Regulating cognitive control through approach-avoidance motor actions

In two studies, the regulatory function of approach-avoidance cues in activating cognitive control processes was investigated. It was hypothesized that avoidance motor actions, relative to approach motor actions, increase the recruitment of cognitive resources, resulting in better performance on tasks that draw on these capacities. In Study 1, error rates on a verbal response mode version of the Stroop task were analyzed. On inconsistent Stroop trials, participants in the avoidance condition made significantly fewer errors than those in the approach condition. In Study 2, performance differences on a task switching paradigm were investigated. Crucially, approach and avoidance motor actions were manipulated within-subjects by alternating between approach and avoidance motor actions on 4 blocks of trials. Temporal switching costs were significantly lower while performing an avoidance, compared to an approach motor action. These results support our hypothesis that avoidance cues, relative to approach cues, lead to improved performance on cognitive control tasks.     

Constructing Gender: A Lens-Model Inspired Gender Communication Approach

In this experiment (n=115), I followed a lens-model approach (Brunswik, 1956) to investigate the communicative construction of gender. For this purpose, a situation was created in which gender was not clearly visible and thus existed mainly as a gender-assumption in the eye of the beholder. The study featured the perception of a team leader during a team-meeting presented in a masked video-clip and either labeled as Mr. K or Mrs. K (Goldberg-paradigm study). Results suggested that the assumption of the leader's gender (gender-assumption) had a systematic impact on trait-ratings of the leader in the unexpected direction that “women” were rated higher on agentic traits than “men.” This was interpreted as an expectancy-based double-standard effect in leadership perception on the basis of nonverbal cue utilization. Furthermore, differences in the predictive values of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic cues were suggested in the analysis of verbal cue utilization. Overall, the lens-model perspective provides a useful framework by making perceptual and behavioral processes of gender construction more transparent.     

Dissociating restart cost and mixing cost in task switching

Three experiments investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying the restart cost and mixing cost in task switching. To this aim, the predictability of task order was varied (unpredictable in Experiment 1 and predictable in Experiments 2 and 3) across experiments, which employed a multiple-trial paradigm. Verbal cues for color and shape matching tasks were presented before a run of four trials. Focusing on task-repetition runs only, we measured restart cost as the difference in performance between trials 1 and 2 and mixing cost as the difference in performance on the non-cued trials under mixed-tasks conditions (Experiments 1 and 2) and single-task conditions (Experiment 3). The restart cost was observed under mixed-tasks conditions with both unpredictable and predictable task orders but not under the single-task condition. In contrast, the mixing cost was observed under the mixed-tasks condition with unpredictable task order only (Experiment 1). This finding implies that the optimal task execution on repetition trials depends on how predictable the identity of the approaching task is. Therefore, we suggest that mixing cost arises from limited preparation on repetition trials when task order is unpredictable, while restart cost arises from processes involved in cue-based task activation that is needed to resolve task interference. Together, these data suggest that restart cost and mixing cost are based on dissociable mechanisms.

---

Clinical, electroneurographic and neuroautonomic findings in patients with chronic renal insufficiency and following kidney transplantation

Orientation onsigns of sensomotor polyneuritis seems appropriate for monitoring the status of patients with chronic uremia. The maximum speed of motor and F-wave transmission by the N. fibularis and the mean instantaneous arrhythmia are parameters which, before clinical symptoms appear, permit the accurate assessment of motor and vegetative lesions and may be useful as a basis on which treatment can be corrected.     

Attentional capacity is undifferentiated: concurrent discrimination of form, color, and motion

We report a series of experiments on the concurrent discrimination of form, color, and motion attributes. All tasks involved joint discrimination of attributes, and positions and were highly demanding of attention. We quantified interference between concurrent discriminations by establishing the attention-operating characteristic. Interference was indistinguishable for similar and dissimilar task combinations (form-form, color-color, motion-motion, and color-form, color-motion, motion-color, and motion-form, respectively). These results suggest strongly that different visual discriminations draw on the same attentional capacity--in other words, that the capacity of visual attention is undifferentiated.     

The Dream of Consensus: Finding Common Ground in a Bioethical Context

Consensus is the holy grail of bioethics, the lynch pin of the assumption that well informed, well intentioned people may reach generally acceptable positions on ethically contentious issues. It has been especially important in bioethics, where advancing technology has assured an increasing field of complex medical dilemmas. This paper results on the use of a multicriterion decision making system (MCDM) analyzing group process in an attempt to better define hospital policy. In a pilot program at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, a series of small scale focus groups was constituted to examine criteria defining organ transplant eligibility. Criteria were organized hierarchically using the Analytic Hierarchy Process, an MCDM approach, and the resulting data was analyzed using Expert Choice 9.0, software designed to facilitate AHP analysis. Qualitative and quantitative analysis map barriers to practical consensus in a way not previously possible.     

Incidence of infantile cerebral lesions in children with behavioral disorders]

The delimitation of behavioural disturbances predominantly due to organic brain lesions from those caused by reactions due to environmental factors has practical importance for drug therapy and pedagogic guidance. Figures on the incidence of infantile brain lesions among children with behavioural disorders range from between 20 to 90%. However, comparison of the results is difficult, because different authors followed different aspects for the evaluation of their material. The authors have collected data from 497 children from the 3 to 15 year-old age group who suffer from behavioural disturbances: history, neurological and psychological findings, electroencephalogram, native x-ray picture of the skull, pneumo-encephalogram and echoencephalogram were reviewed for signs and findings suggesting infantile brain damage. Certain signs of intantile brain lesion were found in 28.6% of the children. Among the apparative diagnostic procedures without impairment to the patients, the electroencephalogram proved particularly suited for the support of the diagnosis. The most accurate data on the localization and extent of the lesion are provided by the pneumo-encephalogram. However, its performance is not possible or justified in each child.     

Electrophysiologic studies of patients with neural muscular atrophy

Various nerve conduction velocities, the terminal latency (TL) of facial nerve, the trigeminofacial reflex and fast auditory evoked potentials (FAEP) were investigated in 26 patients with peroneal muscular atrophy (22 with HMSN I and 4 with HMSN II). With the brain nerve status revealing no clinical abnormalities, 85.7% of HMSN I patients showed a longer-than-normal TL of the facial nerve, 66.6% had a prolonged early reflex component of trigeminofacial reflex and 22.7% pathological FAEPs. Normal neurophysiologic findings were obtained for brain nerves of HMSN II subjects. Subclinical involvement of the mid-group of brain nerves did not at all correlate with the impairment of extremity nerves and the duration of the disease. The present results reflect the heterogeneity of HMSN.