scholarly journals Approximate Number Sense in Students With Severe Hearing Loss: A Modality-Neutral Cognitive Ability

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailin Ma ◽  
Xiaoou Bu ◽  
Emily M. Sanford ◽  
Tongao Zeng ◽  
Justin Halberda
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Verbal Iq ◽  
Mathematics Ability ◽  
Mathematics Abilities

The Approximate Number System (ANS) allows humans and non-human animals to estimate large quantities without counting. It is most commonly studied in visual contexts (i.e., with displays containing different numbers of dots), although the ANS may operate on all approximate quantities regardless of modality (e.g., estimating the number of a series of auditory tones). Previous research has shown that there is a link between ANS and mathematics abilities, and that this link is resilient to differences in visual experience (Kanjlia et al., 2018). However, little is known about the function of the ANS and its relationship to mathematics abilities in the absence of other types of sensory input. Here, we investigated the acuity of the ANS and its relationship with mathematics abilities in a group of students from the Sichuan Province in China, half of whom were deaf. We found, consistent with previous research, that ANS acuity improves with age. We found that mathematics ability was predicted by Non-verbal IQ and Inhibitory Control, but not visual working memory capacity or Attention Network efficiencies. Even above and beyond these predictors, ANS ability still accounted for unique variance in mathematics ability. Notably, there was no interaction with hearing, which indicates that the role played by the ANS in explaining mathematics competence is not modulated by hearing capacity. Finally, we found that age, Non-verbal IQ and Visual Working Memory capacity were predictive of ANS performance when controlling for other factors. In fact, although students with hearing loss performed slightly worse than students with normal hearing on the ANS task, hearing was no longer significantly predictive of ANS performance once other factors were taken into account. These results indicate that the ANS is able to develop at a consistent pace with other cognitive abilities in the absence of auditory experience, and that its relationship with mathematics ability is not contingent on sensory input from hearing.

scholarly journals Transdiagnostic comparison of visual working memory capacity in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine V. Barnes-Scheufler ◽  
Caroline Passow ◽  
Lara Rösler ◽  
Jutta S. Mayer ◽  
Viola Oertel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Effect Size ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Medium Effect ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Small Effect Size ◽  
The Difference

Abstract Background Impaired working memory is a core cognitive deficit in both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Its study might yield crucial insights into the underpinnings of both disorders on the cognitive and neurophysiological level. Visual working memory capacity is a particularly promising construct for such translational studies. However, it has not yet been investigated across the full spectrum of both disorders. The aim of our study was to compare the degree of reductions of visual working memory capacity in patients with bipolar disorder (PBD) and patients with schizophrenia (PSZ) using a paradigm well established in cognitive neuroscience. Methods 62 PBD, 64 PSZ, and 70 healthy controls (HC) completed a canonical visual change detection task. Participants had to encode the color of four circles and indicate after a short delay whether the color of one of the circles had changed or not. We estimated working memory capacity using Pashler’s K. Results Working memory capacity was significantly reduced in both PBD and PSZ compared to HC. We observed a small effect size (r = .202) for the difference between HC and PBD and a medium effect size (r = .370) for the difference between HC and PSZ. Working memory capacity in PSZ was also significantly reduced compared to PBD with a small effect size (r = .201). Thus, PBD showed an intermediate level of impairment. Conclusions These findings provide evidence for a gradient of reduced working memory capacity in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, with PSZ showing the strongest degree of impairment. This underscores the importance of disturbed information processing for both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Our results are compatible with the cognitive manifestation of a neurodevelopmental gradient affecting bipolar disorder to a lesser degree than schizophrenia. They also highlight the relevance of visual working memory capacity for the development of both behavior- and brain-based transdiagnostic biomarkers.

Greater Visual Working Memory Capacity for Visually Matched Stimuli When They Are Perceived as Meaningful

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 902-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel E. Asp ◽  
Viola S. Störmer ◽  
Timothy F. Brady
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Visual Complexity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Neural Delay ◽  
Meaningful Stimuli

Abstract Almost all models of visual working memory—the cognitive system that holds visual information in an active state—assume it has a fixed capacity: Some models propose a limit of three to four objects, where others propose there is a fixed pool of resources for each basic visual feature. Recent findings, however, suggest that memory performance is improved for real-world objects. What supports these increases in capacity? Here, we test whether the meaningfulness of a stimulus alone influences working memory capacity while controlling for visual complexity and directly assessing the active component of working memory using EEG. Participants remembered ambiguous stimuli that could either be perceived as a face or as meaningless shapes. Participants had higher performance and increased neural delay activity when the memory display consisted of more meaningful stimuli. Critically, by asking participants whether they perceived the stimuli as a face or not, we also show that these increases in visual working memory capacity and recruitment of additional neural resources are because of the subjective perception of the stimulus and thus cannot be driven by physical properties of the stimulus. Broadly, this suggests that the capacity for active storage in visual working memory is not fixed but that more meaningful stimuli recruit additional working memory resources, allowing them to be better remembered.

Visual working memory capacity for objects from different categories: A face-specific maintenance effect

Cognition ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 719-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason H. Wong ◽  
Matthew S. Peterson ◽  
James C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity

scholarly journals The Impact of Object Complexity on Visual Working Memory Capacity

Psychology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 08 (06) ◽  
pp. 929-937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoxi Chen ◽  
Bin Li ◽  
Yaozhong Liu
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Anatomy of early visual cortex predicts visual working memory capacity

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1349-1349
Author(s):  
J. Bergmann ◽  
E. Genc ◽  
A. Kohler ◽  
W. Singer ◽  
J. Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Early Visual Cortex
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