Franca Stablum | Università degli Studi di Padova (original) (raw)
Papers by Franca Stablum
Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform a future action at a specified late... more Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform a future action at a specified later time, which is investigated through the use of event-based and time-based tasks. Prior investigations have found that PM is impaired following traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, there is limited information regarding the cognitive functions that mediate TBI and PM performance. Thus, this study investigated time-based PM in TBI patients, and the relationship among time-based PM, time perception, and executive functions. To accomplish this objective, 18 severe TBI patients and 18 healthy matched controls performed a time-based PM task, a time reproduction task, and two executive functions (Stroop and n-back) tasks. While both groups increased their monitoring frequency close to the target time, TBI patients monitored more and were less accurate than healthy controls at the target time confirming the time-based PM dysfunction in these patients. Importantly, executive functions, particularly inhibition and updating abilities, were strongly related to time-based PM performance; both time perception and executive functions are involved in time-based prospective memory in controls, whereas, only executive functions appear to be involved in TBI time-based prospective memory performance. (JINS, 2012, 18, 697-705)
Journal of experimental psychology. General, 2016
The effects of concurrent working memory load in attentional processes have been 1 of the most pu... more The effects of concurrent working memory load in attentional processes have been 1 of the most puzzling issues in cognitive psychology. Studies have shown detrimental effects, no effects, and even beneficial effects of working memory load in different attentional tasks. In the present study we attempted to replicate Kim, Kim, and Chun's (2005, Experiment 3b) findings of beneficial effects of concurrent working memory load in a spatial Stroop-like task. In 3 experiments in which our sample was 3 times larger than that in the original Kim et al. study, we could not replicate their findings. The results are discussed in terms of what may have produced the conflicting results, trying to shed light on how working memory load affects attentional tasks. Also, we emphasize the importance of using adequately large samples in cognitive research. Although we acknowledge the relevance of meta-analyses to analyze conflicting results, in the present article we stress (perhaps more important) ...
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2015
The present study adapted a computerised version of Virtual Week, a laboratory measure of prospec... more The present study adapted a computerised version of Virtual Week, a laboratory measure of prospective memory designed to simulate the kinds of prospective memory tasks encountered in daily life. In particular, this study aimed to translate and adapt Virtual Week for an Italian population. We collected data from 198 subjects that were divided into five groups based on age: young-young adults (20-29 years, n = 47), young adults (30-45 years, n = 32), middle-age adults (46-59 years, n = 32), young-old adults (60-69 years, n = 41), and old-old adults (70 years plus, n = 39). Results showed that PM performance was best in younger adults, relatively stable over middle adulthood and then decreased with age, with older adults performing the least accurately, in particular for the time-based condition. Results also demonstrated good reliability estimates across a range of ages and task types. Thus, the adaptation of Virtual Week into Italian appears to be a reliable measure of prospective memory for the Italian population.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2015
ABSTRACT The present study investigated the effect of Parkinson’s disease (PD) on prospective mem... more ABSTRACT The present study investigated the effect of Parkinson’s disease (PD) on prospective memory (PM) tasks by varying the emotional content of the PM actions. Twenty-one older adults with PD and 25 healthy older adults took part in the present study. Participants performed three virtual days in the Virtual Week task. On each virtual day, participants performed actions with positive, negative or neutral content. Immediately following each virtual day, participants completed a recognition task to assess their retrospective memory for the various prospective memory tasks. PD patients were less accurate than the control group at both PM accuracy and recognition task accuracy. The effect of emotional valence was also evident, indicating that all participants were more accurate on positive PM tasks than both negative and neutral. This study confirmed PM impairment in PD patients and extended previous research showing how positive emotional stimuli can influence PM performance.
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2015
Previous studies have demonstrated that emotional facial expressions alter temporal judgments. Mo... more Previous studies have demonstrated that emotional facial expressions alter temporal judgments. Moreover, while some studies conducted with Parkinson's disease (PD) patients suggest dysfunction in the recognition of emotional facial expression, others have shown a dysfunction in time perception. In the present study, we investigate the magnitude of temporal distortions caused by the presentation of emotional facial expressions (anger, shame, and neutral) in PD patients and controls. Twenty-five older adults with PD and 17 healthy older adults took part in the present study. PD patients were divided into two sub-groups, with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI), based on their neuropsychological performance. Participants were tested with a time bisection task with standard intervals lasting 400 ms and 1600 ms. The effect of facial emotional stimuli on time perception was evident in all participants, yet the effect was greater for PD-MCI patients. Furthermore, PD-MCI patients were more likely to underestimate long and overestimate short temporal intervals than PD-non-MCI patients and controls. Temporal impairment in PD-MCI patients seem to be mainly caused by a memory dysfunction. (JINS, 2015, 21, 1-10).
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2015
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients often present with prospective memory (PM) dysfunction. For... more Traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients often present with prospective memory (PM) dysfunction. Forgetting to complete tasks may result in a loss of independence, limited employment prospects and anxiety, therefore, it is important to develop programs to improve PM performance in TBI patients. A strategy which may improve PM performance is implementation intentions. It involves making explicit plans specifying when, where and how one will perform a task in the future. In the present study, a group of 36 TBI patients and a group of 34 controls performed Virtual Week using either implementation intentions or no strategy. The results showed that the PM performance of TBI patients was less accurate than controls, in particular when the PM cue was time-based. No effect of implementation intentions was observed for TBI patients, however, controls improved their PM performance when the task was time-based. The findings suggest that strategies to improve PM in this clinical group are likely to be more complex than those that benefit healthy adults and may involve targeting phases of the PM process other than, or in addition to, the intention formation phase. (JINS, 2015, 21, 305-313).
Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2015
ABSTRACT This study investigated decision making and feedback sensitivity in healthy older adults... more ABSTRACT This study investigated decision making and feedback sensitivity in healthy older adults with a new task: the Pictures Decision Task. The study was conducted on 27 older (aged 64-88) and 26 younger adults (aged 25 -57) matched for years of education. Results showed that older adults did not show the Jumping to Conclusions bias and that older adults had difficulty learning from feedback only when the context was ambiguous and not when they were given aids or interpretative information that decreased ambiguity. The Pictures Decision Task, with respect to the Iowa Gambling Task and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, allowed us to assess decision making and feedback sensitivity under highly ambiguous conditions and therefore to add new insight into the reasoning process of older people.
Brain and Cognition, 2010
A reduction in congruency effects under working memory (WM) load has been previously described us... more A reduction in congruency effects under working memory (WM) load has been previously described using different attentional paradigms (e.g., . One hypothesis is that different types of WM load have different effects on attentional selection, depending on whether a specific memory load demands resources in common with target or distractor processing. In particular, if information in WM is related to the distractors in the selective attention task, there is a reduction in distraction . However, although previous results seem to point to a decrease in interference under high WM load conditions , the lack of a neutral baseline for the congruency effects makes it difficult to differentiate between a decrease in interference or in facilitation. In the present work we included neutral trials in the task introduced by and tested normal participants and traumatic brain injury patients. Results support a reduction in the processing of distractors under WM load, at least for incongruent trials in both groups. Theoretical as well as applied implications are discussed.
Le funzioni esecutive intervengono, nella vita quotidiana, per l'organizzazione del comportamento... more Le funzioni esecutive intervengono, nella vita quotidiana, per l'organizzazione del comportamento finalizzata al raggiungimento di specifici obiettivi. Si ritiene che i circuiti neurali implicati nelle funzioni esecutive siano localizzati nel lobo frontale, anche se gli aspetti specifici di tali circuiti sono a tutt'oggi oggetto di ricerca. Per esaminare le funzioni esecutive vengono utilizzati sia test sviluppati dalla neuropsicologia clinica, sia il paradigma dei tempi di reazione (TR), con compiti sperimentali progettati per studiare specifiche capacità di controllo cognitivo.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2012
Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to perform future intention. Older adults often present dy... more Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to perform future intention. Older adults often present dysfunctions in PM tasks and investigating the nature of their difficulties have critical implication for their independent living. Virtual Week is a computer based program that simulate real week activities. Participants also performed executive functions tasks to investigate which abilities are involved in PM. Virtual Week has shown to be suitable instrument to evaluate PM performance with important implications on assessment and rehabilitation of PM dysfunctions.
This study was aimed to identify impaired attentional components in mild CHI patients. The CHI fe... more This study was aimed to identify impaired attentional components in mild CHI patients. The CHI features taken into account were age (< or = 30 vs. > 30 years), loss of consciousness (yes vs. no), and time after injury (few days vs. some months). The groups tested were composed of 26 patients and 26 controls (matched for age, sex and education). Experiment 1 used a dual-task paradigm (Umiltà et al., 1992), which taps executive functions. The double task-single task difference was greater for the CHI group, but only for patients older than 30 years and/or with consciousness loss. Two years after injury, some of these patients were retested: The results showed that this deficit was still present. Experiment 2 studied visual selective attention using the Navon (1977) paradigm. In this case, there were no differences between patients and controls. The results are discussed with reference to the anterior/posterior attention systems.
The time dimension is always embedded in any human experience and is an inseparable part of it. A... more The time dimension is always embedded in any human experience and is an inseparable part of it. According to scalar timing theory, timing behavior is based on the output of an internal clock that provides long-term memory representations that can be retrieved and compared with the representation of the current temporal interval held in short-term memory. More precisely, the model includes a pacemaker, a switch, and an accumulator. At the onset of a timed stimulus, the switch closes, thereby allowing pulses emitted by the pacemaker to enter the accumulator. At the offset of the stimulus, the switch opens and pulse transfer terminates. Thus, representation of stimulus duration depends on the number of pulses accumulated during the stimulus presentation. According to the model, a temporal judgment results from a comparison, via the decision mechanism, of this representation of stimulus duration with longer-term representations of biologically significant durations experienced previously. However, the relevance and importance of time is not constant but varies depending on the meaning assigned to a certain situation. The present study investigated how symbolic meaning affectes time perception in school children and adults. In particular, we investigated how children experience time and how the environment acts on children subjective experience of time. Stimuli with different symbolic meaning are be employed (the meaning of fastness or slowness). In the present study we employed two stimuli, one that recalls the meaning of fastness (motorbike) and one that recalls the meaning of slowness (bicycle). We predicted that observing a stimulus that recall the meaning of speed affect participant's performance in the way that stimuli that recall the meaning of fastness will be under-reproduced and stimuli that recall the meaning of slowness will be overreproduced. Two experiments are presented. Experiment 1 included two hundred participants divided in 9 different groups according to their school class: 5 groups belonged to primary school, 3 groups were middle school, and 1 group was of university students. Participants were engaged in a time reproduction task in which a motorbike or a bicycle were presented for 11, 21, and 36 s. After the presentation of the standard duration, participants were required to press the space bar to reproduce the duration previously presented. Significant differences between groups were found. Younger participants under-reproduced the duration more than did older participants. Importantly, an effect of symbolic meaning was found in youngre participants (up to 8 years old) older participants did not present any effect of symbolic meaning. We reasoned that the time reproduction task might not be
Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform a future action at a specified late... more Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform a future action at a specified later time, which is investigated through the use of event-based and time-based tasks. Prior investigations have found that PM is impaired following traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, there is limited information regarding the cognitive functions that mediate TBI and PM performance. Thus, this study investigated time-based PM in TBI patients, and the relationship among time-based PM, time perception, and executive functions. To accomplish this objective, 18 severe TBI patients and 18 healthy matched controls performed a time-based PM task, a time reproduction task, and two executive functions (Stroop and n-back) tasks. While both groups increased their monitoring frequency close to the target time, TBI patients monitored more and were less accurate than healthy controls at the target time confirming the time-based PM dysfunction in these patients. Importantly, executive functions, particularly inhibition and updating abilities, were strongly related to time-based PM performance; both time perception and executive functions are involved in time-based prospective memory in controls, whereas, only executive functions appear to be involved in TBI time-based prospective memory performance. (JINS, 2012, 18, 697-705)
Journal of experimental psychology. General, 2016
The effects of concurrent working memory load in attentional processes have been 1 of the most pu... more The effects of concurrent working memory load in attentional processes have been 1 of the most puzzling issues in cognitive psychology. Studies have shown detrimental effects, no effects, and even beneficial effects of working memory load in different attentional tasks. In the present study we attempted to replicate Kim, Kim, and Chun's (2005, Experiment 3b) findings of beneficial effects of concurrent working memory load in a spatial Stroop-like task. In 3 experiments in which our sample was 3 times larger than that in the original Kim et al. study, we could not replicate their findings. The results are discussed in terms of what may have produced the conflicting results, trying to shed light on how working memory load affects attentional tasks. Also, we emphasize the importance of using adequately large samples in cognitive research. Although we acknowledge the relevance of meta-analyses to analyze conflicting results, in the present article we stress (perhaps more important) ...
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2015
The present study adapted a computerised version of Virtual Week, a laboratory measure of prospec... more The present study adapted a computerised version of Virtual Week, a laboratory measure of prospective memory designed to simulate the kinds of prospective memory tasks encountered in daily life. In particular, this study aimed to translate and adapt Virtual Week for an Italian population. We collected data from 198 subjects that were divided into five groups based on age: young-young adults (20-29 years, n = 47), young adults (30-45 years, n = 32), middle-age adults (46-59 years, n = 32), young-old adults (60-69 years, n = 41), and old-old adults (70 years plus, n = 39). Results showed that PM performance was best in younger adults, relatively stable over middle adulthood and then decreased with age, with older adults performing the least accurately, in particular for the time-based condition. Results also demonstrated good reliability estimates across a range of ages and task types. Thus, the adaptation of Virtual Week into Italian appears to be a reliable measure of prospective memory for the Italian population.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2015
ABSTRACT The present study investigated the effect of Parkinson’s disease (PD) on prospective mem... more ABSTRACT The present study investigated the effect of Parkinson’s disease (PD) on prospective memory (PM) tasks by varying the emotional content of the PM actions. Twenty-one older adults with PD and 25 healthy older adults took part in the present study. Participants performed three virtual days in the Virtual Week task. On each virtual day, participants performed actions with positive, negative or neutral content. Immediately following each virtual day, participants completed a recognition task to assess their retrospective memory for the various prospective memory tasks. PD patients were less accurate than the control group at both PM accuracy and recognition task accuracy. The effect of emotional valence was also evident, indicating that all participants were more accurate on positive PM tasks than both negative and neutral. This study confirmed PM impairment in PD patients and extended previous research showing how positive emotional stimuli can influence PM performance.
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2015
Previous studies have demonstrated that emotional facial expressions alter temporal judgments. Mo... more Previous studies have demonstrated that emotional facial expressions alter temporal judgments. Moreover, while some studies conducted with Parkinson's disease (PD) patients suggest dysfunction in the recognition of emotional facial expression, others have shown a dysfunction in time perception. In the present study, we investigate the magnitude of temporal distortions caused by the presentation of emotional facial expressions (anger, shame, and neutral) in PD patients and controls. Twenty-five older adults with PD and 17 healthy older adults took part in the present study. PD patients were divided into two sub-groups, with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI), based on their neuropsychological performance. Participants were tested with a time bisection task with standard intervals lasting 400 ms and 1600 ms. The effect of facial emotional stimuli on time perception was evident in all participants, yet the effect was greater for PD-MCI patients. Furthermore, PD-MCI patients were more likely to underestimate long and overestimate short temporal intervals than PD-non-MCI patients and controls. Temporal impairment in PD-MCI patients seem to be mainly caused by a memory dysfunction. (JINS, 2015, 21, 1-10).
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2015
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients often present with prospective memory (PM) dysfunction. For... more Traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients often present with prospective memory (PM) dysfunction. Forgetting to complete tasks may result in a loss of independence, limited employment prospects and anxiety, therefore, it is important to develop programs to improve PM performance in TBI patients. A strategy which may improve PM performance is implementation intentions. It involves making explicit plans specifying when, where and how one will perform a task in the future. In the present study, a group of 36 TBI patients and a group of 34 controls performed Virtual Week using either implementation intentions or no strategy. The results showed that the PM performance of TBI patients was less accurate than controls, in particular when the PM cue was time-based. No effect of implementation intentions was observed for TBI patients, however, controls improved their PM performance when the task was time-based. The findings suggest that strategies to improve PM in this clinical group are likely to be more complex than those that benefit healthy adults and may involve targeting phases of the PM process other than, or in addition to, the intention formation phase. (JINS, 2015, 21, 305-313).
Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2015
ABSTRACT This study investigated decision making and feedback sensitivity in healthy older adults... more ABSTRACT This study investigated decision making and feedback sensitivity in healthy older adults with a new task: the Pictures Decision Task. The study was conducted on 27 older (aged 64-88) and 26 younger adults (aged 25 -57) matched for years of education. Results showed that older adults did not show the Jumping to Conclusions bias and that older adults had difficulty learning from feedback only when the context was ambiguous and not when they were given aids or interpretative information that decreased ambiguity. The Pictures Decision Task, with respect to the Iowa Gambling Task and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, allowed us to assess decision making and feedback sensitivity under highly ambiguous conditions and therefore to add new insight into the reasoning process of older people.
Brain and Cognition, 2010
A reduction in congruency effects under working memory (WM) load has been previously described us... more A reduction in congruency effects under working memory (WM) load has been previously described using different attentional paradigms (e.g., . One hypothesis is that different types of WM load have different effects on attentional selection, depending on whether a specific memory load demands resources in common with target or distractor processing. In particular, if information in WM is related to the distractors in the selective attention task, there is a reduction in distraction . However, although previous results seem to point to a decrease in interference under high WM load conditions , the lack of a neutral baseline for the congruency effects makes it difficult to differentiate between a decrease in interference or in facilitation. In the present work we included neutral trials in the task introduced by and tested normal participants and traumatic brain injury patients. Results support a reduction in the processing of distractors under WM load, at least for incongruent trials in both groups. Theoretical as well as applied implications are discussed.
Le funzioni esecutive intervengono, nella vita quotidiana, per l'organizzazione del comportamento... more Le funzioni esecutive intervengono, nella vita quotidiana, per l'organizzazione del comportamento finalizzata al raggiungimento di specifici obiettivi. Si ritiene che i circuiti neurali implicati nelle funzioni esecutive siano localizzati nel lobo frontale, anche se gli aspetti specifici di tali circuiti sono a tutt'oggi oggetto di ricerca. Per esaminare le funzioni esecutive vengono utilizzati sia test sviluppati dalla neuropsicologia clinica, sia il paradigma dei tempi di reazione (TR), con compiti sperimentali progettati per studiare specifiche capacità di controllo cognitivo.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2012
Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to perform future intention. Older adults often present dy... more Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to perform future intention. Older adults often present dysfunctions in PM tasks and investigating the nature of their difficulties have critical implication for their independent living. Virtual Week is a computer based program that simulate real week activities. Participants also performed executive functions tasks to investigate which abilities are involved in PM. Virtual Week has shown to be suitable instrument to evaluate PM performance with important implications on assessment and rehabilitation of PM dysfunctions.
This study was aimed to identify impaired attentional components in mild CHI patients. The CHI fe... more This study was aimed to identify impaired attentional components in mild CHI patients. The CHI features taken into account were age (< or = 30 vs. > 30 years), loss of consciousness (yes vs. no), and time after injury (few days vs. some months). The groups tested were composed of 26 patients and 26 controls (matched for age, sex and education). Experiment 1 used a dual-task paradigm (Umiltà et al., 1992), which taps executive functions. The double task-single task difference was greater for the CHI group, but only for patients older than 30 years and/or with consciousness loss. Two years after injury, some of these patients were retested: The results showed that this deficit was still present. Experiment 2 studied visual selective attention using the Navon (1977) paradigm. In this case, there were no differences between patients and controls. The results are discussed with reference to the anterior/posterior attention systems.
The time dimension is always embedded in any human experience and is an inseparable part of it. A... more The time dimension is always embedded in any human experience and is an inseparable part of it. According to scalar timing theory, timing behavior is based on the output of an internal clock that provides long-term memory representations that can be retrieved and compared with the representation of the current temporal interval held in short-term memory. More precisely, the model includes a pacemaker, a switch, and an accumulator. At the onset of a timed stimulus, the switch closes, thereby allowing pulses emitted by the pacemaker to enter the accumulator. At the offset of the stimulus, the switch opens and pulse transfer terminates. Thus, representation of stimulus duration depends on the number of pulses accumulated during the stimulus presentation. According to the model, a temporal judgment results from a comparison, via the decision mechanism, of this representation of stimulus duration with longer-term representations of biologically significant durations experienced previously. However, the relevance and importance of time is not constant but varies depending on the meaning assigned to a certain situation. The present study investigated how symbolic meaning affectes time perception in school children and adults. In particular, we investigated how children experience time and how the environment acts on children subjective experience of time. Stimuli with different symbolic meaning are be employed (the meaning of fastness or slowness). In the present study we employed two stimuli, one that recalls the meaning of fastness (motorbike) and one that recalls the meaning of slowness (bicycle). We predicted that observing a stimulus that recall the meaning of speed affect participant's performance in the way that stimuli that recall the meaning of fastness will be under-reproduced and stimuli that recall the meaning of slowness will be overreproduced. Two experiments are presented. Experiment 1 included two hundred participants divided in 9 different groups according to their school class: 5 groups belonged to primary school, 3 groups were middle school, and 1 group was of university students. Participants were engaged in a time reproduction task in which a motorbike or a bicycle were presented for 11, 21, and 36 s. After the presentation of the standard duration, participants were required to press the space bar to reproduce the duration previously presented. Significant differences between groups were found. Younger participants under-reproduced the duration more than did older participants. Importantly, an effect of symbolic meaning was found in youngre participants (up to 8 years old) older participants did not present any effect of symbolic meaning. We reasoned that the time reproduction task might not be