فصلنامه روانشناسی شناختی

Computer-based cognitive games are new and exciting for kids and adolescents that can help them to improve their cognitive functions and creativity in addition to entertainment. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of computerised cognitive games on executive functions and creativity of preschool children. This study is a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test, and control group design. The sample consisted of 21 preschool female and male children, who were selected by convenience sampling in a preschool centre in Bushehr. Participants were matched on the basis of gender, age and intelligence and were allocated to three groups of seven children, i.e., two experimental groups and one control group. Before and after cognitive games, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a simple Stroop software and the working memory Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) were used. The experimental groups played cognitive games such as Lomocyte and Tetris for 16 one-hour sessions, and the control group did not play any games during this time. The results showed that playing computerised cognitive games has a significant effect on creativity and working memory among preschool children. However, there is no significant effect on selective attention, cognitive flexibility, planning and organising. The results of this research have important theoretical and applied implications regarding the role of computerised cognitive games in promoting cognitive functions of preschool children.

The importance of understanding the pathology, nature, and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has always been emphasised throughout school. Children with ASD have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal social communication, which limit their ability regarding effective social communication and academic achievement. The purpose of this research was to compare learning strategies and executive functions among successful and non-successful autistic students in terms of academic achievement. For this purpose, 15 successful students with ASD and 15 non-successful students with ASD were recruited via the purposeful sampling method. The Autism-Spectrum Quotient Test, the executive functions and learning strategies questionnaires were used. Data was analysed with an independent t-test. Results showed that, successful students with ASD had a significant difference with the second group in all variables of learning strategies in addition to inhibition, emotional management, planning, organizing and attention shifting. It can be concluded that students with ASD who are successful in education use more learning strategies and have better executive functions compared with autistic students who are not successful in education.

Recent research has indicated the influence of bilingualism on many cognitive and emotional processes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of bilingualism in processing anger in Turkish-Persian bilinguals’ first (L1) and second (L2) language. To achieve this goal, 18 Turkish-Persian sequential bilingual students with an average age of 26 from different universities in Tehran were selected with targeted sampling to participate in this quasi-experimental research. Participants completed the language history questionnaire, the General Health questionnaire, and the Positive and Negative affect schedule questionnaire, in addition to a computerized task designed to induce anger and determine the meaningfulness of Turkish and Persian words and non-words. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that the participants significantly spent more time on determining the meaningfulness of words when they were induced with anger in comparison to the normal condition. Moreover, they were significantly slower in selecting Turkish words compared to Persian ones. Regarding the comparison of the two languages in both conditions separately, paired comparison results demonstrated that participants’ reaction time to Turkish words in anger inducing conditions was significantly longer. Thus, it could be proposed that Turkish-Persian bilinguals are more involved in their first language in emotional states, specifically anger states, and the Turkish language has more and deeper emotional associations for them, hence their emotional involvement is stronger for their mother tongue than for their second language.

One great ability of the brain is memory. Poor visual-auditory memory leads to dyslexia, dyscalculia and hyperactivity. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a test to determine the ability and accurate performance of memory. With this in mind, a test has been prepared using theoretical literature. This researcher-made memory test consists of four parts (numerical-verbal memory, visual memory, working memory and auditory-sentence memory) and its validity has been confirmed by professors of cognitive psychology and counselling in addition to using the random cluster sampling method on a sample of 308 elementary school students. The questions were analysed by relevant statistical methods and their validity, reliability and norm scores were determined. To evaluate the reliability of the test, three methods were used. The reliability coefficient was 0.83 using the internal consistency method and the Pearson correlation coefficient was determined to be r = 0.79 between the two halves of the questionnaire, which indicated that there was a high correlation between the two halves of the questionnaire. To determine the validity of the structure and components of the questionnaire, the principal component analysis method was used by rotation in the normalised Varimax method and to evaluate differential validity, an independent t-test was used. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of male and female students. (P < 0.001 and t (204) = 2.76). Based on the obtained reliability and validity, the audiovisual memory test is a tool that could be used by disorder and counselling centres. Moreover, it could be used as a tool for early assessment and diagnosis in the case of preschool students.

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of age and swimmers’ levels of somersaults skills on mental rotation. This study was conducted as a comparative causal research with a one-stage and post-event design. Participants were female swimmers in Shiraz, who were trained in somersaults.  Sixty subjects were selected by the purposive sampling method and then divided into four groups (a group of 7 to 9-year-olds with low skills, a group of 7 to 9-year-olds with high skills, a group of 10 to 12-year-olds with low skills, and a group of 10 to 12-year-olds with high skills). The salto skill level was determined based on the average score of three judges. To measure mental rotation, the pen and image paper test (with a reliability of 0.75 by Cronbach's alpha method) was used. The results showed that there was no significant difference in mental rotation scores between age groups (p = 0638). However, the scores of mental rotation showed a significant difference between the two groups of skill level (P = .0001). Moreover, mental rotation changed with different skill levels. Therefore, it is possible to change mental characteristics of athletes, including mental rotation by means of skill training.

Several studies have investigated wishful thinking or desirability bias in children and adults, while no research has been conducted for the evolution of wishful thinking during childhood and adolescence. The aim of the present research was to investigate the evolution of wishful thinking in Iranian children and adolescents aged from 7 to 14. This study was an evolutional one with a cross-sectional method. Participants were all students aged from 7 to 14 in public schools in the academic year of 2019-2020. The sample consisted of 240 individuals in 4 age groups and each group was made up of 30 females and 30 males selected by the convenience sampling method. The marked-card test, which has been designed as a web-based software, was used. The data were analyzed by a repeated measuring ANOVA. The results showed that wishful thinking among Iranian children did not decrease with age. Moreover, participants aged from 11 to 14 years indicated more severe bias than children from 7 to 10 years old in predicting unpleasant events, despite the perception of probabilities. Considering the effect of wishful thinking on the decision-making process, especially in predicting negative events and subsequently the occurrence of risky behaviors, further research would be necessary to find solutions for the awareness and balance of wishful thinking.

Combining psychoanalysis and neurology feels peculiar at first. The combination that tries to bind concepts of psychoanalysis with neuroscience in order to provide an integrates knowledge for better understanding of human mind. However, interaction between psychoanalysis and neuroscience has come to attention during past three decades. Purpose of this study is to investigate and find correlation between three styles of defense mechanism, Mature, immature and neurotic defense mechanism with executive functions within universities students of Tehran. For this matter a study performs on a sample of 140 students (including 76 women and 64 men) by available sampling. The instruments of this research were The Defense Styles Questionnaire (DSQ40) and four computer base test for executive functions including Continues Performance Test (CPT), Strops, 1-back, Go-No Go. The data was analyzed by Pearson correlation and multiple regression method. This study demonstrated significant relation between styles of defense mechanism and executive functions and also forms a model to estimate executive function shares in neurotic and growth defense mechanisms. As a result, the findings suggest that one’s performance on executive functions can affect their style of defense mechanism.

Emotion Recognition is the main component of social cognition. The failure in emotion recognition can jeopardize the survival of the human in the environment. Emotion recognition has various pattern in different cultures and nationalities. Some of the emotions would recognize as strong or weak. Also, there is diversity in emotion recognition pattern in some psychological disorders and neurological damages. Finding the Iranian emotion recognition pattern with a valid neuro-psychological test is the main purpose of this study. This is a descriptive-analytical study. Participants with the age of 24 to 40 years were initially tested in computer intelligence and progressive matrices of Raven-2 Then, for 88 subjects who had obtained a normal score in the RAVEN-2 test, the excitement recognition subtest was taken from the Cambridge Neuro-Psychological test automated battery (CANTAB). The correct response of participants to each of the six emotions used for analysis. The average percentage of correct responses to each of the six emotions has been analysis by SPSS statistical software. The normal distribution and spherical condition exist among the accumulated data. The maximum rate of correct responses was 75.83% related to happy emotion, sad 70.00%, Surprise 68.48%, disgust 47.84%, angry 42.54%, and fear 38.26%. Iranians recognized happy emotions better than the other emotions and fear was the lees recognized emotion. The finding of this study can affect the evaluation of cognitive elements in the particular society like Iran and can identify the most cognitive abilities and inabilities in people. The result of this research deduces striking findings that can lead the evaluation of cognitive, social people of Iran.

With the significant increase in the computer and internet usage, the new concept of addiction to internet games is now considered as a new psychiatric disorder. The evidences have demonstrated that the internet gaming disorder is similar to drug addiction in terms of neurology, but just a few researches has been done in terms of brain functions. The aim of this project is to compare Inhibitory control and risky decision making among heroin and methamphetamine users, internet gaming disorders and normal people. To do so 180 men participants (45 persons in each group) were selected via simple nonrandom or convenience sampling. Subjects of the study were evaluated using go/no go and Balloon Risk Taking Task (BART) test. For analyzing the results multivariable analyze of variance was used. Results showed that inhibitory control in both substance abuse disorder and internet gaming disorder was significantly lower than normal group (P<0.001). Although internet gaming disorder group showed better performance in comparison with substance abuse disorder group. (P<0.001) Moreover, risky decision-making in internet gaming disorder group was similar to substance abuse disorder group and was significantly higher than normal group (P<0.001). Generally, there are relative similarity in impulsivity parameters particularly in risky decision-making and inhibitory control between internet gaming group and substance abuse group. This can lead to continue taking drugs or online gaming despite of their annoying consequences.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of emotional induction on physiological characteristics and cognitive functions of adolescents based on psychological hardiness. In order to meet this aim, 400 students from 2 high schools in 2nd district of Tehran completed the Ahvaz Hardiness Questionnaire (AHI), of which two groups of 20 participants were selected based on the mean and standard deviation (10precent). One group included participants with a low hard score, and the other included hard participants. The pieces of films that create positive and negative emotional experiences (Mixed) were used in order to induce emotional experiences. The pieces of films (5 minute) were displayed individually for participants in each group. Physiological responses of the participants (systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate) were measured by the digital barometer and the participants’ cognitive performance were measured in two areas of attention and memory using the WAIS(III) as cognitive function - Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-revised (WAIS-R) - before and after watching the films. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference between the three baseline measurements of positive excitement induction and negative excitement induction for heart rate, systolic blood pressure or diastolic blood pressure at P <0.01. There was also a significant difference between the three baseline measurements of positive excitement induction and negative excitement induction for cognitive functions at P <0.01. Overall, the research findings indicate that people with high stubbornness have the power to prevent emotional and impulsive reactions to potentially stressful situations or events due to their hardiness and high self-control. They can effectively alleviate stressful situations and prevent mental and physical problems.

The aim of this research was to predict students' academic procrastination based on metacognitive beliefs about procrastination with the mediating role of test anxiety The research method was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population included all undergraduate students of Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran in the academic year of 2019-20, from which 320 (206 females and 114 males) were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling. The Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students, Spielberger test anxiety questionnaire and Metacognitive Beliefs about Procrastination Scale were used to collect data. Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling. Findings showed that the suggested conceptual model has a good fit with the data. The variables of test anxiety and metacognitive beliefs about procrastination accounted for most of the variance in academic procrastination, respectively, and explained a total of 28% of its variance. Negative metacognitive beliefs about procrastination only indirectly affected academic procrastination through test anxiety, and full mediation was endorsed. According to the results, it can be concluded that negative beliefs about procrastination make students prone to test anxiety and academic procrastination. Therefore, modifying these beliefs can be considered as an intervention program to decrease test anxiety and academic procrastination.

Given the increase in criminal behaviors and the damage they cause in society; it is important to study the psychological factors that make people prone to crime or prevent it from committing. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of cognitive executive functions in the relationship between behavioral brain systems with cognitive emotion regulation in prisoner men. The research was descriptive-correlational. The study population included all men who were serving their sentences in Kermanshah Central Prison in 1398, from which 300 people were selected by convenience sampling method. The participants completed the Gray-Wilson Personality Questionnaire (GWPQ-28), Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), and Cognitive Ability Questionnaire (Nejati, 2013). Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and structural equations using SPSS22 and AMOS24. Findings showed that path analysis models of the relationship between behavioral brain systems and cognitive emotion regulation with executive functions' mediating role have a good fit. The results emphasize the importance of behavioral brain systems and executive functions in cognitive emotion regulation. As a result, paying attention to executive functions in controlling and cognitively regulating emotions and promoting them can be effective in reducing criminal behaviors.

Due to the prevalence of depression and the existence of deficites in the executive functions of depressed people, it seems necessary to study and evaluate various treatment methods in the field of cognitive functions, including working memory. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Captain Log cognitive rehabilitation software on auditory and spatial working memory of people with depressive symptoms in Ahvaz. The method of this research was quasi-experimental with pre-test, post-test design and a control group. The population of this study was thirty individuals with depressive symptoms referring to psychology and psychiatric centers in Ahvaz and the web pages of these centers in 2009-2010. Participants were completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and the Wechsler Active Memory Profile Test-Third Edition). Participants were matched based on gender, age, education, socio-economic status, lack of acute physical, psychological diseases and they were randomly allocated into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group recieved cognitive rehabilitation for 10 sessions using Captain Log software, while the control group did not receive any intervention. After the intervention and post-test, the data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) by SPSS-24. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of auditory and spatial working memory (p < .001). The rate of auditory and spatial active memory in the experimental group were significantly increased in comparison with the pre-test scores and the scores of the control group. It can be concluded that Captain Log cognitive rehabilitation software has a significant effect on the auditory and spatial working memory of depressed people (p < .001). Therefore, the Captan Log cognitive rehabilitation software can be used to effectively increase the auditory and spatial working memory of people with depressive symptoms.

Cognitive Load Theory is one of the most powerful research frameworks in educational research. The main concern within this framework is to develop a proper instrument to measure cognitive load. Hence, the goal of this research was to investigate the reliability and validity of the Cognitive Load Questionnaire designed by Kelpsch, Schmitz and Seufert (2017). This questionnaire was administered to 206 seventh- and eighth-grade female students, in which they rated the amount of intrinsic, germane, and extraneous load of various learning tasks on a 7-point Likert scale. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were examined and confirmed through Cronbach's alpha coefficient and t-test in which the quality of individuals' answers in different tasks were compared together. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis was performed using LISREL 8.80, to investigate factor structure of the questionnaire. The results showed that the questionnaire has desirable reliability and validity to measure different types of cognitive load. The results of confirmatory factor analysis also revealed a three-factor structural model whose fit indices suggested a desirable fit with the data, thus corroborating the three-factor structure of the cognitive load questionnaire. Therefore, this questionnaire can be a proper measure to assess different types of cognitive load in seventh and eighth grade students.

Mindfulness is one of the effective interventions in improving executive functions. Although this intervention is well documented for adults, but it is less addressed for children, while children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder Executive functions are problematic. The purpose of this study is to Designing, developing and validating a psycho-educational program of empowerment based on mindfulness-cognitive for reduce behavioral symptoms and improve executive function in children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder. The present study is of the fundamental type, which is in two parts, In the first for designing and development stages was a descriptive - analytic method with a configurative synthesis approach In the second stage For program validation, along with the use of face validity method, content validity method was used quantitatively and Qualitatively method with a panel of 10 experts and Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI). The minimum and maximum CVRs for each item or component of the program were calculated as 0/73 and 1, respectively. Also the minimum and maximum CVIs for each item or component of the program were calculated as 0/80 and 1, respectively. Finally, the average content validity index (S-CVI/Ave) for the entire program was calculated as 0/91. This research leads to the preparation of an educational-therapeutic program in three sections: 1- basics, 2- external awareness and 3- internal awareness, which includes the sub-elements of strengthening attention, concentration, awareness of emotions, thoughts, tasks, purpose and impulses. Be. This educational-therapeutic program includes 16 sessions for children and 3 sessions for parents, 120 cards and 20 educational worksheets. The psycho educational program of empowerment based on mindfulness- cognitive for  reduce behavioral symptoms and improve executive function in children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder has appropriate face and content validity, and has a useful validity for educational, clinical and research uses.

Human has always been interested in thinking about nature of self, and knowing its dimensions. In fact, different information is forming psychological and embodied representations through cognitive processes. The result of these representations is two types of mental sense of self: body self-awareness, and psychological self-awareness. Sometimes, the real representation makes mistake and, under certain circumstances, experiences an artificial hand as a real one. This study was designed and conducted to predicting rubber hand illusion based on embodied and psychological self-awareness. The statistical population consisted of all male and female students living in Tehran. A sample of 167 people (96 females and 71 males) were selected by convenience sampling method. Research instruments included the self-consciousness scale (Fenigstein et al., 1975), and embodied sense of self scale (Asai et al., 2016) as well as performing Rubber hand illusion testing. Data were analyzed by using SPSS and AMOS software. The results of path analysis showed that the dimensions of psychological and embodied self-awareness have a negative and significant direct relationship with rubber hand illusion. Also private self-awareness mediated by embodied ownership and agency awareness; and public self-awareness mediated by embodied ownership awareness are negatively and indirectly related to rubber hand illusion. These results indicate the role of different dimensions of consciousness in body representations and have created new insights into the boundaries of knowledge related to these concepts.

the children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)  in executive functions such as kinds of attention, response inhibition and response rate cope with problems which need therapeutic and educational plans to improve. From this kind of methods, cognitive rehabilitation is a new approach, which its effectiveness has studied in various cases. The aim of this study is to find out the effect of Computer- assisted cognitive rehabilitation on improving of executive function of students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. This study is a kind of quasi-experimental design with pre-test / post-test and control groups. 30 students come down with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) selected by the available sampling method and base on criteria for entering of referrals to medical centers. 15 students were in experimental groups and others in control group. Experimental group have received training and computer-assisted Cognitive Rehabilitation for 15 Sessions. the integrated visual and auditory (IVA) continuous performance test, raven's progressive matrices test for children 5 to 9 years, SNAP-IV rating scale the Swanson questionnaire and Captain's­Log Cognitive Rehabilitation software. Data has analyzed by analyze of covariance method. the results of this study revealed that improving executive functions, response inhibition variables, sustain attention, self-centered attention and selective attention were caused by Cognitive Rehabilitation by computer game (P=0.05). But, significant Improvement was not observed in two variables, response rate and divided attention. (P=0.05). Ognitive Rehabilitation by Captain's­Log computer game affected on improving of executive functions of students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder so if the children with disorder being train under Cognitive computer software, executive functions of them will improve on response inhibition components, self-centered attention, selective attention and sustain attention.

The main purpose of this study was to determine the effect of computer cognitive empowerment on the attentional functions, concentration and cognitive effort of the elderly. Metods This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. Participants were 30 elderly people who were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (Each group includes 15 people). Instruments included Captain's Log cognitive software and D2 test. Data analysis was performed using analysis of covariance. Data analysis using analysis of covariance showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of pre-test and post-test in the experimental and control groups (p <0.001). The results of this study show that computer cognitive empowerment can be used as an effective method to improve attention, concentration and cognitive effort in the elderly.