Non-contingent affective outcomes influence judgments of control.

Our main goal in these experiments was to examine whether affective valence plays a role in judgments of control (JoC) in intentional action. To test this, we asked participants to completevariationsofasimple aiming task in which words appeared in place of clicked targets. The affective content of the words was manipulated during the experiments but was not contingent on participants' performance. Throughout the task, participants were periodically asked to judge their JoC.Thus, JoC judgments in this task included contributions of a well-established cue to judgments of control, task performance, and a source of affect that was not related to task performance. We found thatmetacognitions of controlvaried consistentlyacross levels of affect, with stronger judgments of being in control for conditions with positive outcome words (e.g., 'puppy') and the weaker judgments of being in control for conditions with negative outcome words (e.g.,'killer').These results suggestaffective outcomes can influence JoC, even though the outcomes are not related to performance.

What am I doing? It depends: agency and action identification.

Actions can be identified at a range of levels, from higher level, outcome-related descriptions to lower level, movement-related descriptions. But how do these levels of identification influence the experience of control (agency) over a task? We addressed the relation between the level of action identification and agency using a hierarchical task modeled from typing. Participants memorized letter sequences and reported them by moving a cursor to targets that contained letters. To manipulate lower level (aiming) difficulty, the targets were either large or small. To manipulate higher level (memory) difficulty, the letter sequences were either constant or random within a block. We found effects of higher and lower level difficulty on agency and action identification. Moreover, we found interactive effects of higher and lower level difficulty on performance. We discuss these findings in terms of contributions to the study of agency, and some differences from the results of previous studies of action identification.

Consistency, not speed: temporal regularity as a metacognitive cue.

We examined the hypothesis that skilled performance is monitored on the basis of fluency, where fluency is operationally defined as temporal regularity or rhythmicity rather than speed. Since error is often associated with variable timing, we tested the possibility that people use varied timing as a metacognitive cue. Using a sequential counting task, which may be representative of the broader class of skilled, multi-step tasks, we found that shifting between irregular and regular timing led to greater confidence ratings when the timing associated with the task was regular. We argue that regular, consistent timing, when compared directly to irregular timing, produced feelings of fluent task performance, leading to increased confidence. In the first experiment, we demonstrated that both accuracy and confidence were higher when participants completed a task presented with regular timing. In the second experiment, we found a dissociation between accuracy and confidence, strengthening the argument that individuals relied on monitoring of fluency to support their metacognitive judgments. In Study 3 and an assessment of naïve beliefs, we ruled out alternative explanations for these findings.

Control used and control felt: Two sides of the agency coin.

Agency has been defined as the sense of ownership and control of our actions, and the metacognition of agency has now been examined in a number of studies. Here we examined the relations between task demands, the feeling of being in control, and the feeling of using control. As task demands increase, we might feel as if we use a lot of control while feeling little control over the task. It therefore seems possible that the amount of control one feels they have used and how much in control one feels are separable components of the metacognition of control. In two experiments, we manipulated task demands and assessed these two aspects of metacognition. The source of task demand differed for the two experiments. In Experiment 1, we manipulated task demands by varying the sizes of targets in an aiming task. As predicted, we found that reports of control used increased, while reports of control felt decreased, for more difficult aiming conditions. In Experiment 2, we found a similar relation using a different source of demand: response conflict. We connect these reports of control to previous investigations of task demand and agency, as well as prominent conceptions of cognitive control.

Is Source Information Automatically Available in Working Memory?

We often remember information without its source (e.g., word or picture format). This phenomenon has been studied extensively in long-term memory but rarely in the context of short-term working memory (WM), which leaves open the question of whether source amnesia can result from a lack of memory encoding rather than forgetting. This study provided a series of striking and novel demonstrations showing participants' inability to report the source of a color representation immediately after that color was used in a task and stored in memory. These counterintuitive findings occurred when participants repeatedly judged the congruency between two color representations from one single object (i.e., color and identity of a color word) or two distinct objects (i.e., color of a square and identity of a color word) and then were unexpectedly asked to report the source of one color representation. These discoveries suggest that source information is often not stored in WM.

Are you sure the library is that way? Metacognitive monitoring of spatial judgments.

Many studies have examined how people recall the locations of objects in spatial layouts. However, little is known about how people monitor the accuracy of judgments based on those memories. The goal of the present experiments was to examine the effect of reference frame characteristics on metacognitive accuracy for spatial judgments. Reference frame characteristics include the alignment of one's viewpoint with the structure of the environment (allocentric alignment), direction of the target with respect to one's current viewpoint (egocentric direction), and the type of perspective used to solve the task (egocentric vs. allocentric). Participants were tested on their knowledge of a well-known location in which they had experience navigating. They were asked to orient themselves toward a particular heading and point to target landmarks from this heading. They then rated their confidence in their pointing judgments. Confidence judgments were sensitive to the effects of allocentric alignment and egocentric direction on performance. However, they underestimate the magnitude of these effects. Follow-up regression analyses indicate that confidence in individual landmarks was a stronger predictor of confidence than reference frame characteristics. Overall, the results suggest that people use reference frame features and landmark confidence when monitoring performance in directional judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record

The higher mental processes in the American Journal of Psychology.

Research on the higher mental processes throughout the history of The American Journal of Psychology is reviewed. The domains covered include reasoning, judgment and decision, problem solving, and metacognition. Within each domain, the earliest contributions to the Journal are discussed, as is the development of the research domain over time. The increasing refinement of research methods and theoretical tools over time is accompanied by much consistency in research questions.

Metacognitive monitoring in moderate and severe traumatic brain injury.

The ability to engage in self-reflective processes is a capacity that may be disrupted after neurological compromise; research to date has demonstrated that patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) show reduced awareness of their deficits and functional ability compared to caretaker or clinician reports. Assessment of awareness of deficit, however, has been limited by the use of subjective measures (without comparison to actual performance) that are susceptible to report bias. This study used concurrent measurements from cognitive testing and confidence judgments about performance to investigate in-the-moment metacognitive experiences after moderate and severe traumatic brain injury. Deficits in metacognitive accuracy were found in adults with TBI for some but not all indices, suggesting that metacognition may not be a unitary construct. Findings also revealed that not all indices of executive functioning reliably predict metacognitive ability.

Effect of pacing and working memory loads on error type patterns in a routine skill.

Event counting provides a laboratory paradigm for studying types and causes of error in routine activity. Experiment 1 demonstrated that as more time per event is allowed, counting errors typically are undercounts, then overcounts as the time per event is extended to approximately 3 s. Experiments 2 and 3 examined 2 possible causes of this phenomenon, forgetting and confusions due to overrehearsal of the next number to be used. These findings demonstrate that overcount errors during event counting are reduced by working memory loads, which may result from a lower ability to rehearse the current total. Implications for theoretical accounts of goal representation, control, and error monitoring are discussed.

The relationship between executive functioning and dissociation.

Although dissociation by definition affects cognition, few studies have used neuropsychological measures to examine dissociative phenomena. This study compared 33 high and 32 low dissociators based on the Dissociative Experiences Scale, on self-report and neuropsychological measures of executive function, including the Dysexecutive Questionnaire, Iowa Gambling Task, Operation Span task, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test-64. High dissociators endorsed significantly more executive difficulties than did low dissociators, but these difficulties were not related to their performance on neuropsychological measures. Results suggest that dissociative individuals' perceptions of executive impairments may be divorced from objective deficits, revealing an important process underlying the clinical manifestations of dissociation.

What do the hands externalize in simple arithmetic?

In 4 experiments, the authors examined the use of the hands in simple arithmetic tasks. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that pointing increases both accuracy and speed in counting arrays of items, whether those items are identical or distinctive. Experiment 3 demonstrated that individuals tend to nod their heads when not allowed to point and that nodding is associated with greater accuracy, suggesting that pointing is functional for reasons other than simply providing additional visual information. Experiment 4 examined changes in speech when adding arrays of digits, depending on whether participants were allowed to use their hands to manipulate the tokens on which the digits were presented. Taken together, the results of these experiments are consistent with recent research suggesting that gesture can serve cognitive functions and that the hands can support the binding of representational elements to their functional roles by providing phase markers for cyclic cognitive processes.

Understanding cognitive failures: what's dissociation got to do with it?

Intuitively, cognitive failures and dissociation seem to encompass overlapping mental phenomena. This study used a large sample to examine the nature of the relationship between these constructs. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). The single factor resulting from the EFA of the CFQ correlated significantly with all factors from the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). A conjoint item-level factor analysis using all items from both measures was performed, and two factors resulted. The first included all items from the CFQ and appeared to describe an absorption-like phenomenon. The second factor's highest positively loading items assessed more pathological forms of dissociation. Based on our results, we conclude that the CFQ and DES are assessing similar cognitive processes and that cognitive failures, as measured by the CFQ, overlap with nonpathological dissociation.

American College Of Radiology/Society of Breast Imaging curriculum for resident and fellow education in breast imaging.

The ACR and the Society of Breast Imaging have revised the curriculum for resident and fellow education in breast imaging on the basis of substantial changes in breast imaging practice since the initial curriculum was published in 2000. This curriculum provides guidance to academic chairs, residency program directors, and academic section chiefs in assessing and improving their residency and fellowship training programs and indicates to residents and breast imaging fellows the topics they need to learn and the experience they should try to acquire during their training. Radiologists already in practice also may find the curriculum useful in outlining the material they need to know to remain up to date in the practice of breast imaging.

Adding in vivo quantitative 1H MR spectroscopy to improve diagnostic accuracy of breast MR imaging: preliminary results of observer performance study at 4.0 T.

PURPOSE: To determine whether the addition of in vivo quantitative hydrogen 1 (1H) magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy can improve the radiologist's diagnostic accuracy in interpreting breast MR images to distinguish benign from malignant lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was approved by the institutional review board and, where appropriate, was compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. All patients provided written informed consent. Fifty-five breast MR imaging cases-one lesion each in 55 patients aged 24-66 years with biopsy-confirmed findings-were retrospectively evaluated by four radiologists. Patients were examined with contrast material-enhanced fat-suppressed T1-weighted 4.0-T MR imaging. The concentration of total choline-containing compounds (tCho) was quantified by using single-voxel 1H MR spectroscopy. For each case, the radiologists were asked to give the percentage probability of malignancy, the Breast Imaging and Reporting Data System category, and a recommendation for patient treatment. Two interpretations were performed for each case: The initial interpretation was based on the lesion's morphologic features and time-signal intensity curve, and the second interpretation was based on the lesion's morphologic features, time-signal intensity curve, and tCho concentration. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC), Wilcoxon signed rank, kappa statistic, and accuracy (based on the area under the ROC curve) analyses were performed. RESULTS: Of the 55 lesions evaluated, 35 were invasive carcinomas and 20 were benign. The addition of 1H MR spectroscopy resulted in higher sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and interobserver agreement for all four radiologists. More specifically, two of the four radiologists achieved a significant improvement in sensitivity (P=.03, P=.03), and all four radiologists achieved a significant improvement in accuracy (P = .01, P = .05, P = .009, P < .001). CONCLUSION: Current study results suggest that the addition of quantitative 1H MR spectroscopy to the breast MR imaging examination may help to improve the radiologist's ability to distinguish benign from malignant breast lesions.

Report of the ACR task force on international teleradiology.

Telemedicine is becoming an increasingly important tool in the practice of medicine throughout the world. For radiologists, telemedicine translates to teleradiology. Because an increasing amount of imaging is now archived in a digital format, and with the application of more powerful computers in radiology, digital image transmission between display stations is becoming commonplace. The ability to move large diagnostic image data sets to display stations anywhere in the world using the Internet and other high-speed data links is solving some problems and creating others. Medicine and radiology will be challenged in many ways by the issues created from the application of this burgeoning technology. Our task force was charged with investigating the evolving practice of international teleradiology and with developing a pubic statement to be adopted by the ACR Council (). This white paper is our effort to define those issues we believe to be most pertinent to international teleradiology as we know them today. Will these issues be changing? Certainly. For some facets of the issue, there are currently more questions than answers. We describe several scenarios that we believe are acceptable practices of international teleradiology as well as some that are not. We believe that much will be written about international teleradiology in the future as the issues of credentialing, quality assurance, licensure, American Board of Radiology certification, the maintenance of certification, jurisdictional and medical liability issues, patient privacy, fraud and medical ethics are more precisely defined and shaped by state and federal legislation and medical jurisprudence. This white paper is our assessment of what we believe to be the major challenges that exist as of this writing.

Intentional control of event counting.

Event counting depends on simple, well-learned knowledge but is effortful and error-prone. In 6 experiments, the authors examined event-counting performance, testing a model that suggests that counting is controlled by minimal goal representations coordinated with perceptual events by temporal synchrony. In Experiment 1, they examined self-paced counting with or without delays that disrupted participants' preferred pacing. In subsequent experiments, participants counted computer-paced events occurring at rhythmic or varied intervals, reporting or verifying totals. Several results support the model: Participants counted rhythmic events more accurately, made undetected undercount errors when counting rhythmic events, and made false alarms to undercount or overcount probes presented at different times. These results suggest that intentions that guide fluent counting specify parameters deictically rather than semantically and that error monitoring is implicit.

Breast abscess in lactating women: US-guided treatment.

PURPOSE: To retrospectively evaluate the use of ultrasonography (US)-guided treatment of breast abscesses in lactating women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred eight consecutive lactating women who were clinically suspected of having a breast abscess were examined with US. Abscesses depicted at US were treated with US guidance, and the success of US-guided treatment was retrospectively determined. RESULTS: Fifty-six abscesses were identified at US in 43 women; all abscesses were treated with US guidance: 23 with needle aspiration and 33 with catheter drainage. Treatment method was determined according to the size of the abscess. Abscesses that were smaller than 3 cm in maximum diameter were treated with needle aspiration, and abscesses that were 3 cm or larger in maximum diameter were treated with catheter insertion. One patient who was treated with needle aspiration subsequently underwent surgical intervention; all others were successfully treated with US intervention. Catheter placement was well tolerated (mean pain score 2.3 in 22 women by using a subjective pain scale of 0-10). CONCLUSION: US-guided needle aspiration of abscesses smaller than 3 cm and US-guided catheter drainage of abscesses 3 cm or larger are successful means of treating breast abscesses.

Egocentric organization of spatial activities in imagined navigation.

Studies on spatial frameworks suggest that the way we locate objects in imagined environments is influenced by the physical and functional properties of the world and our body. The present study provides evidence that such an influence also characterizes imagined navigation. In Experiment 1, participants followed spatial directions to construct an imagined path, while either keeping constant or updating their orientation at each step. A pattern of step times diagnostic of spatial frameworks was obtained in the updated-orientation but not in the constant-orientation condition. In Experiment 2, participants performed the updated-orientation condition with two levels of external support for the reference frame being used. Step times conformed to the predictions of spatial frameworks in both conditions. Both experiments also provided support that the processes involved in imagined navigation exhibit the operator-operand dynamics of other mental skills previously documented in the mental arithmetic domain. These results reinforce Piaget's (1954) notion that spatial displacements and integer arithmetic share a set of structural characteristics

Implicit temporal tuning of working memory strategy during cognitive skill acquisition.

Complex cognitive tasks such as multiple-step arithmetic entail strategies for coordinating mental processes such as calculation with processes for managing working memory (WM). Such strategies must be sensitive to factors such as the time needed for calculation. In 2 experiments we tested whether people can learn the timing constraints on WM demands when those constraints are implicitly imposed. We varied the retention period for intermediate results using the well-known digit size effect: The larger the operands, the longer it takes to perform addition. During learning participants practiced multiple-step arithmetic routines combined with large or small digits. At transfer, they performed both practiced and novel combinations. Practice performance was affected by digit size and WM demands. However, the transfer performance was not fully explained by the digit size effect or the practice effect. We argue that participants acquired temporal tuning of the WM strategy to the implicit retention interval imposed by the digit size and kept using the tuning mode to unpracticed data set.

Information acquisition strategies and the cognitive structure of arithmetic.

In three experiments, we examined the sensitivity of information acquisition strategies to the underlying cognitive structure of arithmetic tasks. Previous work has shown that individuals solve arithmetic problems more quickly when they consider operators before operands. The operators establish the goal, and the operands are then assimilated into that goal. In the present experiments, participants performed arithmetic tasks in which they controlled the display of operators and operands, using separate keystrokes. The participants chose to see the operator before the operands in most conditions. This ordering was more likely when task constraints made it easier to achieve, when feedback emphasized execution time, and in a more complex multiple-step task. These results extend previous research on strategy selection and information acquisition, supporting the idea that coordination between the environment and ongoing cognition is an important feature of cognitive skill.