In open skill sports and other tasks, decision-making can be as important as physical performance. Whereas many studies have investigated visual perception there is little research on auditory perception as one aspect of decision making. Auditory localisation studies have almost exclusively focussed on underlying processes, such as interaural time difference and interaural level difference. It is not known, however, whether semantic spatial information contained in the sound is actually used, and whether it assists pure auditory localisation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect on auditory localisation of spatial semantic information. In Experiment One, this was explored by measuring whole body orientation to the words &quotLeft", &quotRight", &quotBack", &quotFront" and &quotYes", as well as a tone, each presented from left right, front and back locations. Experiment Two explored the effect of the four spatial semantic words presented either from their matching locations, or from a position rotated 20 degrees anticlockwise. In both experiments there were two conditions, with subjects required to face the position indicated by the sound location, or the meaning of the word. Movements of the head were recorded in three dimensions with a Polhemus Fastrak system, and were analysed with a custom program. Ten young adult volunteers participated in each experiment. Reaction time, movement time, initial rotation direction, rotation direction at peak velocity, and the accuracy of the final position were the dependent measures. The results confirmed previous reports of confusions between front and back locations, that is, errors about the interaural axis. Unlike previous studies, many more back-to-front than front-toback errors was made. The experiments provided some evidence for a spatial Stroop interference effect, that is, an effect on performance of conflicting information provided by the irrelevant dimension of the stimulus, but only for reaction time and initial movement direction, and only in the Word condition. The results are interpreted using a model of the processes needed to respond to the stimulus and produce an orienting movement. They suggest that there is an asymmetric interference effect in which auditory localisation can interfere with localisation based on semantic content of words, but not the reverse. In addition, final accuracy was unaffected by any interference, suggesting that these effects are restricted to the initial stages of response selection.

Currently, neuropsychologists rely on assessment instruments rooted in century old theory and technology to make evaluations of military personnel’s readiness to return-to-duty or return to their community. The present study sought to explore an alternative by evaluating the validity of a neuropsychological assessment presented within a virtual reality platform. The integration of a neuropsychological assessment into a cognitively and emotionally demanding virtual environment – reminiscent of a combat experience in Iraq – offers a more ecologically valid manner in which to evaluate the cognitive skills required in theater. U.S. military veterans’ (N = 50) performance on the Virtual Reality Stroop Task (VRST) was compared with performance on a paper-and-pencil, a computer adapted version of the Stroop task, and the subtests included in the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics-4 (ANAM4) TBI-MIL test battery. Results supported the validity of the VRST, indicating it demonstrates the typical Stroop effect pattern. The emotional salience of the VRST resulted in slowed reaction time compared to the ANAM Stroop. Further, the complex interference condition of the VRST offers opportunities for evaluation of exogenous and endogenous attentional processing. In the evaluation of threat, participants were noted to perform more accurately and more quickly in low threat versus high threat zones. Ancillary inquiries found no clinically meaningful findings regarding the role of deployment or post-concussive symptoms, and mixed findings regarding the effect of posttraumatic stress symptoms on neuropsychological performance among the three tested modalities.

Cardiovascular activities may increase the brain blood flow improving neuronal activities leading to improved cognition. Consequently, the effects of an acute bout of moderate intensity aerobic exercise on brain hemodynamics and its correlation with cognitive color-word Stroop task performance were tested. The Stroop tasks were congruent (color matches word) and incongruent (color does not match word). Prefrontal (PFC) and motor cortex (MC) blood flow was recorded by fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) while the subject was performing the Stroop tasks before and after the 30 minutes of exercise or equivalent time of rest controls (checking for practice effects). Ninety human subjects of age 24± 6, 20 ADHD (attention-deficit hyper-activity disorder), 27 High-BMI (>25), 29 males were recruited. Reaction time ‘RT' decreased (p<0.05) after exercise for both the congruent (12%) and incongruent (10%) Stroop tasks, compared to 8% with practice alone. Accuracy did not change after practice or exercise. HR changes after exercise correlated (p<0.05) with better accuracy and faster RT for the incongruent Stroop task. In general, a metabolic lag occurred in the neuronal deoxy- hemoglobin (Hb) signals behind the systemic oxy-Hb signals. PFC showed the highest effect sizes of Stroop task-responsive systemic hemodynamic changes compared to baseline irrespective of rest or exercise. Yet, PFC showed most significant (p<0.001) neuronal hemodynamic changes between the before and after exercise sessions, and these changes were opposite for right and left PFC, and opposite for congruent and incongruent Stroop tasks. Correlating the RT and mistakes with hemodynamics for both the Stroop tasks revealed that, after exercise, neuronal hemodynamic changes occurred at both PFC and MC associated with faster RT (p<0.05), and systemic hemodynamic responses occurred at PFC correlated (p<0.05) with mistakes. Overall, it was concluded that exercise changed the neuronal hemodynamic changes affecting speed; however, neuronal metabolic changes did not occur sufficiently to help improve accuracy in all subjects.

No description available.

THE EMOTION-PARADOX 1 Abstract The emotion-paradox in schizophrenia describes a dissociation between the grossly impaired perception of emotion and relatively preserved experience thereof. Most posit that the emotion-paradox arises from a generalized emotion perception impairment. Others counter that it represents an artefact of methodological restrictions or a separate dissociation between explicit and implicit emotion. This thesis aimed to explain the emotion-paradox in schizophrenia and resolve the competing interpretations of its root. Two studies were conducted to this end. The studies drew from the same sample, including 45 persons with schizophrenia of various symptomatology, and 45 controls with no psychiatric anamnesis or familial history of schizophrenia. The groups did not differ in age, gender, education or music education. In Study 1, the participants listened to musical stimuli and rated their perception and experience of the valence and arousal that these stimuli relayed. In Study 2, the participants completed a newly developed emotional Stroop task, in which they identified the colour of a series of neutral and negative descriptors of positive, negative, or no symptoms of schizophrenia. Findings of Study 1 indicated: a) that persons with schizophrenia recognize musical emotions as accurately...

No description available.

60 (44 in the final sample) full-time or part-time employed or full-time student participants at the University of Central Florida were recruited to see whether a break in virtual nature will help improve upon executive functioning (EF) processing speed; especially in an EF impaired population. The main interest is that if virtual nature breaks aid with mental performance, then the application of virtual nature break can prove beneficial to both normal and, most importantly, the cognitively impaired. The lack of methodological consistency and the limited research on the subject yields mixed results in previous literature. The present study tries to address some of these gaps. Participants had to fill out a demographics survey, perform a cognitive load (Mental Rotation Task) and processing speed task (Stroop Color-Word Task), and then engage in a simulated 15-minute break in nature (video & sounds). Afterwards, they performed the processing speed task again to measure for change. The results failed to demonstrate that a moderately short break consisting of a nature video helps boost EF performance in the normal group. Those who demonstrated impairment in EF in the treatment group had to small of a sample size to be tested on. Numerous limitations and weak statistical power, especially in the impaired group, calls into question the validity of the study. As a result, the study findings are inconclusive.

People have always been fascinated by the extent to which belief or will may influence<p>behavior. Proverbs, like “we tend to get what we expect,” and concepts, such as optimistic<p>thinking or self-fulfilling prophecy, reflect this intuition of an important link between one’s<p>dispositions and subsequent behavior. In other words, one’s predictions directly or<p>indirectly cause them to become true. In a similar manner, every culture, country or<p>religion has their own words for ‘expectation,’ ‘belief,’ ‘disappointment,’ ‘surprise,’ and<p>generally all have the same meaning: under uncertainty, what one expects or believes is the<p>most likely to happen. This relation between what caused a reaction in the past will<p>probably cause it again in the future might not be realistic. If the expected outcome is not<p>confirmed, it may result in a personal ‘disappointment’, and if the outcome fits no<p>expectations, it will be a ‘surprise’. Our brain is hardwired with this heuristic capacity of<p>learning the cause-effect relationship and to project its probability as the basis for much of<p>our behavior, as well as cognitions. This experience-based expectation is a form of<p>learning that helps the brain to bypass an exhaustive search in finding a satisfactory<p>solution. Expectations may thus be considered an innate theory of causality; that is, a set of<p>factors (causes) generating a given phenomenon (effects) influence the way we treat<p>incoming information but also the way we retrieve the stored information. These<p>expectancy templates may well represent one of the basic rules of how the brain processes<p>information, affecting the way we perceive the world, direct our attention and deal with<p>conflicting information. In fact, expectations have been shown to influence our judgments<p>and social interactions, along with our volition to individually decide and commit to a<p>particular course of action. However, people’s expectations may elicit the anticipation of<p>their own automatic reactions to various situations and behaviors cues, and can explain that<p>expecting to feel an increase in alertness after coffee consumption leads to experiencing<p>the consequent physiologic and behavioral states. We call this behavior-response<p>expectancy. This non-volitional form of expectation has been shown to influence<p>cognitions such as memory, pain, visual awareness, implicit learning and attention, through<p>the mediation of phenomena like placebo effects and hypnotic behaviors. Importantly,when talking about expectations, placebo and hypnosis, it is important to note that we are<p>also talking about suggestion and its modulating capability. In other words, suggestion has<p>the power to create response expectancies that activate automatic responses, which will, in<p>turn, influence cognition and behavior so as to shape them congruently with the expected<p>outcome. Accordingly, hypnotic inductions are a systematic manipulation of expectancy,<p>similar to placebo, and therefore they both work in a similar way. Considering such<p>assumptions, the major question we address in this PhD thesis is to know if these<p>expectancy-based mechanisms are capable of modulating more high-level information<p>processing such as cognitive conflict resolution, as is present in the well-known Stroop<p>task. In fact, in a recent series of studies, reduction or elimination of Stroop congruency<p>effects was obtained through suggestion and hypnotic induction. In this PhD thesis, it is<p>asked whether a suggestion reinforced by placebos, operating through response-expectancy<p>mechanisms, is able to induce a top-down cognitive modulation to overcome cognitive<p>conflict in the Stroop task, similar to those results found using suggestion and hypnosis<p>manipulation. / Doctorat en Sciences Psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Exekutive Funktionen (EF) sind eine Gruppe von Top-Down-Prozessen, die in neuartigen Situationen eingesetzt werden, um neue Trigger-Response-Assoziationen herzustellen oder vorhandene Handlungsoptionen an neue Situationen anzupassen. Obwohl EF erschöpfend untersucht wurden, bleiben wichtige Fragen offen. Beispiele dafür sind (a) Sind Exekutivfunktionen vollständig trennbar oder beruhen sie auf einem gemeinsamen neurokognitiven System? (b) Was messen verschiedene Versionen der Stroop-Aufgabe, einer der meist-verwendeten Aufgaben zur Prüfung der Inhibitionsfunktion? (c) Muss Inhibition immer Ressourcen-fordernd sein, oder gibt es eine Form der Inhibition, die mühelos implementiert werden kann? Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen, habe ich neurokognitive Korrelate von EF und ihrer Verbesserung mithilfe posthypnotischer Suggestionen (PHS) und Ereigniskorrelierter Hirnpotentiale (EKP) untersucht. Zusammenfassend ergaben sich folgende Antworten: (a) Psychometrische und EKP-Daten aus den Studien zur Gedächtnisaktualisierung und Inhibition sowie deren Verbesserung anhand PHS zeigten sowohl funktionsspezifische als auch gemeinsame neurokognitive Prozesse der Inhibition und Aktualisierung. (b) Obwohl sowohl die vokale als auch die manuelle Version der Stroop-Aufgabe Inhibitionsfunktionen erfordern, ist die vokale Version Ressourcen-fordernder, da sie mindestens einen zusätzlichen Lokus der Interferenz im Antwort-Produktionsprozess aufweist, der nicht mit PHS beeinflussbar ist und der in der manuellen Version fehlt. (c) Unter Verwendung PHS zur Erhöhung der Präferenzen für kalorienarme Lebensmittel untersuchte ich die Auflösung von Konflikten. Die EKP-Ergebnisse zeigten, dass auch Konflikt-Auflösung, ähnlich wie Inhibition, Ressourcen konsumiert. Insgesamt zeigt dieses Projekt, dass die Verwendung Aufgaben-bezogener PHS in Kombination mit Neuroimaging-Techniken einen fruchtbaren Ansatz für die Untersuchung ungeklärter Fragen über Exekutivfunktionen darstellt. / Executive functions (EF) are a group of top-down processes used in novel situations to develop or adapt existing responses to the task at hand. Even though EFs are studied exhaustively, several important questions remain unanswered: (a) Are EFs entirely separated, or do they rely on a common system? (b) What do different versions of the Stroop task measure? (c) Does inhibition always need to be effortful? To address these questions, I investigated neurocognitive correlates of EFs and their enhancements by means of posthypnotic suggestions (PHS) and event-related potentials (ERP). However, before one can use PHSs, it must be elucidated whether and how they affect EFs. Although PHSs are used repeatedly for improving inhibition, it is unclear whether their effects are mediated by bottom-up or top-down processes. By using an updating task, I showed that effects of PHSs can be attributed to top-down processes. Accordingly, a new theory of hypnosis was proposed and empirically tested by modeling hypnotizability scores with structural equation modeling. In short, the simulation-adaption theory suggests that several top-down processes are employed for responding to suggestions. After elucidating the driving mechanism of PHSs is mentally practicing a novel strategy, PHSs were used for addressing the questions regarding EFs. Summarizing (a) the psychometric and ERP results from several studies indicated that different EFs rely on both function-specific and shared neurocognitive processes. (b) Even though different versions of the Stroop task are tapping into inhibition, the vocal compared to the manual version has at least an extra response-production-related locus of interference. (c) Using PHSs for increasing preferences for low-calorie food items, it is shown that resolve is effortful to implement, as indicated by increased P300 amplitudes. Together, this project shows how PHSs, along with neuroimaging techniques, can provide a novel approach for investigating EFs.

本研究以Stroop中文叫色作業，測驗兒童和成人在Stroop作業之練習和刺激向度分離等情形下，其干擾效果的變化情形。共執行兩個實驗，實驗一中的受試者先接受中性刺激和不和諧刺激的測驗，然後對兩類作業練習8日，其後再測驗一次，探討受試者在練習前、後之干擾效果的變化情形。另一組受試接受實驗二中，中性刺激、整合性不和諧刺激和分離性不和諧刺激等作業的測驗，藉以比較整合性干擾和分離性干擾的差異。兩組受試者皆接受文字閱讀的速度測驗。 結果發現，小學二年級兒童的Stroop干擾效果最大，六年級兒童次之，成人最小，這與之前文獻上所載的研究一致，同時也證實，練習確能降低干擾效果，但仍不能使其完全消失，且練習後，三組受試間的干擾效果已無顯著差異。在實驗二的結果顯著，刺激向度分離的干擾效果仍然存在，但比整合性干擾效果小，且受試者間的分離性干擾也沒有顯著差異。而所有受試的閱讀速度均快於叫色速度。 / The study was used the Stroop Chinese task to examine the course of the Stroop interference among second, sixth grade children and adults. Two experiments were conducted. In experiment I, participants were tested with neutral and incongruent tasks and practiced with the same tasks for the following 8 days. They were tested neutral and incongruent tasks again. Then examined the course of the Stroop interference among children of second, sixth grade children and adults, they were test with neutral and incongruent tasks again. Then examine the course of the Stroop interference in between children and adult during before and after practice. The other group of participants took part in experiment II. They were presented with three tasks consist of neutral, integrated and separated incongruent tasks. Then examine the difference of the interference among children of second, sixth grade and adult during integrated and separated incongruent tasks. Two groups of participants were presented word reading speed of task. The finding of the study was Stroop interference increased from the adults through the sixth grade children and finally to the second grade children is in line with previous finding. We have confirmed that although interference decreases with practice, it is very resistant to eradication. After practice, the interference between children and adults is not significant difference. In the experiment II, it was that separated Stroop stimulus showed interference, and the amount was relatively small. The interference of separated Stroop task among children of second, sixth grade and adults were not significant difference. All participants took longer to name color than to read words.