Cognitive Reasoning Theory

Research has shown that there is “greater activation in the left inferior frontal and medial temporal lobes” (Stanford, 2006, p. 208) during the encoding of words which were later remembered as compared to those which were forgotten. The sensations perceived by sensory nerves are decoded in the hippocampus of the brain into a single experience (Mastin, 2010). The hippocampus analyses new information and compares and asssociates it with previously stored memory (Mastin, 2010). Human memory is associative in that new information can be remembered better if it can be associated to previously acquired, firmly consolidated information (Mastin, 2010). The various pieces of information are then stored in different parts of the brain (Mastin, 2010). Though the exact method by which this information is later identified and recalled has yet to be discovered, it is understood that ultra-short term sensory memory is converted into short term memory which can then later be consolidated into long term memory (Mastin, 2010).

The enriched group will be assigned to the enriched cage whilst the control group will be assigned to one of the standard cages. This experiment is a longitudinal study that will assess both the group’s cognitive flexibility by assessing them in the MWM across their lifespans in three different phases (young, mid-age and aged). To control against practice effects in the MWM for these rats, a cross-section of rats in the specific cohorts (20 young, 20 mid-age, 20 aged rats) will be used to determine any difference encountered for the practice effects in each respective phase (Rönnlund et al., 2005). Using the MWM will evaluate how aging affects cognitive flexibility and give insight into natural cognitive decline in aging. In each of the phases denoted by (Curlik et al., 2014), [young (rats are 2-4mo), mid-age (15-17mo) and aged (28-30mo)], there will be training in the MWM followed by two examining periods, acquisition then reversal (used to determine how well the rat can reacquire spatial info). The training period will last for two days in which there are three trials per day where the target platform (raised 2mm above the water to make it visible) will change quadrants every day. When placing the rat in the MWM, they will be put in another quadrant other than the target quadrant approximately 5 cm from the wall, facing the wall. In each trial, the rat

The importance of stimulus load from the environment has been tested with rats in visually altered mazes to examine the role of muscarinic receptors, or acetylcholine receptors, on using surrounding visual cues. The results showed that the muscarinic receptors are important for processing visual discrimination cues to provide the rat with consistent information about the environment; however, scopolamine injected rats had no improvement with one or more visual cues (Tsui and Drigenberg, 2012). More specifically, the M1 muscarinic receptor, which is located in the forebrain structures including the hippocampus and cortex, has also been proven to affect place learning and place discrimination learning in a water maze (Hagan, Jansen, and Broekkamp,

The current study examined the impact of a distractor task involving similar or dissimilar material on the learning of different stimuli sets (consonants vs. digits). Although there may be different rates of recall between the stimuli sets, the primary hypothesis is that there will be an interaction effect between the different stimuli sets and the material presented in the distractor task. Specifically, individuals attempting to recall a learned set of consonants are predicted to have a lower rate of recall when a distracter task involves the processing of unrelated words as compared to the processing of numbers. Conversely, individuals attempting to recall a learned set of digits are to have a lower rate of recall when a distractor task involves

The cognitive restructuring theory commands that one’s personal impractical philosophies are precisely responsible for producing dysfunctional feelings and their subsequent behaviors, such as anxiety, despair, and social extractions; and humans can be purged of such feelings and their validities by demolishing the theories that give them life. The cognitive restructuring model is a proven model in addressing behavioral issues concerning stroke victims and adolescents. Team A’s focus will be addressing the perceptions into these interventions.

The purpose of this study is to examine a possible relationship between experience and an animal’s ability to update cognitive maps. The objective of the training phase is to give the rats the opportunity to develop a cognitive map. The majority of the rats are expected to choose path 6 in the sunburst maze suggesting that they have developed a wide and comprehensive cognitive map (Tolman,

The process of how memory works is complex. People are able to memorize major events at around four years old. This is because children’s memory systems start to develop at the first two or three years of life; these systems will continue to develop until they reach the age of twenty. First, people receive information from the outside environment; these new information enter into their brain. Second, information are maintained in three memory systems-sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory. Sensory memory can store large amount of information. However, those information can only remain one second. When a person pays attention to certain things, the information in sensory memory is transferred to the next stage of memory. Short-term

The study will follow these mice throughout their lifetimes to assess their spatial memory and maintenance of cognitive capacity as aging becomes a factor. The experiment will track the mice through three separate phases (young, mid-age, aged) of their lifetime with three examining sections (training, acquisition, reversal) at each of the phases to collect data. Using the MWM, these sections will provide insight into each of the phases of life. The three ages at which testing will occur are young (2-4mo), mid-age (15mo) and aged (30mo) as defined by (Curlik et al., 2014). At each phase, during the training section, the animals will be prepared in the MWM using a visible platform (3 mm above water level) in different target quadrants every day for two days (consisting of three trials per day). Each of the trials, in all the sections, will be separated by 30 minutes to give the rat time to rest. The water maze will have four spatial cues around the room for additional help in navigating throughout the maze. The rat will be placed approximately 8 cm away from the edge of the pool in a quadrant other than the target facing towards the side of the pool. For each trial, the rats will be given 80 seconds to navigate through the maze to find the platform in both the visible and upcoming hidden platform tasks. Next, in the acquisition phase, a target quadrant will

Spatial Cognition is concerned with the achievement, organization, application, and modification of knowledge about spatial surroundings (Bandura., 1963). These capabilities enable animals and humans to manage basic and high-level cognitive tasks in everyday life (Bandura.,1971). Spatial cognition studies have assisted to tie cognitive psychology and neuroscience together. Most researchers are concerned about how animals acquire and find information. Since acquiring and acting on spatial information appears to have computational requirements from learning to predict temporal sequences of events, we might expect to find adaptively specialized, domain-specific mechanisms of spatial learning and/or

The aim in this investigation is to investigate short term memory and the whether the serial position effect is true.

The next theory is when information stored in memory interferes with the information you are trying to remember. There are two different types of interference that can happen.

Over the human life expectancy, performance of memory demonstrates extensive variety and differences, with a generous increase in execution and performance over childhood and youth, a sneak peak in young adulthood, and fast decrease with propelling grown-up age. Memory execution improves and increases amid youth and pre-adulthood, and declines as the person hits maturity or in old age. Among more youthful grown-ups, better capacity to bind things to the setting in which they were experienced is connected with higher working memory execution of the individuals. This increasing and decreasing pattern of memory applies to both short-term as well as episodic memory. The arrangement of complex memory representations, going from perceptual element to the development of higher order memories, ideas, and thoughts, fundamentally relies on upon binding processes.

Short-term retention is a necessary stage for the stable acquisition of new information in long-term memory. Since the memories of the event that occurred was over a year ago the factors of long-term memory loss need to be considered as well as memory errors. Understanding why and how

Despite the fact that most of the information in sensory memory begins to diminish, some of the information is attended to. The information that is attended is transported over to to the short-term store, also known as “short term memory”. The purpose of short term memory is “to remember an insubstantial amount of information for a short period of time” (Atkinson, Shiffrin, 1968). The information stored in short term memory has a longer duration than

The inductive and deductive reasoning seems dissimilar to each other from all accounts. Inductive reasoning involves a scientist using series of correlated observations to reach or infer a conclusion while deductive reasoning involves predicting a specific result by following existing laws and general concepts that support a conclusion (OpenStax College, & Rice University, 2013). So, considering the definition of inductive reasoning and the definition of deductive reasoning and their mode of operations highlighted above, they are apparently different from each other. In comparing and contrasting both approaches, inductive reasoning focuses on observation while deductive reasoning considers the generally accepted facts to ascertain the authenticity of a specific case. With the obvious difference in their modus operandi, inductive and deductive reasoning both use hypothesis, tests, repetitions