Melody Wiseheart
York University, Psychology, Faculty Member
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The spacing effect refers to the improvement in memory retention for materials learned in a series of sessions, as opposed to massing learning in a single session. It has been extensively studied in the domain of verbal learning using... more
The spacing effect refers to the improvement in memory retention for materials learned in a series of sessions, as opposed to massing learning in a single session. It has been extensively studied in the domain of verbal learning using word lists. Less evidence is available for connected discourse or tasks requiring the complex coordination of verbal and other domains. In particular, the effect of spacing on the retention of words and music in song has yet to be determined. In this study, university students were taught an unaccompanied two-verse song based on traditional materials to a criterion of 95% correct memory for sung words. Subsequent training sessions were either massed or spaced by two days or one week and tested at a retention interval of three weeks. Performances were evaluated for number of correct and incorrect syllables, number of correctly and incorrectly pitched notes, degree notes were off-pitch, and number of hesitations while singing. The data revealed strong ev...
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Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing tasks or problems. To test whether cognitive flexibility is a coherent cognitive capacity in young children, we tested 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on two forms of task... more
Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing tasks or problems. To test whether cognitive flexibility is a coherent cognitive capacity in young children, we tested 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on two forms of task switching, rule-based (Three Dimension Changes Card Sorting, 3DCCS) and inductive (Flexible Induction of Meaning-Animates and Objects, FIM-Ob and FIM-An), as well as tests of response speed, verbal working memory, inhibition, and reasoning. Results suggest that cognitive flexibility is not a globally coherent trait; only the two inductive word-meaning (FIM) tests showed high inter-test coherence. Task- and knowledge-specific factors also determine children's flexibility in a given test. Response speed, vocabulary size, and causal reasoning skills further predicted individual and age differences in flexibility, although they did not have the same predictive relation with all three flexibility tests.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive development, Cognitive Control, and 15 moreIndividuality, Cognition, Child Development, Vocabulary, Causal reasoning, Medicine, Individual Differences, Executive Function, Cognitive Flexibility, Thinking, Humans, Female, Male, Age Factors, and Child preschool
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Cognitive development, Cognition, and 15 morePrediction, Conflict Resolution, Information Processing, Cognitive Flexibility, Processing Speed, Humans, Child, Female, Male, Reaction Time, Nino, Psychomotor Performance, Neuropsychological Tests, Child preschool, and photic stimulation
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This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual-task performance. Participants (n = 153) belonging to one of... more
This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual-task performance. Participants (n = 153) belonging to one of four groups (monolingual musician, bilingual musician, bilingual non-musician, or monolingual non-musician) were matched on age and socioeconomic status and administered task switching and dual-task paradigms. Results demonstrated reduced global and local switch costs in musicians compared with non-musicians, suggesting that musical training can contribute to increased efficiency in the ability to shift flexibly between mental sets. On dual-task performance, musicians also outperformed non-musicians. There was neither a cognitive advantage for bilinguals relative to monolinguals, nor an interaction between music and language to suggest additive effects of both types of experience. These findings demonstrate that long-term musical training is associa...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Yoga, an ancient Indian healing tradition, has been shown to provide a wide range of physical, psychological, and emotional benefits to general and clinical populations. Recent research suggests that yoga may also enhance cognitive... more
Yoga, an ancient Indian healing tradition, has been shown to provide a wide range of physical, psychological, and emotional benefits to general and clinical populations. Recent research suggests that yoga may also enhance cognitive health, in particular, sustained attention abilities (Hogasandra & Ganapat, 2013). The effect of yoga on other cognitive functions remains understudied. Attention and inhibition share common theoretical underpinnings; therefore, the benefits of yoga may extend to inhibitory control abilities. In this study, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design was used to investigate the influence of an 8-week Yoga intervention on two different facets of inhibition: effortful and automatic. Participants (n = 45) were randomly assigned to a yoga training group or a waitlist control group. They completed a series of cognitive tests before and after the intervention period, including three effortful inhibition tasks, three automatic inhibition tasks, and three sustained attention tasks. Yoga training consisted of postures, breathing, and meditation techniques targeting inhibitory processes. Classeswere scheduled twiceweekly, for 1 hour each. Preliminary pre/post analyses indicate no significant differences between yoga and control participants on any of the cognitive tasks assessed; however, a second wave of the study (n = 30 participants), currently underway, should provide greater statistical power. Despite a lack of statistical significance, subjective reports from participants suggest that the intervention may have meaningfully improved the targeted functions in everyday living. Logistical limitations, such as attendance and time of testing, may have interfered with results. Suggestions for future RCTs are discussed.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ObjectivesThe present study explores the effect of visual art training on people with dementia, utilizing a randomized control trial design, in order to investigate the effects of an 8-week visual art training program on cognition. In... more
ObjectivesThe present study explores the effect of visual art training on people with dementia, utilizing a randomized control trial design, in order to investigate the effects of an 8-week visual art training program on cognition. In particular, the study examines overall cognition, delayed recall, and working memory, which show deficits in people with dementia.MethodFifty-three individuals with dementia were randomly assigned into either an art training (n = 27) or usual-activity waitlist control group (n = 26). Overall cognition and delayed recall were assessed with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and working memory was assessed with the Backward Digit Span task.ResultsThere were no group differences in overall cognition, or working memory, while a difference in delayed recall was undetermined, based on post-test—pre-test difference scores. Groups were comparable at baseline on all measures.ConclusionThe measures of cognition, delayed recall, and working memory used in ...
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ObjectivesThe present study explores the effect of visual art training on people with dementia, utilizing a randomized control trial design, in order to investigate the effects of an 8-week visual art training program on cognition. In... more
ObjectivesThe present study explores the effect of visual art training on people with dementia, utilizing a randomized control trial design, in order to investigate the effects of an 8-week visual art training program on cognition. In particular, the study examines overall cognition, delayed recall, and working memory, which show deficits in people with dementia.MethodFifty-three individuals with dementia were randomly assigned into either an art training (n = 27) or usual-activity waitlist control group (n = 26). Overall cognition and delayed recall were assessed with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and working memory was assessed with the Backward Digit Span task.ResultsThere were no group differences in overall cognition, or working memory, while a difference in delayed recall was undetermined, based on post-test—pre-test difference scores. Groups were comparable at baseline on all measures.ConclusionThe measures of cognition, delayed recall, and working memory used in ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Objectives: Although the spacing effect has been investigated extensively in a variety of populations, few studies have focused on individuals with hippocampal amnesia and none, to our knowledge, have investigated differences in... more
Objectives: Although the spacing effect has been investigated extensively in a variety of populations, few studies have focused on individuals with hippocampal amnesia and none, to our knowledge, have investigated differences in performance as a function of spacing schedule in these cases. In the current study, we investigated the benefit of expanding and equal-interval, compared to massed, spacing schedules in a developmental amnesic person, H.C., who shows congenitally based abnormal development of the hippocampal memory system. Methods: Given the possibility of plasticity and reorganization in the developing brain, we investigated whether H.C. would benefit more from an expanding versus equal-interval schedule using a continuous recognition paradigm, even though this task has been shown to recruit structures within the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus. Results: H.C. and matched controls both showed a clear spacing effect, although neither group benefited more from ...
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The idea that learning music can make a child smarter has gained considerable attention from parents, educators, and policymakers. Intuitively, learning to play an instrument is mentally challenging and is thought to generalize to... more
The idea that learning music can make a child smarter has gained considerable attention from parents, educators, and policymakers. Intuitively, learning to play an instrument is mentally challenging and is thought to generalize to nonmusic improvements. This claim offers promise in using music to enhance mental performance, but before it can be applied to areas such as education and cognitive remediation, the reliability of musical effects must be established. Early research indicated that musicians outperformed nonmusicians on a range of psychological abilities beyond music processing. Alternatively, because better mental ability could also result from other training activities or an individual’s background characteristics, any conclusions on musical training were still premature. In fact, although some recent studies that provided musical training to nontrained children did show small mental improvements after a few weeks of training, most well-designed studies that trained nonexperts failed to find any of the benefits previously seen in expert musicians. In the current study, children aged 6 to 9 years old were given 3 weeks of music or dance lessons and measured on mental performance before and after training. To test for training-induced change, performance before and after training was compared with a nontrained group. To test whether learning music itself caused change, performance in trained groups was compared with each other, because dance is a similarly challenging skill and shares training features with music. No training effects were observed on any tested cognitive ability, which questions whether mental enrichment can occur from short-term training.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Observers briefly viewed random dots moving in a given direction and subsequently recalled that direction. When required to remember a single direction, observers performed accurately for memory intervals of up to 8 s; this high-fidelity... more
Observers briefly viewed random dots moving in a given direction and subsequently recalled that direction. When required to remember a single direction, observers performed accurately for memory intervals of up to 8 s; this high-fidelity memory for motion was maintained when observers executed a vigilance task during the memory interval. When observers tried to remember multiple directions of motion, performance deteriorated with increasing number of directions. Still, memory for multiple directions was unchanged over delays of up to 30 s. In a forced-choice experiment, observers viewed 2 successive animation sequences separated by a memory interval; for both sequences, dots moved in any direction within a limited bandwidth. Observers accurately judged which animation sequence was more coherent, even with memory intervals of 30 s. The findings are considered within the context of cognitive bias and memory for other aspects of perception.
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Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognition, Child Development, Attention, Executive Control, and 11 moreHumans, Child, Task Switching, Female, Male, Mental processes, Abnormal Child Psychology, Task Performance and Analysis, Switching Cost, Attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognition, Child Development, Attention, Executive Control, and 11 moreHumans, Child, Task Switching, Female, Male, Mental processes, Abnormal Child Psychology, Task Performance and Analysis, Switching Cost, Attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
A study was conducted to examine changes in executive control processes over the life span. More specifically, changes in processes responsible for preparation and interference control that underlie the ability to flexibly alternate... more
A study was conducted to examine changes in executive control processes over the life span. More specifically, changes in processes responsible for preparation and interference control that underlie the ability to flexibly alternate between two different tasks were examined. Individuals (N = 152) ranging in age from 7 to 82 years participated in the study. A U-shaped function was obtained for switch costs (i.e., the time required to switch between tasks compared with a repeated-task baseline), with larger costs found for young children and older adults. Switch costs were reduced with practice, particularly for children. All age groups benefited from increased preparation time, with larger benefits observed for children and older adults. Adults benefited to a greater extent than children when the interval between the response to one task and the cue indicating which task to perform next was lengthened, which suggested faster decay of interference from the old task set for adults than for children. A series of hierarchical analyses indicated that the age-related variance in task-switching performance is independent, at least in part, from the age-related variance in other cognitive processes such as perceptual speed and working memory. The results are discussed in terms of the development and decline of executive control processes across the life span.
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive development, Cognition, Adolescent, and 15 moreExecutive Control, Information Processing, Humans, Child, Female, Male, Comparative Analysis, Cognitive Process, Cognitive processes, Developmental, Aged, Middle Aged, Adult, Life Span, and Age Groups
Performance deteriorates when subjects must shift between two different tasks relative to performing either task sepa-rately. This switching cost is thought to result from executive processes that are not inherent to the component... more
Performance deteriorates when subjects must shift between two different tasks relative to performing either task sepa-rately. This switching cost is thought to result from executive processes that are not inherent to the component operations of either task when performed alone. Medial ...
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Cognition, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Aging, Attention, and 15 moreInformation Processing, Humans, Age, Frontal Cortex, Aged, Adult, Cognitive Function, Functional Neuroimaging, Age Factors, Older Adult, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neurosciences, Frontal Lobe, Functional Laterality, and Neuropsychological Tests
Performance deteriorates when subjects must shift between two different tasks relative to performing either task sepa-rately. This switching cost is thought to result from executive processes that are not inherent to the component... more
Performance deteriorates when subjects must shift between two different tasks relative to performing either task sepa-rately. This switching cost is thought to result from executive processes that are not inherent to the component operations of either task when performed alone. Medial ...
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Cognition, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Aging, Attention, and 15 moreInformation Processing, Humans, Age, Frontal Cortex, Aged, Adult, Cognitive Function, Functional Neuroimaging, Age Factors, Older Adult, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neurosciences, Frontal Lobe, Functional Laterality, and Neuropsychological Tests
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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This study assessed delays in physical growth and sexual maturation, self-esteem and body image in youth with homozygous sickle hemoglobin disease (HgbSS). A consecutive sample of 30 subjects age 8 through 19 with homozygous sickle cell... more
This study assessed delays in physical growth and sexual maturation, self-esteem and body image in youth with homozygous sickle hemoglobin disease (HgbSS). A consecutive sample of 30 subjects age 8 through 19 with homozygous sickle cell disease (hemoglobin SS) and a similar number of control subjects matched for age, race, gender and socioeconomic status and free of chronic illness were examined for height, weight and Tanner staging of sexual development. Subjects also completed the Body Cathexis Scale and Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale. Assessments were with paired samples t-tests. The subjects with sickle cell disease had significantly lower weights and were shorter than matched control subjects. Sexual development (physical) was also delayed in the sickle cell subjects. The study failed to find significant differences for either body image or self-esteem. The latency age and adolescent subjects with sickle cell disease had significant delays in physical (height, weight, secondar...
Research Interests: Sickle Cell Anemia, Body Image, Adolescent, Humans, Child, and 5 moreFemale, Male, Adult, Prognosis, and Sexual Maturation
1. The hypoglossal nucleus unitary correlates of ketamine- and electrically induced tongue contractions and swallowing events were recorded and compared in stereotaxically mounted rats. 2. Very few of the units recorded could be... more
1. The hypoglossal nucleus unitary correlates of ketamine- and electrically induced tongue contractions and swallowing events were recorded and compared in stereotaxically mounted rats. 2. Very few of the units recorded could be identified as motoneurons by antidromic invasion through electrical stimulation of the hypoglossal nerve. 3. The sample consists of 109 units, 2/3 of which were located in the retrusor pool and 1/3 in the protrusor region. 4. Linguo-pharyngeal events were considered to be electrically induced if they followed consistently, and with a relatively fixed latency, a single electrical pulse delivered to the superior laryngeal nerve, and ketamine-induced if no such time-locked sequence existed or if they occurred in the absence of electrical stimulation. 5. No differences could be discovered between the two types of linguo-pharyngeal events whether they were compared at the polygraphic or the unitary level. 6. These findings suggest that pharmacologically (ketamine...
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Researchers have designed training methods that can be used to improve mental health and to test the efficacy of education programs. However, few studies have demonstrated broad transfer from such training to performance on untrained... more
Researchers have designed training methods that can be used to improve mental health and to test the efficacy of education programs. However, few studies have demonstrated broad transfer from such training to performance on untrained cognitive activities. Here we report the effects of two interactive computerized training programs developed for preschool children: one for music and one for visual art. After only 20 days of training, only children in the music group exhibited enhanced performance on a measure of verbal intelligence, with 90% of the sample showing this improvement. These improvements in verbal intelligence were positively correlated with changes in functional brain plasticity during an executive-function task. Our findings demonstrate that transfer of a high-level cognitive skill is possible in early childhood.