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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1976

Meaning, memory structure, and mental processes.

Although people experience little difficulty in recognizing printed words and comprehending sentences, they cannot do it instantaneously. Experimental psychologists have recently measured the speed of these mental processes by applying a reaction-time method. The method provides new data concerning the organization and retrieval of familiar semantic information in human memory. It has been found that close relations between the meanings of words help people to recognize and pronounce the words faster, especially when the words are hard to see because of visual distortions. Close relations between word meanings also facilitate the comprehension of some sentences, as indicated by how long a person takes to decide whether the sentences are true or false. The facilitation is not universal, however. When the relation between the meanings of two words must be analyzed carefully, their proximity may actually inhibit mental processing. These results, along with additional findings, support the hypothesis that human memory includes a semantic network that represents various categories of objects at distinct locations linked to specify their relations with each other. The memory structure probably influences a number of different mental processes that use it. One possible access route to the network is through a set of detectors designed to accumulate sensory information and signal the presence of particular words. There also appear to be processes for searching and comparing pieces of knowledge after a person finds the memory locations of designated categories. Further research using the reaction-time method may provide a more detailed inventory of what facts are retrieved directly from memory and what are computed from other stored information (36).

Humans↗
PubMed1992

EEG changes induced by carbamazepine therapy at rest and during mental processes.

The effects of carbamazepine (CBZ) on EEG background activity have been studied, at rest and during mental processes, in 18 epileptic patients suffering from focal epilepsy and starting antiepileptic treatment for the first time. The EEGs were recorded before and after CBZ therapy, at rest with eyes closed (EC), during blocking reaction (BR), fixation (FIX) and mental arithmetic (MA) tasks, and then evaluated by spectral analysis. All data underwent statistical evaluation utilizing the ANOVA and correlation coefficient. The following parameters were evaluated: mean absolute and relative power and mean frequency. The results have shown that CBZ induced a significant increase of slow activity at rest with EC, which was represented by delta potentials, and was correlated with CBZ plasma levels. In evaluating the different cortical activation patterns, a decrease of the alpha reactivity was noted during BR and FIX, while a significant increase of beta activity was observed during the performance of all tasks. The relationship between the increased beta power, possibly reflecting an increase of cognitive activity for processing information, and the lack of a significant decrease of alpha activity are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Cerebral blood flow and mental processes in schizophrenia.

The patterns of cerebral blood flow associated with three syndromes of schizophrenic symptoms are compared with the loci of cerebral activation in normal subjects during the performance of mental processes implicated in the three syndromes. The psychomotor poverty syndrome, which has been shown to involve a diminished ability to generate words, is associated with decreased perfusion of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex at a locus which is activated in normal subjects during the internal generation of words. The disorganization syndrome, which has been shown to involve impaired suppression of inappropriate responses (eg in the Stroop test), is associated with increased perfusion of the right anterior cingulate gyrus at a location activated in normal subjects performing the Stroop test. The reality distortion syndrome, which evidence suggests arises from disordered internal monitoring of activity, is associated with increased perfusion in the medial temporal lobe at a locus activated in normal subjects during the internal monitoring of eye movements.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

[Effect of caffeine on motor reactions and visual-mental processing time].

The effect of coffee without and with caffeine (200 mg) on the performance of "awake" respectively "fatigued" subjects was proved. 5 females and 7 males (22 to 32 years) were chosen for the cross-over double-blind study. Motor reaction time, visual-mental processing time, reading-speed and reading-errors were recorded. Further experiments under aggravated conditions were carried out. In the morning ("awake") caffeine increases the efficiency of all parameters excepted the reading errors. At night ("fatigued") the increase by caffeine is insignificant. Even in some subjects caffeine decreases the speed of reading and increases the number of errors. Under test-conditions, which were aggravated by strong acoustical disturbance, caffeine does not improve efficiency, compared with caffeine-free coffee. Overriding into the range of decreasing performance in spite of increasing central activity was not found under any test-condition.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Electrophysiological evidence for temporal overlap among contingent mental processes.

A series of studies assessed perceptual-motor transmission of stimulus information by measuring lateralization of movement-related brain potentials in a choice reaction task with no-go trials. When stimuli varied in shape and size, lateralized potentials on no-go trials suggested that easily recognized shape information was used to initiate motor preparation and that this preparation was aborted when size analysis signified that the response should be withheld. This indicates that movement preparation can begin once partial perceptual information about a stimulus becomes available, contrary to an assumption of fully discrete models of information processing. By contrast, when stimuli varied only in size, no evidence for preliminary response preparation was obtained, contrary to an assumption of fully continuous models but consistent with asynchronous discrete coding models (Miller, 1982, 1988).

Adult↗
PubMed1992

[Clinico-experimental study of mental processes in men with HIV infection].

A total of 55 males aged 19.5 to 62 years who were infected with HIV were examined psychopathologically+ and neuropsychologically by A.R. Luria's methods. Twenty-one of these patients were homosexuals. Syphilis was recorded in 34.7% in this group. Lymphadenopathy was the major clinical sign of HIV infection. Symptoms of organic involvements+ of the central nervous system were revealed by a psychopathological method. Neuropsychological studies detected dysfunction of the right cerebral hemisphere, particularly in a group of homosexuals suffering from syphilis.

AIDS-Related Complex↗
PubMed1978

An alternative view of the neurobiology of dreaming.

The author critiques the recently proposed activation-synthesis hypothesis about the origin and formation of dreams. Many findings do not support the new hypothesis that specific pontine physiological processes, rather than mental processes, instigate dreams and produce their distortion. First, dreaming often occurs in the absence of the pontine processes. Second, forebrain activity (which can have mental correlates) is crucial to the instigation and maintenance of dreaming sleep. Finally, activity of the proposed pontine dream generator, which is claimed to cause dream distortion, is not reliably accompanied by dream distortion.

Diencephalon↗
PubMed1992

Gall's psychophysiological concept of function: the rise and decline of "internal essence".

Gall did not employ the term "function" to refer to adaptive mental processes or to observable behavior. To the contrary, he and the phrenologists took a traditional concept of function regarding the contribution or duties of a part within the overall "animal economy" and argued that the "faculties" of the soul are among the functions of the nervous system. In particular, he brought this psychophysiological use of the term into his Enlightenment perspective when he aligned it with internal essence, juxtaposed it to its external sign, and argued that the cerebral organs are the material instruments through which the internal faculties manifest themselves in behavior and in the shape of the skull. Gall did not believe that the faculties are a product of the organs but that the organs, being material incarnations of the internal functions, contain the power to express the faculties externally. Purely psychological uses of function are infrequent among the works of Gall and his followers. It was not until the functionalists at the turn of the century that the word was applied to the adaptive utility of mental processes in relation to the environment and not until the advent of behaviorism that it was employed to refer to the end or adaptive utility of a particular behavior.

Europe↗
PubMed1975

[Lateralization of mental functions at the subcortical level (according to material from stereotaxic surgery)].

In 26 patients with expressed signs of parkinsonism the authors studied the state of higher cortical functions prior to and following stereotaxic operations. The results of such studies point to a distinct connection between the changes of certain mental processes and the side of the operation. It was demonstrated that the subcortical structures of the left and right hemisphere participate in the mnestic function in different ways. The specificity and different directions of postoperative changes in the higher cortical functions may in the opinion of the authors speak in favour of a certain specificity in the contributed organization of mental processes on behalf of the subcortical structures.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

Psychosomatic medicine--past, present, and future.

"Psychosomatic" is not part of the average person's vocabulary, and most educated laymen know the meaning of "psychophysiological" and "somatopsychic." Without having words for the process, everyone senses that mental processes can influence bodily functioning and, certainly, that the sick body can produce a sick mind. Many explanations have been offered for the mechanisms underlying these processes--theories ranging from the irrational and religious to the philosophical and scientific. Scientific interest in these processes has been a relatively recent development, originating perhaps a few decades ago. It is time to take inventory, to review and consider the scientific history of psychosomatic medicine and the current status of the field. It is also fascinating to speculate on the developments and ramifications of psychosomatic medicine in the future.

Forecasting↗