Brain oscillations are prevalent in all species and are involved in numerous perceptual operations. Alpha oscillations are thought to facilitate processing through the inhibition of task-irrelevant networks, while beta oscillations are linked to the putative reactivation of content representations. Can the proposed functional role of alpha and beta oscillations be generalized from low-level operations to higher-level cognitive processes? Here we address this question focusing on naturalistic spoken language comprehension. Twenty-two (18 female) Dutch native speakers listened to stories in Dutch and French while magnetoencephalography (MEG) was recorded. We used dependency parsing to identify three dependency states at each word: the number of (1) newly opened dependencies, (2) dependencies that remained open, and (3) resolved dependencies. We then constructed forward models to predict alpha and beta power from the dependency features. Results showed that dependency features predict alpha and beta power in language-related regions beyond low-level linguistic features. Left temporal, fundamental language regions are involved in language comprehension in alpha, while frontal and parietal, higher-order language regions, and motor regions are involved in beta. Critically, alpha- and beta-band dynamics seem to subserve language comprehension tapping into syntactic structure building and semantic composition by providing low-level mechanistic operations for inhibition and reactivation processes. Due to the temporal similarity of the alpha-beta responses, their potential functional dissociation remains to be elucidated. Overall, this study sheds light on the role of alpha and beta oscillations during naturalistic spoken language comprehension, providing evidence for the generalizability of these dynamics from perceptual to complex linguistic processes.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT:It remains unclear whether the proposed functional role of alpha and beta oscillations in perceptual and motor function is generalizable to higher-level cognitive processes, such as spoken language comprehension. We found that syntactic features predict alpha and beta power in language-related regions beyond low-level linguistic features when listening to naturalistic speech in a known language. We offer experimental findings that integrate a neuroscientific framework on the role of brain oscillations as “building blocks” with spoken language comprehension. This supports the view of a domain-general role of oscillations across the hierarchy of cognitive functions, from low-level sensory operations to abstract linguistic processes.

Background: Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by excessive preoccupation with imagined defects in appearance. Optical illusions induce illusory effects that distort the presented stimulus, thus leading to ambiguous percepts. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated whether BDD is related to differentiated perception during illusory percepts. Methods: A total of 18 BDD patients and 18 controls were presented with 39 optical illusions together with a statement testing whether or not they perceived the illusion. After a delay period, they were prompted to answer whether the statement was right/wrong and their degree of confidence in their answer. We investigated differences of BDD patients on task performance and self-reported confidence and analyzed the brain oscillations during decision-making using nonparametric cluster statistics. Results: Behaviorally, the BDD group exhibited reduced confidence when responding incorrectly, potentially attributed to higher levels of doubt. Electrophysiologically, the BDD group showed significantly reduced alpha power at the fronto-central and parietal scalp areas, suggesting impaired allocation of attention. Interestingly, the lower the alpha power of the identified cluster, the higher the BDD severity, as assessed by BDD psychometrics. Conclusions: Results evidenced that alpha power during illusory processing might serve as a quantitative EEG biomarker of BDD, potentially associated with reduced inhibition of task-irrelevant areas.

Alpha oscillations are known to play a central role in several higher‐order cognitive functions, especially selective attention, working memory, semantic memory, and creative thinking. Nonetheless, we still know very little about the role of alpha in the generation of more remote semantic associations, which is key to creative and semantic cognition. Furthermore, it remains unclear how these oscillations are shaped by the intention to “be creative,” which is the case in most creativity tasks. We aimed to address these gaps in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we compared alpha oscillatory activity (using a method which distinguishes genuine oscillatory activity from transient events) during the generation of free associations which were more vs. less distant from a given concept. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings and also compared alpha oscillatory activity when people were generating free associations versus associations with the instruction to be creative (i.e. goal‐directed). We found that alpha was consistently higher during the generation of more distant semantic associations, in both experiments. This effect was widespread, involving areas in both left and right hemispheres. Importantly, the instruction to be creative seems to increase alpha phase synchronisation from left to right temporal brain areas, suggesting that intention to be creative changed the flux of information in the brain, likely reflecting an increase in top‐down control of semantic search processes. We conclude that goal‐directed generation of remote associations relies on top‐down mechanisms compared to when associations are freely generated.

The Consequentialist Scale (Robinson, 2012) [89] assesses the endorsement of consequentialist and deontological moral beliefs. This study empirically investigated the application of the Greek translation of the Consequentialist Scale in a sample of native Greek speakers. Specifically, 415 native Greek speakers completed the questionnaire. To uncover the underlying structure of the 10 items in the Consequentialist Scale, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted. The results revealed a three-factor solution, where the deontology factor exhibited the same structure as the original work by Robinson (2012) [89], while the original consequentialism factor split into two separate factors. Significant Pearson's r correlations were observed between age and responses to the Consequentialist Scale. Separate EFAs were conducted for two age groups based on a medial split: younger (36 years old or less) and older (more than 36 years old). Interestingly, the younger group exhibited a two-factor solution with the same structure as the original work, while the older group showed a three-factor solution. A hierarchical k-means cluster analysis revealed that the cluster of participants who scored higher in deontology compared to consequentialism primarily consisted of older participants, whereas the two other clusters comprised of younger participants exhibited the reverse pattern. Neither gender nor previous experience with philosophy significantly affected scores on the Consequentialist Scale. Overall, our study provides evidence that the Consequentialist Scale is suitable for use in the Greek population.

The acoustic startle reflex (ASR) relies on the sensorimotor system and is affected by aging, sex, and psychopathology. ASR can be modulated by the prepulse inhibition (PPI) paradigm, which achieves the inhibition of reactivity to a startling stimulus (pulse) following a weak prepulse stimulus. Additionally, neurophysiological studies have found that brain activity is characterized by irregular patterns with high complexity, which however reduces with age. Our study investigated the relationship between pre-startle nonlinear dynamics and prepulse inhibition in healthy children vs. adults. Fifty-six individuals took part in the experiment: 31 children and adolescents and 25 adults. Participants heard 51 pairs of tones (prepulse, startle) with a time difference of 30 to 500 ms. Subsequently, we assessed neural complexity by computing the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) during the pre-startle period and assessed PPI by analyzing the post-startle event-related potentials (ERPs). Results showed higher neural complexity for children compared to adults, in line with previous research showing reduced complexity in the physiological signals in ageing. As expected, PPI (as reflected in the P50 and P200 components) was enhanced in adults compared to children, potentially due to the maturation of the ASR for the former. Interestingly, pre-startle complexity was correlated with the P50 component in children only, but not in adults, potentially due to the different stage of sensorimotor maturation between age groups. Overall, our study offers novel contributions for investigating brain dynamics, linking nonlinear with linear measures. Our findings are consistent with the loss of neural complexity in ageing, and suggest differentiated links between nonlinear and linear metrics in children and adults.

Brain oscillations are prevalent in all species and are involved in numerous perceptual operations. Alpha oscillations are thought to facilitate processing through the inhibition of task-irrelevant networks, while beta oscillations are linked to the reactivation of content representations. Can the proposed functional role of alpha and beta oscillations be generalized from low-level operations to higher-level cognitive processes? Here we address this question focusing on naturalistic spoken language processing. Twenty-two (18 female) Dutch native speakers listened to stories in spoken Dutch and French while magnetoencephalography (MEG) was recorded. We used dependency parsing to identify three dependency states at each word, as the number of (1) newly opened dependencies, (2) dependencies that remained open, and (3) resolved dependencies. We then constructed linear forward models to predict alpha and beta power from the dependency features. Results showed that dependency features predict alpha and beta power in language-related regions beyond low-level linguistic features. Left temporal, fundamental language regions are involved in language comprehension in the alpha band, while frontal and parietal, higher-order language regions, and motor regions are mostly involved in the beta band. Critically, alpha and beta band dynamics seem to subserve language comprehension tapping into syntactic structure building and semantic composition by providing low-level mechanistic operations for inhibition and reactivation processes. Overall, this study sheds light on the role of alpha and beta oscillations during naturalistic language processing, providing evidence for the generalizability of these dynamics from perceptual to complex linguistic processes. Significance Statement: Prior research identified the functional role of alpha and beta oscillations in basic perceptual and motor functions. However, it remains unclear whether their proposed role can be generalized to higher-level processes during language comprehension. Here, we found that high-level syntactic features predict alpha and beta power in language-related regions beyond low-level linguistic features when listening to comprehensible naturalistic speech. Our work contributes to the debate about whether the functional roles of brain oscillations are domain-general or depend on the task at hand. We offer experimental findings that integrate a neuroscientific framework on the role of brain oscillations as “building blocks” with language comprehension as a compositional process, and novel evidence regarding the encoding of higher-level syntactic operations in the brain. This supports the view of a domain-general role of cortical oscillations across the hierarchy of cognitive functions, from low-level sensory operations to complex linguistic processes.