Cognitive versus emotional modulation within a Stroop paradigm in patients with schizophrenia.

Background: Schizophrenia is a complex disorder involving deficits in both cognitive and emotional processes. Specifically, a marked deficit in cognitive control has been found, which seems to increase when dealing with emotional information.

Aims: With the aim of exploring the possible common links behind cognitive and emotional deficits, two versions of the emotional Stroop task were administered.

Bayesian reasoning with emotional material in patients with schizophrenia.

Delusions are one of the most classical symptoms described in schizophrenia. However, despite delusions are often emotionally charged, they have been investigated using tasks involving non-affective material, such as the Beads task. In this study we compared 30 patients with schizophrenia experiencing delusions with 32 matched controls in their pattern of responses to two versions of the Beads task within a Bayesian framework.

Emotional Processing Profile in Patients with First Episode Schizophrenia: The Influence of Neurocognition.

This study sought to investigate the influence of neurocognition on the emotional processing profiles of patients with first-episode schizophrenia, using the 4-branch Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) (Perceiving Emotions; Facilitating Emotions; Understanding Emotions and Managing Emotions). A sample of 78 patients with first-episode schizophrenia and a group of 90 non-psychiatric control subjects were included in this work. The initial results showed that patients had lower scores than controls for the "Understanding Emotions" and "Managing Emotions" MSCEIT branches.

Semantic Negative Priming From an Ignored Single-Prime Depends Critically on Prime-Mask Inter-Stimulus Interval and Working Memory Capacity.

The aim of this study is to examine the link between working memory capacity and the ability to exert cognitive control. Here, participants with either high or low working memory capacity (WMC) performed a semantic negative priming (NP) task as a measure of cognitive control. They were required to ignore a single prime word followed by a pattern mask appearing immediately or after a delay.

Evidences for better recall of congruent items in episodic memory.

A focus of recent research is to understand the role of our own response goals in the selection of information that will be encoded in episodic memory. For example, if we respond to a target in the presence of distractors, an important aspect under study is whether the distractor and the target share a common response (congruent) or not (incongruent). Some studies have found that congruent objects tend to be grouped together and stored in episodic memory, whereas other studies found that targets in the presence of incongruent distractors are remembered better.

Does the implicit outcomes expectancies shape learning and memory processes?

Does the explicit or implicit knowledge about the consequences of our choices shape learning and memory processes? This seems to be the case according to previous studies demonstrating improvements in learning and retention of symbolic relations and in visuospatial recognition memory when each correct choice is reinforced with its own unique and explicit outcome (the differential outcomes procedure, DOP). In the present study, we aim to extend these findings by exploring the impact of the DOP under conditions of non-conscious processing. To test for this, both the outcomes (Experiment 1A) and the sample stimuli (Experiment 1B) were presented under subliminal (non-conscious) and supraliminal conditions in a delayed visual recognition memory task.

The implementation of expectancy-based strategic processes is delayed in normal aging.

The present research examined if the time needed to implement expectancy-based strategic processes is different in younger and healthy older adults. In four experiments participants from both age groups performed different strategic priming tasks. These included a greater proportion of incongruent (or unrelated; 80%) than of congruent (or related; 20%) trials.

The Effects of Martial Arts Training on Attentional Networks in Typical Adults.

There is substantial evidence that training in Martial Arts is associated with improvements in cognitive function in children; but little has been studied in healthy adults. Here, we studied the impact of extensive training in Martial Arts on cognitive control in adults. To do so, we used the Attention Network Test (ANT) to test two different groups of participants: with at least 2 years of Martial Arts experience, and with no experience with the sport.

Facilitation of Fast Backward Priming After Left Cerebellar Continuous Theta-Burst Stimulation.

Traditional theories of backward priming account only for the priming effects found at long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). Here, we suggest that the presence of backward priming at short SOAs may be related to the integrative role of the cerebellum. Previous research has shown that the right cerebellum is involved in forward associative priming.

An action to an object does not improve its episodic encoding but removes distraction.

There is some debate as to whether responding to objects in our environment improves episodic memory or does not impact it. Some authors claim that actively encoding objects improves their representation in episodic memory. Conversely, episodic memory has also been shown to improve in passive conditions, suggesting that the action itself could interfere with the encoding process.

Unconscious congruency priming from unpracticed words is modulated by prime-target semantic relatedness.

Participants performed a 2-choice categorization task on visible word targets that were preceded by novel (unpracticed) prime words. The prime words were presented for 33 ms and followed either immediately (Experiments 1-3) or after a variable delay (Experiments 1 and 4) by a pattern mask. Both subjective and objective measures of prime visibility were used in all experiments.

Response preparation in Parkinson's disease: automatic vs. controlled processing.

Using a finger cuing paradigm, we investigated response preparation in Parkinson's disease (PD). The central question was whether PD individuals are differentially affected by preparatory cues that specify a more automatic response set configuration (that induces within-hand preparation) as opposed to a more controlled one (that induces between-hands preparation). Reaction times (RTs) and error rates were measured in 20 non-demented individuals with PD and 20 healthy control participants with a long and short preparation interval (500 ms and 2000 ms).

Training with differential outcomes enhances discriminative learning and visuospatial recognition memory in children born prematurely.

Previous studies have demonstrated that discriminative learning is facilitated when a particular outcome is associated with each relation to be learned. When this training procedure is applied (the differential outcome procedure; DOP), learning is faster and more accurate than when the more common non-differential outcome procedure is used. This enhancement of accuracy and acquisition has been called the differential outcome effect (DOE).

Unmixing the mixing cost: contributions from dimensional relevance and stimulus-response suppression.

When participants repeat the same task in a context in which the task may also switch (a mixed block), performance deteriorates compared to when there is only one task repeating (a pure block). Three experiments were designed to assess how perceptual and motor transitions influenced this mixing cost. Experiment 1 provided three pure block baselines for perceptual and motor transitions.

The impact of verbal instructions on goal-directed behaviour.

It is common to use verbal instructions when performing complex tasks. To evaluate how such instructions contribute to cognitive control, mixing costs (as a measure of sustained concentration on task) were evaluated in two task-switching experiments combining the list and alternating runs paradigms. Participants responded to bivalent stimuli according to a characteristic explicitly defined by a visually presented instructional cue.

Evidence of reduced selective attention in schizotypal personality disorder.

It has been shown that high-schizotypy and schizophrenic participants demonstrate increased task-switching costs, although high-schizotypy participants present this pattern only in incongruent trials (Cimino & Haywood, 2008). In this study, we aim to explore whether this results from difficulties in selective attention or task control. A total of 18 participants with high levels of psychometrically defined schizotypy and 16 participants with low scores were tested in two different versions of a task-switching paradigm.

The role of response repetition in task switching.

When switching between tasks, participants are sometimes required to use different response sets for each task. Thus, task switch and response set switch are confounded. In 5 experiments, the authors examined transitions of response within a linear 4-finger arrangement.

Enhancing challenged students' recognition of mathematical relations through differential outcomes training.

Previous studies have reported that the differential outcomes procedure enhances learning and memory in special populations with cognitive deficits (see Goeters, Blakely, & Poling, 1992, for a review). In the present study we extend these findings to healthy adults who were asked to discriminate between the symbols " > " and " < " in mathematical statements. In Experiment 1, the performance of participants who showed difficulties in discriminating between these symbols was better (shorter response times) for the differential outcomes condition than for the nondifferential outcomes condition.

N400, the reference electrode, and the semantic activation in prime-task experiments: a reply to Dombrowski and Heil (2006).

In two recent papers, Heil et al. [Heil, M., Rolke, B.

Dissociating object- and response-based components of negative priming through effects of practice.

The negative priming (NP) effect is the slowing of responses to an imperative stimulus (probe) that has recently been ignored (prime). Prevailing accounts of the phenomenon attribute it to a variety of causes, all centered on a representation of the stimulus event itself. However, we argue that the most commonly used NP paradigms confound stimulus- and response-based factors.

Automatic and controlled semantic processing: a masked prime-task effect.

A classical definition of automaticity establishes that automatic processing occurs without attention or consciousness, and cannot be controlled. Previous studies have demonstrated that semantic priming can be reduced if attention is directed to a low-level of analysis. This finding suggests that semantic processing is not automatic since it can be controlled.

ERP analyses of task effects on semantic processing from words.

Semantic (positive) priming refers to the facilitated processing of a probe word when preceded by a related prime word, and is a widely used technique for investigating semantic activation. However, the effect is interrupted or eliminated when attention is directed to low-level features of the prime word, such as its letters, a result which has been used to question the automaticity of semantic processing. We investigated this issue using both behavioural [reaction time (RT)] and electrophysiological measures [event-related potentials (ERPs)].

Lack of inhibition in Parkinson's disease: evidence from a lexical decision task.

Persons affected by Parkinson's disease (PD) often show an increased semantic priming effect from target words in lexical decision tasks (hyper-priming) as compared to age-matched controls. In this study, a lexical decision task was used to investigate both semantic priming (Experiment 1) and repetition priming (Experiment 2) from distractor words in PD patients and age-matched controls. With this negative priming procedure, target words in successive trials are never related, and therefore participants always have to switch between unrelated target words.

Stroop interference effects in partially colored Stroop words.

In the Stroop task word reading is thought to be automatic since it runs without intentional monitoring and is difficult to avoid. This view has recently been challenged by observations that Stroop interference is reduced when only part of the Stroop word is colored. In this study we asked whether the extent of Stroop interference varies with the position of the colored letter(s).

Negative priming from the non-selected meaning of the homograph.

In this article we address the question of whether semantic ambiguity resolution involves the central inhibition of the non-selected meaning of a homograph. Most previous studies on this topic have either not clearly required semantic selection, or have induced this disambiguation by manipulating the context. These studies have not observed clear inhibitory effects on the non-selected meaning of the type studied in negative priming.