scholarly journals Cognitive Control and Discourse Comprehension in Schizophrenia

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan A. Boudewyn ◽  
Cameron S. Carter ◽  
Tamara Y. Swaab
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Discourse Comprehension ◽  
General Control ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Wide Range

Cognitive deficits across a wide range of domains have been consistently observed in schizophrenia and are linked to poor functional outcome (Green, 1996; Carter, 2006). Language abnormalities are among the most salient and include disorganized speech as well as deficits in comprehension. In this review, we aim to evaluate impairments of language processing in schizophrenia in relation to a domain-general control deficit. We first provide an overview of language comprehension in the healthy human brain, stressing the role of cognitive control processes, especially during discourse comprehension. We then discuss cognitive control deficits in schizophrenia, before turning to evidence suggesting that schizophrenia patients are particularly impaired at processing meaningful discourse as a result of deficits in control functions. We conclude that domain-general control mechanisms are impaired in schizophrenia and that during language comprehension this is most likely to result in difficulties during the processing of discourse-level context, which involves integrating and maintaining multiple levels of meaning. Finally, we predict that language comprehension in schizophrenia patients will be most impaired during discourse processing. We further suggest that discourse comprehension problems in schizophrenia might be mitigated when conflicting information is absent and strong relations amongst individual words are present in the discourse context.

Cognitive Control along the Language Spectrum: From the Typical Bilingual Child to Language Impairment

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (04) ◽  
pp. 256-271
Author(s):  
Klara Marton ◽  
Thorfun Gehebe ◽  
Lia Pazuelo
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Interference Control ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Language Deficit

AbstractCognitive control refers to the ability to perform goal-directed behaviors in the presence of other compelling actions or in the face of habitual practices. Cognitive control functions play a critical role in children's language processing and literacy development. In recent years, many clinicians have expanded their assessment and treatment to target specific cognitive skills. Our goal is to provide a review of recent findings on cognitive control functions in children with different language status (i.e., monolingual and bilingual children with and without language impairment). While children with language impairment show performance deficits in specific cognitive functions (e.g., working memory updating and interference control), typically developing bilingual children often outperform their monolingual peers in cognitive control tasks. However, the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive control has been controversial. Several factors that influence these variations are discussed. Given the findings on the joint impact of bilingualism and language impairment on cognitive control functions, we identify conditions in which bilingualism attenuates the negative effects of the language deficit and conditions in which language impairment has a stronger effect than bilingualism. Critical issues of bilingual assessment, suggestions, and future directions are discussed.

scholarly journals Cognitive control in bilinguals: Advantages in Stimulus–Stimulus inhibition

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 610-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
HENRIKE K. BLUMENFELD ◽  
VIORICA MARIAN
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Stroop Task ◽  
Simon Task ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Language Profiles

Bilinguals have been shown to outperform monolinguals at suppressing task-irrelevant information and on overall speed during cognitive control tasks. Here, monolinguals’ and bilinguals’ performance was compared on two nonlinguistic tasks: a Stroop task (with perceptualStimulus–Stimulus conflictamong stimulus features) and a Simon task (withStimulus–Response conflict). Across two experiments testing bilinguals with different language profiles, bilinguals showed more efficient Stroop than Simon performance, relative to monolinguals, who showed fewer differences across the two tasks. Findings suggest that bilingualism may engage Stroop-type cognitive control mechanisms more than Simon-type mechanisms, likely due to increased Stimulus–Stimulus conflict during bilingual language processing. Findings are discussed in light of previous research on bilingual Stroop and Simon performance.

Domain-general mechanism relationship with non-canonical sentence comprehension

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel El Bouzaïdi Tiali ◽  
Anna Borne ◽  
Lucile Meunier ◽  
Monica Bolocan ◽  
Monica Baciu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Negative Sentence

Purpose: Canonical sentence structures are the most frequently used in a given language. Less frequent or non-canonical sentences tend to be more challenging to process and to induce a higher cognitive load. To deal with this complexity several authors suggest that not only linguistic but also non-linguistic (domain-general) mechanisms are involved. In this study, we were interested in evaluating the relationship between non-canonical oral sentence comprehension and individual cognitive control abilities.Method: Participants were instructed to perform a sentence-picture verification task with canonical and non-canonical sentences. Sentence structures (i.e., active or passive) and sentence types (i.e., affirmative or negative) were manipulated. Furthermore, each participant performed four cognitive control tasks measuring inhibitory processes, updating in working memory, flexibility and sustained attention. We hypothesized that more complex sentence structures would induce a cognitive cost reflecting involvement of additional processes, and also that this additional cost should be related with cognitive control performances.Results: Results showed better performances for canonical sentences compared to non-canonical ones supporting previous work on passive and negative sentence processing. Correlation results suggest a close relationship between cognitive control mechanisms and non-canonical sentence processing.Conclusion: This study adds evidence for the hypothesis of a domain-general mechanism implication during oral language comprehension and highlights the importance of taking task demands into consideration when exploring language comprehension mechanisms.

scholarly journals Pace Yourself: Intraindividual Variability in Context Use Revealed by Self-paced Event-related Brain Potentials

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 837-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brennan R. Payne ◽  
Kara D. Federmeier
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Intraindividual Variability ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Context Processing ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Control Functions

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have revealed multiple mechanisms by which contextual constraints impact language processing. At the same time, little work has examined the trial-to-trial dynamics of context use in the brain. In the current study, we probed intraindividual variability in behavioral and neural indices of context processing during reading. In a concurrent self-paced reading and ERP paradigm, participants read sentences that were either strongly or weakly constraining completed with an expected or unexpected target word. Our findings revealed substantial within-subject variability in behavioral and neural responses to contextual constraints. First, context-based amplitude reductions of the N400, a component linked to semantic memory access, were largest among trials eliciting the slowest RTs. Second, the RT distribution of unexpected words in strongly constraining contexts was positively skewed, reflecting an increased proportion of very slow RTs to trials that violated semantic predictions. Among those prediction-violating trials eliciting faster RTs, a late sustained anterior positivity was observed. However, among trials producing the differentially slowed RTs to prediction violations, we observed a markedly earlier effect of constraint in the form of an anterior N2, a component linked to conflict resolution and the cognitive control of behavior. The current study provides the first neurophysiological evidence for the direct role of cognitive control functions in the volitional control of reading. Collectively, our findings suggest that context use varies substantially within individual participants and that coregistering behavioral and neural indices of online sentence processing offers a window into these single-item dynamics.

scholarly journals On the Rational Boundedness of Cognitive Control: Shared Versus Separated Representations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Musslick ◽  
Andrew Saxe ◽  
Abigail Novick Hoskin ◽  
Daniel Reichman ◽  
Jonathan D. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Network Architectures ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Shared Representations ◽  
Separated Representations ◽  
Dependent Behavior ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Learning Efficacy ◽  
Dependent Processes

One of the most fundamental and striking limitations of human cognition appears to be a constraint in the number of control-dependent processes that can be executed at one time. This constraint motivates one of the most influential tenets of cognitive psychology: that cognitive control relies on a central, limited capacity processing mechanism that imposes a seriality constraint on processing. Here we provide a formally explicit challenge to this view. We argue that the causality is reversed: the constraints on control-dependent behavior reflect a rational bound that control mechanisms impose on processing, to prevent processing interference that arises if two or more tasks engage the same resource to be executed. We use both mathematical and numerical analyses of shared representations in neural network architectures to articulate the theory, and demonstrate its ability to explain a wide range of phenomena associated with control-dependent behavior. Furthermore, we argue that the need for control, arising from the shared use of the same resources by different tasks, reflects the optimization of a fundamental tradeoff intrinsic to network architectures: the increase in learning efficacy associated with the use of shared representations, versus the efficiency of parallel processing (i.e., multitasking) associated with task-dedicated representations. The theory helps frame a formally rigorous, normative approach to the tradeoff between control-dependent processing versus automaticity, and relates to a number of other fundamental principles and phenomena concerning cognitive function, and computation more generally.

Load Theory of Attention and Cognitive Control

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nilli Lavie ◽  
Polly Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Perceptual Load ◽  
Load Theory ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Current Task ◽  
The Face

Research has highlighted a puzzling discrepancy in our selective attention performance: whereas in some circumstances we are able to be highly selective, at other times we can exhibit high levels of distraction. The load theory of attention and cognitive control provides an explanation for these contrasting observations, proposing that the extent to which people can focus their attention in the face of irrelevant distractions depends on the level and type of information load involved in their current task. According to the theory, the extent to which unattended visual information is perceived depends on the perceptual load of the attended task, such that increasing the level of perceptual load in the task decreases processing of task-irrelevant stimuli. Effective prioritization of task-relevant stimuli in the face of competition from irrelevant distractors is proposed to depend on the availability of executive control functions. Thus, loading executive control results in increased processing of irrelevant stimuli. This chapter presents converging research from a wide range of approaches in support of these proposals, as well as highlighting some of load theory’s wider influences in areas as diverse as emotion processing, developmental psychology, and the understanding of psychological disorders.

scholarly journals A new era for executive function research: On the transition from centralized to distributed executive functioning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Zink ◽  
Sebastian Markett ◽  
Agatha Lenartowicz
Keyword(s):  
Brain Connectivity ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Central Executive ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Spatially Distributed ◽  
Higher Cognitive Functions ◽  
The Brain

“Executive functions” (EFs) is an umbrella term for higher cognitive functions such as working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility. These functions refer to dissociable mechanisms that are also intricately related, justifying the view of EF as a unitary mental faculty. One of the most challenging theoretical problems in this field of research has been to explain how the wide range of cognitive processes subsumed as EFs are controlled without an all-powerful but ill-defined central executive in the brain. Efforts to localize control mechanisms in circumscribed brain regions have not led to breakthrough in understanding how the brain controls and regulates itself, and no single brain system underlying a ‘central executive’ has yet been identified. We discuss how a distributed control network view can help to refine our understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying EFs. In this view, executive control functions are realized by spatially distributed brain networks, thus precluding the need for a modular central executive. We further discuss how graph-theory driven analysis of brain networks offers a unique lens on this problem by providing a reference frame to study brain connectivity in EFs in a holistic way and how neuroscience network research endeavors to investigate clinical neuropathology of disrupted EFs.

Processing linguistic variation through dual mechanisms of cognitive control

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant M. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Connectionist Model ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Control Hypothesis

AbstractWhile rarely difficult for the average speaker/listener, the ubiquity of variation at all levels of linguistic production is a challenge for modern psycholinguistic models of language processing. Variation is perhaps most extreme at the levels of phonetics and phonology, but many models of language processing all but eschew these levels altogether. The current paper posits that cognitive control mechanisms, when divided into proactive and reactive control via a dual mechanisms framework may effectively describe the strategies individuals use to process linguistic variation and, when incorporated into language processing models, can generate novel, testable predictions regarding the origin and propagation of individual differences. By means of example, I illustrate how dual mechanisms of control could be incorporated into a connectionist model of language production. I then describe how dual mechanisms of cognitive control might be relevant for the Adaptive Control Hypothesis and how individual differences in processing strategies may modulate participation in language changes-in-progress.

The Opposition of Surprisal and Semantic Similarity in the Prediction of Language Processing: Evidence from Eye-tracking Data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Sun
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Reading Time ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Tracking Data ◽  
Dynamic Approach

Expectations or predictions about upcoming content play an important role during language comprehension and processing. One important aspect of recent studies of language comprehension and processing concerns the estimation of the upcoming words in a sentence or discourse. Many studies have used eye-tracking data to explore computational and cognitive models for contextual word predictions and word processing. Eye-tracking data has previously been widely explored with a view to investigating the factors that influence word prediction. However, these studies are problematic on several levels, including the stimuli, corpora, statistical tools they applied. Although various computational models have been proposed for simulating contextual word predictions, past studies usually preferred to use a single computational model. The disadvantage of this is that it often cannot give an adequate account of cognitive processing in language comprehension. To avoid these problems, this study draws upon a massive natural and coherent discourse as stimuli in collecting the data on reading time. This study trains two state-of-art computational models (surprisal and semantic (dis)similarity from word vectors by linear discriminative learning (LDL)), measuring knowledge of both the syntagmatic and paradigmatic structure of language. We develop a `dynamic approach' to compute semantic (dis)similarity. It is the first time that these two computational models have been merged. Models are evaluated using advanced statistical methods. Meanwhile, in order to test the efficiency of our approach, one recently developed cosine method of computing semantic (dis)similarity based on word vectors data adopted is used to compare with our `dynamic' approach. The two computational and fixed-effect statistical models can be used to cross-verify the findings, thus ensuring that the result is reliable. All results support that surprisal and semantic similarity are opposed in the prediction of the reading time of words although both can make good predictions. Additionally, our `dynamic' approach performs better than the popular cosine method. The findings of this study are therefore of significance with regard to acquiring a better understanding how humans process words in a real-world context and how they make predictions in language cognition and processing.

scholarly journals Inhibitory Mechanisms in the Processing of Negations: A Neural Reuse Hypothesis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Beltrán ◽  
Bo Liu ◽  
Manuel de Vega
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Response Inhibition ◽  
Cognitive Functions ◽  
Functional Relation ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Inhibitory Effects ◽  
General Domain ◽  
Inhibitory Mechanisms ◽  
Neural Reuse ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

AbstractNegation is known to have inhibitory consequences for the information under its scope. However, how it produces such effects remains poorly understood. Recently, it has been proposed that negation processing might be implemented at the neural level by the recruitment of inhibitory and cognitive control mechanisms. On this line, this manuscript offers the hypothesis that negation reuses general-domain mechanisms that subserve inhibition in other non-linguistic cognitive functions. The first two sections describe the inhibitory effects of negation on conceptual representations and its embodied effects, as well as the theoretical foundations for the reuse hypothesis. The next section describes the neurophysiological evidence that linguistic negation interacts with response inhibition, along with the suggestion that both functions share inhibitory mechanisms. Finally, the manuscript concludes that the functional relation between negation and inhibition observed at the mechanistic level could be easily integrated with predominant cognitive models of negation processing.

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