The Trail Making Test (TMT) was designed for the U.S. Army 1944 Individual Test Battery. Norms availability promotes widespread adoption. Part A of two-part TMT (TA) assesses complex attention with a timed task to connect, sequentially, 26 scattered numbered circles in numeric order. The present study manipulated spatial and temporal characteristics of that scattering to better separate influences on task performance of implicit learning or memory, and of spatial attentional bias. Forty healthy young adults (25 female; age 20.38 ± 1.41; years education 14.1 ± 1.38) were tested individually on 8 TA trials shown on an iPad with trials in different randomized orders. In each trial, the screen contained 26 locations with numeric labels. In half of the trials (scrambled), locations of non-target, task irrelevant labels shuffled on each click. Clicking the prior search target also caused the label for the new search target to appear in its to-be-found location rather than in some other location. In the other half of the trials (static), pairing of labels with locations did not change so that incidental learning was possible. One trial each of scrambled and static manipulations had the same label-location target pairs. Scrambled non-target label re-locations substituted for persisting target label locations in the static trials. Four location arrangements were initial scatter, left-right reversed, up-down reversed, and both left-right and up-down reversed, symmetries unreported by participants. Mean inter-target interval (ITI) was shorter for static than for scrambled trials (1.13 ± 0.12; F(1,319) = 131.2, p < 0.001), consistent with implicit memory for non-targets speeding static searches. Post-hoc, paired ITI was shorter on left half-screen than on right half-screen (0.206 ± 0.043; t(3999) = 4.74. p < 0.001), consistent with “pseudo-neglect” spatial bias speeding left-sided searches. Upper/lower half-screen lacked significant search speed influence. How age changes these effects is under investigation.

Creativity is among our greatest human gifts. Scientific interest in creativity goes back at least a century, but only recently have the tools of cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience been available to explore creativity. In this chapter, we review the stages and processes of creative ability, and how these are instantiated in the brain –in terms of both specific neural regions and anatomically distributed networks. We focus on whether and how creative abilities may decline with aging, and consider how, as we grow older, they may be sustained or even enhanced.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to learn if egocentric versus allocentric attentional tasks performed in right, center, or left hemispace will differentially influence normal participants9 vertical biases of spatial attention. BACKGROUND: Whereas allocentric (object-based) processing is mediated by the ventral occipito-temporal visual processing stream, egocentric (body-centered) processing is mediated by the dorsal parieto-occipital visual stream. Bilateral lesions of the dorsal stream impair downward attention, and bilateral lesions of the ventral stream impair upward attention. Based on this dichotomy, the finding that neurologically intact adults bisect vertical lines slightly above the midpoint has been has been attributed to activation of the ventral stream during this allocentric task. However, it has not been determined if allocation of egocentric attention will induce a lower spatial bias, and if there are right versus left hemisphere asymmetries in the mediation of allocentric versus egocentric vertical attention. DESIGN/METHODS: Twelve healthy right-handed adults marked their eye level along vertical lines (an egocentric task) or bisected the center of lines (an allocentric task), presented in midline (midsagittal plane) or to the left or right of midline. These lines were either vertically centered at eye level or primarily presented in upper or lower altitudinal space. RESULTS: Participants estimated eye level to be lower than actual eye level when lines were presented in left hemispace, and vertical line bisections deviated upwards the farthest when lines were presented in right hemispace. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest right hemisphere dominance for egocentric spatial processing and left hemisphere dominance for allocentric spatial processing in healthy right-handed adults. This finding is consistent with the observations that anosognosia, asomatognosia and egocentric spatial neglect are more commonly observed with right than left hemispheric parietal lesions; however, further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanism for these hemispheric differences in processing of spatial attention. Disclosure: Dr. Falchook has received personal compensation for activities with the University of Florida College of Medicine, the Institute for Advancement of Human Behavior, and PeerView Institute. Dr. Salazar has nothing to disclose. Dr. Johnson has nothing to disclose. Ms. Morales has nothing to disclose. Dr. Williamson has nothing to disclose. Dr. Fischler has nothing to disclose. Dr. Heilman has received personal compensation for activities with law firms as a consultant. Dr. Heilman has received personal compensation in an editorial capacity for Journal Watch.

After action review (AAR) is a widely used training practice in which trainees and trainers review past training experiences and performance for the purpose of learning. AAR has often been conducted with video-based systems whereby a video of the action is reviewed afterward, usually at another location. This paper proposes collocated AAR of training experiences through mixed reality (MR). Collocated AAR allows users to review past training experiences in situ with the user's current, real-world experience, i.e., the AAR is conducted at the same location where the action being reviewed occurred. MR enables a user-controlled egocentric viewpoint, augmentation such as a visual overlay of virtual information like conceptual visualizations, and playback of recorded training experiences collocated with the user's current experience or that of an expert. Collocated AAR presents novel challenges for MR, such as collocating time, interactions, and visualizations of previous and current experiences. We created a collocated AAR system for anesthesia education, the augmented anesthesia machine visualization, and interactive debriefing system. The system enables collocated AAR in two applications related to anesthesia training: anesthesia machine operation training and skin disinfection training with a mannequin patient simulator. Collocated AAR was evaluated in two informal pilot studies by students (n = 19) and an educator (n = 1) not directly affiliated with the project. We review the anecdotal data collected from the studies and point toward ways to refine and improve collocated AAR.

Whereas the ventral visual processing stream mediates facial and object recognition, the dorsal stream mediates recognition of spatial relationships. In addition, ventral lesions have been reported to induce visual inattention to the upper visual field and dorsal lesions inattention to the lower field. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that activation of the ventral stream will induce an upward attentional bias and activation of the dorsal stream, a downward bias, as assessed by vertical line bisection tests. Twelve healthy right-handed individuals performed vertical line bisections. During these trials, either pictures of famous faces or dots in different spatial locations were presented above and below the line. The participants were asked to recognize and remember the faces or locations of dots while they performed the bisections. In control trials, they were no faces or dots. An upward bias was observed in all conditions. This upward bias was significantly increased in the face recognition and recall condition, but not altered in the dot location condition. Although the face task appeared to activate the ventral stream and increase the upward vertical bias, the failure of the dot localization task to alter the bias may be related task selection. Dorsolateral lesions cause optic ataxia, a disorder of the egocentric "where" system, and the dot location task in this study was allocentric. Thus, further research will be needed to learn whether an egocentric spatial localization task, with a memory component, will alter the vertical attentional bias.

Purpose: Individuals with probable Alzheimer disease (pAD) are frequently impaired at picture naming. This study examined whether a semantic elaboration task would facilitate naming in pAD, and whether training either semantically typical or atypical stimulus items facilitated generalized improvement in picture naming and category generation tasks.Methods: Twelve adults with mild-moderate pAD participated in the study. Participants performed an experimental semantic elaboration training task using a subset of typical items from one category and atypical items from another category. The third category, acted as a control (i.e., no items were trained). The study assessed change in category generation and a picture naming within the three target categories.Results: Individuals showed significantly improved category generation and naming, but changes were not limited to trained categories. Naming of trained atypical items improved significantly. Participants showed significantly improved naming of untrained typical items from categories trained with typical items.Conclusions: Semantic elaboration of typical items within a semantic category can lead to generalized improvement in other typical items in the category in mild-moderate pAD. This is consistent with theories postulating that typical category items share overlapping distributed representations. Further exploration of the effects of semantic elaboration on word-finding in pAD is warranted, especially the possibility of within-category generalization.Learning outcomes: After reading this article, the reader will be able to: (1) explain how word-finding is affected by probable Alzheimer disease; (2) identify ways word finding is usually assessed in Alzheimer's disease; (3) describe the effects of training typical versus atypical items from a category in people with aphasia: and (4) describe the effects of training people with Alzheimer's disease on typical versus atypical items from a category. Published by Elsevier Inc.

The design, visualization, manipulation, and implementation of models for computer simulation are key parts of the discipline. Models are constructed as a means to understand physical phenomena as state changes occur over time. One issue that arises is the need to correlate models and their components with the phenomena being modeled. For example, a part of an automotive engine needs to be placed into cognitive context with the diagrammatic icon that represents that part's function. A typical solution to this problem is to display a dynamic model of the engine in one window and the engine's CAD model in another. Users are expected to, on their own, mentally blend the dynamic model and the physical phenomenon into the same context. However, this contextualization is not trivial in many applications. Our approach expands upon this form of user interaction by specifying two ways in which dynamic models and the corresponding physical phenomena may be viewed, and experimented with, within the same human interaction space. We present a methodology and implementation of contextualization for diagram-based dynamic models using an anesthesia machine, and then follow up with a human study of its effects on spatial cognition.

The syntactic organization of incidentally presented word pairs may affect behavior by providing actors with implicit propositions about how to behave. In Experiment 1, participants who had already played turns of a mixed-motive game were less cooperative after an explicit propositional suggestion that they had been nice in prior turns but were more cooperative after the suggestion that they should be nice in upcoming turns. In three subsequent experiments, implicit priming with the phrase nice act produced greater levels of defection, implying that actors responded to the implicit suggestion that they had been sufficiently nice already. In contrast, act nice produced greater levels of cooperation, implying that actors responded to the implicit suggestion that they should try to be nicer in upcoming turns. These effects occurred outside of awareness and disappeared when the interval between the words was long and when behavior was measured after a delay.

Scaffolding is a widely used educational practice in which directed instruction gradually decreases as student competence increases-resulting in increased independent learning. This research introduces and evaluates an MR-based system for technology-mediated scaffolding in anesthesia education. Through merging real and virtual objects, the system addresses a vital problem in merging abstract and concrete knowledge. To evaluate the system, a user study was conducted (n=130). Results suggest that MR's merging of real and virtual spaces can offer (1) a unique level of educational scaffolding, and (2) an improved learning-transfer from abstract to concrete domains. To classify the presented system, the virtuality continuum is extended to include scaffolding. The presented scaffolding-space continuum classifies technology-mediated scaffolding tools along three orthogonal continuums: (1) virtuality, (2) information (e.g. abstract, concrete), and (3) interaction. Using these 3 orthogonal continuums, effective engineering approaches for technology-mediated educational scaffolding are described.

Mixed reality's (MR) ability to merge real and virtual spaces is applied to merging different knowledge types, such as abstract and concrete knowledge. To evaluate whether the merging of knowledge types can benefit learning, MR was applied to an interesting problem in anesthesia machine education. The virtual anesthesia machine (VAM) is an interactive, abstract 2D transparent reality simulation of the internal components and invisible gas flows of an anesthesia machine. It is widely used in anesthesia education. However when presented with an anesthesia machine, some students have difficulty transferring abstract VAM knowledge to the concrete real device. This paper presents the augmented anesthesia machine (AAM). The AAM applies a magic-lens approach to combine the VAM simulation and a real anesthesia machine. The AAM allows students to interact with the real anesthesia machine while visualizing how these interactions affect the internal components and invisible gas flows in the real world context. To evaluate the AAM's learning benefits, a user study was conducted. Twenty participants were divided into either the VAM (abstract only) or AAM (concrete+abstract) conditions. The results of the study show that MR can help users bridge their abstract and concrete knowledge, thereby improving their knowledge transfer into real world domains.

Introduction: Photorealistic simulations may provide efficient transfer of certain skills to the real system, but by being opaque may fail to encourage deeper learning of the structure and function of the system. Schematic simulations that are more abstract, with less visual fidelity but make system structure and function transparent, may enhance deeper learning and optimize retention and transfer of learning. We compared learning effectiveness of these 2 modes of externalizing the output of a common simulation engine (the Virtual Anesthesia Machine, VAM) that models machine function and dynamics and responds in real time to user interventions such as changes in gas flow or ventilation. Methods: Undergraduate students (n = 39) and medical students (n = 35) were given a single, 1-hour guided learning session with either a Transparent or an Opaque version of the VAM simulation. The following day, the learners’ knowledge of machine components, function, and dynamics was tested. Results: The Transparent-VAM groups scored higher than the Opaque-VAM groups on a set of multiple-choice questions concerning conceptual knowledge about anesthesia machines (P = 0.009), provided better and more complete explanations of component function (P = 0.003), and were more accurate in remembering and inferring cause-and-effect dynamics of the machine and relations among components (P = 0.003). Although the medical students outperformed undergraduates on all measures, a similar pattern of benefits for the Transparent VAM was observed for these 2 groups. Conclusions: Schematic simulations that transparently allow learners to visualize, and explore, underlying system dynamics and relations among components may provide a more effective mental model for certain systems. This may lead to a deeper understanding of how the system works, and therefore, we believe, how to detect and respond to potentially adverse situations.

This paper proposes collocated after action review (AAR) of training experiences. Through mixed reality (MR), collocated AAR allows users to review past training experiences in situ with the userpsilas current, real-world experience. MR enables a user-controlled egocentric viewpoint, a visual overlay of virtual information, and playback of recorded training experiences collocated with the userpsilas current experience. Collocated AAR presents novel challenges for MR, such as collocating time, interactions, and visualizations of previous and current experiences. We created a collocated AAR system for anesthesia education, the augmented anesthesia machine visualization and interactive debriefing system (AAMVID). The system was evaluated in two studies by students (n=19) and educators (n=3). The results demonstrate how collocated AAR systems such as AAMVID can: (1) effectively direct student attention and interaction during AAR and (2) provide novel visualizations of aggregate student performance and insight into student understanding for educators.

This research investigates how interacting with tangible user interfaces (TUIs) affects spatial cognition. To study the impact of TUIs, a between subjects study was conducted (n=60) in which students learned about the operation of an anesthesia machine. A TUI was compared to two other interfaces commonly used in anesthesia education: (1) a Graphical User Interface (a 2D abstract simulation model of an anesthesia machine) and (2) a Physical User Interface (a real world anesthesia machine). Overall, the TUI was found to significantly compensate for low user spatial cognition in the domain of anesthesia machine training.

This chapter reviews research that focuses on the effects of emotionality of single words, and of simple phrases, on event-related brain potentials when these are presented visually in various tasks. In these studies, presentation of emotionally evocative language material has consistently elicited a late (c. 300-600 ms post-onset) positive-going, largely frontal-central shift in the event-related potentials (ERPs), relative to neutral materials. Overall, affectively pleasant and unpleasant words or phrases are quite similar in their neuroelectric profiles and rarely differ substantively. This emotionality effect is enhanced in both amplitude and latency when emotional content is task relevant, but is also reliably observed when the task involves other semantically engaging tasks. On the other hand, it can be attenuated or eliminated when the task does not involve semantic evaluation (e.g., lexical decisions to words or orthographic judgments to the spelling patterns) or when comprehension of phrases requires integration of the connotative meaning of several words (e.g., compare dead puppy and dead tyrant). Taken together, these studies suggest that the emotionality of written language has a rapid and robust impact on ERPs, which can be modulated by specific task demands as well as the linguistic context in which the affective stimulus occurs.

Cognitive style refers to an individual's characteristic approach to processing information. One widely studied dimension is the contrast between “analytic” and “wholistic” styles. Recent studies suggest that patterns of electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha activity (8–13 Hz) during a task (e.g., Biological Psychology 51 (1999) 23), or during a resting baseline period (e.g., Learning and Individual Differences 3 (1991) 265), may be predictive of these stylistic differences, with lower alpha activity related to a more analytic style. In the present study, EEG was collected at 19 sites during eyes-open baseline, and during reading of short text passages. Forty adults (20 males) read highly structured expository text and minimally structured poetry. Lower baseline alpha activity across widely distributed sites was significantly correlated with higher recall of the expository text but was essentially uncorrelated with recall of poetry. Level of alpha during reading did not correlate with recall for either passage, suggesting that baseline periods, unconstrained by specific tasks, may provide the clearest picture of neural correlates of cognitive style.