Search

Visual-spatial skills have been a fertile ground for assessing aspects of intelligence and investigating its components. The initial goal of this bipartite study was to elucidate the nature of the underlying components of visual-spatial processes and the relations among them. The second goal was examination of a higher, overarching factor, underlying spatial ability but also lexical-semantic performance as well. In Study 1, three components model is examined, hypothesized to form the foundation for visual-spatial processing. In Study 2, we utilized the findings from Study 1 and performed a structural model analysis with the aim of examining the hypothesis of a second-order factor, underlying both visual-spatial and lexical-semantic processes. These studies were motivated by the notion that underlying such visual-spatial and lexical-semantic skills is a factor we termed mental manipulation, which is domain-general that cuts across species.One hundred and thirty-three participants completed 9 tasks, representing visual-spatial and lexical-semantic abilities. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the resulting data was utilized to model the results and compare the fitness of one-, two- and three-factor models. After establishing the measurement model, a second-order structural model analysis was performed to assess the existence of an overarching factor, common to both verbal and visual domains. The results of the analyses confirm the existence of a second-order factor, which we regard as reflecting mental manipulation. The implication of such mental manipulation is discussed in terms of practical applications for diagnosis, intervention, and education, highlighting its potential to improve outcomes.

Objective: The current paper tries to illuminate the need for standard cutoff points. Introduction: rumination is considered to be a transdiagnostic process leading to a variety of consequences. But, what is prominent ruminative tendency? Are there agreed-upon specifications or cutoff points that distinguish between high and low tendency to ruminate? In an attempt to answer these questions, we reviewed 25 works that compared people characterized as high or low in rumination. We found numerous inconsistencies in the characterization criteria and a great variability in cutoff points. Most studies did not provide enough information about the cutoff criteria or values. Method: We examined a sample of 454 participants using the RRS (Ruminative Response Scale), from which we tried to identify standard cutoff points. Results showed: 1) distributions of RRS, brooding and reflective pondering; 2) most studies used median split, which might explain the differences among studies; 3) examination of standard scores for the various cutoffs presented big variability among the studies; and 4) women had higher scores of rumination and brooding than men. Conclusion: Our paper highlights the need for homogeneity in the field. It suggests addressing the RRS, brooding and reflective pondering distributions as references for future studies. We recommend specifying: cutoff criteria, cutoff values, range, means and standard deviations. Researchers should consider the specific population (i.e., men vs. women or clinical vs. non clinical) of interest and infer specific cutoff points accordingly. Importantly, researchers should consider the implications of their choice of cutoff points and apply their criterion accordingly.

In the present study, we conducted a Stroop-like task in which the participants were required to decide whether the presented stimulus, which could be either a colored digit or a colored rectangle, consisted of more or less than five colors. Like other Stroop-like tasks, the stimuli could be congruent (the stimulus was a digit that was equal to the presented number of colors), incongruent (the stimulus was a digit that was different than the presented number of colors), or neutral (a colored rectangle). We utilized a two-to-one response setting so that in some incongruent trials the digit and the number of colors would elicit the same response (e.g., the digit 3 containing two colors; both are smaller than 5), while in some incongruent trials, the digit and the number of colors would elicit different responses (e.g., the digit 3 containing 6 colors). This enabled us to measure both conflicts arising from stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response compatibilities. Our results indicated the existence of stimulus-stimulus compatibility (SSC), stimulus-response compatibility (SRC), and task conflict. Interestingly, these effects were in interaction with the number of colors, so that in small numbers, SSC and SRC were found, and in large numbers, SRC and task conflict were found. Moreover, the results suggest that our task includes two types of task conflict that are raised due to three different tasks: processing the meaning of the digit vs. estimating the number of colors and counting the number of colors vs. estimating the number of colors.

Behavioral differences in speed and accuracy between reading familiar and unfamiliar words are well-established in the empirical literature. However, these standard measures of skill proficiency are limited in their ability to capture the moment-to-moment processing involved in visual word recognition. In the present study, the effect of word familiarity was initially investigated using an eye blink rate among adults and children. The probability of eye blinking was higher for familiar (real) words than for unfamiliar (pseudo)words. This counterintuitive pattern of results suggests that the processing of unfamiliar (pseudo)words is more demanding and perhaps less rewarding than the processing of familiar (real) words, as previously observed in both behavioral and pupillometry data. Our findings suggest that the measurement of eye blinks might shed new light on the cognitive processes involved in visual word recognition and other domains of human cognition.

Background: Recent studies have focused on stimuli characteristics that influence emotion regulation choice. A consistent finding concerns the relation between emotional intensity and the choice between reappraisal and distraction. Moreover, reappraisal affordances were found to influence emotion regulation choice. However, none of the studies assessed the impact of discrete emotions. The current study constitutes a preliminary investigation of the influence of specific emotions evoked by a stimulus, above and beyond emotional intensity and reappraisal affordances. Methods: We used the emotion regulation choice task designed by Sheppes et al., (2011) with two changes: (1) we used pictures from the Categorized Affective Pictures Database (CAP-D; Moyal et al., 2018); (2) we had three blocks in the task. Results: We replicated the results regarding the influence of emotional intensity. Reappraisal affordances had no influence on emotion regulation choice. Importantly, we found that distinct emotions result in differential proportions of reappraisal choice, even when controlling for emotional intensity. Specifically, when the emotion evoked by stimuli was fear or sadness, participants preferred reappraisal in low intensity and distraction in high intensity conditions. When the emotion evoked was disgust, participants chose to use more distraction regardless of emotional intensity. Limitation: We had a small number of pictures. To overcome this, we used three repeating blocks. We also had a relatively small sample with only a few males. Hence, these preliminary findings should be interpreted with caution. Conclusion: Results might suggest that different emotions are associated with different motivation to use reappraisal, regardless of other stimuli characteristics.

Previously we found perspective taking (PT) influenced affect ratings of negative pictures more than neutral pictures. The current follow-up experiments extend that research to explore effects of perspective taking with positive valence pictures. We used stimuli consisting of neutral, happy and sad pictures. Stimuli were presented either mixed within blocks (Experiment 1) or separated by emotion (neutrals + happy/sad) into two separate blocks (Experiment 2). Participants rated (from 1‐ to 7 based on emotional strength) stimuli from different perspectives (sensitive/tough/their own, i.e., “me”). Emotional strength rating was a dependent variable. A significant interaction between valence and PT was found in both experiments. The difference between adopting sensitive and tough perspectives toward sadness was larger than toward the neutral condition, replicating our results from the previous study. The same difference (sensitive-tough) was larger toward the happiness condition than toward the neutral one (this was a trend in Experiment 1 and was significant in Experiment 2) and toward the sadness condition than toward the happy one. These results suggest that PT effects on emotional ratings are modulated by valence of stimuli.

Deficient inhibitory control and difficulty resolving uncertainty are central in psychopathology. How these factors interact remains unclear. Initial evidence suggests that inducing inhibitory control improves resolution of uncertainty. This may occur only when participants overcome action tendencies, which are dominant tendencies to perform certain behaviors. Our study explored the links between inhibitory control and behavioral responses to uncertainty while manipulating action-tendencies’ strength. In three experiments, 132 undergraduates completed a task that combined induction of momentary changes in inhibitory control level (Stroop task), with responses to uncertainty (visual-search task). We manipulated action-tendencies’ strength by varying uncertainty proportions across experiments. Results indicated that momentary induction of inhibitory control improved resolution of high-uncertainty during mostly low-uncertainty trials but hampered resolution of low-uncertainty during mostly high-uncertainty trials. Identical inhibitory control induction did not affect resolution of uncertainty when uncertainty conditions were equalized. Participants’ subjective uncertainty measures were similar across experiments. Our results suggest that momentary inhibitory control induction modifies behavioral responses to uncertainty and selectively affects trials that require overcoming dominant action tendencies. These findings indicate a potentially unique and multifaceted relationship between inhibitory control and behavioral responses to uncertainty. Clinical implications for models of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and experimental implications to post-conflict processes are discussed.

Math fluency is the ability to solve arithmetic facts quickly and accurately (i.e., addition and subtraction problems up to 20, and multiplication and division problems from the multiplication table). Curricula in primary school devote a significant period of time for learning and retrieval of arithmetic facts. Recently, a new computerized tool to assess math fluency—the BGU-MF (Ben-Gurion University Math Fluency) test—was developed and found to be a reliable and valid tool for adults. In the current study, we examine the performance of first to sixth-grade children in math fluency using the BGU-MF. The results present the performance of MF during childhood and emphasize that it continues to develop during primary school. Importantly, proficiency of MF differed by operations, and the automaticity of math facts was acquired in different grades. Moreover, we found that the BGU-MF is a reliable and valid tool not only for adults but also for children during primary school. Our study has educational implications for the teaching, practice, and retrieval of arithmetic facts.

The current study examined whether discrete numerical estimation is based on the same cognitive process as estimation of continuous magnitudes such as weight and time. While the verbal estimation of numerical quantities has a contingent unit of measurement (e.g., how many cookies fit in a cookie jar? _X_ cookies), estimation of time and weight does not (e.g., how much time does it take to fill a bath with water? _X_ minutes/hours/seconds). Therefore, estimation of the latter categories has another level of difficulty, requiring extensive involvement of cognitive control. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan, 18 students performed estimations with three estimation categories: number, time, and weight. Estimations elicited activity in multiple brain regions, mainly: (1) visual regions including bilateral lingual gyrus), (2) parietal regions including the left angular gyrus and right supramarginal gyrus, and (3) the frontal regions (cingulate gyrus and the inferior frontal cortex). Continuous magnitude estimations (mostly time) produced different frontal activity than discrete numerical estimations did, demonstrating different profiles of brain activations between discrete numerical estimations and estimations of continuous magnitudes. The activity level in the right middle and inferior frontal gyrus correlated with the tendency to give extreme responses, signifying the importance of the right prefrontal lobe in estimations.

Enumeration, the ability to report an amount of elements, differs as a function of range. Subitizing (quantities 1–4) is an accurate and quick process with reaction times (RTs) minimally affected by the number of presented elements within its range. In the counting range (range of 5–9 elements), RTs increase linearly. Subitizing was considered to be a pre-attentive process for many years. However, recently we found that subitizing could be facilitated by improving engagement of attention. Specifically, brief alerting cues increase attentional engagement and reduced RTs in the subitizing range. Moreover, previous studies found that students with developmental dyscalculia (DD) have a smaller than normal subitizing range (3 vs. 4) and their alerting attentional system is impaired. In the current study, we explored whether an alerting cue would increase the subitizing range of adults suffering from DD from 3 to 4. For controls, alerting increased accuracy rates and facilitated enumeration of quantities only in the subitizing range. Participants with DD presented a larger alerting effect; an alerting cue enhanced their RTs in all ranges, but did not increase their smaller than normal subitizing range or accuracy. Our results suggest that both domain-general and domain-specific abilities contribute to the mechanism of enumeration and related to developmental dyscalculia.

Previous research on the neural basis of cognitive control processes has mainly focused on cortical areas, while the role of subcortical structures in cognitive control is less clear. Models of basal ganglia function as well as clinical studies in neurodegenerative diseases suggest that the striatum (putamen and caudate nucleus) modulates the inhibition of interfering responses and thereby contributes to an important aspect of cognitive control, namely response interference control. To further investigate the putative role of the striatum in the control of response interference, 23 patients with stroke-induced lesions of the striatum and 32 age-matched neurologically healthy controls performed a unimanual version of the Simon task. In the Simon task, the correspondence between stimulus location and response location is manipulated so that control over response interference can be inferred from the reaction time costs in incongruent trials. Results showed that stroke patients responded overall slower and more erroneous than controls. The difference in response times (RTs) between incongruent and congruent trials (known as the Simon effect) was smaller in the ipsilesional/-lateral hemifield, but did not differ significantly between groups. However, in contrast to controls, stroke patients exhibited an abnormally stable Simon effect across the reaction time distribution indicating a reduced efficiency of the inhibition process. Thus, in stroke patients unilateral lesions of the striatum did not significantly impair the general ability to control response interference, but led to less efficient selective inhibition of interfering responses.

Emotional picture databases are commonly used in emotion research. The databases were first based on ratings of emotional dimensions, and the interest in studying discrete emotions led to the categorization of subsets from these databases to emotional categories. However, to-date, studies that categorized affective pictures used confidence intervals in their analysis, a method that provides important data but also results in a high percentage of blended or undifferentiated categorization of images. The current study used 526 affective pictures from four databases and categorized the pictures to discrete emotions in two steps (Pre-testing phase & Experiment 1). First, clinical psychologists were asked to generate emotional labels for each picture, according to the emotion the picture evoked in them. This resulted in the creation of 10 emotional categories. These labels were presented to students who were asked to choose the emotional category that matched the emotion a presented picture evoked in them. Agreement levels on the emotional categories were calculated for each picture, and pictures were categorized according to the most dominant emotion they evoked. The analysis of agreement levels rather than confidence intervals enabled us to provide both dominance of emotional category and agreement in the population regarding the dominance. In Experiment 2, we asked participants to provide ratings of emotional intensity and arousal, in order to provide more detailed information regarding the database. This is the first study to provide agreement levels on the categorization of affective pictures, and may be useful in various studies which aim at generating specific emotions.

A large body of evidence shows that when comparing non-symbolic numerosities, performance is influenced by irrelevant continuous magnitudes, such as total surface area, density, etc. In the current work, we ask whether the weights given to numerosity and continuous magnitudes are modulated by top-down and bottom-up factors. With that aim in mind, we asked adult participants to compare two groups of dots. To manipulate task demands, participants reported after every trial either (1) how accurate their response was (emphasizing accuracy) or (2) how fast their response was (emphasizing speed). To manipulate bottom-up factors, the stimuli were presented for 50 ms, 100 ms or 200 ms. Our results revealed (a) that the weights given to numerosity and continuous magnitude ratios were affected by the interaction of top-down and bottom-up manipulations and (b) that under some conditions, using numerosity ratio can reduce efficiency. Accordingly, we suggest that processing magnitudes is not rigid and static but a flexible and adaptive process that allows us to deal with the ever-changing demands of the environment. We also argue that there is not just one answer to the question ‘what do we process when we process magnitudes?’, and future studies should take this flexibility under consideration.

Environmental cues can influence basic perceptual and attentional processes especially in an emotional context. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the effect of a non-emotional common environmental cue-a traffic light-on a higher cognitive operation-inhibition. In two experiments, we administered a novel version of the stop-signal task, in which the go task was to determine the color of a traffic light. In order to investigate the influence of each of the cues on inhibitory processes, separate tracking procedures (one for each cue) were applied simultaneously to the stop-signal delay. In Experiment 1, we found that reaction time in no-stop-signal trials was faster when a green traffic light was present, whereas stop-signal reaction time was longer when a red traffic light was present. In Experiment 2, neutral control cues were used in addition to a red and green light. The results indicate that the differences between red and green stem from an association between the color red and stop processes (rather than from the green-go association). These results strengthen previous findings showing the effect of environmental cues on attentional processes and go beyond them by showing that the effect is not restricted to emotional cues. Most importantly, the current study results suggest that environmental cues can also influence complex cognitive operations such as inhibitory control. These results might have specific implications for our understanding of the processes that underlie specific psychiatric disorders characterized by inhibitory deficit.

We describe Jane Dow (JD), a young right-handed female with acalculia following a cerebral infarction in the left intraparietal sulcus. We investigated automatic processing of different types of magnitudes that were presented visually or through imagery. We employed the size congruity task and the mental clock task that differ in stimuli presentation and in working memory load. In the size congruity task, for physical comparisons, JD presented a lack of facilitation effect, suggesting a deficit in the automatic processing of numerical values. In the mental clock task, JD performed as accurate as controls did but much slower. In both tasks, JD presented a steeper distance effect compared to controls, suggesting a deficit in a domain-general comparison process. Our findings present an atypical pattern of magnitude processing following a left parietal lesion that appears not only for visually presented stimuli but also for imagery-based magnitudes. These finding support recent theories suggesting different types of magnitudes are interconnected with each other.

Numerical value is long known to be associated with a variety of magnitude representations, such as size, time and space. The present study focused on the interactive relations of numerical magnitude with a spatial factor which is dominant in everyday vision and is often overlooked, namely, egocentric distance, or depth. We hypothesized that digits denoting large magnitudes are associated with large perceived distances, and vice versa. While the relations of numerical value and size have been long documented, effects of egocentric distance on numeral perception have been scarcely investigated, presumably due to the difficulty to disentangle size and depth factors within three-dimensional visual displays. The current study aimed to assess the potential linkage between egocentric distance and number magnitude, while neutralizing any perceived and/or physical size parameters of target digits. In Experiment 1, participants conducted a numeral size-classification task ('bigger or smaller than 5'), to which they responded with a near-to-body or a far-from-body key. Results revealed shorter responses for small than for large numbers when responded with a key positioned close to the body, and for large than small numbers when responded with a key positioned far from the body (regardless of hand-key mapping). Experiment 2 used verbal stimuli denoting near/remote concepts as irrelevant primes to target digits, further demonstrating a priming effect of conceived distance on numerical value processing. Collectively, our results suggest that distance magnitudes are associatively linked to numerical magnitudes and may affect digit processing independently of the effects of visual size.

The Simon effect shows that choice reactions are faster if the location of the stimulus and the response correspond, even when stimulus location is task-irrelevant. The Simon effect raises the question of what factors influence spatial coding. Until now, the effects of handedness, responding hand, and visual field were addressed in separate studies that used bimanual and unimanual tasks, providing inconclusive results. Here we aimed to close this empirical gap by looking at the effects of these variables in the same study. We used a unimanual version of a Simon task with four groups of participants: left-handed and right-handed, responding with the dominant or nondominant hand. Our results show that the Simon effect is substantially reduced in the field of the responding hand for all groups of participants, except for left-handed individuals responding with the left-hand. These findings highlight the importance of attention mechanisms in stimulus-response coding. They reflect that stimulus-response interference is influenced by hierarchical activation of response units. At a practical level, these findings call for a number of methodological considerations (e.g., handedness, responding hand, and visual field) when using stimulus-response conflict to address spatial coding and cognitive control functions in neurological populations.

We examined whether social priming of cognitive states affects the inhibitory process in elderly adults, as aging is related to deficits in inhibitory control. Forty-eight elderly adults and 45 young adults were assigned to three groups and performed a cognitive control task (Simon task), which was followed by 3 different manipulations of social priming (i.e., thinking about an 82 year-old person): 1) negative--characterized by poor cognitive abilities, 2) neutral--characterized by acts irrelevant to cognitive abilities, and 3) positive--excellent cognitive abilities. After the manipulation, the Simon task was performed again. Results showed improvement in cognitive control effects in seniors after the positive manipulation, indicated by a significant decrease in the magnitude of the Simon and interference effects, but not after the neutral and negative manipulations. Furthermore, a healthy pattern of sequential effect (Gratton) that was absent before the manipulation in all 3 groups appeared after the positive manipulation. Namely, the Simon effect was only present after congruent but not after incongruent trials for the positive manipulation group. No influence of manipulations was found in young adults. These meaningful results were replicated in a second experiment and suggest a decrease in conflict interference resulting from positive cognitive state priming. Our study provides evidence that an implicit social concept of a positive cognitive condition in old age can affect the control process of the elderly and improve cognitive abilities.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has yielded evidence for enhanced semantic priming in formal thought-disordered schizophrenia patients, a result that fits well with the hypothesis of disinhibited processes of spreading activation in this population. OBJECTIVE: The current study examined whether hyper priming among schizophrenia patients is an outcome of further spreading of activation of a node or a result of farther activation of nodes in the semantic network. We also try to shed light on the fate of this activation. METHODS: The present study tested this hypothesis by using semantic and identical priming in two different experiments. SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony) was manipulated (240 ms vs. 740 ms) within block. It is assumed that among healthy individuals, performance relies on a balance between activation and inhibition processes, contrary to in schizophrenic individuals. In order to examine this hypothesis, we compared formal thought-disordered schizophrenia patients, non thought-disordered schizophrenia patients, and healthy controls. RESULTS: For thought-disordered schizophrenia patients, we found a large positive semantic effect and identical priming effect (129 ms and 154 ms, respectively) only with short SOA. SOA and type of priming did not modulate priming effects in the control groups. CONCLUSIONS: This result supports the claim that there is a lack of inhibitory processes among thought-disordered patients. Hyper priming in the thought-disorder group may be an outcome of hyper activation followed by rapid decay below baseline threshold.