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Los trabajos experimentales en el Material Minds Lab – proyecto ERC SyG XSCAPE, del INCIPIT-CSIC, abren el vídeo oficial de la entrega de los Premios Nacionales de Investigación 2023. Felipe Criado-Boado, corresponding Principal Investigator del Proyecto ERC-2020-SyG 951631 XSCAPE, ha sido galardonado con el Premio Nacional de Investigación 2023. Ha recibido el premio por sus contribuciones pioneras e innovadoras a la arqueología, que han contribuido a comprender cómo las sociedades humanas han interactuado y modificado el paisaje en el transcurso de la historia. Sus estudios recientes examinan cómo el mundo que construimos modifica nuestra mente y nuestra forma de procesar la información, en el proyecto europeo Material Minds. También ha conseguido el Premio Galego do Ano 2023, concedido por El Correo Gallego, del grupo Prensa Ibérica. El proyecto XSCAPE utiliza un conjunto de materiales de diferentes culturas y entornos, para explorar los cambios cognitivos impulsados por la materialidad.

O proxecto XSCAPE, financiado con fondos europeos, reúne a un equipo de arqueólogos, científicos da visión e filósofos cognitivos para explorar se os mundos que construimos alteran a nosa propia mente e a forma en que procesamos a información. O equipo financiado polo Consello Europeo de Investigación estuda se os nosos nosos edificios, estradas e artefactos cambian os patróns de pensamento e atención. O equipo do proxecto, que ten previsto realizar unha serie de máis de corenta estudos de casos globais, utiliza un conxunto de materiais —de diferentes culturas e entornos antigos e novos— para explorar os cambios cognitivos impulsados pola materialidade. XSCAPE utiliza unha nova metodoloxía sinérxica que combina múltiples estudos de casos do mundo real coa neurociencia visual máis recente e simulacións simples basadas en axentes.

The EU-funded XSCAPE project will bring together a team from the areas of archaeology, vision science and cognitive philosophy to explore whether the worlds we build alter our own minds and how we process information. The ERC-funded team will investigate whether our buildings, roads and artefacts change patterns of thought and attention. Slated to conduct a series of more than 40 global case studies, the project will use a set of materials – from different cultures and old and new settings – to explore materiality-driven cognitive change. XSCAPE will use a new synergistic methodology that combines multiple real-world case studies with the latest visual neuroscience, and simple agent-based simulations.

El proyecto XSCAPE, financiado con fondos europeos, reúne a un equipo de arqueólogos, científicos de la visión y filósofos cognitivos para explorar si los mundos que construimos alteran nuestra propia mente y la forma en que procesamos la información. El equipo financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación estudia si nuestros edificios, carreteras y artefactos cambian los patrones de pensamiento y atención. El equipo del proyecto, que tiene previsto realizar una serie de más de cuarenta estudios de casos globales, utiliza un conjunto de materiales —de diferentes culturas y entornos antiguos y nuevos— para explorar los cambios cognitivos impulsados por la materialidad. XSCAPE utiliza una nueva metodología sinérgica que combina múltiples estudios de casos del mundo real con la neurociencia visual más reciente y simulaciones simples basadas en agentes.

El proyecto XSCAPE, financiado con fondos europeos, reúne a un equipo de arqueólogos, científicos de la visión y filósofos cognitivos para explorar si los mundos que construimos alteran nuestra propia mente y la forma en que procesamos la información. El equipo financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación estudia si nuestros edificios, carreteras y artefactos cambian los patrones de pensamiento y atención. El equipo del proyecto, que tiene previsto realizar una serie de más de cuarenta estudios de casos globales, utiliza un conjunto de materiales —de diferentes culturas y entornos antiguos y nuevos— para explorar los cambios cognitivos impulsados por la materialidad. XSCAPE utiliza una nueva metodología sinérgica que combina múltiples estudios de casos del mundo real con la neurociencia visual más reciente y simulaciones simples basadas en agentes.

Aim: This study described nursing students' cognitive changes as they acquire psychomotor skills through blended learning.Background: Deliberate practice, including feedback from teachers, is vital for acquiring psychomotor skills. Blended learning, a program that allows students to deepen their learning and improve their skills even when students and faculty are physically separated has attracted significant attention in recent years. Although blended learning has been used for learning in the cognitive domain, no study has examined its effectiveness in the acquisition of psychomotor skills. Understanding how students' cognition changes as they acquire skills in a blended learning environment could be a valuable resource for effective teaching.Design: An inductive, qualitative description approach was adopted.Methods: The program involved a basic nursing skill: making an occupied bed. Eleven second-year nursing students participated. The participants attended face-to-face lectures and e-learning courses comprising self -study content that was designed for easy and frequent reference. Students practiced for a skill test, which was conducted one month after the first lecture. Two interviews were conducted approximately one month apart. Before each interview, the participants' current practices were videotaped. During the interviews, they explained their thought processes and conscious awareness of their actions as they watched the videos. This study was conducted between April and May 2019.Results: Six categories related to changes in participants' cognitive processes while acquiring the skill of making an occupied bed were identified: feeling that it is easy to acquire, practicing without much thought, real-izing the difficulty in translating thoughts into practice, experiencing a sense of purpose in each technique, gaining a perspective to evaluate one's skills, and developing one's unique approach.Conclusions: In a blended learning environment, where a practice en

Aim: This study described nursing students' cognitive changes as they acquire psychomotor skills through blended learning.Background: Deliberate practice, including feedback from teachers, is vital for acquiring psychomotor skills. Blended learning, a program that allows students to deepen their learning and improve their skills even when students and faculty are physically separated has attracted significant attention in recent years. Although blended learning has been used for learning in the cognitive domain, no study has examined its effectiveness in the acquisition of psychomotor skills. Understanding how students' cognition changes as they acquire skills in a blended learning environment could be a valuable resource for effective teaching.Design: An inductive, qualitative description approach was adopted.Methods: The program involved a basic nursing skill: making an occupied bed. Eleven second-year nursing students participated. The participants attended face-to-face lectures and e-learning courses comprising self -study content that was designed for easy and frequent reference. Students practiced for a skill test, which was conducted one month after the first lecture. Two interviews were conducted approximately one month apart. Before each interview, the participants' current practices were videotaped. During the interviews, they explained their thought processes and conscious awareness of their actions as they watched the videos. This study was conducted between April and May 2019.Results: Six categories related to changes in participants' cognitive processes while acquiring the skill of making an occupied bed were identified: feeling that it is easy to acquire, practicing without much thought, real-izing the difficulty in translating thoughts into practice, experiencing a sense of purpose in each technique, gaining a perspective to evaluate one's skills, and developing one's unique approach.Conclusions: In a blended learning environment, where a practice en

As cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mount worldwide, attention is needed on potential long-term neurologic impacts for the majority of patients who experience mild to moderate illness managed as outpatients. To date, there has not been discussion of persistent neurocognitive deficits in patients with milder COVID-19. We present two cases of non-hospitalized patients recovering from COVID-19 with persistent neurocognitive symptoms. Commonly used cognitive screens were normal, while more detailed testing revealed working memory and executive functioning deficits. An observational cohort study of individuals recovering from COVID-19 (14 or more days following symptom onset) identified that among the first 100 individuals enrolled, 14 were non-hospitalized patients reporting persistent cognitive issues. These 14 participants had a median age of 39 years (interquartile range: 35-56), and cognitive symptoms were present for at least a median of 98 days (interquartile range: 71-120 following acute COVID-19 symptoms); no participants with follow-up evaluation reported symptom resolution. We discuss potential mechanisms to be explored in future studies, including direct viral effects, indirect consequences of immune activation, and immune dysregulation causing auto-antibody production.

Mesial temporal lobe (MTL) is prominently affected in normal aging and associated with neurodegeneration in AD. Whether or not MTL atrophy is dependent on increasing amyloid load before the emergence of cognitive deficits is still disputed. We performed a 4.5-year longitudinal study in 75 older community dwellers (48 women, mean age: 79.3 years) including magnetic resonance imaging at baseline and follow-up, positron emission tomography amyloid during follow-up, neuropsychological assessment at 18 and 55 months, and APOE genotyping. Linear regression models were used to identify predictors of the MTL volume loss. Amyloid load was negatively associated with bilateral MTL volume at baseline explaining almost 10.5% of its variability. In multivariate models including time of follow-up and demographic variables (older age, male gender), this percentage exceeded 35%. The APOE4 allele independently contributed another 6%. Cognitive changes had a modest but still significant negative association with MTL volume loss. Our data support a multifactorial model including amyloid deposition, older age, male gender, APOE4 allele, and slight decline of cognitive abilities as independent predictors of MTL volume loss in brain aging.

The aim of this study was to examine if the leaving of an abuse could be understood as a process, that incorporates both psychological and sociological parts. We collected our data through a qualitative method of reading autobiographies. The selection of materials was based on the autobiographies that dealt with substance abuse issues, where the selection was delimited to the autobiographies where the individuals had had an alcohol, drug or gambling abuse. The chosen material was written in Swedish, by the addict and after the individual had come out of their abuse. The reading of the material was based on a number of reading questions based on the study’s questions. Following the patterns we found from the reading, we formed a division of our results where eight themes were identified that seemed to play an important role when leaving an abuse: questioning, unsuccessful attempts, insight, turning point, a struggle, important help, new self and awareness. Our result was then analyzed against both psychological and sociological research to give different explanatory models of what we saw in the material. The psychologically oriented research talked about how an individual leaves addiction and how, for example, cognitive changes and turning points are central parts. The sociologically oriented research consisted of a theoretical explanation model about how an individual makes a role exit when, for example, he leaves an abuse where social factors such as environmental impact plays an important role. One of the study’s conclusions was that leaving an abuse could be understood as a process. Another conclusion was that the eight different steps of the process could include both sociological and psychological parts. Thus, through our study, we distinguished that leaving an abuse was not only influenced by one or the other approach, but that studies that illuminate and merge both psychological and sociological perspectives are needed. The study also shows the importance of

A new approach of quantitative analysis of images of the single photon emission computer tomography (SPECT) of brain aimed at determining the degree of mild cognitive impairment has been developed. The analysis is based on evaluation of the average gradient of radioactivity distribution over the transverse section of brain along the set direction, and also on the analysis of signal Fourier-spectra. The presented data indicate a possible emergence of the assembly-type catastrophe for brain perfusion depending on the level of cognitive disorders.

There are multiple factors simultaneously affecting speech perception in elderly people. These factors include hearing acuity, aging of the auditory system, and changes in both perception and cognitive processes, all of which can interfere with speech comprehension, especially in cognitively demanding situations. The aim of this study is to clarify which factors influence the use of an automatic phone service system designed for elderly (N = 36) people. More specifically, the aim is to investigate whether it is the factors connected to the system itself or the factors connected to the elderly users and their actions with the system that are the most crucial for using the system successfully. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the study. There were four people who performed as speakers in the system. Analysis of the prosodic features of their speech was performed using acoustic analysis software. The variables connected to the elderly participants (n = 30) were investigated using interviews, pure-tone and speech audiometric tests, the Mini-Mental State Examination test (MMSE), and the Token Test for speech comprehension. Statistical analyses were used to explore whether there was a statistical connection between the acoustic measurements or the variables connected to participants themselves and their performance in usability test situation. In addition, the elderly participants’ actions in the test situation were observed using a material-based, qualitative video-analysis. The individuals who performed as speakers in the system were observed to use features of elderspeak in their speech. However, these speaker characteristics had little effect on the participants’ performance in the tasks. It was the voice-menu that contained the most semantically complex text structure that proved to be the most difficult for participants. Both low scores in the Token test and poor word recognition were connected to poor performance in the tasks. It was f, Tiivistelmä Ikääntyvien ihmisten puheen vastaanotossa vaikuttavat samanaikaisesti monet tekijät: kuulokyky, auditiivisen järjestelmän ikääntymismuutokset sekä havaintotoimintojen ja kognitiivisten toimintojen muutokset. Nämä voivat vaikeuttaa puheen ymmärtämistä erityisesti kognitiivisesti vaativassa tilanteessa. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää ikääntyneille osallistujille (N = 36) suunnitellun automaattisen puhelinpalvelujärjestelmän käyttöön liittyviä tekijöitä. Tavoitteena on selvittää se, missä määrin toisaalta kokeiltuun järjestelmään liittyvät tekijät ja toisaalta käyttäjien ominaisuudet sekä heidän toimintansa tutkimustilanteessa olivat yhteydessä järjestelmän menestykselliseen käyttöön. Tutkimuksessa käytetään kvantitatiivisia ja kvalitatiivisia menetelmiä. Järjestelmässä kokeiltiin neljän eri puhujan äänillä nauhoitettuja toimintaohjeita. Heidän puheensa prosodisia piirteitä analysoitiin äänen ja puheen analyysiohjelmilla. Ikääntyneisiin osallistujiin (n = 30) liittyviä muuttujia tutkittiin haastattelulla, kuulon tutkimuksilla (äänesaudiometria ja puheaudiometria), kognitiivisella seulontatestillä (Mini-mental state examination = MMSE) ja puheen ymmärtämistä mittaavalla Token-testillä. Mittaustulosten ja muuttujien yhteyttä tehtävistä suoriutumiseen tarkasteltiin tilastollisesti. Osallistujien toimintaa havainnoitiin järjestelmän käyttötilanteessa aineistolähtöisellä laadullisella videoanalyysillä. Järjestelmän puhujilla havaittiin ikääntyneille suunnatun puheen piirteitä. Tehtävistä suoriutuminen oli kuitenkin hyvin samanlaista puhujasta riippumatta. Semanttisesti monimutkaisin tekstivalikko oli osallistujille vaikein äänite. Matala Token-testin pistemäärä ja heikko puheen tunnistuskyky liittyivät heikkoon tehtävistä suoriutumiseen. Laadullisen analyysin perusteella puheen ymmärtämisen ohella keskeisiä kognitiivisia prosesseja tehtävissä menestymisen kannalta olivat seuraavat: ohjeiden muistaminen, huomion suuntaaminen, jakaminen ja ylläpito. He

Ageing and Living Conditions

Multipel skleros är en autoimmun sjukdom som genom en inflammatorisk process bryter ner myelinet runt nerverna i centrala nervsystemet och leder till ärrbildning på nerverna. Sjukdomen utvecklas under många år och leder till olika grad av funktionsnedsättningar. Den drabbar kvinnor oftare än män och är vanligare i Nordamerika och norra Europa än i världen övrigt. Syftet med litteraturstudien var att studera hur personer med multipel skleros upplever att sjukdomen påverkar livskvaliteten. Metoden för litteraturstudien inspirerades av Goodmans sju steg för litteratursökning. Sökningen efter artiklar gjordes i Pubmed och Cinahl. Trettioen artiklar granskades och detta ledde till att tio artiklar inkluderades i resultatet. Av de tio artiklar som inkluderades i studien var åtta av kvantitativ art och två av kvalitativ. Resultatet visar att livskvaliteten påverkas av symtom relaterade till multipel skleros, av inre och yttre hinder samt av bekymmer till följd av olika symtom på sjukdomen. Slutsatser Personer med multipel skleros upplever att sjukdomen påverkar de fysiska, psykiska, sociala och existentiella aspekterna av deras livskvalitet. För att kunna hjälpa denna patientgrupp till bättre upplevd livskvalitet måste sjuksköterskan skapa en relation med personen och verkligen förstå hur denne upplever att livskvaliteten påverkas av sjukdomen. För att bättre kunna förstå hur denna patientgrupp upplever att deras sjukdom påverkar livskvaliteten behövs mera kvalitativ forskning på detta område., Multiple sclerosis is autoimmune disease that which, through an inflammatory process, breaks down the myelin surrounding the nerves in the central nervous system leading to the buildup of scar tissue around the nerves. This disease develops over many years and leads to different types of disabilities. It effects women more often than men and is more common in North America and Northern Europe than in the rest of the world. The aim of this study was to examine how people with multiple sclerosis experience that the disease affects their quality of life. The method for this study was inspired by Goodman’s seven steps for literature search. The search for the articles was done in Pubmed and Cinahl. Thirty one articles were examined and this led to ten articles being included in the result. Of these ten articles that were included in the result eight were quantitative and two were qualitative. The results show that the quality of life is affected by symptoms relating to multiple sclerosis, by inner and outer barriers and by worries that are caused by different symptoms of the disease. Conclusions People with multiple sclerosis experience that the disease affects the physical, psychological, social and existential aspects of their quality of life. To be able to help this group of patients experience better quality of life the nurse must form a relationship with the person and truly understand how their quality of life is affected by the disease. To be able to better understand how this patient group experiences how the disease affects their quality of life there is a need for more qualitative research in this field.

Our military forces are now facing new and often unanticipated challenges Many of the tasks they are now being asked to perform are not those which typically occupy the military mandate. That they do this so well argues for their professionalism and their adaptability but it brings in to play sources of stress and demand for which traditional military training provides little experience or protection. The better the theories and principles that we generate and validate, the better we will be able to help these individuals in their new and evolving missions. It is evident that current and future military operations will be cognitive wars (Scales, 2006). The future battleground will largely be the minds of other individuals and those individuals like our own forces, will certainly be under stress. It is crucial that we know about these effects if we are to understand them fully and exploit them effectively. Our Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program on Operator Performance Under Stress (OPUS) has contributed substantially to the scientific and operational understanding of stress and performance. This MURI reached completion in December 2006. Here we summarize the outcome of this program and the numerous successes achieved by researchers funded under this MURI., Prepared in cooperation with Linkoeping University, Linkoeping, Sweden, and George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, University of Cincinnati, Catholic University, Washington, DC, University of Minnesota, Kansas State University, and Florida Institute for Technology

The objective of the present research was to probe in the same design the representative variables of each one of the three major contemporary models that intend to explain the human experience of duration. In addition, it was made a comparison between prospective and retrospective experimental paradigms with the same retention interval, and a direct measurement of the cognitive effort reintroduced in the execution of the experimetal tasks by means of an independent index. The experiment was applied to 192 students of psychology of the Universidad de Salamanca. Results showed that when a subject intentionally attends to the time, changes in the cognitive context operate as the principal indications for making the most precise judgments of time. However, when the attention to time is only incidental, the cognitive effort is the factor that best explains temporal estimation by means of an inverse relation with the size of the reproduction., El objetivo de esta investigación ha sido ha sido someter a prueba en un mismo diseño las variables representativas de cada uno de los tres principales modelos contemporáneos que tratan de explicar la experiencia humana sobre la duración. Además, se ha efectuado una comparación entre los paradigmas experimentales prospectivo y retrospectivo igualados en el tiempo que transcurre hasta la realización del juicio, así como una medición directa mediante un índice independiente del esfuerzo cognitivo involucrado en la realización de las tareas experimentales. El experimento realizado ha sido aplicado a 192 estudiantes de Psicología de la Universidad de Salamanca. Los resultados muestran que cuando se atiende de forma intencional al tiempo, los cambios ocurridos en el contexto cognitivo son utilizados como los indicios primordiales para la configuración de los juicios de tiempo más precisos. Sin embargo, cuando la atención al tiempo es tan sólo incidental, el esfuerzo cognitivo es el factor que mejor explica la estimación temporal mediante una relación inversa con el tamaño de la reproducción efectuada.