Information Processing Patterns Research Articles

Development of Program Comprehension Skills by Novice Programmers – Longitudinal Eye Tracking Studies

The article discusses the findings of longitudinal studies (three stages spanning 6 months) which were to investigate the process of acquiring the ability to comprehension program code by the computer science students having started to learn to program. The studies were conducted with the use of a knowledge measurement test, the diagnostic survey, and eye tracking technology that enabled the recording of movement of the subjects’ eyes and an analysis of the patterns of information processing during solving programming problems. The obtained results have shown that the students solved the tasks most effectively in the last stage of the research during which they obtained the highest indicator of correct answers in the significantly shortest time. In the last stage of the research the dominant form of the algorithmic problem analysis was code, in two previous it was flowchart. The eye tracking data have shown that regardless of the research stage the code analysis was definitely connected with a greater number of fixations, with very near values of time devoted to solving those two forms of the algorithm. The participants who increased their competences in a scope of the program code analysis had a significantly greater saccade amplitude average (SAA) and a significantly shorter fixation duration average (FDA) in the last stage of the research comparing to previous ones. The results suggest that the FDA and SAA are parameters sensitive to the development of program comprehension skills.

Emotion processing associated with aggression in early adolescents: A focus on affective theory of mind.

Social-emotional factors associated with youth aggression have largely been studied in the context of social information-processing models. The ability to accurately encode and appropriately interpret others' emotions has yet to be fully examined in the context of aggressive behavior, particularly during adolescence. Using cross-sectional data from a sample of 282 at-risk early adolescents, the present study examined associations between teacher-reported aggression and youth performance on a task assessing two components of affective theory of mind: emotion recognition and situational attribution. Results indicated that emotion recognition, but not situational attribution accuracy, was significantly associated with teacher-reported aggressive behavior. Over-recognizing anger and under-recognizing sadness were unique error patterns associated with aggression, and these associations remained significant after controlling for demographics and other key social information-processing variables. Findings suggest that difficulties with emotion processing play an important role in the social information-processing patterns observed in the context of youth aggression. Implications for preventive interventions for youth at risk of engaging in aggressive behavior are discussed.

The relationship between cognitive engagement and students’ performance in a simulation-based training environment: an information-processing perspective

ABSTRACT In this paper, we adopted an information-processing perspective to examine the relationship between cognitive engagement and students’ performance in a simulation-based training environment. In particular, we examined what forms of cognitive engagement students used while diagnosing virtual patients and whether engagement forms predicted students’ diagnostic confidence and efficacy. A total of 88 medical students from a large North American university voluntarily participated in this study. We used latent profile analysis (LPA), a person-centered statistical method, to identify groups of students with similar information processing patterns. Findings from this study revealed that students displayed various forms of cognitive engagement, i.e. recipience, resource management, and task-focused. Moreover, we found that group difference in diagnostic confidence was moderated by task complexity. In terms of diagnostic efficacy, students who were task-focused or resource managers did better than the recipience students. The findings advance our understanding of theories of cognitive engagement as well as inform the design of effective interventions in developing simulation-based learning environments.

Intrinsic non-hub connectivity predicts human inter-temporal decision-making.

Inter-temporal decision-making is ubiquitous in daily life and has been considered as a critical characteristic associated with an individual's success. Such decisions require us to tradeoff between short-term and long-term benefits. Prior studies have indicated that inter-temporal decision involves various brain regions that tend to occupy the central hubs. However, it is unclear whether the functional connectivities among hub as well as non-hub regions can predict discounting behaviors. Here, we combined with graph-theoretical algorithm and multivariate pattern analysis to explore whether voxel-wise functional connectivity strength in the whole brain could predict discounting rates (indexed as logk, based on the adaptive delay-discounting task) in a relatively large sample (n= 429) of young adults. Results revealed that short- and long-distance as well as all-range non-hub functional connectivity strength in the limbic system (i.e., medial orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampus) were inversely associated with discounting rates. Furthermore, these results were robust and did not appear to be due to potential confounding factors. Above weight-based degree metric is commonly indicative of the communication pattern of local and global parallel information processing, and it therefore provides novel insights into the neural mechanisms underlying inter-temporal decision-making from the perspective of human brain topological organizations.

Parenting practices, aggressive response evaluationand decision, and social difficulties in kindergarten children: The role of fathers.

The associationbetween fathers' parenting characteristics and their preschool children's social information processing (SIP) patterns is an understudied research topic. Hence, the current study aims to bridge this gap by examining whether there are differences between mothers' and fathers' parenting characteristics and their children's SIP patterns as well as their social functioning in school, with a specific focus on children's aggressive response evaluation and decision (RED) and social difficulties in kindergarten. Using a multimethod (self-reports and direct assessments)multi-informant (mother, father, child, and teacher) design, we collected data from 115 kindergarten children, their mothers, and their fathers, tapping the parents' perceptions of the relationships with the child and parenting style; the child's aggressively biased RED, and the child's social difficulties in kindergarten. We found that fathers' parenting capacities are associated with children's aggressively biased RED, whereas no such associations were found for mothers. In addition, aggressively biased RED mediated the association between fathers' authoritative parenting style and the child's maladaptive behavior in kindergarten. There were no differences between fathers and mothers in relation to social difficulties in kindergarten, with both parents' authoritative parenting style associated with less social difficulties. However, sex moderated this association in mothers as their authoritative style was associated with social difficulties in boys but not in girls. This difference was not found in fathers. On the other hand, fathers' authoritarian parenting style was associated with aggressive RED in boys but not in girls. The tentative nature of these findings and the need for replications are discussed.

Algorithmic bias: on the implicit biases of social technology

Often machine learning programs inherit social patterns reflected in their training data without any directed effort by programmers to include such biases. Computer scientists call this algorithmic bias. This paper explores the relationship between machine bias and human cognitive bias. In it, I argue similarities between algorithmic and cognitive biases indicate a disconcerting sense in which sources of bias emerge out of seemingly innocuous patterns of information processing. The emergent nature of this bias obscures the existence of the bias itself, making it difficult to identify, mitigate, or evaluate using standard resources in epistemology and ethics. I demonstrate these points in the case of mitigation techniques by presenting what I call ‘the Proxy Problem’. One reason biases resist revision is that they rely on proxy attributes, seemingly innocuous attributes that correlate with socially-sensitive attributes, serving as proxies for the socially-sensitive attributes themselves. I argue that in both human and algorithmic domains, this problem presents a common dilemma for mitigation: attempts to discourage reliance on proxy attributes risk a tradeoff with judgement accuracy. This problem, I contend, admits of no purely algorithmic solution.

The function of the hippocampus and middle temporal gyrus in forming new associations and concepts during the processing of novelty and usefulness features in creative designs

Creative thought relies on the reorganization of existing knowledge to generate novel and useful concepts. However, how these new concepts are formed, especially through the processing of novelty and usefulness (which are usually regarded as the key properties of creativity), is not clear. Taking familiar and useful (FU) objects/designs as the starting point or fundamental baseline, we modified them into novel and useless (NS) objects/designs or novel and useful (NU) ones (i.e., truly creative ones) to investigate how the features of novelty and usefulness are processed (processing of novelty: NU minus FU; processing of usefulness: NU minus NS). Specifically, we predicted that the creative integration of novelty and usefulness entails not only the formation of new associations, which could be critically mediated by the hippocampus and adjacent medial temporal lobe (MTL) areas, but also the formation of new concepts or categories, which is supported by the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). We found that both the MTL and the MTG were involved in the processing of novelty and usefulness. The MTG showed distinctive patterns of information processing, reflected by strengthened functional connectivity with the hippocampus to construct new concepts and strengthened functional connectivity with the executive control system to break the boundaries of old concepts. Additionally, participants’ subjective evaluations of concept distance showed that the distance between the familiar concept (FU) and the successfully constructed concept (NU) was larger than that between the FU and the unsuccessfully constructed concept (NS), and this pattern was found to correspond to the patterns of their neural representations in the MTG. These findings demonstrate the critical mechanism by which new associations and concepts are formed during novelty and usefulness processing in creative design; this mechanism may be critically mediated by the hippocampus-MTG connection.

Preliminary study on information processing patterns and damaged areas in facial expression recognition of patients with cerebrovascular disorders

Preliminary study on information processing patterns and damaged areas in facial expression recognition of patients with cerebrovascular disorders

Neuroplasticity in cognitive and psychological mechanisms of depression: an integrative model.

Chronic stress and depressive-like behaviors in basic neuroscience research have been associated with impairments of neuroplasticity, such as neuronal atrophy and synaptic loss in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus. The current review presents a novel integrative model of neuroplasticity as a multi-domain neurobiological, cognitive, and psychological construct relevant in depression and other related disorders of negative affect (e.g., anxiety). We delineate a working conceptual model in which synaptic plasticity deficits described in animal models are integrated and conceptually linked with human patient findings from cognitive science and clinical psychology. We review relevant reports including neuroimaging findings (e.g., decreased functional connectivity in prefrontal-limbic circuits), cognitive deficits (e.g., executive function and memory impairments), affective information processing patterns (e.g., rigid, negative biases in attention, memory, interpretations, and self-associations), and patient-reported symptoms (perseverative, inflexible thought patterns; inflexible and maladaptive behaviors). Finally, we incorporate discussion of integrative research methods capable of building additional direct empirical support, including using rapid-acting treatments (e.g., ketamine) as a means to test this integrative model by attempting to simultaneously reverse these deficits across levels of analysis.

SESGOS DE RAZONAMIENTO, LENGUAJES FORMALES Y ENSEÑANZA DE LA LÓGICA

Empirical studies from the field of cognitive psychology have shown that human reasoning does not obey the prescriptions of logic. On the contrary, these studies showed that human reasoning relies on the construction of mental models and that there exist certain information processing patterns, called cognitive biases, which are linked to reasoning errors. The aim of this paper is to analyze if these human reasoning features have an impact on the apprehension of the concept of logical consequence. We conducted an exploratory study in a group of university students of an introductory course of Logic, in order to determine if there is any relation between formal languages and argument evaluation. As a result, our study showed that there exists a significant correlation between formal languages, on the one hand, and syntactic methods, on the other hand, and the ability for checking whether an argument is valid. These results would support the hypothesis that formal languages and formal methods are essential tools for teaching logic. Although pedagogical proposals that are close to naive reasoning could be useful in the first approach to core concepts in logic, our study reveals some negative consequences related to these didactic proposals that are linked to reasoning biases activation.

Amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces relates to bullying and victimization in adolescents.

Relational bullying and victimization are common social experiences during adolescence, but relatively little functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research has examined the neural correlates of bullying and victimization in adolescents. The aim of the present study was to address this gap by examining the association between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces and peer relational bullying and victimization in a community-based sample of adolescents. Participants included 49 adolescents, 12–15 years old, who underwent fMRI scanning while completing an emotional face matching task. Results indicated that interactions between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces predicted self-reported relational bullying and victimization. Specifically, a combination of higher amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted more bullying behavior, whereas a combination of lower amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted less relational victimization. Exploratory whole-brain analyses also suggested that increased rostral anterior cingulate cortex activity to fearful faces was associated with less bullying. These results suggest that relational bullying and victimization are related to different patterns of neural activity to angry and fearful faces, which may help in understanding how patterns of social information processing predict these experiences.

Synchronization patterns in a blinking multilayer neuronal network

Synchronization is one of the most prominent collective behaviors in neuroscience which can be associated with information processing and many pathological patterns of the brain. Since multilayer networks have crucial roles in better understanding the real complex systems, in this paper, we study a two-layer neuronal network of Hindmarsh–Rose neurons. Moreover, the network is considered to have blinking structure which can refer to the duration of spikes arrivals and also the synaptic plasticity. The blinking network is composed of the non-locally coupled neurons and time-variant on–off couplings between any other pair of neurons. Particularly, we investigate the synchronization patterns emerging in the network by varying coupling strength and wiring probability, in different values of external current. Variation of the coupling parameters can cause the emergence of various dynamical states such as chimera state, imperfect synchronization and change of synchronous spikes to synchronous bursts or vice versa. It can also lead to synchronization transition between FHC and FH bursting types.

Processing of affective words in adolescent PTSD-Attentional bias toward social threat.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with a hypersensitivity to potential threat. This hypersensitivity manifests through differential patterns of emotional information processing and has been demonstrated in behavioral and neurophysiological experimental paradigms. However, the majority of research has been focused on adult patients with PTSD. To examine possible differences in underlying neurophysiological patterns for adolescent patients with PTSD after childhood sexual and/or physical abuse (CSA/CPA), ERP correlates of emotional word processing in 38 healthy participants and 40 adolescent participants with PTSD after experiencing CSA/CPA were studied. The experimental paradigm consisted of a passive reading task with neutral, positive (e.g., paradise), physically threatening (e.g., torment), and socially threatening (i.e., swearing, e.g., son of a bitch) words. A modulation of P3 amplitudes by emotional valence was found, with positive words inducing less elevated amplitudes over both groups. Interestingly, in later processing, the PTSD group showed augmented early late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes for socially threatening stimuli, while there were no modulations within the healthy control group. Also, region-specific emotional modulations for anterior and posterior electrode clusters were found. For the anterior LPP, highest activations have been found for positive words, while socially and physically threatening words led to strongest modulations in the posterior LPP cluster. There were no modulations by group or emotional valence at the P1 and EPN stage. The findings suggest an enhanced conscious processing of socially threatening words in adolescent patients with PTSD after CSA/CPA, pointing to the importance of a disjoined examination of threat words in emotional processing research.

Atypical longitudinal development of speech-evoked auditory brainstem response in preschool children with autism spectrum disorders.

Language impairment is common in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Previous research has shown that this disability may be, in part, due to atypical auditory processing of speech stimuli. However, how speech sounds are processed in children with ASD remains largely unknown. The present study assessed the developmental pattern of auditory information processing at the level of the brainstem in preschool children with ASD using speech-evoked auditory brainstem response (speech-ABR). Children with ASD (N = 15) and of typical developing (TD) (N = 20), both of preschool age, were enrolled. The speech-ABRs recorded at two different time points (T1 and T2; 9.68 months apart on average) were virtually identical in the TD group. However, in the ASD group, the wave V latency of speech-ABR was significantly shortened and the amplitudes of wave A and C were significantly larger at T2, compared to those recorded at T1 (10.78 months apart on average). Compared to the TD group, the wave V and A latencies were prolonged at T1, whereas the wave E amplitude decreased and wave F latency prolonged at T2. There was a positive partial correlation between the language performance and the wave A amplitude in the ASD group. These results indicate that auditory processing at the subcortical level is well-developed in the TD preschool children, but is immature and abnormal in the children with ASD at the same ages. Thus, aberrant speech processing at the brainstem level may contribute significantly to the language impairment in children with ASD at preschool ages. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1022-1031. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Language impairment is common in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We investigated the developmental pattern of subcortical auditory processing by monitoring changes in the speech-evoked auditory brainstem response (speech-ABR) over a period of 10 months in preschool children. Our results show that subcortical auditory processing is impaired and immature in children with ASD compared with age-matched, typically developing children. The results suggest that speech-ABR may be used as an objective measure in evaluating the language performance of children with ASD. The results also suggest that aberrant speech processing at the level of the brainstem may contribute significantly to the language impairment in preschool children with ASD.

Mathematical analysis of the signal propagation characteristics of neuronal networks

AbstractIt is important to understand the relationship between spatiotemporal patterns of neuronal populations and information processing of the brain for medical and engineering purposes. Although, there are some methods to record neuronal population, basically only the information about firing rate can be obtained from those methods. Therefore, some methods are suggested to estimate the internal state of the neuronal population from the information about firing. In this research, we investigated the relationship between firing rates and responses to external electrical stimuli by using neuronal population models. We developed a method to manipulate neuronal parameters to make neuronal populations exhibit different dynamical properties while keeping firing rates intact. As a result, we found that there are some cases where the internal states are different even though they share the same firing rate. This result suggests that there is some information that cannot be obtained by using only the information about firing rates.

Cognitive Biases Toward Pain: Implications for a Neurocognitive Processing Perspective in Chronic Pain and its Interaction With Depression.

Information-processing biases such as attentional, interpretation, and memory biases are supposed to play a role in the exacerbation and maintenance of chronic pain. Current research in the area of cognitive biases shows that all these biases seem to have an influence on attention to, interpretation of, and recall of pain and can lead to maladaptive strategies and the exacerbation of pain. We conducted a narrative literature review, considering evidence extracted from various databases including PubMed, MEDLINE, Science Direct, and ProQuest. Search terms included cognitive biases, neurocognitive processing, chronic pain, and depression. The literature on attentional, interpretative, and memory biases in experimental and chronic pain, as well as their neuronal underpinnings, suggests that the depression of chronic pain patients may differ from the depression of patients without pain. Depressed pain patients show a recall bias for illness-related and health-related stimuli, whereas depressed patients without pain show a bias for depression-related stimuli. In addition, research has shown that catastrophizing, helplessness/hopelessness, and thought suppression as psychological responses to pain are mediators of the relationship between chronic pain and depression. Current research supports the importance of individual diagnosis of chronic pain patients and their response patterns of pain, psychological processing, and information processing. This leads to the conclusion that depressed pain patients need other clinical interventions when compared with depressed patients without pain. Previous research showed that a combination of a cognitive-behavioral therapy with mindfulness meditation seems to be a promising approach.

The effects of negative context and attachment security priming on working memory updating among anxiously attached individuals

Two studies using event-related potentials ERPs) combined with emotional versions of 2-back tasks were performed to examine the effects of negative context on working memory (WM) updating task performance among anxiously attached individuals. One study also assessed the soothing effect of priming memories of attachment security on task performance. Three types of information, including negative attachment pictures, general negative pictures and neutral pictures, were used as materials in the present study. Impairment in WM updating capacity was found in the context of negative attachment pictures in both studies, and the ERP results revealed the following dynamic process: the participants showed enhanced attention to negative attachment stimuli during the initial encoding stage, as expressed by a larger P1, but undue immersion in negative emotion led to a reduced P300 during the elaborate stage. However, security priming was useful in reducing mood disturbance in the context of a WM updating task, and the participants performed better on the task after secure attachment activation. The implications of these findings for emotional WM updating capacity and information processing patterns among anxiously attached individuals are discussed.

Associations between attachment and pain: From infant to adolescent.

Pain experience is a negative complex phenomenon influenced by several mechanisms. Attachment processes may affect the way in which individuals experience and signal pain. Hence, in the last two decades, the role of attachment quality has drawn attention in pain research and practice. However, previous reviews on this topic focused on adulthood and/or specific types or pain. We conducted a narrative review examining the association between attachment and different pain conditions from infancy to adolescence. Two independent researchers searched scientific databases for relevant papers. A total of 17 articles were included. Results highlight the following: (a) children and adolescents with chronic idiopathic pain showed low rates of attachment security compared to control groups; (b) pain conditions are consistently associated with elevated rates of at-risk pattern of attachment and information processing; and (c) the presence of unresolved trauma or loss is higher in children and adolescent who experienced pain compared to healthy controls. Despite the significance of these empirical evidences, the impact of caregiving environment and interpersonal context on pain experience in infancy and preschool age is poorly investigated compared to adulthood. Research on pain and attachment needs to be extended since the majority of the studies are limited to specific pain conditions. Future research should investigate the role of anxious attachment on procedural pain and transition from acute to chronic pain, testing new conceptual models. These findings shed light on the importance of relational factors and psychosocial vulnerabilities in pain clinical practice. An attachment-informed approach to pain will help health professionals to offer adequate support during procedures and to increase effectiveness of interventions. A developmental perspective is needed to integrate familial and relational contribution into a multimodal assessment and treatment of pain. Longitudinal studies are recommended.

A Rationale for the Choice of Enterprise Architecture Method and Software Technology in a Software Driven Enterprise

Enterprise architecture frameworks (EAFs) provide tools and methods to categorise, document and depict interrelationship between enterprise business processes, stakeholders and information classes. It explicitly documents information generation, processing and consumption pattern facilitating communication and management. But there is a confusing variety of EAFs for organisations to choose from. There is no explicit guidance or justifiable rationale available to choose an EAF over others. This paper provides a rationale and attributes based evaluation of popular EAFs and conclude superiority of Zachman framework (ZF) for a software-driven enterprise (SDE). Further, this paper surveys salient aspects of different software technologies and provide an assessment framework to compare them and conclude suitability of agent technology for realising information system infrastructure of an SDE. This work makes a provocative argument that many of the modern EAFs are not suited for an SDE due to their affiliation to software technologies that are found to has several limitations.

A rationale for the choice of enterprise architecture method and software technology in a software driven enterprise

Enterprise architecture frameworks (EAFs) provide tools and methods to categorise, document and depict interrelationship between enterprise business processes, stakeholders and information classes. It explicitly documents information generation, processing and consumption pattern facilitating communication and management. But there is a confusing variety of EAFs for organisations to choose from. There is no explicit guidance or justifiable rationale available to choose an EAF over others. This paper provides a rationale and attributes based evaluation of popular EAFs and conclude superiority of Zachman framework (ZF) for a software-driven enterprise (SDE). Further, this paper surveys salient aspects of different software technologies and provide an assessment framework to compare them and conclude suitability of agent technology for realising information system infrastructure of an SDE. This work makes a provocative argument that many of the modern EAFs are not suited for an SDE due to their affiliation to software technologies that are found to has several limitations.