Implicit cognition is impaired and dissociable in a head-injured group with executive deficits

Implicit or non-conscious cognition is traditionally assumed to be robust to pathology but Gomez-Beldarrain et al (1999, 2002) recently showed deficits on a single implicit task after head injury. Laboratory research suggests that implicit processes dissociate. This study therefore examined implicit cognition in 20 head-injured patients and age- and I.Q.-matched controls using a battery of four implicit cognition tasks: a Serial Reaction Time task (SRT), mere exposure effect task, automatic stereotype activation and hidden co-variation detection. Patients were assessed on an extensive neuropsychological battery, and MRI scanned. Inclusion criteria included impairment on at least one measure of executive function. The patient group was impaired relative to the control group on all the implicit cognition tasks except automatic stereotype activation. Effect size analyses using the control mean and standard deviation for reference showed further dissociations across patients and across implicit tasks. Patients impaired on implicit tasks had more cognitive deficits overall than those unimpaired, and a larger Dysexecutive Self/Other discrepancy (DEX) score suggesting greater behavioural problems. Performance on the SRT task correlated with a composite measure of executive function. Head-injury thus produced heterogeneous impairments in the implicit acquisition of new information. Implicit activation of existing knowledge structures appeared intact. Impairments in implicit cognition and executive function may interact to produce dysfunctional behaviour after head-injury. Future comparisons of implicit and explicit cognition should use several measures of each function, to ensure that they measure the latent variable of interest

Differences in spatial memory recognition due to cognitive style

Field independence refers to the ability to perceive details from the surrounding context as a whole and to represent the environment by relying on an internal reference frame. Conversely, field dependence individuals tend to focus their attention on single environmental features analysing them individually. This cognitive style affects several visuo-spatial abilities including spatial memory. This study assesses both the effect of field independence and field dependence on performance displayed on virtual environments of different complexity. Forty young healthy individuals took part in this study. Participants performed the Embedded Figures Test for field independence or dependence assessment and a new spatial memory recognition test. The spatial memory recognition test demanded to memorize a green box location in a virtual room picture. Thereafter, during ten trials participants had to decide if a green box was located in the same position as in the sample picture. Five of the pictures were correct. The information available in the virtual room was manipulated. Hence, two different experimental conditions were tested: a virtual room containing all landmarks and a virtual room with only two cues. Accuracy and reaction time were registered. Analyses demonstrated that higher field independent individuals were related to better spatial memory performance in two landmarks condition and were faster in all landmark condition. In addition, men and women did not differ in their performance. These results suggested that cognitive style affects spatial memory performance and this phenomenon is modulated by environment complexity. This does not affect accuracy but time spent. Moreover, field dependent individuals are unable to organize the navigational field by relying on internal reference frames when few landmarks are available, and this causes them to commit more errors

What can developmental disorders tell us about the neurocomputational constraints that shape development? the case of Williams syndrome

The uneven cognitive phenotype in the adult outcome of Williams syndrome has led some researchers to make strong claims about the modularity of the brain and the purported genetically determined, innate specification of cognitive modules. Such arguments have particularly been marshaled with respect to language. We challenge this direct generalization from adult phenotypic outcomes to genetic specification and consider instead how genetic disorders provide clues to the constraints on plasticity that shape the outcome of development. We specifically examine behavioral studies, brain imaging, and computational modeling of language in Williams syndrome but contend that our theoretical arguments apply equally to other cognitive domains and other developmental disorders. While acknowledging that selective deficits in normal adult patients might justify claims about cognitive modularity, we question whether similar, seemingly selective deficits found in genetic disorders can be used to argue that such cognitive modules are prespecified in infant brains. Cognitive modules are, in our view, the outcome of development, not its starting point. We note that most work on genetic disorders ignores one vital factor, the actual process of ontogenetic development, and argue that it is vital to view genetic disorders as proceeding under different neurocomputational constraints, not as demonstrations of static modularity

The ITALK project : A developmental robotics approach to the study of individual, social, and linguistic learning

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Frank Broz et al, “The ITALK Project: A Developmental Robotics Approach to the Study of Individual, Social, and Linguistic Learning”, Topics in Cognitive Science, Vol 6(3): 534-544, June 2014, which has been published in final form at doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tops.12099 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving." Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.This article presents results from a multidisciplinary research project on the integration and transfer of language knowledge into robots as an empirical paradigm for the study of language development in both humans and humanoid robots. Within the framework of human linguistic and cognitive development, we focus on how three central types of learning interact and co-develop: individual learning about one's own embodiment and the environment, social learning (learning from others), and learning of linguistic capability. Our primary concern is how these capabilities can scaffold each other's development in a continuous feedback cycle as their interactions yield increasingly sophisticated competencies in the agent's capacity to interact with others and manipulate its world. Experimental results are summarized in relation to milestones in human linguistic and cognitive development and show that the mutual scaffolding of social learning, individual learning, and linguistic capabilities creates the context, conditions, and requisites for learning in each domain. Challenges and insights identified as a result of this research program are discussed with regard to possible and actual contributions to cognitive science and language ontogeny. In conclusion, directions for future work are suggested that continue to develop this approach toward an integrated framework for understanding these mutually scaffolding processes as a basis for language development in humans and robots.Peer reviewe

Applying psychological science to the CCTV review process: a review of cognitive and ergonomic literature

As CCTV cameras are used more and more often to increase security in communities, police are spending a larger proportion of their resources, including time, in processing CCTV images when investigating crimes that have occurred (Levesley & Martin, 2005; Nichols, 2001). As with all tasks, there are ways to approach this task that will facilitate performance and other approaches that will degrade performance, either by increasing errors or by unnecessarily prolonging the process. A clearer understanding of psychological factors influencing the effectiveness of footage review will facilitate future training in best practice with respect to the review of CCTV footage. The goal of this report is to provide such understanding by reviewing research on footage review, research on related tasks that require similar skills, and experimental laboratory research about the cognitive skills underpinning the task. The report is organised to address five challenges to effectiveness of CCTV review: the effects of the degraded nature of CCTV footage, distractions and interrupts, the length of the task, inappropriate mindset, and variability in people’s abilities and experience. Recommendations for optimising CCTV footage review include (1) doing a cognitive task analysis to increase understanding of the ways in which performance might be limited, (2) exploiting technology advances to maximise the perceptual quality of the footage (3) training people to improve the flexibility of their mindset as they perceive and interpret the images seen, (4) monitoring performance either on an ongoing basis, by using psychophysiological measures of alertness, or periodically, by testing screeners’ ability to find evidence in footage developed for such testing, and (5) evaluating the relevance of possible selection tests to screen effective from ineffective screener

The \u201cHarmonic Walk\u201d and Enactive Knowledge: an Assessment Report

The Harmonic Walk is an interactive, physical environment based on user\u2019s motion detection and devoted to the study and practice of tonal harmony. When entering the rectangular floor surface within the application\u2019s camera view, a user can actually walk inside the musical structure, causing a sound feedback depending on the occupied zone. We arranged a two masks projection set up to allow users to experience melodic segmentation and tonality harmonic space, and we planned two phase assessment sessions, submitting a 22 high school student group to various test conditions. Our findings demonstrate the high learning effectiveness of the Harmonic Walk application. Its ability to transfer abstract concepts in an enactive way, produces important improvement rates both for subjects who received explicit information and for subjects who didn\u2019t