Relationships between need for cognition, knowledge, and verbal ability

The authors investigated the relationships between need for cognition, knowledge, and verbal ability. Participants completed scales that measured their need for cognition, verbal ability, and knowledge about people and events that occurred during the Vietnam War era. Correlational analyses showed that the participants' need for cognition scores were modestly but positively correlated with verbal ability and knowledge and that verbal ability and knowledge were also positively correlated. The correlation between need for cognition and knowledge was small but significant when verbal ability was controlled. The conclusion drawn from these results is that need for cognition contributes to the acquisition of knowledge beyond the contribution of verbal ability.     

Can Creativity Predict Cognitive Reserve?

Cognitive reserve relies on the ability to effectively cope with aging and brain damage by using alternate processes to approach tasks when standard approaches are no longer available. In this study, the issue if creativity can predict cognitive reserve has been explored. Forty participants (mean age: 61 years) filled out: the Cognitive Reserve Index questionnaire, the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking in visual and verbal form, Raven's Progressive Matrices (PM38), and the Verbal Judgments Test. The analysis revealed that all indices of verbal creativity were positively correlated with indices of cognitive reserve, except with cognitive reserve related to working activity. However, using the composite score of verbal creativity, all indices of cognitive reserve were predicted, including the index related to working activity. These results show that verbal creativity could be considered as another proxy indicator of cognitive reserve, and open to the hypothesis that verbal creativity enhances cognitive reserve and sustains active aging.     

Linking metaphor comprehension with analogical reasoning: Evidence from typical development and autism spectrum disorder

We examined the relationship between metaphor comprehension and verbal analogical reasoning in young adults who were either typically developing (TD) or diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The ASD sample was highly educated and high in verbal ability, and closely matched to a subset of TD participants on age, gender, educational background, and verbal ability. Additional TD participants with a broader range of abilities were also tested. Each participant solved sets of verbal analogies and metaphors in verification formats, allowing measurement of both accuracy and reaction times. Measures of individual differences in vocabulary, verbal working memory, and autistic traits were also obtained. Accuracy for both the verbal analogy and the metaphor task was very similar across the ASD and matched TD groups. However, reaction times on both tasks were longer for the ASD group. Additionally, stronger correlations between verbal analogical reasoning and working memory capacity in the ASD group indicated that processing verbal analogies was more effortful for them. In the case of both groups, accuracy on the metaphor and analogy tasks was correlated. A mediation analysis revealed that after controlling for working memory capacity, the inter-task correlation could be accounted for by the mediating variable of vocabulary knowledge, suggesting that the primary common mechanisms linking the two tasks involve language skills.     

Verbal Abilities in Low and Highly Proficient Bilinguals

The study investigated native language verbal skills among low and highly proficient bilinguals, using the WISC III verbal subtests. Highly proficient bilinguals showed a superiority for almost all verbal subtests. This finding lends support to Threshold Theory which maintains that bilinguals need to achieve high levels of linguistic proficiency before bilingualism can promote cognitive development. Our study also shows that verbal ability underlying proficiency in the native language can be generalized to a foreign language, revealing a causal connection between native and foreign language learning.     

Attachment,Mental Health,and Verbal Aggressiveness in Personal Relationships

This study examined the association between verbal aggressiveness and individual differences in attachment orientations and mental health, defined as a state of emotional well-being. One hundred and thirty-two college-aged students completed measures assessing their attachment orientations, mental health, and verbal aggressiveness. Results indicated that security in attachment was negatively associated with verbal aggressiveness, and preoccupation with relationships was positively associated with verbal aggressiveness. In addition, mental health was negatively associated with verbal aggressiveness. Results indicated support for a statistical model in which mental health mediated the association between attachment orientations and verbal aggressiveness.     

Increased regional cerebral glucose metabolism and semantic memory performance in Alzheimer's disease: A pilot double blind transdermal nicotine positron emission tomography study

Nicotinic receptor dysfunction and impaired semantic memory occur early in Alzheimer's disease patients (AD). Previous research implied that nicotine's ability to enhance alertness, arousal, and cognition in a number of nonclinical populations was a function of its ability to stimulate CNS nicotinic cholinergic receptors. In this study it was hypothesized that transdermal administration of nicotine would increase both regional cerebral glucose metabolism (rCMRglc) and semantic memory (as assessed by verbal fluency). Two mild AD and two elderly controls underwent positron emission tomography scanning during a double blind nicotinic agonist verbal fluency challenge procedure. rCMRglc increases occurred in both AD patients, but not controls. In the two AD patients, verbal fluency scores increased by an average of 17%. One elderly control's verbal fluency increased, and the other decreased. These findings suggest that nicotine's effect on metabolism and verbal fluency is due to its ability to stimulate the cholinergic system.     

Conceptual Knowledge,Procedural Knowledge,and Metacognition in Routine and Nonroutine Problem Solving

When, how, and why students use conceptual knowledge during math problem solving is not well understood. We propose that when solving routine problems, students are more likely to recruit conceptual knowledge if their procedural knowledge is weak than if it is strong, and that in this context, metacognitive processes, specifically feelings of doubt, mediate interactions between procedural and conceptual knowledge. To test these hypotheses, in two studies (Ns = 64 and 138), university students solved fraction and decimal arithmetic problems while thinking aloud; verbal protocols and written work were coded for overt uses of conceptual knowledge and displays of doubt. Consistent with the hypotheses, use of conceptual knowledge during calculation was not significantly positively associated with accuracy, but was positively associated with displays of doubt, which were negatively associated with accuracy. In Study 1, participants also explained solutions to rational arithmetic problems; using conceptual knowledge in this context was positively correlated with calculation accuracy, but only among participants who did not use conceptual knowledge during calculation, suggesting that the correlation did not reflect “online” effects of using conceptual knowledge. In Study 2, participants also completed a nonroutine problem-solving task; displays of doubt on this task were positively associated with accuracy, suggesting that metacognitive processes play different roles when solving routine and nonroutine problems. We discuss implications of the results regarding interactions between procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and metacognitive processes in math problem solving.     

Hemispatial neglect and serial order in verbal working memory

Working memory refers to our ability to actively maintain and process a limited amount of information during a brief period of time. Often, not only the information itself but also its serial order is crucial for good task performance. It was recently proposed that serial order is grounded in spatial cognition. Here, we compared performance of a group of right hemisphere-damaged patients with hemispatial neglect to healthy controls in verbal working memory tasks. Participants memorized sequences of consonants at span level and had to judge whether a target consonant belonged to the memorized sequence (item task) or whether a pair of consonants were presented in the same order as in the memorized sequence (order task). In line with this idea that serial order is grounded in spatial cognition, we found that neglect patients made significantly more errors in the order task than in the item task compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, this deficit seemed functionally related to neglect severity and was more frequently observed following right posterior brain damage. Interestingly, this specific impairment for serial order in verbal working memory was not lateralized. We advance the hypotheses of a potential contribution to the deficit of serial order in neglect patients of either or both (1) reduced spatial working memory capacity that enables to keep track of the spatial codes that provide memorized items with a positional context, (2) a spatial compression of these codes in the intact representational space.     

A PROPOSAL FOR THE CREATION OF A HUMAN AND COMPUTER METALANGUAGE

Since the beginning of the last century, with the development of the Theory of Relativity, an ever-growing gap has come into being between our knowledge about the structure of the world around us and our ability to conceptualize it. Because language plays a major role in our ability to describe the world and our role within it, a need has been created to match the capabilities of language to the knowledge we currently possess about the world we inhabit. This article will focus on two main arguments: (A) our ability to describe and conceptualize the world using a language that is limited, problematic and finite and (B) The possibility of developing a new language based on other principles than those governing verbal speech, which can deal with these limitations and problems and which is better suited to describing the world as we know it today.     

Covert verbal mediation in arbitrary matching to sample

Covert verbal mediation was examined in an arbitrary matching‐to‐sample (MTS) preparation with a high‐verbal group (college students) and a low‐verbal group (adults with intellectual disabilities). Arbitrary relations were established between nonsense words, visual symbols, objects, and hand signs. Task difficulty was balanced for the groups based on errors during acquisition. All participants experienced a hand sign condition, and three MTS conditions each with a unique configuration of the comparison array: fixed location, random location, and all symbols the same. The same symbol condition was designed to impede a participant's ability to label individual symbols. The results showed that disrupting labeling adversely affected MTS performance for high‐verbal participants, but not for low‐verbal participants. The data suggest that high‐verbal participants depended on mediating verbal behavior and joint control to assist them in finding the correct comparison stimulus. Low‐verbal participants could not benefit from verbal mediating variables and likely relied on unmediated contingencies, or some form of nonverbal mediation. For the high‐verbal group, 19 different putative emergent relations were identified as occurring at various stages of acquisition between the sample stimulus and the selection response. These emergent relations likely provided supplementary sources of stimulus control that participated in evoking MTS selection behavior.     

未成年人内隐攻击性特征的实验研究

以不同性质的词组为实验材料,以偏好组词为测量方法,随机抽取136名初一学生,采用被试内设计来探讨内隐状态下未成年人在不同攻击类型倾向性上的差异及其与性别间的关系。结果表明:偏好组词法测量内隐攻击性的有效性;未成年人同样存在明显的内隐攻击性;在内隐状态下,个体的身体攻击倾向性显著高于语言攻击倾向性并且具有较高的性别一致性。     

Self-monitoring,need for cognition,and the Stroop effect: a preliminary study

The color-word Stroop task requires an individual to ignore one piece of information (word) while responding to another (color). Since self-monitors are good at adapting their responses to fit a situation and those high in need for cognition carefully think through information before responding, this study explored the relationship between self-monitoring and need for cognition using Stroop interference. It was anticipated that self-monitoring would reduce Stroop interference, while need for cognition would increase Stroop interference. 23 General Psychology students (10 men, 13 women, M(age) = 18.8 yr.) participated. Participants were given the Self-monitoring Scale, the Need for Cognition Scale, and the Stroop Color-Word Test. Analysis indicated that Need for Cognition was not correlated with Stroop interference (r = .31) but higher scores on Self-monitoring were correlated with lower Stroop interference (r = .43). Implications for research are suggested.     

The Contribution of Personality Traits,Motivation, Academic Risk-Taking and Metacognition to the Creative Ability in Mathematics

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which personality traits, motivation, academic risk-taking, and metacognition explain the mathematical creative ability of high school students. The participants were 217 9th-grade students that were exceptionally high achievers. The participants responded to a set of measures about personality traits, motivation, academic risk-taking, metacognition, and creative ability in mathematics. The results revealed that although openness to experience and consciousness were significantly correlated with creative ability in mathematics, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism were not correlated with the creativity scores. Moreover, intrinsic goal orientation followed by openness to experience was the most significant predictor of mathematical creative ability. Academic risk-taking was not significantly correlated with creative ability. Although knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition showed moderate correlations with creative ability in mathematics, they failed to predict creative ability.     

Verbal knowledge, working memory, and processing speed as predictors of verbal learning in older adults

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 memory-and the participant's age were included in the model in order to explain individual differences in the learning parameters. The data come from the second wave of the Zurich Longitudinal Study on Cognitive Aging (D. Zimprich, Martin, et al., 2008) comprising 334 participants ranging in age from 66 to 81 years (M = 74.43, SD = 4.41). Among the logistic, the Gompertz, and the hyperbolic function, the exponential function described the data best. Reliable individual differences were found in all 3 learning parameters. The cognitive predictor variables affected the verbal learning parameters differentially: All 3 predictors affected positively initial recall, the asymptotic performance increased with better working memory and faster processing speed, and the learning rate was positively associated with verbal knowledge only. Age did not affect the learning parameters but correlated negatively with working memory and processing speed. The finding of large and reliable individual differences in learning is seen as evidence that the potential for positive change, or plasticity in adulthood is maintained and that it is worthwhile to enhance the determinants of learning or learning itself.     

Assessing the Truthfulness of Witness Statements Made by Children (Aged 7--8, 10--11, and 13--14) Employing Scales Derived from Johnson and Raye's Model of Reality Monitoring

The goal of this study was to determine whether children's true and false witness statements could be differentiated using the model of reality monitoring. The effects of age and verbal ability on scales based on the model were also investigated. Children (N = 68) from three different age-groups (7--8, 10--11, and 13--14 years) made both a true and a false statement concerning a mildly traumatic event. The statements were analysed using the Revised Memory Characteristics Questionnaire. The vocabulary sub-scale of the WISC-R was also administered. True statements were found to contain more sensory information and expressions of time, and less affective information. Overall, 64% of the statements were correctly classified on the basis of the scales. Older children received higher scores on most of the reality monitoring scales compared to the youngest children regardless of the truthfulness of their statements. Furthermore, the verbal ability of the children was positively associated with scores on several of the scales. The classification accuracy suggests that the model should not be applied to individual cases of child testimony. Although the final decision concerning the usefulness of the scales should be based on ecologically valid field studies.     

Cognitive ability and the extended cognition thesis

This paper explores the ramifications of the extended cognition thesis in the philosophy of mind for contemporary epistemology. In particular, it argues that all theories of knowledge need to accommodate the ability intuition that knowledge involves cognitive ability, but that once this requirement is understood correctly there is no reason why one could not have a conception of cognitive ability that was consistent with the extended cognition thesis. There is thus, surprisingly, a straightforward way of developing our current thinking about knowledge such that it incorporates the extended cognition thesis.     

语言标识对情绪体验的影响

本研究通过两个实验考察了语言标识对个体情绪体验的调节作用。实验一探讨了中性标识对不同类型的情绪体验的影响,结果发现与韩文字符标识相比,中性双字词标识时被试对负性图片的消极情绪体验强度显著降低。实验二进一步探讨了不同情绪色彩的词语的标识效应,结果发现与中性标识相比,负性或正性标识时被试对负性图片的消极情绪体验程度更低。结果表明了语言标识对负性情绪体验具有显著的调节作用,并且标识效应的产生依赖于词汇语义信息的通达。     

Comparison of two aggression inventories

Two recently developed questionnaire measures of aggression, the Aggression Questionnaire [Buss and Perry (1992; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63:452–459]; and the Aggression Inventory [Gladue (1991a); Psychological Reports 68:675–684], were administered to a British sample (N=320) of men and women undergraduates. Both questionnaires contain subscales measuring physical and verbal aggression; the other scales of the Aggression Questionnaire measure anger and hostility, and those of the Aggression Inventory measure impulsiveness and avoidance of aggression. The factor structure of scales were assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. The interrelations of the subscales were calculated in both cases: anger was independently related to verbal and physical aggression and to hostility on the Aggression Questionnaire; impulsivity, and verbal and physical aggression were associated on the Aggression Inventory. Sex differences were largest on the two physical subscales, of lesser magnitude but still significantly different for the two verbal subscales, but absent for anger and hostility. This supports the hypothesis that sex differences in aggression are larger for more escalated forms of aggression. The physical and verbal subscales of the two questionnaires were each highly correlated with one another and the impulsive subscale of the Aggression Inventory highly correlated with the anger subscale of the Aggresion Questionnaire. Thus, two aggression questionnaires developed in the US not only produce similar associations between subscales and sex differences among a British undergraduate sample, but also show high correlations between their respective scales. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Cerebral lateralization, preferred cognitive mode, and reading ability in normal children

In a sample of 105 children (aged 6 to 12), a stylistic preference for a verbal approach to problem-solving correlated positively with reading ability (independently of age) and degree of right-ear advantage in the report of dichotic stop consonant-vowel syllables (but not with verbal intelligence or hand preference). Verbal strategic preference may: (1) foster the acquisition of reading skill, and (2) bias attention toward input from the right by generating differential left-hemisphere activation.     

Showing and telling about emotions: Interrelations between facets of emotional competence and associations with classroom adjustment in Head Start preschoolers

In this study of low income preschoolers (N?=? 60), we examined relations between three facets of emotional competence: emotion knowledge, level of negative emotion expression, and emotion regulation; and their associations with indicators of classroom adjustment. Emotion knowledge was positively related to positive emotion regulation but was not related to negative emotion expression or negative dysregulation. Negative emotion expression related to emotion regulation variables in expected directions. Negative emotion expression was associated with aggression and social skills after covarying verbal ability, age, and emotion knowledge. Negative dysregulation was related in expected directions to aggression, anxiety, and social skills after covarying verbal ability, age, emotion knowledge, and negative emotion expression. Positive emotion regulation was related negatively to anxiety and positively to social skills after covarying all other variables in the model. Results are discussed with regard to using the emotional competence domain to understand how emotion processing relates to early childhood adjustment.