0000000000539116
AUTHOR
Andrea Vázquez-martínez
The effects of age and emotional valence on recognition memory: An ex-Gaussian components analysis
[EN] The aim of this work was to study the effects of valence and age on visual image recognition memory. The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) battery was used, and response time data were analyzed using analysis of variance, as well as an ex-Gaussian fit method. Older participants were slower and more variable in their reaction times. Response times were longer for negative valence pictures, however this was statistically significant only for young participants. This suggests that negative emotional valence has a strong effect on recognition memory in young but not in old participants. The tau parameter, often related to attention in the literature, was smaller for young than …
Resilience and the Aging Process: Assessment Tools and Needs
Abstract Successful resilience is a variable often related to an optimal aging process and that might have a role on education. However, literature is rather limited when dealing with assessment instruments for the elderly in the Spanish language. The objective of this work is to examine the Brief Resilient Coping Scale (Sinclair &Wallston, 2004), a four item likert scale, in the Spanish elderly. This scale was administrated to a sample of 920 elderly Spanish participants, and the data set analysed in terms of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and internal consistency. The scale demonstrated good psychometric properties. Furthermore, the homogeneity indices were higher than in th…
Changes in Alcohol Consumption Pattern Based on Gender during COVID-19 Confinement in Spain
(1) The goal of this study was to analyze the prevalence and pattern of alcohol consumption (frequency of consumption, average daily consumption, and risky consumption) before and during confinement due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the adult population and based on gender. (2) Methods: Data from 3779 individuals were collected via a set of online surveys. The AUDIT alcohol consumption questions (AUDIT-C) were used to measure the frequency of consumption, the average daily consumption, intensive consumption, risky consumption, and standard drink units. (3) Results: During confinement, the prevalence of alcohol consumption declined in both males and females, but only intensive con…
Age slowing down in detection and visual discrimination under varying presentation times
[EN] The reaction time has been described as a measure of perception, decision making, and other cognitive processes. The aim of this work is to examine agerelated changes in executive functions in terms of demand load under varying presentation times. Two tasks were employed where a signal detection and a discrimination task were performed by young and older university students. Furthermore, a characterization of the response time distribution by an exGaussian fit was carried out. The results indicated that the older participants were slower than the younger ones in signal detection and discrimination. Moreover, the differences between both processes for the older participants were higher,…
The Effect of Corrective Feedback on Performance in Basic Cognitive Tasks: An Analysis of RT Components
[EN] The current work examines the effect of trial-by-trial feedback about correct and error responding on performance in two basic cognitive tasks: a classic Stroop task (n = 40) and a color-word matching task (n = 30). Standard measures of both RT and accuracy were examined in addition to measures obtained from fitting the ex-Gaussian distributional model to the correct RTs. For both tasks, RTs were faster in blocks of trials with feedback than in blocks without feedback, but this difference was not significant. On the other hand, with respect to the distributional analyses, providing feedback served to significantly reduce the size of the tails of the RT distributions. Such results sugge…
The Role of Feedback on Learning: Evidence through Ex-Gaussian Components
Abstract In the performance of any task if a subject does not understand the instructions given they will hardly be able to fulfil the requested goals. The aim of this work was to evaluate the role of feedback through a stroop task for University students. Two experiments were conducted where participants had to perform, into a counterbalanced design, stroop blocks with and without feedback. The classical ANOVA and a fit of the reaction times (RT) into an ex-Gaussian distribution function were carried out. RTs were much lower in feedback blocks than controls. The differences did not reach the statistical significance, however, the parameters often related in the literature to attention in a…