Clinical Psychology Commons^™

An Evaluation Of Wayfinding Abilities In Adolescent And Young Adult Males With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Yingying Yang, Weijia Li, Dan Huang, Wei He, Yanxi Zhang, Edward Merrill

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Background

Wayfinding refers to traveling from place to place in the environment. Despite some research headway, it remains unclear whether individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show strengths, weaknesses, or similarities in wayfinding compared with ability-matched typically developing (TD) controls.

Method

The current study tested 24 individuals with ASD, 24 mental-ability (MA) matched TD (MA-TD) controls, and 24 chronological-age (CA) matched TD (CA-TD) controls. Participants completed a route learning task and a survey learning task, both programmed in virtual environments, and a perspective taking task. Their parents completed questionnaires assessing their children’s everyday wayfinding activities and competence.

Results

Overall, CA-TD …

A Combined Fmri And Dti Examination Of Functional Language Lateralization And Arcuate Fasciculus Structure: Effects Of Degree Versus Direction Of Hand Preference Author Links Open Overlay Panel, Ruth E. Propper, Lauren J. O'Donnell, Stephen Whalen, Yanmei Tie, Isaiah Norton, Ralph O. Suarez, Lilla Zollei, Alireza Radmanesh, Alexandra Golby

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The present study examined the relationship between hand preference degree and direction, functional language lateralization in Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, and structural measures of the arcuate fasciculus. Results revealed an effect of degree of hand preference on arcuate fasciculus structure, such that consistently-handed individuals, regardless of the direction of hand preference, demonstrated the most asymmetric arcuate fasciculus, with larger left versus right arcuate, as measured by DTI. Functional language lateralization in Wernicke’s area, measured via fMRI, was related to arcuate fasciculus volume in consistent-left-handers only, and only in people who were not right hemisphere lateralized for language; given the …

Cross-Modal Interaction Between Vision And Hearing: A Speed—Accuracy Analysis, Yoav Arieh, Lawrence E. Marks

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Cross-modal facilitation of response time (RT) is said to occur in a selective attention task when the introduction of an irrelevant sound increases the speed at which visual stimuli are detected and identified. To investigate the source of the facilitation in RT, we asked participants to rapidly identify the color of lights in the quiet and when accompanied by a pulse of noise. The resulting measures of accuracy and RT were used to derive speed-accuracy trade-off functions (SATFs) separately for the noise and the no-noise conditions. The two resulting SATFs have similar slopes and intercepts and, thus, can be treated …

Time Course Of Loudness Recalibration: Implications For Loudness Enhancement, Yoav Arieh, Lawrence E. Marks

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Loudness recalibration, the effect of a relatively loud 2500-Hz recalibrating tone on the loudness of a relatively soft 2500-Hz target tone, was measured as a function of the interstimulus interval (ISI) between them. The loudness of the target tone, assessed by a 500-Hz comparison tone, declined when the ISI equaled or exceeded about 200 ms and leveled off at an ISI of about 700 ms. Notably, the target tone’s loudness did not change significantly at very short ISIs (<150 ms). The latter result is incompatible with the literature reporting loudness enhancement in this time window but is compatible with the suggestion made by Scharf, Buus, and Nieder [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 807–810 (2002)] that early measurements of enhancement were contaminated by the influence of the recalibrating tone on the comparison …

Recalibrating The Auditory System: A Speed–Accuracy Analysis Of Intensity Perception, Yoav Arieh, Lawrence E. Marks

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Recalibration in loudness perception refers to an adaptation-like change in relative responsiveness to auditory signals of different sound frequencies. Listening to relatively weak tones at one frequency and stronger tones at another make the latter appear softer. The authors showed recalibration not only in magnitude estimates of loudness but also in simple response times (RTs) and choice RTs. RTs depend on the sound intensity and may serve as surrogates for loudness. Most important, the speeded classification paradigm also provided measures of errors. RTs and errors can serve jointly to distinguish changes in sensitivity from changes in response criterion. The changes …

Age Differences In The Maintenance And Restructuring Of Movement Preparation, Paul Amrhein, George Stelmach, Noreen Goggin

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In 2 experiments, 56 elderly (aged 65–78 yrs) and young Ss (aged 20–28 yrs) performed simple reaction time (RT), choice RT, and movement plan restructuring tasks, using a stimulus precuing paradigm. In Exp 1, the precue display (200 ms) and preparation interval (250, 500, 750, or 1,000 ms) were experimentally determined. In Exp 2, the precue display interval was S determined. For the restructuring task, the precue specified the response on 75% of the trials, enabling movement plan preparation with respect to movement parameters of arm and direction. On remaining trials, the precue incorrectly specified the response, requiring movement plan …

Effects Of Age On Motor Preparation And Restructuring, Paul Amrhein, Noreen Goggin, George Stelmach

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Age-related decrements in motor plan restructuring were investigated. In this experiment, older and younger adults performed a discrete aiming task that involved responses that were precued and responses that were modified at the time of an imperative signal. On 75% of the trials, the precue specified the response-stimulus (valid trials) with respect to the movement parameters of the arm (left or right) and direction (toward or away). On the remaining 25% of the trials, the response-stimulus was different from the precue (invalid trials) in that the subject was required to modify a planned movement by changing the arm to be …

Age Differences In Bimanual Coordination, Paul Amrhein, George Stelmach, Noreen Goggin

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A bimanual coordination experiment was conducted in which two groups of 10 male and female participants, elderly (67 to 75 years of age) and young (21 to 25 years of age), produced unimanual, bimanual symmetrical (equal extent amplitude), and bimanual asymmetrical (unequal extent amplitude) movements. In addition to an overall increase in performance latency, the elderly group exhibited a linear increase in response initiation (RT) with increases in task complexity similar to that of the young group. However, the elderly participants showed a proportional increase over the young participants in response execution latency (MT). Further, the elderly group had a …