Blinking and Mental Load

1972 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morris K. Holland ◽  
Gerald Tarlow
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Adaptive Mechanism ◽  
Mental Load

The rate of blinking is related to certain mental activities. One common feature of states associated with low blink rates is the presence of concentrated cognitive activity. The purpose of the present study was to determine how blinking is affected by variations in mental load; it was hypothesized that, for a given nonvisual task, blinking would decrease as mental load increased. The first study reported here manipulated memory load by requiring Ss to retain a sequence of 4, 6, or 8 digits. The second study involved mental arithmetic under time pressure; half the trials contained zeros in the sequence of numbers to be summed. In both studies the rate of blinking was low when mental load was high and the rate was high when mental load was low. It is speculated that blinking may disrupt certain cognitive processes and may therefore be inhibited when these processes are active. When mental load is increased, the inhibition of blinking may be an adaptive mechanism which protects vulnerable cognitive processes from interference.

scholarly journals Fake news, fast and slow: Deliberation reduces belief in false (but not true) news headlines

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bence Bago ◽  
David Gertler Rand ◽  
Gordon Pennycook
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Fake News ◽  
System 2 ◽  
False News ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Classical Account

What role does deliberation play in susceptibility to political misinformation and “fake news”? The “Motivated System 2 Reasoning” account posits that deliberation causes people to fall for fake news because reasoning facilitates identity-protective cognition and is therefore used to rationalize content that is consistent with one’s political ideology. The classical account of reasoning instead posits that people ineffectively discern between true and false news headlines when they fail to deliberate (and instead rely on intuition). To distinguish between these competing accounts, we investigated the causal effect of reasoning on media truth discernment using a two-response paradigm. Participants (N= 1635 MTurkers) were presented with a series of headlines. For each, they were first asked to give an initial, intuitive response under time pressure and concurrent working memory load. They were then given an opportunity to re-think their response with no constraints, thereby permitting more deliberation. We also compared these responses to a (deliberative) one-response baseline condition where participants made a single choice with no constraints. Consistent with the classical account, we found that deliberation corrected intuitive mistakes: subjects believed false headlines (but not true headlines) more in initial responses than in either final responses or the unconstrained 1-response baseline. In contrast – and inconsistent with the Motivated System 2 Reasoning account – we found that political polarization was equivalent across responses. Our data suggest that, in the context of fake news, deliberation facilitates accurate belief formation and not partisan bias.

scholarly journals Metacognition: A new cognitive paradigm

Psihologija ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milos Kankaras
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Thinking Processes ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
And Control ◽  
Metacognitive Experiences

This article reviews concept of metacognition, defined as: (a) knowledge about ones own cognitive activity, (b) strategies to monitor and regulate cognitive activity and behavior, and (c) subjective or metacognitive experiences which comes from some changes or temporary difficulties in cognitive functioning. While describing different conceptualizations of metacognition, its development, fields of application, relation with intelligence, and its constrictions and ambiguity, we attempt to present new and emerging metacognitive paradigm, which is, for a relatively short period, succeeded to improve, expand, and redefine wide range of theoretical and practical fields in psychology, on new and original way. How do we become conscious of our own cognitive processes? What role and significance that consciousness has, what is the functional level above thinking processes and how that level, which monitor and control cognitive activity, works. Metacognition is concept that presents, as so far, the most important insight in those human mind areas, which, although very important, remained on the margin of psychological investigations until now.

Specific Mental Arithmetic Difficulties and General Arithmetic Learning Difficulties: The Role of Phonological Working Memory

2020 ◽  
pp. 003329412091686
Author(s):  
Yi Ding ◽  
Ru-De Liu ◽  
Wei Hong ◽  
Qiong Yu ◽  
Jia Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Learning Difficulties ◽  
Sixth Graders ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
Phonological Working Memory ◽  
Significant Difference

The aim of this paper was to examine the role of phonological working memory in specific mental arithmetic difficulties and general arithmetic learning difficulties (ALD; difficulties presenting in both mental arithmetic and written arithmetic). In Study 1, we categorized 53 sixth graders into a control group, a group with specific mental arithmetic difficulties, and a group with general ALD. The findings indicated the group with specific mental arithmetic difficulties performed significantly worse on the task involving phonological working memory than did the control group. However, a significant difference was not found between the group with general ALD and the control group. In Study 2 involving 54 sixth graders, we decreased the load of phonological working memory by changing the format of the problems from horizontal (more reliance on phonological codes) to vertical (more reliance on visual resources). We found that the group with specific mental arithmetic difficulties performed comparably to the control group. In other words, when the working memory load is reduced, they no longer lag significantly behind on mental arithmetic. However, the group with general ALD still performed significantly worse than the control group when the problems were presented vertically, indicating that reduced phonological working memory load did not alleviate their arithmetic difficulties. The findings in both studies suggested that poor phonological working memory might contribute to the underlying mechanism for specific mental arithmetic difficulties but not as much for general ALD.

scholarly journals Assessment and Learning in the Virtual World: Tasks, Taxonomies and Teaching for Real

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Vallance ◽  
Stewart M. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Face Validity ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Learning Development ◽  
Use Of Assessment

Many educational institutions make use of assessment schemes based on an ordered hierarchy of cognitive activity, where the judgments of educators on the learning progress of students are expressed using marks or grades. These have high face-validity because they appear to represent intuitively sound descriptions of learning development. The language found in many such assessment structures and their protocols reflects the hierarchy within a revised Bloom's Taxonomy where, in the cognitive domain, evaluation and synthesis is regarded as superior to analysis or application, which are themselves rewarded above memory or understanding. Virtual worlds provide an opportunity to explore new educational contexts for analyzing and measuring cognitive processes that support learning. The present research used the Second Life virtual world as a medium for remotely located students to communicate in the collaborative construction and programming of robots. Iterative tasks were used to explore several neo-Bloomian cognitive processes and knowledge dimensions. Analysis of 60 hours of video from classroom activity, transcribed data and in-world interaction suggests that the hierarchy of descriptors and associated ratings that are used within assessment schemes based on neo-Bloomian taxonomies may not accurately correspond to the 'higher order' cognitive ability development of students.

scholarly journals Codzienne operacje arytmetyczne a problem kosztów podwójnego zadania: raport z eksperymentu behawioralnego kontrolowanego elektroencefalografem

2018 ◽  
pp. 145-155
Author(s):  
Tomasz Przybyła ◽  
Michał Klichowski
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Behavioral Experiment ◽  
Mathematical Education ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Dual Task Cost ◽  
Smartphone Use ◽  
Shopping Basket

Very recent studies show that a cognitive-motor interference can expose people not only to a motor danger but also weaken their cognitive capabilities. This effect is called the dual-task cost. One of the most popular examples of it nowadays is the smartphone use while walking, which is well examined. Yet, there are no studies that would analyse to what extent the other high-popular dual-task situation – shopping at the supermarket, weakens cognitive processes. To shed some light on this issue, we investigated a behavioral experiment on everyday mental calculations. Methods: Twenty mathematical-ly-educated adults took part in this study. We used stimuli in the form of shop labels. The participant’s task was to add two prices or state the price after a discount. They carried out the tasks by turns, either by standing (single-task) or walking with a shopping basket (dual-task). EEG controlled level of their attention. Results: We found that a cognitive-motor interference do not affected the everyday mental calculations. But, such familiar mental arithmetic as calculating prices after discounts was frighteningly difficultfor the participants. Conclusions: While our findingdoes not confirmthe occurrence of dual-task costs in everyday mental calculations, it has profound consequences for a mathematical education, which effects turn out to be useless in real life.

scholarly journals A single-boundary accumulator model of response times in an addition verification task

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Faulkenberry
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Additive Models ◽  
Verification Task ◽  
Accumulator Model ◽  
Competing Models ◽  
Format Effects ◽  
Single Boundary ◽  
Rt Distributions

Current theories of mathematical cognition offer competing accounts of the interplay between encoding and calculation in mental arithmetic. Additive models propose that manipulations of problem format do not interact with the cognitive processes used in calculation. Alternatively, interactive models suppose that format manipulations have a direct effect on calculation processes. In the present study, we tested these competing models by fitting participants’ RT distributions in an arithmetic verification task with a single- boundary accumulator model (the shifted Wald distribution). We found that in addition to providing a more complete description of RT distributions, the accumulator model afforded a potentially more sensitive test of format effects. Specifically, we found that format affected drift rate, which implies that problem format has a direct impact on calculation processes. These data give further support for an interactive model of mental arithmetic.

scholarly journals Analyzing cognitive processes of a product/service-system design session using protocol analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-530
Author(s):  
Tomohiko Sakao ◽  
John Gero ◽  
Hajime Mizuyama
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Protocol Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Product Service System ◽  
Coding Scheme ◽  
Product Service ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Product Service Systems ◽  
Design Experiments

AbstractProduct/service systems (PSSs) are increasingly found in markets, and more resources are being invested in PSS design. Despite the substantial research into PSS design, the current literature exhibits an incomplete understanding of it as a cognitive activity. This article demonstrates that the methods used to analyze product designers’ cognitive behavior can be used to produce comparable and commensurable results when analyzing PSS designers. It also generates empirical grounding for the development of hypotheses based on a cognitive study of a PSS design session in a laboratory environment using protocol analysis. This study is a part of a larger project comparing PSS design with product design. The results, which are based on the function–behavior–structure coding scheme, show that PSS design, when coded using this scheme, can be quantitatively compared with product design. Five hypotheses were developed based on the results of the study of this design session concerning where and how designers expend their cognitive design effort. These hypotheses can be used to design experiments that test them and provide the grounding for a fuller understanding of PSS design.

scholarly journals Foundational Elements of a Rendezvous: When (and Where) Planning & Prediction Meet

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 1709-1713
Author(s):  
Kimberly S. Spahr ◽  
Christopher D. Wickens ◽  
Benjamin A. Clegg ◽  
C.A.P. Smith ◽  
Gautham Vijayaragavan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
High Time ◽  
Performance Trends ◽  
Accurate Perception ◽  
As If

For one entity to initiate a meeting, interception, or rendezvous with another, such situations necessitate both accurate perception of the target’s trajectory and also planning of one’s own trajectory. To examine these cognitive processes and resulting performance trends, the current study presented participants with simplified simulated ship rendezvous scenarios in which they had to predict a target ship’s future course while planning their own actions to facilitate a meeting. Rendezvous error increased under high time pressure, either when the ships started by moving towards each other, or when the target ship moved faster than the user’s ship. When participants missed a rendezvous, they often did so by passing behind the target ship as if maneuvering too late. Participants also preferred to adjust both the heading and the speed of their ship when maneuvering. Finally, users took longer to assess situations characterized by high time pressure.

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