Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Neurocognitive Underpinnings Of Arithmetic In Children And Adults: Examining The Roles Of Domain General And Domain Specific Abilities, Anna A. Matejko

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

What are the cognitive underpinnings of arithmetic and how do they contribute to individual differences in children’s calculation abilities? Behavioural research has provided insights into which domain general (e.g. working memory) and domain specific (e.g. symbol-quantity associations) competencies are important for the acquisition of arithmetic skills. However, how domain general and domain specific skills are related to arithmetic at the neural level remains unclear. This thesis investigates the interplay between arithmetic and both domain general and specific competencies in the brain.

In Chapter 2 I examine how visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) networks overlap with those for arithmetic in children and …

The Neural And Cognitive Basis Of Cumulative Lifetime Familiarity Assessment, Devin Duke

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Perirhinal cortex (PrC) has been implicated as a brain region in the medial temporal lobes (MTL) that critically contributes to familiarity-based recognition memory, a process that allows for recognition to occur independently of contextual recollection. Informed by neurophysiological research in non-human primates, fMRI, as well as behavioural work in humans, the current thesis research tests the novel hypothesis that PrC cortex functioning also underlies the ability to assess cumulative lifetime familiarity with object concepts that are characterized by a lifetime of experiences. In Chapter 2, a patient (NB) with a left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) lesion that included PrC as …