Search results for "Experimental and Cognitive Psychology"
showing 10 items of 1162 documents
THE OSCILLATORY MECHANISMS ASSOCIATED WITH SYNTACTIC BINDING IN HEALTHY AGEING
2020
Older adults frequently display differential patterns of brain activity compared to young adults in the same task, alongside widespread neuroanatomical changes. Differing functional activity patterns in older adults are commonly interpreted as being compensatory (e.g., Cabeza, Locantore & McIntosh, 2002). We examined the oscillatory activity in the EEG during syntactic binding in young and older adults, as well as the relationship between oscillatory activity and behavioural performance on a syntactic judgement task within the older adults. 19 young and 41 older adults listened to two-word sentences that differentially load onto morpho-syntactic binding: correct syntactic binding (m…
Trait Empathy associated with Agreeableness and rhythmic entrainment in a spontaneous movement to music task: Preliminary exploratory investigations
2017
The simulation theory of empathy suggests that we use motor processing to empathise, through modelling the actions of others. Similarly, research into embodied music cognition posits that music, particularly musical rhythm, is perceived as a motor stimulus. In both cases, the human Mirror Neuron System (MNS) is put forward as a potential underlying mechanism. If this is the case, some overlap may exist between the ability to empathise with others, and the ability to perceive rhythm in music. The present study investigated this relationship indirectly, through the study of individual differences in Trait Empathy and rhythmic entrainment. Undergraduate students ( N = 237) completed a questio…
Personality Traits, Partisan Attitudes, and Voting Behavior. Evidence from Germany
2007
Political psychology has paid rather little attention to personality traits when explaining political attitudes and political behavior in mass publics. The present paper argues that personality traits contribute to our understanding of political attitude formation and decision making of ordinary citizens. Based on the Five Factor Model of Personality, we state hypotheses regarding the effects of personality traits on partisan attitudes and vote choice in Germany. We test the hypotheses using survey data obtained from a random sample of the Germans eligible to vote. The evidence confirms that personality traits indirectly affect partisan attitudes and voting behavior in Germany in predictabl…
Arithmetic Problems Formulation and Working Memory Load
1987
First, third, and fifth graders (French children in American-numbered grades) were asked to solve arithmetic problems in which an initial state was modified by two successive transformations. Three independent variables were manipulated systematically. First, the unknown state was either the final state (Sl) or the initial state (S2). Second, either the known state (01) or the transformations (02) appeared in the first place in the problem wording. Third, the question was either located at the end (Ql) or at the beginning (42) of the problem text. As anticipated, these modifications strongly affected the performances at every age: S1 appears clearly easier than S2; 0 1 leads to a better per…
Dissociation between priming and recognition in the expression of sequential knowledge
2002
Exposure to a repeating sequence of target stimuli in a speeded localization task can support both priming of sequence-consistent responses and recognition of sequence components. Here, a task is introduced in which measures of priming and recognition are obtained concurrently, and it is demonstrated that priming of sequence-consistent responses occurs even when test stimuli are not recognized. The results show that sequence knowledge can be expressed in the absence of conscious recognition. However, we also show that this result is consistent with a simple model in which priming and recognition depend on exactly the same underlying memory strength variable.
Analogical reasoning and aging: the processing speed and inhibition hypothesis.
2014
This study was designed to investigate the effect of aging on analogical reasoning by manipulating the strength of semantic association (LowAssoc or HighAssoc) and the number of distracters' semantic analogies of the A:B::C:D type and to determine which factors might be responsible for the age-related differences on analogical reasoning by testing two different theoretical frameworks: the inhibition hypothesis and the speed mediation hypothesis. We compared young adults and two groups of aging people (old and old-old) with word analogies of the A:B::C:D format. Results indicate an age-related effect on analogical reasoning, this effect being greatest with LowAssoc analogies. It was not asso…
Bearing gods in mind and culture
2011
Abstract Where do supernatural agents come from and why do they stay around? Within the biocultural study of religion one finds a growing tendency to answer these questions by weaving together two conceptual threads, which I will refer to as anthropomorphic promiscuity and sociographic prudery. Although descriptions of these theogonic (god-bearing) mechanisms can differ significantly, the theoretical pattern can be recognized in authors from a variety of disciplines. I illustrate this pattern using four books published in 2010: David Lewis-Williams's Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion, Pascal Boyer's The Fracture of an Illusion: Science and the Dissolution of Rel…
The relationship between cortisol and cognitive function in healthy older people: The moderating role of Apolipoprotein E polymorphism.
2018
The Apolipoprotein E4 (ApoE-epsilon 4) allele has been suggested as the main risk factor for late onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), whereas the ApoE-epsilon 2 allele has been proposed as a protective factor. These proposals have increased the interest in the effect of the ApoE genotype in healthy people. Additionally, high cortisol levels have been related to negative effects on cognition. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between cognitive performance and cortisol, taking into account the different ApoE alleles. For this reason, the aim of this study was to evaluate different cognitive domains (declarative and working memory, attention, and executive function) and their…
Using tools effectively despite defective hand posture: A single-case study.
2019
Apraxia, a cognitive disorder of motor control, can severely impair transitive actions (object-related) and may lead to action errors (e.g., rubbing a hammer on a nail instead of pounding it) and hand posture errors (e.g., grasping a tool in a wrong way). Here, we report a rare observation of a left-handed patient, left-lateralized for language, who developed a severe apraxia following a right brain lesion. Interestingly the patient showed a significant number of hand posture errors, while she perfectly demonstrated the actual use of tools. This case stressed the predictions made by the current theories of tool use. According to the manipulation-based approach, the hand posture errors shoul…
Inside the Thompson laboratory during the “cerebellar years” and the continuing cerebellar story
2011
This paper is based on the talk by one of the authors (DL) given at the symposium for the retirement of RF Thompson (RF Thompson: A bridge between 20th and 21st century neuroscience). We first make some informal observations of the historical times and research conditions in the Thompson laboratory when the cerebellum was found to play a critical role in eye lid classical conditioning, the "cerebellar years". These conditions influenced our collaborative international program on the phenomenon known as "transfer of training" or "savings". Our research shows that the appearance of "savings" is an artifact of the order of testing, and depends upon the functioning of the contralateral interpos…