Search results for "Psychomotor"
showing 10 items of 481 documents
Working memory and everyday cognition in adults with Down's syndrome.
2001
A number of previous studies have suggested that young people with Down's syndrome (DS) have a specific deficit of the phonological loop component of the working memory. However, there have also been studies which have proposed a specific deficit of the central executive component of working memory and suggested similarities of working memory functioning with patients with Alzheimer's disease. Fifteen middle-aged people with DS were matched for their individual scores of non-verbal intelligence to 15 individuals with mixed aetiology of intellectual disability. A versatile range of tasks was used in order to evaluate the functioning of working memory components. In addition, several everyday…
Effects of a three-month active rehabilitation program on psychomotor performance of lower limbs in subjects with low back pain: a controlled study w…
1998
Proper psychomotor performance is needed in work and in activities of daily living, but among subjects with low back pain this area has been studied Little. The present purpose was to evaluate the effect and permanence of a 3-mo. physical exercise program on the psychomotor performance of lower limbs in subjects with low back pain. The associations between psychomotor performance and intensity of low back pain and subjective disability were also evaluated. 90 subjects with nonspecific, subacute low back pain were assigned to one of the three groups: one given three months intensive training, one home exercise, or the control group. Four measurement sessions were made during the 1-yr. study…
Don't stop me now: Hampered retrieval of action plans following interruptions
2020
How can we retrieve action plans in working memory (WM) after being distracted or interrupted? The present EEG study investigated this question using a WM task in which a random sequence of single numbers (1-4 and 6-9) was presented. In a given trial, participants had to decide whether the number presented in the preceding trial was odd or even. Additionally, interfering stimuli were randomly presented in 25% of all trials, requiring the participants to either ignore a colored number (distraction) or respond to it (interruption) while maintaining the previously formed action plan in WM. Our results revealed a detrimental impact of interruptions on WM performance in trials after interrupting…
From spatial acoustic changes to attentive behavioral responses within 200 ms in humans
1999
Human event-related potentials (ERPs) and electro-oculograms (EOGs) were recorded in 14 subjects presented with spatially deviant tones in a series of standard tones. In separate sessions, they were instructed to read a book, to count the deviant tones, and to respond to the deviant tones by shifting the eyes towards them from the standard tone source. When reading a book, the mismatch negativity (MMN) of ERP, reflecting pre-attentive detection of acoustic changes, was elicited to the deviant tones at approximately 105-180 ms. No deviance related EOGs were observed in the reading or counting conditions. When the subjects responded behaviorally to the deviant tones, EOGs revealed that the ey…
Effect of body composition on the neuromuscular function of Finnish conscripts during an 8-week basic training period.
2008
The dropout rate in the Finnish military service has increased during the past two decades. At the same time, the physical fitness level of young Finnish males has decreased, possibly leading to overtraining in new conscripts. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether body composition would influence neuromuscular function during the 8-week basic training (BT) period. Eighteen healthy male subjects (19 +/- 1 years) were divided into three different groups according to their body fat %. Group 1 (10%), group 2 (10-13%) and group 3 (13%). The soleus H-reflex response was measured in the standing position. In the seated position (knee 160 degrees and hip 110 degrees), the V-wave r…
Age dependent changes of distractibility and reorienting of attention revisited: an event-related potential study.
2012
Adults of three age groups (18-27, 39-45, and 59-66 years) performed an auditory duration discrimination task with short (200 ms) or long (400 ms) sinusoidal tones. Performance was highly accurate and reaction times were on the same level in all groups, indicating no differences in auditory duration processing. Task irrelevant rare changes of the frequency of the stimuli were introduced to check whether the subjects, firstly, were distracted by changes in the environment while focusing on the task relevant information (indicated by prolonged responses), and, secondly, could re-focus on the relevant task after distraction. The results show that a distraction effect is present in all groups. …
Decline in motor prediction in elderly subjects: right versus left arm differences in mentally simulated motor actions.
2008
This study investigates the effects of age upon the temporal features of executed and imagined movements performed with the dominant (D; right) and nondominant (ND; left) arms. Thirty right-handed subjects were divided into two groups: (i) the young group (n=15; mean age: 22.5+/-2.5 years) and (ii) the elderly group (n=15; mean age: 70.2+/-2.2 years). The motor task, involving arm pointing movements among four pairs of targets (.5cm, 1cm, 1.5cm and 2cm), imposed strong spatiotemporal constraints. During overt performance, young and elderly subjects modulated movement duration according to the size of targets, despite the fact that movement speed decreased with age as well as in the left arm…
Mentally represented motor actions in normal aging: III. Electromyographic features of imagined arm movements.
2009
Abstract Motor imagery is a cognitive process during which subjects mentally simulate movements without actually performing them. Here, we investigated the temporal and electromyographic (EMG) features of imagined arm movements in healthy elderly adults. Twelve young (mean age: 24.0 ± 1.3 years) and 12 elderly (mean age: 67.0 ± 4.5 years) participants executed and mentally simulated, with their right and left arms and as fast and as accurately as possible, arm pointing movements between three targets located in the frontal plane. We used the mental chronometry paradigm as an indicator of the accuracy of the motor imagery process (i.e. isochrony between executed and imagined movements) and t…
Effect of caffeine on simulator flight performance in sleep-deprived military pilot students.
2007
Caffeine has been suggested to act as a countermeasure against fatigue in military operations. In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, the effect of caffeine on simulator flight performance was examined in 13 military pilots during 37 hours of sleep deprivation. Each subject performed a flight mission in simulator four times. The subjects received either a placebo (six subjects) or 200 mg of caffeine (seven subjects) 1 hour before the simulated flights. A moderate 200 mg intake of caffeine was associated with higher axillary temperatures, but it did not affect subjectively assessed sleepiness. Flight performance was similar in both groups during the four rounds flown und…
Broad disruption of brain white matter microstructure and relationship with neuropsychological performance in male patients with severe alcohol depen…
2012
Aims In the last years, refined magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) methods have become available to study microstructural alterations in the human brain. We investigated to what extent white matter tissue abnormalities are present in male patients after chronic, excessive alcohol consumption and if these alterations are correlated with measures of alcohol consumption and neuropsychological performance. Methods Twenty-four detoxified adult male patients with severe alcohol dependence and 23 healthy male control subjects were included in the study. Neuropsychological tests were assessed for executive function, attention, memory and visuospatial function. DTI was acquired and pr…