1,721,015 research outputs found
Spatial ability contributes to memory for delayed intentions
Full text linkKubik V, Del Missier F, Mantyla T. Spatial ability contributes to memory for delayed intentions. Cognitive research: principles and implications. 2020;5(1): 36.Most everyday activities involve delayed intentions referring to different event structures and timelines. Yet, past research has mostly considered prospective memory (PM) as a dual-task phenomenon in which the primary task to fulfill PM intentions is realized within an ongoing secondary task. We hypothesized that these simplified simulations of PM may have obscured the role of spatial relational processing that is functional to represent and meet the increased temporal demands in more complex PM scenarios involving multiple timelines. To test this spatiotemporal hypothesis, participants monitored four digital clocks, with PM deadlines referring either to the same clock (single-context condition) or different clocks (multiple-context condition), along with separate tests of spatial ability (mental rotation task) and executive functioning (working memory updating). We found that performance in the mental rotation task incrementally explained PM performance in the multiple-context, but not in the single-context, condition, even after controlling for individual differences in working memory updating and ongoing task performance. These findings suggest that delayed intentions occurring in multiple ongoing task contexts reflect independent contributions of working memory updating and mental rotation and that spatial relational processing may specifically be involved in higher cognitive functions, such as complex PM in multiple contexts or multitasking
Localizing Memory Functions in Brain Tumor Patients: Anatomical Hotspots over 260 Patients
No full textObjective: Memory complaints are common in patients after brain tumor, but is difficult to map memory functions during awake surgery, to preserve them. Thus we analyzed one of the largest data sets on clinical, surgical, and anatomical correlates of memory in patients with brain tumor to date, providing anatomical hotspots for short and long-term memory functions. Methods: A total of 260 patients with brain tumor (130 high-grade gliomas; 76 low-grade gliomas [LGG]; 54 meningiomas) were tested on 2 commonly used short-term memory (Digit Span Forward and Corsi Spatial Span) and 2 long-term memory tasks (Narrative Memory and Delayed Recall of Rey Figure). Patients were evaluated before and immediately after surgery and (for LGG) after 4 months and data analyzed by means of analysis of covariance and the voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping technique. Results: As expected, patients with high-grade gliomas were already impaired before surgery, whereas patients with meningioma were largely unimpaired. Patients with LGG were unimpaired before surgery, but showed significant performance drop immediately after, with good recovery within few months. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping analyses identified specific anatomical correlates for verbal memory tasks, whereas visuospatial tasks provided good sensitivity to cognitive damage but failed to show anatomical specificity. Anatomical hotspots identified were in line with both previous functional magnetic resonance imaging and clinical studies on other neurological populations. Conclusions: Verbal memory tasks revealed a set of specific anatomical hotspots that might be considered “eloquent” for verbal memory functions, unlike visuospatial tasks, suggesting that commonly used spatial memory tasks might not be optimal to localize the damage, despite an otherwise good sensitivity to cognitive damage
Executive control of retrieval in noun and verb generation
No full textIn verb/noun generation experiments, participants have to produce a word associated with a stimulus (usually a noun) and belonging to a given syntactic category ("verb" or "noun"). The explanation of RT performance in the verb generation task is partial and debated, with different proposals emphasizing either associative strength or competition among task-relevant responses. This paper presents a novel account of RT performance in noun and verb generation, which relies on the functional interaction between associative retrieval and executive control and takes explicitly into account the interference from task-irrelevant responses. We hypothesize that fundamental control processes in this generation task are the strategic allocation of attention on retrieval cues and post-retrieval response checking and response inhibition. An analytic model based on this account accurately reproduced the major empirical trends observed in three populations (young adults, older adults, Parkinson's disease patients). The contribution of the proposal for the explanation of noun and verb generation performance, its limitations, and more general implications for other generation tasks and computational theories of retrieval are discussed
Comparing children and parental preferences for active commuting to school. A focus on Italian middle-school students
Full text linkActive commuting to school has significant positive health and environmental impacts; however, the increasing use of private vehicles has transformed school commuting from an active to a passive activity. Our research is aimed at analyzing which factors influence the choice on how to commute to school with a special focus on the role played by the Covid-19 health emergency.
We carried out an online survey involving a sample of 193 students of a middle school of Trieste (Italy) and 217 parents. We find that attitudes and perceptions of children and parents significantly differ with respect to both the risks and benefits of different means of transportation and with respect to the policies that should be implemented to support active commuting to school.
Our study is innovative with respect to the age range we focused on, since most of the literature deals with young children (elementary school) or with adolescents (high school) whose modal choice are taken either by their parents or by the students themselves. With reference to middle school students, instead, it is expected that children and parents jointly take the choice on how to commute and it is relevant to detect the role played by each family member in the decision-making process.
Our results will be useful to local administrators, policy-makers and decision-makers in order to design, implement and support transport and demand management policies that are effective in shifting the mobility habits of middle school students toward healthier and more sustainable means of transportation
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