Browsing by Subject "Information processing"
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Item Cognitive function in chronic non-malignant pain patients treated with sustained-release morphine sulfate (Avinza)(2005-12) Panjabi, Sumeet Sham; Shepherd, Marvin D.The purpose of this study is to evaluate the association between sustained-release morphine (Avinza®), and performance on neuropsychological tests assessing short term memory, information processing, and motor skills in chronic pain patients, while controlling for stages of pain model variables and the effects of benzodiazepines. A convenience sampling procedure was utilized to enroll a sample of patients who had a trial of short-acting narcotic analgesics for their chronic non-malignant pain. Enrolled patients were treated with long-acting morphine Avinza.® Patient interviews were conducted at enrollment and one-month follow-up. A total of 129 patients were enrolled in the study. Mean pain intensity ratings at the highest, lowest, and average levels in the previous week were lower at follow-up (10.90, 4.56. 7.64) than at baseline (12.71, 6.76, 10.01) respectively. Reduction in pain levels was associated with a corresponding reduction in levels of pain unpleasantness, pain suffering, and pain behaviors. The models evaluating the associations between the stages of pain model variables, morphine dose, benzodiazepine dose, and digit span test (chi square = 147.79, p = 0.76), digit symbol test (chi square = 128.06, p = 0.5), and paced auditory serial attention test fit the data well (chi square = 160.39, p = 0.85). There was a statistically significant inverse association between frequency of pain behaviors and digit span test scores at baseline (-0.49, p = 0.01). Although the association between pain behaviors and digit symbol test scores (- 17. 0 %, p = 0.09) and paced auditory serial addition test scores (-4.0%, p = .28) at baseline were not statistically significant, a large negative effect was found. At follow-up, the association between pain behaviors and digit span test was positive and not significant. The negative association between frequency of pain behaviors and digit symbol test scores (-4.4%, p = 0.67 ) and paced auditory serial addition test scores (-2.8%, p = 0.21) at follow-up were considerably weaker. There were no significant association between opioid dose and cognitive function test scores. Opioid therapy, particularly, sustained release morphine therapy (Avinza) does not contribute to cognitive impairment in chronic pain patients.Item Manipulating spatial frequency to understand global and local information processing in 7-month-old infants(2009-08) Gora, Keith Matthew; Cohen, Leslie B.It has been shown that infants build representations of their visual world by forming relations among its parts. However little is known about how they select the parts to relate. One possibility is that while constructing their visual world part by part they are also decomposing it, using finer and finer parts. One way to test this theory is to simply control the parts infants see. This easiest way to do this is to filter real life objects of their high and low spatial frequencies. High spatial frequencies provide information about the smaller parts where as low spatial frequencies provide information about the larger ones. By removing high or low spatial frequency we can control the coarseness of their representation and ultimately determine the level at which they function best. The present study examined infants’ ability to use high and low spatial frequencies to discriminate between objects. Infants were habituated and tested using a combination of high and low spatial frequency images. Only infants experiencing a consistent spatial frequency across habituation and test were able to discriminate between objects. Infants were also better at discriminating between objects containing high spatial frequencies. In a second study designed to be more true to life, infants were habituated to broadband images and tested using high or low spatial frequencies. This time infants did not discriminate between objects but they did look longer at low spatial frequency information than at the high. From these findings we can conclude that infants use both high and low spatial frequency information when discriminating objects, and that in certain cases one frequency may become more important than the other. The spatial frequency they use may be dependent on the context of the task. Numerous studies have shown that adults prioritize high and low spatial frequency information depending on how fast they want to process the object, the amount of detail they require, and whether they used high or low spatial frequency information during previous experiences. Infants may be similar. At times they may emphasize low spatial frequency information and the big picture. At other times they may emphasize high spatial frequency information and the detail. More studies examining how infants select information for processing are necessary and spatial frequency will likely to be an important tool in the investigation.Item Whirlpools of information: information processing in policy subsystems 1995-2010(2015-12) Shafran, JoBeth Surface; Jones, Bryan D.; Workman, Samuel; Theriault, Sean; Moser, Scott; McDaniel, EricThis project focuses on information processing in policy subsystems, specifically how congressional committees in the domestic commerce, energy, and health care policy areas prioritize available information, with an extended analysis of information supply and prioritization in energy policy. I examine the conditions under which federal bureaucrats are most likely to supply information to Congress in these three policy areas. I seek to determine whether and to what extent the bureaucratic supply of information changes by issue area, presiding congressional committee, and in response to problem uncertainty. My findings suggest that the number of bureaucrats testifying varies by both policy area and committee type. Furthermore, as the problem uncertainty for a committee increases, so too does the number of federal bureaucrats invited to testify. These findings are especially true for careerist bureaucrats. Within energy policy, my findings show that the subsystem actors most likely to supply information at a hearing varies across committees, over time, and by specific issue area. By examining who supplies information, this project will provide a better understanding of how subsystem actors are prioritized by congressional committees as information suppliers. This study is important because the information supplied by these non-elected policy elites can then influence the problem definition process, structure policy debates, and impact policy formulation.