-
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... May 2016A combination of impaired motor and cognitive function in Parkinson's disease (PD) can impact on language and communication, with patients exhibiting a particular...
A combination of impaired motor and cognitive function in Parkinson's disease (PD) can impact on language and communication, with patients exhibiting a particular difficulty processing action verbs. Co-speech gestures embody a link between action and language and contribute significantly to communication in healthy people. Here, we investigated how co-speech gestures depicting actions are affected in PD, in particular with respect to the visual perspective-or the viewpoint - they depict. Gestures are closely related to mental imagery and motor simulations, but people with PD may be impaired in the way they simulate actions from a first-person perspective and may compensate for this by relying more on third-person visual features. We analysed the action-depicting gestures produced by mild-moderate PD patients and age-matched controls on an action description task and examined the relationship between gesture viewpoint, action naming, and performance on an action observation task (weight judgement). Healthy controls produced the majority of their action gestures from a first-person perspective, whereas PD patients produced a greater proportion of gestures produced from a third-person perspective. We propose that this reflects a compensatory reliance on third-person visual features in the simulation of actions in PD. Performance was also impaired in action naming and weight judgement, although this was unrelated to gesture viewpoint. Our findings provide a more comprehensive understanding of how action-language impairments in PD impact on action communication, on the cognitive underpinnings of this impairment, as well as elucidating the role of action simulation in gesture production.
Topics: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Cognition; Comprehension; Female; Gestures; Humans; Language; Language Disorders; Male; Middle Aged; Speech
PubMed: 26995225
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.02.009 -
The Clinical Neuropsychologist Oct 2022The Test of Practical Judgment (TOP-J) has shown utility in inpatient and outpatient settings in older adults who present with mild cognitive impairment and various...
The Test of Practical Judgment (TOP-J) has shown utility in inpatient and outpatient settings in older adults who present with mild cognitive impairment and various dementia subtypes. The TOP-J has two versions (i.e. 9 items and 15 items), and was initially validated within a small rural non-Hispanic White sample. In the current study, we re-evaluated the psychometric evidence and refined scoring criteria and administration guidelines in older adults with more diverse demographic characteristics than the original validation sample. Participants ( = 348) were recruited from several boroughs of New York City and surrounding areas (mean/median age = 79; mean years education = 15, median = 15.5; 68% female; 30% Black/African-American, 8% Hispanic). Reliability and validity were comparable to original findings. Based on confirmatory factor analysis, one item was replaced on the 9-item version, now called TOP-J Form A. Normative data for cognitively intact participants ( = 261) were updated and stratified by two education groups. The TOP-J is increasingly used in clinical and research settings in the U.S. and abroad, and the current study provides improved normative data and administration and scoring guidelines for use with demographically diverse older individuals.
Topics: Aged; Cognitive Dysfunction; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychometrics; Reproducibility of Results
PubMed: 33761835
DOI: 10.1080/13854046.2021.1889680 -
Memory & Cognition Jul 2023To succeed in a social world, we must be able to accurately estimate what others know. For example, teachers must anticipate student knowledge to plan lessons and...
To succeed in a social world, we must be able to accurately estimate what others know. For example, teachers must anticipate student knowledge to plan lessons and communicate effectively. Yet one's own knowledge consistently contaminates estimates about others' knowledge. We examine how one's knowledge influences the calibration and resolution of participants' estimates of novices' knowledge. Across four experiments, participants studied trivia questions and estimated the percentage of novice participants who would know the answer across multiple study/estimation rounds. When participants were required to answer the question before estimating what novices would know, studying the facts impaired both the calibration and resolution of the estimates. Studying the facts reduced the validity of one's experiences for predicting novices' knowledge, and estimators utilized their own experiences less when predicting novices' knowledge as they studied. Experimentally reducing reliance on one's own knowledge did not improve the accuracy of estimates. The results suggest that learning impairs the accuracy of judgments of others' knowledge, not because estimators rely too heavily on their own experiences, but because estimators lack diagnostic cues about others' knowledge.
Topics: Humans; Judgment; Learning; Cues; Knowledge; Students
PubMed: 36575349
DOI: 10.3758/s13421-022-01382-3 -
Cognition Sep 2021Visuospatial perspective-taking is the foundation for inferring the mental state of another person during social interaction. Although research has shown that dual...
Visuospatial perspective-taking is the foundation for inferring the mental state of another person during social interaction. Although research has shown that dual processes are involved in self-judgment when an avatar is present on screen, it is unknown whether dual independent processes also underlie perspective-taking. During the three experiments in the present study, the participants made laterality judgments according to the perspective of a seated or standing avatar. The angular disparity between the egocentric and altercentric perspectives was manipulated so that the two perspectives led to congruent or incongruent responses. While performing the task, the participants were seated or standing (Experiment 1), seated and subjected to different response deadlines (Experiment 2), or seated and subjected to different mental workloads (Experiment 3). The analysis based on the process-dissociation-procedure framework showed that automatic processing was reduced when the participants stood on their feet and took the perspective of a seated avatar. Posture remapping did not influence controlled processing or behavioral outcomes. Conversely, time pressure and working memory load reduced controlled processing and impaired perspective-taking, but did not affect automatic processing. Thus, dual independent processes are involved in taking another person's perspective. Reduction of the automatic component may help to lower self-bias in preparation to act when posture remapping is required during social interactions, while cognitive load may impair the controlled processing of spatial alignment and response selection during visuospatial perspective-taking.
Topics: Cognition; Functional Laterality; Humans; Judgment; Posture; Reaction Time
PubMed: 34051424
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104733 -
Journal of Clinical and Experimental... Feb 2017Cognitive impairment often occurs in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), and dysfunction involving executive function, new learning, and working memory is especially...
INTRODUCTION
Cognitive impairment often occurs in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), and dysfunction involving executive function, new learning, and working memory is especially common. Compromised activities of daily living are linked to this cognitive impairment, and people with MS are apt to be unemployed and struggle to manage domestic responsibilities. Financial decision making is an important activity of daily living, and no study has examined whether it is compromised by neuropsychological dysfunction in people with MS.
METHOD
A battery of neuropsychological tests and a measure of financial decision making (Financial Capacity Instrument, FCI: Marson, D. C. 2001. Loss of financial capacity in dementia: Conceptual and empirical approaches. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 8, 164-181) were administered to 50 participants (34 patients with MS and 16 cognitively healthy adults). Based on the neuropsychological test results, 14 patients were classified as having cognitive impairment, and 20 had no significant impairment.
RESULTS
The impaired MS patients performed significantly worse than unimpaired patients and the healthy comparison group on most financial tasks. The impaired group retained abilities to count money and display adequate financial judgment. Regression analyses showed that measures of mental flexibility and working memory correlated most strongly with performance on the FCI domains across groups.
CONCLUSIONS
Cognitively impaired patients with MS have degraded financial skills, which are linked to executive function and working memory deficits.
Topics: Activities of Daily Living; Adult; Cognitive Dysfunction; Decision Making; Executive Function; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Middle Aged; Multiple Sclerosis; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 27430343
DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2016.1201050 -
Trends in Hearing Feb 2015Just-noticeable differences (JNDs) have been measured for various features of sounds, but despite its importance to communication, there is no benchmark for what is a...
Just-noticeable differences (JNDs) have been measured for various features of sounds, but despite its importance to communication, there is no benchmark for what is a just-noticeable-and possibly meaningful-difference in speech-to-noise ratio (SNR). SNR plays a crucial role in speech communication for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Difficulty hearing speech in background noise-a poor SNR-often leads to dissatisfaction with hearing-assistance devices. While such devices attempt through various strategies to address this problem, it is not currently known how much improvement in SNR is needed to provide a noticeable benefit. To investigate what is a noticeable benefit, we measured the JND in SNR for both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Here, we report the SNR JNDs of 69 participants of varying hearing ability, estimated using either an adaptive or fixed-level procedure. The task was to judge which of the two intervals containing a sentence in speech-spectrum noise presented over headphones was clearer. The level of each interval was roved to reduce the influence of absolute level cues. The results of both procedures showed an average SNR JND of 3 dB that was independent of hearing ability. Further experiments using a subset of normal-hearing listeners showed that level roving does elevate threshold. These results suggest that noise reduction schemes may need to achieve a benefit greater than 3 dB to be reliably discriminable.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Adult; Aged; Audiometry, Pure-Tone; Audiometry, Speech; Auditory Threshold; Case-Control Studies; Discrimination, Psychological; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Middle Aged; Noise; Perceptual Masking; Persons With Hearing Impairments; Psychoacoustics; Speech Perception
PubMed: 25681327
DOI: 10.1177/2331216515572316 -
Research in Developmental Disabilities Dec 2019We studied visually impaired and blind children to investigate the effects of visual damage on time perception. (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
AIM
We studied visually impaired and blind children to investigate the effects of visual damage on time perception.
METHODS
Sixty-three children (11 blind, 16 visually impaired, 20 sighted and 16 sighted but blindfolded) performed a temporal bisection task, which consisted of judging different temporal intervals presented in the auditory modality.
RESULTS
The visually impaired children showed lower constant error than sighted children but higher variability (Weber ratio). The blindfolded children had a temporal estimation comparable to the clinical groups and time sensitivity comparable to the controls.
CONCLUSION
These findings are interpreted in the light of inter-modality interference, assuming that the coexistence of both sensory modalities, present only in controls, leads to a trade-off between the two senses with an indirect contribution of sight, which does not happen either in the clinical groups or in the blindfolded children, despite the single sensory task.
Topics: Blindness; Case-Control Studies; Child; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Severity of Illness Index; Time Perception; Vision Disorders
PubMed: 31586849
DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2019.103499 -
Bioethics Feb 2022Since several landmark legal decisions in the 1970s and 1980s, substituted judgment has become widely accepted as an approach to decision-making for incapacitated...
Since several landmark legal decisions in the 1970s and 1980s, substituted judgment has become widely accepted as an approach to decision-making for incapacitated patients that incorporates their autonomy and interests. Two notable exceptions have been cases involving minors and those involving cognitively or psychiatrically impaired individuals who never previously possessed the ability to contemplate the medical decisions involved in their care. While a best interest standard may have universal merit in pediatric cases, this paper argues that substituted judgement has been rejected too broadly for "never-capacitated" patients. It then lays out a three-condition test for using substituted judgment in these cases. For a subset of "never-capacitated" patients who belong to distinctive religious or cultural communities with clear medical values and have an appropriate surrogate, these values may prove helpful in vindicating the interests of the never-capacitated and should not be blanketly dismissed.
Topics: Child; Decision Making; Humans; Judgment; Mental Competency
PubMed: 34855232
DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12978 -
Addictive Behaviors Sep 2021Although there is speculation that medicalization of addiction undermines conceived agency, only relatively modest effects have been reported. Research participants...
Although there is speculation that medicalization of addiction undermines conceived agency, only relatively modest effects have been reported. Research participants generally have ideas about addiction that are informed both by personal experience and by media, and their views may not be wholly updated in response to study-information. Here we examine the potential impact of addiction science theories on perceived volition and responsibility by considering the issues in the context of a hypothetical new drug, "Z." Participants (N = 662) were provided one of three functional accounts that each corresponded to a prominent theory within addiction science: incentive-sensitization, impaired self-control, and habit-system dominance. For half of participants, additional neuroscience mechanism information was included with the functional account. Across explanations, the inclusion of mechanism information was associated with significantly less perceived volition and marginal reduction in blame, For several measures, there was a significant or marginally significant interaction between which addiction explanation was used and whether mechanism information was included, with mechanism generally having the largest impact given the impaired self-control explanation of addiction and little evidence of impact given the incentive-sensitization explanation of addiction. Taken together, these results suggest robust effects of addiction science on judgments of agency when presented in the context of a novel addiction. It is unclear whether a sustained scientific consensus around an existing theory could produce a similar impact on how people understand real addictive behavior.
Topics: Behavior, Addictive; Humans; Judgment; Motivation; Personal Autonomy; Social Behavior; Substance-Related Disorders
PubMed: 33964582
DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106955