Order effects on the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery and allied procedures.

Four different orders of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery and the WAIS were administered to 167 adults who had a variety of suspected or confirmed neurological disorders. Of the 17 measures utilized, only tapping with the dominant hand showed evidence of being affected by the order in which the task was administered. Data suggest that a more accurate assessment of motor abilities may be obtained by presenting the tapping task early in a testing session. The differences observed on the tapping task did not result in a significant difference in the number of Ss in each order group whose Halstead Impairment Index score was in the impaired range, which indicates that the difference would be unlikely to lead to errors in clinical judgment in regard to an assessment of an overall neuropsychological status. Results indicate that order of task presentation had little effect on performance in either impaired or unimpaired clinical populations. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontal lobe functions in psychopaths.

Hypothesized that psychopaths would exhibit deficits on tasks tapping the frontal lobe functions of cognitive flexibility and perseverance. 20 male psychopaths (mean age 26.5 yrs), 23 male psychiatric controls, and 18 normal male controls (18–20 yrs old) completed the Socialization scale of the California Psychological Inventory, a behavioral checklist, and a task battery. Relative to controls, psychopaths exhibited the performance pattern of frontal lesion patients on all measures empirically related to frontal dysfunction: perseverative errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, errors on a sequential matching memory task, and Necker Cube reversals. Results encourage the pursuit of a conceptualization of psychopathy based on deficits in cognitive functions previously associated with frontal lobe. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and motor deficits in the performance of an object retrieval task with a barrier-detour in monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus) treated with MPTP: Long-term performance and effect of transparency of the barrier.

Studied 6 monkeys' performance on an object retrieval task to assess neural deficits produced by 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). The task required retrieval of a reward from a transparent box open on 1 side and fastened to a tray in the cage. Orientation of open side, position on tray, and position of banana in box were manipulated to vary difficulty. Ss treated with MPTP were compared with 5 saline-treated controls. MPTP Ss had no gross neurological deficits but did have motor and cognitive deficits during task acquisition 8–22 mo after treatment (J. R. Taylor et al, in press). Task performance was examined for 3 mo after it had been learned. MPTP Ss reached at the barrier significantly more than controls and were less successful at retrieval on 1st reach than controls. Although MPTP Ss took longer to initiate the reach and had more motor problems, MPTP Ss were as likely as controls to retrieve the reward in the end. These deficits were stable throughout testing. An opaque but otherwise identical box was used randomly on some trials. MPTP Ss decreased barrier reaches to control levels on trials with the opaque box, whereas motor problems increased. The task detected performance deficits similar to those found in Parkinson's disease. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual sampling after lesions of the superior colliculus in rats.

In 2 experiments with 20 male black-hooded rats, Ss with bilateral lesions of the superior colliculus showed significantly poorer relearning of a horizontal/vertical stripe discrimination than control Ss. In Exp I, all Ss showed disruption of performance when a stimulus–response (S–R) separation was introduced by raising the stimuli above the site of responding. However, colliculectomized Ss were much more disturbed by the S–R separation than were control Ss. In Exp II, all Ss showed lower performance levels when conflicting patterns were introduced into the upper portion of the stimulus doors, but this time Ss with collicular lesions were less disturbed than controls. It is suggested (a) that when the stimulus and response sites are discontinuous, rats must make an appropriate orienting response to effectively sample the visual stimuli and (b) that lesions of the superior colliculus alter performance by interfering with this orienting behavior. The impairment in relearning is attributed to the absence of preoperative overtraining on the discrimination task. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Simulation training of psychomotor skills: Teaching the brain-injured to drive.

13 brain-injured individuals (average age 24.2 yrs) completed a set of 7 exercises simulating specific cognitive and behavioral aspects of motor vehicle operation, using an electric-powered vehicle, to test whether training would generalize to a complex functional task (i.e., automobile driving). Training exercises involved visuomotor tracking, divided attention, successive increases in difficulty level, performance feedback, and social reinforcement. Ss were compared with 11 closed-head-injured controls of the same average age, who received experience with the electric vehicle but no training exercises, and with 11 normal high-school students, who had driver's licenses and were trained in some of the exercises (e.g., divided attention). Training consisted of 8 2-hr sessions; at the conclusion of training, experimental and control Ss were evaluated in an on-the-road automobile test. Results indicate that experimental Ss showed improvements on the specific exercises, and training resulted in improved performance on tests of on-the-road driving when compared with closed-head-injured controls, who did not show improvement in their driving performance. Results suggest a significant therapeutic effect of the specific training exercises. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consistency of intermanual discrepancies in normal and unilateral brain lesion patients.

Examined the distribution of intermanual discrepancies on 3 motor tests (grooved pegboard, finger tapping, and dynamometer) among 331 normal controls, 63 patients with right brain damage (RBD), and 40 patients with left brain damage (LBD). All Ss were right-handed. Considerable variability in the intermanual discrepancies was observed in all 3 samples. About 25% of the normal sample obtained scores more than 1 standard deviation from the control mean on a single measure. RBD tended to accentuate the pattern of intermanual discrepancies observed with controls, while LBD moved the discrepancy in the opposite direction. Results confirm the difficulties related to clinical judgments of deficits in preferred-hand motor performance and suggest the need to examine patterns of performance across several motor tests. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relative task difficulty and transfer of training in skilled performance.

Summarized and analyzed critically are recent studies dealing directly or indirectly with the influence of the relative difficulty of initial and final tasks on transfer of training in skilled performance. Methods used to vary task difficulty are discussed under stimulus variations, response variations, and variations in control-display linkage. Task difficulty is examined in terms of the isolation and control of task variables, of task difficulty and performance standards, and of the U (shaped curve) hypothesis. 23 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dividing attention between the hands and the head: Performance trade-offs between rapid finger tapping and verbal memory.

Tested a multiple resources approach to time-sharing performance which assumes that each cerebral hemisphere controls its own set of processing resources that it cannot share with the other hemisphere. Right-handed men performed a verbal memory task while concurrently tapping the index finger of either hand as rapidly as possible. Task priority was manipulated with a payoff scheme. Ss remembered more on the verbal task when concurrently tapping with their left hands than when tapping with their right hands, and their memory performance was much better when the memory task was emphasized than when the tapping task was emphasized, regardless of hand. For the tapping task, decrements from baseline tapping rates and trade-offs between tasks were equal for both hands when Ss were reading the to-be-remembered words aloud. In contrast, during the retention interval, decrements were larger for the right hand than the left, and there were no task trade-offs. On right-hand trials, both tasks required exclusively left-hemisphere resources, whereas on left-hand trials, right-hemisphere resources were required to execute the tapping movements per se, but left-hemisphere resources were necessary to coordinate those movements with the movements required for overt speech. The data underscore the importance of manipulating task priority to obtain an accurate picture of a task's resource requirements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motor disruption in the production of time intervals with finger taps.

Two experiments with 19 adults examined the variance associated with the motor component in a time production task involving a series of finger taps. Use of the segmentation strategy described by S. Grondin (1992) allowed the isolation of a part of the variance associated with the motor component in such a tapping task. Replacing a finger tap by an internal indicator reduced the coefficient of variation by about .5% per sec. Results show that the choice of subintervals, when an interval is segmented during a timing task, is a major source of variance. The segmentation strategy provides a general framework for analyzing the part of the variability provoked by each of 2 components (the clock and the motor system) involved in a time interval production task. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance of subgroups of left-handers and right-handers.

Examined whether observed differences between subgroups of left-handers (LHs) were restricted to the occasional motor task and whether segregation between consistent LHs (CLHs) and inconsistent LHs (ILHs) based on performance patterns would be possible. 118 CLHs and ILHs and 57 right-handed (RHs) undergraduates completed hand and foot preference questionnaires and a battery of performance tests (e.g., tapping). With few exceptions (e.g., strength), CLHs and ILHs showed similar performance. Neither CLHs nor ILHs appeared to suffer from inferior nonpreferred hand performance relative to the other group. Overall, LHs performed at least as well as RHs and better in some instances. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associations of postural knowledge and basic motor skill with dyspraxia in autism: Implication for abnormalities in distributed connectivity and motor learning.

Children with autism often have difficulty performing skilled movements. Praxis performance requires basic motor skill, knowledge of representations of the movement (mediated by parietal regions), and transcoding of these representations into movement plans (mediated by premotor circuits). The goals of this study were (a) to determine whether dyspraxia in autism is associated with impaired representational (“postural”) knowledge and (b) to examine the contributions of postural knowledge and basic motor skill to dyspraxia in autism. Thirty-seven children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 50 typically developing (TD) children, ages 8–13, completed (a) an examination of basic motor skills, (b) a postural knowledge test assessing praxis discrimination, and (c) a praxis examination. Children with ASD showed worse basic motor skill and postural knowledge than did controls. The ASD group continued to show significantly poorer praxis than did controls after accounting for age, IQ, basic motor skill, and postural knowledge. Dyspraxia in autism appears to be associated with impaired formation of spatial representations, as well as transcoding and execution. Distributed abnormality across parietal, premotor, and motor circuitry, as well as anomalous connectivity, may be implicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal processing in the basal ganglia.

This study investigated the role of the basal ganglia in timing operations. Nondemented, medicated Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and controls were tested on 2 motor-timing tasks (paced finger tapping at a 300- or 600-ms target interval), 2 time perception tasks (duration perception wherein the interval between the standard tone pair was 300 or 600 ms), and 2 tasks that controlled for the auditory processing (frequency perception) demands of the time perception task and the movement rate (rapid tapping) in the motor-timing task. Using A. M. Wing and A. B. Kristofferson's (1973) model, the total variability in motor timing was partitioned into a clock component, which reflects central timekeeping operations, and a motor delay component, which estimates random variability due to response implementation processes. The PD group was impaired at both target intervals of the time perception and motor-timing tasks. Impaired motor timing was due to elevated clock but not motor delay variability. The findings implicate the basal ganglia and its thalamocortical connections in timing operations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquired equivalence and distinctiveness in matching to sample by pigeons: Mediation by reinforcer-specific expectancies.

Assessed the ability of a reinforcer to mediate an association between 2 stimuli that independently predict the occurrence of that reinforcer (acquired equivalence of cues). In Exp I, 12 male White Carneaux pigeons were trained on shape (plus and circle) and color (red and green) matching-to-sample tasks. Correct responses were systematically reinforced with corn on some trials and wheat on others to establish associations between 1 stimulus from each task and a "common" outcome. Following training, Ss were transferred to a symbolic matching-to-sample task wherein a stimulus from one training task was presented as the sample, and the stimuli from the other training task were presented as comparisons. In the 1st session, experimental Ss made significantly more correct responses than controls (i.e., Ss "matched" stimuli previously associated with a common outcome). Exp II with 18 Ss replicated this acquired equivalence effect and controlled for food preference. Delayed matching-to-sample training demonstrated enhanced memory performance for Ss exposed to different reinforcement contingencies, but this effect was confined to the shape task. Results indicate that a reinforcer can serve as the basis for organizing otherwise unpaired predictive cues in memory and that animals will selectively use differential expectancies as cues for solving complex discrimination tasks, depending on the difficulty of the discrimination. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of estrogen on nonverbal processing speed and motor function in girls with Turner's syndrome

The Turner syndrome (TS) phenotype is characterized by a specific neurocognitive profile of normal verbal skills, impaired visual-spatial and/or visual-perceptual abilities, and difficulty with motor function. In the current study, we investigated motor function and nonverbal processing speed in estrogen- and placebo-treated girls (aged 10-12 years) with TS and in age-matched female controls. The goal of this study was to examine whether estrogen replacement therapy would reverse deficits in motor function and in nonverbal processing speed, a measure of the time required to perform certain disparate nonverbal tasks, in adolescent girls with TS. Children received either estrogen (ethinyl estradiol, 12.5-50 ng/kg.day), or placebo for durations of 1-7 yr (mean, 4.0 +/- 2.1 yr) in this randomized, double blind study. Cognitive and motor tasks administered included the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised; nonspatial, repetitive motor tasks (tapping and three tasks from the Paness); and spatially mediated motor tasks [nongrooved pegboard (Lafayette), pursuit rotor, visual-motor integration, and money street map]. Questionnaires administered included the Self-Concept Scale. The major result of this study was the positive estrogen treatment effect on nonverbal processing speed and speeded motor performance in 12-yr-old TS girls. That motor performance would be slower in estrogen-deficient TS females is consistent with previous studies of the influence of estrogen on motor function. Estrogen replacement is thus the most likely explanation for the improved motor speed and nonverbal processing time in the estrogen-treated TS girls compared to that in the placebo-treated TS girls. Whether these findings will influence the psychoeducational outcome or quality of life of females with TS is not yet known.     

Maintenance of grip-induced muscle tension: A behavioral marker of schizophrenia.

A grip-induced muscle tension maintenance task distinguished between schizophrenic patients, regardless of medication or hospitalization status, and both normals and controls with affective (unipolar and bipolar) disorders. Unaffected 1st-degree relatives of schizophrenic patients also showed a grip deficit. Coupling the grip task with a visual discrimination task that divided attention through instruction or reinforcement contingency increased grip error times for all groups. No group differences appeared on the discrimination task, regardless of difficulty level, and the tone used to provide corrective feedback was not implicated in the grip deficit. The results suggest that the grip task is tapping, in a systematic and reliable manner, a motor-control abnormality that may be useful as a behavioral marker of schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feedback analysis of learning and performance in steering and tracking behavior.

Tested the assumption that steering and tracking behavior are interrelated in terms of the extent of self-produced stimulation involved in the 2 tasks. Steering was defined as involving maximal, and stimulus tracking as involving minimal levels of movement-regulated sensory information. 3 tasks steering, as governed by breath-produced target movement, stimulus tracking, and a hand-yoked target control task were compared under conditions in which the difficulty of the steering and stimulus tracking tasks were exactly equated. Results show that steering performance was more accurate and learned more rapidly than stimulus tracking. Oscillograph records of all aspects of performance indicate that the 2 tasks differed psychophysiologically in terms of how the self-timed respiratory activities and the external manual-visual responses were continuously and dynamically interrelated to control visual input. Results suggest that the modes and conditions of feedback control of dynamic sensory input not only determine accuracy of performance and rate of learning, but also define how internally-timed organic functions are integrated to determine learning in motor skills and other activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related differences in concurrent-task performance of normal adults: Evidence for a decline in processing resources.

A concurrent-task paradigm was used to investigate age-related differences in the attentional capacity of 92 right-handed adults. Young, middle-aged, and elderly Ss were compared as they performed speeded, unimanual finger tapping with and without concurrent silent reading, speaking, and maze completion. There were 2 levels of difficulty for each cognitive task. The decrement in tapping rate from the single- to dual-task condition increased linearly with age. Concurrent-task tapping was slowed more by difficult than by easy tasks, and difficult tasks had a disproportionately disruptive effect on the concurrent performance of elderly Ss. The heightened vulnerability of the elderly to concurrent-task effects cannot be attributed parsimoniously to either general slowing or diminution of a specific resource. Instead, the results suggest a reduction in a general-purpose processing resource with increasing age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compatibility of motion facilitates visuomotor synchronization.

Prior research indicates that synchronized tapping performance is very poor with flashing visual stimuli compared with auditory stimuli. Three finger-tapping experiments compared flashing visual metronomes with visual metronomes containing a spatial component, either compatible, incompatible, or orthogonal to the tapping action. In Experiment 1, synchronization success rates increased dramatically for spatiotemporal sequences of both geometric and biological forms over flashing sequences. In Experiment 2, synchronization performance was best when target sequences and movements were directionally compatible (i.e., simultaneously down), followed by orthogonal stimuli, and was poorest for incompatible moving stimuli and flashing stimuli. In Experiment 3, synchronization performance was best with auditory sequences, followed by compatible moving stimuli, and was worst for flashing and fading stimuli. Results indicate that visuomotor synchronization improves dramatically with compatible spatial information. However, an auditory advantage in sensorimotor synchronization persists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Timing and aging: Slowing of fastest regular tapping rate with preserved timing error detection and correction.

This study assessed motor limits of regular tapping, timing error detection, and correction in 60 participants aged from 19 to 98 years. Rate limitations on motor production were estimated from the average inter-tap interval when tapping as fast as possible for 30 s. Timing error detection required participants to judge whether a sound sequence presented at a slow, intermediate, or fast speed contained an irregularity because of phase shift. This was performed with or without synchronizing to the sounds. On the basis of the just-detectable positive phase shift (JND), participants synchronized with sequences containing phase shifts that were subliminal, just detectable or supraliminal. On average, JNDs were 9% of the inter-onset interval and by and large were not affected by synchronization tapping. Speed of error correction was estimated from the number of tones to return within 20% of the preshift synchronization error. Consistent with previous findings of motor slowing with aging, the fastest inter-tap interval increased with age. However, there was no age-related decline in JNDs or speed of error correction, both of which reflect predictive abilities for intervals within the motor repertoire of human adults. These results point towards intact timing error processing up to an advanced age. In assessing timing abilities in the brain of older adults, it is important to differentiate between motor slowing and its impact on rhythmic behavior (e.g., walking pace) from anticipatory mechanisms ('what to expect when') and how these are used to adjust the timing of actions ('what to do when'). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive self-presentation: Beyond self-handicapping.

An experiment was conducted to examine the notion that depressives' responses would reflect a protective self-presentation style (M. G. Hill et al, 1986), the underlying goal of which would be the avoidance of future performance demands and potential losses in self-esteem. In this study, depressed and nondepressed Ss were asked to perform a relatively simple visual–motor task. Half of the depressed and half of the nondepressed Ss were told that if they were successful at the task, they would be asked to perform a 2nd similar task. The remaining Ss were given no such expectation of future performance. We predicted and found that depressed compared with nondepressed Ss strategically failed at the task when presented with the possibility of future performance and further losses in esteem. Moreover, this strategic failure was associated with some costs; depressed, future performance expectancy Ss experienced more discomfort or negative affect as a result of their performance. The relationship between this depressive self-presentation and self-handicapping strategies is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)