Improvement of memory-based reading recall using transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation

Expert reading acquisition is marked by fluent, effortless decoding and adequate comprehension skills and is required for modern daily life. In spite of its importance, many individuals struggle with reading comprehension even when decoding skills are adequate. Unfortunately, effective reading comprehension interventions are limited, especially for adults. A growing body of research suggests that non-invasive transcutaneous stimulation of the auricular vagus nerve (taVNS) may drive neural plasticity for low-level reading skills such as speech sound perception and letter-sound learning, but it is unknown whether taVNS can improve higher level skills as well. Thus, the current study was designed to evaluate whether taVNS paired with passage reading can improve reading comprehension performance. Twenty-four typically developing young adults were recruited and screened for baseline reading and working memory skills. Participants received either sham or active taVNS while reading short passages out loud. Immediately following each passage, participants answered a series of test questions that required either direct recall of passage details or more complete comprehension of the passage content. While taVNS did not improve the mechanics of reading (e.g., reading rate or accuracy), there was a significant benefit of active taVNS on test questions. This effect was driven by significant improvement on accuracy for memory questions while there was no effect of taVNS on comprehension question accuracy. These findings suggest that taVNS may be beneficial for enhancing memory, but its efficacy may be limited in higher cognitive domains.

Overlapping attentional networks yield divergent behavioral predictions across tasks: Neuromarkers for diffuse and focused attention?

Attention is a critical cognitive function, allowing humans to select, enhance, and sustain focus on information of behavioral relevance. Attention contains dissociable neural and psychological components. Nevertheless, some brain networks support multiple attentional functions. Connectome-based Predictive Models (CPM), which associate individual differences in task performance with functional connectivity patterns, provide a compelling example. A sustained attention network model (saCPM) successfully predicted performance for selective attention, inhibitory control, and reading recall tasks. Here we constructed a visual attentional blink (VAB) model (vabCPM), comparing its performance predictions and network edges associated with successful and unsuccessful behavior to the saCPM’s. In the VAB, attention devoted to a target often causes a subsequent item to be missed. Although frequently attributed to attentional limitations, VAB deficits may attenuate when participants are distracted or deploy attention diffusely. Participants (n=73; 24 males) underwent fMRI while performing the VAB task and while resting. Outside the scanner, they completed other cognitive tasks over several days. A vabCPM constructed from these data successfully predicted VAB performance. Strikingly, the network edges that predicted better VAB performance (positive edges) predicted worse selective and sustained attention performance, and vice versa. Predictions from the saCPM mirrored these results, with the network’s negative edges predicting better VAB performance. Furthermore, the vabCPM’s positive edges significantly overlapped with the saCPM’s negative edges, and vice versa. We conclude that these partially overlapping networks each have general attentional functions. They may indicate an individual’s propensity to diffusely deploy attention, predicting better performance for some tasks and worse for others.Significance statementA longstanding question in psychology and neuroscience is whether we have general capacities or domain-specific ones. For such general capacities, what is the common function? Here we addressed these questions using the attentional blink (AB) task and neuroimaging. Individuals searched for two items in a stream of distracting items; the second item was often missed when it closely followed the first. How often the second item was missed varied across individuals, which was reflected in attention networks. Curiously, the networks’ pattern of function that was good for the AB was bad for other tasks, and vice versa. We propose that these networks may represent not a general attentional ability, but rather the tendency to attend in a less focused manner.

It Rings a Bell or Breeds Contempt? Activating Background Knowledge and Reading Recall

The present study examined the possible effects of activating background knowledge on reading recall of 20 Iranian EFL learners by giving the experimental participants a text from Persian literature, a culturally-familiar source, and contrasting their key points recall with those of another group of learners who did not know the text origin. Findings revealed that the participants who did not know the source of the text did significantly better than the experimental group who were given the source and the context. While a small-scale study, this study may suggest that using culture-based reading materials may not always help the learners' reading performance. In addition, the activation of background knowledge may result in overreliance on prior knowledge resources and trigger affective barriers such as lack of interest which may be to the detriment of readers’ recall.

Knowledge, Interest, Recall and Navigation: A Look at Hypertext Processing

This study examines how knowledge and interest affect recall of information from a hypertext environment. Participants were 34 undergraduates enrolled at a college of education in a large western university. Results indicate that domain knowledge significantly predicted both structured and unstructured reading recall of a hypertext. In contrast to patterns found within research on traditional reading environments, interest did not significantly affect recall of hypertext information. Differential navigation patterns emerged in conjunction with varying levels of knowledge and may help to explain these results. The results are discussed in terms of current schema theoretic models of reading comprehension.