Category — Brain Development

PART ONE OF THREE

This blog is partially based on material I presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations in Vienna, Austria.

Playing vs. learning
What’s the difference between playing and learning? Sometimes there is no difference. People can learn through play. Educators have known this for years. Grade school teachers often try to teach using games. Games engage, excite, and motivate students. However, there is a significant difference between games that simply entertain and games that facilitate learning.

When learning through games or other modalities, three fundamental catalysts are necessary for the brain to create and grow a neural pathway facilitating long-term retention. These catalysts are attention, challenge, and deliberate practice.

Attention 
A student must pay enough attention to incoming stimuli to even begin the learning process. Too little attention causes the student to constantly redirect attention to other stimuli.  Picture your ADHD child trying to learn multiplication tables. While the teacher is teaching 2 x 2, he’s paying attention to the bird outside the window. Little chance that multiplication tables will be learned soon. So, attention is crucial, in fact, it’s the core to all learning. For an ADHD person, the ability to direct attention and sustain it without distraction is impaired.

Challenge
If the teacher can get a student to pay enough attention to multiplication tables, the student must then be challenged. Challenge arrives when the brain confronts something it doesn’t quite understand. The brain attempts to place the information into a tenuous relationship with information it already possesses. If the brain already knows the information, it simply retrieves the data from its storage bank. So, if the teacher presents 2 x 1, and the student knows immediately the answer is 2, then there’s no challenge and little is learned. However, if the teacher presents 2 x 7561, then the student is challenged and must use all of his pre-existing knowledge to find a solution. Attention and challenge spark creation and growth of new neural pathways for long-term retention. However, long-term retention is not guaranteed until we practice.

Deliberate practice
Educationalists have known that haphazard studying or practice results in haphazard learning. Deliberate practice is a term coined by Dr. Anders Eriksson, a professor at Florida State University (http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html). He studied how people become experts in their fields and found that the length of time they practiced and their use of deliberate practice greatly influenced their expertise. 

Let’s use multiplication tables again to describe deliberate practice.  Chances are that you learned your multiplication tables by practicing one group at a time; multiplying by 1, by 2, by 3, etc. In many years of teaching, I never saw a student learn multiplication tables by learning 2 x 3, then 7 x 9, then 6 x7. We learned in a sequence that was deliberately practiced until mastered.

When I was learning to multiply by 6, I had difficulty with 6 x 7, 6  x 8, and 6 x 9. So, my teacher made special flashcards for me with these specific problems written on the cards. I used these cards, blocks, and other devices to practice these difficult sequences. If I didn’t get the right answer, I got immediate feedback that I was incorrect. I used this feedback to make changes to my strategy in attempting to find the correct solution. That’s deliberate practice; sorting out the difficult elements that we have not learned, developing strategies to learn them, getting feedback regarding correctness or incorrectness of these strategies, and practicing them correctly and  long enough to attain long-term retention.

Most people do not  use deliberate practice. We just practice, i.e. we just repeat the same thing over and over without taking the time or making the effort to work on the elements that are most difficult for us. We often only practice things that are easy or that we’re already good at performing. We avoid the difficult elements that don’t provide immediate reward, and that seems to be the line that clearly distinguishes expert from amateur.

Coming soon, part two: Entertainment vs. Learning

Virtually anyone that knows, teaches, counsels, or works with an ADHD person is aware that ADHD is not a simple matter of attention deficit. That’s just the tip of a very large iceberg.

As a matter of fact, the term ‘attention deficit’ is actually a misnomer of sorts. ADHD people have diffused attention, not a deficit or lack of attention. Ask them. I often asked ADHD students what was happening in my classroom. They could tell me about the bird outside the window, the cobwebs in the corner of the room, a little about my lesson, a little about the whispering around them, and a little about when the air conditioner was turning on and off. That’s actually a great amount of attention. It’s just scattered or diffused over a wide area all day long.

A true hallmark of ADHD is the brain’s inability to direct attention for long periods without becoming distracted. So, it’s not a deficit at all; ADHD is an inability to direct attention. But there’s more.

ADHD is also a matter of difficulty in multiple domains of cognition. These domains are also labeled “Executive Functions.” Aside from diffused attention, ADHD also encompasses difficulty in organization of thought and tasks; sustaining effort while filtering out distractions; memory (both short-term and working memory); managing behavior/emotion; and visually directing attention and actions.

How does one cope with all these areas? It seems a monumental task. Of course, the primary medical intervention is medication. Does medication actually address all of these cognitive domains? No, it does not. Medication has limitations. That’s a fact. That’s why many parents do not see academic, behavioral, or social improvements [see the MTA study] over time. Another fact is that many of these cognitive domains can be strengthened by direct instruction.

Several small and large software companies have introduced themselves recently into the brain fitness category. Each company tends to address a specific domain like memory or focus. So, to satisfy the cognitive and behavioral needs of an ADHD person, one would need to purchase many of these games.

As the original pioneer and developer back in the late 1980s,  I saw that there was a vast gap in the needs of the ADHD person and what was being delivered. By 1994, I developed Play Attention to teach sustained attention, visual tracking with attention (like watching a teacher move about the classroom), organizing and finishing tasks, memory, filtering out distractions, and motor skills. I even included behavioral shaping. Later this year we’ll deliver social skills, more working memory & short-term memory modules, and more.  We’ve received 3 patents for this pioneering effort.

Play Attention is a careful collaboration between you, the Play Attention software, and the Play Attention professional support staff. It’s provided us with a 92% satisfaction rating.

Of course, to get results, you need to use it. Next week I’ll address how Play Attention transcends being useful to being compelling.

Obviously, being pregnant can be stressful in itself, but current research shows that stress can affect fetal development which may lead to long-term problems including ADHD.

Dr. Vivette Glover of Imperial College London, surveyed pregnant women at her hospital. Of these, nearly one quarter felt anxious and depressed due to stressors including work, money, arguing with spouse, and moving to accommodate a larger family. When compared to their non-stressed counterparts in this research, the babies of the stressed mother had lower birth weight, lower IQ, slower cognitive development, and more anxiety. Lower birth weight has been an indicator for coronary heart disease in later life.

In 2007, research in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry indicated that being stressed during pregnancy is as detrimental for the baby’s development as smoking or being obese. Glover’s research reveals why and how this happens: stress produces the hormone cortisol. An abundance of stress can actually diminish the barrier enzyme that inhibits cortisol from reaching the fetus. Costisol impacts fetal brain development.

According to Glover, “People used to think that if something was congenital, apparent at birth, it had to be genetic. In fact it can be an in-vitro reaction of genes and environment.”

Glover also contends that her research shows stress greatly increases the likelihood of a child having ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), cognitive delay, autism , anxiety and depression. 

Glover’s research reinforces previous data from the UK where stress was shown to increase the risk for development of ADHD. In that research, the women who experienced the most stress doubled the chances of developing ADHD.

“The organs are forming during the first trimester of pregnancy, but the brain is developing all the way through,” Glover explains. “The organs are sensitive while they are forming and, once formed, they are harder to change.”

“In evolutionary terms, stress perhaps prepares the child for survival in a stressful environment. If a child is anxious and has attention deficiency, it will be very alert to danger. This may once have been adaptive, beneficial for the child, but it isn’t any more,” Glover says.

Significantly, Glover’s research implies that the changes may be on a genetic level so that it may be passed on generation to generation.

Therefore, it’s important to realize that taking care of ourselves during pregnancy is more important now than ever. Small efforts like seeking health services early, meditating, eating a balanced diet, taking pre-natal vitamins, and laughing are good practices.

Minimizing stress by maintaining a consistent schedule both at work and at home is a good idea.

Neurofeedback training in ADHD children

A University of Arizona scientist, Thomas Christensen applied for a $1 million career development award from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The grant was awarded in April and funds Christensen to conduct a pioneering 5-year study on the roles that attention and memory play when the human brain hears and processes spoken language.

“This is the chance to study the ultimate form of animal communication – language,” said Thomas A. Christensen of UA’s department of speech, language and hearing sciences (SLHS). “Humans have evolved a very sophisticated symbolic form of communication. Language affects how we think, what we believe, how we interact with each other. I’d even go so far as to say that our future as a species depends on understanding how we communicate. But very little is known about what’s going on in the brain when we’re having a simple conversation.”

Christensen will use UA’s magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) facilities to map the areas and networks within the brain linked to language, attention and memory. While this has been done before, Christensen’s techniques are slightly different – inside the scanner volunteers will perform simple language discrimination tasks.

“You read in the text books is that if you’re right handed, then language is localized to the left hemisphere of your brain,” Christensen said. “I found out right away – that’s just not true. Analyzing a human voice also involves the right hemisphere and even parts of the cerebellum.” Nothing new here either, unfortunately.

It’s interesting that Christensen “found out right away [that language is localized to the left brain hemisphere]– that’s just not true,” because as long as 30 years ago, examinations of patients who had their corpus callosums split by accident or by surgery demonstrated language wasn’t localized in the left hemisphere of the brain.

“These MRI images destroy the myth that you’re only using about 10 percent of your brain for any particular task,” Christensen said. “The crux of this grant is to learn more about the language, attention and memory centers in the brain, and also about the complex interactions between them.”

The MRI scanner reveals the brain’s activity. As UA’s press release states, the MRI scanner shows networks that scientists didn’t suspect were involved when the brain listens.

“We’re getting a snapshot of what that activity is across the population. What’s so striking is how clearly we see that certain areas of the brain are strongly engaged in attentional control while other areas are not. As we scan more volunteers, we’re definitely beginning to see a pattern here.”

“ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is probably one of the most over-diagnosed disorders of our time,” Christensen said. “The reason for that, I think, is that we really don’t know very much about the biological basis of this syndrome. There’s a lot of research on it, but there’s still a lot of disagreement about what the root cause is, and about whether drugs like Ritalin that are being prescribed to children as young as 2 years old are doing any good, and if we have any business exposing our children to drugs at such a very early age,” he added.

ata that show the connections among areas of the brain that are strongly engaged in language tasks, he plans to collaborate with computer modeling experts. “We could develop a mathematical model that would allow us to generate hypotheses about what we expect if we deliver a certain type of stimulus. We’d see what effect it would produce in our model.”

Simulating brain activity in the mathematical model “would take the whole question of language processing beyond ‘blobology’ – where you’re just looking at blobs of activation in the brain. That’s what I hope to do,” Christensen said.

So in answer to my title question, Can we map attention, memory and language links in the human brain? No. However, we do need good research in this area. MRI does demonstrate activation in areas of the brain. Christensen will have to determine the relationships between the active networks – that’s more art than science currently since current MRI and fMRI don’t depict anything more than activation. The basic tangent Christensen is examining will likely move ‘blobology’ forward a little, but we are still a long way from understanding the brain – the most complicated piece of matter that we know of. Quite a paradox, isn’t it? – the most complicated piece of matter that we know of, the brain, which is essentially a super computer, cannot understand itself. Yet.

ADHD and
Behavioral Problems

According to a study published in the January 2007 issue of the American Psychological Association’s journal, Developmental Psychology, a mother’s depression predicts whether children with ADHD will develop behavioral problems.

• Maternal Depression and Early Positive Parenting Predict Future Conduct Problems in Young Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Psychology professor Andrea Chronis, director of the University of Maryland ADHD Program and lead author on the paper said, “In the real world, this could have important implications, because research has suggested that children with both ADHD and conduct problems are at the greatest risk of becoming chronic criminal offenders.”

As I’ve discussed in many previous blogs, the brain is quite plastic almost to a flaw; negative stimulation, will affect the brain negatively while positive stimulation will affect the brain positively. This study seems to reflect that fact as well. The researchers found that positive parenting during preschool years predicted fewer behavioral problems as the children reached early adolescence. Children presented fewer conduct problems such as lying, fighting, bullying and stealing. Conversely, maternal depression predicted more conduct problems during adolescence.

The researchers estimate, approximately 20 to 50 percent of children and 44 to 50 percent of adolescents with ADHD experience severe conduct problems.

“Parenting an ADHD child is very difficult for many families,” Chronis says [see ADHD and Alcohol Abuse]. Chronis’ team has found in earlier research that mothers of ADHD children are at double the risk of experiencing depression than moms of non-ADHD kids. Focus was place on mothers as they are frequently the primary caregivers and are therefore subject to more stress and depression. “Often there’s a growing cycle of negativity as parents’ nerves fray and their children’s behavior escalates in response to increasingly harsh or withdrawn parenting. Maternal depression makes parenting a child with ADHD even more challenging. Now we have new evidence that praise, a warm tone of voice and use of other positive parenting techniques may help break this dangerous cycle.”

Chronis’ research is part of an ongoing longitudinal study funded by the NIH that follows ADHD children through their 18th birthdays. Collaborating with research teams at the Universities of Chicago and Pittsburgh, the study evaluated the behavior and development of 108 children whose ages ranged from four to seven at the study’s beginning. Parenting techniques were assessed by observation, and data on the mother’s mental health were analyzed annually.

Neuroplasticity at work: the researchers found that children with mothers who displayed the highest levels of positive parenting during preschool had significantly lower levels of conduct problems over time while children of previously depressed mothers had significantly higher levels of conduct problems over time.

As I mentioned in ADHD and Alcohol Abuse, the problems of depression and alcohol abuse may be parental coping mechanisms in response to an ADHD child. They are also quite likely cyclic; the child is more likely to be depressed or abuse alcohol later in life.

This does give us a background to develop a methodology to prevent the cycle from recurring.

For ADHD Children, Mother’s Depression, Early Parenting Predict Conduct Problems

COLLEGE PARK, Md., March 22 (AScribe Newswire) – A mother’s depression predicts whether children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) will develop conduct problems such as lying, fighting, bullying and stealing, according to a new study from a University of Maryland researcher.

The study, published in the January 2007 issue of the American Psychological Association’s journal, “Developmental Psychology,” also found that early positive parenting during the preschool years predicted fewer conduct problems as the children grew to early adolescence. The strength of the findings led the researchers to conclude that maternal depression may be a risk factor, whereas positive parenting may be a protective factor.

“This research gives us clear targets for early intervention to prevent conduct problems in children with ADHD,” says Andrea Chronis, director of the University of Maryland ADHD Program and professor of psychology who served as lead author on the paper. “In the real world, this could have important implications, because research has suggested that children with both ADHD and conduct problems are at the greatest risk of becoming chronic criminal offenders.”

The researchers say their study is the first to focus directly on the role of parent mental health and early parenting in the development of conduct problems among children with ADHD. Moreover, they point to previous research that shows the development of conduct problems to be quite common in children with ADHD. By one estimate, approximately 20 to 50 percent of children and 44 to 50 percent of adolescents with ADHD experience severe conduct problems.

“Parenting an ADHD child is very difficult for many families,” Chronis says. “Often there’s a growing cycle of negativity as parents’ nerves fray and their children’s behavior escalates in response to increasingly harsh or withdrawn parenting. Maternal depression makes parenting a child with ADHD even more challenging. Now we have new evidence that praise, a warm tone of voice and use of other positive parenting techniques may help break this dangerous cycle.”

Findings and Method

Specifically, the researchers found that children with mothers who displayed the highest levels of positive parenting during preschool had significantly lower levels of conduct problems over time, when other possible contributing factors were controlled. Also, children of previously depressed mothers had significantly higher levels of conduct problems over time compared to children whose mothers had never been depressed.

This research is part of an ongoing longitudinal study funded by the National Institutes of Health that follows ADHD children through their 18th birthday. Conducted by members of the research team at the Universities of Chicago and Pittsburgh, it consisted of a series of annual assessments of 108 children’s behavior and development. Children ranged in age from four to seven at the start of the research. The parenting techniques were assessed using observational methodology during the first year of the study. Information on the mother’s mental health was also collected annually.

The study focused on the mothers’ health and parenting since they are most often the primary caretakers and are more likely to be depressed than men. Also, an earlier study by Chronis and the research team found that mothers of ADHD children are at double the risk of experiencing depression than moms of non-ADHD kids.

With a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Chronis and her research team at the University of Maryland are now developing and evaluating a 14-week behavioral intervention for depressed mothers of children with ADHD that targets effective parenting and reducing maternal depression.

An electronic copy of the research paper is available to journalists. Please email Neil Tickner: ntickner@umd.edu.

The Maryland ADHD Program is a clinical research program with a strong commitment to conducting clinical research that advances knowledge of the assessment and treatment of ADHD, provides comprehensive, empirically-based assessment and treatment of ADHD and associated behavior problems, trains the next generation of child clinical psychologists in these practices and educates parents and schools in this form of assessment and treatment. More information is available online: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/clinicalpsyc/training/adhd.htm.

Recently, Scott Bauer of the Associated Press (July 27, 2005) released an article entitled: Blind Teen Amazes With Video-Game Skills.

In it, Bauer writes of super video game whiz, Brice Mellen. Brice is super proficient in games such as Mortal Kombat and others. The only difference between Brice and his peers is that Brice is blind. The following excerpt is from the article and is an exceptional example of neuroplasticity or Brice’s ability (his brain’s ability) to compensate for his loss of sight.

And as he easily dispatched foes who took him on recently at a Lincoln gaming center, the affable and smiling Mellen remained humble.

“I can’t say that I’m a superpro,” he said, working the controller like an extension of his body. “I can be beat.”

Those bold enough to challenge him weren’t so lucky. One by one, while playing “Soul Caliber 2,” their video characters were decapitated, eviscerated and gutted without mercy by Mellen’s on-screen alter ego.

“I’m getting bored,” Mellen said in jest as he won game after game.

Blind since birth when his optic nerve didn’t connect because of Leber’s disease, Mellen honed his video game skills over the years through patient and not-so-patient playing, memorizing key joystick operations and moves in certain games, asking lots of questions and paying particular attention to audio cues. He worked his way up from games such as “Space Invaders” and “Asteroid,” onto the modern combat games.

“I guess I don’t know how I do it, really,” Mellen said, as he continued playing while facing away from the screen. “It’s beyond me.”

Mellen knows this much: He started playing at home when he was about 7.”

Brice has learned how to control play through adaptation. He can play with his back to the screen and use finely tuned listening skills to calculate distance and position. Applying this with exquisitely tuned kinesthetic skills on the joystick, and he has a powerful combination that few can beat.

His mastery is a mystery; however, it is a true example of the human brain’s ability to adapt when given the correct stimulation and learning environment. It remains unfortunate, at the time of this blog, that science has yet to catch up or tap into the immense innate capacity of the human brain.

When I developed Play Attention, I was acutely aware that cognitive training/development through video game usage was an incredibly motivating discipline. The intrinsic interest in computer video gaming provides a tremendous teaching environment.

Off-the-shelf commercial video games provide little cognitive improvement, if any according to recent research. They do teach the user to identify screen objects quickly and accurately. They may quite likely decrease one’s ability to control sustained attention, impulsivity, and aggression as well.

Thus, it is imperative to provide specific goals for game play. Play Attention teaches and increases specific cognitive skills typically deficit in persons with attention problems. I systematically structure the teaching/learning process to produce cognitive and behavioral changes. This, of course, does not happen in off-the-shelf games where violence is the objective. It is important to remember that our brains are ALWAYS affected by what we input into them.

I have written for years that only by redefining ADHD can we address the problem through education and training. Finally, the movement is approaching mainstream as indicated in the article from Scientific American entitled, Training the Brain, Cognitive Therapy As An Alternative To ADHD Drugs.

It is interesting to note that the techniques mentioned in the article have been incorporated in the Play Attention cognitive tools for about ten years.

“Recent studies support the notion that many children with ADHD have cognitive deficits, specifically in working memory–the ability to hold in mind information that guides behavior. The cognitive problem manifests behaviorally as inattention and contributes to poor academic performance. Such research not only questions the value of medicating ADHD children, it also is redefining the disorder and leading to more meaningful treatment that includes cognitive training.”

Salient issues raised by the author include:

1. The difficult decision by parents “To medicate or not? Millions of parents must decide when their child is diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)–a decision made tougher by controversy.”
2. While medication may calm a student’s outward behavior, research shows that it does not increase cognitive ability manifesting in improved academic performance, social relationships, or defiant behavior over the long-term.
3. This has led scientists to research effective means of cognitive training as a substitute.

This is really a shift in our understanding of this disorder from behavioral to biological,” states Rosemary Tannock, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Tannock has shown that although stimulant medication improves working memory, the effect is small, she says, “suggesting that medication isn’t going to be sufficient.” So she and others, such as Susan Gathercole of the University of Durham in England, now work with schools to introduce teaching methods that train working memory. In fact, working-memory deficits may underlie several disabilities, not just ADHD, highlighting the heterogeneity of the disorder.”

The article focuses on Dr. Torkel Klingberg of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who trained around 40 kids with ADHD with a software program that addressed “working memory.” After more than 20 days of training parents reported that their children had greatly improved attention and lessened hyperactivity.

Klingberg essentially proved that cognitive retraining improved neurobiological function. This work has been underway with Play Attention since 1994. It’s good to see the paradigm shift beginning to happen.

The following research, New Cornell study suggests that mental processing is continuous, not like a computer appeared recently in a number of major publications.

Through computerized testing, the researchers essentially confirmed AND disputed work theorized by computer scientist, Marvin Minsky, in his book, The Society of Mind. Minsky theorized that the brain processes information through a variety of separate, distinct agents that work together in various capacities. Thus, according to Minsky, information processing is somewhat linear as in our working computers. The researchers seem to confirm the linear biological processing (input) of information, yet claim their findings demonstrate that the “neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties – like a biological organism,” when processing (outputting) information.

There are many similarities between Minsky and Cornell’s group, however, they seem different possibly only by semantics. Once again, the mind seems to have a difficult time describing its own activities.

June 27, 2005

New Cornell study suggests that mental processing is continuous, not like a computer

By Susan S. Lang ITHACA, N.Y. – The theory that the mind works like a computer, in a series of distinct stages, was an important steppingstone in cognitive science, but it has outlived its usefulness, concludes a new Cornell University study. Instead, the mind should be thought of more as working the way biological organisms do: as a dynamic continuum, cascading through shades of grey.

Kevin Stearns/University Photography Cornell psycholinguist Michael Spivey asks Florencia Reali to listen for a word and then click on its picture. By studying the curvature of the trajectory of the mouse, he can analyze language comprehension processes. Copyright © Cornell University

In a new study published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (June 27-July 1), Michael Spivey, a psycholinguist and associate professor of psychology at Cornell, tracked the mouse movements of undergraduate students while working at a computer. The findings provide compelling evidence that language comprehension is a continuous process.

“For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols – like a digital computer,” said Spivey. “More recently, however, a growing number of studies, such as ours, support dynamical-systems approaches to the mind. In this model, perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space; the neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties – like a biological organism.”

In his study, 42 students listened to instructions to click on pictures of different objects on a computer screen. When the students heard a word, such as “candle,” and were presented with two pictures whose names did not sound alike, such as a candle and a jacket, the trajectories of their mouse movements were quite straight and directly to the candle. But when the students heard “candle” and were presented with two pictures with similar sounding names, such as candle and candy, they were slower to click on the correct object, and their mouse trajectories were much more curved. Spivey said that the listeners started processing what they heard even before the entire word was spoken.

“When there was ambiguity, the participants briefly didn’t know which picture was correct and so for several dozen milliseconds, they were in multiple states at once. They didn’t move all the way to one picture and then correct their movement if they realized they were wrong, but instead they traveled through an intermediate gray area,” explained Spivey. “The degree of curvature of the trajectory shows how much the other object is competing for their interpretation; the curve shows continuous competition. They sort of partially heard the word both ways, and their resolution of the ambiguity was gradual rather than discrete; it’s a dynamical system.”

The computer metaphor describes cognition as being in a particular discrete state, for example, “on or off” or in values of either zero or one, and in a static state until moving on. If there was ambiguity, the model assumed that the mind jumps the gun to one state or the other, and if it realizes it is wrong, it then makes a correction.

“In thinking of cognition as working as a biological organism does, on the other hand, you do not have to be in one state or another like a computer, but can have values in between – you can be partially in one state and another, and then eventually gravitate to a unique interpretation, as in finally recognizing a spoken word,” Spivey said.

Whereas the older models of language processing theorized that neural systems process words in a series of discrete stages, the alternative model suggests that sensory input is processed continuously so that even partial linguistic input can start “the dynamic competition between simultaneously active representations.”

Spivey’s co-authors are Marc Grosjean of the University of Dortmund, Germany, and Günther

I recently debated multitasking to task switching. Multitasking denotes attention to a variety of extraneous and internal stimuli. All research that I can find concludes that the human mind performs much less efficiently under multitasking environments–this includes the following article from Johns Hopkins University and published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Task switching denotes shifting full attention from one activity to the next. It seems to parallel our current understanding of brain function in a high stimuli environment.

Multitasking: You can’t pay full attention to both sights and sounds Lab findings suggest reason cell phones and driving don’t mix The reason talking on a cell phone makes drivers less safe may be that the brain can’t simultaneously give full attention to both the visual task of driving and the auditory task of listening, a study by a Johns Hopkins University psychologist suggests. The study, published in a recent issue of “The Journal of Neuroscience,” reinforces earlier behavioral research on the danger of mixing mobile phones and motoring.

“Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device,” said Steven Yantis, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the university’s Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

“The reason?” he said. “Directing attention to listening effectively ‘turns down the volume’ on input to the visual parts of the brain. The evidence we have right now strongly suggests that attention is strictly limited – a zero-sum game. When attention is deployed to one modality – say, in this case, talking on a cell phone – it necessarily extracts a cost on another modality – in this case, the visual task of driving.”

Yantis’s chief collaborator on this research project was Sarah Shomstein, who was a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins. Shomstein is now a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Though the results of Yantis’ research can be applied to the real world problem of drivers and their cell phones, that was not directly what the professor and his team studied. Instead, healthy young adults ages 19 to 35 were brought into a neuroimaging lab and asked to view a computer display while listening to voices over headphones. They watched a rapidly changing display of multiple letters and digits, while listening to three voices speaking letters and digits at the same time. The purpose was to simulate the cluttered visual and auditory input people deal with every day.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Yantis and his team recorded brain activity during each of these tasks. They found that when the subjects directed their attention to visual tasks, the auditory parts of their brain recorded decreased activity, and vice versa.

Yantis’ team also examined the parts of the brain that control shifts of attention. They discovered that when a person was instructed to move his attention from vision to hearing, for instance, the brain’s parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex produced a burst of activity that the researchers interpreted as a signal to initiate the shift of attention. This surprised them, because it has previously been thought that those parts of the brain were involved only in visual functions.

“Ultimately, we want to understand the connection between voluntary acts of the will (for instance, a choice to shift attention from vision to hearing), changes in brain activity (reflecting both the initiation of cognitive control and the effects of that control), and resultant changes in the performance of a task, such as driving,” Yantis said. “By advancing our understanding of the connection between mind, brain and behavior, this research may help in the design of complex devices – such as airliner cockpits – and may help in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders such as ADHD or schizophrenia.”