Biblioteca Digital

The performance of very low birth weight preterm infants, in terms of cognition and expressive language, was analyzed and compared with that of term infants with the Protocol for Expressive Language and Cognition Development Observation (PELCDO). The study involved 12 very low birth weight preterm infants and 20 term infants, all of whom were evaluated monthly. Sessions were videotaped, and data were analyzed according to this specific protocol. Our results suggest that cognition and expressive language develop significantly later in very low birth weight preterm infants than in the term. We found positive correlations for cognitive and expressive language development, the delay becoming more evident after 6 months of age, persisting through the sensorimotor period, and continuing into the beginning of preoperational period, indicating the importance of follow-up evaluation, defining the true needs of such infants and identifying the ideal moment for speech-language intervention.; O desempenho de bebês pré-termo muito baixo peso em relação ao desenvolvimento cognitivo e de linguagem expressiva foi analisado e comparado com o de bebês de termo com o Protocolo para Observação do Desenvolvimento Cognitivo e de Linguagem Expressiva (PODCLE). O estudo envolveu 12 bebês pré-termo muito baixo peso e 20 bebês de termo acompanhados mensalmente. Todas as sessões foram filmadas em videotape e os dados analisados segundo o protocolo específico. Nossos resultados mostraram que o desenvolvimento cognitivo e da linguagem expressiva ocorreu significativamente mais tarde nos bebês pré-termo muito baixo peso. Nós encontramos correlações positivas entre o desenvolvimento cognitivo e de linguagem expressiva...

The main objective of the present work is to propose, develop, test, and show a method for classifying the spatial cognition degree of development on different individuals. Thirty-Seven undergraduate students had their electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded while engaged in 3-D images mental rotation tasks. Their spatial cognition degree of development was evaluated using a BPR-5 psychological test. The Largest Lyapunov Exponent (LLE) was calculated from each of the 8 electrodes recorded in each EEG. The LLEs were used as input for five different classifiers: i) multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network, ii) radial base functions artificial neural network, iii) voted perceptron artificial neural network, iv) support vector machines, and v) K-Nearest Neighbors. The best result was achieved by using a RBF with 4 clusters and Puk kernel function. Also a statistical analysis of the brain activity, based in the calculated LLEs, differences between two interest groups: SI+ (participants with an alleged higher degree of development of their spatial cognition) and SI- (control group) during the performing of mental rotation of tridimensional images tasks was done.. An average difference of 16% was found between both groups. The proposed classification method can contribute and interact with other processes in the analysis and study of human spatial cognition...

This paper proposes a new contingency view of the organization and it contributes to the theme through two complementary perspectives. First, it proposes cognition as a function which acts as the main mediator between the organization and the environment. Second, it introduces cognition as the core organizational ability which supports individuals, groups and organizations with intelligence, autonomy, learning and knowledge management, whereas, in such a perspective, cognition is viewed as the core resource in the service of the organization. Both perspectives, the mediation and the core organizational resource views, imply that cognition contributes toward managing environmental complexity and uncertainty. From this picture, this work analyzes the organization in the pursuit of high degrees of organizational cognition in order to manage high levels of environmental complexity and uncertainty. Grounded in these views, this paper presents a model of the organization as a set of fuzzy abilities. From all these backgrounds, this research opens new directions for future research on organizational abilities which subsume cognition, intelligence, autonomy, learning and knowledge management as important elements of organizational analysis.

Impairments in different cognitive abilities have been found to be correlated with reduced real-world functioning in people with schizophrenia. A number of other features of the illness, such as depression and negative symptoms, contribute to the overall prediction of these outcomes. Impairment in social cognition is of particular interest as a mediating influence between cognition and social outcomes. Social cognition is a set of cognitive processes applied to the recognition, understanding, accurate processing, and effective use of social cues in real-world situations. In schizophrenia research, social cognition comprises the following domains: emotion perception, theory of mind (ToM), and attributional style. While substantial research has indicated that these abilities are clearly related to social outcomes, research has been slowed by problems in the measurement of these abilities. In this article, I will describe these abilities, discuss how they are currently measured, and how research could improve the current measurement of these abilities to make them more clinically useful.

Grounded cognition theory proposes that cognition, including meaning, is grounded in sensorimotor processing. The mechanism for grounding cognition is mental simulation, which is a type of mental imagery that re-enacts modal processing. To reveal top-down, cortical mechanisms for mental simulation of shape, event-related potentials were recorded to face and object pictures preceded by mental imagery. Mental imagery of the identical face or object picture (congruous condition) facilitated not only categorical perception (VPP/N170) but also later visual knowledge [N3(00) complex] and linguistic knowledge (N400) for faces more than objects, and strategic semantic analysis (late positive complex) between 200 and 700 ms. The later effects resembled semantic congruity effects with pictures. Mental imagery also facilitated category decisions, as a P3 peaked earlier for congruous than incongruous (other category) pictures, resembling the case when identical pictures repeat immediately. Thus mental imagery mimics semantic congruity and immediate repetition priming processes with pictures. Perception control results showed the opposite for faces and were in the same direction for objects: Perceptual repetition adapts (and so impairs) processing of perceived faces from categorical perception onward...

This article examines the interplay of culture, cognition, and social networks in organizations with norms that emphasize cross-boundary collaboration. In such settings, social desirability concerns can induce a disparity between how people view themselves in conscious (i.e., deliberative) versus less conscious (i.e., automatic) cognition. These differences have implications for the resulting pattern of intra-organizational collaborative ties. Based on a laboratory study and field data from a biotechnology firm, we find that (1) people consciously report more positive views of themselves as collaborative actors than they appear to hold in less conscious cognition; (2) less conscious collaborative–independent self-views are associated with the choice to enlist organizationally distant colleagues in collaboration; and (3) these self-views are also associated with a person’s likelihood of being successfully enlisted by organizationally distant colleagues (i.e., of supporting these colleagues in collaboration). By contrast, consciously reported collaborative–independent self-views are not associated with these choices. This study contributes to our understanding of how culture is internalized in individual cognition and how self-related cognition is linked to social structure through collaboration. It also demonstrates the limits of self-reports in settings with strong normative pressures and represents a novel integration of methods from cognitive psychology and network analysis.; Psychology; Sociology

In this paper, I discuss connections between self-directedness, integration and higher cognition. I present a model of self-directedness as a basis for approaching higher cognition from a situated cognition perspective. According to this model increases in sensorimotor complexity create pressure for integrative higher order control and learning processes for acquiring information about the context in which action occurs. This generates complex articulated abstractive information processing, which forms the major basis for higher cognition. I present evidence that indicates that the same integrative characteristics found in lower cognitive process such as motor adaptation are present in a range of higher cognitive process, including conceptual learning. This account helps explain situated cognition phenomena in humans because the integrative processes by which the brain adapts to control interaction are relatively agnostic concerning the source of the structure participating in the process. Thus, from the perspective of the motor control system using a tool is not fundamentally different to simply controlling an arm.; http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/867/description#description; Wayne Christensen

Type 2 diabetes predicts accelerated cognitive decline and brain atrophy. We hypothesized that impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and incident glucose disorders have detrimental effects on global cognition and brain volume. We further hypothesized that metabolic and inflammatory derangements accompanying hyperglycaemia contribute to change in brain structure and function. This was a longitudinal study of a community-dwelling elderly cohort with neuropsychological testing (n = 880) and brain volumes by magnetic resonance imaging (n = 312) measured at baseline and 2 years. Primary outcomes were global cognition and total brain volume. Secondary outcomes were cognitive domains (processing speed, memory, language, visuospatial and executive function) and brain volumes (hippocampal, parahippocampal, precuneus and frontal lobe). Participants were categorised as normal, impaired fasting glucose at both assessments (stable IFG), baseline diabetes or incident glucose disorders (incident diabetes or IFG at 2 years). Measures included inflammatory cytokines and oxidative metabolites. Covariates were age, sex, education, non-English speaking background, smoking, blood pressure, lipid-lowering or antihypertensive medications, mood score, apolipoprotein E genotype and baseline cognition or brain volume. Participants with incident glucose disorders had greater decline in global cognition and visuospatial function compared to normal...

This qualitative study explores inner and outer experience in the context of dramatic arts, and specifically in actor education. The author defines experience as the richness of now. It is everything that we bring to each moment, and everything that each moment brings to us. The dynamic space between inner and outer experience is found to be the place where thinking and feeling create our sense of be-ing. Movement between inner and outer helps determine the success of a dramatic experience. Literature from the disciplines of cognitive studies, dramatic arts, education, philosophy, psychology, and neurophysiology is examined alongside interviews with dramatic arts teacher-practitioners. These findings are considered in light of the author’s own experiences as a dramatic arts student, teacher, and participant. A conceptual model of cognition as an active and embodied phenomenon emerges. Building on models of “embodied cognition” (Lakoff and Johnson) and “enactive cognition” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch), the author conceives of human thinking and being as “enacting cognition”. Enacting cognition is the dynamic synthesis of objective knowledge and personal understanding. It is the experience of be-ing.; Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University...

OBJETIVO: O objetivo do presente estudo foi a proposição de protocolo para observação do desenvolvimento cognitivo e de linguagem expressiva, referente ao período sensório-motor e início do pré-operatório, que pudesse ser utilizado como instrumento de análise objetiva das realizações observadas em crianças, possibilitando assim, a localização e acompanhamento das mesmas nesse processo de construção. MÉTODOS: O Protocolo para Observação do Desenvolvimento Cognitivo e de Linguagem Expressiva (PODCLE) foi elaborado com base na literatura a respeito dos indicadores que caracterizam os estágios iniciais do desenvolvimento cognitivo e de linguagem expressiva, considerando-se o modelo proposto pela Epistemologia Genética. O Protocolo foi aplicado em crianças com desenvolvimento típico para verificação de sua viabilidade e levantamento de possíveis dúvidas ou dificuldades durante sua aplicação ou análise dos dados. Juízes foram utilizados para a seleção dos componentes deste Protocolo. RESULTADOS: O Protocolo é constituído por quatro quadros contendo os indicadores do desenvolvimento cognitivo e de linguagem expressiva em seus estágios iniciais, bem como a pontuação correspondente às realizações apresentadas pela criança. CONCLUSÃO: O Protocolo para Observação do Desenvolvimento Cognitivo e de Linguagem Expressiva apresentado neste estudo é uma proposta de sistematização da observação de dados longitudinais referentes ao desenvolvimento cognitivo e de linguagem expressiva...

Escopo. A cognição social tem se convertido num constructo valioso para o estudo e compreensão da natureza da esquizofrenia, particularmente, para dar conta das dificuldades no funcionamento social característica do transtorno. Os termos utilizados para se referir a cognição social assim como sua definição e subdomínios associados variam amplamente de u m trabalho a outro, isto tem feito da avaliação do constructo uma empresa difícil, tem limitado a comunicação no campo científico de sua área assim como a comparação direta de descobrimentos entre estudos. Levando isto a conta, foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura sobre cognição social na esquizofrenia com o fim de definir o constructo, identificar os principais domínios e subdomínios associados, seus níveis de complexidade e instrumentos mais utilizados na avaliação. Metodologia. Para isto, foram revisadas as bases de dados eletrônicas ISI Web of Knowledge, Medline, CSIC, PsycINFO e Academic Search Complete, procurando os términos Social cognition, schizophrenia, psychosis, cognición social, esquizofrenia e psicosis, separadamente, sem restrição de campo, sem limite temporal e limitada nas línguas inglesa e espanhola. Resultados. Uma vez identificados seus domínios...

Fish and other seafood may contain organic mercury but also beneficial nutrients such as n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. We endeavored to study whether maternal fish consumption during pregnancy harms or benefits fetal brain development. We examined associations of maternal fish intake during pregnancy and maternal hair mercury at delivery with infant cognition among 135 mother–infant pairs in Project Viva, a prospective U.S. pregnancy and child cohort study. We assessed infant cognition by the percent novelty preference on visual recognition memory (VRM) testing at 6 months of age. Mothers consumed an average of 1.2 fish servings per week during the second trimester. Mean maternal hair mercury was 0.55 ppm, with 10% of samples > 1.2 ppm. Mean VRM score was 59.8 (range, 10.9–92.5). After adjusting for participant characteristics using linear regression, higher fish intake was associated with higher infant cognition. This association strengthened after adjustment for hair mercury level: For each additional weekly fish serving, offspring VRM score was 4.0 points higher [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.3 to 6.7]. However, an increase of 1 ppm in mercury was associated with a decrement in VRM score of 7.5 (95% CI, –13.7 to –1.2) points. VRM scores were highest among infants of women who consumed > 2 weekly fish servings but had mercury levels ≤1.2 ppm. Higher fish consumption in pregnancy was associated with better infant cognition...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the validity and reliability of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia by examining its temporal stability, internal consistency, and discriminant and convergent validity. METHODS: The Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia was administered to 116 stable patients with schizophrenia and 58 matched control subjects. To assess concurrent validity, a subset of patients underwent a traditional neuropsychological assessment. RESULTS: The patients with schizophrenia performed significantly worse than the controls (p<0.001) on all subtests of the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia and on the total score, which attests to the discriminant validity of the test. The global score of the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia was significantly correlated with all of the subtests and with the global score for the standard battery. The Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia also had good test-retest reliability (rho>0.8). The internal consistency of the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia was high (Cronbach's α  ϝ 0.874). CONCLUSION: The Brazilian Portuguese version of the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia exhibits good reliability and discriminant and concurrent validity and is a promising tool for easily assessing cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and for comparing the performance of Brazilian patients with that of patients from other countries.

Background: Interoception refers to the conscious perception of body signals. Mindfulness is a meditation practice that encourages individuals to focus on their internal experiences such as bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions. In this study, we selected a behavioral measure of interoceptive sensitivity (heartbeat detection task, HBD) to compare the effect of meditation practice on interoceptive sensitivity among long term practitioners (LTP), short term meditators (STM, subjects that completed a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program) and controls (non-meditators). All participants were examined with a battery of different tasks including mood state, executive function and social cognition tests (emotion recognition, empathy and theory of mind). Findings: Compared to controls, both meditators’ groups showed lower levels of anxiety and depression, but no improvement in executive function or social cognition performance was observed (except for lower scores compared to controls only in the personal distress dimension of empathy). More importantly, meditators’ performance did not differ from that of nonmeditators regarding cardiac interoceptive sensitivity. Conclusion: Results suggest no influence of meditation practice in cardiac interoception and in most related social cognition measures. These negative results could be partially due to the fact that awareness of heartbeat sensations is not emphasized during mindfulness/vipassana meditation and may not be the best index of the awareness supported by the practice of meditation.; Fil: Melloni...

After half a century of cognitive revolution we remain far from agreement about what cognition is and what cognition does. It was once thought that these questions could wait until the data were in. Today there is a mountain of data, but no way of making

Episodic Cognition (or ?Mental Time Travel?) is the ability to mentally re-experience events from our personal past and imagine potential events from our personal future. This capacity is fundamental to our lives and has been argued to be uniquely human. The aim of this thesis is to use behavioural tasks developed in comparative cognition to integrate both the literature on different research subjects (animals, children, adults, patients) but also from different theoretical perspectives, with the hope of facilitating communication and comparison between these fields. The backbone of the thesis is the behavioural tasks themselves, along with their origins in theory. Specifically, the ?What-Where-When?, ?Unexpected Question? and ?Free Recall? episodic memory tasks and the ?Bischof-K?hler? test of episodic foresight. Each of these tasks stems from different theoretical approaches to defining episodic cognition. Whilst extensively studied, these four tasks have never been undertaken by the same subjects and have never been directly compared. It is thus unclear whether these different theoretical perspectives converge on a single ?episodic cognition? system, or a variety of overlapping processes. This thesis explores these issues by presenting these tasks to previously untested animal (the Eurasian Jay)...

Can animals think? How does the cognition of humans differ from that of (other) primates and how does the cognition of primates differ from that of other animals?This paper argues that to explore questions of this kind fruitfully we need a unified conceptual framework within which the cognition of humans and animals could be jointly considered and compared in clear and precise terms. The paper draws attention to the conceptual issues involved in current socio-biological debates and shows that these debates can be clarified by the use of the "natural semantic metalanguage" ("NSM") developed by the author and colleagues for the investigation and description of meaning.The central idea of the "NSM" theory of language and thought, supported by extensive empirical investigations by a number of researchers, is that despite their enormous diversity, all natural languages share a common core: a small vocabulary of 60 or so "conceptual primes" and a "universal grammar" (the combinatory properties of the primes).The universal conceptual primes and their combinatory properties identified in NSM research are analogous to the chemical elements and their basic combinatorial properties which opened new vistas for Chemistry. This paper shows that the NSM...

L'article vise à discuter des questions qui provoquent régulièrement la controverse dans la psychologie de l'apprentissage, qui sont les relations entre la cognition, la culture et l'affect et les spécifiques humains en ces processus. Ainsi, l'apprentissage est discuté en termes de processus partagés avec d'autres espèces, telles que l'association et la récursivité, et d'autres qui sont spécifiquement humain comment l'abstraction et la métacognition. Nous examinons quelques hypothèses sur la façon dont l'esprit humain peut avoir évolué dans le sens de ces différences. En conclusion, il est précisé la position sur la relation entre la cognition, la culture et l'affect, ainsi comme deux niveaux de fonctionnement psychologique, et l'influence de la culture et de son principal instrument, la langue, dans la promotion des ces caractéristiques humaines.; O artigo tem por objetivo discutir questões que periodicamente provocam polêmica na Psicologia da Aprendizagem, que são as relações entre cognição, cultura e afeto e as especificidades humanas nesses processos. Assim, a aprendizagem é discutida em termos de processos partilhados com outras espécies, como a associação e a recursividade, e outros que são especificamente humanos...

Background and Objectives: A relationship has been found between cognition and functioning in patients with schizophrenia. Our objective was to study the relationship between the cognitive domains assessed by the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB), and functioning as evaluated using the functioning subscale of the Global Assessment of Functioning scale (GAF-f). Methods: A sample of 83 clinically stable outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV criteria were assessed using the MCCB and the GAF-f. Pearson correlations and stepwise linear regression analyses were performed. Results: Correlation analysis between the GAF-f and the cognitive domains of the MCCB showed a significant relationship between functioning and all of the cognitive domains. Regression yielded a statistically significant model (F2,74 = 20.4, p < 0.001) in which functioning was related to Speed of processing (standardized β = 0.369, p = 0.001) and to Social cognition (standardized β = 0.325, p = 0.003). Together, these two variables explained 33.8% of the variance of functioning. Conclusions: Both speed of processing and social cognition have an important association with functioning in patients with schizophrenia.