Artikelen + lecture week 7

Question 1

What does the term “cognitive training” refer to?

Answer 1

To activities designed to make people “smarter” and better at reasoning, problem solving, and learning.

Question 2

What is the primary brain region associated with basic cognitive processes?

Answer 2

The primary brain region associated with basic cognitive processes is the prefrontal cortex.

Question 3

What is the Abecedarian study?

Answer 3

The Abecedarian study is a randomized trial of early childhood education for low-income children, which demonstrates how many hours of intervention may be necessary to have long-lasting effects.

Question 4

What is the approach suggested in the Abecedarian study for improving cognitive abilities?

Answer 4

To develop interventions that combine exercises that tax prefrontal processes with reasoning instruction and practice so children may be able to get better at thinking, learning, and problem-solving.

the Abecedarian study suggests that a comprehensive, early childhood education program that includes both educational and social supports can help improve cognitive abilities in children from low-income families.

Question 5

What is the issue with interpreting the results of cognitive training studies with high internal validity?

Answer 5

That they may not have high external validity, meaning that their findings may not be generalizable to different populations, interventions, or contexts.

Question 6

What is the solution suggested by some psychologists to address the weaknesses of meta-analyses in determining the efficacy of cognitive training?

Answer 6

Registered replications

Question 7

What is the issue with the way scientific studies are reported in press releases?

Answer 7

The issue is that claims tend to be exaggerated and the limitations receive short shrift.

Question 8

What happens to the “hedging” language present in scientific articles?

Answer 8

Most readers gloss over the details and focus on the main claim when reading about scientific studies.

Question 9

What is working memory?

Answer 9

Working memory is the temporary storage, manipulation, and use of goal-relevant information.

Question 10

What can cause impairments in working memory?

Answer 10

Impairments in working memory can be caused by normal aging and clinical disorders such as ADHD and schizophrenia.

Question 11

What factors affect working memory capacity?

Answer 11

Working memory capacity is linked to fluid intelligence and is determined by distraction resistance.

Question 12

What is known as the congruency effect?

Answer 12

Working memory performance is most impaired when there is high featural overlap between a memory target and distractor

Question 13

A distractor can distort the memory, leading to?

Answer 13

Biased responding or degrade the memory, leading to forgetting

Question 14

What is the Baddeley model of working memory based on?

Answer 14

The Baddeley model of working memory is based on dual-task studies that found impaired verbal working memory retention during simultaneous performance of a verbal task as opposed to a visual task and vice versa.

Question 15

What are some of the more subtle effects of distraction on working memory?

Answer 15

Systematic biases in memory reports and degraded memories for a variety of low-level visual features.

Question 16

What are some of the current mechanisms proposed for distraction resistance in working memory?

Answer 16

Sensory recruitment and cognitive control processes

Question 17

What are sensory recruitment and cognitive control processes?

Answer 17

Sensory recruitment refers to the idea that perception and memory draw upon a shared neural substrate, such that competition over this substrate can result in behavioral interference when memoranda (communication) and distractors are highly similar.

On the other hand, cognitive control processes refer to the mechanisms that regulate attention and goal-directed behavior in order to achieve desired outcomes.

Question 18

What is the main idea behind biases in memory?

Answer 18

Biases in memory result from differences in task-relevant features, suggesting a shared neural resource between perception and memory in the visual brain.

Question 19

What are internal sources of bias in memory?

Answer 19

Lingering working memory representations from the immediate past, concurrently maintained working memory representations, and mind wandering.

Question 20

How does attentional prioritization influence distractibility?

Answer 20

A spotlight of internal attention can be directed towards a subset of remembered information, resulting in memory representations that vary in attentional priority

Question 21

How does mind wandering impact working memory?

Answer 21

By consuming attentional resources that would otherwise support maintenance processes.

Question 22

How does cueing impact memory resilience to distraction?

Answer 22

Cueing can improve the resilience of a cued memory item to distraction and interference by directing internal attention towards it.

(if we are told which information is important and which isn’t, we remember the important information better, especially if we’re not distracted)

Question 23

What is distraction susceptibility?

Answer 23

Refers to the extent to which a memory can be disrupted or altered by external or internal distractions during the time between encoding and retrieval.

Question 24

What is the sensory recruitment hypothesis about persistent activity in the PFC?

Answer 24

The activity in the PFC often reflects top-down control supporting information storage in sensory regions, not working memory storage.

Question 25

How does the PFC support active firing in sensory regions?

Answer 25

The PFC supports active firing in sensory regions through persistent top-down influences, which may sustain subthreshold changes in membrane potentials and/or modify the response properties of sensory neurons.

Question 26

What are distractor-induced behavioral biases?

Answer 26

Refer to the changes in behavior that result from the presence of distractors (irrelevant stimuli) in the environment.

Question 27

What is priority-based remapping in working memory storage?

Answer 27

Working memory priority-based remapping is the transformation of a low-priority memory item’s coding to protect it from interference and distractions.

Question 28

What is the role of frontoparietal control processes in the processing of perceptual distractors?

Answer 28

To actively inhibit the sensory processing of distractors.

Question 29

What is input gating?

Answer 29

A process where the basal ganglia (specifically the caudate nucleus of the striatum) play an integral role in blocking task-irrelevant input from being encoded into working memory, thereby preventing it from interfering with or displacing current representations.

Question 30

What is cognitive plasticity?

Answer 30

Cognitive plasticity refers to the capacity for changes in flexibility, which is the capacity for changes in the possible range of cognitive performance

Question 31

What is cognitive rehabilitation?

Answer 31

Cognitive rehabilitation is a set of interventions designed to optimize functioning and reduce disability in individuals with health conditions in interaction with their environment

Question 32

How is functional MRI used to measure plasticity?

Answer 32

Functional MRI measures time-varying changes in brain metabolism based on blood flow, allowing researchers to investigate which brain areas are active during a task or condition. BOLD (Blood Oxygen Level Dependent) imaging is used to identify active brain regions.

Question 33

How is rehabilitation used in MS?

Answer 33

Rehabilitation is used to restore lost functions and facilitate recovery in individuals with MS. Plasticity is seen as an interface to recovery.

Question 34

What are near transfer effects?

Answer 34

Near transfer refers to the improvement of a cognitive function that is not trained but very similar.

Near transfer refers to improvements in tasks that are closely related to the trained task or domain

Question 35

What are practice effects?

Answer 35

Practice effects refer to improvements in performance that occur simply as a result of repeated exposure to a task. They can result from simply practicing a task multiple times, even without any specific cognitive training.

Question 36

What are some methodological challenges in cognitive training studies?

Answer 36

The lack of standardization in study design and implementation, the specificity of cognitive training, the variability of terminology for cognitive constructs, and the potential interaction of other mechanisms with cognitive training outcomes, such as motivation and engagement.

Question 37

What are transfer effects?

Answer 37

Transfer effects refer to the application of knowledge or skills learned in one context to a different context. In other words, it’s the extent to which learning in one situation affects performance in another situation.

Question 38

What are far transfer effects?

Answer 38

Refers to a task that is far away from what is trained. Far transfer refers to improvements in tasks that are further away from the trained task or domain.

Question 39

Why can practice effects be a confounding factor in cognitive training studies?

Answer 39

Because it can be difficult to distinguish between improvements due to the actual training versus improvements due to practice effects.

Question 40

What is a double baseline design in cognitive training studies?

Answer 40

A double baseline design is a study design used in cognitive training studies to control for practice effects. Participants are tested twice before the cognitive training, and the second baseline is used as a control for practice effects.

Question 41

What is working memory capacity?

Answer 41

Working memory capacity is the limited amount of information that can be stored within working memory and varies between individuals. It determines the ability to carry out higher-order cognitive functions such as mathematical operations and reading and writing.

Question 42

What are the effects of distractors on working memory?

Answer 42

Distractors can alter working memory performance and lead to forgetting.

Question 43

What is adaptivity, and why is it important in keeping people motivated?

Answer 43

Adaptivity is the ability to adapt to the user’s level of performance, and it is important in keeping people motivated because it can provide a sense of progress and achievement.

Question 44

What is the dual n-back task?

Answer 44

The dual n-back task is a cognitive training task that involves remembering a sequence of auditory and visual stimuli.

Question 45

What is resting state functional connectivity (FC)?

Answer 45

Resting state functional connectivity (FC) is a measure of the correlation between different brain regions when the brain is at rest.

Question 46

What is the relationship between working memory and motor training?

Answer 46

The relationship between working memory and motor training can lead to changes in resting state functional connectivity in complex networks.

These changes in functional connectivity have been observed to vary depending on the order of training performance, suggesting that the timing and sequencing of motor training may be an important factor in shaping the neural and cognitive effects of motor learning.

Question 47

When multiple items are assigned graded priorities, higher/ lower-priority items are more vulnerable to interference from perceptual input.

Answer 47

Higher-priority
if we have multiple things we need to remember and we give each thing a different level of importance, it can be harder to remember the important things if we get distracted. This is because our brain only has a limited ability to focus on a certain amount of information at one time, and distractions can interfere with what we are trying to remember. So, even if we think something is really important, it can be harder to remember if we get distracted.