Mental rotation is a cognitive motor process which was impaired in different neurologic disorders. We investigated whether there were deficits in response pattern, reaction time and response accuracy rate of mental rotation in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients compared to healthy subjects and whether cognitive dysfunctions in MS patients were correlated with mental rotation deficits. Moreover, w...

OBJECTIVES Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; 22:6 n-3) and arachidonic acid (AA; 20:4 n-6) are important for development of the central nervous system in mammals. There is a growth spurt in the human brain during the last trimester of pregnancy and the first postnatal months, with a large increase in the cerebral content of AA and DHA. The fetus and the newborn infant depend on maternal supply of DHA ...

Many tasks in the real world require simultaneous processing of mental information alongside physical activity. Whilst physical workload may have an impact on mental performance and attentional resources, most previous studies in ergonomics have not systematically investigated the impact of interactions between physical and mental demand on individual performance. The purpose of this study was ...

Here, we explore the role of short-term storage, mental speed, processing efficiency, and controlled attention to account for the relationship between working memory and fluid intelligence. Ninety-six secondary school students were assessed by several tests and tasks to tap these psychological constructs. Specifically, each construct was measured by two tests or tasks from different content dom...

According to the language of thought (LOT) approach and the related computational theory of mind (CTM), thinking is the processing of symbols in an inner mental language that is distinct from any public language. Herein, I explore a deep problem at the heart of the LOT/CTM program—it has yet to provide a plausible conception of a mental symbol.

The ability to accurately process numerical magnitudes and solve mental arithmetic is of highest importance for schooling and professional career. Although impairments in these domains in disorders such as developmental dyscalculia (DD) are highly detrimental, remediation is still sparse. In recent years, transcranial brain stimulation methods such as transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tD...

Mental workload is an important component in complex human-machine systems. The limited applicability of empirical workload measures produces the need for workload modeling and prediction methods. In the present study, a mental workload prediction model is built on the basis of attentional resource allocation and information processing to ensure pilots' accuracy and speed in understanding large...

The notion of a mental time-line (i.e., past corresponds to left and future corresponds to right) supports the conceptual metaphor view assuming that abstract concepts like “time” are grounded in cognitively more accessible concepts like “space.” In five experiments, we further investigated the relationship between temporal and spatial representations and examined whether or not the spatial cor...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Intrusive memories of traumatic events constitute a core feature of post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the association of pre-traumatic factors with post-traumatic intrusive memories is still only poorly understood. The current study investigated the extent to which vividness of general mental imagery prior to an analogue stressor is positively associated with oc...

Previous studies have found that block play, board games, and puzzles result in better spatial ability. This study focused on examining the differential impact of structured block play and board games on spatial processing. Two groups of 8-year-old children were studied. One group participated in a five session block play training paradigm and the second group had a similar training protocol bu...