Reduction in physical activity during Covid-19 lockdowns predicts individual differences in cognitive performance several months after the end of the safety measures.

Prior studies suggest that the reductions in physical activity during Covid-19-related lockdowns impacted physical and mental health. Whether reductions in physical activity that occurred during lockdowns also relate to cognitive functions such as memory and attention is less explored. Here, we investigated whether changes in physical activity (PA) that occurred during and following Covid-19-related lockdowns could predict a variety of measures of cognitive performance in 318 young adults.

Prior multisensory learning can facilitate auditory-only voice-identity and speech recognition in noise.

Seeing the visual articulatory movements of a speaker, while hearing their voice, helps with understanding what is said. This multisensory enhancement is particularly evident in noisy listening conditions. Multisensory enhancement also occurs even in auditory-only conditions: auditory-only speech and voice-identity recognition are superior for speakers previously learned with their face, compared to control learning; an effect termed the "face-benefit.

Benefits of Enacting and Observing Gestures on Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

The integration of physical movements, such as gestures, into learning holds potential for enhancing foreign language (L2) education. Uncovering whether actively performing gestures during L2 learning is more, or equally, effective compared to simply observing such movements is central to deepening our understanding of the efficacy of movement-based learning strategies. Here, we present a meta-analysis of seven studies containing 309 participants that compares the effects of gesture self-enactment and observation on L2 vocabulary learning.

Inhibitory TMS over Visual Area V5/MT Disrupts Visual Speech Recognition.

During face-to-face communication, the perception and recognition of facial movements can facilitate individuals' understanding of what is said. Facial movements are a form of complex biological motion. Separate neural pathways are thought to processing (1) simple, nonbiological motion with an obligatory waypoint in the motion-sensitive visual middle temporal area (V5/MT); and (2) complex biological motion.

Enriched learning: behavior, brain, and computation.

The presence of complementary information across multiple sensory or motor modalities during learning, referred to as multimodal enrichment, can markedly benefit learning outcomes. Why is this? Here, we integrate cognitive, neuroscientific, and computational approaches to understanding the effectiveness of enrichment and discuss recent neuroscience findings indicating that crossmodal responses in sensory and motor brain regions causally contribute to the behavioral benefits of enrichment. The findings provide novel evidence for multimodal theories of enriched learning, challenge assumptions of longstanding cognitive theories, and provide counterevidence to unimodal neurobiologically inspired theories.

Visual recognition of words learned with gestures induces motor resonance in the forearm muscles.

According to theories of Embodied Cognition, memory for words is related to sensorimotor experiences collected during learning. At a neural level, words encoded with self-performed gestures are represented in distributed sensorimotor networks that resonate during word recognition. Here, we ask whether muscles involved in gesture execution also resonate during word recognition.

Motor Cortex Causally Contributes to Vocabulary Translation following Sensorimotor-Enriched Training.

The role of the motor cortex in perceptual and cognitive functions is highly controversial. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that the motor cortex can be instrumental for translating foreign language vocabulary. Human participants of both sexes were trained on foreign language (L2) words and their native language translations over 4 consecutive days.

Visual Sensory Cortices Causally Contribute to Auditory Word Recognition Following Sensorimotor-Enriched Vocabulary Training.

Despite a rise in the use of "learning by doing" pedagogical methods in praxis, little is known as to how the brain benefits from these methods. Learning by doing strategies that utilize complementary information ("enrichment") such as gestures have been shown to optimize learning outcomes in several domains including foreign language (L2) training. Here we tested the hypothesis that behavioral benefits of gesture-based enrichment are critically supported by integrity of the biological motion visual cortices (bmSTS).

Rhythm Complexity Modulates Behavioral and Neural Dynamics During Auditory-Motor Synchronization.

We addressed how rhythm complexity influences auditory-motor synchronization in musically trained individuals who perceived and produced complex rhythms while EEG was recorded. Participants first listened to two-part auditory sequences (Listen condition). Each part featured a single pitch presented at a fixed rate; the integer ratio formed between the two rates varied in rhythmic complexity from low (1:1) to moderate (1:2) to high (3:2).

Electrical Brain Responses Reveal Sequential Constraints on Planning during Music Performance.

Elements in speech and music unfold sequentially over time. To produce sentences and melodies quickly and accurately, individuals must plan upcoming sequence events, as well as monitor outcomes via auditory feedback. We investigated the neural correlates of sequential planning and monitoring processes by manipulating auditory feedback during music performance.

Auditory N1 reveals planning and monitoring processes during music performance.

The current study investigated the relationship between planning processes and feedback monitoring during music performance, a complex task in which performers prepare upcoming events while monitoring their sensory outcomes. Theories of action planning in auditory-motor production tasks propose that the planning of future events co-occurs with the perception of auditory feedback. This study investigated the neural correlates of planning and feedback monitoring by manipulating the contents of auditory feedback during music performance.

Sensory, Cognitive, and Sensorimotor Learning Effects in Recognition Memory for Music.

Recent research suggests that perception and action are strongly interrelated and that motor experience may aid memory recognition. We investigated the role of motor experience in auditory memory recognition processes by musicians using behavioral, ERP, and neural source current density measures. Skilled pianists learned one set of novel melodies by producing them and another set by perception only.

Electrical Brain Responses to Beat Irregularities in Two Cases of Beat Deafness.

Beat deafness, a recently documented form of congenital amusia, provides a unique window into functional specialization of neural circuitry for the processing of musical stimuli: Beat-deaf individuals exhibit deficits that are specific to the detection of a regular beat in music and the ability to move along with a beat. Studies on the neural underpinnings of beat processing in the general population suggest that the auditory system is capable of pre-attentively generating a predictive model of upcoming sounds in a rhythmic pattern, subserved largely within auditory cortex and reflected in mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3 event-related potential (ERP) components. The current study examined these neural correlates of beat perception in two beat-deaf individuals, Mathieu and Marjorie, and a group of control participants under conditions in which auditory stimuli were either attended or ignored.

Context and meter enhance long-range planning in music performance.

Neural responses demonstrate evidence of resonance, or oscillation, during the production of periodic auditory events. Music contains periodic auditory events that give rise to a sense of beat, which in turn generates a sense of meter on the basis of multiple periodicities. Metrical hierarchies may aid memory for music by facilitating similarity-based associations among sequence events at different periodic distances that unfold in longer contexts.

Sensorimotor Learning Enhances Expectations During Auditory Perception.

Sounds that have been produced with one's own motor system tend to be remembered better than sounds that have only been perceived, suggesting a role of motor information in memory for auditory stimuli. To address potential contributions of the motor network to the recognition of previously produced sounds, we used event-related potential, electric current density, and behavioral measures to investigate memory for produced and perceived melodies. Musicians performed or listened to novel melodies, and then heard the melodies either in their original version or with single pitch alterations.

Sensorimotor mechanisms in music performance: actions that go partially wrong.

Even expert musicians make errors occasionally, and overt responses that are correct may be accompanied by partial-error behavior that can be indicative of online error detection processes. We compare pianists' production of correct pitches, pitch errors, and partial errors (correct pitches with incorrect force or duration) by examining events prior to errors. Errors tended to be produced with slower durations and softer intensities (associated with force reduction) than correct events.