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34,476,479
10.1093/deafed/enab026
2,021
Journal of deaf studies and deaf education
J Deaf Stud Deaf Educ
Executive Function Training for Deaf Children: Impact of a Music Intervention.
Several studies have reported poor executive function (EF) development in deaf children with subsequent impacts on their social and academic attainment. This paper describes the results of a music-based EF intervention designed for deaf children and carried out in two sets of primary schools. This is the first classroom-based EF training study with deaf children, and it also incorporates a replication phase. The intervention was a within-subject crossover design, with 29 deaf children aged 7-11 years who participated in both an EF and an art class control activity, each lasting 10 hours over 5 weeks. Non-verbal EF skills were assessed at pre-test, the crossover point, and post-test. Findings indicated that the EF intervention led to an improvement in participants' working memory and inhibitory skills in comparison with their performance on the same tasks after the control activity. The findings were not uniform for all EFs targeted nor for all cognitive ability levels in the sample. We discuss the implications of our findings for deaf children with different ability levels and for how EF interventions can be further improved.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,475,632
10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101068
2,021
Cognitive development
Cogn Dev
Thinking inside the box: Mental manipulation of working memory contents in 3- to 7-year-old children.
We developed a non-verbal task assessing updating and manipulation of working memory contents. 80 3- to 7-year-olds (47 girls; predominantly European White) were tested with a 4 × 4 grid containing 8 boxes (in the 4 centre cells and 4 outer corners). A sticker was hidden and children searched for it after a delay phase. In the updating trials, the grid was rotated during delays, in the manipulation trials, the grid was both occluded and rotated. Rewards were hidden in either the inner or outer boxes (between-subjects design). Performance was affected by age, rotation degree and hiding condition. Performance was better in outer boxes trials, where visual tracking was easier. Occluded inner trials added a substantial cognitive load (which increased with degree of rotation), resulting in children performing at chance level, suggesting that manipulation involving mental rotation is a distinct skill from tracking invisible object displacement, with a more protracted development.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,393,949
10.3389/fpsyg.2021.709448
2,021
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Do Reading and Arithmetic Fluency Share the Same Cognitive Base?
We examined the role of different cognitive-linguistic skills in reading and arithmetic fluency, and whether the effects of these skills are mediated by reading and arithmetic accuracy. One hundred twenty-six English-speaking Grade 1 children (67 females, 59 males; = 6.41 years) were followed from the beginning of Grade 1 (Time 1) to the end of Grade 1 (Time 2). At Time 1, they were assessed on measures of non-verbal IQ, speed of processing, working memory, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and number sense. At Time 2, they were assessed on measures of reading and arithmetic accuracy as well as on measures of reading and arithmetic fluency. Results of path analysis showed first that when reading and arithmetic fluency were included in the model as separate outcomes, RAN was predictive of both and that speed of processing and working memory were predictive of only arithmetic fluency. Second, RAN, speed of processing, and working memory had both direct and indirect effects ( reading and arithmetic accuracy) on the covariation of reading and arithmetic fluency. Irrespective of how reading and arithmetic fluency were treated in the analyses, the effects of non-verbal IQ, phonological awareness, and number sense were all indirect. Taken together, these findings suggest that reading and arithmetic fluency draw on a broader network of cognitive-linguistic skills, whose effects can sometimes be indirect through reading and arithmetic accuracy.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,379,782
10.1093/sleep/zsab206
2,021
Sleep
Sleep
Cortical Thinning and Sleep Slow Wave Activity Reductions Mediate Age-Related Improvements in Cognition During Mid-Late Adolescence.
Gains in cognitive test performance that occur during adolescence are associated with brain maturation. Cortical thinning and reduced sleep slow wave activity (SWA) are markers of such developmental changes. Here we investigate whether they mediate age-related improvements in cognition. 109 adolescents aged 15-19y (49 males) underwent magnetic resonance imaging, polysomnography (PSG) and a battery of cognitive tasks within a 2-month time window. Cognitive tasks assessed non-verbal intelligence, sustained attention, speed of processing and working memory and executive function. To minimize the effect of sleep history on SWA and cognitive performance, PSG and test batteries were administered only after at least 8 nights of 9-h time-in-bed (TIB) sleep opportunity. Age-related improvements in speed of processing (r = 0.33, p = 0.001) and non-verbal intelligence (r = 0.24, p = 0.01) domains were observed. These cognitive changes were associated with reduced cortical thickness, particularly in bilateral temporoparietal regions (rs = -0.21 to -0.45, ps < 0.05), as well as SWA (r = -0.35, p < 0.001). Serial mediation models found that ROIs in the middle/superior temporal cortices, together with SWA mediated the age-related improvement observed on cognition. During adolescence, age-related improvements in cognition are mediated by reductions in cortical thickness and sleep slow wave activity.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,288,180
10.1111/jir.12868
2,021
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR
J Intellect Disabil Res
Language and executive functioning in young adults with Down syndrome.
This study examined the association between executive functioning and language in young adults with Down syndrome (DS). Nineteen young adults with DS (aged 19-24 years) completed standardised measures of overall cognition, vocabulary, verbal fluency and executive function skills. Friedman's analysis of variance (χ (3) = 28.15, P < .001) and post hoc comparisons indicated that, on average, participants had a significantly lower overall non-verbal than verbal cognitive age equivalent and lower expressive than receptive vocabulary skills. Using Spearman correlations, performance on a verbal measure of cognition inhibition was significantly negatively related to receptive vocabulary (ρ = -.529, adjusted P = .036) and verbal fluency (ρ = -.608, adjusted P = .022). Attention was significantly positively correlated with receptive (ρ = .698, adjusted-p = .005) and expressive (ρ = .542, adjusted P = .027) vocabulary. Verbal working memory was significantly positively associated with receptive vocabulary (ρ = .585, adjusted P = .022) and verbal fluency (ρ = .737, adjusted P = .003). Finally, visuospatial working memory was significantly associated with receptive vocabulary (ρ = .562, adjusted P = .027). Verbal and non-verbal measures of executive functioning skills had important associations with language ability in young adults with DS. Future translational research is needed to investigate causal pathways underlying these relationships. Research should explore if interventions aimed at increasing executive functioning skills (e.g. attention, inhibition and working memory) have the potential to lead to increases in language for young adults with DS.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,276,455
10.3389/fpsyg.2021.545335
2,021
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Which Tools in Multimedia Are Best for Learning Outcomes? A Study Grounded in Cognitive Load Structures.
The main objective of this study is to investigate the importance of three compositions in multimedia for learning outcomes (LOs) in relation to individual differences in short-term memory (STM) capacity. The study is based on a survey of 378 individuals at the bachelor level (military officers, teachers, and psychology students). The LOs of three different multimedia compositions (means) were tested. This applied to individuals with low, medium, and high STM capacity. The results show that the successive presentation (Type II) of learning materials through multiple representation forms/channels (speech, pictures, and screen text/labels) provides a better LO than just speech (Type I) and simultaneous presentation (Type III). Overall, visual and verbal channel capacities did not contribute to the LO in any of the three tools tested, but some specific STM capacity types or substructures (visual and verbal progressive capacities) and non-verbal (RAPM) types have significance, particularly in exploiting successive presentation (Type II) for learning. Although the tools used in the multimedia educational material had a low cognitive load, the individuals with low capacity learned relatively less than the individuals with higher capacity. A symbolic form of expression was introduced concerning the relationship between cognitive load structure (CLS) and LOs through various tools in multimedia as an aid in the theoretical and empirical analyses. This is referred to as the . The main assumption of this study, based on previous empirical and theoretical ones, is that the relationship between CLS and LO is expressed with the following CLS-LO formula: . Based on this study, the relationship became: . This basic research study is primarily a contribution to understanding underlying cognitive processes in STM and their importance for learning in multimodal forms compared with analogue text. The findings will also be relevant as a basis for performance analysis and decision-making under high information pressure, risk, and unpredictable conditions.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,242,837
10.1016/j.brat.2021.103926
2,021
Behaviour research and therapy
Behav Res Ther
Rethinking cognitive training: The moderating roles of emotional vulnerability and perceived cognitive impact of training in high worriers.
Trait worry is a hallmark feature of anxiety and depression, interfering with attentional control and impairing cognitive performance. Previous research has shown the adaptive dual n-back training is effective in improving attentional control and reducing emotional vulnerability, but not for everyone. The current randomised controlled trial explored the role of baseline emotional vulnerability and perceived cognitive impact in training-related cognitive and emotional improvements in 60 high worriers randomly assigned to 10 sessions of the adaptive dual n-back training or non-adaptive 1-back training. Pre-training, post-training and one-month follow-up measures of cognitive performance were assessed using an emotional Flanker task, a cued task-switching task, and the MaRs-IB task. Self-report questionnaires assessed worry, anxiety, depression, somatisation, and self-efficacy, as well as participants' perceived cognitive impact of the training. Participants with higher levels of baseline emotional vulnerability presented the largest improvements in non-verbal reasoning and emotional vulnerability one month after the training, as well as the greatest perceived cognitive impact. Perceived cognitive impact was predicted by working memory improvement on the adaptive n-back training at high baseline levels of anxiety. These results suggest that the adaptive n-back training presents the greatest emotional and cognitive benefits for individuals experiencing severe levels of emotional vulnerability.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,218,821
10.1017/S0305000921000325
2,021
Journal of child language
J Child Lang
Russian-German five-year-olds: What omissions in sentence repetition tell us about linguistic knowledge, memory skills and their interrelation.
In error analyses using sentence repetition data, most authors focus on word types of omissions. The current study considers serial order in omission patterns independent of functional categories. Data was collected from Russian and German sentence repetition tasks performed by 53 five-year-old bilingual children. Number and positions of word omissions were analyzed. Serial order effects were found in both languages: medial errors made up the largest percentage of errors. Then, the position of omissions was compared to visuo-verbal n-back working memory and non-verbal visual forward short-term memory scores using stepwise hierarchical linear regression models, taking into account demographic variables and receptive language. The interaction differed between languages: there was a significant negative association between omissions in the medial position in German and the final position in Russian and the visuo-verbal n-back memory score. Our study contributes to the understanding of how working memory and language are intertwined in sentence repetition.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,177,504
10.3389/fnhum.2021.688144
2,021
Frontiers in human neuroscience
Front Hum Neurosci
Approximate Number Sense in Students With Severe Hearing Loss: A Modality-Neutral Cognitive Ability.
The Approximate Number System (ANS) allows humans and non-human animals to estimate large quantities without counting. It is most commonly studied in visual contexts (i.e., with displays containing different numbers of dots), although the ANS may operate on all approximate quantities regardless of modality (e.g., estimating the number of a series of auditory tones). Previous research has shown that there is a link between ANS and mathematics abilities, and that this link is resilient to differences in visual experience (Kanjlia et al., 2018). However, little is known about the function of the ANS and its relationship to mathematics abilities in the absence of other types of sensory input. Here, we investigated the acuity of the ANS and its relationship with mathematics abilities in a group of students from the Sichuan Province in China, half of whom were deaf. We found, consistent with previous research, that ANS acuity improves with age. We found that mathematics ability was predicted by Non-verbal IQ and Inhibitory Control, but not visual working memory capacity or Attention Network efficiencies. Even above and beyond these predictors, ANS ability still accounted for unique variance in mathematics ability. Notably, there was no interaction with hearing, which indicates that the role played by the ANS in explaining mathematics competence is not modulated by hearing capacity. Finally, we found that age, Non-verbal IQ and Visual Working Memory capacity were predictive of ANS performance when controlling for other factors. In fact, although students with hearing loss performed slightly worse than students with normal hearing on the ANS task, hearing was no longer significantly predictive of ANS performance once other factors were taken into account. These results indicate that the ANS is able to develop at a consistent pace with other cognitive abilities in the absence of auditory experience, and that its relationship with mathematics ability is not contingent on sensory input from hearing.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,152,544
10.1007/s10339-021-01041-6
2,021
Cognitive processing
Cogn Process
Diverse patterns of vulnerability to visual illusions in children with neurodevelopmental disorders.
Research on how children with neurodevelopmental disorders perceive, process, and interpret visual illusions (VIs) has been extensively focused on children with autism spectrum disorder providing controversial findings. In this study, we investigated the patterns of vulnerability to a wide set of VIs comprising 23 standard text book VIs and their variations in a clinical sample of children with neurodevelopmental disorders compared to typically developing children (TD). A total of 176 children, aged between 4.6 and 13.8 years old, were distributed into four groups: high-functioning autism (HFA; N = 23), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; N = 42), specific learning disorder (SLD; N = 70), and TD (N = 41). Regression models, adjusted for sex, age, and non-verbal IQ, showed that HFA was associated with greater responses accuracy than TD children to the full battery of VIs, to the cognitive illusions, to the distortions, and to both geometrical illusions of size/shape (cognitive distortions) and lightness contrast effects (physical distortions). The susceptibility of ADHD children was found attenuated for illusory contours and greater for paradoxical illusions in comparison with TD children. No significant differences were shown between the SLD group and the TD children. Our findings, which were adjusted for the same duration of visual working memory across groups, showed that there is a potential specific tendency of HFA children to failure of processing visual information in context. Contrarily, children with ADHD showed in general normal global processing such as children diagnosed with SLD.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,117,591
10.1007/s10461-021-03317-6
2,021
AIDS and behavior
AIDS Behav
Food Should not be Forgotten: Impacts of Combined Cash Transfer Receipt and Food Security on Child Education and Cognition in South Africa and Malawi.
Social protection can take many forms. Both cash transfers and food security may have important contributions to child cognitive development. This study examines the potential impact of combinations of cash transfers and food security status on child cognitive development and educational outcomes. Cross-sectional data for 796 HIV-affected children in the Child Community Care study were utilised for this analysis. Children and caregivers completed interview schedules comprised of standardised items on socio-demographics, household data, cash grant receipt and food security status, school achievement, and cognition. A series of logistic and linear regression models and marginal effects analyses were undertaken to explore the impacts of differing levels of social protection (none; either cash grant receipt or food secure status or, both in combination) on child educational and cognitive outcomes. Although all children lived in poverty-stricken households, 20% (157/796) of children did not live in a household in receipt of a cash grant and did not report food security; 32.4% (258/796) reported either component of social protection and, 47.9% (381/796) received both measures of social protection in combination. Compared to no social protection, being in receipt of either component of social protection was found to be significantly associated with being in the correct class for age, higher scores of non-verbal cognition, and higher working memory scores. Receiving both social protection measures in combination was found to be significantly associated with reduced educational risk scores, improved odds of being in the correct class for age, regular school attendance, missing less than a week of school in the previous two weeks, higher scores on measures of nonverbal cognition, higher working memory scores, and learning new things more easily. Educational and cognitive outcomes for children can be bolstered by social protection measures (cash grant receipt or food security). Benefits are enhanced when social protection is received in combination. Such findings support the notion of synergistic social protection responses for children living in environments impacted by high levels of HIV burden and deprivation.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,116,720
10.1186/s40673-021-00138-0
2,021
Cerebellum & ataxias
Cerebellum Ataxias
Relationships between motor scores and cognitive functioning in FMR1 female premutation X carriers indicate early involvement of cerebello-cerebral pathways.
Smaller expansions of CGG trinucleotide repeats in the FMR1 X-linked gene termed 'premutation' lead to a neurodegenerative disorder: Fragile X Associated Tremor/Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS) in nearly half of aged carrier males, and 8-16% females. Core features include intention tremor, ataxia, and cognitive decline, and white matter lesions especially in cerebellar and periventricular locations. A 'toxic' role of elevated and expanded FMR1 mRNA has been linked to the pathogenesis of this disorder. The emerging issue concerns the trajectory of the neurodegenerative changes: is the pathogenetic effect confined to overt clinical manifestations? Here we explore the relationships between motor and cognitive scale scores in a sample of 57 asymptomatic adult female premutation carriers of broad age range. Three motor scale scores (ICARS-for tremor/ataxia, UPDRS-for parkinsonism, and Clinical Tremor) were related to 11 cognitive tests using Spearman's rank correlations. Robust regression, applied in relationships between all phenotypic measures, and genetic molecular and demographic data, identified age and educational levels as common correlates of these measures, which were then incorporated as confounders in correlation analysis. Cognitive tests demonstrating significant correlations with motor scores were those assessing non-verbal reasoning on Matrix Reasoning (p-values from 0.006 to 0.011), and sequencing and alteration on Trails-B (p-values from 0.008 to 0.001). Those showing significant correlations with two motor scores-ICARS and Clinical Tremor- were psychomotor speed on Symbol Digit Modalities (p-values from 0.014 to 0.02) and working memory on Digit Span Backwards (p-values from 0.024 to 0.011). Subtle motor impairments correlating with cognitive, particularly executive, deficits may occur in female premutation carriers not meeting diagnostic criteria for FXTAS. This pattern of cognitive deficits is consistent with those seen in other cerebellar disorders. Our results provide evidence that more than one category of clinical manifestation reflecting cerebellar changes - motor and cognitive - may be simultaneously affected by premutation carriage across a broad age range in asymptomatic carriers.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,107,424
10.1016/j.jad.2021.05.055
2,021
Journal of affective disorders
J Affect Disord
Hand gesture performance is impaired in major depressive disorder: A matter of working memory performance?
Individuals with depression exhibit numerous interpersonal deficits. As effective use of gestures is critical for social communication, it is possible that depressed individuals' interpersonal deficits may be due to deficits in gesture performance. The present study thus compared gesture performance of depressed patients and controls and examined whether these deficits relate to cognitive and other domains of dysfunction. Gesture performance was evaluated in 30 depressed patients and 30 controls using the Test of Upper Limb Apraxia (TULIA). Clinical rating scales were assessed to determine if gesture deficits were associated with motor, cognitive or functional outcomes. Compared to controls, depressed patients exhibited impaired gesture performance with 2/3 of the patients demonstrating gesture deficits. Within depressed patients, gesture performance was highly correlated with working memory abilities. In contrast, no association between gesture performance and gestural knowledge, psychomotor retardation, depression severity, or frontal dysfunction was observed in patients. This is a cross-sectional study and a larger size would have allowed for confident detection of more subtle, but potentially relevant effects. Gesture performance is impaired in depressed patients, and appears to be related to poor working memory abilities, suggesting a disruption in the retrieval of gestural cues indicative of a distinct clinical phenomenon that might be related to social functioning.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,066,872
10.3390/brainsci11050604
2,021
Brain sciences
Brain Sci
Executive Function, Working Memory, and Verbal Fluency in Relation to Non-Verbal Intelligence in Greek-Speaking School-Age Children with Developmental Language Disorder.
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is often associated with impairments in working memory (WM), executive functions (EF), and verbal fluency. Moreover, increasing evidence shows poorer performance of children with DLD on non-verbal intelligence tests relative to their typically developing (TD) peers. Yet, the degree and generality of relevant difficulties remain unclear. The present study aimed at investigating WM capacity, key EFs and verbal fluency in relation to non-verbal intelligence in Greek-speaking school-age children with DLD, compared to TD peers (8-9 years). To our knowledge, the present study is the first to attempt a systematic relevant assessment with Greek-speaking school-age children, complementing previous studies mostly involving English-speaking participants. The results showed that children with DLD scored lower than TD peers on the non-verbal intelligence measure. Groups did not differ in the inhibition measures obtained (tapping resistance to either distractor or proactive interference), but children with DLD were outperformed by TD peers in the WM capacity, updating, monitoring (mixing cost), and verbal fluency (phonological and semantic) measures. The effects showed limited (in the case of backward digit recall) or no dependence on non-verbal intelligence. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications as well as in relation to future lines of research.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,054,452
10.3389/fnbot.2021.626380
2,021
Frontiers in neurorobotics
Front Neurorobot
Learning Actions From Natural Language Instructions Using an ON-World Embodied Cognitive Architecture.
Endowing robots with the ability to view the world the way humans do, to understand natural language and to learn novel semantic meanings when they are deployed in the physical world, is a compelling problem. Another significant aspect is linking language to action, in particular, utterances involving abstract words, in artificial agents. In this work, we propose a novel methodology, using a brain-inspired architecture, to model an appropriate mapping of language with the percept and internal motor representation in humanoid robots. This research presents the first robotic instantiation of a complex architecture based on the Baddeley's Working Memory (WM) model. Our proposed method grants a scalable knowledge representation of verbal and non-verbal signals in the cognitive architecture, which supports incremental open-ended learning. Human spoken utterances about the workspace and the task are combined with the internal knowledge map of the robot to achieve task accomplishment goals. We train the robot to understand instructions involving higher-order (abstract) linguistic concepts of developmental complexity, which cannot be directly hooked in the physical world and are not pre-defined in the robot's static self-representation. Our proposed interactive learning method grants flexible run-time acquisition of novel linguistic forms and real-world information, without training the cognitive model anew. Hence, the robot can adapt to new workspaces that include novel objects and task outcomes. We assess the potential of the proposed methodology in verification experiments with a humanoid robot. The obtained results suggest robust capabilities of the model to link language bi-directionally with the physical environment and solve a variety of manipulation tasks, starting with limited knowledge and gradually learning from the run-time interaction with the tutor, past the pre-trained stage.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,017,098
10.1038/s41562-021-01118-4
2,021
Nature human behaviour
Nat Hum Behav
Training spatial cognition enhances mathematical learning in a randomized study of 17,000 children.
Spatial and mathematical abilities are strongly associated. Here, we analysed data from 17,648 children, aged 6-8 years, who performed 7 weeks of mathematical training together with randomly assigned spatial cognitive training with tasks demanding more spatial manipulation (mental rotation or tangram), maintenance of spatial information (a visuospatial working memory task) or spatial, non-verbal reasoning. We found that the type of cognitive training children performed had a significant impact on mathematical learning, with training of visuospatial working memory and reasoning being the most effective. This large, community-based study shows that spatial cognitive training can result in transfer to academic abilities, and that reasoning ability and maintenance of spatial information is relevant for mathematics learning in young children.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
34,008,896
10.1002/aur.2542
2,021
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research
Autism Res
The cognitive benefits of bilingualism in autism spectrum disorder: Is theory of mind boosted and by which underlying factors?
This study examined whether bilingualism boosts Theory of Mind as measured by a non-verbal false belief (FB) task in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and how this potential boost may stem from improvements in a variety of other domains, namely executive functions (EFs), language, metalinguistic awareness skills, as well as autism severity. One hundred and three children with ASD (7- to 15-year-olds) (43 bilingual and 60 age- and IQ-matched monolingual children) were tested on a nonverbal task of attentional switching, working memory and updating task, and an online, low-verbal first-order FB task. Results showed a clear FB benefit for bilingual children with ASD as compared with their monolingual peers. There were also boosts in EF, however, there is no evidence that these EF boosts drove the FB advantage. Enhanced FB was not explained either by language, metalinguistic skills, or lower autism severity. While the results do not conclusively settle the debate on what triggers the ToM advantage in bilingual children with ASD, the empirical picture of the current study suggests that the ToM component of FB understanding in bilingual children with ASD is enhanced by the bilingual experience per se. LAY SUMMARY: The current study aimed to determine if and how bilingualism may improve the ability to understand others' beliefs in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We assessed their belief reasoning alongside a series of other skills hypothesized to be beneficial for such reasoning, namely understanding, producing, and thinking about language, recalling and switching between information, and the severity of their autistic symptoms. The overall findings highlight advantages for bilingual children with ASD over their monolingual peers for grasping beliefs, thus suggesting that pursuing bilingualism may be beneficial for cognition in ASD. Other boosts were also associated with bilingualism, such as recalling and switching between information, but these boosts were not directly related to belief understanding, highlighting the beneficial role of bilingualism per se.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,979,380
10.1371/journal.pone.0251050
2,021
PloS one
PLoS One
Implicit learning of non-verbal regularities by deaf children with cochlear implants: An investigation with a dynamic temporal prediction task.
Some deaf children continue to show difficulties in spoken language learning after cochlear implantation. Part of this variability has been attributed to poor implicit learning skills. However, the involvement of other processes (e.g. verbal rehearsal) has been underestimated in studies that show implicit learning deficits in the deaf population. In this study, we investigated the relationship between auditory deprivation and implicit learning of temporal regularities with a novel task specifically designed to limit the load on working memory, the amount of information processing, and the visual-motor integration skills required. Seventeen deaf children with cochlear implants and eighteen typically hearing children aged 5 to 11 years participated. Our results revealed comparable implicit learning skills between the two groups, suggesting that implicit learning might be resilient to a lack of early auditory stimulation. No significant correlation was found between implicit learning and language tasks. However, deaf children's performance suggests some weaknesses in inhibitory control.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,932,849
10.1016/j.ridd.2021.103962
2,021
Research in developmental disabilities
Res Dev Disabil
Exploring different aspects of emotion understanding in adults with Down Syndrome.
Adults with Down Syndrome (DS) present difficulties in emotion understanding, although research has mainly focused on emotion recognition (external aspects), and little is known about their performance in other complex components (mental and reflective aspects). This study aims to examine different aspects of emotion understanding in adults with DS, including a codification of their error pattern, and also to determine the association with other variables that are commonly impaired in adults with DS. Twenty-two adults with DS and twenty-two children with typical development (TD) matched for vocabulary level were assessed with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC), along with other non-verbal reasoning (NVR), structural language and working memory (WM) tasks. Adults with DS showed lower emotion competence than children with TD in different components of the TEC, and also a different pattern of errors was observed. Structural language, NVR and WM predicted distinct emotion understanding skills in different ways. It is important to plan interventions aimed at improving particular aspects of emotion understanding skills for adults with DS, taking into account the different components, the type of error and the different cognitive and linguistic skills involved in each emotion understanding skill.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,892,268
10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.03.066
2,021
Journal of psychiatric research
J Psychiatr Res
Neuropsychological performance in youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
There is a paucity of literature on neuropsychological functions in youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Most studies have small sample sizes and have yielded inconsistent results. A recent meta-analysis failed to identify any significant impairments. We studied neuropsychological functions (attention, verbal fluency, working memory, set-shifting, response inhibition, planning and visuospatial abilities) in a large sample of youth with OCD (n = 97) in comparison with controls who did not have OCD (n = 50). After controlling for the confounding effects (age, sex, severity of depression and anxiety, presence of comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, any tic disorder, number of comorbidities, and non-verbal intelligence measured by the standard progressive matrices), the youth with OCD significantly underperformed with large effect sizes compared to controls, only on the test of 'behavioral reversal', measured by the Object Alternation Test (trials to reach criterion p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.49; perseverative errors p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.31). Patients also underperformed on a task of planning, but it was statistically insignificant. Certain comorbid disorders, antipsychotic use and age of onset did not influence neuropsychological performance significantly. Our study demonstrates that youth with OCD may have impaired 'set-shifting' in the form of 'behavioral reversal' and possibly planning, findings broadly consistent with the literature in adults and with the fronto-striatal model of OCD. It is possible that youth may accumulate more neuropsychological impairments over a period, as the illness continues into adulthood.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,813,361
10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2021.106622
2,021
Epilepsy research
Epilepsy Res
Atypical handedness and its clinicoradiological predictors in children with focal epilepsy.
Handedness has been strongly linked to cerebral lateralisation for language. Literature on atypical handedness and its association with focal epilepsy starting from early childhood is limited and needs exploration. In this cross-sectional study, the prevalence of atypical handedness (left-handedness and ambidexterity) was compared between children with left/right focal epilepsy aged 3-14 years without any definite motor deficit, between August 2019 and July 2020. Cognition, behavioral abnormalities, working memory, and executive function were also compared between the groups. Various clinical, demographic, and radiological variables were explored to determine any association with the presence of atypical handedness. Of the total 79 children (45 boys, 57 % mean age 6.5 ± 2.3 years, 41-left focal epilepsy) with focal epilepsy enrolled for the study, the prevalence of atypical handedness was found to be 12.6 % (10/79). No association between atypical handedness and clinical/demographic variables including left/right focal epilepsy was observed in the study excepting neuroimaging abnormality (p = 0.0008 and 0.02 respectively). This increased prevalence of neuroimaging abnormality in patients with atypical handedness was significant in multivariate analysis, after adjusting for confounding variables. Similarly, intelligence quotient (full scale, verbal and non-verbal, as well as sub-domains), behavioral abnormality (internalizing and externalizing score on CBCL), scores on picture memory, simple copying, and missing scan task were not significantly different between children with left and right focal epilepsy or children with atypical handedness and right-handedness. Atypical handedness is not more frequent in children with left focal epilepsy as compared to right focal epilepsy.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,767,658
10.3389/fneur.2021.625359
2,021
Frontiers in neurology
Front Neurol
The Effect of Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation on Cognitive Training Outcome in Healthy Aging.
Aging is associated with a decline in attentional and executive abilities, which are linked to physiological, structural, and functional brain changes. A variety of novel non-invasive brain stimulation methods have been probed in terms of their neuroenhancement efficacy in the last decade; one that holds significant promise is transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) that delivers an alternate current at random amplitude and frequency. The aim of this study was to investigate whether repeated sessions of tRNS applied as an add-on to cognitive training (CT) may induce long-term near and far transfer cognitive improvements. In this sham-controlled, randomized, double-blinded study forty-two older adults (age range 60-86 years) were randomly assigned to one of three intervention groups that received 20 min of 0.705 mA tRNS ( = 14), 1 mA tRNS ( = 14), or sham tRNS ( = 19) combined with 30 min of CT of executive functions (cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, working memory). tRNS was applied bilaterally over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortices for five sessions. The primary outcome (non-verbal logical reasoning) and other cognitive functions (attention, memory, executive functions) were assessed before and after the intervention and at a 1-month follow-up. Non-verbal logical reasoning, inhibitory control and reaction time improved significantly over time, but stimulation did not differentially affect this improvement. These changes occurred during CT, while no further improvement was observed during follow-up. Performance change in logical reasoning was significantly correlated with age in the group receiving 1 mA tRNS, indicating that older participants profited more from tRNS than younger participants. Performance change in non-verbal working memory was significantly correlated with age in the group receiving sham tRNS, indicating that in contrast to active tRNS, older participants in the sham group declined more than younger participants. CT induced cognitive improvements in all treatment groups, but tRNS did not modulate most of these cognitive improvements. However, the effect of tRNS depended on age in some cognitive functions. We discuss possible explanations leading to this result that can help to improve the design of future neuroenhancement studies in older populations.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,763,953
10.1111/jir.12833
2,021
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR
J Intellect Disabil Res
Evaluating working memory outcome measures for children with Down syndrome.
There is a critical need for the psychometric evaluation of outcome measures to be used in clinical trials targeting cognition in Down syndrome (DS). This study examines a specific cognitive skill that is of particular importance in DS, working memory, and the psychometric properties of a set of standardised measurements to assess working memory in individuals with DS. Ninety children and adolescents ages 6 to 18 years old with DS were assessed on a selection of verbal and visuospatial working memory subtests of standardised clinical assessments at two time points to examine feasibility, distributional qualities, test-retest reliability and convergent validity against a priori criteria. Caregivers also completed an adaptive behaviour questionnaire to address working memory subtests' associations with broader developmental functioning. The Stanford Binet-5 Verbal Working Memory, Differential Ability Scales-2 Recognition of Pictures, Stanford Binet-5 Nonverbal Working Memory and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-5 Picture Span measures met the most psychometric criteria overall across the full age and IQ range of the study. Although Differential Ability Scales-2 Recall of Sequential Order and Differential Ability Scales-2 Recall of Digits Backward met the fewest a priori criteria, follow-up analyses suggested greater feasibility in specific age and IQ ranges. Several working memory measures appear to be psychometrically sound and appropriate for use in clinical trials for children with DS, especially when focusing on raw scores. However, floor effects on standard scores and feasibility of some measures were problematic. Guidelines for use of the working memory subtests with this population are provided.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,727,160
10.1016/j.jpain.2021.03.138
2,021
The journal of pain
J Pain
Pain Catastrophizing Mediates and Moderates the Link Between Acute Pain and Working Memory.
The bidirectional relationship between pain and working memory (WM) deficits is well-documented but poorly understood. Pain catastrophizing-exaggerated, negative cognitive and emotional responses toward pain-may contribute to WM deficits by occupying finite, shared cognitive resources. The present study assessed the role of pain catastrophizing as both a state-level process and trait-level disposition in the link between acute pain and WM. Healthy, young adults were randomized to an experimentally-induced ischemic pain or control task, during which they completed verbal and non-verbal WM tests. Participants also completed measures of state- and trait-level pain catastrophizing. Simple mediation analyses indicated that participants in the pain group (vs. control) engaged in more state-level catastrophizing about pain, which led to worse verbal and non-verbal WM. Moderated mediation analyses indicated that the indirect (mediation) effect of state-level pain catastrophizing was moderated by trait-level pain catastrophizing for both verbal and non-verbal WM. Participants in the pain group who reported a greater trait-level tendency to catastrophize about pain experienced greater state-level catastrophizing about pain during the ischemic task, which led to worse verbal and non-verbal WM performance. These results provide evidence for pain catastrophizing as an important mechanism and moderating factor of WM deficits in acute pain. Future research should replicate these results in chronic pain samples, investigate other potential mechanisms (e.g., sleep disturbances), and determine if interventions that target pain catastrophizing directly can ameliorate cognitive deficits in people with pain. PERSPECTIVE: This article presents a laboratory study examining the relationships among pain, pain catastrophizing, and working memory in healthy participants. The results shed new light on these relationships and raise the possibility that interventions that reduce catastrophizing may lead to improved cognitive function among people with pain.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,716,850
10.3389/fpsyg.2021.577488
2,021
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
The Relationship of Reading Abilities With the Underlying Cognitive Skills of Math: A Dimensional Approach.
Math and reading are related, and math problems are often accompanied by problems in reading. In the present study, we used a dimensional approach and we aimed to assess the relationship of reading and math with the cognitive skills assumed to underlie the development of math. The sample included 97 children from 4th and 5th grades of a primary school. Children were administered measures of reading and math, non-verbal IQ, and various underlying cognitive abilities of math (counting, number sense, and number system knowledge). We also included measures of phonological awareness and working memory (WM). Two approaches were undertaken to elucidate the relations of the cognitive skills with math and reading. In the first approach, we examined the unique contributions of math and reading ability, as well as their interaction, to each cognitive ability. In the second approach, the cognitive abilities were taken to predict math and reading. Results from the first set of analyses showed specific effects of math on number sense and number system knowledge, whereas counting was affected by both math and reading. No math-by-reading interactions were observed. In contrast, for phonological awareness, an interaction of math and reading was found. Lower performing children on both math and reading performed disproportionately lower. Results with respect to the second approach confirmed the specific relation of counting, number sense, and number system knowledge to math and the relation of counting to reading but added that each math-related marker contributed independently to math. Following this approach, no unique effects of phonological awareness on math and reading were found. In all, the results show that math is specifically related to counting, number sense, and number system knowledge. The results also highlight what each approach can contribute to an understanding of the relations of the various cognitive correlates with reading and math.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,677,992
10.1089/neu.2020.7265
2,021
Journal of neurotrauma
J Neurotrauma
Effect of Growth Hormone on Neuropsychological Outcomes and Quality of Life of Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review.
One of the most devastating chronic consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is cognitive impairment. One of the possible underlying causes is growth hormone deficiency (GHD) caused by TBI-induced hypopituitarism. Currently, TBI patients are not routinely screened for pituitary function, and there are no standard therapies when GHD is diagnosed. Further, the possible positive effects of GH replacement on cognitive function and quality of life after TBI are not well established. We aimed to assess the current knowledge regarding the effect of GH therapy on cognitive function and quality of life after TBI. We performed a literature search in PubMed, Embase, and Central databases from inception to October 2019. We extracted data on each term of severity (mild-moderate-severe) of TBI with and without GHD, time since injury, parameters of growth hormone treatment (dosing, length), and cognitive outcomes in terms of verbal and non-verbal memory, and executive, emotional, and motor functions, and performed a meta-analysis on the results of a digit span test assessing working memory. We identified 12 studies (containing two randomized controlled trials) with 264 mild-to-moderate-to-severe TBI patients (Glasgow Coma Score [GCS] varied between 6 and 15) with ( = 255) or without ( = 9) GHD who received GH therapy. GH was administered subcutaneously in gradually increasing doses, monitoring serum insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) level. After TBI, regardless of GCS, 6-12 months of GH therapy, started in the chronic phase post-TBI, induced a moderate improvement in processing speed and memory capacities, decreased the severity of depression, and led to a marked improvement in quality of life. Limitations include the relatively low number of patients involved and the divergent neuropsychological tests used. These results indicate the need for further multi-centric controlled studies to substantiate the use of GH replacement therapy as a potential tool to alleviate TBI-related cognitive impairment and improve quality of life.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,639,827
10.1121/10.0003532
2,021
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
J Acoust Soc Am
Role of semantic context and talker variability in speech perception of cochlear-implant users and normal-hearing listeners.
This study assessed the impact of semantic context and talker variability on speech perception by cochlear-implant (CI) users and compared their overall performance and between-subjects variance with that of normal-hearing (NH) listeners under vocoded conditions. Thirty post-lingually deafened adult CI users were tested, along with 30 age-matched and 30 younger NH listeners, on sentences with and without semantic context, presented in quiet and noise, spoken by four different talkers. Additional measures included working memory, non-verbal intelligence, and spectral-ripple detection and discrimination. Semantic context and between-talker differences influenced speech perception to similar degrees for both CI users and NH listeners. Between-subjects variance for speech perception was greatest in the CI group but remained substantial in both NH groups, despite the uniformly degraded stimuli in these two groups. Spectral-ripple detection and discrimination thresholds in CI users were significantly correlated with speech perception, but a single set of vocoder parameters for NH listeners was not able to capture average CI performance in both speech and spectral-ripple tasks. The lack of difference in the use of semantic context between CI users and NH listeners suggests no overall differences in listening strategy between the groups, when the stimuli are similarly degraded.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,575,979
10.1007/s11881-021-00214-4
2,021
Annals of dyslexia
Ann Dyslexia
Exploring sources of poor reading comprehension in English language learners.
This study examined the sources of reading comprehension difficulties in English language learners (ELLs). The characteristics of ELL poor comprehenders were compared to their English as a first language (EL1) peers. Participants included 124 ELLs who spoke Chinese as an L1 and 79 EL1 students. Using a regression technique based on age, non-verbal reasoning, word reading accuracy, and word reading fluency, three types of comprehenders (poor, average, and good) were identified within each language group. The groups were then compared on measures of oral language skills (vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and listening comprehension), metalinguistic skills (morphological awareness and syntactic awareness), working memory, and higher-level processing skills (inference, conjunction use, and comprehension monitoring). ELL poor comprehenders had significantly lower scores than ELL average and good comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, whereas there were no significant differences between the average and good comprehender groups on these skills. Additionally, both ELL poor and average comprehenders had lower scores than ELL good comprehenders on all three higher-level skills. Finally, results showed that ELL poor comprehenders scored lower than EL1 poor comprehenders on vocabulary breadth, listening comprehension, and morphological awareness, but the two groups did not differ on higher-level skills. Theoretical and educational implications for the identification and instruction of ELL poor comprehenders are discussed.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,551,924
10.3389/fpsyg.2020.613992
2,020
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Cognitive Mechanisms of Monolingual and Bilingual Children in Monoliterate Educational Settings: Evidence From Sentence Repetition.
Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been extensively employed to assess bilingual children's linguistic and cognitive resources. The present study examined whether monoliterate bilingual children differ from their monolingual (and monoliterate) peers in SR accuracy and cognitive tasks, and investigated links between vocabulary, updating, verbal and visuospatial working memory and SR performance in the same children. Participants were two groups of 35 children, 8-12 years of age: one group consisted of Albanian-Greek monoliterate bilingual children and the other of Greek monolingual children attending a monolingual-Greek educational setting. The findings demonstrate that the two groups performed similarly in the grammaticality scores of the SR. However, monolinguals outperformed the monoliterate bilinguals in SR accuracy, as well as in the visuospatial working memory and updating tasks. The findings did not indicate any bilingual advantage in cognitive performance. The results also demonstrate that updating and visuospatial working memory significantly predicted monolingual children's SR accuracy scores, whereas Greek vocabulary predicted the performance of our monoliterate bilingual children in the same task. We attribute this outcome to the fact that monoliterate bilingual children do not rely on their fluid cognitive resources to perform the task, but instead rely on language proficiency (indicated by expressive vocabulary) while performing the SR.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,490,372
10.3934/Neuroscience.2021003
2,021
AIMS neuroscience
AIMS Neurosci
The extent of the neurocognitive impairment in elderly survivors of war suffering from PTSD: meta-analysis and literature review.
We performed a meta-analysis and systematic review on elderly survivors of war suffering from PTSD to estimate the variability in their cognitive impairment based on individual neuropsychological tests. We included case control studies that explored the association of cognitive deficits in elderly PTSD civilian survivor of wars (age >60 years), using MEDLINE, Embase and PsycINFO from the inception to January 2018. We compared the cognitive performances in three comparisons i) PTSD+ vs. PTSD- civilian survivors of war; ii) PTSD+ vs. Control and iii) PTSD- vs. Control. The risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for case-control studies. Out of 2939 titles and abstracts, 13 studies were eligible for data extraction. As compared to PTSD- civilian survivors of war, PTSD+ civilian survivors of war demonstrated significant deficits on TMT-A, TMT-B, Digit span backward, explicit memory low pair associate, CVLT recognition, WAIS-verbal and non-verbal tests. As compared to health controls, PTSD+ survivors demonstrated significantly lower performance on explicit memory low pair and high associate, RAVLT immediate and delayed recall, CVLT delayed and short cued recall. Performance on the neuropsychological test between PTSD- survivors of war and controls was not significant for all tests. The pattern suggests that PTSD+ survivors of war had poorer performance in tasks requiring processing speed, executive function, attention, working memory and learning. The magnitude of the cognitive deficits in our pooled analysis was small to moderate depending on the neuropsychological test. Most of our pooled analysis suffered from a high risk of bias, which lowered the confidence in our results.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,467,530
10.3390/antiox10010116
2,021
Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland)
Antioxidants (Basel)
Effects of Fruit and Vegetable-Based Nutraceutical on Cognitive Function in a Healthy Population: Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind, and Randomized Clinical Trial.
There is scientific evidence of the positive effect of polyphenols from plant foods on cognition, but not enough is known about the synergistic effect when multiple polyphenols are consumed and even less in a healthy non-elderly population. The aim of the present study is to investigate the possible effects of improvements in cognitive function in healthy people as a preparation based on micronized fruit and vegetables consumed. One hundred and eight subjects were selected, stratified by sex in the control intervention group ( = 53) and placebo ( = 55). Volunteers completed the study after two 16-week periods of consumption with a 4-week wash period between each phase. At the beginning and the end of each phase, volunteers performed the Stroop, TESEN, and RIST tests for the measurement of different cognitive function patterns. The results revealed statistically significant differences in all the variables of the tests carried out, especially compared with the placebo. Specially, the results obtained in the Stroop and TESEN test, in addition to the processing speed even with semantic interferences, were markedly better after the treatment with the product under study. Moreover, the consumption of the product under study clearly improves short-term memory, verbal and non-verbal, according to the results obtained in the RIST test. The results showed an improvement in executive function in terms of short-term memory, working memory, selective and sustained attention, and speed of processing.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,368,175
10.1111/bjep.12403
2,021
The British journal of educational psychology
Br J Educ Psychol
The relationship between mental rotation and arithmetic: do number line estimation, working memory, or place-value concept matter?
Mental rotation is positively related to arithmetic ability; however, the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. The possible roles of working memory, place-value concept, and number line estimation in the correlation between mental rotation and whole-number computation were investigated. One hundred and fifty-five first-grade students were tested to determine their mental rotation ability, arithmetic ability, and non-verbal intelligence. One year later, their working memory, place-value concept, number line estimation, and overall arithmetic ability were assessed. After controlling for age, gender, and prior arithmetic ability, we found that mental rotation uniquely predicted arithmetic ability after one year. Further mediation analyses demonstrated that number line estimation significantly mediated the relationship between mental rotation and arithmetic ability. In contrast, neither working memory nor place-value concept significantly mediated the relationship between mental rotation and arithmetic ability. This study highlights that mental number line estimation is the most important element explaining the influence of a dynamic spatial skill, that is, mental rotation, on arithmetic ability among young Chinese children.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,328,930
10.3389/fnhum.2020.574224
2,020
Frontiers in human neuroscience
Front Hum Neurosci
Egocentric Navigation Abilities Predict Episodic Memory Performance.
The medial temporal lobe supports both navigation and declarative memory. On this basis, a theory of phylogenetic continuity has been proposed according to which episodic and semantic memories have evolved from egocentric (e.g., path integration) and allocentric (e.g., map-based) navigation in the physical world, respectively. Here, we explored the behavioral significance of this neurophysiological model by investigating the relationship between the performance of healthy individuals on a path integration and an episodic memory task. We investigated the path integration performance through a proprioceptive Triangle Completion Task and assessed episodic memory through a picture recognition task. We evaluated the specificity of the association between performance in these two tasks by including in the study design a verbal semantic memory task. We also controlled for the effect of attention and working memory and tested the robustness of the results by including alternative versions of the path integration and semantic memory tasks. We found a significant positive correlation between the performance on the path integration the episodic, but not semantic, memory tasks. This pattern of correlation was not explained by general cognitive abilities and persisted also when considering a visual path integration task and a non-verbal semantic memory task. Importantly, a cross-validation analysis showed that participants' egocentric navigation abilities reliably predicted episodic memory performance. Altogether, our findings support the hypothesis of a phylogenetic continuity between egocentric navigation and episodic memory and pave the way for future research on the potential causal role of egocentric navigation on multiple forms of episodic memory.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,293,542
10.1038/s41597-020-00758-x
2,020
Scientific data
Sci Data
A behavioural dataset for studying individual differences in language skills.
This resource contains data from 112 Dutch adults (18-29 years of age) who completed the Individual Differences in Language Skills test battery that included 33 behavioural tests assessing language skills and domain-general cognitive skills likely involved in language tasks. The battery included tests measuring linguistic experience (e.g. vocabulary size, prescriptive grammar knowledge), general cognitive skills (e.g. working memory, non-verbal intelligence) and linguistic processing skills (word production/comprehension, sentence production/comprehension). Testing was done in a lab-based setting resulting in high quality data due to tight monitoring of the experimental protocol and to the use of software and hardware that were optimized for behavioural testing. Each participant completed the battery twice (i.e., two test days of four hours each). We provide the raw data from all tests on both days as well as pre-processed data that were used to calculate various reliability measures (including internal consistency and test-retest reliability). We encourage other researchers to use this resource for conducting exploratory and/or targeted analyses of individual differences in language and general cognitive skills.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,267,843
10.1186/s12888-020-02939-9
2,020
BMC psychiatry
BMC Psychiatry
Long-term neurocognitive and educational outcomes of neonatal insults in Kilifi, Kenya.
There is little data on the long-term neurocognitive and educational outcomes among school-aged survivors of neonatal jaundice (NNJ) and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) in Africa. This study investigates the long-term neurocognitive and educational outcomes and the correlates of these outcomes in school-aged survivors of NNJ or HIE in Kilifi, Kenya. We conducted a cross-sectional study on neurocognitive and educational outcomes among school-aged survivors (6-12 years) of NNJ (n = 134) and HIE (n = 107) and compared them to a community comparison group (n = 134). We assessed nonverbal intelligence, planning, working memory, attention, syntax, pragmatics, word-finding, memory, perceptual-motor, mathematical, and reading abilities. We also collected information on medical history, caregivers' mental health, and family environment. The survivors of NNJ had lower mean total scores in word-finding [F (1, 250) = 3.89, p = 0.050] and memory [F (1, 248) = 6.74, p = 0.010] than the comparison group. The survivors of HIE had lower mean scores in pragmatics [F (1, 230) = 6.61, p = 0.011] and higher scores higher scores in non-verbal reasoning [F (1, 225) =4.10, p = 0.044] than the comparison group. Stunted growth was associated with almost all the outcomes in HIE. Survivors of NNJ and HIE present with impairment in the multiple domains, which need to be taken into consideration in the planning of educational and rehabilitative services.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,234,424
10.1016/j.schres.2020.11.020
2,021
Schizophrenia research
Schizophr Res
Cognitive decline and impairment in schizophrenia spectrum disorders reconsidered.
This study applied an algorithm developed to identify schizophrenia spectrum disorder patients with probable decrements between estimated premorbid and current cognitive ability (Keefe et al., 2005). Cognitive trajectories and associated functional status were examined in patients and control participants. Patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (n = 139) and control participants (n = 63) completed measures of verbal and working memory, processing speed, verbal fluency, reading ability and non-verbal reasoning. A predicted cognitive composite score was generated using control participants' parental education and reading scores, consistent with methods in Keefe et al. (2005), and compared to current performance. Three performance trajectory profiles were identified: decrement, stable, and increment. Functionality and clinical status were assessed with the Multidimensional Scale of Independent Functioning (MSIF) and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Approximately 60% (n = 83) of patients demonstrated a decrement trajectory, 16% (n = 22) demonstrated an increment trajectory, and 24% (n = 34) demonstrated a stable trajectory. Patients with decrement profiles were significantly more symptomatic (negative) and functionally impaired (MSIF) than those with increment profiles. Patients with increment and normal-range performance profiles remained functionally deficient relative to controls. Schizophrenia and schizoaffective patients meeting psychometric criteria for cognitive decline relative to estimated premorbid levels are common in the outpatient population but may occur less frequently than earlier estimates suggest. Minorities with stable and improved performance profiles also exist, show clinical and functional advantage relative to more typical patients, but underperform healthy controls.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,230,717
10.1007/s11065-020-09462-4
2,021
Neuropsychology review
Neuropsychol Rev
Post-Stroke Working Memory Dysfunction: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review.
This review investigates the severity and nature of post-stroke working memory deficits with reference to the multi-component model of working memory. We conducted a systematic search in PubMed up to March 2019 with search terms for stroke and memory. Studies on adult stroke patients, that included a control group, and assessed working memory function, were selected. Effect sizes (Hedges' g) were extracted from 50 studies (in total 3,084 stroke patients) based on the sample size, mean and standard deviation of patients and controls. Performance of stroke patients was compared to healthy controls on low-load (i.e. capacity) and high-load (executively demanding) working memory tasks, grouped by modality (verbal, non-verbal). A separate analysis compared patients in the sub-acute and the chronic stage. Longitudinal studies and effects of lesion location were systematically reviewed. Stroke patients demonstrated significant deficits in working memory with a moderate effect size for both low-load (Hedges' g = -.58 [-.82 to -.43]) and high-load (Hedges' g = -.59 [-.73 to -.45]) tasks. The effect sizes were comparable for verbal and non-verbal material. Systematically reviewing the literature showed that working memory deficits remain prominent in the chronic stage of stroke. Lesions in a widespread fronto-parietal network are associated with working memory deficits. Stroke patients show decrements of moderate magnitude in all subsystems of working memory. This review clearly demonstrates the global nature of the impairment in working memory post-stroke.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,221,634
10.1016/j.ijheh.2020.113659
2,021
International journal of hygiene and environmental health
Int J Hyg Environ Health
Association between estimated whole-brain radiofrequency electromagnetic fields dose and cognitive function in preadolescents and adolescents.
To investigate the association between estimated whole-brain radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) dose, using an improved integrated RF-EMF exposure model, and cognitive function in preadolescents and adolescents. Cross-sectional analysis in preadolescents aged 9-11 years and adolescents aged 17-18 years from the Dutch Amsterdam Born Children and their Development Study (n = 1664 preadolescents) and the Spanish INfancia y Medio Ambiente Project (n = 1288 preadolescents and n = 261 adolescents), two population-based birth cohort studies. Overall whole-brain RF-EMF doses (mJ/kg/day) were estimated for several RF-EMF sources together including mobile and Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications phone calls (named phone calls), other mobile phone uses than calling, tablet use, laptop use (named screen activities), and far-field sources. We also estimated whole-brain RF-EMF doses in these three groups separately (i.e. phone calls, screen activities, and far-field) that lead to different patterns of RF-EMF exposure. We assessed non-verbal intelligence in the Dutch and Spanish preadolescents, information processing speed, attentional function, and cognitive flexibility in the Spanish preadolescents, and working memory and semantic fluency in the Spanish preadolescents and adolescents using validated neurocognitive tests. Estimated overall whole-brain RF-EMF dose was 90.1 mJ/kg/day (interquartile range (IQR) 42.7; 164.0) in the Dutch and Spanish preadolescents and 105.1 mJ/kg/day (IQR 51.0; 295.7) in the Spanish adolescents. Higher overall estimated whole-brain RF-EMF doses from all RF-EMF sources together and from phone calls were associated with lower non-verbal intelligence score in the Dutch and Spanish preadolescents (-0.10 points, 95% CI -0.19; -0.02 per 100 mJ/kg/day increase in each exposure). However, none of the whole-brain RF-EMF doses was related to any other cognitive function outcome in the Spanish preadolescents or adolescents. Our results suggest that higher brain exposure to RF-EMF is related to lower non-verbal intelligence but not to other cognitive function outcomes. Given the cross-sectional nature of the study, the small effect sizes, and the unknown biological mechanisms, we cannot discard that our resultsare due to chance finding or reverse causality. Longitudinal studies on RF-EMF brain exposure and cognitive function are needed.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,211,976
10.1080/21622965.2020.1846128
2,020
Applied neuropsychology. Child
Appl Neuropsychol Child
Item analysis of the Child Neuropsychological Assessment Test (TENI): Classical test theory and item response theory.
The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the Test de Evaluación Neuropsicologica Infantil (TENI) using classical test theory (CTT), item response theory (IRT), and differential item functioning (DIF) models. The visuospatial working memory, focused attention, and matrix reasoning subtasks were analyzed. A total of 553 children, aged between 3 and 9 years of age, from eight public and private schools from the urban area of Belo Horizonte were assessed. In general, all subtasks can be treated essentially as unidimensional. Items' discrimination and difficulties increased in the order of presentation, as they were planned, using CTT and IRT. Items with DIF were found in all tasks, with higher probabilities of answering items correctly for boys and for private school children. Our results corroborated the partial use of some TENI subtasks as a promising digital instrument for non-verbal neuropsychological assessment for children.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,200,857
10.1002/dys.1672
2,021
Dyslexia (Chichester, England)
Dyslexia
Profile of language abilities in a sample of adults with developmental disorders.
This study investigated the profile of language abilities in a sample of high-achieving English speaking adults with developmental disorders. Ninety-seven adult participants were recruited: 49 with a dyslexia diagnosis (dyslexic group), 16 with a diagnosis of a different developmental disorder including dyspraxia, autism and SpLD (non-dyslexic developmental disorder group) and 32 with no diagnosis (non-disordered group). Dyslexic and non-dyslexic developmental disorder groups demonstrated similar impairments across measures of word reading, working memory, processing speed and oral language. Dyslexic participants showed the usual pattern of impaired phonological skills but spared non-verbal intelligence and vocabulary. There were also some suggestions of impaired structural oral language skills in this group. A data-driven clustering analysis found that diagnosis was not a reliable predictor of similarity between cases, with diagnostic categories split between data-driven clusters. Overall, the findings indicate that high-achieving adults with developmental disorders do demonstrate impairments that are likely to affect success in higher education, but that support needs should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, rather than according to diagnostic label.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,100,995
10.3389/fnhum.2020.557642
2,020
Frontiers in human neuroscience
Front Hum Neurosci
Do Musicians Have Better Mnemonic and Executive Performance Than Actors? Influence of Regular Musical or Theater Practice in Adults and in the Elderly.
The effects of musical practice on cognition are well established yet rarely compared with other kinds of artistic training or expertise. This study aims to compare the possible effect of musical and theater regular practice on cognition across the lifespan. Both of these artistic activities require many hours of individual or collective training in order to reach an advanced level. This process requires the interaction between higher-order cognitive functions and several sensory modalities (auditory, verbal, visual and motor), as well as regular learning of new pieces. This study included participants with musical or theater practice, and healthy controls matched for age (18-84 years old) and education. The objective was to determine whether specific practice in these activities had an effect on cognition across the lifespan, and a protective influence against undesirable cognitive outcomes associated with aging. All participants underwent a battery of cognitive tasks that evaluated processing speed, executive function, fluency, working memory, verbal and visual long-term memories, and non-verbal reasoning abilities. Results showed that music and theater artistic practices were strongly associated with cognitive enhancements. Participants with musical practice were better in executive functioning, working memory and non-verbal reasoning, whereas participants with regular acting practice had better long-term verbal memory and fluency performance. Thus, taken together, results suggest a differential effect of these artistic practices on cognition across the lifespan. Advanced age did not seem to reduce the benefit, so future studies should focus on the hypothetical protective effects of artistic practice against cognitive decline.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,089,491
10.1111/acps.13245
2,021
Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica
Acta Psychiatr Scand
Cognitive subgroups in first episode bipolar I disorder: Relation to clinical and brain volumetric variables.
Distinct cognitive subgroups are seen in patients with long duration bipolar I disorder (BDI), possibly reflective of underlying pathophysiological differences. It is unknown whether such cognitive heterogeneity is present at illness onset. We applied latent class analysis (LCA) to cognitive test scores in first episode BDI patients. Exploratory analysis elucidated whether impaired subgroups were characterized by 'early neurodevelopmental' (low premorbid IQ and intracranial volume) versus 'later neurodevelopmental' (decline from premorbid to current IQ, changes in relative grey (GM)/white (WM) matter volumes) pathology. Recently recovered first manic episode BDI patients (n = 91) and healthy controls (HC, n = 63) comprised the study sample. LCA identified subgroups based on processing speed, verbal memory, non-verbal memory, executive functioning, attention and working memory scores. Subgroups were compared amongst each other and HC on premorbid/current IQ, intracranial (ICV), total brain and regional volumes. Three cognitive subgroups emerged: (i) globally impaired (GI, n = 31), scoring 0.5-1 SD below demographically corrected norms across domains, (ii) selectively impaired (SI, n = 47), with predominant processing speed deficits and (iii) high performing (HP, n = 13), with above-average cognitive performance. GI patients showed a 'later neurodevelopmental' pattern, with normal ICV, significant decline from premorbid to current IQ, higher total GM and lower total WM (with respect to total brain volume) versus SI and HC (p = 0.003). GI patients had higher left frontal pole GM versus HC (p < 0.05, FWE corrected). A globally impaired patient subgroup is identifiable in first episode BDI, possibly characterized by unique neurodevelopmental pathologic processes proximal to illness onset.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,073,696
10.1177/1747021820970744
2,021
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
What affects the magnitude of age-related dual-task costs in working memory? The role of stimulus domain and access to semantic representations.
Although there is evidence that the effect of including a concurrent processing demand on the storage of information in working memory is disproportionately larger for older than younger adults, not all studies show this age-related impairment, and the critical factors responsible for any such impairment remain elusive. Here we assess whether domain overlap between storage and processing activities, and access to semantic representations, are important determinants of performance in a sample of younger and older adults ( = 119). We developed four versions of a processing task by manipulating the type of stimuli involved (either verbal or non-verbal) and the decision that participants had to make about the stimuli presented on the screen. Participants either had to perform a spatial judgement, in deciding whether the verbal or non-verbal item was presented above or below the centre of the screen, or a semantic judgement, in deciding whether the stimulus refers to something living or not living. The memory task was serial-ordered recall of visually presented letters. The study revealed a large increase in age-related memory differences when concurrent processing was required. These differences were smaller when storage and processing activities both used verbal materials. Dual-task effects on processing were also disproportionate for older adults. Age differences in processing performance appeared larger for tasks requiring spatial decisions rather than semantic decisions. We discuss these findings in relation to three competing frameworks of working memory and the extant literature on cognitive ageing.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
33,045,862
10.1080/02699206.2020.1818288
2,021
Clinical linguistics & phonetics
Clin Linguist Phon
Bilingualism in children with a dual diagnosis of Down syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Research shows that a substantial proportion of children with Down syndrome (DS) also meet the clinical criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Children with this dual diagnosis display a linguistic profile that includes significant language delays and language impairments which often differ from the impairments observed in each developmental disability (DD) separately. Given the challenges observed with language acquisition for children with DS-ASD, concerns might be raised regarding the outcomes and suitability of a bilingual environment for children with this dual diagnosis specifically. The aim of this research was to explore the language profiles of four children with DS-ASD. A multiple case-study approach was employed. Four children with a confirmed DS-ASD diagnosis who had received exposure to two languages (English and Welsh) were assessed on a range of cognitive and linguistic measures. Performance was compared to three control groups; bilinguals with DS, English monolinguals with DS and mental age-matched typically developing bilinguals. Assessments comprised of expressive and receptive language, phonological awareness, working memory and non-verbal cognitive abilities. Considerable variability was found in the cognitive and linguistic profiles of the case-study participants. Children with DS-ASD displayed similar language profiles to that of the bilingual and monolingual children with DS in the areas tested, although performance was generally lower than that of the TD bilingual children. Although substantial variability was found, participants were developing bilingual abilities in a similar trajectory to children with DS in line with the degree of exposure to each language. This research highlights the need to assess bilingual children with complex dual diagnoses with an individualistic approach and carefully consider how to appropriately assess and treat bilingual children within speech and language therapy provisions.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,918,140
10.1007/s00405-020-06343-7
2,021
European archives of oto-rhino-laryngology : official journal of the European Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (EUFOS) : affiliated with the German Society for Oto-Rhino-Laryngology - Head and Neck Surgery
Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol
Variables influencing executive functioning in preschool hearing-impaired children implanted within 24 months of age: an observational cohort study.
Executive Functions (EFs) are fundamental to every aspect of life. The present study was implemented to evaluate factors influencing their development in a group of preschools orally educated profoundly deaf children of hearing parents, who received CI within 2 years of age. Twenty-five preschool CI children were tested using the Battery for Assessment of Executive Functions (BAFE) to assess their flexibility, inhibition, and non-verbal visuo-spatial working memory skills. The percentage of children performing in normal range was reported for each of the EF subtests. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis were performed to assess differences between gender, listening mode, and degree of parents' education subgroups. The Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient was calculated to investigate the relationship between EF scores of audiological and linguistic variables. Percentages ranging from 76 to 92% of the children reached adequate EF scores at BAFE. Significant relations (p < 0.05) were found between EFs and early intervention, listening, and linguistic skills. Furthermore, CI children from families with higher education level performed better at the response shifting, inhibitory control, and attention flexibility tasks. Economic income correlated significantly with flexibility and inhibitory skills. Females performed better than males only in the attention flexibility task. The present study is one of the first to focus attention on the development of EFs in preschool CI children, providing an initial understanding of the characteristics of EFs at the age when these skills emerge. Clinical practice must pay increasing attention to these aspects which are becoming the new emerging challenge of rehabilitation programs.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,849,112
10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01899
2,020
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
The Moderation Effect of Processing Efficiency on the Relationship Between Visual Working Memory and Chinese Character Recognition.
To investigate the underlying mechanism of the relationship between visual working memory (VWM) and Chinese character recognition, and the moderation effect of processing efficiency on this relationship, 154 first-grade students were administered a battery of tasks for VWM, rapid temporal processing, and Chinese character reading. In the VWM task, the children were asked to remember the jumping routes of a frog and report these routes in reverse sequence. The longest span for which each participant could respond correctly at least four times out of six was the VWM index. In the task of temporal order judgement, the participants were asked to select which of two balls was presented first, with stimulus onset asynchronies varying from 8 to 492 ms according to an adaptive psychophysical procedure. Visual temporal order threshold (VTOT) was utilized as an indicator of processing efficiency. The participants were asked to read 100 characters aloud to measure their word-level reading abilities in Chinese character recognition. After controlling age, non-verbal intelligence, visual short-term memory, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness, the results of a moderation effect analysis showed that (1) both VWM and visual VTOT predicted Chinese character reading, and (2) the moderation effect of VTOT on the VWM-reading link was significant ( = 0.001). The correlation between VWM and Chinese character reading was positive and significant when VTOTs were above average (i.e., smaller than 87.14 ms); however, the correlation was negative at relatively poor levels of VTOTs (i.e., larger than 231.44 ms).
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,765,338
10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01405
2,020
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Comparison of Expressive Spoken Language Skills in Children With Cochlear Implants and Children With Typical Hearing.
When children start formal education, they are expected to be able to express complex thoughts. However, in order to do so, they need to be able to use both complex grammatical structures and a variety of words. One group that is at risk of having a delay in terms of their expressive language ability is children with cochlear implants (CI). In this study, we evaluated whether children with CI perform comparably to children with typical hearing (TH) on a standard expressive spoken grammar and a standard expressive spoken vocabulary task when the groups were matched on non-verbal intelligence and working memory capacity. It was found that the children with CI in this study performed more poorly on a standard expressive spoken vocabulary task but not on a standard expressive spoken grammar task when compared to the children with TH. Differences in terms of expressive spoken vocabulary do not seem to be explained by differences in cognitive ability. In addition, the variation in terms of expressive spoken language ability was larger in the children with CI compared to the children with TH. This might be explained by additional confounding factors, like the time of language deprivation or by a greater influence of cognitive differences for the acquisition of spoken language for children with CI.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,750,287
10.1044/2019_AJSLP-19-00109
2,020
American journal of speech-language pathology
Am J Speech Lang Pathol
Working Memory and Linguistic Performance of Dual Language Learners With and Without Developmental Language Disorders.
Purpose This research note describes the use of working memory measures as potential indicators of developmental language disorders (DLD) in preschool-age dual language learners from Spanish-speaking backgrounds. This report is an extension of early work, completed by the same authors that described the diagnostic accuracy of a Spanish nonword repetition task. Method One hundred thirty Spanish-speaking families with preschool-age children participated; 37 children had DLD, and 93 were typically developing. Families were recruited from early childhood programs in three states in the western region of the United States. Working memory and linguistic measures were collected from the children; parents completed a vocabulary checklist and reported on their child's longest utterances. Results Nonverbal working memory was not associated with other measures, but verbal working memory was associated with linguistic measures. Although there were no group differences on nonverbal working memory, group differences (DLD vs. typical development) were detected on verbal working memory and linguistic measures. Verbal working memory combined with vocabulary scores resulted in 79% of cases correctly classified. Conclusions Working memory tasks yielded different results depending on the type of task (verbal vs. nonverbal). Outcomes from this study showed that a nonverbal working memory task (hand movement) was not useful in distinguishing preschool-age dual language children with DLD from typical peers, but a verbal working memory task (nonword repetition) may be useful if combined with other more robust linguistic measures.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,736,061
10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2020.106351
2,020
Epilepsy research
Epilepsy Res
Neurocognitive Profiles of Pediatric Patients with ESES, Generalized Epilepsy, or Focal Epilepsy.
To date, the neurocognitive profile and comorbid psychiatric risks associated with ESES, a syndrome that commonly coincides with a seizure disorder, in contrast to generalized or partial/focal epilepsy without ESES remains unclear. Accordingly, this preliminary study aimed to characterize the neurocognitive differences across pediatric patients with ESES, generalized or focal epilepsy, and risk for comorbid diagnoses (mood disorder, autism, intellectual disability, learning disability, ADHD). We included data from a total of 79 pediatric patients, including those with recently diagnosed ESES (N = 12), generalized epilepsy (GE, N = 25), left focal epilepsy (LFE; N = 20), or right focal epilepsy (RFE; N = 22). All patients completed a neurocognitive evaluation as part of their medical workup and treatment for epilepsy. Cognitive domains assessed include intellectual functioning, verbal/non-verbal reasoning, working memory, processing speed, receptive language, learning and memory. Results showed that children with GE performed more poorly across intellectual functioning, verbal and non-verbal reasoning, working memory, processing speed, and receptive vocabulary; whereas, these areas were most preserved among those with RFE. Working memory and processing speed among those recently diagnosed with ESES was also modestly stronger compared to the GE group. A greater proportion of patients with GE met diagnostic criteria for a learning disability relative to other epilepsy types, although the rates of ADHD, autism spectrum, intellectual disability, and mood disorder were comparable across groups. Findings provide supporting evidence that GE may be associated with greater cognitive risks when refractory to treatment, highlighting the need for earlier intervention services to circumvent adverse effects on adaptive and behavioral functioning. Neuropsychological differences between ESES versus other epilepsy subtypes may emerge as a late-effect of the neurological condition and/or related medication treatment, implicating a greater need for developmentally focused investigations.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,734,355
10.1007/s00221-020-05886-9
2,020
Experimental brain research
Exp Brain Res
The phonological loop: is speech special?
It has been proposed that the maintenance of phonological information in verbal working memory (vWM) is carried by a domain-specific short-term storage center-the phonological loop-which is composed of a phonological store and an articulatory rehearsal system. Several brain regions including the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) and anterior supramarginal gyri (aSMG) are thought to support these processes. However, recent behavioral evidence suggests that verbal and non-verbal auditory information may be processed as part of a unique domain general short-term storage center instead of through specialized subsystems such as the phonological loop. In the current study, we used a single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-delayed priming paradigm with speech (syllables) and acoustically complex non-speech sounds (bird songs) to examine whether the pIFG and aSMG are involved in the processing of verbal information or, alternatively, in the processing of any complex auditory information. Our results demonstrate that TMS delivered to both regions had an effect on performance for speech and non-speech stimuli, but the nature of the effect was different. That is, priming was reduced for the speech sounds because TMS facilitated the detection of different but not identical stimuli, and accuracy was decreased for non-speech sounds. Since TMS interfered with both speech and non-speech sounds, these findings support the existence of an auditory short-term storage center located within the dorsal auditory stream.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,731,197
10.1016/j.cortex.2020.06.009
2,020
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior
Cortex
The black box of global aphasia: Neuroanatomical underpinnings of remission from acute global aphasia with preserved inner language function.
We studied an unusual case of global aphasia (GA) occurring after brain tumor removal and remitting one-month after surgery. After recovering, the patient reported on her experience during the episode, which suggested a partial preservation of language abilities (such as semantic processing) and the presence of inner speech (IS) despite a failure in overt speech production. Thus, we explored the role of IS and preserved language functions in the acute phase and investigated the neuroanatomical underpinnings of this severe breakdown in language processing. A neuropsychological and language assessment tapping into language production, comprehension, attention and working memory was carried out both before and three months after surgery. In the acute stage a simplified protocol was tailored to assess the limited language abilities and further explore patient's performance on different semantic tasks. The neuroanatomical dimension of these abrupt changes was provided by perioperative structural neuroimaging. Language and neuropsychological performance were normal/close to normal both before and three months after surgery. In the acute stage, the patient presented severe difficulties with comprehension, production and repetition, whereas she was able to correctly perform tasks that requested conceptual analysis and non-verbal operations. After recovering, the patient reported that she had been able to internally formulate her thoughts despite her overt phonological errors during the episode. Structural neuroimaging revealed that an extra-axial blood collection affected the middle frontal areas during the acute stage and that the white matter circuitry was left-lateralized before surgery. We deemed that the global aphasia episode was produced by a combination of the post-operative extra-axial blood collection directly impacting left middle frontal areas and a left-lateralization of the arcuate and/or uncinated fasciculi before surgery. Additionally, we advocate for a comprehensive evaluation of linguistic function that includes the assessment of IS and non-expressive language functions in similar cases.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,729,131
10.1002/dev.22016
2,021
Developmental psychobiology
Dev Psychobiol
Applying computational modeling to assess age-, sex-, and strategy-related differences in Spin the Pots, a working memory task for 2- to 4-year-olds.
Working memory (WM) develops rapidly during early childhood. In the present study, visual WM (VSM) was measured using the well-established Spin the Pots task (Hughes & Ensor, 2005), a complex non-verbal eight-location object occlusion task. A self-ordered hiding procedure was adopted to allow for an examination of children's strategy use during a VWM task. Participants (N = 640) between the ages of 2 and 4 years were tested under semi-naturalistic conditions, in the home or in a museum. Computational modeling was used to estimate an expected value for the total trials to complete Spin the Pots via a random search and child performance was compared to expected values. Based on this approach, we determined that children who found six stickers retrieved them in significantly fewer trials than the expected value, excluding chance performance and implicating VWM. Results also showed age-related and sex-related changes in VWM. Between 2 and 4 years of age, 4-year-olds performed significantly better than younger children and girls out-performed the boys. Spontaneous use of a color matching hiding strategy was associated with a higher success rate on the task. Implications of these findings for early development of VWM are discussed.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,690,046
10.1186/s12888-020-02751-5
2,020
BMC psychiatry
BMC Psychiatry
Cognitive performance in children and adolescents at high-risk for obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Cognitive performance has been studied in adults with obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) and in adult relatives of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) Meanwhile, few studies have been conducted with children under the same conditions. This study compared the neurocognitive domains previously associated with dysfunction in OCD, especially visuoconstructive ability, visuospatial memory, executive functions, and intelligence, in children and adolescents at high risk (HR) for OCD (n = 18) and non-OCD controls (NOC) (n = 31). For the HR group, we considered the first-degree relatives of patients with OCD that present OCS, but do not meet diagnostic criteria for OCD. Psychiatric diagnosis was assessed by experienced clinicians using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV and OCS severity was measured by the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale. Neurocognitive assessment was performed with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Performance on the cognitive domains was compared between groups using Multivariate Analysis of Variance, whereas performance on the neuropsychological variables was compared between groups using independent t-tests in a cognitive subdomain analysis. The cognitive domain analysis revealed a trend towards significance for impairments in the motor and processing speed domain (p = 0.019; F = 3.12) in the HR group. Moreover, the cognitive subdomain analysis identified a statistically significant underperformance in spatial working memory in the HR group when compared to the NOC group (p = 0.005; t = - 2.94), and a trend towards significance for impairments in non-verbal memory and visuoconstructive tasks in the HR group. Our results suggest impairments in spatial working memory and motor and processing speed in a non-clinical sample of HR participants. Considering the preliminary nature of our findings, further studies investigating these neurocognitive domains as potential predictors of pediatric OCD are warranted.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,628,785
10.1111/medu.14289
2,020
Medical education
Med Educ
How do attending physicians describe cognitive overload among their workplace learners?
Cognitive load theory (CLT) focuses on the limited bandwidth of working memory. Core to CLT is the concept of cognitive overload, which occurs when working memory demands exceed working memory capacity, and learning and performance suffer. Within health professions education (HPE), workplace learning settings are very complex, placing learners at high risk of cognitive overload. Although continuous monitoring of physiologic parameters can indicate states of high cognitive load, how to practically identify cognitively overloaded learners within everyday workplace settings is not well understood. We sought to characterise how attending physicians described their perceiving of cognitive overload among learners in two different workplace settings: the gastrointestinal endoscopy suite and the intensive care unit. We performed a secondary qualitative analysis of transcripts of interviews with workplace teachers that had been carried out during two previous studies. These studies had addressed different objectives but both were informed by CLT. Each included questions that prompted participants to reflect on how they perceived cognitive overload to manifest among learners in the workplace. To investigate the phenomenon of cognitive overload, we developed a new codebook and performed content analysis. We analysed 42 interview transcripts (22 endoscopists, 12 hospitalists, eight intensivists). Participants described four behaviours they had witnessed among learners they thought were cognitively overloaded: poor performance on workplace tasks; non-verbal physical manifestations (including posture, eye and body movements and autonomic functions); verbal utterances (words and sounds), and interpersonal interactions with team members. Endoscopists often described individually oriented examples, whereas intensivists and hospitalists tended to frame examples within an interpersonal context. We identified four overarching ways in which HPE workplace teachers perceived learners as appearing to be cognitively overloaded. Workplace teachers and learners should be mindful of and watch for these signs, which may signal states of cognitive overload. Earlier recognition of cognitive overload may facilitate timely action to reduce cognitive overload and promote learning.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,623,947
10.1177/0022219420931818
2,020
Journal of learning disabilities
J Learn Disabil
Is "Response/No Response" Too Simple a Notion for RTI Frameworks? Exploring Multiple Response Types With Latent Profile Analysis.
We conducted a secondary analysis of data from a randomized control trial to explore this question: Does "response/no response" best characterize students' reactions to a generally efficacious first-grade reading program, or is a more nuanced characterization necessary? Data were collected on 265 at-risk readers' word reading prior to and immediately following program implementation in first grade and in spring of second grade. Pretreatment data were also obtained on domain-specific skills (letter knowledge, decoding, passage comprehension, language) and domain-general skills (working memory, non-verbal reasoning). Latent profile analysis of word reading across the three time points with controls as a local norm revealed a group ( = 45) with mean word-reading scores of 0.25, 1.64, and 1.26 at the three time points, respectively; a group ( = 109), scores = 0.30, 0.47, and 0.55; a group ( = 90), scores = -0.11, -0.15, and -0.55; and a group ( = 21), scores = -1.24, -1.26, and -1.57. The two responsive groups had stronger pretreatment letter knowledge and passage comprehension than the two non-responsive groups. The mildly non-responsive group demonstrated better pretreatment passage comprehension than the strongly non-responsive group. No domain-general skill distinguished the four groups. Findings suggest response to early reading intervention was more complicated than response/no response, and pretreatment reading comprehension was an important predictor of response even with pretreatment word reading controlled.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,559,812
10.1055/a-1177-1240
2,020
Laryngo- rhino- otologie
Laryngorhinootologie
[Central auditory processing in adolescents with communication impairments].
In Germany, there are specialized vocational training units (BBW) for adolescents and young adults with special needs. The BBW Leipzig for people with disorders in hearing, language and communication registers a rising number of adolescents with auditory processing disorder (APD). However, test material to diagnose APD at this age is sparse. This study investigates auditory processing in adolescents with normal hearing but communication impairment with the available test material. 35 normal hearing adolescents (26 male, 9 female, mean age: 18.1 years) were included. All were trained at BBW Leipzig. Dichotic listening, understanding of speech in noise, accelerated speech, differentiation and analysis of phonemes were examined. In addition, non-verbal general intelligence, concentration, figural retentivity, and linguistic abilities were assessed. 25 participants showed conspicious results concerning APD; 5 had never been diagnosed with APD so far. In 9/25 adolescents, there was no hint of top-down disorders. These participants had problems in accessing auditory information and holding and manipulating information in working memory, although both linguistic and intellectual abilities were normal or even above average. The study has shown that adolescents can be conspicuous according to the APD criteria of the DGPP and that an APD diagnosis from childhood is not necessarily already present. It also became clear that multi-professional diagnostics remains important beyond childhood. Standardized tests with corresponding age norms are needed.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,477,048
10.3389/fnins.2020.00418
2,020
Frontiers in neuroscience
Front Neurosci
Absence of Rhythm Benefit on Speech in Noise Recognition in Children Diagnosed With Auditory Processing Disorder.
Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a specific deficit in the processing of auditory information along the central auditory nervous system. It is characterized mainly by deficits in speech in noise recognition. APD children may also present with deficits in processing of auditory rhythm. Rhythmic neural entrainment is commonly present in perception of both speech and music, while auditory rhythmic priming of speech in noise has been known to enhance recognition in typical children. Here, we test the hypothesis that the effect of rhythmic priming is compromised in APD children, and further assessed for correlations with verbal and non-verbal auditory processing and cognition. Forty APD children and 33 neurotypical ones were assessed through (a) WRRC, a test measuring the effects of rhythmic priming on speech in noise recognition, (b) a battery of auditory processing tests, commonly used in APD diagnosis, and (c) two cognitive tests, assessing working memory and auditory attention respectively. Findings revealed that (a) the effect of rhythmic priming on speech in noise recognition is absent in APD children, (b) it is linked to non-verbal auditory processing, and (c) it is only weakly dependent on cognition. We discuss these findings in light of Dynamic Attention Theory, neural entrainment and neural oscillations and suggest that these functions may be compromised in APD children. Further research is needed (a) to explore the nature of the mechanics of rhythmic priming on speech in noise perception and why the effect is absent in APD children, (b) which other mechanisms related to both rhythm and language are also affected in this population, and (c) whether music/rhythm training can restore deficits in rhythm effects.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,446,008
10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113055
2,020
Psychiatry research
Psychiatry Res
Nonsocial cognitive underpinnings of theory of mind in schizophrenia.
Social cognition is a mediator between nonsocial cognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia. However, the relationship between specific nonsocial cognitive and social cognitive domains is less clear. The aim of this study was to investigate which specific nonsocial cognitive domains best predict theory of mind (ToM) performance in schizophrenia. We indexed ToM by a composite score of the video-based Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition test (MASCtot) in a sample of 91 individuals with schizophrenia. Nonsocial cognition was measured with the nonsocial cognitive subtests of the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) and the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI IQ). Bivariate and multiple regression analyses were applied. We found statistically significant bivariate associations between MASCtot and five nonsocial cognitive tests, measuring intelligence, speed of processing, verbal or visual memory, and non-verbal working memory. Together, they accounted for 17% of the variation in MASCtot, but none of the five tests made significant unique contributions to MASCtot in the regression analysis. Our results confirm that nonsocial cognition and ToM are associated, albeit distinct, constructs. The findings suggest that cognitive remediation must include social cognitive targets in order to achieve improved ToM and better functioning.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,435,749
10.5334/joc.103
2,020
Journal of cognition
J Cogn
No Evidence That Articulatory Rehearsal Improves Complex Span Performance.
It is usually assumed that articulatory rehearsal improves verbal working memory. Complex span is the most used paradigm to assess working memory functioning; yet, we still lack knowledge about how participants rehearse in this task, and whether these rehearsals are beneficial. In Experiment 1, we investigated the patterns of naturally occurring overt rehearsals in a complex span task requiring processing of a non-verbal distractor task. For comparison, another group of participants completed a matched simple span task with an unfilled delay in between the memoranda. Time permitting, participants rehearsed the memory list in forward serial order, a strategy known as cumulative rehearsal. The degree of cumulative rehearsal was correlated with recall accuracy in both span tasks. Rehearsal frequency was, however, reduced in complex span compared to simple span. To assess the causal role of rehearsal in complex span, we trained a group of participants in a cumulative rehearsal strategy in Experiment 2. This instruction substantially increased the prevalence of cumulative rehearsals compared to a control group. However, the increase in cumulative rehearsal did not translate into an increase in recall accuracy. Our results provide further evidence that rehearsal does not benefit working memory performance.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,368,936
10.1080/23279095.2020.1747070
2,020
Applied neuropsychology. Adult
Appl Neuropsychol Adult
RehaCom rehabilitation training improves a wide-range of cognitive functions in multiple sclerosis patients.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that impairs cognitive performance. Attention, response control, working memory, and processing speed are highly impaired in MS. On the other hand, RehaCom is a computerized software that improves cognitive dysfunctions. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of RehaCom on attention, response control, processing speed, working memory, visuospatial skills, and verbal/non-verbal executive functions in MS patients. Sixty patients were selected randomly and divided into control ( = 30) and experimental ( = 30) groups. Integrated Auditory Visual-2 (IVA-2), Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), Judgment of Line Orientation (JLO) and The Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (DKEFS) were used to assess cognitive functions. Patients in the experimental group were treated by RehaCom for 5 weeks (two 60-min sessions per week). Cognitive performance of all patients in both groups was assessed at weeks 5 and 10 (post-test and follow-up stages, respectively). The results showed that RehaCom treatment improved all studied cognitive functions at the post-test stage. This effect also remained at the follow-up stage for some cognitive functions. In conclusion, treatment with RehaCom may have significant therapeutic effects on cognitive dysfunctions in MS patients.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,302,006
10.1111/bjep.12348
2,021
The British journal of educational psychology
Br J Educ Psychol
Second-language learning difficulties in Italian children with reading difficulties.
Children with dyslexia often show second-language reading and writing difficulties, but the cognitive mechanisms connected to this impairment need to be clarified. The present study examined the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying learning English as a foreign language in 4th- to the 8th-grade Italian students showing reading difficulties (RD) or typical development (TD). For this purpose, screening involving 901 students was carried out to select children with RD. Ninety students with RD were compared with 90 typically developing (TD) children matched for non-verbal IQ, grade, and gender. The two groups were compared on different measures to understand the relationships between reading skills in their mother tongue and in English as a second-language (L2). Subsequently, their phonological and memory skills were investigated to understand the potential role of these variables in learning L2 English. Students with RD obtained worse results than TD students for phonological awareness and working memory, which are both crucial to L2 learning. The results suggest that memory mainly influences accuracy in English writing and, together with phonological skills, plays an important role in reading accuracy. Socio-economic status also plays an important role in L2 learning.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,164,522
10.1186/s11689-020-09312-7
2,020
Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders
J Neurodev Disord
Four-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial of choline for neurodevelopment in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Despite the high prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), there are few interventions targeting its core neurocognitive and behavioral deficits. FASD is often conceptualized as static and permanent, but interventions that capitalize on brain plasticity and critical developmental windows are emerging. We present a long-term follow-up study evaluating the neurodevelopmental effects of choline supplementation in children with FASD 4 years after an initial efficacy trial. The initial study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of choline vs. placebo in 2-5-year-olds with FASD. Participants include 31 children (16 placebo; 15 choline) seen 4 years after trial completion. The mean age at follow-up was 8.6 years. Diagnoses were 12.9% fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), 41.9% partial FAS, and 45.1% alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder. The follow-up included measures of intelligence, memory, executive functioning, and behavior. Children who received choline had higher non-verbal intelligence, higher visual-spatial skill, higher working memory ability, better verbal memory, and fewer behavioral symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than the placebo group. No differences were seen for verbal intelligence, visual memory, or other executive functions. These data support choline as a potential neurodevelopmental intervention for FASD and highlight the need for long-term follow-up to capture treatment effects on neurodevelopmental trajectories. ClinicalTrials.Gov #NCT01149538; Registered: June 23, 2010; first enrollment July 2, 2010.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,098,926
10.4103/nah.NAH_59_18
2,019
Noise & health
Noise Health
Selected Cognitive Factors Associated with Individual Variability in Clinical Measures of Speech Recognition in Noise Amplified by Fast-Acting Compression Among Hearing Aid Users.
Previous work examining speech recognition in more challenging listening environments has revealed a large variability in both persons with normal and hearing impairments. Although this is clinically very important, up to now, no consensus has been reached about which factors may provide better explanation for the existing individual variability in speech recognition ability among hearing aid users, when speech signal is degraded. This study aimed to examine hearing-sensitivity skills and cognitive ability differences between listeners with good and poor speech recognition abilities. A total of 195 experienced hearing aid users (33-80 years) were grouped by higher or lower speech recognition ability based on their performance on the Hagerman sentences task in multi-talker babble using fast-acting compression algorithm. They completed a battery of cognitive abilities tests, hearing-in-noise and the auditory thresholds test. The results showed that the two groups did differ significantly overall on cognitive abilities tests like working memory, cognitive processing speed and attentional shifting, but not on the attentional inhibitory test and non-verbal intelligence test. Listeners with poor compared to those with better speech recognition abilities exhibit poorer cognitive abilities, which place them in a disadvantaged position, and /or more susceptible to signal modifications (as a result of fast-acting compression signal processing), resulting in limited benefits from hearing aids strategies. The findings may have implications for hearing aid signal processing strategies selection in rehabilitations.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
32,078,917
10.1016/j.parkreldis.2020.02.002
2,020
Parkinsonism & related disorders
Parkinsonism Relat Disord
Effects of working memory training in patients with Parkinson's disease without cognitive impairment: A randomized controlled trial.
To determine the feasibility and evaluate effects of a computerized working memory (WM) training (WMT) in patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD) on cognitive and clinical outcomes. 76 patients with PD without cognitive impairment were randomized to either the WMT group (n = 37), who participated in a 5-week adaptive WMT, or a passive waiting-list control group (CG, n = 39). Patients underwent clinical and neuropsychological examination at baseline, after training, and at 3-months follow-up, with verbal WM and non-verbal WM as primary outcomes. Outcome assessors were blinded for group allocation. All WMT participants completed the training successfully and reported high levels of motivation for and satisfaction with the training. Repeated-measures, linear mixed-effects models revealed positive training effects for the WMT group compared to the CG in verbal working memory with a small relative effect size 0.39 [95%CI 0.05; 0.76] for the 3-months follow-up only. No other reliable training effects in cognitive and clinical variables were found for either point of time. In this randomized controlled trial, WMT was feasible and yielded some evidence for 3-months follow-up training gains in patients with PD. WMT might be an effective intervention to prevent cognitive decline in this patient group, however, more longitudinal studies with longer follow-up periods and more sensitive assessment tools will have to proof this concept. German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00009379).
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,998,167
10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02808
2,019
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Executive Functions, Pragmatic Skills, and Mental Health in Children With Congenital Cytomegalovirus (CMV) Infection With Cochlear Implants: A Pilot Study.
Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection is the most common cause of progressive hearing impairment. In our previous study around 90% of children with a cCMV infection and CI had severely damaged balance functions (Karltorp et al., 2014). Around 20% had vision impairment, 15% were diagnosed with Autism-Spectrum-Disorder, and 20% with ADHD. One clinical observation was that children with cCMV infection had problems with executive functioning (EF), while controls with a genetic cause of deafness (Connexin 26 mutations; Cx26) did not have similar difficulties. A follow-up study was therefore initiated with the main objective to examine EF and pragmatic skills in relation to mental health in children with a cCMV infection and to draw a comparison with matched controls with Cx26 mutations (age, sex, hearing, non-verbal cognitive ability, vocabulary, and socioeconomic status level). Ten children with a cCMV infection and CI (4.8-12:9 years) and seven children with CI (4:8-12:8 years) participated in the study, which had a multidisciplinary approach. Executive functioning was assessed both with formal tests targeting working memory and attention, parent and teacher questionnaires, and a systematic observation by a blinded psychologist during one test situation. Pragmatics and mental health were investigated with parent and teacher reports. In addition, the early language outcome was considered in non-parametric correlation analyses examining the possible relationships between later EF skills, pragmatics, and mental health. Children with cCMV had a statistically significant worse pragmatic outcome and phonological working memory than controls despite their groups having similar non-verbal cognitive ability and vocabulary. However, there were no statistical differences between the groups regarding their EF skills in everyday settings and mental health. There were associations between early language outcomes and later EF skills and pragmatics in the whole sample. Children with a cCMV infection are at risk of developing learning difficulties in school due to difficulties with phonological working memory and pragmatic skills in social interactions.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,954,986
10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102170
2,020
NeuroImage. Clinical
Neuroimage Clin
Impaired auditory sensory memory in Cystinosis despite typical sensory processing: A high-density electrical mapping study of the mismatch negativity (MMN).
Cystinosis, a genetic rare disease characterized by cystine accumulation and crystallization, results in significant damage in a multitude of tissues and organs, such as the kidney, thyroid, eye, and brain. While Cystinosis' impact on brain function is relatively mild compared to its effects on other organs, the increased lifespan of this population and thus potential for productive societal contributions have led to increased interest on the effects on brain function. Nevertheless, and despite some evidence of structural brain differences, the neural impact of the mutation is still not well characterized. Here, using a passive duration oddball paradigm (with different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), representing different levels of demand on memory) and high-density electrophysiology, we tested basic auditory processing in a group of 22 children and adolescents diagnosed with Cystinosis (age range: 6-17 years old) and in neurotypical age-matched controls (N = 24). We examined whether the N1 and mismatch negativity (MMN) significantly differed between the groups and if those neural measures correlated with verbal and non-verbal IQ. Individuals diagnosed with Cystinosis presented similar N1 responses to their age-matched peers, indicating typical basic auditory processing in this population. However, whereas both groups showed similar MMN responses for the shortest (450 ms) SOA, suggesting intact change detection and sensory memory, individuals diagnosed with Cystinosis presented clearly reduced responses for the longer (900 ms and 1800 ms) SOAs. This could indicate reduced duration auditory sensory memory traces, and thus sensory memory impairment, in children and adolescents diagnosed with Cystinosis. Future work addressing other aspects of sensory and working memory is needed to understand the underlying bases of the differences described here, and their implication for higher order processing.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,790,984
10.1016/j.ridd.2019.103522
2,020
Research in developmental disabilities
Res Dev Disabil
Reduced deficits observed in children and adolescents with developmental language disorder using proper nonverbalizable span tasks.
Children with developmental language disorder (DLD)-previously called Specific Language Impairment (SLI)-often perform poorly in verbal working memory (WM) tasks, but the picture is less clear regarding their visuospatial WM capacity. Recent research has been inconclusive regarding whether visuospatial working memory is impaired in DLD. Additionally, it is still unclear whether the putative disparity of WM performance persists in adolescence. The aim of the current study was to unveil potential impairments in verbal and visuospatial working memory in DLD by exploring two developmental age groups of French-speaking children and adolescents. This study examined verbal and nonverbal short-term and working memory capacity using digit span and Corsi block tasks in twelve children (7-11-year-olds) and twelve adolescents (12-18-year-olds) with developmental language disorder (DLD) in comparison to that in their typically developing peers. Our findings showed that both children and adolescents with DLD have deficits in storage and processing ability for the verbal domain. However, both the short-term and working memory estimates of immediate capacity for visuospatial information in adolescents with DLD were virtually intact. These results indicate that both verbal and nonverbal storage and processing capacity are largely modulated by age, suggesting that the children with DLD show virtually intact nonverbal working memory capacity as they reach adolescence.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,708,757
10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00247
2,019
Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience
Front Behav Neurosci
Computer-Based Cognitive Training Improves Brain Functional Connectivity in the Attentional Networks: A Study With Primary School-Aged Children.
We have shown that a computer-based program that trains schoolchildren in cognitive tasks that mainly tap working memory (WM), implemented by teachers and integrated into school routine, improved cognitive and academic skills compared with an active control group. Concretely, improvements were observed in inhibition skills, non-verbal IQ, mathematics and reading skills. Here, we focus on a subsample from the overarching study who volunteered to be scanned using a resting state fMRI protocol before and 6-month after training. This sample reproduced the aforementioned behavioral effects, and brain functional connectivity changes were observed within the attentional networks (ATN), linked to improvements in inhibitory control. Findings showed stronger relationships between inhibitory control scores and functional connectivity in a right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) cluster in trained children compared to children from the control group. Seed-based analyses revealed that connectivity between the r-MFG and homolateral parietal and superior temporal areas were more strongly related to inhibitory control in trained children compared to the control group. These findings highlight the relevance of computer-based cognitive training, integrated in real-life school environments, in boosting cognitive/academic performance and brain functional connectivity.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,653,559
10.1016/j.ijheh.2019.10.003
2,020
International journal of hygiene and environmental health
Int J Hyg Environ Health
Prenatal exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances and associations with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and cognitive functions in preschool children.
Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are persistent organic pollutants that are suspected to be neurodevelopmental toxicants, but epidemiological evidence on neurodevelopmental effects of PFAS exposure is inconsistent. We investigated the associations between prenatal exposure to PFASs and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and cognitive functioning (language skills, estimated IQ and working memory) in preschool children, as well as effect modification by child sex. This study included 944 mother-child pairs enrolled in a longitudinal prospective study of ADHD symptoms (the ADHD Study), with participants recruited from The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Boys and girls aged three and a half years, participated in extensive clinical assessments using well-validated tools; The Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment interview, Child Development Inventory and Stanford-Binet (5th revision). Prenatal levels of 19 PFASs were measured in maternal blood at week 17 of gestation. Multivariable adjusted regression models were used to examine exposure-outcome associations with two principal components extracted from the seven detected PFASs. Based on these results, we performed regression analyses of individual PFASs categorized into quintiles. PFAS component 1 was mainly explained by perfluoroheptane sulfonate (PFHpS), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). PFAS component 2 was mainly explained by perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA), perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFUnDA) and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). Regression models showed a negative association between PFAS component 1 and nonverbal working memory [β = -0.08 (CI: -0.12, -0.03)] and a positive association between PFAS component 2 and verbal working memory [β = 0.07 (CI: 0.01, 0.12)]. There were no associations with ADHD symptoms, language skills or IQ. For verbal working memory and PFAS component 2, we found evidence for effect modification by child sex, with associations only for boys. The results of quintile models with individual PFASs, showed the same pattern for working memory as the results in the component regression analyses. There were negative associations between nonverbal working memory and quintiles of PFOA, PFNA, PFHxS, PFHpS and PFOS and positive associations between verbal working memory and quintiles of PFOA, PFNA, PFDA and PFUnDA, with significant relationships mainly in the highest concentration groups. Based on our results, we did not find consistent evidence to conclude that prenatal exposure to PFASs are associated with ADHD symptoms or cognitive dysfunctions in preschool children aged three and a half years, which is in line with the majority of studies in this area. Our results showed some associations between PFASs and working memory, particularly negative relationships with nonverbal working memory, but also positive relationships with verbal working memory. The relationships were weak, as well as both positive and negative, which suggest no clear association - and need for replication.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,616,354
10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02180
2,019
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Early Cognitive Predictors of 9-Year-Old Spoken Language in Children With Mild to Severe Hearing Loss Using Hearing Aids.
This study examined the extent to which cognitive ability at 5 years of age predicted language development from 5 to 9 years of age in a population-based sample of children with hearing loss who participated in the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) study. The developmental outcomes of 81 children with hearing loss were evaluated at 5 and 9 years of age. Hearing loss ranged from mild to severe degrees, and all participants used hearing aids. They all used spoken language as the primary mode of communication and education. Nine-year-old language was assessed using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - 4th edition (CELF-4), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - 4th edition (PPVT-4), and the Expressive Vocabulary Test - 2nd edition (EVT-2). Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the extent to which children's scores on these standardized assessments were predicted by their cognitive ability (non-verbal IQ and verbal working memory) measured at 5 years of age. The influence of early language scores at 5 years and a range of demographic characteristics on language scores at 9 years of age was evaluated. We found that 5-year-old digit span score was a significant predictor of receptive and expressive language, but not receptive or expressive vocabulary, at 9 years of age. Also, 5-year-old non-word repetition test score was a significant predictor of only expressive language and vocabulary, but not receptive language or vocabulary at 9 years of age. After allowing for the effects of non-verbal IQ and 5-year-old receptive vocabulary, early digit span score (but not non-word repetition score) was a significant predictor of expressive and receptive language scores at 9 years of age. The findings shed light on the unique role of early verbal working memory in predicting the development of receptive and expressive language skills and vocabulary skills in children who use hearing aids.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,456,732
10.3389/fneur.2019.00832
2,019
Frontiers in neurology
Front Neurol
Total and Regional White Matter Lesions Are Correlated With Motor and Cognitive Impairments in Carriers of the Premutation.
This study explores the relationships between hemispheric and cerebellar white matter lesions and motor and cognitive impairments in male carriers of Fragile-X Mental Retardation 1 () premutation alleles, and in a subgroup of these carriers affected with Fragile X-Associated Tremor/Ataxia syndrome (FXTAS). Regional and total white matter hyperintensities () on MRI, assessed using semiquantitative scores, were correlated with three motor rating scales (ICARS, UPDRS, Tremor), and neuropsychological measures of non-verbal reasoning, working memory and processing speed, in a sample of 30 male premutation carriers aged 39-81 years, and separately in a subsample of 17 of these carriers affected with FXTAS. There were significant relationships between in the infratentorial region and all three motor scales, as well as several cognitive measures-Prorated IQ, Matrix Reasoning, Similarities, and the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), in the total sample of carriers, as well as in the FXTAS group separately. This shows that within the infratentorial region correlates across the categories of clinical status with a range of motor and cognitive impairments. In the FXTAS group, there was a highly significant relationship between supratentorial (periventricular) lesions and parkinsonism, and between both periventricular and supratentorial deep white matter and ICARS ataxia score. These findings further support the relevance of white matter changes in different brain regions to the motor and cognitive deficits across the spectrum of premutation involvement. Future longitudinal studies using larger sample sizes will be necessary to examine the factors that lead to conversion to a greater extent of neurological involvement as seen in the progression across the FXTAS spectrum.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,370,651
10.1121/1.5116009
2,019
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
J Acoust Soc Am
Cognitive factors contribute to speech perception in cochlear-implant users and age-matched normal-hearing listeners under vocoded conditions.
This study examined the contribution of perceptual and cognitive factors to speech-perception abilities in cochlear-implant (CI) users. Thirty CI users were tested on word intelligibility in sentences with and without semantic context, presented in quiet and in noise. Performance was compared with measures of spectral-ripple detection and discrimination, thought to reflect peripheral processing, as well as with cognitive measures of working memory and non-verbal intelligence. Thirty age-matched and thirty younger normal-hearing (NH) adults also participated, listening via tone-excited vocoders, adjusted to produce mean performance for speech in noise comparable to that of the CI group. Results suggest that CI users may rely more heavily on semantic context than younger or older NH listeners, and that non-auditory working memory explains significant variance in the CI and age-matched NH groups. Between-subject variability in spectral-ripple detection thresholds was similar across groups, despite the spectral resolution for all NH listeners being limited by the same vocoder, whereas speech perception scores were more variable between CI users than between NH listeners. The results highlight the potential importance of central factors in explaining individual differences in CI users and question the extent to which standard measures of spectral resolution in CIs reflect purely peripheral processing.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,341,351
10.1016/j.jneuroling.2018.04.006
2,018
Journal of neurolinguistics
J Neurolinguistics
Role of the left hemisphere in visuospatial working memory.
Visuospatial processing deficits are typically associated with damage to the right hemisphere. However, deficits on spatial working memory have been reported among some individuals with focal left hemisphere damage (LHD). It has been suggested that the left hemisphere may play a role in such non-verbal working memory tasks due to the use of subvocal, verbally-mediated strategies. The current study investigated the role of the left hemisphere in spatial working memory by testing spatial span performance, both forward and backward, in a large group of individuals with a history of left hemisphere stroke. Our first aim was to establish whether individuals with LHD are indeed impaired on spatial span tasks using standardized span tasks with published normative data. Our second aim was to identify the role that language plays in supporting spatial working memory by comparing LHD individuals with and without aphasia, and by relating spatial span performance to performance on a series of language measures. Our third aim was to identify left hemisphere brain regions that contribute to spatial working memory using voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM), a whole-brain statistical approach that identifies regions critical to a particular behavior on a voxel-by-voxel basis. We found that 28% of individuals with LHD performed in the clinically-impaired range on forward spatial span and 16% performed in the clinically-impaired range on backward spatial span. There were no significant differences in performance between individuals with and without aphasia, and there were no correlations between spatial span performance and language functions such as repetition and comprehension. The VLSM analysis showed that backward spatial span was associated with a left fronto-parietal network consisting of somatosensory cortex, the supramarginal gyrus, lateral prefrontal cortex, and the frontal eye fields. Regions identified in the VLSM analysis of forward spatial span did not reach the conservative statistical threshold for significance. Overall, these results suggest that spatial working memory, as measured by spatial span, can be significantly disrupted in a subset of individuals with LHD whose lesions infringe on a network of regions in the left hemisphere that have been implicated in domain-general working memory and attentional control mechanisms.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,266,985
10.1038/s41598-019-45836-2
2,019
Scientific reports
Sci Rep
Talking matters - evaluative and motivational inner speech use predicts performance in conflict tasks.
Conflict between response tendencies is ubiquitous in every day performance. Capabilities that resolve such conflicts are therefore mandatory for successful goal achievement. The present study investigates the potential of evaluative and motivational inner speech to help conflict resolution. In our study we assessed six tasks commonly used to measure conflict resolution capabilities and cognitive flexibility in 163 participants. Participants additionally answered questionnaires concerned with their habitual usage of inner speech such as silently rehearsing task instructions and evaluating performance. We found reduced conflict effects in tasks using symbolic, non-verbal stimuli for participants with higher self-reported use of evaluative and motivational inner speech. Overall, our findings suggest that silent self-talk and performance monitoring are beneficial for conflict resolution over and above constructs such as intelligence and working memory capacity that account for mean RT differences among participants.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,251,954
10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.06.016
2,019
International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
Int J Psychophysiol
The nature of morphosyntactic processing during language perception. Evidence from an additional-task study in Spanish and German.
The present study investigates in how far morphosyntactic processing is affected by an additional non-verbal task and whether this effect differs between German and Spanish, two languages with differences in processing grammatical gender (lexical vs. cue-based processing). By manipulating task load and language we aimed at getting an insight into subprocesses of morphosyntax and their dependence on resources of general and verbal working memory, respectively. In more general terms, this study contributes to the debate on the modularity of morphosyntax. Written German or Spanish sentences with or without gender violations were presented word by word to native speakers. The critical words temporally overlapped in different degrees with a non-linguistic stimulus (a high or low tone). In a single task (Experiment 1) participants judged sentence acceptability and ignored the tones. Experiment 2 required a response to the tones. Left-anterior negativity (LAN) and P600 components were analyzed in the ERPs to critical words. Whereas the LAN was not affected by any of the experimental manipulations, the P600 was modulated as a function of language during the single task conditions (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2 the additional task did not add up with this effect; instead, the differences between language groups vanished. This may indicate that the processes reflected in the P600 draw on resources of general working memory. The LAN data seem to be in line with modularity of first pass morphosyntactic processing, although this interpretation contradicts findings from other studies. The P600 results may highlight the flexibility of sentence-based syntactic processing.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,183,666
10.1007/s10803-019-04094-x
2,019
Journal of autism and developmental disorders
J Autism Dev Disord
Creativity in Autism: An Examination of General and Mathematical Creative Thinking Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Typical Development.
This study investigated creative thinking abilities among two groups of 20 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) compared to 20 children with typical development ages 9-11. The study compared performance on two different creativity tests: general creativity (Pictorial Multiple Solutions-PMS) test versus mathematical creativity (Creating Equal Number-CEN) test, and investigated relationships between general and mathematical creative thinking across various cognitive measures including non-verbal IQ, verbal and non-verbal working memory and Attention. Results of the study demonstrate significant correlations among the measures of creativity indicating that the PMS and the CEN tasks represent different skills, or perhaps, different domains of creativity. Findings suggest that creativity can be found among individuals with ASD.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,139,103
10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00827
2,019
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
The Ability of Patients With Schizophrenia to Comprehend and Produce Sincere, Deceitful, and Ironic Communicative Intentions: The Role of Theory of Mind and Executive Functions.
Patients with schizophrenia are often described as impaired in several cognitive domains. Specifically, patients with schizophrenia often exhibit problems in solving tasks requiring theory of mind (ToM), i.e., the ability to ascribe mental states to oneself and others, communicative-pragmatic ability, i.e., the ability to use language and non-verbal expressive means to convey meaning in a given context, and executive functions (EF). This study aims to investigate the role of cognitive functions, such as general intelligence, selective attention, processing speed, and especially EF (working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibition, and planning), and ToM in explaining the performance of individual with schizophrenia in comprehending and producing communicative acts expressed with different communicative intentions (i.e., sincere, deceitful, and ironic), and realized through linguistic and extralinguistic/non-verbal expressive means. Thirty-two patients with schizophrenia and an equal number of healthy controls performed tasks aiming to investigate their capacity to comprehend and produce sincere, deceitful, and ironic communicative acts in addition to a series of cognitive tasks evaluating EF and ToM. The results indicated that individuals with schizophrenia performed worse than the controls in the comprehension and production of all pragmatic phenomena investigated, as well as in all the cognitive functions examined. The patients with schizophrenia also exhibited an increasing trend of difficulty in comprehending and producing sincere, deceitful, and ironic communicative acts expressed through either linguistic or extralinguistic means. Furthermore, a multiple regression analysis of the patients' performance on the pragmatic tasks revealed that overall, the role of attention, general intelligence, and processing speed did not appear to significantly explain the patients' communicative-pragmatic performance. The inclusion of EF into the analysis did not contribute to increase the explained variance of the patients' ability to comprehend and produce the various pragmatic phenomena investigated. Only the addition of ToM could significantly increase the explained variance, but only in the comprehension and production of deceit expressed by language and the production of sincere communicative acts, also limited to linguistic production. We conclude that neither EF nor ToM are able to explain the decreasing trend detected in the patients' pragmatic performance.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,108,367
10.1016/j.bandc.2019.05.004
2,019
Brain and cognition
Brain Cogn
Processing differences between monolingual and bilingual young adults on an emotion n-back task.
Bilingualism is associated with enhancement of executive control (EC) across the lifespan. Working memory and non-verbal emotion regulation both draw upon EC mechanisms so may also be affected by bilingualism, but these relationships are not fully understood. These relationships were explored using an n-back task with distracting emotional stimuli administered to young adults while continuous EEG was recorded. Monolinguals were faster but less accurate on the 2-back than bilinguals, and monolingual accuracy was more impeded by the presence of emotional stimuli than was that of bilinguals. The P300 event-related potential, a neural signature of working memory processing in the n-back, had smaller amplitudes in both groups on the 2-back than the 1-back, but attenuation in response to distracting emotional stimuli was greater for bilinguals than monolinguals. P300 latencies were also differentially affected by emotional stimuli in each group: Bilingual latencies were constant across emotions but monolingual latencies increased from neutral to angry conditions. In general, bilingual performance was less impacted by the emotional distraction than was that of the monolinguals. Additionally, bilinguals adjusted to the changing demands of the 1-back and 2-back conditions by recruiting neural networks to support different behavioral outcomes than monolinguals.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,046,471
10.1080/02699052.2019.1610797
2,019
Brain injury
Brain Inj
Length of post-traumatic amnesia and its prediction of neuropsychological outcome following severe to extremely severe traumatic brain injury in a litigating sample.
The aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between duration of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) and neuropsychological outcome at one or more years following severe to extremely severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a litigating sample. Retrospective study design, using data collected from 2010 to 2017. Data from 41 cases obtained from a private medicolegal neuropsychological database was examined. The database comprised information pertaining to TBI etiology, TBI severity parameters, demographic variables, neuropsychological test results and scores on psychological questionnaires. PTA duration was examined as a continuous variable. All cases that demonstrated non-credible effort were excluded. Continuous PTA duration was not found to be a significant predictor of cognitive impairment across domains of verbal intellect, non-verbal intellect, working memory, information processing speed, immediate memory, delayed memory, and executive functioning. The predictive relationship between duration of PTA and cognitive impairment that has been reported in non-litigating populations did not exist in a litigating TBI sample. Findings illustrate the importance of investigating the relationships between injury variables and cognitive outcome in a population undergoing litigation, to provide better understanding of outcome in this subgroup of patients with TBI.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
31,031,611
10.3389/fnhum.2019.00122
2,019
Frontiers in human neuroscience
Front Hum Neurosci
Collectivism Is Associated With Greater Neurocognitive Fluency in Older Adults.
Neuropsychological research has been limited in the representation of cultural diversity due to various issues, raising questions regarding the applicability of findings to diverse populations. Nonetheless, culture-dependent differences in fundamental psychological processes have been demonstrated. One of the most basic of these, self-construal (individualism, collectivism), is central to how many other differences are interpreted. Self-construals may have possible consequences on social interactions, emotions, motivation, and cognition. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of self-construal on neurocognitive functions in older adults. A total of 86 community-dwelling older adults 60 years and older were assessed with three common self-report measures of self-construal along individualism and collectivism (IC). A cognitive battery was administered to assess verbal and non-verbal fluency abilities. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to categorize individuals according to IC, and one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVA), including relevant covariates (e.g., ethnicity, gender, linguistic abilities), were used to compare neurocognitive functions between individualists and collectivists. Collectivists outperformed individualists on left frontally-mediated measures of verbal fluency (action, phonemic) after controlling for relevant covariates, = 6.942, = 0.010, = 0.061. Groups did not differ on semantic fluency, non-verbal fluency, or attention/working memory (all s > 0.05). These findings suggest a cognitive advantage in collectivists for verbal processing speed with an additional contribution of left frontal processes involved in lexicosemantic retrieval. Self-construal may provide a meaningful descriptor for diverse samples in neuropsychological research and may help explain other cross-cultural differences.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,890,984
10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00441
2,019
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Implications of Change/Stability Patterns in Children's Non-symbolic and Symbolic Magnitude Judgment Abilities Over One Year: A Latent Transition Analysis.
Non-symbolic magnitude abilities are often claimed to support the acquisition of symbolic magnitude abilities, which, in turn, are claimed to support emerging math abilities. However, not all studies find links between non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude abilities, or between them and math ability. To investigate possible reasons for these different findings, recent research has analyzed differences in non-symbolic/symbolic magnitude abilities using latent class modeling and has identified four different magnitude ability profiles residing within the general magnitude ability distribution that were differentially related to cognitive and math abilities. These findings may help explain the different patterns of findings observed in previous research. To further investigate this possibility, we (1) attempted to replicate earlier findings, (2) determine whether magnitude ability profiles remained stable or changed over 1 year; and (3) assessed the degree to which stability/change in profiles were related to cognitive and math abilities. We used latent transition analysis to investigate stability/changes in non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude abilities of 109 5- to 6-year olds twice in 1 year. At Time 1 and 2, non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude abilities, number transcoding and single-digit addition abilities were assessed. Visuospatial working memory (VSWM), naming numbers, non-verbal IQ, basic RT was also assessed at Time 1. Analysis showed stability in one profile and changes in the three others over 1 year. VSWM and naming numbers predicted profile membership at Time 1 and 2, and profile membership predicted math abilities at both time points. The findings confirm the existence of four different non-symbolic-symbolic magnitude ability profiles; we suggest the changes over time in them potentially reflect deficit, delay, and normal math developmental pathways.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,885,877
10.1016/j.visres.2019.03.007
2,019
Vision research
Vision Res
Beyond the global motion deficit hypothesis of developmental dyslexia: A cross-sectional study of visual, cognitive, and socio-economic factors influencing reading ability in children.
Although primarily conceptualized as a disorder of phonological awareness, developmental dyslexia is often associated with broader problems perceiving and attending to transient or rapidly-moving visual stimuli. However, the extent to which such visual deficits represent the cause or the consequence of dyslexia remains contentious, and very little research has examined the relative contributions of phonological, visual, and other variables to reading performance more broadly. We measured visual sensitivity to global motion (GM) and global form (GF), performance on various language and other cognitive tasks believed to be compromised in dyslexia (phonological awareness, processing speed, and working memory), together with a range of social and demographic variables often omitted in previous research, such as age, gender, non-verbal intelligence, and socio-economic status in an unselected sample (n = 132) of children aged 6-11.5 yrs from two different primary schools in Edinburgh, UK. We found that: (i) Mean GM sensitivity (but not GF) was significantly lower in poor readers (medium effect size); (ii) GM sensitivity accounted for only 3% of the variance in reading scores; (iii) GM sensitivity deficits were observed in only 16% of poor readers; (iv) the best predictors of reading performance were phonological awareness, non-verbal intelligence, and socio-economic status, suggesting the importance of controlling for these in future studies of vision and reading. These findings suggest that developmental dyslexia is unlikely to represent a single category of neurodevelopmental disorder underpinned by lower-level deficits in visual motion processing.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,815,402
10.14196/mjiri.32.107
2,018
Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Med J Islam Repub Iran
Impaired nonverbal working memory in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder.
Past studies have documented working memory impairment in participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (IQ>70), but inconsistent findings have been reported. One possibility is the existence of verbal responses in the evaluation of working memory performance. The aim of the current study is to examine the working memory performance and its correlation with a prominent deficit in participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders by non-verbal working memory tasks compared with typically developing samples. The current study is a cross-sectional, comparative study. The working memory performance of the 30 participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (7-16 years) and 30 typically developing was compared by working memory subtests of the Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised in Tehran, Iran. Two groups were matched for age and gender. ANOVA, ANCOVA, repeated measures ANOVA and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data statistically. The significance value was set at p<0.05. The results showed that if the effect of FSIQ (full-scale intelligence quotient) were controlled individuals with highfunctioning Autism Spectrum Disorders exhibited significant impairment in the Reverse Memory subtest (p=0.001). Also, unpredictably Forward Memory (r=0.38, p=0.03) and Reverse Memory tasks (r=0.38, p=0.03) displayed a significant positive correlation with the Social interaction subscale of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (Second Edition). It seems that nonverbal working memory is impaired in persons with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. Results of the current study revealed that factors like complexity and cognitive load of tasks may influence working memory performance in individuals with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,731,145
10.1016/j.neurad.2019.01.093
2,019
Journal of neuroradiology = Journal de neuroradiologie
J Neuroradiol
Anatomo-functional study of the cerebellum in working memory in children treated for medulloblastoma.
Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant cerebral tumor during childhood, arising in the posterior fossa. Children treated for medulloblastoma often experience working memory (WM) deficits, affecting their quality of life and school performance. The aim of the present study undertaken to describe the cerebellar involvement in WM deficits observed in these children. 23 healthy children and 11 children treated for medulloblastoma were included into study. All subjects performed a detailed neuropsychological examination, an anatomical and functional MRI. Stimuli were presented to the participants with alternating sensory modality and nature of communication in a block design during functional magnetic resonance imaging acquisitions. Non-parametric tests were used for analyzing neuropsychological and behavioral data. SPM8 and SUIT (Spatially Unbiased Atlas Template) were used for anatomical and functional MRI data analyses. Patients had cerebellar resections mainly located in the left posterior lobe. Patients had significantly reduced intelligence quotient, central executive and visuospatial WM. In healthy children group, fMRI showed activations for non-verbal and visuospatial WM in the left posterior cerebellar lobe. This study provides further evidence that left posterior cerebellar lobe plays a critical role in WM. Indeed, lesions of left posterior cerebellar lobe were associated with WM impairment in children treated for cerebellar medulloblastoma. Additionally, fMRI using WM tasks showed activation in the left posterior cerebellar lobe in healthy children. Taken together, these findings may help for improving treatment and rehabilitation of children referred for cerebellar tumor.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,618,901
10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02357
2,018
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Cognitive and Affective Correlates of Chinese Children's Mathematical Word Problem Solving.
Mathematical word problem solving (MWPS) involves multiple steps, including comprehending the problem statements, determining the arithmetic operations that have to be performed, and finding the answers. This study investigated the relative contributions of different cognitive and affective variables to children's MWPS. To achieve this goal, 116 third-grade Chinese children were tested. Results showed that after controlling for age and non-verbal intelligence, the abilities to solve direct and indirect mathematical word problems were positively correlated with the working memory component of executive function, reading comprehension ability, math fact fluency and math anxiety. Moreover, math anxiety was found to fully mediate the relationships between reading anxiety and MWPS. Implications of the findings on how to promote children's MWPS skills were discussed.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,590,980
10.1177/1744629518821251
2,020
Journal of intellectual disabilities : JOID
J Intellect Disabil
Mathematical skills and working memory profile of children with borderline intellectual functioning.
Borderline intellectual functioning is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by an intelligence quotient (IQ) in the range of 70-85. The present study aimed to investigate the mathematical abilities and the working memory of students with borderline intellectual functioning (BIF). The sample group included 10 year-old students with BIF ( = 85) and with average non-verbal IQ ( = 45). The children were assessed in non-verbal intelligence, numerical ability and working memory. Our results showed an impairment of mathematical skills, especially in the operation tasks, and working memory in children with BIF, compared to typically developing peers. Generally, their skills seemed to be consistent with intelligence scores (WOND and AWMA scores ≥ 70). In some cases, children with BIF could have mathematical difficulties (WOND < 70). In general, they showed visuospatial short-term memory and central executive subsystem more damaged than non-verbal intelligence while the verbal short-term memory was similar to the IQ.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,503,618
10.1016/j.cub.2018.10.025
2,018
Current biology : CB
Curr Biol
Nonverbal Working Memory for Novel Images in Rhesus Monkeys.
Human working memory is greatly facilitated by linguistic representations-for example, by verbal rehearsal and by verbal recoding of novel stimuli. The absence of language in nonhumans raises questions about the extent to which nonhuman working memory includes similar mechanisms. There is strong evidence for rehearsal-like active maintenance in working memory when monkeys are tested with highly familiar stimuli, but not when tested with novel stimuli, suggesting that working memory depends on the existence of previously encoded representations. This difference in working memory for familiar and novel images may exist because, lacking language, monkeys cannot recode novel stimuli in a way that permits active maintenance in working memory. Alternatively, working memory for novel images may have been present, but behaviorally silent, in earlier studies. In tests with novel images, the high familiarity of to-be-remembered stimuli compared to never-before-seen distractors may be such a strong determinant of recognition performance that evidence of working memory is obscured. In the current study, we developed a technique for attenuating the utility of relative familiarity as a mnemonic signal in recognition tests with novel stimuli. In tests with novel images, we observed impairments of memory by concurrent cognitive load and delay interval that indicate actively maintained working memory. This flexibility in monkey working memory suggests that monkeys may recode unfamiliar stimuli to facilitate working memory and establishes new parallels between verbal human working memory and nonverbal nonhuman primate working memory.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,375,893
10.1080/87565641.2018.1541992
2,019
Developmental neuropsychology
Dev Neuropsychol
Time Reproduction Deficits at Young Adult Follow-Up in Childhood ADHD: The Role of Persistence of Disorder and Executive Functioning.
No studies have examined if time reproduction deficits exist in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by adulthood. We followed 131 ADHD and 71 community control (CC) cases for 20+ years to young adulthood at which time they were given a time reproduction task. The ADHD group made smaller time reproductions and showed greater variability of errors at the longer durations compared to CC cases, whether ADHD was still present or not at follow-up. Nonverbal working memory and design fluency tests were related to timing errors while anxiety and depression were not. Childhood ADHD is associated with timing deficits at adult follow-up.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,224,402
10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023914
2,018
BMJ open
BMJ Open
Neurocognitive and mental health outcomes and association with quality of life among adults living with HIV: a cross-sectional focus on a low-literacy population from coastal Kenya.
Our aim was to compare the neurocognitive performance and mental health outcome of adults living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy with that of community controls, all of low literacy. Furthermore, we also wanted to explore the relationship of these outcomes with quality of life among adults living with HIV. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The study was conducted in Kilifi County, a region located at the Kenyan coast. The participants consisted of a consecutive sample of 84 adults living with HIV and 83 randomly selected community controls all with ≤8 years of schooling. All participants were assessed for non-verbal intelligence, verbal working memory and executive functioning. The Major Depression Inventory and a quality of life measure (RAND SF-36) were also administered. Using analysis of covariance, we found no statistically significant group differences between adults living with HIV and community controls in all the neurocognitive tests except for a marginal difference in the non-verbal intelligence test (F (1, 158)=3.83, p=0.05). However, depressive scores of adults living with HIV were significantly higher than those of controls (F (1, 158)=11.56, p<0.01). Also, quality of life scores of adults living with HIV were significantly lower than those of controls (F (1, 158)=4.62, p=0.03). For the HIV-infected group, results from multivariable linear regression analysis showed that increasing depressive scores were significantly associated with poorer quality of life (β=-1.17, 95% CI -1.55 to -0.80; p<0.01). Our findings suggest that adults of low-literacy levels living with HIV and on antiretroviral medication at the Kenyan coast do not have significant cognitive deficits compared with their uninfected counterparts. However, their mental health, compared with that of HIV-uninfected adults, remains poorer and their quality of life may deteriorate when HIV and depressive symptoms co-occur.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,196,431
10.1007/s00429-018-1747-5
2,018
Brain structure & function
Brain Struct Funct
General intelligence is associated with working memory-related brain activity: new evidence from a large sample study.
Psychometric intelligence is closely related to working memory capacity. Here we aim to determine the associations of neural activation patterns during the N-back working memory paradigm with psychometric intelligence and working memory performance. We solved the statistical problems of previous studies using (1) a large cohort of 1235 young adults and (2) robust voxel-by-voxel permutation-based statistics at the whole-brain level. Many of the significant correlations were weak, and our findings were not consistent with those of previous studies. We observed that many of the significant correlations involved brain areas in the periphery or boundaries between the task-positive network (TPN) and task-negative network (TNN), suggesting that the expansion of the TPN or TNN is associated with greater cognitive ability. Lower activity in TPN and less task-induced deactivation (TID) in TNN were associated with greater cognitive ability. These findings indicate that subjects with greater cognitive ability have a lower brain response to task demand, consistent with the notion that TID in TNN reflects cognitive demand but partly inconsistent with the prevailing neural efficiency theory. One exception was the pre-supplementary motor area, which plays a key role in cognitive control and sequential processing. In this area, intelligent subjects demonstrated greater activity related to working memory, suggesting that the pre-supplementary motor area plays a unique role in the execution of working memory tasks in intelligent subjects.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,186,962
10.1002/lio2.172
2,018
Laryngoscope investigative otolaryngology
Laryngoscope Investig Otolaryngol
Cognitive Functions in Adult Cochlear Implant Users, Cochlear Implant Candidates, and Normal-Hearing Listeners.
Increasing evidence suggests that hearing loss may be linked to cognitive decline, and that cochlear implantation may lead to improvements in cognition. The goal of this study was to examine the effects of severe-to-profound hearing loss and cochlear implantation in post-lingually deafened adults, compared with age-matched normal-hearing (NH) peers. Participants were tested on several non-auditory measures of cognition: working memory (WM) (digit span, object span, symbol span), non-verbal reasoning (Raven's progressive matrices), information-processing speed and inhibitory control (Stroop test), speed of phonological and lexical access (Test of Word Reading Efficiency), and verbal learning and memory (California Verbal Learning Test). Demographic measures were also collected. Cohort study at tertiary neurotology center. Forty-three post-lingually deafened experienced CI users, 19 post-lingually deafened CI candidates, and 40 age-matched NH controls with no cognitive impairment were enrolled. Comparisons among the groups on the cognitive measures were performed. Adult CI users and CI candidates demonstrated worse (or a trend towards worse) performance as compared with NH peers on non-verbal reasoning, information-processing speed, speed of lexical access, and verbal learning and memory. However, after controlling for gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and vocabulary knowledge among groups, some of these differences were no longer significant. Similarly, large differences were not found in most cognitive abilities between experienced CI users and CI candidates. Adult CI users, CI candidates, and NH peers generally demonstrated equivalent non-auditory cognitive abilities, after controlling for gender, SES, and vocabulary knowledge. These findings provide support for a link between cognitive decline and hearing loss, but this association may be partly attributable to group differences in SES and vocabulary knowledge. 2b.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,155,272
10.1038/s41525-018-0059-2
2,018
NPJ genomic medicine
NPJ Genom Med
1q21.1 microduplication: large verbal-nonverbal performance discrepancy and ddPCR assays of HYDIN/HYDIN2 copy number.
Microduplication of chromosome 1q21.1 is observed in ~0.03% of adults. It has a highly variable, incompletely penetrant phenotype that can include intellectual disability, global developmental delay, specific learning disabilities, autism, schizophrenia, heart anomalies and dysmorphic features. We evaluated a 10-year-old-male with a 1q21.1 duplication by CGH microarray. He presented with major attention deficits, phonological dysphasia, poor fine motor skills, dysmorphia and mild autistic features, but not the typical macrocephaly. Neuropsychiatric evaluation demonstrated a novel phenotype: an unusually large discrepancy between non-verbal capacities (borderline-impaired WISC-IV index scores of 70 for Working Memory and 68 for Processing Speed) vs. strong verbal skills - scores of 126 for Verbal Comprehension (superior) and 111 for Perceptual Reasoning (normal). has been hypothesized to underlie macrocephaly and perhaps cognitive deficits in this syndrome, but assessment of copy number by microarray is difficult because of extensive segmental duplications. We performed whole-genome sequencing which supported duplication (chr1:146,370,001-148,590,000, 2.22 Mb, hg38). To evaluate copy number more rigorously we developed droplet digital PCR assays of (targeting unique 1 kb and 6 kb insertions) and its paralog (targeting a unique 154 bp segment outside the overlap). In an independent cohort, ddPCR was concordant with previous microarray data. Duplication of was confirmed in the patient by ddPCR. This case demonstrates that a large discrepancy of verbal and non-verbal abilities can occur in 1q21.1 duplication syndrome, but it remains unclear whether this has a specific genomic basis. These ddPCR assays may be useful for future research on copy number.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,154,754
10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01498
2,018
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Variability in Single Digit Addition Problem-Solving Speed Over Time Identifies Typical, Delay and Deficit Math Pathways.
We assessed the degree to which the variability in the time children took to solve single digit addition (SDA) problems longitudinally, predicted their ability to solve more complex mental addition problems. Beginning at 5 years, 164 children completed a 12-item SDA test on four occasions over 6 years. We also assessed their (1) digit span, visuospatial working memory, and non-verbal IQ, and (2) the speed with which they named single numbers and letters, as well the speed enumerating one to three dots as a measure of subitizing ability. Children completed a double-digit mental addition test at the end of the study. We conducted a latent profile analysis to determine if there were different SDA problem solving response time (PRT) variability patterns across the four test occasions, which yielded three distinct PRT variability patterns. In one pattern, labeled a typical acquisition pathway, mean PRTs were relatively low and PRT variability diminished over time. In a second pattern, label a delayed pathway, mean PRT and variability was high initially but diminished over time. In a third pattern, labeled a deficit pathway, mean PRT and variability remained relatively high throughout the study. We investigated the degree to which the three SDA PRT variability pathways were associated with (1) different cognitive ability measures, and (2) double-digit mental addition abilities. The deficit pathway differed from the typical and delayed pathway on the subitizing measure only, but not other measures; and the latter two pathways also differed from each other on the subitizing but not other measures. Double-digit mental addition problem solving success differed between each of the three pathways, and mean PRT variability differed between the typical and the delayed and deficit pathways. The latter two pathways did not differ from each other. The findings emphasize the value of examining individual differences in problem-solving PRT variability longitudinally as an index of math ability, and highlight the important of subitizing ability as a diagnostic index of math ability/difficulties.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,121,739
10.1007/s00221-018-5362-8
2,018
Experimental brain research
Exp Brain Res
Memory impairment during a climbing traverse: implications for search and rescue climbing.
Cognitive resource limitations can impair one's ability to multitask. Previous research has shown that climbing is a particularly demanding task, and does not neatly fit into existing cognitive resource models. Climbing is a task relevant to firefighting and search and rescue, and operators often must also handle communication and navigation tasks in tandem. We present the results of a study where a naturalistic narrative memory task was paired with a climbing traverse. As hypothesized, both climbing and memory performance significantly declined in the dual-compared to each single-task condition. The specific cognitive demands of climbing should be explored further using non-verbal secondary tasks, to determine whether an executive resource bottleneck, verbal resource demand, or something else entirely can better explain the dual-task interference. A more thorough understanding of the mental demand in concurrent operational tasks can be used to tailor the modality and timing or diversion of certain tasks for minimal interference.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,081,734
10.1177/1747021818796475
2,019
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
Evidence against a cognitive advantage in the older bilingual population.
Recent evidence has challenged long-standing claims that multi-language acquisition confers long-term advantages in executive function and may protect against age-related cognitive deterioration. We assessed evidence for a bilingual advantage in older monolingual and bilingual residents matched on age, gender, and socioeconomic status. A comprehensive battery of tests was administered to measure non-verbal reasoning, working memory capacity, visuo-spatial memory, response inhibition, problem solving, and language proficiency. Analyses, including Bayes factors, revealed comparable performance in both groups, with no significant differences on any task (and the only trend, found for the Tower of London task performance, indicated a monolingual advantage). Overall, therefore, our findings run counter to the bilingual advantage hypothesis. We consider the implications of our study and offer suggestions for future work in this area.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory
30,065,693
10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01239
2,018
Frontiers in psychology
Front Psychol
Expectancy-Based Strategic Processes Are Influenced by Spatial Working Memory Load and Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity.
The present research examined whether imposing a high (or low) working memory (WM) load in different types of non-verbal WM tasks could affect the implementation of expectancy-based strategic processes in a sequential verbal Stroop task. Participants had to identify a colored (green vs. red) target patch that was preceded by a prime word (GREEN or RED), which was either incongruent or congruent with the target color on 80% and 20% of the trials, respectively. Previous findings have shown that participants can strategically use this information to predict the upcoming target color, and avoid the standard Stroop interference effect. The Stroop task was combined with different types of non-verbal WM tasks. In Experiment 1, participants had to retain sets of four arrows that pointed either in the same (low WM load) or in different directions (high WM load). In Experiment 2, they had to remember the spatial locations of four dots which either formed a straight line (low load) or were randomly scattered in a square grid (high load). In addition, participants in the two experiments performed a change localization task to assess their WM capacity (WMC). The results in both experiments showed a reliable congruency by WM load interaction. When the Stroop task was performed under a high WM load, participants were unable to efficiently ignore the incongruence of the prime, as they consistently showed a standard Stroop effect, regardless of their WMC. Under a low WM load, however, a strategically dependent effect (reversed Stroop) emerged. This ability to ignore the incongruence of the prime was modulated by WMC, such that the reversed Stroop effect was mainly found in higher WMC participants. The findings that expectancy-based strategies on a verbal Stroop task are modulated by load on different types of spatial WM tasks point at a domain-general effect of WM on strategic processing. The present results also suggest that the impact of loading WM on expectancy-based strategies can be modulated by individual differences in WMC.
CognitiveConstruct
NonverbalWorkingMemory

Dataset Card for CogText PubMed Abstracts

Dataset Description

The CogText dataset is a curated collection of abstracts about cognitive tasks and constructs from PubMed. This dataset contains the original abstracts and their corresponding embeddings. Please visit CogText on GitHub for the details and codes.

Dataset Summary

The 2021 dataset, collected in December 2021, contains 385,705 distinct scientific articles, featuring their title, abstract, relevant metadata, and embeddings. The articles were specifically selected for their relevance to cognitive control constructs and associated tasks.

Supported Tasks and Leaderboards

Topic Modeling, Text Embedding

Languages

English

Dataset Structure

Data Instances

522,972 scientific articles, of which 385,705 are unique.

Data Fields

The CSV files contain the following fields:

Field Description
index (int) Index of the article in the current dataset
pmid (int) PubMed ID
doi (str) Digital Object Identifier
year (int) Year of publication (yyyy format)
journal_title (str) Title of the journal
journal_iso_abbreviation (str) ISO abbreviation of the journal
title (str) Title of the article
abstract (str) Abstract of the article
category (enum) Category of the article, either "CognitiveTask" or "CognitiveConstruct"
label (enum) Label of the article, which refers to the class labels in the ontologies/efo.owl ontology
original_index (int) Index of the article in the full dataset (see pubmed/abstracts.csv.gz)

Data Splits

Dataset Description
pubmed/abstracts.csv.gz Full dataset
pubmed/abstracts20pct.csv.gz 20% of the dataset (stratified random sample by label)
gpt3/abstracts_gp3ada.nc GPT-3 embeddings of the entire dataset in XArray/CDF4 format, indexed by pmid

Dataset Creation

Curation Rationale

[Needs More Information]

Source Data

Initial Data Collection and Normalization

[Needs More Information]

Annotations

Annotation process

[Needs More Information]

Personal and Sensitive Information

[Needs More Information]

Considerations for Using the Data

Social Impact of Dataset

[Needs More Information]

Discussion of Biases

[Needs More Information]

Other Known Limitations

[Needs More Information]

Additional Information

Dataset Curators

[Needs More Information]

Licensing Information

[Needs More Information]

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (ATTRACT/2016/ID/11242114/DIGILEARN and INTER Mobility/2017-2/ID/11765868/ULALA).

Citation Information

To cite the paper use the following entry:

@misc{cogtext2022,
  author = {Morteza Ansarinia and
            Paul Schrater and
            Pedro Cardoso-Leite},
  title = {Linking Theories and Methods in Cognitive Sciences via Joint Embedding of the Scientific Literature: The Example of Cognitive Control},
  year = {2022},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.11016}
}
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