Search results for " Experimental and Cognitive Psychology"
showing 10 items of 20 documents
Conceptual Spaces for Cognitive Architectures: A lingua franca for different levels of representation
2017
During the last decades, many cognitive architectures (CAs) have been realized adopting different assumptions about the organization and the representation of their knowledge level. Some of them (e.g. SOAR [Laird (2012)]) adopt a classical symbolic approach, some (e.g. LEABRA [O'Reilly and Munakata (2000)]) are based on a purely connectionist model, while others (e.g. CLARION [Sun (2006)] adopt a hybrid approach combining connectionist and symbolic representational levels. Additionally, some attempts (e.g. biSOAR) trying to extend the representational capacities of CAs by integrating diagrammatical representations and reasoning are also available [Kurup and Chandrasekaran (2007)]. In this p…
Exploring the nature of the ‘subject’-preference: Evidence from the online comprehension of simple sentences in Mandarin Chinese
2009
In two visual ERP studies, we investigated whether Mandarin Chinese shows a subject-preference in spite of the controversial status of grammatical relations in this language. We compared ERP responses at the position of the verb and the second NP in object-verb-subject (OVS) and subject-verb-object (SVO) structures. While SVO is the basic word order in Chinese and OV with subject-drop is possible, OVS is strongly dispreferred. At the position of the verb, which disambiguated towards an object or a subject reading of NP1, Experiment 1 revealed an N400 for both subject-initial control conditions in comparison with the critical object-initial condition. Experiment 2 showed that this result was…
''Sex Differences In Ultra-triathlon Performance At Increasing Race Distance''
2013
Ruest, Christoph Alexander | Knechtle, Beat | Knechtle, Patrizia | Rosemann, Thomas | Lepers, Romuald; International audience; ''It has been argued that women should be able to outrun men in ultra-endurance distances. The present study investigated the sex difference in overall race times and split times between elite female and male Ironman triathletes competing in Ironman Hawaii (3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling, and 42.195 km running) and Double Iron ultra-triathletes (7.6 km swimming, 360 km cycling, and 84.4 km running). Data from 20,638 athletes, including 5,163 women and 15,475 men competing in Ironman Hawaii and from 143 women and 1,252 men competing in Double Iron ultra-triathlon ra…
Age, training, and previous experience predict race performance in long-distance inline skaters, not anthropometry
2012
Knechtle, Beat | Knechtle, Patrizia | Ruest, Christoph Alexander | Rosemann, Thomas | Lepers, Romuald; International audience; ''The association of characteristics of anthropometry, training, and previous experience with race time in 84 recreational, long-distance, inline skaters at the longest inline marathon in Europe (111 km), the Inline One-eleven in Switzerland, was investigated to identify predictor variables for performance. Age, duration per training unit, and personal best time were the only three variables related to race time in a multiple regression, while none of the 16 anthropometric variables were related. Anthropometric characteristics seem to be of no importance for a fast …
Reading for meaning in dyslexic and young children : distinct neural pathways but common endpoints
2009
Developmental dyslexia is a highly prevalent and specific disorder of reading acquisition characterised by impaired reading fluency and comprehension. We have previously identified fMRI- and ERP-based neural markers of impaired sentence reading in dyslexia that indicated both deviant basic word processing and deviant semantic incongruency processing. However, it remained unclear how specific these impairments are for dyslexia, as they occurred when children with dyslexia (DYS) were compared to chronological age-matched controls (CA) who also differ in the amount of reading experience. Adding a younger control group at a similar reading level (RL) as the dyslexic group, we examined here whic…
Subclinical executive function impairment in children with asymptomatic, treated phenylketonuria: A comparison with children with immunodeficiency vi…
2018
In this study we compared the neuropsychological profile of phenylketonuria (PKU) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to examine the specificity of the executive function (EF) impairment reported in these two patologies. A total of 55 age-matched children and adolescents were assessed, including 11 patients with PKU, 16 patients with HIV and 28 healthy controls, underwent a neuropsychological assessment. Although neither the PKU nor the HIV group scored below the normative ranges, both groups showed lower scores in neuropsychological tests engaging EFs than controls. In addition, compared to patients with PKU the HIV group performed significantly worse in the Trail-Making Test A, Corsi S…
Time processing in children with Tourette's syndrome.
2010
Background: Tourette syndrome (TS) is characterized by dysfunctional connectivity between prefrontal cortex and sub-cortical structures, and altered meso-cortical and/or meso-striatal dopamine release. Since time processing is also regulated by fronto-striatal circuits and modulated by dopaminergic transmission, we hypothesized that time processing is abnormal in TS. Methods: We compared time processing abilities between nine children with TS-only (i.e. without major psychiatric comorbidities) and 10 age-matched healthy children, employing a time reproduction task in which subjects actively reproduce different temporal intervals, and a time comparison task in which subjects judge whether a …
Improving Children's Coordinative Skills and Executive Functions
2016
Recent studies have focused on the positive influence of regular physical activity on executive functioning in children. Coordinative skills (agility) and executive functions (updating, attention, inhibition and planning processes) were investigated in children before and after 6 months of a Football Exercise Program compared to a control group of sedentary peers. The participants were 44 children aged 8.8 years: Group 1 comprised 24 children in a football (i.e., soccer) exercise program and Group 2 comprised 20 sedentary children. At pre-test and post-test, coordinative skills and executive functions were measured. After the Football Exercise Program, there were significant differences be…
Satisfaction and frustration of autonomy and relatedness needs: Associations with parenting dimensions and psychological functioning
2018
Framed from Basic Psychological Needs Theory (Ryan and Deci in American Psychologist 55:68–78; Ryan, Deci, American Psychologist 55:68–78, 2000) and Kagitcibasi’s Autonomous-Related Self Theory (Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 36:1–20; Kagitcibasi, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 36:1–20, 2005), the study examined the relationships of adolescents’ satisfaction and frustration of autonomy and relatedness, with (a) adolescents’ perception of mother’s and father’s psychological control and autonomy support, and (b) adolescents’ self-acceptance and anxiety. Participants were 556 adolescents (M = 17.25, SD = 0.92). Path analysis showed more significant associations of autonomy support …
Societal Threat to Safety, Compensatory Control, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism
2014
We analyzed directly and indirectly the relationships between societal threat to safety, perceived control, and the increase in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) in two studies. In Study 1 (national sample of the Italian population, N=1,169), we performed a longitudinal analysis structured into three waves (January 2003, September 2004, and January 2005). A moderated regression analysis showed that RWA increased from 2003 to 2005 as a function of perceived societal threat to safety more among low- than among high RWA scorers. In experimental Study 2 (Italian university students, N=131) a moderated mediation model showed loss of perceived control to mediate the relation between societal thre…