I have developed "tennis elbow" from lugging this book around the past four weeks, but it is worth the pain, the effort, and the aspirin. It is also worth the (relatively speaking) bargain price. Including appendixes, this book contains 894 pages of text. The entire panorama of the neural sciences is surveyed and examined, and it is comprehensive in its scope, from genomes to social behaviors. The editors explicitly state that the book is designed as "an introductory text for students of biology, behavior, and medicine," but it is hard to imagine any audience, interested in any fragment of neuroscience at any level of sophistication, that would not enjoy this book. The editors have done a masterful job of weaving together the biologic, the behavioral, and the clinical sciences into a single tapestry in which everyone from the molecular biologist to the practicing psychiatrist can find and appreciate his or

Principles of Neural Science

Preface Acknowledgements 1. Models of working memory: an introduction Priti Shah and Akira Miyake 2. Working memory: the multiple-component model Alan D. Baddeley and Robert H. Logie 3. An embedded-processes model of working memory Nelson Cowan 4. Individual differences in working memory capacity and what they tell us about controlled attention, general fluid intelligence and functions of the prefrontal cortex Randall W. Engle, Michael J. Kane and Stephen W. Tuholski 5. Modelling working memory in a unified architecture: an ACT-R perspective Marsha C. Lovett, Lynne M. Reder and Christian Lebiere 6. Insights into working memory from the perspective of the EPIC architecture for modelling skilled perceptual-motor and cognitive human performance David E. Kieras, David E. Meyer, Shane Mueller and Travis Seymour 7. The soar cognitive architecture and human working memory Richard M. Young and Richard L. Lewis 8. Long-term working memory as an alternative to capacity models of working memory in everyday skilled performance K. Anders Ericsson and Peter F. Delaney 9. Interacting cognitive subsystems: modelling working memory phenomena within a multiprocessor architecture Philip J. Barnard 10. Working memory in a multilevel hybrid connectionist control architecture (CAP2) Walter Schneider 11. A biologically based computational model of working memory Randall C. O' Reilly, Todd S. Braver and Jonathan D. Cohen 12. Models of working memory: eight questions and some general issues Walter Kintsch, Alice F. Healy, Mary Hegarty, Bruce F. Pennington and Timothy A. Salthouse 13. Toward unified theories of working memory: emerging general consensus, unresolved theoretical issues and future research directions Akika Miyake and Priti Shah Indexes.

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Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of Active Maintenance and Executive Control

Traditional approaches to human information processing tend to deal with perception and action planning in isolation, so that an adequate account of the perception-action interface is still missing On the perceptual side, the dominant cognitive view largely underestimates, and thus fails to account for, the impact of action-related processes on both the processing of perceptual information and on perceptual learning On the action side, most approaches conceive of action planning as a mere continuation of stimulus processing, thus failing to account for the goal-directedness of even the simplest reaction in an experimental task We propose a new framework for a more adequate theoretical treatment of perception and action planning, in which perceptual contents and action plans are coded in a common representational medium by feature codes with distal reference Perceived events (perceptions) and to-be-produced events (actions) are equally represented by integrated, task-tuned networks of feature codes – cognitive structures we call event codes We give an overview of evidence from a wide variety of empirical domains, such as spatial stimulus-response compatibility, sensorimotor synchronization, and ideomotor action, showing that our main assumptions are well supported by the data

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0140525X01000103

The Theory of Event Coding (TEC): a framework for perception and action planning.

Over more than a century of research has established the fact that sleep benefits the retention of memory. In this review we aim to comprehensively cover the field of "sleep and memory" research by providing a historical perspective on concepts and a discussion of more recent key findings. Whereas initial theories posed a passive role for sleep enhancing memories by protecting them from interfering stimuli, current theories highlight an active role for sleep in which memories undergo a process of system consolidation during sleep. Whereas older research concentrated on the role of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, recent work has revealed the importance of slow-wave sleep (SWS) for memory consolidation and also enlightened some of the underlying electrophysiological, neurochemical, and genetic mechanisms, as well as developmental aspects in these processes. Specifically, newer findings characterize sleep as a brain state optimizing memory consolidation, in opposition to the waking brain being optimized for encoding of memories. Consolidation originates from reactivation of recently encoded neuronal memory representations, which occur during SWS and transform respective representations for integration into long-term memory. Ensuing REM sleep may stabilize transformed memories. While elaborated with respect to hippocampus-dependent memories, the concept of an active redistribution of memory representations from networks serving as temporary store into long-term stores might hold also for non-hippocampus-dependent memory, and even for nonneuronal, i.e., immunological memories, giving rise to the idea that the offline consolidation of memory during sleep represents a principle of long-term memory formation established in quite different physiological systems.

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/77770/1/physiol_rev_93.pdf

About sleep's role in memory

According to the strength model, self-control is a finite resource that determines capacity for effortful control over dominant responses and, once expended, leads to impaired self-control task performance, known as ego depletion. A meta-analysis of 83 studies tested the effect of ego depletion on task performance and related outcomes, alternative explanations and moderators of the effect, and additional strength model hypotheses. Results revealed a significant effect of ego depletion on self-control task performance. Significant effect sizes were found for ego depletion on effort, perceived difficulty, negative affect, subjective fatigue, and blood glucose levels. Small, nonsignificant effects were found for positive affect and self-efficacy. Moderator analyses indicated minimal variation in the effect across sphere of depleting and dependent task, frequently used depleting and dependent tasks, presentation of tasks as single or separate experiments, type of dependent measure and control condition task, and source laboratory. The effect size was moderated by depleting task duration, task presentation by the same or different experimenters, intertask interim period, dependent task complexity, and use of dependent tasks in the choice and volition and cognitive spheres. Motivational incentives, training on self-control tasks, and glucose supplementation promoted better self-control in ego-depleted samples. Expecting further acts of self-control exacerbated the effect. Findings provide preliminary support for the ego-depletion effect and strength model hypotheses. Support for motivation and fatigue as alternative explanations for ego depletion indicate a need to integrate the strength model with other theories. Findings provide impetus for future investigation testing additional hypotheses and mechanisms of the ego-depletion effect.

Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: a meta-analysis.

At office workplaces equipped with visual display units (VDU) that were adjustable to various positions relative to the eyes short and long viewing distances from the eyes to the screen were imposed (mean value of about 63 and 92 cm) at two levels of screen height so that the visual target was either at eye level or 18 cm below, on the average. The change from far to near viewing distance produced a larger increase in eyestrain when the VDUs were at eye level. High screens resulted in greater eyestrain than low screens, as shown by correlations over subjects. When operators were free to adjust the most comfortable screen position, the group of 22 participants preferred viewing distances between 60 and 100 cm and vertical inclination of gaze direction between horizontal and -16 degrees downwards. However, within most subjects the range of preferred screen positions was much smaller. Between 3 days during a 1-month period the test-retest correlations of the preferred screen positions were highly significant, both for viewing distance and vertical gaze inclination. When operators were forced to work at a shorter distance than their preferred viewing distance they reported more visual strain. Thus, operators appear to prefer an individual adjustment of the screen relative to the eyes in order to avoid visual strain and discomfort at VDU work.

Preferred position of visual displays relative to the eyes: a field study of visual strain and individual differences.

In bimanual movements the amplitude of each hand's movement often depends on the concurrent amplitude of the other hand's movement such that both amplitudes become similar (amplitude coupling). We ...

Structural Constraints on the Performance of Symmetrical Bimanual Movements with Different Amplitudes

Adaptation to a visuomotor rotation is known to be impaired at older adult age. The authors examined whether the impairment is present already at preretirement age and whether it depends on the difficulty of the adaptation task. Moreover, the authors tested predictions of the hypothesis that the age-related impairment pertains primarily to strategic corrections and the explicit knowledge on which they are based but not to the acquisition of an (implicit) internal model of the novel visuomotor transformation. The authors found an age-related impairment of adaptation and explicit knowledge already at preretirement age but no age-related change of aftereffects. With an incremental simplification of the adaptation task, age-related changes were able to be eliminated. Individual differences of the quality of explicit knowledge were associated with differences of adaptation, but not of aftereffects. When age groups were matched by explicit knowledge, age-related impairments of adaptation largely disappeared. However, a reliable difference remained in one of the experiments, suggesting that other processes of adjustment to a visuomotor rotation might be affected by aging as well.

Adaptation to visuomotor rotations in younger and older adults.

In several studies it has been found that implicit sequence learning is impaired by the concurrent performance of a secondary task. In most studies the task was to count high-pitched tones when high-pitched and low-pitched tones were presented in a random sequence. In this paper the hypothesis is examined that dual-task interference in the particular combination of tasks results from task integration, in particular from the learning of an integrated visual-auditory sequence in which every second (auditory) element is random. Instead of the tone-counting task a similar go/no-go task was used in which foot responses to high-pitched tones were performed. In Exp. 1 the sequence of tones was random in one condition, but in two other conditions repeated tone sequences of 5 and 6 elements were combined with visual sequences of 6 elements. Under dual-task test conditions, implicit learning of the visual as well as the auditory sequences was better with the auditory sequence of 6 elements than of 5 elements, while under single-task test conditions the nature of the tone sequence had no effect. In Exp. 2 the superior implicit learning with the 6-element sequence was replicated with different test procedures in which either the visual or auditory sequence was changed to random or in which the two sequences remained intact but were shifted by one element relative to each other. Randomization of the visual or auditory sequences not only impaired visual or auditory RT, respectively, but also impaired RT to stimuli in the other modality, and this cross-modal effect was almost as strong as the intra-modal effect of randomization. Finally, in Exp. 3 it was shown that integrated visual-auditory sequences are learned only when responses to both of them are required, but not when the tones can be neglected. These results are consistent with a conception of implicit learning as (at least partly) a basic and nonselective type of learning of all potentially behaviorally relevant relations between stimuli in the environment and one's own actions.

Task integration as a factor in secondary-task effects on sequence learning

A theoretical framework is outlined, according to which structural constraints on bimanual movements can at least in part be understood as coupling between parameters of generalized motor programs. This framework provides a conceptual link between reaction-time data from experiments with bimanual responses, successive unimanual responses, and choice between left-hand and right-hand responses on the one hand and performance data obtained with concurrently performed continuous movements or sequences of discrete responses on the other. On the basis of data obtained with different methods for the study of intermanual interactions, a distinction is drawn between steady-state and transient constraints, and the hypothesis that the tendency to coactivate homologous muscles originates from a transient coupling of program parameters is applied to a variety of observations on performance in different tasks. Finally, the notion of transient constraints is applied to other types of intermanual interdependencies and to interpersonal coordination; the possible emergence of transient constraints from steady-state constraints through progressive development of inhibitory pathways in childhood is discussed, as is the potential biological significance of transient constraints.

Herbert Heuer

Papers

Preferred position of visual displays relative to the eyes: a field study of visual strain and individual differences.

Structural Constraints on the Performance of Symmetrical Bimanual Movements with Different Amplitudes

Adaptation to visuomotor rotations in younger and older adults.

Task integration as a factor in secondary-task effects on sequence learning

Structural constraints on bimanual movements