The effects of age on objective and subjective recollection after visiting a virtual apartment.

While aging has been associated with decreased retrieval of episodic memory details, subjective ratings about memory quality seem to remain stable. This suggests that subjective memory judgments are based on different information according to age. Here, we tested the hypothesis that older people would rather base their subjective judgments on the retrieval of personal elements (such as emotions and thoughts), whereas younger people would rather base their judgments on the retrieval of event-related elements (such as time, place, and perceptual details).

Dysexecutive disorders and their diagnosis: A position paper.

Although executive function disorders are among the most prevalent cognitive impairments a consensus on diagnostic criteria has yet to be reached. With a view to harmonizing these criteria, the present position paper (i) focuses on the main dysexecutive disorders, (ii) examines recent approaches in both the behavioral and cognitive domains, (iii) defines diagnostic boundaries for frontal syndrome, (iv) reports on the frequency and profile of the executive function disorders observed in the main brain diseases, and (v) proposes an operationalization of diagnostic criteria. Future work must define the executive processes involved in human adaptive behavior, characterize their impairment in brain diseases, and improve the management of these conditions (including remediation strategies and rehabilitation).

Detecting over-reporting of symptoms: the French version of the self-report symptom inventory.

Objective: Symptom exaggeration and malingering are core issues in forensic and clinical evaluation. Generally, experts use two main types of instruments to assess the credibility of symptoms: performance validity tests that aim to detect underperformance and self-report validity tests that appraise over-reporting of symptoms. However, while many tools can be used to assess underperformance, far fewer instruments are available to evaluate over-reporting of symptoms.

A closer look at children's metacognitive skills: The case of the distinctiveness heuristic.

The primary aim of this study was to document the developmental course of distinctiveness effects throughout childhood. Specifically, we examined whether the reduction in false recognition rates that is traditionally observed in children after distinctive encoding could be explained not only by enhanced discrimination between studied and new items but also by the implementation of a conservative response criterion resulting from the use of metacognitive expectations about the quality of memories (i.e.

Impact of Diagnosis Threat on Neuropsychological Assessment of People with Acquired Brain Injury: Evidence of Mediation by Negative Emotions.

Objective: Some studies have shown that diagnosis threat (DT) could negatively impact the cognitive performance of undergraduate students who had sustained a mild traumatic brain injury. This study was designed to examine DT in people with acquired brain injury (ABI). As a second goal, we investigated the effect of stereotype lift as a way to overcome DT's harmful impact.

Influence of diagnosis threat and illness cognitions on the cognitive performance of people with acquired brain injury.

Illness cognitions - cognitive representations of illness - have been found to influence health outcomes in chronic diseases: more adaptive illness cognitions generally lead to better outcomes. Concomitantly, diagnosis threat (DT) is a phenomenon whereby participants with acquired brain injury (ABI) underperform on neuropsychological tasks due to stereotype activation. This randomised study examined the impact of illness cognitions and DT on cognitive performance.

Overdiagnosis of ADHD in boys: Stereotype impact on neuropsychological assessment.

There is vigorous debate regarding the possibility that ADHD is overdiagnosed in boys. We investigated the impact of the gender stereotype depicting boys as inattentive and impulsive on neuropsychological assessment (observation of psychology students and child's cognitive performance). In experiment 1, after the stereotype was activated, psychology students rated a "boy," a "girl," or a "child" on a behavioral assessment scale.

Diagnosis threat and underperformance: The threat must be relevant and implicit.

Introduction: The diagnosis threat (DT) phenomenon shows that, in some cases, reminding people with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) about their past neurological history diminishes subsequent cognitive performance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of personal relevance (i.e.

Distributed Training Enhances Implicit Sequence Acquisition in Children With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose: This study explored the effects of 2 different training structures on the implicit acquisition of a sequence in a serial reaction time (SRT) task in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI).

Method: All of the children underwent 3 training sessions, followed by a retention session 2 weeks after the last session. In the massed-training condition, the 3 training sessions were in immediate succession on 1 day, whereas in the distributed-training condition, the 3 training sessions were spread over a 1-week period in an expanding schedule format.

The Role of Self-Transcendence and Cognitive Processes in the Response Expectancy Effect.

Neuropsychological assessment is known to be influenced by expectancy effects, which can either enhance (placebo) or diminish (nocebo) cognitive performance. Research suggests that the response expectancy effect is influenced by various individual and situational factors and that the placebo effect results in an increase in monitoring processes as measured indirectly. However, the impact on monitoring processes has not yet been studied by direct measures such as Judgement Of Learning (JOL).

[Formula: see text]The effect of stereotype threat on older people's clinical cognitive outcomes: investigating the moderating role of dementia worry.

Objective: Numerous studies have shown that stereotype threat (ST) reduces older people's cognitive performance, but few have studied its impact on clinical cognitive outcomes. Our study was designed to further examine the impact of ST on the clinical assessment of older subjects' cognitive functioning, as well as the moderating role of fear of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) (or 'dementia worry').

Method: Seventy-two neurologically normal (MMSE > 26) participants aged between 59 and 70 completed a set of neuropsychological tasks in either an ST or a positive condition (condition in which negative stereotypes were invalidated).

Stereotype contrast effect on neuropsychological assessment of contact-sport players: The moderating role of locus of control.

Introduction: Diagnosis threat has been shown to produce detrimental effects on neuropsychological performance in individuals with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Focusing on contact-sport players who are at great risk of mTBI, our study was designed to examine the moderating role of internal locus of control. Specifically, we predicted that following diagnosis threat (reminder of their risk of sustaining mTBI and of its consequences), low-internal contact-sport players would underperform (assimilation to the stereotype), while their high-internal counterparts would outperform (contrast effect).

Memory consolidation in children with specific language impairment: Delayed gains and susceptibility to interference in implicit sequence learning.

In this study, the time course of the procedural learning of a visuomotor sequence skill was followed over a 24-hour and a 1-week time period in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Two aspects of memory consolidation in implicit sequence learning were examined: the evolution of post-training gains in sequence knowledge (Experiment 1) and the susceptibility to interference (Experiment 2). In the first experiment, 18 children with SLI and 17 control children matched for sex, age, and nonverbal intelligence completed a serial reaction-time (SRT) task and were tested 24 hours and 1 week after practicing.

Implicit learning: A way to improve visual search in spatial neglect?

Studies have shown that neglect patients are able to use stimulus regularities to orient faster toward the neglected side, without necessarily being aware of that information, or at the very least without being able to verbalize their knowledge. In order to better control for the involvement of explicit processes, the present study sought to test neglect patients' ability to detect more complex associations between stimuli using tasks similar to those used in implicit learning studies. Our results demonstrate that neglect patients had difficulties implicitly learning complex associations, contrary to what we found with controls.

Studying self-awareness in children: validation of the Questionnaire of Executive Functioning (QEF).

Objective: People with accurate representations of their own cognitive functioning (i.e. cognitive self-awareness) tend to use appropriate strategies to regulate their behavior.

Mirror-drawing skill in children with specific language impairment: Improving generalization by incorporating variability into the practice session.

This study aimed to investigate the procedural deficit hypothesis (PDH) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) by using a mirror-drawing task, a sensorimotor adaptation paradigm that does not involve sequence learning and has never before been used in SLI. A total of 30 school-aged children with SLI matched to 30 typically developing (TD) control children had to trace several figures seen only in mirror-reversed view in two practice sessions separated by a one-week interval. Two practice conditions were compared: a constant condition in which children had to trace the same figure throughout the learning trials, and a variable one in which they had to trace different figures in each trial.

Implicit Spoken Words and Motor Sequences Learning Are Impaired in Children with Specific Language Impairment.

Objectives: This study aims to compare verbal and motor implicit sequence learning abilities in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI).

Methods: Forty-eight children (24 control and 24 SLI) were administered the Serial Search Task (SST), which enables the simultaneous assessment of implicit spoken words and visuomotor sequences learning.

Results: Results showed that control children implicitly learned both the spoken words as well as the motor sequences.

Shedding new light on representational neglect: The importance of dissociating visual and spatial components.

Over the last decade, many studies have demonstrated that visuospatial working memory (VSWM) can be divided into two subsystems, dealing respectively with spatial and visual information. A similar dissociation has been observed in brain-damaged patients without neglect for mental imagery skills. The first aim of the present study was to examine whether performance dissociations between spatial and visual mental imagery can be observed in unilateral neglect.

Memorability in Context: A Heuristic Story.

We examined children's ability to employ a metacognitive heuristic based on memorability expectations to reduce false recognitions, and explored whether these expectations depend on the context in which the items are presented. Specifically, 4-, 6-, and 9-year-old children were presented with high-, medium-, and low-memorability words, either mixed together (Experiment 1) or separated into two different lists (Experiment 2). Results revealed that only children with a higher level of executive functioning (9-year-olds) used the memorability-based heuristic when all types of items were presented within the same list.

Later learning stages in procedural memory are impaired in children with Specific Language Impairment.

Background: According to the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH), difficulties in the procedural memory system may contribute to the language difficulties encountered by children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Most studies investigating the PDH have used the sequence learning paradigm; however these studies have principally focused on initial sequence learning in a single practice session.

Aims: The present study sought to extend these investigations by assessing the consolidation stage and longer-term retention of implicit sequence-specific knowledge in 42 children with or without SLI.

Executive Functions Deficits After Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: The GREFEX Study.

Objective: To assess the sensitivity of traditional neuropsychological tests and of a behavioral inventory of executive disorders in a large sample of patients with chronic severe traumatic brain injury.

Methods: A total of 112 patients were compared with 780 healthy controls from a larger database. The GREFEX battery included 7 widely used tests and the Behavioral Dysexecutive Syndrome Inventory (proxy rating).

Less is more: The availability heuristic in early childhood.

This study examined whether young children are influenced by the subjective experience associated with an easy or difficult recall when making memory decisions. Seventy-one children, aged 4, 6, and 8 years, were asked to generate either a small (easy condition) or large (hard condition) number of first names. Statistical analyses revealed that participants in the hard condition were more likely to infer that they did not know many names than participants in the easy condition, contrary to what would be expected if children based their memory judgement on the objective number of recalled items.

Metamemory following childhood brain injury: A consequence of executive impairment.

In this study, we investigated the influence of children's level of executive functioning on two types of metamemory knowledge following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). For this purpose, 22 children (aged 7 to 14 years) who had sustained a moderate to severe TBI and 44 typically developing children were recruited. The children with TBI were divided into two groups according to the severity of their executive impairment.

Time's up! Involvement of metamemory knowledge, executive functions, and time monitoring in children's prospective memory performance.

This study examined time-based prospective memory (PM) in children and explored the possible involvement of metamemory knowledge and executive functions in the use of an appropriate time-monitoring strategy depending on the ongoing task's difficulty. Specifically, a sample of 72 typically developing children aged 4, 6, and 9 years old were given an original PM paradigm composed of both an ongoing procedural activity and a PM task. Half of the participants (expert group) were trained in the ongoing activity before the prospective test.

Are children conservative, liberal, or metacognitive? Preliminary evidence for the involvement of the distinctiveness heuristic in decision making.

The experiment tested whether young children are able to reduce their false recognition rate after distinctive encoding by implementing a strategic metacognitive rule. The participants, 72 children aged 4, 6, and 9 years, studied two lists of unrelated items. One of these lists was visually displayed (picture condition), whereas the other was presented auditorily (word condition).