Cognitive Processing Abilities Research Articles

Evaluation of Cognitive Information Processing Ability of College Athletes in a Selective Attention-Reaction Task

Evaluation of Cognitive Information Processing Ability of College Athletes in a Selective Attention-Reaction Task

Psychological Distress of Immigrant Population in Host School Systems and the Critical Period for Second Language Development: A Review

Immigrant students attending schools in the host country have different cognitive, cultural and linguistic backgrounds that might influence their inclusion process. This process is enhanced by success attained in academic context and by psychological adaptation. Academic difficulties and limited proficiency could motivate psychological distress and anxiety levels that constraint development and learning of newer immigrants’ generation. Maladaptive behaviours might occur with different severity among non-native school children attending to their ethnic differences, cultural traits, length of residence and age. Also the maturational characteristics that interfere with the achievement of native children are probably different from the cognitive maturation that explain the performance of immigrant students, in the same schooling years. In this critical review two main concerns are explored as research based evidence and also as theoretical hypotheses: how distinct immigrant groups differ in psychological distress according to pre-migration and post-migration experiences, and how immigration may change the cognitive processing abilities and the brain development.

Children's Use of Morphological Cues in Real-Time Event Representation.

The present study investigated whether and how fast young children can use information encoded in morphological markers during real-time event representation. Using the visual world paradigm, we tested 35 adults, 34 5-year-olds and 33 3-year-olds. The results showed that the adults, the 5-year-olds and the 3-year-olds all exhibited eye gaze patterns that reflected a rapid use of morphological cues during real-time event representation. There was no difference in the time course of the eye gaze patterns of the 5-year-olds and those of the adults, indicating that 5-year-old children already have adult-like processing abilities and they can use morphological cues as effectively as adults during real-time event representation. However, a 400 ms delay was observed in the eye gaze patterns by the 3-year-olds as compared to the 5-year-olds and the adults. We proposed that the observed difference might reflect a difference in the general cognitive processing abilities between the three age groups. Due to the immature cognitive processing abilities of 3-year-olds, it took longer for them to progress their eye movements to the target pictures as compared to older children and adults.

유아의 마음이론과 언어능력 및 인지처리능력 간의 관계

유아의 마음이론과 언어능력 및 인지처리능력 간의 관계

EVALUACIÓN DE LA CAPACIDAD DE PERCIBIR EMOCIONES BÁSICAS Y COMPLEJAS EN PERSONAS SORDAS CON EL SOFTWARE PERVALE-2.0.

Abstract:ASSESSING THE ABILITY TO PERCEIVE BASIC AND COMPLEX EMOTIONS IN DEAF PEOPLE WITH THE PERVALE-SA poorly understood aspect in deaf people is their cognitive emotion information processing abilities. Deaf people have more difficulties to distinguish the tone, intensity and rhythm of the language that listener people. When deaf people that they acquired deafness oral communication system, so they achieve a greater development of self and understanding of own and others’ emotions than deaf people who develop a gestural (LSE). PERVALE-S software is a tool for assessing perception, expression and evaluation both basic and complex emotions in deaf people with different communication codes (verbal and gestural). PERVALE-S presents visual images and instructions (by an interpreter), where the subject must identify what the image conveys both emotion and intensity level. Though the small simple, initial finding indicated that age (.556**), gender (.438**) and just gestural deaf people (.556**, 1: oral; 2: gestural)- last one, the assessment (all of them did not show interaction effect). An alternative explanation, for the better performance among gestural, in that oral deaf people he been training focus his visual perception in the mouth under social context situation, while just gestural spend more time paying attention on the rest of body when they need to accurate a social emotion. Eye tracking instrument will be used to test this hypothesis.Keywords: perceiving emotions, assessing emotions, deaf people,performace measure of emotion.Resumen:Un aspecto poco conocido de las personas sordas es su manejo de las emociones como habilidad cognitiva. Software PERVALE-S es una herramienta para la evaluación de la percepción, la expresión y la evaluación de emociones básicas y complejas de las personas sordas, con diferente código de comunicación (verbal y gestual). PERVALE-S presenta imágenes visuales e instrucciones (a través de un intérprete), en el que el sujeto debe identificar lo que la imagen transmite tanto la percepción de la emoción correcta como su nivel de intensidad. A pesar de la pequeña muestra que tenemos, se han encontrado algunos resultados los cuales indicaron que la edad (.555**), el género (.438**) y el sordo no oralizante (.556**)- cuando nuestra hipótesis era lo contrario; rindieron significativamente en la prueba de emociones sociales. La explicación a éste último se debe a que los sordos oralizantes están más entrenador a fijarse en la boca de la otra persona que los de LSE, y por lo tanto no captan parte de la imagen visual que los de LSE, y por tanto no captan parte de la imagen visual para reconocer la emoción con la misma eficacia que los no oralizantes.Palabras claves: Percepción de emociones, evaluación de emociones, personas sordas, medi-das de la emoción.

Executive Function, Visual Attention and the Cocktail Party Problem in Musicians and Non-Musicians.

The goal of this study was to investigate how cognitive factors influence performance in a multi-talker, “cocktail-party” like environment in musicians and non-musicians. This was achieved by relating performance in a spatial hearing task to cognitive processing abilities assessed using measures of executive function (EF) and visual attention in musicians and non-musicians. For the spatial hearing task, a speech target was presented simultaneously with two intelligible speech maskers that were either colocated with the target (0° azimuth) or were symmetrically separated from the target in azimuth (at ±15°). EF assessment included measures of cognitive flexibility, inhibition control and auditory working memory. Selective attention was assessed in the visual domain using a multiple object tracking task (MOT). For the MOT task, the observers were required to track target dots (n = 1,2,3,4,5) in the presence of interfering distractor dots. Musicians performed significantly better than non-musicians in the spatial hearing task. For the EF measures, musicians showed better performance on measures of auditory working memory compared to non-musicians. Furthermore, across all individuals, a significant correlation was observed between performance on the spatial hearing task and measures of auditory working memory. This result suggests that individual differences in performance in a cocktail party-like environment may depend in part on cognitive factors such as auditory working memory. Performance in the MOT task did not differ between groups. However, across all individuals, a significant correlation was found between performance in the MOT and spatial hearing tasks. A stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that musicianship and performance on the MOT task significantly predicted performance on the spatial hearing task. Overall, these findings confirm the relationship between musicianship and cognitive factors including domain-general selective attention and working memory in solving the “cocktail party problem”.

Thinking Socially

This article addresses the complexity of what it means to “be social” from the perspective of social thinking. This perspective recognizes social cognitive processing abilities as the foundation for social knowledge and, in turn, social behaviors. The article further describes variables that influence how one understands how to do what is expected in different social situations and how development, stakeholders, and context influence that process. Challenges in “being social” for individuals with autism spectrum disorders are discussed, as well as differences between behavior-based and cognitive-based therapies. Finally, an example of one Social Thinking strategy-based treatment framework, Social Behavior Mapping, is used to illustrate the essential elements of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Auditory and cognitive aging: Differences between speech intelligibility and speech-in-speech intelligibility

Older adults, even those with normal or near-normal audiograms, report greater subjective listening difficulty in everyday life compared to younger adults. However, their difficulties are not well predicted from pure-tone or speech audiometry in quiet or noise. Speech intelligibility tests based on word recognition do not incorporate many of the sensory and cognitive challenges that listeners confront in everyday situations where it is necessary to understand a target talker when there are competing talkers in the auditory scene. Speech-in-speech intelligibility is affected by age-related differences in auditory and cognitive processing. Age-related differences in auditory temporal processing reduce access to periodicity and temporal envelope cues that serve stream segregation and spatial listening. Age-related differences in cognitive processing are reflected in difficulty remembering speech heard in multi-talker babble or switching spatial attention when there is uncertainty about the location of a target talker in a multi-talker display. Furthermore, when listening occurs in multi-tasking conditions (e.g., listening while walking), there are increased and competing demands for cognitive resources that may affect performance on listening and/or the competing tasks. These examples highlight the importance of both inter- and intra-individual differences in speech-in-speech intelligibility that depend on the interaction of auditory and cognitive processing abilities.

The Effects of Masticatory Exercise Using Chewing Gum on Cognitive Function and Stress

Masticatory function affects energy expenditure, heart rate, working memory, choice reaction time, and psychological arousal. In other words, masticatory function is closely related to cognitive processing ability. It also influences concentration and stress. The purpose of this study was to determine whether masticatory exercise training using chewing gum can improve cognitive function and stress. The participants were recruited from Sahmyook University and were divided into a masticatory exercise group (n = 15) and a control group (n = 15) by having each of the subjects take out one card from a box containing two types of cards representing the study groups. This study used sugar-free chewing gum with xylitol for the masticatory exercise. Cognitive function and stress were assessed before and after the masticatory exercise. The Memorizing Numbers (MN), Finding a Picture by Name (FPN), and Match Card (MC) components of the COMCOG® test were used to assess cognitive function, which is closely linked to memory, attention, and concentration. Stress was measured using the SA-3000P® system. COMCOG® component scores and stress resistance (SR) and stress index (SI) scores were assessed before and after the training. The groups significantly differed in MN, FPN, MC, SR, and SI scores (p < 0.05). These findings suggest that masticatory exercise using chewing gum improves cognitive function and reduces stress.

Do human cognitive differences in information processing affect preference and performance of CAPTCHA?

Abstract A Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) is a widely used security defense mechanism that is utilized by service providers to determine whether the entity interacting with their system is a human and not a malicious agent. Common design practices of current CAPTCHA schemes barely take into account cultural, contextual, and individual cognitive characteristics and abilities of users. Motivated by recent research which underpins the necessity for designing more user-friendly CAPTCHA, this paper investigates the effect of users’ cognitive styles and cognitive processing abilities towards preference and task performance of CAPTCHA challenges. In the frame of the reported research, two user studies were conducted. The first study (n=131) explored the effect of users’ cognitive styles (Verbal/Imager) on user preference and task performance of two complementary types of CAPTCHA mechanisms; text-recognition and image-recognition. The second study (n=125) explored the effect of users’ cognitive processing abilities (speed of processing, controlled attention, working memory capacity) on task performance in regards with different levels of complexity of both text-recognition and image-recognition CAPTCHA. Analysis of results revealed interaction effects of users’ cognitive processing characteristics towards preference and performance of CAPTCHA, suggesting that individual differences at such an intrinsic level are important to be considered for designing more usable and user-centric CAPTCHA challenges.

Age-related changes in sound localisation ability.

Auditory spatial processing is an important ability in everyday life and allows the processing of omnidirectional information. In this review, we report and compare data from psychoacoustic and electrophysiological experiments on sound localisation accuracy and auditory spatial discrimination in infants, children, and young and older adults. The ability to process auditory spatial information changes over lifetime: the perception of the acoustic space develops from an initially imprecise representation in infants and young children to a concise representation of spatial positions in young adults and the respective performance declines again in older adults. Localisation accuracy shows a strong deterioration in older adults, presumably due to declined processing of binaural temporal and monaural spectro-temporal cues. When compared to young adults, the thresholds for spatial discrimination were strongly elevated both in young children and older adults. Despite the consistency of the measured values the underlying causes for the impaired performance might be different: (1) the effect is due to reduced cognitive processing ability and is thus task-related; (2) the effect is due to reduced information about the auditory space and caused by declined processing in auditory brain stem circuits; and (3) the auditory space processing regime in young children is still undergoing developmental changes and the interrelation with spatial visual processing is not yet established. In conclusion, we argue that for studying auditory space processing over the life course, it is beneficial to investigate spatial discrimination ability instead of localisation accuracy because it more reliably indicates changes in the processing ability.

Vestibular involvement in cognition: Visuospatial ability, attention, executive function, and memory

A growing body of literature suggests the inner ear vestibular system has a substantial impact on cognitive function. The strongest evidence exists in connecting vestibular function to the cognitive domain of visuospatial ability, which includes spatial memory, navigation, mental rotation, and mental representation of three-dimensional space. Substantial evidence also exists suggesting the vestibular system has an impact on attention and cognitive processing ability. The cognitive domains of memory and executive function are also implicated in a number of studies. We will review the current literature, discuss possible causal links between vestibular dysfunction and cognitive performance, and suggest areas of future research.

Effects of age, hearing loss, and linguistic complexity on listening effort as measured by working memory span

Listeners, especially older or hard-of-hearing individuals, report that understanding conversation in noisy situations is effortful. Individual differences may be due to auditory and/or cognitive processing abilities. It is assumed that auditory processing depends on the individual’s degree and type of hearing loss, while cognitive processing depends on the individual’s working memory (WM) capacity. Many researchers have measured reading WM span to minimize the effects of hearing loss; however, variations due to hearing loss may be important in assessing processing demands (listening effort) during speech-in-noise understanding. The effects of the acoustical properties of the signal and masker on listening effort have been studied, but less is known about the effects of the linguistic complexity of the materials. We predicted that demands on WM and the correlation between WM span measures and speech-in-noise performance would increase with increasing linguistic complexity, with speech-in-noise performance correlating more strongly with auditory than with visual measures of WM span. To test these hypotheses, we administered speech tests varying in linguistic complexity and measures of both reading and listening WM span. Participants were a group of younger listeners with normal hearing and a group of older listeners with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.

Can a Second Language Help You in More Ways Than One?

In response to the review article written by Paap et al. [1], we will examine the reasons why one would expect some behavioral and cognitive advantages of bilingualism. Then we will explain why such advantages may not be apparent in certain experiments. We will conclude that bilingualism is a skill that can entail neuroplastic changes, thus improving cognitive load processing abilities. However, the extent to which bilingualism may or may not lead to cognitive advantages or disadvantages relates to several factors. Finally, we argue that the optimal approach in studying the potential cognitive advantages of bilingualism is to link behavior to brain function, as a given behavior may be subserved by different neural mechanisms in bilingual and monolingual populations, reflecting distinct processing strategies.

Coping up with the Information Overload in the Medical Profession

The recent technological advancement has proved to be tremendously helpful for medical consultants. However, this advancement has also generated an enormous volume and variety of data, with a high velocity causing an information load for the medical consultants. Information overload can be defined as a difficulty a person can have in comprehending issue and making judgments that are caused by the presence of too much information. Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system surpasses its processing capability. Decision-makers have a limited cognitive processing ability. Consequently, when information overload happens, it is possible that a decline in decision quality will take place. Decision-makers, such as medical consultants, have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity. Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will occur. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of information overload on medical consultants’ life, its causes, and potential ways to deal with it. We performed a literature review to find the effects of information overload on medical consultants. Twelve research papers were considered for thematic analysis using NVivo 10 tool. These papers revealed four themes: 1) traditional methods of data collection; 2) modern ways of data collection; 3) consequences of modern ways of data collection; and 4) the need for handling information overload. This study suggests the development of a Continuing Professional Development course that explains how to deal with information overload, and availing the same through E-Learning mode might be one immediate solution.

Auditory processing demands and working memory span

The (in)dependence of auditory and cognitive processing abilities is a controversial topic for hearing researchers and clinicians. Some advocate for the need to isolate auditory and cognitive factors. In contrast, we argue for the need to understand how they interact. Working memory span (WMS) is a cognitive measure that has been related to language comprehension in general and also to speech understanding in noise. In healthy adults with normal hearing, there is typically a strong correlation between reading and listening measures of WMS. Some investigators have opted to use visually presented stimuli when testing people who do not have normal hearing in order to avoid the influence of modality-specific auditory processing deficits on WMS. However, tests conducted using auditory stimuli are necessary to evaluate how cognitive processing is affected by the auditory processing demands experienced by different individuals over a range of conditions in which the tasks to be performed, the availability of supportive context, and the acoustical and linguistic characteristics of targets and maskers are varied. Attempts to measure auditory processing independent of cognitive processing will fall short in assessing listening function in realistic conditions.

Relation between speech-in-noise threshold, hearing loss and cognition from 40-69 years of age.

BackgroundHealthy hearing depends on sensitive ears and adequate brain processing. Essential aspects of both hearing and cognition decline with advancing age, but it is largely unknown how one influences the other. The current standard measure of hearing, the pure-tone audiogram is not very cognitively demanding and does not predict well the most important yet challenging use of hearing, listening to speech in noisy environments. We analysed data from UK Biobank that asked 40–69 year olds about their hearing, and assessed their ability on tests of speech-in-noise hearing and cognition.Methods and FindingsAbout half a million volunteers were recruited through NHS registers. Respondents completed ‘whole-body’ testing in purpose-designed, community-based test centres across the UK. Objective hearing (spoken digit recognition in noise) and cognitive (reasoning, memory, processing speed) data were analysed using logistic and multiple regression methods. Speech hearing in noise declined exponentially with age for both sexes from about 50 years, differing from previous audiogram data that showed a more linear decline from <40 years for men, and consistently less hearing loss for women. The decline in speech-in-noise hearing was especially dramatic among those with lower cognitive scores. Decreasing cognitive ability and increasing age were both independently associated with decreasing ability to hear speech-in-noise (0.70 and 0.89 dB, respectively) among the population studied. Men subjectively reported up to 60% higher rates of difficulty hearing than women. Workplace noise history associated with difficulty in both subjective hearing and objective speech hearing in noise. Leisure noise history was associated with subjective, but not with objective difficulty hearing.ConclusionsOlder people have declining cognitive processing ability associated with reduced ability to hear speech in noise, measured by recognition of recorded spoken digits. Subjective reports of hearing difficulty generally show a higher prevalence than objective measures, suggesting that current objective methods could be extended further.

Visual motion processing deficits in infants with the fragile X premutation.

BackgroundFragile X syndrome (FXS) results from a trinucleotide repeat expansion (full mutation >200 cytosine-guanine-guanine (CGG) repeats) in the FMR1 gene, leading to a reduction or absence of the gene’s protein product, fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), ultimately causing cognitive and behavioral impairments that are characteristic of the syndrome. In our previous work with infants and toddlers with FXS, we have been able to describe much about their cognitive and visual processing abilities. In light of recent work on the mild cognitive deficits and functional and structural brain differences that are present in adults with the fragile X (FX) premutation, in the present study we examined whether some of the low-level visual processing deficits we have observed in infants with FXS would also be present in infants with the FX premutation (55–200 CGG repeats).MethodsWe chose a contrast detection task using second-order motion stimuli on which infants with FXS previously showed significantly increased detection thresholds (Vision Res 48:1471–1478, 2008). Critically, we also included a developmental delay comparison group of infants with Down syndrome (DS), who were matched to infants with FXS on both chronological and mental age, to speak to the question of whether this second-order motion processing deficit is a FX-specific phenomenon.ResultsAs reported previously, infants with the FX full mutation showed motion contrast detection threshold levels that were significantly higher than age-matched typically developing control infants. Strikingly, the motion detection contrast levels of FX premutation infants were also significantly higher than typically developing (TD) infants and not significantly different from the group of infants with FXS or with DS.ConclusionsThese results, which are in keeping with a growing body of evidence on the mild cognitive and perceptual processing deficits and functional and structural brain differences that are present in adults and older children with the FX premutation, underscore the pressing need to study and describe the processing capabilities of infants and toddlers with the FX premutation.

The impact of e-book interactivity design on children's Chinese character acquisition

This study examined the impact of e-book interactivity design on the learning of Chinese characters by fourth graders (10-year-old children). This study was guided by two main questions: (1) Are there any differences in achievements (Chinese character writing, lexical comprehension, and lexical usage) between groups of young learners who read e-books with different interactivity levels? and (2) Are there any differences in motivation (attention, confidence, relevance, and satisfaction) between groups of young learners who read e-books with different interactivity levels? This study was an experimental design where the independent variable was the interactivity design of digital books. A sample of 99 fourth graders participated in the study and participants were randomly assigned into these two groups, with one group reading an e-book with a low level of interactivity (pace-control only) and the other reading an e-book with a high level of interactivity (sequence- and media-control). Participants were asked to complete a pre-test first, and then they read their assigned e-books for 30 minutes. After they finished reading, they were given a post-test. The results showed a reverse interactivity effect, that is, the group reading the e-book with the low level of interactivity (pace-control only) performed significantly better in Chinese character writing, attention, and satisfaction. This might be due to young learners' limited cognitive capacity and processing ability for learning with hypermedia. This study aims to expand on existing theories on interactive learning for young learners and serves as a reference for elementary school teachers and e-book publishers.

Happy software developers solve problems better: psychological measurements in empirical software engineering

For more than thirty years, it has been claimed that a way to improve software developers’ productivity and software quality is to focus on people and to provide incentives to make developers satisfied and happy. This claim has rarely been verified in software engineering research, which faces an additional challenge in comparison to more traditional engineering fields: software development is an intellectual activity and is dominated by often-neglected human factors (called human aspects in software engineering research). Among the many skills required for software development, developers must possess high analytical problem-solving skills and creativity for the software construction process. According to psychology research, affective states—emotions and moods—deeply influence the cognitive processing abilities and performance of workers, including creativity and analytical problem solving. Nonetheless, little research has investigated the correlation between the affective states, creativity, and analytical problem-solving performance of programmers. This article echoes the call to employ psychological measurements in software engineering research. We report a study with 42 participants to investigate the relationship between the affective states, creativity, and analytical problem-solving skills of software developers. The results offer support for the claim that happy developers are indeed better problem solvers in terms of their analytical abilities. The following contributions are made by this study: (1) providing a better understanding of the impact of affective states on the creativity and analytical problem-solving capacities of developers, (2) introducing and validating psychological measurements, theories, and concepts of affective states, creativity, and analytical-problem-solving skills in empirical software engineering, and (3) raising the need for studying the human factors of software engineering by employing a multidisciplinary viewpoint.