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Full-Text Articles in Psychology
When Bad Stress Goes Good: Increased Threat Reactivity Predicts Improved Category Learning Performance, Shawn W. Ell, Brandon Cosley, Shannon L. Mccoy
When Bad Stress Goes Good: Increased Threat Reactivity Predicts Improved Category Learning Performance, Shawn W. Ell, Brandon Cosley, Shannon L. Mccoy
Psychology Faculty Scholarship
The way in which we respond to everyday stressors can have a profound impact on cognitive functioning. Maladaptive stress responses in particular are generally associated with impaired cognitive performance. We argue, however, that the cognitive system mediating task performance is also a critical determinant of the stress-cognition relationship. Consistent with this prediction, we observed that stress reactivity consistent with a maladaptive, threat response differentially predicted performance on two categorization tasks. Increased threat reactivity predicted enhanced performance on an information-integration task (i.e., learning is thought to depend upon a procedural-based memory system), and a (nonsignificant) trend for impaired performance on a …
Rule-Based Categorization Deficits In Focal Basal Ganglia Lesion And Parkinson’S Disease Patients, Shawn W. Ell, Andrea Weinstein, Richard Ivry
Rule-Based Categorization Deficits In Focal Basal Ganglia Lesion And Parkinson’S Disease Patients, Shawn W. Ell, Andrea Weinstein, Richard Ivry
Psychology Faculty Scholarship
Patients with basal ganglia (BG) pathology are consistently found to be impaired on rule-based category learning tasks in which learning is thought to depend upon the use of an explicit, hypothesis-guided strategy. The factors that influence this impairment remain unclear. Moreover, it remains unknown if the impairments observed in patients with degenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) are also observed in those with focal BG lesions. In the present study, we tested patients with either focal BG lesions or PD on two categorization tasks that varied in terms of their demands on selective attention and working memory. Individuals with …