Concepts from research literature and practical assessment of risk awareness: The Swedish driving test from the perspective of cognitive psychology

The Swedish driving test (SDT) was compared to theoretical concepts found in research literature (CRLs) with respect to the rated importance of the CRLs for the overall assessment of risk awareness and the five specific assessment areas used in the SDT. 116 traffic inspectors responded to questionnaires. Results show that visual search was the CRL given the highest rating, and that the assessment of risk awareness can be conceptualised as assessment of lower-order and higher-order cognitive functions. The assessment areas taxing higher-order cognitive functions were rated as most important for risk awareness, and visual search behaviour can be regarded as the best indicator of higher-order cognitive skills.     

Adult age differences in the ability to mentally transform object and body stimuli

Cognitive neuroscience literature suggests a strong dissociation between the ability to mentally transform object and body stimuli (Hegarty & Waller, 2004). However, little is known about how this ability changes with age. This dissociation was explored in 20 younger (19-24 years) and 20 older (65-87 years) adults. Mental rotation of object stimuli was demonstrated for both age groups, suggesting that the neuro-cognitive network involved with performing (object-based) mental transformations is relatively preserved in older age. Compared to young adults, older adults displayed the greatest decline in performance efficiency for the whole-body task. The authors propose that an age-related decline in the integrity of body-schema information may account for this change.     

Receptive vocabulary and semantic knowledge in children with SLI and children with Down syndrome

Receptive vocabulary and associated semantic knowledge were compared within and between groups of children with specific language impairment (SLI), children with Down syndrome (DS), and typically developing children. To overcome the potential confounding effects of speech or language difficulties on verbal tests of semantic knowledge, a novel task was devised based on picture-based semantic association tests used to assess adult patients with semantic dementia. Receptive vocabulary, measured by word-picture matching, of children with SLI was weak relative to chronological age and to nonverbal mental age but their semantic knowledge, probed across the same lexical items, did not differ significantly from that of vocabulary-matched typically developing children. By contrast, although receptive vocabulary of children with DS was a relative strength compared to nonverbal cognitive abilities (p < .0001), DS was associated with a significant deficit in semantic knowledge (p < .0001) indicative of dissociation between word-picture matching vocabulary and depth of semantic knowledge. Overall, these data challenge the integrity of semantic-conceptual development in DS and imply that contemporary theories of semantic cognition should also seek to incorporate evidence from atypical conceptual development.     

Slowly walking down to the more food: relative quantity discrimination in African spurred tortoises (Centrochelys sulcata)

Animal Cognition - Quantity discrimination, is thought to be highly adaptive as it allows an organism to select greater amounts of food or larger social groups. In contrast to mammals, the...     

Cross cultural evaluation of smokers risk for panic and anxiety pathology: a test in a Russian epidemiological sample

The present study evaluated the main and interactive effects of level of smoking (cigarettes per day) and anxiety sensitivity (fear of anxiety and anxiety related sensations) in predicting panic and anxiety variables in an epidemiologically-defined sample of smokers from Moscow (n=95). The combination of high levels of anxiety sensitivity and smoking predicted agoraphobic avoidance, but not frequency of panic attacks during the past week. These findings suggest anxiety sensitivity may moderate the relation between level of smoking and prototypical panic psychopathology variables (panic attacks and agoraphobic avoidance) even after controlling for the theoretically-relevant factors of alcohol abuse and negative affect.     

Limits of control: The effects of uncontrollability experiences on the efficiency of attentional control

Two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of experiencing uncontrollability on the efficiency of attentional control. The experience of uncontrollability was induced either by unsolvable tasks (Experiment 1) or by tasks in which non-contingent feedback was provided (Experiment 2). A version of the Attentional Network Test-Interactions with an additional measure of vigilance (ANTI-V) was used to evaluate the efficiency of the attentional networks (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive). Results of both experiments revealed a decreased efficiency of executive attention in participants who experienced stable control deprivation but no negative effects in participants who were able to restore their sense of previously deprived control. Additionally, when participants were asked to perform unsolvable tasks and did not receive feedback (Experiment 1), detrimental effects on the orienting network and vigilance were observed. The motivational and cognitive mechanisms underlying the effects of various uncontrollability experiences on conflict resolution and attentional control are discussed.