Artikelen + lecture week 3

Question 1

What is episodic memory?

Answer 1

Conscious recollection of personal events combined with their phenomenological and spatiotemporal encoding contexts.

Question 2

What is binding?

Answer 2

Central and contextual information together form a memory

Question 3

What impairment is one of the hallmarks of early manifestations of AD and amnesic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI)?

Answer 3

Episodic memory impairment

Question 4

Why did the study by Plancher et al. suggest that AD patients benefit most from implicit or procedural learning methods during rehabilitation?

Answer 4

Encoding using procedural skills is most preserved in AD patients.

Question 5

What were the results of the study by Plancher et al. regarding the episodic memory deficit in AD patients compared to aMCI patients?

Answer 5

The study found a profound genuine deficit of episodic memory in AD involving encoding, consolidation and retrieval processes (recall & recognition). aMCI patients were impaired compared with the control group at recalling central information, but performed better on recalling central information than AD patients

Question 6

What was the aim of the study by Plancher et al. (2010) in regards to the use of VR as an assessment tool for episodic memory and binding in aMCI and AD patients?

Answer 6

The study aimed to demonstrate that VR can be used as an assessment of episodic memory and binding in aMCI and AD patients, as well as to determine if active exploration of the virtual environment improves memory compared to passive exploration.

Question 7

How do spatial and temporal context play a role in episodic memory?

Answer 7

Spatial and temporal context play an important role in episodic memory, for they can act as partial cues.

Question 8

What were the results of the study by Salvidegoitia et al. regarding the recall of words presented at landmark locations compared to non-landmark locations?

Answer 8

Landmark locations were remembered significantly better than non-landmark locations. Words presented at landmark locations were recalled significantly better than words that were presented at non-landmark locations.

Question 9

VR can enhance a study in terms of both its verisimilitude as well as its veridicality. What do they mean?

Answer 9

Verisimilitude = the extent to which an experimental task realistically simulates the real life situation, imposing similar cognitive demands on the participant
Veridicality = the extent to which experimental results accurately reflect and/or predict the psychological phenomenon studied

Question 10

What does real time interaction mean?

Answer 10

The user can directly interface with the system with minimal delay between interaction and the associated response from the environment.

Question 11

What does immersion mean?

Answer 11

The degree to which a VR system produces a naturalistic portrayal of the sensory and interactive elements of the virtual environment. A good portrayal will serve to isolate the user from the real world.

Question 12

What are benefits and limitations of Desktop-VR?

Answer 12

Benefits:
- Cost-effective
- Subjects most likely are familiar with working on a computer, which shortens the training phase

Limitations:
- 2D display, which only allows monocular depth cues to help the subject indicate the distance of objects in the environment
- The interaction with the interface (i.e., mouse and keyboard) is not motorically analogous to the action being simulated
- Reduced level of immersion compared to other forms of VR

Question 13

What are benefits and limitations of Mobile VR?

Answer 13

Benefits:
- Mobile-VR has emerged in recent years: the use of inexpensive optical hardware connected to a smartphone. These systems are portable and completely wireless.

Limitations:
- The resolution of virtual environments provided by smartphones is much lower than computer-driven VR. Lower resolution often leads to reduced immersion.
- Mobile-VR is not able to track movement of a subject in space (e.g. walking or standing up). It is only able to track head movements (e.g., roll, pitch, yaw).

Question 14

What are benefits and limitations of Simulator-VR?

Answer 14

Benefits:
- Great immersion and close to real-life tasks
Limitations:
- Can be very expensive
- Amount of immersion depends largely on the choices for visual display(s) and input devices

Question 15

There are two distinct components that contribute to a subject’s interactions within a virtual environment: the volitional component, and the motoric component. What are those?

Answer 15

Volitional component, allows a subject to choose how to interact with the environment.
Motoric component, in which subjects physically carry out that interaction via the VR system’s input devices

Question 16

How does immersion affect episodic memory?

Answer 16

Immersion affects episodic memory in that a more immersive VR experience promotes better memory recall.

Question 17

What is the enactment effect?

Answer 17

The well-documented “enactment effect” has shown that actively performing a task in a virtual environment leads to better memory recall compared to passively observing the task.

Question 18

What is the concept of presence in VR and how is it related to memory?

Answer 18

Presence in VR refers to the subjective sense that the user has been mentally transported into the virtual environment. It is positively correlated with memory performance, but may not be beneficial in all situations.

Question 19

True or false: Immersion is not the only factor influencing presence

Answer 19

True

Question 20

What does the sensory conflict theory suggests?

Answer 20

That the procreator of simulator sickness is a discrepancy in the sensory input between perceptual systems

Question 21

Some features that increase/ decrease sensory immersion, can also increase/ decrease simulator sickness. Increasing/ decreasing the interactive immersion tends to decrease simulator sickness

Answer 21

Increase, increase, increasing

Question 22

Passive/ active interaction may result in higher levels of simulator sickness

Answer 22

Passive

Question 23

What are the effects of unilateral spatial neglect?

Answer 23

Unilateral spatial neglect affects the ability of patients to carry out daily activities and slows down their functional recovery

Question 24

What is the most common treatment for unilateral spatial neglect?

Answer 24

The most common treatment for unilateral spatial neglect is visual tracking.

Question 25

When you focus more on …. validity, you focus on making a design that is close to the real world. When you focus more on ….. control, you take out all the confabulation factors that might influence the measures that you are interested in.

Answer 25

Ecological, experimental

Question 26

What are some pros for VR?

Answer 26

• VR allows to use very realistic environments (high ecological validity)
• It provides good generalizability
• High experimental control over stimuli
• It allows repeated training and can be specified to individual patient demands
• Patients can practice/be studied in the safety and comfort of the clinic or even their own home
• It is relatively low-cos

Question 27

What are some cons for VR?

Answer 27

• The user interface may be difficult to learn (especially for elderly)
• Some users may experience motion sickness because of the discrepancy between what people see and what people feel
• Users may have disturbed motor skills, due to readaptation to the real world
• It may induces seizures/migraines because of flashing/flickering of (objects on) the screen
• May not be suited for all patient groups (e.g., it may lead to disorientation or anxiety)

Question 28

True or false: Novelty can boost memory

Answer 28

True

Question 29

True or false Novelty benefits in older, but not younger individuals

Answer 29

False

Question 30

What brain systems are activated by spatial novelty?

Answer 30

The hippocampus and the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway.

Question 31

What is the effect of volition in a new environment on memory performance?

Answer 31

Volition in a new environment leads to better memory performance.

Question 32

What doesn’t have an effect on/ promotes memory performance in familiar environments?

Answer 32

Volition (the power of choosing or determining)

Question 33

What is presence in virtual environments (VEs)?

Answer 33

Presence in VEs refers to the sense of being physically in the VE and how involved you are in the VE.

Question 34

True or false: the effects of presence decline with repeated exposure to a VE

Answer 34

True

Question 35

What is the trade-off between realism in VR and experimental control?

Answer 35

The more realistic VR is, the more experimental control you may lose, which can be a difficult trade-off to manage.

Question 36

What is the relationship between theta activity in the brain and memory processes?

Answer 36

Words that are remembered better showed more theta activity.

Question 37

True or false: novelty can be employed to counteract or slow-down age or disease related memory decline.

Answer 37

True (e.g. learning new skilss, cognitive training programs, travel –> greater neuroplasticity)

Question 38

What is selective attention?

Answer 38

Selective attention is the process of focusing on one stimulus or set of stimuli while ignoring others.

Question 39

What are top-down and bottum up processes in selective attention?

Answer 39

Top-down processes are guided by thoughts and actively looking for something specific.
Bottom-up processes are much less under your control and happen more or less automatically.

Question 40

What is a benefit of eye tracking?

Answer 40

• Eye tracking is a direct proxy to attention and can provide
  measures of social cognitive processes.
• It is inobtrusive and does not interfere with the patient’s
  behavior.
• It can be used to communicate with patients who are unable to communicate in another way

Question 41

What is neurofeedback?

Answer 41

Neurofeedback is a technique that uses sounds or visuals to provide positive or negative feedback to promote or decrease activity in certain frequencies in the brain.

Question 42

What is hemispatial neglect and what is the most common cause of it?

Answer 42

Hemispatial neglect is a condition where patients lack attention to one side of their visual field, most commonly the left side. It is most often caused by a lesion to the right parietal lobe.