Planning ability: We are not alone

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Planning ability post at DI blog

Check out an interesting post re: the neural substrates of planning ability (part of the executive function system) at the always interesting Developing Intelligence blog.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, planning, executive function, cognition, intelligence

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Cognitive flexibility, executive function, and Glr

I sometimes skim journal articles with titles that are not directly related to my major areas of domain expertise and interest. Quite often I'm surprised to find little descriptions of important cognitive/intellectual phenomena in the literature reviews, even though the primary purpose of the study is not of significant interest to my work. Today I stumbled across one of these "lit review" gems in an article about Parkinson's Disease (PD).

The article dealt with cognitive flexibility, which, over the many years of my career in research practice, had come to have a certain psychological meaning to me. Contemporary research often refers to cognitive flexibility as a part of executive functioning (EF).

This article connected some nodes in my fishing new of cognitive/intellectual knowledge....so I thought I'd share this little tidbit. The bottom line is that the construct of cognitive flexibility can be thought of as having two different means of expression in human behavior. I liked the description of the two. The information is presented below [italics added by the blogmaster]. The "spontaneous" component of flexibility refers to the CHC broad stratum II ability of Glr (Broad Retrieval Ability), while the reactive component is more associated with EF For some reason I had not made this connection previously. My mental schema feel better now.


If anyone is interested in the substantive portions of this article by Tomer et al. (2007) in Neuropsychologia, click here.

• Although there is still controversy regarding the exact nature of this impairment, deficits in cognitive flexibility have been among the most noticeable cognitive difficulties encountered by patients with PD (e.g. Brown 1988; Cools, 2005; Cooper et al., 1991; Lees Smith, 1983).
• Cognitive Fexibility refers to the ability to shift avenues of thought and action in order to perceive, process and respond to situations in different ways (Eslinger Grattan, 1993). It is an essential requirement for regulating one’s behaviour, and as such, it is one component of executive functions. However, the impairment in cognitive flexibility in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is by no means a universal finding and some studies do not find such deficits (Piatt, Fields, Paolo, Koller, Troster, 1999; Troster et al., 1998). Many factors may contribute to this variability including the nature of the tasks employed in the various studies, and the characteristics of the patients studied.
• Cognitive flexibility is not a unitary process. Eslinger and Grattan (1993) distinguished between two types of cognitive flexibility: (1) reactive flexibility, which they defined as the readiness to shift cognition and behaviour according to the demands of the situation, is usually evaluated by performance on set-shifting tasks and (2) spontaneous flexibility is the ability to generate a flow of ideas and answers, often in response to a single question. This is most often assessed with fluency tasks (such as word, design or ideational fluency).

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, dopamine, Parkinson's, Glr, cognitive flexibility, intelligence, executive functiong, Glr, broad retrieval ability


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Multitasking bad for teenagers?

Interesting news coverage at WashingtonPost.com re: the increase in apparent multitasking by teens and whether it is bad for brain development during the formative years.


Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, multitasking, teenagers, adolescence, working memory, intelligence, developmental, cognition

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Asperger's and executive functioning

I ran across an interesting small-sample (but well controlled with subject matching) study in the recent issue of Neuropsychologia re: possible impairments in executive processes/function (EF) in adults with Asperger's Syndrome. The article presents a nice summary (in table form) of prior matched-control studies that have examined the performance of individuals with Asperger's on many classic executive function measures (e.g., Wisconsin Cart Sort Test; Delis-Kaplan).

The most important finding from this study is the possibility that specific EF deficits (viz., response initiation and intentionality, in particular the ability to engage and disengage actions in the service of overarching goals),may be associated with Asperger's, but this may not have emerged in prior research that has used traditional EF measures. IN particular, the authors identify two less frequently used EF measures (Behavioral Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome, BADS; Hayling Test) as being potentially important for clinicians to evaluate for possible diagnostic use.

• Hill, E. Bird, C. (2006) Executive processes in Asperger syndrome: Patterns of performance in a multiple case series Neuropsychologia,44, 2822–2835 (click here to view)
  

Abstract

• Mixed evidence exists for executive dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This may be because of the nature of the tasks used, the heterogeneity of participants, and difficulties with recruiting appropriate control groups. A comprehensive battery of ‘executive’ tests was administered to 22 individuals with Asperger syndrome and 22 well-matched controls. Performance was analysed both between groups and on an individual basis to identify outliers in both the ASD and control groups. There were no differences between the groups on all ‘classical’ tests of executive function. However, differences were found on newer tests of executive function. Specifically, deficits in planning, abstract problem solving and especially multitasking. On the tests that discriminated the groups, all of the ASD individuals except one were identified as significantly impaired (i.e. below the 5th percentile of the control mean) on at least one executive measure. This study provides evidence for significant executive dysfunction in Asperger syndrome. Greatest dysfunction appeared in response initiation and intentionality at the highest level—the ability to engage and disengage actions in the service of overarching goals. These deficits are best observed through using more recent, ecologically valid tests of executive dysfunction. Moreover, performance on these measures correlated with autistic symptomatology.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, Aspergers, autism, intelligence, IQ, executive system, executive function, Wisconsin Card Sort Test, WCST, Delis-Kaplan, BADS, Hayling test

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Developmental aspects of planning ability - Wisconsin Card Sort

The Eide Neurolearning blog just made a post commenting/summarizing a recent article that studied the performance of children on the Wisconsin Cart Sort test, an established test of planning (part of executive function).

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, Wisconsin Cart Sort, WCST, planning ability, executive function, intelligence, cognition


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Do the sexes use different brain areas when "planning"?

Mixing Memory has a VERY interesting post regarding recent studies of possible gender differences in "planning" ability (part of executive functioning), as measured by the classic Tower of London task. MM's post speaks for itself. Of particular interest are findings suggesting no manifest performance difference between genders, BUT, significant differences in the areas of the brain's used (based on fMRI analyses). Check it out

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, brain, fMRI, planning, executive function, Tower of London, intelligence, cognition, cognitive, gender differences

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CHC teaching tools - Gv game example

One of my favorite sites for keeping abreast of new software and downloads is the Download Squad. Almost evey day they post "today's time-waster" which features a new game.

I've now realized that some of these on-line games might serve as interesting tools for presenting examples of CHC abilities to educators, students, parents and others.....in lieu of showing test items. Today they poasted a note about Flash Tangrams, a version of a game many of us played as kids. IMHO it would make a decent example of Gv tests/tasks that require SR (Spatial Relations)/Vz (Vizualization).

The other day I posted a note about another example of a possible measure of verbal planning.

Keywords: Gv CHC teaching tool planning