Biomedical subjects

Juan Pascual-Leone

Publications and source records attributed to Juan Pascual-Leone.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

Developmental relations between working memory and inhibitory control.

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are general-purpose resources that guide cognition and behavior. In this study, the developmental relations between WM and IC were investigated in 96 typically developing children aged 6 to 17 years in an experimental task paradigm using an efficiency metric that combined speed and accuracy performance. The ability to activate and process information in WM showed protracted age-related growth. Performance involving WM and IC together was empirically distinguishable from that involving WM alone. The results indicate that developmental improvements in WM are attributable to increased processing efficiency in activation, suppression, and strategic resource deployment, and that WM and IC are best studied in novel, complex situations that elicit competition among those resources.

Child↗

PubMed2002

Event-related potentials index cognitive style differences during a serial-order recall task.

Working memory and attentional inhibition processes (jointly symbolized here as WM/I) have been proposed to explain cognitive style differences in Field Dependence-Independence (FDI). FI relative to FD subjects have been found to use more effectively WM/I to operate on task-relevant information. The purpose of this study was to determine whether cognitive style differences are revealed as differences in ERP activity in a novel WM/I task. A serial-order recall task served to manipulate memory load by varying the amount and kind of information to be elaborated and retained in WM in order of temporal appearance (S1, S2); recall demand of the serial-order judgment (S3) was also concurrently varied. FI subjects engaged in deeper WM processing during the high memory load conditions relative to FD subjects; and this was measured as a higher amplitude slow negative wave (SNW), over the centro-parietal scalp extending to the frontal scalp, during the retention interval. In contrast, P300 amplitude was larger for FD subjects in the high memory load conditions following S1, which corresponded with a reduced amplitude SNW. We suggest that inhibitory processes indexed by P300, which FD subjects must mobilize to change their usually global-perceptual (i.e. shallow) attentional strategy for processing task information, may have resulted in less mental-attentional (WM/I) resources available to them during the task's retention phase (Rosen and Engle, 1997). Thus, ERP methods can be used to investigate differences in cognitive style.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Development of mental attention in gifted and mainstream children: the role of mental capacity, inhibition, and speed of processing.

The study examined performance of 6- to 11-year-old children, from gifted and mainstream academic programs, on measures of mental-attentional capacity, cognitive inhibition, and speed of processing. In comparison with mainstream peers, gifted children scored higher on measures of mental-attentional capacity, responded more quickly on speeded tasks of varying complexity, and were better able to resist interference in tasks requiring effortful inhibition. There was no group difference on a task requiring automatic inhibition. Comparisons between older and younger children yielded similar results. Correlations between inhibition tasks suggest that inhibition is multidimensional in nature, and its application may be affected by task demands. Measures of efficiency of inhibition and speed of processing did not explain age or group differences on a complex intellective measure of mental-attentional capacity.

Association Learning↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Processing limitations in children with specific language impairment: the role of executive function.

Research suggests that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have processing limitations; however, the mechanisms involved have not been well defined or investigated in a theory-guided manner. The theory of constructive operators was used as a framework to explore processes underlying limited processing capacity in children with SLI. Mental attentional capacity, mental attentional interruption, and 2 specific executive functions (shifting and updating) were examined in 45 children with SLI and 45 children with normally developing language, aged 7 to 12 years. The results revealed overall group differences in performance on measures of mental attention, interruption, and updating, but not shifting. The findings supported the premise that mental attention predicted language competence, but that this relationship was mediated partially by updating.

Attention↗