Aaron R Seitz

University of California, Riverside | UCR · Department of Psychology

Evidence suggests that cognitive training can be beneficial for older adults to maintain and improve executive functions (EFs). EFs are important for many everyday functions, and they are impacted by aging and dementia. Integrating game-like features can boost motivation and engagement during cognitive training, promoting learning outcomes. Yet, in...

A growing literature suggests that declines in sensory/perceptual systems predate cognitive declines in aging, and furthermore, they are highly predictive for developing Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s related dementias (ADRD). While vision, hearing, olfaction, and vestibular function have each been shown to be related to ADRD, their causal rel...

Purpose Auditory perceptual and cognitive tasks can be useful as a long-term goal in guiding rehabilitation and intervention strategies in audiology clinics that mostly operate at a faster pace and on strict timelines. The rationale of this study was to assess test–retest reliability of an abbreviated test battery and evaluate age-related auditory...

The ability to discriminate speech with background noise decreases with age. This study examined the effect of masker type and spatial location in older and young adults. Using Portable Automated Rapid Testing software on an iPad, participants were asked to understand target speech (always simulated at 0° azimuth) in the presence of speech or ‘garb...

Background Research indicates that people with Parkinson’s disease (PwPs) may experience challenges in both peripheral and central auditory processing, although findings are inconsistent across studies. Due to the diversity of auditory measures used, there is a need for standardized, replicable hearing assessments to clarify which aspects of auditi...

Neurocognitive aging researchers are increasingly focused on the locus coeruleus, a neuromodulatory brainstem structure that degrades with age. With this rapid growth, the field will benefit from consensus regarding which magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics of locus coeruleus structure are most sensitive to age and cognition. To address this n...

Speech-in-Competition (SIC) tasks mimic real-world environments by including background noise and multi-speaker scenarios. However, few SIC tasks have been translated into Spanish and validated. Moreover, the influence of bilingual experience on SIC measures is not well understood. This study aimed to investigate how bilingual experience influences...

In recent decades, perceptual learning (PL) has witnessed significant advancements, but the field has faced questions regarding reliability, replication issues, and challenges in understanding individual differences, hindering accessibility to diverse populations. To address these issues, we introduce PLFest, a novel, cross-platform UNITY-based app...

Dynamic functional connectivity investigates how the interactions among brain regions vary over the course of an fMRI experiment. Such transitions between different individual connectivity states can be modulated by changes in underlying physiological mechanisms that drive functional network dynamics, e.g., changes in attention or cognitive effort....

A body of research has identified a complex integration of perceptual and cognitive processes that can modulate comprehension of speech-in-competition (SIC). However, it is not well understood how the neurophysiological correlates associated with SIC performance vary under different conditions of attentional load. Here, we analyzed the neurophysiol...

As the number of older adults is expected to rise, there exists a need for accessible tools that capture nuanced changes in cognition. Modern digital assessment tools provide a flexible, cost-effective framework that captures the trajectories, dynamics, and dimensionality of individual cognitive profiles, which can be employed both in clinics and e...

Contour Integration (CI) is the ability to integrate elemental features into objects and is a basic visual process essential for object perception and recognition, and for functioning in visual environments. It is now well documented that people with schizophrenia (SZ), in addition to having cognitive impairments, also have several visual perceptua...

Neurocognitive aging researchers are increasingly focused on the locus coeruleus, a neuromodulatory brainstem structure that degrades with age. With this rapid growth, the field will benefit from consensus regarding which magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics of locus coeruleus structure are most sensitive to age and cognition. To address this n...

We previously introduced an adaptive psychophysical method called the adaptive scan (AS) that is readily available in the digital app PART. AS presents multiple progressive tracks (e.g., “scans”) each of which comprises a range of stimulus values whose positioning adapts based on a listener´s performance. Each scan is intended to contain trials abo...

Speech-in-Competition (SIC) tasks mimic real-world environments by including background noise and multi-speaker scenarios. However, few SIC tasks have been translated into Spanish and validated. Moreover, the influence of bilingual experience on SIC measures is not well understood. This study aimed to investigate how bilingual experience influences...

A body of research has identified a complex integration of perceptual and cognitive processes that can modulate comprehension of speech-in-competition (SIC). However, it is not well understood how the neurophysiological correlates associated with SIC performance vary under different conditions of attentional load. Here, we analyzed the neurophysiol...

Measures typically included in standard audiometric test batteries often fail to correlate with self-reported auditory complaints. This is especially common for patients with normal- or near-normal-hearing sensitivity, like those who are aging or have a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI). This discrepancy likely stems from the use of measures...

Individuals with a history of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) often report difficulties understanding speech in competition that are not well predicted by the pure-tone audiogram. Given that previous work has demonstrated relationships between suprathreshold auditory processing abilities and speech understanding in competition, the current study...

Recent advances in nonparametric Contrast Sensitivity Function (CSF) estimation have yielded a new tradeoff between accuracy and efficiency not available to classical parametric estimators. An additional advantage of this new framework is the ability to independently tune multiple aspects of the estimator to seek further improvements. Machine Learn...

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Purpose Standard clinical audiologic assessment is limited in its ability to capture variance in self-reported hearing difficulty. Additionally, the costs associated with clinical testing in audiology create financial barriers for hearing health care in developing countries like Mexico. This study used an open-source Spanish-language tool called PA...

This book sheds light on the translation of current mechanistic research on placebo effects to develop comprehensive and adequate strategies for better symptom management and treatment. This book identifies three core aspects to bridge state-of-the-art concepts with day-to-day clinical practice. First, lessons from mechanistic placebo research indi...

Perceptual learning is the process by which experience alters how incoming sensory information is processed by the brain to give rise to behavior—it is critical for how humans educate children, train experts, treat diseases, and promote health and well-being throughout the lifespan. Knowledge of perceptual learning requires basic and applied resear...

The measurement of audition has historically focused on the detection of pure tones; however, it has been proposed that a thorough evaluation should include measures of language reception in competition. The auditory challenge in the real world occurs mostly in competitive environments that require further auditory processing, and not only rely on...

Listening in complex environments is a challenge for most observers, but particularly for those with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Here, we explored the relationship between working memory (WM) and the ability to understand speech in competition, using three spoken sentences presented simultaneously via earphones using a Virtual Spatial Array...

People differ considerably in the extent to which they benefit from working memory (WM) training. Although there is increasing research focusing on individual differences associated with WM training outcomes, we still lack an understanding of which specific individual differences, and in what combination, contribute to inter-individual variations i...

Consistent with research across several domains, intervention adherence is associated with desired outcomes. Our study investigates adherence, defined by participants’ commitment to, persistence with, and compliance with an intervention’s regimen, as a key mechanism underlying cognitive training effectiveness. We examine this relationship in a larg...

Unlabelled: Cognitive training may promote healthy brain aging and prevent dementia, but results from individual studies are inconsistent. There are disagreements on how to evaluate cognitive training interventions between clinical and basic scientists. Individual labs typically create their own assessment and training materials, leading to diffic...

The locus coeruleus (LC), a small subcortical structure in the brainstem, is the brain's principal source of norepinephrine. It plays a primary role in regulating stress, the sleep-wake cycle, and attention, and its degradation is associated with aging and neurodegenerative diseases associated with cognitive deficits (e.g., Parkinson's, Alzheimer's...

A major barrier to the clinical application of psychophysical testing of central auditory processes is the time required to obtain precise estimates of different listening abilities. In this study, we validate a novel adaptive scan (AS) method of threshold estimation that is designed to adapt on a range of values around threshold rather than on a s...

The first of three volumes, the five sections of this book cover a variety of issues important in developing, designing, and analyzing data to produce high-quality research efforts and cultivate a productive research career. First, leading scholars from around the world provide a step-by-step guide to doing research in the social and behavioral sci...

Multidimensional psychometric functions can typically be estimated nonparametrically for greater accuracy or parametrically for greater efficiency. By recasting the estimation problem from regression to classification, however, powerful machine learning tools can be leveraged to improve both accuracy and efficiency simultaneously. Contrast Sensitiv...

Pathologies affecting central vision, such as Macular degeneration (MD), represents a growing health concern worldwide. These patients, deprived of central vision, tend to adopt spontaneous compensatory strategies, including the development of an eccentric locus of fixation, called preferred retinal locus (PRL). However, clinical evidence indicates...

Memory consists of multiple processes, from encoding information, consolidating it into short- and long- term memory, and later retrieving relevant information. Targeted memory reactivation is an experimental method during which sensory components of a multisensory representation (such as sounds or odors) are ‘reactivated’, facilitating the later r...

Service members and Veterans are regularly exposed to environmental factors that have been shown to contribute to hearing deficits. These listening deficits may present as auditory processing complaints such as difficulty listening in background noise in the absence of a peripheral hearing loss. The public app, Listen: An Auditory Training Experien...

Many individuals with and without hearing loss, including those with a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI), often report difficulties understanding speech in noise that are not well predicted by common behavioral measures. Recent work in the gamification of behavioral auditory tasks has led to the development of measures that aim to better mimi...

Accessibility issues, especially in developing countries, have prevented the evaluation of diverse hearing abilities beyond the pure tone audiogram in the general population. PART is a free-access automated auditory measurement tool that can address accessibility issues by providing a wide variety of auditory psychophysical measures in multiple lan...

Purpose Difficulty understanding speech in noise is a common communication problem. Clinical tests of speech in noise differ considerably from real-world listening and offer patients limited intrinsic motivation to perform well. In order to design a test that captures motivational aspects of real-world communication, this study investigated effects...

After loss of central vision following retinal pathologies such as macular degeneration (MD), patients often adopt compensatory strategies including developing a “preferred retinal locus” (PRL) to replace the fovea in tasks involving fixation. A key question is whether patients develop multi-purpose PRLs or whether their oculomotor strategies adapt...

This study validates a new Spanish-language version of the Coordinate Response Measure (CRM) corpus using a well-established measure of spatial release from masking (SRM). Participants were 96 Spanish-speaking young adults without hearing complaints in Mexico City. To present the Spanish-language SRM test, we created new recordings of the CRM with...

Random Dot Motion (RDM) displays refer to clouds of independently moving dots that can be parametrically manipulated to provide a perception of the overall cloud moving coherently in a specified direction of motion. As a well-studied probe of motion perception, RDMs have been widely employed to understand underlying neural mechanisms of motion perc...

Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric condition that is generally characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and trouble with speech and thinking. In addition, this condition is characterized by alterations in visual perception. As such, a number of groups have examined how perceptual training may be beneficial in helping those with schizophrenia...

Introduction: Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are a popular choice to extract and examine recurring patterns of activity or functional connectivity in neuroimaging data, both in terms of spatial patterns and their temporal progression. Although many diverse HMMs have been applied to neuroimaging data, most have defined states based on activity levels (...

Measuring selective attention in a speeded task can provide valuable insight into the concentration ability of an individual, and can inform neuropsychological assessment of attention in aging, traumatic brain injury, and in various psychiatric disorders. There are only a few tools to measure selective attention that are freely available, psychomet...

Background Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has shown potential as an effective aid to facilitate learning. A popular application of this technology has been in combination with working memory training (WMT) in order to enhance transfer effects to other cognitive measures after training. Objective This meta-analytic review aims to sy...

Time Varying Functional Connectivity (TVFC) investigates how the interactions among brain regions vary over the course of an fMRI experiment. The transitions between different individual connectivity states can be modulated by changes in underlying physiological mechanisms that drive functional network dynamics, e.g., changes in attention or cognit...

There is a growing body of research focused on developing and evaluating behavioral training paradigms meant to induce enhancements in cognitive function. It has recently been proposed that one mechanism through which such performance gains could be induced involves participants’ expectations of improvement. However, no work to date has evaluated w...

While remote data collection is not a new concept, the quality and psychometric properties of data collected remotely often remain unclear. Most remote data collection is done via online survey tools or web-conferencing applications (i.e., Skype or Zoom) and largely involves questionnaires, interviews, or other self-report data. Little research has...

Remote testing of auditory function can be transformative to both basic research and hearing healthcare; however, historically, many obstacles have limited remote collection of reliable and valid auditory psychometric data. Here, we report performance on a battery of auditory processing tests using a remotely administered system, Portable Automatic...

Cognitive training is a promising tool for slowing or preventing cognitive decline in older adults at-risk for dementia. Its success, however, has been limited by a lack of evidence showing that it reliably causes broad training effects: improvements in cognition across a range of domains that lead to real-world benefits. Here, we propose a framewo...

Previous cognitive training research with the change-detection paradigm found only sparse effects that went beyond improvements in the training task but stressed an increase in fidelity of internal memory representations. Motivated by the demanding visual processing requirements of change-detection training, we extended this work by focusing on whe...

Background Although many people try to lose weight, a large proportion of individuals do not achieve clinically significant weight loss. Nonresponse and relapse rates in lifestyle interventions are largely explained by challenges in avoiding or resisting temptation in the context of omnipresent food access. Innovative enhancement strategies are nee...

The extent to which working memory training improves performance on untrained tasks is highly controversial. Here we address this controversy by testing the hypothesis that far transfer may depend on near transfer using mediation models in three separate randomized controlled trials (RCTs). In all three RCTs, totalling 460 individuals, performance...

Background: Increasing evidence suggests that targeting self-regulatory processes may improve obesity treatment outcomes. Incorporating gamification principles in inhibitory control training may promote sustained training adherence and resulting benefits. This pilot study evaluated the preliminary efficacy of supplementing an evidence-based weight...

(1) Background: Difficulty hearing in noise is exacerbated in older adults. Older adults are more likely to have audiometric hearing loss, although some individuals with normal pure‐tone audiograms also have difficulty perceiving speech in noise. Additional variables also likely account for speech understanding in noise. It has been suggested that...

Portable automated rapid testing of central auditory processing measures implemented in the app PART (https://braingamecenter.ucr.edu/games/p-a-r-t/) were adapted for Spanish-speaking populations. This adaptation included the generation of a corpus equivalent to the CRM to test a speech-on- speech masking task, in addition to frequency modulation t...

No PDF available ABSTRACT Portable automated rapid testing of central auditory processing measures implemented in the app PART (https://braingamecenter.ucr.edu/games/p-a-r-t/) were adapted for Spanish-speaking populations. This adaptation included the generation of a corpus equivalent to the CRM to test a speech-on-speech masking task, in addition...

The locus coeruleus (LC), a small subcortical structure in the brainstem, is the brain’s principal source of norepinephrine. It plays a primary role in regulating stress, the sleep-wake cycle, and attention, and its degradation is associated with aging and neurodegenerative diseases associated with cognitive deficits (e.g., Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s...