Advances in Cognitive Sciences
Year:2017 | Volume:18 | Issue:4 (72) |Papers Count:9

Introduction: Deficits in inhibitory control and attention maintenance as the main components of executive functions are of the key symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study aimed to investigate these variables in adults with ADHD compared to Normal individuals. Method: This research conducted with causal-comparative design. The population consists of 400 adult volunteers who completed Conner’s Adult ADHD rating scale (CAARS). Based on its results, 50 individuals were invited to perform Continuous Performance Task (CPT) in two groups of adults with ADHD symptoms and normal participants. Ten persons received formal diagnosis of ADHD by a psychiatrist’s interview according to DSM-IV criteria and ten persons were randomly selected as controls. Two groups were compared in terms of mean reaction time, omission error, commission error and standard error of reaction time in different inter-stimulus intervals. The collected data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance and post-hoc Bonferroni test.Results: Findings indicated there are significant differences between two groups in terms of omission error (p-value=0.011), commission error (p-value=0.047) and standard error of reaction time (p-value<0.001). The effect of inter stimulus interval changes was significant on performance of adults with ADHD. The interaction effect of cognitive load changes by group was significant in terms of standard error of reaction time (p-value<0.001).Conclusion: Adults with ADHD had lower performance in attentional maintenance and inhibition control compared to normal individuals especially in effortful attentional condition of CPT.

Introduction: Voluntary and involuntary retrieval of unpleasant memories from emotional memory influences individuals actions. The regulation and management of emotions and emotional memory plays a crucial role on mental health. The study investigates the effectiveness of emotional memory management program (EMMP) on cognitive emotion regulation. Method: 60 males between 20 and 30 years old at Sadeq-ol-Va’d Cultural center completed the CERQ. Of these, subjects that demonstrated maladaptive emotion regulation strategies were randomly allocated to an experimental or a control group. The experimental group received twelve sessions of training with the EMMP. Research method was pre-and post- test with 90-days follow up. For the data analysis, mean, standard deviation and repeated measure design were used.Results: Findings support EMMP’s effect on strategies of cognitive emotional regulation (p<0.05) and this effect has been stable at 90-days follow up.Conclusion: EMMP can improve adaptive emotion regulation strategies and increase mental health.

Introduction: The comparison of cognitive and emotional factors in patients with anxiety disorders is a new approach with therapeutic applications. This study aims to compare the cognitive flexibility, theory of mind and working memory in two groups of obsessive compulsive syndrome and normal students. Method: In this study, a random selection of 200 students were asked to complete the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (MOCI). Then, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), theory of mind (TOM) task and Wechsler Memory Test were conducted for participants and data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA).Results: The findings showed that there is a significant difference between the groups on cognitive flexibility and the working memory, but there is no significant difference between the groups in theory of mind.Conclusion: The results showed that people with obsessive-compulsive syndrome, cognitive flexibility and working memory are weaker than in healthy controls. They also seemed to have repetitive behaviors due to an inability to recall previous actions.

Introduction: This research investigates the role of anxiety in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To explore how worsens PTSD, we examine a path model of anxiety to see whether certain key variables (e.g. SSPA, Catastrophic thoughts, CAS, trauma recall, irritability) mediate the relationship between anxiety and PTSD. Method: The research was carried out on a sample of men and women with PTSD.181 patients (112 males, 69 females) were selected by convenience sampling through a Diagnostic Structured Interview based on the DSM-IV-TR for PTSD. Data were collected using a CAS questionnaire, anxiety scale, catastrophizing thoughts scale, the scale of the Somatic symptoms of panic attack, trauma recall scale, irritability scale and revised scale of the impact of the event (IES-R) and obtained data were analyzed using the statistical methods of path analysis and structural equation modeling.Results: Result showed that Cognitive-attentional syndrome, trauma recall and irritability were mediated to some extent between anxiety, Somatic symptoms of panic attack and Catastrophic cognitions and posttraumatic stress disorder.Conclusion: The findings suggest that focused on worry as a transdiagnostic concept can enhance the effect of the treatment.

Introduction: Freezing of gait (FOG) is a common and disabling feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD).This phenomenon is associated with cognitive functions. So, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of eight weeks cognitive training on freezing of gait in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Method: A quasi-experimental study was conducted on 14 Parkinson’s disease patients (mean age 60.21±10.92 years) with freezing of gait (2-5 Hohn and Yahr scale). The participants were selected through convenience sampling and were randomly assigned to treatment (4 males and 3 females) and control (5 males and 2 females) groups. The treatment group received an 8-week cognitive training; however, the control group performed their daily activities. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. An analysis of covariance (a=0.05) was used to analyze the collected data.Results: The results showed that there is a significant effect of cognitive training on reducing freezing of gait severity, frequency and total scores for the treatment group compared with the control group (p<0.05).Conclusion: Cognitive training can be an appropriate training method to help improve freezing of gait in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Introduction: Children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD) have impaired interpersonal and social skills, highly due to deficiency in facial emotion processing. The aim of this study was to investigate facial emotion recognition between two groups of children with ADHD - with and without conduct disorder - compared with normal children. Method: Fifty-five male children with between the ages of 8 to 13 in Tabriz and Esfahan were selected by purposeful sampling method and assigned in the following three groups: 23 ADHD, 14 ADHD+CD and 18 children in normal control group. All participants performed facial emotion recognition task including unfamiliar faces which contain four basic emotions «anger, happiness, sadness, fear and neutral faces» for assessing ability to recognize facial emotion. The data was analyzed by MANOVA.Results: Percent error analysis revealed that participants with ADHD and ADHD+CD have greater deficit in emotional face recognition when compared with control subjects. However, analysis of error response type showed that ADHD+CD children, often confused distress cues (sadness, fear) with neutral face on the one hand, and neutral face with anger on the other hand.Conclusion: These findings would suggest that facial emotion recognition deficits in children with ADHD and ADHD+CD occur mostly due to ADHD symptoms such as attention deficit, emotion regulation and executive function deficit. Nevertheless, children with ADHD who have conduct symptoms perform in an exaggerated or reductionist manner in the processing of some facial expressions, which lead to perceptual distortion.

Introduction: By repetitive stimulus presentation, neural activation along the sensory pathways is reduced; a phenomenon which is known as Repetition Suppression. Behavioral results have revealed that presentation of an auditory oddball stimulus after some repetitive presentation of a standard stimulus causes time overestimation. The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of repetition suppression and pitch of an auditory stimulus on time perception using Event Related Potentials (ERP). Method: for this purpose, an oddball time discrimination task was performed on 18 male and female students while the EEG was recordedsimultaneously.Results: Behavioral and ERP results indicated that the repetition suppression and pitch increase lead to time overestimation and N1 and P2 augmentation.Conclusion: temporal processing of an auditory stimulus is performed in modality-specific areas of the brain; a result which is consistent with intrinsic models of time perception.

Introduction: This study investigated the effectiveness of Adlerian parent training on amelioration of problems of executive functions in children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method: The research method was experimental with pre-and-post and follow up design with control group.30 parents were recruited whose children were assigned into experimental and control groups. The research instruments were ADHD diagnostic questionnaire (2013) and Coolidge Neuropsychological (2002) Inventory. Parent Training based on Adler Approach was accomplished in ten 90-minute sessions. Both in the post- and follow-up tests, the two groups completed the questionnaires as post-test. The data were analyzed using ANCOVA.Results: The results revealed the effectiveness of Adlerian parent training on amelioration of executive functions problems. However, no significant effect was found on decision making-planning problems.Conclusion: Accordingly, we conclude that Adlerian parent training could mitigate problems in some executive functions in children with ADHD.