Phonological working memory in very young children.

This study was designed to establish whether phonological working memory skills could be assessed in children below 4 yrs of age. A group of 2- and 3-yr-old children were tested on 3 phonological memory measures (digit span, nonword repetition, and word repetition) and were also given tasks that tapped other cognitive skills. Scores on the 3 phonological memory tasks were closely related. In addition, repetition performance was linked with both vocabulary knowledge and articulation rate. Results indicate that phonological memory skills can be reliably assessed in very young children by using conventional serial span and repetition procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral and electrographic measures of attention in children at risk for schizophrenia.

A previous study by H. Grunebaum et al (see record 1975-00816-001) found that 5-yr-old children of schizophrenic mothers were impaired on visual attention tasks as compared with controls. No difference was observed in 6-yr-olds, however. This study reexamined the attentive behavior of 12 of these children 3 yrs later. In addition, evoked potentials to various visual stimuli were obtained. Group differences could no longer be found in visual attentive behavior; however, the risk group had evoked potentials of significantly higher amplitude and, under certain conditions, of longer latency than the controls. These findings suggest a maturational lag in visual stimulus processing in these children at risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Causes Attention Deficits in Male Rats.

Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) are often diagnosed with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These children show increases in reaction time (RT) variability and false alarms on choice reaction time (CRT) tasks. In this study, adult rats prenatally exposed to ethanol were trained to perform a CRT task. An analysis of the distribution of RTs obtained from the CRT task found that rats with a history of prenatal ethanol exposure had more variable RT distributions, possibly because of lapses of attention. In addition, it was found that, similar to children with FASD, the ethanol-exposed rats had more false alarms. Thus, rats with prenatal ethanol exposure show attention deficits that are similar to those of children with FASD and ADHD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial Working Memory Deficits in Children at Ages 3-4 Who Were Low Birth Weight, Preterm Infants.

The aim of this study was to investigate attention and perceptual and spatial working memory abilities in preterm, low birth weight preschool children without evident brain disorders as determined by normal cerebral ultrasound findings and normal motor development. The authors evaluated 19 preterm and 19 typically developing children who were matched for IQ and chronological age. Results indicated that children born prematurely without major neurological deficits and with a normal cognitive level may have specific difficulty in sustained attention, visuospatial processing, and spatial working memory when evaluated at ages 3-4. This finding is relevant for understanding the qualitative aspects of cognitive development in preterm children and the neurobiological substrate underlying this development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enduring Effects of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure on Selective Attention and Reactivity to Errors: Evidence From an Animal Model.

Adult Long-Evans rats, exposed prenatally to 1 of 4 doses of cocaine (0.0,0.5,1.0, or 3.0 mg/kg iv), were tested on a 3-choice visual attention task with an olfactory distractor presented unpredictably on one third of the trials. The performance of all 3 cocaine-exposed groups was significantly more disrupted than that of controls by the presentation of distractors. Results demonstrate that prenatal cocaine exposure increases susceptibility to distractors, using a task specifically designed to measure this function. In addition, the present study revealed that individuals exposed to cocaine in utero exhibit greater performance disruption after an error than controls, in certain types of tasks. Both areas of dysfunction, impaired selective attention and impaired arousal regulation, have important functional consequences in humans, possibly affecting the school performance and social development of cocaine-exposed children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dialogue of touch: Developmental play therapy.

Presents the theoretical basis of Developmental Play Therapy (DPT) and its particular usefulness with neglected, abused, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children. Two case studies are described of a 4-yr-old male who was seen as part of a group of severely unmanageable children in a school setting, and a 4-yr-old female in individual treatment for behavior problems. The cases are presented to illustrate how the dialogue of touch in DPT affected behavior in these 2 cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention, learning, and memory performances and intellectual resources in Vietnam veterans: PTSD and no disorder comparisons.

Attention, learning, memory, and estimated intellectual potential were examined in 26 Vietnam veterans diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and in 21 Vietnam veterans without mental disorders. Results revealed PTSD-associated cognitive deficits on tasks of sustained attention, working memory, initial learning, and estimated premorbid intelligence but not on measures of focus of attention, shift of attention, or memory savings. Cognitive task performances adjusted for estimated native intelligence remained negatively correlated with PTSD severity. An intellectual measure adjusted for cognitive task performances was negatively correlated with PTSD severity, even after the authors statistically controlled the level of combat exposure. Results suggested that although intellectual resources may constitute a vulnerability-protective factor for PTSD development, PTSD was associated with cognitive impairment independent of intellectual functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes in normal and hyperactive children and their response to amphetamine treatment.

14 normal (mean age 10.1 yrs) and 15 hyperactive (mean age 9.4 yrs) children were compared on cognitive tasks following placebo or amphetamine administration (.5 mg/kg) in a double-blind crossover study. A no-treatment control group of normal children who were matched with the hyperactive Ss on age, IQ, and socioeconomic status were also tested on the cognitive measures. In the undrugged state, normals remembered more information under free-recall retrieval conditions than did hyperactives; cued recall did not differentiate between the 2 groups. Both normals and hyperactives demonstrated similar, amphetamine-related increases in the recall of semantically and acoustically processed words. This enhancement of cognition occurred along with improvements in attention but was independent of such attentional changes. The pattern of amphetamine-induced changes in cognition is generally similar in normal and hyperactive children. Differences in response to amphetamine that do appear involve components of cognition that distinguish these children in the undrugged state (e.g., semantic processing, organization in recall, and free retrieval of information). (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cumulative effects of induced affective states in children: Accentuation, inoculation, and remediation.

Little is known about the specific and potentially interactive impact of successive affect-inducing experiences. In the present study, 144 4- and 5-yr-old preschool children experienced 2 standard experimental affect inductions in succession, and the effects were assessed on self-gratification, altruism, cognitive processing, and expressed affect. The states induced were happy, sad, or neutral, and the repeated inductions were either consistent or inconsistent. The findings are as follows: (a) Only the 1st of the 2 affect inductions had an effect on self-gratification or altruism, with sad states increasing self-gratification and decreasing altruism. There was no indication that a 2nd affect-inducing experience could remediate the behavioral consequences of a prior one. (b) Generative cognitive processing was increased by both the ongoing affective state and the affective content of the material to be generated. Positive affect states or content increased the speed of processing. (c) Ss' memory for the thoughts they had produced was influenced also by affective state, with sad states increasing the latency for recall. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pain assessment in children with cognitive impairment. An exploration of self-report skills

Prior to surgery, 47 children (ages 8 to 17) with borderline to profound cognitive impairment were administered tasks to evaluate their understanding of the concepts of magnitude and ordinal position and their abilities to use a 0 to 5 numerical scale to rate pain levels in schematic faces. Of the 111 children (ages 4 to 14) without cognitive impairment, were administered the same tasks. Nurses conducting preoperative evaluations predicted whether children would understand the numerical scale. Fifty percent (n = 3) of children with borderline and 35% (n = 7) of children with mild cognitive impairment (and all children 8 years and older nonimpaired) correctly used the scale. Half of the children with cognitive impairment demonstrated skills (magnitude and ordinal position) that may allow them to use simpler pain rating methods. Nurses overestimated the abilities of cognitively impaired children (and younger children without cognitive impairment) to use the rating scale.     

A longitudinal investigation of information processing and cognitive organization in clinical depression: Stability of schematic interconnectedness.

This study longitudinally investigated information processing and cognitive organization in clinical depression. The main hypothesis was that individuals whose depression had remitted would show a significant cognitive shift on information processing (e.g., deactivation of negative processing) but not on cognitive organizational tasks. Forty-five individuals with clinical depression completed 2 information processing and 2 cognitive organizational tasks at initial assessment. At 6-month follow-up, the sample (23 remitted, 22 stable depressed) was readministered the tasks. As expected, information processing shifted significantly in individuals who had improved symptomatically, whereas negative cognitive organizational indices remained stable. The implications of these results are discussed as they pertain to the cognitive vulnerability, maintenance, treatment, and recurrence of depression. Directions for future research are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adjustment of adult–child instruction according to child's age and task.

32 mothers taught their 6- or 8-yr-old children 1 of 2 laboratory classification tasks resembling a home or school activity. It was expected that dyads would compensate for the perceived difficulty of the school task for the younger children by providing greater assistance to this group than to the other 3 groups. The instructional interaction was coded in terms of amount of directives, open-ended questions, and nonverbal instruction provided by the mother; involvement of the child; and reviewing for the learning test. Following the instruction, children were tested on learning of the organization of items. MANOVA showed that the younger children in the school task did receive more instruction than those in the 3 other groups. This modification of instruction was accompanied by slightly better performance on the learning task by the younger children in the school task than by children in the other 3 groups. Results illustrate the interactional nature of instruction and learning, by which assistance with cognitive tasks is tailored to the perceived needs of the children in the particular problem context. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of attention on infants' preference for briefly exposed visual stimuli in the paired-comparison recognition-memory paradigm.

This study examined the effect of attention on 3- to 6-mo-olds' responses to briefly exposed visual stimuli. In Study 1, stimuli presented at 2.5 or 5.0 s resulted in a familiarity preference in a subsequent paired-comparison procedure. A novelty preference was found with 10.0- or 20.0-s exposure durations. In Study 2, a Sesame Street movie elicited heart-rate-defined attention phases and stimuli replaced Sesame Street during sustained attention, attention termination, or 5.0 s following attention termination. For 20 and 26-wk-olds, stimuli presented for 5.0 s during sustained attention resulted in a novelty preference similar to that found when exposure time was 20.0 s. The duration of stimulus exposure during sustained attention in the familiarization phase was positively correlated with the preference for the novel stimulus in the paired-comparison procedure. Thus, processing of briefly presented visual stimuli differs depending on the type of attention in which the infant is currently engaged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Problem-solving strategies in reflective and impulsive children.

87 reflective and 86 impulsive 7-, 9-, and 11-yr-old children (determined by Matching Familiar Figures Test scores) were given a series of 5 problem-solving tasks in which they were required to determine the correct solution from a number of equiprobable solutions by gathering information that eliminated incorrect alternatives. Results indicate that the relative impact of cognitive style on problem solving varied with developmental level and the type of problem that was solved. Cognitive style had the greatest impact on the performance and strategy behavior of 7- and 11-yr-olds. No significant differences were found between reflective and impulsive 9-yr-olds on any measure. Nevertheless, when cognitive style was a significant contributor to performance, reflective children processed task information more efficiently than impulsive children and used more systematic and/or developmentally mature strategies. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional effects of lesions to the anterior cingulate cortex: How prior reinforcement influences distractibility.

Morphological changes in the anterior cingulate cortex are found in subjects with schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and obsessive–compulsive disorder. These changes are hypothesized to underlie the impairments these individuals show on tasks that require cognitive control. The anterior cingulate cortex has previously been shown to be active in situations involving high conflict, presentation of salient, distracting stimuli, and error processing, that is, situations that occur when a shift in attention or responding is required. However, there is some uncertainty as to what specific role the anterior cingulate cortex plays in these situations. The current study used converging evidence from two behavioral paradigms to determine the effects of excitotoxic lesions in the anterior cingulate cortex on executive control. The first assay tests reversal learning, attentional set formation and shifting. The second assesses sustained attention with and without distractors. Animals with anterior cingulate cortex lesions were impaired during reinforcement reversals, discriminations that required subjects to disregard previously relevant stimulus attributes and showed a more rapid decline in attentional ability than Sham-Lesioned subjects when maintaining sustained attention for extended periods of time. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the anterior cingulate cortex is involved in attending to stimulus attributes that currently predict reinforcement in the presence of previously relevant, salient distractors and maintaining sustained attention over prolonged time on task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using cognitive science methods to assess the role of social information processing in sexually coercive behavior.

74 undergraduate men completed cognitive performance tasks assessing perceptual organization, classification, and category learning, as well as self-report measures relevant to sexual coercion. The stimuli were slides of Caucasian women who varied along affect and physical exposure (i.e., sensuality) dimensions. Data were analyzed using a weighted multidimensional scaling model, signal-detection theory analyses, and a connectionist learning model (RASHNL; J. K. Kruschke and M. K. Johansen, 1999). Individual differences in performance on the classification and category-learning tasks were congruent with individual differences in perceptual organization. Additionally, participants who showed relatively more attention to exposure than to affect were less sensitive to women's negative responses to unwanted sexual advances. Overall, the study demonstrates the feasibility and utility of cognitive science methods for studying information processing in psychopathology, (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in hemispheric specialization for tactual processing in very young children: Evidence from cross-modal transfer.

Examined whether young children show any evidence of right hemispheric specialization for tactual processing. 72 1-, 2-, and 3-yr-old right-handed children were each administered 6 cross-modal tasks in which they palpated a shape with either their left or right hand for 25 sec and then viewed the familiar and a novel shape in a 10-sec test of visual recognition. Although Ss of all 3 ages showed significantly more visual fixation to novel shapes, regardless of which hand had been used for palpation, scores were enhanced among 2- and 3-yr-olds following palpation with the left as compared with the right hand. This left-hand (right hemisphere) superiority was not evident in 1-yr-olds. These results are the first to demonstrate a left-hand superiority for information processing in children as young as 2 yrs and to suggest that this adultlike pattern is developed by at least the 2nd year of life. Left-hand superiority may be due to asymmetries in tactual sensitivity, motor control, and/or information processing. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness.

A framework for relating degree of bilingualism to aspects of linguistic awareness is presented in which metalinguistic tasks are described in terms of their demands for analysis of knowledge or control of processing. Two studies are reported in which children differing in their level of bilingualism were given metalinguistic problems to solve that made demands on either analysis or control. The hypotheses were that all bilingual children would perform better than monolingual children on all metalinguistic tasks requiring high levels of control of processing and that fully bilingual children would perform better than partially bilingual children on tasks requiring high levels of analysis of knowledge. The results were largely consistent with these predictions. The findings are discussed in terms of the implications of bilingualism for cognitive and linguistic development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive Functioning, Memory, and Learning in Phenylketonuria.

The executive deficit hypothesis of treated phenylketonuria (PKU) suggests that dopaminergic depletion in the lateral prefrontal cortex leads to selective executive impairment. This was examined by comparing adults with PKU on a lifelong diet with a matched healthy control group. Those with PKU were impaired on selective and sustained attention, working memory (Self-Ordered Pointing), and letter fluency. However, they failed to show differential sensitivity to increased cognitive load on the attentional and working memory tasks, and they did not differ significantly on the remaining executive tasks (rule finding, inhibition, and multitasking). Nor did they differ significantly on recall or recognition memory. Overall, the findings provided little support for the executive deficit hypothesis. A possible explanation in terms of slowed information processing speed is explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of experimentally imposed noise on task performance of Black children attending day care centers near elevated subway trains.

Investigated whether an experimentally imposed 80 db (A) noise differentially affected the psychomotor, serial memory words and pictures, incidental memory, visual recall, paired associates, perceptual learning, and coding performance of 109 predominantly Black, low socioeconomic status (SES) 5-yr-old children attending daycare centers near and far from elevated subways. Ss were administered psychomotor tasks at the beginning and end of a noisy or quiet play condition and cognitive and perceptual tasks during a noisy or quiet test condition. Factorial analyses revealed that only psychomotor performance was significantly impaired by the 80 db (A) noise. A significant interaction between daycare center environmental noise level and test was found on the coding task, with Ss from relatively noisy daycare centers performing best under noisy test conditions and their counterparts under quiet conditions. Findings suggest that noise does not have a universal effect on children's performance, but the effects vary as a function of the nature of the task and previous exposure to noise. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)