whereas the reproduction phase involved more anterior parts of these brain structures. Intriguingly, activation curves over time show an accumulating pattern of neural activity, which peaks at the end of the interval within bilateral posterior insula and superior temporal cortex when individuals are presented with 9- and 18-s tone intervals. This is consistent with an accumulator-type activity, which encodes duration in the multiple seconds range. Given the close connection between the dorsal posterior insula and ascending internal body signals, we suggest that the accumulation of physiological changes in body states constitutes our experience of time. This is the first time that an accumulation function in the posterior insula is detected that might be correlated with the encoding of time intervals.

Select quotes from discussion [blog master comments in brackets.  Links inserted by blog master]

• This study examined the neural substrates that underlie the processing of time in the seconds domain. In particular, activation was observed in brain regions related to the encoding and reproduction of time intervals which have been implicated as core neural substrates of time-keeping systems, notably the supplementary motor area, the striatum, cerebellum, the right frontal lobe, the inferior parietal gyrus, the posterior temporal cortex as well as the insula (Lewis & Miall, 2003a, 2003b; Rubia & Smith, 2004; Wiener et al., 2010; Wittmann, 1999).[Click here and here for prior posts related to possible underlying brain locations/structures of "brain clock"]

• It seems as if the more posterior regions of the brain are instrumental in coding the duration of a presented interval and that many distributed (more anterior) regions of the brain are involved in keeping a representation of that interval for further processing (pressing the button at the right moment in time).

• The main finding of this study is that the BOLD fMRI results support an integrator-like neuronal function over time involved in the representation of duration in humans. The pattern of activation for the 3-s interval differed from that observed for the longer intervals. This suggests that the perception of duration for shorter durations(up to 3 s) might rely on different brain areas (recruiting sensorimotor systems of the brain) than the estimation of duration in the multiple-second range (Fraisse, 1984; Morillon et al., 2009; Pöppel, 1997, 2009; Wittmann et al., 2007). The separation of the shorter from the two longer time intervals is also suggested by the high correlation in subjects’ behavioral performance between the 9- and 18-s temporal reproduction intervals and the lack of correlation between the 3 s and the two longer durations.

• The finding that neural activity appears to accumulate in the posterior insula provides key evidence for piecing together a theory in which interoception might function as the prime source for our subjective experience of time. Our findings together with existing studies on the influence of emotions on the experience of time (Droit-Volet & Gil, 2009; Noulhiane, Mella, Samson, Ragot, & Pouthas, 2007; Wittmann, Vollmer, Schweiger, & Hiddemann, 2006) may lead the way for a comprehensive understanding of temporal processing in the brain. Our results concerning climbing neural activity in circumscribed regions of the brain and similar more unspecific findings of climbing activity as found in human EEG with shorter intervals are compatible with the pacemaker-accumulator model of time perception (Pfeuty et al., 2005). In line with this conceptualization is it is conceivable that the number and rate of body signals accumulated in the posterior insula over a given time span creates our sense of duration. Although this conclusion is speculative, we propose that the posterior insula, which processes physiological changes in body states, is strongly involved in our experience of time.

Time Doc Bytes: Two new exciting brain-based brain clock research studies

Two very interesting research studies reported this past week.

The first used a rare procedure (implanting electrodes in Broca's area of the brain) provides useful information on brain mechanisms involved in the speed, timing and sequence of language behaviors.

The second, based on research with primates, is very intriguing as it suggest the use of a "brain stamp" mechanism for keeping time of events.   Interestingly, and consistent with considerable research posted at this blog before, the focus was on certain brain regions/mechanisms (prefrontal cortex; straitum; dopamine), and implications were mentioned for Parkinson's disease treatment.

Technorati Tags: pscyhology, educational psychology, school psychology, developmental psychology, cognition, intelligence, brain clock, mental timing, temporal processing, IQ Brain Clock, prefrontal cortex, language, Brocas area

IQ Brain Clock brain localization overview

I previously blogged about a special issue of Acta Neurobiologiae devoted to the minds brain clock. I provided a TOC and links to the papers. I just now skimmed one of the papers by Rubia & Smith (2004):

RUBIA K. and SMITH A. The neural correlates of cognitive time management: a review 

My conclusion is that this is an excellent overview of the basic empirical research and theoretical literature regarding mental time-keeping (i.e., the IQ Brain Clock). It also provides a nice summary of the general consensus re: the major areas of the brain believed to be involved in motor and cognitive timing, areas featured in prior posts here. Below is a copy of the first concluding paragraph...where I've added tag links to all prior IQ Brain Clock posts that refer to these brain areas or concepts. I will shortly add Rubia to the mental timing scholars blogroll and this article to the key research articles section of this blog.

• In conclusion, this review on the neural correlates of cognitive time management shows that predominantly right hemispheric dorsolateral and inferior prefrontal cortices, anterior cingulate, the SMA, the basal ganglia and the lateral cerebellar hemispheres appear to be involved in both functions of motor timing and time estimation. Furthermore, the review shows that the dichotomy between motor and perceptive timing functions may be artificial. Both functions appear to be mediated by identical neural networks and may be inseparable.

Interactive brain tour

Thanks to HAPPY NEURON for the tip regarding this resource.

http://blog.happy-neuron.com/brain-anatomy-and-imaging/how-does-the-brain-work/

Sent from KMcGrew iPhone (IQMobile). (If message includes an image-
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The IQ brain clock: Role of basal ganglia and cerebellum

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Dr. Ivry, a "mental timing scholar" (aka., IQ Brain Clock doc) has done it again!

In a prior post I drooled over the means by which he explained possible different neural models of temporal processing (the IQ Brain Clock) via visual-graphic diagrams. As a result of his most recent article (see prior post link above), I went and found an earlier 2004 publication (with Spencer) that again presents an excellent visual-graphic explanation of hypothesized different neural timing models (see figure above), but more importantly, presents a very nice visual-graphic explanation of the hypothesized role of the basal ganglia (and dopamaine), which have been repeatedly implicated in mental timing and such clinical disorders as Parkinson's (see figure below). I've always known that the basal ganglia play a prominent role in mental timing, but have never been able to grasp (probably reflecting my limitations) the possible "why" or underlying mechanism. They offer an interesting and understandable hypothesis.

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In the Ivry and Spencer (2004) article in Current Opinion in Neurobiology, the authors suggest that the basal ganglia works like a gating mechanism....which I have compared to the switch operator function in a railway system (see PPT slide show). According to the authors, who also prominently feature the cerebellum in brain clock timing system models:

• The current evidence does not preclude distributed models or hypotheses that assign a central role for timing to another specialized system, such as the basal ganglia. As reviewed here, the results of imaging and lesion studies are ambiguous with respect to the role of the basal ganglia in timing short intervals. A clear dissociation between the cerebellar and the basal ganglia contributions on temporal processing tasks remains elusive, primarily because similar deficits have been observed in patients with lesions of either structure ..... The cerebellar hypothesis offers a parsimonious account over a broad set of tasks, and neurobiologically feasible models have been developed. Nonetheless, a specialized system hypothesis must be able to account for similar patterns of performance following damage to distinct systems.

• As a starting point, we propose that the basal ganglia are an integral part of decision processes, operating as a threshold mechanism (Figure 2). Activations into the basal ganglia are gated such that only those reaching threshold are implemented [69]. The activation functions for different decisions can reflect multiple factors, such as goals, sensory inputs, and contextual information. These representations engage in a competitive process for control. According to this view, the basal ganglia ensure that response implementation or working memory updating does not occur until a criterion level of activation is reached. Dopamine inputs to the striatum modulate threshold settings, providing one mechanism by which the competition can be biased. Thresholds for reinforced actions are lowered, increasing the likelihood of implementation, even if the input patterns are unchanged.

An excellent and brief article. I will be adding it to the "key timing articles" link section of the IQ Brain Clock.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, biological psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, brain clock, IQ Brain Clock, mental timing, cerebellum, basal ganglia, dopamine, Parkinsons, temporal processing

Understanding the IQ brain clock: Excellent overview article

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Damn I love the journal Trends in Cognitive Science. It routinely publishes concise articles that circumscribe the state of the knowledge in important areas of human cognition/intelligence. I just finished reading yet another outstanding article ("Dedicated and intrinsic models of time perception") by Ivry and Schlerf (2008) (click to review)

Throughout the past year I've posted material regarding different neural models that have been advanced to explain the IQ brain clock (temporal processing). I've never felt I've done a good job in pulling all of this together. These authors do an exceptional job in describing the four primary hypothesized models that have been advanced to explain the neural mechanisms underlying the human brain clock. More importantly they do so which the aid of great visual-graphics (see the one above). I liked the article so much that I've added it to the "key research articles" section of this blog and have also added Dr. Ivry to the "mental timing scholars" link section.

• Abstract: Two general frameworks have been articulated to describe how the passage of time is perceived. One emphasizes that the judgment of the duration of a stimulus depends on the operation of dedicated neural mechanisms specialized for representing the temporal relationships between events. Alternatively, the representation of duration could be ubiquitous, arising from the intrinsic dynamics of nondedicated neural mechanisms. In such models, duration might be encoded directly through the amount of activation of sensory processes or as spatial patterns of activity in a network of neurons. Although intrinsic models are neurally plausible, we highlight several issues that must be addressed before we dispense with models of duration perception that are based on dedicated processes.

A few tidbits extracted (directly) from the article, some that reinforce information posted at the IQ Brain Clock over the past few years---and some that is new. italics added by blogmaster:

• we focus on a fundamental question that has defined much of the recent discussion: is our perception of the passage of time the consequence of dedicated, clock-like neural mechanisms? Or is duration coded in an accessible manner as an intrinsic and ubiquitous property of neural activity?

• The facile manner with which we compare time across different modalities suggests some sort of internal clock.

• Dedicated models of time perception are, at their core, modular. As vision scientists speak of dedicated mechanisms for color or motion perception, modular models of time perception entail some sort of specialized mechanism that represents the temporal relationship between events. The pacemaker-counter model is one example of a modular system .
  

• Intrinsic models offer a radically different perspective on the perception of time. These models assume that there is no specialized brain system for representing temporal information, asserting that time is inherent in neural dynamics.
  

• the cerebellar timing hypothesis is based on the assumption that the cerebellum has a unique representational capability and is accessed whenever a particular task requires precise timing.
  

• Similar arguments have been developed for other neural regions that might serve as dedicated timing systems [25]. These include the basal ganglia [26,27], supplementary motor area [28,29] and prefrontal cortex, especially in the right hemisphere [30,31]. For the most part, converging evidence has been offered in support of all of these candidate regions.
  

• considerable debate continues on the question of whether temporal-processing deficits are uniquely associated with damage to a particular neural structure.
  

• Other dedicated models avoid localization issues by postulating that the representation of time results from activity across a network of regions
  

• The role of nontemporal factors on perceived duration Performance on time-perception tasks entails several component processes, many of which are not specific to time. These include attention, working memory and long-term or reference memor

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neurotechnology, neuroscience, mental time keeping, interval timing, temporal processing, temporal g, pacemaker accumulator, IQ Brain Clock

The brain clock and IQ: Another supporting article

I've blogged extensively on the intriguing relation between the hypothesized internal brain clock and intelligence. I've found the research supporting the notion of a temporal g (temporal general intelligence mechanism) particularly intriguing.

There is a new article "in press" in the journal Intelligence that adds support to the hypothesis that temporal processing may be more related to general intelligence than the "holy grail" research that attempts to explain g via reaction time (RT). The focus of the article is an attempt to identify the underlying mechanisms that explain the relation between general intelligence and temporal processing (in this case, the authors used a isochronous serial interval production task as the measure of temporal processing). The article is rather technical, so I'll cut to the bottom line take-away messages.

The authors argue that their findings support a bottom-up (BU) explanation of temporal processing, in contrast to the alternative top-down (TD) explanation. The supported BU explanation suggests that the aspect of temporal processing related to general intelligence is grounded in certain basic neural properties that influence temporal variability in neural activity. The alternative TD hypothesis suggests that some form of higher-order component of the neural system (e.g., the construct of attention) is responsible for the link. The authors suggest that the support for the BU hypothesis, and not the TD hypothesis, supports a biological underpinning for intelligence and, more importantly, the hypothesis that temporal accuracy of neural activity has a causal effect on the neural processes that are involved in cognition (intelligence).

Also of interest was the authors suggestion that this basic underlying mechanism (of the brain clock?) is the result of a network of brain regions (sensorimotor cortx, supplementary and pre-supplementary motor areas, later premotor areas of the frontal lobe, auditory regions in the superious temporal gyrus, the basal ganglia and cerebellum). The efficient networked interaction of many of these brain regions have been implicated in other research discussed at this blog.

Of course, the small sample (n=36) and the reliance on a single psychometric measure (Raven's matrix test) of fluid intelligence (Gf) to define intelligence are significant limitations that argue for caution and the need for replication in larger samples and a broader array of indicators of the construct of intelligence. Click here for a prior discussion of my concerns for the reliance on the Raven's Gf test.

Madison, G., Forsman, L., Blom, O., Karabanov, A & Ullén, F. (2009) Correlations between intelligence and components of serial timing variability. Intelligence,37, 68–75 (click to view)

• Abstract: Psychometric intelligence correlates with reaction time in elementary cognitive tasks, as well as with performance in time discrimination and judgment tasks. It has remained unclear, however, to what extent these correlations are due to top–down mechanisms, such as attention, and bottom–up mechanisms, i.e. basic neural properties that in?uence both temporal accuracy and cognitive processes. Here, we assessed correlations between intelligence (Raven SPM Plus) and performance in isochronous serial interval production, a simple, automatic timing task where participants ?rst make movements in synchrony with an isochronous sequence of sounds and then continue with self-paced production to produce a sequence of intervals with the same inter-onset interval (IOI). The target IOI varied across trials. A number of different measures of timing variability were considered, all negatively correlated with intelligence. Across all stimulus IOIs, local interval-to-interval variability correlated more strongly with intelligence than drift, i.e. gradual changes in response IOI. The strongest correlations with intelligence were found for IOIs between 400 and 900 ms, rather than above 1 s, which is typically considered a lower limit for cognitive timing. Furthermore, poor trials, i.e. trials arguably most affected by lapses in attention, did not predict intelligence better than the most accurate trials. We discuss these results in relation to the human timing literature, and argue that they support a bottom–up model of the relation between temporal variability of neural activity and intelligence.
  

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, cognition, intelligence, g, general intelligence, brain clock, mental time keeping, temporal processing, temporal g

Executive functions and intellectual performance

I just read an excellent overview of the literature re: the construct of executive functions (EF). The article (by Ardila) is "in press" in Brain and Cognition (an excellent journal). Although I was not personally interested in the later portion of the articles discussion of the evolutionary basis of executive functions, I found everything prior to that section excellent.

The article provides a nice synthesis of the status of the theoretical and empirical research re: the construct of EF. What continues to excite me is the strong link between the prefrontal cortex (the dorsolateral prefrontal lobes in particular) and EF. My reading of the literature, which I've summarized in two of my PPT slide shows (in particular, see "Brain Clock IM 2007 Keynote" under the On-line PPT Slide section of the right side of this blogs home page), suggests a strong link between temporal processing/mental time-keeping (the IQ Brain Clock) and the dorsolateral prefrtonal cortex. This article is consistent with this finding.

The article also serves to remind those of us who are primarily focused on intelligence/cognitive constructs that EF is involved in two broad human behavior systems. One deals more with cognitive functions and the other more motivational/emotional/affective behaviors. I often tend to forget about the later....and I shouldn't, given that these other functions are related to the self-regulatory learning strategies conative domain I have described in a Model of Achievement Competence and Motivation (MACMM).

Article abstract

• In this paper it is proposed that the prefrontal lobe participates in two closely related but different executive function abilities: (1) ‘‘metacognitive executive functions”: problem solving, planning, concept formation, strategy development and implementation, controlling attention, working memory, and the like; that is, executive functions as they are usually understood in contemporary neuroscience; and (2) ‘‘emotional/ motivational executive functions”: coordinating cognition and emotion/motivation (that is, fulfilling biological needs according to some existing conditions). The first one depends on the dorsolateral prefrontal areas, whereas the second one is associated with orbitofrontal and medial frontal areas. Current tests of executive functions basically tap the first ability (metacognitive). Solving everyday problems (functional application of executive functions), however, mostly requires the second ability (emotional/ motivational); therefore, these tests have limited ecological validity. Contrary to the traditional points of view, recent evidence suggests that the human prefrontal lobe is similar to other primates and hominids. Other primates and hominids may possess the second (emotional executive functions) prefrontal ability,-but not the first (metacognitive executive functions) one. It is argued that metacognitive executive functionsare significantly dependent on culture and cultural instruments. They probably are the result of the development and evolution of some ‘‘conceptualization instruments”; language (and written language as an extension of oral language) may represent the most important one. The second executive function ability (emotional/motivational) probably is the result of a biological evolution shared by other primates.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, intelligence, cognition, IQ, prefrontal cortext, dorsolateral prefrontal lobes, temporal processing, mental time keeping, IQ Brain Clock, conative, self-regulated learning

Geekipedia @ Wired Magazine

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I'm just returning from a trip to Calgary, Canada. Prior to jumping on the plane I picked up a copy of Wired Magazine. I found a very cool extractable insert called Geekipedia. I must be a "geek" as I enjoyed reading the alphabetically listed definitions and explanations of important people, places, ideas and trends, primarily related to the internet and technology. I'm going to add this to my RSS feeds to keep up on new additions.

I particularly liked the visual-graphic for "neurologism"


Technorati Tags: technology, psychology, neuropsychology, neurotechnology, brain fitness, Geekipedia, Wired, Wired magazine, brain

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Neuromatrix video game teaches about the brain

Thanks to Mind Hacks for the FYI regarding the soon to be released action-adventure video game (Neuromatrix) that is intended to teach kids about the function of the brain. Very cool !


Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, education, intelligence, cognition, neuroscience, neuromatrix, video games, instructional technology, neuroscince, neuropsychology

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Best of the brain

Thanks to Mind Hacks for the FYI tip regarding the recent publication - Best of the Brain from Scientific American


Technorati Tags: psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, educaitonal psychology, school psychology, Scientific American, brain

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Mental timing research buzz--4 Acta Psychologica articles

The journal Acta Psychologica recently published (or has "in press") a number of articles dealing with different aspects of mental/interval timing. Check out the following. The next revision of the IQ Brain Clock EWOK will includes these articles.

Warning....these are not lite reading.


Fortin et al (in press). Temporal order in memory and interval timing: An interference analysis (click here).

• Topics covered include (but are not limited to) the interference effect in time perception, the attention allocation model (which accounts for numerous research findings in time estimation research),as well as good summaries of the brain structures/locations involved in different aspects of the mental time-keeper model (e.g., the accumulator of the pacemaker accumulator model residing in the striatal structures). I found the introduction a good overview of some established findings in the mental time-keeping research. The primary empirical results of this study suggest that timing is especially dependent on resources also used in processing temporal order in memory.

Vatakis and Spence (in press). Evaluating the influence of the ‘unity assumption’ on the temporal perception of realistic audiovisual stimuli (click here)

• The primary focus of this investigation is on the "unity assumption" which the authors describe as the following -- "whenever two or more sensory inputs are highly consistent (in one or more dimension(s); such as time, space, temporal patterning, number, and semantic content), observers will be more likely to treat them as referring to the same underlying multisensory event rather than as referring to separate unimodal events. Consequently, observers will be more likely to assume that the sensory inputs have a common spatiotemporal origin, and hence will be more likely to bind them into a single unified percept."

Droit-Volet and Rattat (2007). A further analysis of time bisection behavior in children with and without reference memory: The similarity and the partition task (click here)

• If you have checked out the IQ Brain Clock EWOK, you will recognize the first author of this article....Droit-Volet, who has published consistently in this area of study. These investigators use the classic time bisection task. The bottom line conclusion--"the present study provides us with an insight into how children perform a temporal bisection task when compared with adults. It shows that, unlike in adults, the provision of referent durations improves children’s bisection performance by helping them to establish criterion duration. Indeed, our data suggest that children exhibit a variability both in the establishment of a criterion duration and in the encoding of time."

Ulbrich et al. (2007). Temporal reproduction: Further evidence for two processes (click here)

• In the mental time-keeping research it is often suggested that different mechanisms processing temporal intervals above and below 2-3 seconds (although the research results have been mixed). The results support the notion of two different processes. The authors concluded "our results are in accordance with the conceptual idea of Fraisse (1984) that differentiates between perception of duration (intervals up to 3s) and estimation of duration (intervals onger than 3 s). He suggests that shorter durations might be “perceived” as a unit.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, time perception, interval timing, mental time keeping, IQ brain clock, brain clock, temporal processing, intelligence, brain structures

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Mental time keeping scholar - Dr. Buonomano

In a prior post I announced the IQ Brain Clock blog "Mental Timing Scholars" link section (see side panel of this blog). Today I added a fifth researcher to this scholar honor role. This post is to highlight Dr. Dean Buonomano's research.

Below is a brief listing of his mental timing/temporal processing research interests (lifted from his lab web page). Although difficult for me to read (I'm still reading and rereading it), I've found his recent article with Dr. Karmarkar (Timing in the Absence of Clocks: Encoding Time in Neural Network States) particularly interesting since it suggests an alternative to the dominant internal mental clock theoretical/conceptual explanation for mental timing (a link to the article is provided in "key research articles" section of this blog).

NEURAL BASIS OF TEMPORAL PROCESSING

• Sensory stimuli, such as speech, are rich in temporal information on the time scale of tens to hundreds of milliseconds. The primary goal of my laboratory is to understand the neural basis of temporal information processing. Specifically, how do neurons develop selective responses to temporal characteristics such as the order, duration and intervals of different stimulus features' To answer this question the main approaches in my laboratory involve: (1) studying how cortical neural networks respond to temporal stimuli; (2) the characterization of time-dependent neuronal properties, and (3) studying short- and long-term synaptic plasticity. In parallel with these studies my laboratory also relies on computer simulations of artificial neural networks, and behavioral experiments aimed at characterizing temporal processing. Together these different approaches will be used to attempt to generate a theory of how the nervous system recognizes and categorizes complex sensory stimuli.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, cognition, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, neurology, intelligence, IQ, interval timing, mental timing, brain timing, master clock, brain clock, IQ Brain Clock.temporal tracking, temporal processing,Interactive Metronome,scalar timing

IQ brain clock suggested readings (3 books)

Sorry for the paucity of recent posts to this blog. I'm one not to make excuses, but (this time I will...it is my blog and I'm the blog dictator) since my auto accident in December, I've been having a hard time gaining traction on both my personal and professional life due to a combo of pleasant (I got engaged to the most wonderful lady in the world...my lady Di), unpleasant (a severe case of the winter crud...cold, hacking cough, etc.; need for PT from accident) and regular (work projects) events.

I've also been buried in efforts to put together a large/comprehensive reference list of contemporary scholarly publications dealing with mental/interval time-keeping and rhythm perception. It now stands at 300+ references. When it is done, I will post it to this blog.

In the process of putting together this reference list I've come across three books (see above) that may interest readers. Also, if anyone is looking to send the blogmaster a gift, any one (or all three) of these books would be nice :)

More information regarding these books can be found by clicking here, here, and here. As soon as I can (hopefully within the next 10 minutes) I will also add some kind of "recommended books" section to a side panel of this blog (that will include these books, and others I find as I trundle across the corpus of mental timing literature).

What makes us tick? Nice research summary

Previously in this blog I've drawn attention to one of the key contemporary articles dealing with the neural mechanisms of mental/interval time keeping (by Buhusi and Meck). A copy of the complete article is listed under the "Key Research articles" portion of this blog ("What Makes Us Tick?).

Today I ran across a nice bulleted Neuroscience ummary of the article. It can be found by clicking here.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, mental timing, brain clock, interval timing, cognition, intelligence, temporal processing, internal clock model


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The nature of mental time-keeping research

I've previously highlighted the important mental timing research of Dr. Penny Lewis at the IQ Brain clock (she is listed as one of the blogs "mental timing scholars" - see link section).

Although her important 2006 publication (Remembering the Time - see "key research articles" link section) suggests that contemporary research has started to zero in on the possible locations of the internal brain clock, I found what she wrote in 2005 (which was less specific about possible brain functions and locations) to be a very nice easy-to-read summary of the nature of the search for the mental/interval time clock. I have reproduced her words below...food for thought. Nicely written statement of the nature of mental timing research progress. I've also added this article to the "key research article" section for those who want to read the entire manuscript.

Lewis, P. & Walsh, V. (2005). Time Perception: Components of the Brain’s Clock. Current Biology, 15 (10), 389-391.

• Our brains measure time continuously. We are aware of how long we have been doing a particular thing, how long it has been since we last slept, and how long it will be until lunch or dinner. We are ready, at any moment, to make complex movements requiring muscle coordination with microsecond accuracy, or to decode temporally complex auditory signals in the form of speech or music. Our timing abilities are impressive, diverse and worthy of investigation. But they are not very well understood.
• Many models of time perception have been put forward...collectively postulating a wide variety of different mechanisms. Regardless of their diversity, the models all agree that temporal information is processed in many ways: it is remembered, compared to other temporal information, combined with sensory information, and used in the production of motor outputs.
• The holy grail of timing research is to understand the ‘time-dependent process’: a mechanism equivalent to a piezoelectric crystal in a man-made clock or the movement of a shadow on a sundial. This has proven an elusive goal, to the extent that ideas about how this mechanism might work remain near the level of conjecture. Researchers have had great difficulty in pinning timing-related activity in the brain to any specific type of function. This is largely because most time measurement tasks draw upon more than one process, making it difficult to tease the various components apart.

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