Measurement of mental attention: Assessing a cognitive component underlying performance on standardized intelligence tests

Despite the widespread use of standardized IQ tests to measure human intelligence, problems with such measures have led some to suggest that better indices may derive from measurement of cognitive processes underlying performance on IQ tests (e.g., working memory capacity). However, measures from both approaches may exhibit performance biases in favour of majority groups, due to the influence of prior learning and experience. Mental attentional (M-) capacity is proposed to be a causal factor underlying developmental growth in working memory. Measures of M-capacity index important cognitive variance underlying performance on standardized intelligence tests. These measures appear to be reasonably culture-fair and invariant across content domains. The current study tested theoretical predictions regarding the content-invariance of M-measures and the development of M-capacity for groups of children differing in performance on standardized IQ tests. 91 participants differentiated on the basis of academic stream (intellectually gifted vs. mainstream) and age (grade 4 vs. grade 8) received measures of M-capacity in the verbal and visuo-spatial domains. Children identified as gifted scored about one stage higher on both measures. Results suggest that measures of M-capacity may be useful adjuncts to standardized intelligence measures

Report on Archaeological Investigations Conducted at the St. Mary's Site (18AP45), 107 Duke of Gloucester Street, Annapolis, Maryland, 1987-1990

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Archaeology in Annapolis was invited to excavate the Carroll House and garden on 107 Duke of Gloucester Street in Annapolis, Maryland. The site, named the St. Mary's Site (18AP45) for the Catholic church on the property, is currently owned by the Redemptorists, a Roman Catholic congregation of priests and brothers who have occupied the site since 1852. Prior to the Redemptorists' tenure, the site was owned by the Carroll family from 1701-1852 and is perhaps best known as the home of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), signer of the Declaration of Independence. Excavations at the site were conducted during four consecutive summer seasons from 1987-1990. The investigation focused on three research questions. The first line of inquiry were questions surrounding the dating, architectural configuration, and artifact deposits of the "frame house," a structure adjoining the west wall of the brick Carroll House via a "passage" and later a three story addition. The frame house was partially demolished in the mid-nineteenth century but the construction was thought to pre-date the brick portion of the house. The second research question was spurred by documentary research which indicated that the property might have been the location of Proctor's Tavern, a late 17th-century tavern which served as the meeting place of the Maryland Provincial Assembly. Archaeological testing hoped to determine its location and, if found, investigate Annapolis' early Euro-American occupation. The third research question focused on the landscape of the site as it was shaped by its occupants over the past three hundred years. The research questions included investigating the stratigraphy, geometry, and architectural and planting features of Charles Carroll of Carrollton's terraced garden built during the 1770s, and investigating the changes to the landscape made by the Redemptorists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While no structural evidence associated with Proctor’s Tavern was uncovered during limited excavations along Spa Creek, the historic shore of Spa Creek was identified, buried beneath deep fill deposits laid down during construction of the Carroll Garden. Features and deposits associated with this period likely remain intact in a waterlogged environment along the southeastern sea wall at the St. Mary’s Site. Evidence of extensive earth moving by Carroll is present in the garden and was identified during excavation and coring. This strongly suggests that the garden landscape visible at the St. Mary’s Site is the intact Carroll Garden, which survives beneath contemporary and late nineteenth century strata. The extant surviving garden should be considered highly sensitive to ground-disturbing activities, and is also highly significant considering demonstrable associations with the Carroll family. Other garden-related features were also discovered, including planting holes, and a brick pavilion or parapet located along Spa Creek to the south of the site. The Duke of Gloucester Street wall was shown to be associated with the Carroll occupation of the site. Finally, intensive archaeological research was directed at the vicinity of a frame house constructed and occupied by the Carrolls to the east of the existing brick house, which was replaced by the Redemptorists in the nineteenth century with a greenhouse. These superimposed buildings were documented in detail and remain highly significant features at the St. Mary’s Site

Measurement of mental attention: Assessing a cognitive component underlying performance on

Abstract Despite the widespread use of standardized IQ tests to measure human intelligence, problems with such measures have led some to suggest that better indices may derive from measurement of cognitive processes underlying performance on IQ tests (e.g., working memory capacity). However, measures from both approaches may exhibit performance biases in favour of majority groups, due to the influence of prior learning and experience. Mental attentional (M-) capacity is proposed to be a causal factor underlying developmental growth in working memory. Measures of M-capacity index important cognitive variance underlying performance on standardized intelligence tests. These measures appear to be reasonably culture-fair and invariant across content domains. The current study tested theoretical predictions regarding the content-invariance of M-measures and the development of M-capacity for groups of children differing in performance on standardized IQ tests. Ninety-one participants differentiated on the basis of academic stream (intellectually gifted vs. mainstream) and age (grade 4 vs. grade 8) received measures of M-capacity in the verbal and visuo-spatial domains. Children identified as gifted scored about one stage higher on both measures. Results suggest that measures of M-capacity may be useful adjuncts to standardized intelligence measures

Illusions of Visual Motion Elicited by Electrical Stimulation of Human MT Complex

Human cortical area MT+ (hMT+) is known to respond to visual motion stimuli, but its causal role in the conscious experience of motion remains largely unexplored. Studies in non-human primates demonstrate that altering activity in area MT can influence motion perception judgments, but animal studies are inherently limited in assessing subjective conscious experience. In the current study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), intracranial electrocorticography (ECoG), and electrical brain stimulation (EBS) in three patients implanted with intracranial electrodes to address the role of area hMT+ in conscious visual motion perception. We show that in conscious human subjects, reproducible illusory motion can be elicited by electrical stimulation of hMT+. These visual motion percepts only occurred when the site of stimulation overlapped directly with the region of the brain that had increased fMRI and electrophysiological activity during moving compared to static visual stimuli in the same individual subjects. Electrical stimulation in neighboring regions failed to produce illusory motion. Our study provides evidence for the sufficient causal link between the hMT+ network and the human conscious experience of visual motion. It also suggests a clear spatial relationship between fMRI signal and ECoG activity in the human brain

Relative Roles of the Cellular and Humoral Responses in the Drosophila Host Defense against Three Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections

BACKGROUND: Two NF-kappaB signaling pathways, Toll and immune deficiency (imd), are required for survival to bacterial infections in Drosophila. In response to septic injury, these pathways mediate rapid transcriptional activation of distinct sets of effector molecules, including antimicrobial peptides, which are important components of a humoral defense response. However, it is less clear to what extent macrophage-like hemocytes contribute to host defense. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In order to dissect the relative importance of humoral and cellular defenses after septic injury with three different gram-positive bacteria (Micrococcus luteus, Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus), we used latex bead pre-injection to ablate macrophage function in flies wildtype or mutant for various Toll and imd pathway components. We found that in all three infection models a compromised phagocytic system impaired fly survival--independently of concomitant Toll or imd pathway activation. Our data failed to confirm a role of the PGRP-SA and GNBP1 Pattern Recognition Receptors for phagocytosis of S. aureus. The Drosophila scavenger receptor Eater mediates the phagocytosis by hemocytes or S2 cells of E. faecalis and S. aureus, but not of M. luteus. In the case of M. luteus and E. faecalis, but not S. aureus, decreased survival due to defective phagocytosis could be compensated for by genetically enhancing the humoral immune response. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results underscore the fundamental importance of both cellular and humoral mechanisms in Drosophila immunity and shed light on the balance between these two arms of host defense depending on the invading pathogen

Clarifying inhibitory control: Diversity and development of attentional inhibition

Attentional inhibition is the ability to suppress task-irrelevant cognitive processing and ignore salient yet irrelevant features of the situation. However, it remains unclear whether inhibition is a singular function. Prominent are four proposals: a one-factor model of inhibition, an attentional model of inhibition, a response- versus cognitive-inhibition taxonomy, and an effortful- versus automatic-inhibition taxonomy. To evaluate these models, we administered nine inhibition and three attention tasks to 113 adults (Study 1) and 109 children (Study 2). Inhibition models were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis after statistically controlling for attentional activation. Subsequent age analyses investigated whether inhibition tasks and factors related differentially to age, yielding distinct developmental trajectories. Results provide converging evidence for the automatic-effortful taxonomy - a distinction masked when the contribution of attention is ignored. These results highlight problems of isolated task-based characterizations of inhibition without a theoretical foundation based on evidence from multiple methodologies and populations

Factors underlying cognitive giftedness: Mental versus perceptual attention

Children identified as cognitively gifted, in comparison with age-matched mainstream samples, are advantaged in numerous areas, including mathematics, speed and efficiency in cognitive processing, and resistance to interfering stimuli. Although working memory (WM) has been implicated as a factor mediating these advantages, evidence suggests that gifted children may not be advantaged in all aspects of WM function. We hypothesized that this difference is related to the contrast between mental (related to prefrontal dopamine circuits) and perceptual attention (likely related to prefrontal acetylcholine circuits). Specifically, it was expected that cognitively gifted children would excel in WM tasks taxing mental but not perceptual attention. Ninety-one children from grades 4 and 8, in the gifted and mainstream academic streams, received WM tasks requiring primarily perceptual attention (SOPT) and mental attention (n-back), as well as measures of mental-attentional capacity, shifting, and inhibition. Gifted children outperformed their mainstream peers on all tasks, except SOPT (even when mental demand was matched). Results demonstrate a necessary distinction between mental and perceptual attention in the measurement of WM