Non-visual spatial tasks reveal increased interactions with stance postural control.

PubMed

Woollacott, Marjorie; Vander Velde, Timothy

2008-05-07

The current investigation aimed to contrast the level and quality of dual-task interactions resulting from the combined performance of a challenging primary postural task and three specific, yet categorically dissociated, secondary central executive tasks. Experiments determined the extent to which modality (visual vs. auditory) and code (non-spatial vs. spatial) specific cognitive resources contributed to postural interference in young adults (n=9) in a dual-task setting. We hypothesized that the different forms of executive n-back task processing employed (visual-object, auditory-object and auditory-spatial) would display contrasting levels of interactions with tandem Romberg stance postural control, and that interactions within the spatial domain would be revealed as most vulnerable to dual-task interactions. Across all cognitive tasks employed, including auditory-object (aOBJ), auditory-spatial (aSPA), and visual-object (vOBJ) tasks, increasing n-back task complexity produced correlated increases in verbal reaction time measures. Increasing cognitive task complexity also resulted in consistent decreases in judgment accuracy. Postural performance was significantly influenced by the type of cognitive loading delivered. At comparable levels of cognitive task difficulty (n-back demands and accuracy judgments) the performance of challenging auditory-spatial tasks produced significantly greater levels of postural sway than either the auditory-object or visual-object based tasks. These results suggest that it is the employment of limited non-visual spatially based coding resources that may underlie previously observed visual dual-task interference effects with stance postural control in healthy young adults.

Unilateral prefrontal direct current stimulation effects are modulated by working memory load and gender.

PubMed

Meiron, Oded; Lavidor, Michal

2013-05-01

Recent studies revealed that anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) may improve verbal working memory (WM) performance in humans. In the present study, we evaluated executive attention, which is the core of WM capacity, considered to be significantly involved in tasks that require active maintenance of memory representations in interference-rich conditions, and is highly dependent on DLPFC function. We investigated verbal WM accuracy using a WM task that is highly sensitive to executive attention function. We were interested in how verbal WM accuracy may be affected by WM load, unilateral DLPFC stimulation, and gender, as previous studies showed gender-dependent brain activation during verbal WM tasks. We utilized a modified verbal n-Back task hypothesized to increase demands on executive attention. We examined "online" WM performance while participants received transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and implicit learning performance in a post-stimulation WM task. Significant lateralized "online" stimulation effects were found only in the highest WM load condition revealing that males benefit from left DLPFC stimulation, while females benefit from right DLPFC stimulation. High WM load performance in the left DLPFC stimulation was significantly related to post-stimulation recall performance. Our findings support the idea that lateralized stimulation effects in high verbal WM load may be gender-dependent. Further, our post-stimulation results support the idea that increased left hemisphere activity may be important for encoding verbal information into episodic memory as well as for facilitating retrieval of context-specific targets from semantic memory. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Coordination of gaze and speech in communication between children with hearing impairment and normal-hearing peers.

PubMed

Sandgren, Olof; Andersson, Richard; van de Weijer, Joost; Hansson, Kristina; Sahlén, Birgitta

2014-06-01

To investigate gaze behavior during communication between children with hearing impairment (HI) and normal-hearing (NH) peers. Ten HI-NH and 10 NH-NH dyads performed a referential communication task requiring description of faces. During task performance, eye movements and speech were tracked. Using verbal event (questions, statements, back channeling, and silence) as the predictor variable, group characteristics in gaze behavior were expressed with Kaplan-Meier survival functions (estimating time to gaze-to-partner) and odds ratios (comparing number of verbal events with and without gaze-to-partner). Analyses compared the listeners in each dyad (HI: n = 10, mean age = 12;6 years, mean better ear pure-tone average = 33.0 dB HL; NH: n = 10, mean age = 13;7 years). Log-rank tests revealed significant group differences in survival distributions for all verbal events, reflecting a higher probability of gaze to the partner's face for participants with HI. Expressed as odds ratios (OR), participants with HI displayed greater odds for gaze-to-partner (ORs ranging between 1.2 and 2.1) during all verbal events. The results show an increased probability for listeners with HI to gaze at the speaker's face in association with verbal events. Several explanations for the finding are possible, and implications for further research are discussed.

Emotional modulation of cognitive control: approach-withdrawal states double-dissociate spatial from verbal two-back task performance.

PubMed

Gray, J R

2001-09-01

Emotional states might selectively modulate components of cognitive control. To test this hypothesis, the author randomly assigned 152 undergraduates (equal numbers of men and women) to watch short videos intended to induce emotional states (approach, neutral, or withdrawal). Each video was followed by a computerized 2-back working memory task (spatial or verbal, equated for difficulty and appearance). Spatial 2-back performance was enhanced by a withdrawal state and impaired by an approach state; the opposite pattern held for verbal performance. The double dissociation held more strongly for participants who made more errors than average across conditions. The results suggest that approach-withdrawal states can have selective influences on components of cognitive control, possibly on a hemispheric basis. They support and extend several frameworks for conceptualizing emotion-cognition interactions.

On supertaskers and the neural basis of efficient multitasking.

PubMed

Medeiros-Ward, Nathan; Watson, Jason M; Strayer, David L

2015-06-01

The present study used brain imaging to determine the neural basis of individual differences in multitasking, the ability to successfully perform at least two attention-demanding tasks at once. Multitasking is mentally taxing and, therefore, should recruit the prefrontal cortex to maintain task goals when coordinating attentional control and managing the cognitive load. To investigate this possibility, we used functional neuroimaging to assess neural activity in both extraordinary multitaskers (Supertaskers) and control subjects who were matched on working memory capacity. Participants performed a challenging dual N-back task in which auditory and visual stimuli were presented simultaneously, requiring independent and continuous maintenance, updating, and verification of the contents of verbal and spatial working memory. With the task requirements and considerable cognitive load that accompanied increasing N-back, relative to the controls, the multitasking of Supertaskers was characterized by more efficient recruitment of anterior cingulate and posterior frontopolar prefrontal cortices. Results are interpreted using neuropsychological and evolutionary perspectives on individual differences in multitasking ability and the neural correlates of attentional control.

Thinking in Pictures as a cognitive account of autism.

PubMed

Kunda, Maithilee; Goel, Ashok K

2011-09-01

We analyze the hypothesis that some individuals on the autism spectrum may use visual mental representations and processes to perform certain tasks that typically developing individuals perform verbally. We present a framework for interpreting empirical evidence related to this "Thinking in Pictures" hypothesis and then provide comprehensive reviews of data from several different cognitive tasks, including the n-back task, serial recall, dual task studies, Raven's Progressive Matrices, semantic processing, false belief tasks, visual search, spatial recall, and visual recall. We also discuss the relationships between the Thinking in Pictures hypothesis and other cognitive theories of autism including Mindblindness, Executive Dysfunction, Weak Central Coherence, and Enhanced Perceptual Functioning.

Hemispheric lateralization of verbal and spatial working memory during adolescence

PubMed Central

Nagel, Bonnie J.; Herting, Megan M.; Maxwell, Emily C.; Bruno, Richard; Fair, Damien

2013-01-01

Adult functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) literature suggests that a left-right hemispheric dissociation may exist between verbal and spatial working memory (WM), respectively. However, investigation of this type has been obscured by incomparable verbal and spatial WM tasks and/or visual inspection at arbitrary thresholds as means to assess lateralization. Furthermore, it is unclear whether this hemispheric lateralization is present during adolescence, a time in which WM skills are improving, and whether there is a developmental association with laterality of brain functioning. This study used comparable verbal and spatial WM n-back tasks during fMRI and a bootstrap analysis approach to calculate lateralization indices (LI) across several thresholds to examine the potential of a left-right WM hemispheric dissociation in healthy adolescents. We found significant left hemispheric lateralization for verbal WM, most notably in the frontal and parietal lobes, as well as right hemisphere lateralization for spatial WM, seen in frontal and temporal cortices. Although no significant relationships were observed between LI and age or LI and performance, significant age-related patterns of brain activity were demonstrated during both verbal and spatial WM. Specifically, increased adolescent age was associated with less activity in the default mode brain network during verbal WM. In contrast, increased adolescent age was associated with greater activity in task-positive posterior parietal cortex during spatial working memory. Our findings highlight the importance of utilizing non-biased statistical methods and comparable tasks for determining patterns of functional lateralization. Our findings also suggest that, while a left-right hemispheric dissociation of verbal and spatial WM is apparent by early adolescence, age-related changes in functional activation during WM are also present. PMID:23511846

Cognitive Performance in Euthymic Patients with Bipolar Disorder vs Healthy Controls: A Neuropsychological Investigation.

PubMed

Palazzo, M Carlotta; Arici, Chiara; Cremaschi, Laura; Cristoffanini, Marta; Dobrea, Cristina; Dell'Osso, Bernardo; Altamura, A Carlo

2017-01-01

Cognitive impairment may affect patients with Bipolar Disorder (BD) beyond the acute episodes, qualifying as a potential endophenotype. However, which cognitive domains are specifically affected in euthymic patients with BD and the potential influence of confounding factors ( e.g. , age and concomitant pharmacological treatment) are still a matter of debate. The present study was, therefore, conducted to assess cognitive performance across specific domains in euthymic bipolar patients, not older than 50 years (to avoid potential age-related bias) versus healthy controls (HCs). A cognitive task battery, including the Wisconsin Card Test, Span Attention Test, Tower of London, Trail Making Test, Verbal Fluency Test, Matrices Scores and N-Back, was administered to 62 subjects (30 bipolar patients and 32 matched HCs) and differences between the groups analyzed. Bipolar patients performed significantly worse than HCs in the Span Forward task, in the expression of Verbal Fluency Test (Category) and in the N-Back task (all p<.05), with marginal differences between BD I and BD II patients. The present study pointed out significant differences in terms of cognitive performance between euthymic bipolar patients and HCs, supporting the notion that specific cognitive functions may remain impaired even after the resolution of the acute episodes in subjects suffering from BD. Future studies on larger samples are warranted to confirm the present results and further explore potential differences in cognitive impairment across specific bipolar subtypes.

Out with the Old and in with the New—Is Backward Inhibition a Domain-Specific Process?

PubMed Central

Menghini, Deny; Vicari, Stefano; Petrosini, Laura; Ferlazzo, Fabio

2015-01-01

Effective task switching is supported by the inhibition of the just executed task, so that potential interference from previously executed tasks is adaptively counteracted. This inhibitory mechanism, named Backward Inhibition (BI), has been inferred from the finding that switching back to a recently executed task (A-B-A task sequence) is harder than switching back to a less recently executed task (C-B-A task sequence). Despite the fact that BI effects do impact performance on everyday life activities, up to now it is still not clear whether the BI represents an amodal and material-independent process or whether it interacts with the task material. To address this issue, a group of individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) characterized by specific difficulties in maintaining and processing visuo-spatial, but not verbal, information, and a mental age- and gender-matched group of typically developing (TD) children were subjected to three task-switching experiments requiring verbal or visuo-spatial material to be processed. Results showed that individuals with WS exhibited a normal BI effect during verbal task-switching, but a clear deficit during visuo-spatial task-switching. Overall, our findings demonstrating that the BI is a material-specific process have important implications for theoretical models of cognitive control and its architecture. PMID:26565628

The Effect of Dual N-Back Task Training on Phonological Memory Expansion in Adult EFL Learners at the Beginner Level

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farvardin, Mohammad Taghi; Afghari, Akbar; Koosha, Mansour

2014-01-01

One of the most influential models of working memory (WM) is the one developed by Baddeley (1986, 2000, 2003) which views WM comprising several components--a central executive, an episodic buffer, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and the phonological loop. The phonological loop or phonological memory (PM) deals with the temporary storage of verbal and…

Activation of the occipital cortex and deactivation of the default mode network during working memory in the early blind.

PubMed

Park, Hae-Jeong; Chun, Ji-Won; Park, Bumhee; Park, Haeil; Kim, Joong Il; Lee, Jong Doo; Kim, Jae-Jin

2011-05-01

Although blind people heavily depend on working memory to manage daily life without visual information, it is not clear yet whether their working memory processing involves functional reorganization of the memory-related cortical network. To explore functional reorganization of the cortical network that supports various types of working memory processes in the early blind, we investigated activation differences between 2-back tasks and 0-back tasks using fMRI in 10 congenitally blind subjects and 10 sighted subjects. We used three types of stimulus sequences: words for a verbal task, pitches for a non-verbal task, and sound locations for a spatial task. When compared to the sighted, the blind showed additional activations in the occipital lobe for all types of stimulus sequences for working memory and more significant deactivation in the posterior cingulate cortex of the default mode network. The blind had increased effective connectivity from the default mode network to the left parieto-frontal network and from the occipital cortex to the right parieto-frontal network during the 2-back tasks than the 0-back tasks. These findings suggest not only cortical plasticity of the occipital cortex but also reorganization of the cortical network for the executive control of working memory.

The Effects of Theta and Gamma tACS on Working Memory and Electrophysiology

PubMed Central

Pahor, Anja; Jaušovec, Norbert

2018-01-01

A single blind sham-controlled study was conducted to explore the effects of theta and gamma transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on offline performance on working memory tasks. In order to systematically investigate how specific parameters of tACS affect working memory, we manipulated the frequency of stimulation (theta frequency vs. gamma frequency), the type of task (n-back vs. change detection task) and the content of the tasks (verbal vs. figural stimuli). A repeated measures design was used that consisted of three sessions: theta tACS, gamma tACS and sham tACS. In total, four experiments were conducted which differed only with respect to placement of tACS electrodes (bilateral frontal, bilateral parietal, left fronto-parietal and right-fronto parietal). Healthy female students (N = 72) were randomly assigned to one of these groups, hence we were able to assess the efficacy of theta and gamma tACS applied over different brain areas, contrasted against sham stimulation. The pre-post/sham resting electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis showed that theta tACS significantly affected theta amplitude, whereas gamma tACS had no significant effect on EEG amplitude in any of the frequency bands of interest. Gamma tACS did not significantly affect working memory performance compared to sham, and theta tACS led to inconsistent changes in performance on the n-back tasks. Active theta tACS significantly affected P3 amplitude and latency during performance on the n-back tasks in the bilateral parietal and right-fronto parietal protocols. PMID:29375347

The effects of cannabidiol on impulsivity and memory during abstinence in cigarette dependent smokers.

PubMed

Hindocha, C; Freeman, T P; Grabski, M; Crudgington, H; Davies, A C; Stroud, J B; Das, R K; Lawn, W; Morgan, C J A; Curran, H V

2018-05-15

Acute nicotine abstinence in cigarette smokers results in deficits in performance on specific cognitive processes, including working memory and impulsivity which are important in relapse. Cannabidiol (CBD), the non-intoxicating cannabinoid found in cannabis, has shown pro-cognitive effects and preliminary evidence has indicated it can reduce the number of cigarettes smoked in dependent smokers. However, the effects of CBD on cognition have never been tested during acute nicotine withdrawal. The present study therefore aimed to investigate if CBD can improve memory and reduce impulsivity during acute tobacco abstinence. Thirty, non-treatment seeking, dependent, cigarette smokers attended two laboratory-based sessions after overnight abstinence, in which they received either 800 mg oral CBD or placebo (PBO), in a randomised order. Abstinence was biologically verified. Participants were assessed on go/no-go, delay discounting, prose recall and N-back (0-back, 1-back, 2-back) tasks. The effects of CBD on delay discounting, prose recall and the N-back (correct responses, maintenance or manipulation) were null, confirmed by a Bayesian analysis, which found evidence for the null hypothesis. Contrary to our predictions, CBD increased commission errors on the go/no-go task. In conclusion, a single 800 mg dose of CBD does not improve verbal or spatial working memory, or impulsivity during tobacco abstinence.

The effects of nicotine and non-nicotine smoking factors on working memory and associated brain function.

PubMed

McClernon, Francis Joseph; Froeliger, Brett; Rose, Jed E; Kozink, Rachel V; Addicott, Merideth A; Sweitzer, Maggie M; Westman, Eric C; Van Wert, Dana M

2016-07-01

Smoking abstinence impairs executive function, which may promote continued smoking behavior and relapse. The differential influence of nicotine and non-nicotine (i.e. sensory, motor) smoking factors and related neural substrates is not known. In a fully factorial, within-subjects design, 33 smokers underwent fMRI scanning following 24 hours of wearing a nicotine or placebo patch while smoking very low nicotine content cigarettes or remaining abstinent from smoking. During scanning, blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal was acquired while participants performed a verbal N-back task. Following 24-hour placebo (versus nicotine) administration, accuracy on the N-back task was significantly worse and task-related BOLD signal lower in dorsomedial frontal cortex. These effects were observed irrespective of smoking. Our data provide novel evidence that abstinence-induced deficits in working memory and changes in underlying brain function are due in large part to abstinence from nicotine compared with non-nicotine factors. This work has implications both for designing interventions that target abstinence-induced cognitive deficits and for nicotine-reduction policy. © 2015 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Using verbal instructions to influence lifting mechanics - Does the directive "lift with your legs, not your back" attenuate spinal flexion?

PubMed

Beach, Tyson A C; Stankovic, Tatjana; Carnegie, Danielle R; Micay, Rachel; Frost, David M

2018-02-01

"Use your legs" is commonly perceived as sound advice to prevent lifting-related low-back pain and injuries, but there is limited evidence that this directive attenuates the concomitant biomechanical risk factors. Body segment kinematic data were collected from 12 men and 12 women who performed a laboratory lifting/lowering task after being provided with different verbal instructions. The main finding was that instructing participants to lift "without rounding your lower back" had a greater effect on the amount of spine flexion they exhibited when lifting/lowering than instructing them to lift "with your legs instead of your back" and "bend your knees and hips". It was concluded that if using verbal instructions to discourage spine flexion when lifting, the instructions should be spine- rather than leg-focused. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Improved Cognition While Cycling in Parkinson’s Disease Patients and Healthy Adults

PubMed Central

Hazamy, Audrey A.; Altmann, Lori J. P.; Stegemöller, Elizabeth; Bowers, Dawn; Lee, Hyo Keun; Wilson, Jonathan; Okun, Michael S.; Hass, Chris J.

2017-01-01

Persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) are typically more susceptible than healthy adults to impaired performance when two tasks (dual task interference) are performed simultaneously. This limitation has by many experts been attributed to limitations in cognitive resources. Nearly all studies of dual task performance in PD employ walking or balance-based motor tasks, which are commonly impaired in PD. These tasks can be performed using a combination of one or two executive function tasks. The current study examined whether persons with PD would demonstrate greater dual task effects on cognition compared to healthy older adults (HOAs) during a concurrent cycling task. Participants with and without PD completed a battery of 12 cognitive tasks assessing visual and verbal processing in the following cognitive domains: speed of processing, controlled processing, working memory and executive function. Persons with PD exhibited impairments compared to healthy participants in select tasks (i.e., 0-Back, 2-Back and operation span). Further, both groups unexpectedly exhibited dual task facilitation of response times in visual tasks across cognitive domains, and improved verbal recall during an executive function task. Only one measure, 2-back, showed a speed-accuracy trade-off in the dual task. These results demonstrate that, when paired with a motor task in which they are not impaired, people with PD exhibit similar dual task effects on cognitive tasks as HOAs, even when these dual task effects are facilitative. More generally, these findings demonstrate that pairing cognitive tasks with cycling may actually improve cognitive performance which may have therapeutic relevance to cognitive decline associated with aging and PD pathology. PMID:28088064

The effect of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus on executive functions: impaired verbal fluency and intact updating, planning and conflict resolution in Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Demeter, Gyula; Valálik, István; Pajkossy, Péter; Szőllősi, Ágnes; Lukács, Ágnes; Kemény, Ferenc; Racsmány, Mihály

2017-04-24

Although the improvement of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) after deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is well documented, there are open questions regarding its impact on cognitive functions. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of bilateral DBS of the STN on executive functions in PD patients using a DBS wait-listed PD control group. Ten PD patients with DBS implantation (DBS group) and ten PD wait-listed patients (Clinical control group) participated in the study. Neuropsychological tasks were used to assess general mental ability and various executive functions. Each task was administered twice to each participant: before and after surgery (with the stimulators on) in the DBS group and with a matched delay between the two task administration points in the control group. There was no significant difference between the DBS and the control groups' performance in tasks measuring the updating of verbal, spatial or visual information (Digit span, Corsi and N-back tasks), planning and shifting (Trail Making B), and conflict resolution (Stroop task). However, the DBS group showed a significant decline on the semantic verbal fluency task after surgery compared to the control group, which is in line with findings of previous studies. Our results provide support for the relative cognitive safety of the STN DBS using a wait-listed PD control group. Differential effects of the STN DBS on frontostriatal networks are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Interrelations in Children's Learning of Verbal and Pictorial Paired Associates.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hale, Gordon A.

This study was designed to investigate the functional similarity of the mental processes children use to learn verbal tasks and pictorial tasks. Children in grades 3 and 6 (n=144) and in grade 9 (n=112) were given four short paired-associate tasks entitled Pictures, Concrete Words, Abstract Words, and Japanese Characters. The tasks consisted of…

The effect of binaural beats on verbal working memory and cortical connectivity.

PubMed

Beauchene, Christine; Abaid, Nicole; Moran, Rosalyn; Diana, Rachel A; Leonessa, Alexander

2017-04-01

Synchronization in activated regions of cortical networks affect the brain's frequency response, which has been associated with a wide range of states and abilities, including memory. A non-invasive method for manipulating cortical synchronization is binaural beats. Binaural beats take advantage of the brain's response to two pure tones, delivered independently to each ear, when those tones have a small frequency mismatch. The mismatch between the tones is interpreted as a beat frequency, which may act to synchronize cortical oscillations. Neural synchrony is particularly important for working memory processes, the system controlling online organization and retention of information for successful goal-directed behavior. Therefore, manipulation of synchrony via binaural beats provides a unique window into working memory and associated connectivity of cortical networks. In this study, we examined the effects of different acoustic stimulation conditions during an N-back working memory task, and we measured participant response accuracy and cortical network topology via EEG recordings. Six acoustic stimulation conditions were used: None, Pure Tone, Classical Music, 5 Hz binaural beats, 10 Hz binaural beats, and 15 Hz binaural beats. We determined that listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during an N-Back working memory task increased the individual participant's accuracy, modulated the cortical frequency response, and changed the cortical network connection strengths during the task. Only the 15 Hz binaural beats produced significant change in relative accuracy compared to the None condition. Listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during the N-back task activated salient frequency bands and produced networks characterized by higher information transfer as compared to other auditory stimulation conditions.

Verbal makes it positive, spatial makes it negative: working memory biases judgments, attention, and moods.

PubMed

Storbeck, Justin; Watson, Philip

2014-12-01

Prior research has suggested that emotion and working memory domains are integrated, such that positive affect enhances verbal working memory, whereas negative affect enhances spatial working memory (Gray, 2004; Storbeck, 2012). Simon (1967) postulated that one feature of emotion and cognition integration would be reciprocal connectedness (i.e., emotion influences cognition and cognition influences emotion). We explored whether affective judgments and attention to affective qualities are biased by the activation of verbal and spatial working memory mind-sets. For all experiments, participants completed a 2-back verbal or spatial working memory task followed by an endorsement task (Experiments 1 & 2), word-pair selection task (Exp. 3), or attentional dot-probe task (Exp. 4). Participants who had an activated verbal, compared with spatial, working memory mind-set were more likely to endorse pictures (Exp. 1) and words (Exp. 2) as being more positive and to select the more positive word pair out of a set of word pairs that went 'together best' (Exp. 3). Additionally, people who completed the verbal working memory task took longer to disengage from positive stimuli, whereas those who completed the spatial working memory task took longer to disengage from negative stimuli (Exp. 4). Interestingly, across the 4 experiments, we observed higher levels of self-reported negative affect for people who completed the spatial working memory task, which was consistent with their endorsement and attentional bias toward negative stimuli. Therefore, emotion and working memory may have a reciprocal connectedness allowing for bidirectional influence.

Investigating the influence of working memory capacity when driving behavior is combined with cognitive load: An LCT study of young novice drivers.

PubMed

Ross, Veerle; Jongen, Ellen M M; Wang, Weixin; Brijs, Tom; Brijs, Kris; Ruiter, Robert A C; Wets, Geert

2014-01-01

Distracted driving has received increasing attention in the literature due to potential adverse safety outcomes. An often posed solution to alleviate distraction while driving is hands-free technology. Interference by distraction can occur however at the sensory input (e.g., visual) level, but also at the cognitive level where hands-free technology induces working memory (WM) load. Active maintenance of goal-directed behavior in the presence of distraction depends on WM capacity (i.e., Lavie's Load theory) which implies that people with higher WM capacity are less susceptible to distractor interference. This study investigated the interaction between verbal WM load and WM capacity on driving performance to determine whether individuals with higher WM capacity were less affected by verbal WM load, leading to a smaller deterioration of driving performance. Driving performance of 46 young novice drivers (17-25 years-old) was measured with the lane change task (LCT). Participants drove without and with verbal WM load of increasing complexity (auditory-verbal response N-back task). Both visuospatial and verbal WM capacity were investigated. Dependent measures were mean deviation in the lane change path (MDEV), lane change initiation (LCI) and percentage of correct lane changes (PCL). Driving experience was included as a covariate. Performance on each dependent measure deteriorated with increasing verbal WM load. Meanwhile, higher WM capacity related to better LCT performance. Finally, for LCI and PCL, participants with higher verbal WM capacity were influenced less by verbal WM load. These findings entail that completely eliminating distraction is necessary to minimize crash risks among young novice drivers. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Working memory capacity and visual-verbal cognitive load modulate auditory-sensory gating in the brainstem: toward a unified view of attention.

PubMed

Sörqvist, Patrik; Stenfelt, Stefan; Rönnberg, Jerker

2012-11-01

Two fundamental research questions have driven attention research in the past: One concerns whether selection of relevant information among competing, irrelevant, information takes place at an early or at a late processing stage; the other concerns whether the capacity of attention is limited by a central, domain-general pool of resources or by independent, modality-specific pools. In this article, we contribute to these debates by showing that the auditory-evoked brainstem response (an early stage of auditory processing) to task-irrelevant sound decreases as a function of central working memory load (manipulated with a visual-verbal version of the n-back task). Furthermore, individual differences in central/domain-general working memory capacity modulated the magnitude of the auditory-evoked brainstem response, but only in the high working memory load condition. The results support a unified view of attention whereby the capacity of a late/central mechanism (working memory) modulates early precortical sensory processing.

Theory of mind and emotion recognition skills in children with specific language impairment, autism spectrum disorder and typical development: group differences and connection to knowledge of grammatical morphology, word-finding abilities and verbal working memory.

PubMed

Loukusa, Soile; Mäkinen, Leena; Kuusikko-Gauffin, Sanna; Ebeling, Hanna; Moilanen, Irma

2014-01-01

Social perception skills, such as understanding the mind and emotions of others, affect children's communication abilities in real-life situations. In addition to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is increasing knowledge that children with specific language impairment (SLI) also demonstrate difficulties in their social perception abilities. To compare the performance of children with SLI, ASD and typical development (TD) in social perception tasks measuring Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotion recognition. In addition, to evaluate the association between social perception tasks and language tests measuring word-finding abilities, knowledge of grammatical morphology and verbal working memory. Children with SLI (n = 18), ASD (n = 14) and TD (n = 25) completed two NEPSY-II subtests measuring social perception abilities: (1) Affect Recognition and (2) ToM (includes Verbal and non-verbal Contextual tasks). In addition, children's word-finding abilities were measured with the TWF-2, grammatical morphology by using the Grammatical Closure subtest of ITPA, and verbal working memory by using subtests of Sentence Repetition or Word List Interference (chosen according the child's age) of the NEPSY-II. Children with ASD scored significantly lower than children with SLI or TD on the NEPSY-II Affect Recognition subtest. Both SLI and ASD groups scored significantly lower than TD children on Verbal tasks of the ToM subtest of NEPSY-II. However, there were no significant group differences on non-verbal Contextual tasks of the ToM subtest of the NEPSY-II. Verbal tasks of the ToM subtest were correlated with the Grammatical Closure subtest and TWF-2 in children with SLI. In children with ASD correlation between TWF-2 and ToM: Verbal tasks was moderate, almost achieving statistical significance, but no other correlations were found. Both SLI and ASD groups showed difficulties in tasks measuring verbal ToM but differences were not found in tasks measuring non-verbal Contextual ToM. The association between Verbal ToM tasks and language tests was stronger in children with SLI than in children with ASD. There is a need for further studies in order to understand interaction between different areas of language and cognitive development. © 2014 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Working Memory Processing In Normal Subjects and Subjects with Dyslexia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bowyer, S. M.; Lajiness-O'Neill, R.; Weiland, B. J.; Mason, K.; Tepley, N.

2004-10-01

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to determine the neuroanatomical location of working memory (WM) processes. Differences between subjects with dyslexia (SD; n=5) and normal readers (NR; n=5) were studied during two WM tasks. A spatial WM task (SMW) consisted of blocks visually presented in one of 12 positions for 2 s each. Subjects were to determine if the current position matched the position presented 2 slides earlier (N-Back Test). The verbal task (VMW) consisted of presentation of a single letter. The location of cortical activity during SWM in NR (determined with MR-FOCUSS analysis) was in the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) and right angular gyrus (AG). Similar activation was seen in SD with a slight delay of approximately 20 ms. During VWM activity was seen in LEFT STG and LEFT AG in NR. In contrast for SD, activation was in the RIGHT STG and RIGHT AG. This study demonstrates the possibility to differentiate WM processing in subjects with and without learning disorders.

Evaluating lexical characteristics of verbal fluency output in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Juhasz, Barbara J; Chambers, Destinee; Shesler, Leah W; Haber, Alix; Kurtz, Matthew M

2012-12-30

Standardized lexical analysis of verbal output has not been applied to verbal fluency tasks in schizophrenia. Performance of individuals with schizophrenia on both a letter (n=139) and semantic (n=137) fluency task was investigated. The lexical characteristics (word frequency, age-of-acquisition, word length, and semantic typicality) of words produced were evaluated and compared to those produced by a healthy control group matched on age, gender, and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III) vocabulary scores (n=20). Overall, individuals with schizophrenia produced fewer words than healthy controls, replicating past research (see Bokat and Goldberg, 2003). Words produced in the semantic fluency task by individuals with schizophrenia were, on average, earlier acquired and more typical of the category. In contrast, no differences in lexical characteristics emerged in the letter fluency task. The results are informative regarding how individuals with schizophrenia access their mental lexicons during the verbal fluency task. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effect of binaural beats on verbal working memory and cortical connectivity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beauchene, Christine; Abaid, Nicole; Moran, Rosalyn; Diana, Rachel A.; Leonessa, Alexander

2017-04-01

Objective. Synchronization in activated regions of cortical networks affect the brain’s frequency response, which has been associated with a wide range of states and abilities, including memory. A non-invasive method for manipulating cortical synchronization is binaural beats. Binaural beats take advantage of the brain’s response to two pure tones, delivered independently to each ear, when those tones have a small frequency mismatch. The mismatch between the tones is interpreted as a beat frequency, which may act to synchronize cortical oscillations. Neural synchrony is particularly important for working memory processes, the system controlling online organization and retention of information for successful goal-directed behavior. Therefore, manipulation of synchrony via binaural beats provides a unique window into working memory and associated connectivity of cortical networks. Approach. In this study, we examined the effects of different acoustic stimulation conditions during an N-back working memory task, and we measured participant response accuracy and cortical network topology via EEG recordings. Six acoustic stimulation conditions were used: None, Pure Tone, Classical Music, 5 Hz binaural beats, 10 Hz binaural beats, and 15 Hz binaural beats. Main results. We determined that listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during an N-Back working memory task increased the individual participant’s accuracy, modulated the cortical frequency response, and changed the cortical network connection strengths during the task. Only the 15 Hz binaural beats produced significant change in relative accuracy compared to the None condition. Significance. Listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during the N-back task activated salient frequency bands and produced networks characterized by higher information transfer as compared to other auditory stimulation conditions.

NOS1 ex1f-VNTR polymorphism influences prefrontal brain oxygenation during a working memory task.

PubMed

Kopf, Juliane; Schecklmann, Martin; Hahn, Tim; Dresler, Thomas; Dieler, Alica C; Herrmann, Martin J; Fallgatter, Andreas J; Reif, Andreas

2011-08-15

Nitric oxide (NO) synthase produces NO, which serves as first and second messenger in neurons, where the protein is encoded by the NOS1 gene. A functional variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) polymorphism in the promoter region of the alternative first exon 1f of NOS1 is associated with various functions of human behavior, for example increased impulsivity, while another, non-functional variant was linked to decreased verbal working memory and a heightened risk for schizophrenia. We therefore investigated the influence of NOS1 ex 1f-VNTR on working memory function as reflected by both behavioral measures and prefrontal oxygenation. We hypothesized that homozygous short allele carriers exhibit altered brain oxygenation in task-related areas, namely the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex. To this end, 56 healthy subjects were stratified into a homozygous long allele group and a homozygous short allele group comparable for age, sex and intelligence. All subjects completed a letter n-back task (one-, two-, and three-back), while concentration changes of oxygenated (O(2)Hb) hemoglobin in the prefrontal cortex were measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We found load-associated O(2)Hb increases in the prefrontal and parts of the parietal cortex. Significant load-associated oxygenation differences between the two genotype groups could be shown for the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex. Specifically, short allele carriers showed a significantly larger increase in oxygenation in all three n-back tasks. This suggests a potential compensatory mechanism, with task-related brain regions being more active in short allele carriers to compensate for reduced NOS1 expression. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of deep brain stimulation of the peduncolopontine area on working memory tasks in patients with Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Costa, Alberto; Carlesimo, Giovanni Augusto; Caltagirone, Carlo; Mazzone, Paolo; Pierantozzi, Mariangela; Stefani, Alessandro; Peppe, Antonella

2010-01-01

The present paper was aimed at investigating the effect of low-frequency electrical stimulation (25 Hz) of the peduncolopontine (PPN) area on working memory (WM) functioning in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Five PD patients who underwent simultaneous PPN area- and subthalamic nucleus-deep brain stimulation (DBS) implantation participated in the study. PD patients were evaluated in the morning at least 12 h after antiparkinsonian therapy withdrawal in two conditions: i) after continuous PPN area stimulation (Off Therapy/On PPN: "On" condition); ii) at least 120 min after PPN area had been switched "Off" (Off Ther/Off PPN: "Off" condition). The experimental WM task consisted of an n-back paradigm with verbal and visual-object stimuli. PD patients showed a consistent response time decrease on both the verbal and the visual-object tasks passing from the "Off" to the "On" condition (p < 0.05). However, the accuracy score did not significantly differ between the two experimental conditions. The present findings, although preliminary, suggest that PPN area stimulation facilitates the speed processing of information in the content of WM, possibly through the modulation of the attentional resources.

Describing the interplay between anxiety and cognition: From impaired performance under low cognitive load to reduced anxiety under high load

PubMed Central

Vytal, Katherine; Cornwell, Brian; Arkin, Nicole; Grillon, Christian

2012-01-01

Anxiety impairs the ability to think and concentrate, suggesting that the interaction between emotion and cognition may elucidate the debilitating nature of pathological anxiety. Using a verbal n-back task that parametrically modulated cognitive load, we explored the effect of experimentally-induced anxiety on task performance and the startle reflex. Findings suggest there is a crucial inflection point between moderate and high cognitive load, where resources shift from anxious apprehension to focus on task demands. Specifically, we demonstrate that anxiety impairs performance under low-load, but is reduced when subjects engage in a difficult task that occupies executive resources. We propose a two-component model of anxiety that describes a cognitive mechanism behind performance impairment and an automatic response that supports sustained anxiety-potentiated startle. Implications for therapeutic interventions and emotional pathology are discussed. PMID:22332819

Verbal Fluency Performance in Amnestic MCI and Older Adults with Cognitive Complaints

PubMed Central

Nutter-Upham, Katherine E.; Saykin, Andrew J.; Rabin, Laura A.; Roth, Robert M.; Wishart, Heather A.; Pare, Nadia; Flashman, Laura A.

2009-01-01

Verbal fluency tests are employed regularly during neuropsychological assessments of older adults, and deficits are a common finding in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Little extant research, however, has investigated verbal fluency ability and subtypes in preclinical stages of neurodegenerative disease. We examined verbal fluency performance in 107 older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI, n = 37), cognitive complaints (CC, n = 37) despite intact neuropsychological functioning, and demographically-matched healthy controls (HC, n = 33). Participants completed fluency tasks with letter, semantic category, and semantic switching constraints. Both phonemic and semantic fluency were statistically (but not clinically) reduced in amnestic MCI relative to cognitively intact older adults, indicating subtle changes in both the quality of the semantic store and retrieval slowing. Investigation of the underlying constructs of verbal fluency yielded two factors: Switching (including switching and shifting tasks) and Production (including letter, category, and action naming tasks), and both factors discriminated MCI from HC albeit to different degrees. Correlational findings further suggested that all fluency tasks involved executive control to some degree, while those with an added executive component (i.e., switching and shifting) were less dependent on semantic knowledge. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of including multiple verbal fluency tests in assessment batteries targeting preclinical dementia populations and suggest that individual fluency tasks may tap specific cognitive processes. PMID:18339515

Expanded pharmacy technician roles: Accepting verbal prescriptions and communicating prescription transfers.

PubMed

Frost, Timothy P; Adams, Alex J

2017-11-01

As the role of the clinical pharmacist continues to develop and advance, it is critical to ensure pharmacists can operate in a practice environment and workflow that supports the full deployment of their clinical skills. When pharmacy technician roles are optimized, patient safety can be enhanced and pharmacists may dedicate more time to advanced clinical services. Currently, 17 states allow technicians to accept verbal prescriptions called in by a prescriber or prescriber's agent, or transfer a prescription order from one pharmacy to another. States that allow these activities generally put few legal limitations on them, and instead defer to the professional judgment of the supervising pharmacist whether to delegate these tasks or not. These activities were more likely to be seen in states that require technicians to be registered and certified, and in states that have accountability mechanisms (e.g., discipline authority) in place for technicians. There is little evidence to suggest these tasks cannot be performed safely and accurately by appropriately trained technicians, and the track record of success with these tasks spans four decades in some states. Pharmacists can adopt strong practice policies and procedures to mitigate the risk of harm from verbal orders, such as instituting read-back/spell-back techniques, or requiring the indication for each phoned-in medication, among other strategies. Pharmacists may also exercise discretion in deciding to whom to delegate these tasks. As the legal environment becomes more permissive, we foresee investment in more robust education and training of technicians to cover these activities. Thus, with the adoption of robust practice policies and procedures, delegation of verbal orders and prescription transfers can be safe and effective, remove undue stress on pharmacists, and potentially free up pharmacist time for higher-order clinical care. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How Does Consecutive Interpreting Training Influence Working Memory: A Longitudinal Study of Potential Links Between the Two

PubMed Central

Dong, Yanping; Liu, Yuhua; Cai, Rendong

2018-01-01

With an intention to contribute to the issue of how language experience may influence working memory (WM), we focused on consecutive interpreting (CI), analyzed its potential links with WM functions and tested these links in a longitudinal experiment, trying to answer the specific question of how CI training may influence WM. Two comparable groups of Chinese learners of English received either CI or general second language (L2) training for one semester, and were tested before and after the training with the tasks of n-back (non-verbal updating), L2 listening span, and letter running span (verbal spans). CI performance was tested in the posttest. The results showed that (1) updating efficiency in both the pretest and posttest predicted CI performance, and CI training enhanced updating efficiency while general L2 training did not; (2) the relationship between verbal spans and CI performance was weaker (i.e., only pretest L2 listening span correlated with CI performance and predicted CI performance with marginal significance), and CI training did not make a unique contribution to these spans (i.e., no group differences). The results indicated an “interpreter advantage” in updating, which was probably due to that updating was more central in the CI task than WM spans. Theoretically, we believe that updating and CI are closely related because they share the same underlying mechanism, or more specifically updating and the recalling process in the CI task share the same attentional control process, a unique link between updating and the CI task. Methodological implications are discussed. PMID:29922199

Hyper-binding: a unique age effect.

PubMed

Campbell, Karen L; Hasher, Lynn; Thomas, Ruthann C

2010-03-01

Previous work has shown that older adults encode lexical and semantic information about verbal distractors and use that information to facilitate performance on subsequent tasks. In this study, we investigated whether older adults also form associations between distractors and co-occurring targets. In two experiments, participants performed a 1-back task on pictures superimposed with irrelevant words; 10 min later, participants were given a paired-associates memory task without reference to the 1-back task. The study list included preserved and re-paired (disrupted) pairs from the 1-back task. Older adults showed a memory advantage for preserved pairs and a disadvantage for disrupted pairs, whereas younger adults performed similarly across pair types. These results suggest the existence of a hyper-binding phenomenon in which older adults encode seemingly extraneous co-occurrences in the environment and transfer this knowledge to subsequent tasks. This increased knowledge of how events covary may be the reason why real-world decision-making ability is retained, or even enhanced, with age.

Comparison of the Working Memory Load in N-Back and Working Memory Span Tasks by Means of EEG Frequency Band Power and P300 Amplitude

PubMed Central

Scharinger, Christian; Soutschek, Alexander; Schubert, Torsten; Gerjets, Peter

2017-01-01

According to theoretical accounts, both, N-back and complex span tasks mainly require working memory (WM) processing. In contrast, simple span tasks conceptually mainly require WM storage. Thus, conceptually, an N-back task and a complex span task share more commonalities as compared to a simple span task. In the current study, we compared an N-back task, a complex operation span task (Ospan), and a simple digit span task (Dspan) by means of typical WM load-related measures of the Electroencephalogram (EEG) like the parietal alpha and beta frequency band power, the frontal theta frequency band power, and the P300 amplitude, to examine whether these tasks would show commonalities or differences in WM processing-load. We expected that increasing WM-load would generally lead to a decreased alpha and beta frequency band power, an increased theta frequency band power, and a decreased P300 amplitude. Yet, based on the conceptual considerations, we hypothesized that the outcomes of these measures would be more comparable between the N-back and the Ospan as compared to the Dspan. Our hypotheses were partly confirmed. The N-back and the Ospan showed timely more prolonged alpha frequency band power effects as compared to the Dspan. This might indicate higher demands on WM processing in the former two tasks. The theta frequency band power and the P300 amplitude were most pronounced in the N-back task as compared to both span tasks. This might indicate specific demands on cognitive control in the N-back task. Additionally, we observed that behavioral performance measures correlated with changes in EEG alpha power of the N-back and the Ospan, yet not of the Dspan. Taken together, the hypothesized conceptual commonalities between the N-back task and the Ospan (and, for the Dspan, differences) were only partly confirmed by the electrophysiological WM load-related measures, indicating a potential need for reconsidering the theoretical accounts on WM tasks and the value of a closer link to electrophysiological research herein. PMID:28179880

Comparison of the Working Memory Load in N-Back and Working Memory Span Tasks by Means of EEG Frequency Band Power and P300 Amplitude.

PubMed

Scharinger, Christian; Soutschek, Alexander; Schubert, Torsten; Gerjets, Peter

2017-01-01

According to theoretical accounts, both, N -back and complex span tasks mainly require working memory (WM) processing. In contrast, simple span tasks conceptually mainly require WM storage. Thus, conceptually, an N -back task and a complex span task share more commonalities as compared to a simple span task. In the current study, we compared an N -back task, a complex operation span task (Ospan), and a simple digit span task (Dspan) by means of typical WM load-related measures of the Electroencephalogram (EEG) like the parietal alpha and beta frequency band power, the frontal theta frequency band power, and the P300 amplitude, to examine whether these tasks would show commonalities or differences in WM processing-load. We expected that increasing WM-load would generally lead to a decreased alpha and beta frequency band power, an increased theta frequency band power, and a decreased P300 amplitude. Yet, based on the conceptual considerations, we hypothesized that the outcomes of these measures would be more comparable between the N -back and the Ospan as compared to the Dspan. Our hypotheses were partly confirmed. The N -back and the Ospan showed timely more prolonged alpha frequency band power effects as compared to the Dspan. This might indicate higher demands on WM processing in the former two tasks. The theta frequency band power and the P300 amplitude were most pronounced in the N -back task as compared to both span tasks. This might indicate specific demands on cognitive control in the N -back task. Additionally, we observed that behavioral performance measures correlated with changes in EEG alpha power of the N -back and the Ospan, yet not of the Dspan. Taken together, the hypothesized conceptual commonalities between the N -back task and the Ospan (and, for the Dspan, differences) were only partly confirmed by the electrophysiological WM load-related measures, indicating a potential need for reconsidering the theoretical accounts on WM tasks and the value of a closer link to electrophysiological research herein.

Emotion, working memory task demands and individual differences predict behavior, cognitive effort and negative affect.

PubMed

Storbeck, Justin; Davidson, Nicole A; Dahl, Chelsea F; Blass, Sara; Yung, Edwin

2015-01-01

We examined whether positive and negative affect motivates verbal and spatial working memory processes, respectively, which have implications for the expenditure of mental effort. We argue that when emotion promotes cognitive tendencies that are goal incompatible with task demands, greater cognitive effort is required to perform well. We sought to investigate whether this increase in cognitive effort impairs behavioural control over a broad domain of self-control tasks. Moreover, we predicted that individuals with higher behavioural inhibition system (BIS) sensitivities would report more negative affect within the goal incompatible conditions because such individuals report higher negative affect during cognitive challenge. Positive or negative affective states were induced followed by completing a verbal or spatial 2-back working memory task. All participants then completed one of three self-control tasks. Overall, we observed that conditions of emotion and working memory incompatibility (positive/spatial and negative/verbal) performed worse on the self-control tasks, and within the incompatible conditions individuals with higher BIS sensitivities reported more negative affect at the end of the study. The combination of findings suggests that emotion and working memory compatibility reduces cognitive effort and impairs behavioural control.

Verbal and spatial working memory among drug-using HIV-infected men and women.

PubMed

Martin, Eileen; Keutmann, M K; Fogel, J S; Maki, P M; Gonzalez, R; Vassileva, J; Rubin, L H; Hardy, D

2018-04-23

Working memory (WM) is a critical component of many neurocognitive functions. The literature has demonstrated consistently that WM impairment is more frequent and severe among substance-dependent individuals (SDIs) infected with HIV compared with uninfected SDIs; however, the SDIs who participated in these previous studies were primarily male. There are few published data on WM performance among HIV+ women with or without substance use disorders, and essentially no direct comparisons of WM performance between HIV+ men and women, regardless of substance use. We investigated potential sex and serostatus effects on WM among a sample of 360 SDIs (114 with HIV; 66% female) verified abstinent from alcohol and drugs of abuse at testing and generally comparable on substance use and comorbid characteristics. Participants were tested with the n-back task, a well-established WM measure that is sensitive to HIV-associated cognitive impairment. HIV+ men and women performed spatial and verbal versions of the n-back significantly less accurately compared with HIV- participants. Women showed slower response times compared with men on both versions, regardless of HIV serostatus. Individuals dependent on cocaine showed faster RTs compared with non-dependent users, but this effect was not apparent among opioid- or alcohol-dependent groups. Findings on n-back accuracy are consistent with our previous proposal that WM impairment represents a signature deficit among HIV+ SDIs; however, WM impairment appears less common among HIV+ women without a substance use history. The pattern of sex differences in response speed but serostatus effects on response accuracy is comparable to a recent report by our group of sex differences in learning speed but serostatus effects on delayed recall.

The framing effect in a monetary gambling task is robust in minimally verbal language switching contexts.

PubMed

Korn, Christoph W; Heekeren, Hauke R; Oganian, Yulia

2018-04-01

Decision-making biases, in particular the framing effect, can be altered in foreign language settings (foreign language effect) and following switching between languages (the language switching effect on framing). Recently, it has been suggested that the framing effect is only affected by foreign language use if the task is presented in a rich textual form. Here, we assess whether an elaborate verbal task is also a prerequisite for the language switching effect on framing. We employed a financial gambling task that induces a robust framing effect but is less verbal than the classical framing paradigms (e.g., the Asian disease problem). We conducted an online experiment ( n = 485), where we orthogonally manipulated language use and language switching between trials. The results showed no effects of foreign language use or language switching throughout the experiment. This online result was confirmed in a laboratory experiment ( n = 27). Overall, we find that language switching does not reduce the framing effect in a paradigm with little verbal content and thus that language switching effects seem contingent on the amount of verbal processing required.

Gaussian Process Regression for Predictive But Interpretable Machine Learning Models: An Example of Predicting Mental Workload across Tasks

PubMed Central

Caywood, Matthew S.; Roberts, Daniel M.; Colombe, Jeffrey B.; Greenwald, Hal S.; Weiland, Monica Z.

2017-01-01

There is increasing interest in real-time brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for the passive monitoring of human cognitive state, including cognitive workload. Too often, however, effective BCIs based on machine learning techniques may function as “black boxes” that are difficult to analyze or interpret. In an effort toward more interpretable BCIs, we studied a family of N-back working memory tasks using a machine learning model, Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), which was both powerful and amenable to analysis. Participants performed the N-back task with three stimulus variants, auditory-verbal, visual-spatial, and visual-numeric, each at three working memory loads. GPR models were trained and tested on EEG data from all three task variants combined, in an effort to identify a model that could be predictive of mental workload demand regardless of stimulus modality. To provide a comparison for GPR performance, a model was additionally trained using multiple linear regression (MLR). The GPR model was effective when trained on individual participant EEG data, resulting in an average standardized mean squared error (sMSE) between true and predicted N-back levels of 0.44. In comparison, the MLR model using the same data resulted in an average sMSE of 0.55. We additionally demonstrate how GPR can be used to identify which EEG features are relevant for prediction of cognitive workload in an individual participant. A fraction of EEG features accounted for the majority of the model’s predictive power; using only the top 25% of features performed nearly as well as using 100% of features. Subsets of features identified by linear models (ANOVA) were not as efficient as subsets identified by GPR. This raises the possibility of BCIs that require fewer model features while capturing all of the information needed to achieve high predictive accuracy. PMID:28123359

Working Memory, Language Skills, and Autism Symptomatology

PubMed Central

Schuh, Jillian M.; Eigsti, Inge-Marie

2012-01-01

While many studies have reported working memory (WM) impairments in autism spectrum disorders, others do not. Sample characteristics, WM domain, and task complexity likely contribute to these discrepancies. Although deficits in visuospatial WM have been more consistently documented, there is much controversy regarding verbal WM in autism. The goal of the current study was to explore visuospatial and verbal WM in a well-controlled sample of children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and typical development. Individuals ages 9–17 with HFA (n = 18) and typical development (n = 18), were carefully matched on gender, age, IQ, and language, and were administered a series of standardized visuospatial and verbal WM tasks. The HFA group displayed significant impairment across WM domains. No differences in performance were noted across WM tasks for either the HFA or typically developing groups. Over and above nonverbal cognition, WM abilities accounted for significant variance in language skills and symptom severity. The current study suggests broad WM limitations in HFA. We further suggest that deficits in verbal WM are observed in more complex tasks, as well as in simpler tasks, such as phonological WM. Increased task complexity and linguistic demands may influence WM abilities. PMID:25379222

N-back versus Complex Span Working Memory Training.

PubMed

Blacker, Kara J; Negoita, Serban; Ewen, Joshua B; Courtney, Susan M

2017-12-01

Working memory (WM) is the ability to maintain and manipulate task-relevant information in the absence of sensory input. While its improvement through training is of great interest, the degree to which WM training transfers to untrained WM tasks (near transfer) and other untrained cognitive skills (far transfer) remains debated and the mechanism(s) underlying transfer are unclear. Here we hypothesized that a critical feature of dual n-back training is its reliance on maintaining relational information in WM. In Experiment 1, using an individual differences approach, we found evidence that performance on an n-back task was predicted by performance on a measure of relational WM (i.e., WM for vertical spatial relationships independent of absolute spatial locations); whereas the same was not true for a complex span WM task. In Experiment 2, we tested the idea that reliance on relational WM is critical to produce transfer from n-back but not complex span task training. Participants completed adaptive training on either a dual n-back task, a symmetry span task, or on a non-WM active control task. We found evidence of near transfer for the dual n-back group; however, far transfer to a measure of fluid intelligence did not emerge. Recording EEG during a separate WM transfer task, we examined group-specific, training-related changes in alpha power, which are proposed to be sensitive to WM demands and top-down modulation of WM. Results indicated that the dual n-back group showed significantly greater frontal alpha power after training compared to before training, more so than both other groups. However, we found no evidence of improvement on measures of relational WM for the dual n-back group, suggesting that near transfer may not be dependent on relational WM. These results suggest that dual n-back and complex span task training may differ in their effectiveness to elicit near transfer as well as in the underlying neural changes they facilitate.

Executive Function and Early Reading Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Foy, Judith G.; Mann, Virginia A.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine how executive function skills in verbal and nonverbal auditory tasks are related to early reading skills in beginning readers. Kindergarteners (N = 41, aged 5 years) completed verbal (phonemes) and nonverbal (environmental sounds) Continuous Performance tasks yielding measures of executive function (misses,…

Increased integrity of white matter pathways after dual n-back training.

PubMed

Salminen, Tiina; Mårtensson, Johan; Schubert, Torsten; Kühn, Simone

2016-06-01

Dual n-back WM training has been shown to produce broad transfer effects to different untrained cognitive functions. The task is demanding to the cognitive system because it includes a bi-modal (auditory and visual) dual-task component. A previous WM training study showed increased white matter integrity in the parietal lobe as well as the anterior part of the corpus callosum after visual n-back training. We investigated dual n-back training-related changes in white matter pathways. We anticipated dual n-back training to increase white matter integrity in pathways that connect brain regions related to WM processes. Additionally, we hypothesized that dual n-back training would produce more brain-wide white matter changes than single n-back training because of the involvement of two modalities and the additional dual-task coordination component of the task. The dual n-back training group showed increased white matter integrity (reflected as increased fractional anisotropy, FA) after training. The effects were mostly left lateralized as compared with changes from pretest to posttest in the passive and active control groups. Additionally, significant effects were observed in the anterior part of the corpus callosum, when the training group was compared with the passive control group. There were no changes in pretest to posttest FA changes between the passive and active control groups. The results therefore show that dual n-back training produces increased integrity in white matter pathways connecting different brain regions. The results are discussed in reference to the bi-modal dual-task component of the training task. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Exploring N-Back Cognitive Training for Children With ADHD.

PubMed

Jones, Masha R; Katz, Benjamin; Buschkuehl, Martin; Jaeggi, Susanne M; Shah, Priti

2018-06-01

The efficacy of n-back training for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was tested in a randomized controlled trial. 41 children aged 7 to 14 years with ADHD were trained on an n-back task, and their performance was compared with that of an active control group ( n = 39) who were trained on a general knowledge and vocabulary task. The experimental group demonstrated transfer of training to a nontrained n-back task as well as to a measure of inhibitory control. These effects were correlated with the magnitude of training gains. Our results suggest that n-back training may be useful in addressing some of the cognitive and behavioral issues associated with ADHD.

The Relationship between N-Back Performance and Matrix Reasoning--Implications for Training and Transfer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jaeggi, Susanne M.; Studer-Luethi, Barbara; Buschkuehl, Martin; Su, Yi-Fen; Jonides, John; Perrig, Walter J.

2010-01-01

We have previously demonstrated that training on a dual n-back task results in improvements in fluid intelligence ("Gf") as measured by matrix reasoning tasks. Here, we explored the underlying mechanisms of this transfer effect in two studies, and we evaluated the transfer potential of a single n-back task. In the first study, we demonstrated that…

Cerebellar tDCS does not affect performance in the N-back task.

PubMed

van Wessel, Brenda W V; Claire Verhage, M; Holland, Peter; Frens, Maarten A; van der Geest, Jos N

2016-01-01

The N-back task is widely used in cognitive research. Furthermore, the cerebellum's role in cognitive processes is becoming more widely recognized. Studies using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) have demonstrated effects of cerebellar stimulation on several cognitive tasks. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cerebellar tDCS on cognitive performance by using the N-back task. The cerebellum of 12 participants was stimulated during the task. Moreover, the cognitive load was manipulated in N = 2, N = 3, and N = 4. Every participant received three tDCS conditions (anodal, cathodal, and sham) divided over three separated days. It was expected that anodal stimulation would improve performance on the task. Each participant performed 6 repetitions of every load in which correct responses, false alarms, and reaction times were recorded. We found significant differences between the three levels of load in the rate of correct responses and false alarms, indicating that subjects followed the expected pattern of performance for the N-back task. However, no significant differences between the three tDCS conditions were found. Therefore, it was concluded that in this study cognitive performance on the N-back task was not readily influenced by cerebellar tDCS, and any true effects are likely to be small. We discuss several limitations in task design and suggest future experiments to address such issues.

The Language, Working Memory, and Other Cognitive Demands of Verbal Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Archibald, Lisa M. D.

2013-01-01

Purpose: To gain a better understanding of the cognitive processes supporting verbal abilities, the underlying structure and interrelationships between common verbal measures were investigated. Methods: An epidemiological sample (n = 374) of school-aged children completed standardized tests of language, intelligence, and short-term and working…

Asperger syndrome: how does it relate to non-verbal learning disability?

PubMed

Ryburn, B; Anderson, V; Wales, R

2009-03-01

The syndrome of non-verbal learning disabilities (NLD) is associated with prominent non-verbal deficits such as reduced perceptual and spatial abilities, against a background of relatively intact verbal abilities. Asperger syndrome is one of the several developmental disorders for which Byron Rourke has claimed that almost all the signs and symptoms of NLD are present. This study investigated the claim utilizing a battery of neuropsychological tests that were found to be sensitive to NLD in the original learning disordered populations used to describe the syndrome. Children aged between 8 and 14 were recruited to form two groups: (1) children with Asperger syndrome (N=14) and (2) normal healthy schoolchildren (N=20). By contrast to the main principle outlined in the NLD model, children with Asperger syndrome did not display a relative difficulty with spatial- or problem-solving tasks; indeed, they displayed significantly higher performance on some non-verbal tasks in comparison with verbal tasks. It was only in relation to their high levels of psychosocial and interpersonal difficulties, which are also predicted on the basis of their psychiatric diagnosis, that the children with Asperger syndrome were clearly consistent with the NLD model in this study. These results raise questions about the relevance of the syndrome of NLD for children with Asperger syndrome.

Short-Term Memory Maintenance of Object Locations during Active Navigation: Which Working Memory Subsystem Is Essential?

PubMed Central

Baumann, Oliver; Skilleter, Ashley J.; Mattingley, Jason B.

2011-01-01

The goal of the present study was to examine the extent to which working memory supports the maintenance of object locations during active spatial navigation. Participants were required to navigate a virtual environment and to encode the location of a target object. In the subsequent maintenance period they performed one of three secondary tasks that were designed to selectively load visual, verbal or spatial working memory subsystems. Thereafter participants re-entered the environment and navigated back to the remembered location of the target. We found that while navigation performance in participants with high navigational ability was impaired only by the spatial secondary task, navigation performance in participants with poor navigational ability was impaired equally by spatial and verbal secondary tasks. The visual secondary task had no effect on navigation performance. Our results extend current knowledge by showing that the differential engagement of working memory subsystems is determined by navigational ability. PMID:21629686

Nonverbal working memory of humans and monkeys: rehearsal in the sketchpad?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Washburn, D. A.; Astur, R. S.; Rumbaugh, D. M. (Principal Investigator)

1998-01-01

Investigations of working memory tend to focus on the retention of verbal information. The present experiments were designed to characterize the active maintenance rehearsal process used in the retention of visuospatial information. Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta; N = 6) were tested as well as humans (total N = 90) because these nonhuman primates have excellent visual working memory but, unlike humans, cannot verbally recode the stimuli to employ verbal rehearsal mechanisms. A series of experiments was conducted using a distractor-task paradigm, a directed forgetting procedure, and a dual-task paradigm. No evidence was found for an active maintenance process for either species. Rather, it appears that information is maintained in the visuospatial sketchpad without active rehearsal.

Subvocal articulatory rehearsal during verbal working memory in multiple sclerosis.

PubMed

Sweet, Lawrence H; Vanderhill, Susan D; Jerskey, Beth A; Gordon, Norman M; Paul, Robert H; Cohen, Ronald A

2010-10-01

This study was designed to examine verbal working memory (VWM) components among multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and determine the influence of information processing speed. Of two frequently studied VWM sub-components, subvocal rehearsal was expected to be more affected by MS than short-term memory buffering. Furthermore, worse subvocal rehearsal was predicted to be specifically related to slower cognitive processing. Fifteen MS patients were administered a neuropsychological battery assessing VWM, processing speed, mood, fatigue, and disability. Participants performed a 2-Back VWM task with modified nested conditions designed to increase subvocal rehearsal (via inter-stimulus interval) and short-term memory buffering demands (via phonological similarity). Performance during these 2-Back conditions did not significantly differ and both exhibited strong positive correlations with disability. However, only scores on the subvocal rehearsal 2-Back were significantly related to performance on the remaining test battery, including processing speed and depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that performance during increased subvocal rehearsal demands is specifically influenced by cognitive processing speed and depressive symptoms.

Genetic predictor of working memory and prefrontal function in women with HIV.

PubMed

Sundermann, Erin E; Bishop, Jeffrey R; Rubin, Leah H; Little, Deborah M; Meyer, Vanessa J; Martin, Eileen; Weber, Kathleen; Cohen, Mardge; Maki, Pauline M

2015-02-01

The Val158Met (rs4680) single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene (COMT) influences executive function and prefrontal function through its effect on dopamine (DA) metabolism. Both HIV and the Val allele of the Val158Met SNP are associated with compromised executive function and inefficient prefrontal function. The present study used behavioral and neuroimaging techniques to determine independent and interactive associations between HIV serostatus and COMT genotype on working memory and prefrontal function in women. For the behavioral study, 54 HIV-infected and 33 HIV-uninfected women completed the 0-, 1-, and 2-back conditions of the verbal N-back, a working memory test. For the imaging study, 36 women (23 HIV-infected, 13 HIV-uninfected) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) assessments while completing the N-back task. HIV-infected women demonstrated significantly worse N-back performance compared with HIV-uninfected women (p < 0.05). A significant serostatus by genotype interaction (p < 0.01) revealed that, among Val/Val, but not Met allele carriers, HIV-infected women performed significantly worse than HIV-uninfected controls across N-back conditions (p < 0.01). Analogous to behavioral findings, a serostatus by genotype interaction revealed that HIV-infected Val/Val carriers showed significantly greater prefrontal activation compared with HIV-uninfected Val/Val carriers (p < 0.01). Conversely, HIV-uninfected Met allele carriers demonstrated significantly greater prefrontal activation compared with HIV-infected Met allele carriers. Findings suggest that the combination of HIV infection and the Val/Val COMT genotype leads to working memory deficits and altered prefrontal function in HIV-infected individuals.

Timing of gazes in child dialogues: a time-course analysis of requests and back channelling in referential communication.

PubMed

Sandgren, Olof; Andersson, Richard; van de Weijer, Joost; Hansson, Kristina; Sahlén, Birgitta

2012-01-01

This study investigates gaze behaviour in child dialogues. In earlier studies the authors have investigated the use of requests for clarification and responses in order to study the co-creation of understanding in a referential communication task. By adding eye tracking, this line of research is now expanded to include non-verbal contributions in conversation. To investigate the timing of gazes in face-to-face interaction and to relate the gaze behaviour to the use of requests for clarification. Eight conversational pairs of typically developing 10-15 year olds participated. The pairs (director and executor) performed a referential communication task requiring the description of faces. During the dialogues both participants wore head-mounted eye trackers. All gazes were recorded and categorized according to the area fixated (Task, Face, Off). The verbal context for all instances of gaze at the partner's face was identified and categorized using time-course analysis. The results showed that the executor spends almost 90% of the time fixating the gaze on the task, 10% on the director's face and less than 0.5% elsewhere. Turn shift, primarily requests for clarification, and back channelling significantly predicted the executors' gaze to the face of the task director. The distribution of types of requests showed that requests for previously unmentioned information were significantly more likely to be associated with gaze at the director. The study shows that the executors' gaze at the director accompanies important dynamic shifts in the dialogue. The association with requests for clarification indicates that gaze at the director can be used to monitor the response with two modalities. Furthermore, the significantly higher association with requests for previously unmentioned information indicates that gaze may be used to emphasize the verbal content. The results will be used as a reference for studies of gaze behaviour in clinical populations with hearing and language impairments. © 2012 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Emotional verbal fluency: a new task on emotion and executive function interaction.

PubMed

Sass, Katharina; Fetz, Karolina; Oetken, Sarah; Habel, Ute; Heim, Stefan

2013-09-01

The present study introduces "Emotional Verbal Fluency" as a novel (partially computerized) task, which is aimed to investigate the interaction between emotionally loaded words and executive functions. Verbal fluency tasks are thought to measure executive functions but the interaction with emotional aspects is hardly investigated. In the current study, a group of healthy subjects (n = 21, mean age 25 years, 76% females) were asked to generate items that are either part of a semantic category (e.g., plants, toys, vehicles; standard semantic verbal fluency) or can trigger the emotions joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The results of the task revealed no differences between performance on semantic and emotional categories, suggesting a comparable task difficulty for healthy subjects. Hence, these first results on the comparison between semantic and emotional verbal fluency seem to highlight that both might be suitable for examining executive functioning. However, an interaction was found between the category type and repetition (first vs. second sequence of the same category) with larger performance decrease for semantic in comparison to emotional categories. Best performance overall was found for the emotional category "joy" suggesting a positivity bias in healthy subjects. To conclude, emotional verbal fluency is a promising approach to investigate emotional components in an executive task, which may stimulate further research, especially in psychiatric patients who suffer from emotional as well as cognitive deficits.

Emotional Verbal Fluency: A New Task on Emotion and Executive Function Interaction

PubMed Central

Sass, Katharina; Fetz, Karolina; Oetken, Sarah; Habel, Ute; Heim, Stefan

2013-01-01

The present study introduces “Emotional Verbal Fluency” as a novel (partially computerized) task, which is aimed to investigate the interaction between emotionally loaded words and executive functions. Verbal fluency tasks are thought to measure executive functions but the interaction with emotional aspects is hardly investigated. In the current study, a group of healthy subjects (n = 21, mean age 25 years, 76% females) were asked to generate items that are either part of a semantic category (e.g., plants, toys, vehicles; standard semantic verbal fluency) or can trigger the emotions joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The results of the task revealed no differences between performance on semantic and emotional categories, suggesting a comparable task difficulty for healthy subjects. Hence, these first results on the comparison between semantic and emotional verbal fluency seem to highlight that both might be suitable for examining executive functioning. However, an interaction was found between the category type and repetition (first vs. second sequence of the same category) with larger performance decrease for semantic in comparison to emotional categories. Best performance overall was found for the emotional category “joy” suggesting a positivity bias in healthy subjects. To conclude, emotional verbal fluency is a promising approach to investigate emotional components in an executive task, which may stimulate further research, especially in psychiatric patients who suffer from emotional as well as cognitive deficits. PMID:25379243

Gender-specific hemodynamics in prefrontal cortex during a verbal working memory task by near-infrared spectroscopy.

PubMed

Li, Ting; Luo, Qingming; Gong, Hui

2010-05-01

The presence or absence of gender differences in working memory, localized in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), has been debated in a few fMRI studies. However, the hypothesis of gender differences in PFC function has not been elaborated, and comparisons among hemodynamic parameters designed to test for gender differences are scarce. We utilized near-infrared spectroscopy during verbal N-back tasks on 26 male and 24 female healthy volunteers. Changes in the concentrations of oxy- (Delta[oxy-Hb]), deoxy- (Delta[deoxy-Hb]) and total hemoglobin (Delta[tot-Hb]) were recorded simultaneously. Delta[oxy-Hb] and Delta[tot-Hb] exhibited obvious gender differences, but Delta[deoxy-Hb] did not. Males showed bilateral activation with slight left-side dominance, whereas females showed left activation. The activation in males was more wide-spread and stronger than in females. Furthermore, females required a lower hemodynamic supply than males to obtain comparable performance, and only females exhibited positive correlations between hemodynamic parameters and behavioral performance. The results reinforce the existence of a gender effect in hemodynamic-based functional imaging studies. Our findings suggest that females possess more efficient hemodynamics in the PFC during working memory and emphasize the importance of studying the PFC to further a scientific understanding of gender differences.

Deaf children's non-verbal working memory is impacted by their language experience

PubMed Central

Marshall, Chloë; Jones, Anna; Denmark, Tanya; Mason, Kathryn; Atkinson, Joanna; Botting, Nicola; Morgan, Gary

2015-01-01

Several recent studies have suggested that deaf children perform more poorly on working memory tasks compared to hearing children, but these studies have not been able to determine whether this poorer performance arises directly from deafness itself or from deaf children's reduced language exposure. The issue remains unresolved because findings come mostly from (1) tasks that are verbal as opposed to non-verbal, and (2) involve deaf children who use spoken communication and therefore may have experienced impoverished input and delayed language acquisition. This is in contrast to deaf children who have been exposed to a sign language since birth from Deaf parents (and who therefore have native language-learning opportunities within a normal developmental timeframe for language acquisition). A more direct, and therefore stronger, test of the hypothesis that the type and quality of language exposure impact working memory is to use measures of non-verbal working memory (NVWM) and to compare hearing children with two groups of deaf signing children: those who have had native exposure to a sign language, and those who have experienced delayed acquisition and reduced quality of language input compared to their native-signing peers. In this study we investigated the relationship between NVWM and language in three groups aged 6–11 years: hearing children (n = 28), deaf children who were native users of British Sign Language (BSL; n = 8), and deaf children who used BSL but who were not native signers (n = 19). We administered a battery of non-verbal reasoning, NVWM, and language tasks. We examined whether the groups differed on NVWM scores, and whether scores on language tasks predicted scores on NVWM tasks. For the two executive-loaded NVWM tasks included in our battery, the non-native signers performed less accurately than the native signer and hearing groups (who did not differ from one another). Multiple regression analysis revealed that scores on the vocabulary measure predicted scores on those two executive-loaded NVWM tasks (with age and non-verbal reasoning partialled out). Our results suggest that whatever the language modality—spoken or signed—rich language experience from birth, and the good language skills that result from this early age of acquisition, play a critical role in the development of NVWM and in performance on NVWM tasks. PMID:25999875

MEG Working Memory N-Back Task Reveals Functional Deficits in Combat-Related Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

PubMed

Huang, Ming-Xiong; Nichols, Sharon; Robb-Swan, Ashley; Angeles-Quinto, Annemarie; Harrington, Deborah L; Drake, Angela; Huang, Charles W; Song, Tao; Diwakar, Mithun; Risbrough, Victoria B; Matthews, Scott; Clifford, Royce; Cheng, Chung-Kuan; Huang, Jeffrey W; Sinha, Anusha; Yurgil, Kate A; Ji, Zhengwei; Lerman, Imanuel; Lee, Roland R; Baker, Dewleen G

2018-04-13

Combat-related mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a leading cause of sustained cognitive impairment in military service members and Veterans. However, the mechanism of persistent cognitive deficits including working memory (WM) dysfunction is not fully understood in mTBI. Few studies of WM deficits in mTBI have taken advantage of the temporal and frequency resolution afforded by electromagnetic measurements. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and an N-back WM task, we investigated functional abnormalities in combat-related mTBI. Study participants included 25 symptomatic active-duty service members or Veterans with combat-related mTBI and 20 healthy controls with similar combat experiences. MEG source-magnitude images were obtained for alpha (8-12 Hz), beta (15-30 Hz), gamma (30-90 Hz), and low-frequency (1-7 Hz) bands. Compared with healthy combat controls, mTBI participants showed increased MEG signals across frequency bands in frontal pole (FP), ventromedial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), but decreased MEG signals in anterior cingulate cortex. Hyperactivations in FP, OFC, and anterior dlPFC were associated with slower reaction times. MEG activations in lateral FP also negatively correlated with performance on tests of letter sequencing, verbal fluency, and digit symbol coding. The profound hyperactivations from FP suggest that FP is particularly vulnerable to combat-related mTBI.

Cognitive control components and speech symptoms in people with schizophrenia.

PubMed

Becker, Theresa M; Cicero, David C; Cowan, Nelson; Kerns, John G

2012-03-30

Previous schizophrenia research suggests poor cognitive control is associated with schizophrenia speech symptoms. However, cognitive control is a broad construct. Two important cognitive control components are poor goal maintenance and poor verbal working memory storage. In the current research, people with schizophrenia (n=45) performed three cognitive tasks that varied in their goal maintenance and verbal working memory storage demands. Speech symptoms were assessed using clinical rating scales, ratings of disorganized speech from typed transcripts, and self-reported disorganization. Overall, alogia was associated with both goal maintenance and verbal working memory tasks. Objectively rated disorganized speech was associated with poor goal maintenance and with a task that included both goal maintenance and verbal working memory storage demands. In contrast, self-reported disorganization was unrelated to either amount of objectively rated disorganized speech or to cognitive control task performance, instead being associated with negative mood symptoms. Overall, our results suggest that alogia is associated with both poor goal maintenance and poor verbal working memory storage and that disorganized speech is associated with poor goal maintenance. In addition, patients' own assessment of their disorganization is related to negative mood, but perhaps not to objective disorganized speech or to cognitive control task performance. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Differences in Executive Functioning in Children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

PubMed Central

Elosúa, M. Rosa; Del Olmo, Sandra; Contreras, María José

2017-01-01

In recent years, the interest in Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and its relation to deficits in working memory (WM) and more specifically the different executive functions (EFs) has grown, to the point of confirming that these are quite frequent in this disorder. The aim of this study was precisely to explore differences in executive functioning of WM in fourth grade Primary school children with and without ADHD (26 and 29 children, respectively), introducing rigorous control measures in the tests used. Four EFs were analyzed: divided attention, updating, attentional shifting and inhibition, measured through four tasks, the dual-task paradigm (digits and box-crossing), the N-Back task, the Trail Making Test and the Stroop task, respectively. The results showed that participants with ADHD, compared to children with typical development (TD), exhibited a smaller verbal memory span as well as deficits in the attentional shifting and updating functions. However, a similar performance for the EF of inhibition was found for both groups of participants. Finally, an unexpected result was obtained with regard to the role of divided attention, as children with ADHD were less impaired when performing the double task than participants in the TD group. PMID:28676771

Differences in Executive Functioning in Children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

PubMed

Elosúa, M Rosa; Del Olmo, Sandra; Contreras, María José

2017-01-01

In recent years, the interest in Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and its relation to deficits in working memory (WM) and more specifically the different executive functions (EFs) has grown, to the point of confirming that these are quite frequent in this disorder. The aim of this study was precisely to explore differences in executive functioning of WM in fourth grade Primary school children with and without ADHD (26 and 29 children, respectively), introducing rigorous control measures in the tests used. Four EFs were analyzed: divided attention, updating, attentional shifting and inhibition, measured through four tasks, the dual-task paradigm (digits and box-crossing), the N-Back task, the Trail Making Test and the Stroop task, respectively. The results showed that participants with ADHD, compared to children with typical development (TD), exhibited a smaller verbal memory span as well as deficits in the attentional shifting and updating functions. However, a similar performance for the EF of inhibition was found for both groups of participants. Finally, an unexpected result was obtained with regard to the role of divided attention, as children with ADHD were less impaired when performing the double task than participants in the TD group.

What would you do? The effect of verbal persuasion on task choice.

PubMed

Lamarche, Larkin; Gionfriddo, Alicia M; Cline, Lindsay E; Gammage, Kimberley L; Adkin, Allan L

2014-01-01

Verbal persuasion has been shown to influence psychological and behavioral outcomes. The present study had two objectives: (1) to examine the effect of verbal persuasion on task choice in a balance setting and (2) to evaluate the use of verbal persuasion as an approach to experimentally induce mismatches between perceived and actual balance. Healthy young adults (N=68) completed an 8-m tandem walk task without vision and then were randomly assigned to a feedback group (good, control, or poor), regardless of actual balance. Following the feedback, participants chose to perform the task in one of three conditions differing in level of challenge and also were required to perform the task under the same pre-feedback conditions. Balance efficacy and perceived stability were rated before and after each pre- and post-feedback task, respectively. Balance performance measures were also collected. Following the feedback, participants in the good group were more likely to choose the most challenging task while those in the poor group were more likely to choose the least challenging task. Following the feedback, all groups showed improved balance performance. However, balance efficacy and perceived stability increased for the good and control groups but balance efficacy decreased and perceived stability was unchanged for the poor group. Thus, these findings demonstrate that verbal persuasion can influence task choice and may be used as an approach to experimentally create mismatches between perceived and actual balance. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Processing distinct linguistic information types in working memory in aphasia.

PubMed

Wright, Heather Harris; Downey, Ryan A; Gravier, Michelle; Love, Tracy; Shapiro, Lewis P

2007-06-01

BACKGROUND: Recent investigations have suggested that adults with aphasia present with a working memory deficit that may contribute to their language-processing difficulties. Working memory capacity has been conceptualised as a single "resource" pool for attentional, linguistic, and other executive processing-alternatively, it has been suggested that there may be separate working memory abilities for different types of linguistic information. A challenge in this line of research is developing an appropriate measure of working memory ability in adults with aphasia. One candidate measure of working memory ability that may be appropriate for this population is the n-back task. By manipulating stimulus type, the n-back task may be appropriate for tapping linguistic-specific working memory abilities. AIMS: The purposes of this study were (a) to measure working memory ability in adults with aphasia for processing specific types of linguistic information, and (b) to examine whether a relationship exists between participants' performance on working memory and auditory comprehension measures. METHOD #ENTITYSTARTX00026; PROCEDURES: Nine adults with aphasia participated in the study. Participants completed three n-back tasks, each tapping different types of linguistic information. They included the PhonoBack (phonological level), SemBack (semantic level), and SynBack (syntactic level). For all tasks, two n-back levels were administered: a 1-back and 2-back. Each level contained 20 target items; accuracy was recorded by stimulus presentation software. The Subject-relative, Object-relative, Active, Passive Test of Syntactic Complexity (SOAP) was the syntactic sentence comprehension task administered to all participants. OUTCOMES #ENTITYSTARTX00026; RESULTS: Participants' performance declined as n-back task difficulty increased. Overall, participants performed better on the SemBack than PhonoBack and SynBack tasks, but the differences were not statistically significant. Finally, participants who performed poorly on the SynBack also had more difficulty comprehending syntactically complex sentence structures (i.e., passive & object-relative sentences). CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that working memory ability for different types of linguistic information can be measured in adults with aphasia. Further, our results add to the growing literature that favours separate working memory abilities for different types of linguistic information view.

Speeded Verbal Responding in Adults Who Stutter: Are There Deficits in Linguistic Encoding?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hennessey, Neville W.; Nang, Charn Y.; Beilby, Janet M.

2008-01-01

Linguistic encoding deficits in people who stutter (PWS, n = 18) were investigated using auditory priming during picture naming and word vs. non-word comparisons during choice and simple verbal reaction time (RT) tasks. During picture naming, PWS did not differ significantly from normally fluent speakers (n = 18) in the magnitude of inhibition of…

The mere exposure effect in patients with schizophrenia.

PubMed

Marie, A; Gabrieli, J D; Vaidya, C; Brown, B; Pratto, F; Zajonc, R B; Shaw, R J

2001-01-01

The mere exposure effect refers to the development of an emotional preference for previously unfamiliar material because of frequent exposure to that material. This study compared schizophrenia subjects (n = 20) to normal controls (n = 21) to determine whether implicit memory, as demonstrated by the mere exposure effect, was intact. Patients with schizophrenia demonstrated a normal preference for both verbal and visual materials seen earlier relative to novel materials, despite impaired performance on a recognition task for explicit memory using similar materials. Previous studies of schizophrenia subjects have shown a dissociation between implicit and explicit memory on verbal tasks. We found a similar dissociation demonstrated by normal functioning on an implicit memory task and impaired functioning on an explicit memory task. Potential implications of these findings are discussed with regard to treatment and rehabilitation.

N-back Working Memory Task: Meta-analysis of Normative fMRI Studies With Children.

PubMed

Yaple, Zachary; Arsalidou, Marie

2018-05-07

The n-back task is likely the most popular measure of working memory for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. Despite accumulating neuroimaging studies with the n-back task and children, its neural representation is still unclear. fMRI studies that used the n-back were compiled, and data from children up to 15 years (n = 260) were analyzed using activation likelihood estimation. Results show concordance in frontoparietal regions recognized for their role in working memory as well as regions not typically highlighted as part of the working memory network, such as the insula. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental methodology and potential contribution to developmental theories of cognition. © 2018 Society for Research in Child Development.

Effects of age, education and gender on verbal fluency.

PubMed

Mathuranath, P S; George, A; Cherian, P J; Alexander, A; Sarma, S G; Sarma, P S

2003-12-01

The objective was to study the effects of age, education and gender on verbal fluency in cognitively unimpaired, older individuals. The methods used were as follows: cognitively unimpaired elderly (55-84 years) subjects (n=153), were administered category (animal) (CF) and letter (/pa/) (LF) fluency tasks, in their native language of Malayalam. Results and conclusions were (1) Level of education, but not age or gender, significantly influence LF. (2) Level of education (directly) and in the elderly subjects, age (inversely) affect CF. (3) Age, but not education, has a differential effect on the tasks of verbal fluency, influencing CF more than LF.

Mental simulation of drawing actions enhances delayed recall of a complex figure.

PubMed

De Lucia, Natascia; Trojano, Luigi; Senese, Vincenzo Paolo; Conson, Massimiliano

2016-10-01

Motor simulation implies that the same motor representations involved in action execution are re-enacted during observation or imagery of actions. Neurofunctional data suggested that observation of letters or abstract paintings can elicit simulation of writing or drawing gestures. We performed four behavioural experiments on right-handed healthy participants to test whether observation of a static and complex geometrical figure implies re-enactment of drawing actions. In Experiment 1, participants had to observe the stimulus without explicit instruction (observation-only condition), while performing irrelevant finger tapping (motor dual task), or while articulating irrelevant verbal material (verbal dual task). Delayed drawing of the stimulus was less accurate in the motor dual-task (interfering with simulation of hand actions) than in verbal dual-task and observation-only conditions. In Experiment 2, delayed drawing in the observation only was as accurate as when participants encoded the stimulus by copying it; in both conditions, accuracy was higher than when participants were instructed to observe the stimulus to recall it later verbally (observe to recall), thus being discouraged from engaging motor simulation. In Experiment 3, delayed drawing was as accurate in the observation-only condition as when participants imagined copying the stimulus; accuracy in both conditions was higher than in the observe-to-recall condition. In Experiment 4, in the observe-only condition participants who observed the stimulus with their right arm hidden behind their back were significantly less accurate than participants who had their left arm hidden. These findings converge in suggesting that mere observation of a geometrical stimulus can activate motor simulation and re-enactment of drawing actions.

The impact of monetary reward on memory in schizophrenia spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Thornton, Allen E; Boudreau, Vanessa G; Griffiths, Stephanie Y; Woodward, Todd S; Fawkes-Kirby, Tanya; Honer, William G

2007-09-01

The impact of monetary reward on verbal working memory (vWM) and verbal long-term memory (vLTM) was evaluated in 50 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 52 matched healthy participants. This research was motivated by the observations that negative symptoms in schizophrenia are associated with reduced drive and that patients with these symptoms exhibit greater mnemonic impairments. Reward-related gains were evaluated across two levels of vWM load on the n-back task and across three aspects of vLTM derived from the California Verbal Learning Test-II (i.e., learning, total immediate recall, and retention). Although healthy individuals benefited from reward at a high vWM load level, schizophrenia patients exhibited no reward-related improvements in vWM. In contrast, improvement in vLTM retention was induced by reward for both patients and controls. Finally, symptomatic and pharmacology treatment factors were associated with reward-related gains in persons with schizophrenia. In conclusion, contingent monetary rewards delivered during vWM and vLTM enhanced specific aspects of memory. The influence was relatively small and dependent on the specific neurocognitive operation examined, the mental health status of the participants, and for patients, their particular symptoms and pharmacological treatments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).

Selective cognitive impairments associated with NMDA receptor blockade in humans.

PubMed

Rowland, Laura M; Astur, Robert S; Jung, Rex E; Bustillo, Juan R; Lauriello, John; Yeo, Ronald A

2005-03-01

Hypofunction of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) may be involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. NMDAR antagonists like ketamine induce schizophrenia-like features in humans. In rodent studies, NMDAR antagonism impairs learning by disrupting long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus. This study investigated the effects of ketamine on spatial learning (acquisition) vs retrieval in a virtual Morris water task in humans. Verbal fluency, working memory, and learning and memory of verbal information were also assessed. Healthy human subjects participated in this double-blinded, placebo-controlled study. On two separate occasions, ketamine/placebo was administered and cognitive tasks were assessed in association with behavioral ratings. Ketamine impaired learning of spatial and verbal information but retrieval of information learned prior to drug administration was preserved. Schizophrenia-like symptoms were significantly related to spatial and verbal learning performance. Ketamine did not significantly impair attention, verbal fluency, or verbal working memory task performance. Spatial working memory was slightly impaired. In conclusion, these results provide evidence for ketamine's differential impairment of verbal and spatial learning vs retrieval. By using the Morris water task, which is hippocampal-dependent, this study helps bridge the gap between nonhuman animal and human NMDAR antagonism research. Impaired cognition is a core feature of schizophrenia. A better understanding of NMDA antagonism, its physiological and cognitive consequences, may provide improved models of psychosis and cognitive therapeutics.

Source Reconstruction of Brain Potentials Using Bayesian Model Averaging to Analyze Face Intra-Domain vs. Face-Occupation Cross-Domain Processing.

PubMed

Olivares, Ela I; Lage-Castellanos, Agustín; Bobes, María A; Iglesias, Jaime

2018-01-01

We investigated the neural correlates of the access to and retrieval of face structure information in contrast to those concerning the access to and retrieval of person-related verbal information, triggered by faces. We experimentally induced stimulus familiarity via a systematic learning procedure including faces with and without associated verbal information. Then, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in both intra-domain (face-feature) and cross-domain (face-occupation) matching tasks while N400-like responses were elicited by incorrect eyes-eyebrows completions and occupations, respectively. A novel Bayesian source reconstruction approach plus conjunction analysis of group effects revealed that in both cases the generated N170s were of similar amplitude but had different neural origin. Thus, whereas the N170 of faces was associated predominantly to right fusiform and occipital regions (the so-called "Fusiform Face Area", "FFA" and "Occipital Face Area", "OFA", respectively), the N170 of occupations was associated to a bilateral very posterior activity, suggestive of basic perceptual processes. Importantly, the right-sided perceptual P200 and the face-related N250 were evoked exclusively in the intra-domain task, with sources in OFA and extensively in the fusiform region, respectively. Regarding later latencies, the intra-domain N400 seemed to be generated in right posterior brain regions encompassing mainly OFA and, to some extent, the FFA, likely reflecting neural operations triggered by structural incongruities. In turn, the cross-domain N400 was related to more anterior left-sided fusiform and temporal inferior sources, paralleling those described previously for the classic verbal N400. These results support the existence of differentiated neural streams for face structure and person-related verbal processing triggered by faces, which can be activated differentially according to specific task demands.

A pilot study of working memory and academic achievement in college students with ADHD.

PubMed

Gropper, Rachel J; Tannock, Rosemary

2009-05-01

To investigate working memory (WM), academic achievement, and their relationship in university students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Participants were university students with previously confirmed diagnoses of ADHD (n = 16) and normal control (NC) students (n = 30). Participants completed 3 auditory-verbal WM measures, 2 visual-spatial WM measures, and 1 control executive function task. Also, they self-reported grade point averages (GPAs) based on university courses. The ADHD group displayed significant weaknesses on auditory-verbal WM tasks and 1 visual-spatial task. They also showed a nonsignificant trend for lower GPAs. Within the entire sample, there was a significant relationship between GPA and auditory-verbal WM. WM impairments are evident in a subgroup of the ADHD population attending university. WM abilities are linked with, and thus may compromise, academic attainment. Parents and physicians are advised to counsel university-bound students with ADHD to contact the university accessibility services to provide them with academic guidance.

The development of non-spatial working memory capacity during childhood and adolescence and the role of interference control: an N-Back task study.

PubMed

Schleepen, Tamara M J; Jonkman, Lisa M

2010-01-01

To investigate the role of interference control on the development of working memory (WM) capacity, 6-12-year-old children and adults performed an N-Back task with differing WM-load and interference control demands. Correlation analyses between flanker interference scores and WM-load levels showed that interference control was only required in the 2-back condition. While WM maintenance (1-back task) reached adult accuracy levels at age 10-12, the ability to maintain information in WM during distraction (2-back-task) displayed protracted maturation into adolescence. This is suggested to reflect yet immature connections between prefrontal and posterior association areas, respectively involved in interference control and WM storage.

The Structure of Working Memory Abilities across the Adult Life Span

PubMed Central

Hale, Sandra; Rose, Nathan S.; Myerson, Joel; Strube, Michael J; Sommers, Mitchell; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Spehar, Brent

2010-01-01

The present study addresses three questions regarding age differences in working memory: (1) whether performance on complex span tasks decreases as a function of age at a faster rate than performance on simple span tasks; (2) whether spatial working memory decreases at a faster rate than verbal working memory; and (3) whether the structure of working memory abilities is different for different age groups. Adults, ages 20–89 (n=388), performed three simple and three complex verbal span tasks and three simple and three complex spatial memory tasks. Performance on the spatial tasks decreased at faster rates as a function of age than performance on the verbal tasks, but within each domain, performance on complex and simple span tasks decreased at the same rates. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that domain-differentiated models yielded better fits than models involving domain-general constructs, providing further evidence of the need to distinguish verbal and spatial working memory abilities. Regardless of which domain-differentiated model was examined, and despite the faster rates of decrease in the spatial domain, age group comparisons revealed that the factor structure of working memory abilities was highly similar in younger and older adults and showed no evidence of age-related dedifferentiation. PMID:21299306

Effects of cannabis on cognition in patients with MS: a psychometric and MRI study.

PubMed

Pavisian, Bennis; MacIntosh, Bradley J; Szilagyi, Greg; Staines, Richard W; O'Connor, Paul; Feinstein, Anthony

2014-05-27

To determine functional and structural neuroimaging correlates of cognitive dysfunction associated with cannabis use in multiple sclerosis (MS). In a cross-sectional study, 20 subjects with MS who smoked cannabis and 19 noncannabis users with MS, matched on demographic and neurologic variables, underwent fMRI while completing a test of working memory, the N-Back. Resting-state fMRI and structural MRI data (lesion and normal-appearing brain tissue volumes, diffusion tensor imaging metrics) were also collected. Neuropsychological data pertaining to verbal (Selective Reminding Test Revised) and visual (10/36 Spatial Recall Test) memory, information processing speed (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test [2- and 3-second versions] and Symbol Digit Modalities Test), and attention (Word List Generation) were obtained. The cannabis group performed more poorly on the more demanding of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test tasks (i.e., 2-second version) (p < 0.02) and the 10/36 Spatial Recall Test (p < 0.03). Cannabis users had more diffuse cerebral activation across all N-Back trials and made more errors on the 2-Back task (p < 0.006), during which they displayed increased activation relative to nonusers in parietal (p < 0.007) and anterior cingulate (p < 0.001) regions implicated in working memory. No group differences in resting-state networks or structural MRI variables were found. Patients with MS who smoke cannabis are more cognitively impaired than nonusers. Cannabis further compromises cerebral compensatory mechanisms, already faulty in MS. These imaging data boost the construct validity of the neuropsychological findings and act as a cautionary note to cannabis users and prescribers. © 2014 American Academy of Neurology.

Task-related changes in degree centrality and local coherence of the posterior cingulate cortex after major cardiac surgery in older adults.

PubMed

Browndyke, Jeffrey N; Berger, Miles; Smith, Patrick J; Harshbarger, Todd B; Monge, Zachary A; Panchal, Viral; Bisanar, Tiffany L; Glower, Donald D; Alexander, John H; Cabeza, Roberto; Welsh-Bohmer, Kathleen; Newman, Mark F; Mathew, Joseph P

2018-02-01

Older adults often display postoperative cognitive decline (POCD) after surgery, yet it is unclear to what extent functional connectivity (FC) alterations may underlie these deficits. We examined for postoperative voxel-wise FC changes in response to increased working memory load demands in cardiac surgery patients and nonsurgical controls. Older cardiac surgery patients (n = 25) completed a verbal N-back working memory task during MRI scanning and cognitive testing before and 6 weeks after surgery; nonsurgical controls with cardiac disease (n = 26) underwent these assessments at identical time intervals. We measured postoperative changes in degree centrality, the number of edges attached to a brain node, and local coherence, the temporal homogeneity of regional functional correlations, using voxel-wise graph theory-based FC metrics. Group × time differences were evaluated in these FC metrics associated with increased N-back working memory load (2-back > 1-back), using a two-stage partitioned variance, mixed ANCOVA. Cardiac surgery patients demonstrated postoperative working memory load-related degree centrality increases in the left dorsal posterior cingulate cortex (dPCC; p < .001, cluster p-FWE < .05). The dPCC also showed a postoperative increase in working memory load-associated local coherence (p < .001, cluster p-FWE < .05). dPCC degree centrality and local coherence increases were inversely associated with global cognitive change in surgery patients (p < .01), but not in controls. Cardiac surgery patients showed postoperative increases in working memory load-associated degree centrality and local coherence of the dPCC that were inversely associated with postoperative global cognitive outcomes and independent of perioperative cerebrovascular damage. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Blur Detection is Unaffected by Cognitive Load.

PubMed

Loschky, Lester C; Ringer, Ryan V; Johnson, Aaron P; Larson, Adam M; Neider, Mark; Kramer, Arthur F

2014-03-01

Blur detection is affected by retinal eccentricity, but is it also affected by attentional resources? Research showing effects of selective attention on acuity and contrast sensitivity suggests that allocating attention should increase blur detection. However, research showing that blur affects selection of saccade targets suggests that blur detection may be pre-attentive. To investigate this question, we carried out experiments in which viewers detected blur in real-world scenes under varying levels of cognitive load manipulated by the N -back task. We used adaptive threshold estimation to measure blur detection thresholds at 0°, 3°, 6°, and 9° eccentricity. Participants carried out blur detection as a single task, a single task with to-be-ignored letters, or an N-back task with four levels of cognitive load (0, 1, 2, or 3-back). In Experiment 1, blur was presented gaze-contingently for occasional single eye fixations while participants viewed scenes in preparation for an easy picture recognition memory task, and the N -back stimuli were presented auditorily. The results for three participants showed a large effect of retinal eccentricity on blur thresholds, significant effects of N -back level on N -back performance, scene recognition memory, and gaze dispersion, but no effect of N -back level on blur thresholds. In Experiment 2, we replicated Experiment 1 but presented the images tachistoscopically for 200 ms (half with, half without blur), to determine whether gaze-contingent blur presentation in Experiment 1 had produced attentional capture by blur onset during a fixation, thus eliminating any effect of cognitive load on blur detection. The results with three new participants replicated those of Experiment 1, indicating that the use of gaze-contingent blur presentation could not explain the lack of effect of cognitive load on blur detection. Thus, apparently blur detection in real-world scene images is unaffected by attentional resources, as manipulated by the cognitive load produced by the N -back task.

Gender differences in the cognitive control of emotion: An fMRI study.

PubMed

Koch, Kathrin; Pauly, Katharina; Kellermann, Thilo; Seiferth, Nina Y; Reske, Martina; Backes, Volker; Stöcker, Tony; Shah, N Jon; Amunts, Katrin; Kircher, Tilo; Schneider, Frank; Habel, Ute

2007-09-20

The interaction of emotion and cognition has become a topic of major interest. However, the influence of gender on the interplay between the two processes, along with its neural correlates have not been fully analysed so far. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study we induced negative emotion using negative olfactory stimulation while male (n=21) and female (n=19) participants performed an n-back verbal working memory task. Based on findings indicating increased emotional reactivity in women, we expected the female participants to exhibit stronger activation in characteristically emotion-associated areas during the interaction of emotional and cognitive processing in comparison to the male participants. Both groups were found to be significantly impaired in their working memory performance by negative emotion induction. However, fMRI analysis revealed distinct differences in neuronal activation between groups. In men, cognitive performance under negative emotion induction was associated with extended activation patterns in mainly prefrontal and superior parietal regions. In women, the interaction between emotion and working memory yielded a significantly stronger response in the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) compared to their male counterparts. Our data suggest that in women the interaction of verbal working memory and negative emotion is associated with relative hyperactivation in more emotion-associated areas whereas in men regions commonly regarded as important for cognition and cognitive control are activated. These results provide new insights in gender-specific cerebral mechanisms.

Direct evidence for the contributive role of the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus in non-verbal semantic cognition.

PubMed

Herbet, Guillaume; Moritz-Gasser, Sylvie; Duffau, Hugues

2017-05-01

The neural foundations underlying semantic processing have been extensively investigated, highlighting a pivotal role of the ventral stream. However, although studies concerning the involvement of the left ventral route in verbal semantics are proficient, the potential implication of the right ventral pathway in non-verbal semantics has been to date unexplored. To gain insights on this matter, we used an intraoperative direct electrostimulation to map the structures mediating the non-verbal semantic system in the right hemisphere. Thirteen patients presenting with a right low-grade glioma located within or close to the ventral stream were included. During the 'awake' procedure, patients performed both a visual non-verbal semantic task and a verbal (control) task. At the cortical level, in the right hemisphere, we found non-verbal semantic-related sites (n = 7 in 6 patients) in structures commonly associated with verbal semantic processes in the left hemisphere, including the superior temporal gyrus, the pars triangularis, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. At the subcortical level, we found non-verbal semantic-related sites in all but one patient (n = 15 sites in 12 patients). Importantly, all these responsive stimulation points were located on the spatial course of the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF). These findings provide direct support for a critical role of the right IFOF in non-verbal semantic processing. Based upon these original data, and in connection with previous findings showing the involvement of the left IFOF in non-verbal semantic processing, we hypothesize the existence of a bilateral network underpinning the non-verbal semantic system, with a homotopic connectional architecture.

Effect of musical experience on verbal memory in Williams syndrome: evidence from a novel word learning task.

PubMed

Martens, Marilee A; Jungers, Melissa K; Steele, Anita L

2011-09-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurogenetic developmental disorder characterized by an increased affinity for music, deficits in verbal memory, and atypical brain development. Music has been shown to improve verbal memory in typical individuals as well as those with learning difficulties, but no studies have examined this relationship in WS. The aim of our two studies was to examine whether music can enhance verbal memory in individuals with WS. In Study 1, we presented a memory task of eight spoken or sung sentences that described an animal and identified its group name to 38 individuals with WS. Study 2, involving another group of individuals with WS (n=38), included six spoken or sung sentences that identified an animal group name. In both studies, those who had participated in formal music lessons scored significantly better on the verbal memory task when the sentences were sung than when they were spoken. Those who had not taken formal lessons showed no such benefit. We also found that increased enjoyment of music and heightened emotional reactions to music did not impact performance on the memory task. These compelling findings provide the first evidence that musical experience may enhance verbal memory in individuals with WS and shed more light on the complex relationship between aspects of cognition and altered neurodevelopment in this unique disorder. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Brain Activation and Deactivation during Location and Color Working Memory Tasks in 11-13-Year-Old Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vuontela, Virve; Steenari, Maija-Riikka; Aronen, Eeva T.; Korvenoja, Antti; Aronen, Hannu J.; Carlson, Synnove

2009-01-01

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and n-back tasks we investigated whether, in 11-13-year-old children, spatial (location) and nonspatial (color) information is differentially processed during visual attention (0-back) and working memory (WM) (2-back) tasks and whether such cognitive task performance, compared to a resting state,…

Neural response to working memory demand predicts neurocognitive deficits in HIV.

PubMed

Cohen, Ronald A; Siegel, S; Gullett, J M; Porges, E; Woods, A J; Huang, H; Zhu, Y; Tashima, K; Ding, M-Z

2018-06-01

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) continues to have adverse effects on cognition and the brain in many infected people, despite a reduced incidence of HIV-associated dementia with combined antiretroviral therapy (cART). Working memory is often affected, along with attention, executive control, and cognitive processing speed. Verbal working memory (VWM) requires the interaction of each of the cognitive component processes along with a phonological loop for verbal repetition and rehearsal. HIV-related functional brain response abnormalities during VWM are evident in functional MRI (fMRI), though the neural substrate underlying these neurocognitive deficits is not well understood. The current study addressed this by comparing 24 HIV+ to 27 demographically matched HIV-seronegative (HIV-) adults with respect to fMRI activation on a VWM paradigm (n-back) relative to performance on two standardized tests of executive control, attention and processing speed (Stroop and Trail Making A-B). As expected, the HIV+ group had deficits on these neurocognitive tests compared to HIV- controls, and also differed in neural response on fMRI relative to neuropsychological performance. Reduced activation in VWM task-related brain regions on the 2-back was associated with Stroop interference deficits in HIV+ but not with either Trail Making A or B performance. Activation of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) of the default mode network during rest was associated with Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-2 (HVLT-2) learning in HIV+. These effects were not observed in the HIV- controls. Reduced dynamic range of neural response was also evident in HIV+ adults when activation on the 2-back condition was compared to the extent of activation of the default mode network during periods of rest. Neural dynamic range was associated with both Stroop and HVLT-2 performance. These findings provide evidence that HIV-associated alterations in neural activation induced by VWM demands and during rest differentially predict executive-attention and verbal learning deficits. That the Stroop, but not Trail Making was associated with VWM activation suggests that attentional regulation difficulties in suppressing interference and/or conflict regulation are a component of working memory deficits in HIV+ adults. Alterations in neural dynamic range may be a useful index of the impact of HIV on functional brain response and as a fMRI metric in predicting cognitive outcomes.

Transfer after Dual n-Back Training Depends on Striatal Activation Change.

PubMed

Salminen, Tiina; Kühn, Simone; Frensch, Peter A; Schubert, Torsten

2016-09-28

The dual n-back working memory (WM) training paradigm (comprising auditory and visual stimuli) has gained much attention since studies have shown widespread transfer effects. By including a multimodal dual-task component, the task is demanding to the human cognitive system. We investigated whether dual n-back training improves general cognitive resources or a task-specific WM updating process in participants. We expected: (1) widespread transfer effects and the recruitment of a common neuronal network by the training and the transfer tasks and (2) narrower transfer results and that a common activation network alone would not produce transfer, but instead an activation focus on the striatum, which is associated with WM updating processes. The training group showed transfer to an untrained dual-modality WM updating task, but not to single-task versions of the training or the transfer task. They also showed diminished neuronal overlap between the training and the transfer task from pretest to posttest and an increase in striatal activation in both tasks. Furthermore, we found an association between the striatal activation increase and behavioral improvement. The control groups showed no transfer and no change in the amount of activation overlap or in striatal activation from pretest to posttest. We conclude that, instead of improving general cognitive resources (which would have required a transfer effect to all transfer tasks and that a frontal activation overlap between the tasks produced transfer), dual n-back training improved a task-specific process: WM updating of stimuli from two modalities. The current study allows for a better understanding of the cognitive and neural effects of working memory (WM) training and transfer. It shows that dual n-back training mainly improves specific processes of WM updating, and this improvement leads to narrow transfer effects to tasks involving the same processes. On a neuronal level this is accompanied by increased neural activation in the striatum that is related to WM updating. The current findings challenge the view that dual n-back training provokes a general boosting of the WM system and of its neural underpinnings located in frontoparietal brain regions. Instead, the findings imply the relevance of task-specific brain regions which are involved in important cognitive processes during training and transfer tasks. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/3610198-16$15.00/0.

Sequence-specific procedural learning deficits in children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Hsu, Hsinjen Julie; Bishop, Dorothy V M

2014-05-01

This study tested the procedural deficit hypothesis of specific language impairment (SLI) by comparing children's performance in two motor procedural learning tasks and an implicit verbal sequence learning task. Participants were 7- to 11-year-old children with SLI (n = 48), typically developing age-matched children (n = 20) and younger typically developing children matched for receptive grammar (n = 28). In a serial reaction time task, the children with SLI performed at the same level as the grammar-matched children, but poorer than age-matched controls in learning motor sequences. When tested with a motor procedural learning task that did not involve learning sequential relationships between discrete elements (i.e. pursuit rotor), the children with SLI performed comparably with age-matched children and better than younger grammar-matched controls. In addition, poor implicit learning of word sequences in a verbal memory task (the Hebb effect) was found in the children with SLI. Together, these findings suggest that SLI might be characterized by deficits in learning sequence-specific information, rather than generally weak procedural learning. © 2014 The Authors. Developmental Science Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Transcranial direct current stimulation can enhance working memory in Huntington's disease.

PubMed

Eddy, Clare M; Shapiro, Kimron; Clouter, Andrew; Hansen, Peter C; Rickards, Hugh E

2017-07-03

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with a cognitive task can enhance targeted aspects of cognitive functioning in clinical populations. The movement disorder Huntington's disease (HD) is associated with progressive cognitive impairment. Deficits in working memory (WM) can be apparent early in the disease and impact functional capacity. We investigated whether tDCS combined with cognitive training could improve WM in patients with HD, and if baseline clinical or cognitive measures may predict efficacy. Twenty participants with HD completed this crossover trial, undergoing 1.5mA anodal tDCS over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and sham stimulation on separate visits. Participants and assessor were blinded to condition order, which was randomised across participants. All participants completed baseline clinical and cognitive assessments. Pre- and post-stimulation tasks included digit reordering, computerised n-back tests and a Stroop task. During 15min of tDCS/sham stimulation, participants practiced 1- and 2-back WM tasks. Participants exhibited an increase in WM span on the digit re-ordering span task from pre- to post-stimulation after tDCS, but not after sham stimulation. Gains in WM were positively related to motor symptom ratings and negatively associated with verbal fluency scores. Patients with more severe motor symptoms showed greatest improvement, suggesting that motor symptom ratings may help identify patients who are most likely to benefit from tDCS. Dorsolateral prefrontal tDCS appears well tolerated in HD and enhances WM span compared to sham stimulation. Our findings strongly encourage further investigation of the extent to which tDCS combined with cognitive training could enhance everyday function in HD. ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT02216474 Brain stimulation in Movement Disorders; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02216474. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The effect of instructions on postural-suprapostural interactions in three working memory tasks.

PubMed

Burcal, Christopher J; Drabik, Evan C; Wikstrom, Erik A

2014-06-01

Examining postural control while simultaneously performing a cognitive, or suprapostural task, has shown a fairly consistent trend of improving postural control in young healthy adults and provides insight into postural control mechanisms used in everyday life. However, the role of attention driven by explicit verbal instructions while dual-tasking is less understood. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation is to determine the effects of explicit verbal instructions on the postural-suprapostural interactions among various domains of working memory. A total of 22 healthy young adults with a heterogeneous history of ankle sprains volunteered to participate (age: 22.2±5.1 years; n=10 history of ankle sprains, n=12 no history). Participants were asked to perform single-limb balance trials while performing three suprapostural tasks: backwards counting, random number generation, and the manikin test. In addition, each suprapostural task was completed under three conditions of instruction: no instructions, focus on the postural control task, focus on the suprapostural task. The results indicate a significant effect of instructions on postural control outcomes, with postural performance improving in the presence of instructions across all three cognitive tasks which each stress different aspects of working memory. Further, postural-suprapostural interactions appear to be related to the direction or focus of an individual's attention as instructions to focus on the suprapostural task resulted in the greatest postural control improvements.Thus, attention driven by explicit verbal instructions influence postural-suprapostural interactions as measured by a temporal-spatial postural control outcome, time-to-boundary, regardless of the suprapostural task performed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cognitive-linguistic effort in multidisciplinary stroke rehabilitation: Decreasing vs. increasing cues for word retrieval.

PubMed

Choe, Yu-Kyong; Foster, Tammie; Asselin, Abigail; LeVander, Meagan; Baird, Jennifer

2017-04-01

Approximately 24% of stroke survivors experience co-occurring aphasia and hemiparesis. These individuals typically attend back-to-back therapy sessions. However, sequentially scheduled therapy may trigger physical and mental fatigue and have an adverse impact on treatment outcomes. The current study tested a hypothesis that exerting less effort during a therapy session would reduce overall fatigue and enhance functional recovery. Two stroke survivors chronically challenged by non-fluent aphasia and right hemiparesis sequentially completed verbal naming and upper-limb tasks on their home computers. The level of cognitive-linguistic effort in speech/language practice was manipulated by presenting verbal naming tasks in two conditions: Decreasing cues (i.e., most-to-least support for word retrieval), and Increasing cues (i.e., least-to-most support). The participants completed the same upper-limb exercises throughout the study periods. Both individuals showed a statistically significant advantage of decreasing cues over increasing cues in word retrieval during the practice period, but not at the end of the practice period or thereafter. The participant with moderate aphasia and hemiparesis achieved clinically meaningful gains in upper-limb functions following the decreasing cues condition, but not after the increasing cues condition. Preliminary findings from the current study suggest a positive impact of decreasing cues in the context of multidisciplinary stroke rehabilitation.

From an Executive Network to Executive Control: A Computational Model of the "n"-Back Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chatham, Christopher H.; Herd, Seth A.; Brant, Angela M.; Hazy, Thomas E.; Miyake, Akira; O'Reilly, Randy; Friedman, Naomi P.

2011-01-01

A paradigmatic test of executive control, the n-back task, is known to recruit a widely distributed parietal, frontal, and striatal "executive network," and is thought to require an equally wide array of executive functions. The mapping of functions onto substrates in such a complex task presents a significant challenge to any theoretical…

Verbal memory and verbal fluency tasks used for language localization and lateralization during magnetoencephalography.

PubMed

Pirmoradi, Mona; Jemel, Boutheina; Gallagher, Anne; Tremblay, Julie; D'Hondt, Fabien; Nguyen, Dang Khoa; Béland, Renée; Lassonde, Maryse

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to develop a presurgical magnetoencephalography (MEG) protocol to localize and lateralize expressive and receptive language function as well as verbal memory in patients with epilepsy. Two simple language tasks and a different analytical procedure were developed. Ten healthy participants and 13 epileptic patients completed two language tasks during MEG recording: a verbal memory task and a verbal fluency task. As a first step, principal component analyses (PCA) were performed on source data from the group of healthy participants to identify spatiotemporal factors that were relevant to these paradigms. Averaged source data were used to localize areas activated during each task and a laterality index (LI) was computed on an individual basis for both groups, healthy participants and patients, using sensor data. PCA revealed activation in the left temporal lobe (300 ms) during the verbal memory task, and from the frontal lobe (210 ms) to the temporal lobe (500 ms) during the verbal fluency task in healthy participants. Averaged source data showed activity in the left hemisphere (250-750 ms), in Wernicke's area, for all participants. Left hemisphere dominance was demonstrated better using the verbal memory task than the verbal fluency task (F1,19=4.41, p=0.049). Cohen's kappa statistic revealed 93% agreement (k=0.67, p=0.002) between LIs obtained from MEG sensor data and fMRI, the IAT, electrical cortical stimulation or handedness with the verbal memory task for all participants. At 74%, agreement results for the verbal fluency task did not reach statistical significance. Analysis procedures yielded interesting findings with both tasks and localized language-related activation. However, based on source localization and laterality indices, the verbal memory task yielded better results in the context of the presurgical evaluation of epileptic patients. The verbal fluency task did not add any further information to the verbal memory task as regards language localization and lateralization for most patients and healthy participants that would facilitate decision making prior to surgery. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Naturalistic Assessment of Everyday Activities and Prompting Technologies in Mild Cognitive Impairment

PubMed Central

Seelye, Adriana M.; Schmitter-Edgecombe, Maureen; Cook, Diane J.; Crandall, Aaron

2014-01-01

Older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) often have difficulty performing complex instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), which are critical to independent living. In this study, amnestic multi-domain MCI (N = 29), amnestic single-domain MCI (N = 18), and healthy older participants (N = 47) completed eight scripted IADLs (e.g., cook oatmeal on the stove) in a smart apartment testbed. We developed and experimented with a graded hierarchy of technology-based prompts to investigate both the amount of prompting and type of prompts required to assist individuals with MCI in completing the activities. When task errors occurred, progressive levels of assistance were provided, starting with the lowest level needed to adjust performance. Results showed that the multi-domain MCI group made more errors and required more prompts than the single-domain MCI and healthy older adult groups. Similar to the other two groups, the multi-domain MCI group responded well to the indirect prompts and did not need a higher level of prompting to get back on track successfully with the tasks. Need for prompting assistance was best predicted by verbal memory abilities in multi-domain amnestic MCI. Participants across groups indicated that they perceived the prompting technology to be very helpful. PMID:23351284

Sex differences in episodic memory: the impact of verbal and visuospatial ability.

PubMed

Herlitz, A; Airaksinen, E; Nordström, E

1999-10-01

The impact of verbal and visuospatial ability on sex differences in episodic memory was investigated. One hundred men and 100 women, 2040 years old, participated in a series of verbal and visuospatial tasks. Episodic memory was assessed in tasks that, to a greater or lesser extent, were verbal or visuospatial in nature. Results showed that women excelled in verbal production tasks and that men performed at a superior level on a mental rotation task. In addition, women tended to perform at a higher level than men on most episodic memory tasks. Taken together, the results demonstrated that (a) women perform at a higher level than men on most verbal episodic memory tasks and on some episodic memory tasks with a visuospatial component, and (b) women's higher performance on episodic memory tasks cannot fully be explained by their superior performance on verbal production tasks.

The similar effects of verbal and non-verbal intervening tasks on word recall in an elderly population.

PubMed

Williams, B R; Sullivan, S K; Morra, L F; Williams, J R; Donovick, P J

2014-01-01

Vulnerability to retroactive interference has been shown to increase with cognitive aging. Consistent with the findings of memory and aging literature, the authors of the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) suggest that a non-verbal task be administered during the test's delay interval to minimize the effects of retroactive interference on delayed recall. The goal of the present study was to determine the extent to which retroactive interference caused by non-verbal and verbal intervening tasks affects recall of verbal information in non-demented, older adults. The effects of retroactive interference on recall of words during Long-Delay recall on the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) were evaluated. Participants included 85 adults age 60 and older. During a 20-minute delay interval on the CVLT-II, participants received either a verbal (WAIS-III Vocabulary or Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IIIB) or non-verbal (Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices or WAIS-III Block Design) intervening task. Similarly to previous research with young adults (Williams & Donovick, 2008), older adults recalled the same number of words across all groups, regardless of the type of intervening task. These findings suggest that the administration of verbal intervening tasks during the CVLT-II do not elicit more retroactive interference than non-verbal intervening tasks, and thus verbal tasks need not be avoided during the delay interval of the CVLT-II.

Theory of mind in SLI revisited: links with syntax, comparisons with ASD.

PubMed

Durrleman, Stephanie; Burnel, Morgane; Reboul, Anne

2017-11-01

According to the linguistic determinism approach, knowledge of sentential complements such as: John says that the earth is flat plays a crucial role in theory of mind (ToM) development by providing a means to represent explicitly people's mental attitudes and beliefs. This approach predicts that mastery of complements determines successful belief reasoning across explicit ToM tasks, even low-verbal ones, and across populations. (1) To investigate the link between a low-verbal ToM-task and complements in Specific Language Impairment (SLI), (2) To determine whether this population shows similar ToM performance to that of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or those with Typical Development (TD) once these groups are matched on competency for complements, (3) To explore whether complements conveying a falsehood without jeopardizing the veracity of the entire sentence, such as complements of verbs of communication, are more crucial for belief attribution than complements which do not have this property, namely complements of verbs of perception, (?John sees that the earth is flat). Children with SLI (n = 20), with ASD (n = 34) and TD (n = 30) completed sentence-picture-matching tasks assessing complementation with communication and perception verbs, as well as a picture-sequencing task assessing ToM. Children were furthermore evaluated for general grammatical and lexical abilities and non-verbal IQ. Results reveal that competency on complements relates to ToM performance with a low-verbal task in SLI, and that SLI, ASD and TD groups of equivalent performance on complements also perform similarly for ToM. Results further suggest that complements with an independent truth-value are the only ones to show a significant relation to ToM performance after teasing out the impact of non-verbal reasoning. This study suggests that clinical groups of different aetiologies as well as TD children perform comparably for ToM once they have similar complementation skills. Findings further highlight that specific types of complements, namely those with an independent truth value, relate in a special way to mentalizing. Future work should determine whether these specific structures could be effective in ToM remediation programmes. © 2017 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Source Reconstruction of Brain Potentials Using Bayesian Model Averaging to Analyze Face Intra-Domain vs. Face-Occupation Cross-Domain Processing

PubMed Central

Olivares, Ela I.; Lage-Castellanos, Agustín; Bobes, María A.; Iglesias, Jaime

2018-01-01

We investigated the neural correlates of the access to and retrieval of face structure information in contrast to those concerning the access to and retrieval of person-related verbal information, triggered by faces. We experimentally induced stimulus familiarity via a systematic learning procedure including faces with and without associated verbal information. Then, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in both intra-domain (face-feature) and cross-domain (face-occupation) matching tasks while N400-like responses were elicited by incorrect eyes-eyebrows completions and occupations, respectively. A novel Bayesian source reconstruction approach plus conjunction analysis of group effects revealed that in both cases the generated N170s were of similar amplitude but had different neural origin. Thus, whereas the N170 of faces was associated predominantly to right fusiform and occipital regions (the so-called “Fusiform Face Area”, “FFA” and “Occipital Face Area”, “OFA”, respectively), the N170 of occupations was associated to a bilateral very posterior activity, suggestive of basic perceptual processes. Importantly, the right-sided perceptual P200 and the face-related N250 were evoked exclusively in the intra-domain task, with sources in OFA and extensively in the fusiform region, respectively. Regarding later latencies, the intra-domain N400 seemed to be generated in right posterior brain regions encompassing mainly OFA and, to some extent, the FFA, likely reflecting neural operations triggered by structural incongruities. In turn, the cross-domain N400 was related to more anterior left-sided fusiform and temporal inferior sources, paralleling those described previously for the classic verbal N400. These results support the existence of differentiated neural streams for face structure and person-related verbal processing triggered by faces, which can be activated differentially according to specific task demands. PMID:29628877

Neural correlates of training and transfer effects in working memory in older adults.

PubMed

Heinzel, Stephan; Lorenz, Robert C; Pelz, Patricia; Heinz, Andreas; Walter, Henrik; Kathmann, Norbert; Rapp, Michael A; Stelzel, Christine

2016-07-01

As indicated by previous research, aging is associated with a decline in working memory (WM) functioning, related to alterations in fronto-parietal neural activations. At the same time, previous studies showed that WM training in older adults may improve the performance in the trained task (training effect), and more importantly, also in untrained WM tasks (transfer effects). However, neural correlates of these transfer effects that would improve understanding of its underlying mechanisms, have not been shown in older participants as yet. In this study, we investigated blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes during n-back performance and an untrained delayed recognition (Sternberg) task following 12sessions (45min each) of adaptive n-back training in older adults. The Sternberg task used in this study allowed to test for neural training effects independent of specific task affordances of the trained task and to separate maintenance from updating processes. Thirty-two healthy older participants (60-75years) were assigned either to an n-back training or a no-contact control group. Before (t1) and after (t2) training/waiting period, both the n-back task and the Sternberg task were conducted while BOLD signal was measured using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) in all participants. In addition, neuropsychological tests were performed outside the scanner. WM performance improved with training and behavioral transfer to tests measuring executive functions, processing speed, and fluid intelligence was found. In the training group, BOLD signal in the right lateral middle frontal gyrus/caudal superior frontal sulcus (Brodmann area, BA 6/8) decreased in both the trained n-back and the updating condition of the untrained Sternberg task at t2, compared to the control group. fMRI findings indicate a training-related increase in processing efficiency of WM networks, potentially related to the process of WM updating. Performance gains in untrained tasks suggest that transfer to other cognitive tasks remains possible in aging. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially

PubMed Central

Liegel, Nathalie; Zovko, Monika; Wentura, Dirk

2017-01-01

Abstract Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end, we investigated the modulation of masked pictorial vs verbal priming by previously activated perceptual vs semantic task sets and assessed the electrophysiological correlates of priming using event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects showed a differential modulation of pictorial and verbal subliminal priming by previously activated task sets: Pictorial priming was only observed during the perceptual but not during the semantic task set. Verbal priming, in contrast, was found when either task set was activated. Furthermore, only verbal priming was associated with a modulation of the N400 ERP component, an index of semantic processing, whereas a priming-related modulation of earlier ERPs, indexing visuo-motor S-R activation, was found for both picture and words. The results thus demonstrate that different neuro-cognitive processes contribute to unconscious evaluative priming depending on the stimulus format. PMID:27998994

A comparison of mental strategies during athletic skills performance.

PubMed

Peluso, Eugenio A; Ross, Michael J; Gfeller, Jeffrey D; Lavoie, Donna J

2005-12-01

The current study examined the effects of performance enhancement techniques (PET's) on motor skill performance. Specifically, one hundred fifty college student volunteers (Men = 41; 27.3% and Women = 109; 72.6%) were randomly assigned to one of the nine conditions (Cond): Cond 1 and 2, simultaneous, externally verbalized self-talk or imagery (e.g., participants were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery out loud while putting); Cond 3 and 4, delayed externally verbalized self-talk or imagery (e.g., participants were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery out loud before putting); Cond 5 and 6, simultaneous, internally verbalized self-talk or imagery (e.g., participants were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery silently to oneself while putting); Cond 7 and 8, delayed internally verbalized (e.g., participant were instructed to say "aim, back, birdie "or engaged in imagery silently to oneself before putting); and Cond 9, no instruction control group. All participants were asked to perform a golf-putting task. Results indicated that participants who implemented several (PET's) increased their putting accuracy across overall difference score evaluations F (8, 141) = 4.01, p < 0.05 when compared to a no instruction control condition. Follow-up analyses indicated that participants who reportedly engaged in ten hours or less of athletic activities per week preferred self-talk strategies F (2, 119) = 4.38, p < 0.05 whereas participants who endorsed ten hours or more of athletic activity per week preferred imagery strategies F (2, 25) = 5.27, p < 0.05. Key PointsMental imagery and self-talk strategies are implemented by athletes in order to regulate arousal, reduce maladaptive behaviors, reconstruct negative thoughts, and to increase one's concentration and focus.Results of the current study suggest that participants who engaged in several performance enhancement techniques exhibited enhanced performance on a golf putting task when compared to participants in a control condition.Participants who endorsed limited athletic familiarity and activity (e.g., ten hours or less) preferred self-talk practice whereas participants who endorsed higher ratings scores of athletic familiarity and activity (e.g., ten hours or more) preferred imagery strategies.The results of this study demonstrate the flexibility of Performance Enhancement Techniques (e.g., imagery v. self-talk, internal v. external, simultaneous v. delayed) and how they can be implemented to help an athlete reach his or her full potential.

The long-term effects of prenatal nicotine exposure on verbal working memory: an fMRI study of young adults.

PubMed

A Longo, Carmelinda; A Fried, Peter; Cameron, Ian; M Smith, Andra

2014-11-01

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the long-term effects of prenatal nicotine exposure on verbal working memory were investigated in young adults. Participants were members of the Ottawa Prenatal Prospective Study, a longitudinal study that collected a unique body of information on participants from infancy to young adulthood. This allowed for the measurement of an unprecedented number of potentially confounding drug exposure variables including: prenatal marijuana and alcohol exposure and current marijuana, nicotine and alcohol use. Twelve young adults with prenatal nicotine exposure and 13 non-exposed controls performed a 2-Back working memory task while fMRI blood oxygen level-dependent responses were examined. Despite similar task performance, participants with more prenatal nicotine exposure demonstrated significantly greater activity in several regions of the brain that typically subserve verbal working memory including the middle frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, the inferior parietal lobe and the cingulate gyrus. These results suggest that prenatal nicotine exposure contributes to altered neural functioning during verbal working memory that continues into adulthood. Working memory is critical for a wide range of cognitive skills such as language comprehension, learning and reasoning. Thus, these findings highlight the need for continued educational programs and public awareness campaigns to reduce tobacco use among pregnant women. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Brain activation and deactivation during location and color working memory tasks in 11-13-year-old children.

PubMed

Vuontela, Virve; Steenari, Maija-Riikka; Aronen, Eeva T; Korvenoja, Antti; Aronen, Hannu J; Carlson, Synnöve

2009-02-01

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and n-back tasks we investigated whether, in 11-13-year-old children, spatial (location) and nonspatial (color) information is differentially processed during visual attention (0-back) and working memory (WM) (2-back) tasks and whether such cognitive task performance, compared to a resting state, results in regional deactivation. The location 0-back task, compared to the color 0-back task, activated segregated areas in the frontal, parietal and occipital cortices whereas no differentially activated voxels were obtained when location and color 2-back tasks were directly contrasted. Several midline cortical areas were less active during 0- and 2-back task performance than resting state. The task-induced deactivation increased with task difficulty as demonstrated by larger deactivation during 2-back than 0-back tasks. The results suggest that, in 11-13-year-old children, the visual attentional network is differently recruited by spatial and nonspatial information processing, but the functional organization of cortical activation in WM in this age group is not based on the type of information processed. Furthermore, 11-13-year-old children exhibited a similar pattern of cortical deactivation that has been reported in adults during cognitive task performance compared to a resting state.

Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Cognitive Performance Among Young Adults in a Higher Education Setting.

PubMed

Ludyga, Sebastian; Gerber, Markus; Brand, Serge; Pühse, Uwe; Colledge, Flora

2018-06-01

Acute benefits of aerobic exercise on executive functioning have been reported frequently under laboratory conditions. However, to date, a beneficial effect on long-term memory has been less well supported and no data are available regarding nonlaboratory conditions in young adults. The aim of the current study was to investigate acute effects of aerobic exercise on cognitive functioning in a university classroom setting. Using a cross-over design, 51 participants performed a bout of moderately intense running (RUN) and read an article while seated (CON). Afterwards, they completed free-recall tests, followed by a Flanker task and an n-back task. Participants in the RUN condition compared with those in the CON condition showed shorter reaction time on the inhibition task, F(1, 50) = 5.59, p = .022, η 2  = .101, and recalled more words in the immediate- and delayed-recall tests, F(1, 50) = 8.40, p = .006, η 2  = .144. The present findings suggest that a moderately intense bout of aerobic exercise benefits verbal short-term and long-term memory as well as inhibitory control among students in a classroom setting.

Event-related potentials in homosexual and heterosexual men and women: sex-dimorphic patterns in verbal asymmetries and mental rotation.

PubMed

Wegesin, D J

1998-02-01

To elucidate neurobiological factors related to gender and sexual orientation, event-related brain potentials of 20 heterosexual (HT) men, 20 HT women, 20 homosexual (HM) men, and 20 HM women were examined for neurophysiological differences. Cognitive tasks which typically elicit sex differences were administered. A mental rotation (MR) task assessed spatial ability, and a divided-visual-field lexical-decision/semantic monitoring task (LD/SM) assessed verbal ability and relative degrees of language lateralization. Slow wave activity recorded during MR was greater for HT men than for HT women and gay men. N400 asymmetries recorded during the LD/SM task revealed differences between men and women, but no intrasex differences. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Developmental Trajectories of Executive and Verbal Processes in Children with Phenylketonuria.

PubMed

Hawks, Zoë W; Strube, Michael J; Johnson, Neco X; Grange, Dorothy K; White, Desirée A

2018-01-01

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a hereditary disorder characterized by disrupted phenylalanine metabolism and cognitive impairment. However, the precise nature and developmental trajectory of this cognitive impairment remains unclear. The present study used a verbal fluency task to dissociate executive and verbal processes in children with PKU (n = 23; 7-18 years) and controls (n = 44; 7-19 years). Data were collected at three longitudinal timepoints over a three-year period, and the contributions of age, group, and their interaction to fluency performance were evaluated. Results indicated impairments in executive processes in children with PKU, which were exacerbated by declining metabolic control.

The Effects of Rational and Irrational Self-Verbalizations on Performance Efficiency and Levels of Anxiety.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rosin, Lindsay; Nelson, W. M. III

1983-01-01

Investigated effects of rational vs. irrational belief systems and rational vs. irrational self-verbalizations on anxiety and persistence. Subjects (N=40) were instructed to assemble a virtually insolvable task called Soma, and were assigned to either a rational or irrational self-talk condition. Rational self-talk subjects showed a significant…

Visuospatial and verbal memory in mental arithmetic.

PubMed

Clearman, Jack; Klinger, Vojtěch; Szűcs, Dénes

2017-09-01

Working memory allows complex information to be remembered and manipulated over short periods of time. Correlations between working memory and mathematics achievement have been shown across the lifespan. However, only a few studies have examined the potentially distinct contributions of domain-specific visuospatial and verbal working memory resources in mental arithmetic computation. Here we aimed to fill this gap in a series of six experiments pairing addition and subtraction tasks with verbal and visuospatial working memory and interference tasks. In general, we found higher levels of interference between mental arithmetic and visuospatial working memory tasks than between mental arithmetic and verbal working memory tasks. Additionally, we found that interference that matched the working memory domain of the task (e.g., verbal task with verbal interference) lowered working memory performance more than mismatched interference (verbal task with visuospatial interference). Findings suggest that mental arithmetic relies on domain-specific working memory resources.

Age-Related Effects of Study Time Allocation on Memory Performance in a Verbal and a Spatial Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krueger, Lacy E.

2012-01-01

Past studies have suggested that study time allocation partially mediates age relations on memory performance in a verbal task. To identify whether this applied to a different material modality, participants ages 20-87 completed a spatial task in addition to a traditional verbal task. In both the verbal and the spatial task, increased age was…

Dynamic range of frontoparietal functional modulation is associated with working memory capacity limitations in older adults.

PubMed

Hakun, Jonathan G; Johnson, Nathan F

2017-11-01

Older adults tend to over-activate regions throughout frontoparietal cortices and exhibit a reduced range of functional modulation during WM task performance compared to younger adults. While recent evidence suggests that reduced functional modulation is associated with poorer task performance, it remains unclear whether reduced range of modulation is indicative of general WM capacity-limitations. In the current study, we examined whether the range of functional modulation observed over multiple levels of WM task difficulty (N-Back) predicts in-scanner task performance and out-of-scanner psychometric estimates of WM capacity. Within our sample (60-77years of age), age was negatively associated with frontoparietal modulation range. Individuals with greater modulation range exhibited more accurate N-Back performance. In addition, despite a lack of significant relationships between N-Back and complex span task performance, range of frontoparietal modulation during the N-Back significantly predicted domain-general estimates of WM capacity. Consistent with previous cross-sectional findings, older individuals with less modulation range exhibited greater activation at the lowest level of task difficulty but less activation at the highest levels of task difficulty. Our results are largely consistent with existing theories of neurocognitive aging (e.g. CRUNCH) but focus attention on dynamic range of functional modulation asa novel marker of WM capacity-limitations in older adults. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Quantification of Load Dependent Brain Activity in Parametric N-Back Working Memory Tasks using Pseudo-continuous Arterial Spin Labeling (pCASL) Perfusion Imaging.

PubMed

Zou, Qihong; Gu, Hong; Wang, Danny J J; Gao, Jia-Hong; Yang, Yihong

2011-04-01

Brain activation and deactivation induced by N-back working memory tasks and their load effects have been extensively investigated using positron emission tomography (PET) and blood-oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, the underlying mechanisms of BOLD fMRI are still not completely understood and PET imaging requires injection of radioactive tracers. In this study, a pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) perfusion imaging technique was used to quantify cerebral blood flow (CBF), a well understood physiological index reflective of cerebral metabolism, in N-back working memory tasks. Using pCASL, we systematically investigated brain activation and deactivation induced by the N-back working memory tasks and further studied the load effects on brain activity based on quantitative CBF. Our data show increased CBF in the fronto-parietal cortices, thalamus, caudate, and cerebellar regions, and decreased CBF in the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, during the working memory tasks. Most of the activated/deactivated brain regions show an approximately linear relationship between CBF and task loads (0, 1, 2 and 3 back), although several regions show non-linear relationships (quadratic and cubic). The CBF-based spatial patterns of brain activation/deactivation and load effects from this study agree well with those obtained from BOLD fMRI and PET techniques. These results demonstrate the feasibility of ASL techniques to quantify human brain activity during high cognitive tasks, suggesting its potential application to assessing the mechanisms of cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders.

Neurophysiological Modulations of Non-Verbal and Verbal Dual-Tasks Interference during Word Planning.

PubMed

Fargier, Raphaël; Laganaro, Marina

2016-01-01

Running a concurrent task while speaking clearly interferes with speech planning, but whether verbal vs. non-verbal tasks interfere with the same processes is virtually unknown. We investigated the neural dynamics of dual-task interference on word production using event-related potentials (ERPs) with either tones or syllables as concurrent stimuli. Participants produced words from pictures in three conditions: without distractors, while passively listening to distractors and during a distractor detection task. Production latencies increased for tasks with higher attentional demand and were longer for syllables relative to tones. ERP analyses revealed common modulations by dual-task for verbal and non-verbal stimuli around 240 ms, likely corresponding to lexical selection. Modulations starting around 350 ms prior to vocal onset were only observed when verbal stimuli were involved. These later modulations, likely reflecting interference with phonological-phonetic encoding, were observed only when overlap between tasks was maximal and the same underlying neural circuits were engaged (cross-talk).

Attenuation of ketamine-induced impairment in verbal learning and memory in healthy volunteers by the AMPA receptor potentiator PF-04958242.

PubMed

Ranganathan, M; DeMartinis, N; Huguenel, B; Gaudreault, F; Bednar, M M; Shaffer, C L; Gupta, S; Cahill, J; Sherif, M A; Mancuso, J; Zumpano, L; D'Souza, D C

2017-11-01

There is a need to develop treatments for cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS). The significant role played by N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) in both the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and in neuronal plasticity suggests that facilitation of NMDAR function might ameliorate CIAS. One strategy to correct NMDAR hypofunction is to stimulate α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptors (AMPARs) as AMPAR and NMDAR functioning are coupled and interdependent. In rats and nonhuman primates (NHP), AMPAR potentiators reduce spatial working memory deficits caused by the nonselective NMDAR antagonist ketamine. The current study assessed whether the AMPAR potentiator PF-04958242 would attenuate ketamine-induced deficits in verbal learning and memory in humans. Healthy male subjects (n=29) participated in two randomized treatment periods of daily placebo or PF-04958242 for 5 days separated by a washout period. On day 5 of each treatment period, subjects underwent a ketamine infusion for 75 min during which the effects of PF-04958242/placebo were assessed on ketamine-induced: (1) impairments in verbal learning and recall measured by the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test; (2) impairments in working memory on a CogState battery; and (3) psychotomimetic effects measured by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and Clinician-Administered Dissociative Symptoms Scale. PF-04958242 significantly reduced ketamine-induced impairments in immediate recall and the 2-Back and spatial working memory tasks (CogState Battery), without significantly attenuating ketamine-induced psychotomimetic effects. There were no pharmacokinetic interactions between PF-04958242 and ketamine. Furthermore, PF-04958242 was well tolerated. 'High-impact' AMPAR potentiators like PF-04958242 may have a role in the treatment of the cognitive symptoms, but not the positive or negative symptoms, associated with schizophrenia. The excellent concordance between the preclinical (rat, NHP) and human studies with PF-04958242, and in silico modeling of AMPAR-NMDAR interactions in the hippocampus, highlights the translational value of this study.

Interaction of threat and verbal working memory in adolescents.

PubMed

Patel, Nilam; Vytal, Katherine; Pavletic, Nevia; Stoodley, Catherine; Pine, Daniel S; Grillon, Christian; Ernst, Monique

2016-04-01

Threat induces a state of sustained anxiety that can disrupt cognitive processing, and, reciprocally, cognitive processing can modulate an anxiety response to threat. These effects depend on the level of cognitive engagement, which itself varies as a function of task difficulty. In adults, we recently showed that induced anxiety impaired working memory accuracy at low and medium but not high load. Conversely, increasing the task load reduced the physiological correlates of anxiety (anxiety-potentiated startle). The present work examines such threat-cognition interactions as a function of age. We expected threat to more strongly impact working memory in younger individuals by virtue of putatively restricted cognitive resources and weaker emotion regulation. This was tested by examining the influence of age on the interaction of anxiety and working memory in 25 adolescents (10 to 17 years) and 25 adults (22 to 46 years). Working memory load was manipulated using a verbal n-back task. Anxiety was induced using the threat of an aversive loud scream and measured via eyeblink startle. Findings revealed that, in both age groups, accuracy was lower during threat than safe conditions at low and medium but not high load, and reaction times were faster during threat than safe conditions at high load but did not differ at other loads. Additionally, anxiety-potentiated startle was greater during low and medium than high load. Thus, the interactions of anxiety with working memory appear similar in adolescents and adults. Whether these similarities reflect common neural mechanisms would need to be assessed using functional neuroimaging. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

The Monkey game: A computerized verbal working memory task for self-reliant administration in primary school children.

PubMed

Van de Weijer-Bergsma, Eva; Kroesbergen, Evelyn H; Jolani, Shahab; Van Luit, Johannes E H

2016-06-01

In two studies, the psychometric properties of an online self-reliant verbal working memory task (the Monkey game) for primary school children (6-12 years of age) were examined. In Study 1, children (n = 5,203) from 31 primary schools participated. The participants completed computerized verbal and visual-spatial working memory tasks (i.e., the Monkey game and the Lion game) and a paper-and-pencil version of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Reading comprehension and math achievement test scores were obtained from the schools. First, the internal consistency of the Monkey game was examined. Second, multilevel modeling was used to examine the effects of classroom membership. Multilevel multivariate regression analysis was used to examine the Monkey game's concurrent relationship with the Lion game and its predictive relationships with reading comprehension and math achievement. Also, age-related differences in performance were examined. In Study 2, the concurrent relationships between the Monkey game and two tester-led computerized working memory tasks were further examined (n = 140). Also, the 1- and 2-year stability of the Monkey game was investigated. The Monkey game showed excellent internal consistency, good concurrent relationships with the other working memory measures, and significant age differences in performance. Performance on the Monkey game was also predictive of subsequent reading comprehension and mathematics performance, even after controlling for individual differences in intelligence. Performance on the Monkey game was influenced by classroom membership. The Monkey game is a reliable and suitable instrument for the online computerized and self-reliant assessment of verbal working memory in primary school children.

The Influence of Learning Strategies in the Acquisition, Retention, and Transfer of a Procedural Task.

DTIC Science & Technology

1979-08-01

Lockhart , R. S. Levels of processing : A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1972, 11, 671-684. Craik , F. I. M...learning and memory research. In F. I. f. Craik & L. S. Cermak (Eds.), Levels of processing and theories of memory. Hillsdale, N. J.: Erlbaum, 1978...R. N., Gerson, R. F., & Kim, K. Information processing capabilities in performers differing in levels of motor skill. (Tech. Rep. TR-79-A4). a

A common neural substrate for language production and verbal working memory.

PubMed

Acheson, Daniel J; Hamidi, Massihullah; Binder, Jeffrey R; Postle, Bradley R

2011-06-01

Verbal working memory (VWM), the ability to maintain and manipulate representations of speech sounds over short periods, is held by some influential models to be independent from the systems responsible for language production and comprehension [e.g., Baddeley, A. D. Working memory, thought, and action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007]. We explore the alternative hypothesis that maintenance in VWM is subserved by temporary activation of the language production system [Acheson, D. J., & MacDonald, M. C. Verbal working memory and language production: Common approaches to the serial ordering of verbal information. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 50-68, 2009b]. Specifically, we hypothesized that for stimuli lacking a semantic representation (e.g., nonwords such as mun), maintenance in VWM can be achieved by cycling information back and forth between the stages of phonological encoding and articulatory planning. First, fMRI was used to identify regions associated with two different stages of language production planning: the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) for phonological encoding (critical for VWM of nonwords) and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) for lexical-semantic retrieval (not critical for VWM of nonwords). Next, in the same subjects, these regions were targeted with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) during language production and VWM task performance. Results showed that rTMS to the pSTG, but not the MTG, increased error rates on paced reading (a language production task) and on delayed serial recall of nonwords (a test of VWM). Performance on a lexical-semantic retrieval task (picture naming), in contrast, was significantly sensitive to rTMS of the MTG. Because rTMS was guided by language production-related activity, these results provide the first causal evidence that maintenance in VWM directly depends on the long-term representations and processes used in speech production.

Effects of Steady-State Noise on Verbal Working Memory in Young Adults

PubMed Central

Alt, Mary; DeDe, Gayle; Olson, Sarah; Shehorn, James

2015-01-01

Purpose We set out to examine the impact of perceptual, linguistic, and capacity demands on performance of verbal working-memory tasks. The Ease of Language Understanding model (Rönnberg et al., 2013) provides a framework for testing the dynamics of these interactions within the auditory-cognitive system. Methods Adult native speakers of English (n = 45) participated in verbal working-memory tasks requiring processing and storage of words involving different linguistic demands (closed/open set). Capacity demand ranged from 2 to 7 words per trial. Participants performed the tasks in quiet and in speech-spectrum-shaped noise. Separate groups of participants were tested at different signal-to-noise ratios. Word-recognition measures were obtained to determine effects of noise on intelligibility. Results Contrary to predictions, steady-state noise did not have an adverse effect on working-memory performance in every situation. Noise negatively influenced performance for the task with high linguistic demand. Of particular importance is the finding that the adverse effects of background noise were not confined to conditions involving declines in recognition. Conclusions Perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive demands can dynamically affect verbal working-memory performance even in a population of healthy young adults. Results suggest that researchers and clinicians need to carefully analyze task demands to understand the independent and combined auditory-cognitive factors governing performance in everyday listening situations. PMID:26384291

Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially.

PubMed

Kiefer, Markus; Liegel, Nathalie; Zovko, Monika; Wentura, Dirk

2017-04-01

Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end, we investigated the modulation of masked pictorial vs verbal priming by previously activated perceptual vs semantic task sets and assessed the electrophysiological correlates of priming using event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects showed a differential modulation of pictorial and verbal subliminal priming by previously activated task sets: Pictorial priming was only observed during the perceptual but not during the semantic task set. Verbal priming, in contrast, was found when either task set was activated. Furthermore, only verbal priming was associated with a modulation of the N400 ERP component, an index of semantic processing, whereas a priming-related modulation of earlier ERPs, indexing visuo-motor S-R activation, was found for both picture and words. The results thus demonstrate that different neuro-cognitive processes contribute to unconscious evaluative priming depending on the stimulus format. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Verbal Fluency in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Clustering and Switching Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Begeer, Sander; Wierda, Marlies; Scheeren, Anke M.; Teunisse, Jan-Pieter; Koot, Hans M.; Geurts, Hilde M.

2014-01-01

This study highlights differences in cognitive strategies in children and adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorders (n = 52) on a verbal fluency task (naming as many words as possible (e.g. animals) within 60 s). The ability to form clusters of words (e.g. farm animals like "cow-horse-goat") or to switch between unrelated…

Personality traits prospectively predict verbal fluency in a lifespan sample.

PubMed

Sutin, Angelina R; Terracciano, Antonio; Kitner-Triolo, Melissa H; Uda, Manuela; Schlessinger, David; Zonderman, Alan B

2011-12-01

In a community-dwelling sample (N = 4,790; age range 14-94), we examined whether personality traits prospectively predicted performance on a verbal fluency task. Open, extraverted, and emotionally stable participants had better verbal fluency. At the facet level, dispositionally happy and self-disciplined participants retrieved more words; those prone to anxiety and depression and those who were deliberative retrieved fewer words. Education moderated the association between conscientiousness and fluency such that participants with lower education performed better on the fluency task if they were also conscientious. Age was not a moderator at the domain level, indicating that the personality-fluency associations were consistent across the life span. A disposition toward emotional vulnerability and being less open, less happy, and undisciplined may be detrimental to cognitive performance.

Personality Traits Prospectively Predict Verbal Fluency in a Lifespan Sample

PubMed Central

Sutin, Angelina R.; Terracciano, Antonio; Kitner-Triolo, Melissa H.; Uda, Manuela; Schlessinger, David; Zonderman, Alan B.

2011-01-01

In a community-dwelling sample (N=4,790; age range 14–94), we examined whether personality traits prospectively predicted performance on a verbal fluency task. Open, extraverted, and emotionally stable participants had better verbal fluency. At the facet level, dispositionally happy and self-disciplined participants retrieved more words; those prone to anxiety and depression and those who were deliberative retrieved fewer words. Education moderated the association between Conscientiousness and fluency such that participants with lower education performed better on the fluency task if they were also conscientious. Age was not a moderator at the domain level, indicating that the personality-fluency associations were consistent across the lifespan. A disposition towards emotional vulnerability and being less open, less happy, and undisciplined may be detrimental to cognitive performance. PMID:21707179

Working Memory Profiles in HIV-Exposed, Uninfected and HIV-Infected Children: A Comparison with Neurotypical Controls

PubMed Central

Milligan, Robyn; Cockcroft, Kate

2017-01-01

This study compared the working memory profiles of three groups of children, namely HIV-infected (HIV-I; n = 95), HIV-exposed, uninfected (HIV-EU; n = 86) and an HIV-unexposed, uninfected, (HIV-UU; n = 92) neurotypical control group. Working memory, an executive function, plays an important role in frontal lobe-controlled behaviors, such as motivation, planning, decision making, and social interaction, and is a strong predictor of academic success in school children. Memory impairments have been identified in HIV-I children, particularly in visuospatial processing. Verbal working memory has not been commonly investigated in this population, while it is unknown how the working memory profiles of HIV-EU children compare to their HIV-I and HIV-UU peers. Of interest was whether the working memory profiles of the HIV-EU children would be more similar to the HIV-I group or to the uninfected control group. The results revealed no significant differences in working memory performance between the HIV-I and HIV-EU groups. However, this does not mean that the etiology of the working memory deficits is the same in the two groups, as these groups showed important differences when compared to the control group. In comparison to the controls, the HIV-I group experienced difficulties with processing tasks irrespective of whether they drew on a verbal or visuospatial modality. This appears to stem from a generalized executive function deficit that also interferes with working memory. In the HIV-EU group, difficulties occurred with verbally based tasks, irrespective of whether they required storage or processing. For this group, the dual demands of complex processing and using a second language seem to result in demand exceeding capacity on verbal tasks. Both groups experienced the greatest difficulties with verbal processing tasks for these different reasons. Thus, disruption of different cognitive abilities could result in similar working memory profiles, as evidenced in this study. This has implications for the underlying developmental neurobiology of HIV-I and HIV-EU children, as well the choice of appropriate measures to assist affected children. PMID:28729828

Interference with olfactory memory by visual and verbal tasks.

PubMed

Annett, J M; Cook, N M; Leslie, J C

1995-06-01

It has been claimed that olfactory memory is distinct from memory in other modalities. This study investigated the effectiveness of visual and verbal tasks in interfering with olfactory memory and included methodological changes from other recent studies. Subjects were allocated to one of four experimental conditions involving interference tasks [no interference task; visual task; verbal task; visual-plus-verbal task] and presented 15 target odours. Either recognition of the odours or free recall of the odour names was tested on one occasion, either within 15 minutes of presentation or one week later. Recognition and recall performance both showed effects of interference of visual and verbal tasks but there was no effect for time of testing. While the results may be accommodated within a dual coding framework, further work is indicated to resolve theoretical issues relating to task complexity.

Oscillatory lower body negative pressure impairs working memory task-related functional hyperemia in healthy volunteers.

PubMed

Merchant, Sana; Medow, Marvin S; Visintainer, Paul; Terilli, Courtney; Stewart, Julian M

2017-04-01

Neurovascular coupling (NVC) describes the link between an increase in task-related neural activity and increased cerebral blood flow denoted "functional hyperemia." We previously showed induced cerebral blood flow oscillations suppressed functional hyperemia; conversely functional hyperemia also suppressed cerebral blood flow oscillations. We used lower body negative pressure (OLBNP) oscillations to force oscillations in middle cerebral artery cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFv). Here, we used N-back testing, an intellectual memory challenge as a neural activation task, to test the hypothesis that OLBNP-induced oscillatory cerebral blood flow can reduce functional hyperemia and NVC produced by a working memory task and can interfere with working memory. We used OLBNP (-30 mmHg) at 0.03, 0.05, and 0.10 Hz and measured spectral power of CBFv at all frequencies. Neither OLBNP nor N-back, alone or combined, affected hemodynamic parameters. 2-Back power and OLBNP individually were compared with 2-back power during OLBNP. 2-Back alone produced a narrow band increase in oscillatory arterial pressure (OAP) and oscillatory cerebral blood flow power centered at 0.0083 Hz. Functional hyperemia in response to 2-back was reduced to near baseline and 2-back memory performance was decreased by 0.03-, 0.05-, and 0.10-Hz OLBNP. OLBNP alone produced increased oscillatory power at frequencies of oscillation not suppressed by added 2-back. However, 2-back preceding OLBNP suppressed OLBNP power. OLBNP-driven oscillatory CBFv blunts NVC and memory performance, while memory task reciprocally interfered with forced CBFv oscillations. This shows that induced cerebral blood flow oscillations suppress functional hyperemia and functional hyperemia suppresses cerebral blood flow oscillations. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We show that induced cerebral blood flow oscillations suppress functional hyperemia produced by a working memory task as well as memory task performance. We conclude that oscillatory cerebral blood flow produces causal reductions of memory task neurovascular coupling and memory task performance. Reductions of functional hyperemia are constrained by autoregulation. Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood

PubMed Central

Payne, Brennan R.; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A. L.

2017-01-01

Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM) have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study (N = 41), we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults. PMID:28848421

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood.

PubMed

Payne, Brennan R; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L

2017-01-01

Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM) have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study ( N = 41), we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults.

Auditory Cortical Plasticity Drives Training-Induced Cognitive Changes in Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Dale, Corby L.; Brown, Ethan G.; Fisher, Melissa; Herman, Alexander B.; Dowling, Anne F.; Hinkley, Leighton B.; Subramaniam, Karuna; Nagarajan, Srikantan S.; Vinogradov, Sophia

2016-01-01

Schizophrenia is characterized by dysfunction in basic auditory processing, as well as higher-order operations of verbal learning and executive functions. We investigated whether targeted cognitive training of auditory processing improves neural responses to speech stimuli, and how these changes relate to higher-order cognitive functions. Patients with schizophrenia performed an auditory syllable identification task during magnetoencephalography before and after 50 hours of either targeted cognitive training or a computer games control. Healthy comparison subjects were assessed at baseline and after a 10 week no-contact interval. Prior to training, patients (N = 34) showed reduced M100 response in primary auditory cortex relative to healthy participants (N = 13). At reassessment, only the targeted cognitive training patient group (N = 18) exhibited increased M100 responses. Additionally, this group showed increased induced high gamma band activity within left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex immediately after stimulus presentation, and later in bilateral temporal cortices. Training-related changes in neural activity correlated with changes in executive function scores but not verbal learning and memory. These data suggest that computerized cognitive training that targets auditory and verbal learning operations enhances both sensory responses in auditory cortex as well as engagement of prefrontal regions, as indexed during an auditory processing task with low demands on working memory. This neural circuit enhancement is in turn associated with better executive function but not verbal memory. PMID:26152668

Cerebral hemodynamic lateralization during memory tasks as assessed by functional transcranial Doppler (fTCD) sonography: effects of gender and healthy aging.

PubMed

Bracco, Laura; Bessi, Valentina; Alari, Fabiana; Sforza, Angela; Barilaro, Alessandro; Marinoni, Marinella

2011-06-01

Previous neuropsychological, lesional and functional imaging studies deal with the lateralization of memory processes, suggesting that they could be determined by the stage of processing (encoding vs retrieval) or by content (verbal vs non-verbal stimuli). The aims of the present study were: 1) to investigate if tasks that can be carried out using different strategies depending on the verbalizability of the material induce a lateralization of the mean cerebral blood flow velocity (mCBFV) in the middle cerebral arteries (MCAs), as monitored by a functional transcranial Doppler (fTCD); 2) to evaluate if these patterns of cerebral activation differ in relation to age, gender and task performance. Using TCD bilateral monitoring, we recorded mCBFV variations in 35 male and 35 female healthy, right-handed volunteers, classified as "young" (age range 21-40 years, n=35) or "old"(age range 41-60 years, n=35), performing four different cognitive tasks: encoding and recognition of Geometric Figures (GF), encoding and recall of Object Localization (OL) on a picture, encoding of a verbal Room Description (RD) and Arithmetic Skill (AS). We found a significant right lateralization for the OL recall phase, and a significant left lateralization for RD and AS. When we took into consideration gender, age and performance, there was a strong effect of age on both OL encoding and recall phase, with significant right lateralization in young volunteers not seen in the older ones. No difference in gender was detected. We found a gender×performance interaction for RD, with poor performance females showing significant left lateralization. According to our findings, hemispheric lateralization during memory encoding is material specific in both men and women, depending on the verbalizability of the material. mCBFV right lateralization during scene encoding and recall appears lost in older people, suggesting that healthy elderly could take advantage of mixed verbal and non-verbal strategies. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

Is the hand to speech what speech is to the hand?

PubMed

Mildner, V

2000-01-01

Interference between the manual and the verbal performance on two types of concurrent verbal-manual tasks was studied on a sample of 48 female right-handers. The more complex verbal task (storytelling) affected both hands significantly, the less complex (essentially phonemic) task affected only the right hand, with insignificant negative influence on the left-hand performance. No significant reciprocal effects of the motor task on verbalization were found.

Safety analysis of patient transfers and handling tasks.

PubMed

Vieira, Er; Kumar, S

2009-10-01

Low-back disorders are related to biomechanical demands, and nurses are among the professionals with the highest rates. Quantification of risk factors is important for safety assessment and reduction of low-back disorders. This study aimed to quantify physical demands of frequent nursing tasks and provide evidence-based recommendations to increase low-back safety. Thirty-six volunteer female nurses participated in a cross-sectional study of nine nursing tasks. Lumbar range of motion (ROM) and motion during nursing tasks were measured. Compression and shear forces at L5/S1, ligament strain and percentage of population without sufficient torso strength to perform 14 phases of nine nursing tasks were estimated. Peak flexions during trolley-to-bed, bed-to-chair and chair-to-bed transfers reached the maximum flexion ROM of the nurses. Average lumbar flexion during trolley-to-bed transfers was >50% of flexion ROM, being higher than during all other tasks. Mean (SD) compression at L5/S1 (4754 N (437 N)) and population without sufficient torso strength (37% (9%)) were highest during the pushing phase of bed-to-trolley transfers. Shear force (487 N (40 N)) and ligament strain (14% (5%)) were highest during the pulling phase of trolley-to-bed transfers. Nursing tasks impose high biomechanical demands on the lumbar spine. Excessive lumbar flexion and forces are critical aspects of manual transfers requiring most of the nurses' capabilities. Evidence-based recommendations to improve low-back safety in common nursing tasks were provided. Fitness to work, job modifications and training programs can now be designed and assessed based on the results.

When Do Visual and Verbal Memories Conflict?: The Importance of Working-Memory Load and Retrieval

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morey, Candice C.; Cowan, Nelson

2005-01-01

Examinations of interference between verbal and visual materials in working memory have produced mixed results. If there is a central form of storage (e.g., the focus of attention; N. Cowan, 2001), then cross-domain interference should be obtained. The authors examined this question with a visual-array comparison task (S. J. Luck & E. K. Vogel,…

Do actions speak louder than words? Examining children's ability to follow instructions.

PubMed

Waterman, Amanda H; Atkinson, Amy L; Aslam, Sadia S; Holmes, Joni; Jaroslawska, Agnieszka; Allen, Richard J

2017-08-01

The ability to encode, retain, and implement instructions within working memory is central to many behaviours, including classroom activities which underpin learning. The three experiments presented here explored how action-planned, enacted, and observed-impacted 6- to 10-year-old's ability to follow instructions. Experiment 1 (N = 81) found enacted recall was superior to verbal recall, but self-enactment at encoding had a negative effect on enacted recall and verbal recall. In contrast, observation of other-enactment (demonstration) at encoding facilitated both types of recall (Experiment 2a: N = 81). Further, reducing task demands through a reduced set of possible actions (Experiment 2b; N = 64) led to a positive effect of self-enactment at encoding for later recall (both verbal and enacted). Expecting to enact at recall may lead to the creation of an imaginal spatial-motoric plan at encoding that boosts later recall. However, children's ability to use the additional spatial-motoric codes generated via self-enactment at encoding depends on the demands the task places on central executive resources. Demonstration at encoding appears to reduce executive demands and enable use of these additional forms of coding.

Attachment Anxiety, Verbal Immediacy, and Blood Pressure: Results from a Laboratory-Analogue Study Following Marital Separation

PubMed Central

Lee, Lauren A.; Sbarra, David A.; Mason, Ashley E.; Law, Rita W.

2011-01-01

Marital separation and divorce increase risk for all-cause morbidity and mortality. Using a laboratory analogue paradigm, the present study examined attachment anxiety, language use, and blood pressure (BP) reactivity among 119 (n = 43 men, 76 women) recently separated adults who were asked to mentally reflect on their relationship history and separation experience. We created a language use composite of verbal immediacy from participants’ stream-of-consciousness recordings about their separation experience as a behavioral index of attachment-related hyperactivation. Verbal immediacy moderated the association between attachment anxiety and BP at the beginning of a divorce-specific activation task. Participants reporting high attachment anxiety who discussed their separation in a first-person, present-oriented and highly engaged manner evidenced the highest levels of BP at the start of the divorce-specific task. Results provide a deeper understanding of the association between marital dissolution and health and suggest that verbal immediacy may be a useful behavioral index of hyperactivating coping strategies. PMID:21647240

Attachment Anxiety, Verbal Immediacy, and Blood Pressure: Results from a Laboratory-Analogue Study Following Marital Separation.

PubMed

Lee, Lauren A; Sbarra, David A; Mason, Ashley E; Law, Rita W

2011-06-01

Marital separation and divorce increase risk for all-cause morbidity and mortality. Using a laboratory analogue paradigm, the present study examined attachment anxiety, language use, and blood pressure (BP) reactivity among 119 (n = 43 men, 76 women) recently separated adults who were asked to mentally reflect on their relationship history and separation experience. We created a language use composite of verbal immediacy from participants' stream-of-consciousness recordings about their separation experience as a behavioral index of attachment-related hyperactivation. Verbal immediacy moderated the association between attachment anxiety and BP at the beginning of a divorce-specific activation task. Participants reporting high attachment anxiety who discussed their separation in a first-person, present-oriented and highly engaged manner evidenced the highest levels of BP at the start of the divorce-specific task. Results provide a deeper understanding of the association between marital dissolution and health and suggest that verbal immediacy may be a useful behavioral index of hyperactivating coping strategies.

Distinct alterations in value-based decision-making and cognitive control in suicide attempters: toward a dual neurocognitive model.

PubMed

Richard-Devantoy, Stéphane; Olié, Emilie; Guillaume, Sébastien; Bechara, Antoine; Courtet, Philippe; Jollant, Fabrice

2013-12-01

The literature suggests that many suicide attempters show impairment in both decision-making and cognitive control. However, it is not clear if these deficits are linked to each other, and if they may be related to more basic alterations in attention. This is a relevant question in the perspective of future interventions targeting cognitive deficits to prevent suicidal acts. Two different populations of patients with histories of suicide attempts were assessed (N=142 and 119). The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) was used to measure decision-making in both populations. We used a D2 cancellation task and a verbal working memory task in population 1; the Stroop test, the N-Back task, the Trail Making Test, and the Hayling Sentence Completion test in population 2. Regarding decision-making, we only found a small negative correlation between the Hayling test error score (r=-0.24; p=0.01), and the net score from the second half of the IGT. In contrast, working memory, cognitive flexibility and cognitive inhibition measures were largely inter-correlated. Most patients were medicated. Only patients with mood disorders. These results add to previous findings suggesting that the neurocognitive vulnerability to suicidal behavior may rely on impairments in two distinct anatomical systems, one processing value-based decision-making (associated with ventral prefrontal cortex, among others) and one underlying cognitive control (associated with more dorsal prefrontal regions). This distinction may result in tailored-made cognitive interventions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing in task-switching situations: the impact of task practice and task-sequencing demands.

PubMed

Kray, Jutta; Gaspard, Hanna; Karbach, Julia; Blaye, Agnès

2013-01-01

In this study we examined whether developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing for task-goal maintenance are dependent on the amount of task practice and task-sequencing demands. To measure task-goal maintenance we applied a switching paradigm in which children either performed only task A or B in single-task blocks or switched between them on every second trial in mixed-task blocks. Task-goal maintenance was determined by comparing the performance between both blocks (mixing costs). The influence of verbal self-cueing was measured by instructing children to either name the next task aloud or not to verbalize during task preparation. Task-sequencing demands were varied between groups whereas one group received spatial task cues to support keeping track of the task sequence, while the other group did not. We also varied by the amount of prior practice in task switching while one group of participants practiced task switching first, before performing the task naming in addition, and the other group did it vice versa. Results of our study investigating younger (8-10 years) and older children (11-13 years) revealed no age differences in beneficial effects of verbal self-cueing. In line with previous findings, children showed reduced mixing costs under task-naming instructions and under conditions of low task-sequence demands (with the presence of spatial task cues). Our results also indicated that these benefits were only obtained for those groups of children that first received practice in task switching alone with no additional verbalization instruction. These findings suggest that internal task-cueing strategies can be efficiently used in children but only if they received prior practice in the underlying task so that demands on keeping and coordinating various instructions are reduced. Moreover, children benefitted from spatial task cues for better task-goal maintenance only if no verbal task-cueing strategy was introduced first.

Memory and language improvements following cognitive control training.

PubMed

Hussey, Erika K; Harbison, J Isaiah; Teubner-Rhodes, Susan E; Mishler, Alan; Velnoskey, Kayla; Novick, Jared M

2017-01-01

Cognitive control refers to adjusting thoughts and actions when confronted with conflict during information processing. We tested whether this ability is causally linked to performance on certain language and memory tasks by using cognitive control training to systematically modulate people's ability to resolve information-conflict across domains. Different groups of subjects trained on 1 of 3 minimally different versions of an n-back task: n-back-with-lures (High-Conflict), n-back-without-lures (Low-Conflict), or 3-back-without-lures (3-Back). Subjects completed a battery of recognition memory and language processing tasks that comprised both high- and low-conflict conditions before and after training. We compared the transfer profiles of (a) the High- versus Low-Conflict groups to test how conflict resolution training contributes to transfer effects, and (b) the 3-Back versus Low-Conflict groups to test for differences not involving cognitive control. High-Conflict training-but not Low-Conflict training-produced discernable benefits on several untrained transfer tasks, but only under selective conditions requiring cognitive control. This suggests that the conflict-focused intervention influenced functioning on ostensibly different outcome measures across memory and language domains. 3-Back training resulted in occasional improvements on the outcome measures, but these were not selective for conditions involving conflict resolution. We conclude that domain-general cognitive control mechanisms are plastic, at least temporarily, and may play a causal role in linguistic and nonlinguistic performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

False-Belief Understanding in 2.5-Year-Olds: Evidence from Two Novel Verbal Spontaneous-Response Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scott, Rose M.; He, Zijing; Baillargeon, Renee; Cummins, Denise

2012-01-01

Recent research indicates that toddlers and infants succeed at various "non-verbal" spontaneous-response false-belief tasks; here we asked whether toddlers would also succeed at verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks that imposed significant linguistic demands. We tested 2.5-year-olds using two novel tasks: a "preferential-looking" task in…

A Meta-analysis of Cerebellar Contributions to Higher Cognition from PET and fMRI studies

PubMed Central

Keren-Happuch, E; Chen, Shen-Hsing Annabel; Ho, Moon-Ho Ringo; Desmond, John E.

2013-01-01

A growing interest in cerebellar function and its involvement in higher cognition have prompted much research in recent years. Cerebellar presence in a wide range of cognitive functions examined within an increasing body of neuroimaging literature has been observed. We applied a meta-analytic approach, which employed the activation likelihood estimate method, to consolidate results of cerebellar involvement accumulated in different cognitive tasks of interest and systematically identified similarities among the studies. The current analysis included 88 neuroimaging studies demonstrating cerebellar activations in higher cognitive domains involving emotion, executive function, language, music, timing and working memory. While largely consistent with a prior meta-analysis by Stoodley and Schmahmann (2009), our results extended their findings to include music and timing domains to provide further insights into cerebellar involvement and elucidate its role in higher cognition. In addition, we conducted inter- and intra-domain comparisons for the cognitive domains of emotion, language and working memory. We also considered task differences within the domain of verbal working memory by conducting a comparison of the Sternberg with the n-back task, as well as an analysis of the differential components within the Sternberg task. Results showed a consistent cerebellar presence in the timing domain, providing evidence for a role in time keeping. Unique clusters identified within the domain further refine the topographic organization of the cerebellum. PMID:23125108

A coordinate-based ALE functional MRI meta-analysis of brain activation during verbal fluency tasks in healthy control subjects

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The processing of verbal fluency tasks relies on the coordinated activity of a number of brain areas, particularly in the frontal and temporal lobes of the left hemisphere. Recent studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural networks subserving verbal fluency functions have yielded divergent results especially with respect to a parcellation of the inferior frontal gyrus for phonemic and semantic verbal fluency. We conducted a coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis on brain activation during the processing of phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks involving 28 individual studies with 490 healthy volunteers. Results For phonemic as well as for semantic verbal fluency, the most prominent clusters of brain activation were found in the left inferior/middle frontal gyrus (LIFG/MIFG) and the anterior cingulate gyrus. BA 44 was only involved in the processing of phonemic verbal fluency tasks, BA 45 and 47 in the processing of phonemic and semantic fluency tasks. Conclusions Our comparison of brain activation during the execution of either phonemic or semantic verbal fluency tasks revealed evidence for spatially different activation in BA 44, but not other regions of the LIFG/LMFG (BA 9, 45, 47) during phonemic and semantic verbal fluency processing. PMID:24456150

Noninvasive optical evaluation of low frequency oscillations in prefrontal cortex hemodynamics during verbal working memory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Ting; Zhao, Yue; Li, Kai; Sun, Yunlong

2014-03-01

The low frequency oscillation (LFO) around 0.1 Hz has been observed recently in cerebral hemodynamic signals during rest/sleep, enhanced breathing, and head- up-tilting, showing that cerebral autoregulation can be accessed by LFOs. However, many brain function researches require direct measurement of LFOs during specified brain function activities. This pilot study explored using near-infrared spectroscopy/imaging (NIRS) to noninvasively and simultaneously detect LFOs of prefrontal cerebral hemodynamics (i.e., oxygenated/deoxygenated/total hemoglobin concentration: △[oxy-Hb]/ △[deoxy-Hb]/ △[tot-Hb]) during N-back visual verbal working memory task. The LFOs were extracted from the measured variables using power spectral analysis. We found the brain activation sites struck clear LFOs while other sites did not. The LFO of △[deoxy-Hb] acted as a negative pike and ranged in (0.05, 0.1) Hz, while LFOs of △[oxy-Hb] and △[tot-Hb] acted as a positive pike and ranged in (0.1, 0.15) Hz. The amplitude difference and frequency lag between △[deoxy-Hb] and △[oxy-Hb]/ △[tot-Hb] produced a more focused and sensitive activation map compare to hemodynamic amplitude-quantified activation maps. This study observed LFOs in brain activities and showed strong potential of LFOs in accessing brain functions.

Verbal working memory-related functional connectivity alterations in boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the effects of methylphenidate.

PubMed

Wu, Zhao-Min; Bralten, Janita; An, Li; Cao, Qing-Jiu; Cao, Xiao-Hua; Sun, Li; Liu, Lu; Yang, Li; Mennes, Maarten; Zang, Yu-Feng; Franke, Barbara; Hoogman, Martine; Wang, Yu-Feng

2017-08-01

Few studies have investigated verbal working memory-related functional connectivity patterns in participants with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Thus, we aimed to compare working memory-related functional connectivity patterns in healthy children and those with ADHD, and study effects of methylphenidate (MPH). Twenty-two boys with ADHD were scanned twice, under either MPH (single dose, 10 mg) or placebo, in a randomised, cross-over, counterbalanced placebo-controlled design. Thirty healthy boys were scanned once. We used fMRI during a numerical n-back task to examine functional connectivity patterns in case-control and MPH-placebo comparisons, using independent component analysis. There was no significant difference in behavioural performance between children with ADHD, treated with MPH or placebo, and healthy controls. Compared with controls, participants with ADHD under placebo showed increased functional connectivity within fronto-parietal and auditory networks, and decreased functional connectivity within the executive control network. MPH normalized the altered functional connectivity pattern and significantly enhanced functional connectivity within the executive control network, though in non-overlapping areas. Our study contributes to the identification of the neural substrates of working memory. Single dose of MPH normalized the altered brain functional connectivity network, but had no enhancing effect on (non-impaired) behavioural performance.

Context-dependent switching between proactive and reactive working memory control mechanisms in the right inferior frontal gyrus.

PubMed

Marklund, Petter; Persson, Jonas

2012-11-15

A critical feature of higher cognitive functioning is the capacity to flexibly tailor information processing and behaviors to current situational demands. Recent neurocognitive models have been postulated to account for the dynamic nature of human executive processing by invoking two dissociable cognitive control modes, proactive and reactive control. These may involve partially overlapping, but temporally distinct neural implementation in the prefrontal cortex. Prior brain imaging studies exploring proactive control have mainly used tasks requiring only information about single-items to be retained over unfilled delays. Whether proactive control can also be utilized to facilitate performance in more complex working memory tasks, in which concurrent processing of intervening items and updating is mandatory during contextual cue maintenance remains an open question. To examine this issue and to elucidate the extent to which overlapping neural substrates underlie proactive and reactive control we used fMRI and a modified verbal 3-back paradigm with embedded cues predictive of high-interference trials. This task requires context information to be retained over multiple intervening trials. We found that performance improved with item-specific cues predicting forthcoming lures despite increased working memory load. Temporal dynamics of activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus suggest flexible switching between proactive and reactive control in a context-dependent fashion, with greater sustained responses elicited in the 3-back task involving context maintenance of cue information and greater transient responses elicited in the 3-back task absent of cues. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neurocognitive and Behavioral Predictors of Math Performance in Children with and without ADHD

PubMed Central

Antonini, Tanya N.; O’Brien, Kathleen M.; Narad, Megan E.; Langberg, Joshua M.; Tamm, Leanne; Epstein, Jeff N.

2014-01-01

Objective: This study examined neurocognitive and behavioral predictors of math performance in children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method: Neurocognitive and behavioral variables were examined as predictors of 1) standardized mathematics achievement scores,2) productivity on an analog math task, and 3) accuracy on an analog math task. Results: Children with ADHD had lower achievement scores but did not significantly differ from controls on math productivity or accuracy. N-back accuracy and parent-rated attention predicted math achievement. N-back accuracy and observed attention predicted math productivity. Alerting scores on the Attentional Network Task predicted math accuracy. Mediation analyses indicated that n-back accuracy significantly mediated the relationship between diagnostic group and math achievement. Conclusion: Neurocognition, rather than behavior, may account for the deficits in math achievement exhibited by many children with ADHD. PMID:24071774

Neurocognitive and Behavioral Predictors of Math Performance in Children With and Without ADHD.

PubMed

Antonini, Tanya N; Kingery, Kathleen M; Narad, Megan E; Langberg, Joshua M; Tamm, Leanne; Epstein, Jeffery N

2016-02-01

This study examined neurocognitive and behavioral predictors of math performance in children with and without ADHD. Neurocognitive and behavioral variables were examined as predictors of (a) standardized mathematics achievement scores, (b) productivity on an analog math task, and (c) accuracy on an analog math task. Children with ADHD had lower achievement scores but did not significantly differ from controls on math productivity or accuracy. N-back accuracy and parent-rated attention predicted math achievement. N-back accuracy and observed attention predicted math productivity. Alerting scores on the attentional network task predicted math accuracy. Mediation analyses indicated that n-back accuracy significantly mediated the relationship between diagnostic group and math achievement. Neurocognition, rather than behavior, may account for the deficits in math achievement exhibited by many children with ADHD. © The Author(s) 2013.

Verbal communication improves laparoscopic team performance.

PubMed

Shiliang Chang; Waid, Erin; Martinec, Danny V; Bin Zheng; Swanstrom, Lee L

2008-06-01

The impact of verbal communication on laparoscopic team performance was examined. A total of 24 dyad teams, comprised of residents, medical students, and office staff, underwent 2 team tasks using a previously validated bench model. Twelve teams (feedback groups) received instant verbal instruction and feedback on their performance from an instructor which was compared with 12 teams (control groups) with minimal or no verbal feedback. Their performances were both video and audio taped for analysis. Surgical backgrounds were similar between feedback and control groups. Teams with more verbal feedback achieved significantly better task performance (P = .002) compared with the control group with less feedback. Impact of verbal feedback was more pronounced for tasks requiring team cooperation (aiming and navigation) than tasks depending on individual skills (knotting). Verbal communication, especially the instructions and feedback from an experienced instructor, improved team efficiency and performance.

Interactive Effects of Dopamine Baseline Levels and Cycle Phase on Executive Functions: The Role of Progesterone.

PubMed

Hidalgo-Lopez, Esmeralda; Pletzer, Belinda

2017-01-01

Estradiol and progesterone levels vary along the menstrual cycle and have multiple neuroactive effects, including on the dopaminergic system. Dopamine relates to executive functions in an "inverted U-shaped" manner and its levels are increased by estradiol. Accordingly, dopamine dependent changes in executive functions along the menstrual cycle have been previously studied in the pre-ovulatory phase, when estradiol levels peak. Specifically it has been demonstrated that working memory is enhanced during the pre-ovulatory phase in women with low dopamine baseline levels, but impaired in women with high dopamine baseline levels. However, the role of progesterone, which peaks in the luteal cycle phase, has not been taken into account previously. Therefore, the main goals of the present study were to extend these findings (i) to the luteal cycle phase and (ii) to other executive functions. Furthermore, the usefulness of the eye blink rate (EBR) as an indicator of dopamine baseline levels in menstrual cycle research was explored. 36 naturally cycling women were tested during three cycle phases (menses-low sex hormones; pre-ovulatory-high estradiol; luteal-high progesterone and estradiol). During each session, women performed a verbal N-back task, as measure of working memory, and a single trial version of the Stroop task, as measure of response inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Hormone levels were assessed from saliva samples and spontaneous eye blink rate was recorded during menses. In the N-back task, women were faster during the luteal phase the higher their progesterone levels, irrespective of their dopamine baseline levels. In the Stroop task, we found a dopamine-cycle interaction, which was also driven by the luteal phase and progesterone levels. For women with higher EBR performance decreased during the luteal phase, whereas for women with lower EBR performance improved during the luteal phase. These findings suggest an important role of progesterone in modulating dopamine-cycle interactions. Additionally, we identified the eye blink rate as a non-invasive indicator of baseline dopamine function in menstrual cycle research.

Normal-range verbal-declarative memory in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Heinrichs, R Walter; Parlar, Melissa; Pinnock, Farena

2017-10-01

Cognitive impairment is prevalent and related to functional outcome in schizophrenia, but a significant minority of the patient population overlaps with healthy controls on many performance measures, including declarative-verbal-memory tasks. In this study, we assessed the validity, clinical, and functional implications of normal-range (NR), verbal-declarative memory in schizophrenia. Performance normality was defined using normative data for 8 basic California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-II; Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober, 2000) recall and recognition trials. Schizophrenia patients (n = 155) and healthy control participants (n = 74) were assessed for performance normality, defined as scores within 1 SD of the normative mean on all 8 trials, and assigned to normal- and below-NR memory groups. NR schizophrenia patients (n = 26) and control participants (n = 51) did not differ in general verbal ability, on a reading-based estimate of premorbid ability, across all 8 CVLT-II-score comparisons or in terms of intrusion and false-positive errors and auditory working memory. NR memory patients did not differ from memory-impaired patients (n = 129) in symptom severity, and both patient groups were significantly and similarly disabled in terms of functional status in the community. These results confirm a subpopulation of schizophrenia patients with normal, verbal-declarative-memory performance and no evidence of decline from higher premorbid ability levels. However, NR patients did not experience less severe psychopathology, nor did they show advantage in community adjustment relative to impaired patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Enhanced verbal abilities in the congenitally blind.

PubMed

Occelli, Valeria; Lacey, Simon; Stephens, Careese; Merabet, Lotfi B; Sathian, K

2017-06-01

Numerous studies have found that congenitally blind individuals have better verbal memory than their normally sighted counterparts. However, it is not known whether this reflects superiority of verbal or memory abilities. In order to distinguish between these possibilities, we tested congenitally blind participants and normally sighted control participants, matched for age and education, on a range of verbal and spatial tasks. Congenitally blind participants were significantly better than sighted controls on all the verbal tasks but the groups did not differ significantly on the spatial tasks. Thus, the congenitally blind appear to have superior verbal, but not spatial, abilities. This may reflect greater reliance on verbal information and the involvement of visual cortex in language processing in the congenitally blind.

Is sleep-related verbal memory consolidation impaired in sleepwalkers?

PubMed

Uguccioni, Ginevra; Pallanca, Olivier; Golmard, Jean-Louis; Leu-Semenescu, Smaranda; Arnulf, Isabelle

2015-04-01

In order to evaluate verbal memory consolidation during sleep in subjects experiencing sleepwalking or sleep terror, 19 patients experiencing sleepwalking/sleep terror and 19 controls performed two verbal memory tasks (16-word list from the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test, and a 220- and 263-word modified story recall test) in the evening, followed by nocturnal video polysomnography (n = 29) and morning recall (night-time consolidation after 14 h, n = 38). The following morning, they were given a daytime learning task using the modified story recall test in reverse order, followed by an evening recall test after 9 h of wakefulness (daytime consolidation, n = 38). The patients experiencing sleepwalking/sleep terror exhibited more frequent awakenings during slow-wave sleep and longer wakefulness after sleep onset than the controls. Despite this reduction in sleep quality among sleepwalking/sleep terror patients, they improved their scores on the verbal tests the morning after sleep compared with the previous evening (+16 ± 33%) equally well as the controls (+2 ± 13%). The performance of both groups worsened during the daytime in the absence of sleep (-16 ± 15% for the sleepwalking/sleep terror group and -14 ± 11% for the control group). There was no significant correlation between the rate of memory consolidation and any of the sleep measures. Seven patients experiencing sleepwalking also sleep-talked during slow-wave sleep, but their sentences were unrelated to the tests or the list of words learned during the evening. In conclusion, the alteration of slow-wave sleep during sleepwalking/sleep terror does not noticeably impact on sleep-related verbal memory consolidation. © 2014 European Sleep Research Society.

Modulation of steady state functional connectivity in the default mode and working memory networks by cognitive load.

PubMed

Newton, Allen T; Morgan, Victoria L; Rogers, Baxter P; Gore, John C

2011-10-01

Interregional correlations between blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals in the resting state have been interpreted as measures of connectivity across the brain. Here we investigate whether such connectivity in the working memory and default mode networks is modulated by changes in cognitive load. Functional connectivity was measured in a steady-state verbal identity N-back task for three different conditions (N = 1, 2, and 3) as well as in the resting state. We found that as cognitive load increases, the functional connectivity within both the working memory the default mode network increases. To test whether functional connectivity between the working memory and the default mode networks changed, we constructed maps of functional connectivity to the working memory network as a whole and found that increasingly negative correlations emerged in a dorsal region of the posterior cingulate cortex. These results provide further evidence that low frequency fluctuations in BOLD signals reflect variations in neural activity and suggests interaction between the default mode network and other cognitive networks. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Questioning the rule of thumb: can verbal tasks be administered during the CVLT-II delay interval?

PubMed

Williams, Bethany R; Donovick, Peter J

2008-09-01

In the manual for the California Verbal Learning Test - II (CVLT-II), the authors suggest that nonverbal, rather than verbal, tasks be administered during the delay interval between administrations of the Short- and Long-Delay Recall trials of this test. They contend that this method minimizes the retroactive interference produced by intervening tasks. The purpose of the current study was to compare the extent to which verbal and nonverbal intervening tasks produce retroactive interference on CVLT-II List A recall following the long-delay. Participants in the present study were 120 undergraduate students. All participants completed the CVLT-II, and were randomly assigned to a group in which they were administered either a verbal (WAIS-III Vocabulary or Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - IIIB) or nonverbal (Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices or WAIS-III Block Design) intervening task during the long-delay interval of the CVLT-II. Statistical analyses revealed that regardless of the type of intervening task given, participants in all groups recalled the same number of words and produced a similar number of intrusions during the CVLT-II recall trials. This indicates that not all verbal tasks produce retroactive effects beyond those produced by nonverbal tasks.

Fully Automatic Speech-Based Analysis of the Semantic Verbal Fluency Task.

PubMed

König, Alexandra; Linz, Nicklas; Tröger, Johannes; Wolters, Maria; Alexandersson, Jan; Robert, Phillipe

2018-06-08

Semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tests are routinely used in screening for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this task, participants name as many items as possible of a semantic category under a time constraint. Clinicians measure task performance manually by summing the number of correct words and errors. More fine-grained variables add valuable information to clinical assessment, but are time-consuming. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate whether automatic analysis of the SVF could provide these as accurate as manual and thus, support qualitative screening of neurocognitive impairment. SVF data were collected from 95 older people with MCI (n = 47), Alzheimer's or related dementias (ADRD; n = 24), and healthy controls (HC; n = 24). All data were annotated manually and automatically with clusters and switches. The obtained metrics were validated using a classifier to distinguish HC, MCI, and ADRD. Automatically extracted clusters and switches were highly correlated (r = 0.9) with manually established values, and performed as well on the classification task separating HC from persons with ADRD (area under curve [AUC] = 0.939) and MCI (AUC = 0.758). The results show that it is possible to automate fine-grained analyses of SVF data for the assessment of cognitive decline. © 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Test-retest reliability of fMRI-based graph theoretical properties during working memory, emotion processing, and resting state.

PubMed

Cao, Hengyi; Plichta, Michael M; Schäfer, Axel; Haddad, Leila; Grimm, Oliver; Schneider, Michael; Esslinger, Christine; Kirsch, Peter; Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas; Tost, Heike

2014-01-01

The investigation of the brain connectome with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and graph theory analyses has recently gained much popularity, but little is known about the robustness of these properties, in particular those derived from active fMRI tasks. Here, we studied the test-retest reliability of brain graphs calculated from 26 healthy participants with three established fMRI experiments (n-back working memory, emotional face-matching, resting state) and two parcellation schemes for node definition (AAL atlas, functional atlas proposed by Power et al.). We compared the intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) of five different data processing strategies and demonstrated a superior reliability of task-regression methods with condition-specific regressors. The between-task comparison revealed significantly higher ICCs for resting state relative to the active tasks, and a superiority of the n-back task relative to the face-matching task for global and local network properties. While the mean ICCs were typically lower for the active tasks, overall fair to good reliabilities were detected for global and local connectivity properties, and for the n-back task with both atlases, smallworldness. For all three tasks and atlases, low mean ICCs were seen for the local network properties. However, node-specific good reliabilities were detected for node degree in regions known to be critical for the challenged functions (resting-state: default-mode network nodes, n-back: fronto-parietal nodes, face-matching: limbic nodes). Between-atlas comparison demonstrated significantly higher reliabilities for the functional parcellations for global and local network properties. Our findings can inform the choice of processing strategies, brain atlases and outcome properties for fMRI studies using active tasks, graph theory methods, and within-subject designs, in particular future pharmaco-fMRI studies. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Exploring Possible Neural Mechanisms of Intelligence Differences Using Processing Speed and Working Memory Tasks: An fMRI Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Waiter, Gordon D.; Deary, Ian J.; Staff, Roger T.; Murray, Alison D.; Fox, Helen C.; Starr, John M.; Whalley, Lawrence J.

2009-01-01

To explore the possible neural foundations of individual differences in intelligence test scores, we examined the associations between Raven's Matrices scores and two tasks that were administered in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) setting. The two tasks were an n-back working memory (N = 37) task and inspection time (N = 47). The…

Simultaneous acquisition of EEG and NIRS during cognitive tasks for an open access dataset.

PubMed

Shin, Jaeyoung; von Lühmann, Alexander; Kim, Do-Won; Mehnert, Jan; Hwang, Han-Jeong; Müller, Klaus-Robert

2018-02-13

We provide an open access multimodal brain-imaging dataset of simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) recordings. Twenty-six healthy participants performed three cognitive tasks: 1) n-back (0-, 2- and 3-back), 2) discrimination/selection response task (DSR) and 3) word generation (WG) tasks. The data provided includes: 1) measured data, 2) demographic data, and 3) basic analysis results. For n-back (dataset A) and DSR tasks (dataset B), event-related potential (ERP) analysis was performed, and spatiotemporal characteristics and classification results for 'target' versus 'non-target' (dataset A) and symbol 'O' versus symbol 'X' (dataset B) are provided. Time-frequency analysis was performed to show the EEG spectral power to differentiate the task-relevant activations. Spatiotemporal characteristics of hemodynamic responses are also shown. For the WG task (dataset C), the EEG spectral power and spatiotemporal characteristics of hemodynamic responses are analyzed, and the potential merit of hybrid EEG-NIRS BCIs was validated with respect to classification accuracy. We expect that the dataset provided will facilitate performance evaluation and comparison of many neuroimaging analysis techniques.

Simultaneous acquisition of EEG and NIRS during cognitive tasks for an open access dataset

PubMed Central

Shin, Jaeyoung; von Lühmann, Alexander; Kim, Do-Won; Mehnert, Jan; Hwang, Han-Jeong; Müller, Klaus-Robert

2018-01-01

We provide an open access multimodal brain-imaging dataset of simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) recordings. Twenty-six healthy participants performed three cognitive tasks: 1) n-back (0-, 2- and 3-back), 2) discrimination/selection response task (DSR) and 3) word generation (WG) tasks. The data provided includes: 1) measured data, 2) demographic data, and 3) basic analysis results. For n-back (dataset A) and DSR tasks (dataset B), event-related potential (ERP) analysis was performed, and spatiotemporal characteristics and classification results for ‘target’ versus ‘non-target’ (dataset A) and symbol ‘O’ versus symbol ‘X’ (dataset B) are provided. Time-frequency analysis was performed to show the EEG spectral power to differentiate the task-relevant activations. Spatiotemporal characteristics of hemodynamic responses are also shown. For the WG task (dataset C), the EEG spectral power and spatiotemporal characteristics of hemodynamic responses are analyzed, and the potential merit of hybrid EEG-NIRS BCIs was validated with respect to classification accuracy. We expect that the dataset provided will facilitate performance evaluation and comparison of many neuroimaging analysis techniques. PMID:29437166

Effect of task demands on dual coding of pictorial stimuli.

PubMed

Babbitt, B C

1982-01-01

Recent studies have suggested that verbal labeling of a picture does not occur automatically. Although several experiments using paired-associate tasks produced little evidence indicating the use of a verbal code with picture stimuli, the tasks were probably not sensitive to whether the codes were activated initially. It is possible that verbal labels were activated at input, but not used later in performing the tasks. The present experiment used a color-naming interference task in order to assess, with a more sensitive measure, the amount of verbal coding occurring in response to word or picture input. Subjects named the color of ink in which words were printed following either word or picture input. If verbal labeling of the input occurs, then latency of color naming should increase when the input item and color-naming word are related. The results provided substantial evidence of such verbal activation when the input items were words. However, the presence of verbal activation with picture input was a function of task demands. Activation occurred when a recall memory test was used, but not when a recognition memory test was used. The results support the conclusion that name information (labels) need not be activated during presentation of visual stimuli.

Verbal and Visuospatial Performance in Male Alcoholics: A Test of the Premature-Aging Hypothesis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shelton, M. D.; And Others

1984-01-01

Compared the levels and patterns of performance of middle-aged, hospitalized chronic alcoholics (N=36), nonalcoholic peer controls (N=36), and a group of elderly nonalcoholic men (N=24) on a paired-associate learning task. Results showed that both the alcoholics and elderly performed significantly poorer than the middle-aged control subjects. (LLL)

More attention when speaking: does it help or does it hurt?

PubMed Central

Nozari, Nazbanou; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L.

2013-01-01

Paying selective attention to a word in a multi-word utterance results in a decreased probability of error on that word (benefit), but an increased probability of error on the other words (cost). We ask whether excitation of the prefrontal cortex helps or hurts this cost. One hypothesis (the resource hypothesis) predicts a decrease in the cost due to the deployment of more attentional resources, while another (the focus hypothesis) predicts even greater costs due to further fine-tuning of selective attention. Our results are more consistent with the focus hypothesis: prefrontal stimulation caused a reliable increase in the benefit and a marginal increase in the cost of selective attention. To ensure that the effects are due to changes to the prefrontal cortex, we provide two checks: We show that the pattern of results is quite different if, instead, the primary motor cortex is stimulated. We also show that the stimulation-related benefits in the verbal task correlate with the stimulation-related benefits in an N-back task, which is known to tap into a prefrontal function. Our results shed light on how selective attention affects language production, and more generally, on how selective attention affects production of a sequence over time. PMID:24012690

Open- and Closed-Skill Exercise Interventions Produce Different Neurocognitive Effects on Executive Functions in the Elderly: A 6-Month Randomized, Controlled Trial

PubMed Central

Tsai, Chia-Liang; Pan, Chien-Yu; Chen, Fu-Chen; Tseng, Yu-Ting

2017-01-01

This study aimed to explore the effects of open- and closed-skill exercise interventions on the neurocognitive performance of executive functions in the elderly. Sixty-four healthy elderly males were randomly assigned to either a closed-skill (bike riding or brisk walking/jogging, n = 22), open-skill (table tennis, n = 21), or control (n = 21) group. Various neuropsychological [e.g., accuracy rates (AR) and reaction time (RT)] and electrophysiological [e.g., event-related potential (ERP) P3 component] measures were assessed during a variant of the task-switching paradigm, as well as an N-back task at baseline and after either a 6-month exercise intervention or control period. The results showed that, when performing the task-switching paradigm, the two exercise groups relative to control group showed significantly faster RTs in the switch trials after the exercise intervention. However, the RT facilitation in the non-switch and switch trials post-exercise relative to pre-exercise only emerged in the open-skill group. In terms of the N-back task, the two exercise groups significantly increased ARs in the 1-back condition after the exercise intervention, and the beneficial AR effect on the 2-back condition only emerged in the closed-skill group. In addition, the two exercise groups exhibited significantly larger P3 amplitudes on the frontal-to-parietal cortex areas after the exercise intervention relative to the baseline when performing the two cognitive tasks. These neurocognitive results still remained unchanged even when the confounding factors (e.g., cardiorespiratory fitness, social participation, and BMI) were controlled for. The present study concluded that, although 6-month open- and closed-skill exercise interventions facilitate overall electrophysiological effects (i.e., increased ERP P3 amplitudes) on the frontal-to-parietal cortices in the elderly, the two exercise modes produced different levels of neuropsychologically beneficial effects on RTs of the task-switching paradigm (i.e., lessened RTs) and ARs of the N-back task (i.e., enhanced ARs). The distinctive neurocognitive changes induced by open- and closed-skill exercise have implications for task switching and working memory in elderly individuals, especially with such cognitive functioning impairments. PMID:28959200

Contributions of Language and Memory Demands to Verbal Memory Performance in Language-Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Isaki, Emi; Spaulding, Tammie J.; Plante, Elena

2008-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of adults with language-based learning disorders (L/LD) and normal language controls on verbal short-term and verbal working memory tasks. Eighteen adults with L/LD and 18 normal language controls were compared on verbal short-term memory and verbal working memory tasks under low,…

Enhanced Verbal Abilities in The Congenitally Blind

PubMed Central

Occelli, Valeria; Lacey, Simon; Stephens, Careese; Merabet, Lotfi B.; Sathian, K.

2017-01-01

Numerous studies have found that congenitally blind individuals have better verbal memory than their normally sighted counterparts. However, it is not known whether this reflects superiority of verbal or memory abilities. In order to distinguish between these possibilities, we tested congenitally blind participants and normally sighted control participants, matched for age and education, on a range of verbal and spatial tasks. Congenitally blind participants were significantly better than sighted controls on all the verbal tasks but the groups did not differ significantly on the spatial tasks. Thus, the congenitally blind appear to have superior verbal, but not spatial, abilities. This may reflect greater reliance on verbal information and the involvement of visual cortex in language processing in the congenitally blind. PMID:28280879

The influence of sex hormones on functional cerebral asymmetries in postmenopausal women.

PubMed

Bayer, Ulrike; Erdmann, Gisela

2008-07-01

Studies investigating changes in functional cerebral asymmetries (FCAs) with hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle in young women have led to controversial hypotheses about an influence of estrogen (E) and/or progesterone (P) on FCAs. Based on methodical, but also on principal problems in deriving conclusions about hormone effects from correlational designs, the present study investigated hemispheric asymmetries in postmenopausal women, who received hormone replacement either with E alone (E group, n=32), an E-P combination (E-P group, n=29) or no hormone substitution (control group, n=31). Speed and accuracy of responses to a word- and a face decision task, both presented laterally by means of the visual half field technique, were assessed. The control group showed the typical pattern of hemispheric asymmetry with more correct responses to verbal stimuli presented in the right visual field (RVF) and to face stimuli presented in the left visual field (LVF). A hormone-effect was demonstrable only for the verbal task, in which the E group showed an enhanced performance of the right hemisphere (LVF). The E-P group showed no significant differences to the control group or the E group. The results suggest a role of E in the modulation of FCAs at least with regard to verbal processing.

The development of creative cognition across adolescence: distinct trajectories for insight and divergent thinking.

PubMed

Kleibeuker, Sietske W; De Dreu, Carsten K W; Crone, Eveline A

2013-01-01

We examined developmental trajectories of creative cognition across adolescence. Participants (N = 98), divided into four age groups (12/13 yrs, 15/16 yrs, 18/19 yrs, and 25-30 yrs), were subjected to a battery of tasks gauging creative insight (visual; verbal) and divergent thinking (verbal; visuo-spatial). The two older age groups outperformed the two younger age groups on insight tasks. The 25-30-year-olds outperformed the two youngest age groups on the originality measure of verbal divergent thinking. No age-group differences were observed for verbal divergent thinking fluency and flexibility. On divergent thinking in the visuo-spatial domain, however, only 15/16-year-olds outperformed 12/13-year-olds; a model with peak performance for 15/16-years-old showed the best fit. The results for the different creativity processes are discussed in relation to cognitive and related neurobiological models. We conclude that mid-adolescence is a period of not only immaturities but also of creative potentials in the visuo-spatial domain, possibly related to developing control functions and explorative behavior. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Monetary Incentive Effects on Event-Based Prospective Memory Three Months after Traumatic Brain Injury in Children

PubMed Central

Pedroza, Claudia; Chapman, Sandra B.; Cook, Lori G.; Vásquez, Ana C.; Levin, Harvey S.

2011-01-01

Information regarding the remediation of event-based prospective memory (EB-PM) impairments following pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) is scarce. Addressing this, two levels of monetary incentives were used to improve EB-PM in children ages 7 to 16 years with orthopedic injuries (OI, n = 51), or moderate (n = 25), and severe (n = 39) TBI at approximately three months postinjury. The EB-PM task consisted of the child giving a specific verbal response to a verbal cue from the examiner while performing a battery of neuropsychological measures (ongoing task). Significant effects were found for Age-at-Test, Motivation Condition, Period, and Group. Within-group analyses indicated OI and moderate TBI groups performed significantly better under the high-versus low-incentive condition, but the severe TBI group demonstrated no significant improvement. These results indicate EB-PM can be significantly improved at three months postinjury in children with moderate, but not severe, TBI. PMID:21347945

Instructor Verbal and Nonverbal Immediacy and the Relationship with Student Self-Efficacy and Task Value Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Velez, Jonathan J.; Cano, Jamie

2012-01-01

This descriptive correlation study sought to examine the relationships between verbal immediacy, nonverbal immediacy, self-efficacy and task value. Respondents assessed the verbal and nonverbal immediacy of their course instructor, and then assessed their personal self-efficacy and task value motivation. Results showed a significant positive…

Math anxiety and developmental dyscalculia: A study on working memory processes.

PubMed

Mammarella, Irene C; Hill, Francesca; Devine, Amy; Caviola, Sara; Szűcs, Dénes

2015-01-01

Although many children encounter difficulties in arithmetic, the underlying cognitive and emotive factors are still not fully understood. This study examined verbal and visuospatial short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) performance in children with developmental dyscalculia (DD) and high mathematics anxiety (MA) compared with typically developing (TD) children. Groups were matched on reading comprehension performance and IQ as well as on general anxiety. We aimed to test whether children with DD and MA were differently impaired in verbal and visuospatial STM and WM. Children were individually tested with four computerized tasks: two STM tasks (forward verbal and visuospatial recall) and two WM tasks (backward verbal and visuospatial recall). Relative to children with TD, those with DD did not show impairments on the forward or backward verbal tasks, but showed specific impairments in the visuospatial WM task. In contrast, children with MA were particularly impaired in the verbal WM task. Knowing the underlying cognitive processes that differentiate why children with DD and MA fail in math could have both educational and clinical implications.

Eighteen-month-olds' memory interference and distraction in a modified A-not-B task is not associated with their anticipatory looking in a false-belief task.

PubMed

Zmyj, Norbert; Prinz, Wolfgang; Daum, Moritz M

2015-01-01

Infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks is often interpreted as if they have understood false beliefs. This view has been questioned by a recent account that explains infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks as the result of susceptibility to memory interference and distraction. We tested this alternative account by investigating the relationship between infants' false-belief understanding, susceptibility to memory interference and distraction, and general cognitive development in 18-month-old infants (N = 22). False-belief understanding was tested in an anticipatory looking paradigm of a standard false-belief task. Susceptibility to memory interference and distraction was tested in a modified A-not-B task. Cognitive development was measured via the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. We did not find any relationship between infants' performance in the false-belief task and the A-not-B task, even after controlling for cognitive development. This study shows that there is no ubiquitous relation between susceptibility to memory interference and distraction and performance in a false-belief task in infancy.

Eighteen-month-olds’ memory interference and distraction in a modified A-not-B task is not associated with their anticipatory looking in a false-belief task

PubMed Central

Zmyj, Norbert; Prinz, Wolfgang; Daum, Moritz M.

2015-01-01

Infants’ performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks is often interpreted as if they have understood false beliefs. This view has been questioned by a recent account that explains infants’ performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks as the result of susceptibility to memory interference and distraction. We tested this alternative account by investigating the relationship between infants’ false-belief understanding, susceptibility to memory interference and distraction, and general cognitive development in 18-month-old infants (N = 22). False-belief understanding was tested in an anticipatory looking paradigm of a standard false-belief task. Susceptibility to memory interference and distraction was tested in a modified A-not-B task. Cognitive development was measured via the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. We did not find any relationship between infants’ performance in the false-belief task and the A-not-B task, even after controlling for cognitive development. This study shows that there is no ubiquitous relation between susceptibility to memory interference and distraction and performance in a false-belief task in infancy. PMID:26157409

Neural correlates of verbal associative memory and mnemonic strategy use following childhood traumatic brain injury

PubMed Central

Kramer, Megan E.; Chiu, C.-Y. Peter; Shear, Paula K.; Wade, Shari L.

2010-01-01

Children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often experience memory deficits, although the nature, functional implication, and recovery trajectory of such difficulties are poorly understood. The present fMRI study examined the neural activation patterns in a group of young children who sustained moderate TBI in early childhood (n = 7), and a group of healthy control children (n = 13) during a verbal paired associate learning (PAL) task that promoted the use of two mnemonic strategies differing in efficacy. The children with TBI demonstrated intact memory performance and were able to successfully utilize the mnemonic strategies. However, the TBI group also demonstrated altered brain activation patterns during the task compared to the control children. These findings suggest early childhood TBI may alter activation within the network of brain regions supporting associative memory even in children who show good behavioral performance. PMID:21188286

The Effects of Combining Videogame Dancing and Pelvic Floor Training to Improve Dual-Task Gait and Cognition in Women with Mixed-Urinary Incontinence.

PubMed

Fraser, Sarah A; Elliott, Valerie; de Bruin, Eling D; Bherer, Louis; Dumoulin, Chantal

2014-06-01

Many women over 65 years of age suffer from mixed urinary incontinence (MUI) and executive function (EF) deficits. Both incontinence and EF declines increase fall risk. The current study assessed EF and dual-task gait after a multicomponent intervention that combined pelvic floor muscle (PFM) training and videogame dancing (VGD). Baseline (Pre1), pretraining (Pre2), and post-training (Post) neuropsychological and dual-task gait assessments were completed by 23 women (mean age, 70.4 years) with MUI. During the dual-task, participants walked and performed an auditory n-back task. From Pre2 to Post, all women completed 12 weeks of combined PFM and VGD training. After training (Pre2 to Post), the number of errors in the Inhibition/Switch Stroop condition decreased significantly, the Trail Making Test difference score improved marginally, and the number of n-back errors during dual-task gait significantly decreased. A subgroup analysis based on continence improvements (pad test) revealed that only those subjects who improved in the pad test had significantly reduced numbers of n-back errors during dual-task gait. The results of this study suggest that a multicomponent intervention can improve EFs and the dual-task gait of older women with MUI. Future research is needed to determine if the training-induced improvements in these factors reduce fall risk.

The Role of Physical Context, Verbal Skills, Non-Parental Care, Social Support, and Type of Parental Discipline in the Development of ToM Capacity in Five-Year-Old Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galende, Nuria; de Miguel, Manuel Sanchez; Arranz, Enrique

2011-01-01

The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of family context on the performance of 5-year-old children (N = 70) in theory of mind (ToM) tasks. The children's performances were assessed during individual sessions held at school. Children's verbal skills were assessed using the Peabody picture vocabulary test (PPVT). Interviews were also…

Executive functions in becoming writing readers and reading writers: note taking and report writing in third and fifth graders.

PubMed

Altemeier, Leah; Jones, Janine; Abbott, Robert D; Berninger, Virginia W

2006-01-01

Results are reported for a study of 2 separate processes of report writing-taking notes while reading source material and composing a report from those notes-and related individual differences in executive functions involved in integrating reading and writing during these writing activities. Third graders (n = 122) and 5th graders (n = 106; overall, 127 girls and 114 boys) completed two reading-writing tasks-read paragraph (mock science text)-write notes and use notes to generate written report, a reading comprehension test, a written expression test, four tests of executive functions (inhibition, verbal fluency, planning, switching attention), and a working memory test. For the read-take notes task, the same combination of variables was best (explained the most variance and each variable added unique variance) for 3rd graders and 5th graders: Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition (WIAT-II) Reading Comprehension, Process Assessment of the Learner Test for Reading and Writing (PAL) Copy Task B, WIAT-II Written Expression, and Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Inhibition. For the use notes to write report task, the best combinations of variables depended on grade level: For 3rd graders, WIAT-II Reading Comprehension, WIAT-II Written Expression, D-KEFS Verbal Fluency, and Tower of Hanoi; for 5th graders, WIAT-II Reading Comprehension, D-KEFS Verbal Fluency, WIAT-II Written Expression, and PAL Alphabet Task. These results add to prior research findings that executive functions contribute to the writing development of elementary-grade students and additionally support the hypothesis that executive functions play a role in developing reading-writing connections.

Localizing Pain Matrix and Theory of Mind networks with both verbal and non-verbal stimuli.

PubMed

Jacoby, Nir; Bruneau, Emile; Koster-Hale, Jorie; Saxe, Rebecca

2016-02-01

Functional localizer tasks allow researchers to identify brain regions in each individual's brain, using a combination of anatomical and functional constraints. In this study, we compare three social cognitive localizer tasks, designed to efficiently identify regions in the "Pain Matrix," recruited in response to a person's physical pain, and the "Theory of Mind network," recruited in response to a person's mental states (i.e. beliefs and emotions). Participants performed three tasks: first, the verbal false-belief stories task; second, a verbal task including stories describing physical pain versus emotional suffering; and third, passively viewing a non-verbal animated movie, which included segments depicting physical pain and beliefs and emotions. All three localizers were efficient in identifying replicable, stable networks in individual subjects. The consistency across tasks makes all three tasks viable localizers. Nevertheless, there were small reliable differences in the location of the regions and the pattern of activity within regions, hinting at more specific representations. The new localizers go beyond those currently available: first, they simultaneously identify two functional networks with no additional scan time, and second, the non-verbal task extends the populations in whom functional localizers can be applied. These localizers will be made publicly available. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Attachment anxiety benefits from security priming: Evidence from working memory performance

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

The present study investigates the relationship between the attachment dimensions (anxious vs. avoidance) and the cognitive performance of individuals, specifically whether the attachment dimensions would predict the working memory (WM) performance. In the n-back task, reflecting the WM capacity, both attachment related and non-attachment related words were used. Participants were randomly assigned into two groups that received either the secure or the neutral subliminal priming. In the secure priming condition, the aim was to induce sense of security by presenting secure attachment words prior to the n-back task performance. In neutral priming condition, neutral words that did not elicit sense of security were presented. Structural equation modeling revealed divergent patterns for attachment anxiety and avoidance dimensions under the different priming conditions. In neutral priming condition, WM performance declined in terms of capacity in the n-back task for individuals who rated higher levels of attachment anxiety. However in the secure priming condition, WM performance was boosted in the n-back task for individuals who rated higher levels of attachment anxiety. In other words, the subliminal priming of the security led to increased WM capacity of individuals who rated higher levels of attachment anxiety. This effect, however, was not observed for higher levels of attachment avoidance. Results are discussed along the lines of hyperactivation and deactivation strategies of the attachment system. PMID:29522549

Effect of verbal instructions and image size on visual search strategies in basketball free throw shooting.

PubMed

Al-Abood, Saleh A; Bennett, Simon J; Hernandez, Francisco Moreno; Ashford, Derek; Davids, Keith

2002-03-01

We assessed the effects on basketball free throw performance of two types of verbal directions with an external attentional focus. Novices (n = 16) were pre-tested on free throw performance and assigned to two groups of similar ability (n = 8 in each). Both groups received verbal instructions with an external focus on either movement dynamics (movement form) or movement effects (e.g. ball trajectory relative to basket). The participants also observed a skilled model performing the task on either a small or large screen monitor, to ascertain the effects of visual presentation mode on task performance. After observation of six videotaped trials, all participants were given a post-test. Visual search patterns were monitored during observation and cross-referenced with performance on the pre- and post-test. Group effects were noted for verbal instructions and image size on visual search strategies and free throw performance. The 'movement effects' group saw a significant improvement in outcome scores between the pre-test and post-test. These results supported evidence that this group spent more viewing time on information outside the body than the 'movement dynamics' group. Image size affected both groups equally with more fixations of shorter duration when viewing the small screen. The results support the benefits of instructions when observing a model with an external focus on movement effects, not dynamics.

Working memory for vibrotactile frequencies: comparison of cortical activity in blind and sighted individuals.

PubMed

Burton, Harold; Sinclair, Robert J; Dixit, Sachin

2010-11-01

In blind, occipital cortex showed robust activation to nonvisual stimuli in many prior functional neuroimaging studies. The cognitive processes represented by these activations are not fully determined, although a verbal recognition memory role has been demonstrated. In congenitally blind and sighted (10 per group), we contrasted responses to a vibrotactile one-back frequency retention task with 5-s delays and a vibrotactile amplitude-change task; both tasks involved the same vibration parameters. The one-back paradigm required continuous updating for working memory (WM). Findings in both groups confirmed roles in WM for right hemisphere dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) and dorsal/ventral attention components of posterior parietal cortex. Negative findings in bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex suggested task performance without subvocalization. In bilateral occipital cortex, blind showed comparable positive responses to both tasks, whereas WM evoked large negative responses in sighted. Greater utilization of attention resources in blind were suggested as causing larger responses in dorsal and ventral attention systems, right DLPFC, and persistent responses across delays between trials in somatosensory and premotor cortex. In sighted, responses in somatosensory and premotor areas showed iterated peaks matched to stimulation trial intervals. The findings in occipital cortex of blind suggest that tactile activations do not represent cognitive operations for nonverbal WM task. However, these data suggest a role in sensory processing for tactile information in blind that parallels a similar contribution for visual stimuli in occipital cortex of sighted. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The effects of methylphenidate and propranolol on the interplay between induced-anxiety and working memory

PubMed Central

Ernst, Monique; Lago, Tiffany; Davis, Andrew; Grillon, Christian

2016-01-01

Rationale Research documents a reciprocal impact of anxiety on working memory (WM), although its strength and direction depend on factors like task difficulty. A better understanding of these factors may generate insights into cognitive mechanisms of action involved in anxiety, culminating into treatment implications. By blocking the physiological effects of anxiety, propranolol might also block anxiety interference on WM. Conversely, by improving task-directed attention, methylphenidate might reduce anxiety, or, alternatively, by improving cognitive efficiency and free up processing resources to compute anxiety. Objectives To investigate the interplay between induced anxiety and WM, we pharmacologically manipulated either anxiety or cognition, using single doses of 40 mg propranolol (PRO), 20 mg methylphenidate (MPH), or placebo (PLA). In this double-blind parallel-group design study, 60 healthy volunteers (20/drug group) performed a verbal WM task under three loads, 1-, 2- and 3-back, and in two conditions, threat of shock and safety. Startle electromyography (EMG) was used to measure anxiety. Results Findings were twofold: (1) MPH blocked anxiety interference only on the 3-back WM performance, while PRO or PLA had no effects on anxiety-WM interference, and (2) drugs had no effects on anxiety, but, after controlling for baseline anxiety, MPH enhanced anxiety-potentiated startle during the 3-back task. Conclusions These findings support that MPH-related improvement of cognitive efficiency permits anxiety to be processed and expressed. In conclusion, MPH may be a useful tool to investigate the mechanisms of interaction between anxiety and WM, particularly those under catecholaminergic control. PMID:27492789

The effects of methylphenidate and propranolol on the interplay between induced-anxiety and working memory.

PubMed

Ernst, Monique; Lago, Tiffany; Davis, Andrew; Grillon, Christian

2016-10-01

Research documents a reciprocal impact of anxiety on working memory (WM), although its strength and direction depend on factors like task difficulty. A better understanding of these factors may generate insights into cognitive mechanisms of action involved in anxiety, culminating into treatment implications. By blocking the physiological effects of anxiety, propranolol might also block anxiety interference on WM. Conversely, by improving task-directed attention, methylphenidate might reduce anxiety, or, alternatively, by improving cognitive efficiency and free up processing resources to compute anxiety. To investigate the interplay between induced anxiety and WM, we pharmacologically manipulated either anxiety or cognition, using single doses of 40 mg propranolol (PRO), 20 mg methylphenidate (MPH), or placebo (PLA). In this double-blind parallel-group design study, 60 healthy volunteers (20/drug group) performed a verbal WM task under three loads, 1-, 2- and 3-back, and in two conditions, threat of shock and safety. Startle electromyography (EMG) was used to measure anxiety. Findings were twofold: (1) MPH blocked anxiety interference only on the 3-back WM performance, while PRO or PLA had no effects on anxiety-WM interference, and (2) drugs had no effects on anxiety, but, after controlling for baseline anxiety, MPH enhanced anxiety-potentiated startle during the 3-back task. These findings support that MPH-related improvement of cognitive efficiency permits anxiety to be processed and expressed. In conclusion, MPH may be a useful tool to investigate the mechanisms of interaction between anxiety and WM, particularly those under catecholaminergic control.

Executive function and functional and structural brain differences in middle-age adults with autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Braden, B Blair; Smith, Christopher J; Thompson, Amiee; Glaspy, Tyler K; Wood, Emily; Vatsa, Divya; Abbott, Angela E; McGee, Samuel C; Baxter, Leslie C

2017-12-01

There is a rapidly growing group of aging adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who may have unique needs, yet cognitive and brain function in older adults with ASD is understudied. We combined functional and structural neuroimaging and neuropsychological tests to examine differences between middle-aged men with ASD and matched neurotypical (NT) men. Participants (ASD, n = 16; NT, n = 17) aged 40-64 years were well-matched according to age, IQ (range: 83-131), and education (range: 9-20 years). Middle-age adults with ASD made more errors on an executive function task (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) but performed similarly to NT adults on tests of delayed verbal memory (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test) and local visual search (Embedded Figures Task). Independent component analysis of a functional MRI working memory task (n-back) completed by most participants (ASD = 14, NT = 17) showed decreased engagement of a cortico-striatal-thalamic-cortical neural network in older adults with ASD. Structurally, older adults with ASD had reduced bilateral hippocampal volumes, as measured by FreeSurfer. Findings expand our understanding of ASD as a lifelong condition with persistent cognitive and functional and structural brain differences evident at middle-age. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1945-1959. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. We compared cognitive abilities and brain measures between 16 middle-age men with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 17 typical middle-age men to better understand how aging affects an older group of adults with ASD. Men with ASD made more errors on a test involving flexible thinking, had less activity in a flexible thinking brain network, and had smaller volume of a brain structure related to memory than typical men. We will follow these older adults over time to determine if aging changes are greater for individuals with ASD. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Imagining the truth and the moon: an electrophysiological study of abstract and concrete word processing.

PubMed

Gullick, Margaret M; Mitra, Priya; Coch, Donna

2013-05-01

Previous event-related potential studies have indicated that both a widespread N400 and an anterior N700 index differential processing of concrete and abstract words, but the nature of these components in relation to concreteness and imagery has been unclear. Here, we separated the effects of word concreteness and task demands on the N400 and N700 in a single word processing paradigm with a within-subjects, between-tasks design and carefully controlled word stimuli. The N400 was larger to concrete words than to abstract words, and larger in the visualization task condition than in the surface task condition, with no interaction. A marked anterior N700 was elicited only by concrete words in the visualization task condition, suggesting that this component indexes imagery. These findings are consistent with a revised or extended dual coding theory according to which concrete words benefit from greater activation in both verbal and imagistic systems. Copyright © 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Valence of Affective Verbal Fluency: fMRI Studies on Neural Organization of Emotional Concepts "Joy" and "Fear"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gawda, Barbara; Szepietowska, Ewa; Soluch, Pawel; Wolak, Tomasz

2017-01-01

The present study was designed to examine the underlying brain mechanisms of positive and negative emotional verbal fluency. Three verbal fluency tasks (one non-emotional phonemic task, two emotional tasks: "Joy" and "Fear") were used in this study. The results were analyzed for 35 healthy, Polish-speaking, right-handed adults…

Landmark and route knowledge in children's spatial representation of a virtual environment.

PubMed

Nys, Marion; Gyselinck, Valérie; Orriols, Eric; Hickmann, Maya

2014-01-01

This study investigates the development of landmark and route knowledge in complex wayfinding situations. It focuses on how children (aged 6, 8, and 10 years) and young adults (n = 79) indicate, recognize, and bind landmarks and directions in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks after learning a virtual route. Performance in these tasks is also related to general verbal and visuo-spatial abilities as assessed by independent standardized tests (attention, working memory, perception of direction, production and comprehension of spatial terms, sentences and stories). The results first show that the quantity and quality of landmarks and directions produced and recognized by participants in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks increased with age. In addition, an increase with age was observed in participants' selection of decisional landmarks (i.e., landmarks associated with a change of direction), as well as in their capacity to bind landmarks and directions. Our results support the view that children first acquire landmark knowledge, then route knowledge, as shown by their late developing ability to bind knowledge of directions and landmarks. Overall, the quality of verbal and visuo-spatial information in participants' spatial representations was found to vary mostly with their visuo-spatial abilities (attention and perception of directions) and not with their verbal abilities. Interestingly, however, when asked to recognize landmarks encountered during the route, participants show an increasing bias with age toward choosing a related landmark of the same category, regardless of its visual characteristics, i.e., they incorrectly choose the picture of another fountain. The discussion highlights the need for further studies to determine more precisely the role of verbal and visuo-spatial knowledge and the nature of how children learn to represent and memorize routes.

The effects of bilingualism on conflict monitoring, cognitive control, and garden-path recovery.

PubMed

Teubner-Rhodes, Susan E; Mishler, Alan; Corbett, Ryan; Andreu, Llorenç; Sanz-Torrent, Monica; Trueswell, John C; Novick, Jared M

2016-05-01

Bilinguals demonstrate benefits on non-linguistic tasks requiring cognitive control-the regulation of mental activity to resolve information-conflict during processing. This "bilingual advantage" has been attributed to the consistent management of two languages, yet it remains unknown if these benefits extend to sentence processing. In monolinguals, cognitive control helps detect and revise misinterpretations of sentence meaning. Here, we test if the bilingual advantage extends to parsing and interpretation by comparing bilinguals' and monolinguals' syntactic ambiguity resolution before and after practicing N-back, a non-syntactic cognitive-control task. Bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on a high-conflict but not a no-conflict version of N-back and on sentence comprehension, indicating that the advantage extends to language interpretation. Gains on N-back conflict trials also predicted comprehension improvements for ambiguous sentences, suggesting that the bilingual advantage emerges across tasks tapping shared cognitive-control procedures. Because the overall task benefits were observed for conflict and non-conflict trials, bilinguals' advantage may reflect increased cognitive flexibility. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hyperactivity in boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): The role of executive and non-executive functions.

PubMed

Hudec, Kristen L; Alderson, R Matt; Patros, Connor H G; Lea, Sarah E; Tarle, Stephanie J; Kasper, Lisa J

2015-01-01

Motor activity of boys (age 8-12 years) with (n=19) and without (n=18) ADHD was objectively measured with actigraphy across experimental conditions that varied with regard to demands on executive functions. Activity exhibited during two n-back (1-back, 2-back) working memory tasks was compared to activity during a choice-reaction time (CRT) task that placed relatively fewer demands on executive processes and during a simple reaction time (SRT) task that required mostly automatic processing with minimal executive demands. Results indicated that children in the ADHD group exhibited greater activity compared to children in the non-ADHD group. Further, both groups exhibited the greatest activity during conditions with high working memory demands, followed by the reaction time and control task conditions, respectively. The findings indicate that large-magnitude increases in motor activity are predominantly associated with increased demands on working memory, though demands on non-executive processes are sufficient to elicit small to moderate increases in motor activity as well. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Augmenting NMDA receptor signaling boosts experience-dependent neuroplasticity in the adult human brain

PubMed Central

Forsyth, Jennifer K.; Bachman, Peter; Mathalon, Daniel H.; Roach, Brian J.; Asarnow, Robert F.

2015-01-01

Experience-dependent plasticity is a fundamental property of the brain. It is critical for everyday function, is impaired in a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders, and frequently depends on long-term potentiation (LTP). Preclinical studies suggest that augmenting N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) signaling may promote experience-dependent plasticity; however, a lack of noninvasive methods has limited our ability to test this idea in humans until recently. We examined the effects of enhancing NMDAR signaling using d-cycloserine (DCS) on a recently developed LTP EEG paradigm that uses high-frequency visual stimulation (HFvS) to induce neural potentiation in visual cortex neurons, as well as on three cognitive tasks: a weather prediction task (WPT), an information integration task (IIT), and a n-back task. The WPT and IIT are learning tasks that require practice with feedback to reach optimal performance. The n-back assesses working memory. Healthy adults were randomized to receive DCS (100 mg; n = 32) or placebo (n = 33); groups were similar in IQ and demographic characteristics. Participants who received DCS showed enhanced potentiation of neural responses following repetitive HFvS, as well as enhanced performance on the WPT and IIT. Groups did not differ on the n-back. Augmenting NMDAR signaling using DCS therefore enhanced activity-dependent plasticity in human adults, as demonstrated by lasting enhancement of neural potentiation following repetitive HFvS and accelerated acquisition of two learning tasks. Results highlight the utility of considering cellular mechanisms underlying distinct cognitive functions when investigating potential cognitive enhancers. PMID:26621715

Effects of modafinil on non-verbal cognition, task enjoyment and creative thinking in healthy volunteers.

PubMed

Müller, U; Rowe, J B; Rittman, T; Lewis, C; Robbins, T W; Sahakian, B J

2013-01-01

Modafinil, a putative cognitive enhancing drug, has previously been shown to improve performance of healthy volunteers as well as patients with attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia, mainly in tests of executive functions. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of modafinil on non-verbal cognitive functions in healthy volunteers, with a particular focus on variations of cognitive load, measures of motivational factors and the effects on creative problem-solving. A double-blind placebo-controlled parallel design study evaluated the effect of 200 mg of modafinil (N = 32) or placebo (N = 32) in non-sleep deprived healthy volunteers. Non-verbal tests of divergent and convergent thinking were used to measure creativity. A new measure of task motivation was used, together with more levels of difficulty on neuropsychological tests from the CANTAB battery. Improvements under modafinil were seen on spatial working memory, planning and decision making at the most difficult levels, as well as visual pattern recognition memory following delay. Subjective ratings of enjoyment of task performance were significantly greater under modafinil compared with placebo, but mood ratings overall were not affected. The effects of modafinil on creativity were inconsistent and did not reach statistical significance. Modafinil reliably enhanced task enjoyment and performance on several cognitive tests of planning and working memory, but did not improve paired associates learning. The findings confirm that modafinil can enhance aspects of highly demanding cognitive performance in non-sleep deprived individuals. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Cognitive Enhancers'. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Culture and the cognitive and neuroendocrine responses to speech.

PubMed

Kim, Heejung S

2008-01-01

The present research investigated cultural differences in the psychological and biological effects of verbalization of thoughts. Three studies tested how verbalization of thoughts requires a different amount of effort for people from cultures with different assumptions about speech and examined implications for the cognitive performance and stress hormone response to the task. The results showed that verbalization impaired East Asians/East Asian Americans' performance when the task was difficult but not when the task was easy, whereas the effect of verbalization on European Americans' performance was neutral or positive regardless of task difficulty. Moreover, verbalization decreased the level of cortisol response to the task among European Americans but not among East Asian Americans. The results demonstrate how the same act that is intended to create the same psychological experience could inadvertently lead to systematically different psychological experiences for people from different cultures. Copyright 2008 APA, all rights reserved.

Non-Interfering Effects of Active Post-Encoding Tasks on Episodic Memory Consolidation in Humans

PubMed Central

Varma, Samarth; Takashima, Atsuko; Krewinkel, Sander; van Kooten, Maaike; Fu, Lily; Medendorp, W. Pieter; Kessels, Roy P. C.; Daselaar, Sander M.

2017-01-01

So far, studies that investigated interference effects of post-learning processes on episodic memory consolidation in humans have used tasks involving only complex and meaningful information. Such tasks require reallocation of general or encoding-specific resources away from consolidation-relevant activities. The possibility that interference can be elicited using a task that heavily taxes our limited brain resources, but has low semantic and hippocampal related long-term memory processing demands, has never been tested. We address this question by investigating whether consolidation could persist in parallel with an active, encoding-irrelevant, minimally semantic task, regardless of its high resource demands for cognitive processing. We distinguish the impact of such a task on consolidation based on whether it engages resources that are: (1) general/executive, or (2) specific/overlapping with the encoding modality. Our experiments compared subsequent memory performance across two post-encoding consolidation periods: quiet wakeful rest and a cognitively demanding n-Back task. Across six different experiments (total N = 176), we carefully manipulated the design of the n-Back task to target general or specific resources engaged in the ongoing consolidation process. In contrast to previous studies that employed interference tasks involving conceptual stimuli and complex processing demands, we did not find any differences between n-Back and rest conditions on memory performance at delayed test, using both recall and recognition tests. Our results indicate that: (1) quiet, wakeful rest is not a necessary prerequisite for episodic memory consolidation; and (2) post-encoding cognitive engagement does not interfere with memory consolidation when task-performance has minimal semantic and hippocampally-based episodic memory processing demands. We discuss our findings with reference to resource and reactivation-led interference theories. PMID:28424596

Non-Interfering Effects of Active Post-Encoding Tasks on Episodic Memory Consolidation in Humans.

PubMed

Varma, Samarth; Takashima, Atsuko; Krewinkel, Sander; van Kooten, Maaike; Fu, Lily; Medendorp, W Pieter; Kessels, Roy P C; Daselaar, Sander M

2017-01-01

So far, studies that investigated interference effects of post-learning processes on episodic memory consolidation in humans have used tasks involving only complex and meaningful information. Such tasks require reallocation of general or encoding-specific resources away from consolidation-relevant activities. The possibility that interference can be elicited using a task that heavily taxes our limited brain resources, but has low semantic and hippocampal related long-term memory processing demands, has never been tested. We address this question by investigating whether consolidation could persist in parallel with an active, encoding-irrelevant, minimally semantic task, regardless of its high resource demands for cognitive processing. We distinguish the impact of such a task on consolidation based on whether it engages resources that are: (1) general/executive, or (2) specific/overlapping with the encoding modality. Our experiments compared subsequent memory performance across two post-encoding consolidation periods: quiet wakeful rest and a cognitively demanding n-Back task. Across six different experiments (total N = 176), we carefully manipulated the design of the n-Back task to target general or specific resources engaged in the ongoing consolidation process. In contrast to previous studies that employed interference tasks involving conceptual stimuli and complex processing demands, we did not find any differences between n-Back and rest conditions on memory performance at delayed test, using both recall and recognition tests. Our results indicate that: (1) quiet, wakeful rest is not a necessary prerequisite for episodic memory consolidation; and (2) post-encoding cognitive engagement does not interfere with memory consolidation when task-performance has minimal semantic and hippocampally-based episodic memory processing demands. We discuss our findings with reference to resource and reactivation-led interference theories.

Planning abilities and chess: a comparison of chess and non-chess players on the Tower of London task.

PubMed

Unterrainer, J M; Kaller, C P; Halsband, U; Rahm, B

2006-08-01

Playing chess requires problem-solving capacities in order to search through the chess problem space in an effective manner. Chess should thus require planning abilities for calculating many moves ahead. Therefore, we asked whether chess players are better problem solvers than non-chess players in a complex planning task. We compared planning performance between chess ( N=25) and non-chess players ( N=25) using a standard psychometric planning task, the Tower of London (ToL) test. We also assessed fluid intelligence (Raven Test), as well as verbal and visuospatial working memory. As expected, chess players showed better planning performance than non-chess players, an effect most strongly expressed in difficult problems. On the other hand, they showed longer planning and movement execution times, especially for incorrectly solved trials. No differences in fluid intelligence and verbal/visuospatial working memory were found between both groups. These findings indicate that better performance in chess players is associated with disproportionally longer solution times, although it remains to be investigated whether motivational or strategic differences account for this result.

Central load reduces peripheral processing: Evidence from incidental memory of background speech.

PubMed

Halin, Niklas; Marsh, John E; Sörqvist, Patrik

2015-12-01

Is there a trade-off between central (working memory) load and peripheral (perceptual) processing? To address this question, participants were requested to undertake an n-back task in one of two levels of central/cognitive load (i.e., 1-back or 2-back) in the presence of a to-be-ignored story presented via headphones. Participants were told to ignore the background story, but they were given a surprise memory test of what had been said in the background story, immediately after the n-back task was completed. Memory was poorer in the high central load (2-back) condition in comparison with the low central load (1-back) condition. Hence, when people compensate for higher central load, by increasing attentional engagement, peripheral processing is constrained. Moreover, participants with high working memory capacity (WMC) - with a superior ability for attentional engagement - remembered less of the background story, but only in the low central load condition. Taken together, peripheral processing - as indexed by incidental memory of background speech - is constrained when task engagement is high. © 2015 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology published by Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The effects of the soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat on memory performance in healthy volunteers with a biperiden-induced memory impairment.

PubMed

Borghans, Laura G J M; Sambeth, Anke; Prickaerts, Jos; Ramaekers, Johannes G; Blokland, Arjan

2018-06-07

After stimulation with nitric oxide, soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) produces cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), which stimulates an important signalling pathway for long-term potentiation (LTP). By upregulating cGMP, LTP could be stimulated and thereby enhancing memory processes. The present study investigated the effects of the sGC stimulator riociguat on cognition in healthy volunteers. Participants were pre-treated with and without biperiden, which impairs memory performance, to investigate the memory-enhancing effects of riociguat. Twenty volunteers participated in a double-blind placebo-controlled six-way crossover design with a cognitive test battery including the verbal learning task (VLT), n-back task, spatial memory test, the attention network test, and a reaction time task. Treatments were placebo and riociguat 0.5 mg, placebo and riociguat 1.0 mg, biperiden 2.0 mg and placebo, biperiden 2.0 mg and riociguat 0.5 mg and biperiden 2.0 mg and riociguat 1.0 mg. Blood pressure was found to be decreased and heart rate to be increased after administration of riociguat. Cognitive performance was not enhanced after administration of riociguat. Biperiden decreased episodic memory on the VLT, yet this deficit was not reversed by riociguat. This supports the notion that biperiden might be a valuable pharmacological model to induce episodic memory impairments as observed in AD/MCI.

Impaired theta-gamma coupling during working memory performance in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Barr, Mera S; Rajji, Tarek K; Zomorrodi, Reza; Radhu, Natasha; George, Tony P; Blumberger, Daniel M; Daskalakis, Zafiris J

2017-11-01

Working memory deficits represent a core feature of schizophrenia. These deficits have been associated with dysfunctional dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) cortical oscillations. Theta-gamma coupling describes the modulation of gamma oscillations by theta phasic activity that has been directly associated with the ordering of information during working memory performance. Evaluating theta-gamma coupling may provide greater insight into the neural mechanisms mediating working memory deficits in this disorder. Thirty-eight patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 38 healthy controls performed the verbal N-Back task administered at 4 levels, while EEG was recorded. Theta (4-7Hz)-gamma (30-50Hz) coupling was calculated for target and non-target correct trials for each working memory load. The relationship between theta-gamma coupling and accuracy was determined. Theta-gamma coupling was significantly and selectively impaired during correct responses to target letters among schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls. A significant and positive relationship was found between theta-gamma coupling and 3-Back accuracy in controls, while this relationship was not observed in patients. These findings suggest that impaired theta-gamma coupling contribute to working memory dysfunction in schizophrenia. Future work is needed to evaluate the predictive utility of theta-gamma coupling as a neurophysiological marker for functional outcomes in this disorder. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Lexical factors and cerebral regions influencing verbal fluency performance in MCI.

PubMed

Clark, D G; Wadley, V G; Kapur, P; DeRamus, T P; Singletary, B; Nicholas, A P; Blanton, P D; Lokken, K; Deshpande, H; Marson, D; Deutsch, G

2014-02-01

To evaluate assumptions regarding semantic (noun), verb, and letter fluency in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD) using novel techniques for measuring word similarity in fluency lists and a region of interest (ROI) analysis of gray matter correlates. Fifty-eight individuals with normal cognition (NC, n=25), MCI (n=23), or AD (n=10) underwent neuropsychological tests, including 10 verbal fluency tasks (three letter tasks [F, A, S], six noun categories [animals, water creatures, fruits and vegetables, tools, vehicles, boats], and verbs). All pairs of words generated by each participant on each task were compared in terms of semantic (meaning), orthographic (spelling), and phonemic (pronunciation) similarity. We used mixed-effects logistic regression to determine which lexical factors were predictive of word adjacency within the lists. Associations between each fluency raw score and gray matter volumes in sixteen ROIs were identified by means of multiple linear regression. We evaluated causal models for both types of analyses to specify the contributions of diagnosis and various mediator variables to the outcomes of word adjacency and fluency raw score. Semantic similarity between words emerged as the strongest predictor of word adjacency for all fluency tasks, including the letter fluency tasks. Semantic similarity mediated the effect of cognitive impairment on word adjacency only for three fluency tasks employing a biological cue. Orthographic similarity was predictive of word adjacency for the A and S tasks, while phonemic similarity was predictive only for the S task and one semantic task (vehicles). The ROI analysis revealed different patterns of correlations among the various fluency tasks, with the most common associations in the right lower temporal and bilateral dorsal frontal regions. Following correction with gray matter volumes from the opposite hemisphere, significant associations persisted for animals, vehicles, and a composite nouns score in the left inferior frontal gyrus, but for letter A, letter S, and a composite FAS score in the right inferior frontal gyrus. These regressions also revealed a lateralized association of the left subcortical nuclei with all letter fluency scores and fruits and vegetables fluency, and an association of the right lower temporal ROI with letter A, FAS, and verb fluency. Gray matter volume in several bihemispheric ROIs (left dorsal frontal, right lower temporal, right occipital, and bilateral mesial temporal) mediated the relationship between cognitive impairment and fluency for fruits and vegetables. Gray matter volume in the right lower temporal ROI mediated the relationship between cognitive impairment and five fluency raw scores (animals, fruits and vegetables, tools, verbs, and the composite nouns score). Semantic memory exerts the strongest influence on word adjacency in letter fluency as well as semantic verbal fluency tasks. Orthography is a stronger influence than pronunciation. All types of fluency task raw scores (letter, noun, and verb) correlate with cerebral regions known to support verbal or nonverbal semantic memory. The findings emphasize the contribution of right hemisphere regions to fluency task performance, particularly for verb and letter fluency. The relationship between diagnosis and semantic fluency performance is mediated by semantic similarity of words and by gray matter volume in the right lower temporal region. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The ties to unbind: age-related differences in feature (un)binding in working memory for emotional faces

PubMed Central

Pehlivanoglu, Didem; Jain, Shivangi; Ariel, Robert; Verhaeghen, Paul

2014-01-01

In the present study, we investigated age-related differences in the processing of emotional stimuli. Specifically, we were interested in whether older adults would show deficits in unbinding emotional expression (i.e., either no emotion, happiness, anger, or disgust) from bound stimuli (i.e., photographs of faces expressing these emotions), as a hyper-binding account of age-related differences in working memory would predict. Younger and older adults completed different N-Back tasks (side-by-side 0-Back, 1-Back, 2-Back) under three conditions: match/mismatch judgments based on either the identity of the face (identity condition), the face’s emotional expression (expression condition), or both identity and expression of the face (both condition). The two age groups performed more slowly and with lower accuracy in the expression condition than in the both condition, indicating the presence of an unbinding process. This unbinding effect was more pronounced in older adults than in younger adults, but only in the 2-Back task. Thus, older adults seemed to have a specific deficit in unbinding in working memory. Additionally, no age-related differences were found in accuracy in the 0-Back task, but such differences emerged in the 1-Back task, and were further magnified in the 2-Back task, indicating independent age-related differences in attention/STM and working memory. Pupil dilation data confirmed that the attention/STM version of the task (1-Back) is more effortful for older adults than younger adults. PMID:24795660

The ties to unbind: age-related differences in feature (un)binding in working memory for emotional faces.

PubMed

Pehlivanoglu, Didem; Jain, Shivangi; Ariel, Robert; Verhaeghen, Paul

2014-01-01

In the present study, we investigated age-related differences in the processing of emotional stimuli. Specifically, we were interested in whether older adults would show deficits in unbinding emotional expression (i.e., either no emotion, happiness, anger, or disgust) from bound stimuli (i.e., photographs of faces expressing these emotions), as a hyper-binding account of age-related differences in working memory would predict. Younger and older adults completed different N-Back tasks (side-by-side 0-Back, 1-Back, 2-Back) under three conditions: match/mismatch judgments based on either the identity of the face (identity condition), the face's emotional expression (expression condition), or both identity and expression of the face (both condition). The two age groups performed more slowly and with lower accuracy in the expression condition than in the both condition, indicating the presence of an unbinding process. This unbinding effect was more pronounced in older adults than in younger adults, but only in the 2-Back task. Thus, older adults seemed to have a specific deficit in unbinding in working memory. Additionally, no age-related differences were found in accuracy in the 0-Back task, but such differences emerged in the 1-Back task, and were further magnified in the 2-Back task, indicating independent age-related differences in attention/STM and working memory. Pupil dilation data confirmed that the attention/STM version of the task (1-Back) is more effortful for older adults than younger adults.

Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Human Memory.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Matzen, Laura E.; Trumbo, Michael Christopher Stefan

Training a person in a new knowledge base or skill set is extremely time consuming and costly, particularly in highly specialized domains such as the military and the intelligence community. Recent research in cognitive neuroscience has suggested that a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has the potential to revolutionize training by enabling learners to acquire new skills faster, more efficiently, and more robustly (Bullard et al., 2011). In this project, we tested the effects of tDCS on two types of memory performance that are critical for learning new skills: associative memory and working memory. Associative memory is memorymore » for the relationship between two items or events. It forms the foundation of all episodic memories, so enhancing associative memory could provide substantial benefits to the speed and robustness of learning new information. We tested the effects of tDCS on associative memory, using a real-world associative memory task: remembering the links between faces and names. Working memory refers to the amount of information that can be held in mind and processed at one time, and it forms the basis for all higher-level cognitive processing. We investigated the degree of transfer between various working memory tasks (the N-back task as a measure of verbal working memory, the rotation-span task as a measure of visuospatial working memory, and Raven's progressive matrices as a measure of fluid intelligence) in order to determine if tDCS-induced facilitation of performance is task-specific or general.« less

Ending up with Less: The Role of Working Memory in Solving Simple Subtraction Problems with Positive and Negative Answers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robert, Nicole D.; LeFevre, Jo-Anne

2013-01-01

Does solving subtraction problems with negative answers (e.g., 5-14) require different cognitive processes than solving problems with positive answers (e.g., 14-5)? In a dual-task experiment, young adults (N=39) combined subtraction with two working memory tasks, verbal memory and visual-spatial memory. All of the subtraction problems required…

Short-term effects of using verbal instructions and demonstration at the beginning of learning a complex skill in figure skating.

PubMed

Haguenauer, Marianne; Fargier, Patrick; Legreneur, Pierre; Dufour, Anne-Béatrice; Cogerino, Geneviève; Begon, Mickaël; Monteil, Karine M

2005-02-01

This study examined whether providing verbal instructions plus demonstration and task repetition facilitates the early acquisition of a sport skill for which learners had a prior knowledge of the individual motor components. After one demonstration of the task by an expert, 18 novice skaters practiced a figure skating jump during a 15-min. period. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of 3 groups: a group provided with a verbal instruction that specified the subgoals of the task (Subgoals group), a group provided with a verbal instruction that used a metaphor (Metaphoric group), and a group not receiving any specific instruction during training (Control group). Subjects were filmed prior to and immediately following the practice session. Analysis indicated that the modifications of performance were related to the demonstration and the subsequent task repetitions only. Providing additional verbal instructions generated no effect. Therefore, guiding the learner toward a solution to the task problem by means of verbal instruction seems to be ineffective if done too early in the course of learning.

Developmental change in proactive interference across the life span: evidence from two working memory tasks.

PubMed

Loosli, Sandra V; Rahm, Benjamin; Unterrainer, Josef M; Weiller, Cornelius; Kaller, Christoph P

2014-04-01

Working memory (WM) as the ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate various kinds of information is known to be affected by proactive interference (PI) from previously relevant contents, but studies on developmental changes in the susceptibility to PI are scarce. In the present study, we investigated life span development of item-specific PI. To this end, 92 individuals between the ages of 8 and 74 years completed a recent-probes task and an n-back task that both composed experimental manipulations of PI. Regarding global WM development, young adults had higher WM performance than children and older adults in both tasks. Significant PI × Age interactions revealed that susceptibility to PI changed over the life span in both tasks, whereas the developmental course of PI differed between the tasks: Children committed more PI-related errors than young adults in the recent-probes task but showed marginally less PI in the n-back task. Regarding reaction time costs, children did not differ from adults in the recent-probes task and were less affected than adults in the n-back. Older adults showed more PI-related errors than young adults in both tasks. Therefore, as expected, item-specific PI changed over the life span with the young adults being less susceptible to PI than children and older adults. The diverging developmental effects of PI across both tasks, especially in the children, are supposed to reflect different causes for the difficulties regarding resisting PI in children and older adults. These might concern differently developed underlying cognitive processes such as inhibition or recollection, or different responses to task demands across both tasks. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Transfer Effects to a Multimodal Dual-Task after Working Memory Training and Associated Neural Correlates in Older Adults - A Pilot Study.

PubMed

Heinzel, Stephan; Rimpel, Jérôme; Stelzel, Christine; Rapp, Michael A

2017-01-01

Working memory (WM) performance declines with age. However, several studies have shown that WM training may lead to performance increases not only in the trained task, but also in untrained cognitive transfer tasks. It has been suggested that transfer effects occur if training task and transfer task share specific processing components that are supposedly processed in the same brain areas. In the current study, we investigated whether single-task WM training and training-related alterations in neural activity might support performance in a dual-task setting, thus assessing transfer effects to higher-order control processes in the context of dual-task coordination. A sample of older adults (age 60-72) was assigned to either a training or control group. The training group participated in 12 sessions of an adaptive n-back training. At pre and post-measurement, a multimodal dual-task was performed in all participants to assess transfer effects. This task consisted of two simultaneous delayed match to sample WM tasks using two different stimulus modalities (visual and auditory) that were performed either in isolation (single-task) or in conjunction (dual-task). A subgroup also participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the performance of the n-back task before and after training. While no transfer to single-task performance was found, dual-task costs in both the visual modality ( p < 0.05) and the auditory modality ( p < 0.05) decreased at post-measurement in the training but not in the control group. In the fMRI subgroup of the training participants, neural activity changes in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during one-back predicted post-training auditory dual-task costs, while neural activity changes in right DLPFC during three-back predicted visual dual-task costs. Results might indicate an improvement in central executive processing that could facilitate both WM and dual-task coordination.

Transfer Effects to a Multimodal Dual-Task after Working Memory Training and Associated Neural Correlates in Older Adults – A Pilot Study

PubMed Central

Heinzel, Stephan; Rimpel, Jérôme; Stelzel, Christine; Rapp, Michael A.

2017-01-01

Working memory (WM) performance declines with age. However, several studies have shown that WM training may lead to performance increases not only in the trained task, but also in untrained cognitive transfer tasks. It has been suggested that transfer effects occur if training task and transfer task share specific processing components that are supposedly processed in the same brain areas. In the current study, we investigated whether single-task WM training and training-related alterations in neural activity might support performance in a dual-task setting, thus assessing transfer effects to higher-order control processes in the context of dual-task coordination. A sample of older adults (age 60–72) was assigned to either a training or control group. The training group participated in 12 sessions of an adaptive n-back training. At pre and post-measurement, a multimodal dual-task was performed in all participants to assess transfer effects. This task consisted of two simultaneous delayed match to sample WM tasks using two different stimulus modalities (visual and auditory) that were performed either in isolation (single-task) or in conjunction (dual-task). A subgroup also participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the performance of the n-back task before and after training. While no transfer to single-task performance was found, dual-task costs in both the visual modality (p < 0.05) and the auditory modality (p < 0.05) decreased at post-measurement in the training but not in the control group. In the fMRI subgroup of the training participants, neural activity changes in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during one-back predicted post-training auditory dual-task costs, while neural activity changes in right DLPFC during three-back predicted visual dual-task costs. Results might indicate an improvement in central executive processing that could facilitate both WM and dual-task coordination. PMID:28286477

A new modified listening span task to enhance validity of working memory assessment for people with and without aphasia

PubMed Central

Ivanova, Maria V.; Hallowell, Brooke

2014-01-01

Deficits in working memory (WM) are an important subset of cognitive processing deficits associated with aphasia. However, there are serious limitations to research on WM in aphasia largely due to the lack of an established valid measure of WM impairment for this population. The aim of the current study was to address shortcomings of previous measures by developing and empirically evaluating a novel WM task with a sentence-picture matching processing component designed to circumvent confounds inherent in existing measures of WM in aphasia. The novel WM task was presented to persons with (n = 27) and without (n = 33) aphasia. Results demonstrated high concurrent validity of a novel WM task. Individuals with aphasia performed significantly worse on all conditions of the WM task compared to individuals without aphasia. Different patterns of performance across conditions were observed for the two groups. Additionally, WM capacity was significantly related to auditory comprehension abilities in individuals with mild aphasia but not those with moderate aphasia. Strengths of the novel WM task are that it allows for differential control for length versus complexity of verbal stimuli and indexing of the relative influence of each, minimizes metalinguistic requirements, enables control for complexity of processing components, allows participants to respond with simple gestures or verbally, and eliminates reading requirements. Results support the feasibility and validity of using a novel task to assess WM in individuals with and without aphasia. PMID:24986153

False-belief understanding in 2.5-year-olds: Evidence from two novel verbal spontaneous-response tasks

PubMed Central

Scott, Rose M.; He, Zijing; Baillargeon, Renée; Cummins, Denise

2011-01-01

Recent research indicates that toddlers and infants succeed at various non-verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks; here we asked whether toddlers would also succeed at verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks that imposed significant linguistic demands. 2.5-year-olds were tested using two novel tasks: a preferential-looking task in which children listened to a false-belief story while looking at a picture book (with matching and non-matching pictures), and a violation-of-expectation task in which children watched an adult “Subject” answer (correctly or incorrectly) a standard false-belief question. Positive results were obtained with both tasks, despite their linguistic demands. These results (1) support the distinction between spontaneous-and elicited-response tasks by showing that toddlers succeed at verbal false-belief tasks that do not require them to answer direct questions about agents’ false beliefs, (2) reinforce claims of robust continuity in early false-belief understanding as assessed by spontaneous-response tasks, and (3) provide researchers with new experimental tasks for exploring early false-belief understanding in neurotypical and autistic populations. PMID:22356174

False-belief understanding in 2.5-year-olds: evidence from two novel verbal spontaneous-response tasks.

PubMed

Scott, Rose M; He, Zijing; Baillargeon, Renée; Cummins, Denise

2012-03-01

Recent research indicates that toddlers and infants succeed at various non-verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks; here we asked whether toddlers would also succeed at verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks that imposed significant linguistic demands. We tested 2.5-year-olds using two novel tasks: a preferential-looking task in which children listened to a false-belief story while looking at a picture book (with matching and non-matching pictures), and a violation-of-expectation task in which children watched an adult 'Subject' answer (correctly or incorrectly) a standard false-belief question. Positive results were obtained with both tasks, despite their linguistic demands. These results (1) support the distinction between spontaneous- and elicited-response tasks by showing that toddlers succeed at verbal false-belief tasks that do not require them to answer direct questions about agents' false beliefs, (2) reinforce claims of robust continuity in early false-belief understanding as assessed by spontaneous-response tasks, and (3) provide researchers with new experimental tasks for exploring early false-belief understanding in neurotypical and autistic populations. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Modifications of EEG power spectra in mesial temporal lobe during n-back tasks of increasing difficulty. A sLORETA study.

PubMed

Imperatori, Claudio; Farina, Benedetto; Brunetti, Riccardo; Gnoni, Valentina; Testani, Elisa; Quintiliani, Maria I; Del Gatto, Claudia; Indraccolo, Allegra; Contardi, Anna; Speranza, Anna M; Della Marca, Giacomo

2013-01-01

The n-back task is widely used to investigate the neural basis of Working Memory (WM) processes. The principal aim of this study was to explore and compare the EEG power spectra during two n-back tests with different levels of difficulty (1-back vs. 3-back). Fourteen healthy subjects were enrolled (seven men and seven women, mean age 31.21 ± 7.05 years, range: 23-48). EEG was recorded while performing the N-back test, by means of 19 surface electrodes referred to joint mastoids. EEG analysis were conducted by means of the standardized Low Resolution brain Electric Tomography (sLORETA) software. The statistical comparison between EEG power spectra in the two conditions was performed using paired t-statistics on the coherence values after Fisher's z transformation available in the LORETA program package. The frequency bands considered were: delta (0.5-4 Hz); theta (4.5-7.5 Hz); alpha (8-12.5 Hz); beta (13-30 Hz); gamma (30.5-100 Hz). Significant changes occurred in the delta band: in the 3-back condition an increased delta power was localized in a brain region corresponding to the Brodmann Area (BA) 28 in the left posterior entorhinal cortex (T = 3.112; p < 0.05) and in the BA 35 in the left perirhinal cortex in the parahippocampal gyrus (T = 2.876; p < 0.05). No significant differences were observed in the right hemisphere and in the alpha, theta, beta, and gamma frequency bands. Our results indicate that the most prominent modification induced by the increased complexity of the task occur in the mesial left temporal lobe structures.

Early conversational environment enables spontaneous belief attribution in deaf children.

PubMed

Meristo, Marek; Strid, Karin; Hjelmquist, Erland

2016-12-01

Previous research suggests that deaf children who grow up with hearing parents display considerable difficulties in understanding mental states of others, up to their teenage years when explicitly asked in a verbal test situation (Meristo et al., 2007). On the other hand, typically developing pre-verbal infants display evidence of spontaneous false belief attribution when tested in looking-time tasks, although verbal tests are typically not passed before the age of 4years (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005). The purpose of the present study was to examine whether deaf children of hearing parents are able to demonstrate spontaneous belief attribution in a non-verbal eye-tracking task. Thirty 4- to 8-year-old, deaf and hearing children, completed a non-verbal spontaneous-response false-belief task and a verbal elicited-response false-belief task. The deaf children were either children with cochlear implants or children with hearing aids. Comparative analyses were also carried out with a previous sample of deaf and hearing 2-year-olds (reported in Meristo, Morgan, et al., 2012). We found that in the non-verbal spontaneous-response task typically hearing children, but not deaf children, were able to predict that a person with a false belief about an object's location will search erroneously for the object. However, hearing children and deaf children with implants, but not deaf children with hearing aids, passed the verbal elicited-response task. Language development was significantly correlated with both types of false-belief tasks for the whole sample. Our findings strengthen the hypothesis that the emergence of the ability to recognize others' beliefs needs to be supported initially by very early conversational input in dialogues with caregivers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Musical and verbal semantic memory: two distinct neural networks?

PubMed

Groussard, M; Viader, F; Hubert, V; Landeau, B; Abbas, A; Desgranges, B; Eustache, F; Platel, H

2010-02-01

Semantic memory has been investigated in numerous neuroimaging and clinical studies, most of which have used verbal or visual, but only very seldom, musical material. Clinical studies have suggested that there is a relative neural independence between verbal and musical semantic memory. In the present study, "musical semantic memory" is defined as memory for "well-known" melodies without any knowledge of the spatial or temporal circumstances of learning, while "verbal semantic memory" corresponds to general knowledge about concepts, again without any knowledge of the spatial or temporal circumstances of learning. Our aim was to compare the neural substrates of musical and verbal semantic memory by administering the same type of task in each modality. We used high-resolution PET H(2)O(15) to observe 11 young subjects performing two main tasks: (1) a musical semantic memory task, where the subjects heard the first part of familiar melodies and had to decide whether the second part they heard matched the first, and (2) a verbal semantic memory task with the same design, but where the material consisted of well-known expressions or proverbs. The musical semantic memory condition activated the superior temporal area and inferior and middle frontal areas in the left hemisphere and the inferior frontal area in the right hemisphere. The verbal semantic memory condition activated the middle temporal region in the left hemisphere and the cerebellum in the right hemisphere. We found that the verbal and musical semantic processes activated a common network extending throughout the left temporal neocortex. In addition, there was a material-dependent topographical preference within this network, with predominantly anterior activation during musical tasks and predominantly posterior activation during semantic verbal tasks. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Working Memory Load and Reminder Effect on Event-Based Prospective Memory of High- and Low-Achieving Students in Math.

PubMed

Chen, Youzhen; Lian, Rong; Yang, Lixian; Liu, Jianrong; Meng, Yingfang

The effects of working memory (WM) demand and reminders on an event-based prospective memory (PM) task were compared between students with low and high achievement in math. WM load (1- and 2-back tasks) was manipulated as a within-subject factor and reminder (with or without reminder) as a between-subject factor. Results showed that high-achieving students outperformed low-achieving students on all PM and n-back tasks. Use of a reminder improved PM performance and thus reduced prospective interference; the performance of ongoing tasks also improved for all students. Both PM and n-back performances in low WM load were better than in high WM load. High WM load had more influence on low-achieving students than on high-achieving students. Results suggest that low-achieving students in math were weak at PM and influenced more by high WM load. Thus, it is important to train these students to set up an obvious reminder for their PM and improve their WM.

The visual attention span deficit in dyslexia is visual and not verbal.

PubMed

Lobier, Muriel; Zoubrinetzky, Rachel; Valdois, Sylviane

2012-06-01

The visual attention (VA) span deficit hypothesis of dyslexia posits that letter string deficits are a consequence of impaired visual processing. Alternatively, some have interpreted this deficit as resulting from a visual-to-phonology code mapping impairment. This study aims to disambiguate between the two interpretations by investigating performance in a non-verbal character string visual categorization task with verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Results show that VA span ability predicts performance for the non-verbal visual processing task in normal reading children. Furthermore, VA span impaired dyslexic children are also impaired for the categorization task independently of stimuli type. This supports the hypothesis that the underlying impairment responsible for the VA span deficit is visual, not verbal. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

Continuity from an implicit to an explicit understanding of false belief from infancy to preschool age.

PubMed

Thoermer, Claudia; Sodian, Beate; Vuori, Maria; Perst, Hannah; Kristen, Susanne

2012-03-01

An implicit understanding of false belief indicated by anticipatory looking has been shown to be significantly correlated with performance on explicit false-belief tasks in 3- and 4-year-old children (Low, 2010). Recent evidence from infant research indicates, however, that implicit false-belief understanding guides infants' expectations about goal-directed actions even in the second year of life. The present study presents data from a sample of N= 70 infants who were tested longitudinally at 15, 18, 30, 36 and 48 months with implicit and explicit Theory of Mind measures, as well as an assessment of verbal IQ. Belief-based anticipatory looking in the false-belief task at 18 months significantly predicted verbal false-belief reasoning at 48 months, after controlling for verbal IQ. These findings indicate developmental continuity and conceptual specificity in belief reasoning from infancy to preschool age. They are discussed with respect to competing accounts of infants' understanding of the mind. © 2011 The British Psychological Society.

Comparison of Measures of Ability in Adolescents with Intellectual Disability

PubMed Central

Mungkhetklang, Chantanee; Crewther, Sheila G.; Bavin, Edith L.; Goharpey, Nahal; Parsons, Carl

2016-01-01

Finding the most appropriate intelligence test for adolescents with Intellectual Disability (ID) is challenging given their limited language, attention, perceptual, and motor skills and ability to stay on task. The study compared performance of 23 adolescents with ID on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), one of the most widely used intelligence tests, and three non-verbal IQ tests, the Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices (RCPM), the Test of Non-verbal Intelligence-Fourth Edition and the Wechsler Non-verbal test of Ability. Results showed that the WISC-IV Full Scale IQ raw and scaled scores were highly correlated with total scores from the three non-verbal tests, although the correlations were higher for raw scores, suggesting they may lead to better understanding of within group differences and what individuals with ID can do at the time of assessment. All participants attempted more questions on the non-verbal tests than the verbal. A preliminary analysis showed that adolescents with ID without ASD (n = 15) achieved higher scores overall than those presenting with ID+ASD (n = 8). Our findings support the view that short non-verbal tests are more likely to give a similar IQ result as obtained from the WISC-IV. In terms of the time to administer and the stress for participants, they are more appropriate for assessing adolescents with ID. PMID:27242597

Comparison of Measures of Ability in Adolescents with Intellectual Disability.

PubMed

Mungkhetklang, Chantanee; Crewther, Sheila G; Bavin, Edith L; Goharpey, Nahal; Parsons, Carl

2016-01-01

Finding the most appropriate intelligence test for adolescents with Intellectual Disability (ID) is challenging given their limited language, attention, perceptual, and motor skills and ability to stay on task. The study compared performance of 23 adolescents with ID on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), one of the most widely used intelligence tests, and three non-verbal IQ tests, the Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices (RCPM), the Test of Non-verbal Intelligence-Fourth Edition and the Wechsler Non-verbal test of Ability. Results showed that the WISC-IV Full Scale IQ raw and scaled scores were highly correlated with total scores from the three non-verbal tests, although the correlations were higher for raw scores, suggesting they may lead to better understanding of within group differences and what individuals with ID can do at the time of assessment. All participants attempted more questions on the non-verbal tests than the verbal. A preliminary analysis showed that adolescents with ID without ASD (n = 15) achieved higher scores overall than those presenting with ID+ASD (n = 8). Our findings support the view that short non-verbal tests are more likely to give a similar IQ result as obtained from the WISC-IV. In terms of the time to administer and the stress for participants, they are more appropriate for assessing adolescents with ID.

Working Memory Capacity and Resistance to Interference

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oberauer, Klaus; Lange, Elke; Engle, Randall W.

2004-01-01

Single-task and dual-task versions of verbal and spatial serial order memory tasks were administered to 120 students tested for working memory capacity with four previously validated measures. In the dual-task versions, similarity between the memory material and the material of the secondary processing task was varied. With verbal material, three…

Intrusive Memories of Distressing Information: An fMRI Study

PubMed Central

Battaglini, Eva; Liddell, Belinda; Das, Pritha; Malhi, Gin; Felmingham, Kim

2016-01-01

Although intrusive memories are characteristic of many psychological disorders, the neurobiological underpinning of these involuntary recollections are largely unknown. In this study we used functional magentic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify the neural networks associated with encoding of negative stimuli that are subsequently experienced as intrusive memories. Healthy partipants (N = 42) viewed negative and neutral images during a visual/verbal processing task in an fMRI context. Two days later they were assessed on the Impact of Event Scale for occurrence of intrusive memories of the encoded images. A sub-group of participants who reported significant intrusions (n = 13) demonstrated stronger activation in the amygdala, bilateral ACC and parahippocampal gyrus during verbal encoding relative to a group who reported no intrusions (n = 13). Within-group analyses also revealed that the high intrusion group showed greater activity in the dorsomedial (dmPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), inferior frontal gyrus and occipital regions during negative verbal processing compared to neutral verbal processing. These results do not accord with models of intrusions that emphasise visual processing of information at encoding but are consistent with models that highlight the role of inhibitory and suppression processes in the formation of subsequent intrusive memories. PMID:27685784

Mild Jugular Compression Collar Ameliorated Changes in Brain Activation of Working Memory after One Soccer Season in Female High School Athletes.

PubMed

Yuan, Weihong; Dudley, Jonathan; Barber Foss, Kim D; Ellis, Jonathan D; Thomas, Staci; Galloway, Ryan T; DiCesare, Christopher A; Leach, James L; Adams, Janet; Maloney, Thomas; Gadd, Brooke; Smith, David; Epstein, Jeff N; Grooms, Dustin R; Logan, Kelsey; Howell, David R; Altaye, Mekibib; Myer, Gregory D

2018-06-01

Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested that repetitive subconcussive head impacts, even after only one sport season, may lead to pre- to post-season structural and functional alterations in male high school football athletes. However, data on female athletes are limited. In the current investigation, we aimed to (1) assess the longitudinal pre- to post-season changes in functional MRI (fMRI) of working memory and working memory performance, (2) quantify the association between the pre- to post-season change in fMRI of working memory and the exposure to head impact and working memory performance, and (3) assess whether wearing a neck collar designed to reduce intracranial slosh via mild compression of the jugular veins can ameliorate the changes in fMRI brain activation observed in the female high school athletes who did not wear collars after a full soccer season. A total of 48 female high school soccer athletes (age range: 14.00-17.97 years) were included in the study. These athletes were assigned to the non-collar group (n = 21) or to the collar group (n = 27). All athletes undewent MRI at both pre-season and post-season. In each session, a fMRI verbal N-Back task was used to engage working memory. A significant pre- to post-season increase in fMRI blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal was demonstrated when performing the N-back working memory task in the non-collar group but not in the collar group, despite the comparable exposure to head impacts during the season between the two groups. The collar group demonstrated significantly smaller pre- to post-season change in fMRI BOLD signal than the non-collar group, suggesting a potential protective effect from the collar device. Significant correlations were also found between the pre- to post-season increase in fMRI brain activation and the decrease in task accuracy in the non-collar group, indicating an association between the compensatory mechanism in underlying neurophysiology and the alteration in the behavioral outcomes.

Explicit and Implicit Verbal Response Inhibition in Preschool-Age Children Who Stutter.

PubMed

Anderson, Julie D; Wagovich, Stacy A

2017-04-14

The purpose of this study was to examine (a) explicit and implicit verbal response inhibition in preschool children who do stutter (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) and (b) the relationship between response inhibition and language skills. Participants were 41 CWS and 41 CWNS between the ages of 3;1 and 6;1 (years;months). Explicit verbal response inhibition was measured using a computerized version of the grass-snow task (Carlson & Moses, 2001), and implicit verbal response inhibition was measured using the baa-meow task. Main dependent variables were reaction time and accuracy. The CWS were significantly less accurate than the CWNS on the implicit task, but not the explicit task. The CWS also exhibited slower reaction times than the CWNS on both tasks. Between-group differences in performance could not be attributed to working memory demands. Overall, children's performance on the inhibition tasks corresponded with parents' perceptions of their children's inhibition skills in daily life. CWS are less effective and efficient than CWNS in suppressing a dominant response while executing a conflicting response in the verbal domain.

The role of working memory in spatial S-R correspondence effects.

PubMed

Wühr, Peter; Biebl, Rupert

2011-04-01

This study investigates the impact of working memory (WM) load on response conflicts arising from spatial (non) correspondence between irrelevant stimulus location and response location (Simon effect). The dominant view attributes the Simon effect to automatic processes of location-based response priming. The automaticity view predicts insensitivity of the Simon effect to manipulations of processing load. Four experiments investigated the role of spatial and verbal WM in horizontal and vertical Simon tasks by using a dual-task approach. Participants maintained different amounts of spatial or verbal information in WM while performing a horizontal or vertical Simon task. Results showed that high load generally decreased, and sometimes eliminated, the Simon effect. It is interesting to note that spatial load had a larger impact than verbal load on the horizontal Simon effect, whereas verbal load had a larger impact than spatial load on the vertical Simon effect. The results highlight the role of WM as the perception-action interface in choice-response tasks. Moreover, the results suggest spatial coding of horizontal stimulus-response (S-R) tasks, and verbal coding of vertical S-R tasks.

Explicit and Implicit Verbal Response Inhibition in Preschool-Age Children Who Stutter

PubMed Central

Wagovich, Stacy A.

2017-01-01

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine (a) explicit and implicit verbal response inhibition in preschool children who do stutter (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) and (b) the relationship between response inhibition and language skills. Method Participants were 41 CWS and 41 CWNS between the ages of 3;1 and 6;1 (years;months). Explicit verbal response inhibition was measured using a computerized version of the grass–snow task (Carlson & Moses, 2001), and implicit verbal response inhibition was measured using the baa–meow task. Main dependent variables were reaction time and accuracy. Results The CWS were significantly less accurate than the CWNS on the implicit task, but not the explicit task. The CWS also exhibited slower reaction times than the CWNS on both tasks. Between-group differences in performance could not be attributed to working memory demands. Overall, children's performance on the inhibition tasks corresponded with parents' perceptions of their children's inhibition skills in daily life. Conclusions CWS are less effective and efficient than CWNS in suppressing a dominant response while executing a conflicting response in the verbal domain. PMID:28384673

Effects of working memory load on processing of sounds and meanings of words in aphasia

PubMed Central

Martin, Nadine; Kohen, Francine; Kalinyak-Fliszar, Michelene; Soveri, Anna; Laine, Matti

2011-01-01

Background Language performance in aphasia can vary depending on several variables such as stimulus characteristics and task demands. This study focuses on the degree of verbal working memory (WM) load inherent in the language task and how this variable affects language performance by individuals with aphasia. Aims The first aim was to identify the effects of increased verbal WM load on the performance of judgments of semantic similarity (synonymy) and phonological similarity (rhyming). The second aim was to determine if any of the following abilities could modulate the verbal WM load effect: semantic or phonological access, semantic or phonological short-term memory (STM) and any of the following executive processing abilities: inhibition, verbal WM updating, and set shifting. Method and Procedures Thirty-one individuals with aphasia and 11 controls participated in this study. They were administered a synonymy judgment task and a rhyming judgment task under high and low verbal WM load conditions that were compared to each other. In a second set of analyses, multiple regression was used to identify which factors (as noted above) modulated the verbal WM load effect. Outcome and Results For participants with aphasia, increased verbal WM load significantly reduced accuracy of performance on synonymy and rhyming judgments. Better performance in the low verbal WM load conditions was evident even after correcting for chance. The synonymy task included concrete and abstract word triplets. When these were examined separately, the verbal WM load effect was significant for the abstract words, but not the concrete words. The same pattern was observed in the performance of the control participants. Additionally, the second set of analyses revealed that semantic STM and one executive function, inhibition ability, emerged as the strongest predictors of the verbal WM load effect in these judgment tasks for individuals with aphasia. Conclusions The results of this study have important implications for diagnosis and treatment of aphasia. As the roles of verbal STM capacity, executive functions and verbal WM load in language processing are better understood, measurements of these variables can be incorporated into our diagnostic protocols. Moreover, if cognitive abilities such as STM and executive functions support language processing and their impairment adversely affects language function, treating them directly in the context of language tasks should translate into improved language function. PMID:22544993

Catastrophe models for cognitive workload and fatigue in N-back tasks.

PubMed

Guastello, Stephen J; Reiter, Katherine; Malon, Matthew; Timm, Paul; Shircel, Anton; Shaline, James

2015-04-01

N-back tasks place a heavy load on working memory, and thus make good candidates for studying cognitive workload and fatigue (CWLF). This study extended previous work on CWLF which separated the two phenomena with two cusp catastrophe models. Participants were 113 undergraduates who completed 2-back and 3-back tasks with both auditory and visual stimuli simultaneously. Task data were complemented by several measures hypothesized to be related to cognitive elasticity and compensatory abilities and the NASA TLX ratings of subjective workload. The adjusted R2 was .980 for the workload model, which indicated a highly accurate prediction with six bifurcation (elasticity versus rigidity) effects: algebra flexibility, TLX performance, effort, and frustration; and psychosocial measures of inflexibility and monitoring. There were also two cognitive load effects (asymmetry): 2 vs. 3-back and TLX temporal demands. The adjusted R2 was .454 for the fatigue model, which contained two bifurcation variables indicating the amount of work done, and algebra flexibility as the compensatory ability variable. Both cusp models were stronger than the next best linear alternative model. The study makes an important step forward by uncovering an apparently complete model for workload, finding the role of subjective workload in the context of performance dynamics, and finding CWLF dynamics in yet another type of memory-intensive task. The results were also consistent with the developing notion that performance deficits induced by workload and deficits induced by fatigue result from the impact of the task on the workspace and executive functions of working memory respectively.

Working memory training shows immediate and long-term effects on cognitive performance in children

PubMed Central

Pugin, Fiona; Metz, Andreas J.; Stauffer, Madlaina; Wolf, Martin; Jenni, Oskar G.; Huber, Reto

2014-01-01

Working memory is important for mental reasoning and learning processes. Several studies in adults and school-age children have shown performance improvement in cognitive tests after working memory training. Our aim was to examine not only immediate but also long-term effects of intensive working memory training on cognitive performance tests in children. Fourteen healthy male subjects between 10 and 16 years trained a visuospatial n-back task over 3 weeks (30 min daily), while 15 individuals of the same age range served as a passive control group. Significant differences in immediate (after 3 weeks of training) and long-term effects (after 2-6 months) in an auditory n-back task were observed compared to controls (2.5 fold immediate and 4.7 fold long-term increase in the training group compared to the controls). The improvement was more pronounced in subjects who improved their performance during the training. Other cognitive functions (matrices test and Stroop task) did not change when comparing the training group to the control group. We conclude that visuospatial working memory training in children boosts performance in similar memory tasks such as the auditory n-back task. The sustained performance improvement several months after the training supports the effectiveness of the training. PMID:25671082

An fMRI study of sex differences in regional activation to a verbal and a spatial task.

PubMed

Gur, R C; Alsop, D; Glahn, D; Petty, R; Swanson, C L; Maldjian, J A; Turetsky, B I; Detre, J A; Gee, J; Gur, R E

2000-09-01

Sex differences in cognitive performance have been documented, women performing better on some phonological tasks and men on spatial tasks. An earlier fMRI study suggested sex differences in distributed brain activation during phonological processing, with bilateral activation seen in women while men showed primarily left-lateralized activation. This blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI study examined sex differences (14 men, 13 women) in activation for a spatial task (judgment of line orientation) compared to a verbal-reasoning task (analogies) that does not typically show sex differences. Task difficulty was manipulated. Hypothesized ROI-based analysis documented the expected left-lateralized changes for the verbal task in the inferior parietal and planum temporal regions in both men and women, but only men showed right-lateralized increase for the spatial task in these regions. Image-based analysis revealed a distributed network of cortical regions activated by the tasks, which consisted of the lateral frontal, medial frontal, mid-temporal, occipitoparietal, and occipital regions. The activation was more left lateralized for the verbal and more right for the spatial tasks, but men also showed some left activation for the spatial task, which was not seen in women. Increased task difficulty produced more distributed activation for the verbal and more circumscribed activation for the spatial task. The results suggest that failure to activate the appropriate hemisphere in regions directly involved in task performance may explain certain sex differences in performance. They also extend, for a spatial task, the principle that bilateral activation in a distributed cognitive system underlies sex differences in performance. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Gender Differences in Verbal and Visuospatial Working Memory Tasks in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer Disease

PubMed Central

Elosúa, M. Rosa; Ciudad, María José; Contreras, María José

2017-01-01

Background/Aims To date, there are few studies on gender differences in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD). In the present study, the existence of differences between sexes in verbal and visuospatial working memory tasks in the evolution of cognitive and pathological aging was examined. Method Ninety participants took part in this study: 30 AD, 30 MCI, and 30 healthy elderly participants (50% men and 50% women). Results There were no significant differences between men and women with AD in visuospatial tasks, whereas these differences were found within the MCI group, with the average of men achieving significantly higher results than women. In verbal tasks, there were no differences between sexes for any of the groups. Conclusion Execution in visuospatial tasks tends to depend on gender, whereas this does not occur for verbal tasks. PMID:28553312

Selective impairment of auditory selective attention under concurrent cognitive load.

PubMed

Dittrich, Kerstin; Stahl, Christoph

2012-06-01

Load theory predicts that concurrent cognitive load impairs selective attention. For visual stimuli, it has been shown that this impairment can be selective: Distraction was specifically increased when the stimulus material used in the cognitive load task matches that of the selective attention task. Here, we report four experiments that demonstrate such selective load effects for auditory selective attention. The effect of two different cognitive load tasks on two different auditory Stroop tasks was examined, and selective load effects were observed: Interference in a nonverbal-auditory Stroop task was increased under concurrent nonverbal-auditory cognitive load (compared with a no-load condition), but not under concurrent verbal-auditory cognitive load. By contrast, interference in a verbal-auditory Stroop task was increased under concurrent verbal-auditory cognitive load but not under nonverbal-auditory cognitive load. This double-dissociation pattern suggests the existence of different and separable verbal and nonverbal processing resources in the auditory domain.

Cognitive Predictors of Verbal Memory in a Mixed Clinical Pediatric Sample

PubMed Central

Jordan, Lizabeth L.; Tyner, Callie E.; Heaton, Shelley C.

2013-01-01

Verbal memory problems, along with other cognitive difficulties, are common in children diagnosed with neurological and/or psychological disorders. Historically, these “memory problems” have been poorly characterized and often present with a heterogeneous pattern of performance across memory processes, even within a specific diagnostic group. The current study examined archival neuropsychological data from a large mixed clinical pediatric sample in order to understand whether functioning in other cognitive areas (i.e., verbal knowledge, attention, working memory, executive functioning) may explain some of the performance variability seen across verbal memory tasks of the Children’s Memory Scale (CMS). Multivariate analyses revealed that among the cognitive functions examined, only verbal knowledge explained a significant amount of variance in overall verbal memory performance. Further univariate analyses examining the component processes of verbal memory indicated that verbal knowledge is specifically related to encoding, but not the retention or retrieval stages. Future research is needed to replicate these findings in other clinical samples, to examine whether verbal knowledge predicts performance on other verbal memory tasks and to explore whether these findings also hold true for visual memory tasks. Successful replication of the current study findings would indicate that interventions targeting verbal encoding deficits should include efforts to improve verbal knowledge. PMID:25379253

A new modified listening span task to enhance validity of working memory assessment for people with and without aphasia.

PubMed

Ivanova, Maria V; Hallowell, Brooke

2014-01-01

Deficits in working memory (WM) are an important subset of cognitive processing deficits associated with aphasia. However, there are serious limitations to research on WM in aphasia largely due to the lack of an established valid measure of WM impairment for this population. The aim of the current study was to address shortcomings of previous measures by developing and empirically evaluating a novel WM task with a sentence-picture matching processing component designed to circumvent confounds inherent in existing measures of WM in aphasia. The novel WM task was presented to persons with (n=27) and without (n=33) aphasia. Results demonstrated high concurrent validity of a novel WM task. Individuals with aphasia performed significantly worse on all conditions of the WM task compared to individuals without aphasia. Different patterns of performance across conditions were observed for the two groups. Additionally, WM capacity was significantly related to auditory comprehension abilities in individuals with mild aphasia but not those with moderate aphasia. Strengths of the novel WM task are that it allows for differential control for length versus complexity of verbal stimuli and indexing of the relative influence of each, minimizes metalinguistic requirements, enables control for complexity of processing components, allows participants to respond with simple gestures or verbally, and eliminates reading requirements. Results support the feasibility and validity of using a novel task to assess WM in individuals with and without aphasia. Readers will be able to (1) discuss the limitations of current working memory measures for individuals with aphasia; (2) describe how task design features of a new working memory task for people with aphasia address shortcomings of existing measures; (3) summarize the evidence supporting the validity of the novel working memory task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Teaching Task Sequencing via Verbal Mediation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rusch, Frank R.; And Others

1987-01-01

Verbal sequence training was used to teach a moderately mentally retarded woman to sequence job-related tasks. Learning to say the tasks in the proper sequence resulted in the employee performing her tasks in that sequence, and the employee was capable of mediating her own work behavior when scheduled changes occurred. (Author/JDD)

Logical Form as a Determinant of Cognitive Processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Lambalgen, Michiel

We discuss a research program on reasoning patterns in subjects with autism, showing that they fail to engage in certain forms of non-monotonic reasoning that come naturally to neurotypical subjects. The striking reasoning patterns of autists occur both in verbal and in non-verbal tasks. Upon formalising the relevant non-verbal tasks, one sees that their logical form is the same as that of the verbal tasks. This suggests that logical form can play a causal role in cognitive processes, and we suggest that this logical form is actually embodied in the cognitive capacity called 'executive function'.

Semantic Verbal Fluency in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder: Relationship with Chronological Age and IQ

PubMed Central

Pastor-Cerezuela, Gemma; Fernández-Andrés, Maria-Inmaculada; Feo-Álvarez, Mireia; González-Sala, Francisco

2016-01-01

We administered a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task to two groups of children (age range from 5 to 8): 47 diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD Group) and 53 with typical development (Comparison Group), matched on gender, chronological age, and non-verbal IQ. Four specific indexes were calculated from the SVF task, reflecting the different underlying cognitive strategies used: clustering (component of generativity and lexical-semantic access), and switching (executive component, cognitive flexibility). First, we compared the performance of the two groups on the different SVF task indicators, with the ASD group scoring lower than the Comparison Group, although the difference was greater on switching than on clustering. Second, we analyzed the relationships between the different SVF measures and chronological age, verbal IQ and non-verbal IQ. While in the Comparison Group chronological age was the main predictor of performance on the SVF task, in the ASD Group verbal IQ was the best predictor. In the children with ASD, therefore, greater linguistic competence would be associated with better performance on the SVF task, which should be taken into account in speech therapies designed to achieve improvements in linguistic generativity and cognitive flexibility. PMID:27379002

Dissociation of verbal working memory system components using a delayed serial recall task.

PubMed

Chein, J M; Fiez, J A

2001-11-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the neural substrates of component processes in verbal working memory. Based on behavioral research using manipulations of verbal stimulus type to dissociate storage, rehearsal, and executive components of verbal working memory, we designed a delayed serial recall task requiring subjects to encode, maintain, and overtly recall sets of verbal items for which phonological similarity, articulatory length, and lexical status were manipulated. By using a task with temporally extended trials, we were able to exploit the temporal resolution afforded by fMRI to partially isolate neural contributions to encoding, maintenance, and retrieval stages of task performance. Several regions commonly associated with maintenance, including supplementary motor, premotor, and inferior frontal areas, were found to be active across all three trial stages. Additionally, we found that left inferior frontal and supplementary motor regions showed patterns of stimulus and temporal sensitivity implicating them in distinct aspects of articulatory rehearsal, while no regions showed a pattern of sensitivity consistent with a role in phonological storage. Regional modulation by task difficulty was further investigated as a measure of executive processing. We interpret our findings as they relate to notions about the cognitive architecture underlying verbal working memory performance.

Long-term memory-based control of attention in multi-step tasks requires working memory: evidence from domain-specific interference

PubMed Central

Foerster, Rebecca M.; Carbone, Elena; Schneider, Werner X.

2014-01-01

Evidence for long-term memory (LTM)-based control of attention has been found during the execution of highly practiced multi-step tasks. However, does LTM directly control for attention or are working memory (WM) processes involved? In the present study, this question was investigated with a dual-task paradigm. Participants executed either a highly practiced visuospatial sensorimotor task (speed stacking) or a verbal task (high-speed poem reciting), while maintaining visuospatial or verbal information in WM. Results revealed unidirectional and domain-specific interference. Neither speed stacking nor high-speed poem reciting was influenced by WM retention. Stacking disrupted the retention of visuospatial locations, but did not modify memory performance of verbal material (letters). Reciting reduced the retention of verbal material substantially whereas it affected the memory performance of visuospatial locations to a smaller degree. We suggest that the selection of task-relevant information from LTM for the execution of overlearned multi-step tasks recruits domain-specific WM. PMID:24847304

Assessing Neurophysiologic Markers for Training and Simulation to Develop Expertise in Complex Cognitive Tasks

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-09-01

analysis process is to categorize the goal according to (Gagné, 2005) domains of learning . These domains are: verbal information, intellectual...to terrain features. The ability to provide a clear verbal description of a unique feature is a learned task that may be separate from the...and experts differently. The process of verbally encoding information on location and providing this description may detract from the primary task of

Polygenic risk for depression and the neural correlates of working memory in healthy subjects.

PubMed

Yüksel, Dilara; Dietsche, Bruno; Forstner, Andreas J; Witt, Stephanie H; Maier, Robert; Rietschel, Marcella; Konrad, Carsten; Nöthen, Markus M; Dannlowski, Udo; Baune, Bernhard T; Kircher, Tilo; Krug, Axel

2017-10-03

Major depressive disorder (MDD) patients show impairments of cognitive functioning such as working memory (WM), and furthermore alterations during WM-fMRI tasks especially in frontal and parietal brain regions. The calculation of a polygenic risk score (PRS) can be used to describe the genetic influence on MDD, hence imaging genetic studies aspire to combine both genetics and neuroimaging data to identify the influence of genetic factors on brain functioning. We aimed to detect the effect of MDD-PRS on brain activation during a WM task measured with fMRI and expect healthy individuals with a higher PRS to be more resembling to MDD patients. In total, n=137 (80 men, 57 women, aged 34.5, SD=10.4years) healthy subjects performed a WM n-back task [0-back (baseline), 2-back and 3-back condition] in a 3T-MRI-tomograph. The sample was genotyped using the Infinium PsychArray BeadChip and a polygenic risk score was calculated for MDD using PGC MDD GWAS results. A lower MDD risk score was associated with increased activation in the bilateral middle occipital gyri (MOG), the bilateral middle frontal gyri (MFG) and the right precentral gyrus (PCG) during the 2-back vs. baseline condition. Moreover, a lower PRS was associated with increased brain activation during the 3-back vs. baseline condition in the bilateral cerebellum, the right MFG and the left inferior parietal lobule. A higher polygenic risk score was associated with hyperactivation in brain regions comprising the right MFG and the right supplementary motor area during the 3-back vs. 2-back condition. The results suggest that part of the WM-related brain activation patterns might be explained by genetic variants captured by the MDD-PRS. Furthermore we were able to detect MDD-associated activation patterns in healthy individuals depending on the MDD-PRS and the task complexity. Additional gene loci could contribute to these task-dependent brain activation patterns. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

More attention when speaking: does it help or does it hurt?

PubMed

Nozari, Nazbanou; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L

2013-11-01

Paying selective attention to a word in a multi-word utterance results in a decreased probability of error on that word (benefit), but an increased probability of error on the other words (cost). We ask whether excitation of the prefrontal cortex helps or hurts this cost. One hypothesis (the resource hypothesis) predicts a decrease in the cost due to the deployment of more attentional resources, while another (the focus hypothesis) predicts even greater costs due to further fine-tuning of selective attention. Our results are more consistent with the focus hypothesis: prefrontal stimulation caused a reliable increase in the benefit and a marginal increase in the cost of selective attention. To ensure that the effects are due to changes to the prefrontal cortex, we provide two checks: We show that the pattern of results is quite different if, instead, the primary motor cortex is stimulated. We also show that the stimulation-related benefits in the verbal task correlate with the stimulation-related benefits in an N-back task, which is known to tap into a prefrontal function. Our results shed light on how selective attention affects language production, and more generally, on how selective attention affects production of a sequence over time. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Repeated Low-Level Blast Exposure: A Descriptive Human Subjects Study.

PubMed

Carr, Walter; Stone, James R; Walilko, Tim; Young, Lee Ann; Snook, Tianlu Li; Paggi, Michelle E; Tsao, Jack W; Jankosky, Christopher J; Parish, Robert V; Ahlers, Stephen T

2016-05-01

The relationship between repeated exposure to blast overpressure and neurological function was examined in the context of breacher training at the U.S. Marine Corps Weapons Training Battalion Dynamic Entry School. During this training, Students are taught to apply explosive charges to achieve rapid ingress into secured buildings. For this study, both Students and Instructors participated in neurobehavioral testing, blood toxin screening, vestibular/auditory testing, and neuroimaging. Volunteers wore instrumentation during training to allow correlation of human response measurements and blast overpressure exposure. The key findings of this study were from high-memory demand tasks and were limited to the Instructors. Specific tests showing blast-related mean differences were California Verbal Learning Test II, Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics subtests (Match-to-Sample, Code Substitution Delayed), and Delayed Matching-to-Sample 10-second delay condition. Importantly, apparent deficits were paralleled with functional magnetic resonance imaging using the n-back task. The findings of this study are suggestive, but not conclusive, owing to small sample size and effect. The observed changes yield descriptive evidence for potential neurological alterations in the subset of individuals with occupational history of repetitive blast exposure. This is the first study to integrate subject instrumentation for measurement of individual blast pressure exposure, neurocognitive testing, and neuroimaging. Reprint & Copyright © 2016 Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S.

Prefrontal N-acetylaspartate is strongly associated with memory performance in (abstinent) ecstasy users: preliminary report.

PubMed

Reneman, L; Majoie, C B; Schmand, B; van den Brink, W; den Heeten, G J

2001-10-01

3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or "Ecstasy") is known to damage brain serotonin neurons in animals and possibly humans. Because serotonergic damage may adversely affect memory, we compared verbal memory function between MDMA users and MDMA-naïve control subjects and evaluated the relationship between verbal memory function and neuronal dysfunction in the MDMA users. An auditory verbal memory task (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test) was used to study eight abstinent MDMA users and seven control subjects. In addition 1H-MRS was used in different brain regions of all MDMA users to measure N-acetylaspartate/creatine (NAA/Cr) ratios, a marker for neuronal viability. The MDMA users recalled significantly fewer words than control subjects on delayed (p =.03) but not immediate recall (p =.08). In MDMA users, delayed memory function was strongly associated with NAA/Cr only in the prefrontal cortex (R(2) =.76, p =.01). Greater decrements in memory function predicted lower NAA/Cr levels-and by inference greater neuronal dysfunction-in the prefrontal cortex of MDMA users.

Shutting Down Sensorimotor Interferences after Stroke: A Proof-of-Principle SMR Neurofeedback Study

PubMed Central

Reichert, Johanna L.; Kober, Silvia E.; Schweiger, Daniela; Grieshofer, Peter; Neuper, Christa; Wood, Guilherme

2016-01-01

Introduction: Neurofeedback training aims at learning self-regulation of brain activity underlying cognitive, emotional or physiological functions. Despite of promising investigations on neurofeedback as a tool for cognitive rehabilitation in neurological diseases, such as after stroke, there is still a lack of research on feasibility and efficiency of neurofeedback in this field. Methods: The present study aimed at investigating behavioral and electrophysiological effects of 10 sessions of sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) neurofeedback in a 74-years-old stroke patient (UG20). Based on previous results in healthy young participants, we hypothesized that SMR neurofeedback leads to a decrease in sensorimotor interferences and improved stimulus processing, reflected by changes in event-related potentials (ERPs) and electrophysiological coherence. To assess whether UG20 benefited from the training as much as healthy persons of a similar age, a healthy control group of N = 10 elderly persons was trained as well. Before and after neurofeedback training, participants took part in a multichannel electroencephalography measurement conducted during a non-verbal and a verbal learning task. Results: Both UG20 and the healthy controls were able to regulate their SMR activity during neurofeedback training. Moreover, in a non-verbal learning task, changes in ERPs and coherence were observed after training: UG20 showed a better performance in the non-verbal learning task and a higher P3 amplitude after training than before, and coherence between central and parietal electrodes decreased after training. The control group also showed a behavioral improvement in the non-verbal learning task and tendencies for higher P3 amplitudes and decreased central-parietal coherence after training. Single-case analyses indicated that the changes observed in UG20 were not smaller than the changes in healthy controls. Conclusion: Neurofeedback can be successfully applied in a stroke patient and in healthy elderly persons. We suggest that SMR neurofeedback leads to a shutting-down of sensorimotor interferences which benefits semantic encoding and retrieval. PMID:27471456

Chinese preschoolers' implicit and explicit false-belief understanding.

PubMed

Wang, Bo; Low, Jason; Jing, Zhang; Qinghua, Qu

2012-03-01

Mandarin-speaking preschoolers in Mainland China (3- to 4-year-olds; N= 192) were tested for dissociations between anticipatory looking (AL) and verbal judgments on false-belief tasks. The dissociation between the two kinds of understanding was robust despite direct false-belief test questions using a Mandarin specific think-falsely verb and despite participants living in a culture that promotes early self-control. Children showed coherent AL across different belief-formation scenarios. Manipulation of inhibitory demand in the false-belief task did not affect preschoolers' verbal judgments any more than their AL, and yet separate measures executive function correlated only with direct judgments and not looking responses. The findings are discussed in terms of an implicit-explicit cognitive systems account of false-belief understanding. © 2011 The British Psychological Society.

Alterations in Resting-State Activity Relate to Performance in a Verbal Recognition Task

PubMed Central

López Zunini, Rocío A.; Thivierge, Jean-Philippe; Kousaie, Shanna; Sheppard, Christine; Taler, Vanessa

2013-01-01

In the brain, resting-state activity refers to non-random patterns of intrinsic activity occurring when participants are not actively engaged in a task. We monitored resting-state activity using electroencephalogram (EEG) both before and after a verbal recognition task. We show a strong positive correlation between accuracy in verbal recognition and pre-task resting-state alpha power at posterior sites. We further characterized this effect by examining resting-state post-task activity. We found marked alterations in resting-state alpha power when comparing pre- and post-task periods, with more pronounced alterations in participants that attained higher task accuracy. These findings support a dynamical view of cognitive processes where patterns of ongoing brain activity can facilitate –or interfere– with optimal task performance. PMID:23785436

Neurocognitive functioning over the course of trauma-focused psychotherapy for PTSD: Changes in verbal memory and executive functioning.

PubMed

Nijdam, Mirjam J; Martens, Irene J M; Reitsma, Johannes B; Gersons, Berthold P R; Olff, Miranda

2018-05-01

Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have neurocognitive deficits in verbal memory and executive functioning. In this study, we examined whether memory and executive functioning changed over the course of treatment and which clinical variables were associated with change. Neuropsychological assessments were administered at baseline and endpoint of a randomized controlled trial as secondary outcome. Trauma survivors (n = 88) diagnosed with PTSD received trauma-focused psychotherapy within a 17-week randomized controlled trial. Neuropsychological tests were the California Verbal Learning Test, Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test, Stroop Color Word Test, and Trail Making Test. Significant, small- to medium-sized improvements in verbal memory, information processing speed, and executive functioning were found after trauma-focused psychotherapy (Cohen's d 0.16-0.68). Greater PTSD symptom decrease was significantly related to better post-treatment neurocognitive performance (all p < .005). Patients with comorbid depression improved more than patients with PTSD alone on interference tasks (p < .01). No differences emerged between treatment conditions and between patients on serotonergic antidepressants and those who were not. This study suggests that neurocognitive deficits in PTSD can improve over the course of trauma-focused psychotherapy and are therefore at least partly reversible. Improvements over treatment are in line with previous neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies and effect sizes exceed those of practice effects. Future research should determine whether these changes translate into improved functioning in the daily lives of the patients. Patients with PTSD have difficulties performing verbal memory tasks (e.g., remembering a grocery list, recall of a story) and executive functioning tasks (e.g., shifting attention between two tasks, ignoring irrelevant information to complete a task). Verbal memory, information processing speed, and executive functioning significantly improved in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder over the course of trauma-focused psychotherapy. Improvements were equal in size for two different trauma-focused psychotherapies (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy and brief eclectic psychotherapy for PTSD). Medium-sized effects were found for recall of a story, whereas effects in other aspects of verbal memory, information processing speed, and executive functioning were small-sized. No causal attributions can be made because we could not include a control group without treatment for ethical reasons. Findings may be more reflective of patients who completed treatment than patients who prematurely dropped out as completers were overrepresented in our sample. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

Exposure to Blue Light Increases Subsequent Functional Activation of the Prefrontal Cortex During Performance of a Working Memory Task.

PubMed

Alkozei, Anna; Smith, Ryan; Pisner, Derek A; Vanuk, John R; Berryhill, Sarah M; Fridman, Andrew; Shane, Bradley R; Knight, Sara A; Killgore, William D S

2016-09-01

Prolonged exposure to blue wavelength light has been shown to have an alerting effect, and enhances performance on cognitive tasks. A small number of studies have also shown that relatively short exposure to blue light leads to changes in functional brain responses during the period of exposure. The extent to which blue light continues to affect brain functioning during a cognitively challenging task after cessation of longer periods of exposure (i.e., roughly 30 minutes or longer), however, has not been fully investigated. A total of 35 healthy participants (18 female) were exposed to either blue (469 nm) (n = 17) or amber (578 nm) (n = 18) wavelength light for 30 minutes in a darkened room, followed immediately by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while undergoing a working memory task (N-back task). Participants in the blue light condition were faster in their responses on the N-back task and showed increased activation in the dorsolateral (DLPFC) and ventrolateral (VLPFC) prefrontal cortex compared to those in the amber control light condition. Furthermore, greater activation within the VLPFC was correlated with faster N-back response times. This is the first study to suggest that a relatively brief, single exposure to blue light has a subsequent beneficial effect on working memory performance, even after cessation of exposure, and leads to temporarily persisting functional brain changes within prefrontal brain regions associated with executive functions. These findings may have broader implication for using blue-enriched light in a variety of work settings where alertness and quick decision-making are important. © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

A Nonverbal False Belief Task: The Performance of Children and Great Apes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Call, Josep; Tomasello, Michael

1999-01-01

Compared performance of preschool children, chimpanzees, and orangutans on nonverbal task of false-belief understanding and tested children's performance on a verbal version of the same task. Found that children's performance on verbal and nonverbal tasks were highly correlated, and no chimp or orangutan succeeded in the nonverbal false-belief…

Visual scanning with or without spatial uncertainty and time-sharing performance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Yili; Wickens, Christopher D.

1989-01-01

An experiment is reported that examines the pattern of task interference between visual scanning as a sequential and selective attention process and other concurrent spatial or verbal processing tasks. A distinction is proposed between visual scanning with or without spatial uncertainty regarding the possible differential effects of these two types of scanning on interference with other concurrent processes. The experiment required the subject to perform a simulated primary tracking task, which was time-shared with a secondary spatial or verbal decision task. The relevant information that was needed to perform the decision tasks were displayed with or without spatial uncertainty. The experiment employed a 2 x 2 x 2 design with types of scanning (with or without spatial uncertainty), expected scanning distance (low/high), and codes of concurrent processing (spatial/verbal) as the three experimental factors. The results provide strong evidence that visual scanning as a spatial exploratory activity produces greater task interference with concurrent spatial tasks than with concurrent verbal tasks. Furthermore, spatial uncertainty in visual scanning is identified to be the crucial factor in producing this differential effect.

Neural Effects of Short-Term Training on Working Memory

PubMed Central

Buschkuehl, Martin; Garcia, Luis Hernandez; Jaeggi, Susanne M.; Bernard, Jessica A.; Jonides, John

2014-01-01

Working memory training has been the focus of intense research interest. Despite accumulating behavioral work, knowledge about the neural mechanisms underlying training effects is scarce. Here we show that seven days of training on an n back task lead to substantial performance improvements in the trained task; furthermore, the experimental group shows cross modal transfer as compared to an active control group. In addition, there are two neural effects that emerged as a function of training: first, increased perfusion during task performance in selected regions, reflecting a neural response to cope with high task demand; second, increased blood flow at rest in regions where training effects were apparent. We also found that perfusion at rest was correlated with task proficiency, probably reflecting an improved neural readiness to perform. Our findings are discussed within the context of the available neuroimaging literature on n back training. PMID:24496717

Heart rate variability during acute psychosocial stress: A randomized cross-over trial of verbal and non-verbal laboratory stressors.

PubMed

Brugnera, Agostino; Zarbo, Cristina; Tarvainen, Mika P; Marchettini, Paolo; Adorni, Roberta; Compare, Angelo

2018-05-01

Acute psychosocial stress is typically investigated in laboratory settings using protocols with distinctive characteristics. For example, some tasks involve the action of speaking, which seems to alter Heart Rate Variability (HRV) through acute changes in respiration patterns. However, it is still unknown which task induces the strongest subjective and autonomic stress response. The present cross-over randomized trial sought to investigate the differences in perceived stress and in linear and non-linear analyses of HRV between three different verbal (Speech and Stroop) and non-verbal (Montreal Imaging Stress Task; MIST) stress tasks, in a sample of 60 healthy adults (51.7% females; mean age = 25.6 ± 3.83 years). Analyses were run controlling for respiration rates. Participants reported similar levels of perceived stress across the three tasks. However, MIST induced a stronger cardiovascular response than Speech and Stroop tasks, even after controlling for respiration rates. Finally, women reported higher levels of perceived stress and lower HRV both at rest and in response to acute psychosocial stressors, compared to men. Taken together, our results suggest the presence of gender-related differences during psychophysiological experiments on stress. They also suggest that verbal activity masked the vagal withdrawal through altered respiration patterns imposed by speaking. Therefore, our findings support the use of highly-standardized math task, such as MIST, as a valid and reliable alternative to verbal protocols during laboratory studies on stress. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sex Differences in Using Spatial and Verbal Abilities Influence Route Learning Performance in a Virtual Environment: A Comparison of 6- to 12-Year Old Boys and Girls.

PubMed

Merrill, Edward C; Yang, Yingying; Roskos, Beverly; Steele, Sara

2016-01-01

Previous studies have reported sex differences in wayfinding performance among adults. Men are typically better at using Euclidean information and survey strategies while women are better at using landmark information and route strategies. However, relatively few studies have examined sex differences in wayfinding in children. This research investigated relationships between route learning performance and two general abilities: spatial ability and verbal memory in 153 boys and girls between 6- to 12-years-old. Children completed a battery of spatial ability tasks (a two-dimension mental rotation task, a paper folding task, a visuo-spatial working memory task, and a Piagetian water level task) and a verbal memory task. In the route learning task, they had to learn a route through a series of hallways presented via computer. Boys had better overall route learning performance than did girls. In fact, the difference between boys and girls was constant across the age range tested. Structural equation modeling of the children's performance revealed that spatial abilities and verbal memory were significant contributors to route learning performance. However, there were different patterns of correlates for boys and girls. For boys, spatial abilities contributed to route learning while verbal memory did not. In contrast, for girls both spatial abilities and verbal memory contributed to their route learning performance. This difference may reflect the precursor of a strategic difference between boys and girls in wayfinding that is commonly observed in adults.

Comparative Effects of Seven Verbal-Visual Presentation Modes Upon Learning Tasks.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russell, Josiah Johnson, IV

A study was made of the comparative media effects upon teaching the component learning tasks of concept learning: classification, generalization, and application. The seven selected methods of presenting stimuli to the learners were: motion pictures with spoken verbal; motion pictures, silent; still pictures with spoken verbal; still pictures,…

Cortical oscillations and entrainment in speech processing during working memory load.

PubMed

Hjortkjaer, Jens; Märcher-Rørsted, Jonatan; Fuglsang, Søren A; Dau, Torsten

2018-02-02

Neuronal oscillations are thought to play an important role in working memory (WM) and speech processing. Listening to speech in real-life situations is often cognitively demanding but it is unknown whether WM load influences how auditory cortical activity synchronizes to speech features. Here, we developed an auditory n-back paradigm to investigate cortical entrainment to speech envelope fluctuations under different degrees of WM load. We measured the electroencephalogram, pupil dilations and behavioural performance from 22 subjects listening to continuous speech with an embedded n-back task. The speech stimuli consisted of long spoken number sequences created to match natural speech in terms of sentence intonation, syllabic rate and phonetic content. To burden different WM functions during speech processing, listeners performed an n-back task on the speech sequences in different levels of background noise. Increasing WM load at higher n-back levels was associated with a decrease in posterior alpha power as well as increased pupil dilations. Frontal theta power increased at the start of the trial and increased additionally with higher n-back level. The observed alpha-theta power changes are consistent with visual n-back paradigms suggesting general oscillatory correlates of WM processing load. Speech entrainment was measured as a linear mapping between the envelope of the speech signal and low-frequency cortical activity (< 13 Hz). We found that increases in both types of WM load (background noise and n-back level) decreased cortical speech envelope entrainment. Although entrainment persisted under high load, our results suggest a top-down influence of WM processing on cortical speech entrainment. © 2018 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Verbal Fluency Performance in Patients with Non-demented Parkinson's Disease

PubMed Central

Khatoonabadi, Ahmad Reza; Bakhtiyari, Jalal

2013-01-01

Objective While Parkinson's disease (PD) has traditionally been defined by motor symptoms, many researches have indicated that mild cognitive impairment is common in non-demented PD patients. The purpose of this study was to compare verbal fluency performance in non-demented Parkinson's disease patients with healthy controls. Method In this cross-sectional study thirty non-demented Parkinson's disease patients and 30 healthy controls, matched by age, gender and education, were compared on verbal fluency performance. Verbal fluency was studied with a Phonemic Fluency task using the letters F, A, and S, a semantic fluency task using the categories animals and fruits. The independent t-test was used for data analysis. Results Overall, participants generated more words in the semantic fluency task than in the phonemic fluency task. Results revealed significant differences between patients and controls in semantic fluency task (p<.05). In addition, PD patients showed a significant reduction of correctly generated words in letter fluency task. The total number of words produced was also significantly lower in the PD group (p<.05). Conclusion Verbal fluency disruption is implied in non-demented PD patients in association with incipient cognitive impairment. PMID:23682253

The Role of Anterior Nuclei of the Thalamus: A Subcortical Gate in Memory Processing: An Intracerebral Recording Study.

PubMed

Štillová, Klára; Jurák, Pavel; Chládek, Jan; Chrastina, Jan; Halámek, Josef; Bočková, Martina; Goldemundová, Sabina; Říha, Ivo; Rektor, Ivan

2015-01-01

To study the involvement of the anterior nuclei of the thalamus (ANT) as compared to the involvement of the hippocampus in the processes of encoding and recognition during visual and verbal memory tasks. We studied intracerebral recordings in patients with pharmacoresistent epilepsy who underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ANT with depth electrodes implanted bilaterally in the ANT and compared the results with epilepsy surgery candidates with depth electrodes implanted bilaterally in the hippocampus. We recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the visual and verbal memory encoding and recognition tasks. P300-like potentials were recorded in the hippocampus by visual and verbal memory encoding and recognition tasks and in the ANT by the visual encoding and visual and verbal recognition tasks. No significant ERPs were recorded during the verbal encoding task in the ANT. In the visual and verbal recognition tasks, the P300-like potentials in the ANT preceded the P300-like potentials in the hippocampus. The ANT is a structure in the memory pathway that processes memory information before the hippocampus. We suggest that the ANT has a specific role in memory processes, especially memory recognition, and that memory disturbance should be considered in patients with ANT-DBS and in patients with ANT lesions. ANT is well positioned to serve as a subcortical gate for memory processing in cortical structures.

The Task-Relevant Attribute Representation Can Mediate the Simon Effect

PubMed Central

Chen, Antao

2014-01-01

Researchers have previously suggested a working memory (WM) account of spatial codes, and based on this suggestion, the present study carries out three experiments to investigate how the task-relevant attribute representation (verbal or visual) in the typical Simon task affects the Simon effect. Experiment 1 compared the Simon effect between the between- and within-category color conditions, which required subjects to discriminate between red and blue stimuli (presumed to be represented by verbal WM codes because it was easy and fast to name the colors verbally) and to discriminate between two similar green stimuli (presumed to be represented by visual WM codes because it was hard and time-consuming to name the colors verbally), respectively. The results revealed a reliable Simon effect that only occurs in the between-category condition. Experiment 2 assessed the Simon effect by requiring subjects to discriminate between two different isosceles trapezoids (within-category shapes) and to discriminate isosceles trapezoid from rectangle (between-category shapes), and the results replicated and expanded the findings of Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, subjects were required to perform both tasks from Experiment 1. Wherein, in Experiment 3A, the between-category task preceded the within-category task; in Experiment 3B, the task order was opposite. The results showed the reliable Simon effect when subjects represented the task-relevant stimulus attributes by verbal WM encoding. In addition, the response times (RTs) distribution analysis for both the between- and within-category conditions of Experiments 3A and 3B showed decreased Simon effect with the RTs lengthened. Altogether, although the present results are consistent with the temporal coding account, we put forth that the Simon effect also depends on the verbal WM representation of task-relevant stimulus attribute. PMID:24618692

Performance on verbal and low-verbal false belief tasks: evidence from children with Williams syndrome.

PubMed

Van Herwegen, Jo; Dimitriou, Dagmara; Rundblad, Gabriella

2013-01-01

Previous studies that have investigated the relationship between performance on theory of mind (ToM) tasks and verbal abilities in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have reported contradictory findings with some showing that language abilities aid performance on ToM tasks while others have found that participants with WS fail these tasks because of their verbal demands. The current study investigated this relationship again comparing performance on a classical change-location task to two newly developed low-verbal tasks, one change-location task and one unexpected content task. Thirty children with WS (aged 5-17;01 years) and 30 typically developing (TD) children (aged between 2;10 years and 9;09 years), who were matched for vocabulary comprehension scores were included in the study. Although performance in the WS group was significantly poorer compared to the TD group on all three tasks, performance was not predicted by their receptive vocabulary or grammatical ability scores. In addition, ToM abilities in both groups depended on the cognitive demands of the task at hand. This finding shows that performance on ToM tasks in WS is not necessarily hindered by their delayed language abilities but rather by the task administered. This could potentially affect the diagnosis of developmental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, and comparison of ToM abilities across developmental disorders. Readers of this article should be able to (1) describe the current state of theory of mind research in Williams syndrome, (2) identify which cognitive abilities might explain performance on theory of mind tasks in both typically developing children and in children with Williams syndrome, and (3) interpret the importance of task demands when assessing children's theory of mind abilities. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Altered segregation between task-positive and task-negative regions in mild traumatic brain injury.

PubMed

Sours, Chandler; Kinnison, Joshua; Padmala, Srikanth; Gullapalli, Rao P; Pessoa, Luiz

2018-06-01

Changes in large-scale brain networks that accompany mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) were investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the N-back working memory task at two cognitive loads (1-back and 2-back). Thirty mTBI patients were examined during the chronic stage of injury and compared to 28 control participants. Demographics and behavioral performance were matched across groups. Due to the diffuse nature of injury, we hypothesized that there would be an imbalance in the communication between task-positive and Default Mode Network (DMN) regions in the context of effortful task execution. Specifically, a graph-theoretic measure of modularity was used to quantify the extent to which groups of brain regions tended to segregate into task-positive and DMN sub-networks. Relative to controls, mTBI patients showed reduced segregation between the DMN and task-positive networks, but increased functional connectivity within the DMN regions during the more cognitively demanding 2-back task. Together, our findings reveal that patients exhibit alterations in the communication between and within neural networks during a cognitively demanding task. These findings reveal altered processes that persist through the chronic stage of injury, highlighting the need for longitudinal research to map the neural recovery of mTBI patients.

Executive function impairments in fibromyalgia syndrome: Relevance of clinical variables and body mass index.

PubMed

Muñoz Ladrón de Guevara, Cristina; Fernández-Serrano, María José; Reyes Del Paso, Gustavo A; Duschek, Stefan

2018-01-01

Several investigations suggest the presence of deterioration of executive function in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). The study quantified executive functions in patients with FMS. A wide array of functions was assessed, including updating, shifting and inhibition, as well as decision making and mental planning. Moreover, clinical variables were investigated as possible mediators of executive dysfunction, including pain severity, psychiatric comorbidity, medication and body mass index (BMI). Fifty-two FMS patients and 32 healthy controls completed a battery of 14 neuropsychological tests. Clinical interviews were conducted and the McGill Pain Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Fatigue Severity Scale and Oviedo Quality of Sleep Questionnaire were presented. Patients performed poorer than controls on the Letter Number Sequencing, Arithmetic and Similarities subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Spatial Span subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale, an N-back task, a verbal fluency task, the Ruff Figural Fluency Test, the Inhibition score of the Stroop Test, the Inhibition and Shifting scores of the Five Digits Test, the Key Search Test and the Zoo Map Task. Moreover, patients exhibited less steep learning curves on the Iowa Gambling Task. Among clinical variables, BMI and pain severity explained the largest proportion of performance variance. This study demonstrated impairments in executive functions of updating, shifting inhibition, decision making and planning in FMS. While the mediating role of pain in cognitive impairments in FMS had been previously established, the influence of BMI is a novel finding. Overweight and obesity should be considered by FMS researchers, and in the treatment of the condition.

Executive function impairments in fibromyalgia syndrome: Relevance of clinical variables and body mass index

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

Background Several investigations suggest the presence of deterioration of executive function in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). The study quantified executive functions in patients with FMS. A wide array of functions was assessed, including updating, shifting and inhibition, as well as decision making and mental planning. Moreover, clinical variables were investigated as possible mediators of executive dysfunction, including pain severity, psychiatric comorbidity, medication and body mass index (BMI). Methods Fifty-two FMS patients and 32 healthy controls completed a battery of 14 neuropsychological tests. Clinical interviews were conducted and the McGill Pain Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Fatigue Severity Scale and Oviedo Quality of Sleep Questionnaire were presented. Results Patients performed poorer than controls on the Letter Number Sequencing, Arithmetic and Similarities subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Spatial Span subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale, an N-back task, a verbal fluency task, the Ruff Figural Fluency Test, the Inhibition score of the Stroop Test, the Inhibition and Shifting scores of the Five Digits Test, the Key Search Test and the Zoo Map Task. Moreover, patients exhibited less steep learning curves on the Iowa Gambling Task. Among clinical variables, BMI and pain severity explained the largest proportion of performance variance. Conclusions This study demonstrated impairments in executive functions of updating, shifting inhibition, decision making and planning in FMS. While the mediating role of pain in cognitive impairments in FMS had been previously established, the influence of BMI is a novel finding. Overweight and obesity should be considered by FMS researchers, and in the treatment of the condition. PMID:29694417

Gaming is related to enhanced working memory performance and task-related cortical activity.

PubMed

Moisala, M; Salmela, V; Hietajärvi, L; Carlson, S; Vuontela, V; Lonka, K; Hakkarainen, K; Salmela-Aro, K; Alho, K

2017-01-15

Gaming experience has been suggested to lead to performance enhancements in a wide variety of working memory tasks. Previous studies have, however, mostly focused on adult expert gamers and have not included measurements of both behavioral performance and brain activity. In the current study, 167 adolescents and young adults (aged 13-24 years) with different amounts of gaming experience performed an n-back working memory task with vowels, with the sensory modality of the vowel stream switching between audition and vision at random intervals. We studied the relationship between self-reported daily gaming activity, working memory (n-back) task performance and related brain activity measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results revealed that the extent of daily gaming activity was related to enhancements in both performance accuracy and speed during the most demanding (2-back) level of the working memory task. This improved working memory performance was accompanied by enhanced recruitment of a fronto-parietal cortical network, especially the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In contrast, during the less demanding (1-back) level of the task, gaming was associated with decreased activity in the same cortical regions. Our results suggest that a greater degree of daily gaming experience is associated with better working memory functioning and task difficulty-dependent modulation in fronto-parietal brain activity already in adolescence and even when non-expert gamers are studied. The direction of causality within this association cannot be inferred with certainty due to the correlational nature of the current study. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sex differences in verbal working memory performance emerge at very high loads of common neuroimaging tasks.

PubMed

Reed, Jessica L; Gallagher, Natalie M; Sullivan, Marie; Callicott, Joseph H; Green, Adam E

2017-04-01

Working memory (WM) supports a broad range of intelligent cognition and has been the subject of rich cognitive and neural characterization. However, the highest ranges of WM have not been fully characterized, especially for verbal information. Tasks developed to test multiple levels of WM demand (load) currently predominate brain-based WM research. These tasks are typically used at loads that allow most healthy participants to perform well, which facilitates neuroimaging data collection. Critically, however, high performance at lower loads may obscure differences that emerge at higher loads. A key question not yet addressed at high loads concerns the effect of sex. Thoroughgoing investigation of high-load verbal WM is thus timely to test for potential hidden effects, and to provide behavioral context for effects of sex observed in WM-related brain structure and function. We tested 111 young adults, matched on genotype for the WM-associated COMT-Val 108/158 Met polymorphism, on three classic WM tasks using verbal information. Each task was tested at four WM loads, including higher loads than those used in previous studies of sex differences. All tasks loaded on a single factor, enabling comparison of verbal WM ability at a construct level. Results indicated sex effects at high loads across tasks and within each task, such that males had higher accuracy, even among groups that were matched for performance at lower loads. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Face-name association task reveals memory networks in patients with left and right hippocampal sclerosis.

PubMed

Klamer, Silke; Milian, Monika; Erb, Michael; Rona, Sabine; Lerche, Holger; Ethofer, Thomas

2017-01-01

We aimed to identify reorganization processes of episodic memory networks in patients with left and right temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) due to hippocampal sclerosis as well as their relations to neuropsychological memory performance. We investigated 28 healthy subjects, 12 patients with left TLE (LTLE) and 9 patients with right TLE (RTLE) with hippocampal sclerosis by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using a face-name association task, which combines verbal and non-verbal memory functions. Regions-of-interest (ROIs) were defined based on the group results of the healthy subjects. In each ROI, fMRI activations were compared across groups and correlated with verbal and non-verbal memory scores. The face-name association task yielded activations in bilateral hippocampus (HC), left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), left superior temporal gyrus, bilateral angular gyrus (AG), bilateral medial prefrontal cortex and right anterior temporal lobe (ATL). LTLE patients demonstrated significantly less activation in the left HC and left SFG, whereas RTLE patients showed significantly less activation in the HC bilaterally, the left SFG and right AG. Verbal memory scores correlated with activations in the left and right HC, left SFG and right ATL and non-verbal memory scores with fMRI activations in the left and right HC and left SFG. The face-name association task can be employed to examine functional alterations of hippocampal activation during encoding of both verbal and non-verbal material in one fMRI paradigm. Further, the left SFG seems to be a convergence region for encoding of verbal and non-verbal material.

FMRI to probe sex-related differences in brain function with multitasking

PubMed Central

Tschernegg, Melanie; Neuper, Christa; Schmidt, Reinhold; Wood, Guilherme; Kronbichler, Martin; Fazekas, Franz; Enzinger, Christian

2017-01-01

Background Although established as a general notion in society, there is no solid scientific foundation for the existence of sex-differences in multitasking. Reaction time and accuracy in dual task conditions have an inverse relationship relative to single task, independently from sex. While a more disseminated network, parallel to decreasing accuracy and reaction time has been demonstrated in dual task fMRI studies, little is known so far whether there exist respective sex-related differences in activation. Methods We subjected 20 women (mean age = 25.45; SD = 5.23) and 20 men (mean age = 27.55; SD = 4.00) to a combined verbal and spatial fMRI paradigm at 3.0T to assess sex-related skills, based on the assumption that generally women better perform in verbal tasks while men do better in spatial tasks. We also obtained behavioral tests for verbal and spatial intelligence, attention, executive functions, and working memory. Results No differences between women and men were observed in behavioral measures of dual-tasking or cognitive performance. Generally, brain activation increased with higher task load, mainly in the bilateral inferior and prefrontal gyri, the anterior cingulum, thalamus, putamen and occipital areas. Comparing sexes, women showed increased activation in the inferior frontal gyrus in the verbal dual-task while men demonstrated increased activation in the precuneus and adjacent visual areas in the spatial task. Conclusion Against the background of equal cognitive and behavioral dual-task performance in both sexes, we provide first evidence for sex-related activation differences in functional networks for verbal and spatial dual-tasking. PMID:28759619

FMRI to probe sex-related differences in brain function with multitasking.

PubMed

Tschernegg, Melanie; Neuper, Christa; Schmidt, Reinhold; Wood, Guilherme; Kronbichler, Martin; Fazekas, Franz; Enzinger, Christian; Koini, Marisa

2017-01-01

Although established as a general notion in society, there is no solid scientific foundation for the existence of sex-differences in multitasking. Reaction time and accuracy in dual task conditions have an inverse relationship relative to single task, independently from sex. While a more disseminated network, parallel to decreasing accuracy and reaction time has been demonstrated in dual task fMRI studies, little is known so far whether there exist respective sex-related differences in activation. We subjected 20 women (mean age = 25.45; SD = 5.23) and 20 men (mean age = 27.55; SD = 4.00) to a combined verbal and spatial fMRI paradigm at 3.0T to assess sex-related skills, based on the assumption that generally women better perform in verbal tasks while men do better in spatial tasks. We also obtained behavioral tests for verbal and spatial intelligence, attention, executive functions, and working memory. No differences between women and men were observed in behavioral measures of dual-tasking or cognitive performance. Generally, brain activation increased with higher task load, mainly in the bilateral inferior and prefrontal gyri, the anterior cingulum, thalamus, putamen and occipital areas. Comparing sexes, women showed increased activation in the inferior frontal gyrus in the verbal dual-task while men demonstrated increased activation in the precuneus and adjacent visual areas in the spatial task. Against the background of equal cognitive and behavioral dual-task performance in both sexes, we provide first evidence for sex-related activation differences in functional networks for verbal and spatial dual-tasking.

Contrasting visual working memory for verbal and non-verbal material with multivariate analysis of fMRI

PubMed Central

Habeck, Christian; Rakitin, Brian; Steffener, Jason; Stern, Yaakov

2012-01-01

We performed a delayed-item-recognition task to investigate the neural substrates of non-verbal visual working memory with event-related fMRI (‘Shape task’). 25 young subjects (mean age: 24.0 years; STD=3.8 years) were instructed to study a list of either 1,2 or 3 unnamable nonsense line drawings for 3 seconds (‘stimulus phase’ or STIM). Subsequently, the screen went blank for 7 seconds (‘retention phase’ or RET), and then displayed a probe stimulus for 3 seconds in which subject indicated with a differential button press whether the probe was contained in the studied shape-array or not (‘probe phase’ or PROBE). Ordinal Trend Canonical Variates Analysis (Habeck et al., 2005a) was performed to identify spatial covariance patterns that showed a monotonic increase in expression with memory load during all task phases. Reliable load-related patterns were identified in the stimulus and retention phase (p<0.01), while no significant pattern could be discerned during the probe phase. Spatial covariance patterns that were obtained from an earlier version of this task (Habeck et al., 2005b) using 1, 3, or 6 letters (‘Letter task’) were also prospectively applied to their corresponding task phases in the current non-verbal task version. Interestingly, subject expression of covariance patterns from both verbal and non-verbal retention phases correlated positively in the non-verbal task for all memory loads (p<0.0001). Both patterns also involved similar frontoparietal brain regions that were increasing in activity with memory load, and mediofrontal and temporal regions that were decreasing. Mean subject expression of both patterns across memory load during retention also correlated positively with recognition accuracy (dL) in the Shape task (p<0.005). These findings point to similarities in the neural substrates of verbal and non-verbal rehearsal processes. Encoding processes, on the other hand, are critically dependent on the to-be-remembered material, and seem to necessitate material-specific neural substrates. PMID:22652306

2.5-Year-Olds Succeed at a Verbal Anticipatory-Looking False-Belief Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

He, Zijing; Bolz, Matthias; Baillargeon, Renee

2012-01-01

Recent research suggests that infants and toddlers succeed at a wide range of non-elicited-response false-belief tasks (i.e., tasks that do not require children to answer a direct question about a mistaken agent's likely behaviour). However, one exception to this generalization comes from verbal anticipatory-looking tasks, which have produced…

The Effects of Divided Attention on Speech Motor, Verbal Fluency, and Manual Task Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dromey, Christopher; Shim, Erin

2008-01-01

Purpose: The goal of this study was to evaluate aspects of the "functional distance hypothesis," which predicts that tasks regulated by brain networks in closer anatomic proximity will interfere more with each other than tasks controlled by spatially distant regions. Speech, verbal fluency, and manual motor tasks were examined to ascertain whether…

Using Task Clarification, Graphic Feedback, and Verbal Feedback to Increase Closing-Task Completion in a Privately Owned Restaurant.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Austin, John; Weatherly, Nic L.; Gravina, Nicole E.

2005-01-01

An informant functional assessment was used to evaluate closing-task completion by servers and dishwashers at a restaurant. Based on the functional assessment results, an intervention consisting of task clarification, posted graphic feedback, and verbal feedback was implemented and evaluated with a multiple baseline design across two groups of…

Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Executive Function: Interplay between Inhibition and Updating Processes.

PubMed

Kim, Na Young; Wittenberg, Ellen; Nam, Chang S

2017-01-01

This study investigated the interaction between two executive function processes, inhibition and updating, through analyses of behavioral, neurophysiological, and effective connectivity metrics. Although, many studies have focused on behavioral effects of executive function processes individually, few studies have examined the dynamic causal interactions between these two functions. A total of twenty participants from a local university performed a dual task combing flanker and n-back experimental paradigms, and completed the Operation Span Task designed to measure working memory capacity. We found that both behavioral (accuracy and reaction time) and neurophysiological (P300 amplitude and alpha band power) metrics on the inhibition task (i.e., flanker task) were influenced by the updating load (n-back level) and modulated by working memory capacity. Using independent component analysis, source localization (DIPFIT), and Granger Causality analysis of the EEG time-series data, the present study demonstrated that manipulation of cognitive demand in a dual executive function task influenced the causal neural network. We compared connectivity across three updating loads (n-back levels) and found that experimental manipulation of working memory load enhanced causal connectivity of a large-scale neurocognitive network. This network contains the prefrontal and parietal cortices, which are associated with inhibition and updating executive function processes. This study has potential applications in human performance modeling and assessment of mental workload, such as the design of training materials and interfaces for those performing complex multitasking under stress.

The disruptive effects of pain on n-back task performance in a large general population sample

PubMed Central

Attridge, Nina; Noonan, Donna; Eccleston, Christopher; Keogh, Edmund

2015-01-01

Abstract Pain captures attention, displaces current concerns, and prioritises escape and repair. This attentional capture can be measured by its effects on general cognition. Studies on induced pain, naturally occurring acute pain, and chronic pain all demonstrate a detrimental effect on specific tasks of attention, especially those that involve working memory. However, studies to date have relied on relatively small samples and/or one type of pain, thus restricting our ability to generalise to wider populations. We investigated the effect of pain on an n-back task in a large heterogeneous sample of 1318 adults. Participants were recruited from the general population and tested through the internet. Despite the heterogeneity of pain conditions, participant characteristics, and testing environments, we found a performance decrement on the n-back task for those with pain, compared with those without pain; there were significantly more false alarms on nontarget trials. Furthermore, we also found an effect of pain intensity; performance was poorer in participants with higher intensity compared with that in those with lower intensity pain. We suggest that the effects of pain on attention found in the laboratory occur in more naturalistic settings. Pain is common in the general population, and such interruption may have important, as yet uninvestigated, consequences for tasks of everyday cognition that involve working memory, such as concentration, reasoning, motor planning, and prospective memory. PMID:26020226

Is conflict monitoring supramodal? Spatiotemporal dynamics of cognitive control processes in an auditory Stroop task

PubMed Central

Donohue, Sarah E.; Liotti, Mario; Perez, Rick; Woldorff, Marty G.

2011-01-01

The electrophysiological correlates of conflict processing and cognitive control have been well characterized for the visual modality in paradigms such as the Stroop task. Much less is known about corresponding processes in the auditory modality. Here, electroencephalographic recordings of brain activity were measured during an auditory Stroop task, using three different forms of behavioral response (Overt verbal, Covert verbal, and Manual), that closely paralleled our previous visual-Stroop study. As expected, behavioral responses were slower and less accurate for incongruent compared to congruent trials. Neurally, incongruent trials showed an enhanced fronto-central negative-polarity wave (Ninc), similar to the N450 in visual-Stroop tasks, with similar variations as a function of behavioral response mode, but peaking ~150 ms earlier, followed by an enhanced positive posterior wave. In addition, sequential behavioral and neural effects were observed that supported the conflict-monitoring and cognitive-adjustment hypothesis. Thus, while some aspects of the conflict detection processes, such as timing, may be modality-dependent, the general mechanisms would appear to be supramodal. PMID:21964643

Modality independence of order coding in working memory: Evidence from cross-modal order interference at recall.

PubMed

Vandierendonck, André

2016-01-01

Working memory researchers do not agree on whether order in serial recall is encoded by dedicated modality-specific systems or by a more general modality-independent system. Although previous research supports the existence of autonomous modality-specific systems, it has been shown that serial recognition memory is prone to cross-modal order interference by concurrent tasks. The present study used a serial recall task, which was performed in a single-task condition and in a dual-task condition with an embedded memory task in the retention interval. The modality of the serial task was either verbal or visuospatial, and the embedded tasks were in the other modality and required either serial or item recall. Care was taken to avoid modality overlaps during presentation and recall. In Experiment 1, visuospatial but not verbal serial recall was more impaired when the embedded task was an order than when it was an item task. Using a more difficult verbal serial recall task, verbal serial recall was also more impaired by another order recall task in Experiment 2. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis of modality-independent order coding. The implications for views on short-term recall and the multicomponent view of working memory are discussed.

Test-retest reliability of evoked BOLD signals from a cognitive-emotive fMRI test battery.

PubMed

Plichta, Michael M; Schwarz, Adam J; Grimm, Oliver; Morgen, Katrin; Mier, Daniela; Haddad, Leila; Gerdes, Antje B M; Sauer, Carina; Tost, Heike; Esslinger, Christine; Colman, Peter; Wilson, Frederick; Kirsch, Peter; Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas

2012-04-15

Even more than in cognitive research applications, moving fMRI to the clinic and the drug development process requires the generation of stable and reliable signal changes. The performance characteristics of the fMRI paradigm constrain experimental power and may require different study designs (e.g., crossover vs. parallel groups), yet fMRI reliability characteristics can be strongly dependent on the nature of the fMRI task. The present study investigated both within-subject and group-level reliability of a combined three-task fMRI battery targeting three systems of wide applicability in clinical and cognitive neuroscience: an emotional (face matching), a motivational (monetary reward anticipation) and a cognitive (n-back working memory) task. A group of 25 young, healthy volunteers were scanned twice on a 3T MRI scanner with a mean test-retest interval of 14.6 days. FMRI reliability was quantified using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) applied at three different levels ranging from a global to a localized and fine spatial scale: (1) reliability of group-level activation maps over the whole brain and within targeted regions of interest (ROIs); (2) within-subject reliability of ROI-mean amplitudes and (3) within-subject reliability of individual voxels in the target ROIs. Results showed robust evoked activation of all three tasks in their respective target regions (emotional task=amygdala; motivational task=ventral striatum; cognitive task=right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal cortices) with high effect sizes (ES) of ROI-mean summary values (ES=1.11-1.44 for the faces task, 0.96-1.43 for the reward task, 0.83-2.58 for the n-back task). Reliability of group level activation was excellent for all three tasks with ICCs of 0.89-0.98 at the whole brain level and 0.66-0.97 within target ROIs. Within-subject reliability of ROI-mean amplitudes across sessions was fair to good for the reward task (ICCs=0.56-0.62) and, dependent on the particular ROI, also fair-to-good for the n-back task (ICCs=0.44-0.57) but lower for the faces task (ICC=-0.02-0.16). In conclusion, all three tasks are well suited to between-subject designs, including imaging genetics. When specific recommendations are followed, the n-back and reward task are also suited for within-subject designs, including pharmaco-fMRI. The present study provides task-specific fMRI reliability performance measures that will inform the optimal use, powering and design of fMRI studies using comparable tasks. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Impact of Auditory Selective Attention on Verbal Short-Term Memory and Vocabulary Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Majerus, Steve; Heiligenstein, Lucie; Gautherot, Nathalie; Poncelet, Martine; Van der Linden, Martial

2009-01-01

This study investigated the role of auditory selective attention capacities as a possible mediator of the well-established association between verbal short-term memory (STM) and vocabulary development. A total of 47 6- and 7-year-olds were administered verbal immediate serial recall and auditory attention tasks. Both task types probed processing…

Conversational Interactions between Intellectually Disabled and Normal Progress Adolescents during a Problem-Solving Task.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Okrainec, J. Alexa; Hughes, M. Jeffry

This study investigated the features of verbal disagreements arising among 25 adolescent students with mild intellectual disabilities and 25 of their typical peers. Transcripts of a learning task were coded using an adaptation of Eisenberg's (1992) scheme for analyzing verbal conflicts. Findings of the study indicate: (1) in verbal conflict…

An Initial Investigation into the Role of Stereotype Threat in the Test Performance of College Students with Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

May, Alison L.; Stone, C. Addison

2014-01-01

In a quasi-experimental evaluation of the possible role of stereotype threat in the academic performance of college students with learning disabilities (LD), students with (N = 29) and without (N = 62) identified LD took a simulated Verbal GRE® task in one of two conditions modeled after those used in past stereotype threat (ST) research. The task…

Successful Working Memory Processes and Cerebellum in an Elderly Sample: A Neuropsychological and fMRI Study

PubMed Central

Luis, Elkin O.; Arrondo, Gonzalo; Vidorreta, Marta; Martínez, Martin; Loayza, Francis; Fernández-Seara, María A.; Pastor, María A.

2015-01-01

Background Imaging studies help to understand the evolution of key cognitive processes related to aging, such as working memory (WM). This study aimed to test three hypotheses in older adults. First, that the brain activation pattern associated to WM processes in elderly during successful low load tasks is located in posterior sensory and associative areas; second, that the prefrontal and parietal cortex and basal ganglia should be more active during high-demand tasks; third, that cerebellar activations are related to high-demand cognitive tasks and have a specific lateralization depending on the condition. Methods We used a neuropsychological assessment with functional magnetic resonance imaging and a core N-back paradigm design that was maintained across the combination of four conditions of stimuli and two memory loads in a sample of twenty elderly subjects. Results During low-loads, activations were located in the visual ventral network. In high loads, there was an involvement of the basal ganglia and cerebellum in addition to the frontal and parietal cortices. Moreover, we detected an executive control role of the cerebellum in a relatively symmetric fronto-parietal network. Nevertheless, this network showed a predominantly left lateralization in parietal regions associated presumably with an overuse of verbal storage strategies. The differential activations between conditions were stimuli-dependent and were located in sensory areas. Conclusion Successful WM processes in the elderly population are accompanied by an activation pattern that involves cerebellar regions working together with a fronto-parietal network. PMID:26132286

The role of verbal labels on flexible memory retrieval at 12-months of age.

PubMed

Taylor, Gemma; Liu, Hao; Herbert, Jane S

2016-11-01

The provision of verbal labels enhances 12-month-old infants' memory flexibility across a form change in a puppet imitation task (Herbert, 2011), although the mechanisms for this effect remain unclear. Here we investigate whether verbal labels can scaffold flexible memory retrieval when task difficulty increases and consider the mechanism responsible for the effect of language cues on early memory flexibility. Twelve-month-old infants were provided with English, Chinese, or empty language cues during a difficult imitation task, a combined change in the puppet's colour and form at the test (Hayne et al., 1997). Imitation performance by infants in the English language condition only exceeded baseline performance after the 10-min delay. Thus, verbal labels facilitated flexible memory retrieval on this task. There were no correlations between infants' language comprehension and imitation performance. Thus, it is likely that verbal labels facilitate both attention and categorisation during encoding and retrieval. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Poor phonemic discrimination does not underlie poor verbal short-term memory in Down syndrome.

PubMed

Purser, Harry R M; Jarrold, Christopher

2013-05-01

Individuals with Down syndrome tend to have a marked impairment of verbal short-term memory. The chief aim of this study was to investigate whether phonemic discrimination contributes to this deficit. The secondary aim was to investigate whether phonological representations are degraded in verbal short-term memory in people with Down syndrome relative to control participants. To answer these questions, two tasks were used: a discrimination task, in which memory load was as low as possible, and a short-term recognition task that used the same stimulus items. Individuals with Down syndrome were found to perform significantly better than a nonverbal-matched typically developing group on the discrimination task, but they performed significantly more poorly than that group on the recognition task. The Down syndrome group was outperformed by an additional vocabulary-matched control group on the discrimination task but was outperformed to a markedly greater extent on the recognition task. Taken together, the results strongly indicate that phonemic discrimination ability is not central to the verbal short-term memory deficit associated with Down syndrome. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Frontal activity during a verbal emotional working memory task in patients with Alzheimer's disease: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.

PubMed

Ateş, Fatma Ebru; Cangöz, Banu; Özel Kızıl, Erguvan Tuğba; Baskak, Bora; Baran, Zeynel; Özgüven, Halise Devrimci

2017-03-30

Emotional working memory (EWM) is suggested as a working memory (WM) type, distinguished to process emotional stimuli, and may or may not be spared in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim was to compare patients with AD and healthy older adults (HC) on verbal EWM performance and accompanying prefrontal cortex activity. Twenty AD patients along with 20 HC individuals are required to complete an emotional one-back task in three conditions (neutral, positive and negative word lists). Prefrontal oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb) concentrations were measured simultaneously by a 24- channel functional near infrared spectroscopy device. Correct response rates were similar in two groups in all conditions. Reaction times were comparable in the EWM positive condition but longer in the AD group in EWMneutral and negative conditions. In the HC group, emotional words had no significant effect on WM. On the other hand, positive compared to neutral words led to greater activation in the left ventral prefrontal cortex (VPFC) in AD group. When compared to HCs, activity in the VPFC was significantly higher in AD patients during the positive condition. Positive words facilitated WM performance in participants with AD. Activity in VPFC may be the functional correlate of this phenomenon. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The neuropsychology of emerging psychosis and the role of working memory in episodic memory encoding.

PubMed

Pflueger, Marlon O; Calabrese, Pasquale; Studerus, Erich; Zimmermann, Ronan; Gschwandtner, Ute; Borgwardt, Stefan; Aston, Jacqueline; Stieglitz, Rolf-Dieter; Riecher-Rössler, Anita

2018-01-01

Episodic memory encoding and working memory (WM) deficits are among the first cognitive signs and symptoms in the course of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. However, it is not clear whether the deficit pattern is generalized or specific in nature. We hypothesized that encoding deficits at an early stage of the disease might be due to the more fundamental WM deficits. We examined episodic memory encoding and WM by administering the California Verbal Learning Test, a 2-back task, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in 90 first-episode psychosis (FE) patients and 116 individuals with an at-risk mental state for psychosis (ARMS) compared to 57 healthy subjects. Learning progress, but not span of apprehension, was diminished to a similar extent in both the ARMS and the FE. We showed that this was due to WM impairment by applying a structural equation approach. Thus, we conclude that verbal memory encoding deficits are secondary to primary WM impairment in emerging psychosis.

The Flynn effect and memory function.

PubMed

Baxendale, Sallie

2010-08-01

The Flynn effect refers to the steady increase in IQ that appears to date back at least to the inception of modern-day IQ tests. This study examined the possible Flynn effects on clinical memory tests involving the learning and recall of verbal and nonverbal material. Comparisons of the age-related norms on the list learning and design learning tasks from the Adult Memory and Information Processing Battery (AMIPB), published in 1985, and its successor, the BIRT (Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust) Memory and Information Processing Battery (BMIPB) published in 2007, indicate that there is a significant Flynn effect on tests of memory function. This effect appears to be material specific with statistically significant improvements in all scores on tests involving the learning and recall of visual material in every age range evident over a 22-year period. Verbal memory abilities appear to be relatively stable with no significant differences between the scores in the majority of age ranges. The ramifications for the clinical interpretation of these tests are discussed.

Perceptual-Motor and Cognitive Performance Task-Battery for Pilot Selection

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-01-01

processing. Basic researchers in cognitive phychology have become discouraged with the inability of numerous models to consider and account for individual...attention in the use of cues in verbal problem-solving. Journal of Personality, 197?, 40, 226-241. Mensh, I. N. Pilot selection by phychological methods

Attention toward contexts modulates context-specificity of behavior in human predictive learning: Evidence from the n-back task.

PubMed

Uengoer, Metin; Lucke, Sara; Lachnit, Harald

2018-02-20

According to the attentional theory of context processing (ATCP), learning becomes context specific when acquired under conditions that promote attention toward contextual stimuli regardless of whether attention deployment is guided by learning experience or by other factors unrelated to learning. In one experiment with humans, we investigated whether performance in a predictive learning task can be brought under contextual control by means of a secondary task that was unrelated to predictive learning, but supposed to modulate participants' attention toward contexts. Initially, participants acquired cue-outcome relationships presented in contexts that were each composed of two elements from two dimensions. Acquisition training in the predictive learning task was combined with a one-back task that required participants to match across consecutive trials context elements belonging to one of the two dimensions. During a subsequent test, we observed that acquisition behavior in the predictive learning task was disrupted by changing the acquisition context along the dimension that was relevant for the one-back task, while there was no evidence for context specificity of predictive learning when the acquisition context was changed along the dimension that was irrelevant for the one-back task. Our results support the generality of the principles advocated by ATCP.

Prediction is Production: The missing link between language production and comprehension.

PubMed

Martin, Clara D; Branzi, Francesca M; Bar, Moshe

2018-01-18

Language comprehension often involves the generation of predictions. It has been hypothesized that such prediction-for-comprehension entails actual language production. Recent studies provided evidence that the production system is recruited during language comprehension, but the link between production and prediction during comprehension remains hypothetical. Here, we tested this hypothesis by comparing prediction during sentence comprehension (primary task) in participants having the production system either available or not (non-verbal versus verbal secondary task). In the primary task, sentences containing an expected or unexpected target noun-phrase were presented during electroencephalography recording. Prediction, measured as the magnitude of the N400 effect elicited by the article (expected versus unexpected), was hindered only when the production system was taxed during sentence context reading. The present study provides the first direct evidence that the availability of the speech production system is necessary for generating lexical prediction during sentence comprehension. Furthermore, these important results provide an explanation for the recruitment of language production during comprehension.

Sex Differences in Using Spatial and Verbal Abilities Influence Route Learning Performance in a Virtual Environment: A Comparison of 6- to 12-Year Old Boys and Girls

PubMed Central

Merrill, Edward C.; Yang, Yingying; Roskos, Beverly; Steele, Sara

2016-01-01

Previous studies have reported sex differences in wayfinding performance among adults. Men are typically better at using Euclidean information and survey strategies while women are better at using landmark information and route strategies. However, relatively few studies have examined sex differences in wayfinding in children. This research investigated relationships between route learning performance and two general abilities: spatial ability and verbal memory in 153 boys and girls between 6- to 12-years-old. Children completed a battery of spatial ability tasks (a two-dimension mental rotation task, a paper folding task, a visuo-spatial working memory task, and a Piagetian water level task) and a verbal memory task. In the route learning task, they had to learn a route through a series of hallways presented via computer. Boys had better overall route learning performance than did girls. In fact, the difference between boys and girls was constant across the age range tested. Structural equation modeling of the children’s performance revealed that spatial abilities and verbal memory were significant contributors to route learning performance. However, there were different patterns of correlates for boys and girls. For boys, spatial abilities contributed to route learning while verbal memory did not. In contrast, for girls both spatial abilities and verbal memory contributed to their route learning performance. This difference may reflect the precursor of a strategic difference between boys and girls in wayfinding that is commonly observed in adults. PMID:26941701

Manipulation of Frontal Brain Asymmetry by Cognitive Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Papousek, Ilona; Schulter, Gunter

2004-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether verbal fluency tasks may specifically induce relatively greater left than right hemispheric activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The effectiveness of the manipulation was evaluated by EEG, which was recorded during performance of the verbal fluency task and during two control…

The relationship between executive functions and fluid intelligence in Parkinson's disease

PubMed Central

Roca, M.; Manes, F.; Chade, A.; Gleichgerrcht, E.; Gershanik, O.; Arévalo, G. G.; Torralva, T.; Duncan, J.

2012-01-01

Background We recently demonstrated that decline in fluid intelligence is a substantial contributor to frontal deficits. For some classical ‘executive’ tasks, such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and Verbal Fluency, frontal deficits were entirely explained by fluid intelligence. However, on a second set of frontal tasks, deficits remained even after statistically controlling for this factor. These tasks included tests of theory of mind and multitasking. As frontal dysfunction is the most frequent cognitive deficit observed in early Parkinson's disease (PD), the present study aimed to determine the role of fluid intelligence in such deficits. Method We assessed patients with PD (n=32) and control subjects (n=22) with the aforementioned frontal tests and with a test of fluid intelligence. Group performance was compared and fluid intelligence was introduced as a covariate to determine its role in frontal deficits shown by PD patients. Results In line with our previous results, scores on the WCST and Verbal Fluency were closely linked to fluid intelligence. Significant patient–control differences were eliminated or at least substantially reduced once fluid intelligence was introduced as a covariate. However, for tasks of theory of mind and multitasking, deficits remained even after fluid intelligence was statistically controlled. Conclusions The present results suggest that clinical assessment of neuropsychological deficits in PD should include tests of fluid intelligence, together with one or more specific tasks that allow for the assessment of residual frontal deficits associated with theory of mind and multitasking. PMID:22440401

Cerebrocerebellar networks during articulatory rehearsal and verbal working memory tasks.

PubMed

Chen, S H Annabel; Desmond, John E

2005-01-15

Converging evidence has implicated the cerebellum in verbal working memory. The current fMRI study sought to further characterize cerebrocerebellar participation in this cognitive process by revealing regions of activation common to a verbal working task and an articulatory control task, as well as regions that are uniquely activated by working memory. Consistent with our model's predictions, load-dependent activations were observed in Broca's area (BA 44/6) and the superior cerebellar hemisphere (VI/CrusI) for both working memory and motoric rehearsal. In contrast, activations unique to verbal working memory were found in the inferior parietal lobule (BA 40) and the right inferior cerebellum hemisphere (VIIB). These findings provide evidence for two cerebrocerebellar networks for verbal working memory: a frontal/superior cerebellar articulatory control system and a parietal/inferior cerebellar phonological storage system.

Differential Modulation of Performance in Insight and Divergent Thinking Tasks with tDCS

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goel, Vinod; Eimontaite, Iveta; Goel, Amit; Schindler, Igor

2015-01-01

While both insight and divergent thinking tasks are used to study creativity, there are reasons to believe that the two may call upon very different mechanisms. To explore this hypothesis, we administered a verbal insight task (riddles) and a divergent thinking task (verbal fluency) to 16 native English speakers and 16 non-native English speakers…

Exposure to Blue Light Increases Subsequent Functional Activation of the Prefrontal Cortex During Performance of a Working Memory Task

PubMed Central

Alkozei, Anna; Smith, Ryan; Pisner, Derek A.; Vanuk, John R.; Berryhill, Sarah M.; Fridman, Andrew; Shane, Bradley R.; Knight, Sara A.; Killgore, William D.S.

2016-01-01

Study Objectives: Prolonged exposure to blue wavelength light has been shown to have an alerting effect, and enhances performance on cognitive tasks. A small number of studies have also shown that relatively short exposure to blue light leads to changes in functional brain responses during the period of exposure. The extent to which blue light continues to affect brain functioning during a cognitively challenging task after cessation of longer periods of exposure (i.e., roughly 30 minutes or longer), however, has not been fully investigated. Methods: A total of 35 healthy participants (18 female) were exposed to either blue (469 nm) (n = 17) or amber (578 nm) (n = 18) wavelength light for 30 minutes in a darkened room, followed immediately by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while undergoing a working memory task (N-back task). Results: Participants in the blue light condition were faster in their responses on the N-back task and showed increased activation in the dorsolateral (DLPFC) and ventrolateral (VLPFC) prefrontal cortex compared to those in the amber control light condition. Furthermore, greater activation within the VLPFC was correlated with faster N-back response times. Conclusions: This is the first study to suggest that a relatively brief, single exposure to blue light has a subsequent beneficial effect on working memory performance, even after cessation of exposure, and leads to temporarily persisting functional brain changes within prefrontal brain regions associated with executive functions. These findings may have broader implication for using blue-enriched light in a variety of work settings where alertness and quick decision-making are important. Citation: Alkozei A, Smith R, Pisner DA, Vanuk JR, Berryhill SM, Fridman A, Shane BR, Knight SA, Killgore WD. Exposure to blue light increases subsequent functional activation of the prefrontal cortex during performance of a working memory task. SLEEP 2016;39(9):1671–1680. PMID:27253770

The Role of Anterior Nuclei of the Thalamus: A Subcortical Gate in Memory Processing: An Intracerebral Recording Study

PubMed Central

Štillová, Klára; Jurák, Pavel; Chládek, Jan; Chrastina, Jan; Halámek, Josef; Bočková, Martina; Goldemundová, Sabina; Říha, Ivo; Rektor, Ivan

2015-01-01

Objective To study the involvement of the anterior nuclei of the thalamus (ANT) as compared to the involvement of the hippocampus in the processes of encoding and recognition during visual and verbal memory tasks. Methods We studied intracerebral recordings in patients with pharmacoresistent epilepsy who underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ANT with depth electrodes implanted bilaterally in the ANT and compared the results with epilepsy surgery candidates with depth electrodes implanted bilaterally in the hippocampus. We recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the visual and verbal memory encoding and recognition tasks. Results P300-like potentials were recorded in the hippocampus by visual and verbal memory encoding and recognition tasks and in the ANT by the visual encoding and visual and verbal recognition tasks. No significant ERPs were recorded during the verbal encoding task in the ANT. In the visual and verbal recognition tasks, the P300-like potentials in the ANT preceded the P300-like potentials in the hippocampus. Conclusions The ANT is a structure in the memory pathway that processes memory information before the hippocampus. We suggest that the ANT has a specific role in memory processes, especially memory recognition, and that memory disturbance should be considered in patients with ANT-DBS and in patients with ANT lesions. ANT is well positioned to serve as a subcortical gate for memory processing in cortical structures. PMID:26529407

Neuromagnetic brain activities associated with perceptual categorization and sound-content incongruency: a comparison between monosyllabic words and pitch names

PubMed Central

Tsai, Chen-Gia; Chen, Chien-Chung; Wen, Ya-Chien; Chou, Tai-Li

2015-01-01

In human cultures, the perceptual categorization of musical pitches relies on pitch-naming systems. A sung pitch name concurrently holds the information of fundamental frequency and pitch name. These two aspects may be either congruent or incongruent with regard to pitch categorization. The present study aimed to compare the neuromagnetic responses to musical and verbal stimuli for congruency judgments, for example a congruent pair for the pitch C4 sung with the pitch name do in a C-major context (the pitch-semantic task) or for the meaning of a word to match the speaker’s identity (the voice-semantic task). Both the behavioral data and neuromagnetic data showed that congruency detection of the speaker’s identity and word meaning was slower than that of the pitch and pitch name. Congruency effects of musical stimuli revealed that pitch categorization and semantic processing of pitch information were associated with P2m and N400m, respectively. For verbal stimuli, P2m and N400m did not show any congruency effect. In both the pitch-semantic task and the voice-semantic task, we found that incongruent stimuli evoked stronger slow waves with the latency of 500–600 ms than congruent stimuli. These findings shed new light on the neural mechanisms underlying pitch-naming processes. PMID:26347638

Beyond Capacity Limitations: Determinants of Word Recall Performance on Verbal Working Memory Span Tasks in Children with SLI

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.

2005-01-01

Reduced verbal working memory capacity has been proposed as a possible account of language impairments in specific language impairment (SLI). Studies have shown, however, that differences in strength of linguistic representations in the form of word frequency affect list recall and performance on verbal working memory tasks. This suggests that…

Cross-Modal Decoding of Neural Patterns Associated with Working Memory: Evidence for Attention-Based Accounts of Working Memory

PubMed Central

Majerus, Steve; Cowan, Nelson; Péters, Frédéric; Van Calster, Laurens; Phillips, Christophe; Schrouff, Jessica

2016-01-01

Recent studies suggest common neural substrates involved in verbal and visual working memory (WM), interpreted as reflecting shared attention-based, short-term retention mechanisms. We used a machine-learning approach to determine more directly the extent to which common neural patterns characterize retention in verbal WM and visual WM. Verbal WM was assessed via a standard delayed probe recognition task for letter sequences of variable length. Visual WM was assessed via a visual array WM task involving the maintenance of variable amounts of visual information in the focus of attention. We trained a classifier to distinguish neural activation patterns associated with high- and low-visual WM load and tested the ability of this classifier to predict verbal WM load (high–low) from their associated neural activation patterns, and vice versa. We observed significant between-task prediction of load effects during WM maintenance, in posterior parietal and superior frontal regions of the dorsal attention network; in contrast, between-task prediction in sensory processing cortices was restricted to the encoding stage. Furthermore, between-task prediction of load effects was strongest in those participants presenting the highest capacity for the visual WM task. This study provides novel evidence for common, attention-based neural patterns supporting verbal and visual WM. PMID:25146374

Correlation of within-individual fluctuation of depressed mood with prefrontal cortex activity during verbal working memory task: optical topography study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sato, Hiroki; Aoki, Ryuta; Katura, Takusige; Matsuda, Ryoichi; Koizumi, Hideaki

2011-12-01

Previous studies showed that interindividual variations in mood state are associated with prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. In this study, we focused on the depressed-mood state under natural circumstances and examined the relationship between within-individual changes over time in this mood state and PFC activity. We used optical topography (OT), a functional imaging technique based on near-infrared spectroscopy, to measure PFC activity for each participant in three experimental sessions repeated at 2-week intervals. In each session, the participants completed a self-report questionnaire of mood state and underwent OT measurement while performing verbal and spatial working memory (WM) tasks. The results showed that changes in the depressed-mood score between successive sessions were negatively correlated with those in the left PFC activation for the verbal WM task (ρ = -0.56, p < 0.05). In contrast, the PFC activation for the spatial WM task did not co-vary with participants' mood changes. We thus demonstrated that PFC activity during a verbal WM task varies depending on the participant's depressed mood state, independent of trait factors. This suggests that using optical topography to measure PFC activity during a verbal WM task can be used as a potential state marker for an individual's depressed mood state.

Verbal short-term memory shows a specific association with receptive but not productive vocabulary measures in Down syndrome.

PubMed

Majerus, S; Barisnikov, K

2018-01-01

Verbal short-term memory (STM) capacity has been considered to support vocabulary learning in typical children and adults, but evidence for this link is inconsistent for studies in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). The aim of this study was explore the role of processing demands on the association between verbal STM and vocabulary measures in DS, by comparing receptive vocabulary measures with high STM processing demands to productive vocabulary measures with low STM processing demands. Forty-seven adults with Down syndrome were administered receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary tasks, as well as measures of verbal STM abilities and intellectual efficiency. Bayesian regression analyses showed that verbal STM abilities were strongly and specifically associated with receptive vocabulary measures but not productive lexical abilities after controlling for intellectual efficiency, and this is despite the fact that vocabulary abilities as measured by receptive and productive vocabulary tasks were closely associated. In Down syndrome, verbal STM abilities may be predictive of specific task demands associated with receptive vocabulary tasks rather than of vocabulary development per se. © 2017 MENCAP and International Association of the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging of working memory in Huntington's disease: cross-sectional data from the IMAGE-HD study.

PubMed

Georgiou-Karistianis, Nellie; Stout, Julie C; Domínguez D, Juan F; Carron, Sarah P; Ando, Ayaka; Churchyard, Andrew; Chua, Phyllis; Bohanna, India; Dymowski, Alicia R; Poudel, Govinda; Egan, Gary F

2014-05-01

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate spatial working memory (WM) in an N-BACK task (0, 1, and 2-BACK) in premanifest Huntington's disease (pre-HD, n = 35), early symptomatic Huntington's disease (symp-HD, n = 23), and control (n = 32) individuals. Overall, both WM conditions (1-BACK and 2-BACK) activated a large network of regions throughout the brain, common to all groups. However, voxel-wise and time-course analyses revealed significant functional group differences, despite no significant behavioral performance differences. During 1-BACK, voxel-wise blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal activity was significantly reduced in a number of regions from the WM network (inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula, caudate, putamen, and cerebellum) in pre-HD and symp-HD groups, compared with controls; however, time-course analysis of the BOLD response in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) showed increased activation in symp-HD, compared with pre-HD and controls. The pattern of reduced voxel-wise BOLD activity in pre-HD and symp-HD, relative to controls, became more pervasive during 2-BACK affecting the same structures as in 1-BACK, but also incorporated further WM regions (anterior cingulate gyrus, parietal lobe and thalamus). The DLPFC BOLD time-course for 2-BACK showed a reversed pattern to that observed in 1-BACK, with a significantly diminished signal in symp-HD, relative to pre-HD and controls. Our findings provide support for functional brain reorganisation in cortical and subcortical regions in both pre-HD and symp-HD, which are modulated by task difficulty. Moreover, the lack of a robust striatal BOLD signal in pre-HD may represent a very early signature of change observed up to 15 years prior to clinical diagnosis. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[Brain mapping in verbal and spatial thinking].

PubMed

Ivanitskiĭ, A M; Portnova, G V; Martynova, O V; Maĭorova, L A; Fedina, O N; Petrushevskiĭ, A G

2013-01-01

The goal of this study was to describe the topography of the active cortical areas and subcortical structuresin verbal and spatial thinking. The method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used. 18 right-handed subjects participated in the study. Four types of tasks were presented: two experimental tasks--verbal (anagram) and spatial (search for a piece to complement a square), and two types of control tasks (written words and a spatial task, where all the pieces are identical). In solving verbal tasks the greater volume of activation was observed in the left hemisphere involving Broca's area, while the right middle frontal gyrus was activated in solving the spatial tasks. For occipital region an activation of the visual field 18 was more explicitin solving spatial problems, while the solution of anagrams caused an activation of the field 19 associated with higher levels of visual processing. The cerebellum was active bilaterally in both tasks with predominance in the second. The obtained fMRI data indicate that the verbal and spatial types of thinking are provided by an activation of narrow specific sets of brain structures, while the previous electrophysiological studies indicate the distributed nature of the brain processes in thinking. Combining these two approaches, it can be concluded that cognitive functions are supported by the systemic brain processes with a distinct location of the particular salient structures.

Verbal and non-verbal behaviour and patient perception of communication in primary care: an observational study.

PubMed

Little, Paul; White, Peter; Kelly, Joanne; Everitt, Hazel; Gashi, Shkelzen; Bikker, Annemieke; Mercer, Stewart

2015-06-01

Few studies have assessed the importance of a broad range of verbal and non-verbal consultation behaviours. To explore the relationship of observer ratings of behaviours of videotaped consultations with patients' perceptions. Observational study in general practices close to Southampton, Southern England. Verbal and non-verbal behaviour was rated by independent observers blind to outcome. Patients competed the Medical Interview Satisfaction Scale (MISS; primary outcome) and questionnaires addressing other communication domains. In total, 275/360 consultations from 25 GPs had useable videotapes. Higher MISS scores were associated with slight forward lean (an 0.02 increase for each degree of lean, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.002 to 0.03), the number of gestures (0.08, 95% CI = 0.01 to 0.15), 'back-channelling' (for example, saying 'mmm') (0.11, 95% CI = 0.02 to 0.2), and social talk (0.29, 95% CI = 0.4 to 0.54). Starting the consultation with professional coolness ('aloof') was helpful and optimism unhelpful. Finishing with non-verbal 'cut-offs' (for example, looking away), being professionally cool ('aloof'), or patronising, ('infantilising') resulted in poorer ratings. Physical contact was also important, but not traditional verbal communication. These exploratory results require confirmation, but suggest that patients may be responding to several non-verbal behaviours and non-specific verbal behaviours, such as social talk and back-channelling, more than traditional verbal behaviours. A changing consultation dynamic may also help, from professional 'coolness' at the beginning of the consultation to becoming warmer and avoiding non-verbal cut-offs at the end. © British Journal of General Practice 2015.

Cognitive performance and electrophysiological indices of cognitive control: a validation study of conflict adaptation.

PubMed

Clayson, Peter E; Larson, Michael J

2012-05-01

Psychiatric and neurologic disorders are associated with deficits in the postconflict recruitment of cognitive control. The primary aim of this study was to validate the relationship between cognitive functioning and indices of conflict adaptation. Event-related potentials were obtained from 89 healthy individuals who completed an Eriksen flanker task. Neuropsychological domains tested included memory, verbal fluency, and attention/executive functioning. Behavioral measures and N2 amplitudes showed significant conflict adaptation (i.e., previous-trial congruencies influenced current-trial measures). Higher scores on the attention/executive functioning and verbal fluency domains were associated with larger incongruent-trial N2 conflict adaptation; measures of cognitive functioning were not related to behavioral indices. This study provides initial validation of N2 conflict adaptation effects as cognitive function-related aspects of cognitive control. Copyright © 2012 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Domain-Generality of Timing-Based Serial Order Processes in Short-Term Memory: New Insights from Musical and Verbal Domains

PubMed Central

Kowialiewski, Benjamin; Majerus, Steve

2016-01-01

Several models in the verbal domain of short-term memory (STM) consider a dissociation between item and order processing. This view is supported by data demonstrating that different types of time-based interference have a greater effect on memory for the order of to-be-remembered items than on memory for the items themselves. The present study investigated the domain-generality of the item versus serial order dissociation by comparing the differential effects of time-based interfering tasks, such as rhythmic interference and articulatory suppression, on item and order processing in verbal and musical STM domains. In Experiment 1, participants had to maintain sequences of verbal or musical information in STM, followed by a probe sequence, this under different conditions of interference (no-interference, rhythmic interference, articulatory suppression). They were required to decide whether all items of the probe list matched those of the memory list (item condition) or whether the order of the items in the probe sequence matched the order in the memory list (order condition). In Experiment 2, participants performed a serial order probe recognition task for verbal and musical sequences ensuring sequential maintenance processes, under no-interference or rhythmic interference conditions. For Experiment 1, serial order recognition was not significantly more impacted by interfering tasks than was item recognition, this for both verbal and musical domains. For Experiment 2, we observed selective interference of the rhythmic interference condition on both musical and verbal order STM tasks. Overall, the results suggest a similar and selective sensitivity to time-based interference for serial order STM in verbal and musical domains, but only when the STM tasks ensure sequential maintenance processes. PMID:27992565

Domain-Generality of Timing-Based Serial Order Processes in Short-Term Memory: New Insights from Musical and Verbal Domains.

PubMed

Gorin, Simon; Kowialiewski, Benjamin; Majerus, Steve

2016-01-01

Several models in the verbal domain of short-term memory (STM) consider a dissociation between item and order processing. This view is supported by data demonstrating that different types of time-based interference have a greater effect on memory for the order of to-be-remembered items than on memory for the items themselves. The present study investigated the domain-generality of the item versus serial order dissociation by comparing the differential effects of time-based interfering tasks, such as rhythmic interference and articulatory suppression, on item and order processing in verbal and musical STM domains. In Experiment 1, participants had to maintain sequences of verbal or musical information in STM, followed by a probe sequence, this under different conditions of interference (no-interference, rhythmic interference, articulatory suppression). They were required to decide whether all items of the probe list matched those of the memory list (item condition) or whether the order of the items in the probe sequence matched the order in the memory list (order condition). In Experiment 2, participants performed a serial order probe recognition task for verbal and musical sequences ensuring sequential maintenance processes, under no-interference or rhythmic interference conditions. For Experiment 1, serial order recognition was not significantly more impacted by interfering tasks than was item recognition, this for both verbal and musical domains. For Experiment 2, we observed selective interference of the rhythmic interference condition on both musical and verbal order STM tasks. Overall, the results suggest a similar and selective sensitivity to time-based interference for serial order STM in verbal and musical domains, but only when the STM tasks ensure sequential maintenance processes.

Dual n-back training increases the capacity of the focus of attention.

PubMed

Lilienthal, Lindsey; Tamez, Elaine; Shelton, Jill Talley; Myerson, Joel; Hale, Sandra

2013-02-01

Working memory (WM) training has been reported to benefit abilities as diverse as fluid intelligence (Jaeggi et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105:6829-6833, 2008) and reading comprehension (Chein & Morrison, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17:193-199, 2010), but transfer is not always observed (for reviews, see Morrison & Chein, Psychonomics Bulletin & Review, 18:46-60, 2011; Shipstead et al., Psychological Bulletin, 138:628-654, 2012). In contrast, recent WM training studies have consistently reported improvement on the trained tasks. The basis for these training benefits has received little attention, however, and it is not known which WM components and/or processes are being improved. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to investigate five possible mechanisms underlying the effects of adaptive dual n-back training on working memory (i.e., improvements in executive attention, updating, and focus switching, as well as increases in the capacity of the focus of attention and short-term memory). In addition to a no-contact control group, the present study also included an active control group whose members received nonadaptive training on the same task. All three groups showed significant improvements on the n-back task from pretest to posttest, but adaptive training produced larger improvements than did nonadaptive training, which in turn produced larger improvements than simply retesting. Adaptive, but not nonadaptive, training also resulted in improvements on an untrained running span task that measured the capacity of the focus of attention. No other differential improvements were observed, suggesting that increases in the capacity of the focus of attention underlie the benefits of adaptive dual n-back training.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Modulates Neuronal Activity and Learning in Pilot Training

PubMed Central

Choe, Jaehoon; Coffman, Brian A.; Bergstedt, Dylan T.; Ziegler, Matthias D.; Phillips, Matthew E.

2016-01-01

Skill acquisition requires distributed learning both within (online) and across (offline) days to consolidate experiences into newly learned abilities. In particular, piloting an aircraft requires skills developed from extensive training and practice. Here, we tested the hypothesis that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can modulate neuronal function to improve skill learning and performance during flight simulator training of aircraft landing procedures. Thirty-two right-handed participants consented to participate in four consecutive daily sessions of flight simulation training and received sham or anodal high-definition-tDCS to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) or left motor cortex (M1) in a randomized, double-blind experiment. Continuous electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) were collected during flight simulation, n-back working memory, and resting-state assessments. tDCS of the right DLPFC increased midline-frontal theta-band activity in flight and n-back working memory training, confirming tDCS-related modulation of brain processes involved in executive function. This modulation corresponded to a significantly different online and offline learning rates for working memory accuracy and decreased inter-subject behavioral variability in flight and n-back tasks in the DLPFC stimulation group. Additionally, tDCS of left M1 increased parietal alpha power during flight tasks and tDCS to the right DLPFC increased midline frontal theta-band power during n-back and flight tasks. These results demonstrate a modulation of group variance in skill acquisition through an increasing in learned skill consistency in cognitive and real-world tasks with tDCS. Further, tDCS performance improvements corresponded to changes in electrophysiological and blood-oxygenation activity of the DLPFC and motor cortices, providing a stronger link between modulated neuronal function and behavior. PMID:26903841

Effects of classroom bilingualism on task-shifting, verbal memory, and word learning in children.

PubMed

Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana

2014-07-01

We examined the effects of classroom bilingual experience in children on an array of cognitive skills. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared with children who spoke English as the native language and who had been exposed to Spanish in the context of dual-immersion schooling for an average of 2 years. The groups were compared on a measure of non-linguistic task-shifting; measures of verbal short-term and working memory; and measures of word learning. The two groups of children did not differ on measures of non-linguistic task-shifting and verbal short-term memory. However, the classroom-exposure bilingual group outperformed the monolingual group on the measure of verbal working memory and a measure of word learning. Together, these findings indicate that while exposure to a second language in a classroom setting may not be sufficient to engender changes in cognitive control, it can facilitate verbal memory and verbal learning. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Effects of Classroom Bilingualism on Task Shifting, Verbal Memory, and Word Learning in Children

PubMed Central

Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana

2014-01-01

We examined the effects of classroom bilingual experience in children on an array of cognitive skills. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared with children who spoke English as the native language and who had been exposed to Spanish in the context of dual-immersion schooling for an average of two years. The groups were compared on a measure of non-linguistic task-shifting; measures of verbal short-term and working memory; and measures of word-learning. The two groups of children did not differ on measures of non-linguistic task-shifting and verbal short-term memory. However, the classroom-exposure bilingual group outperformed the monolingual group on the measure of verbal working memory and a measure of word-learning. Together, these findings indicate that while exposure to a second language in a classroom setting may not be sufficient to engender changes in cognitive control, it can facilitate verbal memory and verbal learning. PMID:24576079

The Function of Verbal Rewards in the Science Classroom.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawlor, Francis Xavier

Contained is a review of the research done on the use of verbal rewards in the classroom. Some verbal rewards are tasks rewards, other rewards are more personal; and still other verbal rewards are impersonal. Verbal rewards, therefore, have both intellectual and emotional implications. Research literature indicates that "verbal reward"…

Age-differences in the temporal properties of proactive interference in working memory.

PubMed

Samrani, George; Bäckman, Lars; Persson, Jonas

2017-12-01

The inability to suppress irrelevant information has been suggested as a primary cause of proactive interference (PI), and this deficit may be enhanced in aging. The current study examines age differences and temporal boundaries of PI, by manipulating lure distances in a verbal 2-back working memory task. Both younger and older adults showed effects of interference for proximal 3- and 4-back lures, and this effect was greater for older adults. Whereas younger adults showed less interference during 4-back compared to 3-back lures, in both reaction times and accuracy, older adults improved only in accuracy. For distant lures, when the time between the 1st presentation of an item to its reappearance as a lure item was longer (e.g., 5- to 10-back lures), younger adults were no longer affected by PI. However, older adults were affected by PI throughout all distant lures, up to the most distant lure (9-/10-back). The results suggest that older adults were less successful in resolving interference from both proximal and distant familiar lures. Further, younger adults were able to overcome the effects of PI completely after a specific lure distance. The age differences in temporal properties of PI may therefore highlight a unique component linked to impaired interference control and aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Challenging Cognitive Control by Mirrored Stimuli in Working Memory Matching

PubMed Central

Wirth, Maria; Gaschler, Robert

2017-01-01

Cognitive conflict has often been investigated by placing automatic processing originating from learned associations in competition with instructed task demands. Here we explore whether mirror generalization as a congenital mechanism can be employed to create cognitive conflict. Past research suggests that the visual system automatically generates an invariant representation of visual objects and their mirrored counterparts (i.e., mirror generalization), and especially so for lateral reversals (e.g., a cup seen from the left side vs. right side). Prior work suggests that mirror generalization can be reduced or even overcome by learning (i.e., for those visual objects for which it is not appropriate, such as letters d and b). We, therefore, minimized prior practice on resolving conflicts involving mirror generalization by using kanji stimuli as non-verbal and unfamiliar material. In a 1-back task, participants had to check a stream of kanji stimuli for identical repetitions and avoid miss-categorizing mirror reversed stimuli as exact repetitions. Consistent with previous work, lateral reversals led to profound slowing of reaction times and lower accuracy in Experiment 1. Yet, different from previous reports suggesting that lateral reversals lead to stronger conflict, similar slowing for vertical and horizontal mirror transformations was observed in Experiment 2. Taken together, the results suggest that transformations of visual stimuli can be employed to challenge cognitive control in the 1-back task. PMID:28503160

Processing of pitch and location in human auditory cortex during visual and auditory tasks.

PubMed

Häkkinen, Suvi; Ovaska, Noora; Rinne, Teemu

2015-01-01

The relationship between stimulus-dependent and task-dependent activations in human auditory cortex (AC) during pitch and location processing is not well understood. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated the processing of task-irrelevant and task-relevant pitch and location during discrimination, n-back, and visual tasks. We tested three hypotheses: (1) According to prevailing auditory models, stimulus-dependent processing of pitch and location should be associated with enhanced activations in distinct areas of the anterior and posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG), respectively. (2) Based on our previous studies, task-dependent activation patterns during discrimination and n-back tasks should be similar when these tasks are performed on sounds varying in pitch or location. (3) Previous studies in humans and animals suggest that pitch and location tasks should enhance activations especially in those areas that also show activation enhancements associated with stimulus-dependent pitch and location processing, respectively. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found stimulus-dependent sensitivity to pitch and location in anterolateral STG and anterior planum temporale (PT), respectively, in line with the view that these features are processed in separate parallel pathways. Further, task-dependent activations during discrimination and n-back tasks were associated with enhanced activations in anterior/posterior STG and posterior STG/inferior parietal lobule (IPL) irrespective of stimulus features. However, direct comparisons between pitch and location tasks performed on identical sounds revealed no significant activation differences. These results suggest that activations during pitch and location tasks are not strongly affected by enhanced stimulus-dependent activations to pitch or location. We also found that activations in PT were strongly modulated by task requirements and that areas in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) showed task-dependent activation modulations, but no systematic activations to pitch or location. Based on these results, we argue that activations during pitch and location tasks cannot be explained by enhanced stimulus-specific processing alone, but rather that activations in human AC depend in a complex manner on the requirements of the task at hand.

Processing of pitch and location in human auditory cortex during visual and auditory tasks

PubMed Central

Häkkinen, Suvi; Ovaska, Noora; Rinne, Teemu

2015-01-01

The relationship between stimulus-dependent and task-dependent activations in human auditory cortex (AC) during pitch and location processing is not well understood. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated the processing of task-irrelevant and task-relevant pitch and location during discrimination, n-back, and visual tasks. We tested three hypotheses: (1) According to prevailing auditory models, stimulus-dependent processing of pitch and location should be associated with enhanced activations in distinct areas of the anterior and posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG), respectively. (2) Based on our previous studies, task-dependent activation patterns during discrimination and n-back tasks should be similar when these tasks are performed on sounds varying in pitch or location. (3) Previous studies in humans and animals suggest that pitch and location tasks should enhance activations especially in those areas that also show activation enhancements associated with stimulus-dependent pitch and location processing, respectively. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found stimulus-dependent sensitivity to pitch and location in anterolateral STG and anterior planum temporale (PT), respectively, in line with the view that these features are processed in separate parallel pathways. Further, task-dependent activations during discrimination and n-back tasks were associated with enhanced activations in anterior/posterior STG and posterior STG/inferior parietal lobule (IPL) irrespective of stimulus features. However, direct comparisons between pitch and location tasks performed on identical sounds revealed no significant activation differences. These results suggest that activations during pitch and location tasks are not strongly affected by enhanced stimulus-dependent activations to pitch or location. We also found that activations in PT were strongly modulated by task requirements and that areas in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) showed task-dependent activation modulations, but no systematic activations to pitch or location. Based on these results, we argue that activations during pitch and location tasks cannot be explained by enhanced stimulus-specific processing alone, but rather that activations in human AC depend in a complex manner on the requirements of the task at hand. PMID:26594185

A comparison of serial order short-term memory effects across verbal and musical domains.

PubMed

Gorin, Simon; Mengal, Pierre; Majerus, Steve

2018-04-01

Recent studies suggest that the mechanisms involved in the short-term retention of serial order information may be shared across short-term memory (STM) domains such as verbal and visuospatial STM. Given the intrinsic sequential organization of musical material, the study of STM for musical information may be particularly informative about serial order retention processes and their domain-generality. The present experiment examined serial order STM for verbal and musical sequences in participants with no advanced musical expertise and experienced musicians. Serial order STM for verbal information was assessed via a serial order reconstruction task for digit sequences. In the musical domain, serial order STM was assessed using a novel melodic sequence reconstruction task maximizing the retention of tone order information. We observed that performance for the verbal and musical tasks was characterized by sequence length as well as primacy and recency effects. Serial order errors in both tasks were characterized by similar transposition gradients and ratios of fill-in:infill errors. These effects were observed for both participant groups, although the transposition gradients and ratios of fill-in:infill errors showed additional specificities for musician participants in the musical task. The data support domain-general serial order STM effects but also suggest the existence of additional domain-specific effects. Implications for models of serial order STM in verbal and musical domains are discussed.

The case against specialized visual-spatial short-term memory.

PubMed

Morey, Candice C

2018-05-24

The dominant paradigm for understanding working memory, or the combination of the perceptual, attentional, and mnemonic processes needed for thinking, subdivides short-term memory (STM) according to whether memoranda are encoded in aural-verbal or visual formats. This traditional dissociation has been supported by examples of neuropsychological patients who seem to selectively lack STM for either aural-verbal, visual, or spatial memoranda, and by experimental research using dual-task methods. Though this evidence is the foundation of assumptions of modular STM systems, the case it makes for a specialized visual STM system is surprisingly weak. I identify the key evidence supporting a distinct verbal STM system-patients with apparent selective damage to verbal STM and the resilience of verbal short-term memories to general dual-task interference-and apply these benchmarks to neuropsychological and experimental investigations of visual-spatial STM. Contrary to the evidence on verbal STM, patients with apparent visual or spatial STM deficits tend to experience a wide range of additional deficits, making it difficult to conclude that a distinct short-term store was damaged. Consistently with this, a meta-analysis of dual-task visual-spatial STM research shows that robust dual-task costs are consistently observed regardless of the domain or sensory code of the secondary task. Together, this evidence suggests that positing a specialized visual STM system is not necessary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Good Holders, Bad Shufflers: An Examination of Working Memory Processes and Modalities in Children with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

PubMed

Simone, Ashley N; Bédard, Anne-Claude V; Marks, David J; Halperin, Jeffrey M

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine working memory (WM) modalities (visual-spatial and auditory-verbal) and processes (maintenance and manipulation) in children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The sample consisted of 63 8-year-old children with ADHD and an age- and sex-matched non-ADHD comparison group (N=51). Auditory-verbal and visual-spatial WM were assessed using the Digit Span and Spatial Span subtests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Integrated - Fourth Edition. WM maintenance and manipulation were assessed via forward and backward span indices, respectively. Data were analyzed using a 3-way Group (ADHD vs. non-ADHD)×Modality (Auditory-Verbal vs. Visual-Spatial)×Condition (Forward vs. Backward) Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Secondary analyses examined differences between Combined and Predominantly Inattentive ADHD presentations. Significant Group×Condition (p=.02) and Group×Modality (p=.03) interactions indicated differentially poorer performance by those with ADHD on backward relative to forward and visual-spatial relative to auditory-verbal tasks, respectively. The 3-way interaction was not significant. Analyses targeting ADHD presentations yielded a significant Group×Condition interaction (p=.009) such that children with ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive Presentation performed differentially poorer on backward relative to forward tasks compared to the children with ADHD-Combined Presentation. Findings indicate a specific pattern of WM weaknesses (i.e., WM manipulation and visual-spatial tasks) for children with ADHD. Furthermore, differential patterns of WM performance were found for children with ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive versus Combined Presentations. (JINS, 2016, 22, 1-11).

Cognitive interference and a food-related memory bias in binge eating disorder.

PubMed

Svaldi, Jennifer; Schmitz, Florian; Trentowska, Monika; Tuschen-Caffier, Brunna; Berking, Matthias; Naumann, Eva

2014-01-01

The present study was concerned with cognitive interference and a specific memory bias for eating-related stimuli in binge eating disorder (BED). Further objectives were to find out under which circumstances such effects would occur, and whether they are related with each other and with reported severity of BED symptoms. A group of women diagnosed with BED and a matched sample of overweight controls completed two paradigms, an n-back task with lures and a recent-probes task. The BED group generally experienced more interference in the n-back task. Additionally, they revealed selectively increased interference for food items in the recent-probes task. Findings can be reconciled with the view that control functions are generally impaired in BED, and that there is an additional bias for eating-related stimuli, both of which were related with reported severity of BED symptoms. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cognitive consequences of coexisting temporal lobe developmental malformations and hippocampal sclerosis.

PubMed

Martin, R; Dowler, R; Gilliam, F; Faught, E; Morawetz, R; Kuzniecky, R

1999-09-11

To characterize patterns of cognitive functioning in a well-defined group of patients with MRI-identified coexisting left temporal lobe developmental malformations (TLDM) and mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS), and to examine neuropsychological outcome in this dual-pathology group following epilepsy surgery. Cognitive functioning in patients with left TLDM and MTS (n = 15) was compared with patients with isolated left MTS (n = 40). TLDM and MTS were identified by high-quality MRI protocol. Patients were administered a battery of neuropsychology tests as part of their presurgical workup for possible epilepsy surgery. Unilateral temporal lobe resection was performed on 10 of the dual-pathology patients and 34 of the isolated MTS patients. Postoperative cognitive performance was also assessed. Both groups displayed impairments in verbal and visual memory, language, and academic achievement. Performance on measures of psychometric intelligence, executive function, and attention were not impaired and were similar between groups. Presence of dual pathology was associated with a significantly less efficient verbal encoding strategy on the word list learning task. Postoperatively, declines were noted for both groups across tasks of verbal memory and language. Groups were not different significantly in terms of neuropsychological outcome after surgery. Patients with coexisting TLDM and MTS have impaired cognitive functioning similar to MTS patients-in particular, with regard to episodic memory and language deficits. Temporal lobe resection produces similar cognitive changes in both groups.

EEG Cortical Connectivity Analysis of Working Memory Reveals Topological Reorganization in Theta and Alpha Bands

PubMed Central

Dai, Zhongxiang; de Souza, Joshua; Lim, Julian; Ho, Paul M.; Chen, Yu; Li, Junhua; Thakor, Nitish; Bezerianos, Anastasios; Sun, Yu

2017-01-01

Numerous studies have revealed various working memory (WM)-related brain activities that originate from various cortical regions and oscillate at different frequencies. However, multi-frequency band analysis of the brain network in WM in the cortical space remains largely unexplored. In this study, we employed a graph theoretical framework to characterize the topological properties of the brain functional network in the theta and alpha frequency bands during WM tasks. Twenty-eight subjects performed visual n-back tasks at two difficulty levels, i.e., 0-back (control task) and 2-back (WM task). After preprocessing, Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were projected into the source space and 80 cortical brain regions were selected for further analysis. Subsequently, the theta- and alpha-band networks were constructed by calculating the Pearson correlation coefficients between the power series (obtained by concatenating the power values of all epochs in each session) of all pairs of brain regions. Graph theoretical approaches were then employed to estimate the topological properties of the brain networks at different WM tasks. We found higher functional integration in the theta band and lower functional segregation in the alpha band in the WM task compared with the control task. Moreover, compared to the 0-back task, altered regional centrality was revealed in the 2-back task in various brain regions that mainly resided in the frontal, temporal and occipital lobes, with distinct presentations in the theta and alpha bands. In addition, significant negative correlations were found between the reaction time with the average path length of the theta-band network and the local clustering of the alpha-band network, which demonstrates the potential for using the brain network metrics as biomarkers for predicting the task performance during WM tasks. PMID:28553215

EEG Cortical Connectivity Analysis of Working Memory Reveals Topological Reorganization in Theta and Alpha Bands.

PubMed

Dai, Zhongxiang; de Souza, Joshua; Lim, Julian; Ho, Paul M; Chen, Yu; Li, Junhua; Thakor, Nitish; Bezerianos, Anastasios; Sun, Yu

2017-01-01

Numerous studies have revealed various working memory (WM)-related brain activities that originate from various cortical regions and oscillate at different frequencies. However, multi-frequency band analysis of the brain network in WM in the cortical space remains largely unexplored. In this study, we employed a graph theoretical framework to characterize the topological properties of the brain functional network in the theta and alpha frequency bands during WM tasks. Twenty-eight subjects performed visual n -back tasks at two difficulty levels, i.e., 0-back (control task) and 2-back (WM task). After preprocessing, Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were projected into the source space and 80 cortical brain regions were selected for further analysis. Subsequently, the theta- and alpha-band networks were constructed by calculating the Pearson correlation coefficients between the power series (obtained by concatenating the power values of all epochs in each session) of all pairs of brain regions. Graph theoretical approaches were then employed to estimate the topological properties of the brain networks at different WM tasks. We found higher functional integration in the theta band and lower functional segregation in the alpha band in the WM task compared with the control task. Moreover, compared to the 0-back task, altered regional centrality was revealed in the 2-back task in various brain regions that mainly resided in the frontal, temporal and occipital lobes, with distinct presentations in the theta and alpha bands. In addition, significant negative correlations were found between the reaction time with the average path length of the theta-band network and the local clustering of the alpha-band network, which demonstrates the potential for using the brain network metrics as biomarkers for predicting the task performance during WM tasks.

[Learning virtual routes: what does verbal coding do in working memory?].

PubMed

Gyselinck, Valérie; Grison, Élise; Gras, Doriane

2015-03-01

Two experiments were run to complete our understanding of the role of verbal and visuospatial encoding in the construction of a spatial model from visual input. In experiment 1 a dual task paradigm was applied to young adults who learned a route in a virtual environment and then performed a series of nonverbal tasks to assess spatial knowledge. Results indicated that landmark knowledge as asserted by the visual recognition of landmarks was not impaired by any of the concurrent task. Route knowledge, assessed by recognition of directions, was impaired both by a tapping task and a concurrent articulation task. Interestingly, the pattern was modulated when no landmarks were available to perform the direction task. A second experiment was designed to explore the role of verbal coding on the construction of landmark and route knowledge. A lexical-decision task was used as a verbal-semantic dual task, and a tone decision task as a nonsemantic auditory task. Results show that these new concurrent tasks impaired differently landmark knowledge and route knowledge. Results can be interpreted as showing that the coding of route knowledge could be grounded on both a coding of the sequence of events and on a semantic coding of information. These findings also point on some limits of Baddeley's working memory model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Because difficulty is not the same for everyone: the impact of complexity in working memory is associated with cannabinoid 1 receptor genetic variation in young adults.

PubMed

Ruiz-Contreras, Alejandra E; Román-López, Talía V; Caballero-Sánchez, Ulises; Rosas-Escobar, Cintia B; Ortega-Mora, E Ivett; Barrera-Tlapa, Miguel A; Romero-Hidalgo, Sandra; Carrillo-Sánchez, Karol; Hernández-Morales, Salvador; Vadillo-Ortega, Felipe; González-Barrios, Juan Antonio; Méndez-Díaz, Mónica; Prospéro-García, Oscar

2017-03-01

Individual differences in working memory ability are mainly revealed when a demanding challenge is imposed. Here, we have associated cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptor genetic variation rs2180619 (AA, AG, GG), which is located in a potential CNR1 regulatory sequence, with performance in working memory. Two-hundred and nine Mexican-mestizo healthy young participants (89 women, 120 men, mean age: 23.26 years, SD = 2.85) were challenged to solve a medium (2-back) vs. a high (3-back) difficulty N-back tasks. All subjects responded as expected, performance was better with the medium than the high demand task version, but no differences were found among genotypes while performing each working memory (WM) task. However, the cost of the level of complexity in N-back paradigm was double for GG subjects than for AA subjects. It is noteworthy that an additive-dosage allele relation was found for G allele in terms of cost of level of complexity. These genetic variation results support that the endocannabinoid system, evaluated by rs2180619 polymorphism, is involved in WM ability in humans.

Reading skills, creativity, and insight: exploring the connections.

PubMed

Mourgues, Catalina V; Preiss, David D; Grigorenko, Elena L

2014-08-04

Studies of the relationship between creativity and specific reading disabilities have produced inconclusive results. We explored their relationship in a sample of 259 college students (age range: 17 to 38 years-old) from three Chilean universities. The students were tested on their verbal ability, creativity, and insight. A simple linear regression was performed on the complete sample, and on high- and low-achievement groups that were formed based on reading test scores. We observed a significant correlation in the total sample between outcomes on the verbal ability tasks, and on the creativity and insight tasks (range r =. 152 to r =. 356, ps <.001). Scores on the reading comprehension and phonological awareness tasks were the best predictors of performance on creativity and insight tasks (range β = .315 to β = .155, ps <.05). A comparison of the low- and high-scoring groups on verbal ability tasks yielded results to the same effect. These findings do not support the hypothesis that specific reading disability is associated with better performance on creative tasks. Instead, higher verbal ability was found to be associated with higher creativity and insight.

Short message service or disService: issues with text messaging in a complex medical environment.

PubMed

Wu, Robert; Appel, Lora; Morra, Dante; Lo, Vivian; Kitto, Simon; Quan, Sherman

2014-04-01

Hospitals today are experiencing major changes in their clinical communication workflows as conventional numeric paging and face-to-face verbal conversations are being replaced by computer mediated communication systems. In this paper, we highlight the importance of understanding this transition and discuss some of the impacts that may emerge when verbal clinical conversations are replaced by short text messages. In-depth interviews (n=108) and non-participatory observation sessions (n=260h) were conducted on the General Internal Medicine wards at five academic teaching hospitals in Toronto, Canada. From our analysis of the qualitative data, we identified two major themes. De-contextualization of complex issues led to an increase in misinterpretation and an increase in back and forth messaging for clarification. Depersonalization of communication was due to less verbal conversations and face-to-face interactions and led to a negative impact on work relationships. Text-based communication in hospital settings led to the oversimplification of messages and the depersonalization of communication. It is important to recognize and understand these unintended consequences of new technology to avoid the negative impacts to patient care and work relationships. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Use of a Non-Navigational, Non-Verbal Landmark Task in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Overman, William; Pierce, Allison; Watterson, Lucas; Coleman, Jennifer K.

2013-01-01

Two hundred and twenty two children (104 females), 1-8 years of age and young adults, were tested for up to 25 days on five versions of a non-verbal, non-navigational landmark task that had previously been used for monkeys. In monkeys, performance on this task is severely impaired following damage to the parietal cortex. For the basic task, the…

Exploring links between language and cognition in autism spectrum disorders: Complement sentences, false belief, and executive functioning.

PubMed

Stephanie, Durrleman; Julie, Franck

2015-01-01

A growing body of work indicates a close relation between complement clause sentences and Theory of Mind (ToM) in children with autism (e.g., Tager-Flusberg, & Joseph (2005). In Astington, & Baird (Eds.), Why language matters for theory of mind (pp. 298-318). New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press, Lind, & Bowler (2009). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(6), 929). However, this link is based primarily on success at a specific complement clause task and a verbal false-belief (FB) task. One cannot exclude that the link found between these tasks may be a by-product of their both presupposing similar levels of language skills. It is also an open question if the role of complementation in ToM success is a privileged one as compared to that of other abilities which have been claimed to be an important factor for ToM understanding in autism, namely executive functioning (EF) (Pellicano (2007). Developmental Psychology 43, 974). Indeed the role played by complementation may be conceived of as an indirect one, mediated by some more general cognitive function related to EF. This study is the first to examine the relation between theory of mind assessed both verbally and non-verbally and various types of complement clause sentences as well as executive functions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our participants included 17 children and adolescents with ASD (aged 6 to 16) and a younger TD control group matched on non-verbal IQ (aged 4 to 9 years). Three tasks assessing complements of verbs of cognition, verbs of communication and verbs of perception were conducted. ToM tasks involved a verbal ToM task (Sally-Anne, Baron-Cohen et al. (1985). Cognition, 21(1), 37) as well as a non-verbal one (Colle et al. (2007). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(4), 716). Indexes of executive functions were collected via a computerized version of the Dimensional Change Card-Sorting task (Frye et al., 1995). Standardized measures of vocabulary, morphosyntax and non-verbal IQ were also administered. Results show similar performance by children with ASD and TD controls for the understanding of complement sentences, for non-verbal ToM and for executive functions. However, children with ASD were significantly impaired for false belief when this was measured verbally. For both ASD and TD, correlations controlling for IQ were found between the verbal FB task and complement sentences of verbs of communication and cognition, but not with verbs of perception. EF indexes did not significantly correlate with either of the ToM tasks, nor did any of the general language scores. These findings provide support for the view that knowledge of certain specific types of complement clause may serve as a privileged means of 'hacking out' solutions to verbal false belief tasks for individuals on the autistic spectrum. More specifically, complements with a truth-value that is independent of that of the matrix clause (i.e. those occurring with verbs of cognition and of communication, but not of perception) may describe a false event while the whole sentence remains true, making these linguistic structures particularly well suited for representing the minds of others (de Villiers, 2007). Readers will be able to (1) describe and evaluate the hypothesis that complement sentences play a privileged role in false belief task success in autism; (2) describe performance on complement sentences, executive functioning and false belief tasks by children with autism as compared to IQ-matched peers; (3) explain which types of complements specifically relate to false belief task performance and why; and (4) understand that differences in performance by children with autism at different types of false-belief tasks may be related to the nature of the task conducted and the underlying mechanisms involved. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gesture as a window on children's beginning understanding of false belief.

PubMed

Carlson, Stephanie M; Wong, Antoinette; Lemke, Margaret; Cosser, Caron

2005-01-01

Given that gestures may provide access to transitions in cognitive development, preschoolers' performance on standard tasks was compared with their performance on a new gesture false belief task. Experiment 1 confirmed that children (N=45, M age=54 months) responded consistently on two gesture tasks and that there is dramatic improvement on both the gesture false belief task and a standard task from ages 3 to 5. In 2 subsequent experiments focusing on children in transition with respect to understanding false beliefs (Ns=34 and 70, M age=48 months), there was a significant advantage of gesture over standard and novel verbal-response tasks. Iconic gesture may facilitate reasoning about opaque mental states in children who are rapidly developing concepts of mind.

Hyperactivity of caudate, parahippocampal, and prefrontal regions during working memory in never-medicated persons at clinical high-risk for psychosis.

PubMed

Thermenos, Heidi W; Juelich, Richard J; DiChiara, Samantha R; Mesholam-Gately, Raquelle I; Woodberry, Kristen A; Wojcik, Joanne; Makris, Nikos; Keshavan, Matcheri S; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Woo, Tsung-Ung W; Petryshen, Tracey L; Goldstein, Jill M; Shenton, Martha E; McCarley, Robert W; Seidman, Larry J

2016-05-01

Deficits in working memory (WM) are a core feature of schizophrenia (SZ) and other psychotic disorders. We examined brain activity during WM in persons at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. Thirty-seven CHR and 34 healthy control participants underwent functional MRI (fMRI) on a 3.0T scanner while performing an N-back WM task. The sample included a sub-sample of CHR participants who had no lifetime history of treatment with psychotropic medications (n=11). Data were analyzed using SPM8 (2-back>0-back contrast). Pearson correlations between brain activity, symptoms, and WM performance were examined. The total CHR group and medication-naive CHR sub-sample were comparable to controls in most demographic features and in N-back WM performance, but had significantly lower IQ. Relative to controls, medication-naïve CHR showed hyperactivity in the left parahippocampus (PHP) and the left caudate during performance of the N-back WM task. Relative to medication-exposed CHR, medication naïve CHR exhibited hyperactivity in the left caudate and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). DLPFC activity was significantly negatively correlated with WM performance. PHP, caudate and DLPFC activity correlated strongly with symptoms, but results did not withstand FDR-correction for multiple comparisons. When all CHR participants were combined (regardless of medication status), only trend-level PHP hyperactivity was observed in CHR relative to controls. Medication-naïve CHR exhibit hyperactivity in regions that subserve WM. These regions are implicated in studies of schizophrenia and risk for psychosis. Results emphasize the importance of medication status in the interpretation of task - induced brain activity. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Overthinking skilled motor performance: or why those who teach can't do.

PubMed

Flegal, Kristin E; Anderson, Michael C

2008-10-01

Skilled athletes often maintain that overthinking disrupts performance of their motor skills. Here, we examined whether these experiences have a basis in verbal overshadowing, a phenomenon in which describing memories for ineffable perceptual experiences disrupts later retention. After learning a unique golf-putting task, golfers of low and intermediate skill either described their actions in detail or performed an irrelevant verbal task. They then performed the putting task again. Strikingly, describing their putting experience significantly impaired higher skill golfers' ability to reachieve the putting criterion, compared with higher skill golfers who performed the irrelevant verbal activity. Verbalization had no such effect, however, for lower skill golfers. These findings establish that the effects of overthinking extend beyond dual-task interference and may sometimes reflect impacts on long-term memory. We propose that these effects are mediated by competition between procedural and declarative memory, as suggested by recent work in cognitive neuroscience.

Effects of Secondary Task Modality and Processing Code on Automation Trust and Utilization During Simulated Airline Luggage Screening

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Phillips, Rachel; Madhavan, Poornima

2010-01-01

The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of environmental distractions on human trust and utilization of automation during the process of visual search. Participants performed a computer-simulated airline luggage screening task with the assistance of a 70% reliable automated decision aid (called DETECTOR) both with and without environmental distractions. The distraction was implemented as a secondary task in either a competing modality (visual) or non-competing modality (auditory). The secondary task processing code either competed with the luggage screening task (spatial code) or with the automation's textual directives (verbal code). We measured participants' system trust, perceived reliability of the system (when a target weapon was present and absent), compliance, reliance, and confidence when agreeing and disagreeing with the system under both distracted and undistracted conditions. Results revealed that system trust was lower in the visual-spatial and auditory-verbal conditions than in the visual-verbal and auditory-spatial conditions. Perceived reliability of the system (when the target was present) was significantly higher when the secondary task was visual rather than auditory. Compliance with the aid increased in all conditions except for the auditory-verbal condition, where it decreased. Similar to the pattern for trust, reliance on the automation was lower in the visual-spatial and auditory-verbal conditions than in the visual-verbal and auditory-spatial conditions. Confidence when agreeing with the system decreased with the addition of any kind of distraction; however, confidence when disagreeing increased with the addition of an auditory secondary task but decreased with the addition of a visual task. A model was developed to represent the research findings and demonstrate the relationship between secondary task modality, processing code, and automation use. Results suggest that the nature of environmental distractions influence interaction with automation via significant effects on trust and system utilization. These findings have implications for both automation design and operator training.

The overlap between false belief and spatial reorientation in the temporo-parietal junction: The role of input modality and task.

PubMed

Özdem, Ceylan; Brass, Marcel; Van der Cruyssen, Laurens; Van Overwalle, Frank

2017-04-01

Neuroimaging research has demonstrated that the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is activated when unexpected stimuli appear in spatial reorientation tasks as well as during thinking about the beliefs of other people triggered by verbal scenarios. While the role of potential common component processes subserved by the TPJ has been extensively studied to explain this common activation, the potential confounding role of input modality (spatial vs. verbal) has been largely ignored. To investigate the role of input modality apart from task processes, we developed a novel spatial false belief task based on moving shapes. We explored the overlap in TPJ activation across this novel task and traditional tasks of spatial reorientation (Posner) and verbal belief (False Belief vs. Photo stories). The results show substantial overlap across the same spatial input modality (both reorientation and false belief) as well as across the common task process (verbal and spatial belief), but no triple overlap. This suggests the potential for an overarching function of the TPJ, with some degree of specialization in different subregions due to modality, function and connectivity. The results are discussed with respect to recent theoretical models of the TPJ.

Relation of Everyday Activities of Adults to Their Prose Recall Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rice, G. Elizabeth; And Others

1988-01-01

Explored connection between everyday activities of different aged adults (N=54) and their performance on prose recall task. Regression analyses showed that demographic variables of age, education, and verbal ability were best predictors of prose recall. Total time spent reading and other reading variables were also significantly correlated with…

Preschoolers' Implicit and Explicit False-Belief Understanding: Relations with Complex Syntactical Mastery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Low, Jason

2010-01-01

Three studies were carried out to investigate sentential complements being the critical device that allows for false-belief understanding in 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 102). Participants across studies accurately gazed in anticipation of a character's mistaken belief in a predictive looking task despite erring on verbal responses for direct…

Chinese Preschoolers' Implicit and Explicit False-Belief Understanding

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Bo; Low, Jason; Jing, Zhang; Qinghua, Qu

2012-01-01

Mandarin-speaking preschoolers in Mainland China (3- to 4-year-olds; N = 192) were tested for dissociations between anticipatory looking (AL) and verbal judgments on false-belief tasks. The dissociation between the two kinds of understanding was robust despite direct false-belief test questions using a Mandarin specific think-falsely verb and…

Using Task Clarification, Graphic Feedback, And Verbal Feedback To Increase Closing-Task Completion In A Privately Owned Restaurant

PubMed Central

Weatherly, Nic L; Gravina, Nicole E

2005-01-01

An informant functional assessment was used to evaluate closing-task completion by servers and dishwashers at a restaurant. Based on the functional assessment results, an intervention consisting of task clarification, posted graphic feedback, and verbal feedback was implemented and evaluated with a multiple baseline design across two groups of employees. Results showed an increase of 15% and 38% in task completion for the two groups. PMID:15898481

Increased Cortical Activity in Binge Drinkers during Working Memory Task: A Preliminary Assessment through a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

PubMed Central

Campanella, Salvatore; Peigneux, Philippe; Petit, Géraldine; Lallemand, Frédéric; Saeremans, Mélanie; Noël, Xavier; Metens, Thierry; Nouali, Mustapha; De Tiège, Xavier; De Witte, Philippe; Ward, Roberta; Verbanck, Paul

2013-01-01

Background Cerebral dysfunction is a common feature of both chronic alcohol abusers and binge drinkers. Here, we aimed to study whether, at equated behavioral performance levels, binge drinkers exhibited increased neural activity while performing simple cognitive tasks. Methods Thirty-two participants (16 binge drinkers and 16 matched controls) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing an n-back working memory task. In the control zero-back (N0) condition, subjects were required to press a button with the right hand when the number “2″ was displayed. In the two-back (N2) condition, subjects had to press a button when the displayed number was identical to the number shown two trials before. Results fMRI analyses revealed higher bilateral activity in the pre-supplementary motor area in binge drinkers than matched controls, even though behavioral performances were similar. Moreover, binge drinkers showed specific positive correlations between the number of alcohol doses consumed per occasion and higher activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, as well as between the number of drinking occasions per week and higher activity in cerebellum, thalamus and insula while performing the N2 memory task. Conclusions Binge alcohol consumption leads to possible compensatory cerebral changes in binge drinkers that facilitate normal behavioral performance. These changes in cerebral responses may be considered as vulnerability factors for developing adult substance use disorders. PMID:23638017

Dissociable Patterns in the Control of Emotional Interference in Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and in Adults with Alcohol Dependence

PubMed Central

Marx, Ivo; Krause, John; Berger, Christoph; Häßler, Frank

2014-01-01

Objectives To effectively manage current task demands, attention must be focused on task-relevant information while task-irrelevant information is rejected. However, in everyday life, people must cope with emotions, which may interfere with actual task demands and may challenge functional attention allocation. Control of interfering emotions has been associated with the proper functioning of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). As DLPFC dysfunction is evident in subjects with ADHD and in subjects with alcohol dependence, the current study sought to examine the bottom-up effect of emotional distraction on task performance in both disorders. Methods Male adults with ADHD (n = 22), male adults with alcohol dependence (n = 16), and healthy controls (n = 30) performed an emotional working memory task (n-back task). In the background of the task, we presented neutral and negative stimuli that varied in emotional saliency. Results In both clinical groups, a working memory deficit was evident. Moreover, both clinical groups displayed deficient emotional interference control. The n-back performance of the controls was not affected by the emotional distractors, whereas that of subjects with ADHD deteriorated in the presence of low salient distractors, and that of alcoholics did not deteriorate until high salient distractors were presented. Subsequent to task performance, subjects with ADHD accurately recognized more distractors than did alcoholics and controls. In alcoholics, picture recognition accuracy was negatively associated with n-back performance, suggesting a functional association between the ability to suppress emotional distractors and successful task performance. In subjects with ADHD, performance accuracy was negatively associated with ADHD inattentive symptoms, suggesting that inattention contributes to the performance deficit. Conclusions Subjects with ADHD and alcoholics both display an emotional interference control deficit, which is especially pronounced in subjects with ADHD. Beyond dysfunctional attention allocation processes, a more general attention deficit seems to contribute to the more pronounced performance deficit pattern in ADHD. PMID:25265290

Persistence of Gender Related-Effects on Visuo-Spatial and Verbal Working Memory in Right Brain-Damaged Patients.

PubMed

Piccardi, Laura; Matano, Alessandro; D'Antuono, Giovanni; Marin, Dario; Ciurli, Paola; Incoccia, Chiara; Verde, Paola; Guariglia, Paola

2016-01-01

The aim of the present study was to verify if gender differences in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory would persist following right cerebral lesions. To pursue our aim we investigated a large sample (n. 346) of right brain-damaged patients and healthy participants (n. 272) for the presence of gender effects in performing Corsi and Digit Test. We also assessed a subgroup of patients (n. 109) for the nature (active vs. passive) of working memory tasks. We tested working memory (WM) administering the Corsi Test (CBT) and the Digit Span (DS) using two different versions: forward (fCBT and fDS), subjects were required to repeat stimuli in the same order that they were presented; and backward (bCBT and bDS), subjects were required to repeat stimuli in the opposite order of presentation. In this way, passive storage and active processing of working memory were assessed. Our results showed the persistence of gender-related effects in spite of the presence of right brain lesions. We found that men outperformed women both in CBT and DS, regardless of active and passive processing of verbal and visuo-spatial stimuli. The presence of visuo-spatial disorders (i.e., hemineglect) can affect the performance on Corsi Test. In our sample, men and women were equally affected by hemineglect, therefore it did not mask the gender effect. Generally speaking, the persistence of the men's superiority in visuo-spatial tasks may be interpreted as a protective factor, at least for men, within other life factors such as level of education or kind of profession before retirement.

Transfer of task-switching training in older age: the role of verbal processes.

PubMed

Karbach, Julia; Mang, Sandra; Kray, Jutta

2010-09-01

This study investigated the influence of verbal self-instructions (VSI) on the transfer of task-switching training in older adults (56-78 years). We applied an internally cued switching paradigm in a pretest-training-posttest design. Training-related improvements were not modulated by VSI. Transfer (the pretest-posttest reduction of switch costs) was most pronounced when participants applied the VSI at posttest after practicing the switching task without VSI. The results indicate that in contrast to transfer of executive control training, transfer of (verbal) strategy training seems to be limited and that VSI is most beneficial when the task-switching abilities are already well practiced. (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Age Differences in Recall and Information Processing in Verbal and Spatial Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mungas, Dan; And Others

1991-01-01

Three age groups of 24 people each completed verbal word list tasks and spatial learning tasks 5 times each. Significant age differences were found for total recall and type of task. Younger subjects showed increased levels of clustering--organizing information according to semantic or spatial clusters. Age was not related to temporal order of…

Beyond Competence and Performance: Children's Class Inclusion Strategies, Superordinate Class Cues, and Verbal Justifications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chapman, Michael; McBride, Michelle L.

1992-01-01

Children of 4 to 10 years of age were given 2 class inclusion tasks. Younger children's performance was inflated by guessing. Scores were higher in the marked task than in the unmarked task as a result of differing rates of inclusion logic. Children's verbal justifications closely approximated estimates of their true competence. (GLR)

Theory of Mind Development in Deaf Children: A Nonverbal Test of False-Belief Understanding.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Figueras-Costa, Berta; Harris, Paul

2001-01-01

Twenty-one children (ages 4-11) prelingually deaf and orally trained, were tested with verbal and nonverbal versions of a false-belief task. Children did not perform above chance in the verbal task. The nonverbal task significantly facilitated performance, however, only older children performed above change in the nonverbal false-belief tests.…

EFFECTS OF VERBAL REINFORCEMENT ON INTELLECTIVE TASK PERFORMANCE AS A FUNCTION OF SELF-ESTEEM AND TASK-INVOLVEMENT. FINAL REPORT.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

FISCHER, EDWARD H.; HERSCHBERGER, AUSTIN C.

USE OF THE VERBAL REINFORCEMENT TECHNIQUE (VRT) IN DEVELOPMENTAL, PERSONALITY, AND SOCIALIZATION STUDIES OFTEN RESTS ON TENUOUS AND UNTESTED ASSUMPTIONS. THIS STUDY EXAMINED FIVE VARIABLES WHICH HYPOTHETICALLY RELATE TO PERFORMANCE UNDER REINFORCEMENT--SELF-ESTEEM OF S. TASK-INVOLVEMENT, EXPERIMENTER, ORDINAL POSITION, AND FAMILY SIZE. THE METHOD…

Narrative abilities, memory and attention in children with a specific language impairment.

PubMed

Duinmeijer, Iris; de Jong, Jan; Scheper, Annette

2012-01-01

While narrative tasks have proven to be valid measures for detecting language disorders, measuring communicative skills and predicting future academic performance, research into the comparability of different narrative tasks has shown that outcomes are dependent on the type of task used. Although many of the studies detecting task differences touch upon the fact that tasks place differential demands on cognitive abilities like auditory attention and memory, few studies have related specific narrative tasks to these cognitive abilities. Examining this relation is especially warranted for children with specific language impairment (SLI), who are characterized by language problems, but often have problems in other cognitive domains as well. In the current research, a comparison was made between a story retelling task (The Bus Story) and a story generation task (The Frog Story) in a group of children with SLI (n= 34) and a typically developing group (n= 38) from the same age range. In addition to the two narrative tasks, sustained auditory attention (TEA-Ch) and verbal working memory (WISC digit span and the Dutch version of the CVLT-C word list recall) were measured. Correlations were computed between the narrative, the memory and the attention scores. A group comparison showed that the children with SLI scored significantly worse than the typically developing children on several narrative measures as well as on sustained auditory attention and verbal working memory. A within-subjects comparison of the scores on the two narrative tasks showed a contrast between the tasks on several narrative measures. Furthermore, correlational analyses showed that, on the level of plot structure, the story generation task correlated with sustained auditory attention, while the story retelling task correlated with word list recall. Mean length of utterance (MLU) on the other hand correlated with digit span but not with sustained auditory attention. While children with SLI have problems with narratives in general, their performance is also dependent on the specific elicitation task used for research or diagnostics. Various narrative tasks generate different scores and are differentially correlated to cognitive skills like attention and memory, making the selection of a given task crucial in the clinical setting. © 2012 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Verbal and non-verbal behaviour and patient perception of communication in primary care: an observational study

PubMed Central

Little, Paul; White, Peter; Kelly, Joanne; Everitt, Hazel; Gashi, Shkelzen; Bikker, Annemieke; Mercer, Stewart

2015-01-01

Background Few studies have assessed the importance of a broad range of verbal and non-verbal consultation behaviours. Aim To explore the relationship of observer ratings of behaviours of videotaped consultations with patients’ perceptions. Design and setting Observational study in general practices close to Southampton, Southern England. Method Verbal and non-verbal behaviour was rated by independent observers blind to outcome. Patients competed the Medical Interview Satisfaction Scale (MISS; primary outcome) and questionnaires addressing other communication domains. Results In total, 275/360 consultations from 25 GPs had useable videotapes. Higher MISS scores were associated with slight forward lean (an 0.02 increase for each degree of lean, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.002 to 0.03), the number of gestures (0.08, 95% CI = 0.01 to 0.15), ‘back-channelling’ (for example, saying ‘mmm’) (0.11, 95% CI = 0.02 to 0.2), and social talk (0.29, 95% CI = 0.4 to 0.54). Starting the consultation with professional coolness (‘aloof’) was helpful and optimism unhelpful. Finishing with non-verbal ‘cut-offs’ (for example, looking away), being professionally cool (‘aloof’), or patronising, (‘infantilising’) resulted in poorer ratings. Physical contact was also important, but not traditional verbal communication. Conclusion These exploratory results require confirmation, but suggest that patients may be responding to several non-verbal behaviours and non-specific verbal behaviours, such as social talk and back-channelling, more than traditional verbal behaviours. A changing consultation dynamic may also help, from professional ‘coolness’ at the beginning of the consultation to becoming warmer and avoiding non-verbal cut-offs at the end. PMID:26009530

Regulation of Cognitive Resources During an N-Back Task in Youth-Onset Psychosis and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

PubMed Central

Karatekin, Canan; Bingham, Christopher; White, Tonya

2009-01-01

The goals of the current study were to use behavioral and pupillary measures to examine working memory on a spatial n-back task in 8-20-year-olds with youth-onset psychosis or ADHD (Combined subtype) and healthy controls to determine the contribution of different attentional factors to spatial working memory impairments, and to examine if age-related changes in performance differed across groups. Although both clinical groups had lower perceptual sensitivity on both 0- and 1-back, there was no evidence of an impairment in spatial working memory or differential order effects on the 0-back. Instead, results suggest that both clinical groups had difficulty encoding the stimuli. They also appeared to have difficulty maintaining attention and/or readiness to respond, and, to a lesser extent, recruiting resources on a trial-to-trial basis. It is likely that these attentional problems prevented the clinical groups from encoding the stimuli effectively and contributed to their general performance deficits. PMID:19427339

Cross-Modal Decoding of Neural Patterns Associated with Working Memory: Evidence for Attention-Based Accounts of Working Memory.

PubMed

Majerus, Steve; Cowan, Nelson; Péters, Frédéric; Van Calster, Laurens; Phillips, Christophe; Schrouff, Jessica

2016-01-01

Recent studies suggest common neural substrates involved in verbal and visual working memory (WM), interpreted as reflecting shared attention-based, short-term retention mechanisms. We used a machine-learning approach to determine more directly the extent to which common neural patterns characterize retention in verbal WM and visual WM. Verbal WM was assessed via a standard delayed probe recognition task for letter sequences of variable length. Visual WM was assessed via a visual array WM task involving the maintenance of variable amounts of visual information in the focus of attention. We trained a classifier to distinguish neural activation patterns associated with high- and low-visual WM load and tested the ability of this classifier to predict verbal WM load (high-low) from their associated neural activation patterns, and vice versa. We observed significant between-task prediction of load effects during WM maintenance, in posterior parietal and superior frontal regions of the dorsal attention network; in contrast, between-task prediction in sensory processing cortices was restricted to the encoding stage. Furthermore, between-task prediction of load effects was strongest in those participants presenting the highest capacity for the visual WM task. This study provides novel evidence for common, attention-based neural patterns supporting verbal and visual WM. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

DRD2 genotype predicts prefrontal activity during working memory after stimulation of D2 receptors with bromocriptine.

PubMed

Gelao, Barbara; Fazio, Leonardo; Selvaggi, Pierluigi; Di Giorgio, Annabella; Taurisano, Paolo; Quarto, Tiziana; Romano, Raffaella; Porcelli, Annamaria; Mancini, Marina; Masellis, Rita; Ursini, Gianluca; De Simeis, Giuseppe; Caforio, Grazia; Ferranti, Laura; Lo Bianco, Luciana; Rampino, Antonio; Todarello, Orlando; Popolizio, Teresa; Blasi, Giuseppe; Bertolino, Alessandro

2014-06-01

Pharmacological stimulation of D2 receptors modulates prefrontal neural activity associated with working memory (WM) processing. The T allele of a functional single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) within DRD2 (rs1076560 G > T) predicts reduced relative expression of the D2S receptor isoform and less efficient neural cortical responses during WM tasks. We used functional MRI to test the hypothesis that DRD2 rs1076560 genotype interacts with pharmacological stimulation of D2 receptors with bromocriptine on prefrontal responses during different loads of a spatial WM task (N-Back). Fifty-three healthy subjects (38 GG and 15 GT) underwent two 3-T functional MRI scans while performing the 1-, 2- and 3-Back versions of the N-Back WM task. Before the imaging sessions, either bromocriptine or placebo was administered to all subjects in a counterbalanced order. A factorial repeated-measures ANOVA within SPM8 (p < 0.05, family-wise error corrected) was used. On bromocriptine, GG subjects had reduced prefrontal activity at 3-Back together with a significant decrement in performance, compared with placebo. On the other hand, GT subjects had lower activity for the same level of performance at 1-Back but a trend for reduced behavioral performance in the face of unchanged activity at 2-Back. These results indicate that bromocriptine stimulation modulates prefrontal activity in terms of disengagement or of efficiency depending on DRD2 genotype and working memory load.

High-functioning autism patients share similar but more severe impairments in verbal theory of mind than schizophrenia patients.

PubMed

Tin, L N W; Lui, S S Y; Ho, K K Y; Hung, K S Y; Wang, Y; Yeung, H K H; Wong, T Y; Lam, S M; Chan, R C K; Cheung, E F C

2018-06-01

Evidence suggests that autism and schizophrenia share similarities in genetic, neuropsychological and behavioural aspects. Although both disorders are associated with theory of mind (ToM) impairments, a few studies have directly compared ToM between autism patients and schizophrenia patients. This study aimed to investigate to what extent high-functioning autism patients and schizophrenia patients share and differ in ToM performance. Thirty high-functioning autism patients, 30 schizophrenia patients and 30 healthy individuals were recruited. Participants were matched in age, gender and estimated intelligence quotient. The verbal-based Faux Pas Task and the visual-based Yoni Task were utilised to examine first- and higher-order, affective and cognitive ToM. The task/item difficulty of two paradigms was examined using mixed model analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Multiple ANOVAs and mixed model ANOVAs were used to examine group differences in ToM. The Faux Pas Task was more difficult than the Yoni Task. High-functioning autism patients showed more severely impaired verbal-based ToM in the Faux Pas Task, but shared similar visual-based ToM impairments in the Yoni Task with schizophrenia patients. The findings that individuals with high-functioning autism shared similar but more severe impairments in verbal ToM than individuals with schizophrenia support the autism-schizophrenia continuum. The finding that verbal-based but not visual-based ToM was more impaired in high-functioning autism patients than schizophrenia patients could be attributable to the varied task/item difficulty between the two paradigms.

Deficits of long-term memory in ecstasy users are related to cognitive complexity of the task.

PubMed

Brown, John; McKone, Elinor; Ward, Jeff

2010-03-01

Despite animal evidence that methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy) causes lasting damage in brain regions related to long-term memory, results regarding human memory performance have been variable. This variability may reflect the cognitive complexity of the memory tasks. However, previous studies have tested only a limited range of cognitive complexity. Furthermore, comparisons across different studies are made difficult by regional variations in ecstasy composition and patterns of use. The objective of this study is to evaluate ecstasy-related deficits in human verbal memory over a wide range of cognitive complexity using subjects drawn from a single geographical population. Ecstasy users were compared to non-drug using controls on verbal tasks with low cognitive complexity (stem completion), moderate cognitive complexity (stem-cued recall and word list learning) and high cognitive complexity (California Verbal Learning Test, Verbal Paired Associates and a novel Verbal Triplet Associates test). Where significant differences were found, both groups were also compared to cannabis users. More cognitively complex memory tasks were associated with clearer ecstasy-related deficits than low complexity tasks. In the most cognitively demanding task, ecstasy-related deficits remained even after multiple learning opportunities, whereas the performance of cannabis users approached that of non-drug using controls. Ecstasy users also had weaker deliberate strategy use than both non-drug and cannabis controls. Results were consistent with the proposal that ecstasy-related memory deficits are more reliable on tasks with greater cognitive complexity. This could arise either because such tasks require a greater contribution from the frontal lobe or because they require greater interaction between multiple brain regions.

Investigating task inhibition in children versus adults: A diffusion model analysis.

PubMed

Schuch, Stefanie; Konrad, Kerstin

2017-04-01

One can take n-2 task repetition costs as a measure of inhibition on the level of task sets. When switching back to a Task A after only one intermediate trial (ABA task sequence), Task A is thought to still be inhibited, leading to performance costs relative to task sequences where switching back to Task A is preceded by at least two intermediary trials (CBA). The current study investigated differences in inhibitory ability between children and adults by comparing n-2 task repetition costs in children (9-11years of age, N=32) and young adults (21-30years of age, N=32). The mean reaction times and error rate differences between ABA and CBA sequences did not differ between the two age groups. However, diffusion model analysis revealed that different cognitive processes contribute to the inhibition effect in the two age groups: The adults, but not the children, showed a smaller drift rate in ABA than in CBA, suggesting that persisting task inhibition is associated with slower response selection in adults. In children, non-decision time was longer in ABA than in CBA, possibly reflecting longer task preparation in ABA than in CBA. In addition, Ex-Gaussian functions were fitted to the distributions of correct reaction times. In adults, the ABA-CBA difference was reflected in the exponential parameter of the distribution; in children, the ABA-CBA difference was found in the Gaussian mu parameter. Hence, Ex-Gaussian analysis, although noisier, was generally in line with diffusion model analysis. Taken together, the data suggest that the task inhibition effect found in mean performance is mediated by different cognitive processes in children versus adults. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Parental Socioeconomic Status and the Neural Basis of Arithmetic: Differential Relations to Verbal and Visuo-spatial Representations

PubMed Central

Demir, Özlem Ece; Prado, Jérôme; Booth, James R.

2015-01-01

We examined the relation of parental socioeconomic status (SES) to the neural bases of subtraction in school-age children (9- to 12-year-olds). We independently localized brain regions subserving verbal versus visuo-spatial representations to determine whether the parental SES-related differences in children’s reliance on these neural representations vary as a function of math skill. At higher SES levels, higher skill was associated with greater recruitment of the left temporal cortex, identified by the verbal localizer. At lower SES levels, higher skill was associated with greater recruitment of right parietal cortex, identified by the visuo-spatial localizer. This suggests that depending on parental SES, children engage different neural systems to solve subtraction problems. Furthermore, SES was related to the activation in the left temporal and frontal cortex during the independent verbal localizer task, but it was not related to activation during the independent visuo-spatial localizer task. Differences in activation during the verbal localizer task in turn were related to differences in activation during the subtraction task in right parietal cortex. The relation was stronger at lower SES levels. This result suggests that SES-related differences in the visuo-spatial regions during subtraction might be based in SES-related verbal differences. PMID:25664675

Individual memory change after anterior temporal lobectomy: a base rate analysis using regression-based outcome methodology.

PubMed

Martin, R C; Sawrie, S M; Roth, D L; Gilliam, F G; Faught, E; Morawetz, R B; Kuzniecky, R

1998-10-01

To characterize patterns of base rate change on measures of verbal and visual memory after anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) using a newly developed regression-based outcome methodology that accounts for effects of practice and regression towards the mean, and to comment on the predictive utility of baseline memory measures on postoperative memory outcome. Memory change was operationalized using regression-based change norms in a group of left (n = 53) and right (n = 48) ATL patients. All patients were administered tests of episodic verbal (prose recall, list learning) and visual (figure reproduction) memory, and semantic memory before and after ATL. ATL patients displayed a wide range of memory outcome across verbal and visual memory domains. Significant performance declines were noted for 25-50% of left ATL patients on verbal semantic and episodic memory tasks, while one-third of right ATL patients displayed significant declines in immediate and delayed episodic prose recall. Significant performance improvement was noted in an additional one-third of right ATL patients on delayed prose recall. Base rate change was similar between the two ATL groups across immediate and delayed visual memory. Approximately one-fourth of all patients displayed clinically meaningful losses on the visual memory task following surgery. Robust relationships between preoperative memory measures and nonstandardized change scores were attenuated or reversed using standardized memory outcome techniques. Our results demonstrated substantial group variability in memory outcome for ATL patients. These results extend previous research by incorporating known effects of practice and regression to the mean when addressing meaningful neuropsychological change following epilepsy surgery. Our findings also suggest that future neuropsychological outcome studies should take steps towards controlling for regression-to-the-mean before drawing predictive conclusions.

Neural correlates of the difference between working memory speed and simple sensorimotor speed: an fMRI study.

PubMed

Takeuchi, Hikaru; Sugiura, Motoaki; Sassa, Yuko; Sekiguchi, Atsushi; Yomogida, Yukihito; Taki, Yasuyuki; Kawashima, Ryuta

2012-01-01

The difference between the speed of simple cognitive processes and the speed of complex cognitive processes has various psychological correlates. However, the neural correlates of this difference have not yet been investigated. In this study, we focused on working memory (WM) for typical complex cognitive processes. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired during the performance of an N-back task, which is a measure of WM for typical complex cognitive processes. In our N-back task, task speed and memory load were varied to identify the neural correlates responsible for the difference between the speed of simple cognitive processes (estimated from the 0-back task) and the speed of WM. Our findings showed that this difference was characterized by the increased activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the increased functional interaction between the right DLPFC and right superior parietal lobe. Furthermore, the local gray matter volume of the right DLPFC was correlated with participants' accuracy during fast WM tasks, which in turn correlated with a psychometric measure of participants' intelligence. Our findings indicate that the right DLPFC and its related network are responsible for the execution of the fast cognitive processes involved in WM. Identified neural bases may underlie the psychometric differences between the speed with which subjects perform simple cognitive tasks and the speed with which subjects perform more complex cognitive tasks, and explain the previous traditional psychological findings.

Differential effects of wakeful rest, music and video game playing on working memory performance in the n-back task.

PubMed

Kuschpel, Maxim S; Liu, Shuyan; Schad, Daniel J; Heinzel, Stephan; Heinz, Andreas; Rapp, Michael A

2015-01-01

The interruption of learning processes by breaks filled with diverse activities is common in everyday life. We investigated the effects of active computer gaming and passive relaxation (rest and music) breaks on working memory performance. Young adults were exposed to breaks involving (i) eyes-open resting, (ii) listening to music and (iii) playing the video game "Angry Birds" before performing the n-back working memory task. Based on linear mixed-effects modeling, we found that playing the "Angry Birds" video game during a short learning break led to a decline in task performance over the course of the task as compared to eyes-open resting and listening to music, although overall task performance was not impaired. This effect was associated with high levels of daily mind wandering and low self-reported ability to concentrate. These findings indicate that video games can negatively affect working memory performance over time when played in between learning tasks. We suggest further investigation of these effects because of their relevance to everyday activity.

How we can measure the non-driving-task engagement in automated driving: Comparing flow experience and workload.

PubMed

Ko, Sang Min; Ji, Yong Gu

2018-02-01

In automated driving, a driver can completely concentrate on non-driving-related tasks (NDRTs). This study investigated the flow experience of a driver who concentrated on NDRTs and tasks that induce mental workload under conditional automation. Participants performed NDRTs under different demand levels: a balanced demand-skill level (fit condition) to induce flow, low-demand level to induce boredom, and high-demand level to induce anxiety. In addition, they performed the additional N-Back task, which artificially induces mental workload. The results showed participants had the longest reaction time when they indicated the highest flow score, and had the longest gaze-on time, road-fixation time, hands-on time, and take-over time under the fit condition. Significant differences were not observed in the driver reaction times in the fit condition and the additional N-Back task, indicating that performing NDRTs that induce a high flow experience could influence driver reaction time similar to performing tasks with a high mental workload. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Task positive and default mode networks during a working memory in children with primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis and healthy controls.

PubMed

Zhang, Kaihua; Ma, Jun; Lei, Du; Wang, Mengxing; Zhang, Jilei; Du, Xiaoxia

2015-10-01

Nocturnal enuresis is a common developmental disorder in children, and primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (PMNE) is the dominant subtype. This study investigated brain functional abnormalities that are specifically related to working memory in children with PMNE using function magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in combination with an n-back task. Twenty children with PMNE and 20 healthy children, group-matched for age and sex, participated in this experiment. Several brain regions exhibited reduced activation during the n-back task in children with PMNE, including the right precentral gyrus and the right inferior parietal lobule extending to the postcentral gyrus. Children with PMNE exhibited decreased cerebral activation in the task-positive network, increased task-related cerebral deactivation during a working memory task, and longer response times. Patients exhibited different brain response patterns to different levels of working memory and tended to compensate by greater default mode network deactivation to sustain normal working memory function. Our results suggest that children with PMNE have potential working memory dysfunction.

Differential effects of wakeful rest, music and video game playing on working memory performance in the n-back task

PubMed Central

Kuschpel, Maxim S.; Liu, Shuyan; Schad, Daniel J.; Heinzel, Stephan; Heinz, Andreas; Rapp, Michael A.

2015-01-01

The interruption of learning processes by breaks filled with diverse activities is common in everyday life. We investigated the effects of active computer gaming and passive relaxation (rest and music) breaks on working memory performance. Young adults were exposed to breaks involving (i) eyes-open resting, (ii) listening to music and (iii) playing the video game “Angry Birds” before performing the n-back working memory task. Based on linear mixed-effects modeling, we found that playing the “Angry Birds” video game during a short learning break led to a decline in task performance over the course of the task as compared to eyes-open resting and listening to music, although overall task performance was not impaired. This effect was associated with high levels of daily mind wandering and low self-reported ability to concentrate. These findings indicate that video games can negatively affect working memory performance over time when played in between learning tasks. We suggest further investigation of these effects because of their relevance to everyday activity. PMID:26579055

Verbal fluency in bipolar disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

PubMed

Raucher-Chéné, Delphine; Achim, Amélie M; Kaladjian, Arthur; Besche-Richard, Chrystel

2017-01-01

One of the main features of bipolar disorder (BD), besides mood dysregulation, is an alteration of the structure of language. Bipolar patients present changes in semantic contents, impaired verbal associations, abnormal prosody and abnormal speed of language highlighted with various experimental tasks. Verbal fluency tasks are widely used to assess the abilities of bipolar patients to retrieve and produce verbal material from the lexico-semantic memory. Studies using these tasks have however yielded discrepant results. The aim of this study was thus to determine the extent of the verbal fluency impairment in BD patients and to evaluate if the deficits are affected by the type of task or by mood states. A systematic literature search was conducted in MEDLINE, EBSCOHost and Google Scholar and relevant data were submitted to a meta-analysis. Thirty-nine studies were retained providing data for 52 independent groups of BD patients. The overall meta-analysis revealed a moderate verbal fluency impairment in BD compared to healthy controls (effect size d=0.61). Comparisons between mood states showed significant differences only between euthymic and manic patients and only on category fluency performances. This review is limited by the heterogeneity between studies for the characteristics of BD populations. Also, few of the retained studies examined depressive or mixed episodes. This work confirms that BD patients present with moderate verbal fluency impairments, and underlines the specific effect of mood state on category fluency. This emphasizes the need to distinguish semantic from phonological processes in verbal fluency assessments in BD. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Angular default mode network connectivity across working memory load.

PubMed

Vatansever, D; Manktelow, A E; Sahakian, B J; Menon, D K; Stamatakis, E A

2017-01-01

Initially identified during no-task, baseline conditions, it has now been suggested that the default mode network (DMN) engages during a variety of working memory paradigms through its flexible interactions with other large-scale brain networks. Nevertheless, its contribution to whole-brain connectivity dynamics across increasing working memory load has not been explicitly assessed. The aim of our study was to determine which DMN hubs relate to working memory task performance during an fMRI-based n-back paradigm with parametric increases in difficulty. Using a voxel-wise metric, termed the intrinsic connectivity contrast (ICC), we found that the bilateral angular gyri (core DMN hubs) displayed the greatest change in global connectivity across three levels of n-back task load. Subsequent seed-based functional connectivity analysis revealed that the angular DMN regions robustly interact with other large-scale brain networks, suggesting a potential involvement in the global integration of information. Further support for this hypothesis comes from the significant correlations we found between angular gyri connectivity and reaction times to correct responses. The implication from our study is that the DMN is actively involved during the n-back task and thus plays an important role related to working memory, with its core angular regions contributing to the changes in global brain connectivity in response to increasing environmental demands. Hum Brain Mapp 38:41-52, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The effect of mental fatigue on sustained attention: an fNIRS study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Zhen; Yang, Hanjun; Cao, Yong; Xu, Fenggang; Jiang, Jin; Jiao, Xuejun

2017-01-01

Sustained attention is the ability to keep focused and vigilance for long time in external stimulation, which was crucial in safe-critical human-machine system. While the ability of sustained attention will decline because of mental fatigue, even lead to serious accidents in fatigue state. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore the impact of fatigue on sustained attention. Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) can measure cerebral hemoglobin in order to reflect cognitive function indirectly. In previous related fatigue studies, monotonous and long-time CPT (continuous performance test task) was often used to explore the performance change and brain activity, but the effect of time on task (TOT) was always involved. In this study, in order to avoid the TOT effect, the sustained attention task and fatigue task were separated. It was adopted in the study that the modified continuous performance test (CPT) was chosen as the sustained attention task and verbal 2-back task as the fatigue induced task. The fNIRS signals were extracted from 10 channels in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) from 20 healthy subjects. Studies found that cerebral lateralization increased significantly from alert to fatigue state in sustained attention task. Besides, Average oxyhemoglobin (HBO) of PFC increased significantly from alert to fatigue task, and the spatial pattern of activity of oxyhemoglobin also changed, which c be sensitive features to fatigue detection.

Cognitive Training and Work Therapy for the Treatment of Verbal Learning and Memory Deficits in Veterans With Alcohol Use Disorders.

PubMed

Bell, Morris D; Vissicchio, Nicholas A; Weinstein, Andrea J

2016-01-01

This study focused on the efficacy of cognitive training for verbal learning and memory deficits in a population of older veterans with alcohol use disorders. Veterans with alcohol use disorders, who were in outpatient treatment at VA facilities and in early-phase recovery (N = 31), were randomized to receive a three-month trial of daily cognitive training plus work therapy (n = 15) or work therapy alone (n = 16), along with treatment as usual. Participants completed assessments at baseline and at three- and six-month follow-ups; the Hopkins Verbal Learning Task (HVLT) was the primary outcome measure. Participants were primarily male (97%) and in their mid-50s (M = 55.16, SD = 5.16) and had been sober for 1.64 (SD = 2.81) months. Study retention was excellent (91% at three-month follow-up) and adherence to treatment in both conditions was very good. On average, participants in the cognitive training condition had more than 41 hours of cognitive training, and both conditions had more than 230 hours of productive activity. HVLT results at three-month follow-up revealed significant condition effects favoring cognitive training for verbal learning (HVLT Trial-3 T-score, p < .005, Cohen's d = 1.3) and verbal memory (HVLT Total T-score, p < .01, Cohen's d = 1.1). Condition effects were sustained at six-month follow-up. At baseline, 55.9% of participants showed a significant deficit in verbal memory and 58.8% showed a deficit in verbal learning compared with a premorbid estimate of verbal IQ. At three-month follow-up there was a significant reduction in the number of participants in the cognitive training condition with clinically significant verbal memory deficits (p < .01, number needed to treat = 3.0) compared with the work therapy alone condition and a trend toward significance for verbal learning deficits, which was not sustained at six-month follow-up. This National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded pilot study demonstrates that cognitive training within the context of another activating intervention (work therapy) may have efficacy in remediating verbal learning and memory deficits in patients with alcohol use disorder. Findings indicate a large effect for cognitive training in this pilot study, which suggests that further research is warranted. This study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT 01410110).

Acute exposure to blue wavelength light during memory consolidation improves verbal memory performance.

PubMed

Alkozei, Anna; Smith, Ryan; Dailey, Natalie S; Bajaj, Sahil; Killgore, William D S

2017-01-01

Acute exposure to light within the blue wavelengths has been shown to enhance alertness and vigilance, and lead to improved speed on reaction time tasks, possibly due to activation of the noradrenergic system. It remains unclear, however, whether the effects of blue light extend beyond simple alertness processes to also enhance other aspects of cognition, such as memory performance. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a thirty minute pulse of blue light versus placebo (amber light) exposure in healthy normally rested individuals in the morning during verbal memory consolidation (i.e., 1.5 hours after memory acquisition) using an abbreviated version of the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-II). At delayed recall, individuals who received blue light (n = 12) during the consolidation period showed significantly better long-delay verbal recall than individuals who received amber light exposure (n = 18), while controlling for the effects of general intelligence, depressive symptoms and habitual wake time. These findings extend previous work demonstrating the effect of blue light on brain activation and alertness to further demonstrate its effectiveness at facilitating better memory consolidation and subsequent retention of verbal material. Although preliminary, these findings point to a potential application of blue wavelength light to optimize memory performance in healthy populations. It remains to be determined whether blue light exposure may also enhance performance in clinical populations with memory deficits.

Effects of a single dose of a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink on memory in 8 to 10 y old children.

PubMed

Whyte, Adrian R; Williams, Claire M

2015-03-01

Recent evidence from animals and adult humans has demonstrated potential benefits to cognition from flavonoid supplementation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether these cognitive benefits extended to a sample of school-aged children. Using a crossover design, with a washout of at least 7 d between drinks, 14 children ages 8 to 10 y consumed either a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink or a matched vehicle. Two h after consumption, the children completed a battery of five cognitive tests comprising the Go-NoGo, Stroop, Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Task, Object Location Task, and a Visual N-back. In comparison to the vehicle, the blueberry drink produced significant improvements in the delayed recall of a previously learned list of words, showing for the first time a cognitive benefit for acute flavonoid intervention in children. However, performance on a measure of proactive interference indicated that the blueberry intervention led to a greater negative impact of previously memorized words on the encoding of a set of new words. There was no benefit of our blueberry intervention for measures of attention, response inhibition, or visuospatial memory. Although findings are mixed, the improvements in delayed recall found in this pilot study suggest that, following acute flavonoid-rich blueberry interventions, school-aged children encode memory items more effectively. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dissociation of working memory processing associated with native and second languages: PET investigation.

PubMed

Kim, Jae-Jin; Kim, Myung Sun; Lee, Jae Sung; Lee, Dong Soo; Lee, Myung Chul; Kwon, Jun Soo

2002-04-01

Verbal working memory plays a significant role in language comprehension and problem-solving. The prefrontal cortex has been suggested as a critical area in working memory. Given that domain-specific dissociations of working memory may exist within the prefrontal cortex, it is possible that there may also be further functional divisions within the verbal working memory processing. While differences in the areas of the brain engaged in native and second languages have been demonstrated, little is known about the dissociation of verbal working memory associated with native and second languages. We have used H2(15)O positron emission tomography in 14 normal subjects in order to identify the neural correlates selectively involved in working memory of native (Korean) and second (English) languages. All subjects were highly proficient in the native language but poorly proficient in the second language. Cognitive tasks were a two-back task for three kinds of visually presented objects: simple pictures, English words, and Korean words. The anterior portion of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left superior temporal gyrus were activated in working memory for the native language, whereas the posterior portion of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left inferior temporal gyrus were activated in working memory for the second language. The results suggest that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left temporal lobe may be organized into two discrete, language-related functional systems. Internal phonological processing seems to play a predominant role in working memory processing for the native language with a high proficiency, whereas visual higher order control does so for the second language with a low proficiency. (C)2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

Altered cognitive development in the siblings of individuals with schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Barch, Deanna M.; Cohen, Rachel; Csernansky, John

2014-01-01

The goal of the current study was to further investigate the late neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia by examining cross-sectional, age-related changes in cognitive function among young adult: 1) siblings of individuals with schizophrenia (N = 66); (2) healthy control participants (N = 77); and (3) the siblings of healthy controls (N = 77). All subjects participated in a battery of tasks in four domains: 1) IQ; 2) working memory; 3) episodic memory; and 4) executive function. We found significant group differences in the relationships between age and performance in working memory and episodic memory, with similar patterns for executive function and verbal IQ. The siblings of individuals with schizophrenia showed impaired performance in working memory, episodic memory, and executive function. In addition, healthy controls and/or their siblings showed age-related improvements in all four cognitive domains, while the siblings of individuals with schizophrenia only showed this for verbal IQ. PMID:25485180

Altered cognitive development in the siblings of individuals with schizophrenia.

PubMed

Barch, Deanna M; Cohen, Rachel; Csernansky, John

2014-03-01

The goal of the current study was to further investigate the late neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia by examining cross-sectional, age-related changes in cognitive function among young adult: 1) siblings of individuals with schizophrenia (N = 66); (2) healthy control participants (N = 77); and (3) the siblings of healthy controls (N = 77). All subjects participated in a battery of tasks in four domains: 1) IQ; 2) working memory; 3) episodic memory; and 4) executive function. We found significant group differences in the relationships between age and performance in working memory and episodic memory, with similar patterns for executive function and verbal IQ. The siblings of individuals with schizophrenia showed impaired performance in working memory, episodic memory, and executive function. In addition, healthy controls and/or their siblings showed age-related improvements in all four cognitive domains, while the siblings of individuals with schizophrenia only showed this for verbal IQ.

Task demand influences relationships among sex, clustering strategy, and recall: 16-word versus 9-word list learning tests.

PubMed

Sunderaraman, Preeti; Blumen, Helena M; DeMatteo, David; Apa, Zoltan L; Cosentino, Stephanie

2013-06-01

We compared the relationships among sex, clustering strategy, and recall across different task demands using the 16-word California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition (CVLT-II) and the 9-word Philadelphia (repeatable) Verbal Learning Test (PrVLT). Women generally score higher than men on verbal memory tasks, possibly because women tend to use semantic clustering. This sex difference has been established via word-list learning tests such as the CVLT-II. In a retrospective between-group study, we compared how 2 separate groups of cognitively healthy older adults performed on a longer and a shorter verbal learning test. The group completing the CVLT-II had 36 women and 26 men; the group completing the PrVLT had 27 women and 21 men. Overall, multiple regression analyses revealed that semantic clustering was significantly associated with total recall on both tests' lists (P<0.001). Sex differences in recall and semantic clustering diminished with the shorter PrVLT word list. Semantic clustering uniquely influenced recall on both the longer and shorter word lists. However, serial clustering and sex influenced recall depending on the length of the word list (ie, the task demand). These findings suggest a complex nonlinear relationship among verbal memory, clustering strategies, and task demand.

Task Demand Influences Relationships Among Sex, Clustering Strategy, and Recall: 16-Word Versus 9-Word List Learning Tests

PubMed Central

Sunderaraman, Preeti; Blumen, Helena M.; DeMatteo, David; Apa, Zoltan; Cosentino, Stephanie

2013-01-01

Objective We compared the relationships among sex, clustering strategy, and recall across different task demands using the 16-word California Verbal Learning Test–Second Edition (CVLT-II) and the 9-word Philadelphia (repeatable) Verbal Learning Test (PrVLT). Background Women generally score higher than men on verbal memory tasks, possibly because women tend to use semantic clustering. This sex difference has been established via word-list learning tests such as the CVLT-II. Methods In a retrospective between-group study, we compared how 2 separate groups of cognitively healthy older adults performed on a longer and a shorter verbal learning test. The group completing the CVLT-II had 36 women and 26 men; the group completing the PrVLT had 27 women and 21 men. Results Overall, multiple regression analyses revealed that semantic clustering was significantly associated with total recall on both tests’ lists (P < 0.001). Sex differences in recall and semantic clustering diminished with the shorter PrVLT word list. Conclusions Semantic clustering uniquely influenced recall on both the longer and shorter word lists. However, serial clustering and sex influenced recall depending on the length of the word list (ie, the task demand). These findings suggest a complex nonlinear relationship among verbal memory, clustering strategies, and task demand. PMID:23812171

Event-related potential correlates of declarative and non-declarative sequence knowledge.

PubMed

Ferdinand, Nicola K; Rünger, Dennis; Frensch, Peter A; Mecklinger, Axel

2010-07-01

The goal of the present study was to demonstrate that declarative and non-declarative knowledge acquired in an incidental sequence learning task contributes differentially to memory retrieval and leads to dissociable ERP signatures in a recognition memory task. For this purpose, participants performed a sequence learning task and were classified as verbalizers, partial verbalizers, or nonverbalizers according to their ability to verbally report the systematic response sequence. Thereafter, ERPs were recorded in a recognition memory task time-locked to sequence triplets that were either part of the previously learned sequence or not. Although all three groups executed old sequence triplets faster than new triplets in the recognition memory task, qualitatively distinct ERP patterns were found for participants with and without reportable knowledge. Verbalizers and, to a lesser extent, partial verbalizers showed an ERP correlate of recollection for parts of the incidentally learned sequence. In contrast, nonverbalizers showed a different ERP effect with a reverse polarity that might reflect priming. This indicates that an ensemble of qualitatively different processes is at work when declarative and non-declarative sequence knowledge is retrieved. By this, our findings favor a multiple-systems view postulating that explicit and implicit learning are supported by different and functionally independent systems. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Concurrent Verbal and Visual Tasks on Category Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miles, Sarah J.; Minda, John Paul

2011-01-01

Current theories of category learning posit separate verbal and nonverbal learning systems. Past research suggests that the verbal system relies on verbal working memory and executive functioning and learns rule-defined categories; the nonverbal system does not rely on verbal working memory and learns non-rule-defined categories (E. M. Waldron…

Happiness increases verbal and spatial working memory capacity where sadness does not: Emotion, working memory and executive control.

PubMed

Storbeck, Justin; Maswood, Raeya

2016-08-01

The effects of emotion on working memory and executive control are often studied in isolation. Positive mood enhances verbal and impairs spatial working memory, whereas negative mood enhances spatial and impairs verbal working memory. Moreover, positive mood enhances executive control, whereas negative mood has little influence. We examined how emotion influences verbal and spatial working memory capacity, which requires executive control to coordinate between holding information in working memory and completing a secondary task. We predicted that positive mood would improve both verbal and spatial working memory capacity because of its influence on executive control. Positive, negative and neutral moods were induced followed by completing a verbal (Experiment 1) or spatial (Experiment 2) working memory operation span task to assess working memory capacity. Positive mood enhanced working memory capacity irrespective of the working memory domain, whereas negative mood had no influence on performance. Thus, positive mood was more successful holding information in working memory while processing task-irrelevant information, suggesting that the influence mood has on executive control supersedes the independent effects mood has on domain-specific working memory.

What you say matters: exploring visual-verbal interactions in visual working memory.

PubMed

Mate, Judit; Allen, Richard J; Baqués, Josep

2012-01-01

The aim of this study was to explore whether the content of a simple concurrent verbal load task determines the extent of its interference on memory for coloured shapes. The task consisted of remembering four visual items while repeating aloud a pair of words that varied in terms of imageability and relatedness to the task set. At test, a cue appeared that was either the colour or the shape of one of the previously seen objects, with participants required to select the object's other feature from a visual array. During encoding and retention, there were four verbal load conditions: (a) a related, shape-colour pair (from outside the experimental set, i.e., "pink square"); (b) a pair of unrelated but visually imageable, concrete, words (i.e., "big elephant"); (c) a pair of unrelated and abstract words (i.e., "critical event"); and (d) no verbal load. Results showed differential effects of these verbal load conditions. In particular, imageable words (concrete and related conditions) interfered to a greater degree than abstract words. Possible implications for how visual working memory interacts with verbal memory and long-term memory are discussed.

Cognitive Replay of Visuomotor Learning at Sleep Onset: Temporal Dynamics and Relationship to Task Performance

PubMed Central

Wamsley, Erin J.; Perry, Karen; Djonlagic, Ina; Babkes Reaven, Laura; Stickgold, Robert

2010-01-01

Study Objectives: Studies of neural activity in animals and humans suggest that experiences are “replayed” in cortical and hippocampal networks during NREM sleep. Here, we examine whether memory reactivation in sleeping humans might also be evident within reports of concomitant subjective experience (i.e., dreaming). Design: Participants were trained on an engaging visuomotor learning task across a period of one or more days, and sleep onset mentation was collected at variable intervals using the “Nightcap” home-monitoring device. Verbal reports of sleep onset mentation were obtained either at the beginning of the night, or following 2 h of initial sleep. Setting: Data were collected in participants' home environments, via the Nightcap monitoring system, and at The Center for Sleep and Cognition, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston MA. Participants: 43 healthy, medication-free college students (16 males, age 18-25 years). Interventions: N/A Measurements and Results: The learning task exerted a powerful, direct effect on verbal reports of mentation during light NREM sleep (stages 1 and 2). On post-training nights, a full 30% of all verbal reports were related to the task. The nature of this cognitive “replay” effect was altered with increasing durations of sleep, becoming more abstracted from the original experience as time into sleep increased. Conclusions: These observations are interpreted in light of memory consolidation theory, and demonstrate that introspective reports can provide a valuable window on cognitive processing in the sleeping brain. Citation: Wamsley EJ; Perry K; Djonlagic I; Babkes Reaven L; Stickgold R. Cognitive replay of visuomotor learning at sleep onset: temporal dynamics and relationship to task performance. SLEEP 2010;33(1):59-68. PMID:20120621

The effects of rational and irrational self-verbalizations on performance efficiency and levels of anxiety.

PubMed

Rosin, L; Nelson, W M

1983-03-01

Investigated the effects of rational vs. irrational belief systems (as measured by the Ellis Irrational Values Scale) and rational vs. irrational self-verbalizations on levels of anxiety and persistence on a performance task. Ss (N = 40) were instructed to assemble a virtually insolvable task call Soma. The variables of interest were how long each S would persist on this task and how much anxiety (as measured by the A-State portion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) was aroused in working on this task. Following a baseline trial trying to solve Soma, Ss were assigned to either a rational or irrational self-talk condition and were led to believe that such self-talk would help in a second attempt to solve Soma. In line with cognitive models of psychology, it was found that rational self-talk Ss showed a significant decrease in levels of state anxiety compared to irrational self-talk Ss in attempting to solve Soma in the second trial. Contrary to cognitive models of psychology, scores obtained from the EIVS and the A-Trait portion of the STAI were not found to be related to persistence.

Enhanced emotional interference on working memory performance in adults with ADHD.

PubMed

Marx, Ivo; Domes, Gregor; Havenstein, Carolin; Berger, Christoph; Schulze, Lars; Herpertz, Sabine C

2011-09-01

Subjects with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suffer from both executive dysfunction and deficits in emotion regulation. However, up to now, there has been no research demonstrating a clear impact of emotional dysregulation on cognitive performance in subjects with ADHD. Male and female adults with ADHD (n=39) and gender- and IQ-matched control subjects (n=40) performed an emotional working memory task (n-back task). In the background of the task, we presented neutral and negative stimuli varied in emotional saliency (negative pictures with low saliency, negative pictures with high saliency), but subjects were instructed to ignore these pictures and to process the working memory task as quickly and as accurately as possible. Compared to control subjects, ADHD patients showed both a general working memory deficit and enhanced distractability by emotionally salient stimuli in terms of lower n-back performance accuracy. In particular, while controls showed impaired WM performance when presented with highly arousing negative background pictures, a comparable decrement was observed in the ADHD group already with lowly arousing pictures. Our results suggest that difficulties in suppressing attention towards emotionally laden stimuli might result from deficient executive control in ADHD.

Functional Connectivity of Cognitive Brain Networks in Schizophrenia during a Working Memory Task

PubMed Central

Godwin, Douglass; Ji, Andrew; Kandala, Sridhar; Mamah, Daniel

2017-01-01

Task-based connectivity studies facilitate the understanding of how the brain functions during cognition, which is commonly impaired in schizophrenia (SZ). Our aim was to investigate functional connectivity during a working memory task in SZ. We hypothesized that the task-negative (default mode) network and the cognitive control (frontoparietal) network would show dysconnectivity. Twenty-five SZ patient and 31 healthy control scans were collected using the customized 3T Siemens Skyra MRI scanner, previously used to collect data for the Human Connectome Project. Blood oxygen level dependent signal during the 0-back and 2-back conditions were extracted within a network-based parcelation scheme. Average functional connectivity was assessed within five brain networks: frontoparietal (FPN), default mode (DMN), cingulo-opercular (CON), dorsal attention (DAN), and ventral attention network; as well as between the DMN or FPN and other networks. For within-FPN connectivity, there was a significant interaction between n-back condition and group (p = 0.015), with decreased connectivity at 0-back in SZ subjects compared to controls. FPN-to-DMN connectivity also showed a significant condition × group effect (p = 0.003), with decreased connectivity at 0-back in SZ. Across groups, connectivity within the CON and DAN were increased during the 2-back condition, while DMN connectivity with either CON or DAN were decreased during the 2-back condition. Our findings support the role of the FPN, CON, and DAN in working memory and indicate that the pattern of FPN functional connectivity differs between SZ patients and control subjects during the course of a working memory task. PMID:29312020

Functional Connectivity of Cognitive Brain Networks in Schizophrenia during a Working Memory Task.

PubMed

Godwin, Douglass; Ji, Andrew; Kandala, Sridhar; Mamah, Daniel

2017-01-01

Task-based connectivity studies facilitate the understanding of how the brain functions during cognition, which is commonly impaired in schizophrenia (SZ). Our aim was to investigate functional connectivity during a working memory task in SZ. We hypothesized that the task-negative (default mode) network and the cognitive control (frontoparietal) network would show dysconnectivity. Twenty-five SZ patient and 31 healthy control scans were collected using the customized 3T Siemens Skyra MRI scanner, previously used to collect data for the Human Connectome Project. Blood oxygen level dependent signal during the 0-back and 2-back conditions were extracted within a network-based parcelation scheme. Average functional connectivity was assessed within five brain networks: frontoparietal (FPN), default mode (DMN), cingulo-opercular (CON), dorsal attention (DAN), and ventral attention network; as well as between the DMN or FPN and other networks. For within-FPN connectivity, there was a significant interaction between n -back condition and group ( p  = 0.015), with decreased connectivity at 0-back in SZ subjects compared to controls. FPN-to-DMN connectivity also showed a significant condition × group effect ( p  = 0.003), with decreased connectivity at 0-back in SZ. Across groups, connectivity within the CON and DAN were increased during the 2-back condition, while DMN connectivity with either CON or DAN were decreased during the 2-back condition. Our findings support the role of the FPN, CON, and DAN in working memory and indicate that the pattern of FPN functional connectivity differs between SZ patients and control subjects during the course of a working memory task.

Validation of auditory detection response task method for assessing the attentional effects of cognitive load.

PubMed

Stojmenova, Kristina; Sodnik, Jaka

2018-07-04

There are 3 standardized versions of the Detection Response Task (DRT), 2 using visual stimuli (remote DRT and head-mounted DRT) and one using tactile stimuli. In this article, we present a study that proposes and validates a type of auditory signal to be used as DRT stimulus and evaluate the proposed auditory version of this method by comparing it with the standardized visual and tactile version. This was a within-subject design study performed in a driving simulator with 24 participants. Each participant performed 8 2-min-long driving sessions in which they had to perform 3 different tasks: driving, answering to DRT stimuli, and performing a cognitive task (n-back task). Presence of additional cognitive load and type of DRT stimuli were defined as independent variables. DRT response times and hit rates, n-back task performance, and pupil size were observed as dependent variables. Significant changes in pupil size for trials with a cognitive task compared to trials without showed that cognitive load was induced properly. Each DRT version showed a significant increase in response times and a decrease in hit rates for trials with a secondary cognitive task compared to trials without. Similar and significantly better results in differences in response times and hit rates were obtained for the auditory and tactile version compared to the visual version. There were no significant differences in performance rate between the trials without DRT stimuli compared to trials with and among the trials with different DRT stimuli modalities. The results from this study show that the auditory DRT version, using the signal implementation suggested in this article, is sensitive to the effects of cognitive load on driver's attention and is significantly better than the remote visual and tactile version for auditory-vocal cognitive (n-back) secondary tasks.

Semantic and phonological coding in poor and normal readers.

PubMed

Vellutino, F R; Scanlon, D M; Spearing, D

1995-02-01

Three studies were conducted evaluating semantic and phonological coding deficits as alternative explanations of reading disability. In the first study, poor and normal readers in second and sixth grade were compared on various tests evaluating semantic development as well as on tests evaluating rapid naming and pseudoword decoding as independent measures of phonological coding ability. In a second study, the same subjects were given verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks using high and low meaning words as verbal stimuli and Chinese ideographs as visual stimuli. On the semantic tasks, poor readers performed below the level of the normal readers only at the sixth grade level, but, on the rapid naming and pseudoword learning tasks, they performed below the normal readers at the second as well as at the sixth grade level. On both the verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks, performance in poor readers approximated that of normal readers when the word stimuli were high in meaning but not when they were low in meaning. These patterns were essentially replicated in a third study that used some of the same semantic and phonological measures used in the first experiment, and verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks that employed word lists and visual stimuli (novel alphabetic characters) that more closely approximated those used in learning to read. It was concluded that semantic coding deficits are an unlikely cause of reading difficulties in most poor readers at the beginning stages of reading skills acquisition, but accrue as a consequence of prolonged reading difficulties in older readers. It was also concluded that phonological coding deficits are a probable cause of reading difficulties in most poor readers.

Operant conditioning of enhanced pain sensitivity by heat-pain titration.

PubMed

Becker, Susanne; Kleinböhl, Dieter; Klossika, Iris; Hölzl, Rupert

2008-11-15

Operant conditioning mechanisms have been demonstrated to be important in the development of chronic pain. Most experimental studies have investigated the operant modulation of verbal pain reports with extrinsic reinforcement, such as verbal reinforcement. Whether this reflects actual changes in the subjective experience of the nociceptive stimulus remained unclear. This study replicates and extends our previous demonstration that enhanced pain sensitivity to prolonged heat-pain stimulation could be learned in healthy participants through intrinsic reinforcement (contingent changes in nociceptive input) independent of verbal pain reports. In addition, we examine whether different magnitudes of reinforcement differentially enhance pain sensitivity using an operant heat-pain titration paradigm. It is based on the previously developed non-verbal behavioral discrimination task for the assessment of sensitization, which uses discriminative down- or up-regulation of stimulus temperatures in response to changes in subjective intensity. In operant heat-pain titration, this discriminative behavior and not verbal pain report was contingently reinforced or punished by acute decreases or increases in heat-pain intensity. The magnitude of reinforcement was varied between three groups: low (N1=13), medium (N2=11) and high reinforcement (N3=12). Continuous reinforcement was applied to acquire and train the operant behavior, followed by partial reinforcement to analyze the underlying learning mechanisms. Results demonstrated that sensitization to prolonged heat-pain stimulation was enhanced by operant learning within 1h. The extent of sensitization was directly dependent on the received magnitude of reinforcement. Thus, operant learning mechanisms based on intrinsic reinforcement may provide an explanation for the gradual development of sustained hypersensitivity during pain that is becoming chronic.

Simple and Complex Memory Spans and Their Relation to Fluid Abilities: Evidence from List-Length Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Unsworth, Nash; Engle, Randall W.

2006-01-01

Complex (working memory) span tasks have generally shown larger and more consistent correlations with higher-order cognition than have simple (or short-term memory) span tasks. The relation between verbal complex and simple verbal span tasks to fluid abilities as a function of list-length was examined. The results suggest that the simple…

Memory and comprehension deficits in spatial descriptions of children with non-verbal and reading disabilities.

PubMed

Mammarella, Irene C; Meneghetti, Chiara; Pazzaglia, Francesca; Cornoldi, Cesare

2014-01-01

The present study investigated the difficulties encountered by children with non-verbal learning disability (NLD) and reading disability (RD) when processing spatial information derived from descriptions, based on the assumption that both groups should find it more difficult than matched controls, but for different reasons, i.e., due to a memory encoding difficulty in cases of RD and to spatial information comprehension problems in cases of NLD. Spatial descriptions from both survey and route perspectives were presented to 9-12-year-old children divided into three groups: NLD (N = 12); RD (N = 12), and typically developing controls (TD; N = 15); then participants completed a sentence verification task and a memory for locations task. The sentence verification task was presented in two conditions: in one the children could refer to the text while answering the questions (i.e., text present condition), and in the other the text was withdrawn (i.e., text absent condition). Results showed that the RD group benefited from the text present condition, but was impaired to the same extent as the NLD group in the text absent condition, suggesting that the NLD children's difficulty is due mainly to their poor comprehension of spatial descriptions, while the RD children's difficulty is due more to a memory encoding problem. These results are discussed in terms of their implications in the neuropsychological profiles of children with NLD or RD, and the processes involved in spatial descriptions.

Direct observation of mother-child communication in pediatric cancer: assessment of verbal and non-verbal behavior and emotion.

PubMed

Dunn, Madeleine J; Rodriguez, Erin M; Miller, Kimberly S; Gerhardt, Cynthia A; Vannatta, Kathryn; Saylor, Megan; Scheule, C Melanie; Compas, Bruce E

2011-06-01

To examine the acceptability and feasibility of coding observed verbal and nonverbal behavioral and emotional components of mother-child communication among families of children with cancer. Mother-child dyads (N=33, children ages 5-17 years) were asked to engage in a videotaped 15-min conversation about the child's cancer. Coding was done using the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scale (IFIRS). Acceptability and feasibility of direct observation in this population were partially supported: 58% consented and 81% of those (47% of all eligible dyads) completed the task; trained raters achieved 78% agreement in ratings across codes. The construct validity of the IFIRS was demonstrated by expected associations within and between positive and negative behavioral/emotional code ratings and between mothers' and children's corresponding code ratings. Direct observation of mother-child communication about childhood cancer has the potential to be an acceptable and feasible method of assessing verbal and nonverbal behavior and emotion in this population.

Verbal play as a discourse resource in the social interactions of older and younger communication pairs.

PubMed

Shune, Samantha; Duff, Melissa Collins

2014-01-01

Verbal play, or the playful manipulation of elements of language, is a pervasive component of social interaction, serving important interpersonal functions. We analyzed verbal play in the interactional discourse of ten healthy younger pairs and ten healthy older pairs as they completed a collaborative referencing task. A total of 1,893 verbal play episodes were coded. While there were no group differences in verbal play frequency, age-related differences in the quality and function of these episodes emerged. While older participants engaged in more complex, extended, and reciprocal episodes that supported the social nature of communicative interactions (e.g., teasing), younger participants were more likely to engage in verbal play episodes for the purpose of successful task completion. Despite these age-related variations in the deployment of verbal play, verbal play is a robust interactional discourse resource in healthy aging, highlighting an element of human cognition that does not appear to decline with age.

Verbal play as a discourse resource in the social interactions of older and younger communication pairs

PubMed Central

Shune, Samantha; Duff, Melissa Collins

2014-01-01

Verbal play, or the playful manipulation of elements of language, is a pervasive component of social interaction, serving important interpersonal functions. We analyzed verbal play in the interactional discourse of ten healthy younger pairs and ten healthy older pairs as they completed a collaborative referencing task. A total of 1,893 verbal play episodes were coded. While there were no group differences in verbal play frequency, age-related differences in the quality and function of these episodes emerged. While older participants engaged in more complex, extended, and reciprocal episodes that supported the social nature of communicative interactions (e.g., teasing), younger participants were more likely to engage in verbal play episodes for the purpose of successful task completion. Despite these age-related variations in the deployment of verbal play, verbal play is a robust interactional discourse resource in healthy aging, highlighting an element of human cognition that does not appear to decline with age. PMID:25485072

Measurements of auditory-verbal STM span in aphasia: effects of item, task, and lexical impairment.

PubMed

Martin, Nadine; Ayala, Jennifer

2004-06-01

In the first part of this study, we investigated effects of item and task type on span performance in a group of aphasic individuals with word processing and STM deficits. Group analyses revealed significant effects of item on span performance with span being greater for digits than for words. We also investigated associations between subjects' lexical-semantic and phonological processing abilities and performance on four measures of verbal span (digit and word span, each varied for type of response, verbal vs. pointing) as well as one measure of nonverbal span. We predicted and found that the patterns of association between verbal span tasks and lexical abilities reflected the integrity of language processes and representations deployed in each paradigm used to assess span. Performance on the pointing span task, which engages both lexical-semantic and phonological processes, correlated with measures of both lexical-semantic and phonological abilities. Performance on repetition span, which engages primarily input and output phonological processes, correlated with measures of phonological abilities but not measures of lexical-semantic abilities. However, when partial correlations were performed for two subject groups based on their relative preservation of lexical-semantic ability (less or more than phonological ability), repetition span correlated with lexical-semantic measures only in the subgroup with relatively impaired lexical-semantics. Additionally, performance on the nonverbal span task correlated with measures of phonological abilities, suggesting either a general cognitive deficit affecting verbal and nonverbal STM or possibly, the use of a verbal strategy to perform this task. Our discussion focuses on the interpretation of span measurements in clinical practice and research, as well as the implications of these data for theories of short-term memory and word processing.

Cognitive markers of psychotic unipolar depression: a meta-analytic study.

PubMed

Zaninotto, Leonardo; Guglielmo, Riccardo; Calati, Raffaella; Ioime, Lucia; Camardese, Giovanni; Janiri, Luigi; Bria, Pietro; Serretti, Alessandro

2015-03-15

The goal of the current meta-analysis was to review and examine in detail the features of cognitive performance in psychotic (MDDP) versus non-psychotic (MDD) major depressive disorder. An electronic literature search was performed to find studies comparing cognitive performance in MDDP versus MDD. A meta-analysis of broad cognitive domains (processing speed, reasoning/problem solving, verbal learning, visual learning, attention/working memory) and individual cognitive tasks was conducted on all included studies (n=12). Demographic and clinical features were investigated via meta-regression analysis as moderators of cognitive performance. No difference in socio-demographic and clinical variables was detected between groups. In general, a poorer cognitive performance was detected in MDDP versus MDD subjects (ES=0.38), with a greater effect size in drug-free patients (ES=0.69). MDDP patients were more impaired in verbal learning (ES=0.67), visual learning (ES=0.62) and processing speed (ES=0.71) tasks. A significantly poorer performance was also detected in MDDP patients for individual tasks as Trail Making Test A, WAIS-R digit span backward and WAIS-R digit symbol. Age resulted to have a negative effect on tasks involved in working memory performance. In line with previous meta-analyses, our findings seem to support an association between psychosis and cognitive deficits in the context of affective disorders. Psychosis during the course of MDD is associated with poorer cognitive performance in some specific cognitive domains, such as visual and verbal learning and executive functions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Argumentative Writing in Pre-Adolescents: The Role of Verbal Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nippold, Marilyn A.; Ward-Lonergan, Jeannene M.

2010-01-01

Argumentative writing is a challenging communication task that calls upon sophisticated cognitive and linguistic abilities. Pre-adolescents (n = 80; mean age = 11;10; range = 10;6-13:5) were asked to write an argumentative essay on the controversial topic of training animals to perform in circuses. Additionally, they were asked to solve a set of…

Is Relational Reasoning Dependent on Language? A Voxel-Based Lesion Symptom Mapping Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baldo, Juliana V.; Bunge, Silvia A.; Wilson, Stephen M.; Dronkers, Nina F.

2010-01-01

Previous studies with brain-injured patients have suggested that language abilities are necessary for complex problem-solving, even when tasks are non-verbal. In the current study, we tested this notion by analyzing behavioral and neuroimaging data from a large group of left-hemisphere stroke patients (n = 107) suffering from a range of language…

Verbal Working Memory and Language Production: Common Approaches to the Serial Ordering of Verbal Information

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Acheson, Daniel J.; MacDonald, Maryellen C.

2009-01-01

Verbal working memory (WM) tasks typically involve the language production architecture for recall; however, language production processes have had a minimal role in theorizing about WM. A framework for understanding verbal WM results is presented here. In this framework, domain-specific mechanisms for serial ordering in verbal WM are provided by…

Increased working memory-related brain activity in middle-aged women with cognitive complaints.

PubMed

Dumas, Julie A; Kutz, Amanda M; McDonald, Brenna C; Naylor, Magdalena R; Pfaff, Ashley C; Saykin, Andrew J; Newhouse, Paul A

2013-04-01

Individuals who report subjective cognitive complaints but perform normally on neuropsychological tests might be at increased risk for pathological cognitive aging. The current study examined the effects of the presence of subjective cognitive complaints on functional brain activity during a working memory task in a sample of middle-aged postmenopausal women. Twenty-three postmenopausal women aged 50-60 completed a cognitive complaint battery of questionnaires. Using 20% of items endorsed as the threshold, 12 women were categorized as cognitive complainers (CC) and 11 were noncomplainers (NC). All subjects then took part in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning session during which they completed a visual-verbal N-back test of working memory. Results showed no difference in working memory performance between CC and NC groups. However, the CC group showed greater activation relative to the NC group in a broad network involved in working memory including the middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann area [BA] 9 and 10), the precuneus (BA 7), and the cingulate gyrus (BA 24 and 32). The CC group recruited additional regions of the working memory network compared with the NC group as the working memory load and difficulty of the task increased. This study showed brain activation differences during working memory performance in a middle-aged group of postmenopausal women with subjective cognitive complaints but without objective cognitive deficit. These findings suggest that subjective cognitive complaints in postmenopausal women might be associated with increased cortical activity during effort-demanding cognitive tasks. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

General proactive interference and the N450 response.

PubMed

Tays, William J; Dywan, Jane; Segalowitz, Sidney J

2009-10-25

Strategic repetition of verbal stimuli can effectively produce proactive interference (PI) effects in the Sternberg working memory task. Unique fronto-cortical activation to PI-eliciting letter probes has been interpreted as reflecting brain responses to PI. However, the use of only a small set of stimuli (e.g., letters and digits) requires constant repetition of stimuli in both PI and baseline trials, potentially creating a general PI effect in all conditions. We used event-related potentials to examine general PI effects by contrasting the interference-related frontal N450 response in two Sternberg tasks using a small versus large set size. We found that the N450 response differed significantly from baseline during the small set-size task only for response-conflict PI trials but not when PI was created solely from stimulus repetition. During the large set-size task N450 responses in both the familiarity-based and response-conflict PI conditions differed from baseline but not from each other. We conclude that the general stimulus repetition inherent in small set-size conditions can mask effects of familiarity-based PI and complicate the interpretation of any associated neural response.

The generality of working memory capacity: a latent-variable approach to verbal and visuospatial memory span and reasoning.

PubMed

Kane, Michael J; Hambrick, David Z; Tuholski, Stephen W; Wilhelm, Oliver; Payne, Tabitha W; Engle, Randall W

2004-06-01

A latent-variable study examined whether verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) capacity measures reflect a primarily domain-general construct by testing 236 participants in 3 span tests each of verbal WM. visuospatial WM, verbal short-term memory (STM), and visuospatial STM. as well as in tests of verbal and spatial reasoning and general fluid intelligence (Gf). Confirmatory' factor analyses and structural equation models indicated that the WM tasks largely reflected a domain-general factor, whereas STM tasks, based on the same stimuli as the WM tasks, were much more domain specific. The WM construct was a strong predictor of Gf and a weaker predictor of domain-specific reasoning, and the reverse was true for the STM construct. The findings support a domain-general view of WM capacity, in which executive-attention processes drive the broad predictive utility of WM span measures, and domain-specific storage and rehearsal processes relate more strongly to domain-specific aspects of complex cognition. ((c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

Naming and verbal learning in adults with Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment and in healthy aging, with low educational levels.

PubMed

Hübner, Lilian Cristine; Loureiro, Fernanda; Tessaro, Bruna; Siqueira, Ellen Cristina Gerner; Jerônimo, Gislaine Machado; Gomes, Irênio; Schilling, Lucas Porcello

2018-02-01

Language assessment seems to be an effective tool to differentiate healthy and cognitively impaired aging groups. This article discusses the impact of educational level on a naming task, on a verbal learning with semantic cues task and on the MMSE in healthy aging adults at three educational levels (very low, low and high) as well as comparing two clinical groups of very low (0-3 years) and low education (4-7 years) patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with healthy controls. The participants comprised 101 healthy controls, 17 patients with MCI and 19 with AD. Comparisons between the healthy groups showed an education effect on the MMSE, but not on naming and verbal learning. However, the clinical groups were differentiated in both the naming and verbal learning assessment. The results support the assumption that the verbal learning with semantic cues task is a valid tool to diagnose MCI and AD patients, with no influence from education.

Load matters: neural correlates of verbal working memory in children with autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Vogan, Vanessa M; Francis, Kaitlyn E; Morgan, Benjamin R; Smith, Mary Lou; Taylor, Margot J

2018-06-01

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by diminished social reciprocity and communication skills and the presence of stereotyped and restricted behaviours. Executive functioning deficits, such as working memory, are associated with core ASD symptoms. Working memory allows for temporary storage and manipulation of information and relies heavily on frontal-parietal networks of the brain. There are few reports on the neural correlates of working memory in youth with ASD. The current study identified the neural systems underlying verbal working memory capacity in youth with and without ASD using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Fifty-seven youth, 27 with ASD and 30 sex- and age-matched typically developing (TD) controls (9-16 years), completed a one-back letter matching task (LMT) with four levels of difficulty (i.e. cognitive load) while fMRI data were recorded. Linear trend analyses were conducted to examine brain regions that were recruited as a function of increasing cognitive load. We found similar behavioural performance on the LMT in terms of reaction times, but in the two higher load conditions, the ASD youth had lower accuracy than the TD group. Neural patterns of activations differed significantly between TD and ASD groups. In TD youth, areas classically used for working memory, including the lateral and medial frontal, as well as superior parietal brain regions, increased in activation with increasing task difficulty, while areas related to the default mode network (DMN) showed decreasing activation (i.e., deactivation). The youth with ASD did not appear to use this opposing cognitive processing system; they showed little recruitment of frontal and parietal regions across the load but did show similar modulation of the DMN. In a working memory task, where the load was manipulated without changing executive demands, TD youth showed increasing recruitment with increasing load of the classic fronto-parietal brain areas and decreasing involvement in default mode regions. In contrast, although they modulated the default mode network, youth with ASD did not show the modulation of increasing brain activation with increasing load, suggesting that they may be unable to manage increasing verbal information. Impaired verbal working memory in ASD would interfere with the youths' success academically and socially. Thus, determining the nature of atypical neural processing could help establish or monitor working memory interventions for ASD.

Task-dependent modulations of prefrontal and hippocampal activity during intrinsic word production.

PubMed

Whitney, Carin; Weis, Susanne; Krings, Timo; Huber, Walter; Grossman, Murray; Kircher, Tilo

2009-04-01

Functional imaging studies of single word production have consistently reported activation of the lateral prefrontal and cingulate cortex. Its contribution has been shown to be sensitive to task demands, which can be manipulated by the degree of response specification. Compared with classical verbal fluency, free word association relies less on response restrictions but to a greater extent on associative binding processes, usually subserved by the hippocampus. To elucidate the relevance of the frontal and medial-temporal areas during verbal retrieval tasks, we applied varying degrees of response specification. During fMRI data acquisition, 18 subjects performed a free verbal association (FVA), a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task, and a phonological verbal fluency (PVF) task. Externally guided word production served as a baseline condition to control for basic articulatory and reading processes. As expected, increased brain activity was observed in the left lateral and bilateral medial frontal cortices for SVF and PVF. The anterior cingulate gyrus was the only structure common to both fluency tasks in direct comparison to the less restricted FVA task. The hippocampus was engaged during associative and semantic retrieval. Interestingly, hippocampal activity was selectively evident during FVA in direct comparison to SVF when it was controlled for stimulus-response relations. The current data confirm the role of the left prefrontal-cingulate network in constrained word production. Hippocampal activity during spontaneous word production is a novel finding and seems to be dependent on the retrieval process (free vs. constrained) rather than the variety of stimulus-response relationships that is involved.

Verbal predicates foster conscious recollection but not familiarity of a task-irrelevant perceptual feature--an ERP study.

PubMed

Ecker, Ullrich K H; Arend, Anna M; Bergström, Kirstin; Zimmer, Hubert D

2009-09-01

Research on the effects of perceptual manipulations on recognition memory has suggested that (a) recollection is selectively influenced by task-relevant information and (b) familiarity can be considered perceptually specific. The present experiment tested divergent assumptions that (a) perceptual features can influence conscious object recollection via verbal code despite being task-irrelevant and that (b) perceptual features do not influence object familiarity if study is verbal-conceptual. At study, subjects named objects and their presentation colour; this was followed by an old/new object recognition test. Event-related potentials (ERP) showed that a study-test manipulation of colour impacted selectively on the ERP effect associated with recollection, while a size manipulation showed no effect. It is concluded that (a) verbal predicates generated at study are potent episodic memory agents that modulate recollection even if the recovered feature information is task-irrelevant and (b) commonly found perceptual match effects on familiarity critically depend on perceptual processing at study.

Reduced verbal fluency for proper names in nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease: a quantitative and qualitative analysis.

PubMed

Fine, Eric M; Delis, Dean C; Paul, Brianna M; Filoteo, J Vincent

2011-02-01

There has been an increasing interest within neuropsychology in comparing verbal fluency for different grammatical classes (e.g., verb generation vs. noun generation) in neurological populations, including Parkinson's disease (PD). However, to our knowledge, few studies have compared verbal fluency for common nouns and proper names in PD. Common nouns and proper names differ in terms of their semantic characteristics, as categories of common nouns are organized hierarchically based on semantics, while categories of proper nouns lack a well-defined semantic organization. In addition, there is accumulating evidence that the retrieval of these distinct grammatical classes are subserved by somewhat distinct neural systems. Given that verbal fluency deficits are among the first impairments to emerge in PD, and that such deficits are predictors of future cognitive decline, it is important to examine all aspects of verbal fluency in this population. For the current study, we compared the performance of a group of 32 nondemented PD patients with 32 healthy participants (HP) on verbal fluency tasks for common nouns (animals) and proper names (boys' first names). A significant interaction between verbal fluency task and diagnostic status emerged, as the PD group performed significantly worse on only the proper name fluency task. This finding may reflect the absence of well-defined semantic organization that structures the verbal search for first names, thus placing a greater onus on strategic or "executive" verbal retrieval processes.

On the role of verbalization during task set selection: switching or serial order control?

PubMed

Bryck, Richard L; Mayr, Ulrich

2005-06-01

Recent task-switching work in which paper-and-pencil administered single-task lists were compared with task-alternation lists has demonstrated large increases in task-switch costs with concurrent articulatory suppression (AS), implicating a crucial role for verbalization during switching (Baddeley, Chincotta, & Adlam, 2001; Emerson & Miyake, 2003). Experiment 1 replicated this result, using computerized assessment, albeit with much smaller effect sizes than in the original reports. In Experiment 2, AS interference was reduced when a sequential cue (spatial location) that indicated the current position in the sequence of task alternations was given. Finally, in Experiment 3, switch trials and no-switch trials were compared within a block of alternating runs of two tasks. Again, AS interference was obtained mainly when the endogenous sequencing demand was high, and it was comparable for no-switch and switch trials. These results suggest that verbalization may be critical for endogenous maintenance and updating of a sequential plan, rather than exclusively for the actual switching process.

Complex Span versus Updating Tasks of Working Memory: The Gap Is Not that Deep

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schmiedek, Florian; Hildebrandt, Andrea; Lovden, Martin; Wilhelm, Oliver; Lindenberger, Ulman

2009-01-01

How to best measure working memory capacity is an issue of ongoing debate. Besides established complex span tasks, which combine short-term memory demands with generally unrelated secondary tasks, there exists a set of paradigms characterized by continuous and simultaneous updating of several items in working memory, such as the n-back, memory…

The Relationship Between Educational Years and Phonemic Verbal Fluency (PVF) and Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF) Tasks in Spanish Patients Diagnosed With Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Psychotic Bipolar Disorder

PubMed Central

García-Laredo, Eduardo; Maestú, Fernando; Castellanos, Miguel Ángel; Molina, Juan D.; Peréz-Moreno, Elisa

2015-01-01

Abstract Semantic and verbal fluency tasks are widely used as a measure of frontal capacities. It has been well described in literature that patients affected by schizophrenic and bipolar disorders present a worse execution in these tasks. Some authors have also noted the importance of educational years. Our objective is to analyze whether the effect of cognitive malfunction caused by apathology is superior to the expected effect of years of education in phonemic verbal fluency (PVF) and semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task execution. A total of 62 individuals took part in this study, out of which 23 were patients with schizophrenic paranoid disorder, 11 suffered from bipolar disorder with psychotic symptomatology, 13 suffered from bipolar disorder without psychotic symptomatology, and 15 participants were nonpathological individuals. All participants were evaluated with the PVF and SVF tests (animals and tools). The performance/execution results were analyzed with a mixed-model ANCOVA, with educational years as a covariable. The effect of education seems to be more determined by PVF FAS tests than by SVF. With PVF FAS tasks, the expected effect of pathology disappears when the covariable EDUCATION is introduced. With SVF tasks, the effect continues to be significant, even though the EDUACTION covariable dims such effect. These results suggest that SVF tests (animals category) are better evaluation tools as they are less dependent on the patients’ education than PVF FAS tests. PMID:26426640

Environment learning using descriptions or navigation: The involvement of working memory in young and older adults.

PubMed

Meneghetti, Chiara; Borella, Erika; Carbone, Elena; Martinelli, Massimiliano; De Beni, Rossana

2016-05-01

This study examined age-related differences between young and older adults in the involvement of verbal and visuo-spatial components of working memory (WM) when paths are learned from verbal and visuo-spatial inputs. A sample of 60 young adults (20-30 years old) and 58 older adults (60-75 years old) learned two paths from the person's point of view, one displayed in the form of a video showing the path, the other presenting the path in a verbal description. During the learning phase, participants concurrently performed a verbal task (articulatory suppression, AS group), or a visuo-spatial task (spatial tapping, ST group), or no secondary task (control, C group). After learning each path, participants completed tasks that involved the following: (1) recalling the sequential order and the location of landmarks; and (2) judging spatial sentences as true or false (verification test). The results showed that young adults outperformed older adults in all recall tasks. In both age groups performance in all types of task was worse in the AS and ST groups than in the C group, irrespective of the type of input. Overall, these findings suggest that verbal and visuo-spatial components of WM underpin the processing of environmental information in both young and older adults. The results are discussed in terms of age-related differences and according to the spatial cognition framework. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

The Relationship Between Educational Years and Phonemic Verbal Fluency (PVF) and Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF) Tasks in Spanish Patients Diagnosed With Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Psychotic Bipolar Disorder.

PubMed

García-Laredo, Eduardo; Maestú, Fernando; Castellanos, Miguel Ángel; Molina, Juan D; Peréz-Moreno, Elisa

2015-09-01

Semantic and verbal fluency tasks are widely used as a measure of frontal capacities. It has been well described in literature that patients affected by schizophrenic and bipolar disorders present a worse execution in these tasks. Some authors have also noted the importance of educational years. Our objective is to analyze whether the effect of cognitive malfunction caused by apathology is superior to the expected effect of years of education in phonemic verbal fluency (PVF) and semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task execution. A total of 62 individuals took part in this study, out of which 23 were patients with schizophrenic paranoid disorder, 11 suffered from bipolar disorder with psychotic symptomatology, 13 suffered from bipolar disorder without psychotic symptomatology, and 15 participants were nonpathological individuals. All participants were evaluated with the PVF and SVF tests (animals and tools). The performance/execution results were analyzed with a mixed-model ANCOVA, with educational years as a covariable. The effect of education seems to be more determined by PVF FAS tests than by SVF. With PVF FAS tasks, the expected effect of pathology disappears when the covariable EDUCATION is introduced. With SVF tasks, the effect continues to be significant, even though the EDUACTION covariable dims such effect. These results suggest that SVF tests (animals category) are better evaluation tools as they are less dependent on the patients' education than PVF FAS tests.

Cognitive Attributes of Adequate and Inadequate Responders to Reading Intervention in Middle School

PubMed Central

Miciak, Jeremy; Stuebing, Karla K.; Vaughn, Sharon; Roberts, Greg; Barth, Amy Elizabeth; Fletcher, Jack M.

2016-01-01

No studies have investigated the cognitive attributes of middle school students who are adequate and inadequate responders to Tier 2 reading intervention. We compared students in Grades 6 and 7 representing groups of adequate responders (n = 77) and inadequate responders who fell below criteria in (a) comprehension (n = 54); (b) fluency (n = 45); and (c) decoding, fluency, and comprehension (DFC; n = 45). These students received measures of phonological awareness, listening comprehension, rapid naming, processing speed, verbal knowledge, and nonverbal reasoning. Multivariate comparisons showed a significant Group-by-Task interaction: the comprehension-impaired group demonstrated primary difficulties with verbal knowledge and listening comprehension, the DFC group with phonological awareness, and the fluency-impaired group with phonological awareness and rapid naming. A series of regression models investigating whether responder status explained unique variation in cognitive skills yielded largely null results consistent with a continuum of severity associated with level of reading impairment, with no evidence for qualitative differences in the cognitive attributes of adequate and inadequate responders. PMID:28579668

Cognitive Attributes of Adequate and Inadequate Responders to Reading Intervention in Middle School.

PubMed

Miciak, Jeremy; Stuebing, Karla K; Vaughn, Sharon; Roberts, Greg; Barth, Amy Elizabeth; Fletcher, Jack M

2014-12-01

No studies have investigated the cognitive attributes of middle school students who are adequate and inadequate responders to Tier 2 reading intervention. We compared students in Grades 6 and 7 representing groups of adequate responders ( n = 77) and inadequate responders who fell below criteria in (a) comprehension ( n = 54); (b) fluency ( n = 45); and (c) decoding, fluency, and comprehension (DFC; n = 45). These students received measures of phonological awareness, listening comprehension, rapid naming, processing speed, verbal knowledge, and nonverbal reasoning. Multivariate comparisons showed a significant Group-by-Task interaction: the comprehension-impaired group demonstrated primary difficulties with verbal knowledge and listening comprehension, the DFC group with phonological awareness, and the fluency-impaired group with phonological awareness and rapid naming. A series of regression models investigating whether responder status explained unique variation in cognitive skills yielded largely null results consistent with a continuum of severity associated with level of reading impairment, with no evidence for qualitative differences in the cognitive attributes of adequate and inadequate responders.

Aging Ebbs the Flow of Thought: Adult Age Differences in Mind Wandering, Executive Control, and Self-Evaluation

PubMed Central

McVay, Jennifer C.; Meier, Matthew E.; Touron, Dayna R.; Kane, Michael J.

2013-01-01

Two experiments examined the relations among adult aging, mind wandering, and executive-task performance, following from surprising laboratory findings that older adults report fewer task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) than do younger adults (e.g., Giambra, 1989; Jackson & Balota, 2011). Because older adults may experience more ability- and performance-related worry during cognitive tasks in the laboratory, and because these evaluative thoughts (known as task-related interference, “TRI”) might be sometimes misclassified by subjects as task-related, we asked subjects to distinguish task-related thoughts from TRI and TUTs when probed during ongoing tasks. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults completed either a go/no-go or a vigilance version of a sustained attention to response task (SART). Older adults reported more TRI and fewer TUTs than did younger adults while also performing more accurately. In Experiment 2, subjects completed either a 1- or 2-back version of the n-back task. Older adults again reported more TRI and fewer TUTs than younger adults in both versions, while performing better than younger adults in the 1-back and worse in the 2-back. Across experiments, older adults’ reduced TUT rates were independent of performance relative to younger adults. And, although older adults consistently reported more TRI and less mind wandering than did younger adults, overall they reported more on-task thoughts. TRI cannot, therefore, account completely for prior reports of decreasing TUTs with aging. We discuss the implications of these results for various theoretical approaches to mind-wandering. PMID:23261422

Cerebellar volume and executive function in Parkinson disease with and without freezing of gait

PubMed Central

Myers, Peter S.; McNeely, Marie E.; Koller, Jonathan M.; Earhart, Gammon M.; Campbell, Meghan C.

2017-01-01

BACKGROUND Freezing of gait (FOG) affects approximately 50% of people with Parkinson Disease (PD), impacting quality of life and placing financial and emotional strain on the individual and caregivers. People with PD and FOG have similar deficits in motor adaptation and cognition as individuals with cerebellar lesions, indicating the cerebellum may play a role in FOG. OBJECTIVE To examine potential differences in cerebellar volumes and their relationships with cognition between PD with (FOG+) and without FOG (FOG−). METHODS Sixty-three participants were divided into two groups, FOG+ (n=25) and FOG− (n=38), based on the New Freezing of Gait Questionnaire. Cognitive assessment included Trail Making, Stroop, Verbal Fluency, and Go-NoGo executive function tasks. All participants completed structural T1- and T2-weighted MRI scans. Imaging data were processed with FreeSurfer and the Spatially Unbiased Infratentorial toolbox to segment the cerebellum into individual lobules. RESULTS FOG+ performed significantly worse on phonemic verbal fluency (F(1, 22)=7.06, p=0.01) as well as the Go-NoGo task (F(1, 22)=9.00, p=0.004). We found no differences in cerebellar volumes between groups (F(4, 55)=1.42, p=0.24), but there were significant relationships between verbal fluency measures and lobule volumes in FOG−. CONCLUSIONS These findings underscore the need for longitudinal studies to better characterize potential changes in cerebellar volume, cognitive function, and functional connectivity between people with PD with and without FOG. PMID:28106569

Stroop proactive control and task conflict are modulated by concurrent working memory load.

PubMed

Kalanthroff, Eyal; Avnit, Amir; Henik, Avishai; Davelaar, Eddy J; Usher, Marius

2015-06-01

Performance on the Stroop task reflects two types of conflict-informational (between the incongruent word and font color) and task (between the contextually relevant color-naming task and the irrelevant, but automatic, word-reading task). According to the dual mechanisms of control theory (DMC; Braver, 2012), variability in Stroop performance can result from variability in the deployment of a proactive task-demand control mechanism. Previous research has shown that when proactive control (PC) is diminished, both increased Stroop interference and a reversed Stroop facilitation (RF) are observed. Although the current DMC model accounts for the former effect, it does not predict the observed RF, which is considered to be behavioral evidence for task conflict in the Stroop task. Here we expanded the DMC model to account for Stroop RF. Assuming that a concurrent working memory (WM) task reduces PC, we predicted both increased interference and an RF. Nineteen participants performed a standard Stroop task combined with a concurrent n-back task, which was aimed at reducing available WM resources, and thus overloading PC. Although the results indicated common Stroop interference and facilitation in the low-load condition (zero-back), in the high-load condition (two-back), both increased Stroop interference and RF were observed, consistent with the model's prediction. These findings indicate that PC is modulated by concurrent WM load and serves as a common control mechanism for both informational and task Stroop conflicts.

Interference between a fast-paced spatial puzzle task and verbal memory demands.

PubMed

Epling, Samantha L; Blakely, Megan J; Russell, Paul N; Helton, William S

2017-06-01

Research continues to provide evidence that people are poor multi-taskers. Cognitive resource theory is a common explanation for the inability to efficiently perform multiple tasks at the same time. This theory proposes that one's limited supply of cognitive resources can be utilized faster than it is replenished, which results in a performance decline, particularly when these limited resources must be allocated among multiple tasks. Researchers have proposed both domain-specific, for example, spatial versus verbal processing resources, and domain general cognitive resources. In the present research, we investigated whether a spatial puzzle task performed simultaneously with a verbal recall task would impair performance in either task or both tasks, compared to performance on the tasks individually. As hypothesized, a reduction in word recall was found when dual-tasking, though performance on the puzzle task did not significantly differ between the single- and dual-task conditions. This is consistent, in part, with both a general resource theory and a Multiple Resource Theory, but further work is required to better understand the cognitive processing system. The employment of the recall task in the dual-task paradigm with a variety of secondary tasks will help to continue mapping out the specificity (or lack thereof) of cognitive resources utilized in various mental and physical tasks.

Relational Processing Following Stroke

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Andrews, Glenda; Halford, Graeme S.; Shum, David; Maujean, Annick; Chappell, Mark; Birney, Damian

2013-01-01

The research examined relational processing following stroke. Stroke patients (14 with frontal, 30 with non-frontal lesions) and 41 matched controls completed four relational processing tasks: sentence comprehension, Latin square matrix completion, modified Dimensional Change Card Sorting, and n-back. Each task included items at two or three…

Training and transfer effects of N-back training for brain-injured and healthy subjects.

PubMed

Lindeløv, Jonas Kristoffer; Dall, Jonas Olsen; Kristensen, Casper Daniel; Aagesen, Marie Holt; Olsen, Stine Almgren; Snuggerud, Therese Ruud; Sikorska, Anna

2016-10-01

Working memory impairments are prevalent among patients with acquired brain injury (ABI). Computerised training targeting working memory has been researched extensively using samples from healthy populations but this field remains isolated from similar research in ABI patients. We report the results of an actively controlled randomised controlled trial in which 17 patients and 18 healthy subjects completed training on an N-back task. The healthy group had superior improvements on both training tasks (SMD = 6.1 and 3.3) whereas the ABI group improved much less (SMD = 0.5 and 1.1). Neither group demonstrated transfer to untrained tasks. We conclude that computerised training facilitates improvement of specific skills rather than high-level cognition in healthy and ABI subjects alike. The acquisition of these specific skills seems to be impaired by brain injury. The most effective use of computer-based cognitive training may be to make the task resemble the targeted behaviour(s) closely in order to exploit the stimulus-specificity of learning.

Online assessment of risk factors for dementia and cognitive function in healthy adults.

PubMed

Huntley, J; Corbett, A; Wesnes, K; Brooker, H; Stenton, R; Hampshire, A; Ballard, C

2018-02-01

Several potentially modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia have been identified, including low educational attainment, smoking, diabetes, physical inactivity, hypertension, midlife obesity, depression, and perceived social isolation. Managing these risk factors in late midlife and older age may help reduce the risk of dementia; however, it is unclear whether these factors also relate to cognitive performance in older individuals without dementia. Data from 14 201 non-demented individuals aged >50 years who enrolled in the online PROTECT study were used to examine the relationship between cognitive function and known modifiable risk factors for dementia. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted on 4 cognitive outcomes assessing verbal and spatial working memory, visual episodic memory, and verbal reasoning. Increasing age was associated with reduced performance across all tasks. Higher educational achievement, the presence of a close confiding relationship, and moderate alcohol intake were associated with benefits across all 4 cognitive tasks, and exercise was associated with better performance on verbal reasoning and verbal working memory tasks. A diagnosis of depression was negatively associated with performance on visual episodic memory and working memory tasks, whereas being underweight negatively affected performance on all tasks apart from verbal working memory. A history of stroke was negatively associated with verbal reasoning and working memory performance. Known modifiable risk factors for dementia are associated with cognitive performance in non-demented individuals in late midlife and older age. This provides further support for public health interventions that seek to manage these risk factors across the lifespan. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The brain correlates of the effects of monetary and verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation.

PubMed

Albrecht, Konstanze; Abeler, Johannes; Weber, Bernd; Falk, Armin

2014-01-01

Apart from everyday duties, such as doing the laundry or cleaning the house, there are tasks we do for pleasure and enjoyment. We do such tasks, like solving crossword puzzles or reading novels, without any external pressure or force; instead, we are intrinsically motivated: we do the tasks because we enjoy doing them. Previous studies suggest that external rewards, i.e., rewards from the outside, affect the intrinsic motivation to engage in a task: while performance-based monetary rewards are perceived as controlling and induce a business-contract framing, verbal rewards praising one's competence can enhance the perceived self-determination. Accordingly, the former have been shown to decrease intrinsic motivation, whereas the latter have been shown to increase intrinsic motivation. The present study investigated the neural processes underlying the effects of monetary and verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation in a group of 64 subjects applying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that, when participants received positive performance feedback, activation in the anterior striatum and midbrain was affected by the nature of the reward; compared to a non-rewarded control group, activation was higher while monetary rewards were administered. However, we did not find a decrease in activation after reward withdrawal. In contrast, we found an increase in activation for verbal rewards: after verbal rewards had been withdrawn, participants showed a higher activation in the aforementioned brain areas when they received success compared to failure feedback. We further found that, while participants worked on the task, activation in the lateral prefrontal cortex was enhanced after the verbal rewards were administered and withdrawn.

The brain correlates of the effects of monetary and verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation

PubMed Central

Albrecht, Konstanze; Abeler, Johannes; Weber, Bernd; Falk, Armin

2014-01-01

Apart from everyday duties, such as doing the laundry or cleaning the house, there are tasks we do for pleasure and enjoyment. We do such tasks, like solving crossword puzzles or reading novels, without any external pressure or force; instead, we are intrinsically motivated: we do the tasks because we enjoy doing them. Previous studies suggest that external rewards, i.e., rewards from the outside, affect the intrinsic motivation to engage in a task: while performance-based monetary rewards are perceived as controlling and induce a business-contract framing, verbal rewards praising one's competence can enhance the perceived self-determination. Accordingly, the former have been shown to decrease intrinsic motivation, whereas the latter have been shown to increase intrinsic motivation. The present study investigated the neural processes underlying the effects of monetary and verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation in a group of 64 subjects applying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that, when participants received positive performance feedback, activation in the anterior striatum and midbrain was affected by the nature of the reward; compared to a non-rewarded control group, activation was higher while monetary rewards were administered. However, we did not find a decrease in activation after reward withdrawal. In contrast, we found an increase in activation for verbal rewards: after verbal rewards had been withdrawn, participants showed a higher activation in the aforementioned brain areas when they received success compared to failure feedback. We further found that, while participants worked on the task, activation in the lateral prefrontal cortex was enhanced after the verbal rewards were administered and withdrawn. PMID:25278834

The Effect of Prior Task Success on Older Adults' Memory Performance: Examining the Influence of Different Types of Task Success.

PubMed

Geraci, Lisa; Hughes, Matthew L; Miller, Tyler M; De Forrest, Ross L

2016-01-01

Negative aging stereotypes can lead older adults to perform poorly on memory tests. Yet, memory performance can be improved if older adults have a single successful experience on a cognitive test prior to participating in a memory experiment (Geraci & Miller, 2013, Psychology and Aging, 28, 340-345). The current study examined the effects of different types of prior task experience on subsequent memory performance. Before participating in a verbal free recall experiment, older adults in Experiment 1 successfully completed either a verbal or a visual cognitive task or no task. In Experiment 2, they successfully completed either a motor task or no task before participating in the free recall experiment. Results from Experiment 1 showed that relative to control (no prior task), participants who had prior success, either on a verbal or a visual task, had better subsequent recall performance. Experiment 2 showed that prior success on a motor task, however, did not lead to a later memory advantage relative to control. These findings demonstrate that older adults' memory can be improved by a successful prior task experience so long as that experience is in a cognitive domain.

The Effects of Verbal and Material Rewards and Punishers on the Performance of Impulsive and Reflective Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Firestone, Philip; Douglas, Virginia I.

1977-01-01

Impulsive and reflective children performed in a discrimination learning task which included four reinforcement conditions: verbal-reward, verbal-punishment, material-reward, and material-punishment. (SB)

Bias in discriminating very mild dementia for older adults with different levels of education in Hong Kong.

PubMed

Chang, Jianfang; Tse, Chi-Shing; Leung, Grace Tak Yu; Fung, Ada Wai Tung; Hau, Kit-Tai; Chiu, Helen Fung Kum; Lam, Linda Chiu Wa

2014-06-01

Education has a profound effect on older adults' cognitive performance. In Hong Kong, some dementia screening tasks were originally designed for developed population with, on average, higher education. We compared the screening power of these tasks for Chinese older adults with different levels of education. Community-dwelling older adults who were healthy (N = 383) and with very mild dementia (N = 405) performed the following tasks: Mini-Mental State Examination, Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive subscales, Verbal Fluency, Abstract Thinking, and Visual/Digit Span. Logistic regression was used to examine the power of these tasks to predict Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR 0.5 vs. 0). Logistic regression analysis showed that while the screening power of the total scores in all tasks was similar for high and low education groups, there were education biases in some items of these tasks. The differential screening power in high and low education groups was not identical across items in some tasks. Thus, in cognitive assessments, we should exercise great caution when using these potentially biased items for older adults with limited education.

Early stage second-language learning improves executive control: evidence from ERP.

PubMed

Sullivan, Margot D; Janus, Monika; Moreno, Sylvain; Astheimer, Lori; Bialystok, Ellen

2014-12-01

A growing body of research has reported a bilingual advantage in performance on executive control tasks, but it is not known at what point in emerging bilingualism these advantages first appear. The present study investigated the effect of early stage second-language training on executive control. Monolingual English-speaking students were tested on a go-nogo task, sentence judgment task, and verbal fluency, before and after 6 months of Spanish instruction. The training group (n = 25) consisted of students enrolled in introductory Spanish and the control group (n = 30) consisted of students enrolled in introductory Psychology. After training, the Spanish group showed larger P3 amplitude on the go-nogo task and smaller P600 amplitude on the judgment task, indicating enhanced performance, with no changes for the control group and no differences between groups on behavioral measures. Results are discussed in terms of neural changes underlying executive control after brief second-language learning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Spatial versus verbal memory impairments in patients with fibromyalgia.

PubMed

Kim, Seong-Ho; Kim, Sang-Hyon; Kim, Seong-Kyu; Nam, Eun Jung; Han, Seung Woo; Lee, Seung Jae

2012-05-01

Mounting evidence suggests that individuals with fibromyalgia (FM) have impairments in general cognitive functions. However, few studies have explored the possibility of dissociation between verbal and visuospatial memory impairments in FM. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the asymmetrical impairment of cognitive functions between verbal and visuospatial memory and between short-term and long-term memory. Neuropsychological assessments were carried out on 23 female patients with FM and 24 healthy female controls. Verbal memory abilities were assessed using the Korean version of the Rey auditory verbal learning test (KAVLT) and digit span task, and visuospatial memory abilities were assessed using the Korean version of the Rey complex figure test (KCFT) and spatial span task. The analysis of covariance was used to assess group differences in performance on cognitive tests after controlling for depression. The two groups did not significantly differ in terms of age, years of education, or in their estimated verbal and performance IQ, but FM patients reported more severe depressive symptoms than did controls on the Beck depression inventory. Significant group differences were found in immediate and delayed recall on the KCFT (F (1,44) = 6.49, p = 0.014 and F (1,44) = 6.96, p = 0.011, respectively), whereas no difference was found in immediate and delayed recall on the KAVLT. In terms of short-term memory, neither the digit span task nor spatial span task showed any difference between groups, regardless of whether repetition was forward or backward. These findings suggest that spatial memory abilities may be more impaired than verbal memory abilities in patients with FM.

Persistence of Gender Related-Effects on Visuo-Spatial and Verbal Working Memory in Right Brain-Damaged Patients

PubMed Central

Piccardi, Laura; Matano, Alessandro; D’Antuono, Giovanni; Marin, Dario; Ciurli, Paola; Incoccia, Chiara; Verde, Paola; Guariglia, Paola

2016-01-01

The aim of the present study was to verify if gender differences in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory would persist following right cerebral lesions. To pursue our aim we investigated a large sample (n. 346) of right brain-damaged patients and healthy participants (n. 272) for the presence of gender effects in performing Corsi and Digit Test. We also assessed a subgroup of patients (n. 109) for the nature (active vs. passive) of working memory tasks. We tested working memory (WM) administering the Corsi Test (CBT) and the Digit Span (DS) using two different versions: forward (fCBT and fDS), subjects were required to repeat stimuli in the same order that they were presented; and backward (bCBT and bDS), subjects were required to repeat stimuli in the opposite order of presentation. In this way, passive storage and active processing of working memory were assessed. Our results showed the persistence of gender-related effects in spite of the presence of right brain lesions. We found that men outperformed women both in CBT and DS, regardless of active and passive processing of verbal and visuo-spatial stimuli. The presence of visuo-spatial disorders (i.e., hemineglect) can affect the performance on Corsi Test. In our sample, men and women were equally affected by hemineglect, therefore it did not mask the gender effect. Generally speaking, the persistence of the men’s superiority in visuo-spatial tasks may be interpreted as a protective factor, at least for men, within other life factors such as level of education or kind of profession before retirement. PMID:27445734

Short-term memory, executive control, and children's route learning.

PubMed

Purser, Harry R M; Farran, Emily K; Courbois, Yannick; Lemahieu, Axelle; Mellier, Daniel; Sockeel, Pascal; Blades, Mark

2012-10-01

The aim of this study was to investigate route-learning ability in 67 children aged 5 to 11years and to relate route-learning performance to the components of Baddeley's model of working memory. Children carried out tasks that included measures of verbal and visuospatial short-term memory and executive control and also measures of verbal and visuospatial long-term memory; the route-learning task was conducted using a maze in a virtual environment. In contrast to previous research, correlations were found between both visuospatial and verbal memory tasks-the Corsi task, short-term pattern span, digit span, and visuospatial long-term memory-and route-learning performance. However, further analyses indicated that these relationships were mediated by executive control demands that were common to the tasks, with long-term memory explaining additional unique variance in route learning. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A non-verbal technique for the assessment of general intellectual ability in selection of aviation personnel.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1971-06-01

A study was conducted in which performance on a non-verbal problem- solving task was correlated with the Otis Quick Scoring Mental Ability Test and the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. The problem-solving task, called 'code- lock' required the subjec...

Assessing Pragmatics: DCTS and Retrospective Verbal Reports

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beltrán-Palanques, Vicente

2016-01-01

Assessing pragmatic knowledge in the instructed setting is seen as a complex but necessary task, which requires the design of appropriate research methodologies to examine pragmatic performance. This study discusses the use of two different research methodologies, namely those of Discourse Completion Tests/Tasks (DCTs) and verbal reports. Research…

When customers exhibit verbal aggression, employees pay cognitive costs.

PubMed

Rafaeli, Anat; Erez, Amir; Ravid, Shy; Derfler-Rozin, Rellie; Treister, Dorit Efrat; Scheyer, Ravit

2012-09-01

In 4 experimental studies, we show that customer verbal aggression impaired the cognitive performance of the targets of this aggression. In Study 1, customers' verbal aggression reduced recall of customers' requests. Study 2 extended these findings by showing that customer verbal aggression impaired recognition memory and working memory among employees of a cellular communication provider. In Study 3, the ability to take another's perspective attenuated the negative effects of customer verbal aggression on participants' cognitive performance. Study 4 linked customer verbal aggression to quality of task performance, showing a particularly negative influence of aggressive requests delivered by high-status customers. Together, these studies suggest that the effects of even minor aggression from customers can strongly affect the immediate cognitive performance of customer service employees and reduce their task performance. The implications for research on aggression and for the practice of customer service are discussed.

Early 'visual' cortex activation correlates with superior verbal memory performance in the blind.

PubMed

Amedi, Amir; Raz, Noa; Pianka, Pazit; Malach, Rafael; Zohary, Ehud

2003-07-01

The visual cortex may be more modifiable than previously considered. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in ten congenitally blind human participants, we found robust occipital activation during a verbal-memory task (in the absence of any sensory input), as well as during verb generation and Braille reading. We also found evidence for reorganization and specialization of the occipital cortex, along the anterior-posterior axis. Whereas anterior regions showed preference for Braille, posterior regions (including V1) showed preference for verbal-memory and verb generation (which both require memory of verbal material). No such occipital activation was found in sighted subjects. This difference between the groups was mirrored by superior performance of the blind in various verbal-memory tasks. Moreover, the magnitude of V1 activation during the verbal-memory condition was highly correlated with the blind individual's abilities in a variety of verbal-memory tests, suggesting that the additional occipital activation may have a functional role.

The Effects of a Distracting N-Back Task on Recognition Memory Are Reduced by Negative Emotional Intensity

PubMed Central

Buratto, Luciano G.; Pottage, Claire L.; Brown, Charity; Morrison, Catriona M.; Schaefer, Alexandre

2014-01-01

Memory performance is usually impaired when participants have to encode information while performing a concurrent task. Recent studies using recall tasks have found that emotional items are more resistant to such cognitive depletion effects than non-emotional items. However, when recognition tasks are used, the same effect is more elusive as recent recognition studies have obtained contradictory results. In two experiments, we provide evidence that negative emotional content can reliably reduce the effects of cognitive depletion on recognition memory only if stimuli with high levels of emotional intensity are used. In particular, we found that recognition performance for realistic pictures was impaired by a secondary 3-back working memory task during encoding if stimuli were emotionally neutral or had moderate levels of negative emotionality. In contrast, when negative pictures with high levels of emotional intensity were used, the detrimental effects of the secondary task were significantly attenuated. PMID:25330251

The effects of a distracting N-back task on recognition memory are reduced by negative emotional intensity.

PubMed

Buratto, Luciano G; Pottage, Claire L; Brown, Charity; Morrison, Catriona M; Schaefer, Alexandre

2014-01-01

Memory performance is usually impaired when participants have to encode information while performing a concurrent task. Recent studies using recall tasks have found that emotional items are more resistant to such cognitive depletion effects than non-emotional items. However, when recognition tasks are used, the same effect is more elusive as recent recognition studies have obtained contradictory results. In two experiments, we provide evidence that negative emotional content can reliably reduce the effects of cognitive depletion on recognition memory only if stimuli with high levels of emotional intensity are used. In particular, we found that recognition performance for realistic pictures was impaired by a secondary 3-back working memory task during encoding if stimuli were emotionally neutral or had moderate levels of negative emotionality. In contrast, when negative pictures with high levels of emotional intensity were used, the detrimental effects of the secondary task were significantly attenuated.

The effect of task demand and incentive on neurophysiological and cardiovascular markers of effort.

PubMed

Fairclough, Stephen H; Ewing, Kate

2017-09-01

According to motivational intensity theory, effort is proportional to the level of task demand provided that success is possible and successful performance is deemed worthwhile. The current study represents a simultaneous manipulation of demand (working memory load) and success importance (financial incentive) to investigate neurophysiological (EEG) and cardiovascular measures of effort. A 2×2 repeated-measures study was conducted where 18 participants performed a n-back task under three conditions of demand: easy (1-back), hard (4-back) and very hard (7-back). In addition, participants performed these tasks in the presence of performance-contingent financial incentive or in a no-incentive (pilot trial) condition. Three bands of EEG activity were quantified: theta (4-7Hz), lower-alpha (7.5-10Hz) and upper-alpha (10.5-13Hz). Fronto-medial activity in the theta band and activity in the upper-alpha band at frontal, central and parietal sites were sensitive to demand and indicated greatest effort when the task was challenging and success was possible. Mean systolic blood pressure and activity in the lower-alpha band at parietal sites were also sensitive to demand but also increased in the incentive condition across all levels of task demand. The results of the study largely support the predictions of motivational intensity using neurophysiological markers of effort. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Arctic cognition: a study of cognitive performance in summer and winter at 69 degrees N

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brennen, T.; Martinussen, M.; Hansen, B. O.; Hjemdal, O.

1999-01-01

Evidence has accumulated over the past 15 years that affect in humans is cyclical. In winter there is a tendency to depression, with remission in summer, and this effect is stronger at higher latitudes. In order to determine whether human cognition is similarly rhythmical, this study investigated the cognitive processes of 100 participants living at 69 degrees N. Participants were tested in summer and winter on a range of cognitive tasks, including verbal memory, attention and simple reaction time tasks. The seasonally counterbalanced design and the very northerly latitude of this study provide optimal conditions for detecting impaired cognitive performance in winter, and the conclusion is negative: of five tasks with seasonal effects, four had disadvantages in summer. Like the menstrual cycle, the circannual cycle appears to influence mood but not cognition.

Working Memory in Early-School-Age Children with Asperger's Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cui, Jifang; Gao, Dingguo; Chen, Yinghe; Zou, Xiaobing; Wang, Ya

2010-01-01

Using a battery of working memory span tasks and n-back tasks, this study aimed to explore working memory functions in early-school-age children with Asperger's syndrome (AS). Twelve children with AS and 29 healthy children matched on age and IQ were recruited. Results showed: (a) children with AS performed better in digit and word recall tasks,…

How to pass the false-belief task before your fourth birthday.

PubMed

Rubio-Fernández, Paula; Geurts, Bart

2013-01-01

The experimental record of the last three decades shows that children under 4 years old fail all sorts of variations on the standard false-belief task, whereas more recent studies have revealed that infants are able to pass nonverbal versions of the task. We argue that these paradoxical results are an artifact of the type of false-belief tasks that have been used to test infants and children: Nonverbal designs allow infants to keep track of a protagonist's perspective over a course of events, whereas verbal designs tend to disrupt the perspective-tracking process in various ways, which makes it too hard for younger children to demonstrate their capacity for perspective tracking. We report three experiments that confirm this hypothesis by showing that 3-year-olds can pass a suitably streamlined version of the verbal false-belief task. We conclude that young children can pass the verbal false-belief task provided that they are allowed to keep track of the protagonist's perspective without too much disruption.

Effects of Labeling on Preschoolers' Explicit False Belief Performance: Outcomes of Cognitive Flexibility or Inhibitory Control?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Low, Jason; Simpson, Samantha

2012-01-01

Executive function mechanisms underpinning language-related effects on theory of mind understanding were examined in a sample of 165 preschoolers. Verbal labels were manipulated to identify relevant perspectives on an explicit false belief task. In Experiment 1 with 4-year-olds (N = 74), false belief reasoning was superior in the fully and…

When Do Words Hurt? A Multiprocess View of the Effects of Verbalization on Visual Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Charity; Brandimonte, Maria A.; Wickham, Lee H. V.; Bosco, Andrea; Schooler, Jonathan W.

2014-01-01

Verbal overshadowing reflects the impairment in memory performance following verbalization of nonverbal stimuli. However, it is not clear whether the same mechanisms are responsible for verbal overshadowing effects observed with different stimuli and task demands. In the present article, we propose a multiprocess view that reconciles the main…

Notetaking, Verbal Aptitude, & Listening Span: Factors Involved in Learning from Lectures.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walbaum, Sharlene D.

Three variables (verbal aptitude, listening ability, and notetaking) that may mediate how much college students learn from a lecture were studied. Verbal aptitude was operationalized as a Verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test (VSAT) score. Listening ability was measured as the score on an auditory short-term memory task, using the serial running memory…

Verbal Knowledge, Working Memory, and Processing Speed as Predictors of Verbal Learning in Older Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rast, Philippe

2011-01-01

The present study aimed at modeling individual differences in a verbal learning task by means of a latent structured growth curve approach based on an exponential function that yielded 3 parameters: initial recall, learning rate, and asymptotic performance. Three cognitive variables--speed of information processing, verbal knowledge, working…

Does language help regularity learning? The influence of verbalizations on implicit sequential regularity learning and the emergence of explicit knowledge in children, younger and older adults.

PubMed

Ferdinand, Nicola K; Kray, Jutta

2017-03-01

This study aimed at investigating the ability to learn regularities across the life span and examine whether this learning process can be supported or hampered by verbalizations. For this purpose, children (aged 8-10 years) and younger (aged 19-30 years) and older (aged 70-80 years) adults took part in a sequence learning experiment. We found that verbalizing sequence-congruent information during learning is a powerful tool to generate explicit knowledge and it is especially helpful for younger adults. Although recent research suggests that implicit learning can be influenced by directing the participants' attention to relevant aspects of the task, verbalizations had a much weaker influence on implicit than explicit learning. Our results show that verbalizing during learning slows down reaction times (RTs) but does not influence the amount of implicit learning. Especially older adults were not able to overcome the cost of the dual-task situation. Younger adults, in contrast, show an initial dual-tasking cost that, in the case of a helpful verbalization, is overcome with practice and turns into a RT and learning benefit. However, when the verbalization is omitted this benefit is lost, that is, better implicit learning seems to be confined to situations in which the supporting verbalization is maintained. Additionally, we did not find reliable age differences in implicit learning in the no verbalization groups, which speaks in favor of age-invariant models of implicit learning across the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Evaluation of induced and evoked changes in EEG during selective attention to verbal stimuli.

PubMed

Horki, P; Bauernfeind, G; Schippinger, W; Pichler, G; Müller-Putz, G R

2016-09-01

Two challenges need to be addressed before bringing non-motor mental tasks for brain-computer interface (BCI) control to persons in a minimally conscious state (MCS), who can be behaviorally unresponsive even when proven to be consciously aware: first, keeping the cognitive demands as low as possible so that they could be fulfilled by persons with MCS. Second, increasing the control of experimental protocol (i.e. type and timing of the task performance). The goal of this study is twofold: first goal is to develop an experimental paradigm that can facilitate the performance of brain-teasers (e.g. mental subtraction and word generation) on the one hand, and can increase the control of experimental protocol on the other hand. The second goal of this study is to exploit the similar findings for mentally attending to someone else's verbal performance of brain-teaser tasks and self-performing the same tasks to setup an online BCI, and to compare it in healthy participants to the current "state-of-the-art" motor imagery (MI, sports). The response accuracies for the best performing healthy participants indicate that selective attention to verbal performance of mental subtraction (SUB) is a viable alternative to the MI. Time-frequency analysis of the SUB task in one participant with MCS did not reveal any significant (p<0.05) EEG changes, whereas imagined performance of one sport of participants' choice (SPORT) revealed task-related EEG changes over neurophysiological plausible cortical areas. We found that mentally attending to someone else's verbal performance of brain-teaser tasks leads to similar results as in self-performing the same tasks. In this work we demonstrated that a single auditory selective attention task (i.e. mentally attending to someone else's verbal performance of mental subtraction) can modulate both induced and evoked changes in EEG, and be used for yes/no communication in an auditory scanning paradigm. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Verbal Working Memory Is Related to the Acquisition of Cross-Linguistic Phonological Regularities.

PubMed

Bosma, Evelyn; Heeringa, Wilbert; Hoekstra, Eric; Versloot, Arjen; Blom, Elma

2017-01-01

Closely related languages share cross-linguistic phonological regularities, such as Frisian -âld [ͻ:t] and Dutch -oud [ʱut], as in the cognate pairs kâld [kͻ:t] - koud [kʱut] 'cold' and wâld [wͻ:t] - woud [wʱut] 'forest'. Within Bybee's (1995, 2001, 2008, 2010) network model, these regularities are, just like grammatical rules within a language, generalizations that emerge from schemas of phonologically and semantically related words. Previous research has shown that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of grammar, but not vocabulary. This suggests that verbal working memory supports the acquisition of linguistic regularities. In order to test this hypothesis we investigated whether verbal working memory is also related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. For three consecutive years, 5- to 8-year-old Frisian-Dutch bilingual children ( n = 120) were tested annually on verbal working memory and a Frisian receptive vocabulary task that comprised four cognate categories: (1) identical cognates, (2) non-identical cognates that either do or (3) do not exhibit a phonological regularity between Frisian and Dutch, and (4) non-cognates. The results showed that verbal working memory had a significantly stronger effect on cognate category (2) than on the other three cognate categories. This suggests that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. More generally, it confirms the hypothesis that verbal working memory plays a role in the acquisition of linguistic regularities.

Dynamic working memory performance in individuals with single-domain amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

PubMed

Guild, Emma B; Vasquez, Brandon P; Maione, Andrea M; Mah, Linda; Ween, Jon; Anderson, Nicole D

2014-01-01

Previous studies have observed poorer working memory performance in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment than in healthy older adults. It is unclear, however, whether these difficulties are true only of the multiple-domain clinical subtype in whom poorer executive functioning is common. The current study examined working memory, as measured by the self-ordered pointing task (SOPT) and an n-back task, in healthy older adults and adults with single-domain amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Individuals with single-domain aMCI committed more errors and required longer to develop an organizational strategy on the SOPT. The single-domain aMCI group did not differ from healthy older adults on the 1-back or 2-back, but had poorer discrimination on the 3-back task. This is, to our knowledge, the first characterization of dynamic working memory performance in a single-domain aMCI group. These results lend support for the idea that clinical amnestic MCI subtypes may reflect different stages on a continuum of progression to dementia and question whether standardized measures of working memory (span tasks) are sensitive enough to capture subtle changes in performance.

Hallucination- and speech-specific hypercoupling in frontotemporal auditory and language networks in schizophrenia using combined task-based fMRI data: An fBIRN study.

PubMed

Lavigne, Katie M; Woodward, Todd S

2018-04-01

Hypercoupling of activity in speech-perception-specific brain networks has been proposed to play a role in the generation of auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia; however, it is unclear whether this hypercoupling extends to nonverbal auditory perception. We investigated this by comparing schizophrenia patients with and without AVHs, and healthy controls, on task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data combining verbal speech perception (SP), inner verbal thought generation (VTG), and nonverbal auditory oddball detection (AO). Data from two previously published fMRI studies were simultaneously analyzed using group constrained principal component analysis for fMRI (group fMRI-CPCA), which allowed for comparison of task-related functional brain networks across groups and tasks while holding the brain networks under study constant, leading to determination of the degree to which networks are common to verbal and nonverbal perception conditions, and which show coordinated hyperactivity in hallucinations. Three functional brain networks emerged: (a) auditory-motor, (b) language processing, and (c) default-mode (DMN) networks. Combining the AO and sentence tasks allowed the auditory-motor and language networks to separately emerge, whereas they were aggregated when individual tasks were analyzed. AVH patients showed greater coordinated activity (deactivity for DMN regions) than non-AVH patients during SP in all networks, but this did not extend to VTG or AO. This suggests that the hypercoupling in AVH patients in speech-perception-related brain networks is specific to perceived speech, and does not extend to perceived nonspeech or inner verbal thought generation. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure on verbal memory revealed with fMRI

PubMed Central

Lu, Lisa H.; Johnson, Arianne; O’Hare, Elizabeth D.; Bookheimer, Susan Y.; Smith, Lynne M.; O’Connor, Mary J.; Sowell, Elizabeth R.

2009-01-01

Objective Efforts to understand specific effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure on cognitive processing are hampered by high rates of concomitant alcohol use during pregnancy. We examined whether neurocognitive systems differed among children with differing prenatal teratogenic exposures when they engaged in a verbal memory task. Patients and Methods Participants (7-15 years old) engaged in a verbal paired associate learning task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The MA group included 14 children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure, 12 of whom had concomitant alcohol exposure. They were compared to 9 children with prenatal alcohol but not methamphetamine exposure (ALC) and 20 unexposed controls (CON). Groups did not differ in age, gender, or socioeconomic status. Participants’ IQ and verbal learning performance were measured using standardized instruments. Results The MA group activated more diffuse brain regions, including bilateral medial temporal structures known to be important for memory, than both the ALC and the CON groups. These group differences remained after IQ was covaried. More activation in medial temporal structures by the MA group compared to the ALC group cannot be explained by performance differences because both groups performed at similar levels on the verbal memory task. Conclusions More diffuse activation in the MA group during verbal memory may reflect recruitment of compensatory systems to support a weak verbal memory network. Differences in activation patterns between the MA and ALC groups suggest that prenatal MA exposure influences the development of the verbal memory system above and beyond effects of prenatal alcohol exposure. PMID:19525715

Cognitive load selectively influences the interruptive effect of pain on attention.

PubMed

Moore, David J; Eccleston, Christopher; Keogh, Edmund

2017-10-01

Pain is known to interrupt attentional performance. Such interference effects seem to occur preferentially for tasks that are complex and/or difficult. However, few studies have directly manipulated memory load in the context of pain interference to test this view. Therefore, this study examines the effect of experimental manipulations of both memory load and pain on 3 tasks previously found to be sensitive to pain interference. Three experiments were conducted. A different task was examined in each experiment, each comprising of a high- and low-cognitive load versions of the task. Experiment 1 comprised an attention span (n-back) task, experiment 2 an attention switching task, and experiment 3 a divided attention task. Each task was conducted under painful and nonpainful conditions. Within the pain condition, an experimental thermal pain induction protocol was administered at the same time participants completed the task. The load manipulations were successful in all experiments. Pain-related interference occurred under the high-load condition but only for the attention span task. No effect of pain was found on either the attentional switching or divided attention task. These results suggest that while cognitive load may influence the interruptive effect of pain on attention, this effect may be selective. Because pain affected the high-load version of the n-back task but did not interrupt performance on attentional switching or dual-task paradigms, this means that our findings did not completely support our hypotheses. Future research should explore further the parameters and conditions under which pain-related interference occurs.

Verbal and memory skills in males with Duchenne muscular dystrophy

PubMed Central

Hinton, V J; BA, R J Fee; Goldstein, E M; De Vivo, D C

2007-01-01

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive pediatric disorder that affects both muscle and brain. Children with DMD have mean IQ scores that are about one standard deviation lower than population means, with lower Verbal IQ than Performance IQ scores. For the present study, verbal skills and verbal memory skills were examined in males with DMD with the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 3rd edition, and the California Verbal Learning Test for Children. Performance of 50 males with DMD (age range 6–14y, mean 9y 4mo [SD 2y 1mo]) was compared to normative values. Two subsets of the probands were also compared with two comparison groups: unaffected siblings (n=24; DMD group age range 6–12y, mean 9y 1mo [SD 1y 8mo]; sibling age range 6–15y, mean 9y 11mo [SD 2y 4mo]) and males with cerebral palsy (CP); (n=23; DMD group age range 6–9y, mean 7y 8mo [SD 1y 2mo]; CP age range 6–8y, mean 6y 8mo [SD 0y 8mo]). Results demonstrated that although males with DMD performed slightly more poorly than normative values, they performed comparably to the controls on most measures. Consistent deficits were observed only on tests requiring immediate repetition for verbal material (Recalling Sentences, and Concepts and Directions). On other language tasks, including tests of understanding and use of grammar, and understanding of semantic relationships, the males with DMD performed well. Moreover, the males with DMD performed well on multiple indices of verbal recall, and there was no evidence of declarative memory deficits. DMD is a single-gene disorder that is selectively associated with decreased verbal span capacity, but not impaired recall. PMID:17254000

Nicotine effects on brain function and functional connectivity in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Jacobsen, Leslie K; D'Souza, D Cyril; Mencl, W Einar; Pugh, Kenneth R; Skudlarski, Pawel; Krystal, John H

2004-04-15

Nicotine in tobacco smoke can improve functioning in multiple cognitive domains. High rates of smoking among schizophrenic patients may reflect an effort to remediate cognitive dysfunction. Our primary aim was to determine whether nicotine improves cognitive function by facilitating activation of brain regions mediating task performance or by facilitating functional connectivity. Thirteen smokers with schizophrenia and 13 smokers with no mental illness were withdrawn from tobacco and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning twice, once after placement of a placebo patch and once after placement of a nicotine patch. During scanning, subjects performed an n-back task with two levels of working memory load and of selective attention load. During the most difficult (dichotic 2-back) task condition, nicotine improved performance of schizophrenic subjects and worsened performance of control subjects. Nicotine also enhanced activation of a network of regions, including anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral thalamus, and modulated thalamocortical functional connectivity to a greater degree in schizophrenic than in control subjects during dichotic 2-back task performance. In tasks that tax working memory and selective attention, nicotine may improve performance in schizophrenia patients by enhancing activation of and functional connectivity between brain regions that mediate task performance.

The suppression effect in visuospatial and verbal working memory span tasks in patients with Alzheimer's disease: a 2-year follow-up study.

PubMed

Elosúa, M Rosa; Peinado, Matías; Contreras, María José; Reales, J Manuel; Montoro, Pedro R

2016-10-01

This study adapted a new task to assess visuospatial and verbal working memory impairments in patients with Alzheimer Disease (AD), including an executive strategy of information suppression. The aim was to examine the visuospatial and verbal difficulties, and additionally to explore the average sex differences, during a 2-year follow-up study. The results indicated that patients with AD showed a significantly lower performance, compared with healthy elderly controls, especially with the suppression of information required in this new task. However, suppression did not lead to a significantly greater decline in the performance of patients when compared with the control group.

Episodic, semantic and procedural memory in a case of amnesia at an early age.

PubMed

Ostergaard, A L

1987-01-01

The patient C.C. developed an amnesic syndrome at the age of 10 yr. Like adult amnesics, C.C. demonstrated impaired episodic memory for both verbal and visual materials although immediate memory span was spared. However, striking deficits were also observed on a wide variety of semantic memory tasks, including reading vocabulary and verbal fluency tests, semantic classification and lexical decision tasks and tests of verbal intelligence. On the other hand, C.C. showed normal learning and retention of two procedural tasks. It was argued that this evidence is inconsistent with the view that the amnesic syndrome represents a selective defect of episodic memory that leaves semantic memory relatively unaffected.

Basic number processing in children with specific learning disorders: Comorbidity of reading and mathematics disorders.

PubMed

Moll, Kristina; Göbel, Silke M; Snowling, Margaret J

2015-01-01

As well as being the hallmark of mathematics disorders, deficits in number processing have also been reported for individuals with reading disorders. The aim of the present study was to investigate separately the components of numerical processing affected in reading and mathematical disorders within the framework of the Triple Code Model. Children with reading disorders (RD), mathematics disorders (MD), comorbid deficits (RD + MD), and typically developing children (TD) were tested on verbal, visual-verbal, and nonverbal number tasks. As expected, children with MD were impaired across a broad range of numerical tasks. In contrast, children with RD were impaired in (visual-)verbal number tasks but showed age-appropriate performance in nonverbal number skills, suggesting their impairments were domain specific and related to their reading difficulties. The comorbid group showed an additive profile of the impairments of the two single-deficit groups. Performance in speeded verbal number tasks was related to rapid automatized naming, a measure of visual-verbal access in the RD but not in the MD group. The results indicate that deficits in number skills are due to different underlying cognitive deficits in children with RD compared to children with MD: a phonological deficit in RD and a deficit in processing numerosities in MD.

Event-related potentials elicited during working memory are altered in mild cognitive impairment.

PubMed

López Zunini, Rocío A; Knoefel, Frank; Lord, Courtney; Dzuali, Fiatsogbe; Breau, Michael; Sweet, Lisa; Goubran, Rafik; Taler, Vanessa

2016-11-01

Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) can experience deficits in working memory. In the present study, we investigated working memory in persons with MCI and cognitively healthy older adults using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants performed an n-back working memory task with baseline (0-back), low load (1-back), and high load (2-back) working memory conditions. MCI participants' performance was less accurate than that of healthy older adults in both the 1-back and 2-back conditions, and reaction times were longer in MCI than control participants in the 0-back, 1-back and 2-back conditions. ERP analyses revealed delayed P200 and N200 latencies and smaller P300 amplitudes in MCI relative to control participants in the 0-back, 1-back and 2-back conditions. Deterioration in working memory performance concomitant with marked electrophysiological alterations suggests that persons with MCI exhibit deficits in several cognitive processes that include early attention, stimulus discrimination and classification, and updating and manipulation of information held in working memory. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cognitive load of navigating without vision when guided by virtual sound versus spatial language.

PubMed

Klatzky, Roberta L; Marston, James R; Giudice, Nicholas A; Golledge, Reginald G; Loomis, Jack M

2006-12-01

A vibrotactile N-back task was used to generate cognitive load while participants were guided along virtual paths without vision. As participants stepped in place, they moved along a virtual path of linear segments. Information was provided en route about the direction of the next turning point, by spatial language ("left," "right," or "straight") or virtual sound (i.e., the perceived azimuth of the sound indicated the target direction). The authors hypothesized that virtual sound, being processed at direct perceptual levels, would have lower load than even simple language commands, which require cognitive mediation. As predicted, whereas the guidance modes did not differ significantly in the no-load condition, participants showed shorter distance traveled and less time to complete a path when performing the N-back task while navigating with virtual sound as guidance. Virtual sound also produced better N-back performance than spatial language. By indicating the superiority of virtual sound for guidance when cognitive load is present, as is characteristic of everyday navigation, these results have implications for guidance systems for the visually impaired and others.

The ERP research about the influence of the music of Chopin on working memory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, C. A.; Wei, Hong-tao; Yue, Li-juan

2011-10-01

This study is to examine the effect of the music of Chopin on working memory and the electrical activity of the brain in different conditions by using event-related potentials (ERPs), adopting n-back experimental paradigm and to study the neuromechanism. Thirty adults performed behavioral experiments with three conditions of music and two levels of n-back task. Fourteen normal adults performed ERP experiments with the same program as the behavioral experiment and the EEG were recorded. Chopin music improved people's working memory and pilot music improved most effectively.P3 peak amplitude decreased as working memory load increased. Especially in high load task, P3 peak amplitude decreased gradually in pilot music, background music and free music condition.

Movement Interferes with Visuospatial Working Memory during the Encoding: An ERP Study

PubMed Central

Gunduz Can, Rumeysa; Schack, Thomas; Koester, Dirk

2017-01-01

The present study focuses on the functional interactions of cognition and manual action control. Particularly, we investigated the neurophysiological correlates of the dual-task costs of a manual-motor task (requiring grasping an object, holding it, and subsequently placing it on a target) for working memory (WM) domains (verbal and visuospatial) and processes (encoding and retrieval). Thirty participants were tested in a cognitive-motor dual-task paradigm, in which a single block (a verbal or visuospatial WM task) was compared with a dual block (concurrent performance of a WM task and a motor task). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed separately for the encoding and retrieval processes of verbal and visuospatial WM domains both in single and dual blocks. The behavioral analyses show that the motor task interfered with WM and decreased the memory performance. The performance decrease was larger for the visuospatial task compared with the verbal task, i.e., domain-specific memory costs were obtained. The ERP analyses show the domain-specific interference also at the neurophysiological level, which is further process-specific to encoding. That is, comparing the patterns of WM-related ERPs in the single block and dual block, we showed that visuospatial ERPs changed only for the encoding process when a motor task was performed at the same time. Generally, the present study provides evidence for domain- and process-specific interactions of a prepared manual-motor movement with WM (visuospatial domain during the encoding process). This study, therefore, provides an initial neurophysiological characterization of functional interactions of WM and manual actions in a cognitive-motor dual-task setting, and contributes to a better understanding of the neuro-cognitive mechanisms of motor action control. PMID:28611714

Left-Dominant Temporal-Frontal Hypercoupling in Schizophrenia Patients With Hallucinations During Speech Perception

PubMed Central

Lavigne, Katie M.; Rapin, Lucile A.; Metzak, Paul D.; Whitman, Jennifer C.; Jung, Kwanghee; Dohen, Marion; Lœvenbruck, Hélène; Woodward, Todd S.

2015-01-01

Background: Task-based functional neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia have not yet replicated the increased coordinated hyperactivity in speech-related brain regions that is reported with symptom-capture and resting-state studies of hallucinations. This may be due to suboptimal selection of cognitive tasks. Methods: In the current study, we used a task that allowed experimental manipulation of control over verbal material and compared brain activity between 23 schizophrenia patients (10 hallucinators, 13 nonhallucinators), 22 psychiatric (bipolar), and 27 healthy controls. Two conditions were presented, one involving inner verbal thought (in which control over verbal material was required) and another involving speech perception (SP; in which control verbal material was not required). Results: A functional connectivity analysis resulted in a left-dominant temporal-frontal network that included speech-related auditory and motor regions and showed hypercoupling in past-week hallucinating schizophrenia patients (relative to nonhallucinating patients) during SP only. Conclusions: These findings replicate our previous work showing generalized speech-related functional network hypercoupling in schizophrenia during inner verbal thought and SP, but extend them by suggesting that hypercoupling is related to past-week hallucination severity scores during SP only, when control over verbal material is not required. This result opens the possibility that practicing control over inner verbal thought processes may decrease the likelihood or severity of hallucinations. PMID:24553150

"Pre-Semantic" Cognition Revisited: Critical Differences between Semantic Aphasia and Semantic Dementia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jefferies, Elizabeth; Rogers, Timothy T.; Hopper, Samantha; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A.

2010-01-01

Patients with semantic dementia show a specific pattern of impairment on both verbal and non-verbal "pre-semantic" tasks, e.g., reading aloud, past tense generation, spelling to dictation, lexical decision, object decision, colour decision and delayed picture copying. All seven tasks are characterised by poorer performance for items that are…

Effects of Hearing Status and Sign Language Use on Working Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marschark, Marc; Sarchet, Thomastine; Trani, Alexandra

2016-01-01

Deaf individuals have been found to score lower than hearing individuals across a variety of memory tasks involving both verbal and nonverbal stimuli, particularly those requiring retention of serial order. Deaf individuals who are native signers, meanwhile, have been found to score higher on visual-spatial memory tasks than on verbal-sequential…

Children's Verbal Working Memory: Role of Processing Complexity in Predicting Spoken Sentence Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Magimairaj, Beula M.; Montgomery, James W.

2012-01-01

Purpose: This study investigated the role of processing complexity of verbal working memory tasks in predicting spoken sentence comprehension in typically developing children. Of interest was whether simple and more complex working memory tasks have similar or different power in predicting sentence comprehension. Method: Sixty-five children (6- to…

Effects of Anxiety on Memory Storage and Updating in Young Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Visu-Petra, Laura; Cheie, Lavinia; Benga, Oana; Alloway, Tracy Packiam

2011-01-01

The relationship between trait anxiety and memory functioning in young children was investigated. Two studies were conducted, using tasks tapping verbal and visual-spatial short-term memory (Study 1) and working memory (Study 2) in preschoolers. On the verbal storage tasks, there was a detrimental effect of anxiety on processing efficiency…

Planning Abilities in Bilingual and Monolingual Children: Role of Verbal Mediation.

PubMed

Gangopadhyay, Ishanti; McDonald, Margarethe; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

2018-01-01

We examined the role of verbal mediation in planning performance of English-Spanish-speaking bilingual children and monolingual English-speaking children, between the ages of 9 and 12 years. To measure planning, children were administered the Tower of London (ToL) task. In a dual-task paradigm, children completed ToL problems under three conditions: with no secondary task (baseline), with articulatory suppression, and with non-verbal motor suppression. Analyses revealed generally shorter planning times for bilinguals than monolinguals but both groups performed similarly on number of moves and execution times. Additionally, bilingual children were more efficient at planning throughout the duration of the task while monolingual children showed significant gains with more practice. Children's planning times under articulatory suppression were significantly shorter than under motor suppression as well as the baseline condition, and there was no difference in planning times between monolingual and bilingual children during articulatory suppression. These results demonstrate that bilingualism influences performance on a complex EF measure like planning, and that these effects are not related to verbal mediation.

Sex Differences and Autism: Brain Function during Verbal Fluency and Mental Rotation

PubMed Central

Minati, Ludovico; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Lombardo, Michael V.; Lai, Meng-Chuan; Walker, Anne; Howard, Dawn; Gray, Marcus A.; Harrison, Neil A.; Critchley, Hugo D.

2012-01-01

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) affect more males than females. This suggests that the neurobiology of autism: 1) may overlap with mechanisms underlying typical sex-differentiation or 2) alternately reflect sex-specificity in how autism is expressed in males and females. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test these alternate hypotheses. Fifteen men and fourteen women with Asperger syndrome (AS), and sixteen typically developing men and sixteen typically developing women underwent fMRI during performance of mental rotation and verbal fluency tasks. All groups performed the tasks equally well. On the verbal fluency task, despite equivalent task-performance, both males and females with AS showed enhanced activation of left occipitoparietal and inferior prefrontal activity compared to controls. During mental rotation, there was a significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction across occipital, temporal, parietal, middle frontal regions, with greater activation in AS males and typical females compared to AS females and typical males. These findings suggest a complex relationship between autism and sex that is differentially expressed in verbal and visuospatial domains. PMID:22701630

Planning Abilities in Bilingual and Monolingual Children: Role of Verbal Mediation

PubMed Central

Gangopadhyay, Ishanti; McDonald, Margarethe; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

2018-01-01

We examined the role of verbal mediation in planning performance of English–Spanish-speaking bilingual children and monolingual English-speaking children, between the ages of 9 and 12 years. To measure planning, children were administered the Tower of London (ToL) task. In a dual-task paradigm, children completed ToL problems under three conditions: with no secondary task (baseline), with articulatory suppression, and with non-verbal motor suppression. Analyses revealed generally shorter planning times for bilinguals than monolinguals but both groups performed similarly on number of moves and execution times. Additionally, bilingual children were more efficient at planning throughout the duration of the task while monolingual children showed significant gains with more practice. Children’s planning times under articulatory suppression were significantly shorter than under motor suppression as well as the baseline condition, and there was no difference in planning times between monolingual and bilingual children during articulatory suppression. These results demonstrate that bilingualism influences performance on a complex EF measure like planning, and that these effects are not related to verbal mediation. PMID:29593620

Sex differences and autism: brain function during verbal fluency and mental rotation.

PubMed

Beacher, Felix D C C; Radulescu, Eugenia; Minati, Ludovico; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Lombardo, Michael V; Lai, Meng-Chuan; Walker, Anne; Howard, Dawn; Gray, Marcus A; Harrison, Neil A; Critchley, Hugo D

2012-01-01

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) affect more males than females. This suggests that the neurobiology of autism: 1) may overlap with mechanisms underlying typical sex-differentiation or 2) alternately reflect sex-specificity in how autism is expressed in males and females. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test these alternate hypotheses. Fifteen men and fourteen women with Asperger syndrome (AS), and sixteen typically developing men and sixteen typically developing women underwent fMRI during performance of mental rotation and verbal fluency tasks. All groups performed the tasks equally well. On the verbal fluency task, despite equivalent task-performance, both males and females with AS showed enhanced activation of left occipitoparietal and inferior prefrontal activity compared to controls. During mental rotation, there was a significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction across occipital, temporal, parietal, middle frontal regions, with greater activation in AS males and typical females compared to AS females and typical males. These findings suggest a complex relationship between autism and sex that is differentially expressed in verbal and visuospatial domains.

The capacity of people with a 'mental disability' to make a health care decision.

PubMed

Wong, J G; Clare, C H; Holland, A J; Watson, P C; Gunn, M

2000-03-01

Based on the developing clinical and legal literature, and using the framework adopted in draft legislation, capacity to make a valid decision about a clinically required blood test was investigated in three groups of people with a 'mental disability' (i.e. mental illness (chronic schizophrenia), 'learning disability' ('mental retardation', or intellectual or developmental disability), or, dementia) and a fourth, comparison group. The three 'mental disability' groups (N = 20 in the 'learning disability' group, N = 21 in each of the other two groups) were recruited through the relevant local clinical services; and through a phlebotomy clinic for the 'general population' comparison group (N = 20). The decision-making task was progressively simplified by presenting the relevant information as separate elements and modifying the assessment of capacity so that responding became gradually less dependent on expressive verbal ability. Compared with the 'general population' group, capacity to make the particular decision was significantly more impaired in the 'learning disability' and 'dementia' groups. Importantly, however, it was not more impaired among the 'mental illness' group. All the groups benefited as the decision-making task was simplified, but at different stages. In each of the 'mental disability' groups, one participant benefited only when responding did not require any expensive verbal ability. Consistent with current views, capacity reflected an interaction between the decision-maker and the demands of the decision-making task. The findings have implications for the way in which decisions about health care interventions are sought from people with a 'mental disability'. The methodology may be extended to assess capacity to make other legally-significant decisions.

Gait analysis with cognitive-motor dual tasks to distinguish fallers from nonfallers among rehabilitating stroke patients.

PubMed

Baetens, Tina; De Kegel, Alexandra; Palmans, Tanneke; Oostra, Kristine; Vanderstraeten, Guy; Cambier, Dirk

2013-04-01

To evaluate fall risk in stroke patients based on single- and dual-task gait analyses, and to investigate the difference between 2 cognitive tasks in the dual-task paradigm. Prospective cohort study. Rehabilitation hospitals. Subacute stroke patients (N=32), able to walk without physical/manual help with or without walking aids, while performing a verbal task. Not applicable. Functional gait measures were Functional Ambulation Categories (FAC) and use of a walking aid. Gait measures were evaluated by an electronic walkway system under single- and dual-task (DT) conditions. For the single-task, subjects were instructed to walk at their usual speed. One of the DTs was a verbal fluency dual task, whereby subjects had to walk while simultaneously enumerating as many different animals as possible. For the other DT (counting dual task), participants had to walk while performing serial subtractions. After inclusion, participants kept a 6-month falls diary. Eighteen (56.3%) of the 32 included patients fell. Ten (31.3%) were single fallers (SFs), and 8 (25%) were multiple fallers (MFs). Fallers (Fs) more frequently used a walking aid and more frequently needed an observatory person for walking safely (FAC score of 3) than nonfallers (NFs). Two gait decrement parameters in counting dual task could distinguish potential Fs from NFs: decrement in stride length percentage (P=.043) and nonparetic step length percentage (P=.047). Regarding the division in 3 groups (NFs, SFs, and MFs), only MFs had a significantly higher percentage of decrement for paretic step length (P=.023) than SFs. Examining the decrement of spatial gait characteristics (stride length and paretic and nonparetic step length) during a DT addressing working memory can identify fall-prone subacute stroke patients. Copyright © 2013 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Zinc finger protein 804A (ZNF804A) and verbal deficits in individuals with autism.

PubMed

Anitha, Ayyappan; Thanseem, Ismail; Nakamura, Kazuhiko; Vasu, Mahesh M; Yamada, Kazuo; Ueki, Takatoshi; Iwayama, Yoshimi; Toyota, Tomoko; Tsuchiya, Kenji J; Iwata, Yasuhide; Suzuki, Katsuaki; Sugiyama, Toshiro; Tsujii, Masatsugu; Yoshikawa, Takeo; Mori, Norio

2014-09-01

In a genome-wide association study of autism, zinc finger protein 804A (ZNF804A) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were found to be nominally associated in verbally deficient individuals with autism. Zinc finger protein 804A copy number variations (CNVs) have also been observed in individuals with autism. In addition, ZNF804A is known to be involved in theory of mind (ToM) tasks, and ToM deficits are deemed responsible for the communication and social challenges faced by individuals with autism. We hypothesized that ZNF804A could be a risk gene for autism. We examined the genetic association and CNVs of ZNF804A in 841 families in which 1 or more members had autism. We compared the expression of ZNF804A in the postmortem brains of individuals with autism (n = 8) and controls (n = 13). We also assessed in vitro the effect of ZNF804A silencing on the expression of several genes known to be involved in verbal efficiency and social cognition. We found that rs7603001 was nominally associated with autism (p = 0.018). The association was stronger (p = 0.008) in the families of individuals with autism who were verbally deficient (n = 761 families). We observed ZNF804A CNVs in 7 verbally deficient boys with autism. In ZNF804A knockdown cells, the expression of synaptosomal-associated protein, 25kDa (SNAP25) was reduced compared with controls (p = 0.009). The expression of ZNF804A (p = 0.009) and SNAP25 (p = 0.009) were reduced in the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG) of individuals with autism. There was a strong positive correlation between the expression of ZNF804A and SNAP25 in the ACG (p < 0.001). Study limitations include our small sample size of postmortem brains. Our results suggest that ZNF804A could be a potential candidate gene mediating the intermediate phenotypes associated with verbal traits in individuals with autism.

Commentary--Attachment in Middle Childhood: Looking Back, Forward, and Within

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Steele, Howard

2015-01-01

This commentary discusses the articles that comprise this special issue on attachment in middle childhood. Central to this discussion is the distinction between verbal, strategic, and conscious responses to questionnaires as compared to verbal and nonverbal, automatic and largely unconscious responses to interviews. Both methods have been…

The influence of cue-task association and location on switch cost and alternating-switch cost.

PubMed

Arbuthnott, Katherine D; Woodward, Todd S

2002-03-01

Task-switching performance is strongly influenced by whether the imperative stimulus uniquely specifies which task to perform: Switch cost is substantial with bivalent stimuli but is greatly reduced with univalent stimuli, suggesting that available contextual information influences processing in task-switching situations. The present study examined whether task-relevant information provided by task cues influences the magnitude of switch cost in a parallel manner. Cues presented 500 ms prior to a trivalent stimulus indicated which of three tasks to perform. These cues either had a preexisting association with the to-be-performed task (verbal cues), or a recently learned association with the task (spatial and shape cues). The results paralleled the effects of stimulus bivalence: substantial switch cost with recently learned cue-task associations and greatly reduced switch cost with preexisting cue-task associations. This suggests that both stimulus-based and cue-based information can activate the relevant task set, possibly providing external support to endogenous control processes. Alternating-switch cost, a greater cost for switching back to a recently abandoned task, was also observed with both preexisting and recently learned cue-task associations, but only when all tasks were presented in a consistent spatial location. When spatial location was used to cue the to-be-performed tasks, no alternating-switch cost was observed, suggesting that different processes may be involved when tasks are uniquely located in space. Specification of the nature of these processes may prove to be complex, as post-hoc inspection of the data suggested that for the spatial cue condition, the alternating-switch cost may oscillate between cost and benefit, depending on the relevant task.

Contrasting Complement Control, Temporal Adjunct Control and Controlled Verbal Gerund Subjects in ASD: The Role of Contextual Cues in Reference Assignment.

PubMed

Janke, Vikki; Perovic, Alexandra

2017-01-01

This study examines two complex syntactic dependencies (complement control and sentence-final temporal adjunct control) and one pragmatic dependency (controlled verbal gerund subjects) in children with ASD. Sixteen high-functioning (HFA) children (aged 6-16) with a diagnosis of autism and no language impairment, matched on age, gender and non-verbal MA to one TD control group, and on age, gender and verbal MA to another TD control group, undertook three picture-selection tasks. Task 1 measured their base-line interpretations of the empty categories ( ec ). Task 2 preceded these sentence sets with a weakly established topic cueing an alternative referent and Task 3 with a strongly established topic cueing an alternative referent. In complement control (Ron persuaded Hermione ec to kick the ball) and sentence-final temporal adjunct control (Harry tapped Luna while ec feeding the owl), the reference of the ec is argued to be related obligatorily to the object and subject respectively. In controlled verbal-gerund subjects (VGS) ( ec Rowing the boat clumsily made Luna seasick), the ec 's reference is resolved pragmatically. Referent choices across the three tasks were compared. TD children chose the object uniformly in complement control across all tasks but in adjunct control, preferences shifted toward the object in Task 3. In controlled VGSs, they exhibited a strong preference for an internal-referent interpretation in Task 1, which shifted in the direction of the cues in Tasks 2 and 3. HFA children gave a mixed performance. They patterned with their TD counterparts on complement control and controlled VGSs but performed marginally differently on adjunct control: no TD groups were influenced by the weakly established topic in Task 2 but all groups were influenced by the strongly established topic in Task 3. HFA children were less influenced than the TD children, resulting in their making fewer object choices overall but revealing parallel patterns of performance. In this first study of three sub-types of control in ASD, we demonstrate that HFA children consult the same pragmatic cues to the same degree as TD children, in spite of the diverse pragmatic deficits reported for this population.

Contrasting Complement Control, Temporal Adjunct Control and Controlled Verbal Gerund Subjects in ASD: The Role of Contextual Cues in Reference Assignment

PubMed Central

Janke, Vikki; Perovic, Alexandra

2017-01-01

This study examines two complex syntactic dependencies (complement control and sentence-final temporal adjunct control) and one pragmatic dependency (controlled verbal gerund subjects) in children with ASD. Sixteen high-functioning (HFA) children (aged 6–16) with a diagnosis of autism and no language impairment, matched on age, gender and non-verbal MA to one TD control group, and on age, gender and verbal MA to another TD control group, undertook three picture-selection tasks. Task 1 measured their base-line interpretations of the empty categories (ec). Task 2 preceded these sentence sets with a weakly established topic cueing an alternative referent and Task 3 with a strongly established topic cueing an alternative referent. In complement control (Ron persuaded Hermione ec to kick the ball) and sentence-final temporal adjunct control (Harry tapped Luna while ec feeding the owl), the reference of the ec is argued to be related obligatorily to the object and subject respectively. In controlled verbal-gerund subjects (VGS) (ec Rowing the boat clumsily made Luna seasick), the ec's reference is resolved pragmatically. Referent choices across the three tasks were compared. TD children chose the object uniformly in complement control across all tasks but in adjunct control, preferences shifted toward the object in Task 3. In controlled VGSs, they exhibited a strong preference for an internal-referent interpretation in Task 1, which shifted in the direction of the cues in Tasks 2 and 3. HFA children gave a mixed performance. They patterned with their TD counterparts on complement control and controlled VGSs but performed marginally differently on adjunct control: no TD groups were influenced by the weakly established topic in Task 2 but all groups were influenced by the strongly established topic in Task 3. HFA children were less influenced than the TD children, resulting in their making fewer object choices overall but revealing parallel patterns of performance. In this first study of three sub-types of control in ASD, we demonstrate that HFA children consult the same pragmatic cues to the same degree as TD children, in spite of the diverse pragmatic deficits reported for this population. PMID:28400743

Beyond Capacity Limitations: Determinants of Word Recall Performance on Verbal Working Memory Span Tasks in Children With SLI

PubMed Central

Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.

2016-01-01

Reduced verbal working memory capacity has been proposed as a possible account of language impairments in specific language impairment (SLI). Studies have shown, however, that differences in strength of linguistic representations in the form of word frequency affect list recall and performance on verbal working memory tasks. This suggests that verbal memory capacity and long-term linguistic knowledge may not be distinct constructs. It has been suggested that linguistic representations in SLI are weak in ways that result in a breakdown in language processing on tasks that require manipulation of unfamiliar material. In this study, the effects of word frequency, long-term linguistic knowledge, and serial order position on recall performance in the competing language processing task (CLPT) were investigated in 10 children with SLI and 10 age-matched peers (age 8 years 6 months to 12 years 4 months). The children with SLI recalled significantly fewer target words on the CLPT as compared with their age-matched controls. The SLI group did not differ, however, in their ability to recall target words having high word frequency but were significantly poorer in their ability to recall words on the CLPT having low word frequency. Differences in receptive and expressive language abilities also appeared closely related to performance on the CLPT, suggesting that working memory capacity is not distinct from language knowledge and that degraded linguistic representations may have an effect on performance on verbal working memory span tasks in children with SLI. PMID:16378481

Acute, low-dose methamphetamine administration improves attention/information processing speed and working memory in methamphetamine-dependent individuals displaying poorer cognitive performance at baseline

PubMed Central

Mahoney, James J.; Jackson, Brian J.; Kalechstein, Ari D.; De La Garza, Richard; Newton, Thomas F.

2012-01-01

Abstinent methamphetamine (Meth) dependent individuals demonstrate poorer performance on tests sensitive to attention/information processing speed, learning and memory, and working memory when compared to non-Meth dependent individuals. The poorer performance on these tests may contribute to the morbidity associated with Meth-dependence. In light of this, we sought to determine the effects of acute, low-dose Meth administration on attention, working memory, and verbal learning and memory in 19 non-treatment seeking, Meth-dependent individuals. Participants were predominantly male (89%), Caucasian (63%), and cigarette smokers (63%). Following a four day, drug-free washout period, participants were given a single-blind intravenous infusion of saline, followed the next day by 30 mg of Meth. A battery of neurocognitive tasks was administered before and after each infusion, and performance on measures of accuracy and reaction time were compared between conditions. While acute Meth exposure did not affect test performance for the entire sample, participants who demonstrated relatively poor performance on these tests at baseline, identified using a median split on each test, showed significant improvement on measures of attention/information processing speed and working memory when administered Meth. Improved performance was seen on the following measures of working memory: choice reaction time task (p≤0.04), a 1-back task (p≤0.01), and a 2-back task (p≤0.04). In addition, those participants demonstrating high neurocognitive performance at baseline experienced similar or decreased performance following Meth exposure. These findings suggest that acute administration of Meth may temporarily improve Meth-associated neurocognitive performance in those individuals experiencing lower cognitive performance at baseline. As a result, stimulants may serve as a successful treatment for improving cognitive functioning in those Meth-dependent individuals experiencing neurocognitive impairment. PMID:21122811

Neural effects of cognitive control load on auditory selective attention

PubMed Central

Sabri, Merav; Humphries, Colin; Verber, Matthew; Liebenthal, Einat; Binder, Jeffrey R.; Mangalathu, Jain; Desai, Anjali

2014-01-01

Whether and how working memory disrupts or alters auditory selective attention is unclear. We compared simultaneous event-related potentials (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses associated with task-irrelevant sounds across high and low working memory load in a dichotic-listening paradigm. Participants performed n-back tasks (1-back, 2-back) in one ear (Attend ear) while ignoring task-irrelevant speech sounds in the other ear (Ignore ear). The effects of working memory load on selective attention were observed at 130-210 msec, with higher load resulting in greater irrelevant syllable-related activation in localizer-defined regions in auditory cortex. The interaction between memory load and presence of irrelevant information revealed stronger activations primarily in frontal and parietal areas due to presence of irrelevant information in the higher memory load. Joint independent component analysis of ERP and fMRI data revealed that the ERP component in the N1 time-range is associated with activity in superior temporal gyrus and medial prefrontal cortex. These results demonstrate a dynamic relationship between working memory load and auditory selective attention, in agreement with the load model of attention and the idea of common neural resources for memory and attention. PMID:24946314

Effect of a single dose of dextromethorphan on psychomotor performance and working memory capacity.

PubMed

Al-Kuraishy, Hayder M; Al-Gareeb, Ali I; Ashor, Ammar Waham

2012-04-01

Previous studies show that the prolonged use of dextromethorphan produces cognitive deterioration in humans. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a single dose of dextroemthrophan on psychomotor performance and working memory capacity. This is a randomized, double-blind, controlled, and prospective study. Thirty-six (17 women, 19 men) medical students enrolled in the study; half of them (7 women, 11 men) were given placebo, while the other half (10 women, 8 men) received dextromethorphan. The choice reaction time, critical flicker fusion threshold, and N-back working memory task were measured before and after 2 h of taking the drugs. Dextromethorphan showed a significant deterioration in the 3-back working memory task (P<0.05). No significant changes were seen as regards the choice reaction time components (total, recognition, motor) and critical flicker fusion threshold (P>0.05). On the other hand, placebo showed no significant changes as regards the choice reaction time, critical flicker fusion threshold, and N-back working memory task (P>0.05). A single dose of dextromethorphan has no effect on attention and arousal but may significantly impair the working memory capacity.

Prefrontal activation may predict working-memory training gain in normal aging and mild cognitive impairment.

PubMed

Vermeij, Anouk; Kessels, Roy P C; Heskamp, Linda; Simons, Esther M F; Dautzenberg, Paul L J; Claassen, Jurgen A H R

2017-02-01

Cognitive training has been shown to result in improved behavioral performance in normal aging and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), yet little is known about the neural correlates of cognitive plasticity, or about individual differences in responsiveness to cognitive training. In this study, 21 healthy older adults and 14 patients with MCI received five weeks of adaptive computerized working-memory (WM) training. Before and after training, functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to assess the hemodynamic response in left and right prefrontal cortex during performance of a verbal n-back task with varying levels of WM load. After training, healthy older adults demonstrated decreased prefrontal activation at high WM load, which may indicate increased processing efficiency. Although MCI patients showed improved behavioral performance at low WM load after training, no evidence was found for training-related changes in prefrontal activation. Whole-group analyses showed that a relatively strong hemodynamic response at low WM load was related to worse behavioral performance, while a relatively strong hemodynamic response at high WM load was related to higher training gain. Therefore, a 'youth-like' prefrontal activation pattern at older age may be associated with better behavioral outcome and cognitive plasticity.

Contribution of visuospatial attention, short-term memory and executive functions to performance in number interval bisection.

PubMed

Ranzini, Mariagrazia; Carbè, Katia; Gevers, Wim

2017-05-01

Number interval bisection consists of estimating the mid-number within a pair (1-9=>5). Healthy adults and right-brain damage patients can show biased performance in this task, underestimating and overestimating the mid-number, respectively. The role of visuospatial attention during this task, and its interplay with other cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory) is still object of debate. In this study we explored the relation between visuospatial attention and individual differences in working memory and executive functions during number interval bisection. To manipulate the deployment of visuospatial attention, healthy participants tracked a dot moving to the left or moving to the right while bisecting numerical intervals. We also collected information concerning verbal and visuospatial short-term memory span, and concerning verbal and visuospatial fluency scores. Beside replicating what is typically observed in this task (e.g., underestimation bias), a correlation was observed between verbal short-term memory and bisection bias, and an interesting relation between performance in the number interval bisection, verbal short-term memory, and visuospatial attention. Specifically, performance of those participants with low verbal span was affected by the direction of the moving dot, underestimating at a larger extent when the dot moved leftward than rightward. Finally, it was also observed that participants' verbal fluency ability contributed in the generation of biases in the numerical task. The finding of the involvement of abilities belonging to the verbal domain contributes to unveil the multi-componential nature of number interval bisection. Considering the debate on the nature of number interval bisection and its use in the clinical assessment of deficits following brain damage, this finding may be interesting also from a clinical perspective. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Recoding between two types of STM representation revealed by the dynamics of memory search.

PubMed

Leszczyński, Marcin; Myers, Nicholas E; Akyürek, Elkan G; Schubö, Anna

2012-03-01

Visual STM (VSTM) is thought to be related to visual attention in several ways. Attention controls access to VSTM during memory encoding and plays a role in the maintenance of stored information by strengthening memorized content. We investigated the involvement of visual attention in recall from VSTM. In two experiments, we measured electrophysiological markers of attention in a memory search task with varying intervals between VSTM encoding and recall, and so we were able to track recoding of representations in memory. Results confirmed the involvement of attention in VSTM recall. However, the amplitude of the N2pc and N3rs components, which mark orienting of attention and search within VSTM, decreased as a function of delay. Conversely, the amplitude of the P3 and sustained posterior contralateral negativity components increased as a function of delay, effectively the opposite of the N2pc and N3rs modulations. These effects were only observed when verbal memory was not taxed. Thus, the results suggested that gradual recoding from visuospatial orienting of attention into verbal recall mechanisms takes place from short to long retention intervals. Interestingly, recall at longer delays was faster than at short delays, indicating that verbal representation is coupled with faster responses. These results extend the orienting-of-attention hypothesis by including an account of representational recoding during short-term consolidation and its consequences for recall from VSTM.

The impact of aging and hearing status on verbal short-term memory.

PubMed

Verhaegen, Clémence; Collette, Fabienne; Majerus, Steve

2014-01-01

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of hearing status on age-related decrease in verbal short-term memory (STM) performance. This was done by administering a battery of verbal STM tasks to elderly and young adult participants matched for hearing thresholds, as well as to young normal-hearing control participants. The matching procedure allowed us to assess the importance of hearing loss as an explanatory factor of age-related STM decline. We observed that elderly participants and hearing-matched young participants showed equal levels of performance in all verbal STM tasks, and performed overall lower than the normal-hearing young control participants. This study provides evidence for recent theoretical accounts considering reduced hearing level as an important explanatory factor of poor auditory-verbal STM performance in older adults.

Hyperactivation of working memory related brain circuits in newly-diagnosed middle-aged type 2 diabetics

PubMed Central

He, Xiao-Song; Wang, Zhao-Xin; Zhu, You-Zhi; Wang, Nan; Hu, Xiaoping; Zhang, Da-Ren; Zhu, De-Fa; Zhou, Jiang-Ning

2014-01-01

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is well known for its adverse impacts on brain and cognition, which lead to multidimensional cognitive deficits and wildly-spread cerebral structure abnormalities. However, existing literatures are mainly focused on patients with advanced age or extended T2DM duration. Therefore, it remains unclear whether and how brain function would be affected at the initial onset stage of T2DM in relatively younger population. In current study, twelve newly-diagnosed middle-aged T2DM patients with no previous diabetic treatment history and twelve matched controls were recruited. Brain activations during a working memory task, the digit n-back paradigm (0-, 1- and 2-back), were obtained with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and tested by repeated measures ANOVA. Whereas patients performed the n-back task comparably well as controls, significant load-by-group interactions of brain activation were found in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), left middle/inferior frontal gyrus, and left parietal cortex, where patients exhibited hyperactivation in the 2-back but not the 0-back or 1-back condition compared to controls. Furthermore, the severity of chronic hyperglycemia, estimated by glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level, was entered into partial correlational analyses with task-related brain activations, while controlling for the real-time influence of glucose, estimated by instant plasma glucose level measured before scanning. Significant positive correlations were found between HbA1c and brain activations in the anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral DLPFC only in patients. Taken together, these findings suggest there might be a compensatory mechanism due to brain inefficiency related to chronic hyperglycemia at the initial onset stage of T2DM. PMID:24993663

Are there gender differences in cognitive function, chronic stress, and neurobehavioral symptoms after mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury?

PubMed

Covassin, Tracey; Bay, Esther

2012-06-01

Research is inconclusive on whether gender differences exist in cognitive function in persons who sustain a mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI). Furthermore, it is also unclear whether there is a relationship between chronic stress and cognitive function in these persons. The purpose of this integrative review is to determine whether gender differences exist in cognitive function, neurobehavioral symptoms, and chronic stress levels after a mild-to-moderate TBI. Participants (n = 72) were recruited from eight outpatient rehabilitation centers. Participants completed the demographic questions, the Immediate Postconcussion Assessment Cognitive Testing neurocognitive test battery, the Perceived Stress Scale-14, and the Neurobehavioral Functioning Inventory (NFI). Gender differences were present on verbal memory composite scores (p = .033), with women performing worse than men. There were no other between-gender differences on cognitive tasks, neurobehavioral symptoms, or chronic stress. Higher chronic stress levels result in a decrease in verbal memory (p = .015) and motor processing speed (p = .006) and slower reaction time (p = .007) for women. As male NFI cognition scores increased, motor processing speed scores decreased (p = .012) and reaction time got slower (p = .019), whereas women exhibited decreased verbal memory (p = .017) and slower reaction time (p = .034). As NFI motor symptoms increased, men exhibited decreased verbal memory (p = .005), visual memory (p = .002), and motor processing speed (p = .002) and slower reaction time (p = .002). Overall, this study only found gender differences on verbal memory composite scores, whereas the remaining cognitive tasks, neurobehavioral symptoms, and chronic stress did not indicate gender differences. Correlations between chronic stress, neurobehavioral symptoms, and cognitive function differed in both men and women with TBI. Persons in the chronic phase of recovery from a TBI may benefit from training in compensatory strategies for verbal memory deficits and stress management.

Typicality effects in artificial categories: is there a hemisphere difference?

PubMed

Richards, L G; Chiarello, C

1990-07-01

In category classification tasks, typicality effects are usually found: accuracy and reaction time depend upon distance from a prototype. In this study, subjects learned either verbal or nonverbal dot pattern categories, followed by a lateralized classification task. Comparable typicality effects were found in both reaction time and accuracy across visual fields for both verbal and nonverbal categories. Both hemispheres appeared to use a similarity-to-prototype matching strategy in classification. This indicates that merely having a verbal label does not differentiate classification in the two hemispheres.

Planning sentences while doing other things at the same time: effects of concurrent verbal and visuospatial working memory load.

PubMed

Klaus, Jana; Mädebach, Andreas; Oppermann, Frank; Jescheniak, Jörg D

2017-04-01

This study investigated to what extent advance planning during sentence production is affected by a concurrent cognitive load. In two picture-word interference experiments in which participants produced subject-verb-object sentences while ignoring auditory distractor words, we assessed advance planning at a phonological (lexeme) and at an abstract-lexical (lemma) level under visuospatial or verbal working memory (WM) load. At the phonological level, subject and object nouns were found to be activated before speech onset with concurrent visuospatial WM load, but only subject nouns were found to be activated with concurrent verbal WM load, indicating a reduced planning scope as a function of type of WM load (Experiment 1). By contrast, at the abstract-lexical level, subject and object nouns were found to be activated regardless of type of concurrent load (Experiment 2). In both experiments, sentence planning had a more detrimental effect on concurrent verbal WM task performance than on concurrent visuospatial WM task performance. Overall, our results suggest that advance planning at the phonological level is more affected by a concurrently performed verbal WM task than advance planning at the abstract-lexical level. Also, they indicate an overlap of resources allocated to phonological planning in speech production and verbal WM.

Vortioxetine reduces BOLD signal during performance of the N-back working memory task: a randomised neuroimaging trial in remitted depressed patients and healthy controls.

PubMed

Smith, J; Browning, M; Conen, S; Smallman, R; Buchbjerg, J; Larsen, K G; Olsen, C K; Christensen, S R; Dawson, G R; Deakin, J F; Hawkins, P; Morris, R; Goodwin, G; Harmer, C J

2018-05-01

Cognitive dysfunction is common in depression during both acute episodes and remission. Vortioxetine is a novel multimodal antidepressant that has improved cognitive function including executive function in depressed patients in randomised placebo-controlled clinical trials. However, it is unclear whether vortioxetine is able to target directly the neural circuitry implicated in the cognitive deficits in depression. Remitted depressed (n=48) and healthy volunteers (n=48) were randomised to receive 14 days treatment with 20 mg vortioxetine or placebo in a double-blind design. The effects of treatment on functional magnetic resonance imaging responses during an N-back working memory task were assessed at baseline and at the end of treatment. Neuropsychological measures of executive function, speed and information processing, attention and learning and memory were examined with the Trail Making Test (TMT), Rey Auditory Learning Test and Digit Symbol Substitution Test before and after treatment; subjective cognitive function was assessed using the Perceived Deficits Questionnaire (PDQ). Compared with placebo, vortioxetine reduced activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left hippocampus during the N-back task compared with placebo. Vortioxetine also increased TMT-A performance and self-reported cognitive function on the PDQ. These effects were seen across both subject groups. Vortioxetine modulates neural responses across a circuit subserving working memory in a direction opposite to the changes described in depression, when performance is maintained. This study provides evidence that vortioxetine has direct effects on the neural circuitry supporting cognitive function that can be dissociated from its effects on the mood symptoms of depression.

Neuropsychological functioning and jumping to conclusions in recent onset psychosis patients.

PubMed

González, Lucas Elio; López-Carrilero, Raquel; Barrigón, Maria Luisa; Grasa, Eva; Barajas, Ana; Pousa, Esther; González-Higueras, Fermín; Ruiz-Delgado, Isabel; Cid, Jordi; Lorente-Rovira, Esther; Pélaez, Trinidad; Ochoa, Susana

2018-05-01

The reasoning bias of jumping to conclusions (JTC) consists of a tendency to make assumptions having little information. The aim of this study was to estimate the differences in neuropsychological functioning between recent onset psychotic patients who jump to conclusions and those who do not jump to conclusions. One hundred and twenty-two patients with a recent onset of a psychotic disorder were assessed with three JTC tasks and a neuropsychological battery exploring verbal learning, memory, attention, psychomotor speed, visuoperceptual abilities, working memory, problem solving, executive functioning. A total of 29.7% (n=36) of the individuals jumped to conclusions in Task 1, 14.0% (n=17) in Task 2, and 15.7% (n=19) in Task 3. People who jump to conclusions in three tasks scored significantly worse in many neuropsychological domain deficits, including attention (p<0.001-0.020), psychomotor speed (p<0.001), working memory (p<0.001-0.040), and executive functioning (p<0.001-0.042). The present study demonstrates that JTC is present even in early stages of the illness, and that there is a relationship between JTC and neuropsychological functioning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Minimalistic toy robot to analyze a scenery of speaker-listener condition in autism.

PubMed

Giannopulu, Irini; Montreynaud, Valérie; Watanabe, Tomio

2016-05-01

Atypical neural architecture causes impairment in communication capabilities and reduces the ability of representing the referential statements of other people in children with autism. During a scenery of "speaker-listener" communication, we have analyzed verbal and emotional expressions in neurotypical children (n = 20) and in children with autism (n = 20). The speaker was always a child, and the listener was a human or a minimalistic robot which reacts to speech expression by nodding only. Although both groups performed the task, everything happens as if the robot could allow children with autism to elaborate a multivariate equation encoding and conceptualizing within his/her brain, and externalizing into unconscious emotion (heart rate) and conscious verbal speech (words). Such a behavior would indicate that minimalistic artificial environments such as toy robots could be considered as the root of neuronal organization and reorganization with the potential to improve brain activity.

The Swedish Hayling task, and its relation to working memory, verbal ability, and speech-recognition-in-noise.

PubMed

Stenbäck, Victoria; Hällgren, Mathias; Lyxell, Björn; Larsby, Birgitta

2015-06-01

Cognitive functions and speech-recognition-in-noise were evaluated with a cognitive test battery, assessing response inhibition using the Hayling task, working memory capacity (WMC) and verbal information processing, and an auditory test of speech recognition. The cognitive tests were performed in silence whereas the speech recognition task was presented in noise. Thirty young normally-hearing individuals participated in the study. The aim of the study was to investigate one executive function, response inhibition, and whether it is related to individual working memory capacity (WMC), and how speech-recognition-in-noise relates to WMC and inhibitory control. The results showed a significant difference between initiation and response inhibition, suggesting that the Hayling task taps cognitive activity responsible for executive control. Our findings also suggest that high verbal ability was associated with better performance in the Hayling task. We also present findings suggesting that individuals who perform well on tasks involving response inhibition, and WMC, also perform well on a speech-in-noise task. Our findings indicate that capacity to resist semantic interference can be used to predict performance on speech-in-noise tasks. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Neuropsychological profiles and verbal abilities in lifelong bilinguals with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Kowoll, Magdalena Eva; Degen, Christina; Gladis, Saskia; Schröder, Johannes

2015-01-01

Bilingualism is associated with enhanced executive functioning and delayed onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we investigated neuropsychological differences between mono- and bilingual patients with MCI and AD as well as the respective effects of dementia on the dominant and non-dominant language of bilinguals. 69 patients with MCI (n = 22) or AD (n = 47) and 17 healthy controls were included. 41 subjects were classified as lifelong bilinguals (mean age: 73.6; SD = 11.5) and 45 as monolinguals (mean age: 78.1; SD = 10.9). Neuropsychological performance was assessed on the CERAD-NP, the clock-drawing test, and the logical memory subscale of the Wechsler Memory Scale. Neuropsychological profiles showed only minor nonsignificant differences between mono- and bilingual subjects when compared between diagnostic groups. Bilingual MCI patients scored significantly lower on the verbal fluency and picture naming task in their dominant language than bilingual controls. Bilingual AD patients showed a reduced performance in their nondominant language when compared to bilingual MCI patients and bilingual controls (main effect language dominance: verbal fluency task p < 0.001; BNT p < 0.001). Bilingual MCI and AD patients show a similar pattern of neuropsychological deficits as monolingual patients do. The dominant language appears to be compromised first in bilingual MCI patients, while severe deficits of the nondominant language develop later in the course with manifestation of AD. These findings are important for the diagnostic work up of bilingual patients and the development of improved care concepts for bilingual patients such as migrant populations.