Stefanie Jung

Arithmetic fact retrieval deficits in acute stroke patients can arise after the severing ofwhite matter connections within left temporo-parietal areas (Smaczny et al., 2023). Thecurrent study examined white matter disconnections in multiplication, subtraction, andaddition in patients in the chronic stage of stroke. The strongest effects were found inmultiplication, where the disconnection of long-term memory parahippocampal areaswas strongly associated with lower multiplication scores. Lower subtraction scoreswere related to interhemispheric thalamus disconnections and weakly withdisconnections within the left hemisphere language network. The results for additionproblems were equivocal, yet they were in line with the literature, stating that additioncan be solved by either fact retrieval or magnitude processing. The multiplicationresults are in line with the view that the neuroanatomical correlates of arithmetic factretrieval deficits in chronic stroke point at a relearning deficit, the subtraction results arein line with bilateral redundancy of the magnitude processing network, and all resultstogether suggest that number operations are more in line with strategy-dependentprocessing than operation-dependent processing.

UNSTRUCTURED Digital and web-based at-home tests are increasingly important in neuropsychological assessments, providing various advantages (e.g., automated response recording, standardization, time, and cost savings). Extensive comparability between standard paper-based and online testing has been demonstrated, in particular, among adults. Evidence of test-mode effects (i.e., differences between paper-based or online testing) in older adults (> 60 years), who often show minor digital adoption (e.g., affecting visual, perceptual, cognitive, and physical abilities) attributed to typical age-related changes, is limited. The present study compared the test-mode effects between supervised paper-based and web-based at-home testing using an unconscious but systematic neuropsychological phenomenon, the pseudoneglect, in simple (number) line bisection and number line estimation tasks in N = 77 neurologically healthy over (n = 41 males and n = 36 females over 60 years). Results showed that the pseudoneglect was present in both testing environments in all (number) line bisection tasks, while test mode did not affect this systematic perceptual bias or its variance. However, web-based at-home online testing resulted in a larger skew (i.e., more s-shaped curvature) of estimation in all number line estimation tasks. This bias can be explained by the amended response format (pencil vs. computer mouse) and the age-related inexperience with the test mode. In conclusion, we consider only online line bisection tasks in older adults to be directly comparable to paper-pencil testing, with all the advantages of online data acquisition.

It is still a matter of scientific debate whether the line bisection bias frequently observed in patients with spatial neglect is due to attentional underawareness of the left end of the line, attentional hyperattention towards the right end, or a logarithmically compressed perception of the line. To address this question, neglect patients who showed a line bisection bias were administered additional tasks involving horizontal lines (e.g., number line estimation tasks). Their performance was compared to neglect patients not showing a line bisection bias, patients with right hemisphere damage without neglect, and healthy controls. Results indicated that patients with a line bisection bias tended to overestimate lefthand segments when they had to dissect lines into three or four equal parts. This is congruent with both the notions of an underawareness of lefthand segments as well as a logarithmic compression of the line. However, when these patients had to imagine the lines as bounded fraction number lines ranging from 0-1, the results were mixed. When the number lines ranged from 0-10, these patients showed rightward overestimation biases for the numbers 4 and 5. Additionally, all patient groups, but not healthy controls, tended to place number 1 too far to the left and number 9 too far to the right, suggesting a general bias towards endpoints. In sum, this seems more congruent with attentional accounts than a perceptual one. Spatial-numerical associations could be ruled out, as all participants showed a verbal number bisection bias towards smaller numbers (i.e., the ‘left’ of the mental number line). Therefore, these findings seem to indicate that the line bisection bias is most likely due to underawareness of the left end rather than hyperattention towards the right or a logarithmic perception of the line.

Arithmetic fact retrieval has been suggested to recruit a left-lateralized network comprising perisylvian language areas, parietal areas such as the angular gyrus (AG), and subcortical structures such as the hippocampus. However, the underlying white matter connectivity of these areas has not been evaluated systematically so far. Using simple multiplication problems, we evaluated how disconnections in parietal brain areas affected arithmetic fact retrieval following stroke. We derived disconnectivity measures by jointly considering data from n=73 patients with acute unilateral lesions in either hemisphere and a white-matter tractography atlas (HCP-842) using the Lesion Quantification Toolbox (LQT). Whole-brain voxel-based analysis indicated a left-hemispheric cluster of white matter fibers connecting the AG and superior temporal areas to be associated with a fact retrieval deficit. Subsequent analyses of direct grey-to-grey matter disconnections revealed that disconnections of additional left-hemispheric areas (e.g., between the superior temporal gyrus and parietal areas) were significantly associated with the observed fact retrieval deficit. Results imply that disconnections of parietal areas (i.e., the AG) with language-related areas (i.e., superior and middle temporal gyri) seem specifically detrimental to arithmetic fact retrieval. This suggests that arithmetic fact retrieval recruits a widespread left-hemispheric network and emphasizes the relevance of white matter connectivity for number processing.

Digital technology has an increasing influence on writing processes. In this context, the question arises whether changes in writing mode (i.e., handwriting vs. computer‐keyboard typing) also require changes in writing assessments. However, data directly comparing writing mode influences in children with and without developmental writing deficits are scarce. This study investigated the influence of writing mode in German‐speaking, typically developing children and children with developmental dyslexia (DD) from two different levels. Results showed on a general level that writing mode influenced overall spelling accuracy, writing time, and self‐corrections comparably in children with and without DD. On a rule‐specific level, outcomes for writing time and self‐corrections substantiated these findings. However, as regards spelling accuracy, a mode effect was only apparent for capitalization, whereas other spelling rules were resistant to writing mode influences. Present findings suggest that a mode effect is present only for typing specific aspects (e.g., capitalization) rather than reflecting a general influence on orthographic principles (e.g., grapheme–phoneme assignment, morphologic principles). These mode‐specific aspects seem to comparably affect the writing performance of typically developing children and children with DD. We recommend writing assessments to consider that different writing modes may influence individual spelling rules differently.

Visual-spatial abilities (VSA) are considered a building block of early numerical development. They are intuitively acquired in early childhood and differentiate in further development. However, when children enter school, there already are considerable individual differences in children’s visual-spatial and numerical abilities. To better understand this diversity, it is necessary to empirically evaluate the development as well as the latent structure of early VSA as proposed by the 2 by 2 taxonomy of Newcombe and Shipley (2015). In the present study, we report on a tablet-based assessment of VSA using the digital application (app) MaGrid in kindergarten children aged 4–6 years. We investigated whether the visual-spatial tasks implemented in MaGrid are sensitive to replicate previously observed age differences in VSA and thus a hierarchical development of VSA. Additionally, we evaluated whether the selected tasks conform to the taxonomy of VSA by Newcombe and Shipley (2015) applying a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach. Our results indicated that the hierarchical development of VSA can be measured using MaGrid. Furthermore, the CFA substantiated the hypothesized factor structure of VSA in line with the dimensions proposed in the taxonomy of Newcombe and Shipley (2015). Taken together, the present results advance our knowledge to the (hierarchical) development as well as the latent structure of early VSA in kindergarten children.