Science posts

See science posts on page 66 below.

    • 2010
    • Geiger, Anja
    • Association between sleep duration and intelligence scores in healthy children
    • We examined the association between sleep behavior and cognitive functioning in 60 healthy children between 7 and 11 years of age under nonexperimental conditions. Intellectual abilities were assessed by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (4th edition) and sleep variables by questionnaires, actigraphy, and sleep diaries. Correlation analysis revealed a negative association between sleep duration on weekends and measures of intelligence (full-scale IQ, r = −.29; fluid IQ, r = −.36). The regression coefficient for sleep duration on weekends was −6.11 (SE = 2.09), indicating an increase of 6.11 points on fluid IQ scores for each hour of shorter sleep duration. Attention measures did not correlate with cognitive or sleep variables. Daytime sleepiness as a potential moderator of the relationship between sleep duration and cognitive performance was not related to cognitive or sleep variables. We conclude that children with higher daytime cognitive efficiency (reflected by higher ..
    • 2008
    • Kevin S. McGrew
    • CHC theory and the human cognitive abilities project: Standing on the shoulders of the giants of psychometric intelligence research
    • During the past decade the Cattell–Horn Gf–Gc and Carroll Three-Stratum models have emerged as the consensus psychometric-based models for understanding the structure of human intelligence. Although the two models differ in a number of ways, the strong correspondence between the two models has resulted in the increased use of a broad umbrella term for a synthesis of the two models (Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory of cognitive abilities—CHC theory). The purpose of this editorial is three-fold. First, I will describe the CHC framework and recommend that intelligence researchers begin using the CHC taxonomy as a common nomenclature for describing research findings and a theoretical framework from which to test hypotheses regarding various aspects of human cognitive abilities. Second, I argue that the emergence of the CHC framework should not be viewed as the capstone to the psychometric era of factor analytic research. Rather, I recommend the CHC framework serve as the stepping stone to ..
    • Intelligence, Cognitive abilities, Factor analysis, John Horn, John Carroll, HCA, Gf–Gc theory, Cattell–Horn–Carroll Theory, CHC theory
    • 2004
    • Robert Stickgold
    • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661304000749
    • The development of mathematical insight, the knack for discovering novel solutions to mathematical problems, might be one of the most erudite forms of learning that we can hope to achieve. However, Wagner and his colleague now report that a night of sleep after being exposed to a class of mathematical problems more than doubles the likelihood of discovering just such a novel solution.
    • 2002
    • Maurizio Corbetta
    • Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain
    • We review evidence for partially segregated networks of brain areas that carry out different attentional functions. One system, which includes parts of the intraparietal cortex and superior frontal cortex, is involved in preparing and applying goal-directed (top-down) selection for stimuli and responses. This system is also modulated by the detection of stimuli. The other system, which includes the temporoparietal cortex and inferior frontal cortex, and is largely lateralized to the right hemisphere, is not involved in top-down selection. Instead, this system is specialized for the detection of behaviourally relevant stimuli, particularly when they are salient or unexpected. This ventral frontoparietal network works as a 'circuit breaker' for the dorsal system, directing attention to salient events. Both attentional systems interact during normal vision, and both are disrupted in unilateral spatial neglect.
    • 2007
    • Nico U. F. Dosenbach et al
    • Distinct brain networks for adaptive and stable task control in humans
    • Control regions in the brain are thought to provide signals that configure the brain's moment-to-moment information processing. Previously, we identified regions that carried signals related to task-control initiation, maintenance, and adjustment. Here we characterize the interactions of these regions by applying graph theory to resting state functional connectivity MRI data. In contrast to previous, more unitary models of control, this approach suggests the presence of two distinct task-control networks. A frontoparietal network included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and intraparietal sulcus. This network emphasized start-cue and error-related activity and may initiate and adapt control on a trial-by-trial basis. The second network included dorsal anterior cingulate/medial superior frontal cortex, anterior insula/frontal operculum, and anterior prefrontal cortex. Among other signals, these regions showed activity sustained across the entire task epoch, suggesting that this netw..
    • attention, connectivity, executive control, functional MRI, task set
    • 2009
    • Konstantin M. Mihov
    • Hemispheric specialization and creative thinking: A meta-analytic review of lateralization of creativity
    • In the last two decades research on the neurophysiological processes of creativity has found contradicting results. Whereas most research suggests right hemisphere dominance in creative thinking, left-hemisphere dominance has also been reported. The present research is a meta-analytic review of the literature to establish how creative thinking relates to relative hemispheric dominance. The analysis was performed on the basis of a non-parametric vote-counting approach and effect-size calculations of Cramer’s phi suggest relative dominance of the right hemisphere during creative thinking. Moderator analyses revealed no difference in predominant right-hemispheric activation for verbal vs. figural tasks, holistic vs. analytical tasks, and context-dependent vs. context-independent tasks. Suggestions for further investigations with the meta-analytic and neuroscience methodologies to answer the questions of left hemispheric activation and further moderation of the effects are discussed.
    • Creativity, Laterality, Hemisphericity, Right hemisphere, Meta-analysis, Review
    • 2006
    • Andreas Fink
    • Creativity meets neuroscience: Experimental tasks for the neuroscientific study of creative thinking
    • The psychometric assessment of different facets of creative abilities as well as the availability of experimental tasks for the neuroscientific study of creative thinking has replaced the view of creativity as an unsearchable trait. In this article we provide a brief overview of contemporary methodologies used for the operationalization of creative thinking in a neuroscientific context. Empirical studies are reported which measured brain activity (by means of EEG, fMRI, NIRS or PET) during the performance of different experimental tasks. These tasks, along with creative idea generation tasks used in our laboratory, constitute useful tools in uncovering possible brain correlates of creative thinking. Nevertheless, much more work is needed in order to establish reliable and valid measures of creative thinking, in particular measures of novelty or originality of creative insights.
    • Human cognition, Creativity, Creative thinking, Divergent thinking, Neuroscience
    • 2013
    • Gao W
    • The synchronization within and interaction between the default and dorsal attention networks in early infancy.
    • An anticorrelated interaction between the dorsal attention and the default-mode networks has been observed, although how these 2 networks establish such relationship remains elusive. Behavioral studies have reported the emergence of attention and default network-related functions and a preliminary competing relationship between them at early infancy. This study attempted to test the hypothesis--resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging will demonstrate not only improved network synchronization of the dorsal attention and the default networks, respectively, during the first 2 years of life but also an anticorrelated network interaction pattern between the 2 networks at 1 year which will be further enhanced at 2 years old. Our results demonstrate that both networks start from an isolated region in neonates but evolve to highly synchronized networks at 1 year old. Paralleling the individual network maturation process, the anticorrelated behaviors are absent at birth but become..
    • 2014
    • David M. Amodio
    • The neuroscience of prejudice and stereotyping
    • Despite global increases in diversity, social prejudices continue to fuel intergroup conflict, disparities and discrimination. Moreover, as norms have become more egalitarian, prejudices seem to have 'gone underground', operating covertly and often unconsciously, such that they are difficult to detect and control. Neuroscientists have recently begun to probe the neural basis of prejudice and stereotyping in an effort to identify the processes through which these biases form, influence behaviour and are regulated. This research aims to elucidate basic mechanisms of the social brain while advancing our understanding of intergroup bias in social behaviour.
    • 2008
    • Andreas Fink et al
    • The creative brain: Investigation of brain activity during creative problem solving by means of EEG and FMRI
    • Cortical activity in the EEG alpha band has proven to be particularly sensitive to creativity-related demands, but its functional meaning in the context of creative cognition has not been clarified yet. Specifically, increases in alpha activity (i.e., alpha synchronisation) in response to creative thinking can be interpreted in different ways: As a functional correlate of cortical idling, as a sign of internal top-down activity or, more specifically, as selective inhibition of brain regions. We measured brain activity during creative thinking in two studies employing different neurophysiological measurement methods (EEG and fMRI). In both studies, participants worked on four verbal tasks differentially drawing on creative idea generation. The EEG study revealed that the generation of original ideas was associated with alpha synchronisation in frontal brain regions and with a diffuse and widespread pattern of alpha synchronisation over parietal cortical regions. The fMRI study reveale..

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