Assignment
• Partial Lab report:
No abstract
No Introduction
Only:
-Method
-Results
-Discussion
Basic Overview
• Can music processing improve executive function?
• “Mozart effect” - Rauscher, Shaw & Ky (1993)
Original study - Music listening enhance spatial
processing task performance
• Subsequent behavioural evidence
e.g. Short-term music training enhances intelligence
• Imaging studies
Mozart Sonata – activation of prefrontal cortex (neural
‘home’ of executive function)
Design
IVs
• Time (pre & post intervention)
• Intervention condition (silence, passive, active)
• (2 x 3 ANOVA)
For two DVs
• Simple Switch cost
• Complex Switch cost
• We will run two ANOVAs
Design: Operationalising our DV- Executive
Function
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•
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The test: CNT – 3 trials –measured in seconds
No-switch (NS)
Simple switch (SS) – inhibiting & switching
Complex switch (CS) – inhibiting & switching & updating
• DVs – Switch Costs (SC)
• Simple Switch Cost (SSC) = SS – NS
• Complex Switch Cost (CSC) = CS – NS
• The smaller the SC the more efficient the functioning
Hypothesis
• EF task performance (SS & CS) will improve as
a result of listening ‘actively’ to Mozart, but
will not improve in the silence and passive
listening conditions.
• What does an improvement in EF task
performance look like? Mean score?
Executive Function Results:
Simple Switch Cost
Simple Switch Cost
Complex Switch Cost
Original Report: “Mozart effect” - Rauscher,
Shaw & Ky (1993)
The experiment:
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IV (repeated measure) Listening task type – Music (Mozart’s sonata for 2 pianos),
Relaxation instruction (verbal, no music), silence (10 minutes)
DV – Spatial abstract reasoning tests (pattern analysis, matrices test, paper folding)
(DV2 – pulse rate)
Results
(No effect on pulse rate)
Conclusion
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•
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•
•
Not due to arousal (?)
Listening to complex music temporarily enhances spatial IQ
Complexity – not tested – assumed
Only one style of music
Length of effect – inferred (need a delay)
Explanations?
• Music ‘primes’ task associated processing areas in
the cortex - complex processing – complex networks
• Priming – activates shared processing area –
increases speed/efficiency for subsequent task
OR
• Music causes arousal & arousal improves cognitive
performance - should improve performance across
all tasks ?
(Some) Music makes you feel better?
• Rauscher study – music or silence (boring)
Schellenburg – several expts. (paper folding task)
• Schubert compared to: silence (effect) or Stephen King story
(no effect)
• Albinoni (funeral music- makes people sad) - Performance
worse with Albinoni
• Children – classical vs. play-music they like (but creativity
drawing & technical proficiency): Effect with music they like
much larger
• Conclusion – music makes you feel better (or worse) – makes
you perform better (or worse)
Executive function in Musical training
(musicians)
Musical training & performance involves:
• switching attention between groups of notes, rhythm,
tempo & stylistic elements;
• working memory – maintain components;
• inhibit interference from competing stimuli; translate
visual & auditory stimuli (if reading from a score);
• monitor output (performance)
Evidence?
• Listening
Improved performance in task-switching tests – older adults & AD
• Training
(i)Therapeutic training – improved performance in patients with
acquired brain injury (compared to controls) – task switching &
working memory
(ii)Children (12 years) and adults (22) performed better on working
memory span tasks following training (short-term)
(iii) Musicians & older adults following musical training – show
reduced switch costs on Trail Making Test (WM component)
• Musicians?
EF: Switching
• Task switching - Moradzadeh, Blumenthal & Wiseheart (2014)
• Switch costs – switching or alternating between ‘mental sets’
results in higher RTs compared to performing same task
• Local switch cost – effort (time) required to shift from one set to
another
• Global switch cost – ability to maintain and activate two or more
competing sets in memory
Evidence:
• Musicians demonstrated reduced global but not local switch
costs compared to non-musicians (WM important?)
Miller, E. K., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of
. Remember this slide????
Neuroscience, 24(1), 167-202
Features
• Access to information
about internal and
external state
• Source of activity to bias
signals to and from
multiple brain structures
• High capacity for multimodal integration
• High degree of plasticity
Prefrontal Cortex
Research Question
• Can music listening ‘prime’ executive function?
(Why? we don’t all have time (or disposition) for music training
& EF impairments affect lives)
• Can ‘mere’ listening prime function? Automatic priming of
shared processing regions?
• Alternative –‘Active’ listening primes executive function:
Music listening becomes an executive task
• Hypothesis: Participants in active music listening condition
will outperform those in ‘passive’ listening and control (?).
Passive listening will outperform control
What is executive function?
• Current definition – executive functions: “a set of
mental processes or abilities ………involved in the
execution of goal-directed behaviour” (Jansari et al., 2014).
Two influences from cognitive psychology on study of
higher order cognitive control:
• Supervisory Attention System (SAS) & Central Executive
of Working Memory Model
• Frontal lobe damage & dysexecutive syndrome
Results: Simple Switch
• Does listening to Mozart reduce switch cost?
• No significant interaction
Results: Complex Switch
• Does listening to Mozart reduce switch cost?
• Significant interaction
• Simple effects? T-tests – only different for ‘active’
Discussion: What’s it for?
• Explaining your findings – relate to hypothesis/es
• What have you added to knowledge of the phenomenon?
Relate to research (in intro)
• How certain can you be of your conclusions? What is the
source of any uncertainty and how are you dealing with it?
• Implications – link to degree of certainty (no grand implications
with cautious conclusions)
• What do we still not know?
• What is the next logical step
Discussion: Results Summary
• Don’t include stats – don’t re-hash the results section
• Write as if your reader has not just read the Results
section, but just wants an overview of the findings
• Think of your predictions – we expected to observe
x, y , z ……..
• Tell your reader…….We observed (did not observe) x,
y , z……
(Do not take this literally)
Cognitive Psychology: SAS and Central
Executive
• Both higher order cognitive mechanisms –
coordinate other systems to achieve goal
• Control activation and inhibition to bias processing –
competing resources; facilitating co-operation
between systems
• Needed for: planning; inhibition; goal maintenance
Neuropsychology: Observation of frontallobe patients
• Study of higher order control mechanisms - motivated
by the observation of frontal lobe patients exhibiting
disorganised & disinhibited behaviour in everyday life
• Frontal lobe syndrome – poor self control - cognitive
and/or behavioural
• Motivated design of laboratory tasks to test
organisation/planning/behavioural control
functions/goal directed behaviour = ‘frontal lobe tasks’
The Prefrontal ‘executive’ Cortex
Lateral surfaces (sides)
Dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex (46, 9)
Anterior
prefrontal
cortex (10)
Ventrolateral
prefrontal
cortex (44, 45, 47)
Orbitofrontal Cortex (11)
Image adapted from: Ward, J. (2010) The Student’s Guide to Cognitive
Neuroscience. 2nd ed. Hove:Psychology Press
The brain’s executive
• What features would a brain ‘executive’ need to
have?
1. Access to information about internal and external
state & goal state - be ‘well-connected’
2. Source of activity to bias signals to and from
multiple brain structures
3. High capacity for multi-modal integration
4. High degree of plasticity
Miller, E. K., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of
.
Neuroscience, 24(1), 167-202
Features
• Access to information
about internal and
external state
• Source of activity to bias
signals to and from
multiple brain structures
• High capacity for multimodal integration
• High degree of plasticity
Prefrontal Cortex
Why would we want to improve
executive function?
• Poor executive function = everyday difficulties
‘Dysexecutive syndrome’
• Associated with intelligence + efficient
cognitive processing
• Poor self regulation
Measuring executive function
Recognised challenges:
• Task (process) purity – construct validity
• Reliability – novelty & practice
• Agreement on executive functions – multiple
taxonomies
Current model of EF: cognitive
psychology
• Recent influential taxonomy of EF (Miyake et al., 2012)
(there are others)
• Three basic functions: Updating, Inhibition &
Switching
Akira Miyake, and Naomi P. Friedman Current Directions in
Psychological Science 2012;21:8-14
Copyright © by Association for Psychological Science
Laboratory tests of basic EFs
• Inhibition: actively inhibit or suppress
dominant/automatic/pre-potent responses: e.g.
Stroop Test
• Updating: overlap with Working Memory tests – keep
relevant information active and shield from
distraction: e.g. N-back task
• Switching: shifting/switching between multiple tasks
or ‘mental sets’- disengagement of ‘no-longer relevant
task-set’ and engagement of ‘relevant task-set’: trailmaking task; Conditional Naming Task
Are EF tests associated with PFC function?
Right prefrontal
cortex
Working Memory Task - Monitoring information
that is held in the mind and relating it to the
current task
Ventrolateral
prefrontal cortex
Working Memory – Activating Updating
information in the memory to facilitate current
decision making.
Anterior prefrontal
cortex
Multi-tasking/Shifting: working towards more
than one goal at the same time
Left prefrontal
cortex
Inhibiting irrelevant response : Upregulation
of relevant ‘stream’ (parietal) in response
selection
Our experimental measure of EF
Version of Contingency Naming Test – three trials
• Naming speed:
• Simple switch:
• Complex switch: switch + updating
• DV – Switch Cost – ‘Cost’ = increased time taken in
the simple and complex switch trials when
compared to no-switch naming trial