How cognitive is psychomotor slowing in depression? evidence from a meta-analysis

Abstract

The current meta-analysis explores the hypothesis that many of the apparently specific deficits that depressed subjects show on speeded cognitive tasks are actually the result of general (i.e., task-independent) slowing. Results of three analyses provided strong support for this hypothesis. the reaction times (RTs) of the depressed groups were consistently slower than those of the control groups. Moreover, the degree of cognitive slowing was approximately the same regardless of the task or condition. Regression analyses revealed a proportional relation between the RTs of the two depressed and control groups, suggesting that depression slows sensory/motor and cognitive processes to approximately the same degree. the regression-based approach used in the present analyses has implications for the study of other neurological disorders and also may have important applications in the assessment of both general and specific cognitive deficits in individual patients.     

Clinical,Studies in Psychiatry by H. S. Sullivan

A structured group therapy approach for psychiatric inpatients is presented. After reviewing the literature indicating that insight-oriented approaches are not effective with severely disturbed patients, the data supporting an interpersonal, cognitive, problem-solving approach with such patients is reviewed. A rationale for combining this cognitive problem-solving approach and Yalom's interpersonal approach with psychiatric inpatients is then presented. This structured group therapy approach, called the problem-solving support group (PSSG) is discussed, defining the nature and composition, screening procedures, methods, and techniques of the PSSG. Its use with psychiatric patients is illustrated by therapy protocols depicting the nature of the therapeutic interactions during the group, while also demonstrating what the group appears to be accomplishing for its members.     

Integrating a cognitive assistant within a critique-based recommender system

Recommender systems are cognitive computing systems designed to support humans in their decision-making processes through convincing, timely product suggestions. In the field of recommender systems, critique-based recommenders have been widely applied as an effective approach for guiding users through a product space in pursuit of suitable products. To date, no critique-based approach has included an assistant that support users in their search in a pleasant way. In this paper, we describe how we integrate an assistant within a critique-based recommender. We consider the proposed assistant to be cognitive because its reasoning process when recommending products is based on a cognitively-inspired clustering algorithm. The proposal is evaluated by users and compared with a non-assistant approach. The results of this research demonstrate that the integration of a cognitive assistant within the recommender improves the user experience and increases the performance of the recommendation process, i.e., users need fewer cycles to achieve the desired product or service.     

How to (and how not to) think about top-down influences on visual perception

The question of whether cognition can influence perception has a long history in neuroscience and philosophy. Here, we outline a novel approach to this issue, arguing that it should be viewed within the framework of top-down information-processing. This approach leads to a reversal of the standard explanatory order of the cognitive penetration debate: we suggest studying top-down processing at various levels without preconceptions of perception or cognition. Once a clear picture has emerged about which processes have influences on those at lower levels, we can re-address the extent to which they should be considered perceptual or cognitive. Using top-down processing within the visual system as a model for higher-level influences, we argue that the current evidence indicates clear constraints on top-down influences at all stages of information processing; it does, however, not support the notion of a boundary between specific types of information-processing as proposed by the cognitive impenetrability hypothesis.     

Cognitive Vulnerability to Persistent Depression

Abstract

The account of cognitive vulnerability to depression offered by Beck's cognitive model is summarised. As this account currently lacks consistent empirical support, an alternative, related, account is presented. This proposes that, once a person is initially depressed, an important factor that determines whether their depression remains mild or transient, or becomes more severe and persistent, is the nature of the negative cognitive processes and constructs that become active and accessible in the depressed state. These interact with the nature of environmental difficulties, available social support, and biological factors, to determine whether a depression-maintaining cognitive-affective vicious cycle will be set up.

Results from studies specifically designed to test predictions from this account have yielded positive results. Findings consistent with the hypothesis have also been obtained in other prospective studies which have shown that cognitive measures, administered in the depressed state, predict the future course of depression independently of initial levels of depression.

The hypothesis is elaborated to incorporate the demonstrated relationship of elevated neuroticism to risk and persistence of depression. Recent views on the nature of sex differences in rates of depression, and on the relationship of attributional style to depression are also compatible with the hypothesis. It is concluded that the hypothesis has encouraging preliminary support.

SUMMARY

Two broad aspects of cognitive vulnerability to depression can be distinguished. The first is the tendency to evaluate certain types of life event in ways which will produce intense rather than mild depression. This is the aspect of vulnerability on which Beck's cognitive model appears to concentrate. There are considerable difficulties in assessing this aspect of Beck's model and it is not consistently supported by comparison of recovered depressed patients with control groups.

The second aspect of cognitive vulnerability relates to the cognitive processes and constructs that become active and accessible once a person is in a state of depression. Within this approach, vulnerability to onset and vulnerability to persistence of depression can be roughly distinguished, depending on whether the focus is on the period when the depression has been present for only a brief period, or is mild, or whether depression has already existed for some time and reached at least moderate severity. The account presented here proposes that a crucial factor determining whether an initially mild or transient depressed state remains mild or soon disappears, or becomes more severe and persistent, is whether a vicious cycle based on a reciprocally reinforcing relationship between depressed mood and negative cognitive processing can become established. The probability that this cycle will become established is, in turn, a function of a complex interaction between the environmental difficulties facing a person, the support available to them, their biological state, and the nature of the cognitive processes and constructs that are active and accessible in the depressed state. The kind of cognitive process and constructs that are most active and accessible in the depressed state will be a function both of the patterns of cognitive processing that are characteristic of the person in their normal mood state (such as those related to neuroticism), and of the patterns of cognitive processing that become active in the depressed state. It is on these latter that the differential activation hypothesis concentrates. It suggests that individual differences in the cognitive processes and constructs that become active and accessible in the depressed' state can make an important contribution to whether an initial state of depression becomes more intense, or fades away, and whether, once established, depression of moderate severity persists a long time or a short time. In particular, it is proposed that processes and constructs related to global negative characterological evaluations of the self or that, in other ways, lead to interpretations of experience as highly aversive and uncontrollable are likely to act to intensify and maintain depression.

Two investigations specifically designed to test predictions from the differential activation hypothesis yielded positive results. Further supportive evidence is available from a number of other studies which have examined the relationship between cognitive measures, administered in the depressed state, and the future course of depression. Such studies haverecurringly found that persistence or return of depression is associated with initially high scores on measures of negative cognition, and this association remains when the effects of initial depression level are partialled out.

In addition to this encouraging preliminary empirical support, the differential activation hypothesis has the further attraction that it can incorporate into this account the well established finding that neuroticism is associated with risk of becoming depressed, and of depression persisting. Further, it is quite consistent with recent proposals related to sex differences in rates of depression, and to the relationship of attributional style to depression.     

The relation between verbal and visuospatial memory and autobiographical memory

The basic-systems approach (Rubin, 2005, 2006) states that autobiographical memory is supported by other cognitive systems and argues that autobiographical memories are constructed from interactions between cognitive systems, such as language, vision and emotion. Although deficiencies in one or more of the basic systems influence the properties of autobiographical memories, little is known about how these cognitive abilities and autobiographical memory are related. To assert whether participants with stronger cognitive abilities also perform better on autobiographical memory tests, participants who completed verbal and visuospatial memory tests also recorded one personal event, which they recalled after a certain interval. Participants who performed well on the verbal memory tests also had better retention for the personal event, providing support for the basic-systems approach to autobiographical memory and preliminary support for the view that people have more memories from adolescence and early adulthood because the memory system works optimally in these lifetime periods.     

The effect of embodied emotive states on cognitive categorization

Research has uncovered that positive affect broadens cognitive categorization. The motivational dimensional model, however, posits that positive affect is not a unitary construct with only one cognitive consequence. Instead, this model puts forth that there are different positive affects varying in approach motivational intensity. According to this model, only positive affects lower in motivational intensity should broaden cognitive processes, whereas positive affects higher in motivational intensity should narrow cognitive processes. Consistent with these predictions, high approach positive affect has been shown to narrow attention, whereas low approach positive affect has been shown to broaden it (Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2008). High approach positive affect, therefore, might narrow categorization. Two experiments investigated this possibility by having participants respond to cognitive categorization tasks in 3 body postures designed to elicit different levels of approach motivation: reclining backward, which should evoke low approach motivation; sitting upright, which should evoke moderate approach motivation; and leaning forward, which should evoke high approach motivation. Participants smiled while in each posture in order to experience positive affect. Experiment 1 provided initial support for the idea that high approach positive affect narrows categorization and low approach positive affect broadens categorization. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with improved smiling instructions. These results extend previous work by showing that the motivational model's predictions hold for basic attentional processes as well as higher level cognitive processes such as categorization.     

The dynamical hypothesis in cognitive science

According to the dominant computational approach in cognitive science, cognitive agents are digital computers; according to the alternative approach, they are dynamical systems. This target article attempts to articulate and support the dynamical hypothesis. The dynamical hypothesis has two major components: the nature hypothesis (cognitive agents are dynamical systems) and the knowledge hypothesis (cognitive agents can be understood dynamically). A wide range of objections to this hypothesis can be rebutted. The conclusion is that cognitive systems may well be dynamical systems, and only sustained empirical research in cognitive science will determine the extent to which that is true.     

A Psychoeducational Approach to Hypochondriasis: Background,Content, and Practice Guidelines

Patients suffering from health anxiety are difficult to engage in a psychological treatment, although it has now been empirically established that cognitive behavioral treatments are beneficial for many of these patients. A first important step is to change their orientation from a biomedical to a biopsychosocial perspective. One way of promoting this change is to provide focused psychoeducation. A number of studies have shown that group psychoeducation for patients with health anxiety results in a reduction in anxious concerns, depression, and medical services utilization. The purpose of this paper is to describe the background, content, and implementation of a brief course entitled “Coping With Health Anxiety.” The empirical support as well as the potentially active ingredients of this approach are discussed.     

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

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.     

IS CONSTRUCT DIFFERENTIATION LOQUACITY?

Recent studies have indicated that cognitive complexity scores, based on the quantity of constructs embedded in written essays, correlate significantly with the total number of words contained in the response. As a consequence, a controversy involving whether loquacity rather than cognitive complexity has been measured by such scoring procedures has emerged. In this study (1) the premise is advanced that the quantity of constructs approach represents subjects' willingness to write rather than personal construct systems or construal processes, (2) loquacity is explained in terms of motivational variables rather than construal processes and (3) two separate studies test the motivational hypothesis. Results of study J indicate that subjects promised credit for rigor write more words and more constructs than did their non-motivated counterparts. Moreover, the results of study 2 demonstrate that writing apprehension scores and self-reports of situational motivation predict both loquacity and cognitive complexity scores. These findings support a motivational hypothesis regarding loquacity and raise serious questions concerning cognitive complexity measurement.     

How to Exploit Diversity for Scientific Gain: Using Individual Differences to Constrain Cognitive Theory

ABSTRACT— People often show considerable systematic variability in their ability to perform many different cognitive tasks. In this article, we argue that by combining an individual-differences approach with an experimental-cognitive-neuroscience approach one can often further constrain potential theories of the underlying cognitive mechanisms. In support of this proposal, we outline three basic benefits of using an individual-differences approach: validating neurophysiological measures, demonstrating associations among constructs, and demonstrating dissociations among apparently similar constructs. To illustrate these points, we describe recent work by us and other researchers that utilizes each of these techniques to address specific questions within the domain of visual working memory. It is our hope that some of these techniques for utilizing individual variability may be applied to other domains within cognitive neuroscience.     

Beyond perceptual symbols: A call for representational pluralism

Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that certain cognitive processes employ perceptual representations. Inspired by this evidence, a few researchers have proposed that cognition is inherently perceptual. They have developed an innovative theoretical approach that rests on the notion of perceptual simulation and marshaled several general arguments supporting the centrality of perceptual representations to concepts. In this article, I identify a number of weaknesses in these arguments and defend a multiple semantic code approach that posits both perceptual and non-perceptual representations.     

Cortical coordination dynamics and cognition

New imaging techniques in cognitive neuroscience have produced a deluge of information correlating cognitive and neural phenomena. Yet our understanding of the inter-relationship between brain and mind remains hampered by the lack of a theoretical language for expressing cognitive functions in neural terms. We propose an approach to understanding operational laws in cognition based on principles of coordination dynamics that are derived from a simple and experimentally verified theoretical model. When applied to the dynamical properties of cortical areas and their coordination, these principles support a mechanism of adaptive inter-area pattern constraint that we postulate underlies cognitive operations generally.     

Cognitive Development Masks Support for Attributional Style Models of Depression in Children and Adolescents

Attributional style models of depression in adults (Abramson et al. 1989, 1978) have been adapted for use with children; however, most applications do not consider that children's understanding of causal relations may be qualitatively different from that of adults. If children's causal attributions depend on children's level of cognitive development, then support for attributional models of depression in young people will vary with cognitive development. In this paper, a new measure of cognitive development, the Peabody Causal Reasoning Test (PCRT), is introduced to assess children's understanding of ability versus effort, task difficulty, and luck as causal factors. Analyses revealed that in 8- to 16-year-old children, failure to control for level of cognitive development suppressed empirical support for cognitive diathesis-stress models of depression. Statistically controlling for measures of cognitive development strengthened support for this model.     

Using Participant Choice to Enhance Memory Performance

When patients are involved in deciding the course of treatment for their ailment and are given a chance to choose between different treatment options, the success of the intervention typically increases. In our study we transferred this approach to a cognitive psychology task and investigated whether treatment choice can enhance participants' memory performance. Participants who were free to choose one out of a selection of alleged cognitive enhancers showed better performance than those who were assigned an enhancer. We also found that performance‐expectations have a stronger impact when triggered prior to the encoding as opposed to the retrieval stage and thus appear to be more effective at a point when participants exercise a greater degree of cognitive control. The findings are of relevance in contexts where it can be assumed that participants have knowledge about their own needs and can in turn capitalize on this knowledge when given the opportunity. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Friends at last? Distributed cognition and the cognitive/social divide

Distributed cognition (d-cog) claims that many cognitive processes are “distributed” across groups and the surrounding material and cultural environment. Recently, Nancy Nersessian, Ronald Giere, and others have suggested that a d-cog approach might allow us to bring together cognitive and social theories of science. I explore this idea by focusing on the specific interpretation of d-cog found in Edwin Hutchins' canonical text Cognition in the wild. First, I examine the scope of a d-cog approach to science, showing that there are important disputes between cognitive and social theorists on which d-cog remains silent. Second, I suggest that, where social explanations can be recast in d-cog terms, this reformulation will not be acceptable to all social theorists. Finally, I ask how we should make sense of the claim that, on a d-cog analysis, social factors are cognitive factors.     

Exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy for irritable bowel syndrome. A single-case experimental design across 13 subjects

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a highly prevalent disorder with a significant impact on quality of life. The presence of psychological symptoms in IBS patients such as catastrophic worry and behavioral avoidance suggests the possible efficacy of cognitive behavioral interventions. Exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has proven to be a promising approach but has only been investigated in a few studies and mainly via the Internet. Therefore, the aims of this study were to extend and replicate previous findings and to evaluate whether an individual, face-to-face, exposure-based CBT leads to improvement in gastrointestinal symptoms, pain catastrophizing, avoidance behavior and quality of life in IBS patients. Thirteen patients with IBS according to Rome III criteria participated in a single-case experimental study using a five-week baseline and a subsequent twelve-session intervention phase focusing on psycho-education, mindfulness and in vivo exposure. Standardized measurement of gastrointestinal symptoms, pain catastrophizing, avoidance behavior and quality of life was conducted weekly during baseline as well as intervention phase and at six-month follow-up. Results showed that over 70% of patients improved significantly on gastrointestinal symptoms, pain catastrophizing, and quality of life. Effects on avoidance behavior were modest. These results strengthen and extend earlier findings and provide further support for the efficacy of exposure-based strategies for IBS.     

Kognitive Lernermodellierung

Different types of learner models and their usefulness for tutoring have been discussed widely since the beginning of intelligent tutoring systems. In this paper we compare pragmatic and cognitive approaches of learner modeling. Pragmatic approaches consider relevant learner features for adaptive methods in learning environments and adapt different aspects of instruction to a restricted model representing these features. Cognitive approaches aim for a psychologically adequate modeling of human problem solving. We introduce the case-based learner model ELM as an example of a cognitive approach to learner modeling. The learning environments ELM-PE and ELM-ART use ELM for adaptional methods on conceptual, plan, and episodic levels and provide individual help and learning support. Especially in the case of integrated learning environments like ELM-ART which support a variety of learning activities, a combination of pragmatic and cognitive learner models is proposed to be a necessary and useful solution.     

The link between knowledge and remembering in Alzheimer’s disease

Current research on the influence of cognitive support (e.g., activation of task-relevant prior knowledge, item organizability, retrieval cues) on episodic remembering in normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is reviewed. Examining the effects of cognitive support on memory may shed light on the relationship between knowledge and remembering, and also provides relevant information pertaining to the development of cognitive intervention procedures. A series of studies from our own and other laboratories reveal a number of interesting empirical regularities. First, AD results in problems in utilizing cognitive support for improving memory. Conceivably, this reduction in cognitive reserve capacity is due to both the overall severity of the episodic memory impairment in AD, as well as to dementia-related deficits in the semantic network that guides encoding and retrieval of information. Nevertheless, AD patients are able to utilize cognitive support in episodic memory tasks, although they typically need more support than their healthy aged counterparts to show memory facilitation. Specifically, it is critical to provide support at both encoding and retrieval in order to demonstrate performance gains in AD. Moreover, successful utilization of retrieval support in this disease is most likely to occur when the encoding requirements force the individual to engage in elaborative cognitive activity (e.g., generation of task-relevant knowledge, categorical organization). Finally, a reduction in cognitive reserve capacity occurs later in the pathogenesis of AD than a generalized episodic memory impairment. This observation reflects the insidious nature of AD, and suggests that the transition from normal aging to AD may be continuous rather than discrete.