Placebo expectancy effects in the relationship between glucose and cognition

The present study investigated the extent of expectancy in the ability of glucose to affect cognitive performance. Using a within-subjects design, subjects (n 26) completed four experimental sessions (in counterbalanced order and after an initial practice session) during which they were given a 500 ml drink 30 min prior to completing a cognitive assessment battery. In addition, all subjects completed a baseline practice session during which they were given no drink. During two of the sessions, subjects were given a drink containing 50 g glucose and on the other two they were given a drink containing aspartame. A balanced placebo design was used, such that for half the sessions subjects were accurately informed as to the content of the drink (glucose or aspartame), whereas in the other two sessions they were misinformed as to the content of the drink. The task battery comprised a 6 min visual analogue of the Bakan vigilance task, an immediate verbal free-recall task, an immediate verbal recognition memory task and a measure of motor speed (two-finger tapping). Blood glucose and self-reported mood were also recorded at several time points during each session. Glucose administration was found to improve recognition memory times, in direct contrast to previous findings in the literature. Glucose administration also improved performance on the Bakan task (relative to the control drink), but only in sessions where subjects were informed that they would receive glucose and not when they were told that they would receive aspartame. There were no effects either of the nature of the drink or expectancy on the other measures. These results are interpreted in terms of there being some contribution of expectancy concerning the positive effects of glucose on cognition in studies which have not used an equi-sweet dose of aspartame as a control drink.

Automated Problem Domain Cognition Process in Information Systems Design

An automated cognitive approach for the design of Information Systems is presented. It is supposed to be used at the very beginning of the design process, between the stages of requirements determination and analysis, including the stage of analysis. In the context of the approach used either UML or ERD notations may be used for model representation. The approach provides the opportunity of using natural language text documents as a source of knowledge for automated problem domain model generation. It also simplifies the process of modelling by assisting the human user during the whole period of working upon the model (using UML or ERD notations).

Placebo expectancy effect of consuming psychoactive beverages on cognition and mood

Energy drinks have become very popular over the past few years with over half the student population in colleges and universities consuming them at least once a month (Malinauskas et al., 2007). It has been reported that the most common reasons why students consume energy drinks are to maintain alertness, reduce symptoms of hangover, increase energy, to help with driving and to prevent sleepiness (Attila and Cakir, 2011; Malinauskas et al., 2007). Previous research has suggested that energy drinks enhance sensorimotor speed, behaviour, and reduce levels of fatigue (Alford et al., 2001; Horne and Reyner, 2001; Howard and Marczinski, 2010; Kennedy and Scholey, 2004; Smit et al., 2004). The two key ingredients found in energy drinks are caffeine and glucose which have been examined together and alone, which have indicated enhanced reaction times, improvement in both verbal memory and sustained attention and more recently there is evidence to show that expectancy may play a key role in predicting intentions of future consumption (Adan and serra-Grabulosa, 2010). According to Kirsch (1997) people have specific expectations when they consume psychoactive substances that trigger physiological and psychological reactions, which tend to be independent of the psychoactive substance ingested. The concept of expectancy effects can be unambiguous especially when the information provided to the participants prior to the experimental study is specific to a possible outcome response. This thesis investigated the extent of expectancy effect on cognition and mood when psychoactive drinks containing caffeine and glucose were consumed in comparison to non-psychoactive drinks. The investigation commenced with examining the independent effects of caffeine and glucose, followed by the combination of caffeine and glucose as an energy drink on mood and cognition. The investigation advanced by comparing drink presentation effects (i.e., consuming the experimental drink from a branded bottle versus from a glass) irrespective of drink content on mood and cognition. Finally, the investigation lead to exploring what factors may predict expectancy effects when participants’ consumed psychoactive drinks among healthy adults. This was done by applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour model (TPB) (Azjen, 1991) to explore the contribution of specific attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control to the extent of expectancy effects as well as to behavioural intention, with additional variables including; beliefs, habits, past-behaviour, selfidentity. Self-identity representing someone who drinks energy drinks regularly. The level of internal consistency for Cronbach’s alpha was conducted for each variable within the TPB model and for the additional variables included for test reliability. This thesis consisted of four studies, which found that consumption of caffeine and glucose independently and also in combination resulted in psychoactive effects on mood and cognition. Experiment 2 was the only study, which indicated an expectancy effect for immediate verbal recall task and the mood subscale tension. Conversely, for experiment 4 there was a reverse effect found for the immediate verbal recall task. However, there were significant expectancy and psychoactive effects found for mood subscales throughout the four studies. It was also found that the TPB model had two significant variables past-behaviour and self-identity predicted intentions suggesting that participants who regularly consume psychoactive beverages have salient beliefs about consuming psychoactive drinks and the TPB model can be utilised to predict their intentions. Furthermore, the Theory of planned behaviour model found that habit and self-identity significantly predicted participants’ expectancy effects on the vigour. Indicating consumers of energy drinks are familiar with expected outcome response. This model was unsuccessful in predicting expectancy response for cognitive performance. Thus, overall the findings from the four studies indicated that caffeine and glucose have cognitive enhancing properties, which also positively improve mood. However, expectancy effects have been identified for mood only, whereas the overall findings within this thesis were unable to identify significant predictors of expectancy effect and response.

Researching language teacher cognition and practice:international case studies

This book presents a novel approach to discussing how to research language teacher cognition and practice. An introductory chapter by theeditors and an overview of the research field by Simon Borg precede eigh case studies written by new researchers, each of which focuses on one approach to collecting data. These approaches range from questionnaires and focus groups to think aloud, stimulated recall, and oral reflective journals. Each case study is commented on by a leading expert in the field - JD Brown, Martin Bygate, Donald Freeman, Alan Maley, Jerry Gebhard, Thoma Farrell, Susan Gass, and Jill Burton. Readers are encouraged to enter th conversation by reflecting on a set of questions and tasks in each chapter.

Candidate knowledge? Exploring epistemic claims in scientific writing:a corpus-driven approach

In this article I argue that the study of the linguistic aspects of epistemology has become unhelpfully focused on the corpus-based study of hedging and that a corpus-driven approach can help to improve upon this. Through focusing on a corpus of texts from one discourse community (that of genetics) and identifying frequent tri-lexical clusters containing highly frequent lexical items identified as keywords, I undertake an inductive analysis identifying patterns of epistemic significance. Several of these patterns are shown to be hedging devices and the whole corpus frequencies of the most salient of these, candidate and putative, are then compared to the whole corpus frequencies for comparable wordforms and clusters of epistemic significance. Finally I interviewed a ‘friendly geneticist’ in order to check my interpretation of some of the terms used and to get an expert interpretation of the overall findings. In summary I argue that the highly unexpected patterns of hedging found in genetics demonstrate the value of adopting a corpus-driven approach and constitute an advance in our current understanding of how to approach the relationship between language and epistemology.

Assessment of social cognition in bipolar disorder

Background: Impairment in social cognition may contribute to deficits in social functioning in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). In this study, a complex social cognition task was administered during a neuroimaging session. The behavioral and neural correlates of social cogniton in patients with BD were compared to healthy comparison (HC) subjects. Methods: The task was administered to 25 HC and 25 patients with depression scores ranging from euthymic to depressed at the time of assessment. The task required participants to evaluate situations that were “enhancing” or “threatening” to self-esteem, directed at both oneself, and at other people. For instance, self-esteem enhancing scenarios involved vignettes of activities such as receiving praise during a sports game, while a threatening scenario involved, for example, receiving criticism at a party. Participants were then required to evaluate characters in the scenarios on the basis of positive (“kind”) or negative (“mean”) descriptors. Evaluations were classified from extremely negative to extremely positive. The frequencies of behavioral responses were analyzed using chi-square tests and fMRI data were analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping software. Results: Patients differed significantly from HCs in their evaluation of threatening scenarios, directed at both oneself and at other people (p<0.001). Patients had a lower proportion of responses in the neutral category, and more responses in the positive and negative categories, relative to HCs. Neuroimaging results reveal differential patterns of prefrontal-cortical and limbic-subcortical activation in BDs throughout the task [p<0.05 (unc.)]. Conclusions: Findings will contribute to understanding difficulty in interpersonal functioning in patients with BD.

A new epistemic model

Meier (2012) gave a "mathematical logic foundation" of the purely measurable universal type space (Heifetz and Samet, 1998). The mathematical logic foundation, however, discloses an inconsistency in the type space literature: a finitary language is used for the belief hierarchies and an infinitary language is used for the beliefs. In this paper we propose an epistemic model to fix the inconsistency above. We show that in this new model the universal knowledgebelief space exists, is complete and encompasses all belief hierarchies. Moreover, by examples we demonstrate that in this model the players can agree to disagree Aumann (1976)'s result does not hold, and Aumann and Brandenburger (1995)'s conditions are not sufficient for Nash equilibrium. However, we show that if we substitute selfevidence (Osborne and Rubinstein, 1994) for common knowledge, then we get at that both Aumann (1976)'s and Aumann and Brandenburger (1995)'s results hold.

Determinants of confidence and their effect on epistemic judgments: Implications for auditor calibration bias

Auditor decisions regarding the causes of accounting misstatements can have an audit effectiveness and efficiency. Specifically, overconfidence in one's decision can lead to an ineffective audit, whereas underconfidence in one's decision can lead to an inefficient audit. This dissertation explored the implications of providing various types of information cues to decision-makers regarding an Analytical Procedure task and investigated the relationship between different types of evidence cues (confirming, disconfirming, redundant or non-redundant) and the reduction in calibration bias. Information was collected using a laboratory experiment, from 45 accounting students participants. Research questions were analyzed using a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subject and within-subject analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). ^ Results indicated that presenting subjects with information cues dissimilar to the choice they made is an effective intervention in reducing the common overconfidence found in decision-making. In addition, other information characteristics, specifically non-redundant information can help in reducing a decision-maker's overconfidence/calibration bias for difficulty (compared to easy) decision-tasks. ^

Juror need for cognition and sensitivity to methodological flaws in expert evidence

Two studies investigated the influence of juror need for cognition on the systematic and heuristic processing of expert evidence. U.S. citizens reporting for jury duty in South Florida read a 15-page summary of a hostile work environment case containing expert testimony. The expert described a study she had conducted on the effects of viewing sexualized materials on men's behavior toward women. Certain methodological features of the expert's research varied across experimental conditions. In Study 1 (N = 252), the expert's study was valid, contained a confound, or included the potential for experimenter bias (internal validity) and relied on a small or large sample (sample size) of college undergraduates or trucking employees (ecological validity). When the expert's study included trucking employees, high need for cognition jurors in Study 1 rated the expert more credible and trustworthy than did low need for cognition jurors. Jurors were insensitive to variations in the study's internal validity or sample size. Juror ratings of plaintiff credibility, plaintiff trustworthiness, and study quality were positively correlated with verdict. In Study 2 (N = 162), the expert's published or unpublished study (general acceptance) was either valid or lacked an appropriate control group (internal validity) and included a sample of college undergraduates or trucking employees (ecological validity). High need for cognition jurors in Study 2 found the defendant liable more often and evaluated the expert evidence more favorably when the expert's study was internally valid than when an appropriate control group was missing. Low need for cognition jurors did not differentiate between the internally valid and invalid study. Variations in the study's general acceptance and ecological validity did not affect juror judgments. Juror ratings of expert and plaintiff credibility, plaintiff trustworthiness, and study quality were positively correlated with verdict. The present research demonstrated that the need for cognition moderates juror sensitivity to expert evidence quality and that certain message-related heuristics influence juror judgments when ability or motivation to process systematically is low. ^

An epistemic event -based correlation scheme for pervasive network management

Computer networks produce tremendous amounts of event-based data that can be collected and managed to support an increasing number of new classes of pervasive applications. Examples of such applications are network monitoring and crisis management. Although the problem of distributed event-based management has been addressed in the non-pervasive settings such as the Internet, the domain of pervasive networks has its own characteristics that make these results non-applicable. Many of these applications are based on time-series data that possess the form of time-ordered series of events. Such applications also embody the need to handle large volumes of unexpected events, often modified on-the-fly, containing conflicting information, and dealing with rapidly changing contexts while producing results with low-latency. Correlating events across contextual dimensions holds the key to expanding the capabilities and improving the performance of these applications. This dissertation addresses this critical challenge. It establishes an effective scheme for complex-event semantic correlation. The scheme examines epistemic uncertainty in computer networks by fusing event synchronization concepts with belief theory. Because of the distributed nature of the event detection, time-delays are considered. Events are no longer instantaneous, but duration is associated with them. Existing algorithms for synchronizing time are split into two classes, one of which is asserted to provide a faster means for converging time and hence better suited for pervasive network management. Besides the temporal dimension, the scheme considers imprecision and uncertainty when an event is detected. A belief value is therefore associated with the semantics and the detection of composite events. This belief value is generated by a consensus among participating entities in a computer network. The scheme taps into in-network processing capabilities of pervasive computer networks and can withstand missing or conflicting information gathered from multiple participating entities. Thus, this dissertation advances knowledge in the field of network management by facilitating the full utilization of characteristics offered by pervasive, distributed and wireless technologies in contemporary and future computer networks.

Skepticism and epistemic closure : two Bayesian accounts

Peer reviewed

Brain hyperintensity location determines outcome in the triad of impaired cognition, physical health and depressive symptoms : A cohort study in late life

The authors would like to thank the participants of the Aberdeen 1936 Birth Cohort (ABC36). Image acquisition and image analysis for ABC36 were funded by the Alzheimer’s Research Trust (now Alzheimer’s Research UK). A.D.M., C.J.M., S.S., L.J.W., and R.T.S. have received grants from: Chief Scientist Office, Department of Health, Scottish Government; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Skepticism and epistemic closure : two Bayesian accounts

Peer reviewed

Brain hyperintensity location determines outcome in the triad of impaired cognition, physical health and depressive symptoms : A cohort study in late life

The authors would like to thank the participants of the Aberdeen 1936 Birth Cohort (ABC36). Image acquisition and image analysis for ABC36 were funded by the Alzheimer’s Research Trust (now Alzheimer’s Research UK). A.D.M., C.J.M., S.S., L.J.W., and R.T.S. have received grants from: Chief Scientist Office, Department of Health, Scottish Government; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council