Anxiety and selective attention in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Recently, there has been increasing evidence for information-processing deficits in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). While impairments in selective attention have been identified to be central to the symptomatology of OCD, the role that situational anxiety plays in attentional processes has not been fully explored. Previous research findings were limited to tasks containing anxiety-relevant materials, only permitting for the evaluation of the impact of anxiety on simultaneous cognitive processing. Furthermore, it has not yet been determined whether the impact of anxiety is limited to selective attention or is indicative of a more general cognitive impairment. This study was designed to examine the role that situational anxiety plays in selective attention impairments. OCD participants and controls were presented with an anxiety producing statement and a neutral statement, followed by the Stroop Task. Results indicated that situational anxiety plays a significant role in the performance of tasks that require selective attention in OCD. A significant deterioration was detected in performance on selective attention tasks for the OCD participants after confronting anxiety-provoking scenarios, as compared to neutral scenarios. Anxiety did not impair performance on simple reading tasks. Possible explanations are discussed.     

Arguments for adjuncts

It is commonly assumed across the language sciences that some semantic participant information is lexically encoded in the representation of verbs and some is not. In this paper, we propose that semantic obligatoriness and verb class specificity are criteria which influence whether semantic information is lexically encoded. We present a comprehensive survey of the English verbal lexicon, a sentence continuation study, and an on-line sentence processing study which confirm that both factors play a role in the lexical encoding of participant information.     

Rigidity in children's drawings and its relation with representational change

Four studies tested the application of to the drawing domain. In particular, we tested her claim that young children are inhibited in their attempts at changing their graphic representations (representational change) due to being constrained by the order in which the elements of the representation are drawn (procedural rigidity). The first study required 60 children (4- to 6-year-olds and an older comparison group of 8-year-olds) to make three drawings of a familiar and novel topic. From these drawings each child was measured for procedural rigidity. In a further drawing the child was asked to modify their usual representation of each topic. Regression analyses revealed procedural rigidity levels were not predictive of manipulation performance. A second study, testing 75 4- to 6-year-olds and a third study, testing 30 3- to 4-year-olds, revealed that when young children were specifically asked to manipulate rigid sub-procedures on a familiar topic they were indeed able to do so. Finally, a fourth study (testing 40 5-year-olds and 40 8-year-olds) removed the notational trace in drawing (a possible aid for procedural interruption) but this still produced no evidence of a relation between procedural rigidity and representational change. We suggest how the concept of procedural rigidity might be re-interpreted for the drawing domain so that the RR model can remain as a domain-general theory of cognitive development. We also suggest the development of information processing may be crucial for flexibility in drawing.     

Selective influence through conditional independence

Let each of several (generally interdependent) random vectors, taken separately, be influenced by a particular set of external factors. Under what kind of the joint dependence of these vectors on the union of these factor sets can one say that each vector is selectively influenced by “its own” factor set? The answer proposed and elaborated in this paper is: One can say this if and only if one can find a factor-independent random vector given whose value the vectors in question are conditionally independent, with their conditional distributions selectively influenced by the corresponding factor sets. Equivalently, the random vectors should be representable as deterministic functions of “their” factor sets and of some mutually independent and factor-independent random variables, some of which may be shared by several of the functions.     

Facilitation and disruption of lateralized syllable processing by unattended stimuli in the opposite visual field

The influence of lateralized unattended stimuli on the processing of attended stimuli in the opposite visual field can shed light on the nature of information that is transferred between hemispheres. On a cued bilateral task, participants tried to identify a syllable in the attended visual field, which elicits a left hemisphere (LH) advantage and different processing strategies by the two hemispheres. The same or a different syllable or a neutral stimulus appeared in the unattended field. Transmission of unattended syllable codes between hemispheres is symmetric, as revealed by equal interference for the two visual fields. The LH is more accurate than the RH in encoding unattended syllables, as indicated by facilitation in the left but not right visual field and a greater frequency of identifiable intrusions into the left than right field. However, asymmetric encoding strategies are different for attended and unattended syllables.     

Age constraints on first versus second language acquisition: evidence for linguistic plasticity and epigenesis

Does age constrain the outcome of all language acquisition equally regardless of whether the language is a first or second one? To test this hypothesis, the English grammatical abilities of deaf and hearing adults who either did or did not have linguistic experience (spoken or signed) during early childhood were investigated with two tasks, timed grammatical judgement and untimed sentence to picture matching. Findings showed that adults who acquired a language in early life performed at near-native levels on a second language regardless of whether they were hearing or deaf or whether the early language was spoken or signed. By contrast, deaf adults who experienced little or no accessible language in early life performed poorly. These results indicate that the onset of language acquisition in early human development dramatically alters the capacity to learn language throughout life, independent of the sensory-motor form of the early experience.     

Cognitive processing in literate and illiterate subjects: a review of some recent behavioral and functional neuroimaging data

The study of illiterate subjects, which for specific socio-cultural reasons did not have the opportunity to acquire basic reading and writing skills, represents one approach to study the interaction between neurobiological and cultural factors in cognitive development and the functional organization of the human brain. In addition the naturally occurring illiteracy may serve as a model for studying the influence of alphabetic orthography on auditory-verbal language. In this paper we have reviewed some recent behavioral and functional neuroimaging data indicating that learning an alphabetic written language modulates the auditory-verbal language system in a non-trivial way and provided support for the hypothesis that the functional architecture of the brain is modulated by literacy. We have also indicated that the effects of literacy and formal schooling is not limited to language related skills but appears to affect also other cognitive domains. In particular, we indicate that formal schooling influences 2D but not 3D visual naming skills. We have also pointed to the importance of using ecologically relevant tasks when comparing literate and illiterate subjects. We also demonstrate the applicability of a network approach in elucidating differences in the functional organization of the brain between groups. The strength of such an approach is the ability to study patterns of interactions between functionally specialized brain regions and the possibility to compare such patterns of brain interactions between groups or functional states. This complements the more commonly used activation approach to functional neuroimaging data, which characterize functionally specialized regions, and provides important data characterizing the functional interactions between these regions.     

Sehen, Sichtbarkeit und empirische Forschung

Vision, Visibility, and Empirical Research. In general, natural scientists use the concept of observation in a liberal way: they talk of observing electrons, DNA, or distant quasars. Several philosophers of science have recently argued for a similar use of the concept of observation: they have claimed that the important aspects of scientific research can only be properly reconstructed in accordance with how this term is actually used in science. With reference to an example from astronomy, I point out that the proposed generalisation of the concept of observation leads to undesirable consequences. I argue that a differentiated conceptual framework is required in order to give an adequate account of the varieties of scientific experience. Thus, the appropriate starting point for distinguishing these various scientific research practices should not be the generalised scientific conception of observation, but instead distinctly different uses of the term observation drawn from ordinary language. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

汉字词识别过程的形,音,义编码作用的研究

本文通过两个实验,采用汉字词形、音、义特征匹配任务,探讨了影响汉字词的形、音、义编码与提取方式的有关因素。实验一发现在速示条件下,对汉字词再认的成绩并不受字词的使用度的影响,反应时无明显变化,而主要受编码加工的深度影响。在形、音、义特征加工中,对音码的加工时间最长,再认的正确率最低;义码的加工时间较短,再认正确率最高;形码的反应时及再认成绩介于音码与义码之间。实验二在非速示条件下也获得了相同的结果。研究结果表明,在汉字词的形、音、义特征中,存在着编码加工深度的差异。     

The Ability of Face Viewpoint Transformation Remains Immature at Age of 12: Evidence from Recognition of Faces with Different Familiarity in Children

Children are immature in face recognition, particularly in face configural decoding. This study examines the developmental difference of face recognition in another mechanism: viewpoint transformation processing. Adults and sixth‐grade children were instructed to match a series of one‐tone black face silhouettes to their corresponding front‐view faces. This task involves sophisticated calculation in pictorial information, precise viewpoint transformation, and most probably a 3‐D face representation. The results showed that although the performances were well above chance level in the recognition of familiar faces, for children, they were at chance level in the recognition of unfamiliar faces. The results indicate that children, at least to the age of about 12 years, are still immature in the processing of face viewpoint transformation compared to adults.