Cognitive Lecture 3 Sequelae TBI 2 Flashcards
Attention
The allocation of processing resources
Forms the foundation for which all other cognitive skills are based
Difficulties may be more pronounced in less structured environments
5 Types of Attention
Focused Sustained Selective Alternating Divided
Focused/Sustained Attention
The state of focusing on 1 stimulus to the exclusion of all other competing stimuli
“I try to watch TV but I just drift off”
Selective Attention
The ability to focus on the important/relevant stimuli in the presence of distracting stimuli
“I can’t cook while there is noisy construction work happening next door; I get too distracted”
Alternating Attention
An individual is asked to focus on any 2 tasks that require thought & are completed at the same time
“I can’t listen to a lecture and take notes at the same time”
Divided Attention
An individual is asked to complete 2 tasks at once but 1 of the tasks requires little to no thought
“I can’t brush my daughter’s hair while talking on the phone; can’t do 2 things at once anymore”
Frontal Lobe
Frontal lobes responsible for higher-order functions; executive functions; emotional-behavioral-social control regulation, motor functioning, appropriate use of language, social pragmatics, subtleties of communication (innuendos, humor)
Damage/Disorders Related to the Frontal Lobe
Motor impairment, halting/disorganized speech; personality changes; aphasia; apraxia; difficulty with emotional/behavioral control
Pts may exhibit passivity, apathy, lack of internal drive/motivation
Executive Functions
Relate to one’s ability to use cognitive skills efficiently in a complex env’t
Help us regulate our abilities so we can achieve goals
Often performed without thinking & may be age-related in terms of development
umbrella term that encompasses many skills
Goal is to help regulate to achieve things
Something we just do; but we can think about them, especially in competing stimuli
Allow us to have morals
Ability to attend & focus underlies all of them
“Some” Executive Functions…
Planning and organizing; multi-tasking; learning rules; motivation; generalization; flexible thinking; problem solving; social behavior; initiating/inhibiting behavior; controlling emotions; monitoring performance; self-awareness; making decisions; goal setting; insight
Commonalities of Executive Dysfunction
Pts may begin a task prior to thinking through all the steps
Repetition of a thought, behavior, action, or verbal utterance that continues even though it is no longer appropriate
Tend to think about features in lieu of groups or categories
Inability to focus on more than 1 thing at a time
Easily distracted
Premorbid Psychosocial Responses
Inhibition and Emotional Stability
Post-Morbid Psychosocial Responses
Cognitive-communication deficits, disinhibition, emotional instability
Orientation
Person, place, time, purpose
A&Ox4: they know who they are, where they are, what month &/or year, why they’re there
Procedural memory
Implicit
Ability to perform skills in the absence of conscious awareness
• Like riding a bicycle and can remember the procedure; doing a lay-up in basketball; serving in tennis (start out really thinking about it & use declarative memory, but eventually it will become a procedure & you don’t have to think about it—becomes implicit)
Recognition of patterns, etc.
Declarative memory
Explicit
Factual memory; all about the facts; ability to do algebra, do well on GRE, etc.
Remembering to recall and not forget
6 Types of Memory
Long-term, recall, episodic, prospective, short-term, procedural
Problem Solving
Identifying problems, generating solutions, organizing, sequencing, implementing solutions, managing time, self-monitoring, safety
Critical Thinking
Drawing inferences, deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, abstract reasoning, flexibility of thought
Drawing Inferences
Making a connection between 2 otherwise unrelated facts
Deductive Reasoning
Drawing a specific conclusion from given info
getting/making spaghetti: we know we can’t make spaghetti because we don’t have all the ingredients
Inductive Reasoning
Drawing a general conclusion from inferred info
Relies on inferencing
a process of inferring info to arrive at a conclusion
Higher level thinking
Abstract Reasoning
Drawing conclusions based on notions, ideas, concepts that are not tangible
Flexibility of Thought
Shifting from 1 idea to another with relative ease
Cognitive Communication Challenges
Impact the social, academic, behavioral, vocational lives of survivors
