Midline Thalamic Damage Associated with Alcohol-Use Disorders: Disruption of Distinct Thalamocortical Pathways and Function

Neuropsychology Review - The thalamus, a significant part of the diencephalon, is a symmetrical and bilateral central brain structure. The thalamus is subdivided into three major groups of nuclei...     

Effects of verbal and spatial-imagery tasks on eye fixations while driving

The consequences of performing verbal and spatial-imagery tasks on visual search when driving were studied. Twelve participants drove 84 km on 2 highways and 2 roads. On each route, they performed 2 verbal tasks and 2 spatial-imagery tasks while their eye movements were recorded. The same results were repeated on all routes. Pupillary dilation indicated similar effort for each task. Visual functional-field size decreased horizontally and vertically, particularly for spatial-imagery tasks. Compared with ordinary driving, fixations were longer during the spatial-imagery task. With regard to driving performance, glance frequency at mirrors and speedometer decreased during the spatial-imagery task. Results are interpreted in terms of multiple attention-resource theories; implications of internal distractions on road safety are discussed in terms of possible impairment in relevant information processing.     

Degree of illiteracy and phonological and metaphonological skills in unschooled adults

Phonological and metaphonological skills are explored in 97 Brazilian illiterate and semiliterate adults. A simple letter- and word-reading task was used to define the degree of illiteracy. Phonemic awareness was strongly dependent on the level of letter and word reading ability. Phonological memory was very low in illiterates and unrelated to letter knowledge. Rhyme identification was relatively preserved in illiterates and semiliterates, and unrelated to letter and word reading level. Phonetic discrimination (minimal pairs) was fairly good and marginally related to reading ability. These results suggest that phonological sensitivity, phonological memory, rhyme identification, and phonemic awareness are distinctive cognitive processes, and that only phonemic awareness is clearly and strongly dependent on the alphabetical acquisition.     

Testing improves true recall and protects against the build-up of proactive interference without increasing false recall

Retrieval practice has been shown to protect against the negative effects of previously learned information on the learning of subsequent information, while increasing retention of new information. We report three experiments investigating the impact of retrieval practice on false recall in a multiple list paradigm. In three different experimental designs participants studied blocks of interrelated words that converged on non-presented associates. Participants were tested either after every study block or only after the fifth study block, and both groups received a cumulative test on all five study blocks. Overall the results from all three different experimental designs point to a benefit of testing in increasing long-term veridical recall on the cumulative test. More importantly, this improvement in veridical recall did not come at a cost: False recall on the cumulative test did not increase from retrieval practice.     

Adapting to test structure: Letting testing teach what to learn

We propose that we encode and store information as a function of the particular ways we have used similar information in the past. More specifically, we contend that the experience of retrieval can serve as a powerful cue to the most effective ways to encode similar information in comparable future learning episodes. To explore these ideas, we did two studies in which all participants went through study–test cycles of single category lists while we manipulated the nature of the recognition tests. The recognition tests either included only same-category lures or only different-category lures. The experience of repeated testing leads participants to avoid conceptual-based strategies but only when conceptual knowledge was poorly diagnostic for recognition (i.e., in the same-category lures condition). In a second study with a similar manipulation, we showed that repeated testing with lures from the same category as study items improved performance in a final recall surprise test compared to conditions in which different-category lures were used. Such a difference is akin to the one obtained when encoding instructions focus on distinctive item features compared to cases in which the focus is on relational processing. We suggest that testing requirements lead to adaptive changes at encoding.     

Mental workload and visual impairment: differences between pupil, blink, and subjective rating

This research has two aims: (a) To study the concurrent validity of three measures of mental workload, NASA TLX rating scale, pupil dilation and blink rate, testing the hypothesis that they will provide convergent results using a single-task, and dissociative results for dual-task; and (b) To analyse their capability to predict visual search impairment. These three measures were analyzed in the same cognitive tasks in single-task and dual-task (cognitive task and visual search) conditions in a within-subjects experiment with twenty-nine participants. Mental workload measures showed concurrent validity under single-task condition, but a complex pattern of results arose in the dual-task condition: it is suggested that NASA TLX would be a subjective addition of the rating of each task; pupil dilation would measure the average arousal underlying the cognitive tasks; and the blink rate would produce opposite effects: whereas mental workload of cognitive tasks would increase blink rate, visual demand would inhibit it. All three measures were good predictors of visual impairment. The soundness of these measures is discussed with regard to the applied field of driving and other activities.     

Technology, Methodology and Intervention: Performing Nanoethics in Portugal

During the last few decades we have witnessed a proliferation of exercises dealing with the public participation of citizens in various different dimensions of their societies, including issues of science and technology. On the one hand, these mechanisms provide more robust forms of public engagement with matters that were traditionally dealt with by experts; on the other hand, they raise concerns relating to their design, efficiency or potential for the empowerment of citizens. As part of the EC-funded project DEEPEN (Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies) a research team in Coimbra, Portugal, was put in charge of identifying the ethical and social “impacts” of emerging nanotechnologies, transforming the traditional focus groups through the incorporation of two methodological innovations: the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Theatre of the Oppressed. This article reflects on the outcomes and complexities of the introduction of these two methodologies. Since the participants had little or no information on nanotechnologies, we reflect on the politics of these focus groups by exploring how issues of intervention, subjectivity, representation and agency were interconnected during this exercise of public participation in Science and Technology, analyzing the role of social sciences in developing nanoethics.     

Spatial and relational frameworks for free recall in young and older adults

Previous studies have demonstrated that older adults can use visually distinctive cues to enhance their spatial memory performance and their recall of the identities of items located in space. Other research has shown that older adults can also use relational information to enhance recall. The relationship between relational and visuospatial support for memory across the adult lifespan is complex and has been little explored. In the present study, this relationship was examined in tasks that measured free recall for item sets possessing different degrees of visuospatial and relational support for recall. It was predicted that both types of support would enhance older adult recall relative to that of the young, and that the two types of support would synergize. The results were generally consistent with these predictions. These findings show that older adults can use relatively simple relational or visuospatial support systems to enhance free recall significantly. This research was supported by Grant AGI 1605, National Institute on Aging.     

Intensive quantities: Why they matter to developmental research

A distinction can be drawn between extensive and intensive quantities. Extensive quantities (e.g., volume, distance), which have been the focus of developmental research, depend upon additive combination. Intensive quantities (e.g., density, speed), which have been relatively neglected, derive from proportional relations between variables. Thus, while proportional relations can be expressed with extensive quantities, these relations are constitutive with intensive quantities. One consequence is that factors, which are theorized as marginal with extensive quantities, are conceptually central in intensive contexts, and may need to be recognized in developmental models. Two such factors, termed variable salience and relational focus, are examined here, via a study where 963 Scottish children aged 7–12 years were asked to solve 42 intensive quantity problems in comparison and missing value format. Reasoning improved with age, but at all ages it was strongly influenced by variable salience and relational focus. Moreover, the manner in which these two factors interacted with other factors differed from what might be expected from models of proportional reasoning with extensive quantities. Based upon these results, it is argued that the distinction between extensive and intensive quantities is theoretically significant, and intensive quantities need to be granted more attention in the future.