Publisher Summary This chapter discusses data concerning the time course of word identification in a discourse context. A simulation of arithmetic word-problem understanding provides a plausible account for some well-known phenomena. The current theories use representations with several mutually constraining layers. There is typically a linguistic level of representation, conceptual levels to represent both the local and global meaning and structure of a text, and a level at which the text itself has lost its individuality and its information content. Knowledge provides part of the context within which a discourse interpreted. The integration phase is the price the model pays for the necessary flexibility in the construction process.

http://www.texai.org/papers/Kintsch_1988.pdf

The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension : a construction-integration model

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/5/110/206.full.pdf

The american psychological association.

(1998). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies. Gifted and Talented International: Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 97-98.

Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies

This article reviews research on the use of situation models in language comprehension and memory retrieval over the past 15 years. Situation models are integrated mental representations of a described state of affairs. Significant progress has been made in the scientific understanding of how situation models are involved in language comprehension and memory retrieval. Much of this research focuses on establishing the existence of situation models, often by using tasks that assess one dimension of a situation model. However, the authors argue that the time has now come for researchers to begin to take the multidimensionality of situation models seriously. The authors offer a theoretical framework and some methodological observations that may help researchers to tackle this issue.

/pdf/situation-models-in-language-comprehension-and-memory-1geul7x1or.pdf

Situation Models in Language Comprehension and Memory

https://www.heartmathbenelux.com/doc/Thayer%20meta%20analysis%20heart%20rate%20variability%20pfc%20NBR%2012.pdf

A meta-analysis of heart rate variability and neuroimaging studies: implications for heart rate variability as a marker of stress and health.

The aim of this paper was to examine age-related changes and gender differences in memory self-evaluation in old people and to examine the predictive power of objective memory performance and of personality variables (neuroticism and extraversion) on memory self-evaluation. In a cross-sectional study, 301 not institutionalized people aged 65± 94, 207 male
and 94 female, were tested on three parameters. Subjective memory evaluation was operationalized with three one-item ratings: temporal comparison, social comparison, situation-speci® c memory self-evaluation just after performing a memory test. Objective memory assessment (free recall) used a computerized test. Personality assessment included the two main
sub-scales `extraversion’ and `neuroticism’ from the Freiburger PersoE nlichkeits-Inventar.The results shaved that persons of all age groups have a realistic appraisal of their age-related memory decline.No gender effects were found for any of the three forms of memory self-evaluation. The relationship between objective memory performance, personality variables and
memory self-evaluation however depends on age and gender. Our results show that objective memory performance is predictive for memory self-evaluation in men aged >75 years, whereas in men <75 neuroticism is the only signi® cant predictor.Men of the older cohort seem to have adapted to the age-related memory decline whereas the young old are still
coping with the ongoing changes. In women of both age groups the objective memory performance is the only and strong predictor of memory self-evaluation. Our results suggest that gender-speci® c educational socialization might be the reason for these differences.

Differential aspects of memory self-evaluation in old and very old people

The Neuropsychological Assessment of Cognitive Deficits Considering Measures of Performance Variability

There is an increasing line of evidence supporting the idea that the formation of lasting memories involves neural activity preceding stimulus presentation. Following this line, we presented words in an incidental learning setting and manipulated the prestimulus state by asking the participants to perform either an emotional (neutral or emotional) or a semantic (animate or inanimate) decision task. Later, we tested the retrieval of each previously presented word with a recognition memory test. For both conditions, the subsequent memory effect (SME) was defined as ERP difference between subsequently remembered and forgotten words. Comparing the prestimulus SME between and within the two conditions yielded topographic differences in the time interval from -1300 to -700 msec before stimulus onset. This indicates that the activity of brain areas involved in incidental encoding of semantic information varied in the spatial distribution of ERPs, depending on the emotional and semantic requirements of the task. These findings provide evidence that there is a difference in semantic and emotional preparatory processes, which modulates successful encoding into episodic memory. This difference suggests that there are multiple task-specific functional neural systems that support memory formation. These systems differ in location and/or relative contribution of some of the brain structures that generate the measured scalp electric fields. Consequently, the cognitive processes that enable memory formation depend on the differential semantic nature of the study task and reflect differences in the preparatory processing of the multiple semantic components of a word's meaning.

/pdf/different-brain-activities-predict-retrieval-success-during-1uaj96ec2t.pdf

Different brain activities predict retrieval success during emotional and semantic encoding

This study examined differential age effects in a young and a middle-aged sample by means of a sequential n-back task with increasing memory load. Participants processed two streams of stimuli either separately as a single task, or simultaneously as a dual task. We investigated age effects as a function of memory load in both the single and the dual-task version. In accuracy, we observed differential age effects as a function of load, which were more prominent in the dual-compared to the single-task versions. That is, middle-aged participants performed poorer than young adults in the dual-task conditions, suggesting that early age-related changes become especially apparent in conditions where task coordination and resource sharing come into play. Regarding latencies, we observed no differential age effect, which we believe is due to characteristics of the sequential n-back task.

Walter J. Perrig

Papers

Differential aspects of memory self-evaluation in old and very old people

The Neuropsychological Assessment of Cognitive Deficits Considering Measures of Performance Variability

Different brain activities predict retrieval success during emotional and semantic encoding

Differential age effects in load-dependent memory processing

Levels of processing and memory for emotional words