Vol 49, No 3 (2023)

The aim of the study is to reveal the features of the emotional sphere of children with typical development (TD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) using the developed interdisciplinary methodological approach. The methodology includes two blocks – information about the development of the child (questionnaires for parents) and testing the child, containing tasks aimed at studying the manifestation of the emotional state in the characteristics of voice, speech, facial expressions, behavior and recognition by children of the emotional states of other people by voice and facial expression. The participants of the study were 70 children: 50 with TD and 20 with ASD. An audio and video recording of the speech, facial expressions and behavior of children during testing was made. Normative data were obtained – scores on questionnaires and scales, the results of psychophysiological testing of children. Differences between children with TD and ASD were determined according to the scales of the questionnaires: general information about development, the emotional sphere, additional information about child’s behavior; by scores in the test tasks for recognition and manifestation of emotions by children. The conducted study is the first step in the development of new fundamental approaches to the diagnosis, rehabilitation and education of children with atypical development using methods for automatically recognizing children’s emotional states by vocalizations, speech and facial expression.

The problem of printed text processing impairments in dyslexics is of current interest but not well developed. The integration of the activity approach and eye-tracking methods provides us the opportunity to manage the system structural and functional analysis the reading as an complex activity. The purpose of the present study was to examine the oculomotor behavior as referent of mental actions performed in the process of reading a written text by children with dyslexia. The study of the oculomotor behavior during a text reading in 9–11year children with dyslexia was carried out. An eye movements during the text reading were recorded by means of eye-tracker. All participants were presented two kinds of texts: two expository texts and two narrative texts. The fixation’s number and duration and regressive saccade number and duration was registered; the distribution of regressive saccade with different amplitudes (very short, short, medium and long) were analyzed. Statistical analysis of data revealed the significant between group distinctions in all gaze movements measures. These data proved that children with dyslexia have reading activity disfunction both on the lexical and propositional and semantic levels.

In the ERP study we aimed to find differences between creating titles for artistic images distinguishing by their meaning and stylistics. Thirty six adolescents (16 m; 20 f. Mean age: 15.9 ± 1.1 years) took part in two studies. Images from three categories – “cartoons”, “plot sketches”, “paintings” – full of metaphors and symbols were used as the stimuli. We considered creating titles for “cartoons” and “plot sketches” of modern artists as convergent creative task based on guessing of artists thought, at the same time the task – creating the titles for “paintings” was considered by us as more open and divergent creative task. During creating titles ERP’s amplitude for the “plot sketches” vs “cartoons” was higher in parietal-occipital and frontal, central, parietal areas on intervals 116–208 and 492–656 ms respectively. During creating titles for the paintings in the author’s style vs realistic paintings differences in ERP’s amplitude were found in occipital areas (152–264 ms), frontal and occipital areas bilateral (208–440 ms) and in frontal, temporal, central, parietal areas with maximum in the left hemisphere (544–600 ms). Late positive wave with different latency, was found in two studies – “plot sketches” vs “cartoons”(492–656 ms) and – “author’s style” vs realistic images (544–600 ms) and suggested to be connected with the extraction and analysis of the metaphorical meaning and symbols in the images for creating of the verbal interpretation (title). Only in performing a convergent creative task (closely related to the interpretation of the artist’s idea), finding the answer was accompanied by a smaller amplitude of late differences in the interval of 1300–1650 ms (more than 1500 ms before the moment when the answer was marked as have been found), while there were no significant differences between finding and not finding the answer in the second study. With the same task and in the conditions of finding/not finding the answer, we assumed that in the first study a process of comparing one’s own ideas with a certain desired (laid down by the author) meaning, that was expressed more strongly than in the second study, was needed.

The study compared effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of Broca’s area and of its right-hemispheric homologue on the acquisition of novel concrete and abstract words. Word/concept acquisition was achieved through reading sets of sentences, which incorporated novel words, gradually revealing their meaning through context. Before the learning session, a 15-minute anodal or cathodal stimulation of one of the target areas was applied. Lexical decision task was used to assess the learning outcomes immediately after the learning session and 24 hours later. The results showed a larger number of correct responses after right-hemispheric tDCS, in comparison with that of Broca’s area in the left hemisphere. These results suggest that the right-hemispheric counterpart of Broca’s areas is involved in the processing and acquisition of new concrete and abstract semantics. Furthermore, they demonstrate facilitatory effects of tDCS on the processes of overnight consolidation of newly formed word memory traces.

The primary motor cortex takes part in various stages of language learning accompanied by human motor activity. However, previous studies of causal relationships between the activation of primary motor cortex and efficiency of language tasks reveal contradictory results, likely due to diverging learning environments and specific movement patterns required by different experimental designs. The goal of this research was to comprehensively investigate the effect of continuous theta-burst magnetic stimulation (cTBS) of the primary motor cortex on the acquisition of new words while modulating the learning environment and the motor response during the learning process. Following cTBS of the primary motor cortex or control conditions (sham and active control cTBS), the subjects (n = 96) completed a novel word learning task, which involved associating visually presented objects with spoken word forms using a virtual reality (VR) or conventional computer monitor environment. In each environment, the subjects were exposed to eight novel words embedded into questions about visual stimulus properties in order to prompt novel associations. Responses to these questions could be performed either by distal or by proximal hand movements. The outcome of the word acquisition was measured using a free recall task immediately after the training and on the next day. The results showed significant differences in the success of recalling new words immediately after the learning session and on the next day only in those subjects who received cTBS of the primary motor cortex; furthermore, this effect was specific to proximal movements in both learning environments. The results suggest that the motor cortex is directly involved in acquiring novel vocabulary during active interaction with the learning material.

Recently, much attention has been paid to the mechanism of cooperation between the fronto-parietal system and the default system, since their “pre-tuning” at rest and the subsequent dynamics of functional interaction are associated with an individual variety of strategies for performing tasks while creativity testing. To study the EEG correlates of such strategies, we analyzed the regional specificity of ∆- and β-oscillations in the resting-state and compared them with the results of testing of creativity and intelligence in 37 university students (18 ± 1.1 years; 27 women and 10 men). The indicators of originality of responses when testing creativity were calculated using the databases we created earlier for the subtests “Circles”, “Incomplete figures”, “Unusual use of ordinary objects” and an expert assessment of the originality of sentences made up of words belonging to distant semantic categories. The verbal and figurative components of intelligence were assessed according to the Amthauer intelligence structure subtests. Using the cluster analysis of the listed indicators of creativity and intelligence, we identified two groups of study participants: one (GR_KIQ) was characterized by a combination of higher values of intelligence and originality of answers in those tasks where it was required to reject stereotypical ideas while limiting the time for their search, and the other (GR_K) – relatively lower intelligence, but high originality of solving the problem in terms of testing creativity with a variety of stimuli and without time limits. These two clusters differed in the regional organization of the power of the ∆- and β₂-rhythms and in the correlation patterns of these rhythms: GR_KIQ is represented by wide-spread high-frequency β-activity and its correlation with low-frequency biopotentials in the frontal cortex whereas GR_K is characterized by cortical mosaic of the β₂-activity with its diffusely distributed correlations with the ∆-rhythm by the exception of the anterior frontal areas. The detected effects can be considered as a “pre-tuning” to the strategy of “intelligent” search for an original answer under conditions of resistance to fixation on a stereotyped idea in the GR_KIQ or a solution based on a spontaneous search for distant associations in the GR_K.