1,720,962 research outputs found
The positive effect of music on source memory
No full textSeveral studies have investigated how to improve episodic memory performance by manipulating the factors that are crucial for successful encoding. There is an ongoing debate about whether a complex stimulus such as music can improve memory, and in particular memory for words, rather than interfere with correct encoding of information. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate whether verbal episodic memory can be improved by background context of instrumental music. Twenty young adults were asked to memorize different lists of words presented against a background of music, environmental sounds or silence. Their episodic memory performance was then tested in terms of item and source memory scores. Results revealed better memory performance under the music condition than with environmental sounds or silence in the retrieval of the context (i.e. source) of the encoded material. These findings, contrasting with studies showing an interfering effect of music, are discussed in terms of both methodological and theoretical perspectives with the aim of furthering the debate about music and memory. In sum, our results indicate that music can specifically act as a facilitating encoding context for verbal episodic memory, opening important perspectives for music as a rehabilitation tool for episodic memory deficits
The Influence of Music on Prefrontal Cortex during Episodic Encoding and Retrieval of Verbal Information: A Multichannel fNIRS Study
No full textMusic can be thought of as a complex stimulus able to enrich the encoding of an event thus boosting its subsequent retrieval. However, several findings suggest that music can also interfere with memory performance. A better understanding of the behavioral and neural processes involved can substantially improve knowledge and shed new light on the most efficient music-based interventions. Based on fNIRS studies on music, episodic encoding, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), this work aims to extend previous findings by monitoring the entire lateral PFC during both encoding and retrieval of verbal material. Nineteen participants were asked to encode lists of words presented with either background music or silence and subsequently tested during a free recall task. Meanwhile, their PFC was monitored using a 48-channel fNIRS system. Behavioral results showed greater chunking of words under the music condition, suggesting the employment of associative strategies for items encoded with music. fNIRS results showed that music provided a less demanding way of modulating both episodic encoding and retrieval, with a general prefrontal decreased activity under the music versus silence condition. This suggests that music-related memory processes rely on specific neural mechanisms and that music can positively influence both episodic encoding and retrieval of verbal information
The promise of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for psychological research: A brief review
No full textNear-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is an optical imaging technique that measures brain activity by monitoring cortical oxygenation changes. It is portable, non-invasive and has good motion tolerance. In the last thirty years, these features have led NIRS to be used in a wide range of applications. This brief review considers the advantages of NIRS and its potential use in psychological research by giving examples of different paradigms that have been applied in cognitive, developmental and clinical domains. The principal aim of this work is to propose a new starting point to those in the field of psychological research who is interested in learning about the technique. First, we examine its use in healthy groups in simple motor, auditory and visual stimulation as well as in tasks involving higher cognitive demands. We then review the main NIRS studies in the field of developmental psychology related to infants, children and older adults. This is followed by possible applications with specific clinical populations, in particular patients with psychiatric disorders and Alzheimer's disease. We finally conclude by presenting the main advantages and limits of NIRS compared with other neuroimaging techniques, highlighting the methodological challenges facing its use with special populations in real life settings
'Spotlight on the survival processing advantage': An fNIRS study on adaptive memory
No full textIn the present study, participants had to rate words for their relevance in an ancestral survival scenario (e.g., is bottle relevant in the fictious scenario of being stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land without basic supplies) and for their pleasantness (e.g., is bottle a pleasant word?). A distractor task lasting a few minutes followed and the participants were then tested on their recall of the words. We used fNIRS to bilaterally monitor the dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, known to be involved in strategic encoding) during the processing of verbal material in these two deep encoding situations. At the behavioral level, we replicated the survival processing advantage in recall rates, with the result that words processed for their survival value were better remembered than words processed for their pleasantness value. Importantly, at the neural level, we observed a lesser activation of the DLPFC during verbal encoding in the pleasantness condition compared to the survival condition, thus supporting the hypothesis that the survival processing advantage is underpinned by effortful processes, and more specifically relational processing
Less effort, better results: How does music act on prefrontal cortex in older adults during verbal encoding? an fNIRS study
No full textSeveral neuroimaging studies of cognitive aging revealed deficits in episodic memory abilities as a result of prefrontal cortex (PFC) limitations. Improving episodic memory performance despite PFC deficits is thus a critical issue in aging research. Listening to music stimulates cognitive performance in several non-purely musical activities (e.g., language and memory). Thus, music could represent a rich and helpful source during verbal encoding and therefore help subsequent retrieval. Furthermore, such benefit could be reflected in less demand of PFC, which is known to be crucial for encoding processes. This study aimed to investigate whether music may improve episodic memory in older adults while decreasing the PFC activity. Sixteen healthy older adults (μ = 64.5 years) encoded lists of words presented with or without a musical background while their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity was monitored using a eight-channel continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system (Oxymon Mk III, Artinis, The Netherlands). Behavioral results indicated a better source-memory performance for words encoded with music compared to words encoded with silence (p < 0.05). Functional NIRS data revealed bilateral decrease of oxyhemoglobin values in the music encoding condition compared to the silence condition (p < 0.05), suggesting that music modulates the activity of the DLPFC during encoding in a less-demanding direction.Taken together, our results indicate that music can help older adults in memory performances by decreasing their PFC activity.These findings open new perspectives about music as tool for episodic memory rehabilitation on special populations with memory deficits due to frontal lobe damage such as Alzheimer's patients. © 2014 Ferreri, Bigand, Perrey, Muthalib, Bard and Bugaiska
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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