Handedness and cognitive bias

2165 Subjects, ranging from nine-year-old schoolchildren to adult students, took Test AH 2/3 which yields subscores on Verbal, Numerical and Perceptual reasoning. The left-handers are compared with the right-handers, differences being found with respect to cognitive bias, sex, age and nationality.     

Motor performance and concurrent cognitive tasks

Twenty students tapped between two targets while concurrently performing either a verbal or a visuospatial cognitive task. Speed of tapping and consistency revealed right- and left-hand disruption during solving either the con-current verbal or visuospatial task respectively. Accuracy of performance in terms of hitting the targets was not selectively disrupted by the cognitive activity. The results are discussed in terms of an attentional model of lateralization of cerebral function.     

Cognitive bias via the Internet: a comparison of Web-based and standard emotional Stroop tasks in social phobia

There is accumulating evidence to suggest that social phobia is associated with attentional bias for words related to social threat. Information processing in individuals with social phobia (n = 87) was investigated in the present study using 2 versions of the emotional Stroop task. Results from a standard emotional Stroop task indicated delayed colour naming of socially threatening words relative to neutral words, in line with previous research, whereas results from a Web-based emotional Stroop task indicated a facilitation effect, with faster manual indication of colour choice for socially threatening words than for neutral words. Possible explanations for these contrasting findings and issues for further research are discussed.     

The spatial mapping of concepts in English and Mandarin

ABSTRACT

English speakers have been shown to map abstract concepts in space, which occurs on both the vertical and horizontal dimensions. For example, words such as God are associated with up and right spatial locations, and words such as Satan with down and left. If the tendency to map concepts in space is a universal property of human cognition, then it is likely that such mappings may be at least partly culturally-specific, since many concepts are themselves language-specific and therefore cultural conventions. Here we investigated whether Mandarin speakers report spatial mapping of concepts, and how these mappings compare with English speakers (i.e. are words with the same meaning associated with the same spatial locations). Across two studies, results showed that both native English and Mandarin speakers reported spatial mapping of concepts, and that the distribution of mappings was highly similar for the two groups. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Age-related emotional bias in processing two emotionally valenced tasks

Psychological Research - Previous studies suggest that older adults process positive emotions more efficiently than negative emotions, whereas younger adults show the reverse effect. We examined...     

Contextual adjustments in cognitive control across tasks

Does encountering information-processing conflict recruit general mechanisms of cognitive control or change only the representations of specific cues and responses? In the present experiments, a flanker task elicited responses to symbolic information (arrow meaning), whereas Stroop-like tasks elicited responses to nonsymbolic information (color of a letter or location of a target box). Despite these differences, when participants performed the flanker and Stroop tasks intermittently in randomized orders, the extent of information-processing conflict encountered on a particular trial modulated performance on the following trial. On across-task trial pairs, increases in response time to incongruent relative to congruent stimulus arrays were smaller immediately following incongruent trials than immediately following congruent trials. The degree of cognitive control exerted on a particular task thus appears to reflect not only the quality, but also the quantity, of recent experiences of information-processing conflict.     

Dichotic listening with Chinese and English tasks

In this dichotic listening study, monosyllabic tasks were conducted in both English and Chinese to evaluate (1) the effects of processing two acoustically different languages and (2) the effects of bilingualism. One subject group included 28 bilingual speakers of English and Chinese, and a second group in cluded 29 monolingual English speakers. Three pairs of monosyllabic words were presented such that each ear received a different word at the same time. Twenty such sets in both languages were presented, with recall order irrelevant. The results show that the monolingual English subjects demonstrated a significant right ear advantage when identifying English words dichotically, suggesting a left hemisphere processing component. However, there was no ear effect when the English-Chinese speakers performed the dichotic listening tasks in both Chinese and English. It appears that, with the acquisition of a second language, right ear dominance seems to be replaced by interhemispheric processing.I would like to express my deep appreciation to John Ryalls for his efforts in the preparation of this article. Thanks also go to Stuart Davis, Steven Chin, Sven Anderson, David Pisoni, and two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments on previous drafts.     

Process differences and individual differences in some cognitive tasks

This study is based on three distinct elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) using chronometric techniques: (a) the S. Sternberg memory scan task, (b) a visual scan task which is perfectly analogous to the memory scan, except that the target digit is presented first and the subject must then scan a set of digits and indicate the presence or absence of the target digit in the set, and (c) the Hick paradigm, which involves responding to a visual stimulus (a light going “on”) when the stimulus is one among sets of either 1, 2, 4, or 8 equally probable alternatives. Certain parameters of all three tasks, such as intercept and slope of RT as a function of set size, from which different cognitive processes are inferred, are compared experimentally and correlationally. Subjects were 48 university students, tested and retested on the three tasks in a counterbalanced design on two separate days to obtain the retest reliabilities needed to correct all correlations for attenuation. Subjects were also given Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices as a measure of psychometric g. Parameters of the ECTs are significantly and, in some cases, quite substantially correlated with g. Virtually all of this correlation is due to the general factor of the various ECTs, rather than to specific processing components (independent of the general factor). The results also indicate that different ECT paradigms (e.g., visual search and memory search tasks) may yield markedly different values in terms of the group means of analogous parameters, indicating different processes, and yet not show independence of the parameters in terms of individual differences; that is, measurements of the different parameters in individuals are perfectly correlated (i.e., disattenuated correlations do not differ significantly from r = 1). This is found for the intercept parameter of visual and memory search. The reverse condition is also found for the other parameters (e.g., slope); that is, their mean values are nearly identical, suggesting the same processes, yet disattenuated correlations between individual differences are relatively low, or even negative, indicating different processes. Although the general factor clearly predominates, it does not completely overwhelm individual differences in various component processes that are distinct from the general factor.     

Manipulation of frontal brain asymmetry by cognitive tasks

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 conditions, i.e., a baseline condition without cognitive demands, and a mental arithmetic task, respectively. The results demonstrate that the desired effect can only be achieved in individuals with good performance on the verbal fluency task. Good and poor performers do not only differ in lateral asymmetry, but also in the most affected region within the prefrontal cortex. Whereas good performers show relatively increased activation in the cortical region and hemisphere putatively most specialized for this kind of task (i.e., the left dorsolateral frontal cortex), poor performers show a marked shift of frontopolar asymmetry to the right.     

Differentiation of fluid, visual, and simultaneous cognitive tasks

The constructs of fluid reasoning and spatial visualization (Horn, 1989) as well as the construct of simultaneous processing (Luria, 1966) have been tapped by various cognitive assessment batteries. In order to determine whether these constructs could be differentiated from one another, factor analyses of subtest scores from six cognitive tasks were conducted. Fluid reasoning, spatial visualization, and simultaneous processing emerged as separate factors in the analysis, supporting the hypothesis that these constructs can be differentiated in psychoeducational testing. These results extend the findings of a preliminary study which found factorial differentiation between fluid and simultaneous reasoning.     

Neuropsychological screening for cognitive impairment using computer-assisted tasks

The aim of this study was to validate a computer-assisted screening battery for classifying patients into two groups, those with and without cognitive impairment. Participants were all patients referred to the neuropsychology clinics at four VA medical centers during a 1-year period. Patients meeting the study inclusionary criteria (N = 252) were administered the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System-3 (NES3) computer-assisted battery. A detailed neuropsychological examination was carried out by an experienced neuropsychologist, who diagnosed the patient as cognitively impaired or not impaired. The neuropsychologist's diagnosis was the gold standard. Recursive partitioning analyses yielded several classification procedures using the NES3 data to predict the gold standard These procedures produced a set of six NES3 tasks that provide good sensitivity and specificity in predicting di- agnosis. Sensitivity and specificity for the least random classification procedure were 0.87 and 0.67, respectively. The results suggest that computer-assisted screening methods are a promising means of triaging patients.     

The relationship between memory for order and other cognitive tasks

Measures of memory for order were correlated with measures requiring mental manipulation, achievement, and aptitude using college and fifth grade students. Memory for order was not significantly related to measures of mental manipulation nor achievement measures for college students. For fifth graders memory for order was significantly related to mental manipulation, intelligence, and achievement measures. It is suggested that the nature and capacity of short-term memory changes with age.     

Levels of coding in picture-picture comparison tasks

Two experiments are reported in which subjects had to match pairs of pictures of objects. "Same" pairs could be either identical (Ps), pictures of different views of the same object (Pv), or pictures of different objects having the same name (Pd). With line drawings as stimuli, RTs for Condition Ps were shorter than for Condition Pv, which in turn were shorter than for Condition Pd. Visual similarity had no effect on Pd RTs. However, in Experiment II, where photographs of objects with high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) names were used, no difference was found between Conditions Ps(HF), Ps(LF) and Condition Pv(HF); and no difference occurred between Conditions Pd(HF), Pd(LF) and Condition Pv(LF), the latter set of conditions being associated with longer RTs than the former. This pattern of results was found with both a .25-sec and a 2-sec ISI. The results are discussed in terms of the levels of coding involved in processing information from picture stimuli. It is concluded that at least two levels are involved in matching photographs of real objects (an object-code level and a nonvisual semantic code level), while a third level may be used in matching tasks involving stylized line drawings (a picture-code level).     

BIS, BAS, and bias: The role of personality and cognitive bias in social anxiety

The goal of the present research was to test the hypothesis that cognitive biases for negative and threatening social information mediate the effects of behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and behavioral approach system (BAS) sensitivity on social anxiety. Participants completed self-report measures of BIS and BAS and then underwent a social-threat induction procedure in which they were told they would have to perform a speech. A battery of cognitive bias measures was then administered, followed by a battery of state anxiety measures. Audience members also rated participants’ anxiety during the speech. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model. As predicted, the fully-mediated model showed the best fit to the data, and higher BIS and lower BAS were found to have significant indirect effects on social anxiety via cognitive bias.