Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of trauma are a hallmark symptom of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The term ‘flashback’ is used in this thesis to refer to vivid, sensory perceptual (predominantly visual images), emotional memories from a traumatic event that intrude involuntarily into consciousness. Furthermore, intrusive image based memories occur in a number of other psychological disorders, for example, bipolar disorder and depression. Clinically, the presence and occurrence of flashbacks and flashback type memories are well documented. However, in terms of the neural underpinnings there is limited understanding of how such flashback memories are formed or later involuntarily recalled. An experimental psychopathology approach is taken whereby flashbacks are viewed on a continuum with other involuntary autobiographical memories and are studied using analogue emotional events in the laboratory. An initial review develops a heuristic clinical neuroscience framework for understanding flashback memories. It is proposed that flashbacks consistent of five component parts – mental imagery, autobiographical memory, involuntary recall, attention hijacking and negative emotion. Combining knowledge of the component parts helped provide a guiding framework, at both a neural and behavioural level, into how flashback memories may be formed and how they return to mind unbidden. Four studies (1 neuroimaging, 3 behavioural) using emotional film paradigms were conducted. In the first study, the trauma film paradigm was combined with neuroimaging (n = 35) to investigate the neural basis of both the encoding and the involuntary recall of flashback memories. Results provided a first replication of a specific pattern of brain activation at the encoding of memories that later returned as flashbacks. This included elevation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, insula, thalamus, ventral occipital cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus (during just the encoding of scenes that returned as flashbacks) alongside suppressed activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (during the encoding of scenes that returned as flashbacks in other participants, but not that individual). Critically, this is also the first study to show the brain activation at the moment of flashback involuntary recall in the scanner. Activation in the middle and superior frontal gyri and the left inferior frontal gyrus was found to be associated with flashback involuntary recall. In the second study, control conditions from 16 behavioural trauma film paradigm experiments were combined (n = 458) to investigate commonly studied factors that may be protective against flashback development. Results indicated that low emotional response to the traumatic film footage was associated with an absence of flashbacks over the following week. The third study used a positive film to consider the emotional valence of the emotion component of the framework. Positive emotional response at the time of viewing the footage was associated with positive involuntary memories over the following week. The fourth study aimed to replicate and extend this finding, comparing the impact of engaging in two cognitive tasks after film viewing (equated for general load). Predictions were not supported and methodological considerations are discussed. Results may have implications for understanding flashbacks and involuntary autobiographical memories occurring in everyday life and across psychological disorders. Further understanding of the proposed components of the clinical neuroscience framework may even help inform targeted treatments to prevent, or lessen, the formation and frequency of distressing involuntary memories.

Neurodegeneration is a progressive loss of neuron function or structure, including death of neurons, and occurs at many different levels of neuronal circuitry. In this thesis I discuss Parkinson’s Disease (PD), the second most common neurodegenerative disease (NDD). PD is a devastating progressive NDD often with delayed diagnosis due to detection methods that depend on the appearance of visible motor symptoms. By the time cardinal symptoms manifest, 60 to 80 percent or more of the dopamine-producing cells in the substantia nigra are irreversibly lost. Although there is currently no cure, earlier detection would be highly beneficial to manage treatment and track disease progression. However, today’s clinical diagnosis methods are limited to subjective evaluations and observation. Onset, symptoms and progression significantly vary from patient to patient across stages and subtypes that exceed the scope of a standardized diagnosis. The goal of this thesis is to provide the basis of a more general approach to study the brain, investigating early detection method for NDD with focus on PD. It details the preliminary development, testing and validation of tools and methods to objectively quantify and extrapolate motor and non-motor features of PD from behavioral and cognitive output during everyday life. Measures of interest are categorized within three domains: the motor system, cognitive function, and brain activity. This thesis describes the initial development of non-intrusive tools and methods to obtain high-resolution movement and speech data from everyday life and feasibility analysis of facial feature extraction and EEG for future integration. I tested and validated a body sensor system and wavelet analysis to measure complex movements and object interaction in everyday living situations. The sensor system was also tested for differentiating between healthy and impaired movements. Engineering and design criteria of the sensor system were tested for usability during everyday life. Cognitive processing was quantified during everyday living tasks with varying loaded conditions to test methods for measuring cognitive function. Everyday speech was analyzed for motor and non-motor correlations related to the severity of the disease. A neural oscillation detection (NOD) algorithm was tested in pain patients and facial expression was analyzed to measure both motor and non-motor aspects of PD. Results showed that the wearable sensor system can measure complex movements during everyday living tasks and demonstrates sensitivity to detect physiological differences between patients and controls. Preliminary engineering design supports clothing integration and development of a smartphone sensor platform for everyday use. Early results from loaded conditions suggest that attentional processing is most affected by cognitive demands and could be developed as a method to detect cognitive decline. Analysis of speech symptoms demonstrates a need to collect higher resolution spontaneous speech from everyday living to measure speech motor and non-motor speech features such as language content. Facial expression classifiers and the NOD algorithm indicated feasibility for future integration with additional validation in PD patients. Thus this thesis describes the initial development of tools and methods towards a more general approach to detecting PD. Measuring speech and movement during everyday life could provide a link between motor and cognitive domains to characterize the earliest detectable features of PD. The approach represents a departure from the current state of detection methods that use single data entities (e.g.one-off imaging procedures), which cannot be easily integrated with other data streams, are time consuming and economically costly. The long-term vision is to develop a non-invasive system to measure and integrate behavioral and cognitive features enabling early detection and progression tracking of degenerative disease.

Aujourd’hui, les modèles computationnels de l'apprentissage et de la prise de décision chez l'homme se sont raffinés et complexifiés pour prendre la forme de modèles génératifs des données psychophysiologiques de plus en plus réalistes d’un point de vue neurobiologique et biophysique. Dans le même temps, le nouveau champ de recherche des interfaces cerveau-machine (ICM) s’est développé de manière exponentielle. L'objectif principal de cette thèse était d'explorer comment le paradigme de l'électrophysiologie temps-réel peut contribuer à élucider les processus d'apprentissage et de prise de décision perceptive chez l’homme. Au niveau expérimental, j'ai étudié les décisions perceptives somatosensorielles grâce à des tâches de discrimination de fréquence tactile. En particulier, j'ai montré comment un contexte sensoriel implicite peut influencer nos décisions. Grâce à la magnétoencéphalographie (MEG), j'ai pu étudier les mécanismes neuronaux qui sous-tendent cette adaptation perceptive. L’ensemble de ces résultats renforce l'hypothèse de la construction implicite d’un a priori ou d'une référence interne au cours de l'expérience. Aux niveaux théoriques et méthodologiques, j'ai proposé une vue générique de la façon dont l'électrophysiologie temps-réel pourrait être utilisée pour optimiser les tests d'hypothèses, en adaptant le dessin expérimental en ligne. J'ai pu fournir une première validation de cette démarche adaptative pour maximiser l'efficacité du dessin expérimental au niveau individuel. Ce travail révèle des perspectives en neurosciences fondamentales et cliniques ainsi que pour les ICM / Today, psychological as well as physiological models of perceptual learning and decision-making processes have recently become more biologically plausible, leading to more realistic (and more complex) generative models of psychophysiological observations. In parallel, the young but exponentially growing field of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) provides new tools and methods to analyze (mostly) electrophysiological data online. The main objective of this PhD thesis was to explore how the BCI paradigm could help for a better understanding of perceptual learning and decision making processes in humans. At the empirical level, I studied decisions based on tactile stimuli, namely somatosensory frequency discrimination. More specifically, I showed how an implicit sensory context biases our decisions. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), I was able to decipher some of the neural correlates of those perceptual adaptive mechanisms. These findings support the hypothesis that an internal perceptual-reference builds up along the course of the experiment. At the theoretical and methodological levels, I propose a generic view and method of how real-time electrophysiology could be used to optimize hypothesis testing, by adapting the experimental design online. I demonstrated the validity of this online adaptive design optimization (ADO) approach to maximize design efficiency at the individual level. I also discussed the implications of this work for basic and clinical neuroscience as well as BCI itself

Avanços recentes no tema de fronteira que exerce fascínio e curiosidade - a Neurociência - vêm explicitando conceitos sofisticados sobre um assunto emergente na Administração: o aumento do conhecimento na área da Neurociência Cognitiva e suas contribuições para a área de tomada de decisão. À luz desses avanços, a presente pesquisa possui natureza exploratória, cuja proposta contribui para integrar os conhecimentos em Neurociência Cognitiva e tomada de decisão estratégica em administração, sob a ótica comportamental. O objetivo principal do estudo foi propor contribuições ao processo de tomada de decisão estratégica a partir dos conhecimentos da Neurociência Cognitiva. Utilizou-se o método da revisão em profundidade da literatura, com o objetivo de apoiar a análise do conteúdo nas dimensões-alvo do estudo: processo de tomada de decisão estratégica, pensamento estratégico sob a ótica da racionalidade limitada, Neurociência Cognitiva e neurociência da decisão. As contribuições obtidas estão alicerçadas em três vertentes: (1) contribuições para a pesquisa, (2) contribuições para as práticas de gestão e (3) contribuições para a didática e ensino. Na perspectiva da pesquisa, a Neurociência Cognitiva possibilita evidências confirmatórias sobre fatores subjetivos, sobretudo os emocionais, que guiam o comportamento do decisor durante as fases do processo decisório, mediante o fornecimento de metodologias para testar teorias e novos conceitos. Na perspectiva das contribuições para a gestão, a ampliação da consciência dos gestores sobre as emoções, heurísticas e vieses presentes no processo decisório estratégico permite: (a) o alinhamento de expectativas sobre os resultados da decisão estratégica; (b) estimular as atitudes da liderança para uma postura mais protagonista no decorrer do processo, resultando em maior inovação nas práticas de gestão; (c) o reconhecimento da intuição associada à criatividade como competência importante para a decisão estratégica, assegurando maior precisão sobre o futuro da decisão; (d) o aceite das heurísticas da mente, possibilitando simplicidade, facilitando o entendimento de todos os envolvidos e gerando transparência no processo decisório; (e) considerar os objetivos individuais dos decisores não declarados no nível da organização, otimizando a implementação do plano estratégico; (f) o fornecimento de informações sobre a política nas decisões estratégicas, mediante a aplicação de técnicas neurocientíficas que possam trazer maior conhecimento sobre o peso da evidência na tomada de decisão estratégica. Há de se considerar, ainda, que o reforço da aprendizagem, acarretando possíveis mudanças biológicas nas sinapses cerebrais, contribui para o exercício do pensamento estratégico e, consequentemente, maior precisão nas decisões futuras. A incorporação da abordagem neurocientífica na didática do ensino sobre tomada de decisão estratégica contribui para: (a) preparo do aluno afim de superar fatores de ordem cognitiva no nível individual e em grupo que encontrarão no processo decisório estratégico; (b) facilitação do embasamento das constatações da teoria de decisão comportamental; (c) reforço da aprendizagem, sugerindo-se a inserção das técnicas de cenários e a análise ambiental com vistas à prática de avaliações prévias sobre eventos incertos que possam afetar o processo decisório estratégico; (d) incorporação do ensino de decisão das competências analíticas e intuitivas encontradas, por exemplo, nos cursos de criatividade e inovação, alinhando-se as técnicas formais de ensino com a prática da gestão. Além da relevância dos pontos citados, a pesquisa da temática é inédita, o que possibilita uma nova abordagem de pesquisas em decisão estratégica que incorpore as contribuições da Neurociência Cognitiva. / Recent advances in the pioneering theme that brings fascination and curiosity - Neuroscience - have been explaining sophisticated concepts in an Administration emergent topic: the improving knowledge in the Cognitive Neuroscience field and its contribution for the decision making studies. In light of these advances, this research has an exploratory approach, which proposal contributes to the integration of the Cognitive Neuroscience and strategic decision making in administration from the behavioral viewpoint. The main goal of this study is to propose involvement to the strategic decision making process from the Cognitive Neuroscience knowledge. The deep literature revision method was used to target the content analysis of the study dimensions: strategic decision making process, strategic thinking from the perspective of bounded rationality, Cognitive Neuroscience and decision neuroscience. There are three thresholds for the achieved contributions: (1) involvement to the research, (2) management of best practices and (3) inputs to the teaching and learning process. From the perspective of this research, the Cognitive Neuroscience provides confirmatory evidence on subjective factors especially the emotional ones, which guide the decision maker behavior in the decision process, by providing methodologies for new theories and concepts proof. From the management contribution perspective, the expansion of the manager awareness on emotions, heuristics and biases in decision-making process allows: (a) alignment of the expectations on the decision making results; (b) encourage the leadership attitude to assume a protagonist posture in the process, resulting in higher innovation in management practices; (c) recognition of the intuition associated with creativity as an important competence for the strategic decision, ensuring a better precision on the decision future; (d) acceptance of the heuristics minds allowing simplicity, facilitating the understanding of all those involved and creating transparency in the decision making process; (e) consider the non-declared decision maker individual goals at the organization level, optimizing the strategic plan implementation; (f) information provision about the strategic decision policies, by applying neuroscientific techniques that can bring better insights into the evidence relevance in the strategic decision making process. One must also consider that the learning enhancement, resulting in possible brain synapses biological changes, contributes to the strategic thinking exercise and, consequently, to more accurate future decisions. The incorporation of neuroscientific approach in didactic teaching on strategic decision-making contributes to: (a) student preparation to overcome cognitive order factors, individually and in groups, that will be found in the strategic decision process; (b) facilitate the basis of the findings of the behavioral decision theory; (c) learning improvement suggesting the insertion of scenario techniques and the environmental analysis focusing on previous assessments practices of uncertain events that may affect the strategic decision process; (d) incorporation of analytical and intuitive decision competences teaching, aligning the formal teaching techniques with the management practices. Besides the relevance of the above mentioned points, the thematic research is unprecedented, which enables a new approach in strategic decision researches to incorporate the Cognitive Neuroscience contributions

Quels sont les principaux acquis de la psychologie médicale de l’époque de Freud qui ont contribué à l’émergence du mouvement psychanalytique ? Comment Freud les a-T-Il repris dans le cadre d’une construction originale ? Malgré l’abondante littérature consacrée à ces questions qui paraissent si simples, les réponses sont loin de faire l’unanimité. Cette difficulté n’est pas récente, elle est perceptible déjà chez Freud qui, en 1914 (dans Contribution à l’histoire du mouvement psychanalytique) et en 1925 (dans Ma vie et la psychanalyse), entreprit de retracer l’histoire de la psychanalyse, tout en évoquant les principaux acteurs qui ont, de manière directe ou indirecte, contribué à l’éclosion de ce corps de connaissances. Cependant, les découvertes faites par des chercheurs contemporains, dans les Archives des centres hospitaliers, où étaient internés certains patients de Freud, tout autant qu’une lecture attentive du contexte historique et des productions intellectuelles sur la maladie mentale, à la fin du XIX ème siècle, laissent planer des interrogations. Freud a-T-Il biaisé l’histoire de la psychanalyse pour en apparaitre comme le père fondateur ? Ces soupçons qui pèsent sur le travail d’historien entrepris d’abord par Freud, puis par ses collaborateurs, nous invite, en tant qu’historien des sciences, à réévaluer un certain nombre d’acquis en psychanalyse, au regard de l’abondance des découvertes récentes. En outre, les travaux de Freud n’entretiennent pas seulement des rapports avec les théories psychologiques de son temps. De nos jours, ils alimentent encore des discussions dans les « théories contemporaines de l’esprit », notamment dans les champs disciplinaires tels que la philosophie de l’esprit et les neurosciences cognitives. C’est ce que démontre la dernière partie de cette thèse qui, à titre de test, confronte la théorie freudienne de l’inconscient aux théories contemporaines. / What where the main types of psychological knowladge used by Freud which contributed to the emergence of psychoanalytic movement? How did Freud use these main types of psychological knowladge in the context of original construction? In spite of the abundant literature concerning these questions which appaer simple, the answers aren't uncontroversial. This difficulty isn't recent, Freud has been already studied this matter in Contribution to the History of Psychoanalysis movement (1914) and My life and Psychoanalysis (1925) retraced the history of psychoanalysis, mentioning the principal actors who have, directly or indirectly, contributed to the building this body of knowledge.However, the discoveries done by contemporary researchers, in the archives of hospitals, where some Freud’s patients were interned, with a careful reading of the historical context and the intellectual productions on mental illness, at the end of 19th century, raises important questions. Did Freud bias the psychoanalysis history in order to be considered as the real founding father? These suspicions have an impact on the historians working on the work of Freud and on his partisans as well. This invites us, as historians of sciences, to revaluate a certain number of hypotheses in psychoanalysis, according to recent discoveries.Besides, the work of Freud doesn’t not only have relationship with psychological theory of his time. In our days, Freud’s work enriches discussions as far it concerns “contemporary Theories of mind”, and in particular, in disciplinary fields such as Philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience. This is what the last part of this thesis demonstrates, as a test case, it interacts Freudian theory of unconsciousness with contemporary theories.

Text in English / The field of neuroscience is increasingly gaining exposure in the leadership domain, where it is now beginning to contribute to research and development. In this study an exploratory investigation of leadership development was undertaken with four primary aims. Firstly, to find out whether exposing participants in managerial positions to cognitive neuroscience knowledge contributes to their development as leaders. Secondly, to explore and illuminate the underlying processes that support such behavioural change. Thirdly, to investigate how behaviour changes in leaders exposed to social cognitive neuroscience knowledge are manifested within an organisational setting. Fourthly, to determine what the perceived impact on the leaders and others are regarding such behaviour changes in a specific organisational context, namely a retail environment. In the study, leaders were exposed to a social cognitive neuroscience workshop over a 5-month period. They were provided with foundational knowledge of social cognitive neuroscience in workshops with two objectives. Firstly, the workshops were intended to enhance their understanding of the brain and cognitive systems underlying thinking and behaviour of the self and others. Secondly, in the workshops the complex interaction between brain systems and subsystems such as the executive and emotional systems were shown to mirror, in a metaphorical way, some of the complex interactions between structures in business organisations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 16 participants, as well as with some their line managers and direct reports. Data were qualitatively analysed by means of content analysis. Findings support the view that gaining social cognitive neuroscience knowledge led to increased self-awareness and an understanding of others. Implicit behavioural change resulted from cognitive and affective changes. Explicit behaviour changes were the result of conscious choice and were supported by both personal and organisational motivational drives. Leaders made behaviour changes at both personal and interactive levels based on their understanding of social cognitive neuroscience. Behaviour changes related to increased emotional regulation, a change in leadership style, an inclusive communication style, cultivating relationships, recognition strategies and strengthening trust. The implemented behaviour changes had a positive impact on participants and their direct reports and related mostly to positive affective changes, growth and development, improved relationships, personal effectiveness and team dynamics. / Psychology / D. Phil. (Consulting Psychology)

La présente thèse reprend trois articles de recherche (deux études et un article de revue) portant sur les neurosciences cognitives du langage, chacun desquels a été écrit en vue d’identifier les bénéfices que la théorie (neuro)linguistique contemporaine pourrait tirer d’une étude exhaustive des processus cognitifs et neuraux sous-tendant les troubles du spectre autistique (TSA) et inversement. Deux études y sont présentées, utilisant la méthode des potentiels évoqués, lesquelles fournissent des preuves préliminaires, chez des individus typiques, de deux aspects de la compréhension de phrases nécessitant une recherche approfondie chez des personnes autistes : (1) Les corrélats neuraux de la nature syntaxique et sémantique particulière des verbes d’expérience (par exemple The girl has feared the storm) contrairement aux verbes d’action (par exemple The kids have eaten the fries) et leur interface potentielle avec la Théorie de l’Esprit – la capacité d’attribuer des états mentaux à soi et à autrui – pour laquelle les personnes autistes semble accuser un retard et/ou un déficit, et (2) les corrélats neuraux des compétences en « imagerie visuelle », telles quelles sont identifiées à l’aide des Matrices de Raven, sur les processus de détection de violations de catégories grammaticales (par exemple He made the meal to enjoy with friends/He made the enjoy to meal with friends) dans un paradigme expérimental “équilibré” et en modalité visuelle. L’article de revue cherche à fournir une perspective plus large du rôle que les neurosciences cognitives des TSA peuvent jouer dans l’étude biologique du langage. L’importance de considérer l’autisme comme un « style cognitif » plutôt qu’un trouble en soi y est défendue, en particulier contre la notion commune d’autisme en tant que déficit de Théorie de l’Esprit. Au delà de leurs perspectives potentielles de recherche future auprès de populations autistes, ces trois articles cherchent à répondre à plusieurs questions de recherche cruciales sur le développement et la compréhension du langage (c’est à dire le débat sur la «P600 sémantique», les théorie d’échantillonnage asymétrique de la perception de la parole et de la musique, le rôle de la vision dans le langage, la modularité, les styles cognitifs et l’inférence Bayesienne). / The present thesis comprises a set of three research articles (two studies and one review article) on the cognitive neuroscience of language, all of which were written with the purpose of understanding the benefits that contemporary (neuro)linguistic theory may draw from an extensive study of the cognitive and neural processes underlying Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and vice versa. Two studies are presented, using event-related brain potentials, which provide preliminary evidence in typical individuals for two aspects of sentence processing in need of future investigation in ASD participants: (1) The neural correlates of the peculiar syntactic and semantic nature of verbs of experience (Experiencer Subject verbs, i.e., The girl has feared the storm) as opposed to verbs of action (Agent Subject verbs, i.e., The boys have eaten the fries) and their potential interface with Theory of Mind – the ability to attribute mental states to self and others – known to present delays and impairments in autism, and (2) the neural correlates of “visual imagery” skills, as assessed through the Raven Matrices, on comprehenders’ ability to detect word category violations (e.g., He made the meal to enjoy with friends/He made the enjoy to meal with friends) in a balanced visual paradigm and their potential insights into the role of visual imagery in language comprehension, known to play a potentially predominant role in ASD. The review article attempts to provide a larger perspective on the role of the cognitive neuroscience of ASD in the biology of language, in which the importance of considering autism as a “cognitive style” rather than as a disorder is given greater value, especially relative to the common notion of autism solely as a Theory of Mind impairment. Aside from their potential prospects for future research in autistic populations, these three articles also attempt to frame their topic of inquiry into the broader context of contemporary research questions on language development and language comprehension, such as the role of animacy in language processing (the “semantic P600” debate), asymmetric sampling theories of speech and music perception, the role of vision in language, modularity, cognitive styles or Bayesian inference. / VERSION ANGLAISE DISPONIBLE AU DÉPARTEMENT; THÈSE RÉALISÉE CONJOINTEMENT AVEC L'ÉCOLE DES SCIENCES DE LA COMMUNICATION DE L'UNIVERSITÉ MCGILL (DRS. K. STEINHAUER ET J.E. DRURY).

CAPES / Um dos aspectos fundamentais da inteligência natural é sua aptidão no processamento de informações temporais. O grande desafio proposto é o de desenvolver sistemas inteligentes que mapeiem essa aptidão do comportamento humano. Neste contexto, aportam as Máquinas de Estado Líquido (LSMs), uma arquitetura neural pulsada (meio líquido) que projeta os dados de entrada em um espaço dinâmico de alta dimensão e, por conseguinte, realiza a análise do conjunto de dados de entrada através de uma rede neural clássica (unidade de leitura). Desta maneira, esta tese apresenta uma solução inovadora para a previsão de séries temporais contínuas através das LSMs com mecanismo de reinicialização e entradas analógicas, contemplando a área da demanda de energia elétrica. A metodologia desenvolvida foi aplicada no horizonte de previsão a curto prazo e a longo prazo. Os resultados obtidos são promissores, considerando o alto erro estabelecido para parada do treinamento da unidade de leitura, o baixo número de iterações do treinamento da unidade de leitura e que nenhuma estratégia de ajustamento sazonal, ou pré-processamento, sob os dados de entrada foi realizado. Até o momento, percebe-se que as LSMs têm despontado como uma nova e promissora abordagem dentro do paradigma conexionista, emergente da ciência cognitiva. / Among of several aspects of the natural intelligence is its ability to process temporal information. One of major challenges to be addresses is how to efficiently develop intelligent systems that integrate the complexities of human behavior. In this context, appear the Liquid State Machines (LSMs), a pulsed neural architecture (liquid) that projects the input data in a high-dimensional dynamical space and therefore makes the analysis of input data all through a classical neural network (readout). Thus, this thesis presents an innovative solution for forecasting continuous time series through LSMs with reset mechanism and analog inputs, applied to the electric energy demand. The methodology was applied in the short-term and long-term forecasting of electrical energy demand. Results are promising, considering the high error to stop training the readout, the low number of iterations of training of the readout, and that no strategy of seasonal adjustment or preprocessing of input data was achieved. So far, it can be notice that the LSMs have been studied as a new and promising approach in the Artificial Neural Networks paradigm, emergent from cognitive science.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The understanding of molecular geometry at the level of High School has been hampered by the lack of theoretical and methodological investment that leads to the conscious application of the chosen didactic resources. The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of pedagogical resources, as physical and virtual molecular models, in the learning and development of visuospatial abilities associated to the notions of molecular geometry. The experimental research was conducted under the methodological pillars of Michèle Artigue's Classical Didactic Engineering (1989), which resulted in the conception, realization, observation and evaluation of a didactic sequence based on Cognitive Neuroscience, more specifically, in educational processes that suggest the efficient acquisition, consolidation and evocation of the Long-term Memory (LTM). In the neurosciences, theoretical support was sought from authors such as Kandel (2014), Gazzaniga et al. (2006) Izquierdo (2011) to study some characteristics of memory and external influences for its consolidation. In the educational field, the work of Cosenza and Guerra (2011) on emotion, attention and memory factors in school learning, as well as pedagogical principles based on scientific evidences from the fields of psychology, education and neuroscience presented by the Science of Learning Research Centre (Australia). Nine high school students who had already studied molecular geometry were submitted to a set of three activities over a period of one month and qualitatively assessed as to the memory traces related to the learning before and after the didactic intervention. The instruments for the data collection consisted of field diary and tests. The results showed that the multisensorial resources provided better engagement and contributed to the consolidation and evocation of episodic memories associated to the learning of chemical concepts within a meaningful context. The manipulation of physical molecular models contributed to the evaluation of students' errors, while the virtual models contributed to the perception and correction of errors. / A compreensão da geometria molecular, no nível do Ensino Médio, tem sido dificultada devido à falta de investimento teórico e metodológico que leve à aplicação consciente dos recursos didáticos escolhidos. Esta pesquisa teve por objetivo investigar os efeitos de recursos pedagógicos, como modelos moleculares físicos alternativos e virtuais (Realidade Aumentada), na aprendizagem e desenvolvimento de habilidades visuoespaciais associadas às noções de Geometria Molecular. Conduziu-se a investigação do tipo experimental sob os pilares metodológicos da Engenharia Didática Clássica de Michèle Artigue (1998), que resultou na concepção, realização, avaliação e validação de uma Sequência Didática fundamentada na Neurociência Cognitiva, mais especificamente, nos processos educativos que sugerem melhor aquisição, consolidação e evocação da Memória de Longo Prazo (MLP). No âmbito das neurociências, buscou-se respaldo teórico em autores como Kandel (2014), Gazzaniga et al. (2006) e Izquierdo (2011) para estudar algumas características da memória e influências externas para a sua consolidação. No campo educacional, inspirou-se no trabalho de Cosenza e Guerra (2011) acerca dos fatores “emoção”, “atenção” e “memória” na aprendizagem escolar, bem como em princípios educativos baseados em evidências científicas dos campos da psicologia cognitiva, educação e neurociência cognitiva apresentados pelo Science of Learning Research Centre (Austrália). Nove alunos do Ensino Médio que já haviam estudado Geometria Molecular participaram de um conjunto de três atividades ao longo de um mês e foram avaliados qualitativamente quanto aos traços de memória relativos à aprendizagem anterior e posterior à intervenção didática. Os instrumentos para a coleta dos dados consistiram de diário de campo e testes. Os resultados mostraram que os recursos multissensoriais proporcionaram melhor engajamento e facilitaram o processo de consolidação e evocação de memórias episódicas associadas à aprendizagem de conceitos químicos dentro de um contexto significativo. A manipulação de modelos moleculares físicos contribuiu para a avaliação dos erros dos alunos, enquanto os modelos virtuais contribuíram para a percepção e correção dos erros. / São Cristóvão, SE

Avanços recentes no tema de fronteira que exerce fascínio e curiosidade - a Neurociência - vêm explicitando conceitos sofisticados sobre um assunto emergente na Administração: o aumento do conhecimento na área da Neurociência Cognitiva e suas contribuições para a área de tomada de decisão. À luz desses avanços, a presente pesquisa possui natureza exploratória, cuja proposta contribui para integrar os conhecimentos em Neurociência Cognitiva e tomada de decisão estratégica em administração, sob a ótica comportamental. O objetivo principal do estudo foi propor contribuições ao processo de tomada de decisão estratégica a partir dos conhecimentos da Neurociência Cognitiva. Utilizou-se o método da revisão em profundidade da literatura, com o objetivo de apoiar a análise do conteúdo nas dimensões-alvo do estudo: processo de tomada de decisão estratégica, pensamento estratégico sob a ótica da racionalidade limitada, Neurociência Cognitiva e neurociência da decisão. As contribuições obtidas estão alicerçadas em três vertentes: (1) contribuições para a pesquisa, (2) contribuições para as práticas de gestão e (3) contribuições para a didática e ensino. Na perspectiva da pesquisa, a Neurociência Cognitiva possibilita evidências confirmatórias sobre fatores subjetivos, sobretudo os emocionais, que guiam o comportamento do decisor durante as fases do processo decisório, mediante o fornecimento de metodologias para testar teorias e novos conceitos. Na perspectiva das contribuições para a gestão, a ampliação da consciência dos gestores sobre as emoções, heurísticas e vieses presentes no processo decisório estratégico permite: (a) o alinhamento de expectativas sobre os resultados da decisão estratégica; (b) estimular as atitudes da liderança para uma postura mais protagonista no decorrer do processo, resultando em maior inovação nas práticas de gestão; (c) o reconhecimento da intuição associada à criatividade como competência importante para a decisão estratégica, assegurando maior precisão sobre o futuro da decisão; (d) o aceite das heurísticas da mente, possibilitando simplicidade, facilitando o entendimento de todos os envolvidos e gerando transparência no processo decisório; (e) considerar os objetivos individuais dos decisores não declarados no nível da organização, otimizando a implementação do plano estratégico; (f) o fornecimento de informações sobre a política nas decisões estratégicas, mediante a aplicação de técnicas neurocientíficas que possam trazer maior conhecimento sobre o peso da evidência na tomada de decisão estratégica. Há de se considerar, ainda, que o reforço da aprendizagem, acarretando possíveis mudanças biológicas nas sinapses cerebrais, contribui para o exercício do pensamento estratégico e, consequentemente, maior precisão nas decisões futuras. A incorporação da abordagem neurocientífica na didática do ensino sobre tomada de decisão estratégica contribui para: (a) preparo do aluno afim de superar fatores de ordem cognitiva no nível individual e em grupo que encontrarão no processo decisório estratégico; (b) facilitação do embasamento das constatações da teoria de decisão comportamental; (c) reforço da aprendizagem, sugerindo-se a inserção das técnicas de cenários e a análise ambiental com vistas à prática de avaliações prévias sobre eventos incertos que possam afetar o processo decisório estratégico; (d) incorporação do ensino de decisão das competências analíticas e intuitivas encontradas, por exemplo, nos cursos de criatividade e inovação, alinhando-se as técnicas formais de ensino com a prática da gestão. Além da relevância dos pontos citados, a pesquisa da temática é inédita, o que possibilita uma nova abordagem de pesquisas em decisão estratégica que incorpore as contribuições da Neurociência Cognitiva. / Recent advances in the pioneering theme that brings fascination and curiosity - Neuroscience - have been explaining sophisticated concepts in an Administration emergent topic: the improving knowledge in the Cognitive Neuroscience field and its contribution for the decision making studies. In light of these advances, this research has an exploratory approach, which proposal contributes to the integration of the Cognitive Neuroscience and strategic decision making in administration from the behavioral viewpoint. The main goal of this study is to propose involvement to the strategic decision making process from the Cognitive Neuroscience knowledge. The deep literature revision method was used to target the content analysis of the study dimensions: strategic decision making process, strategic thinking from the perspective of bounded rationality, Cognitive Neuroscience and decision neuroscience. There are three thresholds for the achieved contributions: (1) involvement to the research, (2) management of best practices and (3) inputs to the teaching and learning process. From the perspective of this research, the Cognitive Neuroscience provides confirmatory evidence on subjective factors especially the emotional ones, which guide the decision maker behavior in the decision process, by providing methodologies for new theories and concepts proof. From the management contribution perspective, the expansion of the manager awareness on emotions, heuristics and biases in decision-making process allows: (a) alignment of the expectations on the decision making results; (b) encourage the leadership attitude to assume a protagonist posture in the process, resulting in higher innovation in management practices; (c) recognition of the intuition associated with creativity as an important competence for the strategic decision, ensuring a better precision on the decision future; (d) acceptance of the heuristics minds allowing simplicity, facilitating the understanding of all those involved and creating transparency in the decision making process; (e) consider the non-declared decision maker individual goals at the organization level, optimizing the strategic plan implementation; (f) information provision about the strategic decision policies, by applying neuroscientific techniques that can bring better insights into the evidence relevance in the strategic decision making process. One must also consider that the learning enhancement, resulting in possible brain synapses biological changes, contributes to the strategic thinking exercise and, consequently, to more accurate future decisions. The incorporation of neuroscientific approach in didactic teaching on strategic decision-making contributes to: (a) student preparation to overcome cognitive order factors, individually and in groups, that will be found in the strategic decision process; (b) facilitate the basis of the findings of the behavioral decision theory; (c) learning improvement suggesting the insertion of scenario techniques and the environmental analysis focusing on previous assessments practices of uncertain events that may affect the strategic decision process; (d) incorporation of analytical and intuitive decision competences teaching, aligning the formal teaching techniques with the management practices. Besides the relevance of the above mentioned points, the thematic research is unprecedented, which enables a new approach in strategic decision researches to incorporate the Cognitive Neuroscience contributions