Neuropsychological Domains

Question 1

Posner and Petersen (2012) neurobiological models of attention

Answer 1

The posterior network has to do with orienting and shifting attention in the environment

The anterior system serves as the detection subsystem (or executive attention subsystem) and involves detecting stimuli either from sensory events or from memory (i.e., signal detection)

The alerting network (subserved by the ascending reticular activating system [ARAS]), can influence both anterior and posterior networks, operating at high or low levels of arousal

Question 2

Memory encoding

Answer 2

Active organization or manipulation of incoming stimuli, such as through rehearsal and repetition

Question 3

Memory consolidation

Answer 3

Process by which encoded information undergoes a series of processes that render the memory representations progressively more stable and permanent

Question 4

Sensory memory

Answer 4

Holds information only 1–2 seconds for “iconic” (visual) and 3–4 seconds for “echoic” (auditory)

Question 5

Short-Term Memory

Answer 5

Limited capacity of 7 +/- 2 items (Ebbinghaus); temporary store whereby information can be held for up to several minutes; often equated with working memory and attention

Question 6

Long-Term Memory

Answer 6

A more permanent memory store where information is stored by way of consolidation or learning. It requires the hippocampus where structural change takes place due to long-term potentiation (LTP). Not as chronologically old as remote memory

Question 7

Remote memory

Answer 7

Old memories, which are thought to be more stable or resilient to damage and disease than recent memory

Question 8

Declarative Memory (Explicit)

Answer 8

Memory system concerned with the conscious retrieval or recognition of contextually related information or episodes

Question 9

Semantic memory

Answer 9

Knowledge of facts

Question 10

Episodic memory

Answer 10

Knowledge of temporal events; autobiographical

Question 11

Prospective Memory

Answer 11

Remembering to do something at a particular time in the future. It is a process that also involves executive abilities and frontal systems. Declines with age.

Question 12

Non-Declarative Memory (Implicit
or Procedural)

Answer 12

A memory system that is responsible for skills, procedures, habits, and classically conditioned responses and takes place largely without awareness

Question 13

Retroactive interference

Answer 13

What’s being affected? Retro/old info

A process by which recently learned information interferes with the ability to remember previously learned information

Question 14

Proactive interference

Answer 14

What’s being affected/interfered? Pro (more recent)

A process by which previously learned information interferes with new or current learning

Question 15

Retrograde Amnesia

Answer 15

amnesia for events prior to an accident, illness, or event;

typically temporally graded, whereby events immediately before are lost, whereas more remote memories remain intact. Ribot’s Law states that the oldest memories are the most
resistant to amnesia.

Studies have underscored an association between severity of retrograde amnesia and extent of hippocampal pathology.

Question 16

Anterograde Amnesia

Answer 16

inability to learn or encode new information or form new
memories.

Post-Traumatic Amnesia (PTA) is a type of anterograde amnesia. The length of PTA is one of the best indicators
of TBI severity/long term outcome.

Question 17

Functional Amnesia

Answer 17

a.k.a. psychogenic amnesia, including fugue

psychiatric etiology, rather than one caused by physical injury.

Retrograde amnesia can include personal identity and/or be limited to autobiographical memory. It is often triggered by an emotionally traumatic event.

Question 18

Infantile Amnesia

Answer 18

failure to recall autobiographical information from early childhood
years; thought to be a normal part of development.

Question 19

Transient Global Amnesia

Answer 19

etiology usually due to hypoperfusion of medial temporal

can also occur after electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

acute-onset memory loss that typically lasts for less than ten hours (but can last days) and results in profound anterograde amnesia and variable retrograde amnesia.

Question 20

Wernicke-Korsakoff’s Syndrome

Answer 20

occurs as a result of chronic alcohol use and thiamine deficiency.

Korsakoff’s syndrome involves a diencephalic (thalamus and hypothalamus) amnesia that results in both anterograde and retrograde amnesia (loss of remote memory), proactive interference, temporal order impairment, confabulation, and poor insight.

It is also associated with gait ataxia, oculomotor palsy, and encephalopathy

Question 21

Describe the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)

Answer 21

scored between 3 and 15, with 3 being the worst and 15 the best

It is composed of 3 parameters: eye response, verbal response, and motor response

Impairment: mild 13-15, moderate 9-12, severe 3-8

Question 22

Positive predictive value (PPV) is defined as

Answer 22

the true positives divided by (true positives plus false positives)

Question 23

The concept of “organicity” refers to what kind of theory?

Answer 23

domain-general theory -

is an older term referring to the presence of brain damage, or abnormal cerebral function. It refers to a concept of whole-brain involvement, rather than specific, regional dysfunction of specific bran centers and corresponding discrete functional impairment (localization model).

Question 24

How should below average scores be labeled?

Answer 24

low (not impaired, abnormal, or deficient) , following the AACN paper

Question 25

A normative sample of a test where performance is measured in the number of errors made, and in which nearly all persons make no errors, would be called:

Answer 25

positively skewed

Question 26

The benefit of Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) in geriatric population compared to BDI or BAI is…?

Answer 26

GDS includes fewer items that are specific to the physical manifestations of emotional difficulty. Physical complaints tend to increase with age, and some of the content included on the BDI-II and BAI may be falsely attributed to emotional distress as opposed to common age-related ailments.

Question 27

The post-test probability

Answer 27

probability the individual has a disease with a positive test result and is based on the post-test odds, which is the increase in the odds of a person having the disease with a positive test result from the pre-test odds.

Question 28

Equipotentiality

Answer 28

Theory that suggests that all areas of the brain are equally able to perform a task. For example, when patients with aphasia learning to speak again. major theories of aphasia recovery suggest that (1) homologous brain regions from the contralateral hemisphere are thought to assume the functional duties of the damaged brain regions, and/or (2) that adjacent, undamaged cerebral regions are employed to assume functional duties.

Question 29

Difference between MMSE and MoCA?

Answer 29

MMSE de-emphasizes working memory and executive functions and may lack sensitivity to subcortical-frontal dysfunction

Question 30

Criterion validity (or criterion-related validity)

Answer 30

evaluates how accurately a test measures the outcome it was designed to measure.

Question 31

Double simultaneous stimulation (DSS) is used to screen for

Answer 31

Neglect

Question 32

Sensitivity vs. specificity

Answer 32

Sensitivity refers to a test’s ability to designate an individual with disease as positive. (% of children with ADHD who scored in the abnormal range)

The specificity of a test is its ability to designate an individual who does not have a disease as negative. (% of children without ADHD obtain scores in the normal range)

Question 33

Type I error

Answer 33

null hypothesis is rejected when it’s true (one concludes that a difference exists when it really does not)

Question 34

Type II error

Answer 34

means not rejecting the null hypothesis when it’s actually false

Question 35

Item difficulty index (p)

Answer 35

the item difficulty is simply the percentage of students who answer an item correctly

items with moderate difficulty level (p=0.5) are typically retained b/c it helps maximize differentiation of subjects

Question 36

Which statistical test is used in experimental designs that are most likely to assess causation?

Answer 36

ANCOVA

Question 37

Typical male advantage on spatial tasks is about how many standard deviations?

Answer 37

0.5