PSD's Publications

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    A Neuroimaging Preparation Protocol Tailored for Autism
    (International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC, 2024-11-04) Maria Tziraki ; Shruti Garg ; Emma Harrison ; Neville B Wright ; Rob Hawkes ; Kapasi Akhtar ; Jonathan Green ; Stavros Stivaros
    This paper describes the key basic elements required for a successful multi-parametric MRI data acquisition in awake children with autism. The procedure was designed by taking into account methodological challenges arising from the acquisition of Resting State fMRI (RS fMRI) data, and factors such as cost, time, and staff availability. The ultimate aim was to prepare an imaging preparation protocol with high transferability to the whole autism spectrum, adaptable for use in a multi-site research with multiple time points. As part of a randomized pharmaco-intervention study, 31 children aged 4–10 years with Neurofibromatosis 1 and autism underwent MR imaging at baseline and end of intervention. The protocol consisted of tailored habituation instructions including gradual exposure to scanner noise, a social stories booklet, positive incentive strategies, and Play Therapy support. Success rate for initial acquisition was 71% for GABA+ MR spectroscopy at either location, 87% for perfusion, and 67% for diffusion assessment, and 71% for RS fMRI. Qualitative data indicated that 84% parents found the habituation protocol helpful. Lay Summary Here we describe a protocol for brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) tailored for children with ASD to help reduce stress and avoid sedation during scanning. This procedure can make advanced medical imaging more accessible and promote a better MRI experience for families of children with ASD.
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    A Personalized User Authentication System Based on EEG Signals
    (MDPI, 2022-09) Christos Stergiadis ; Vasiliki-Despoina Kostaridou ; Veloudis, Simeon ; Dimitrios Kazis ; Manousos Klados
    Abstract: Conventional biometrics have been employed in high-security user-authentication systems for over 20 years now. However, some of these modalities face low-security issues in common practice. Brainwave-based user authentication has emerged as a promising alternative method, as it overcomes some of these drawbacks and allows for continuous user authentication. In the present study, we address the problem of individual user variability, by proposing a data-driven Electroencephalography (EEG)-based authentication method. We introduce machine learning techniques, in order to reveal the optimal classification algorithm that best fits the data of each individual user, in a fast and efficient manner. A set of 15 power spectral features (delta, theta, lower alpha, higher alpha, and alpha) is extracted from three EEG channels. The results show that our approach can reliably grant or deny access to the user (mean accuracy of 95.6%), while at the same time poses a viable option for real-time applications, as the total time of the training procedure was kept under one minute.
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    A survey on the training needs of caregivers in five European countries
    (John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2020-03) George Pavlidis ; Carolyn Downs ; T Bartosz Kalinowski ; Ilona Swiatek-Barylska ; Lambros Lazuras ; Antonia Ypsilanti ; Marianna Tsatali
    Aim: This survey explored caregivers' perceived training needs in 5 European countries (United Kingdom, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland and Italy). Background: Training can enhance the professional capacity of caregivers; however, caregivers' training needs within Europe have not been examined recently. Methods: A survey conducted in 2015 captured data from 550 caregivers using a convenience sampling strategy, through a structured questionnaire and additional open-ended items and by conducting statistical and content analysis. Results: The results indicated basic nursing skills and specialization, as well as training in psychology-related skills like time management, emotion regulation, communication and advanced health care systems as the emerging training needs. There were some country differences in specific training need areas. Conclusions: It was concluded that training in basic nursing skills and specialization in nursing specific conditions, in advanced health care systems and in psychology-related skills could add to the professional capacity of European caregivers employed in health and social care. Implications for nursing management: The findings inform about employed caregivers' training needs in Europe, which may contribute in the provision of quality care and organisational efficiency in health and social care.
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    Arterial Stiffness Alterations in Simulated Microgravity and Reactive Sledge as a Countermeasure
    ( 2022-01) Agisilaos Krachtis ; Aliki Karkala ; Christos A Frantzidis ; Polyxeni T Gkivogkli ; Aristea I Ladas ; Felice Strollo ; Chrysoula Kourtidou-Papadeli
    Introduction: Experiments during spaceflight and simulated microgravity as head-down tilt bedrest, demonstrated the role of arterial stiffness among others, in microgravity induced cardiovascular pathologies and emphasized the need for a robust countermeasure. Aim: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the use of a new countermeasure, consisting of a high intensity Reactive Sledge (RSL) jumps training protocol, to counteract changes in arterial stiffness during long term head down tilt bedrest (LTBR). Methods: The participants enrolled in the study were 23 male, healthy volunteers, aged between 20 and 45 years, subjected to LTBR for 60 days and randomly assigned either to a control (11) or to a training sledge (12) group using RSL 3-4 times per week, as a countermeasure. Recorded values were systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate and the user's arterial stiffness index. Results: Compared to baseline measurements, there was a deterioration in the values of arterial stiffness, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate, in both groups until day 35 of LTBR, interpreted as adaptation to the microgravity environment. From this day until the end of the experiment, arterial stiffness of the control group was constantly fluctuating, while constantly improving for the training group. During the recovery period, arterial stiffness values returned to the pre-experimental levels in both groups. Conclusions: Overall, arterial stiffness increased the longer the time spent in LTBR and the countermeasure was partially effective in preventing the observed phenomenon. German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS), DRKS00012946, September 18, 2017, retrospectively registered. Keywords: Arterial elasticity; Jump training; Pulse wave velocity; Simulated microgravity.
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    Automatic Recognition of Personality Profiles Using EEG Functional Connectivity during Emotional Processing
    (MDPI, 2020-05-03) Manousos A. Klados ; Panagiota Konstantinidi ; Rosalia Dacosta-Aguayo ; Vasiliki-Despoina Kostaridou ; Alessandro Vinciarelli ; Michalis Zervakis
    Personality is the characteristic set of an individual’s behavioral and emotional patterns that evolve from biological and environmental factors. The recognition of personality profiles is crucial in making human–computer interaction (HCI) applications realistic, more focused, and user friendly. The ability to recognize personality using neuroscientific data underpins the neurobiological basis of personality. This paper aims to automatically recognize personality, combining scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) and machine learning techniques. As the resting state EEG has not so far been proven e cient for predicting personality, we used EEG recordings elicited during emotion processing. This study was based on data from the AMIGOS dataset reflecting the response of 37 healthy participants. Brain networks and graph theoretical parameters were extracted from cleaned EEG signals, while each trait score was dichotomized into low- and high-level using the k-means algorithm. A feature selection algorithm was used afterwards to reduce the feature-set size to the best 10 features to describe each trait separately. Support vector machines (SVM) were finally employed to classify each instance. Our method achieved a classification accuracy of 83.8% for extraversion, 86.5% for agreeableness, 83.8% for conscientiousness, 83.8% for neuroticism, and 73% for openness.
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    Autonomic factors do not underlie the elevated self-disgust levels in Parkinson’s disease
    (PLOS ONE, 2021-09-02) Vasileia Aristotelidou ; Marianna Tsatali ; Paul G. Overton ; Vivas A.B.
    Introduction: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is manifested along with non-motor symptoms such as impairments in basic emotion regulation, recognition and expression. Yet, self-conscious emotion (SCEs) such as self-disgust, guilt and shame are under-investigated. Our previous research indicated that Parkinson patients have elevated levels of self-reported and induced self-disgust. However, the cause of that elevation–whether lower level biophysiological factors, or higher level cognitive factors, is unknown. Methods: To explore the former, we analysed Skin Conductance Response (SCR, measuring sympathetic activity) amplitude and high frequency Heart Rate Variability (HRV, measuring parasympathetic activity) across two emotion induction paradigms, one involving narrations of personal experiences of self-disgust, shame and guilt, and one targeting self-disgust selectively via images of the self. Both paradigms had a neutral condition. Results: Photo paradigm elicited significant changes in physiological responses in patients relative to controls—higher percentages of HRV in the high frequency range but lower SCR amplitudes, with patients to present lower responses compared to controls. In the narration paradigm, only guilt condition elicited significant SCR differences between groups. Conclusions: Consequently, lower level biophysiological factors are unlikely to cause elevated self-disgust levels in Parkinson’s disease, which by implication suggests that higher level cognitive factors may be responsible.
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    Biculturalism, linguistic distance, and bilingual profile effects on the bilingual influence on cognition: A comprehensive multipopulation approach.
    ( 2021-04-15) Laketa, A ; Elisavet Chrysochoou ; Blakey, E. ; Vivas A.B.
    The idea that being bilingual benefits one’s cognitive development and performance has been greatly challenged over the last years. If such an effect exists, as some studies continue to show, it might actually be restricted to particular contexts and bilingual profiles; not unlikely, considering the enormous diversity in the latter across the world. In this study, we assessed 4 different bilingual populations (N = 201) and 2 monolingual populations (N = 105), in the Balkan region. We formed bilingual groups based on (a) acculturation strategy (bicultural vs. monocultural), (b) linguistic distance, as well as (c) bilingual profile (balanced vs. unbalanced), based on linguistic, affective, and acculturation measures and cluster analysis. Beyond prior work, this allowed us to explore the specific conditions under which any cognitive advantage may be observed in bilinguals. We did not find systematic evidence for positive effects of bilingualism, biculturalism, or a balanced bilingual profile on inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, monitoring, and proactive-reactive control management. The only evidence pointing to an advantage was restricted to Bosnian-Albanian bilinguals (linguistic distance analyses) and their general monitoring capacity. Acculturation strategy though, played an important role in shaping the bilinguals’ language profile, and appeared to have independent effects on cognition from bilingualism. On this basis, acculturation should be considered in future explorations of bilingual cognitive development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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    Comparison of Laryngoscopic Views between C-MAC™ and Conventional Laryngoscopy in Patients with Multiple Preoperative Prognostic Criteria of Difficult Intubation. An Observational Cross-Sectional Study
    (MDPI, 2019-11-27) Marianna Tsatali ; Aikaterini Soumpourou ; Panagiota Papakonstantinou ; Dimitrios Gkinas ; Ioannis Dalakakis ; Evangelia Papapostolou ; Anastasia Nikopoulou ; Konstantinos Sapalidis ; Christoforos Kosmidis ; Charilaos Koulouris ; Dimitrios Giannakidis ; Konstantinos Romanidis ; Panagoula Oikonomou ; Aris Ioannidis ; Kosmas Tsakiridis ; Anastasios Vagionas ; Isaak Kesisoglou ; Vasilios Grosomanidi
    Background and Objectives: Video laryngoscopy has been proven useful under difficult airway scenarios, but it is unclear whether anticipated improvement of visualization is related to specific difficult intubation prognostic factors. The present study evaluated the change in laryngoscopic view between conventional and C-MAC® laryngoscopy and the presence of multiple difficult intubation risk factors. Materials and Methods: Patients scheduled for elective surgery with >2 difficult intubation factors, (Mallampati, thyromental distance (TMD), interinscisor gap, buck teeth, upper lip bite test, cervical motility, body mass index (BMI)) were eligible. Patients underwent direct laryngoscopy (DL) followed by C-MAC™ laryngoscopy (VL) and intubation. Change of view between DL and VL, time for best view, intubation difficulty scale (IDS) and correlation between prognostic factors, laryngoscopic view improvement, and IDS were measured. Results: One-hundred and seventy-six patients completed the study. VL lead to fewer Cormarck–Lehane (C/L) III-IV, compared to DL (13.6% versus 54.6%, p < 0.001). The time to best view was also shorter (VL: 10.82 s, DL: 12.08 s, p = 0.19). Mallampati III-IV and TMD ≤ 6 cm were related to improvement of C/L between DL and VL. Logistic regression showed these two factors to be a significant risk factor of the glottis view change (p = 0.006, AUC-ROC = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.47–0.66). 175/176 patients were intubated with VL. 108/176 were graded as 0 < IDS ≤ 5 and 12/176 as IDS > 5. IDS was only correlated to the VL view (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: VL improved laryngoscopic view in patients with multiple factors of difficult intubation. Mallampati and TMD were related to the improved view. However, intubation difficulty was only related to the VL view and not to prognostic factors.
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    Computerized music-reading intervention improves resistance to unisensory distraction within a multisensory task, in young and older adults.
    (Switzerland: Frontiers Media S.A. / Switzerland: Frontiers Research Foundation, 2021-09-10) Karagiorgis ; Alexandros T. ; Nikolas Chalas ; Maria Karagianni ; Georgios Papadelis ; Vivas A.B. ; Panagiotis Bamidis ; Evangelos Paraskevopoulos
    Incoming information from multiple sensory channels compete for attention. Processing the relevant ones and ignoring distractors, while at the same time monitoring the environment for potential threats, is crucial for survival, throughout the lifespan. However, sensory and cognitive mechanisms often decline in aging populations, making them more susceptible to distraction. Previous interventions in older adults have successfully improved resistance to distraction, but the inclusion of multisensory integration, with its unique properties in attentional capture, in the training protocol is underexplored. Here, we studied whether, and how, a 4-week intervention, which targets audiovisual integration, affects the ability to deal with task-irrelevant unisensory deviants within a multisensory task. Musically naïve participants engaged in a computerized music reading game and were asked to detect audiovisual incongruences between the pitch of a song’s melody and the position of a disk on the screen, similar to a simplistic music staff. The effects of the intervention were evaluated via behavioral and EEG measurements in young and older adults. Behavioral findings include the absence of age-related differences in distraction and the indirect improvement of performance due to the intervention, seen as an amelioration of response bias. An asymmetry between the effects of auditory and visual deviants was identified and attributed to modality dominance. The electroencephalographic results showed that both groups shared an increase in activation strength after training, when processing auditory deviants, located in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A functional connectivity analysis revealed that only young adults improved flow of information, in a network comprised of a fronto-parietal subnetwork and a multisensory temporal area. Overall, both behavioral measures and neurophysiological findings suggest that the intervention was indirectly successful, driving a shift in response strategy in the cognitive domain and higher-level or multisensory brain areas, and leaving lower level unisensory processing unaffected. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
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    Computerized physical and cognitive training improves the functional architecture of the brain in adults with Down syndrome: A network science EEG study
    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology., 2024-12-01) Alexandra Anagnostopoulou ; Pavlidis G. ; Panagiotis Kartsidi ; Evangelia Romanopoulou ; Vasiliki Zilidou ; Chrysi Karali ; Maria Karagianni ; Manousos Klados ; Kourtesis, D. ; Panagiotis D Bamidis
    Understanding the neuroplastic capacity of people with Down syndrome (PwDS) can potentially reveal the causal relationship between aberrant brain organization and phenotypic characteristics. We used resting-state EEG recordings to identify how a neuroplasticity-triggering training protocol relates to changes in the functional connectivity of the brain's intrinsic cortical networks. Brain activity of 12 PwDS before and after a 10-week protocol of combined physical and cognitive training was statistically compared to quantify changes in directed functional connectivity in conjunction with psychosomatometric assessments. PwDS showed increased connectivity within the left hemisphere and from left-to-right hemisphere, as well as increased physical and cognitive performance. Our findings reveal a strong adaptive neuroplastic reorganization as a result of the training that leads to a less-random network with a more pronounced hierarchical organization. Our results go beyond previous findings by indicating a transition to a healthier, more efficient, and flexible network architecture, with improved integration and segregation abilities in the brain of PwDS. Resting-state electrophysiological brain activity is used here for the first time to display meaningful relationships to underlying Down syndrome processes and outcomes of importance in a translational inquiry. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT04390321.
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    Consensus on the reporting and experimental design of clinical and cognitive-behavioural neurofeedback studies (CRED-nf checklist)
    (BRAIN OXFORD ACADEMIC, 2020-03-16) Ros, T. ; Klados, M.A ; et.al
    Neurofeedback has begun to attract the attention and scrutiny of the scientific and medical mainstream. Here, neurofeedback researchers present a consensus-derived checklist that aims to improve the reporting and experimental design standards in the field.
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    Differentiating difference from disability in the SLD assessment of diverse Students.
    (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022-01) Lito E. Michalopoulou
    More than 200 years of research in the field of learning disabilities have provided us with a vast body of knowledge, albeit without answering the fundamental questions: what and why. Today, it is widely accepted that learning disabilities or specific learning disabilities represent a real situation, which is mainly related to education, but also has long-term consequences in the social and professional life of individuals, who may be “smart”, but not know how to learn.. Tzouriadou, Maria & Tzivinikou, Sotiria & Vouyoukas, Constantinos & Anagnostopoulou, Eleni & Bonti, Eleni & Michalopoulou, Lito. (2022). Learning Disabilities From Assessment to Intervention Edited by Maria Tzouriadou and Sotiria Tzivinikou. More than 200 years of research in the field of learning disabilities have provided us with a vast body of knowledge, albeit without answering the fundamental questions: what and why. Today, it is widely accepted that learning disabilities or specific learning disabilities represent a real situation, which is mainly related to education, but also has long-term consequences in the social and professional life of individuals, who may be “smart”
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    Disgust in Neurological Disorders. In The Handbook of Disgust Research (pp. 209-223).
    (Springer Cham, 2021-11-17) Paul G. Overton ; Vivas A.B. ; Simpson J.
    Recognition of disgust-related stimuli, disgust-related emotional responses and disgust-related emotional experiences are affected in many neurological disorders. Here, we propose a model of the putative “disgust system” in the brain, that maps recognition, responses and experience onto specific neural systems—the superior temporal cortex, the striatum (and basal ganglia) and the insular cortex. That basic mapping is used to explain the disgust-related changes in a range of neurological disorders. Recognition of facial expressions of disgust is affected in temporal lobe epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, and Huntington’s disease. From the point of view of the tripartite model discussed above, deficits in the recognition of disgust may not be too unexpected in these disorders. There is evidence for insular dysfunction in medial temporal lobe epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. All five disorders also show evidence of dysfunction of the superior temporal sulcus. Deficits in the processing of disgust-related prosody have also been found in Parkinson’s disease, medial temporal lobe epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease, which again probably relate to anatomical changes in the superior temporal cortex. A loss of the capacity to demonstrate disgust-related facial expressions has been reported in Parkinson’s disease and frontotemporal dementia, as has reduced physiological responses to disgust-inducing film clips in Alzheimer’s disease, probably all secondary to changes at the level of the striatum. In contrast, the emotional experience of disgust is largely unaffected in many neurological disorders, with the exception of dementia with Lewy bodies and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, which have both been associated with a reduction in disgust-related experiences, possibly reflecting damage to the insular cortex. When disgust is directed at the self (self-disgust), experienced levels are actually higher (vs. healthy controls) both at baseline and in response to self-disgust inducing manipulations in Parkinson’s disease. Although disgust-related changes are largely untouched by current pharmacotherapies aimed at the core features of many neurological disorders, identifying the neural substrate for those changes is an important first step in the development of treatments targeting those changes—changes that can have a severe negative impact on the quality of life for many neurological patients.
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    Double-Step Machine Learning Based Procedure for HFOs Detection and Classification
    (MDPI, 2020-04-08) Nicolina Sciaraffa ; Manousos A. Klados ; Gianluca Borghini ; Gianluca Di Flumeri ; Fabio Babiloni ; Pietro Aricò
    The need for automatic detection and classification of high-frequency oscillations (HFOs) as biomarkers of the epileptogenic tissue is strongly felt in the clinical field. In this context, the employment of artificial intelligence methods could be the missing piece to achieve this goal. This work proposed a double-step procedure based on machine learning algorithms and tested it on an intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) dataset available online. The first step aimed to define the optimal length for signal segmentation, allowing for an optimal discrimination of segments with HFO relative to those without. In this case, binary classifiers have been tested on a set of energy features. The second step aimed to classify these segments into ripples, fast ripples and fast ripples occurring during ripples. Results suggest that LDA applied to 10 ms segmentation could provide the highest sensitivity (0.874) and 0.776 specificity for the discrimination of HFOs from no-HFO segments. Regarding the three-class classification, non-linear methods provided the highest values (around 90%) in terms of specificity and sensitivity, significantly different to the other three employed algorithms. Therefore, this machine-learning-based procedure could help clinicians to automatically reduce the quantity of irrelevant data.
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    Emotional devaluation in ignoring and forgetting as a function of adolescent development
    (Cognition, 2021) Vivas A.B. ; Chrysochoou E. ; Marful A. ; Bajo T.
    We know that emotion and cognition interact to guide goal-directed behavior. Accordingly, it has recently been shown that distracting stimuli (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003) and instructed to-be-forgotten items (Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou, & Bajo, 2016) are emotionally devaluated. The devaluation by inhibition hypothesis (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003) is the main theoretical explanation of these effects. However, we know little about how the cognition-emotion interplay is further modulated by development, and particularly, by changes in inhibitory control and affective processing within the adolescence period. In the present study we combined a selective attention task with faces, and a selective memory (directed forgetting paradigm) task with words, with a pleasantness evaluation task to address this question in three age groups; younger adolescents, older adolescents and young adults. Younger adolescents exhibited worse accuracy in the attention task, lower overall recognition of words in the memory task, and a smaller in magnitude directed forgetting effect in the latter, relative to the two older groups. That is, they showed less efficient inhibitory control in attention and memory selection. Despite this, all groups showed similar devaluation effects of the distractor faces and the to-be-forgotten words. Our findings do not fully support an inhibition account of such effects. Yet, they support the robustness of the forgetting devaluation effect, replicating the findings of Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou, and Bajo (2016) with a Greek version of the task and in a bigger sample of participants.
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    Emotional devaluation in ignoring and forgetting as a function of adolescent development
    (Elsevier, 2021-05-12) Vivas A.B. ; Chrysochoou E. ; Marful A. ; Bajo T.
    We know that emotion and cognition interact to guide goal-directed behavior. Accordingly, it has recently been shown that distracting stimuli (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003) and instructed to-be-forgotten items (Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou, & Bajo, 2016) are emotionally devaluated. The devaluation by inhibition hypothesis (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003) is the main theoretical explanation of these effects. However, we know little about how the cognition-emotion interplay is further modulated by development, and particularly, by changes in inhibitory control and affective processing within the adolescence period. In the present study we combined a selective attention task with faces, and a selective memory (directed forgetting paradigm) task with words, with a pleasantness evaluation task to address this question in three age groups; younger adolescents, older adolescents and young adults. Younger adolescents exhibited worse accuracy in the attention task, lower overall recognition of words in the memory task, and a smaller in magnitude directed forgetting effect in the latter, relative to the two older groups. That is, they showed less efficient inhibitory control in attention and memory selection. Despite this, all groups showed similar devaluation effects of the distractor faces and the to-be-forgotten words. Our findings do not fully support an inhibition account of such effects. Yet, they support the robustness of the forgetting devaluation effect, replicating the findings of Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou, and Bajo (2016) with a Greek version of the task and in a bigger sample of participants.
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    Executive functions in French-Greek early bilinguals: In search of the suggested bilingual advantage
    (EKT, NATIONAL DOCUMENTATION CENTRE, 2020) Chrysochoou E. ; Styliani Kanaki ; Vivas A.B.
    Bilinguals must manage two languages on a daily basis, which requires, among other things, dealing with cross-linguistic interference. Such cognitive training is assumed to underlie better performance of bilinguals, relative to monolinguals, in non-verbal cognitive tasks. Ηowever, the suggested advantage has recently been questioned. The present study aimed at shedding light into this debate, focusing on French-Greek early bilingual adults. Exposure to two languages from the first few years of life has been suggested to favour the demonstration of an advantage. Bilinguals were compared to Greek-speaking monolingual adults (matched for age, gender, non-verbal intelligence, and SES) on executive function tasks, tapping switching, inhibition, and updating processes. Task demands were also manipulated. In line with the suggested advantage and as expected, in the switching paradigm, bilinguals performed faster overall and demonstrated a smaller mixing cost; this can be assumed to reflect better general monitoring and top-down processing for bilingual participants. In contrast, the groups did not differ on switching cost, neither on the inhibition and updating measures. Moreover, contrary to what was expected, the cognitive measures did not correlate with an index of how balanced bilingualism was. Findings do not support a general and robust cognitive advantage in a sample of early bilinguals. Factors that might influence its observation are discussed, along with lines of future research.
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    Executive functions in French-Greek early bilinguals: In search of the suggested bilingual advantage
    (EKT, NATIONAL DOCUMENTATION CENTRE, 2020-12) Elisavet Chrysochoou ; Styliani Kanaki ; Vivas A.B.
    Bilinguals must manage two languages on a daily basis, which requires, among other things, dealing with cross-linguistic interference. Such cognitive training is assumed to underlie better performance of bilinguals, relative to monolinguals, in non-verbal cognitive tasks. Ηowever, the suggested advantage has recently been questioned. The present study aimed at shedding light into this debate, focusing on French-Greek early bilingual adults. Exposure to two languages from the first few years of life has been suggested to favour the demonstration of an advantage. Bilinguals were compared to Greek-speaking monolingual adults (matched for age, gender, non-verbal intelligence, and SES) on executive function tasks, tapping switching, inhibition, and updating processes. Task demands were also manipulated. In line with the suggested advantage and as expected, in the switching paradigm, bilinguals performed faster overall and demonstrated a smaller mixing cost; this can be assumed to reflect better general monitoring and top-down processing for bilingual participants. In contrast, the groups did not differ on switching cost, neither on the inhibition and updating measures. Moreover, contrary to what was expected, the cognitive measures did not correlate with an index of how balanced bilingualism was. Findings do not support a general and robust cognitive advantage in a sample of early bilinguals. Factors that might influence its observation are discussed, along with lines of future research.
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    From Basic to Applied Science: The Case of the Differential Outcomes Procedure
    (PSICOLOGICA, 2023-05-13) Luis J. Fuentes ; Victoria Plaza ; Vivas A.B. ; Ángeles F. Estévez
    A major health and societal challenge nowadays is how to ameliorate and/or delay the onset of cognitive decline in humans suffering from diverse pathologies. Often, solutions can be found in basic science conducted in the laboratory through the use of very well-known experimental procedures. In the present review article, we set out to present the main findings from a research line focused on an experimental procedure originally discovered in animal studies investigating associative learning; namely, the differential outcomes procedure (DOP). Here we review the main findings of the DOP that relate to the different processes involved in associative learning and memory from a neuropsychological perspective. We take a step forward to illustrate how the DOP can be applied to real life settings to address important issues such as treatment adherence. Briefly, we first show how the DOP can be adapted to enhance discriminative learning and memory retention in children of different ages, younger adults, and healthy as well as pathological aging. Next, we illustrate how the DOP can be a cost-effective approach to tackle health challenges such as adherence to medical prescriptions in older people suffering from multiple morbidities. Finally, we discuss digital, mobile-based applications using the DOP to promote autonomy in older adults. Future directions in the DOP applications to health issues are also presented.
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    Frontal lobe-related cognition in the context of self-disgust
    (PLOS ONE, 2023-08-15) Vasileia Aristotelidou ; Vivas A.B.
    Self- disgust is an adverse self-conscious emotion that plays an important role in psychopathology and well-being. However, self-disgust has received little attention in the emotion literature, therefore our understanding of the processes underlying the experience of selfdisgust is relatively scarce, although neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies support the idea that this emotion may heavily rely on frontal lobe-related cognition. To test this hypothesis, in two studies we investigated the relationship between state and trait levels of self-disgust, cognition and emotion regulation in healthy adults. Specifically, in Study 1 we tested the hypothesis that emotion regulation strategies (avoidance, suppression, and cognitive reappraisal) mediate the relationship between inhibition ability and state and trait levels of self-disgust. In Study 2, we followed a more comprehensive approach to test the hypothesis that frontal lobe-related cognitive processes (updating, Theory of Mind–ToM-, and self-attention) are closely related to the experience of self-disgust in healthy adults. Overall, across these studies, we found evidence to support the idea that inhibition ability and ToM may play a role in the experience of state and trait self-disgust, respectively. However, we did not find consistent evidence across the two studies to support the notion held in the literature that the experience of self- conscious emotions, in this case self-disgust, is heavily dependent on frontal lobe-related cognition.