ABSTRACT
The present study focused on the first step in developing a cue reactivity task for studying cognitive biases in individuals with mild to borderline intellectual disability (ID) and alcohol use-related problems: the standardization of pictorial stimuli. Participants (N=40), both with and without a history of alcohol use-related problems and varying in IQ, were admitted to a forensic setting and were all abstinent. They were asked to rate familiarity, complexity, valence and attractiveness of pictures portraying both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. There was a tendency to rate non-alcoholic beverages as more pleasant and attractive than alcoholic beverages. In participants with mild to borderline ID, this difference reached statistical significance, even when controlling for alcohol use-related problems in the past. The overall result of the study is a large database of 255 pictures portraying both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages that will be used to validate an implicit measure of cognitive biases for alcohol in individuals with mild to borderline ID.
Subject(s)
Alcoholism/psychology , Choice Behavior , Cues , Intellectual Disability/psychology , Photic Stimulation , Adult , Alcoholic Beverages , Alcoholism/complications , Behavior, Addictive/psychology , Cognition , Conditioning, Psychological , Female , Humans , Intellectual Disability/complications , Male , Middle Aged , Severity of Illness Index , Young AdultABSTRACT
This study focuses on the relationship between movement-time fluctuations in fine motor tasks and changing levels of muscular co-contraction. Based on a recent neuromotor noise theory, we expected that increased task stress would increase muscular co-contraction and prolong movement times. Ten right-handed adults performed a graphic task, which elicited local movement-time prolongations. In half the trials, a distracting sound was presented as an external stressor. Besides pen-tip kinematics, two estimates of muscular co-contraction were obtained from the surface EMG measurements of eight arm and hand muscles. The results confirm the presumed co-variation of movement time and co-contraction. We conclude that muscular co-contraction forms a strategic means to adapt the flow of motion to central information processing demands.
Subject(s)
Mental Processes , Motor Skills/physiology , Muscle Contraction/physiology , Acoustic Stimulation , Adult , Attention , Electromyography , Female , Functional Laterality , Hand/physiology , Humans , Male , Muscle, Skeletal/physiology , Task Performance and AnalysisABSTRACT
This study investigated the combined effects of orthographical irregularity and auditory memory load on the kinematics of finger movements in a transcription-typewriting task. Eight right-handed touch-typists were asked to type 80 strings of ten seven-letter words. In half the trials an irregularly spelt target word elicited a specific key press sequence of either the left or right index finger. In the other trials regularly spelt target words elicited the same key press sequence. An auditory memory load was added in half the trials by asking participants to remember the pitch of a tone during task performance. Orthographical irregularity was expected to slow down performance. Auditory memory load, viewed as a low level stressor, was expected to affect performance only when orthographically irregular words needed to be typed. The hypotheses were confirmed. Additional analysis showed differential effects on the left and right hand, possibly related to verbal-manual interference and hand dominance. The results are discussed in relation to relevant findings of recent neuroimaging studies.
