Nicholas A Badcock

University of Western Australia | UWA · School of Psychological Science

Background. Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) present a significant burden on global healthcare systems, yet their underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Emerging evidence suggests a role for unconscious psychological processes, particularly attention. This study seeks to detect unconscious attention patterns in people meeting...

Thompson et al., 2023 (Generalized models for quantifying laterality using functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound. Human Brain Mapping, 44(1), 35–48) introduced generalised model‐based analysis methods for determining cerebral lateralisation from functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound (fTCD) data which substantially decreased the uncertaint...

Background Commercial electroencephalography (EEG) devices have become increasingly available over the last decade. These devices have been used in a wide variety of fields ranging from engineering to cognitive neuroscience. Purpose The aim of this study was to chart peer-review articles that used consumer-grade EEG devices to collect neural data....

Cerebral lateralization of oral language has been investigated in a plethora of studies and it is well established that the left hemisphere is dominant for production tasks in the majority of individuals. However, few studies have focused on written language and even fewer have sampled left-handers. Writing comprises language and motor components,...

Research utilising handedness as a proxy for atypical language lateralisation has invoked the latter to explain increased mental health difficulties in left‐/mixed‐handed children. The current study investigated unique associations between handedness and language lateralisation, handedness and mental health, and language lateralisation and mental h...

Perceptual anchoring, a process akin to statistical learning, occurs rapidly and without conscious awareness and is integral to our ability to successfully navigate a noisy world. Here, we investigated anchoring abilities in typical hearing and reading participants by implementing an anchoring paradigm (Agus et al., 2014) using rapid pure-tone sequ...

The development of online research platforms has made data collection more efficient and representative of populations. However, these benefits have not been available for use with cognitive neuroscience tools such as electroencephalography (EEG). In this study, we introduce an approach for remote EEG data collection. We demonstrate how an experime...

This large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and...

Laterality indices (LIs) quantify the left-right asymmetry of brain and behavioural variables and provide a measure that is statistically convenient and seemingly easy to interpret. Substantial variability in how structural and functional asymmetries are recorded, calculated, and reported, however, suggest little agreement on the conditions require...

Poor readers have lower academic achievement and increased anxiety, including reading anxiety, which may perpetuate lower academic achievement. We explored reading anxiety in university students, investigating whether the association between reading ability and academic achievement is mediated by reading anxiety (independent of general anxiety). Pa...

BACKGROUND: Commercial electroencephalography (EEG) devices have become increasingly available over the last decade. These devices have been used in a wide variety of fields ranging from engineering to cognitive neuroscience. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to chart peer-review articles that used currently available consumer-grade EEG devices to...

This large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and...

Nonverbal memory tests have great potential value for detecting the impact of lateralized pathology and predicting the risk of memory loss following right temporal lobe resection (TLR) for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients, but this potential has not been realized. Previous reviews suggest that stimulus type moderates the capacity of nonverbal...

Background Most people have strong left-brain lateralisation for language, with a minority showing right- or bilateral language representation. On some receptive language tasks, however, lateralisation appears to be reduced or absent. This contrasting pattern raises the question of whether and how language laterality may fractionate within individu...

The cerebral lateralization of written language has received very limited research attention in comparison to the wealth of studies on the cerebral lateralization of oral language. The purpose of the present study was to further our understanding of written language lateralization, by elucidating the relative contribution of language and motor func...

Online research platforms have enabled mass data collection enabling representative samples for cognitive behavioural studies. However, the benefits of online data collection have not been available for cognitive neuroscience fields such as electroencephalography (EEG). In this study, we introduce an approach for remote EEG data collection. We demo...

Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from a hypoactive amygdala that fails to flag eyes as s...

The behavioural outcomes associated with atypical cerebral lateralization during the early stages of cognitive development is an interesting research venture. However, there are few tasks for assessing lateralization in young children. The current study describes the Magic Hat task and the Teddy Bear Picnic task, which were designed to measure the...

Minimally delayed (MD) saccades require inhibition of a prepotent response until a target is extinguished, and unlike the more extensively studied antisaccade task, do not require the additional cognitive component of vector inversion (i.e., 180° target spatial transposition). Here, participants completed separate blocks of MD and prepotent stimulu...

Debate continues as to whether an attentional bias towards threat displayed by sufferers of functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) is conscious and, thus, more amenable to change through psychological therapy. We compared the amplitudes of early (unconscious) and later (conscious) electroencephalographic (EEG) event-related potentials follow...

Purpose We report the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the relationship between perceptual anchoring and dyslexia. Our goal was to assess the direction and degree of the effect between perceptual anchoring and reading ability in typical and atypical (i.e., dyslexic) readers. Method We performed a literature search of...

There is good evidence for an association between poor reading and anxiety, but the mechanisms responsible for this association are currently unknown. In this study, we used structural equation modeling of four large longitudinal databases from the United Kingdom (n = 7,870), the United States (ns = 8,001 and 7,160), and Australia (n = 768) to expl...

Debate continues as to whether an attentional bias towards threat displayed by sufferers of functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) is conscious and, thus, more amenable to change through psychological therapy. We compared the amplitudes of early (unconscious) and later (conscious) electroencephalographic (EEG) event-related potentials follow...

Measuring cognition in single subjects presents unique challenges. On the other hand, individually sensitive measurements offer extraordinary opportunities, from informing theoretical models to enabling truly individualised clinical assessment. Here, we test the robustness of fast, periodic, and visual stimulation (FPVS), an emerging method propose...

Background The use of consumer-grade electroencephalography (EEG) systems for research purposes has become more prevalent. In event-related potential (ERP) research, it is critical that these systems have precise and accurate timing. The aim of the current study was to investigate the timing reliability of event-marking solutions used with Emotiv c...

Low-cost, portable electroencephalography (EEG) devices have become commercially available in the last 10 years. One such system, Emotiv's EPOC, has been modified to allow event-related potential (ERP) research. Although the EPOC has been shown to provide data comparable to research-grade equipment and has been used in real-world settings, how EPOC...

Children with dyslexia are at elevated risk of internalizing (emotional) and externalizing (behavioural) problems. Clever Kids is a nine-week socioemotional well-being programme developed specifically for upper primary school children with dyslexia. In a small randomized-controlled trial, we tested the feasibility, efficacy, and acceptability of th...

Measuring cognition in single subjects presents unique challenges. Yet individually sensitive measurements offer extraordinary opportunities, from informing theoretical models to enabling truly individualised clinical assessment. Here, we test the robustness of fast, periodic, visual stimulation (FPVS), an emerging method proposed to elicit detecta...

We report the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the relationship between perceptual anchoring and dyslexia. Our goal was to assess the direction and degree of effect between perceptual anchoring and reading ability in typical and atypical (dyslexic) readers. We performed a literature search of experiments explicitly ass...

Mark Boyes, Suze Leitão, Mary Claessen, Nicholas, Badcock and Mandy Nayton are members of a highly collaborative team of researchers spanning Curtin University, University of Western Australia, Macquarie University, and the Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation, Perth. In this article they provide an update on some of their research into child mental health is...

Low-cost, portable electroencephalographic (EEG) headsets have become commercially available in the last 10 years. One such system, Emotiv’s EPOC, has been modified to allow event-related potential (ERP) research. Because of these innovations, EEG research may become more widely available in non-traditional settings. Although the EPOC has previousl...

Background Previous work has validated consumer-grade electroencephalography (EEG) systems for use in research. Systems in this class are cost-effective and easy to set up and can facilitate neuroscience outside of the laboratory. The aim of the current study was to determine if a new consumer-grade system, the Emotiv EPOC Saline Flex, was capable...

The cerebral lateralization of written language has received very limited research attention in comparison to the wealth of studies on the cerebral lateralization of oral language. The purpose of the present study was thus to further our understanding of written language lateralization, by elucidating on the relative contribution of language and mo...

BACKGROUND Commercially-made low-cost electroencephalography (EEG) devices have become increasingly available over the last decade. One of these devices, Emotiv EPOC, is currently used in a wide variety of settings, including brain-computer interface (BCI) and cognitive neuroscience research. PURPOSE The aim of this study was to chart peer-reviewed...

Purpose We aimed to develop a noninvasive neural test of language comprehension to use with nonspeaking children for whom standard behavioral testing is unreliable (e.g., minimally verbal autism). Our aims were threefold. First, we sought to establish the sensitivity of two auditory paradigms to elicit neural responses in individual neurotypical ch...

In conditions such as minimally-verbal autism, standard assessments of language comprehension are often unreliable. Given the known heterogeneity within the autistic population, it is crucial to design tests of semantic comprehension that are sensitive in individuals. Recent efforts to develop neural signals of language comprehension have focused o...

Despite growing interest in the mental life of individuals who cannot communicate verbally, objective and non-invasive tests of covert cognition are still sparse. In this study, we assessed the ability of neurotypical children to understand and follow task instructions by measuring neural responses through functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound...

Children with dyslexia are at elevated risk of internalizing (emotional) and externalizing (behavioral) problems. Clever Kids is a nine-week socioemotional wellbeing program developed specifically for upper primary school children with dyslexia. We tested the feasibility, efficacy, and acceptability of the Clever Kids program. Forty children with d...

Background The aims of this systematic review and meta-analyses were to determine if there is a statistically reliable association between poor reading and poor self-concept, and if such an association is moderated by domain of self-concept, type of reading impairment, or contextual factors including age, gender, reading instruction, and school env...

There is a growing body of work describing the psychosocial impact of reading difficulties. Educators play a key role in teaching children to read; therefore, it is important to consider how they view the impact of reading difficulties on young people. Given this, the aim of this research was to explore the lived experiences of educators who work w...

Objective: Recent evidence has linked cerebrovascular abnormalities with Parkinson's Disease (PD), which may provide a new neurophysiological understanding of cognitive impairment in PD. The current study aimed to compare cerebrovascular functioning, during a cognitive task and at rest, in those with and without PD. Methods: Idiopathic PD patien...

Despite growing interest in the mental life of individuals who cannot communicate verbally, objective and non-invasive tests of covert cognition are still sparse. In this study, we assessed the ability of neurotypical children to understand and follow task instructions by measuring neural responses through functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound...

In conditions such as minimally-verbal autism, standard assessments of language comprehension are often unreliable. Given the known heterogeneity within the autistic population, it is crucial to design tests of semantic comprehension that are sensitive in individuals. Recent efforts to develop neural signals of language comprehension have focused o...

Explore past research examining the relationship between perceptual anchoring and reading ability

Objective Adopting a socio‐ecological perspective, we used data extracted from clinical casefiles to investigate factors associated with externalising and internalising problems in a large, representative sample of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia. Method This study is a secondary analysis of data collected by the Dyslexia‐SPELD Foundation in...

Purpose We aimed to develop a non-invasive neural test of language comprehension to use with non-speaking children for whom standard behavioural testing is unreliable (e.g., minimally-verbal autism). Our aims were three-fold. First, we sought to establish the sensitivity of two auditory paradigms to elicit neural responses in individual neurotypica...

Background: The reading skills of 16% of children fall below the mean range for their age, and 5% of children have significant and severe reading problems. Phonics training is one of the most common reading treatments used with poor readers, particularly children. Objectives: To measure the effect of phonics training and explore the impact of va...

Both music and language rely on the processing of spectral (pitch, timbre) and temporal (rhythm) information to create structure and meaning from incoming auditory streams. Previous behavioural results have shown that interrupting a melodic stream with unexpected changes in timbre leads to reduced syntactic processing. Such findings suggest that sy...

Recent studies link meditation expertise with enhanced low-level attention, measured through auditory event-related potentials (ERPs). In this study, we tested the reliability and validity of a recent finding that the N1 ERP in first-time meditators is smaller during meditation than non-meditation - an effect not present in long-term meditators. In...

It is well-established that poor readers exhibit deficits in paired associate learning (PAL), and there is increasing evidence for a phonological locus of these deficits. However, it remains unclear whether poor performance stems from difficulties specific to the phonological output system or difficulties that affect both phonological input and out...

The cerebral lateralization of language has attracted great research interest. Nevertheless, the bulk of the work focuses on language production and comprehension; research on cerebral lateralization during writing is limited. The present study assessed cerebral lateralization in 60 participants (mean age = 26.65 years, SD = 6.05, range = 20-44), 3...

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: To assess the effectiveness of EEG neurofeedback as treatment for inhibition and updating problems in children facing neurodevelopmental challenges.

Letter recognition and digit recognition are critical skills for literate adults, yet few studies have considered the development of these skills in children. We conducted a nine-alternative forced-choice (9AFC) partial report task with strings of letters and digits, with typographical symbols (e.g., $, @) as a control, to investigate the developme...

The assessment of active language lateralization in infants and toddlers is challenging. It requires an imaging tool that is unintimidating, quick to setup, and robust to movement, in addition to an engaging and cognitively simple language processing task. Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound (fTCD) offers a suitable technique and here we rep...

Active research-driven approaches that successfully incorporate new technology are known to catalyze student learning. Yet achieving these objectives in neuroscience education is especially challenging due to the prohibitive costs and technical demands of research-grade equipment. Here we describe a method that circumvents these factors by leveragi...

Objective: Children with reading difficulties are at elevated risk for externalising (e.g., conduct disorder) and internalising (e.g., anxiety and depression) mental health problems. Reading ability is also negatively associated with self-esteem, a consistent predictor of child and adolescent mental health more broadly. This study examined whether...

This review describes language research conducted using the neurophysiological imaging technique, functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound (fTCD). FTCD estimates the blood flow velocity in the cerebral arteries from which, neural activity is inferred. The review provides a brief history and introduction to fTCD, including data acquisition, task d...

People with dyslexia are vastly under-represented in universities (Katusic et al., 2001, Richardson & Wydell, 2003; Stampoltzis & Polychronopoulou, 2008). This situation is of concern for modern societies that value social justice. This study was designed to explore learning experiences of university students with dyslexia and factors that could co...

We can easily understand the visual environment despite our eyes moving to take in new information three to four times per second. This rapid information flow may initially be registered in iconic memory, a brief high-capacity store containing literal visual representations. Evidence for higher-level semantic representations in iconic memory has no...

The findings of a study by Cahn and Polich (2009) suggests that there is an effect of a meditative state on three event-related potential (ERP) brain markers of “low-level” auditory attention (i.e., acoustic representations in sensory memory) in expert meditators: the N1, the P2, and the P3a. The current study built on these findings by examining t...

A growing literature indicates that children with reading difficulties are at elevated risk for mental health problems; however, little attention has been given to why this might be the case. Associations between reading difficulties and mental health differ substantially across studies, raising the possibility that these relationships may be ameli...

A recent meta-analysis emphasises that meditation can improve attention in healthy adults (Sedlmeier et al., 2012). The findings of a study by Cahn and Polich (2009) suggests that there is an effect of a meditative state on three event-related potential (ERP) brain markers of low-level auditory attention in expert meditators: the N1, the P2, and th...

A recent meta-analysis emphasises that meditation can improve attention in healthy adults (Sedlmeier et al., 2012). The findings of a study by Cahn and Polich (2009) suggests that there is an effect of a meditative state on three event-related potential (ERP) brain markers of low-level auditory attention in expert meditators: the N1, the P2, and th...

Masked transposed-letter (TL) priming effects have been used to index letter position processing over the course of reading development. Whereas some studies have reported an increase in TL priming over development, others have reported a decrease. These findings have led to the development of 2 somewhat contradictory accounts of letter position de...

Individuals with poor reading ability are at greater risk of educational and occupational difficulties. In addition to this, these individuals are also at greater risk of poor health outcomes, particularly mental health. At least some of this association may be underpinned by poor self-concept; however, the evidence for this relationship is mixed....

Individuals with poor reading ability are at greater risk of educational and occupational difficulties. In addition to this, these individuals are also at greater risk of poor health outcomes, particularly mental health. At least some of this association may be underpinned by poor self-concept; however, the evidence for this relationship is mixed....

The assessment of active language lateralisation in infants and toddlers is challenging. It requires an imaging tool that is unintimidating, quick to setup, and robust to movement, in addition to an engaging and cognitively simple procedure that elicits language processing. Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound (fTCD) offers a suitable techniq...

The assessment of active language lateralisation in infants and toddlers is challenging. It requires an imaging tool that is unintimidating, quick to setup, and robust to movement, in addition to an engaging and cognitively simple procedure that elicits language processing. Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound (fTCD) offers a suitable techniq...

The assessment of active language lateralisation in infants and toddlers is challenging. It requires an imaging tool that is unintimidating, quick to setup, and robust to movement, in addition to an engaging and cognitively simple procedure that elicits language processing. Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound (fTCD) offers a suitable techniq...

This research investigated the relationship between the attentional blink (AB) and reading in typical adults. The AB is a deficit in the processing of the second of two rapidly presented targets when it occurs in close temporal proximity to the first target. Specifically, this experiment examined whether the AB was related to both phonological and...

The brain is dependent on the cerebrovascular system, particularly microvasculature, for a consistent blood supply; however, age-related changes in this system affect neuronal and therefore cognitive function. Structural vascular markers and vascular disease appear to preferentially affect fluid cognitive abilities, sparing crystallized abilities....

An estimated 30% of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) remain minimally verbal into late childhood, but research on cognition and brain function in ASD focuses almost exclusively on those with good or only moderately impaired language. Here we present a case study investigating auditory processing of GM, a nonverbal child with ASD and...