Advances in Cognitive Sciences
Year:2018 | Volume:20 | Issue:3 |Papers Count:11

Introduction: Facial emotion recognition plays an important role in social interactions. Impairment in this area causes a deficit in individuals’ social competency. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the accuracy and speed of facial emotion recognition at different levels of image blurring in healthy participants.Method: images of faces of all participants, displaying different emotions including happiness, sadness and anger along with neural expression in different levels of blurring, were viewed. They were instructed to detect the emotions accurately as soon as possible.Results: the results show that the accuracy of recognition of happiness was significantly higher than that for negative emotions such as anger and sadness. The neutral expression was recognized to be worse than happiness and better than negative emotions. Sadness was less quickly and more accurately than anger. The more the image blurred, the more the recognition of accuracy and speed was reduced.Conclusion: the accuracy and speed recognition of different emotions diminish due to the increased level of image blurring. Happiness, along with neutral expression, when displayed in blurred images, are always recognized with greater accuracy and speed than negative emotions (sadness and anger).

Introduction: Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability with significant burden on worldwide health systems. Stroke can quickly cause nerve damage, whether mild or severe. This is mainly caused by lack of blood flow to the brain, but the brain is affected by stroke beyond initial injury, including complex types of devastating diseases such as: Alzheimer’s disease, depression and cognitive impairment. Many studies have been conducted on cognitive impairment associated with stroke. The development problem of cognitive decline may be even more important than the stroke, such that, cognitive impairment after stroke affects more than one-third of stroke survivors.Method: This research is a review type. To achieve the objectives, the analytical method and documentary studies were used.Results: It seems that firm conclusions about the main factors involved in the stroke are not available; however, the disruption of blood flow in vessels, hypoxia, stenosis, high blood pressure and bleeding, aging, family history, genetic diversity and recurrent stroke are key factors for cognitive dysfunction. Changes in the small blood vessels in the brain after breaching the blood-brain barrier (BBB), lack of local tissue blood and nerve atrophy are the main factors for neuropathology of dementia.Conclusion: controlling risk factors is essential to reducing the burden of cognitive impairment after stroke. Also, the elucidation of mechanisms involved in cognitive disorders after brain injury can be effective strategies in relieving symptoms and to prevention strategies.

Introduction: The paper concerns with definition, review of origins and evolution of subject matters as well as theoretical frameworks in cognitive archaeology.Method: Basic literature of cognitive archaeology reviewed within the principal epistemological movements in archaeology dialectically to be classified according to their special mindsets. Theoretical frameworks underlying different subject matters in cognitive archaeology explained within two categories of mentalist and materialist views of culture and main constructive elements of current theory of cognitive archaeology and material engagement theory, were set apart and discussed through a case study of material culture of ancient Neo-Assyrian civilization.Results: An investigation of Assyrian clay cones through material engagement theory showed that a considerable part of status and character of the Assyrian king within the cosmology of that ancient civilization could not be reduced to concepts and pure mental codes, but was formed, strengthened and reproduced actively through, with and on the basis of material conditions; so that clay cones should be called as materiality of Assyrian kingdom mentality.Conclusion: Cognitive archaeology on the basis of its primary and perpetual obsession with materiality could admirably possess a central stand in cognitive sciences, revealing materialized aspects of human cognition and materiality of the mind.

Introduction: Cognitive deficits and Memory disfunctions cause low self-esteem and feeling of incapability in individual and social life in the elderly. Unfortunately, caring of the aged people in Iran is mostly based on physical care. The main aim of the present research was to study the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation on mental state and memory functions as a non-pharmacological intervention to decrease cognitive impairments in the erderly with mild Alzheimer’s.Method: The research method of this study was experimental with pretest-posttest designs. Statistical population was all the elderly with mild Alzheimer’s disease who were living in residential care homes in Shemiranat area in Tehran province. The sample included 40 people who met the inclusion criteria of this study, and were selected through available sampling. The participants were assigned in the experimental group (20 patients) and control group (20 patients) by random assignment technique who were matched by education. Data were collected by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Wechsler Memory Scale Questionnaire (WMS-Q). The data were analyzed through Analysis of Covariance.Results: The results showed that scores on both tests, (MMSE) and (WMS-Q) were significantly different, with higher indices in the intervention group.Conclusion: Based on these findings, it can be concluded that cognitive rehabilitation technique can be useful for repairing cognitive impairments in the elderly with Alzheime’s disease and it is anticipated that quality of their individual and social lives will be improved.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of explicit and implicit training arrangements on acquisition and learning of motor skills in children with cerebral palsy spastic hemiplegia.Method: From nearly 2500 students with cerebral palsy in special cases schools (Disabled children) in Tehran, 40 right-handed patients with symptoms of cerebral palsy aged 7-13 years as accessible samples and to evaluate acquisition, retention, secondary task and transfer randomly in four groups’ blocked, random, errorless learning and equipment modificatin were divided. All stages of the research process were conducted under the supervision of the occupational therapist.Results: The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measurements showed that the main effect of the group was significant at all stages (P<0.05). In fact, in groups with errorless learning, equipment modification in the stages of the acquisition, secondary task and transfer.Conclusion: General conclusions of the present study the use of methods errorless learning and modified equipment placed fewer demands on working memory during performance of a skill, which implies that it encourages an implicit mode of learning. Overall, this thesis contributes to the small but growing literature examining implicitmotor learning in children and increases our understanding of the influence that working memory has on the acquisition of motor skills. In general, the present study increases the understanding of the effects of implicit arrangeentmon acquisition and learning of motor skills, and confired the theory of reinvestment.

Introduction: This study aimed to predict false memory based on information processing strategies (surface and subsurface) and metacognitive skills of 8th and 9th grade female students in Isfahan.Method: The population consisted of 25, 465 female students of 8th and 9th grade of public schools in Isfahan during the academic year of 95-96 using cluster random sampling and Morgan table.378 subjects were selected as sample. The instrument used to evaluate the false memory was Diss Rudiger McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Pintrich and De Groot (MSLQ) self-regulated learning strategies questionnaire was used to measure information processing strategies. Also, O’Neil and Abedi metacognitive state questionnaire (1996) was used to measure metacognitive skills. Data were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression analysis.Results: Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that summarize writing had positive and significant relations with false memory whereas comprehension and false memory had negative and significant relations. The curve linear regression analysis showed that the relationship between metacognitive awareness and self-monitoring with false recognition is significant in the form of a curve.Conclusion: The results showed that summarize writing increases false memory but comprehension decreases it. Also with increase of metacognitive awareness and self-monitoring, false recognition increases in the beginning and then with continued increase in these strategies, the rate of false recognition starts to decrease.

Introduction: The reduction in the scores of empathic patients with posttraumatic stress disorder in self-assessment questionnaires that evaluate their empathy regardless of their type of emotion, and their normal response to positive emotions and situations necessitates an examination of empathy with positive situations in these individuals. The purpose of this study was to investigate empathy with positive situations in migrant adolescents with posttraumatic stress disorder.Method: a total number of 45 adolescents were selected by the convenience sampling method and divided into 3 groups (15 in each group, including: adolescents with PTSD, adolescents without PTSD, and control group). Participants were evaluated by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Axis-I, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Children’s Depression] nventory (CDI), and a multi-dimensional empathy task. Data were analyzed by ANOVA, MANOVA, as well as post hoc tests.Results: there was no significant difference between groups in terms of empathy and positive pictures. There was a significant difference between anxiety and depression scores in the PTSD group than other groups. Also, compared to the control group, the differences of anxiety scores in adolescents without PTSD were significant.Conclusion: According to the results, it can be concluded that the previous reports about deficit in empathy of individuals with PTSD does not include all situations, and this group of individuals do not show any deficit in empathy when they face individuals with positive emotions, which can be considered in the treatment of these persons.

Introduction: Empathy is an element that has an important impact on mental health and interpersonal relationships. In some psychiatric disorders, including antisocial personality disorder, some degree of empathy decreases due to different causes. The aim of the current study is to compare cognitive empathy and emotional empathy in assertive individuals and individuals with antisocial personality style.Method: The type of research was theoretical or fundamental and research method post factor. The study population consisted of all students studying at Imam Khomeini International University in the academic year of 1395-96. In sample selection, judgment sampling method was used. Thirty individuals with assertive personality style and 30 persons with antisocial personality style were selected as a statistical sample. Research data were obtained through Townend Own Oerception, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, Empathy Quotient, and Emotional Empathy. To analyze the data, In addition to descriptive statistics, inferential statistics (multivariate regression analysis) was also used.Results: Findings showed that affective empathy in anti-social personality individuals was lower than in assertive individuals, and cognitive empathy in the two groups of assertive individuals and anti-social personality individuals did not differ.Conclusion: Because of the low emotional empathy in people with antisocial personality style related to brain injury Incorrect understanding emotions from faces. Also the cause of low assertiveness and emotional empathy in individuals with antisocial personality style can be found in insecure attachment.