Marta Olivetti Belardinelli

• Professor Emeritus at Sapienza University of Rome

The frontoparietal attention network plays a pivotal role during working memory (WM) maintenance, especially under high-load conditions. Nevertheless, there is ongoing debate regarding whether this network relies on supramodal or modality-specific neural signatures. In this study, we used multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to evaluate the neural r...

The paper presents an overview of recent studies assessing technology-aided strategies aimed at helping people with intellectual and multiple disabilities reach relevant rehabilitation goals. The 16 studies included in the paper addressed four specific rehabilitation goals, that is, (a) performance of functional activities, (b) access to leisure an...

Response-contingent stimulation is a behavioral strategy used to improve the situation of patients with disorders of consciousness. Such strategy involves the presentation of brief periods (e.g., 10 to 15 s) of stimulation considered preferred by the patients, contingent on (immediately after) the emission of specific patients’ responses. The aim i...

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder that affects not only the motor but also the cognitive and the neuropsychiatric domain. In particular, deficits in mental state recognition may emerge already at early pre-manifest stages of the disease. The aim of this research was to explore the relation between visual scanning beh...

Despite the fact that the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test (RMET) is now available in more than 20 languages, there are only very few cross‐cultural researchers using this test, and these researchers generally focus on North American versus East Asian cultures. Considering that the RMET stimuli were selected and constructed in the United Kingdom...

This article first reviews the main theoretical propositions of Gray's Reinforcer Sensitivity Theory (RST), Higgins' Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT), and Elliot's Achievement Goal Theory (AGT), which all made a significant contribution to our understanding of goal directed behavior from an approach-avoidance perspective. Reviewing these three seminal...

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder that affects not only the motor but also the cognitive domain. In particular, cognitive symptoms such as impaired executive skills and deficits in recognizing other individuals’ mental state may emerge many years before the motor symptoms. This study was aimed at testing two cognitiv...

Stereoscopy is widely used to render depth and perceptual spatial cues information in Virtual Environments (VEs). In literature, the use of stereoscopy in VEs reported advantages but also disadvantages on perceptual skills such as metric evaluation of distances. The present study tests the influence of stereoscopy on a verbal metric and nonmetric e...

Computerized 3D modelled spaces are thought to be reliable imitations of Real Environments (REs). Depth perception in displayed Virtual 3D Environments (VEs) is a controversial issue. The present work compared both egocentric and allocentric distances in a RE and a VE. Results showed more errors in the VE (underestimations) than in the RE (overesti...

This paper presents an overview of recent technology-aided programs (i. e., technology-aided support tools) designed to help people with significant disabilities (a) engage in adaptive responses, functional activities, and leisure and communication, and thus (b) interact with their physical and social environment and improve their performance/achie...

The issue of the format of mental imagery is still an open debate. The classical analogue (depictive)–propositional (descriptive) debate has not provided definitive conclusions. Over the years, the debate has shifted within the frame of the embodied cognition approach, which focuses on the interdependence of perception, cognition and action. Althou...

Mind wandering is characterized by the absence of cognitive focus on a task, due to interfering spontaneous mentation. Despite a large number of investigations on mind wandering and mindfulness training in recent years, very few studies have directly investigated the effects of mindfulness training on mind wandering. In this study, we originally in...

Background: Cognitive abnormalities in Huntington’s Disease (HD) can involve the specific impairment of the social perspective taking as well as difficulties in recognizing others’ mental state many years before the onset of motor symptoms. Aims: At the scope of assessing how the difficulties in mental state recognition might be an HD early sign be...

Background: A correct spatial representation of both real and artificial environments requires an appropriate perceptual spatial information processing. In Virtual Environments (VEs), depth and other spatial cues are rendered with stereoscopy by doubling the display and adjusting the angular distance to the viewer’s eyes to simulate binocular dispa...

Our objective was to investigate the capacity to control a P3-based brain-computer interface (BCI) device for communication and its related (temporal) attention processing in a sample of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients with respect to healthy subjects. The ultimate goal was to corroborate the role of cognitive mechanisms in event-relat...

Tactile speech aids, though extensively studied in the 1980’s and 1990’s, never became a commercial success. A hypothesis to explain this failure might be that it is difficult to obtain true perceptual integration of a tactile signal with information from auditory speech: exploitation of tactile cues from a tactile aid might require cognitive effor...

Audio and tactile psychometric functions fitted to the data of the 10 subjects. For the audio graphs, each data point corresponds to 15 measurements. For the tactile graph (top, middle), each data point corresponds to 15 measurements. The means μ of each function are taken to be the PSE for that subject for that condition, and σ indicates the slope...

Is there a relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience? This question is motivated not only by the fact that historically experiences of both kinds have often been accounted for in terms of “empathy”, the English translation of the German term “Einfühlung”, but also by the fact that some contemporary theories refer to mechanisms und...

Tactile speech aids, though extensively studied in the 1980s and 90s, never became a commercial success. A hypothesis to explain this failure might be that it is difficult to obtain true perceptual integration of a tactile signal with information from auditory speech: exploitation of tactile cues from a tactile aid might require cognitive effort an...

Several studies in mindfulness and meditation research have used the Attentional Network Task (ANT) to assess changes in the efficiency of attentional networks. The approaches used for mental training, the experimental designs, and the results in such studies are however heterogeneous, and in most cases, do not involve an assessment of dispositiona...

The thesis of embodied cognition claims that perception of the environment entails a complex set of multisensory processes which forms a basis for the agent's potential and immediate actions. However, in the case of artworks, an agent becomes an observer and action turns into a reaction. This raises questions about the presence of embodied or situa...

This study focused on the assessment of a program recently developed for helping patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease engage in computer-mediated verbal reminiscence (Lancioni et al., 2014a). Sixteen participants were involved in the study. Six of them used the original program version with the computer showing a virtual partner posing questi...

Background. Eye trackers are widely used among people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and their benefits to quality of life have been previously shown. On the contrary, Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are still quite a novel technology, which also serves as an access technology for people with severe motor impairment. Objective. To compare a v...

Several neuroimaging studies have provided strong evidence of the possibility to decode mental states from brain activity. Compared to strictly location-based analysis, pattern classification can reveal new information about the way cognitive, emotional, and perceptual states are encoded in patterns of brain activity. By relying on mental state cla...

We describe some Artificial Life simulations in which a situated model agent controlled by a feed-forward neural network has to solve a simple categorization task involving size constancy abilities in an online fashion. The results show that even a simple neural controller without internal recurrent dynamics is capable of solving a non-trivial size...

Post-coma persons affected by extensive motor impairment and lack of speech, with or without disorders of consciousness, need special support to manage leisure engagement and communication. These two studies extended research efforts aimed at assessing basic technology-aided programs to provide such support. Specifically, Study I assessed a program...

Post-coma persons in a minimally conscious state (MCS) or emerged/emerging from such state (E-MCS), who are affected by extensive motor impairment and lack of speech, may develop an active role and interact with their environment with the help of technology-aided intervention programs. Although a number of studies have been conducted in this area d...

La costanza percettiva è quel fenomeno che ci permette di avere una percezione stabile dell’ambiente circostante nonostante la variabilità delle informazioni grezze che arrivano ai nostri sensi. La proiezione retinica di un oggetto, ad esempio, varia notevolmente in funzione della distanza dall’osservatore, eppure la grandezza percepita rimane stab...

Given the enormous consequences that the diagnosis of vegetative state (VS) vs. minimally conscious state (MCS) may have for the treatment of patients with disorders of consciousness, it is particularly important to empirically legitimate the distinction between these two discrete levels of consciousness. Therefore, the aim of this contribution is...

One of the spatial abilities that has recently revealed a remarkable variability in performance is that of using terrain slope to reorient. Previous studies have shown a very large disadvantage for females when the slope of the floor is the only information useful for encoding a goal location. However, the source of this sex difference is still unc...

In order to enable communication through a brain-computer interface (BCI), it is necessary to discriminate between distinct brain responses. As a first step, we probed the possibility to discriminate between affirmative (“yes”) and negative (“no”) responses using a semantic classical conditioning paradigm, within an fMRI setting. Subjects were pres...

La valutazione cognitiva appare una componente fondamentale della valutazione multidimensionale geriatrica e definire delle linee guida su come debba essere condotta sembra un’importante sfida. Recenti riflessioni nell’ambito della neuropsicologia fanno emergere come sia auspicabile abbandonare un approccio psicometrico a favore di uno clinico-neur...

A plethora of research demonstrates that the processing of emotional faces is prioritised over non-emotive stimuli when cognitive resources are limited (this is known as 'emotional superiority'). However, there is debate as to whether competition for processing resources results in emotional superiority per se, or more specifically, threat superior...

A plethora of research demonstrates that the processing of emotional faces is prioritised over non-emotive stimuli when cognitive resources are limited (this is known as 'emotional superiority'). However, there is debate as to whether competition for processing resources results in emotional superiority per se, or more specifically, threat superior...

A plethora of research demonstrates that the processing of emotional faces is prioritised over non-emotive stimuli when cognitive resources are limited (this is known as 'emotional superiority'). However, there is debate as to whether competition for processing resources results in emotional superiority per se, or more specifically, threat superior...

Two experiments comparing imaginative processing in different modalities and semantic processing were carried out to investigate the issue of whether conceptual knowledge can be represented in different format. Participants were asked to judge the similarity between visual images, auditory images, and olfactory images in the imaginative block, if t...

Post-coma persons in a minimally conscious state and with extensive motor impairment or emerging/emerged from such a state, but affected by lack of speech and motor impairment, tend to be passive and isolated. A way to help them develop functional responding to control environmental events and communication involves the use of intervention programs...

A learning test procedure based on operant principles may be useful in the diagnosis (and eventually rehabilitation) of post-coma persons with minimal responsiveness. This study was aimed at extending the evaluation of such a procedure with seven participants who presented with very limited behavior and apparently severe disorders of consciousness....

La valutazione cognitiva appare una componente fondamentale della valutazione geriatrica multidimensionale e definire delle linee guida su come debba essere condotta sembra un’importante sfida. In risposta a recenti riflessioni che auspicano il ricorso ad un approccio clinico-neuropsicologico e la necessità di abbracciare nuove impostazioni teorich...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the support of attentional and memory processes in controlling a P300-based brain-computer interface (BCI) in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Eight people with ALS performed two behavioral tasks: (i) a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task, screening the temporal filtering capacit...

With the aim of developing a brain-computer interface for the communication of basic mental states, a classical conditioning paradigm with affective stimuli was used, assessing the possibility to discriminate between affirmative and negative thinking in an fMRI-BCI setting. 6 Alzheimer patients and 7 healthy control subjects participated to the stu...

The individual anxiety has a significant influence on cognitive decision-making (CDM) especially in presence of unexpected risk. The appearance of the threat requires fast, competent and usually rational decisions, which are necessary for the management of human resources, social politics and other critical man-technology complex systems. This work...

Objective: Assessing the impact of microswitch-aided programs with contingent stimulation on response engagement (Study I) and post-session alertness (Study II) of post-coma participants with multiple disabilities. Method: Study I included three participants whose scores on the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) were 11 or 13. Study II included...

Implementing psychophysiological measures is a worthwhile approach for understanding human reaction to robot presence in terms of individual emotional state. This paper reviews the suitability of using psychophysiological assessment in human-robot interaction (HRI) research. A review of most common psychophysiological parameters used in a controlle...

Le previsioni demografiche della popolazione mondiale, configurano nel futuro prossimo, un aumento straordinario di soggetti ultraottantenni e ultranoventenni (“grandi vecchi” o oldest old). Nonostante la valutazione neuropsicologica sia un elemento indispensabile nella diagnosi di demenza, pochissimi studi si sono concentrati sulla valutazione del...

This study examined the relationship between 'theory of mind' and attachment-related anxiety and avoidance in adolescence. The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test and the "Experiences in Close Relationships - Relationship Structures" questionnaires were administered to 402 14-19 year-old adolescents. Contrary to expectations, anxiety but not avoida...

In questo capitolo, descriveremo cos’è un’interfaccia cervello-computer e come questa sia considerata una tecnologia assistiva. Inizialmente, porremo l’accento sulla definizione di que-sta TA: una BCI è un sistema di comunicazione indipendente dalle normali vie di comunicazio-ne del cervello che sfruttano i nervi periferici e i muscoli. Spiegheremo...

Introduction One of the facets of mindfulness is the capacity to act in the present moment with undivided attention. We hypothesized that people with a higher disposition to act with awareness tend to experience less mind wandering episodes and a lower disposition to negative emotions. Mind wandering was assessed in a reading task and a meditation...

Reports an error in "ViSA: A Neurodynamic Model for Visuo-Spatial Working Memory, Attentional Blink, and Conscious Access" by Luca Simione, Antonino Raffone, Gezinus Wolters, Paola Salmas, Chie Nakatani, Marta Olivetti Belardinelli and Cees van Leeuwen (Psychological Review, Advanced Online Publication, Jul 23, 2012, np). The article was published...

The present review systematically examines the literature reporting gaze independent interaction modalities in non-invasive brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) for communication. BCIs measure signals related to specific brain activity and translate them into device control signals. This technology can be used to provide users with severe motor disabil...

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 119(4) of Psychological Review (see record 2012-27828-002). The article was published online missing the link to the supplemental materials. The link to the supplemental materials is provided in the erratum.] Two separate lines of study have clarified the role of selectivity in con...

Persons with a diagnosis of minimally conscious state and pervasive motor disabilities tend to be passive and isolated. A way to help them improve their adaptive behavior (relate to their environment) involves the use of intervention packages combining assistive technology with motivational strategies. The types of assistive technology included in...

Background Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients who have lost the ability to communicate verbally may benefit from a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), which could allow them to convey basic thoughts and emotions, e.g. by associating affirmative and non-affirmative thinking to a positive and a negative emotion, respectively. One possibility to develop a...

These two studies extended the evidence on the use of technology-based intervention packages to promote adaptive behavior in persons with acquired brain injury and multiple disabilities. Study I involved five participants in a minimally conscious state who were provided with intervention packages based on specific arrangements of optic, tilt, or pr...

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide alternative methods for communicating and acting on the world, since messages or commands are conveyed from the brain to an external device without using the normal output pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles. Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients in the most advanced stages, who have lost the ability to co...

A Brain Computer Interface (BCI) provides a direct connection between the brain and an external device, such as a computer or any other system capable of receiving a signal as an input. Brain activity is measured using different techniques, each with different pros and cons. Most current BCI applications are actually dedicated to restoring communic...

This study assessed whether a post-coma woman functioning at the lower end of the minimally conscious state would (a) develop adaptive responding through the use of microswitch technology and contingent stimulation, (b) consolidate and maintain her responding over time, and (c) show evidence of response-consequences awareness (learning and discrimi...

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the cont...

Prospective memory (PM) describes the ability to execute a previously planned action at the appropriate point in time. Although behavioral studies clearly showed that prospective memory performance is affected by the emotional significance attributed to the intended action, no study so far investigated the brain mechanisms subserving the modulatory...

The aim of this paper is to provide an exhaustive review of the literature about brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that could be used with these paralysed patients. The electroencephalography (EEG) is the best candidate for the continuous use in the environment of patients' houses, due to its portability and ease of use. For this reason, the present...

A same–different task was used to test the hypothesis that musical expertise improves the discrimination of tonal and segmental (consonant, vowel) variations in a tone language, Mandarin Chinese. Two four-word sequences (prime and target) were presented to French musicians and nonmusicians unfamiliar with Mandarin, and event-related brain potential...

Evaluating a learning assessment procedure for monitoring progress with two post-coma adults with a diagnosis of vegetative state. ABABCBCB and ABABCB designs were used for the two participants, with A representing baseline, B intervention and C control conditions. Participants' activation of an optic microswitch by eyelid closure produced stimulat...

In recent years, eye-tracking systems became an important tool to improve the quality of life and enhance the autonomy of persons with disabilities needing alternative input devices. The literature on eye-tracking shows a widespread dissemination of experimental studies mainly focused on the analysis of the cognitive processes involved in visual ta...

According to the Cognitive reserve hypothesis, several factors related to mental engagement, such as level of education, type of occupation, leisure activities and social network, appear to affect the risk of developing clinical dementia. The present article provides an overview of the studies that have investigated the effects of mental engagement...

In the present study, we investigate how spatial attention, driven by unisensory and multisensory cues, can bias the access of information into visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM). In a series of four experiments, we compared the effectiveness of spatially-nonpredictive visual, auditory, or audiovisual cues in capturing participants' spatial attent...

To assess a computer-aided technology for assisting writing in a man who emerged from a minimally conscious state and presented with extensive motor disabilities. The technology served to present letters, in groups, at the centre of a computer screen and display (write) the letters selected by the man (i.e. through a simplified pointing response) o...

If BCIs could be considered and evaluated as assistive technology facilitating life activities, they could avoid dissatisfaction and prevent abandonment. We tested two Java BCI prototypes, based on the Thought Translation Device and the P300 Speller, on 61 participants with different computer skills performing a Copy Spelling Task. We then administ...

Objective. The aim of this work is to assess the usability of two BCI prototypes by measuring interaction with the systems in context, considering the performance, cognitive workload and satisfaction of non-disabled users in order to better understand how the interface affect these parameters. We tested two keyboard- controlled Java BCI prototypes...

In recent years, eye-tracking systems became an important tool to improve the quality of life and enhance the autonomy of persons with disabilities needing alternative input devices. The literature on eye-tracking shows a widespread dissemination of experimental studies mainly focused on the analysis of the cognitive processes involved in visual ta...

Literature about sonification technologies, that is the transformation of data relations into perceived acoustic ones, may be examined according to an objective point of view (the real capacity of acoustics to convey exactly the same information contained in a visual input), a subjective point of view (the effective capability of users with differe...

be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be co...

This paper presents an overview of the studies directed at helping post-coma persons with minimally conscious state improve their adaptive behavior. Twenty-one studies were identified for the 2000-2010 period (i.e., a period in which an intense debate has occurred about diagnostic, rehabilitative, prognostic, and ethical issues concerning people wi...

Visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) is characterized by a limited storage capacity. An important issue of vision and memory research is whether VSWM stores integrated objects or features. Following Luck and Vogel’ (1997), we investigated VSWM for color-color conjunctions. We used a single probe at test to minimize configuration-related effects on p...

In this study, we investigate how exogenous and endogenous orienting of spatial attention affect visuospatial working memory (VSWM). Specifically, we focused on two attentional effects and their consequences on storage in VSWM, when exogenous (Experiment 1) or endogenous (Experiment 2) orienting cues were used. The first effect, known as the meridi...

Music performance is characterized by com-plex cross-modal interactions, oVering a remarkable win-dow into training-induced long-term plasticity and multimodal integration processes. Previous research with pianists has shown that playing a musical score is aVected by the concurrent presentation of musical tones. We inves-tigated the nature of this...

Purpose: This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of sonification as a mean to provide access to geo-referenced information to users with visual impairments. Method: Thiry-five participants (10 congenitally blind, 10 with acquired blindness and 15 blindfolded sighted) completed four tasks of progressive difficulty. During each task, parti...

The act of listening to speech activates a large network of brain areas. In the present work, a novel data-driven technique (the combination of independent component analysis and Granger causality) was used to extract brain network dynamics from an fMRI study of passive listening to Words, Pseudo-Words, and Reverse-played words. Using this method w...

Meditation refers to a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory practices, which can be classified into two main styles - focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) - involving different attentional, cognitive monitoring and awareness processes. In a functional magnetic resonance study we originally characterized and contrasted F...

In three experiments, using a two-alternative forced-choice task, we obtained depth judgments of displays containing transparent regions. The regions varied in lightness, size, and animation. Observers nearly always strongly preferred one certain depth ordering among the regions, even though their lightness conditions were expected to give rise to...