Abstracts From Peer-Reviewed Presentations at the Australasian Cognitive Neurosciences Conference (21st meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology), December 9-12, 2012, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

s From Peer-Reviewed Presentations at the Australasian Cognitive Neurosciences Conference (21st meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology), December 9-12, 2012, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Keynote Presentations The Prospective Brain: Using the Past to Imagine the Future Donna Rose Addis Department of Psychology, The University of Auckland Recently, traditional theories of episodic memory have been extended to consider the role of memory in future thinking. In particular, patient and neuroimaging research suggests that episodic memory and associated neural structures such as the hippocampus may play a critical role in future simulation. I will describe a number of studies that examine how flexible and constructive memory processes, supported by the hippocampus and associated networks, allow us to construct detailed simulations that serve to guide and enhance our future behaviours. Limits of Subliminal Processing and Signatures of Conscious Access Stanislas Dehaene INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Collège de France The nature of conscious processing can be investigated by presenting subjects with stimuli below, at, or above the threshold for conscious reportability, and evaluating how their cognitive and cerebral processing differs. I will present new experiments that, on the one hand, extend the known limits of subliminal processing and, on the other hand, reveal specific processes that can only be deployed consciously. The results suggest that, non-consciously, evidence can be accrued in parallel and from multiple target stimuli, thus biasing even complex cognitive processes (e.g. addition or averaging). However, conscious processing is characterised by the flexible deployment of strategic top-down processes. Neural signatures of conscious processing are characterised by long-lasting and long-distance interactions in the beta and alpha frequency bands, compatible with the theory of a global neuronal workspace for conscious processing. Temporal Processing in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Revisited Joel B. Talcott School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University Many neurodevelopmental disorders are characterised by a constellation of symptoms that extend well beyond the core cognitive deficit and which overlap highly with diagnostic features associated with presumed independent disorder phenotypes. One such instance of symptom overlap is a deficit in the perception and processing of those temporal dimensions of stimuli that occur on a timescale of milliseconds. Deficits of this kind are frequently reported in neurodevelopmental disorders. However, the effect-size correlations between measures of this construct and the core cognitive and behavioural symptoms of the disorder are rarely as large as those demonstrated in comparisons between deficit and non-deficit groups. This suggests that stimulus timing, a generic functional property of the nervous system, may help to explain the high diagnostic comorbidity of some of these neurodevelopmental disorders, though perhaps less so their unique symptom sets. Using developmental dyslexia and co-morbid disorders as a model, this presentation will evaluate some of central methodological and theoretical issues for current research and for future investigations of temporal processing deficits as candidate endophenotypes of developmental disorder. Neural Oscillations in Schizophrenia and during Brain Development: Perspectives From Magnetoencephalography Peter J. Uhlhaas Department of Neurophysiology, Max-Planck Institute for Brain