http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/14938/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32618/ 2012-02-01T00:00:00Z Thinking about the abstract concept power may automatically activate the spatial up-down image schema (powerful up; powerless down) and consequently direct spatial attention to the image schema-congruent location. Participants indicated whether a word represented a powerful or powerless person (e.g. 'king' or 'servant'). Following each decision, they identified a target at the top or bottom of the visual field. In Experiment 1 participants identified the target faster when their spatial position was congruent with the perceived power of the preceding word than when it was incongruent. In Experiment 2 ERPs showed a higher N1 amplitude for congruent spatial positions. These results support the view that attention is driven to the image schema congruent location of a power word. Thus, power is partially understood in terms of vertical space, which demonstrates that abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor processing. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14915/ 2008-06-01T00:00:00Z Feedback processing is crucial for successful performance adjustment following changing task demands. The present event-related fMRI study was aimed at investigating the developmental differences in brain regions associated with different aspects of feedback processing. Children age 8-11, adolescents age 14-15, and adults age 18-24 performed a rule switch task resembling the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, and analyses focused on different types of negative and positive feedback. All age groups showed more activation in lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and superior parietal cortex following negative relative to positive performance feedback, but the regions contributed to different aspects of feedback processing and had separable developmental trajectories. OFC was adultlike by age 8-11, whereas parietal cortex was adultlike by age 14-15. DLPFC and ACC, in contrast, were still developing after age 14-15. These findings demonstrate that changes in separable neural systems underlie developmental differences in flexible performance adjustment. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12118/ 2008-04-14T00:00:00Z Over the course of development, the ability to switch between diVerent tasks on the basis of feedback cues increases profoundly, but the role of performance monitoring remains unclear. Heart rate indexes can provide critical information about how individuals monitor feedback cues indicating that performance should be adjusted. In this study, children of three age groups (8–10, 12–14, and 16–18 years) performed a rule change task in which sorting rules needed to be detected following positive or negative feedback. The number of perseverative errors was lower for 16- to 18-year-olds than for 8- to 10-year-olds, and 12- to 14-year-olds performed at an intermediate level. Consistent with previous Wndings, heart rate slowed following feedback indicating a rule change, and the magnitude of slowing was similar for all age groups. Thus, 8- to 10-year-olds are already able to analyze feedback cues. In contrast, 12- to 14-year-olds and 16- to 18-year-olds, but not 8- to 10-year-olds, showed heart rate slowing following performance errors, suggesting that with age children are increasingly able to monitor their performance online. Performance monitoring may therefore be an important contributor to set-shifting ability. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12119/ 2008-04-14T00:00:00Z According to the perceptual symbols theory (Barsalou, 1999), sensorimotor simulations underlie the representation of concepts. We investigated whether recognition memory for pictures of concepts was facilitated by earlier representation of visual properties of those concepts. During study, concept names (e.g., apple) were presented in a property verification task with a visual property (e.g., shiny) or with a nonvisual property (e.g., tart). Delayed picture recognition memory was better if the concept name had been presented with a visual property than if it had been presented with a nonvisual property. These results indicate that modality-specific simulations are used for concept representation.