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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Effects Of Nicotine On A Translational Model Of Working Memory, David Alderson Macqueen
Effects Of Nicotine On A Translational Model Of Working Memory, David Alderson Macqueen
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Cognitive research with human non-smokers has demonstrated that nicotine generally enhances performance on tasks of attention but, working memory does not appear to be affected. In contrast, nicotine has been shown to produce robust enhancements of working memory in non-human animals. To address this disparity, the present study investigated the effects of nicotine (2mg, 4mg nicotine gum, and placebo) on the performance of 30 non-smokers (15 male) completing a working memory task developed for rodents (the odor span task, OST). Nicotine has been reported to enhance OST performance in rodents and the present study sought to determine whether the effect …
The Neurophysiology Of Intersensory Selective Attention And Task Switching, Jeremy W. Murphy
The Neurophysiology Of Intersensory Selective Attention And Task Switching, Jeremy W. Murphy
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Our ability to selectively attend to certain aspects of the world and ignore others is fundamental to our day-to-day lives. The need for selective attention stems from capacity limitations inherent in our perceptual and cognitive processing architecture. Because not every elemental piece of our environment can be fully processed in parallel, the nervous system must prioritize processing. This prioritization is generally referred to as selective attention. Meanwhile, we are faced with a world that is constantly in flux, such that we have to frequently shift our attention from one piece of the environment to another and from one task to …