PubMed Health⌕ Search

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Cognitive Reflection”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,027 records · Page 57Linked to original sources

Independence and overlap among neurocognitive correlates of community functioning in schizophrenia.

Existing literature on the neurocognitive correlates of community functioning in schizophrenia has not adequately focused on the relationships among the correlated variables. In a sample of 40 outpatients with schizophrenia and related disorders, we studied two sets of variables that we expected to be related to broad ratings of community functioning: (1) the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III) index scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed; and (2) positive, negative, disorganized and affective symptom variables. Of the WAIS-III index scores, working memory and processing speed entered a stepwise regression, together accounting for substantial variance in functional ratings (R(2)=0.37). However, only processing speed remained significantly associated with community functioning after controlling for the other indexes. In relation to community functioning, the remaining indexes appeared to be overlapping markers of general cognitive ability, rather than specific measures of discrete cognitive domains. Addition of positive and negative symptom variables in a further analysis greatly increased the explained functional variance (R(2)=0.65). Processing speed overlapped substantially with negative symptoms in predicting functioning, while the other WAIS-III indexes were independent of symptomatology. Results illustrate the importance of (1) knowing which neurocognitive variables have specific relationships to community functioning and which reflect the influence of more general cognitive ability in daily life, and (2) appreciating areas of overlap and independence among classes of correlates of functioning, such as neurocognitive and symptom variables. This improved understanding has implications for predictive models of community functioning, for cognitive rehabilitation and deficit compensation strategies, and for assessment practice.

Activities of Daily Living↗

Peer-group affiliation and adolescent self-esteem: an integration of ego-identity and symbolic-interaction theories.

To evaluate expectations derived from ego-identity theory and symbolic-interaction theories about the association between self-concept and peer-group affiliations in adolescence, we examined the self-esteem of 221 7th through 12th graders associated by peers with one of five major school crowds and 106 students relatively unknown by classmates and not associated with any school crowd. Among crowd members, self-esteem was directly related to the position of one's crowd in the peer-group status hierarchy (based on both peer-rated and self-perceived crowd affiliation). Outsiders' self-esteem differed in relation to the accuracy of their reflected appraisal of and the salience they attached to crowd affiliation. Crowd members as a whole exhibited higher self-esteem than outsiders as a whole. Differences, however, were mediated by crowd status, salience of crowd affiliation, and the accuracy of reflected appraisals. An adequate interpretation of the findings required an integration of Festinger's (1954, 1957) social comparisons and cognitive-dissonance theories, Cooley's (1902) notions of reflected appraisal, and Newman and Newman's (1976) extrapolations from ego-identity theory.

Adolescent↗

Portal-systemic encephalopathy. Influence of shunt surgery and relations to serum amino acids.

Fifty patients with liver cirrhosis, portal hypertension, and a history of bleeding oesophageal varices underwent 15 different cognitive psychometric tests to evaluate the presence of subclinical portal-systemic encephalopathy. None of the patients were clinically encephalopathic. The patients were compared with 50 healthy control subjects. Twenty-three patients showed definite signs of encephalopathy in the psychometric tests, 17 were normal, and 10 were borderline cases. The most pronounced abnormalities were seen in tests reflecting logic inductive capacity, visual spatial performance, cognitive flexibility, perceptual speed, spatial perceptive ability, and psychomotor performance. Tests reflecting word memory were less affected. Serum liver function tests did not differ between patients with deranged and normal brain functions. The serum isoleucine concentration was, however, significantly lower in the encephalopathic patients. The psychometric test results did not differ between patients with alcoholic and nonalcoholic liver cirrhosis, and no change was noted 2 years after shunt surgery.

Amino Acids↗

Longitudinal consistency of the relationship between depression symptoms and cognitive functioning in multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: Lifetime prevalence rates of cognitive dysfunction and depression in multiple sclerosis (MS) have typically been reported to be approximately 50 percent. However, an inconsistent relationship between these two common features of MS has been reported in the literature. Because neurovegetative depression symptoms overlap with MS symptoms, it may be that literature inconsistencies can partly be explained by the fact that only those depression symptom clusters unambiguously reflective of depression are associated with cognitive dysfunction. OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship between different depression symptom clusters and a battery of tests measuring cognitive domains commonly impaired in MS and was examined at two time points 3 years apart. METHODS: The Chicago Multiscale Depression Inventory was employed to measure mood, negative evaluative, and neurovegetative symptom clusters in 53 MS patients who were also administered a battery of neuropsychological tests. RESULTS: At time point 1, Mood and Evaluative Chicago Multiscale Depression Inventory scales were significantly associated with tasks of complex speeded attention, planning, and working memory. At time point 2, the Evaluative scale was still significantly associated with these domains, in addition to spatial memory; however, all of the significant correlations with the Mood scale dropped out. CONCLUSION: These results show that negative evaluative depression symptoms are most consistently predictive of cognitive dysfunction in MS. It may be that negative evaluative depression symptoms use up available cognitive capacity, thus compromising performance on cognitive capacity demanding tasks in MS patients.

Cognition Disorders↗

Introducing a problem-based unit into a lifespan nutrition class using a randomized design produces equivocal outcomes.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a tutorial, student-centered, problem-driven educational strategy adopted by medical and allied health educators to positively influence self-directed learning, critical thinking, and learning behavior. PBL was examined in dietetics education through random assignment of 32 undergraduate dietetics students for two weeks to either a problem-based or a lecture-based case format for the infant and elderly units of a 16-week lifespan nutrition course. Random assignment followed stratification for gender and earlier course examination performance. Expert validation of PBL curricular components and noted differences in discussion structure and information resources verified curriculum distinctiveness. Main outcome measures were pre- and post-Cognitive Behavior Survey scores for memorization, reflection, and positive learning experience scales, unit and course evaluations and unit examination scores. Students in problem-based modules demonstrated greater gains in reflective thinking with stable memorization, suggesting improved critical thinking skills. Tenets that problem-based learning promotes knowledge retention and provides a more positive learning experience were not upheld. Knowledge acquisition was not hindered by a problem-based approach. We conclude that gains in reflective thinking and evidence of increased self-directed learning argue for inclusion of PBL in dietetics curricula and that a problem-based education will help dietitians successfully respond to professional development needs.

Adult↗

Reaction time in ambulant multiple sclerosis patients. Part II. Influence of task complexity.

Effects of task variables on reaction time (RT) were investigated in 39 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and 25 matched control subjects, based on the premise that RT is sensitive to (subtle) changes of cognitive efficiency. The hypothesis to be tested held that inefficient cognitive processing in MS would be reflected in differences between RT patterns of MS and control subjects, and in inordinate RT increase in MS patients with increase of task complexity. No difference was found between MS patients and controls, or between MS subgroups, in (1) response to time uncertainty of stimulus presentations, (2) RT behaviour over stimulus presentations, and (3) RT change from simple to more complex conditions. No evidence of slowed cognitive processing was found in this sample of outpatients with relatively mild and stable MS. It is emphasised that executive and cognitive slowness have to be disentangled in research on MS and on so-called 'subcortical dementia', of which mental slowing is a key concept.

Adolescent↗

[Meta-cognitive strategies: a possibility in nursing education].

This article is a theoretical reflection about the possibility of the application of metacognition strategies in nursing education. Metacognition is a reflective attitude of self-awareness and control of the mental processes. The metacognition area of cognitive psychology is analyzed, focusing on the problem solving process. The importance of metacognition in education is approached with emphasis on the teacher's role as a mediator in the student's learning process, in which "learning to learn" is emphasized. Some examples of its use in different situations of nursing education such as in text reading and nursing process, are reported.

Education, Nursing↗

Alzheimer's disease: a disorder of cortical cholinergic innervation.

Great emphasis is being placed on identification of neurotransmitter systems involved in the symptomatic manifestations of neurological and psychiatric disorders. In the case of Alzheimer's disease, which now seems to be one of the most common causes of mental deterioration in the elderly, compelling evidence has been developed that acetylcholine-releasing neurons, whose cell bodies lie in the basal forebrain, selectively degenerate. These cholinergic neurons provide widespread innervation of the cerebral cortex and related structures and appear to play an important role in cognitive functions, especially memory. These advances reflect a close interaction between experimental and clinical neuroscientists in which information derived from basic neurobiology is rapidly utilized to analyze disorders of the human brain.

Alzheimer Disease↗

Detection of postoperative cognitive decline after coronary artery bypass graft surgery is affected by the number of neuropsychological tests in the assessment battery.

BACKGROUND: The assessment of postoperative cognitive dysfunction after coronary artery bypass graft surgery is made with the repeated administration of cognitive tests. This classification is vulnerable to error, and it has been suggested that increasing the number of tests in a battery while maintaining constant inclusion criteria for postoperative cognitive dysfunction increases the rate of false positive classification of deterioration. The current study tested this by applying a constant rule for cognitive dysfunction using combinations of two to seven cognitive tests. METHODS: Two hundred and four coronary artery bypass graft patients (surgical) and 90 healthy nonsurgical controls aged 55 years or older completed a battery of cognitive tests at baseline (preoperative) and 1 week later (postoperative). In both groups, postoperative cognitive dysfunction was classified using all unique combinations of two to seven cognitive tests when performance deteriorated on two or more tests by at least the value of the baseline standard deviation. RESULTS: The average incidence of cognitive dysfunction progressively increased in both groups as the number of cognitive tests increased from two (surgical: 13.3%; control: 3.1%) to seven tests (surgical: 49.4%; control: 41.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Increasing the number of tests used to classify postoperative cognitive dysfunction appears to increase the sensitivity to change in the coronary artery bypass graft group. However, accompanying false positive classifications suggest that this improved sensitivity reflected increased error. Future rules for postoperative cognitive dysfunction need to account for this error and include a control group.

Aged↗

Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence.

Like all perception, social perception reflects evolutionary pressures. In encounters with conspecifics, social animals must determine, immediately, whether the "other" is friend or foe (i.e. intends good or ill) and, then, whether the "other" has the ability to enact those intentions. New data confirm these two universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence. Promoting survival, these dimensions provide fundamental social structural answers about competition and status. People perceived as warm and competent elicit uniformly positive emotions and behavior, whereas those perceived as lacking warmth and competence elicit uniform negativity. People classified as high on one dimension and low on the other elicit predictable, ambivalent affective and behavioral reactions. These universal dimensions explain both interpersonal and intergroup social cognition.

Aptitude↗

Cognitive consequences of subcortical magnetic resonance imaging changes in Alzheimer's disease: comparison to small vessel ischemic vascular dementia.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare psychometric profiles of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients with subcortical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal abnormalities to those of AD patients without such MRI findings (normal subcortical MRI) and to those of patients with ischemic vascular dementia (IVD) associated with small and primarily subcortical ischemic changes. BACKGROUND: The cognitive significance of MRI white matter and other subcortical abnormalities in AD is unknown. Prior studies comparing AD patients with white matter changes on MRI have not included IVD patients with comparable MRI findings. If white matter/subcortical changes in AD reflect vascular abnormalities, they might be associated with cognitive profiles similar to those seen in subcortical IVD. METHOD: We studied 15 AD patients with normal subcortical MRIs, 22 AD patients with subcortical MRI hyperintensities, and 18 IVD (NINCDS-ADRDA and NINDS-AIREN criteria) at the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center of the Baylor College of Medicine. IVD patients had predominantly small and subcortical signal abnormalities, and none had large cortical infarcts. AD patients had only nonspecific subcortical signal abnormalities with or without atrophy (atrophy was not analyzed). We compared the AD group with abnormal MRIs to the AD group with normal subcortical MRIs and the AD group to the IVD group using ANCOVA planned comparisons (dementia severity and education covaried). RESULTS: AD patients with abnormal MRIs did not differ significantly from AD patients with normal subcortical MRIs on any of the neuropsychological measures. AD patients exhibited significantly better attention/concentration, visuospatial/visuoconstructional performance, letter fluency, motor programming, and simple motor speed than IVD patients as well as significantly worse delayed verbal recognition memory. Because MRI changes were generally more extensive in IVD, a subset of AD patients with abnormal subcortical MRIs was compared to a subset of IVD patients matched for degree of MRI signal abnormalities. These subsets of AD and IVD patients still showed distinctive neuropsychological profiles. CONCLUSIONS: AD patients with or without MRI subcortical signal abnormalities have similar neuropsychological profiles, and they differ from IVD patients with comparable MRI changes. Although MRI signal abnormalities in AD patients who have no history or examination findings of cerebrovascular disease overlap with those seen in IVD patients, they do not seem to have the same cognitive significance. Periventricular hyperintensities (PVHs) and deep signal hyperintensities, especially those of a mild to moderate degree, may reflect a different pathophysiologic process in AD than in IVD and do not necessarily have cognitive consequences in AD patients.

Aged↗

Medical burden, cerebrovascular disease, and cognitive impairment in geriatric depression: modeling the relationships with the CART analysis.

Herein, the background information reflecting roles of medical burden, cerebrovascular disease and risk factors, and cognitive impairment in geriatric depression are reviewed. The authors then propose a nonparametric statistical approach to the data analysis of multiple putative causal variables for late-life depression, the Classification and Regression Tree Analysis. This analysis presents a useful approach to modeling nonlinear relationships and interactions among variables measuring physical and mental health, as well as magnetic resonance imaging and cognitive measures in depressed elderly. This method uncovers the existing interactions among multiple predictor variables, and provide thresholds for each variable, at which its predictive power becomes statistically significant. It presents a "hierarchy" of the predictors in a form of a decision tree by finding the best combination of predictors of an outcome. The authors present two models based on demographic variables, measures of vascular and nonvascular medical burden, neuroimaging indices, the Mini-Mental State Examination score, and neuropsychological test scores of 81 elderly depressed subjects. Cognitive tests of verbal fluency and executive function are identified as the best predictors of depression, followed by the frontal lobe volume and Mini-Mental State Examination. The authors observed that an interaction between frontal lobe volume, total lesion volume, and medical burden was predictive of depression.

Journal Article↗

Single or multiple familial cognitive risk factors in schizophrenia?

The fact that relatives of patients with schizophrenia display subtle cognitive abnormalities suggests genetic transmission of an underlying cognitive endophenotype. It was examined to what extent the cognitive abnormalities that discriminate patients and relatives from controls do so independently of each other, and independent of IQ. Neuropsychological measures were assessed in 50 patients with schizophrenia, 50 first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, and 50 healthy controls. The assessment focused on episodic memory, attentional span, simple and complex speed of information, and semantic memory. Factor analysis of the cognitive test results yielded four factors reflecting speed, episodic memory, working memory, and semantic fluency. Performance of the relatives was intermediate to that of the patients and the controls after adjustment for age, sex, educational level, and IQ. For both patients and relatives, speed of information processing, working memory, and episodic memory independently discriminated from control performance, with a similar pattern in the order of the size of the effects. The results suggest the existence of more than one familial cognitive risk factor for schizophrenia. Independent familial cognitive risk factors may represent separate causal influences or separate indicators of risk related to the same genetic mechanism.

Adult↗

Lesions in the basal ganglion and hippocampus on performance in a Wisconsin Card Sorting Test-like task in pigeons.

Previous studies of LPO (lobus parolfactorium) and hippocampal lesions in pigeons suggest function of cognitive flexibility in LPO and memory consolidation in hippocampus [Watanabe S. Effects of hippocampal lesions on repeated acquisition of spatial discrimination in pigeons. Behav Brain Res 2001;120:59-66. ; Watanabe S. Effects of LPO lesions on repeated acquisition of spatial discrimination in pigeons. Brain Behav Evol 2002;58:333-342. ]. Here, a test similar to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test was applied to pigeons. The test consisted of four discriminations, namely red-green color discrimination and its reversal, left-right spatial discrimination and its reversal. In each trial stimuli were presented until the correct choice occurred. Ten successive correct trials without wrong response were defined as the criterion of discrimination. When the subjects reached the criterion in one discrimination, they were trained on one of three other discrimination tasks in the next session. These four discriminations were trained repeatedly in random sequence. After the birds have been well learned the WCST-like task, their hippocampus or lobus parolfactorium (LPO), the avian basal ganglion, was damaged. A sham lesion group received anesthesia only. Both lesions impaired the WCST-like test. Lesions of the LPO increased the number of errors, while the hippocampal lesions increased the number of trials to reach the criterion only. The number of errors reflects difficulty in finding the correct stimulus or cognitive flexibility, while the number of trials reflects difficulty in stable responding or memory consolidation. The present results suggest that LPO has the function of cognitive flexibility.

Analysis of Variance↗

Detailed analysis of the behavior of Lister and Wistar rats in anxiety, object recognition and object location tasks.

The present study, examines some issues in the measure and analysis of behavior in animals. Two strains of rats of both genders were used to illustrate and discuss these issues. We examined to what extent various behavioral measures reflect different or identical emotional or cognitive factors and, how sensitive are the various parameters of a task to differences between strains and genders. Wistar and Lister males and females rats were tested in an anxiety test then in the object recognition task followed by the object location task. Taking advantage of a simple computer program it is possible to: (1) record several parameters of theses tasks and examine the pattern of animal responses toward novelty and/or familiarity; (2) examine whether different measurements of the same response would reflect anxiety response to novelty and, can they discriminate between novelty and familiarity responses to objects; and (3) examine if changes in the pattern of animal responses are reflected by these measurements and, whether anxiety or discrimination is evident mainly during the first minute of the test. The results on the anxiety test show that different measures of the same response proved concordant and revealed significant differences between Lister males and Wistar males. Lister males approached more frequently an object and spent more time on an object in each approach compared to Wistar males in the first 5 min of test and in the total 10 min. They have also shorter latencies between approaches compared to Wistar males. The examination of performance over different time bins was significant with the measure of frequency. Lister male rats approached less frequently the object in the last 5 min of the test compared to the first 5 min. Their performance, however, did not differ from that of the other groups in this last 5 min. In the memory tasks, the measure of the frequency of approaches suggests that Lister male rats were able to discriminate between novel and familiar objects and, between novel and familiar location of objects. The measure of latency of first approach shows that Wistar female rats were able to discriminate between objects only in the spatial memory test. Discrimination in the object recognition task was observed in the first and second minute, and in the total 3 min sessions. Discrimination in the object location task was observed with the measure of frequency of approaches, in the first minute, and in the total 3 min sessions. Results from the total 3 min sessions were more concordant between the different measures of discrimination than results from separate 1 min bins. The results from the two memory tasks show that novelty prevented habituation to re-exposure to the testing environment. In many cases, novelty increased exploration of the objects in the choice phase compared to the sample phase. However, this lack of habituation or increased exploration in the choice phase is not concordant with most results of discrimination between novelty and familiarity from the same type of measurements.

Analysis of Variance↗

Early-onset cannabis use and cognitive deficits: what is the nature of the association?

BACKGROUND: Individuals who initiate cannabis use at an early age, when the brain is still developing, might be more vulnerable to lasting neuropsychological deficits than individuals who begin use later in life. METHODS: We analyzed neuropsychological test results from 122 long-term heavy cannabis users and 87 comparison subjects with minimal cannabis exposure, all of whom had undergone a 28-day period of abstinence from cannabis, monitored by daily or every-other-day observed urine samples. We compared early-onset cannabis users with late-onset users and with controls, using linear regression controlling for age, sex, ethnicity, and attributes of family of origin. RESULTS: The 69 early-onset users (who began smoking before age 17) differed significantly from both the 53 late-onset users (who began smoking at age 17 or later) and from the 87 controls on several measures, most notably verbal IQ (VIQ). Few differences were found between late-onset users and controls on the test battery. However, when we adjusted for VIQ, virtually all differences between early-onset users and controls on test measures ceased to be significant. CONCLUSIONS: Early-onset cannabis users exhibit poorer cognitive performance than late-onset users or control subjects, especially in VIQ, but the cause of this difference cannot be determined from our data. The difference may reflect (1). innate differences between groups in cognitive ability, antedating first cannabis use; (2). an actual neurotoxic effect of cannabis on the developing brain; or (3). poorer learning of conventional cognitive skills by young cannabis users who have eschewed academics and diverged from the mainstream culture.

Adolescent↗

From cognition to the system: developing a multilevel taxonomy of patient safety in general practice.

The paper describes the process of developing a taxonomy of patient safety in general practice. The methodologies employed included fieldwork, task analysis and confidential reporting of patient-safety events in five West Midlands practices. Reported events were traced back to their root causes and contributing factors. The resulting taxonomy is based on a theoretical model of human cognition, includes multiple levels of classification to reflect the chain of causation and considers affective and physiological influences on performance. Events are classified at three levels. At level one, the information-processing model of cognition is used to classify errors. At level two, immediate causes are identified, internal and external to the individual. At level three, more remote causal factors are classified as either 'work organization' or 'technical' with subcategories. The properties of the taxonomy (validity, reliability, comprehensiveness) as well as its usability and acceptability remain to be tested with potential users.

Classification↗

Negative symptoms and specific cognitive impairments as combined targets for improved functional outcome within cognitive remediation therapy.

Negative symptoms and poor cognition are both associated with poor functional outcome in schizophrenia. This poor functional outcome has been attributed to poor cognition rather than any independent contribution from symptoms. Identifying target cognitive processes and mechanisms that predict community function, and possible moderator effects of negative symptoms, will allow the development of cognitive remediation programs that are successful in improving functional outcome. A referred sample of 53 in- and outpatients with schizophrenia with general cognitive impairment (including 28 with severe negative symptoms) and 22 healthy controls, balanced for premorbid IQ, were compared cross sectionally on measures of community shopping skills, executive function, and working memory. Across the groups, there were direct relationships between community functioning and specific executive functions, and there were interactions between group membership and the types of associations found. Working memory was independently associated with accurate community functioning only in people with schizophrenia and negative symptoms. This association was not due to the sole presence of working memory impairment or just to negative symptoms. Poor community function is predicted both by specific cognitive impairments that are prominent in people with negative symptoms and through the moderating effect of negative symptoms on the working memory-community function relationship. This may reflect a synergistic association between symptoms and cognition: negative symptoms arise from cognitive impairment but also impact detrimentally on working memory functioning. Both cognitive processes and negative symptoms should be targeted in cognitive remediation to effect the greatest change in community functions.

Adult↗