When Higher Working Memory Capacity Hinders Insight

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeCaro, Marci S.; Van Stockum, Charles A., Jr.; Wieth, Mareike B.

2016-01-01

Higher working memory capacity (WMC) improves performance on a range of cognitive and academic tasks. However, a greater ability to control attention sometimes leads individuals with higher WMC to persist in using complex, attention-demanding approaches that are suboptimal for a given task. We examined whether higher WMC would hinder insight…

Physical Activity Predicts Performance in an Unpracticed Bimanual Coordination Task.

PubMed

Boisgontier, Matthieu P; Serbruyns, Leen; Swinnen, Stephan P

2017-01-01

Practice of a given physical activity is known to improve the motor skills related to this activity. However, whether unrelated skills are also improved is still unclear. To test the impact of physical activity on an unpracticed motor task, 26 young adults completed the international physical activity questionnaire and performed a bimanual coordination task they had never practiced before. Results showed that higher total physical activity predicted higher performance in the bimanual task, controlling for multiple factors such as age, physical inactivity, music practice, and computer games practice. Linear mixed models allowed this effect of physical activity to be generalized to a large population of bimanual coordination conditions. This finding runs counter to the notion that generalized motor abilities do not exist and supports the existence of a "learning to learn" skill that could be improved through physical activity and that impacts performance in tasks that are not necessarily related to the practiced activity.

The effect of processing code, response modality and task difficulty on dual task performance and subjective workload in a manual system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Yili; Wickens, Christopher D.

1987-01-01

This paper reports on the first experiment of a series studying the effect of task structure and difficulty demand on time-sharing performance and workload in both automated and corresponding manual systems. The experimental task involves manual control time-shared with spatial and verbal decisions tasks of two levels of difficulty and two modes of response (voice or manual). The results provide strong evidence that tasks and processes competing for common processing resources are time shared less effecively and have higher workload than tasks competing for separate resources. Subjective measures and the structure of multiple resources are used in conjunction to predict dual task performance. The evidence comes from both single-task and from dual-task performance.

Persistency and flexibility of complex brain networks underlie dual-task interference.

PubMed

Alavash, Mohsen; Hilgetag, Claus C; Thiel, Christiane M; Gießing, Carsten

2015-09-01

Previous studies on multitasking suggest that performance decline during concurrent task processing arises from interfering brain modules. Here, we used graph-theoretical network analysis to define functional brain modules and relate the modular organization of complex brain networks to behavioral dual-task costs. Based on resting-state and task fMRI we explored two organizational aspects potentially associated with behavioral interference when human subjects performed a visuospatial and speech task simultaneously: the topological overlap between persistent single-task modules, and the flexibility of single-task modules in adaptation to the dual-task condition. Participants showed a significant decline in visuospatial accuracy in the dual-task compared with single visuospatial task. Global analysis of topological similarity between modules revealed that the overlap between single-task modules significantly correlated with the decline in visuospatial accuracy. Subjects with larger overlap between single-task modules showed higher behavioral interference. Furthermore, lower flexible reconfiguration of single-task modules in adaptation to the dual-task condition significantly correlated with larger decline in visuospatial accuracy. Subjects with lower modular flexibility showed higher behavioral interference. At the regional level, higher overlap between single-task modules and less modular flexibility in the somatomotor cortex positively correlated with the decline in visuospatial accuracy. Additionally, higher modular flexibility in cingulate and frontal control areas and lower flexibility in right-lateralized nodes comprising the middle occipital and superior temporal gyri supported dual-tasking. Our results suggest that persistency and flexibility of brain modules are important determinants of dual-task costs. We conclude that efficient dual-tasking benefits from a specific balance between flexibility and rigidity of functional brain modules. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Reactive and regulative temperament in patients with compulsive buying and non-clinical controls measured by self-report and performance-based tasks.

PubMed

Voth, Eva M; Claes, Laurence; Georgiadou, Ekaterini; Selle, Janine; Trotzke, Patrick; Brand, Matthias; de Zwaan, Martina; Müller, Astrid

2014-10-01

To examine reactive and regulative temperament in patients with compulsive buying (CB) by means of self-report measures and performance-based tasks and to explore the relationship between both measurement approaches. The study included 31 treatment-seeking patients with CB (25 women, 6 men) and an age and gender matched non-clinical control group without CB (CG). All participants answered the Compulsive Buying Scale (CBS). Reactive temperament was assessed using the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System Scales (BIS/BAS) and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Regulative temperament was measured using the Effortful Control subscale of the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (ATQ-EC) and a computerized version of the Stroop Task. To control the results for depression, the Patient Health Questionnaire-Depression Scale (PHQ-9) was administered. Crude group comparisons revealed higher BIS and BAS scores, poorer IGT performance and lower ATQ-EC scores in the CB-group compared to the CG. The groups did not differ in their performance on the Stroop task. After controlling for depressive symptoms that were significantly higher in the CB-group, only the group differences in BAS reactivity remained significant. No significant associations were found between questionnaires and performance-based tasks. Overall, the findings indicate that CB in the present clinical sample of treatment-seeking patients was mainly associated with higher approach tendencies and more depressive symptoms. The lacking correlation between self-reports and performance-based tasks is in line with prior research and suggests that both methodologies tap into different aspects of temperament. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Combining Partial Directed Coherence and Graph Theory to Analyse Effective Brain Networks of Different Mental Tasks.

PubMed

Huang, Dengfeng; Ren, Aifeng; Shang, Jing; Lei, Qiao; Zhang, Yun; Yin, Zhongliang; Li, Jun; von Deneen, Karen M; Huang, Liyu

2016-01-01

The aim of this study is to qualify the network properties of the brain networks between two different mental tasks (play task or rest task) in a healthy population. EEG signals were recorded from 19 healthy subjects when performing different mental tasks. Partial directed coherence (PDC) analysis, based on Granger causality (GC), was used to assess the effective brain networks during the different mental tasks. Moreover, the network measures, including degree, degree distribution, local and global efficiency in delta, theta, alpha, and beta rhythms were calculated and analyzed. The local efficiency is higher in the beta frequency and lower in the theta frequency during play task whereas the global efficiency is higher in the theta frequency and lower in the beta frequency in the rest task. This study reveals the network measures during different mental states and efficiency measures may be used as characteristic quantities for improvement in attentional performance.

Uncertainty and Decision Making

DTIC Science & Technology

1979-09-01

higher productivity and satisfaction than a nonsupportive co-worker and enriched tasks affected attitudes but not performance . The greatest uncertainty...leadership V- 4••,,. • , -9- style, goals, and task HLructure) on psychological uncertainty and the resultant effect on performance and satisfaction . People...turn related to satisfaction and performance . In general, a stric- turing leadership style, specific goals and a structured task result in lower unce

Overthinking skilled motor performance: or why those who teach can't do.

PubMed

Flegal, Kristin E; Anderson, Michael C

2008-10-01

Skilled athletes often maintain that overthinking disrupts performance of their motor skills. Here, we examined whether these experiences have a basis in verbal overshadowing, a phenomenon in which describing memories for ineffable perceptual experiences disrupts later retention. After learning a unique golf-putting task, golfers of low and intermediate skill either described their actions in detail or performed an irrelevant verbal task. They then performed the putting task again. Strikingly, describing their putting experience significantly impaired higher skill golfers' ability to reachieve the putting criterion, compared with higher skill golfers who performed the irrelevant verbal activity. Verbalization had no such effect, however, for lower skill golfers. These findings establish that the effects of overthinking extend beyond dual-task interference and may sometimes reflect impacts on long-term memory. We propose that these effects are mediated by competition between procedural and declarative memory, as suggested by recent work in cognitive neuroscience.

The effects of fatigue on performance in simulated nursing work.

PubMed

Barker, Linsey M; Nussbaum, Maury A

2011-09-01

Fatigue is associated with increased rates of medical errors and healthcare worker injuries, yet existing research in this sector has not considered multiple dimensions of fatigue simultaneously. This study evaluated hypothesised causal relationships between mental and physical fatigue and performance. High and low levels of mental and physical fatigue were induced in 16 participants during simulated nursing work tasks in a laboratory setting. Task-induced changes in fatigue dimensions were quantified using both subjective and objective measures, as were changes in performance on physical and mental tasks. Completing the simulated work tasks increased total fatigue, mental fatigue and physical fatigue in all experimental conditions. Higher physical fatigue adversely affected measures of physical and mental performance, whereas higher mental fatigue had a positive effect on one measure of mental performance. Overall, these results suggest causal effects between manipulated levels of mental and physical fatigue and task-induced changes in mental and physical performance. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Nurse fatigue and performance has implications for patient and provider safety. Results from this study demonstrate the importance of a multidimensional view of fatigue in understanding the causal relationships between fatigue and performance. The findings can guide future work aimed at predicting fatigue-related performance decrements and designing interventions.

The effects of aging on postural control and selective attention when stepping down while performing a concurrent auditory response task.

PubMed

Tsang, William W N; Lam, Nazca K Y; Lau, Kit N L; Leung, Harry C H; Tsang, Crystal M S; Lu, Xi

2013-12-01

To investigate the effects of aging on postural control and cognitive performance in single- and dual-tasking. A cross-sectional comparative design was conducted in a university motion analysis laboratory. Young adults (n = 30; age 21.9 ± 2.4 years) and older adults (n = 30; age 71.9 ± 6.4 years) were recruited. Postural control after stepping down was measured with and without performing a concurrent auditory response task. Measurement included: (1) reaction time and (2) error rate in performing the cognitive task; (3) total sway path and (4) total sway area after stepping down. Our findings showed that the older adults had significantly longer reaction times and higher error rates than the younger subjects in both the single-tasking and dual-tasking conditions. The older adults had significantly longer reaction times and higher error rates when dual-tasking compared with single-tasking, but the younger adults did not. The older adults demonstrated significantly less total sway path, but larger total sway area in single-leg stance after stepping down than the young adults. The older adults showed no significant change in total sway path and area between the dual-tasking and when compared with single-tasking conditions, while the younger adults showed significant decreases in sway. Older adults prioritize postural control by sacrificing cognitive performance when faced with dual-tasking.

Differences in Arithmetic Performance between Chinese and German Children Are Accompanied by Differences in Processing of Symbolic Numerical Magnitude

PubMed Central

Lonnemann, Jan; Linkersdörfer, Janosch; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Lindberg, Sven

2016-01-01

Symbolic numerical magnitude processing skills are assumed to be fundamental to arithmetic learning. It is, however, still an open question whether better arithmetic skills are reflected in symbolic numerical magnitude processing skills. To address this issue, Chinese and German third graders were compared regarding their performance in arithmetic tasks and in a symbolic numerical magnitude comparison task. Chinese children performed better in the arithmetic tasks and were faster in deciding which one of two Arabic numbers was numerically larger. The group difference in symbolic numerical magnitude processing was fully mediated by the performance in arithmetic tasks. We assume that a higher degree of familiarity with arithmetic in Chinese compared to German children leads to a higher speed of retrieving symbolic numerical magnitude knowledge. PMID:27630606

An exploratory study of long-haul truck drivers' secondary tasks and reasons for performing them.

PubMed

Iseland, Tobias; Johansson, Emma; Skoog, Siri; Dåderman, Anna M

2018-08-01

Research on drivers has shown how certain visual-manual secondary tasks, unrelated to driving, increase the risk of being involved in crashes. The purpose of the study was to investigate (1) if long-haul truck drivers in Sweden engage in secondary tasks while driving, what tasks are performed and how frequently, (2) the drivers' self-perceived reason/s for performing them, and (3) if psychological factors might reveal reasons for their engaging in secondary tasks. The study comprised 13 long-haul truck drivers and was conducted through observations, interviews, and questionnaires. The drivers performed secondary tasks, such as work environment related "necessities" (e.g., getting food and/or beverages from the refrigerator/bag, eating, drinking, removing a jacket, face rubbing, and adjusting the seat), interacting with a mobile phone/in-truck technology, and doing administrative tasks. The long-haul truck drivers feel bored and use secondary tasks as a coping strategy to alleviate boredom/drowsiness, and for social interaction. The higher number of performed secondary tasks could be explained by lower age, shorter driver experience, less openness to experience, lower honesty-humility, lower perceived stress, lower workload, and by higher health-related quality of life. These explanatory results may serve as a starting point for further studies on large samples to develop a safer and healthier environment for long-haul truck drivers. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Improving older adults' memory performance using prior task success.

PubMed

Geraci, Lisa; Miller, Tyler M

2013-06-01

Holding negative aging stereotypes can lead older adults to perform poorly on memory tests. We attempted to improve older adults' memory performance by giving them task experience that would counter their negative performance expectations. Before participating in a memory experiment, younger and older adults were given a cognitive task that they could either successfully complete, not successfully complete, or they were given no prior task. For older adults, recall was significantly higher and self-reported anxiety was significantly lower for the prior task success group relative to the other groups. There was no effect of prior task experience on younger adults' memory performance. Results suggest that older adults' memory can be improved with a single successful prior task experience. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

The effects of performance-based assessment criteria on student performance and self-assessment skills

PubMed Central

van der Klink, Marcel R.; van Merriënboer, Jeroen J. G.

2010-01-01

This study investigated the effect of performance-based versus competence-based assessment criteria on task performance and self-assessment skills among 39 novice secondary vocational education students in the domain of nursing and care. In a performance-based assessment group students are provided with a preset list of performance-based assessment criteria, describing what students should do, for the task at hand. The performance-based group is compared to a competence-based assessment group in which students receive a preset list of competence-based assessment criteria, describing what students should be able to do. The test phase revealed that the performance-based group outperformed the competence-based group on test task performance. In addition, higher performance of the performance-based group was reached with lower reported mental effort during training, indicating a higher instructional efficiency for novice students. PMID:20054648

Use of EEG workload indices for diagnostic monitoring of vigilance decrement.

PubMed

Kamzanova, Altyngul T; Kustubayeva, Almira M; Matthews, Gerald

2014-09-01

A study was run to test which of five electroencephalographic (EEG) indices was most diagnostic of loss of vigilance at two levels of workload. EEG indices of alertness include conventional spectral power measures as well as indices combining measures from multiple frequency bands, such as the Task Load Index (TLI) and the Engagement Index (El). However, it is unclear which indices are optimal for early detection of loss of vigilance. Ninety-two participants were assigned to one of two experimental conditions, cued (lower workload) and uncued (higher workload), and then performed a 40-min visual vigilance task. Performance on this task is believed to be limited by attentional resource availability. EEG was recorded continuously. Performance, subjective state, and workload were also assessed. The task showed a vigilance decrement in performance; cuing improved performance and reduced subjective workload. Lower-frequency alpha (8 to 10.9 Hz) and TLI were most sensitive to the task parameters. The magnitude of temporal change was larger for lower-frequency alpha. Surprisingly, higher TLI was associated with superior performance. Frontal theta and El were influenced by task workload only in the final period of work. Correlational data also suggested that the indices are distinct from one another. Lower-frequency alpha appears to be the optimal index for monitoring vigilance on the task used here, but further work is needed to test how diagnosticity of EEG indices varies with task demands. Lower-frequency alpha may be used to diagnose loss of operator alertness on tasks requiring vigilance.

Functional brain organization of working memory in adolescents varies in relation to family income and academic achievement.

PubMed

Finn, Amy S; Minas, Jennifer E; Leonard, Julia A; Mackey, Allyson P; Salvatore, John; Goetz, Calvin; West, Martin R; Gabrieli, Christopher F O; Gabrieli, John D E

2017-09-01

Working memory (WM) capacity reflects executive functions associated with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks and education outcomes, including mathematics achievement, and is associated with dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. Here we asked if family income is associated with variation in the functional brain organization of WM capacity among adolescents, and whether that variation is associated with performance on a statewide test of academic achievement in mathematics. Participants were classified into higher-income and lower-income groups based on family income, and performed a WM task with a parametric manipulation of WM load (N-back task) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Behaviorally, the higher-income group had greater WM capacity and higher mathematics achievement scores. Neurally, the higher-income group showed greater activation as a function of WM load in bilateral prefrontal, parietal, and other regions, although the lower-income group exhibited greater activation at the lowest load. Both groups exhibited positive correlations between parietal activations and mathematics achievement scores, but only the higher-income group exhibited a positive correlation between prefrontal activations and mathematics scores. Most of these findings were maintained when higher- and lower-income groups were matched on WM task performance or nonverbal IQ. Findings indicate that the functional neural architecture of WM varies with family income and is associated with education measures of mathematics achievement. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Effect of Orthographic Neighborhood in the Reading Span Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robert, Christelle; Postal, Virginie; Mathey, Stéphanie

2015-01-01

This study aimed at examining whether and to what extent orthographic neighborhood of words influences performance in a working memory span task. Twenty-five participants performed a reading span task in which final words to be memorized had either no higher frequency orthographic neighbor or at least one. In both neighborhood conditions, each…

Long-Term Effects of Attentional Performance on Functional Brain Network Topology

PubMed Central

Breckel, Thomas P. K.; Thiel, Christiane M.; Bullmore, Edward T.; Zalesky, Andrew; Patel, Ameera X.; Giessing, Carsten

2013-01-01

Individuals differ in their cognitive resilience. Less resilient people demonstrate a greater tendency to vigilance decrements within sustained attention tasks. We hypothesized that a period of sustained attention is followed by prolonged changes in the organization of “resting state” brain networks and that individual differences in cognitive resilience are related to differences in post-task network reorganization. We compared the topological and spatial properties of brain networks as derived from functional MRI data (N = 20) recorded for 6 mins before and 12 mins after the performance of an attentional task. Furthermore we analysed changes in brain topology during task performance and during the switches between rest and task conditions. The cognitive resilience of each individual was quantified as the rate of increase in response latencies over the 32-minute time course of the attentional paradigm. On average, functional networks measured immediately post-task demonstrated significant and prolonged changes in network organization compared to pre-task networks with higher connectivity strength, more clustering, less efficiency, and shorter distance connections. Individual differences in cognitive resilience were significantly correlated with differences in the degree of recovery of some network parameters. Changes in network measures were still present in less resilient individuals in the second half of the post-task period (i.e. 6–12 mins after task completion), while resilient individuals already demonstrated significant reductions of functional connectivity and clustering towards pre-task levels. During task performance brain topology became more integrated with less clustering and higher global efficiency, but linearly decreased with ongoing time-on-task. We conclude that sustained attentional task performance has prolonged, “hang-over” effects on the organization of post-task resting-state brain networks; and that more cognitively resilient individuals demonstrate faster rates of network recovery following a period of attentional effort. PMID:24040185

Neural efficiency as a function of task demands☆

PubMed Central

Dunst, Beate; Benedek, Mathias; Jauk, Emanuel; Bergner, Sabine; Koschutnig, Karl; Sommer, Markus; Ischebeck, Anja; Spinath, Birgit; Arendasy, Martin; Bühner, Markus; Freudenthaler, Heribert; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.

2014-01-01

The neural efficiency hypothesis describes the phenomenon that brighter individuals show lower brain activation than less bright individuals when working on the same cognitive tasks. The present study investigated whether the brain activation–intelligence relationship still applies when more versus less intelligent individuals perform tasks with a comparable person-specific task difficulty. In an fMRI-study, 58 persons with lower (n = 28) or respectively higher (n = 30) intelligence worked on simple and difficult inductive reasoning tasks having the same person-specific task difficulty. Consequently, less bright individuals received sample-based easy and medium tasks, whereas bright subjects received sample-based medium and difficult tasks. This design also allowed a comparison of lower versus higher intelligent individuals when working on the same tasks (i.e. sample-based medium task difficulty). In line with expectations, differences in task performance and in brain activation were only found for the subset of tasks with the same sample-based task difficulty, but not when comparing tasks with the same person-specific task difficulty. These results suggest that neural efficiency reflects an (ability-dependent) adaption of brain activation to the respective task demands. PMID:24489416

Divided attention and mental effort after severe traumatic brain injury.

PubMed

Azouvi, Philippe; Couillet, Josette; Leclercq, Michel; Martin, Yves; Asloun, Sybille; Rousseaux, Marc

2004-01-01

The aim of this study was to assess dual-task performance in TBI patients, under different experimental conditions, with or without explicit emphasis on one of two tasks. Results were compared with measurement of the subjective mental effort required to perform each task. Forty-three severe TBI patients at the subacute or chronic phase performed two tasks under single- and dual-task conditions: (a) random generation; (b) visual go-no go reaction time task. Three dual-task conditions were given, requiring either to consider both tasks as equally important or to focus preferentially on one of them. Patients were compared to matched controls. Subjective mental effort was rated on a visual analogic scale. TBI patients showed a disproportionate increase in reaction time in the go-no go task under the dual-task condition. However, they were just as able as controls to adapt performance to the specific instructions about the task to be emphasised. Patients reported significantly higher subjective mental effort, but the variation of mental effort according to task condition was similar to that of controls. These results suggest that the divided attention deficit of TBI patients is related to a reduction in available processing resources rather than an impairment of strategic processes responsible for attentional allocation and switching. The higher level of subjective mental effort may explain why TBI patients frequently complain of mental fatigue, although this subjective complaint seems to be relatively independent of cognitive impairment.

Finger tapping and pre-attentive sensorimotor timing in adults with ADHD.

PubMed

Hove, Michael J; Gravel, Nickolas; Spencer, Rebecca M C; Valera, Eve M

2017-12-01

Sensorimotor timing deficits are considered central to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the tasks establishing timing impairments often involve interconnected processes, including low-level sensorimotor timing and higher level executive processes such as attention. Thus, the source of timing deficits in ADHD remains unclear. Low-level sensorimotor timing can be isolated from higher level processes in a finger-tapping task that examines the motor response to unexpected shifts of metronome onsets. In this study, adults with ADHD and ADHD-like symptoms (n = 25) and controls (n = 26) performed two finger-tapping tasks. The first assessed tapping variability in a standard tapping task (metronome-paced and unpaced). In the other task, participants tapped along with a metronome that contained unexpected shifts (±15, 50 ms); the timing adjustment on the tap following the shift captures pre-attentive sensorimotor timing (i.e., phase correction) and thus should be free of potential higher order confounds (e.g., attention). In the standard tapping task, as expected, the ADHD group had higher timing variability in both paced and unpaced tappings. However, in the pre-attentive task, performance did not differ between the ADHD and control groups. Together, results suggest that low-level sensorimotor timing and phase correction are largely preserved in ADHD and that some timing impairments observed in ADHD may stem from higher level factors (such as sustained attention).

Higher mental workload is associated with poorer laparoscopic performance as measured by the NASA-TLX tool.

PubMed

Yurko, Yuliya Y; Scerbo, Mark W; Prabhu, Ajita S; Acker, Christina E; Stefanidis, Dimitrios

2010-10-01

Increased workload during task performance may increase fatigue and facilitate errors. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) is a previously validated tool for workload self-assessment. We assessed the relationship of workload and performance during simulator training on a complex laparoscopic task. NASA-TLX workload data from three separate trials were analyzed. All participants were novices (n = 28), followed the same curriculum on the fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery suturing model, and were tested in the animal operating room (OR) on a Nissen fundoplication model after training. Performance and workload scores were recorded at baseline, after proficiency achievement, and during the test. Performance, NASA-TLX scores, and inadvertent injuries during the test were analyzed and compared. Workload scores declined during training and mirrored performance changes. NASA-TLX scores correlated significantly with performance scores (r = -0.5, P < 0.001). Participants with higher workload scores caused more inadvertent injuries to adjacent structures in the OR (r = 0.38, P < 0.05). Increased mental and physical workload scores at baseline correlated with higher workload scores in the OR (r = 0.52-0.82; P < 0.05) and more inadvertent injuries (r = 0.52, P < 0.01). Increased workload is associated with inferior task performance and higher likelihood of errors. The NASA-TLX questionnaire accurately reflects workload changes during simulator training and may identify individuals more likely to experience high workload and more prone to errors during skill transfer to the clinical environment.

Attachment anxiety benefits from security priming: Evidence from working memory performance

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

The present study investigates the relationship between the attachment dimensions (anxious vs. avoidance) and the cognitive performance of individuals, specifically whether the attachment dimensions would predict the working memory (WM) performance. In the n-back task, reflecting the WM capacity, both attachment related and non-attachment related words were used. Participants were randomly assigned into two groups that received either the secure or the neutral subliminal priming. In the secure priming condition, the aim was to induce sense of security by presenting secure attachment words prior to the n-back task performance. In neutral priming condition, neutral words that did not elicit sense of security were presented. Structural equation modeling revealed divergent patterns for attachment anxiety and avoidance dimensions under the different priming conditions. In neutral priming condition, WM performance declined in terms of capacity in the n-back task for individuals who rated higher levels of attachment anxiety. However in the secure priming condition, WM performance was boosted in the n-back task for individuals who rated higher levels of attachment anxiety. In other words, the subliminal priming of the security led to increased WM capacity of individuals who rated higher levels of attachment anxiety. This effect, however, was not observed for higher levels of attachment avoidance. Results are discussed along the lines of hyperactivation and deactivation strategies of the attachment system. PMID:29522549

Working memory in children predicts performance on a gambling task.

PubMed

Audusseau, Jean; Juhel, Jacques

2015-01-01

The authors investigated whether working memory (WM) plays a significant role in the development of decision making in children, operationalized by the Children's Gambling Task (CGT). A total of 105 children aged 6-7, 8-9, and 10-11 years old carried out the CGT. Children aged 6-7 years old were found to have a lower performance than older children, which shows that the CGT is sensitive to participant's age. The hypothesis that WM plays a significant role in decision making was then tested following two approaches: (a) an experimental approach, comparing between groups the performance on the CGT in a control condition (the CGT only was administered) to that in a double task condition (participants had to carry out a recall task in addition to the CGT); (b) an interindividual approach, probing the relationship between CGT performance and performance on tasks measuring WM efficiency. The between-groups approach evidenced a better performance in the control group. Moreover, the interindividual approach showed that the higher the participants' WM efficiency was, the higher their performance in the CGT was. Taken together, these two approaches yield converging results that support the hypothesis that WM plays a significant role in decision making in children.

Over-focused? The relation between patients' inclination for conscious control and single- and dual-task motor performance after stroke.

PubMed

Denneman, R P M; Kal, E C; Houdijk, H; Kamp, J van der

2018-05-01

Many stroke patients are inclined to consciously control their movements. This is thought to negatively affect patients' motor performance, as it disrupts movement automaticity. However, it has also been argued that conscious control may sometimes benefit motor performance, depending on the task or patientś motor or cognitive capacity. To assess whether stroke patients' inclination for conscious control is associated with motor performance, and explore whether the putative association differs as a function of task (single- vs dual) or patientś motor and cognitive capacity. Univariate and multivariate linear regression analysis were used to assess associations between patients' disposition to conscious control (i.e., Conscious Motor Processing subscale of Movement-Specific Reinvestment Scale; MSRS-CMP) and single-task (Timed-up-and-go test; TuG) and motor dual-task costs (TuG while tone counting; motor DTC%). We determined whether these associations were influenced by patients' walking speed (i.e., 10-m-walk test) and cognitive capacity (i.e., working memory, attention, executive function). Seventy-eight clinical stroke patients (<6 months post-stroke) participated. Patients' conscious control inclination was not associated with single-task TuG performance. However, patients with a strong inclination for conscious control showed higher motor DTC%. These associations were irrespective of patients' motor and cognitive abilities. Patients' disposition for conscious control was not associated with single task motor performance, but was associated with higher motor dual task costs, regardless of patients' motor or cognitive abilities. Therapists should be aware that patients' conscious control inclination can influence their dual-task performance while moving. Longitudinal studies are required to test whether reducing patients' disposition for conscious control would improve dual-tasking post-stroke. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Supporting interruption management and multimodal interface design: three meta-analyses of task performance as a function of interrupting task modality.

PubMed

Lu, Sara A; Wickens, Christopher D; Prinet, Julie C; Hutchins, Shaun D; Sarter, Nadine; Sebok, Angelia

2013-08-01

The aim of this study was to integrate empirical data showing the effects of interrupting task modality on the performance of an ongoing visual-manual task and the interrupting task itself. The goal is to support interruption management and the design of multimodal interfaces. Multimodal interfaces have been proposed as a promising means to support interruption management.To ensure the effectiveness of this approach, their design needs to be based on an analysis of empirical data concerning the effectiveness of individual and redundant channels of information presentation. Three meta-analyses were conducted to contrast performance on an ongoing visual task and interrupting tasks as a function of interrupting task modality (auditory vs. tactile, auditory vs. visual, and single modality vs. redundant auditory-visual). In total, 68 studies were included and six moderator variables were considered. The main findings from the meta-analyses are that response times are faster for tactile interrupting tasks in case of low-urgency messages.Accuracy is higher with tactile interrupting tasks for low-complexity signals but higher with auditory interrupting tasks for high-complexity signals. Redundant auditory-visual combinations are preferable for communication tasks during high workload and with a small visual angle of separation. The three meta-analyses contribute to the knowledge base in multimodal information processing and design. They highlight the importance of moderator variables in predicting the effects of interruption task modality on ongoing and interrupting task performance. The findings from this research will help inform the design of multimodal interfaces in data-rich, event-driven domains.

Effects of task-irrelevant emotional stimuli on working memory processes in mild cognitive impairment.

PubMed

Berger, Christoph; Erbe, Anna-Katharina; Ehlers, Inga; Marx, Ivo; Hauenstein, Karlheinz; Teipel, Stefan

2015-01-01

Research suggests generally impaired cognitive control functions in working memory (WM) processes in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and incipient Alzheimer's disease (AD). Little is known how emotional salience of task-irrelevant stimuli may modulate cognitive control of WM performance and neurofunctional activation in MCI and AD individuals. We investigated the impact of emotional task-irrelevant visual stimuli on cortical activation during verbal WM. Twelve AD/MCI individuals and 12 age-matched healthy individuals performed a verbal WM (nback-) task with task-irrelevant emotionally neutral and emotionally negative background pictures during fMRI measurement. AD/MCI individuals showed decreased WM performance compared with controls; both AD/MCI and control groups reacted slower during presentation of negative pictures, regardless of WM difficulty. The AD/MCI group showed increased activation in the left hemispheric prefrontal network, higher amygdala and less cerebellar activation with increasing WM task difficulty compared to healthy controls. Correlation analysis between neurofunctional activation and WM performance revealed a negative correlation between task sensitivity and activation in the dorsal anterior cingulum for the healthy controls but not for the AD/MCI group. Our data suggest compensatory activation in prefrontal cortex and amygdala, but also dysfunctional inhibition of distracting information in the AD/MCI group during higher WM task difficulty. Additionally, attentional processes affecting the correlation between WM performance and neurofunctional activation seem to be different between incipient AD and healthy aging.

Biomechanical Analyses of Stair-climbing while Dual-tasking

PubMed Central

Vallabhajosula, Srikant; Tan, Chi Wei; Mukherjee, Mukul; Davidson, Austin J.; Stergiou, Nicholas

2015-01-01

Stair-climbing while doing a concurrent task like talking or holding an object is a common activity of daily living which poses high risk for falls. While biomechanical analyses of overground walking during dual-tasking have been studied extensively, little is known on the biomechanics of stair-climbing while dual-tasking. We sought to determine the impact of performing a concurrent cognitive or motor task during stair-climbing. We hypothesized that a concurrent cognitive task will have a greater impact on stair climbing performance compared to a concurrent motor task and that this impact will be greater on a higher-level step. Ten healthy young adults performed 10 trials of stair-climbing each under four conditions: stair ascending only, stair ascending and performing subtraction of serial sevens from a three-digit number, stair ascending and carrying an empty opaque box and stair ascending, performing subtraction of serial sevens from a random three-digit number and carrying an empty opaque box. Kinematics (lower extremity joint angles and minimum toe clearance) and kinetics (ground reaction forces and joint moments and powers) data were collected. We found that a concurrent cognitive task impacted kinetics but not kinematics of stair-climbing. The effect of dual-tasking during stair ascent also seemed to vary based on the different phases of stair ascent stance and seem to have greater impact as one climbs higher. Overall, the results of the current study suggest that the association between the executive functioning and motor task (like gait) becomes stronger as the level of complexity of the motor task increases. PMID:25773590

Age-related decrements in dual-task performance: Comparison of different mobility and cognitive tasks. A cross sectional study.

PubMed

Brustio, Paolo Riccardo; Magistro, Daniele; Zecca, Massimiliano; Rabaglietti, Emanuela; Liubicich, Monica Emma

2017-01-01

This cross-sectional study investigated the age-related differences in dual-task performance both in mobility and cognitive tasks and the additive dual-task costs in a sample of older, middle-aged and young adults. 74 older adults (M = 72.63±5.57 years), 58 middle-aged adults (M = 46.69±4.68 years) and 63 young adults (M = 25.34±3.00 years) participated in the study. Participants performed different mobility and subtraction tasks under both single- and dual-task conditions. Linear regressions, repeated-measures and one-way analyses of covariance were used, The results showed: significant effects of the age on the dual and mobility tasks (p<0.05) and differences among the age-groups in the combined dual-task costs (p<0.05); significant decreases in mobility performance under dual-task conditions in all groups (p<0.05) and a decrease in cognitive performance in the older group (p<0.05). Dual-task activity affected mobility and cognitive performance, especially in older adults who showed a higher dual-task cost, suggesting that dual-tasks activities are affected by the age and consequently also mobility and cognitive tasks are negatively influenced.

Quantifying usability: an evaluation of a diabetes mHealth system on effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction metrics with associated user characteristics.

PubMed

Georgsson, Mattias; Staggers, Nancy

2016-01-01

Mobile health (mHealth) systems are becoming more common for chronic disease management, but usability studies are still needed on patients' perspectives and mHealth interaction performance. This deficiency is addressed by our quantitative usability study of a mHealth diabetes system evaluating patients' task performance, satisfaction, and the relationship of these measures to user characteristics. We used metrics in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9241-11 standard. After standardized training, 10 patients performed representative tasks and were assessed on individual task success, errors, efficiency (time on task), satisfaction (System Usability Scale [SUS]) and user characteristics. Tasks of exporting and correcting values proved the most difficult, had the most errors, the lowest task success rates, and consumed the longest times on task. The average SUS satisfaction score was 80.5, indicating good but not excellent system usability. Data trends showed males were more successful in task completion, and younger participants had higher performance scores. Educational level did not influence performance, but a more recent diabetes diagnosis did. Patients with more experience in information technology (IT) also had higher performance rates. Difficult task performance indicated areas for redesign. Our methods can assist others in identifying areas in need of improvement. Data about user background and IT skills also showed how user characteristics influence performance and can provide future considerations for targeted mHealth designs. Using the ISO 9241-11 usability standard, the SUS instrument for satisfaction and measuring user characteristics provided objective measures of patients' experienced usability. These could serve as an exemplar for standardized, quantitative methods for usability studies on mHealth systems. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Quantifying usability: an evaluation of a diabetes mHealth system on effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction metrics with associated user characteristics

PubMed Central

Staggers, Nancy

2016-01-01

Objective Mobile health (mHealth) systems are becoming more common for chronic disease management, but usability studies are still needed on patients’ perspectives and mHealth interaction performance. This deficiency is addressed by our quantitative usability study of a mHealth diabetes system evaluating patients’ task performance, satisfaction, and the relationship of these measures to user characteristics. Materials and Methods We used metrics in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9241-11 standard. After standardized training, 10 patients performed representative tasks and were assessed on individual task success, errors, efficiency (time on task), satisfaction (System Usability Scale [SUS]) and user characteristics. Results Tasks of exporting and correcting values proved the most difficult, had the most errors, the lowest task success rates, and consumed the longest times on task. The average SUS satisfaction score was 80.5, indicating good but not excellent system usability. Data trends showed males were more successful in task completion, and younger participants had higher performance scores. Educational level did not influence performance, but a more recent diabetes diagnosis did. Patients with more experience in information technology (IT) also had higher performance rates. Discussion Difficult task performance indicated areas for redesign. Our methods can assist others in identifying areas in need of improvement. Data about user background and IT skills also showed how user characteristics influence performance and can provide future considerations for targeted mHealth designs. Conclusion Using the ISO 9241-11 usability standard, the SUS instrument for satisfaction and measuring user characteristics provided objective measures of patients’ experienced usability. These could serve as an exemplar for standardized, quantitative methods for usability studies on mHealth systems. PMID:26377990

Beyond Competence and Performance: Children's Class Inclusion Strategies, Superordinate Class Cues, and Verbal Justifications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chapman, Michael; McBride, Michelle L.

1992-01-01

Children of 4 to 10 years of age were given 2 class inclusion tasks. Younger children's performance was inflated by guessing. Scores were higher in the marked task than in the unmarked task as a result of differing rates of inclusion logic. Children's verbal justifications closely approximated estimates of their true competence. (GLR)

Effects of the Protestant Work Ethic and Perceived Challenge on Time Allocated to an Experimental Task.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tang, Thomas Li-Ping

Goal-setting literature has suggested that specific, difficult goals will produce higher performance levels than easy goals. A difficult task or one with negative performance feedback may increase an individual's perceived challenge of the task which may in turn enhance his motivation. Effects of the Protestant work ethic and perceived challenge…

Effects of transdermally administered nicotine on aspects of attention, task load, and mood in women and men.

PubMed

Trimmel, Michael; Wittberger, Susanne

2004-07-01

This double-blind placebo-controlled study was conducted to determine nicotine effects on diverse types of attentional performance, task load, and mood considering sex effects as suggested by animal studies. Twelve smokers, 12 deprived smokers and 12 nonsmokers (6 females, 6 males in each group) were investigated. Participants were treated either by 5 mg/16 h nicotine patches (Nicorette) or placebo. Effects of treatment were examined by a computerized attention-test battery; mood was assessed by the Berliner-Alltagssprachliches-Stimmungs-Inventar and task load by the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX). Results showed that nicotine significantly increased the number of hits and decreased reaction time (RT) in the vigilance task. In the selective attention task combined with irrelevant speech as background noise, nicotine enhanced rate of hits. Although it was indicated that nicotine leads to a generally higher accuracy in attention tasks, response time of visual search was prolonged, contradicting a universal facilitation by nicotine. Participants experienced mental demand and temporal demand lower and rated alertness higher when in the nicotine condition. These effects were independent of smoking status, indicating "true" nicotine effects. Females took significant advantage of nicotine in the vigilance task, reaching the performance level of males, accompanied by a higher rated alertness. Results indicate task- and sex-dependent nicotine effects.

Mental fatigue impairs soccer-specific decision-making skill.

PubMed

Smith, Mitchell R; Zeuwts, Linus; Lenoir, Matthieu; Hens, Nathalie; De Jong, Laura M S; Coutts, Aaron J

2016-07-01

This study aimed to investigate the impact of mental fatigue on soccer-specific decision-making. Twelve well-trained male soccer players performed a soccer-specific decision-making task on two occasions, separated by at least 72 h. The decision-making task was preceded in a randomised order by 30 min of the Stroop task (mental fatigue) or 30 min of reading from magazines (control). Subjective ratings of mental fatigue were measured before and after treatment, and mental effort (referring to treatment) and motivation (referring to the decision-making task) were measured after treatment. Performance on the soccer-specific decision-making task was assessed using response accuracy and time. Visual search behaviour was also assessed throughout the decision-making task. Subjective ratings of mental fatigue and effort were almost certainly higher following the Stroop task compared to the magazines. Motivation for the upcoming decision-making task was possibly higher following the Stroop task. Decision-making accuracy was very likely lower and response time likely higher in the mental fatigue condition. Mental fatigue had unclear effects on most visual search behaviour variables. The results suggest that mental fatigue impairs accuracy and speed of soccer-specific decision-making. These impairments are not likely related to changes in visual search behaviour.

Using Performance Task Data to Improve Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abbott, Amy L.; Wren, Douglas G.

2016-01-01

Two well-accepted ideas among educators are (a) performance assessment is an effective means of assessing higher-order thinking skills and (b) data-driven instruction planning is a valuable tool for optimizing student learning. This article describes a locally developed performance task (LDPT) designed to measure critical thinking, problem…

Differences in arithmetic performance between Chinese and German adults are accompanied by differences in processing of non-symbolic numerical magnitude

PubMed Central

Lonnemann, Jan; Li, Su; Zhao, Pei; Li, Peng; Linkersdörfer, Janosch; Lindberg, Sven; Hasselhorn, Marcus; Yan, Song

2017-01-01

Human beings are assumed to possess an approximate number system (ANS) dedicated to extracting and representing approximate numerical magnitude information. The ANS is assumed to be fundamental to arithmetic learning and has been shown to be associated with arithmetic performance. It is, however, still a matter of debate whether better arithmetic skills are reflected in the ANS. To address this issue, Chinese and German adults were compared regarding their performance in simple arithmetic tasks and in a non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparison task. Chinese participants showed a better performance in solving simple arithmetic tasks and faster reaction times in the non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparison task without making more errors than their German peers. These differences in performance could not be ascribed to differences in general cognitive abilities. Better arithmetic skills were thus found to be accompanied by a higher speed of retrieving non-symbolic numerical magnitude knowledge but not by a higher precision of non-symbolic numerical magnitude representations. The group difference in the speed of retrieving non-symbolic numerical magnitude knowledge was fully mediated by the performance in arithmetic tasks, suggesting that arithmetic skills shape non-symbolic numerical magnitude processing skills. PMID:28384191

An initial test of a normative Figure Of Merit for the quality of overall task performance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lemay, Moira; Comstock, J. R., Jr.

1990-01-01

An overall indicator, or Figure Of Merit (FOM), of the quality of crew/vehicle system performance is needed to establish the effect of workload on efficiency and to identify overload conditions. A normative FOM is proposed in which performance is measured on a representative task and a normative data base obtained. FOMs for subsequent executions of the task are then reported in terms of weighted deviations from average task performance. Performance of discrete tasks is measured primarily in terms of subtask time and errors. Discrete task performance is then combined with a measure of continuous vehicle control. In order to test the normative FOM procedure, the technique was applied to an existing set of data from a simulated landing task in which standard communications with ATC was compared with a data link communications system. The results indicated that while mean task performance was not affected, task variability, as measured by the FOM, was significantly higher when data link communications were used. In order to establish the sensitivity of the normative FOM method, further testing of the measure is recommended.

Force related hemodynamic responses during execution and imagery of a hand grip task: A functional near infrared spectroscopy study.

PubMed

Wriessnegger, Selina C; Kirchmeyr, Daniela; Bauernfeind, Günther; Müller-Putz, Gernot R

2017-10-01

We examined force related hemodynamic changes during the performance of a motor execution (ME) and motor imagery (MI) task by means of multichannel functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The hemodynamic responses of fourteen healthy participants were measured while they performed a hand grip execution or imagery task with low and high grip forces. We found an overall higher increase of [oxy-Hb] concentration changes during ME for both grip forces but with a delayed peak maximum for the lower grip force. During the MI task with lower grip force, the [oxy-Hb] level increases are stronger compared to the MI with higher grip force. The facilitation in performing MI with higher grip strength might thus indicate less inhibition of the actual motor act which could also explain the later increase onset of [oxy-Hb] in the ME task with the lower grip force. Our results suggest that execution and imagery of a hand grip task with high and low grip forces, leads to different cortical activation patterns. Since impaired control of grip forces during object manipulation in particular is one aspect of fine motor control deficits after stroke, our study will contribute to future rehabilitation programs enhancing patient's grip force control. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Worrying and performance on the Stroop task in women].

PubMed

Janowski, Konrad; Kaczmarek, Łukasz; Kossowska, Magdalena; Niedbał, Kornelia

2009-01-01

Worrying is a process involving chronic, repetitive activation of unproductive thought chains whose contents are predominantly characterized by anticipation of future outcomes undesirable for the individual. Numerous studies demonstrated the role of excessive worrying in the patomechanisms of general anxiety disorder and depression as well as its associations with several non-adaptative aspects of functioning. Some neuroimaging studies suggested an association of worrying with frontal cortex activity. The objective of this study was to assess the associations of worrying with the frontal lobe functions, as measured by the Stroop Task. Fifty female students took part in the study. Each participant completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSQW), a psychometric measure of worrying tendencies, and performed on the Color Words Stroop Task. No statistically significant associations were found between the worrying levels and response times on the Stroop Task. However, worrying was found to be statistically significantly related to the number of errors committed on the Stroop Task, with women characterized by higher worrying levels, making approximately two-fold fewer errors in comparison to women with lower worrying levels. In women, higher worrying levels may be associated with a qualitatively better performance on some mental tasks, which may probably be accounted for by the involvement of higher attentional readiness or personality traits, such as perfectionism.

Variations in task constraints shape emergent performance outcomes and complexity levels in balancing.

PubMed

Caballero Sánchez, Carla; Barbado Murillo, David; Davids, Keith; Moreno Hernández, Francisco J

2016-06-01

This study investigated the extent to which specific interacting constraints of performance might increase or decrease the emergent complexity in a movement system, and whether this could affect the relationship between observed movement variability and the central nervous system's capacity to adapt to perturbations during balancing. Fifty-two healthy volunteers performed eight trials where different performance constraints were manipulated: task difficulty (three levels) and visual biofeedback conditions (with and without the center of pressure (COP) displacement and a target displayed). Balance performance was assessed using COP-based measures: mean velocity magnitude (MVM) and bivariate variable error (BVE). To assess the complexity of COP, fuzzy entropy (FE) and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) were computed. ANOVAs showed that MVM and BVE increased when task difficulty increased. During biofeedback conditions, individuals showed higher MVM but lower BVE at the easiest level of task difficulty. Overall, higher FE and lower DFA values were observed when biofeedback was available. On the other hand, FE reduced and DFA increased as difficulty level increased, in the presence of biofeedback. However, when biofeedback was not available, the opposite trend in FE and DFA values was observed. Regardless of changes to task constraints and the variable investigated, balance performance was positively related to complexity in every condition. Data revealed how specificity of task constraints can result in an increase or decrease in complexity emerging in a neurobiological system during balance performance.

Entorhinal Cortex Volume Is Associated With Dual-Task Gait Cost Among Older Adults With MCI: Results From the Gait and Brain Study.

PubMed

Sakurai, Ryota; Bartha, Robert; Montero-Odasso, Manuel

2018-05-15

Low dual-task gait performance (the slowing of gait speed while performing a demanding cognitive task) is associated with low cognitive performance and an increased risk of progression to dementia in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. However, the reason for this remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the relationship between dual-task cost and regional brain volume, focusing on the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, entorhinal cortex, and motor and lateral frontal cortices in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Forty older adults with mild cognitive impairment from the "Gait and Brain Study" were included in this study. Gait velocity was measured during single-task (ie, walking alone) and dual-task (ie, counting backwards, subtracting serial sevens, and naming animals, in addition to walking) conditions, using an electronic walkway. Regional brain volumes were derived by automated segmentation, using 3T magnetic resonance imaging. Partial rank correlation analyses demonstrated that a smaller volume of the left entorhinal cortex was associated with higher dual-task costs in counting backwards and subtracting serial sevens conditions. Subsequent logistic regression analyses demonstrated that a smaller volume of the left entorhinal cortex was independently associated with higher dual-task cost (slowing down >20% when performing cognitive task) in these two conditions. There were no other significant associations. Our results show that lower dual-task gait performance is associated with volume reduction in the entorhinal cortex. Cognitive and motor dysfunction in older adults with mild cognitive impairment may reflect a shared pathogenic mechanism, and dual-task-related gait changes might be a surrogate motor marker for Alzheimer's disease pathology.

Age-related decrements in dual-task performance: Comparison of different mobility and cognitive tasks. A cross sectional study

PubMed Central

Brustio, Paolo Riccardo; Zecca, Massimiliano; Rabaglietti, Emanuela; Liubicich, Monica Emma

2017-01-01

This cross-sectional study investigated the age-related differences in dual-task performance both in mobility and cognitive tasks and the additive dual-task costs in a sample of older, middle-aged and young adults. 74 older adults (M = 72.63±5.57 years), 58 middle-aged adults (M = 46.69±4.68 years) and 63 young adults (M = 25.34±3.00 years) participated in the study. Participants performed different mobility and subtraction tasks under both single- and dual-task conditions. Linear regressions, repeated-measures and one-way analyses of covariance were used, The results showed: significant effects of the age on the dual and mobility tasks (p<0.05) and differences among the age-groups in the combined dual-task costs (p<0.05); significant decreases in mobility performance under dual-task conditions in all groups (p<0.05) and a decrease in cognitive performance in the older group (p<0.05). Dual-task activity affected mobility and cognitive performance, especially in older adults who showed a higher dual-task cost, suggesting that dual-tasks activities are affected by the age and consequently also mobility and cognitive tasks are negatively influenced. PMID:28732080

Collaborate and share: an experimental study of the effects of task and reward interdependencies in online games.

PubMed

Choi, Boreum; Lee, Inseong; Choi, Dongseong; Kim, Jinwoo

2007-08-01

Today millions of players interact with one another in online games, especially massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). These games promote interaction among players by offering interdependency features, but to date few studies have asked what interdependency design factors of MMORPGs make them fun for players, produce experiences of flow, or enhance player performance. In this study, we focused on two game design features: task and reward interdependency. We conducted a controlled experiment that compared the interaction effects of low and high task-interdependency conditions and low and high reward-interdependency conditions on three dependent variables: fun, flow, and performance. We found that in a low task-interdependency condition, players had more fun, experienced higher levels of flow, and perceived better performance when a low reward-interdependency condition also obtained. In contrast, in a high task-interdependency condition, all of these measures were higher when a high reward-interdependency condition also obtained.

Reading skills, creativity, and insight: exploring the connections.

PubMed

Mourgues, Catalina V; Preiss, David D; Grigorenko, Elena L

2014-08-04

Studies of the relationship between creativity and specific reading disabilities have produced inconclusive results. We explored their relationship in a sample of 259 college students (age range: 17 to 38 years-old) from three Chilean universities. The students were tested on their verbal ability, creativity, and insight. A simple linear regression was performed on the complete sample, and on high- and low-achievement groups that were formed based on reading test scores. We observed a significant correlation in the total sample between outcomes on the verbal ability tasks, and on the creativity and insight tasks (range r =. 152 to r =. 356, ps <.001). Scores on the reading comprehension and phonological awareness tasks were the best predictors of performance on creativity and insight tasks (range β = .315 to β = .155, ps <.05). A comparison of the low- and high-scoring groups on verbal ability tasks yielded results to the same effect. These findings do not support the hypothesis that specific reading disability is associated with better performance on creative tasks. Instead, higher verbal ability was found to be associated with higher creativity and insight.

Prospective memory mediated by interoceptive accuracy: a psychophysiological approach.

PubMed

Umeda, Satoshi; Tochizawa, Saiko; Shibata, Midori; Terasawa, Yuri

2016-11-19

Previous studies on prospective memory (PM), defined as memory for future intentions, suggest that psychological stress enhances successful PM retrieval. However, the mechanisms underlying this notion remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that PM retrieval is achieved through interaction with autonomic nervous activity, which is mediated by the individual accuracy of interoceptive awareness, as measured by the heartbeat detection task. In this study, the relationship between cardiac reactivity and retrieval of delayed intentions was evaluated using the event-based PM task. Participants were required to detect PM target letters while engaged in an ongoing 2-back working memory task. The results demonstrated that individuals with higher PM task performance had a greater increase in heart rate on PM target presentation. Also, higher interoceptive perceivers showed better PM task performance. This pattern was not observed for working memory task performance. These findings suggest that cardiac afferent signals enhance PM retrieval, which is mediated by individual levels of interoceptive accuracy.This article is part of the themed issue 'Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health'. © 2016 The Authors.

Brain activation during dual-task processing is associated with cardiorespiratory fitness and performance in older adults

PubMed Central

Wong, Chelsea N.; Chaddock-Heyman, Laura; Voss, Michelle W.; Burzynska, Agnieszka Z.; Basak, Chandramallika; Erickson, Kirk I.; Prakash, Ruchika S.; Szabo-Reed, Amanda N.; Phillips, Siobhan M.; Wojcicki, Thomas; Mailey, Emily L.; McAuley, Edward; Kramer, Arthur F.

2015-01-01

Higher cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with better cognitive performance and enhanced brain activation. Yet, the extent to which cardiorespiratory fitness-related brain activation is associated with better cognitive performance is not well understood. In this cross-sectional study, we examined whether the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and executive function was mediated by greater prefrontal cortex activation in healthy older adults. Brain activation was measured during dual-task performance with functional magnetic resonance imaging in a sample of 128 healthy older adults (59–80 years). Higher cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with greater activation during dual-task processing in several brain areas including the anterior cingulate and supplementary motor cortex (ACC/SMA), thalamus and basal ganglia, right motor/somatosensory cortex and middle frontal gyrus, and left somatosensory cortex, controlling for age, sex, education, and gray matter volume. Of these regions, greater ACC/SMA activation mediated the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and dual-task performance. We provide novel evidence that cardiorespiratory fitness may support cognitive performance by facilitating brain activation in a core region critical for executive function. PMID:26321949

Caudate Nucleus Volume Mediates the Link between Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Cognitive Flexibility in Older Adults

PubMed Central

Verstynen, Timothy D.; Lynch, Brighid; Miller, Destiny L.; Voss, Michelle W.; Prakash, Ruchika Shaurya; Chaddock, Laura; Basak, Chandramallika; Szabo, Amanda; Olson, Erin A.; Wojcicki, Thomas R.; Fanning, Jason; Gothe, Neha P.; McAuley, Edward; Kramer, Arthur F.; Erickson, Kirk I.

2012-01-01

The basal ganglia play a central role in regulating the response selection abilities that are critical for mental flexibility. In neocortical areas, higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels are associated with increased gray matter volume, and these volumetric differences mediate enhanced cognitive performance in a variety of tasks. Here we examine whether cardiorespiratory fitness correlates with the volume of the subcortical nuclei that make up the basal ganglia and whether this relationship predicts cognitive flexibility in older adults. Structural MRI was used to determine the volume of the basal ganglia nuclei in a group of older, neurologically healthy individuals (mean age 66 years, N = 179). Measures of cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max), cognitive flexibility (task switching), and attentional control (flanker task) were also collected. Higher fitness levels were correlated with higher accuracy rates in the Task Switching paradigm. In addition, the volume of the caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus positively correlated with Task Switching accuracy. Nested regression modeling revealed that caudate nucleus volume was a significant mediator of the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness, and task switching performance. These findings indicate that higher cardiorespiratory fitness predicts better cognitive flexibility in older adults through greater grey matter volume in the dorsal striatum. PMID:22900181

The influences of obesity and age on functional performance during intermittent upper extremity tasks.

PubMed

Cavuoto, Lora A; Nussbaum, Maury A

2014-01-01

In this study, the main and interactive effects of obesity and age on functional performance were assessed during intermittent exertions involving the upper extremity. The prevalence of obesity has doubled over the past 30 years and this increase is associated with higher health care costs, rates of workplace injury, and lost workdays. Obesity and aging can modify job demands and affect worker capacity in terms of muscular and psychomotor function. However, there is a lack of empirical studies quantifying the work-relevant (or ergonomic) impacts related to task demands, capacities, and their potential imbalance. Eight obese and eight non-obese participants from each of two age groups (18-25 and 50-65 years) completed three endurance tasks involving fixed levels of task demands: hand grip, shoulder flexion, and a simulated assembly task using the upper extremity. Measures of functional performance including endurance, discomfort, motor control, and task performance were recorded for each of the task conditions. Endurance times were ∼60% longer for the non-obese group, and older participants had longer endurance times; however there was no evidence of interactive effects of obesity and age. Obesity also impaired functional performance, as indicated by higher rates of strength loss, increases in discomfort, and declines in task performance. These observed impairments may reflect underlying physiological differences among individuals who are obese, but that are independent of age. Obesity-related impairments may have implications for the design of work duration and demand level to prevent fatigue development for workers who are obese.

Are we under-utilizing the talents of primary care personnel? A job analytic examination

PubMed Central

Hysong, Sylvia J; Best, Richard G; Moore, Frank I

2007-01-01

Background Primary care staffing decisions are often made unsystematically, potentially leading to increased costs, dissatisfaction, turnover, and reduced quality of care. This article aims to (1) catalogue the domain of primary care tasks, (2) explore the complexity associated with these tasks, and (3) examine how tasks performed by different job titles differ in function and complexity, using Functional Job Analysis to develop a new tool for making evidence-based staffing decisions. Methods Seventy-seven primary care personnel from six US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers, representing six job titles, participated in two-day focus groups to generate 243 unique task statements describing the content of VA primary care. Certified job analysts rated tasks on ten dimensions representing task complexity, skills, autonomy, and error consequence. Two hundred and twenty-four primary care personnel from the same clinics then completed a survey indicating whether they performed each task. Tasks were catalogued using an adaptation of an existing classification scheme; complexity differences were tested via analysis of variance. Results Objective one: Task statements were categorized into four functions: service delivery (65%), administrative duties (15%), logistic support (9%), and workforce management (11%). Objective two: Consistent with expectations, 80% of tasks received ratings at or below the mid-scale value on all ten scales. Objective three: Service delivery and workforce management tasks received higher ratings on eight of ten scales (multiple functional complexity dimensions, autonomy, human error consequence) than administrative and logistic support tasks. Similarly, tasks performed by more highly trained job titles received higher ratings on six of ten scales than tasks performed by lower trained job titles. Contrary to expectations, the distribution of tasks across functions did not significantly vary by job title. Conclusion Primary care personnel are not being utilized to the extent of their training; most personnel perform many tasks that could reasonably be performed by personnel with less training. Primary care clinics should use evidence-based information to optimize job-person fit, adjusting clinic staff mix and allocation of work across staff to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. PMID:17397534

The hard fall effect: high working memory capacity leads to a higher, but less robust short-term memory performance.

PubMed

Thomassin, Noémylle; Gonthier, Corentin; Guerraz, Michel; Roulin, Jean-Luc

2015-01-01

Participants with a high working memory span tend to perform better than low spans in a variety of tasks. However, their performance is paradoxically more impaired when they have to perform two tasks at once, a phenomenon that could be labeled the "hard fall effect." The present study tested whether this effect exists in a short-term memory task, and investigated the proposal that the effect is due to high spans using efficient facilitative strategies under simple task conditions. Ninety-eight participants performed a spatial short-term memory task under simple and dual task conditions; stimuli presentation times either allowed for the use of complex facilitative strategies or not. High spans outperformed low spans only under simple task conditions when presentation times allowed for the use of facilitative strategies. These results indicate that the hard fall effect exists on a short-term memory task and may be caused by individual differences in strategy use.

Body mass index predicts selected physical fitness attributes but is not associated with performance on military relevant tasks in U.S. Army Soldiers.

PubMed

Pierce, Joseph R; DeGroot, David W; Grier, Tyson L; Hauret, Keith G; Nindl, Bradley C; East, Whitfield B; McGurk, Michael S; Jones, Bruce H

2017-11-01

Army body composition standards are based upon validated criteria; however, certain field-expedient methodologies (e.g., weight-for-height, body mass index [BMI]) may disqualify individuals from service who may otherwise excel on physical performance and military-relevant tasks. The purpose was to assess soldier physical performance and military-specific task/fitness performance stratified by BMI. Cross-sectional observational study. Male (n=275) and female (n=46) soldiers performed a wide-array of physical fitness tests and military-specific tasks, including the Army physical fitness test (APFT). Within-sex performance data were analyzed by BMI tertile stratification or by Army Body Composition Program (ABCP) weight-for-height (calculated BMI) screening standards using ANOVA/Tukey post-hoc or independent t-tests, respectively. BMI stratification (higher vs. lower BMI) was associated with significant improvements in muscular strength and power, but also with decrements in speed/agility in male and female soldiers. Within the military specific tasks, a higher BMI was associated with an increased APFT 2-Mile Run time; however, performance on a 1600-m Loaded March or a Warrior Task and Battle Drill obstacle course was not related to BMI in either sex. Male and Female soldiers who did not meet ABCP screening standards demonstrated a slower 2-Mile Run time; however, not meeting the ABCP BMI standard only affected a minimal number (∼6%) of soldiers' ability to pass the APFT. Military body composition standards require a careful balance between physical performance, health, and military readiness. Allowances should be considered where tradeoffs exist between body composition classifications and performance on physical tasks with high military relevance. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Association between educational status and dual-task performance in young adults.

PubMed

Voos, Mariana Callil; Pimentel Piemonte, Maria Elisa; Castelli, Lilian Zanchetta; Andrade Machado, Mariane Silva; Dos Santos Teixeira, Patrícia Pereira; Caromano, Fátima Aparecida; Ribeiro Do Valle, Luiz Eduardo

2015-04-01

The influence of educational status on perceptual-motor performance has not been investigated. The single- and dual-task performances of 15 Low educated adults (9 men, 6 women; M age=24.1 yr.; 6-9 yr. of education) and 15 Higher educated adults (8 men, 7 women; M age=24.7 yr.; 10-13 yr. of education) were compared. The perceptual task consisted of verbally classifying two figures (equal or different). The motor task consisted of alternating steps from the floor to a stool. Tasks were assessed individually and simultaneously. Two analyses of variance (2 groups×4 blocks) compared the errors and steps. The Low education group committed more errors and had less improvement on the perceptual task than the High education group. During and after the perceptual-motor task performance, errors increased only in the Low education group. Education correlated to perceptual and motor performance. The Low education group showed more errors and less step alternations on the perceptual-motor task compared to the High education group. This difference on the number of errors was also observed after the dual-task, when the perceptual task was performed alone.

The influence of a real job on upper limb performance in motor skill tests: which abilities are transferred?

PubMed

Giangiardi, Vivian Farahte; Alouche, Sandra Regina; de Freitas, Sandra Maria Sbeghen Ferreira; Pires, Raquel Simoni; Padula, Rosimeire Simprini

2018-06-01

To investigate whether the specificities of real jobs create distinctions in the performance of workers in different motor tests for the upper limbs, 24 participants were divided into two groups according to their specific job: fine and repetitive tasks and general tasks. Both groups reproduced tasks related to aiming movements, handling and strength of the upper limbs. There were no significant differences between groups in the dexterity and performance of aiming movements. However, the general tasks group had higher grip strength than the repetitive tasks group, demonstrating differences according to job specificity. The results suggest that a particular motor skill in a specific job cannot improve performance in other tasks with the same motor requirements. The transfer of the fine and gross motor skills from previous experience in a job-specific task is the basis for allocating training and guidance to workers.

Intuitive physics ability in systemizers relies on differential use of the internalizing system and long-term spatial representations.

PubMed

Riekki, Tapani; Salmi, Juha; Svedholm-Häkkinen, Annika M; Lindeman, Marjaana

2018-01-31

According to the Empathizing-Systemizing theory (E-S Theory), individual differences in how people understand the physical world (systemizing) and the social world (empathizing), are two continuums in the general population with several implications, from vocational interests to skills in the social and physical domains. The underlying mechanisms of intuitive physics performance among individuals with strong systemizing and weak empathizing (systemizers) are, however, unknown. Our results affirm higher intuitive physics skills in healthy adult systemizers (N=36), and further reveal the brain mechanisms that are characteristic for those individuals in carrying out such tasks. When the participants performed intuitive physics tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging, combined higher systemizing and lower empathizing was associated with stronger activations in parts of the default mode network (DMN, cuneus and posterior cingulate gyrus), middle occipital gyrus, and parahippocampal region. The posterior cingulate gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus were specifically associated with systemizing "brain type" even after controlling for task performance, while especially in the parietal cortex, the activation changes were simply explained by higher task performance. We therefore suggest that utilization of DMN-parahippocampal complex, suggested to play a role in internalizing and activating long-term spatial memory representations, is the factor that distinguishes systemizers from empathizers with the opposite "brain type" in intuitive physics tasks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of Task and Category Membership on Representation Stability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gaillard, Audrey; Urdapilleta, Isabel; Houix, Olivier; Manetta, Celine

2011-01-01

This study examined the within-subject stability of 150 participants who performed both a sorting task and a property-generation task over multiple sessions, focusing on three concrete concept categories (food, animals and bathroom products). We hypothesized that (1) the within-subject stability would be higher in the sorting task than in the…

Near-infrared spectroscopic study on the effects of chewing on short-term memory.

PubMed

Wada, Mayumi; Hoshi, Yoko; Iguchi, Yoshinobu; Kida, Ikuhiro

2011-12-01

Using near-infrared spectroscopy, we examined whether chewing gum improves performance in a short-term memory task - immediate recall of random eight-digit numbers - by assessing cerebral hemodynamic response in the prefrontal cortex. We found that the oxyhemoglobin concentration during and after chewing gum was higher than that before chewing; further, the concentration increased during the task, and this increase was reduced with chewing, although non-significantly. Chewing did not improve task performance. Therefore, chewing-induced hemodynamic responses were unrelated to the performance in short-term memory tasks. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spatial task performance, sex differences, and motion sickness susceptibility.

PubMed

Levine, Max E; Stern, Robert M

2002-10-01

There are substantial individual differences in susceptibility to motion sickness, yet little is known about what mediates these differences. Spatial ability and sex have been suggested as possible factors in this relationship. 89 participants (57 women) were administered a Motion Sickness Questionnaire that assesses motion sickness susceptibility, a Water-level Task that gauges sensitivity to gravitational upright, and a Mental Rotation Task that tests an individual's awareness of how objects typically move in space. Significant sex differences were observed in performance of both the Water-level Task (p<.01), and the Mental Rotation Task (p<.005), with women performing less accurately than men. Women also had significantly higher scores on the Motion Sickness Questionnaire (p<.005). Among men, but not women, significant negative relationships were observed between Water-level Task performance and Motion Sickness Questionnaire score (p<.001) and between Mental Rotation Task performance and Motion Sickness Questionnaire score (p<.005). In conclusion, women performed significantly more poorly than men did on the spatial ability tasks and reported significantly more bouts of motion sickness. In addition, men showed a significant negative relationship between spatial ability and motion sickness susceptibility.

Relationships among gender, cognitive style, academic major, and performance on the Piaget water-level task.

PubMed

Hammer, R E; Hoffer, N; King, W L

1995-06-01

Many researchers have found that more college-age adults than would be expected fail Piaget's water-level task, with women failing more frequently than men. It has been hypothesized that differences in cognitive style may account for performance differences on the water-level task. In the present study, 27 male and 27 female architectural students and 27 male and 27 female liberal-arts students were assessed for their performance on both Piaget's Water-level Task and Witkin's Group Embedded Figures Test. No difference was found in performance of male and female architectural students on either task, but male liberal-arts students scored significantly higher than female liberal-arts students on both measures. A disembedding cognitive style predicted success on the water-level task for the architectural students but not for the liberal arts students.

Emotion, working memory task demands and individual differences predict behavior, cognitive effort and negative affect.

PubMed

Storbeck, Justin; Davidson, Nicole A; Dahl, Chelsea F; Blass, Sara; Yung, Edwin

2015-01-01

We examined whether positive and negative affect motivates verbal and spatial working memory processes, respectively, which have implications for the expenditure of mental effort. We argue that when emotion promotes cognitive tendencies that are goal incompatible with task demands, greater cognitive effort is required to perform well. We sought to investigate whether this increase in cognitive effort impairs behavioural control over a broad domain of self-control tasks. Moreover, we predicted that individuals with higher behavioural inhibition system (BIS) sensitivities would report more negative affect within the goal incompatible conditions because such individuals report higher negative affect during cognitive challenge. Positive or negative affective states were induced followed by completing a verbal or spatial 2-back working memory task. All participants then completed one of three self-control tasks. Overall, we observed that conditions of emotion and working memory incompatibility (positive/spatial and negative/verbal) performed worse on the self-control tasks, and within the incompatible conditions individuals with higher BIS sensitivities reported more negative affect at the end of the study. The combination of findings suggests that emotion and working memory compatibility reduces cognitive effort and impairs behavioural control.

Exploring the motivation jungle: predicting performance on a novel task by investigating constructs from different motivation perspectives in tandem.

PubMed

Van Nuland, Hanneke J C; Dusseldorp, Elise; Martens, Rob L; Boekaerts, Monique

2010-08-01

Different theoretical viewpoints on motivation make it hard to decide which model has the best potential to provide valid predictions on classroom performance. This study was designed to explore motivation constructs derived from different motivation perspectives that predict performance on a novel task best. Motivation constructs from self-determination theory, self-regulation theory, and achievement goal theory were investigated in tandem. Performance was measured by systematicity (i.e. how systematically students worked on a problem-solving task) and test score (i.e. score on a multiple-choice test). Hierarchical regression analyses on data from 259 secondary school students showed a quadratic relation between a performance avoidance orientation and both performance outcomes, indicating that extreme high and low performance avoidance resulted in the lowest performance. Furthermore, two three-way interaction effects were found. Intrinsic motivation seemed to play a key role in test score and systematicity performance, provided that effort regulation and metacognitive skills were both high. Results indicate that intrinsic motivation in itself is not enough to attain a good performance. Instead, a moderate score on performance avoidance, together with the ability to remain motivated and effectively regulate and control task behavior, is needed to attain a good performance. High time management skills also contributed to higher test score and systematicity performance and a low performance approach orientation contributed to higher systematicity performance. We concluded that self-regulatory skills should be trained in order to have intrinsically motivated students perform well on novel tasks in the classroom.

A quantitative measure for degree of automation and its relation to system performance and mental load.

PubMed

Wei, Z G; Macwan, A P; Wieringa, P A

1998-06-01

In this paper we quantitatively model degree of automation (DofA) in supervisory control as a function of the number and nature of tasks to be performed by the operator and automation. This model uses a task weighting scheme in which weighting factors are obtained from task demand load, task mental load, and task effect on system performance. The computation of DofA is demonstrated using an experimental system. Based on controlled experiments using operators, analyses of the task effect on system performance, the prediction and assessment of task demand load, and the prediction of mental load were performed. Each experiment had a different DofA. The effect of a change in DofA on system performance and mental load was investigated. It was found that system performance became less sensitive to changes in DofA at higher levels of DofA. The experimental data showed that when the operator controlled a partly automated system, perceived mental load could be predicted from the task mental load for each task component, as calculated by analyzing a situation in which all tasks were manually controlled. Actual or potential applications of this research include a methodology to balance and optimize the automation of complex industrial systems.

Team Creative Environment as a Mediator Between CWX and R&D Team Performance and Moderating Boundary Conditions.

PubMed

Bornay-Barrachina, Mar; Herrero, Inés

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate how high-quality dyadic co-worker relationships (CWXs) favour or hinder team performance. Specifically, we examine the role played by CWX, team creative environment, job complexity and task interdependence to achieve higher levels of team performance. We analyse data from 410 individuals belonging to 81 R&D teams in technology sciences to examine the quality of the dyadic relationships between team members under the same supervisor (co-workers) and team performance measured by the number of publications as their research output. Higher levels of team average CWX relationships are positively related to the establishment of a favourable creative team environment, ending into higher levels of team performance. Specifically, the role played by team average CWX in such relationship is stronger when job complexity and task interdependence are also high. Team's output not only depends on the leader and his/her relationships with subordinates but also on quality relationships among team members. CWXs contribute to creative team environments, but they are essential where jobs are complex and tasks are highly dependent. This study provides evidence of the important role played by CWXs in determining a creative environment, irrespective of their leaders. Previous research has provided information about how leader's role affects team outcomes, but the role of dyadic co-worker relationships in a team remains still relatively unknown. Considering job complexity and task interdependence variables, the study provides with a better understanding about how and when high-quality CWXs should be promoted to achieve higher team performance.

I. WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY IN CONTEXT: MODELING DYNAMIC PROCESSES OF BEHAVIOR, MEMORY, AND DEVELOPMENT.

PubMed

Simmering, Vanessa R

2016-09-01

Working memory is a vital cognitive skill that underlies a broad range of behaviors. Higher cognitive functions are reliably predicted by working memory measures from two domains: children's performance on complex span tasks, and infants' performance in looking paradigms. Despite the similar predictive power across these research areas, theories of working memory development have not connected these different task types and developmental periods. The current project takes a first step toward bridging this gap by presenting a process-oriented theory, focusing on two tasks designed to assess visual working memory capacity in infants (the change-preference task) versus children and adults (the change detection task). Previous studies have shown inconsistent results, with capacity estimates increasing from one to four items during infancy, but only two to three items during early childhood. A probable source of this discrepancy is the different task structures used with each age group, but prior theories were not sufficiently specific to explain how performance relates across tasks. The current theory focuses on cognitive dynamics, that is, how memory representations are formed, maintained, and used within specific task contexts over development. This theory was formalized in a computational model to generate three predictions: 1) capacity estimates in the change-preference task should continue to increase beyond infancy; 2) capacity estimates should be higher in the change-preference versus change detection task when tested within individuals; and 3) performance should correlate across tasks because both rely on the same underlying memory system. I also tested a fourth prediction, that development across tasks could be explained through increasing real-time stability, realized computationally as strengthening connectivity within the model. Results confirmed these predictions, supporting the cognitive dynamics account of performance and developmental changes in real-time stability. The monograph concludes with implications for understanding memory, behavior, and development in a broader range of cognitive development. © 2016 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Allocation of Attentional Resources toward a Secondary Cognitive Task Leads to Compromised Ankle Proprioceptive Performance in Healthy Young Adults

PubMed Central

Yasuda, Kazuhiro; Iimura, Naoyuki; Iwata, Hiroyasu

2014-01-01

The objective of the present study was to determine whether increased attentional demands influence the assessment of ankle joint proprioceptive ability in young adults. We used a dual-task condition, in which participants performed an ankle ipsilateral position-matching task with and without a secondary serial auditory subtraction task during target angle encoding. Two experiments were performed with two different cohorts: one in which the auditory subtraction task was easy (experiment 1a) and one in which it was difficult (experiment 1b). The results showed that, compared with the single-task condition, participants had higher absolute error under dual-task conditions in experiment 1b. The reduction in position-matching accuracy with an attentionally demanding cognitive task suggests that allocation of attentional resources toward a difficult second task can lead to compromised ankle proprioceptive performance. Therefore, these findings indicate that the difficulty level of the cognitive task might be the possible critical factor that decreased accuracy of position-matching task. We conclude that increased attentional demand with difficult cognitive task does influence the assessment of ankle joint proprioceptive ability in young adults when measured using an ankle ipsilateral position-matching task. PMID:24523966

The source of dual-task limitations: Serial or parallel processing of multiple response selections?

PubMed Central

Marois, René

2014-01-01

Although it is generally recognized that the concurrent performance of two tasks incurs costs, the sources of these dual-task costs remain controversial. The serial bottleneck model suggests that serial postponement of task performance in dual-task conditions results from a central stage of response selection that can only process one task at a time. Cognitive-control models, by contrast, propose that multiple response selections can proceed in parallel, but that serial processing of task performance is predominantly adopted because its processing efficiency is higher than that of parallel processing. In the present study, we empirically tested this proposition by examining whether parallel processing would occur when it was more efficient and financially rewarded. The results indicated that even when parallel processing was more efficient and was incentivized by financial reward, participants still failed to process tasks in parallel. We conclude that central information processing is limited by a serial bottleneck. PMID:23864266

Route complexity and simulated physical ageing negatively influence wayfinding.

PubMed

Zijlstra, Emma; Hagedoorn, Mariët; Krijnen, Wim P; van der Schans, Cees P; Mobach, Mark P

2016-09-01

The aim of this age-simulation field experiment was to assess the influence of route complexity and physical ageing on wayfinding. Seventy-five people (aged 18-28) performed a total of 108 wayfinding tasks (i.e., 42 participants performed two wayfinding tasks and 33 performed one wayfinding task), of which 59 tasks were performed wearing gerontologic ageing suits. Outcome variables were wayfinding performance (i.e., efficiency and walking speed) and physiological outcomes (i.e., heart and respiratory rates). Analysis of covariance showed that persons on more complex routes (i.e., more floor and building changes) walked less efficiently than persons on less complex routes. In addition, simulated elderly participants perform worse in wayfinding than young participants in terms of speed (p < 0.001). Moreover, a linear mixed model showed that simulated elderly persons had higher heart rates and respiratory rates compared to young people during a wayfinding task, suggesting that simulated elderly consumed more energy during this task. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Job performance in work organizations: the effects of management by group goals and job interdependence].

PubMed

Ikeda, Hiroshi; Furukawa, Hisataka

2015-04-01

cThis study examined the interactive effect of management by group goals and job interdependence on employee's activities in terms of task and contextual performance. A survey was conducted among 140 Japanese employees. Results indicated that management by group goals was related only to contextual performance. Job interdependence, however, had a direct effect on both task and contextual performance. Moreover, moderated regression analyses revealed that for work groups requiring higher interdependence among employees, management by group goals had a positive relation to contextual performance but not to task performance. When interdependence was not necessarily required, however, management by group goals had no relation to contextual performance and even negatively impacted task performance, respectively. These results show that management by group goals affects task and contextual performance, and that this effect is moderated by job interdependence. This provides a theoretical extension as well as a practical application to the setting and management of group goals.

Impulsivity and related neuropsychological features in regular and addictive first person shooter gaming.

PubMed

Metcalf, Olivia; Pammer, Kristen

2014-03-01

Putative cyber addictions are of significant interest. There remains little experimental research into excessive use of first person shooter (FPS) games, despite their global popularity. Moreover, the role between excessive gaming and impulsivity remains unclear, with previous research showing conflicting findings. The current study investigated performances on a number of neuropsychological tasks (go/no-go, continuous performance task, Iowa gambling task) and a trait measure of impulsivity for a group of regular FPS gamers (n=25), addicted FPS gamers (n=22), and controls (n=22). Gamers were classified using the Addiction-Engagement Questionnaire. Addicted FPS gamers had significantly higher levels of trait impulsivity on the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale compared to controls. Addicted FPS gamers also had significantly higher levels of disinhibition in a go/no-go task and inattention in a continuous performance task compared to controls, whereas the regular FPS gamers had better decision making on the Iowa gambling task compared to controls. The results indicate impulsivity is associated with FPS gaming addiction, comparable to pathological gambling. The relationship between impulsivity and excessive gaming may be unique to the FPS genre. Furthermore, regular FPS gaming may improve decision making ability.

Short-term motor learning through non-immersive virtual reality task in individuals with down syndrome.

PubMed

de Mello Monteiro, Carlos Bandeira; da Silva, Talita Dias; de Abreu, Luiz Carlos; Fregni, Felipe; de Araujo, Luciano Vieira; Ferreira, Fernando Henrique Inocêncio Borba; Leone, Claudio

2017-04-14

Down syndrome (DS) has unique physical, motor and cognitive characteristics. Despite cognitive and motor difficulties, there is a possibility of intervention based on the knowledge of motor learning. However, it is important to study the motor learning process in individuals with DS during a virtual reality task to justify the use of virtual reality to organize intervention programs. The aim of this study was to analyze the motor learning process in individuals with DS during a virtual reality task. A total of 40 individuals participated in this study, 20 of whom had DS (24 males and 8 females, mean age of 19 years, ranging between 14 and 30 yrs.) and 20 typically developing individuals (TD) who were matched by age and gender to the individuals with DS. To examine this issue, we used software that uses 3D images and reproduced a coincidence-timing task. The results showed that all individuals improved performance in the virtual task, but the individuals with DS that started the task with worse performance showed higher difference from the beginning. Besides that, they were able to retain and transfer the performance with increase of speed of the task. Individuals with DS are able to learn movements from virtual tasks, even though the movement time was higher compared to the TD individuals. The results showed that individuals with DS who started with low performance improved coincidence- timing task with virtual objects, but were less accurate than typically developing individuals. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02719600 .

Aerobic Fitness and Cognitive Development: Event-Related Brain Potential and Task Performance Indices of Executive Control in Preadolescent Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hillman, Charles H.; Buck, Sarah M.; Themanson, Jason R.; Pontifex, Matthew B.; Castelli, Darla M.

2009-01-01

The relationship between aerobic fitness and executive control was assessed in 38 higher- and lower-fit children (M[subscript age] = 9.4 years), grouped according to their performance on a field test of aerobic capacity. Participants performed a flanker task requiring variable amounts of executive control while event-related brain potential…

Thoughts in flight: automation use and pilots' task-related and task-unrelated thought.

PubMed

Casner, Stephen M; Schooler, Jonathan W

2014-05-01

The objective was to examine the relationship between cockpit automation use and task-related and task-unrelated thought among airline pilots. Studies find that cockpit automation can sometimes relieve pilots of tedious control tasks and afford them more time to think ahead. Paradoxically, automation has also been shown to lead to lesser awareness. These results prompt the question of what pilots think about while using automation. A total of 18 airline pilots flew a Boeing 747-400 simulator while we recorded which of two levels of automation they used. As they worked, pilots were verbally probed about what they were thinking. Pilots were asked to categorize their thoughts as pertaining to (a) a specific task at hand, (b) higher-level flight-related thoughts (e.g.,planning ahead), or (c) thoughts unrelated to the flight. Pilots' performance was also measured. Pilots reported a smaller percentage of task-at-hand thoughts (27% vs. 50%) and a greater percentage of higher-level flight-related thoughts (56% vs. 29%) when using the higher level of automation. However, when all was going according to plan, using either level of automation, pilots also reported a higher percentage of task-unrelated thoughts (21%) than they did when in the midst of an unsuccessful performance (7%). Task-unrelated thoughts peaked at 25% when pilots were not interacting with the automation. Although cockpit automation may provide pilots with more time to think, it may encourage pilots to reinvest only some of this mental free time in thinking flight-related thoughts. This research informs the design of human-automation systems that more meaningfully engage the human operator.

The role of instrumental emotion regulation in the emotions-creativity link: how worries render individuals with high neuroticism more creative.

PubMed

Leung, Angela K-Y; Liou, Shyhnan; Qiu, Lin; Kwan, Letty Y-Y; Chiu, Chi-Yue; Yong, Jose C

2014-10-01

Based on the instrumental account of emotion regulation (Tamir, 2005), the current research seeks to offer a novel perspective to the emotions-creativity debate by investigating the instrumental value of trait-consistent emotions in creativity. We hypothesize that emotions such as worry (vs. happy) are trait-consistent experiences for individuals higher on trait neuroticism and experiencing these emotions can facilitate performance in a creativity task. In 3 studies, we found support for our hypothesis. First, individuals higher in neuroticism had a greater preference for recalling worrisome (vs. happy) events in anticipation of performing a creativity task (Study 1). Moreover, when induced to recall a worrisome (vs. happy) event, individuals higher in neuroticism came up with more creative design (Study 2) and more flexible uses of a brick (Study 3) when the task was a cognitively demanding one. Further, Study 3 offers preliminary support that increased intrinsic task enjoyment and motivation mediates the relationship between trait-consistent emotion regulation and creative performance. These findings offer a new perspective to the controversy concerning the emotions-creativity relationship and further demonstrate the role of instrumental emotion regulation in the domain of creative performance. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Rewards boost sustained attention through higher effort: A value-based decision making approach.

PubMed

Massar, Stijn A A; Lim, Julian; Sasmita, Karen; Chee, Michael W L

2016-10-01

Maintaining sustained attention over time is an effortful process limited by finite cognitive resources. Recent theories describe the role of motivation in the allocation of such resources as a decision process: the costs of effortful performance are weighed against its gains. We examined this hypothesis by combining methods from attention research and decision neuroscience. Participants first performed a sustained attention task at different levels of reward. They then performed a reward-discounting task, measuring the subjective costs of performance. Results demonstrated that higher rewards led to improved performance (Exp 1-3), and enhanced attentional effort (i.e. pupil diameter; Exp 2 & 3). Moreover, discounting curves constructed from the choice task indicated that subjects devalued rewards that came at the cost of staying vigilant for a longer duration (Exp 1 & 2). Motivation can thus boost sustained attention through increased effort, while sustained performance is regarded as a cost against which rewards are discounted. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Does Dysphoria Lead to Divergent Mental Fatigue Effects on a Cognitive Task?

PubMed

Hopstaken, Jesper F; Wanmaker, Sabine; van der Linden, Dimitri; Bakker, Arnold B

2015-01-01

Tiredness, low energy, and listlessness are common symptoms to be associated with depression. The question remains to what extent these symptoms influence the effects of fatigue on sustained performance tasks, such as impaired task engagement and performance. Based on earlier findings, it was hypothesized that dysphoric (i.e., mildly depressed) individuals, compared to healthy controls, would display earlier fatigue onset and more severe fatigue effects on task engagement and performance during a cognitive task. Sixty-one dysphoric and twenty-one non-dysphoric control participants were compared during one hour of continuous performance on a 2-back task. During the task subjective fatigue, subjective engagement, objective task performance, baseline pupil diameter and stimulus-evoked pupil dilation were measured. While we found that the dysphoric group reported relatively higher subjective fatigue than the healthy control group at the start of the experiment, we did not find any other divergent fatigue effects during the experimental task. One explanation for the absence of divergent effect is that dysphoria may not have such a profound impact on available cognitive resources, like attention, as initially thought. Based on the results of the present study, we conclude that dysphoria is not necessarily an increased risk factor for impaired sustained performance on cognitive tasks that may induce mental fatigue.

Selecting Tasks for Evaluating Human Performance as a Function of Gravity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Norcross, Jason R.; Gernhardt, Michael L.

2011-01-01

A challenge in understanding human performance as a function of gravity is determining which tasks to research. Initial studies began with treadmill walking, which was easy to quantify and control. However, with the development of pressurized rovers, it is less important to optimize human performance for ambulation as pressurized rovers will likely perform gross translation for them. Future crews are likely to spend much of their extravehicular activity (EVA) performing geology, construction,a nd maintenance type tasks. With these types of tasks, people have different performance strategies, and it is often difficult to quantify the task and measure steady-state metabolic rates or perform biomechanical analysis. For many of these types of tasks, subjective feedback may be the only data that can be collected. However, subjective data may not fully support a rigorous scientific comparison of human performance across different gravity levels and suit factors. NASA would benefit from having a wide variety of quantifiable tasks that allow human performance comparison across different conditions. In order to determine which tasks will effectively support scientific studies, many different tasks and data analysis techniques will need to be employed. Many of these tasks and techniques will not be effective, but some will produce quantifiable results that are sensitive enough to show performance differences. One of the primary concerns related to EVA performance is metabolic rate. The higher the metabolic rate, the faster the astronaut will exhaust consumables. The focus of this poster will be on how different tasks affect metabolic rate across different gravity levels.

Characterization of cognitive and motor performance during dual-tasking in healthy older adults and patients with Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Wild, Lucia Bartmann; de Lima, Daiane Borba; Balardin, Joana Bisol; Rizzi, Luana; Giacobbo, Bruno Lima; Oliveira, Henrique Bianchi; de Lima Argimon, Irani Iracema; Peyré-Tartaruga, Leonardo Alexandre; Rieder, Carlos R M; Bromberg, Elke

2013-02-01

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of dual-tasking on cognitive performance and gait parameters in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) without dementia. The impact of cognitive task complexity on cognition and walking was also examined. Eighteen patients with PD (ages 53-88, 10 women; Hoehn and Yahr stage I-II) and 18 older adults (ages 61-84; 10 women) completed two neuropsychological measures of executive function/attention (the Stroop Test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test). Cognitive performance and gait parameters related to functional mobility of stride were measured under single (cognitive task only) and dual-task (cognitive task during walking) conditions with different levels of difficulty and different types of stimuli. In addition, dual-task cognitive costs were calculated. Although cognitive performance showed no significant difference between controls and PD patients during single or dual-tasking conditions, only the patients had a decrease in cognitive performance during walking. Gait parameters of patients differed significantly from controls at single and dual-task conditions, indicating that patients gave priority to gait while cognitive performance suffered. Dual-task cognitive costs of patients increased with task complexity, reaching significantly higher values then controls in the arithmetic task, which was correlated with scores on executive function/attention (Stroop Color-Word Page). Baseline motor functioning and task executive/attentional load affect the performance of cognitive tasks of PD patients while walking. These findings provide insight into the functional strategies used by PD patients in the initial phases of the disease to manage dual-task interference.

A continuous time-resolved measure decoded from EEG oscillatory activity predicts working memory task performance.

PubMed

Astrand, Elaine

2018-06-01

Working memory (WM), crucial for successful behavioral performance in most of our everyday activities, holds a central role in goal-directed behavior. As task demands increase, inducing higher WM load, maintaining successful behavioral performance requires the brain to work at the higher end of its capacity. Because it is depending on both external and internal factors, individual WM load likely varies in a continuous fashion. The feasibility to extract such a continuous measure in time that correlates to behavioral performance during a working memory task remains unsolved. Multivariate pattern decoding was used to test whether a decoder constructed from two discrete levels of WM load can generalize to produce a continuous measure that predicts task performance. Specifically, a linear regression with L2-regularization was chosen with input features from EEG oscillatory activity recorded from healthy participants while performing the n-back task, [Formula: see text]. The feasibility to extract a continuous time-resolved measure that correlates positively to trial-by-trial working memory task performance is demonstrated (r  =  0.47, p  <  0.05). It is furthermore shown that this measure allows to predict task performance before action (r  =  0.49, p  <  0.05). We show that the extracted continuous measure enables to study the temporal dynamics of the complex activation pattern of WM encoding during the n-back task. Specifically, temporally precise contributions of different spectral features are observed which extends previous findings of traditional univariate approaches. These results constitute an important contribution towards a wide range of applications in the field of cognitive brain-machine interfaces. Monitoring mental processes related to attention and WM load to reduce the risk of committing errors in high-risk environments could potentially prevent many devastating consequences or using the continuous measure as neurofeedback opens up new possibilities to develop novel rehabilitation techniques for individuals with degraded WM capacity.

A continuous time-resolved measure decoded from EEG oscillatory activity predicts working memory task performance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Astrand, Elaine

2018-06-01

Objective. Working memory (WM), crucial for successful behavioral performance in most of our everyday activities, holds a central role in goal-directed behavior. As task demands increase, inducing higher WM load, maintaining successful behavioral performance requires the brain to work at the higher end of its capacity. Because it is depending on both external and internal factors, individual WM load likely varies in a continuous fashion. The feasibility to extract such a continuous measure in time that correlates to behavioral performance during a working memory task remains unsolved. Approach. Multivariate pattern decoding was used to test whether a decoder constructed from two discrete levels of WM load can generalize to produce a continuous measure that predicts task performance. Specifically, a linear regression with L2-regularization was chosen with input features from EEG oscillatory activity recorded from healthy participants while performing the n-back task, n\\in [1,2] . Main results. The feasibility to extract a continuous time-resolved measure that correlates positively to trial-by-trial working memory task performance is demonstrated (r  =  0.47, p  <  0.05). It is furthermore shown that this measure allows to predict task performance before action (r  =  0.49, p  <  0.05). We show that the extracted continuous measure enables to study the temporal dynamics of the complex activation pattern of WM encoding during the n-back task. Specifically, temporally precise contributions of different spectral features are observed which extends previous findings of traditional univariate approaches. Significance. These results constitute an important contribution towards a wide range of applications in the field of cognitive brain–machine interfaces. Monitoring mental processes related to attention and WM load to reduce the risk of committing errors in high-risk environments could potentially prevent many devastating consequences or using the continuous measure as neurofeedback opens up new possibilities to develop novel rehabilitation techniques for individuals with degraded WM capacity.

Exploring the Impact of Target Eccentricity and Task Difficulty on Covert Visual Spatial Attention and Its Implications for Brain Computer Interfacing

PubMed Central

Roijendijk, Linsey; Farquhar, Jason; van Gerven, Marcel; Jensen, Ole; Gielen, Stan

2013-01-01

Objective Covert visual spatial attention is a relatively new task used in brain computer interfaces (BCIs) and little is known about the characteristics which may affect performance in BCI tasks. We investigated whether eccentricity and task difficulty affect alpha lateralization and BCI performance. Approach We conducted a magnetoencephalography study with 14 participants who performed a covert orientation discrimination task at an easy or difficult stimulus contrast at either a near (3.5°) or far (7°) eccentricity. Task difficulty was manipulated block wise and subjects were aware of the difficulty level of each block. Main Results Grand average analyses revealed a significantly larger hemispheric lateralization of posterior alpha power in the difficult condition than in the easy condition, while surprisingly no difference was found for eccentricity. The difference between task difficulty levels was significant in the interval between 1.85 s and 2.25 s after cue onset and originated from a stronger decrease in the contralateral hemisphere. No significant effect of eccentricity was found. Additionally, single-trial classification analysis revealed a higher classification rate in the difficult (65.9%) than in the easy task condition (61.1%). No effect of eccentricity was found in classification rate. Significance Our results indicate that manipulating the difficulty of a task gives rise to variations in alpha lateralization and that using a more difficult task improves covert visual spatial attention BCI performance. The variations in the alpha lateralization could be caused by different factors such as an increased mental effort or a higher visual attentional demand. Further research is necessary to discriminate between them. We did not discover any effect of eccentricity in contrast to results of previous research. PMID:24312477

Exploring the impact of target eccentricity and task difficulty on covert visual spatial attention and its implications for brain computer interfacing.

PubMed

Roijendijk, Linsey; Farquhar, Jason; van Gerven, Marcel; Jensen, Ole; Gielen, Stan

2013-01-01

Covert visual spatial attention is a relatively new task used in brain computer interfaces (BCIs) and little is known about the characteristics which may affect performance in BCI tasks. We investigated whether eccentricity and task difficulty affect alpha lateralization and BCI performance. We conducted a magnetoencephalography study with 14 participants who performed a covert orientation discrimination task at an easy or difficult stimulus contrast at either a near (3.5°) or far (7°) eccentricity. Task difficulty was manipulated block wise and subjects were aware of the difficulty level of each block. Grand average analyses revealed a significantly larger hemispheric lateralization of posterior alpha power in the difficult condition than in the easy condition, while surprisingly no difference was found for eccentricity. The difference between task difficulty levels was significant in the interval between 1.85 s and 2.25 s after cue onset and originated from a stronger decrease in the contralateral hemisphere. No significant effect of eccentricity was found. Additionally, single-trial classification analysis revealed a higher classification rate in the difficult (65.9%) than in the easy task condition (61.1%). No effect of eccentricity was found in classification rate. Our results indicate that manipulating the difficulty of a task gives rise to variations in alpha lateralization and that using a more difficult task improves covert visual spatial attention BCI performance. The variations in the alpha lateralization could be caused by different factors such as an increased mental effort or a higher visual attentional demand. Further research is necessary to discriminate between them. We did not discover any effect of eccentricity in contrast to results of previous research.

Effects of standing on typing task performance and upper limb discomfort, vascular and muscular indicators.

PubMed

Fedorowich, Larissa M; Côté, Julie N

2018-10-01

Standing is a popular alternative to traditionally seated computer work. However, no studies have described how standing impacts both upper body muscular and vascular outcomes during a computer typing task. Twenty healthy adults completed two 90-min simulated work sessions, seated or standing. Upper limb discomfort, electromyography (EMG) from eight upper body muscles, typing performance and neck/shoulder and forearm blood flow were collected. Results showed significantly less upper body discomfort and higher typing speed during standing. Lower Trapezius EMG amplitude was higher during standing, but this postural difference decreased with time (interaction effect), and its variability was 68% higher during standing compared to sitting. There were no effects on blood flow. Results suggest that standing computer work may engage shoulder girdle stabilizers while reducing discomfort and improving performance. Studies are needed to identify how standing affects more complex computer tasks over longer work bouts in symptomatic workers. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Autonomic Cardiovascular Control and Executive Function in Chronic Hypotension.

PubMed

Duschek, Stefan; Hoffmann, Alexandra; Reyes Del Paso, Gustavo A; Ettinger, Ulrich

2017-06-01

Chronic low blood pressure (hypotension) is characterized by complaints such as fatigue, reduced drive, dizziness, and cold limbs. Additionally, deficits in attention and memory have been observed. Autonomic dysregulation is considered to be involved in the origin of this condition. The study explored autonomic cardiovascular control in the context of higher cognitive processing (executive function) in hypotension. Hemodynamic recordings were performed in 40 hypotensive and 40 normotensive participants during execution of four classical executive function tasks (number-letter task, n-back task, continuous performance test, and flanker task). Parameters of cardiac sympathetic control, i.e., stroke volume, cardiac output, pre-ejection period, total peripheral resistance, and parasympathetic control, i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia and baroreflex sensitivity, were obtained. The hypotensive group exhibited lower stroke volume and cardiac output, as well as higher pre-ejection period and baroreflex sensitivity during task execution. Increased error rates in hypotensive individuals were observed in the n-back and flanker tasks. In the total sample, there were positive correlations of error rates with pre-ejection period, baroreflex sensitivity and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and negative correlations with cardiac output. Group differences in stroke volume, cardiac output, and pre-ejection period suggest diminished beta-adrenergic myocardial drive during executive function processing in hypotension, in addition to increased baroreflex function. Although further research is warranted to quantify the extent of executive function impairment in hypotension, the results from correlation analysis add evidence to the notion that higher sympathetic inotropic influences and reduced parasympathetic cardiac influences are accompanied by better cognitive performance.

Effects on automatic attention due to exposure to pictures of emotional faces while performing Chinese word judgment tasks.

PubMed

Junhong, Huang; Renlai, Zhou; Senqi, Hu

2013-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the automatic processing of emotional facial expressions while performing low or high demand cognitive tasks under unattended conditions. In Experiment 1, 35 subjects performed low (judging the structure of Chinese words) and high (judging the tone of Chinese words) cognitive load tasks while exposed to unattended pictures of fearful, neutral, or happy faces. The results revealed that the reaction time was slower and the performance accuracy was higher while performing the low cognitive load task than while performing the high cognitive load task. Exposure to fearful faces resulted in significantly longer reaction times and lower accuracy than exposure to neutral faces on the low cognitive load task. In Experiment 2, 26 subjects performed the same word judgment tasks and their brain event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured for a period of 800 ms after the onset of the task stimulus. The amplitudes of the early component of ERP around 176 ms (P2) elicited by unattended fearful faces over frontal-central-parietal recording sites was significantly larger than those elicited by unattended neutral faces while performing the word structure judgment task. Together, the findings of the two experiments indicated that unattended fearful faces captured significantly more attention resources than unattended neutral faces on a low cognitive load task, but not on a high cognitive load task. It was concluded that fearful faces could automatically capture attention if residues of attention resources were available under the unattended condition.

Effects on Automatic Attention Due to Exposure to Pictures of Emotional Faces while Performing Chinese Word Judgment Tasks

PubMed Central

Junhong, Huang; Renlai, Zhou; Senqi, Hu

2013-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the automatic processing of emotional facial expressions while performing low or high demand cognitive tasks under unattended conditions. In Experiment 1, 35 subjects performed low (judging the structure of Chinese words) and high (judging the tone of Chinese words) cognitive load tasks while exposed to unattended pictures of fearful, neutral, or happy faces. The results revealed that the reaction time was slower and the performance accuracy was higher while performing the low cognitive load task than while performing the high cognitive load task. Exposure to fearful faces resulted in significantly longer reaction times and lower accuracy than exposure to neutral faces on the low cognitive load task. In Experiment 2, 26 subjects performed the same word judgment tasks and their brain event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured for a period of 800 ms after the onset of the task stimulus. The amplitudes of the early component of ERP around 176 ms (P2) elicited by unattended fearful faces over frontal-central-parietal recording sites was significantly larger than those elicited by unattended neutral faces while performing the word structure judgment task. Together, the findings of the two experiments indicated that unattended fearful faces captured significantly more attention resources than unattended neutral faces on a low cognitive load task, but not on a high cognitive load task. It was concluded that fearful faces could automatically capture attention if residues of attention resources were available under the unattended condition. PMID:24124486

Career-Oriented Performance Tasks: Effects on Students' Interest in Chemistry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Espinosa, Allen A.; Monterola, Sheryl Lyn C.; Punzalan, Amelia E.

2013-01-01

The study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of Career-Oriented Performance Task (COPT) approach against the traditional teaching approach (TTA) in enhancing students' interest in Chemistry. Specifically, it sought to find out if students exposed to COPT have higher interest in Chemistry than those students exposed to the traditional…

Interference effects of vocalization on dual task performance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Owens, J. M.; Goodman, L. S.; Pianka, M. J.

1984-09-01

Voice command and control systems have been proposed as a potential means of off-loading the typically overburdened visual information processing system. However, prior to introducing novel human-machine interfacing technologies in high workload environments, consideration must be given to the integration of the new technologists within existing task structures to ensure that no new sources of workload or interference are systematically introduced. This study examined the use of voice interactive systems technology in the joint performance of two cognitive information processing tasks requiring continuous memory and choice reaction wherein a basis for intertask interference might be expected. Stimuli for the continuous memory task were presented aurally and either voice or keyboard responding was required in the choice reaction task. Performance was significantly degraded in each task when voice responding was required in the choice reaction time task. Performance degradation was evident in higher error scores for both the choice reaction and continuous memory tasks. Performance decrements observed under conditions of high intertask stimulus similarity were not statistically significant. The results signal the need to consider further the task requirements for verbal short-term memory when applying speech technology in multitask environments.

The relation of locus-of-control orientation and task structure to problem-solving performance of sixth-grade student pairs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Main, June Dewey; Budd Rowe, Mary

This study investigated the relationship of locus-of-control orientations and task structure to the science problem-solving performance of 100 same-sex, sixth-grade student pairs. Pairs performed a four-variable problem-solving task, racing cylinders down a ramp in a series of trials to determine the 3 fastest of 18 different cylinders. The task was completed in one of two treatment conditions: the structured condition with moderate cuing and the unstructured condition with minimal cuing. Pairs completed an after-task assessment, predicting the results of proposed cylinder races, to measure the ability to understand and apply task concepts. Overall conclusions were: (1) There was no relationship between locus-of-control orientation and effectiveness of problem-solving strategy; (2) internality was significantly related to higher accuracy on task solutions and on after-task predictions; (3) there was no significant relationship between task structure and effectiveness of problem-solving strategy; (4) solutions to the task were more accurate in the unstructured task condition; (5) internality related to more accurate solutions in the unstructured task condition.

Synergic effects of 10°/s constant rotation and rotating background on visual cognitive processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Siyang; Cao, Yi; Zhao, Qi; Tan, Cheng; Niu, Dongbin

In previous studies we have found that constant low-speed rotation facilitated the auditory cognitive process and constant velocity rotation background sped up the perception, recognition and assessment process of visual stimuli. In the condition of constant low-speed rotation body is exposed into a new physical state. In this study the variations of human brain's cognitive process under the complex condition of constant low-speed rotation and visual rotation backgrounds with different speed were explored. 14 university students participated in the ex-periment. EEG signals were recorded when they were performing three different cognitive tasks with increasing mental load, that is no response task, selective switch responses task and selec-tive mental arithmetic task. Rotary chair was used to create constant low-speed10/srotation. Four kinds of background were used in this experiment, they were normal black background and constant 30o /s, 45o /s or 60o /s rotating simulated star background. The P1 and N1 compo-nents of brain event-related potentials (ERP) were analyzed to detect the early visual cognitive processing changes. It was found that compared with task performed under other backgrounds, the posterior P1 and N1 latencies were shortened under 45o /s rotating background in all kinds of cognitive tasks. In the no response task, compared with task performed under black back-ground, the posterior N1 latencies were delayed under 30o /s rotating background. In the selec-tive switch responses task and selective mental arithmetic task, compared with task performed under other background, the P1 latencies were lengthened under 60o /s rotating background, but the average amplitudes of the posterior P1 and N1 were increased. It was suggested that under constant 10/s rotation, the facilitated effect of rotating visual background were changed to an inhibited one in 30o /s rotating background. Under vestibular new environment, not all of the rotating backgrounds accelerated the early process of visual cognition. There is a synergic effect between the effects of constant low-speed rotation and rotating speed of the background. Under certain conditions, they both served to facilitate the visual cognitive processing, and it had been started at the stage when extrastriate cortex perceiving the visual signal. Under the condition of constant low-speed rotation in higher cognitive load tasks, the rapid rotation of the background enhanced the magnitude of the signal transmission in the visual path, making signal to noise ratio increased and a higher signal to noise ratio is clearly in favor of target perception and recognition. This gave rise to the hypothesis that higher cognitive load tasks with higher top-down control had more power in counteracting the inhibition effect of higher velocity rotation background. Acknowledgements: This project was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30670715) and National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No.2007AA04Z254).

The Stationary-Gaze Task Should Not Be Systematically Used as the Control Task in Studies of Postural Control.

PubMed

Bonnet, Cédrick T; Szaffarczyk, Sébastien

2017-01-01

In studies of postural control, a control task is often used to understand significant effects obtained with experimental manipulations. This task should be the easiest task and (therefore) engage the lowest behavioral variability and cognitive workload. Since 1983, the stationary-gaze task is considered as the most relevant control task. Instead, the authors expected that free looking at small targets (white paper or images; visual angle: 12°) could be an easier task. To verify this assumption, 16 young individuals performed stationary-gaze, white-panel, and free-viewing 12° tasks in steady and relaxed stances. The stationary-gaze task led to significantly higher cognitive workload (mean score in the National Aeronotics and Space Administration Task Load Index questionnaire), higher interindividual body (head, neck, and lower back) linear variability, and higher interindividual body angular variability-not systematically yet-than both other tasks. There was more cognitive workload in steady than relaxed stances. The authors also tested if a free-viewing 24° task could lead to greater angular displacement, and hence greater body sway, than could the other tasks in relaxed stance. Unexpectedly, the participants mostly moved their eyes and not their body in this task. In the discussion, the authors explain why the stationary-gaze task may not be an ideal control task and how to choose this neutral task.

A test of object permanence in a new-world monkey species, cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

PubMed

Neiworth, Julie J; Steinmark, Eric; Basile, Benjamin M; Wonders, Ryann; Steely, Frances; DeHart, Catherine

2003-03-01

Cotton top tamarins were tested in visible and invisible displacement tasks in a method similar to that used elsewhere to test squirrel monkeys and orangutans. All subjects performed at levels significantly above chance on visible ( n=8) and invisible ( n=7) displacements, wherein the tasks included tests of the perseverance error, tests of memory in double and triple displacements, and "catch" trials that tested for the use of the experimenter's hand as a cue for the correct cup. Performance on all nine tasks was significantly higher than chance level selection of cups, and tasks using visible displacements generated more accurate performance than tasks using invisible displacements. Performance was not accounted for by a practice effect based on exposure to successive tasks. Results suggest that tamarins possess stage 6 object permanence capabilities, and that in a situation involving brief exposure to tasks and foraging opportunities, tracking objects' movements and responding more flexibly are abilities expressed readily by the tamarins.

Increased Cortical Activity in Binge Drinkers during Working Memory Task: A Preliminary Assessment through a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

PubMed Central

Campanella, Salvatore; Peigneux, Philippe; Petit, Géraldine; Lallemand, Frédéric; Saeremans, Mélanie; Noël, Xavier; Metens, Thierry; Nouali, Mustapha; De Tiège, Xavier; De Witte, Philippe; Ward, Roberta; Verbanck, Paul

2013-01-01

Background Cerebral dysfunction is a common feature of both chronic alcohol abusers and binge drinkers. Here, we aimed to study whether, at equated behavioral performance levels, binge drinkers exhibited increased neural activity while performing simple cognitive tasks. Methods Thirty-two participants (16 binge drinkers and 16 matched controls) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing an n-back working memory task. In the control zero-back (N0) condition, subjects were required to press a button with the right hand when the number “2″ was displayed. In the two-back (N2) condition, subjects had to press a button when the displayed number was identical to the number shown two trials before. Results fMRI analyses revealed higher bilateral activity in the pre-supplementary motor area in binge drinkers than matched controls, even though behavioral performances were similar. Moreover, binge drinkers showed specific positive correlations between the number of alcohol doses consumed per occasion and higher activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, as well as between the number of drinking occasions per week and higher activity in cerebellum, thalamus and insula while performing the N2 memory task. Conclusions Binge alcohol consumption leads to possible compensatory cerebral changes in binge drinkers that facilitate normal behavioral performance. These changes in cerebral responses may be considered as vulnerability factors for developing adult substance use disorders. PMID:23638017

The effects of anxious responding on mental arithmetic and lexical decision task performance.

PubMed

Hopko, Derek R; McNeil, Daniel W; Lejuez, C W; Ashcraft, Mark H; Eifert, Georg H; Riel, Jim

2003-01-01

Anxiety-related responding and skill deficits historically are associated with performance-based problems such as mathematics anxiety, yet the relative contribution of these variables to substandard performance remains poorly understood. Utilizing a 7% carbon dioxide (CO2) gas to induce anxiety, the present study examined the impact of anxious responding on two performance tasks, mental arithmetic and lexical decision. Independent variables included math anxiety group, gender, and gas condition. Dependent variables included task performance and physiological and self-report indices of anxiety. A total of 64 university undergraduate students participated. Physiological and verbal-report measures of anxiety supported the utility of 7% carbon dioxide-enriched air as an anxiety-inducing stimulus. Behavioral disruption on performance tasks, however, did not differ as a function of carbon dioxide inhalation. Performance did differ as a function of math anxiety. High math anxious individuals generally exhibited higher error rates on mathematical tasks, particularly on tasks designed to measure advanced math skill and those requiring working memory resources. These findings are discussed with reference to processing efficiency theory, discordance among anxiety response systems, and the intricacies associated with skill measurement.

A Comparison of a Brain-Based Adaptive System and a Manual Adaptable System for Invoking Automation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bailey, Nathan R.; Scerbo, Mark W.; Freeman, Frederick G.; Mikulka, Peter J.; Scott, Lorissa A.

2004-01-01

Two experiments are presented that examine alternative methods for invoking automation. In each experiment, participants were asked to perform simultaneously a monitoring task and a resource management task as well as a tracking task that changed between automatic and manual modes. The monitoring task required participants to detect failures of an automated system to correct aberrant conditions under either high or low system reliability. Performance on each task was assessed as well as situation awareness and subjective workload. In the first experiment, half of the participants worked with a brain-based system that used their EEG signals to switch the tracking task between automatic and manual modes. The remaining participants were yoked to participants from the adaptive condition and received the same schedule of mode switches, but their EEG had no effect on the automation. Within each group, half of the participants were assigned to either the low or high reliability monitoring task. In addition, within each combination of automation invocation and system reliability, participants were separated into high and low complacency potential groups. The results revealed no significant effects of automation invocation on the performance measures; however, the high complacency individuals demonstrated better situation awareness when working with the adaptive automation system. The second experiment was the same as the first with one important exception. Automation was invoked manually. Thus, half of the participants pressed a button to invoke automation for 10 s. The remaining participants were yoked to participants from the adaptable condition and received the same schedule of mode switches, but they had no control over the automation. The results showed that participants who could invoke automation performed more poorly on the resource management task and reported higher levels of subjective workload. Further, those who invoked automation more frequently performed more poorly on the tracking task and reported higher levels of subjective workload. and the adaptable condition in the second experiment revealed only one significant difference: the subjective workload was higher in the adaptable condition. Overall, the results show that a brain-based, adaptive automation system may facilitate situation awareness for those individuals who are more complacent toward automation. By contrast, requiring operators to invoke automation manually may have some detrimental impact on performance but does appear to increases subjective workload relative to an adaptive system.

Alterations in Resting-State Activity Relate to Performance in a Verbal Recognition Task

PubMed Central

López Zunini, Rocío A.; Thivierge, Jean-Philippe; Kousaie, Shanna; Sheppard, Christine; Taler, Vanessa

2013-01-01

In the brain, resting-state activity refers to non-random patterns of intrinsic activity occurring when participants are not actively engaged in a task. We monitored resting-state activity using electroencephalogram (EEG) both before and after a verbal recognition task. We show a strong positive correlation between accuracy in verbal recognition and pre-task resting-state alpha power at posterior sites. We further characterized this effect by examining resting-state post-task activity. We found marked alterations in resting-state alpha power when comparing pre- and post-task periods, with more pronounced alterations in participants that attained higher task accuracy. These findings support a dynamical view of cognitive processes where patterns of ongoing brain activity can facilitate –or interfere– with optimal task performance. PMID:23785436

Motivation, intentionality, and mind wandering: Implications for assessments of task-unrelated thought.

PubMed

Seli, Paul; Cheyne, James Allan; Xu, Mengran; Purdon, Christine; Smilek, Daniel

2015-09-01

Researchers of mind wandering frequently assume that (a) participants are motivated to do well on the tasks they are given, and (b) task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) that occur during task performance reflect unintentional, unwanted thoughts that occur despite participants' best intentions to maintain task-focus. Given the relatively boring and tedious nature of most mind-wandering tasks, however, there is the possibility that some participants have little motivation to do well on such tasks, and that this lack of motivation might in turn result in increases specifically in intentional TUTs. In the present study, we explored these possibilities, finding that individuals reporting lower motivation to perform well on a sustained-attention task reported more intentional relative to unintentional TUTs compared with individuals reporting higher motivation. Interestingly, our results indicate that the extent to which participants engage in intentional versus unintentional TUTs does not differentially relate to performance: both types of off-task thought were found to be equally associated with performance decrements. Participants with low levels of task-motivation also engaged in more overall TUTs, however, and this increase in TUTs was associated with greater performance decrements. We discuss these findings in the context of the literature on mind wandering, highlighting the importance of assessing the intentionality of TUTs and motivation to perform well on tasks assessing mind wandering. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

The influence of sex and empathy on putting oneself in the shoes of others.

PubMed

Mohr, Christine; Rowe, Angela C; Blanke, Olaf

2010-05-01

We tested whether putting oneself in the shoes of others is easier for women, possibly as a function of individuals' empathy levels, and whether any sex difference might be modulated by the sex of presented figures. Participants (N=100, 50 women) imagined (a) being in the spatial position of front-facing and back-facing female and male figures (third person perspective (3PP) task) and (b) that the figures were their own mirror reflections (first person perspective (1PP) task). After mentally taking the figure's position, individuals decided whether the indicated hand of the figure would be their own left or right hand. Contrary to our hypothesis, results from the 3PP-task showed higher rotational costs for women than men, suggesting that mental rotation rather than social strategies had been employed. However, faster responding by women with higher empathy scores would appear to indicate that some women engaged social perspective taking strategies irrespective of the figures' position. Figures' sex was relevant to task performance as higher rotational costs were observed for male figures in the 3PP-task for both sexes and for female figures in the 1PP-task for women. We argue that these latter findings indicate that performance was facilitated and/or inhibited towards figures associated with specific social and emotional implications.

Brain Signal Variability Differentially Affects Cognitive Flexibility and Cognitive Stability.

PubMed

Armbruster-Genç, Diana J N; Ueltzhöffer, Kai; Fiebach, Christian J

2016-04-06

Recent research yielded the intriguing conclusion that, in healthy adults, higher levels of variability in neuronal processes are beneficial for cognitive functioning. Beneficial effects of variability in neuronal processing can also be inferred from neurocomputational theories of working memory, albeit this holds only for tasks requiring cognitive flexibility. However, cognitive stability, i.e., the ability to maintain a task goal in the face of irrelevant distractors, should suffer under high levels of brain signal variability. To directly test this prediction, we studied both behavioral and brain signal variability during cognitive flexibility (i.e., task switching) and cognitive stability (i.e., distractor inhibition) in a sample of healthy human subjects and developed an efficient and easy-to-implement analysis approach to assess BOLD-signal variability in event-related fMRI task paradigms. Results show a general positive effect of neural variability on task performance as assessed by accuracy measures. However, higher levels of BOLD-signal variability in the left inferior frontal junction area result in reduced error rate costs during task switching and thus facilitate cognitive flexibility. In contrast, variability in the same area has a detrimental effect on cognitive stability, as shown in a negative effect of variability on response time costs during distractor inhibition. This pattern was mirrored at the behavioral level, with higher behavioral variability predicting better task switching but worse distractor inhibition performance. Our data extend previous results on brain signal variability by showing a differential effect of brain signal variability that depends on task context, in line with predictions from computational theories. Recent neuroscientific research showed that the human brain signal is intrinsically variable and suggested that this variability improves performance. Computational models of prefrontal neural networks predict differential effects of variability for different behavioral situations requiring either cognitive flexibility or stability. However, this hypothesis has so far not been put to an empirical test. In this study, we assessed cognitive flexibility and cognitive stability, and, besides a generally positive effect of neural variability on accuracy measures, we show that neural variability in a prefrontal brain area at the inferior frontal junction is differentially associated with performance: higher levels of variability are beneficial for the effectiveness of task switching (cognitive flexibility) but detrimental for the efficiency of distractor inhibition (cognitive stability). Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/363978-10$15.00/0.

Fine and gross motor skills: The effects on skill-focused dual-tasks.

PubMed

Raisbeck, Louisa D; Diekfuss, Jed A

2015-10-01

Dual-task methodology often directs participants' attention towards a gross motor skill involved in the execution of a skill, but researchers have not investigated the comparative effects of attention on fine motor skill tasks. Furthermore, there is limited information about participants' subjective perception of workload with respect to task performance. To examine this, the current study administered the NASA-Task Load Index following a simulated shooting dual-task. The task required participants to stand 15 feet from a projector screen which depicted virtual targets and fire a modified Glock 17 handgun equipped with an infrared laser. Participants performed the primary shooting task alone (control), or were also instructed to focus their attention on a gross motor skill relevant to task execution (gross skill-focused) and a fine motor skill relevant to task execution (fine skill-focused). Results revealed that workload was significantly greater during the fine skill-focused task for both skill levels, but performance was only affected for the lesser-skilled participants. Shooting performance for the lesser-skilled participants was greater during the gross skill-focused condition compared to the fine skill-focused condition. Correlational analyses also demonstrated a significant negative relationship between shooting performance and workload during the gross skill-focused task for the higher-skilled participants. A discussion of the relationship between skill type, workload, skill level, and performance in dual-task paradigms is presented. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

No psychological effect of color context in a low level vision task

PubMed Central

Pedley, Adam; Wade, Alex R

2013-01-01

Background: A remarkable series of recent papers have shown that colour can influence performance in cognitive tasks. In particular, they suggest that viewing a participant number printed in red ink or other red ancillary stimulus elements improves performance in tasks requiring local processing and impedes performance in tasks requiring global processing whilst the reverse is true for the colour blue. The tasks in these experiments require high level cognitive processing such as analogy solving or remote association tests and the chromatic effect on local vs. global processing is presumed to involve widespread activation of the autonomic nervous system. If this is the case, we might expect to see similar effects on all local vs. global task comparisons. To test this hypothesis, we asked whether chromatic cues also influence performance in tasks involving low level visual feature integration. Methods: Subjects performed either local (contrast detection) or global (form detection) tasks on achromatic dynamic Glass pattern stimuli. Coloured instructions, target frames and fixation points were used to attempt to bias performance to different task types. Based on previous literature, we hypothesised that red cues would improve performance in the (local) contrast detection task but would impede performance in the (global) form detection task.  Results: A two-way, repeated measures, analysis of covariance (2×2 ANCOVA) with gender as a covariate, revealed no influence of colour on either task, F(1,29) = 0.289, p = 0.595, partial η 2 = 0.002. Additional analysis revealed no significant differences in only the first attempts of the tasks or in the improvement in performance between trials. Discussion: We conclude that motivational processes elicited by colour perception do not influence neuronal signal processing in the early visual system, in stark contrast to their putative effects on processing in higher areas. PMID:25075280

No psychological effect of color context in a low level vision task.

PubMed

Pedley, Adam; Wade, Alex R

2013-01-01

A remarkable series of recent papers have shown that colour can influence performance in cognitive tasks. In particular, they suggest that viewing a participant number printed in red ink or other red ancillary stimulus elements improves performance in tasks requiring local processing and impedes performance in tasks requiring global processing whilst the reverse is true for the colour blue. The tasks in these experiments require high level cognitive processing such as analogy solving or remote association tests and the chromatic effect on local vs. global processing is presumed to involve widespread activation of the autonomic nervous system. If this is the case, we might expect to see similar effects on all local vs. global task comparisons. To test this hypothesis, we asked whether chromatic cues also influence performance in tasks involving low level visual feature integration. Subjects performed either local (contrast detection) or global (form detection) tasks on achromatic dynamic Glass pattern stimuli. Coloured instructions, target frames and fixation points were used to attempt to bias performance to different task types. Based on previous literature, we hypothesised that red cues would improve performance in the (local) contrast detection task but would impede performance in the (global) form detection task.  A two-way, repeated measures, analysis of covariance (2×2 ANCOVA) with gender as a covariate, revealed no influence of colour on either task, F(1,29) = 0.289, p = 0.595, partial η (2) = 0.002. Additional analysis revealed no significant differences in only the first attempts of the tasks or in the improvement in performance between trials. We conclude that motivational processes elicited by colour perception do not influence neuronal signal processing in the early visual system, in stark contrast to their putative effects on processing in higher areas.

Effects of Stress and Task Difficulty on Working Memory and Cortical Networking.

PubMed

Kim, Yujin; Woo, Jihwan; Woo, Minjung

2017-12-01

This study investigated interactive effects of stress and task difficulty on working memory and cortico-cortical communication during memory encoding. Thirty-eight adolescent participants (mean age of 15.7 ± 1.5 years) completed easy and hard working memory tasks under low- and high-stress conditions. We analyzed the accuracy and reaction time (RT) of working memory performance and inter- and intrahemispheric electroencephalogram coherences during memory encoding. Working memory accuracy was higher, and RT shorter, in the easy versus the hard task. RT was shorter under the high-stress (TENS) versus low-stress (no-TENS) condition, while there was no difference in memory accuracy between the two stress conditions. For electroencephalogram coherence, we found higher interhemispheric coherence in all bands but only at frontal electrode sites in the easy versus the hard task. On the other hand, intrahemispheric coherence was higher in the left hemisphere in the easy (versus hard task) and higher in the right hemisphere (with one exception) in the hard (versus easy task). Inter- and intracoherences were higher in the low- versus high-stress condition. Significant interactions between task difficulty and stress condition were observed in coherences of the beta frequency band. The difference in coherence between low- and high-stress conditions was greater in the hard compared with the easy task, with lower coherence under the high-stress condition relative to the low-stress condition. Stress seemed to cause a decrease in cortical network communications between memory-relevant cortical areas as task difficulty increased.

Impact of novel shift handle laparoscopic tool on wrist ergonomics and task performance

PubMed Central

Yu, Denny; Lowndes, Bethany; Morrow, Missy; Kaufman, Kenton; Bingener, Juliane; Hallbeck, Susan

2015-01-01

Background Laparoscopic tool handles causing wrist flexion and extension more than 15° from neutral are considered “at-risk” for musculoskeletal strain. Therefore this study measured the impact of laparoscopic tool handle angles on wrist postures and task performance. Methods Eight surgeons performed standard and modified Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) tasks with laparoscopic tools. Tool A had three adjustable handle angle configurations, i.e., in-line 0° (A0), 30° (A30), and pistol-grip 70° (A70). Tool B was a fixed pistol-grip grasper. Participants performed FLS peg transfer, inverted peg transfer, and inverted circle-cut with each tool and handle angle. Inverted tasks were adapted from standard FLS tasks to simulate advanced tasks observed during abdominal wall surgeries, e.g., ventral hernia. Motion tracking, video-analysis, and modified NASA-TLX workload questionnaires were used to measure postures, performance (e.g., completion time and errors), and workload. Results Task performance did not differ among tools. For FLS peg transfer, self-reported physical workload was lower for B than A70, and mean wrist postures showed significantly higher flexion for in-line than pistol-grip tools (B and A70). For inverted peg transfer, workload was higher for all configurations. However, less time was spent in at-risk wrist postures for in-line (47%) than pistol-grip (93-94%), and most participants preferred Tool A. For inverted circle cut, workload did not vary across configurations, mean wrist posture was 10° closer to neutral for A0 than B, and median time in at-risk wrist postures was significantly less for A0 (43%) than B (87%). Conclusion The best ergonomic wrist positions for FLS (floor) tasks are provided by pistol-grip tools and for tasks on the abdominal wall (ventral surface) by in-line handles. Adjustable handle angle laparoscopic tools can reduce ergonomic risks for musculoskeletal strain and allow versatility for tasks alternating between the floor and ceiling positions in a surgical trainer without impacting performance. PMID:26541720

Impact of novel shift handle laparoscopic tool on wrist ergonomics and task performance.

PubMed

Yu, Denny; Lowndes, Bethany; Morrow, Missy; Kaufman, Kenton; Bingener, Juliane; Hallbeck, Susan

2016-08-01

Laparoscopic tool handles causing wrist flexion and extension more than 15° from neutral are considered "at risk" for musculoskeletal strain. Therefore, this study measured the impact of laparoscopic tool handle angles on wrist postures and task performance. Eight surgeons performed standard and modified Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) tasks with laparoscopic tools. Tool A had three adjustable handle angle configurations, i.e., in-line 0° (A0), 30° (A30), and pistol-grip 70° (A70). Tool B was a fixed pistol-grip grasper. Participants performed FLS peg transfer, inverted peg transfer, and inverted circle cut with each tool and handle angle. Inverted tasks were adapted from standard FLS tasks to simulate advanced tasks observed during abdominal wall surgeries, e.g., ventral hernia. Motion tracking, video analysis, and modified NASA-TLX workload questionnaires were used to measure postures, performance (e.g., completion time and errors), and workload. Task performance did not differ between tools. For FLS peg transfer, self-reported physical workload was lower for B than for A70, and mean wrist postures showed significantly higher flexion for in-line than for pistol-grip tools (B and A70). For inverted peg transfer, workload was higher for all configurations. However, less time was spent in at-risk wrist postures for in-line (47 %) than for pistol-grip (93-94 %), and most participants preferred Tool A. For inverted circle cut, workload did not vary across configurations, mean wrist posture was 10° closer to neutral for A0 than B, and median time in at-risk wrist postures was significantly less for A0 (43 %) than for B (87 %). The best ergonomic wrist positions for FLS (floor) tasks are provided by pistol-grip tools and for tasks on the abdominal wall (ventral surface) by in-line handles. Adjustable handle angle laparoscopic tools can reduce ergonomic risks of musculoskeletal strain and allow versatility for tasks alternating between the floor and ceiling positions in a surgical trainer without impacting performance.

Cognitive Abilities, Monitoring Confidence, and Control Thresholds Explain Individual Differences in Heuristics and Biases

PubMed Central

Jackson, Simon A.; Kleitman, Sabina; Howie, Pauline; Stankov, Lazar

2016-01-01

In this paper, we investigate whether individual differences in performance on heuristic and biases tasks can be explained by cognitive abilities, monitoring confidence, and control thresholds. Current theories explain individual differences in these tasks by the ability to detect errors and override automatic but biased judgments, and deliberative cognitive abilities that help to construct the correct response. Here we retain cognitive abilities but disentangle error detection, proposing that lower monitoring confidence and higher control thresholds promote error checking. Participants (N = 250) completed tasks assessing their fluid reasoning abilities, stable monitoring confidence levels, and the control threshold they impose on their decisions. They also completed seven typical heuristic and biases tasks such as the cognitive reflection test and Resistance to Framing. Using structural equation modeling, we found that individuals with higher reasoning abilities, lower monitoring confidence, and higher control threshold performed significantly and, at times, substantially better on the heuristic and biases tasks. Individuals with higher control thresholds also showed lower preferences for risky alternatives in a gambling task. Furthermore, residual correlations among the heuristic and biases tasks were reduced to null, indicating that cognitive abilities, monitoring confidence, and control thresholds accounted for their shared variance. Implications include the proposal that the capacity to detect errors does not differ between individuals. Rather, individuals might adopt varied strategies that promote error checking to different degrees, regardless of whether they have made a mistake or not. The results support growing evidence that decision-making involves cognitive abilities that construct actions and monitoring and control processes that manage their initiation. PMID:27790170

Cognitive Abilities, Monitoring Confidence, and Control Thresholds Explain Individual Differences in Heuristics and Biases.

PubMed

Jackson, Simon A; Kleitman, Sabina; Howie, Pauline; Stankov, Lazar

2016-01-01

In this paper, we investigate whether individual differences in performance on heuristic and biases tasks can be explained by cognitive abilities, monitoring confidence, and control thresholds. Current theories explain individual differences in these tasks by the ability to detect errors and override automatic but biased judgments, and deliberative cognitive abilities that help to construct the correct response. Here we retain cognitive abilities but disentangle error detection, proposing that lower monitoring confidence and higher control thresholds promote error checking. Participants ( N = 250) completed tasks assessing their fluid reasoning abilities, stable monitoring confidence levels, and the control threshold they impose on their decisions. They also completed seven typical heuristic and biases tasks such as the cognitive reflection test and Resistance to Framing. Using structural equation modeling, we found that individuals with higher reasoning abilities, lower monitoring confidence, and higher control threshold performed significantly and, at times, substantially better on the heuristic and biases tasks. Individuals with higher control thresholds also showed lower preferences for risky alternatives in a gambling task. Furthermore, residual correlations among the heuristic and biases tasks were reduced to null, indicating that cognitive abilities, monitoring confidence, and control thresholds accounted for their shared variance. Implications include the proposal that the capacity to detect errors does not differ between individuals. Rather, individuals might adopt varied strategies that promote error checking to different degrees, regardless of whether they have made a mistake or not. The results support growing evidence that decision-making involves cognitive abilities that construct actions and monitoring and control processes that manage their initiation.

A single dose of oxytocin nasal spray improves higher-order social cognition in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Guastella, Adam J; Ward, Philip B; Hickie, Ian B; Shahrestani, Sara; Hodge, Marie Antoinette Redoblado; Scott, Elizabeth M; Langdon, Robyn

2015-11-01

Schizophrenia is associated with significant impairments in both higher and lower order social cognitive performance and these impairments contribute to poor social functioning. People with schizophrenia report poor social functioning to be one of their greatest unmet treatment needs. Recent studies have suggested the potential of oxytocin as such a treatment, but mixed results render it uncertain what aspects of social cognition are improved by oxytocin and, subsequently, how oxytocin might best be applied as a therapeutic. The aim of this study was to determine whether a single dose of oxytocin improved higher-order and lower-order social cognition performance for patients with schizophrenia across a well-established battery of social cognition tests. Twenty-one male patients received both a single dose of oxytocin nasal spray (24IU) and a placebo, two weeks apart in a randomized within-subjects placebo controlled design. Following each administration, participants completed the social cognition tasks, as well as a test of general neurocognition. Results revealed that oxytocin particularly enhanced performance on higher order social cognition tasks, with no effects on general neurocognition. Results for individual tasks showed most improvement on tests measuring appreciation of indirect hints and recognition of social faux pas. These results suggest that oxytocin, if combined to enhance social cognition learning, may be beneficial when targeted at higher order social cognition domains. This study also suggests that these higher order tasks, which assess social cognitive processing in a social communication context, may provide useful markers of response to oxytocin in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Empirical Support for 'Hastening-Through-Re-Automatization' by Contrasting Two Motor-Cognitive Dual Tasks.

PubMed

Langhanns, Christine; Müller, Hermann

2018-01-01

Motor-cognitive dual tasks have been intensely studied and it has been demonstrated that even well practiced movements like walking show signs of interference when performed concurrently with a challenging cognitive task. Typically walking speed is reduced, at least in elderly persons. In contrast to these findings, some authors report an increased movement frequency under dual-task conditions, which they call hastening . A tentative explanation has been proposed, assuming that the respective movements are governed by an automatic control regime. Though, under single-task conditions, these automatic processes are supervised by "higher-order" cognitive control processes. However, when a concurrent cognitive task binds all cognitive resources, the automatic process is freed from the detrimental effect of cognitive surveillance, allowing higher movement frequencies. Fast rhythmic movements (>1 Hz) should more likely be governed by such an automatic process than low frequency discrete repetitive movements. Fifteen subjects performed two repetitive movements under single and dual-task condition, that is, in combination with a mental calculation task. According to the expectations derived from the explanatory concept, we found an increased movement frequency under dual-task conditions only for the fast rhythmic movement (paddleball task) but not for the slower discrete repetitive task (pegboard task). fNIRS measurements of prefrontal cortical load confirmed the idea of an automatic processing in the paddleball task, whereas the pegboard task seems to be more controlled by processes interfering with the calculation related processing.

Empirical Support for ‘Hastening-Through-Re-Automatization’ by Contrasting Two Motor-Cognitive Dual Tasks

PubMed Central

Langhanns, Christine; Müller, Hermann

2018-01-01

Motor-cognitive dual tasks have been intensely studied and it has been demonstrated that even well practiced movements like walking show signs of interference when performed concurrently with a challenging cognitive task. Typically walking speed is reduced, at least in elderly persons. In contrast to these findings, some authors report an increased movement frequency under dual-task conditions, which they call hastening. A tentative explanation has been proposed, assuming that the respective movements are governed by an automatic control regime. Though, under single-task conditions, these automatic processes are supervised by “higher-order” cognitive control processes. However, when a concurrent cognitive task binds all cognitive resources, the automatic process is freed from the detrimental effect of cognitive surveillance, allowing higher movement frequencies. Fast rhythmic movements (>1 Hz) should more likely be governed by such an automatic process than low frequency discrete repetitive movements. Fifteen subjects performed two repetitive movements under single and dual-task condition, that is, in combination with a mental calculation task. According to the expectations derived from the explanatory concept, we found an increased movement frequency under dual-task conditions only for the fast rhythmic movement (paddleball task) but not for the slower discrete repetitive task (pegboard task). fNIRS measurements of prefrontal cortical load confirmed the idea of an automatic processing in the paddleball task, whereas the pegboard task seems to be more controlled by processes interfering with the calculation related processing. PMID:29887815

Effect of type of cognitive task and walking speed on cognitive-motor interference during dual-task walking.

PubMed

Patel, P; Lamar, M; Bhatt, T

2014-02-28

We aimed to determine the effect of distinctly different cognitive tasks and walking speed on cognitive-motor interference of dual-task walking. Fifteen healthy adults performed four cognitive tasks: visuomotor reaction time (VMRT) task, word list generation (WLG) task, serial subtraction (SS) task, and the Stroop (STR) task while sitting and during walking at preferred-speed (dual-task normal walking) and slow-speed (dual-task slow-speed walking). Gait speed was recorded to determine effect on walking. Motor and cognitive costs were measured. Dual-task walking had a significant effect on motor and cognitive parameters. At preferred-speed, the motor cost was lowest for the VMRT task and highest for the STR task. In contrast, the cognitive cost was highest for the VMRT task and lowest for the STR task. Dual-task slow walking resulted in increased motor cost and decreased cognitive cost only for the STR task. Results show that the motor and cognitive cost of dual-task walking depends heavily on the type and perceived complexity of the cognitive task being performed. Cognitive cost for the STR task was low irrespective of walking speed, suggesting that at preferred-speed individuals prioritize complex cognitive tasks requiring higher attentional and processing resources over walking. While performing VMRT task, individuals preferred to prioritize more complex walking task over VMRT task resulting in lesser motor cost and increased cognitive cost for VMRT task. Furthermore, slow walking can assist in diverting greater attention towards complex cognitive tasks, improving its performance while walking. Copyright © 2013 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Developmental Progression of Looking and Reaching Performance on the A-not-B Task

PubMed Central

Cuevas, Kimberly; Bell, Martha Ann

2013-01-01

From a neuropsychological perspective, the cognitive skills of working memory, inhibition, and attention and the maturation of the frontal lobe are requisites for successful A-not-B performance on both the looking and reaching versions of the task. This study used a longitudinal design to examine the developmental progression of infants’ performance on the looking and reaching versions of the A-not-B task. Twenty infants were tested on both versions of the task once a month from 5 to 10 months of age. Infants had higher object permanence scores on the looking version of the task from 5 to 8 months, with comparable performance across response modalities at 9 and 10 months. The same pattern of performance was found on nonreversal (A) trials: Infants performed better on looking trials from 5 to 7 months and they performed equally on both response trials from 8 to 10 months. Overall, infants performed better on looking reversal (B) trials than reaching reversal trials. These data suggest that performance differences between response modalities early in development can be attributed to major differences in the maturation of brain circuitry associated with the actual task response. PMID:20822245

Toward an understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying dual-task performance: Contribution of comparative approaches using animal models.

PubMed

Watanabe, Kei; Funahashi, Shintaro

2018-01-01

The study of dual-task performance in human subjects has received considerable interest in cognitive neuroscience because it can provide detailed insights into the neural mechanisms underlying higher-order cognitive control. Despite many decades of research, our understanding of the neurobiological basis of dual-task performance is still limited, and some critical questions are still under debate. Recently, behavioral and neurophysiological studies of dual-task performance in animals have begun to provide intriguing evidence regarding how dual-task information is processed in the brain. In this review, we first summarize key evidence in neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies in humans and discuss possible reasons for discrepancies across studies. We then provide a comprehensive review of the literature on dual-task studies in animals and provide a novel working hypothesis that may reconcile the divergent results in human studies toward a unified view of the mechanisms underlying dual-task processing. Finally, we propose possible directions for future dual-task experiments in the framework of comparative cognitive neuroscience. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Higher speed freight truck : vehicle dynamics analysis.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2015-08-01

Previously, Sharma & Associates, Inc. (SA) developed a higher speed freight truck design under sponsorship of the Federal : Railroad Administration. Under the current contract, SA was tasked with developing performance requirements for higher speed :...

Cognitive demand of human sensorimotor performance during an extended space mission: a dual-task study.

PubMed

Bock, Otmar; Weigelt, Cornelia; Bloomberg, Jacob J

2010-09-01

Two previous single-case studies found that the dual-task costs of manual tracking plus memory search increased during a space mission, and concluded that sensorimotor deficits during spaceflight may be related to cognitive overload. Since dual-task costs were insensitive to the difficulty of memory search, the authors argued that the overload may reflect stress-related problems of multitasking, rather than a scarcity of specific cognitive resources. Here we expand the available database and compare different types of concurrent task. Three subjects were repeatedly tested before, during, and after an extended mission on the International Space Station (ISS). They performed an unstable tracking task and four reaction-time tasks, both separately and concurrently. Inflight data could only be obtained during later parts of the mission. The tracking error increased from pre- to in flight by a factor of about 2, both under single- and dual-task conditions. The dual-task costs with a reaction-time task requiring rhythm production was 2.4 times higher than with a reaction-time task requiring visuo-spatial transformations, and 8 times higher than with a regular choice reaction-time task. Long-term sensorimotor deficits during spaceflight may reflect not only stress, but also a scarcity of resources related to complex motor programming; possibly those resources are tied up by sensorimotor adaptation to the space environment.

Evaluating Multiple Perspectives: Approaching the Synthesis Task through Assessing Credibility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lafferty, Karen Elizabeth; Summers, Amy; Tanaka, Stephanie; Cavanagh, Jeanne

2016-01-01

Introduction of the Common Core State Standards and assessments like the synthesis performance task pose new challenges for secondary English teachers. As students of all ability levels engage with complex text and in tasks that target higher level cognitive skills, teachers need strategies to support their understanding. This article describes…

Quantifying the Physiological Stress Response to Simulated Maritime Pilotage Tasks: The Influence of Task Complexity and Pilot Experience.

PubMed

Main, Luana C; Wolkow, Alexander; Chambers, Timothy P

2017-11-01

The aim of this study was to quantify the stress associated with performing maritime pilotage tasks in a high-fidelity simulator. Eight trainee and 13 maritime pilots completed two simulated pilotage tasks of varying complexity. Salivary cortisol samples were collected pre- and post-simulation for both trials. Heart rate was measured continuously throughout the study. Significant changes in salivary cortisol (P = 0.000, η = 0.139), average (P = 0.006, η = 0.087), and peak heart rate (P = 0.013, η = 0.077) from pre- to postsimulation were found. Varying task complexity did partially influence stress response; average (P = 0.016, η = 0.026) and peak heart rate (P = 0.034, η = 0.020) were higher in the experimental condition. Trainees also recorded higher average (P = 0.000, η = 0.054) and peak heart rates (P = 0.027, η = 0.022). Performing simulated pilotage tasks evoked a measurable stress response in both trainee and expert maritime pilots.

Endogenously and exogenously driven selective sustained attention: Contributions to learning in kindergarten children.

PubMed

Erickson, Lucy C; Thiessen, Erik D; Godwin, Karrie E; Dickerson, John P; Fisher, Anna V

2015-10-01

Selective sustained attention is vital for higher order cognition. Although endogenous and exogenous factors influence selective sustained attention, assessment of the degree to which these factors influence performance and learning is often challenging. We report findings from the Track-It task, a paradigm that aims to assess the contribution of endogenous and exogenous factors to selective sustained attention within the same task. Behavioral accuracy and eye-tracking data on the Track-It task were correlated with performance on an explicit learning task. Behavioral accuracy and fixations to distractors during the Track-It task did not predict learning when exogenous factors supported selective sustained attention. In contrast, when endogenous factors supported selective sustained attention, fixations to distractors were negatively correlated with learning. Similarly, when endogenous factors supported selective sustained attention, higher behavioral accuracy was correlated with greater learning. These findings suggest that endogenously and exogenously driven selective sustained attention, as measured through different conditions of the Track-It task, may support different kinds of learning. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN TASK-SPECIFIC PAIRED ASSOCIATES LEARNING IN OLDER ADULTS: THE ROLE OF PROCESSING SPEED AND WORKING MEMORY

PubMed Central

Kurtz, Tanja; Mogle, Jacqueline; Sliwinski, Martin J.; Hofer, Scott M.

2013-01-01

Background The role of processing speed and working memory was investigated in terms of individual differences in task-specific paired associates learning in a sample of older adults. Task-specific learning, as distinct from content-oriented item-specific learning, refers to gains in performance due to repeated practice on a learning task in which the to-be-learned material changes over trials. Methods Learning trajectories were modeled within an intensive repeated-measures design based on participants obtained from an opt-in internet-based sampling service (Mage = 65.3, SD = 4.81). Participants completed an eight-item paired associates task daily over a seven-day period. Results Results indicated that a three-parameter hyperbolic model (i.e., initial level, learning rate, and asymptotic performance) best described learning trajectory. After controlling for age-related effects, both higher working memory and higher processing speed had a positive effect on all three learning parameters. Conclusion These results emphasize the role of cognitive abilities for individual differences in task-specific learning of older adults. PMID:24151913

Comparison of Supraglottic Activity and Spectral Slope Between Theater Actors and Vocally Untrained Subjects.

PubMed

Guzman, Marco; Ortega, Andres; Olavarria, Christian; Muñoz, Daniel; Cortés, Pedro; Azocar, Maria Josefina; Cayuleo, David; Quintana, Felipe; Silva, Catalina

2016-11-01

The present study aimed to assess supraglottic activity in theater actors and to observe whether they present differences compared with subjects with no voice training. Acoustic and perceptual analyses were also performed. A total of 20 participants were divided into two groups: an experimental group of trained theater actors, and a comparative group of subjects with no voice training. Absence of laryngeal pathology was confirmed by rigid videostroboscopy. Flexible laryngoscopy was performed to assess supraglottic activity during speaking phonatory tasks. Voice recording was also carried out. Four blinded judges were asked to assess laryngoscopic and perceptual variables using a visual analog scale. A comparison between groups, phonatory tasks, and loudness levels was performed. Multivariate linear regression showed that trained participants had a higher degree of both laryngeal and pharyngeal activities compared with untrained participants. Moreover, phonatory tasks at high intensity showed higher activity than those at medium and low intensities for most phonatory tasks and laryngoscopic parameters. Vocally trained participants evidenced higher values for all spectral variables compared with untrained participants. Actors have a greater degree of both laryngeal and pharyngeal activities than vocally untrained subjects. Apparently, this higher activity is associated to speaking voice training and not to a hyperfunctional vocal behavior. Anterior-posterior laryngeal compression is greater than medial compression. Intensity and phonatory tasks have an effect on all laryngoscopic variables. Supraglottic activity during professional speaking voice may be not necessarily a hyperfunctional behavior, but a strategy to avoid vocal fold damage while producing the desired voice quality. Copyright © 2016 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The effects of absence of stereopsis on performance of a simulated surgical task in two-dimensional and three-dimensional viewing conditions

PubMed Central

Bloch, Edward; Uddin, Nabil; Gannon, Laura; Rantell, Khadija; Jain, Saurabh

2015-01-01

Background Stereopsis is believed to be advantageous for surgical tasks that require precise hand-eye coordination. We investigated the effects of short-term and long-term absence of stereopsis on motor task performance in three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) viewing conditions. Methods 30 participants with normal stereopsis and 15 participants with absent stereopsis performed a simulated surgical task both in free space under direct vision (3D) and via a monitor (2D), with both eyes open and one eye covered in each condition. Results The stereo-normal group scored higher, on average, than the stereo-absent group with both eyes open under direct vision (p<0.001). Both groups performed comparably in monocular and binocular monitor viewing conditions (p=0.579). Conclusions High-grade stereopsis confers an advantage when performing a fine motor task under direct vision. However, stereopsis does not appear advantageous to task performance under 2D viewing conditions, such as in video-assisted surgery. PMID:25185439

Task-specific image partitioning.

PubMed

Kim, Sungwoong; Nowozin, Sebastian; Kohli, Pushmeet; Yoo, Chang D

2013-02-01

Image partitioning is an important preprocessing step for many of the state-of-the-art algorithms used for performing high-level computer vision tasks. Typically, partitioning is conducted without regard to the task in hand. We propose a task-specific image partitioning framework to produce a region-based image representation that will lead to a higher task performance than that reached using any task-oblivious partitioning framework and existing supervised partitioning framework, albeit few in number. The proposed method partitions the image by means of correlation clustering, maximizing a linear discriminant function defined over a superpixel graph. The parameters of the discriminant function that define task-specific similarity/dissimilarity among superpixels are estimated based on structured support vector machine (S-SVM) using task-specific training data. The S-SVM learning leads to a better generalization ability while the construction of the superpixel graph used to define the discriminant function allows a rich set of features to be incorporated to improve discriminability and robustness. We evaluate the learned task-aware partitioning algorithms on three benchmark datasets. Results show that task-aware partitioning leads to better labeling performance than the partitioning computed by the state-of-the-art general-purpose and supervised partitioning algorithms. We believe that the task-specific image partitioning paradigm is widely applicable to improving performance in high-level image understanding tasks.

Differences in Sustained Attention Capacity as a Function of Aerobic Fitness.

PubMed

Luque-Casado, Antonio; Perakakis, Pandelis; Hillman, Charles H; Kao, Shih-Chun; Llorens, Francesc; Guerra, Pedro; Sanabria, Daniel

2016-05-01

We investigated the relationship between aerobic fitness and sustained attention capacity by comparing task performance and brain function, by means of event-related potentials (ERP), in high- and low-fit young adults. Two groups of participants (22 higher-fit and 20 lower-fit) completed a 60-min version of the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT). Behavioral (i.e., reaction time) and electrophysiological (ERP) (i.e., contingent negative variation and P3) were obtained and analyzed as a function of time-on-task. A submaximal cardiorespiratory fitness test confirmed the between-groups difference in terms of aerobic fitness. The results revealed shorter reaction time in higher-fit than in lower-fit participants in the first 36 min of the task. This was accompanied by larger contingent negative variation amplitude in the same period of the task in higher-fit than in lower-fit group. Crucially, higher-fit participants maintained larger P3 amplitude throughout the task compared to lower-fit, who showed a reduction in the P3 magnitude over time. Higher fitness was related to neuroelectric activity suggestive of better overall sustained attention demonstrating a better ability to allocate attentional resources over time. Moreover, higher fitness was related to enhanced response preparation in the first part of the task. Taken together, the current data set demonstrated a positive association between aerobic fitness, sustained attention, and response preparation.

Autonomy and Task Performance: Explaining the Impact of Grades on Intrinsic Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pulfrey, Caroline; Darnon, Celine; Butera, Fabrizio

2013-01-01

The use of grades to motivate constitutes an unresolved theoretical controversy. In 2 experiments carried out with different age groups and academic tracks, a standard-grade condition was compared with a condition in which differential scoring engendered higher grades and with a no-grade condition. The relative power of task performance and task…

Self-Referenced Memory, Social Cognition, and Symptom Presentation in Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henderson, Heather A.; Zahka, Nicole E.; Kojkowski, Nicole M.; Inge, Anne P.; Schwartz, Caley B.; Hileman, Camilla M.; Coman, Drew C.; Mundy, Peter C.

2009-01-01

Background: We examined performance on a self-referenced memory (SRM) task for higher-functioning children with autism (HFA) and a matched comparison group. SRM performance was examined in relation to symptom severity and social cognitive tests of mentalizing. Method: Sixty-two children (31 HFA, 31 comparison; 8-16 years) completed a SRM task in…

How Are Task Reflexivity and Intercultural Sensitivity Related to the Academic Performance of MBA Students?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lyubovnikova, Joanne; Napiersky, Uwe; Vlachopoulos, Panos

2015-01-01

Higher education in business school environments is increasingly focused on how to best equip students with the skills necessary for leadership in the global workplace. This paper examines the impact of two particularly important cognitive capabilities--task reflexivity and intercultural sensitivity, on academic performance in an MBA programme. It…

The Link between Higher Order Thinking Skills, Representation and Concepts in Enhancing TIMSS Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tajudin, Nor'ain Mohd.; Chinnappan, Mohan

2016-01-01

Students' performances in TIMSS have featured strongly in recent discussions and debates about the quality of mathematical learning outcomes both from teachers and policy makers. Findings of TIMSS trends showed that most high school students in Malaysia continue to perform at less than satisfactory levels, particularly, in tasks that are…

Understanding the role of mind wandering in stress-related working memory impairments.

PubMed

Banks, Jonathan B; Boals, Adriel

2017-08-01

Mind wandering has been identified as a possible cause for stress-related working memory (WM) task impairments following laboratory stressors. The current study attempted to induce mind wandering regarding negative, positive, or neutral events using an expressive writing task and examined the impact on WM task performance. We examined the role of mind wandering in understanding the impact of life stress on WM. Additionally, we explored the role of thought suppression on the relationship between mind wandering and WM. One hundred and fifty participants completed WM measures before (Time 1) and after (Time 2) the writing manipulation. The writing manipulation did not alter mind wandering or WM task performance. Time 1 WM predicted mind wandering during the Time 2 WM task, which subsequently predicted poorer Time 2 WM task performance. The impact of daily life stress on WM was mediated by mind wandering. Trait levels of thought suppression moderated the impact of mind wandering on WM. Specifically, higher levels of suppression resulted in stronger negative impact of mind wandering on WM task performance. Findings are discussed in terms of the impact of mind wandering on WM task performance.

Application of Physiological Self-Regulation and Adaptive Task Allocation Techniques for Controlling Operator Hazardous States of Awareness

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Prinzel, Lawrence J., III; Pope, Alan T.; Freeman, Frederick G.

2001-01-01

Prinzel, Hadley, Freeman, and Mikulka found that adaptive task allocation significantly enhanced performance only when used at the endpoints of the task workload continuum (i.e., very low or high workload), but that the technique degraded performance if invoked during other levels of task demand. These researchers suggested that other techniques should be used in conjunction with adaptive automation to help minimize the onset of hazardous states of awareness (HSA) and keep the operator 'in-the-loop.' The paper reports on such a technique that uses psychophysiological self-regulation to modulate the level of task engagement. Eighteen participants were assigned to three groups (self-regulation, false feedback, and control) and performed a compensatory tracking task that was cycled between three levels of task difficulty on the basis of the electroencephalogram (EEG) record. Those participants who had received self-regulation training performed significantly better and reported lower NASA-TLX scores than participants in the false feedback and control groups. Furthermore, the false feedback and control groups had significantly more task allocations resulting in return-to-manual performance decrements and higher EEG difference scores. Theoretical and practical implications of these results for adaptive automation are discussed.

Cognitive-evaluative features of childhood social anxiety in a performance task.

PubMed

Tuschen-Caffier, Brunna; Kühl, Sigrid; Bender, Caroline

2011-06-01

Using an experimental design, we analysed differences in the occurrence of cognitive-evaluative distortions and performance deficits across children with social anxiety disorder, with subclinical anxiety and without any anxiety symptoms. Twenty-one children with full syndrome social phobia, 18 children with partial syndrome social phobia and 20 children without any symptoms of social phobia were compared with respect to their degree of anxiety, negative thinking and task performance during two social-evaluative tasks. In addition, self-ratings of task performance, performance estimations for other children and objective behavioural ratings by two independent observers were obtained. Children with social anxiety disorder and subclinical social anxiety showed higher degrees of experienced anxiety and negative thinking than healthy control children. There was no group difference in respect to actual task performance. Findings are discussed with regard to the continuum assumption of childhood social anxiety disorder and the need of well-adapted early interventions. Copyright © 2010. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The Effect of a Six-Month Dancing Program on Motor-Cognitive Dual-Task Performance in Older Adults.

PubMed

Hamacher, Dennis; Hamacher, Daniel; Rehfeld, Kathrin; Hökelmann, Anita; Schega, Lutz

2015-10-01

Dancing is a complex sensorimotor activity involving physical and mental elements which have positive effects on cognitive functions and motor control. The present randomized controlled trial aims to analyze the effects of a dancing program on the performance on a motor-cognitive dual task. Data of 35 older adults, who were assigned to a dancing group or a health-related exercise group, are presented in the study. In pretest and posttest, we assessed cognitive performance and variability of minimum foot clearance, stride time, and stride length while walking. Regarding the cognitive performance and the stride-to-stride variability of minimum foot clearance, interaction effects have been found, indicating that dancing lowers gait variability to a higher extent than conventional health-related exercise. The data show that dancing improves minimum foot clearance variability and cognitive performance in a dual-task situation. Multi-task exercises (like dancing) might be a powerful tool to improve motor-cognitive dual-task performance.

Effect of motion cues during complex curved approach and landing tasks: A piloted simulation study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Scanlon, Charles H.

1987-01-01

A piloted simulation study was conducted to examine the effect of motion cues using a high fidelity simulation of commercial aircraft during the performance of complex approach and landing tasks in the Microwave Landing System (MLS) signal environment. The data from these tests indicate that in a high complexity MLS approach task with moderate turbulence and wind, the pilot uses motion cues to improve path tracking performance. No significant differences in tracking accuracy were noted for the low and medium complexity tasks, regardless of the presence of motion cues. Higher control input rates were measured for all tasks when motion was used. Pilot eye scan, as measured by instrument dwell time, was faster when motion cues were used regardless of the complexity of the approach tasks. Pilot comments indicated a preference for motion. With motion cues, pilots appeared to work harder in all levels of task complexity and to improve tracking performance in the most complex approach task.

Team performance in networked supervisory control of unmanned air vehicles: effects of automation, working memory, and communication content.

PubMed

McKendrick, Ryan; Shaw, Tyler; de Visser, Ewart; Saqer, Haneen; Kidwell, Brian; Parasuraman, Raja

2014-05-01

Assess team performance within a net-worked supervisory control setting while manipulating automated decision aids and monitoring team communication and working memory ability. Networked systems such as multi-unmanned air vehicle (UAV) supervision have complex properties that make prediction of human-system performance difficult. Automated decision aid can provide valuable information to operators, individual abilities can limit or facilitate team performance, and team communication patterns can alter how effectively individuals work together. We hypothesized that reliable automation, higher working memory capacity, and increased communication rates of task-relevant information would offset performance decrements attributed to high task load. Two-person teams performed a simulated air defense task with two levels of task load and three levels of automated aid reliability. Teams communicated and received decision aid messages via chat window text messages. Task Load x Automation effects were significant across all performance measures. Reliable automation limited the decline in team performance with increasing task load. Average team spatial working memory was a stronger predictor than other measures of team working memory. Frequency of team rapport and enemy location communications positively related to team performance, and word count was negatively related to team performance. Reliable decision aiding mitigated team performance decline during increased task load during multi-UAV supervisory control. Team spatial working memory, communication of spatial information, and team rapport predicted team success. An automated decision aid can improve team performance under high task load. Assessment of spatial working memory and the communication of task-relevant information can help in operator and team selection in supervisory control systems.

Reactivity to stress and the cognitive components of math disability in grade 1 children.

PubMed

MacKinnon McQuarrie, Maureen A; Siegel, Linda S; Perry, Nancy E; Weinberg, Joanne

2014-01-01

This study investigated the relationship among working memory, processing speed, math performance, and reactivity to stress in 83 Grade 1 children. Specifically, 39 children with math disability (MD) were compared to 44 children who are typically achieving (TA) in mathematics. It is the first study to use a physiological index of stress (salivary cortisol levels) to measure children's reactivity while completing tasks that assess the core components of MD: working memory for numbers, working memory for words, digits backward, letter number sequence, digit span forward, processing speed for numbers and words, block rotation, and math tasks. Grade 1 children with MD obtained significantly lower scores on the letter number sequence and quantitative concepts tasks. Higher levels of reactivity significantly predicted poorer performance on the working memory for numbers, working memory for words, and quantitative concepts tasks for Grade 1 children, regardless of math ability. Grade 1 children with MD and higher reactivity had significantly lower scores on the letter number sequence task than the children with MD and low reactivity. The findings suggest that high reactivity impairs performance in working memory and math tasks in Grade 1 children, and young children with high reactivity may benefit from interventions aimed at lowering anxiety in stressful situations, which may improve learning. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2012.

Reactivity to Stress and the Cognitive Components of Math Disability in Grade 1 Children

PubMed Central

MacKinnon McQuarrie, Maureen A.; Siegel, Linda S.; Perry, Nancy E.; Weinberg, Joanne

2016-01-01

This study investigated the relationship among working memory, processing speed, math performance, and reactivity to stress in 83 Grade 1 children. Specifically, 39 children with math disability (MD) were compared to 44 children who are typically achieving (TA) in mathematics. It is the first study to use a physiological index of stress (salivary cortisol levels) to measure children’s reactivity while completing tasks that assess the core components of MD: working memory for numbers, working memory for words, digits backward, letter number sequence, digit span forward, processing speed for numbers and words, block rotation, and math tasks. Grade 1 children with MD obtained significantly lower scores on the letter number sequence and quantitative concepts tasks. Higher levels of reactivity significantly predicted poorer performance on the working memory for numbers, working memory for words, and quantitative concepts tasks for Grade 1 children, regardless of math ability. Grade 1 children with MD and higher reactivity had significantly lower scores on the letter number sequence task than the children with MD and low reactivity. The findings suggest that high reactivity impairs performance in working memory and math tasks in Grade 1 children, and young children with high reactivity may benefit from interventions aimed at lowering anxiety in stressful situations, which may improve learning. PMID:23124381

Hormonal modulation of novelty processing in women: Enhanced under working memory load with high dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate-to-dehydroepiandrosterone ratios.

PubMed

do Vale, Sónia; Selinger, Lenka; Martins, João Martin; Bicho, Manuel; do Carmo, Isabel; Escera, Carles

2016-11-10

Several studies have suggested that dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEAS) may enhance working memory and attention, yet current evidence is still inconclusive. The balance between both forms of the hormone might be crucial regarding the effects that DHEA and DHEAS exert on the central nervous system. To test the hypothesis that higher DHEAS-to-DHEA ratios might enhance working memory and/or involuntary attention, we studied the DHEAS-to-DHEA ratio in relation to involuntary attention and working memory processing by recording the electroencephalogram of 22 young women while performing a working memory load task and a task without working memory load in an audio-visual oddball paradigm. DHEA and DHEAS were measured in saliva before each task. We found that a higher DHEAS-to-DHEA ratio was related to enhanced auditory novelty-P3 amplitudes during performance of the working memory task, indicating an increased processing of the distracter, while on the other hand there was no difference in the processing of the visual target. These results suggest that the balance between DHEAS and DHEA levels modulates involuntary attention during the performance of a task with cognitive load without interfering with the processing of the task-relevant visual stimulus. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Group social rank is associated with performance on a spatial learning task.

PubMed

Langley, Ellis J G; van Horik, Jayden O; Whiteside, Mark A; Madden, Joah R

2018-02-01

Dominant individuals differ from subordinates in their performances on cognitive tasks across a suite of taxa. Previous studies often only consider dyadic relationships, rather than the more ecologically relevant social hierarchies or networks, hence failing to account for how dyadic relationships may be adjusted within larger social groups. We used a novel statistical method: randomized Elo-ratings, to infer the social hierarchy of 18 male pheasants, Phasianus colchicus , while in a captive, mixed-sex group with a linear hierarchy. We assayed individual learning performance of these males on a binary spatial discrimination task to investigate whether inter-individual variation in performance is associated with group social rank. Task performance improved with increasing trial number and was positively related to social rank, with higher ranking males showing greater levels of success. Motivation to participate in the task was not related to social rank or task performance, thus indicating that these rank-related differences are not a consequence of differences in motivation to complete the task. Our results provide important information about how variation in cognitive performance relates to an individual's social rank within a group. Whether the social environment causes differences in learning performance or instead, inherent differences in learning ability predetermine rank remains to be tested.

Interpersonal synergies: static prehension tasks performed by two actors.

PubMed

Solnik, Stanislaw; Reschechtko, Sasha; Wu, Yen-Hsun; Zatsiorsky, Vladimir M; Latash, Mark L

2016-08-01

We investigated multidigit synergies stabilizing components of the resultant force vector during joint performance of a static prehension task by two persons as compared to similar tasks performed by a single person using both hands. Subjects transferred the instrumented handle from the right hand to the left hand (one-person condition) or passed that handle to another person (two-person condition) while keeping the handle's position and orientation stationary. Only three digits were involved per hand, the thumb, the index finger, and the middle finger; the forces and moments produced by the digits were measured by six-component sensors. We estimated the performance-stabilizing synergies within the uncontrolled manifold framework by quantifying the intertrial variance structure of digit forces and moments. The analysis was performed at three levels: between hands, between virtual finger and virtual thumb (imagined digits producing the same mechanical variables as the corresponding actual digits combined) produced by the two hands (in both interpersonal and intrapersonal conditions), and between the thumb and virtual finger for one hand only. Additionally, we performed correlation and phase synchronization analyses of resultant tangential forces and internal normal forces. Overall, the one-person conditions were characterized by higher amount of intertrial variance that did not affect resultant normal force components, higher internal components of normal forces, and stronger synchronization of the normal forces generated by the hands. Our observations suggest that in two-person tasks, when participants try to achieve a common mechanical outcome, the performance-stabilizing synergies depend on non-visual information exchange, possibly via the haptic and proprioceptive systems. Therefore, synergies quantified in tasks using visual feedback only may not be generalizable to more natural tasks.

The development of children's knowledge of attention and resource allocation in single and dual tasks.

PubMed

Dossett, D; Burns, B

2000-06-01

Developmental changes in kindergarten, 1st-, and 4th-grade children's knowledge about the variables that affect attention sharing and resource allocation were examined. Findings from the 2 experiments showed that kindergartners understood that person and strategy variables affect performance in attention-sharing tasks. However, knowledge of how task variables affect performance was not evident to them and was inconsistent for 1st and 4th graders. Children's knowledge about resource allocation revealed a different pattern and varied according to the dissimilarity of task demands in the attention-sharing task. In Experiment 1, in which the dual attention tasks were similar (i.e., visual detection), kindergarten and 1st-grade children did not differentiate performance in single and dual tasks. Fourth graders demonstrated knowledge that performance on a single task would be better than performance on the dual tasks for only 2 of the variables examined. In Experiment 2, in which the dual attention tasks were dissimilar (i.e., visual and auditory detection), kindergarten and 1st-grade children demonstrated knowledge that performance in the single task would be better than in the dual tasks for 1 of the task variables examined. However, 4th-grade children consistently gave higher ratings for performance on the single than on the dual attention tasks for all variables examined. These findings (a) underscore that children's meta-attention is not unitary and (b) demonstrate that children's knowledge about variables affecting attention sharing and resource allocation have different developmental pathways. Results show that knowledge about attention sharing and about the factors that influence the control of attention develops slowly and undergoes reorganization in middle childhood.

The Effects of Mental Fatigue on Physical Performance: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Van Cutsem, Jeroen; Marcora, Samuele; De Pauw, Kevin; Bailey, Stephen; Meeusen, Romain; Roelands, Bart

2017-08-01

Mental fatigue is a psychobiological state caused by prolonged periods of demanding cognitive activity. It has recently been suggested that mental fatigue can affect physical performance. Our objective was to evaluate the literature on impairment of physical performance due to mental fatigue and to create an overview of the potential factors underlying this effect. Two electronic databases, PubMed and Web of Science (until 28 April 2016), were searched for studies designed to test whether mental fatigue influenced performance of a physical task or influenced physiological and/or perceptual responses during the physical task. Studies using short (<30 min) self-regulatory depletion tasks were excluded from the review. A total of 11 articles were included, of which six were of strong and five of moderate quality. The general finding was a decline in endurance performance (decreased time to exhaustion and self-selected power output/velocity or increased completion time) associated with a higher than normal perceived exertion. Physiological variables traditionally associated with endurance performance (heart rate, blood lactate, oxygen uptake, cardiac output, maximal aerobic capacity) were unaffected by mental fatigue. Maximal strength, power, and anaerobic work were not affected by mental fatigue. The duration and intensity of the physical task appear to be important factors in the decrease in physical performance due to mental fatigue. The most important factor responsible for the negative impact of mental fatigue on endurance performance is a higher perceived exertion.

Functional connections between activated and deactivated brain regions mediate emotional interference during externally directed cognition.

PubMed

Di Plinio, Simone; Ferri, Francesca; Marzetti, Laura; Romani, Gian Luca; Northoff, Georg; Pizzella, Vittorio

2018-04-24

Recent evidence shows that task-deactivations are functionally relevant for cognitive performance. Indeed, higher cognitive engagement has been associated with higher suppression of activity in task-deactivated brain regions - usually ascribed to the Default Mode Network (DMN). Moreover, a negative correlation between these regions and areas actively engaged by the task is associated with better performance. DMN regions show positive modulation during autobiographical, social, and emotional tasks. However, it is not clear how processing of emotional stimuli affects the interplay between the DMN and executive brain regions. We studied this interplay in an fMRI experiment using emotional negative stimuli as distractors. Activity modulations induced by the emotional interference of negative stimuli were found in frontal, parietal, and visual areas, and were associated with modulations of functional connectivity between these task-activated areas and DMN regions. A worse performance was predicted both by lower activity in the superior parietal cortex and higher connectivity between visual areas and frontal DMN regions. Connectivity between right inferior frontal gyrus and several DMN regions in the left hemisphere was related to the behavioral performance. This relation was weaker in the negative than in the neutral condition, likely suggesting less functional inhibitions of DMN regions during emotional processing. These results show that both executive and DMN regions are crucial for the emotional interference process and suggest that DMN connections are related to the interplay between externally-directed and internally-focused processes. Among DMN regions, superior frontal gyrus may be a key node in regulating the interference triggered by emotional stimuli. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Performance monitoring in obsessive-compulsive undergraduates: Effects of task difficulty.

PubMed

Riesel, Anja; Richter, Anika; Kaufmann, Christian; Kathmann, Norbert; Endrass, Tanja

2015-08-01

Both obsessive-compulsive disorder and subclinical obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms seem to be associated with hyperactive error-related brain activity. The current study examined performance monitoring in subjects with subclinical OC symptoms using a new task with different levels of difficulty. Nineteen subjects with high and 18 subjects with low OC characteristics performed a random dot cinematogram (RDC) task with three levels of difficulty. The high and low OC groups did not differ in error-related negativity (ERN), correct-related negativity (CRN) and performance irrespective of task difficulty. The amplitude of the ERN decreased with increasing difficulty whereas the magnitude of CRN did not vary. ERN and CRN approached in size and topography with increasing difficulty, which suggests that errors and correct responses are processed more similarly. These results add to a growing number of studies that fail to replicate hyperactive performance monitoring in individuals with OC symptoms in task with higher difficulty or requiring learning. Together with these findings our results suggest that the relationship between OC symptoms and performance monitoring may be sensitive to type of task and task characteristics and cannot be observed in a RDC that differs from typically used tasks in difficulty and the amount of response-conflict. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Transfer Effects to a Multimodal Dual-Task after Working Memory Training and Associated Neural Correlates in Older Adults - A Pilot Study.

PubMed

Heinzel, Stephan; Rimpel, Jérôme; Stelzel, Christine; Rapp, Michael A

2017-01-01

Working memory (WM) performance declines with age. However, several studies have shown that WM training may lead to performance increases not only in the trained task, but also in untrained cognitive transfer tasks. It has been suggested that transfer effects occur if training task and transfer task share specific processing components that are supposedly processed in the same brain areas. In the current study, we investigated whether single-task WM training and training-related alterations in neural activity might support performance in a dual-task setting, thus assessing transfer effects to higher-order control processes in the context of dual-task coordination. A sample of older adults (age 60-72) was assigned to either a training or control group. The training group participated in 12 sessions of an adaptive n-back training. At pre and post-measurement, a multimodal dual-task was performed in all participants to assess transfer effects. This task consisted of two simultaneous delayed match to sample WM tasks using two different stimulus modalities (visual and auditory) that were performed either in isolation (single-task) or in conjunction (dual-task). A subgroup also participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the performance of the n-back task before and after training. While no transfer to single-task performance was found, dual-task costs in both the visual modality ( p < 0.05) and the auditory modality ( p < 0.05) decreased at post-measurement in the training but not in the control group. In the fMRI subgroup of the training participants, neural activity changes in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during one-back predicted post-training auditory dual-task costs, while neural activity changes in right DLPFC during three-back predicted visual dual-task costs. Results might indicate an improvement in central executive processing that could facilitate both WM and dual-task coordination.

Transfer Effects to a Multimodal Dual-Task after Working Memory Training and Associated Neural Correlates in Older Adults – A Pilot Study

PubMed Central

Heinzel, Stephan; Rimpel, Jérôme; Stelzel, Christine; Rapp, Michael A.

2017-01-01

Working memory (WM) performance declines with age. However, several studies have shown that WM training may lead to performance increases not only in the trained task, but also in untrained cognitive transfer tasks. It has been suggested that transfer effects occur if training task and transfer task share specific processing components that are supposedly processed in the same brain areas. In the current study, we investigated whether single-task WM training and training-related alterations in neural activity might support performance in a dual-task setting, thus assessing transfer effects to higher-order control processes in the context of dual-task coordination. A sample of older adults (age 60–72) was assigned to either a training or control group. The training group participated in 12 sessions of an adaptive n-back training. At pre and post-measurement, a multimodal dual-task was performed in all participants to assess transfer effects. This task consisted of two simultaneous delayed match to sample WM tasks using two different stimulus modalities (visual and auditory) that were performed either in isolation (single-task) or in conjunction (dual-task). A subgroup also participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the performance of the n-back task before and after training. While no transfer to single-task performance was found, dual-task costs in both the visual modality (p < 0.05) and the auditory modality (p < 0.05) decreased at post-measurement in the training but not in the control group. In the fMRI subgroup of the training participants, neural activity changes in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during one-back predicted post-training auditory dual-task costs, while neural activity changes in right DLPFC during three-back predicted visual dual-task costs. Results might indicate an improvement in central executive processing that could facilitate both WM and dual-task coordination. PMID:28286477

Local Use-Dependent Sleep in Wakefulness Links Performance Errors to Learning

PubMed Central

Quercia, Angelica; Zappasodi, Filippo; Committeri, Giorgia; Ferrara, Michele

2018-01-01

Sleep and wakefulness are no longer to be considered as discrete states. During wakefulness brain regions can enter a sleep-like state (off-periods) in response to a prolonged period of activity (local use-dependent sleep). Similarly, during nonREM sleep the slow-wave activity, the hallmark of sleep plasticity, increases locally in brain regions previously involved in a learning task. Recent studies have demonstrated that behavioral performance may be impaired by off-periods in wake in task-related regions. However, the relation between off-periods in wake, related performance errors and learning is still untested in humans. Here, by employing high density electroencephalographic (hd-EEG) recordings, we investigated local use-dependent sleep in wake, asking participants to repeat continuously two intensive spatial navigation tasks. Critically, one task relied on previous map learning (Wayfinding) while the other did not (Control). Behaviorally awake participants, who were not sleep deprived, showed progressive increments of delta activity only during the learning-based spatial navigation task. As shown by source localization, delta activity was mainly localized in the left parietal and bilateral frontal cortices, all regions known to be engaged in spatial navigation tasks. Moreover, during the Wayfinding task, these increments of delta power were specifically associated with errors, whose probability of occurrence was significantly higher compared to the Control task. Unlike the Wayfinding task, during the Control task neither delta activity nor the number of errors increased progressively. Furthermore, during the Wayfinding task, both the number and the amplitude of individual delta waves, as indexes of neuronal silence in wake (off-periods), were significantly higher during errors than hits. Finally, a path analysis linked the use of the spatial navigation circuits undergone to learning plasticity to off periods in wake. In conclusion, local sleep regulation in wakefulness, associated with performance failures, could be functionally linked to learning-related cortical plasticity. PMID:29666574

The Effect of Cognitive-Task Type and Walking Speed on Dual-Task Gait in Healthy Adults.

PubMed

Wrightson, James G; Ross, Emma Z; Smeeton, Nicholas J

2016-01-01

In a number of studies in which a dual-task gait paradigm was used, researchers reported a relationship between cognitive function and gait. However, it is not clear to what extent these effects are dependent on the type of cognitive and walking tasks used in the dual-task paradigm. This study examined whether stride-time variability (STV) and trunk range of motion (RoM) are affected by the type of cognitive task and walking speed used during dual-task gait. Participants walked at both their preferred walking speed and at 25% of their preferred walking speed and performed a serial subtraction and a working memory task at both speeds. Although both tasks significantly reduced STV at both walking speeds, there was no difference between the two tasks. Trunk RoM was affected by the walking speed and type of cognitive task used during dual-task gait: Mediolateral trunk RoM was increased at the slow walking speed, and anterior-posterior trunk RoM was higher only when performing the serial subtraction task at the slow walking speed. The reduction of STV, regardless of cognitive-task type, suggests that healthy adults may redirect cognitive processes away from gait toward cognitive-task performance during dual-task gait.

Laparoscopic and robotic skills are transferable in a simulation setting: a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Thomaier, Lauren; Orlando, Megan; Abernethy, Melinda; Paka, Chandhana; Chen, Chi Chiung Grace

2017-08-01

Although surgical simulation provides an effective supplement to traditional training, it is not known whether skills are transferable between minimally invasive surgical modalities. The purpose of this study was to assess the transferability of skills between minimally invasive surgical simulation platforms among simulation-naïve participants. Forty simulation-naïve medical students were enrolled in this randomized single-blinded controlled trial. Participants completed a baseline evaluation on laparoscopic (Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery Program, Los Angeles, CA) and robotic (dV-Trainer, Mimic, Seattle, WA) simulation peg transfer tasks. Participants were then randomized to perform a practice session on either the robotic (N = 20) or laparoscopic (N = 20) simulator. Two blinded, expert minimally invasive surgeons evaluated participants before and after training using a modified previously validated subjective global rating scale. Objective measures including time to task completion and Mimic dV-Trainer motion metrics were also recorded. At baseline, there were no significant differences between the training groups as measured by objective and subjective measures for either simulation task. After training, participants randomized to the laparoscopic practice group completed the laparoscopic task faster (p < 0.003) and with higher global rating scale scores (p < 0.001) than the robotic group. Robotic-trained participants performed the robotic task faster (p < 0.001), with improved economy of motion (p < 0.001), and with higher global rating scale scores (p = 0.006) than the laparoscopic group. The robotic practice group also demonstrated significantly improved performance on the laparoscopic task (p = 0.02). Laparoscopic-trained participants also improved their robotic performance (p = 0.02), though the robotic group had a higher percent improvement on the robotic task (p = 0.037). Skills acquired through practice on either laparoscopic or robotic simulation platforms appear to be transferable between modalities. However, participants demonstrate superior skill in the modality in which they specifically train.

Task-dependent individual differences in prefrontal connectivity.

PubMed

Biswal, Bharat B; Eldreth, Dana A; Motes, Michael A; Rypma, Bart

2010-09-01

Recent advances in neuroimaging have permitted testing of hypotheses regarding the neural bases of individual differences, but this burgeoning literature has been characterized by inconsistent results. To test the hypothesis that differences in task demands could contribute to between-study variability in brain-behavior relationships, we had participants perform 2 tasks that varied in the extent of cognitive involvement. We examined connectivity between brain regions during a low-demand vigilance task and a higher-demand digit-symbol visual search task using Granger causality analysis (GCA). Our results showed 1) Significant differences in numbers of frontoparietal connections between low- and high-demand tasks 2) that GCA can detect activity changes that correspond with task-demand changes, and 3) faster participants showed more vigilance-related activity than slower participants, but less visual-search activity. These results suggest that relatively low-demand cognitive performance depends on spontaneous bidirectionally fluctuating network activity, whereas high-demand performance depends on a limited, unidirectional network. The nature of brain-behavior relationships may vary depending on the extent of cognitive demand. High-demand network activity may reflect the extent to which individuals require top-down executive guidance of behavior for successful task performance. Low-demand network activity may reflect task- and performance monitoring that minimizes executive requirements for guidance of behavior.

Task-Dependent Individual Differences in Prefrontal Connectivity

PubMed Central

Biswal, Bharat B.; Eldreth, Dana A.; Motes, Michael A.

2010-01-01

Recent advances in neuroimaging have permitted testing of hypotheses regarding the neural bases of individual differences, but this burgeoning literature has been characterized by inconsistent results. To test the hypothesis that differences in task demands could contribute to between-study variability in brain-behavior relationships, we had participants perform 2 tasks that varied in the extent of cognitive involvement. We examined connectivity between brain regions during a low-demand vigilance task and a higher-demand digit–symbol visual search task using Granger causality analysis (GCA). Our results showed 1) Significant differences in numbers of frontoparietal connections between low- and high-demand tasks 2) that GCA can detect activity changes that correspond with task-demand changes, and 3) faster participants showed more vigilance-related activity than slower participants, but less visual-search activity. These results suggest that relatively low-demand cognitive performance depends on spontaneous bidirectionally fluctuating network activity, whereas high-demand performance depends on a limited, unidirectional network. The nature of brain-behavior relationships may vary depending on the extent of cognitive demand. High-demand network activity may reflect the extent to which individuals require top-down executive guidance of behavior for successful task performance. Low-demand network activity may reflect task- and performance monitoring that minimizes executive requirements for guidance of behavior. PMID:20064942

Fighter pilots' heart rate, heart rate variation and performance during an instrument flight rules proficiency test.

PubMed

Mansikka, Heikki; Virtanen, Kai; Harris, Don; Simola, Petteri

2016-09-01

Increased task demand will increase the pilot mental workload (PMWL). When PMWL is increased, mental overload may occur resulting in degraded performance. During pilots' instrument flight rules (IFR) proficiency test, PMWL is typically not measured. Therefore, little is known about workload during the proficiency test and pilots' potential to cope with higher task demands than those experienced during the test. In this study, fighter pilots' performance and PMWL was measured during a real IFR proficiency test in an F/A-18 simulator. PMWL was measured using heart rate (HR) and heart rate variation (HRV). Performance was rated using Finnish Air Force's official rating scales. Results indicated that HR and HRV differentiate varying task demands in situations where variations in performance are insignificant. It was concluded that during a proficiency test, PMWL should be measured together with the task performance measurement. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Personality and attention: Levels of neuroticism and extraversion can predict attentional performance during a change detection task.

PubMed

Hahn, Sowon; Buttaccio, Daniel R; Hahn, Jungwon; Lee, Taehun

2015-01-01

The present study demonstrates that levels of extraversion and neuroticism can predict attentional performance during a change detection task. After completing a change detection task built on the flicker paradigm, participants were assessed for personality traits using the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher levels of extraversion predict increased change detection accuracies, while higher levels of neuroticism predict decreased change detection accuracies. In addition, neurotic individuals exhibited decreased sensitivity A' and increased fixation dwell times. Hierarchical regression analyses further revealed that eye movement measures mediate the relationship between neuroticism and change detection accuracies. Based on the current results, we propose that neuroticism is associated with decreased attentional control over the visual field, presumably due to decreased attentional disengagement. Extraversion can predict increased attentional performance, but the effect is smaller than the relationship between neuroticism and attention.

Long-lasting effects of performance-contingent unconscious and conscious reward incentives during cued task-switching.

PubMed

Capa, Rémi L; Bouquet, Cédric A; Dreher, Jean-Claude; Dufour, André

2013-01-01

Motivation is often thought to interact consciously with executive control, although recent studies have indicated that motivation can also be unconscious. To date, however, the effects of unconscious motivation on high-order executive control functions have not been explored. Only a few studies using subliminal stimuli (i.e., those not related to motivation, such as an arrow to prime a response) have reported short-lived effects on high-order executive control functions. Here, building on research on unconscious motivation, in which a behavior of perseverance is induced to attain a goal, we hypothesized that subliminal motivation can have long-lasting effects on executive control processes. We investigated the impact of unconscious/conscious monetary reward incentives on evoked potentials and neural activity dynamics during cued task-switching performance. Participants performed long runs of task-switching. At the beginning of each run, a reward (50 cents or 1 cent) was displayed, either subliminally or supraliminally. Participants earned the reward contingent upon their correct responses to each trial of the run. A higher percentage of runs was achieved with higher (conscious and unconscious) than lower rewards, indicating that unconscious high rewards have long-lasting behavioral effects. Event-related potential (ERP) results indicated that unconscious and conscious rewards influenced preparatory effort in task preparation, as suggested by a greater fronto-central contingent negative variation (CNV) starting at cue-onset. However, a greater parietal P3 associated with better reaction times (RTs) was observed only under conditions of conscious high reward, suggesting a larger amount of working memory invested during task performance. Together, these results indicate that unconscious and conscious motivations are similar at early stages of task-switching preparation but differ during task performance. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Alpha power increases in right parietal cortex reflects focused internal attention

PubMed Central

Benedek, Mathias; Schickel, Rainer J.; Jauk, Emanuel; Fink, Andreas; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.

2014-01-01

This study investigated the functional significance of EEG alpha power increases, a finding that is consistently observed in various memory tasks and specifically during divergent thinking. It was previously shown that alpha power is increased when tasks are performed in mind—e.g., when bottom-up processing is prevented. This study aimed to examine the effect of task-immanent differences in bottom-up processing demands by comparing two divergent thinking tasks, one intrinsically relying on bottom-up processing (sensory-intake task) and one that is not (sensory-independence task). In both tasks, stimuli were masked in half of the trials to establish conditions of higher and lower internal processing demands. In line with the hypotheses, internal processing affected performance and led to increases in alpha power only in the sensory-intake task, whereas the sensory-independence task showed high levels of task-related alpha power in both conditions. Interestingly, conditions involving focused internal attention showed a clear lateralization with higher alpha power in parietal regions of the right hemisphere. Considering evidence from fMRI studies, right-parietal alpha power increases may correspond to a deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction, reflecting an inhibition of the ventral attention network. Inhibition of this region is thought to prevent reorienting to irrelevant stimulation during goal-driven, top-down behavior, which may serve the executive function of task shielding during demanding cognitive tasks such as idea generation and mental imagery. PMID:24561034

Dissociable roles of default-mode regions during episodic encoding.

PubMed

Maillet, David; Rajah, M Natasha

2014-04-01

We investigated the role of distinct regions of the default-mode network (DMN) during memory encoding with fMRI. Subjects encoded words using either a strategy that emphasized self-referential (pleasantness) processing, or one that emphasized semantic (man-made/natural) processing. During encoding subjects were intermittently presented with thought probes to evaluate if they were concentrated and on-task or exhibiting task-unrelated thoughts (TUT). After the scanning session subjects performed a source retrieval task to determine which of two judgments they performed for each word at encoding. Source retrieval accuracy was higher for words encoded with the pleasantness vs. the man-made/natural task and there was a trend for higher performance for words preceding on-task vs. TUT reports. fMRI results show that left anterior medial PFC and left angular gyrus activity was greater during successful vs. unsuccessful encoding during both encoding tasks. Greater activity in left anterior cingulate and bilateral lateral temporal cortex was related successful vs. unsuccessful encoding only in the pleasantness task. In contrast, posterior cingulate, right anterior cingulate and right temporoparietal junction were activated to a greater extent in unsuccessful vs. successful encoding across tasks. Finally, activation in posterior cingulate and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was related to TUT across tasks; moreover, we observed a conjunction in posterior cingulate between encoding failure and TUT. We conclude that DMN regions play dissociable roles during memory formation, and that their association with subsequent memory may depend on the manner in which information is encoded and retrieved. Crown Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Central as well as Peripheral Attentional Bottlenecks in Dual-Task Performance Activate Lateral Prefrontal Cortices

PubMed Central

Szameitat, André J.; Vanloo, Azonya; Müller, Hermann J.

2016-01-01

Human information processing suffers from severe limitations in parallel processing. In particular, when required to respond to two stimuli in rapid succession, processing bottlenecks may appear at central and peripheral stages of task processing. Importantly, it has been suggested that executive functions are needed to resolve the interference arising at such bottlenecks. The aims of the present study were to test whether central attentional limitations (i.e., bottleneck at the decisional response selection stage) as well as peripheral limitations (i.e., bottleneck at response initiation) both demand executive functions located in the lateral prefrontal cortex. For this, we re-analyzed two previous studies, in which a total of 33 participants performed a dual-task according to the paradigm of the psychological refractory period (PRP) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In one study (N = 17), the PRP task consisted of two two-choice response tasks known to suffer from a central bottleneck (CB group). In the other study (N = 16), the PRP task consisted of two simple-response tasks known to suffer from a peripheral bottleneck (PB group). Both groups showed considerable dual-task costs in form of slowing of the second response in the dual-task (PRP effect). Imaging results are based on the subtraction of both single-tasks from the dual-task within each group. In the CB group, the bilateral middle frontal gyri and inferior frontal gyri were activated. Higher activation in these areas was associated with lower dual-task costs. In the PB group, the right middle frontal and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) were activated. Here, higher activation was associated with higher dual-task costs. In conclusion we suggest that central and peripheral bottlenecks both demand executive functions located in lateral prefrontal cortices (LPFC). Differences between the CB and PB groups with respect to the exact prefrontal areas activated and the correlational patterns suggest that the executive functions resolving interference at least partially differ between the groups. PMID:27014044

The Importance of Team Sex Composition in Team-Training Research Employing Complex Psychomotor Tasks.

PubMed

Jarrett, Steven M; Glaze, Ryan M; Schurig, Ira; Arthur, Winfred

2017-08-01

The relationship between team sex composition and team performance on a complex psychomotor task was examined because these types of tasks are commonly used in the lab-based teams literature. Despite well-documented sex-based differences on complex psychomotor tasks, the preponderance of studies-mainly lab based-that use these tasks makes no mention of the sex composition of teams across or within experimental conditions. A sample of 123 four-person teams with varying team sex composition learned and performed a complex psychomotor task, Steal Beasts Pro PE. Each team completed a 5-hr protocol whereby they conducted several performance missions. The results indicated significant large mean differences such that teams with larger proportions of males had higher performance scores. These findings demonstrate the potential effect of team sex composition on the validity of studies that use complex psychomotor tasks to explore and investigate team performance-related phenomena when (a) team sex composition is not a focal variable of interest and (b) it is not accounted for or controlled. Given the proclivity of complex psychomotor action-based tasks used in lab-based team studies, it is important to understand and control for the impact of team sex composition on team performance. When team sex composition is not controlled for, either methodologically or statistically, it may affect the validity of the results in teams studies using these types of tasks.

Motor-cognitive dual-task performance: effects of a concurrent motor task on distinct components of visual processing capacity.

PubMed

Künstler, E C S; Finke, K; Günther, A; Klingner, C; Witte, O; Bublak, P

2018-01-01

Dual tasking, or the simultaneous execution of two continuous tasks, is frequently associated with a performance decline that can be explained within a capacity sharing framework. In this study, we assessed the effects of a concurrent motor task on the efficiency of visual information uptake based on the 'theory of visual attention' (TVA). TVA provides parameter estimates reflecting distinct components of visual processing capacity: perceptual threshold, visual processing speed, and visual short-term memory (VSTM) storage capacity. Moreover, goodness-of-fit values and bootstrapping estimates were derived to test whether the TVA-model is validly applicable also under dual task conditions, and whether the robustness of parameter estimates is comparable in single- and dual-task conditions. 24 subjects of middle to higher age performed a continuous tapping task, and a visual processing task (whole report of briefly presented letter arrays) under both single- and dual-task conditions. Results suggest a decline of both visual processing capacity and VSTM storage capacity under dual-task conditions, while the perceptual threshold remained unaffected by a concurrent motor task. In addition, goodness-of-fit values and bootstrapping estimates support the notion that participants processed the visual task in a qualitatively comparable, although quantitatively less efficient way under dual-task conditions. The results support a capacity sharing account of motor-cognitive dual tasking and suggest that even performing a relatively simple motor task relies on central attentional capacity that is necessary for efficient visual information uptake.

The Spectacles through Which I See the Race and IQ Debate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flynn, James R.

2010-01-01

The ranking of Wechsler subtests in terms of their "g" loadings is equivalent to ranking them in terms of the cognitive complexity of the tasks measured. Lower performing groups do not always fall behind higher performing groups the more complex the task. But that is the general rule, no matter whether the cause of the lower performance…

Divided attention in young drivers under the influence of alcohol.

PubMed

Freydier, C; Berthelon, C; Bastien-Toniazzo, M; Gineyt, G

2014-06-01

The present research evaluates driving impairment linked to divided attention task and alcohol and determines whether it is higher for novice drivers than for experienced drivers. Novice and experienced drivers participated in three experimental sessions in which blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) were 0.0 g/L, 0.2 g/L, and 0.5 g/L. They performed a divided attention task with a main task of car-following task and an additional task of number parity identification. Driving performance, response time and accuracy on the additional task were measured. ANOVA showed a driving impairment and a decrease in additional task performance from a BAC of 0.5 g/L, particularly for novice drivers. Indeed, the latter adopt more risky behavior such as tailgating. In the divided attention task, driving impairment was found for all drivers and impairment on information processing accuracy was highlighted, notably in peripheral vision. The divided attention task used here provides a relevant method for identifying the effects of alcohol on cognitive functions and could be used in psychopharmacological research. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sex differences in cognition among illiterate Bangladeshis: a comparison with literate Bangladeshis and Swedes.

PubMed

Herlitz, Agneta; Kabir, Zarina N

2006-12-01

We investigated the presence and magnitude of sex differences in late adulthood, assessing 426 illiterate Bangladeshis, 239 literate Bangladeshis, and 598 Swedes. The cognitive domains examined included calculation, episodic memory, spatial visualization, and global cognitive ability. In general, men performed at a higher level than women on tasks assessing calculation and spatial visualization, whereas women performed at a higher level than men on the episodic memory task. Notably, the pattern of cognitive sex differences was similar irrespective of nationality and literacy, although the magnitude of the male advantage was inversely related to level of education. Finally, the low performance of the illiterate women demonstrated the penalizing effect restrictions in public exposure might have on cognitive performance.

Examination of mechanisms underlying enhanced memory performance in action video game players: a pilot study

PubMed Central

Li, Xianchun; Cheng, Xiaojun; Li, Jiaying; Pan, Yafeng; Hu, Yi; Ku, Yixuan

2015-01-01

Previous studies have shown enhanced memory performance resulting from extensive action video game playing. The mechanisms underlying the cognitive benefit were investigated in the current study. We presented two types of retro-cues, with variable intervals to memory array (Task 1) or test array (Task 2), during the retention interval in a change detection task. In Task 1, action video game players demonstrated steady performance while non-action video game players showed decreased performance as cues occurred later, indicating their performance difference increased as the cue-to-memory-array intervals became longer. In Task 2, both participant groups increased their performance at similar rates as cues presented later, implying the performance difference in two groups were irrespective of the test-array-to-cue intervals. These findings suggested that memory benefit from game plays is not attributable to the higher ability of overcoming interference from the test array, but to the interactions between the two processes of protection from decay and resistance from interference, or from alternative hypotheses. Implications for future studies were discussed. PMID:26136720

Examination of mechanisms underlying enhanced memory performance in action video game players: a pilot study.

PubMed

Li, Xianchun; Cheng, Xiaojun; Li, Jiaying; Pan, Yafeng; Hu, Yi; Ku, Yixuan

2015-01-01

Previous studies have shown enhanced memory performance resulting from extensive action video game playing. The mechanisms underlying the cognitive benefit were investigated in the current study. We presented two types of retro-cues, with variable intervals to memory array (Task 1) or test array (Task 2), during the retention interval in a change detection task. In Task 1, action video game players demonstrated steady performance while non-action video game players showed decreased performance as cues occurred later, indicating their performance difference increased as the cue-to-memory-array intervals became longer. In Task 2, both participant groups increased their performance at similar rates as cues presented later, implying the performance difference in two groups were irrespective of the test-array-to-cue intervals. These findings suggested that memory benefit from game plays is not attributable to the higher ability of overcoming interference from the test array, but to the interactions between the two processes of protection from decay and resistance from interference, or from alternative hypotheses. Implications for future studies were discussed.

[Neuromodulatory effects of bromazepam when individuals were exposed to a motor learning task: quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG)].

PubMed

Salles, José Inácio; Bastos, Victor Hugo; Cunha, Marlo; Machado, Dionis; Cagy, Maurício; Furtado, Vernon; Basile, Luis Fernando; Piedade, Roberto; Ribeiro, Pedro

2006-03-01

The sedative effects of bromazepam on cognitive and performance have been widely investigated. A number of different approaches have assessed the influence of bromazepam when individuals are engaged to a motor task. In this context, the present study aimed to investigate electrophysiological changes when individuals were exposed to a typewriting task after taking 6 mg of bromazepam. qEEG data were simultaneously recorded during the task. In particular, relative power in delta band (0.5-3.5 Hz) was analyzed. Time of execution and errors during the task were registered as behavioral variables. The experimental group, bromazepam 6 mg, showed a better motor performance and higher relative power than control individuals (placebo). These results suggest that the use of bromazepam reduces anxiety levels as expected and thus, produces an increment in motor performance.

Visual selective attention and reading efficiency are related in children.

PubMed

Casco, C; Tressoldi, P E; Dellantonio, A

1998-09-01

We investigated the relationship between visual selective attention and linguistic performance. Subjects were classified in four categories according to their accuracy in a letter cancellation task involving selective attention. The task consisted in searching a target letter in a set of background letters and accuracy was measured as a function of set size. We found that children with the lowest performance in the cancellation task present a significantly slower reading rate and a higher number of reading visual errors than children with highest performance. Results also show that these groups of searchers present significant differences in a lexical search task whereas their performance did not differ in lexical decision and syllables control task. The relationship between letter search and reading, as well as the finding that poor readers-searchers perform poorly lexical search tasks also involving selective attention, suggest that the relationship between letter search and reading difficulty may reflect a deficit in a visual selective attention mechanisms which is involved in all these tasks. A deficit in visual attention can be linked to the problems that disabled readers present in the function of magnocellular stream which culminates in posterior parietal cortex, an area which plays an important role in guiding visual attention.

Monitoring cognitive and emotional processes through pupil and cardiac response during dynamic versus logical task.

PubMed

Causse, Mickaël; Sénard, Jean-Michel; Démonet, Jean François; Pastor, Josette

2010-06-01

The paper deals with the links between physiological measurements and cognitive and emotional functioning. As long as the operator is a key agent in charge of complex systems, the definition of metrics able to predict his performance is a great challenge. The measurement of the physiological state is a very promising way but a very acute comprehension is required; in particular few studies compare autonomous nervous system reactivity according to specific cognitive processes during task performance and task related psychological stress is often ignored. We compared physiological parameters recorded on 24 healthy subjects facing two neuropsychological tasks: a dynamic task that require problem solving in a world that continually evolves over time and a logical task representative of cognitive processes performed by operators facing everyday problem solving. Results showed that the mean pupil diameter change was higher during the dynamic task; conversely, the heart rate was more elevated during the logical task. Finally, the systolic blood pressure seemed to be strongly sensitive to psychological stress. A better taking into account of the precise influence of a given cognitive activity and both workload and related task-induced psychological stress during task performance is a promising way to better monitor operators in complex working situations to detect mental overload or pejorative stress factor of error.

Visuospatial anatomy comprehension: the role of spatial visualization ability and problem-solving strategies.

PubMed

Nguyen, Ngan; Mulla, Ali; Nelson, Andrew J; Wilson, Timothy D

2014-01-01

The present study explored the problem-solving strategies of high- and low-spatial visualization ability learners on a novel spatial anatomy task to determine whether differences in strategies contribute to differences in task performance. The results of this study provide further insights into the processing commonalities and differences among learners beyond the classification of spatial visualization ability alone, and help elucidate what, if anything, high- and low-spatial visualization ability learners do differently while solving spatial anatomy task problems. Forty-two students completed a standardized measure of spatial visualization ability, a novel spatial anatomy task, and a questionnaire involving personal self-analysis of the processes and strategies used while performing the spatial anatomy task. Strategy reports revealed that there were different ways students approached answering the spatial anatomy task problems. However, chi-square test analyses established that differences in problem-solving strategies did not contribute to differences in task performance. Therefore, underlying spatial visualization ability is the main source of variation in spatial anatomy task performance, irrespective of strategy. In addition to scoring higher and spending less time on the anatomy task, participants with high spatial visualization ability were also more accurate when solving the task problems. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.

Telerobotic control of a dextrous manipulator using master and six-DOF hand-controllers for space assembly and servicing tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

O'Hara, John M.

1987-01-01

Two studies were conducted evaluating methods of controlling a telerobot; bilateral force reflecting master controllers and proportional rate six degrees of freedom (DOF) hand controllers. The first study compared the controllers on performance of single manipulator arm tasks, a peg-in-the-hole task, and simulated satellite orbital replacement unit changeout. The second study, a Space Station truss assembly task, required simultaneous operation of both manipulator arms (all 12 DOFs) and complex multiaxis slave arm movements. Task times were significantly longer and fewer errors were committed with the hand controllers. The hand controllers were also rated significantly higher in cognitive and manual control workload on the two-arm task. The master controllers were rated significantly higher in physical workload. There were no significant differences in ratings of manipulator control quality.

Implicit Coordination Strategies for Effective Team Communication.

PubMed

Butchibabu, Abhizna; Sparano-Huiban, Christopher; Sonenberg, Liz; Shah, Julie

2016-06-01

We investigated implicit communication strategies for anticipatory information sharing during team performance of tasks with varying degrees of complexity. We compared the strategies used by teams with the highest level of performance to those used by the lowest-performing teams to evaluate the frequency and methods of communications used as a function of task structure. High-performing teams share information by anticipating the needs of their teammates rather than explicitly requesting the exchange of information. As the complexity of a task increases to involve more interdependence among teammates, the impact of coordination on team performance also increases. This observation motivated us to conduct a study of anticipatory information sharing as a function of task complexity. We conducted an experiment in which 13 teams of four people performed collaborative search-and-deliver tasks with varying degrees of complexity in a simulation environment. We elaborated upon prior characterizations of communication as implicit versus explicit by dividing implicit communication into two subtypes: (a) deliberative/goal information and (b) reactive status updates. We then characterized relationships between task structure, implicit communication, and team performance. We found that the five teams with the fastest task completion times and lowest idle times exhibited higher rates of deliberative communication versus reactive communication during high-complexity tasks compared with the five teams with the slowest completion times and longest idle times (p = .039). Teams in which members proactively communicated information about their next goal to teammates exhibited improved team performance. The findings from our work can inform the design of communication strategies for team training to improve performance of complex tasks. © 2016, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Intrinsic resting-state activity predicts working memory brain activation and behavioral performance.

PubMed

Zou, Qihong; Ross, Thomas J; Gu, Hong; Geng, Xiujuan; Zuo, Xi-Nian; Hong, L Elliot; Gao, Jia-Hong; Stein, Elliot A; Zang, Yu-Feng; Yang, Yihong

2013-12-01

Although resting-state brain activity has been demonstrated to correspond with task-evoked brain activation, the relationship between intrinsic and evoked brain activity has not been fully characterized. For example, it is unclear whether intrinsic activity can also predict task-evoked deactivation and whether the rest-task relationship is dependent on task load. In this study, we addressed these issues on 40 healthy control subjects using resting-state and task-driven [N-back working memory (WM) task] functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected in the same session. Using amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) as an index of intrinsic resting-state activity, we found that ALFF in the middle frontal gyrus and inferior/superior parietal lobules was positively correlated with WM task-evoked activation, while ALFF in the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, superior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus was negatively correlated with WM task-evoked deactivation. Further, the relationship between the intrinsic resting-state activity and task-evoked activation in lateral/superior frontal gyri, inferior/superior parietal lobules, superior temporal gyrus, and midline regions was stronger at higher WM task loads. In addition, both resting-state activity and the task-evoked activation in the superior parietal lobule/precuneus were significantly correlated with the WM task behavioral performance, explaining similar portions of intersubject performance variance. Together, these findings suggest that intrinsic resting-state activity facilitates or is permissive of specific brain circuit engagement to perform a cognitive task, and that resting activity can predict subsequent task-evoked brain responses and behavioral performance. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The effect of orthographic neighborhood in the reading span task.

PubMed

Robert, Christelle; Postal, Virginie; Mathey, Stéphanie

2015-04-01

This study aimed at examining whether and to what extent orthographic neighborhood of words influences performance in a working memory span task. Twenty-five participants performed a reading span task in which final words to be memorized had either no higher frequency orthographic neighbor or at least one. In both neighborhood conditions, each participant completed three series of two, three, four, or five sentences. Results indicated an interaction between orthographic neighborhood and list length. In particular, an inhibitory effect of orthographic neighborhood on recall appeared in list length 5. A view is presented suggesting that words with higher frequency neighbors require more resources to be memorized than words with no such neighbors. The implications of the results are discussed with regard to memory processes and current models of visual word recognition.

Does the medium matter? The interaction of task type and technology on group performance and member reactions.

PubMed

Straus, S G; McGrath, J E

1994-02-01

The authors investigated the hypothesis that as group tasks pose greater requirements for member interdependence, communication media that transmit more social context cues will foster group performance and satisfaction. Seventy-two 3-person groups of undergraduate students worked in either computer-mediated or face-to-face meetings on 3 tasks with increasing levels of interdependence: an idea-generation task, an intellective task, and a judgment task. Results showed few differences between computer-mediated and face-to-face groups in the quality of the work completed but large differences in productivity favoring face-to-face groups. Analysis of productivity and of members' reactions supported the predicted interaction of tasks and media, with greater discrepancies between media conditions for tasks requiring higher levels of coordination. Results are discussed in terms of the implications of using computer-mediated communications systems for group work.

Tackling creativity at its roots: Evidence for different patterns of EEG alpha activity related to convergent and divergent modes of task processing

PubMed Central

Jauk, Emanuel; Benedek, Mathias; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.

2012-01-01

The distinction between convergent and divergent cognitive processes given by Guilford (1956) had a strong influence on the empirical research on creative thinking. Neuroscientific studies typically find higher event-related synchronization in the EEG alpha rhythm for individuals engaged in creative ideation tasks compared to intelligence-related tasks. This study examined, whether these neurophysiological effects can also be found when both cognitive processing modes (convergent vs. divergent) are assessed by means of the same task employing a simple variation of instruction. A sample of 55 participants performed the alternate uses task as well as a more basic word association task while EEG was recorded. On a trial-by-trial basis, participants were either instructed to find a most common solution (convergent condition) or a most uncommon solution (divergent condition). The answers given in the divergent condition were in both tasks significantly more original than those in the convergent condition. Moreover, divergent processing was found to involve higher task-related EEG alpha power than convergent processing in both the alternate uses task and the word association task. EEG alpha synchronization can hence explicitly be associated with divergent cognitive processing rather than with general task characteristics of creative ideation tasks. Further results point to a differential involvement of frontal and parietal cortical areas by individuals of lower versus higher trait creativity. PMID:22390860

Task analysis of Air Force pharmacy practice.

PubMed

Bartholomew, A; Sawyer, W T; Coats, L

1995-01-15

The frequency with which United States Air Force pharmacists perform specific professional tasks and the pharmacists' views as to the importance of those tasks were studied. A questionnaire was prepared that asked recipients to rate each of 36 tasks selected as representing the spectrum of practice activities. There were four categories of tasks: managerial tasks, dispensing tasks, drug information tasks, and patient care tasks. Recipients rated the tasks with respect to frequency of performance and importance on separate 6-point scales. The questionnaire was mailed in May 1991 to the 225 pharmacists then serving in the Air Force worldwide. Of the 225 questionnaires, 150 usable questionnaires were returned (response rate, 67%). All the tasks in the survey were performed by at least one Air Force pharmacy officer, although the frequency of task performance varied. In particular, the frequency of many patient care tasks was low. All the tasks were perceived to have some importance, but drug information tasks were rated as being significantly more important than tasks in the other categories; patient care tasks were rated lowest in importance. The results varied with the respondents' demographic characteristics. Pharmacy officers with more years of service, more senior positions, higher rank, or an advanced degree in a field other than pharmacy tended to give responses that diverged from those of the population. A 1991 survey showed an awareness among Air Force pharmacists of the need to orient practice around patient care; however, they were not spending substantial time on patient care and tended to view it as less important than more traditional pharmacy tasks.

TASKILLAN II - Pilot strategies for workload management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Segal, Leon D.; Wickens, Christopher D.

1990-01-01

This study focused on the strategies used by pilots in managing their workload level, and their subsequent task performance. Sixteen licensed pilots flew 42 missions on a helicopter simulation, and were evaluated on their performance of the overall mission, as well as individual tasks. Pilots were divided in four groups, defined by the presence or absence of scheduling control over tasks and the availability of intelligence concerning the type and stage of difficulties imposed during the flight. Results suggest that intelligence supported strategies that yielded significant higher performance levels, while scheduling control seemed to have no impact on performance. Both difficulty type and the stage of difficulty impacted performance significantly, with strongest effects for time stresss and difficulties imposed late in the flight.

Effects of memory rehearsal on driver performance: experiment and theoretical account.

PubMed

Salvucci, Dario D; Beltowska, Joanna

2008-10-01

We report an experiment and a theoretical analysis concerning the effects of an exclusively cognitive task, specifically a memory rehearsal task, on driver performance. Although recent work on driver distraction has elucidated the sometimes significant effects of cognitive processing on driver performance, these studies have typically mixed cognitive with perceptual and motor processing, making it difficult to isolate the effects of cognitive processing alone. We asked participants to drive in a driving simulator during only the rehearsal stage of a serial-recall memory task while we measured their ability to maintain a central lane position and respond to the illumination of a lead vehicle's brake lights. Memory rehearsal significantly affected drivers' steering performance as measured by lateral deviation from lane center, and it also significantly affected drivers' response time to the braking stimulus for the higher load memory task. These results lend support to a theoretical account of cognitive distraction provided by threaded cognition theory in terms of a cognitive bottleneck in procedural processing, and they also suggest that consideration of task urgency may be important in accounting for performance trade-offs among concurrent tasks. The experiment augments the current understanding of cognitive driver distraction and suggests that even exclusively cognitive secondary tasks may sometimes affect driver performance.

Hierarchical Control Using Networks Trained with Higher-Level Forward Models

PubMed Central

Wayne, Greg; Abbott, L.F.

2015-01-01

We propose and develop a hierarchical approach to network control of complex tasks. In this approach, a low-level controller directs the activity of a “plant,” the system that performs the task. However, the low-level controller may only be able to solve fairly simple problems involving the plant. To accomplish more complex tasks, we introduce a higher-level controller that controls the lower-level controller. We use this system to direct an articulated truck to a specified location through an environment filled with static or moving obstacles. The final system consists of networks that have memorized associations between the sensory data they receive and the commands they issue. These networks are trained on a set of optimal associations that are generated by minimizing cost functions. Cost function minimization requires predicting the consequences of sequences of commands, which is achieved by constructing forward models, including a model of the lower-level controller. The forward models and cost minimization are only used during training, allowing the trained networks to respond rapidly. In general, the hierarchical approach can be extended to larger numbers of levels, dividing complex tasks into more manageable sub-tasks. The optimization procedure and the construction of the forward models and controllers can be performed in similar ways at each level of the hierarchy, which allows the system to be modified to perform other tasks, or to be extended for more complex tasks without retraining lower-levels. PMID:25058706

Educational status influences cognitive-motor learning in older adults: going to university provides greater protection against aging than going to high school.

PubMed

Voos, Mariana Callil; Piemonte, Maria Elisa Pimentel; Mansur, Letícia Lessa; Caromano, Fátima Aparecida; Brucki, Sonia Maria Dozzi; Valle, Luiz Eduardo Ribeiro do

2017-12-01

To investigate if middle-aged and older adults with a higher education would differ from those with an average education in cognitive-motor tasks involving lower limb function. A walking version of the Trail Making Test (Walking Executive Function Task, [WEFT]) was used. Eighty volunteers (40: 50-65 years; 40: 66-80 years) were subdivided into average (6-11years of education) and higher education (12-17 years). They received two training sessions (session 1: eight repetitions, session 2: four repetitions), with a one week-interval between them. The Timed Up and Go (TUG) test was performed before and after the training. Volunteers with an average education showed longer times on the WEFT than those with a higher education. Older adults showed lower retention than middle-aged adults (p < 0.001). The TUG was faster after the WEFT training (p < 0.001). The impact of education was observed when locomotion was associated with cognitive tasks. Average education resulted in poorer performance and learning than higher education, mainly in older adults. Gait speed increased after training.

Maximal force and tremor changes across the menstrual cycle.

PubMed

Tenan, Matthew S; Hackney, Anthony C; Griffin, Lisa

2016-01-01

Sex hormones have profound effects on the nervous system in vitro and in vivo. The present study examines the effect of the menstrual cycle on maximal isometric force (MVC) and tremor during an endurance task. Nine eumenorrheic females participated in five study visits across their menstrual cycle. In each menstrual phase, an MVC and an endurance task to failure were performed. Tremor across the endurance task was quantified as the coefficient of variation in force and was assessed in absolute time and relative percent time to task failure. MVC decreases 23% from ovulation to the mid luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. In absolute time, the mid luteal phase has the highest initial tremor, though the early follicular phase has substantially higher tremor than other phases after 150 s of task performance. In relative time, the mid luteal phase has the highest level of tremor throughout the endurance task. Both MVC and tremor during an endurance task are modified by the menstrual cycle. Performance of tasks and sports which require high force and steadiness to exhaustion may be decreased in the mid luteal phase compared to other menstrual phases.

Goal Profiles, Mental Toughness and its Influence on Performance Outcomes among Wushu Athletes

PubMed Central

Roy, Jolly

2007-01-01

This study examined the association between goal orientations and mental toughness and its influence on performance outcomes in competition. Wushu athletes (n = 40) competing in Intervarsity championships in Malaysia completed Task and Ego Orientations in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ) and Psychological Performance Inventory (PPI). Using cluster analysis techniques including hierarchical methods and the non-hierarchical method (k-means cluster) to examine goal profiles, a three cluster solution emerged viz. cluster 1 - high task and moderate ego (HT/ME), cluster 2 - moderate task and low ego (MT/LE) and, cluster 3 - moderate task and moderate ego (MT/ME). Analysis of the fundamental areas of mental toughness based on goal profiles revealed that athletes in cluster 1 scored significantly higher on negative energy control than athletes in cluster 2. Further, athletes in cluster 1 also scored significantly higher on positive energy control than athletes in cluster 3. Chi-square (χ2) test revealed no significant differences among athletes with different goal profiles on performance outcomes in the competition. However, significant differences were observed between athletes (medallist and non medallist) in self- confidence (p = 0.001) and negative energy control (p = 0.042). Medallist’s scored significantly higher on self-confidence (mean = 21.82 ± 2.72) and negative energy control (mean = 19.59 ± 2.32) than the non-medallists (self confidence-mean = 18.76 ± 2.49; negative energy control mean = 18.14 ± 1.91). Key points Mental toughness can be influenced by certain goal profile combination. Athletes with successful outcomes in performance (medallist) displayed greater mental toughness. PMID:24198700

Neural sources of performance decline during continuous multitasking

PubMed Central

Al-Hashimi, Omar; Zanto, Theodore P.; Gazzaley, Adam

2018-01-01

Multitasking performance costs have largely been characterized by experiments that involve two overlapping and punctuated perceptual stimuli, as well as punctuated responses to each task. Here, participants engaged in a continuous performance paradigm during fMRI recording to identify neural signatures associated with multitasking costs under more natural conditions. Our results demonstrated that only a single brain region, the superior parietal lobule (SPL), exhibited a significant relationship with multitasking performance, such that increased activation in the multitasking condition versus the singletasking condition was associated with higher task performance (i.e., least multitasking cost). Together, these results support previous research indicating that parietal regions underlie multitasking abilities and that performance costs are related to a bottleneck in control processes involving the SPL that serves to divide attention between two tasks. PMID:26159323

Estrous cycle, pregnancy, and parity enhance performance of rats in object recognition or object placement tasks

PubMed Central

Paris, Jason J; Frye, Cheryl A

2008-01-01

Ovarian hormone elevations are associated with enhanced learning/memory. During behavioral estrus or pregnancy, progestins, such as progesterone (P4) and its metabolite 5α-pregnan-3α-ol-20-one (3α,5α-THP), are elevated due, in part, to corpora luteal and placental secretion. During ‘pseudopregnancy’, the induction of corpora luteal functioning results in a hormonal milieu analogous to pregnancy, which ceases after about 12 days, due to the lack of placental formation. Multiparity is also associated with enhanced learning/memory, perhaps due to prior steroid exposure during pregnancy. Given evidence that progestins and/or parity may influence cognition, we investigated how natural alterations in the progestin milieu influence cognitive performance. In Experiment 1, virgin rats (nulliparous) or rats with two prior pregnancies (multiparous) were assessed on the object placement and recognition tasks, when in high-estrogen/P4 (behavioral estrus) or low-estrogen/P4 (diestrus) phases of the estrous cycle. In Experiment 2, primiparous or multiparous rats were tested in the object placement and recognition tasks when not pregnant, pseudopregnant, or pregnant (between gestational days (GDs) 6 and 12). In Experiment 3, pregnant primiparous or multiparous rats were assessed daily in the object placement or recognition tasks. Females in natural states associated with higher endogenous progestins (behavioral estrus, pregnancy, multiparity) outperformed rats in low progestin states (diestrus, non-pregnancy, nulliparity) on the object placement and recognition tasks. In earlier pregnancy, multiparous, compared with primiparous, rats had a lower corticosterone, but higher estrogen levels, concomitant with better object placement performance. From GD 13 until post partum, primiparous rats had higher 3α,5α-THP levels and improved object placement performance compared with multiparous rats. PMID:18390689

Creativity and inductive reasoning: the relationship between divergent thinking and performance on Wasons 246 task.

PubMed

Vartanian, Oshin; Martindale, Colin; Kwiatkowski, Jonna

2003-05-01

This study was an investigation of the relationship between potential creativityas measured by fluency scores on the Alternate Uses Testand performance on Wasons 246 task. As hypothesized, participants who were successful in discovering the rule had significantly higher fluency scores. Successful participants also generated higher frequencies of confirmatory and disconfirmatory hypotheses, but a multiple regression analysis using the stepwise method revealed that the frequency of generating disconfirmatory hypotheses and fluency scores were the only two significant factors in task outcome. The results also supported earlier studies where disconfirmation was shown to play a more important role in the later stages of hypothesis testing. This was especially true of successful participants, who employed a higher frequency of disconfirmatory hypotheses after receiving feedback on the first announcement. These results imply that successful participants benefited from the provision of feedback on the first announcement by switching to a more successful strategy in the hypothesis-testing sequence.

Improving Dual-Task Control With a Posture-Second Strategy in Early-Stage Parkinson Disease.

PubMed

Huang, Cheng-Ya; Chen, Yu-An; Hwang, Ing-Shiou; Wu, Ruey-Meei

2018-03-31

To examine the task prioritization effects on postural-suprapostural dual-task performance in patients with early-stage Parkinson disease (PD) without clinically observed postural symptoms. Cross-sectional study. Participants performed a force-matching task while standing on a mobile platform, and were instructed to focus their attention on either the postural task (posture-first strategy) or the force-matching task (posture-second strategy). University research laboratory. Individuals (N=16) with early-stage PD who had no clinically observed postural symptoms. Not applicable. Dual-task change (DTC; percent change between single-task and dual-task performance) of posture error, posture approximate entropy (ApEn), force error, and reaction time (RT). Positive DTC values indicate higher postural error, posture ApEn, force error, and force RT during dual-task conditions compared with single-task conditions. Compared with the posture-first strategy, the posture-second strategy was associated with smaller DTC of posture error and force error, and greater DTC of posture ApEn. In contrast, greater DTC of force RT was observed under the posture-second strategy. Contrary to typical recommendations, our results suggest that the posture-second strategy may be an effective dual-task strategy in patients with early-stage PD who have no clinically observed postural symptoms in order to reduce the negative effect of dual tasking on performance and facilitate postural automaticity. Copyright © 2018 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Executive function is necessary for the regulation of the stepping activity when stepping in place in older adults.

PubMed

Dalton, Christopher; Sciadas, Ria; Nantel, Julie

2016-10-01

To determine the effect of age on stepping performance and to compare the cognitive demand required to regulate repetitive stepping between older and younger adults while performing a stepping in place task (SIP). Fourteen younger (25.4 ± 6.5) and 15 older adults (71.0 ± 9.0) participated in this study. They performed a seated category fluency task and Stroop test, followed by a 60 s SIP task. Following this, both the cognitive and motor tasks were performed simultaneously. We assessed cognitive performance, SIP cycle duration, asymmetry, and arrhythmicity. Compared to younger adults, older adults had larger SIP arrhythmicity both as a single task and when combined with the Category (p < 0.001) and Stroop (p < 0.01) tasks. Older adults also had larger arrhythmicity when dual tasking compared to SIP alone (p < 0.001). Older adults showed greater SIP asymmetry when combined with Category (p = 0.006) and Stroop (p = 0.06) tasks. Finally, they had lower cognitive performance than younger adults in both single and dual tasks (p < 0.01). Age and type of cognitive task performed with the motor task affected different components of stepping. While SIP arrhythmicity was larger for all conditions in older compared to younger adults, cycle duration was not different, and asymmetry tended to be larger during SIP when paired with a verbal fluency task. SIP does not require a high level of control for dynamic stability, therefore demonstrating that higher-level executive function is necessary for the regulation of stepping activity independently of the regulation of postural balance. Furthermore, older adults may lack the cognitive resources needed to adequately regulate stepping activity while performing a cognitive task relying on the executive function.

Multi-Tasking and Choice of Training Data Influencing Parietal ERP Expression and Single-Trial Detection-Relevance for Neuroscience and Clinical Applications.

PubMed

Kirchner, Elsa A; Kim, Su Kyoung

2018-01-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are often used in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for communication or system control for enhancing or regaining control for motor-disabled persons. Especially results from single-trial EEG classification approaches for BCIs support correlations between single-trial ERP detection performance and ERP expression. Hence, BCIs can be considered as a paradigm shift contributing to new methods with strong influence on both neuroscience and clinical applications. Here, we investigate the relevance of the choice of training data and classifier transfer for the interpretability of results from single-trial ERP detection. In our experiments, subjects performed a visual-motor oddball task with motor-task relevant infrequent ( targets ), motor-task irrelevant infrequent ( deviants ), and motor-task irrelevant frequent ( standards ) stimuli. Under dual-task condition, a secondary senso-motor task was performed, compared to the simple-task condition. For evaluation, average ERP analysis and single-trial detection analysis with different numbers of electrodes were performed. Further, classifier transfer was investigated between simple and dual task. Parietal positive ERPs evoked by target stimuli (but not by deviants) were expressed stronger under dual-task condition, which is discussed as an increase of task emphasis and brain processes involved in task coordination and change of task set. Highest classification performance was found for targets irrespective whether all 62, 6 or 2 parietal electrodes were used. Further, higher detection performance of targets compared to standards was achieved under dual-task compared to simple-task condition in case of training on data from 2 parietal electrodes corresponding to results of ERP average analysis. Classifier transfer between tasks improves classification performance in case that training took place on more varying examples (from dual task). In summary, we showed that P300 and overlaying parietal positive ERPs can successfully be detected while subjects are performing additional ongoing motor activity. This supports single-trial detection of ERPs evoked by target events to, e.g., infer a patient's attentional state during therapeutic intervention.

Multi-Tasking and Choice of Training Data Influencing Parietal ERP Expression and Single-Trial Detection—Relevance for Neuroscience and Clinical Applications

PubMed Central

Kirchner, Elsa A.; Kim, Su Kyoung

2018-01-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are often used in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for communication or system control for enhancing or regaining control for motor-disabled persons. Especially results from single-trial EEG classification approaches for BCIs support correlations between single-trial ERP detection performance and ERP expression. Hence, BCIs can be considered as a paradigm shift contributing to new methods with strong influence on both neuroscience and clinical applications. Here, we investigate the relevance of the choice of training data and classifier transfer for the interpretability of results from single-trial ERP detection. In our experiments, subjects performed a visual-motor oddball task with motor-task relevant infrequent (targets), motor-task irrelevant infrequent (deviants), and motor-task irrelevant frequent (standards) stimuli. Under dual-task condition, a secondary senso-motor task was performed, compared to the simple-task condition. For evaluation, average ERP analysis and single-trial detection analysis with different numbers of electrodes were performed. Further, classifier transfer was investigated between simple and dual task. Parietal positive ERPs evoked by target stimuli (but not by deviants) were expressed stronger under dual-task condition, which is discussed as an increase of task emphasis and brain processes involved in task coordination and change of task set. Highest classification performance was found for targets irrespective whether all 62, 6 or 2 parietal electrodes were used. Further, higher detection performance of targets compared to standards was achieved under dual-task compared to simple-task condition in case of training on data from 2 parietal electrodes corresponding to results of ERP average analysis. Classifier transfer between tasks improves classification performance in case that training took place on more varying examples (from dual task). In summary, we showed that P300 and overlaying parietal positive ERPs can successfully be detected while subjects are performing additional ongoing motor activity. This supports single-trial detection of ERPs evoked by target events to, e.g., infer a patient's attentional state during therapeutic intervention. PMID:29636660

Circadian rhythms in human performance and mood under constant conditions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Monk, T. H.; Buysse, D. J.; Reynolds, C. F. 3rd; Berga, S. L.; Jarrett, D. B.; Begley, A. E.; Kupfer, D. J.

1997-01-01

This study explored the relationship between circadian performance rhythms and rhythms in rectal temperature, plasma cortisol, plasma melatonin, subjective alertness and well-being. Seventeen healthy young adults were studied under 36 h of 'unmasking' conditions (constant wakeful bedrest, temporal isolation, homogenized 'meals') during which rectal temperatures were measured every minute, and plasma cortisol and plasma melatonin measured every 20 min. Hourly subjective ratings of global vigour (alertness) and affect (well-being) were obtained followed by one of two performance batteries. On odd-numbered hours performance (speed and accuracy) of serial search, verbal reasoning and manual dexterity tasks was assessed. On even-numbered hours, performance (% hits, response speed) was measured at a 25-30 min visual vigilance task. Performance of all tasks (except search accuracy) showed a significant time of day variation usually with a nocturnal trough close to the trough in rectal temperature. Performance rhythms appeared not to reliably differ with working memory load. Within subjects, predominantly positive correlations emerged between good performance and higher temperatures and better subjective alertness; predominantly negative correlations between good performance and higher plasma levels of cortisol and melatonin. Temperature and cortisol rhythms correlated with slightly more performance measures (5/7) than did melatonin rhythms (4/7). Global vigour correlated about as well with performance (5/7) as did temperature, and considerably better than global affect (1/7). In conclusion: (1) between-task heterogeneity in circadian performance rhythms appeared to be absent when the sleep/wake cycle was suspended; (2) temperature (positively), cortisol and melatonin (negatively) appeared equally good as circadian correlates of performance, and (3) subjective alertness correlated with performance rhythms as well as (but not better than) body temperature, suggesting that performance rhythms were not directly mediated by rhythms in subjective alertness.

Grip Strength and Its Relationship to Police Recruit Task Performance and Injury Risk: A Retrospective Cohort Study

PubMed Central

Stierli, Michael; Hinton, Benjamin

2017-01-01

Suitable grip strength is a police occupational requirement. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between grip strength, task performance and injury risk in a police population. Retrospective data of police recruits (n = 169) who had undergone basic recruit training were provided, including handgrip strength results, occupational task performance measures (consisting of police task simulations [SIM], tactical options [TACOPS] and marksmanship assessments) and injury records. Left hand grip strength (41.91 ± 8.29 kg) measures showed a stronger correlation than right hand grip strength (42.15 ± 8.53 kg) with all outcome measures. Recruits whose grip strength scores were lower were significantly more susceptible to failing the TACOPS occupational task assessment than those with greater grip strength scores, with significant (p ≤ 0.003) weak to moderate, positive correlations found between grip strength and TACOPS performance. A significant (p < 0.0001) correlation was found between grip strength, most notably of the left hand, and marksmanship performance, with those performing better in marksmanship having higher grip strength. Left hand grip strength was significantly associated with injury risk (r = −0.181, p = 0.018) but right hand grip strength was not. A positive association exists between handgrip strength and police recruit task performance (notably TACOPS and marksmanship) with recruits who scored poorly on grip strength being at greatest risk of occupational assessment task failure. PMID:28825688

Grip Strength and Its Relationship to Police Recruit Task Performance and Injury Risk: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

PubMed

Orr, Robin; Pope, Rodney; Stierli, Michael; Hinton, Benjamin

2017-08-21

Suitable grip strength is a police occupational requirement. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between grip strength, task performance and injury risk in a police population. Retrospective data of police recruits (n = 169) who had undergone basic recruit training were provided, including handgrip strength results, occupational task performance measures (consisting of police task simulations [SIM], tactical options [TACOPS] and marksmanship assessments) and injury records. Left hand grip strength (41.91 ± 8.29 kg) measures showed a stronger correlation than right hand grip strength (42.15 ± 8.53 kg) with all outcome measures. Recruits whose grip strength scores were lower were significantly more susceptible to failing the TACOPS occupational task assessment than those with greater grip strength scores, with significant ( p ≤ 0.003) weak to moderate, positive correlations found between grip strength and TACOPS performance. A significant ( p < 0.0001) correlation was found between grip strength, most notably of the left hand, and marksmanship performance, with those performing better in marksmanship having higher grip strength. Left hand grip strength was significantly associated with injury risk ( r = -0.181, p = 0.018) but right hand grip strength was not. A positive association exists between handgrip strength and police recruit task performance (notably TACOPS and marksmanship) with recruits who scored poorly on grip strength being at greatest risk of occupational assessment task failure.

Tracking performance under time sharing conditions with a digit processing task: A feedback control theory analysis. [attention sharing effect on operator performance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gopher, D.; Wickens, C. D.

1975-01-01

A one dimensional compensatory tracking task and a digit processing reaction time task were combined in a three phase experiment designed to investigate tracking performance in time sharing. Adaptive techniques, elaborate feedback devices, and on line standardization procedures were used to adjust task difficulty to the ability of each individual subject and manipulate time sharing demands. Feedback control analysis techniques were employed in the description of tracking performance. The experimental results show that when the dynamics of a system are constrained, in such a manner that man machine system stability is no longer a major concern of the operator, he tends to adopt a first order control describing function, even with tracking systems of higher order. Attention diversion to a concurrent task leads to an increase in remnant level, or nonlinear power. This decrease in linearity is reflected both in the output magnitude spectra of the subjects, and in the linear fit of the amplitude ratio functions.

Autistic traits and social anxiety predict differential performance on social cognitive tasks in typically developing young adults

PubMed Central

Burk, Joshua A.; Fleckenstein, Katarina; Kozikowski, C. Teal

2018-01-01

The current work examined the unique contribution that autistic traits and social anxiety have on tasks examining attention and emotion processing. In Study 1, 119 typically-developing college students completed a flanker task assessing the control of attention to target faces and away from distracting faces during emotion identification. In Study 2, 208 typically-developing college students performed a visual search task which required identification of whether a series of 8 or 16 emotional faces depicted the same or different emotions. Participants with more self-reported autistic traits performed more slowly on the flanker task in Study 1 than those with fewer autistic traits when stimuli depicted complex emotions. In Study 2, participants higher in social anxiety performed less accurately on trials showing all complex faces; participants with autistic traits showed no differences. These studies suggest that traits related to autism and to social anxiety differentially impact social cognitive processing. PMID:29596523

Spelling and Morphology in Dyslexia: A Developmental Study Across the School Years.

PubMed

Schiff, Rachel; Levie, Ronit

2017-11-01

The current study examined the effect of morphological knowledge on spelling development in Hebrew-speaking schoolchildren, adolescents and adults with dyslexia, compared with typically developing (TD) peers. Participants were 238 Hebrew-speaking readers of five grade levels of whom 139 were TD and 99 had developmental dyslexia (DD). Participants were tested on a function letter spelling task, a phonological awareness task and a morphological awareness task. The overall picture that emerged from the results is that performance on all measures increased with grade level, with TD participants always scoring higher than peers with DD. Moreover, the higher the morphological complexity in spelling and irregularity in noun inflection, the higher the differences between the DD and TD participants. Finally, performance on the morphological awareness task contributed to spelling morphologically more complex spelling items in the TD, but not in the DD group. From clinical and educational perspectives, these results strongly suggest that rigorous morphological instruction is necessary in teaching children and adolescents with dyslexia to identify and use morphological cues in spoken and written Hebrew. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Enhancing Allocentric Spatial Recall in Pre-schoolers through Navigational Training Programme

PubMed Central

Boccia, Maddalena; Rosella, Michela; Vecchione, Francesca; Tanzilli, Antonio; Palermo, Liana; D'Amico, Simonetta; Guariglia, Cecilia; Piccardi, Laura

2017-01-01

Unlike for other abilities, children do not receive systematic spatial orientation training at school, even though navigational training during adulthood improves spatial skills. We investigated whether navigational training programme (NTP) improved spatial orientation skills in pre-schoolers. We administered 12-week NTP to seventeen 4- to 5-year-old children (training group, TG). The TG children and 17 age-matched children (control group, CG) who underwent standard didactics were tested twice before (T0) and after (T1) the NTP using tasks that tap into landmark, route and survey representations. We determined that the TG participants significantly improved their performances in the most demanding navigational task, which is the task that taps into survey representation. This improvement was significantly higher than that observed in the CG, suggesting that NTP fostered the acquisition of survey representation. Such representation is typically achieved by age seven. This finding suggests that NTP improves performance on higher-level navigational tasks in pre-schoolers. PMID:29085278

The effects of priming with age stereotypes on a PC-based mail-sorting task.

PubMed

Kirchner, Christine; Bock, Otmar Leo; Völker, Ina

2017-04-01

This study examines whether unconscious priming of attitudes towards older age might change the self-efficacy of older employees, and thus modify their performance at work. Three age- and gender-matched groups of 20 participants were primed with positive, negative or no age stereotypes by means of the scrambled sentence task, and were then transferred to a cognitively demanding PC-based mail-sorting task. Participants' accuracy on the latter task was significantly higher in the positively primed group than in the unprimed group, and was significantly lower in the negatively primed group than in the unprimed group, except for one parameter. These findings indicate that the performance of older workers may indeed be modifiable by unconscious priming. Practitioner Summary: This study analyses whether unconscious priming attitudes towards older age might modify work performance. Participants were primed with the scrambled sentence task and then conducted a cognitive mail-sorting task. The findings indicate that the performance of older workers may indeed be modifiable by unconscious negative as well as positive priming.

Climate uniformity: its influence on team communication quality, task conflict, and team performance.

PubMed

González-Romá, Vicente; Hernández, Ana

2014-11-01

We investigated whether climate uniformity (the pattern of climate perceptions of organizational support within the team) is related to task conflict, team communication quality, and team performance. We used a sample composed of 141 bank branches and collected data at 3 time points. The results obtained showed that, after controlling for aggregate team climate, climate strength, and their interaction, a type of nonuniform climate pattern (weak dissimilarity) was directly related to task conflict and team communication quality. Teams with weak dissimilarity nonuniform patterns tended to show higher levels of task conflict and lower levels of team communication quality than teams with uniform climate patterns. The relationship between weak dissimilarity patterns and team performance was fully mediated by team communication quality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

The effects of arousal reappraisal on stress responses, performance and attention.

PubMed

Sammy, Nadine; Anstiss, Paul A; Moore, Lee J; Freeman, Paul; Wilson, Mark R; Vine, Samuel J

2017-11-01

This study examined the effects of arousal reappraisal on cardiovascular responses, demand and resource evaluations, self-confidence, performance and attention under pressurized conditions. A recent study by Moore et al. [2015. Reappraising threat: How to optimize performance under pressure. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 37(3), 339-343. doi: 10.1123/jsep.2014-0186 ] suggested that arousal reappraisal is beneficial to the promotion of challenge states and leads to improvements in single-trial performance. This study aimed to further the work of Moore and colleagues (2015) by examining the effects of arousal reappraisal on cardiovascular responses, demand and resource evaluations, self-confidence, performance and attention in a multi-trial pressurized performance situation. Participants were randomly assigned to either an arousal reappraisal intervention or control condition, and completed a pressurized dart throwing task. The intervention encouraged participants to view their physiological arousal as facilitative rather than debilitative to performance. Measures of cardiovascular reactivity, demand and resource evaluations, self-confidence, task performance and attention were recorded. The reappraisal group displayed more favorable cardiovascular reactivity and reported higher resource evaluations and higher self-confidence than the control group but no task performance or attention effects were detected. These findings demonstrate the strength of arousal reappraisal in promoting adaptive stress responses, perceptions of resources and self-confidence.

Reward Motivation Enhances Task Coding in Frontoparietal Cortex

PubMed Central

Etzel, Joset A.; Cole, Michael W.; Zacks, Jeffrey M.; Kay, Kendrick N.; Braver, Todd S.

2016-01-01

Reward motivation often enhances task performance, but the neural mechanisms underlying such cognitive enhancement remain unclear. Here, we used a multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approach to test the hypothesis that motivation-related enhancement of cognitive control results from improved encoding and representation of task set information. Participants underwent two fMRI sessions of cued task switching, the first under baseline conditions, and the second with randomly intermixed reward incentive and no-incentive trials. Information about the upcoming task could be successfully decoded from cue-related activation patterns in a set of frontoparietal regions typically associated with task control. More critically, MVPA classifiers trained on the baseline session had significantly higher decoding accuracy on incentive than non-incentive trials, with decoding improvement mediating reward-related enhancement of behavioral performance. These results strongly support the hypothesis that reward motivation enhances cognitive control, by improving the discriminability of task-relevant information coded and maintained in frontoparietal brain regions. PMID:25601237

Contextual control over task-set retrieval.

PubMed

Crump, Matthew J C; Logan, Gordon D

2010-11-01

Contextual cues signaling task likelihood or the likelihood of task repetition are known to modulate the size of switch costs. We follow up on the finding by Leboe, Wong, Crump, and Stobbe (2008) that location cues predictive of the proportion of switch or repeat trials modulate switch costs. Their design employed one cue per task, whereas our experiment employed two cues per task, which allowed separate assessment of modulations to the cue-repetition benefit, a measure of lower level cue-encoding processes, and to the task-alternation cost, a measure of higher level processes representing task-set information. We demonstrate that location information predictive of switch proportion modulates performance at the level of task-set representations. Furthermore, we demonstrate that contextual control occurs even when subjects are unaware of the associations between context and switch likelihood. We discuss the notion that contextual information provides rapid, unconscious control over the extent to which prior task-set representations are retrieved in the service of guiding online performance.

The Association between High Neuroticism-Low Extraversion and Dual-Task Performance during Walking While Talking in Non-demented Older Adults

PubMed Central

LeMonda, Brittany C.; Mahoney, Jeannette R.; Verghese, Joe; Holtzer, Roee

2016-01-01

The Walking While Talking (WWT) dual-task paradigm is a mobility stress test that predicts major outcomes, including falls, frailty, disability, and mortality in aging. Certain personality traits, such as neuroticism, extraversion, and their combination, have been linked to both cognitive and motor outcomes. We examined whether individual differences in personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion predicted dual-task performance decrements (both motor and cognitive) on a WWT task in non-demented older adults. We hypothesized that the combined effect of high neuroticism-low extraversion would be related to greater dual-task costs in gait velocity and cognitive performance in non-demented older adults. Participants (N = 295; age range, = 65–95 years; female = 164) completed the Big Five Inventory and WWT task involving concurrent gait and a serial 7's subtraction task. Gait velocity was obtained using an instrumented walkway. The high neuroticism-low extraversion group incurred greater dual-task costs (i.e., worse performance) in both gait velocity {95% confidence interval (CI) [−17.68 to −3.07]} and cognitive performance (95% CI [−19.34 to −2.44]) compared to the low neuroticism-high extraversion group, suggesting that high neuroticism-low extraversion interferes with the allocation of attentional resources to competing task demands during the WWT task. Older individuals with high neuroticism-low extraversion may be at higher risk for falls, mobility decline and other adverse outcomes in aging. PMID:26527241

Costs and benefits of integrating information between the cerebral hemispheres: a computational perspective.

PubMed

Belger, A; Banich, M T

1998-07-01

Because interaction of the cerebral hemispheres has been found to aid task performance under demanding conditions, the present study examined how this effect is moderated by computational complexity, the degree of lateralization for a task, and individual differences in asymmetric hemispheric activation (AHA). Computational complexity was manipulated across tasks either by increasing the number of inputs to be processed or by increasing the number of steps to a decision. Comparison of within- and across-hemisphere trials indicated that the size of the between-hemisphere advantage increased as a function of task complexity, except for a highly lateralized rhyme decision task that can only be performed by the left hemisphere. Measures of individual differences in AHA revealed that when task demands and an individual's AHA both load on the same hemisphere, the ability to divide the processing between the hemispheres is limited. Thus, interhemispheric division of processing improves performance at higher levels of computational complexity only when the required operations can be divided between the hemispheres.

Effect of continuous gamma-ray exposure on performance of learned tasks and effect of subsequent fractionated exposures on blood-forming tissue

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Spalding, J. F.; Holland, L. M.; Prine, J. R.; Farrer, D. N.; Braun, R. G.

1972-01-01

Sixteen monkeys trained to perform continuous and discrete-avoidance and fixed-ratio tasks with visual and auditory cues were performance-tested before, during, and after 10-day gamma-ray exposures totaling 0, 500, 750, and 1000 rads. Approximately 14 months after the performance-test exposures, surviving animals were exposed to 100-rad gamma-ray fractions at 56-day intervals to observe injury and recovery patterns of blood-forming tissues. The fixed-ratio, food-reward task performance showed a transient decline in all dose groups within 24 hours of the start of gamma-ray exposure, followed by recovery to normal food-consumption levels within 48 to 72 hours. Avoidance tasks were performed successfully by all groups during the 10-day exposure, but reaction times of the two higher dose-rate groups in which animals received 3 and 4 rads per hour or total doses of 750 and 1000 rads, respectively, were somewhat slower.

Effects of Memory Load and Test Position on Short-Duration Sustained Attention Tasks.

PubMed

Laurie-Rose, Cynthia; Frey, Meredith C; Sibata, Erick; Zamary, Amanda

2015-01-01

The current study applies a dual-task working memory and vigilance task to examine sustained attention performance and perceived workload in a multi-instrument battery. In Experiment 1 we modified a task developed by Helton and Russell (2011) to examine declines in performance and to assess the effects of its position within a larger battery. Experiment 1 failed to reveal a sensitivity decrement, and test position revealed only spurious influence. Workload scores derived from the NASA-TLX fell at the high end of the scale, with mental and temporal demand receiving the highest ratings. In Experiment 2, we modified the dual task to place more emphasis on attention rather than working memory. Results revealed a significant decline in performance across the vigil for the perceptual sensitivity index A'. Test position (early vs. late) effects appeared with the reaction time variability measure, with performance becoming more variable when the task appeared in the latter half of the battery. Workload scores varied according to position in the battery: Workload scores were higher when the vigilance task appeared in the latter half of the battery. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Conceptualizing and Assessing Higher-Order Thinking in Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Afflerbach, Peter; Cho, Byeong-Young; Kim, Jong-Yun

2015-01-01

Students engage in higher-order thinking as they read complex texts and perform complex reading-related tasks. However, the most consequential assessments, high-stakes tests, are currently limited in providing information about students' higher-order thinking. In this article, we describe higher-order thinking in relation to reading. We provide a…

Comparing performance in discrete and continuous comparison tasks.

PubMed

Leibovich, Tali; Henik, Avishai

2014-05-01

The approximate number system (ANS) theory suggests that all magnitudes, discrete (i.e., number of items) or continuous (i.e., size, density, etc.), are processed by a shared system and comply with Weber's law. The current study reexamined this notion by comparing performance in discrete (comparing numerosities of dot arrays) and continuous (comparisons of area of squares) tasks. We found that: (a) threshold of discrimination was higher for continuous than for discrete comparisons; (b) while performance in the discrete task complied with Weber's law, performance in the continuous task violated it; and (c) performance in the discrete task was influenced by continuous properties (e.g., dot density, dot cumulative area) of the dot array that were not predictive of numerosities or task relevant. Therefore, we propose that the magnitude processing system (MPS) is actually divided into separate (yet interactive) systems for discrete and continuous magnitude processing. Further subdivisions are discussed. We argue that cooperation between these systems results in a holistic comparison of magnitudes, one that takes into account continuous properties in addition to numerosities. Considering the MPS as two systems opens the door to new and important questions that shed light on both normal and impaired development of the numerical system.

The effects of long-term stress exposure on aging cognition: a behavioral and EEG investigation.

PubMed

Marshall, Amanda C; Cooper, Nicholas R; Segrave, Rebecca; Geeraert, Nicolas

2015-06-01

A large field of research seeks to explore and understand the factors that may cause different rates of age-related cognitive decline within the general population. However, the impact of experienced stress on the human aging process has remained an under-researched possibility. This study explored the association between cumulative stressful experiences and cognitive aging, addressing whether higher levels of experienced stress correlate with impaired performance on 2 working memory tasks. Behavioral performance was paired with electroencephalographic recordings to enable insight into the underlying neural processes impacted on by cumulative stress. Thus, the electroencephalogram was recorded while both young and elderly performed 2 different working memory tasks (a Sternberg and N-back paradigm), and cortical oscillatory activity in the theta, alpha, and gamma bandwidths was measured. Behavioral data indicated that a higher stress score among elderly participants related to impaired performance on both tasks. Electrophysiological findings revealed a reduction in alpha and gamma event-related synchronization among high-stress-group elderly participants, indicating that higher levels of experienced stress may impact on their ability to actively maintain a stimulus in working memory and inhibit extraneous information interfering with successful maintenance. Findings provide evidence that cumulative experienced stress adversely affects cognitive aging. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Self-regulated learning processes of medical students during an academic learning task.

PubMed

Gandomkar, Roghayeh; Mirzazadeh, Azim; Jalili, Mohammad; Yazdani, Kamran; Fata, Ladan; Sandars, John

2016-10-01

This study was designed to identify the self-regulated learning (SRL) processes of medical students during a biomedical science learning task and to examine the associations of the SRL processes with previous performance in biomedical science examinations and subsequent performance on a learning task. A sample of 76 Year 1 medical students were recruited based on their performance in biomedical science examinations and stratified into previous high and low performers. Participants were asked to complete a biomedical science learning task. Participants' SRL processes were assessed before (self-efficacy, goal setting and strategic planning), during (metacognitive monitoring) and after (causal attributions and adaptive inferences) their completion of the task using an SRL microanalytic interview. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the means and frequencies of SRL processes. Univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations of SRL processes with previous examination performance and the learning task performance. Most participants (from 88.2% to 43.4%) reported task-specific processes for SRL measures. Students who exhibited higher self-efficacy (odds ratio [OR] 1.44, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09-1.90) and reported task-specific processes for metacognitive monitoring (OR 6.61, 95% CI 1.68-25.93) and causal attributions (OR 6.75, 95% CI 2.05-22.25) measures were more likely to be high previous performers. Multiple analysis revealed that similar SRL measures were associated with previous performance. The use of task-specific processes for causal attributions (OR 23.00, 95% CI 4.57-115.76) and adaptive inferences (OR 27.00, 95% CI 3.39-214.95) measures were associated with being a high learning task performer. In multiple analysis, only the causal attributions measure was associated with high learning task performance. Self-efficacy, metacognitive monitoring and causal attributions measures were associated positively with previous performance. Causal attributions and adaptive inferences measures were associated positively with learning task performance. These findings may inform remediation interventions in the early years of medical school training. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education.

Voxelwise Correlational Analyses of White Matter Integrity in Multiple Cognitive Domains in Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Lim, Kelvin O.; Ardekani, Babak A.; Nierenberg, Jay; Butler, Pamela D.; Javitt, Daniel C.; Hoptman, Matthew J.

2007-01-01

Patients with schizophrenia show deficits in several neurocognitive domains. However, the relationship between white matter integrity and performance in these domains is poorly understood. The authors conducted neurocognitive testing and diffusion tensor imaging in 25 patients with schizophrenia. Performance was examined for tests of verbal declarative memory, attention, and executive function. Relationships between fractional anisotropy and cognitive performance were examined by using voxelwise correlational analyses. In each case, better performance on these tasks was associated with higher levels of fractional anisotropy in task-relevant regions. PMID:17074956

Face and Construct Validity of a Novel Virtual Reality-Based Bimanual Laparoscopic Force-Skills Trainer With Haptics Feedback.

PubMed

Prasad, Raghu; Muniyandi, Manivannan; Manoharan, Govindan; Chandramohan, Servarayan M

2018-05-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the face and construct validity of a custom-developed bimanual laparoscopic force-skills trainer with haptics feedback. The study also examined the effect of handedness on fundamental and complex tasks. Residents (n = 25) and surgeons (n = 25) performed virtual reality-based bimanual fundamental and complex tasks. Tool-tissue reaction forces were summed, recorded, and analysed. Seven different force-based measures and a 1-time measure were used as metrics. Subsequently, participants filled out face validity and demographic questionnaires. Residents and surgeons were positive on the design, workspace, and usefulness of the simulator. Construct validity results showed significant differences between residents and experts during the execution of fundamental and complex tasks. In both tasks, residents applied large forces with higher coefficient of variation and force jerks (P < .001). Experts, with their dominant hand, applied lower forces in complex tasks and higher forces in fundamental tasks (P < .001). The coefficients of force variation (CoV) of residents and experts were higher in complex tasks (P < .001). Strong correlations were observed between CoV and task time for fundamental (r = 0.70) and complex tasks (r = 0.85). Range of smoothness of force was higher for the non-dominant hand in both fundamental and complex tasks. The simulator was able to differentiate the force-skills of residents and surgeons, and objectively evaluate the effects of handedness on laparoscopic force-skills. Competency-based laparoscopic skills assessment curriculum should be updated to meet the requirements of bimanual force-based training.

Activation of the prefrontal cortex while performing a task at preferred slow pace and metronome slow pace: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.

PubMed

Shimoda, Kaori; Moriguchi, Yoshiya; Tsuchiya, Kenji; Katsuyama, Shiori; Tozato, Fusae

2014-01-01

Individuals have a preferred pace at which they perform voluntary repetitive movements. Previous studies have reported that greater activation of the prefrontal cortex was observed during self-initiated movements than during externally triggered movements. The purpose of the present study is to compare the activation of the prefrontal cortex induced when the subjects performed a peg-board task at their preferred slow pace (PSP, the self-initiated condition) with that induced when they performed the same task at metronome slow pace (MSP, the externally triggered condition) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Healthy subjects performed the task while sitting in a chair. By assessing the activated channels individually, we confirmed that all of the prefrontal regions of interest were activated by both tasks. In the second-level analyses, we found that the activation detected in the frontopolar cortex (FPPFC; Brodmann area 10) was higher during the PSP task than during the MSP task. The FPPFC is known to be at the top of prefrontal hierarchy, and specifically involved in evaluating self-generated information. In addition, the FPPFC plays a role in coordinating lateral prefrontal cortex. In the present study, the subjects evaluated and managed the internally generated PSP by coordinating the activity of other lower level prefrontal regions.

EEG activity during the spatial span task in young men: Differences between short-term and working memory.

PubMed

Guevara, Miguel Angel; Cruz Paniagua, Edwin Iván; Hernández González, Marisela; Sandoval Carrillo, Ivett Karina; Almanza Sepúlveda, Mayra Linné; Hevia Orozco, Jorge Carlos; Amezcua Gutiérrez, Claudia

2018-03-15

Short-term memory and working memory are two closely-related concepts that involve the prefrontal and parietal areas. These two types of memory have been evaluated by means of the spatial span task in its forward and backward conditions, respectively. To determine possible neurofunctional differences between them, this study recorded electroencephalographic activity (EEG) in the frontopolar (Fp1, Fp2), dorsolateral (F3, F4), and parietal (P3 and P4) areas during performance of the forward and backward conditions of this task in young men. The backward condition (an indicator of working memory) was characterized by fewer correct answers, higher absolute power (AP) of the delta band in dorsolateral areas, and a lower correlation between frontopolar and dorsolateral regions in the fast bands (alpha, beta and gamma), mainly in the right hemisphere. The prefrontal EEG changes during backward performance may be associated with the higher attentional demands and inhibition processes required to invert the order of reproduction of a sequence. These data provide evidence that the forward and backward conditions of the spatial span task can be distinguished on the basis of neurofunctional activity and performance, and that each one is associated with a distinct pattern of electrical activity and synchronization between prefrontal areas. The higher AP of the delta band and lower correlation of the fast bands, particularly between right prefrontal areas during the backward condition of this visuospatial task, suggest greater participation by the right prefrontal areas in working memory. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[Gender differences in EEG coherence changes during figural creative thinking: the efficacy coupling].

PubMed

Vol'f, N V; Tarasova, I V; Razumnikova, O M

2009-01-01

The study was aimed to explore the features of interaction between cortical areas during figural creative task performance in high- and low-creative men and women. We divided the participants into two groups with high and low creativity by the median of originality score. EEG was recorded at rest and during task performance (Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking "Incomplete figures"). The EEG coherence was computed in six frequency bands from theta1 to beta2. We analyzed the total values of coherence for each of 16 sites, calculated separately for intrahemispheric and interhemispheric connections. In the theta2, alphal, and alpha2 bands, coherence values decreased in task performance as compared to baseline in subjects with lower originality scores, whereas in subjects with higher scores, they increased in the theta2 and alpha1 bands. The decrease in the alpha2 band in the higher-creativity group was significantly lower in comparison with the decrease in the lower-score group. In the alpha2 band, the interaction of gender, creativity, laterality, and electrode position factors was also found during analysis of task-induced coherence changes. Further examination of the interaction showed the similarity of EEG coherence patterns in men and women with opposite creative abilities and higher values of task-induced coherence changes in the anterior regions of the left hemisphere and posterior regions of the right hemisphere in high-creative in comparison with low-creative men. The findings are discussed in terms of different cognitive strategies used by men and women that may have the same results in creative problem solving.

Histidine-decarboxylase knockout mice show deficient nonreinforced episodic object memory, improved negatively reinforced water-maze performance, and increased neo- and ventro-striatal dopamine turnover.

PubMed

Dere, Ekrem; De Souza-Silva, Maria A; Topic, Bianca; Spieler, Richard E; Haas, Helmut L; Huston, Joseph P

2003-01-01

The brain's histaminergic system has been implicated in hippocampal synaptic plasticity, learning, and memory, as well as brain reward and reinforcement. Our past pharmacological and lesion studies indicated that the brain's histamine system exerts inhibitory effects on the brain's reinforcement respective reward system reciprocal to mesolimbic dopamine systems, thereby modulating learning and memory performance. Given the close functional relationship between brain reinforcement and memory processes, the total disruption of brain histamine synthesis via genetic disruption of its synthesizing enzyme, histidine decarboxylase (HDC), in the mouse might have differential effects on learning dependent on the task-inherent reinforcement contingencies. Here, we investigated the effects of an HDC gene disruption in the mouse in a nonreinforced object exploration task and a negatively reinforced water-maze task as well as on neo- and ventro-striatal dopamine systems known to be involved in brain reward and reinforcement. Histidine decarboxylase knockout (HDC-KO) mice had higher dihydrophenylacetic acid concentrations and a higher dihydrophenylacetic acid/dopamine ratio in the neostriatum. In the ventral striatum, dihydrophenylacetic acid/dopamine and 3-methoxytyramine/dopamine ratios were higher in HDC-KO mice. Furthermore, the HDC-KO mice showed improved water-maze performance during both hidden and cued platform tasks, but deficient object discrimination based on temporal relationships. Our data imply that disruption of brain histamine synthesis can have both memory promoting and suppressive effects via distinct and independent mechanisms and further indicate that these opposed effects are related to the task-inherent reinforcement contingencies.

Measuring the effects of a visual or auditory Stroop task on dual-task costs during obstacle crossing.

PubMed

Worden, Timothy A; Mendes, Matthew; Singh, Pratham; Vallis, Lori Ann

2016-10-01

Successful planning and execution of motor strategies while concurrently performing a cognitive task has been previously examined, but unfortunately the varied and numerous cognitive tasks studied has limited our fundamental understanding of how the central nervous system successfully integrates and executes these tasks simultaneously. To gain a better understanding of these mechanisms we used a set of cognitive tasks requiring similar central executive function processes and response outputs but requiring different perceptual mechanisms to perform the motor task. Thirteen healthy young adults (20.6±1.6years old) were instrumented with kinematic markers (60Hz) and completed 5 practice, 10 single-task obstacle walking trials and two 40 trial experimental blocks. Each block contained 20 trials of seated (single-task) trials followed by 20 cognitive and obstacle (30% lower leg length) crossing trials (dual-task). Blocks were randomly presented and included either an auditory Stroop task (AST; central interference only) or a visual Stroop task (VST; combined central and structural interference). Higher accuracy rates and shorter response times were observed for the VST versus AST single-task trials (p<0.05). Conversely, for the obstacle stepping performance, larger dual task costs were observed for the VST as compared to the AST for clearance measures (the VST induced larger clearance values for both the leading and trailing feet), indicating VST tasks caused greater interference for obstacle crossing (p<0.05). These results supported the hypothesis that structural interference has a larger effect on motor performance in a dual-task situation compared to cognitive tasks that pose interference at only the central processing stage. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Examination of the perceived agility and balance during a reactive agility task.

PubMed

Stirling, Leia; Eke, Chika; Cain, Stephen M

2018-01-01

In vehicle dynamics, it is commonly understood that there is an inverse relationship between stability and maneuverability. However, animal studies have found that stability and maneuverability can coincide. In this study, we examine humans running a reactive agility obstacle and consider the relationship between observational perceived agility and balance, as well as the relationship between quantified surrogates of agility and balance. Recreational athletes (n = 18) completed the agility task while wearing inertial measurement units (IMUs) on their body. The task was also video-recorded. An observational study was completed by a separate group of adults (n = 33) that were asked to view the videos and score each athlete on a Likert scale for balance and for agility. The data from the body-worn IMUs were used to estimate quantified surrogate measures for agility and balance, and to assess if the relationship between the quantified agility and balance was in the same direction as the perceived relationship from the Likert scale responses. Results indicate that athletes that were given a higher Likert agility score were also given a higher balance score (rs = 0.75,p < 0.001). Quantitative surrogates of agility and balance also showed this same relationship. Additional insights on technique for this reactive agility task were informed by the quantitative surrogates. We observed the importance of stepping technique in achieving the faster completion times. The fast performing athletes spent a greater proportion of the task in double support and lower overall time in single support indicating increased periods of static stability. The fast performing athletes did not have a higher body speed, but performed the task with a more efficient technique, using foot placement to enable heading changes, and thus may have had a more efficient path. Similar to animal studies, people use technique to enable agile strategies while also enabling increased balance across the task.

Task uncertainty and communication during nursing shift handovers.

PubMed

Mayor, Eric; Bangerter, Adrian; Aribot, Myriam

2012-09-01

We explore variations in handover duration and communication in nursing units. We hypothesize that duration per patient is higher in units facing high task uncertainty. We expect both topics and functions of communication to vary depending on task uncertainty. Handovers are changing in modern healthcare organizations, where standardized procedures are increasingly advocated for efficiency and reliability reasons. However, redesign of handover should take environmental contingencies of different clinical unit types into account. An important contingency in institutions is task uncertainty, which may affect how communicative routines like handover are accomplished. Nurse unit managers of 80 care units in 18 hospitals were interviewed in 2008 about topics and functions of handover communication and duration in their unit. Interviews were content-analysed. Clinical units were classified into a theory-based typology (unit type) that gradually increases on task uncertainty. Quantitative analyses were performed. Unit type affected resource allocation. Unit types facing higher uncertainty had higher handover duration per patient. As expected, unit type also affected communication content. Clinical units facing higher uncertainty discussed fewer topics, discussing treatment and care and organization of work less frequently. Finally, unit type affected functions of handover: sharing emotions was less often mentioned in unit types facing higher uncertainty. Task uncertainty and its relationship with functions and topics of handover should be taken into account during the design of handover procedures. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Myopia for the future or hypersensitivity to reward? Age-related changes in decision making on the Iowa Gambling Task.

PubMed

Bauer, A S; Timpe, J; Edmonds, E C; Bechara, A; Tranel, D; Denburg, N L

2013-02-01

It has been shown that older adults perform less well than younger adults on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), a real-world type decision-making task that factors together reward, punishment, and uncertainty. To explore the reasons behind this age-related decrement, we administered to an adult life span sample of 265 healthy participants (Mdn age = 62.00 +/- 16.17 years; range [23-88]) 2 versions of the IGT, which have different contingencies for successful performance: A'B'C'D' requires choosing lower immediate reward (paired with lower delayed punishment); E'F'G'H' requires choosing higher immediate punishment (paired with higher delayed reward). There was a significant negative correlation between age and performance on the A'B'C'D' version of the IGT (r = -.16, p = .01), while there was essentially no correlation between age and performance on the E'F'G'H' version (r = -.07, p = .24). In addition, the rate of impaired performance in older participants was significantly higher for the A'B'C'D' version (23%) compared with the E'F'G'H' version (13%). A parsimonious account of these findings is an age-related increase in hypersensitivity to reward, whereby the decisions of older adults are disproportionately influenced by prospects of receiving reward, irrespective of the presence or degree of punishment. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Investigating neural efficiency of elite karate athletes during a mental arithmetic task using EEG.

PubMed

Duru, Adil Deniz; Assem, Moataz

2018-02-01

Neural efficiency is proposed as one of the neural mechanisms underlying elite athletic performances. Previous sports studies examined neural efficiency using tasks that involve motor functions. In this study we investigate the extent of neural efficiency beyond motor tasks by using a mental subtraction task. A group of elite karate athletes are compared to a matched group of non-athletes. Electroencephalogram is used to measure cognitive dynamics during resting and increased mental workload periods. Mainly posterior alpha band power of the karate players was found to be higher than control subjects under both tasks. Moreover, event related synchronization/desynchronization has been computed to investigate the neural efficiency hypothesis among subjects. Finally, this study is the first study to examine neural efficiency related to a cognitive task, not a motor task, in elite karate players using ERD/ERS analysis. The results suggest that the effect of neural efficiency in the brain is global rather than local and thus might be contributing to the elite athletic performances. Also the results are in line with the neural efficiency hypothesis tested for motor performance studies.

Motor learning from virtual reality to natural environments in individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

PubMed

Quadrado, Virgínia Helena; Silva, Talita Dias da; Favero, Francis Meire; Tonks, James; Massetti, Thais; Monteiro, Carlos Bandeira de Mello

2017-11-10

To examine whether performance improvements in the virtual environment generalize to the natural environment. we had 64 individuals, 32 of which were individuals with DMD and 32 were typically developing individuals. The groups practiced two coincidence timing tasks. In the more tangible button-press task, the individuals were required to 'intercept' a falling virtual object at the moment it reached the interception point by pressing a key on the computer. In the more abstract task, they were instructed to 'intercept' the virtual object by making a hand movement in a virtual environment using a webcam. For individuals with DMD, conducting a coincidence timing task in a virtual environment facilitated transfer to the real environment. However, we emphasize that a task practiced in a virtual environment should have higher rates of difficulties than a task practiced in a real environment. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION Virtual environments can be used to promote improved performance in ?real-world? environments. Virtual environments offer the opportunity to create paradigms similar ?real-life? tasks, however task complexity and difficulty levels can be manipulated, graded and enhanced to increase likelihood of success in transfer of learning and performance. Individuals with DMD, in particular, showed immediate performance benefits after using virtual reality.

Neural sources of performance decline during continuous multitasking.

PubMed

Al-Hashimi, Omar; Zanto, Theodore P; Gazzaley, Adam

2015-10-01

Multitasking performance costs have largely been characterized by experiments that involve two overlapping and punctuated perceptual stimuli, as well as punctuated responses to each task. Here, participants engaged in a continuous performance paradigm during fMRI recording to identify neural signatures associated with multitasking costs under more natural conditions. Our results demonstrated that only a single brain region, the superior parietal lobule (SPL), exhibited a significant relationship with multitasking performance, such that increased activation in the multitasking condition versus the singletasking condition was associated with higher task performance (i.e., least multitasking cost). Together, these results support previous research indicating that parietal regions underlie multitasking abilities and that performance costs are related to a bottleneck in control processes involving the SPL that serves to divide attention between two tasks. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Fluency-dependent cortical activation associated with speech production and comprehension in second language learners.

PubMed

Shimada, K; Hirotani, M; Yokokawa, H; Yoshida, H; Makita, K; Yamazaki-Murase, M; Tanabe, H C; Sadato, N

2015-08-06

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated the brain regions underlying language task performance in adult second language (L2) learners. Specifically, we identified brain regions where the level of activation was associated with L2 fluency levels. Thirty Japanese-speaking adults participated in the study. All participants were L2 learners of English and had achieved varying levels of fluency, as determined by a standardized L2 English proficiency test, the Versant English Test (Pearson Education Inc., 2011). When participants performed the oral sentence building task from the production tasks administered, the dorsal part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (dIFG) showed activation patterns that differed depending on the L2 fluency levels: The more fluent the participants were, the more dIFG activation decreased. This decreased activation of the dIFG might reflect the increased automaticity of a syntactic building process. In contrast, when participants performed an oral story comprehension task, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) showed increased activation with higher fluency levels. This suggests that the learners with higher L2 fluency were actively engaged in post-syntactic integration processing supported by the left pSTG. These data imply that L2 fluency predicts neural resource allocation during language comprehension tasks as well as in production tasks. This study sheds light on the neural underpinnings of L2 learning by identifying the brain regions recruited during different language tasks across different modalities (production vs. comprehension). Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Neural Correlates Associated with Successful Working Memory Performance in Older Adults as Revealed by Spatial ICA

PubMed Central

Saliasi, Emi; Geerligs, Linda; Lorist, Monicque M.; Maurits, Natasha M.

2014-01-01

To investigate which neural correlates are associated with successful working memory performance, fMRI was recorded in healthy younger and older adults during performance on an n-back task with varying task demands. To identify functional networks supporting working memory processes, we used independent component analysis (ICA) decomposition of the fMRI data. Compared to younger adults, older adults showed a larger neural (BOLD) response in the more complex (2-back) than in the baseline (0-back) task condition, in the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and in the right fronto-parietal network (FPN). Our results indicated that a higher BOLD response in the VLPFC was associated with increased performance accuracy in older adults, in both the baseline and the more complex task condition. This ‘BOLD-performance’ relationship suggests that the neural correlates linked with successful performance in the older adults are not uniquely related to specific working memory processes present in the complex but not in the baseline task condition. Furthermore, the selective presence of this relationship in older but not in younger adults suggests that increased neural activity in the VLPFC serves a compensatory role in the aging brain which benefits task performance in the elderly. PMID:24911016

Neural Determinants of Task Performance during Feature-Based Attention in Human Cortex

PubMed Central

Gong, Mengyuan

2018-01-01

Abstract Studies of feature-based attention have associated activity in a dorsal frontoparietal network with putative attentional priority signals. Yet, how this neural activity mediates attentional selection and whether it guides behavior are fundamental questions that require investigation. We reasoned that endogenous fluctuations in the quality of attentional priority should influence task performance. Human subjects detected a speed increment while viewing clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW) motion (baseline task) or while attending to either direction amid distracters (attention task). In an fMRI experiment, direction-specific neural pattern similarity between the baseline task and the attention task revealed a higher level of similarity for correct than incorrect trials in frontoparietal regions. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we disrupted posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and found a selective deficit in the attention task, but not in the baseline task, demonstrating the necessity of this cortical area during feature-based attention. These results reveal that frontoparietal areas maintain attentional priority that facilitates successful behavioral selection. PMID:29497703

Effects of VR system fidelity on analyzing isosurface visualization of volume datasets.

PubMed

Laha, Bireswar; Bowman, Doug A; Socha, John J

2014-04-01

Volume visualization is an important technique for analyzing datasets from a variety of different scientific domains. Volume data analysis is inherently difficult because volumes are three-dimensional, dense, and unfamiliar, requiring scientists to precisely control the viewpoint and to make precise spatial judgments. Researchers have proposed that more immersive (higher fidelity) VR systems might improve task performance with volume datasets, and significant results tied to different components of display fidelity have been reported. However, more information is needed to generalize these results to different task types, domains, and rendering styles. We visualized isosurfaces extracted from synchrotron microscopic computed tomography (SR-μCT) scans of beetles, in a CAVE-like display. We ran a controlled experiment evaluating the effects of three components of system fidelity (field of regard, stereoscopy, and head tracking) on a variety of abstract task categories that are applicable to various scientific domains, and also compared our results with those from our prior experiment using 3D texture-based rendering. We report many significant findings. For example, for search and spatial judgment tasks with isosurface visualization, a stereoscopic display provides better performance, but for tasks with 3D texture-based rendering, displays with higher field of regard were more effective, independent of the levels of the other display components. We also found that systems with high field of regard and head tracking improve performance in spatial judgment tasks. Our results extend existing knowledge and produce new guidelines for designing VR systems to improve the effectiveness of volume data analysis.

Towards an assistive peripheral visual prosthesis for long-term treatment of retinitis pigmentosa: evaluating mobility performance in immersive simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zapf, Marc Patrick H.; Boon, Mei-Ying; Matteucci, Paul B.; Lovell, Nigel H.; Suaning, Gregg J.

2015-06-01

Objective. The prospective efficacy of a future peripheral retinal prosthesis complementing residual vision to raise mobility performance in non-end stage retinitis pigmentosa (RP) was evaluated using simulated prosthetic vision (SPV). Approach. Normally sighted volunteers were fitted with a wide-angle head-mounted display and carried out mobility tasks in photorealistic virtual pedestrian scenarios. Circumvention of low-lying obstacles, path following, and navigating around static and moving pedestrians were performed either with central simulated residual vision of 10° alone or enhanced by assistive SPV in the lower and lateral peripheral visual field (VF). Three layouts of assistive vision corresponding to hypothetical electrode array layouts were compared, emphasizing higher visual acuity, a wider visual angle, or eccentricity-dependent acuity across an intermediate angle. Movement speed, task time, distance walked and collisions with the environment were analysed as performance measures. Main results. Circumvention of low-lying obstacles was improved with all tested configurations of assistive SPV. Higher-acuity assistive vision allowed for greatest improvement in walking speeds—14% above that of plain residual vision, while only wide-angle and eccentricity-dependent vision significantly reduced the number of collisions—both by 21%. Navigating around pedestrians, there were significant reductions in collisions with static pedestrians by 33% and task time by 7.7% with the higher-acuity layout. Following a path, higher-acuity assistive vision increased walking speed by 9%, and decreased collisions with stationary cars by 18%. Significance. The ability of assistive peripheral prosthetic vision to improve mobility performance in persons with constricted VFs has been demonstrated. In a prospective peripheral visual prosthesis, electrode array designs need to be carefully tailored to the scope of tasks in which a device aims to assist. We posit that maximum benefit might come from application alongside existing visual aids, to further raise life quality of persons living through the prolonged early stages of RP.

Does the walking task matter? Influence of different walking conditions on dual-task performances in young and older persons.

PubMed

Beurskens, Rainer; Bock, Otmar

2013-12-01

Previous literature suggests that age-related deficits of dual-task walking are particularly pronounced with second tasks that require continuous visual processing. Here we evaluate whether the difficulty of the walking task matters as well. To this end, participants were asked to walk along a straight pathway of 20m length in four different walking conditions: (a) wide path and preferred pace; (b) narrow path and preferred pace, (c) wide path and fast pace, (d) obstacled wide path and preferred pace. Each condition was performed concurrently with a task requiring visual processing or fine motor control, and all tasks were also performed alone which allowed us to calculate the dual-task costs (DTC). Results showed that the age-related increase of DTC is substantially larger with the visually demanding than with the motor-demanding task, more so when walking on a narrow or obstacled path. We attribute these observations to the fact that visual scanning of the environment becomes more crucial when walking in difficult terrains: the higher visual demand of those conditions accentuates the age-related deficits in coordinating them with a visual non-walking task. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Obesity-specific neural cost of maintaining gait performance under complex conditions in community-dwelling older adults.

PubMed

Osofundiya, Olufunmilola; Benden, Mark E; Dowdy, Diane; Mehta, Ranjana K

2016-06-01

Recent evidence of obesity-related changes in the prefrontal cortex during cognitive and seated motor activities has surfaced; however, the impact of obesity on neural activity during ambulation remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine obesity-specific neural cost of simple and complex ambulation in older adults. Twenty non-obese and obese individuals, 65years and older, performed three tasks varying in the types of complexity of ambulation (simple walking, walking+cognitive dual-task, and precision walking). Maximum oxygenated hemoglobin, a measure of neural activity, was measured bilaterally using a portable functional near infrared spectroscopy system, and gait speed and performance on the complex tasks were also obtained. Complex ambulatory tasks were associated with ~2-3.5 times greater cerebral oxygenation levels and ~30-40% slower gait speeds when compared to the simple walking task. Additionally, obesity was associated with three times greater oxygenation levels, particularly during the precision gait task, despite obese adults demonstrating similar gait speeds and performances on the complex gait tasks as non-obese adults. Compared to existing studies that focus solely on biomechanical outcomes, the present study is one of the first to examine obesity-related differences in neural activity during ambulation in older adults. In order to maintain gait performance, obesity was associated with higher neural costs, and this was augmented during ambulatory tasks requiring greater precision control. These preliminary findings have clinical implications in identifying individuals who are at greater risk of mobility limitations, particularly when performing complex ambulatory tasks. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Force-stabilizing synergies in motor tasks involving two actors

PubMed Central

Solnik, Stanislaw; Reschechtko, Sasha; Wu, Yen-Hsun; Zatsiorsky, Vladimir M.; Latash, Mark L.

2015-01-01

We investigated the ability of two persons to produce force-stabilizing synergies in accurate multi-finger force production tasks under visual feedback on the total force only. The subjects produced a time profile of total force (the sum of two hand forces in one-person tasks and the sum of two subject forces in two-person tasks) consisting of a ramp-up, steady-state, and ramp-down segments; the steady-state segment was interrupted in the middle by a quick force pulse. Analyses of the structure of inter-trial finger force variance, motor equivalence, anticipatory synergy adjustments (ASAs), and the unintentional drift of the sharing pattern were performed. The two-person performance was characterized by a dramatically higher amount of inter-trial variance that did not affect total force, higher finger force deviations that did not affect total force (motor equivalent deviations), shorter ASAs, and larger drift of the sharing pattern. The rate of sharing pattern drift correlated with the initial disparity between the forces produced by the two persons (or two hands). The drift accelerated following the quick force pulse. Our observations show that sensory information on the task-specific performance variable is sufficient for the organization of performance-stabilizing synergies. They suggest, however, that two actors are less likely to follow a single optimization criterion as compared to a single performer. The presence of ASAs in the two-person condition might reflect fidgeting by one or both of the subjects. We discuss the characteristics of the drift in the sharing pattern as reflections of different characteristic times of motion within the sub-spaces that affect and do not affect salient performance variables. PMID:26105756

Force-stabilizing synergies in motor tasks involving two actors.

PubMed

Solnik, Stanislaw; Reschechtko, Sasha; Wu, Yen-Hsun; Zatsiorsky, Vladimir M; Latash, Mark L

2015-10-01

We investigated the ability of two persons to produce force-stabilizing synergies in accurate multi-finger force production tasks under visual feedback on the total force only. The subjects produced a time profile of total force (the sum of two hand forces in one-person tasks and the sum of two subject forces in two-person tasks) consisting of a ramp-up, steady-state, and ramp-down segments; the steady-state segment was interrupted in the middle by a quick force pulse. Analyses of the structure of inter-trial finger force variance, motor equivalence, anticipatory synergy adjustments (ASAs), and the unintentional drift of the sharing pattern were performed. The two-person performance was characterized by a dramatically higher amount of inter-trial variance that did not affect total force, higher finger force deviations that did not affect total force (motor equivalent deviations), shorter ASAs, and larger drift of the sharing pattern. The rate of sharing pattern drift correlated with the initial disparity between the forces produced by the two persons (or two hands). The drift accelerated following the quick force pulse. Our observations show that sensory information on the task-specific performance variable is sufficient for the organization of performance-stabilizing synergies. They suggest, however, that two actors are less likely to follow a single optimization criterion as compared to a single performer. The presence of ASAs in the two-person condition might reflect fidgeting by one or both of the subjects. We discuss the characteristics of the drift in the sharing pattern as reflections of different characteristic times of motion within the subspaces that affect and do not affect salient performance variables.

A Novel Method for Assessing Task Complexity in Outpatient Clinical-Performance Measures.

PubMed

Hysong, Sylvia J; Amspoker, Amber B; Petersen, Laura A

2016-04-01

Clinical-performance measurement has helped improve the quality of health-care; yet success in attaining high levels of quality across multiple domains simultaneously still varies considerably. Although many sources of variability in care quality have been studied, the difficulty required to complete the clinical work itself has received little attention. We present a task-based methodology for evaluating the difficulty of clinical-performance measures (CPMs) by assessing the complexity of their component requisite tasks. Using Functional Job Analysis (FJA), subject-matter experts (SMEs) generated task lists for 17 CPMs; task lists were rated on ten dimensions of complexity, and then aggregated into difficulty composites. Eleven outpatient work SMEs; 133 VA Medical Centers nationwide. Clinical Performance: 17 outpatient CPMs (2000-2008) at 133 VA Medical Centers nationwide. Measure Difficulty: for each CPM, the number of component requisite tasks and the average rating across ten FJA complexity scales for the set of tasks comprising the measure. Measures varied considerably in the number of component tasks (M = 10.56, SD = 6.25, min = 5, max = 25). Measures of chronic care following acute myocardial infarction exhibited significantly higher measure difficulty ratings compared to diabetes or screening measures, but not to immunization measures ([Formula: see text] = 0.45, -0.04, -0.05, and -0.06 respectively; F (3, 186) = 3.57, p = 0.015). Measure difficulty ratings were not significantly correlated with the number of component tasks (r = -0.30, p = 0.23). Evaluating the difficulty of achieving recommended CPM performance levels requires more than simply counting the tasks involved; using FJA to assess the complexity of CPMs' component tasks presents an alternate means of assessing the difficulty of primary-care CPMs and accounting for performance variation among measures and performers. This in turn could be used in designing performance reward programs, or to match workflow to clinician time and effort.

Spaceflight-Induced Cardiovascular Changes and Recovery During NASA's Functional Task Test

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Arzeno, N. M.; Stenger, M. B.; Bloomberg, J. J.; Platts, S. H.

2010-01-01

Microgravity-induced physiological changes could impair a crewmember s performance upon return to a gravity environment. The Functional Task Test (FTT) is designed to correlate these physiological changes to performance in mission-critical tasks. The Recovery from Fall/Stand Test (RFST) simulates one such task, measuring the ability to recover from a prone position and the cardiovascular response to orthostasis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate spaceflight-induced cardiovascular changes during the FTT. METHODS: Five astronauts participated in the FTT before 10-15 day missions, on landing day (R+0), and one (R+1), six (R+6) and thirty (R+30) days after landing. The RFST consisted of a 2-minute prone rest followed by a 3-minute stand during which heart rate (HR, Holter) and continuous blood pressure (BP, Finometer) were measured. Spectral heart rate variability (HRV) was calculated during the RFST to approximate autonomic function. Statistical analysis was performed with two-factor repeated measures ANOVA. RESULTS: During RFST, HR was higher on R+0 than preflight (p<0.004). This increase in HR persisted on R+1 and R+6 during the stand portion of RFST (p<0.026). BP was well-regulated on all test days. Parasympathetic activity was diminished on R+0 (p=0.035). Sympathovagal balance tended to be affected by spaceflight (main effect, p=0.072), appearing to be slightly elevated during postflight RFST except on R+30. Additionally, analysis of HR during the functional tasks yielded a higher HR on R+0 than preflight during 8 of 11 tasks analyzed, where all tasks had HR return to preflight values by R+30 (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Spaceflight causes an increase in HR, decrease in parasympathetic activity, and increase in sympathovagal balance, which we confirmed during RFST. These spaceflight-induced changes seen in the RFST, along with the increased postflight HR in most functional tasks, can be used to assess functional performance after short-duration spaceflight.

Concurrent processing of vehicle lane keeping and speech comprehension tasks.

PubMed

Cao, Shi; Liu, Yili

2013-10-01

With the growing prevalence of using in-vehicle devices and mobile devices while driving, a major concern is their impact on driving performance and safety. However, the effects of cognitive load such as conversation on driving performance are still controversial and not well understood. In this study, an experiment was conducted to investigate the concurrent performance of vehicle lane keeping and speech comprehension tasks with improved experimental control of the confounding factors identified in previous studies. The results showed that the standard deviation of lane position (SDLP) was increased when the driving speed was faster (0.30 m at 36 km/h; 0.36 m at 72 km/h). The concurrent comprehension task had no significant effect on SDLP (0.34 m on average) or the standard deviation of steering wheel angle (SDSWA; 5.20° on average). The correct rate of the comprehension task was reduced in the dual-task condition (from 93.4% to 91.3%) compared with the comprehension single-task condition. Mental workload was significantly higher in the dual-task condition compared with the single-task conditions. Implications for driving safety were discussed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Higher Education Counts: Accountability Measures for the New Millennium. 2005 Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Connecticut Department of Higher Education (NJ1), 2005

2005-01-01

"Higher Education Counts" is the annual accountability report on Connecticut's state system of higher education, as required under Connecticut General Statutes Section 10a-6a. The report contains accountability measures developed through the Performance Measures Task Force and approved by the Board of Governors for Higher Education. The…

Single- and dual-task performance during on-the-road driving at a low and moderate dose of alcohol: A comparison between young novice and more experienced drivers.

PubMed

Jongen, Stefan; van der Sluiszen, Nick N J J M; Brown, Dennis; Vuurman, Eric F P M

2018-05-01

Driving experience and alcohol are two factors associated with a higher risk of crash involvement in young novice drivers. Driving a car is a complex task involving multiple tasks leading to dividing attention. The aim of this study was to compare the single and combined effects of a low and moderate dose of alcohol on single- and dual-task performance between young novice and more experienced young drivers during actual driving. Nine healthy novice drivers were compared with 9 more experienced drivers in a three-way, placebo-controlled, cross-over study design. Driving performance was measured in actual traffic, with standard deviation of lateral position as the primary outcome variable. Secondary task performance was measured with an auditory word learning test during driving. Results showed that standard deviation of lateral position increased dose-dependently at a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.2 and 0.5 g/L in both novice and experienced drivers. Secondary task performance was impaired in both groups at a BAC of 0.5 g/L. Furthermore, it was found that driving performance in novice drivers was already impaired at a BAC of 0.2 g/L during dual-task performance. The findings suggest that young inexperienced drivers are especially vulnerable to increased mental load while under the influence of alcohol. © 2018 The Authors Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Quantifying the Physiological Stress Response to Simulated Maritime Pilotage Tasks

PubMed Central

Main, Luana C.; Wolkow, Alexander; Chambers, Timothy P.

2017-01-01

Objective: The aim of this study was to quantify the stress associated with performing maritime pilotage tasks in a high-fidelity simulator. Methods: Eight trainee and 13 maritime pilots completed two simulated pilotage tasks of varying complexity. Salivary cortisol samples were collected pre- and post-simulation for both trials. Heart rate was measured continuously throughout the study. Results: Significant changes in salivary cortisol (P = 0.000, η2 = 0.139), average (P = 0.006, η2 = 0.087), and peak heart rate (P = 0.013, η2 = 0.077) from pre- to postsimulation were found. Varying task complexity did partially influence stress response; average (P = 0.016, η2 = 0.026) and peak heart rate (P = 0.034, η2 = 0.020) were higher in the experimental condition. Trainees also recorded higher average (P = 0.000, η2 = 0.054) and peak heart rates (P = 0.027, η2 = 0.022). Conclusion: Performing simulated pilotage tasks evoked a measurable stress response in both trainee and expert maritime pilots. PMID:28922309

Effects of automation of information-processing functions on teamwork.

PubMed

Wright, Melanie C; Kaber, David B

2005-01-01

We investigated the effects of automation as applied to different stages of information processing on team performance in a complex decision-making task. Forty teams of 2 individuals performed a simulated Theater Defense Task. Four automation conditions were simulated with computer assistance applied to realistic combinations of information acquisition, information analysis, and decision selection functions across two levels of task difficulty. Multiple measures of team effectiveness and team coordination were used. Results indicated different forms of automation have different effects on teamwork. Compared with a baseline condition, an increase in automation of information acquisition led to an increase in the ratio of information transferred to information requested; an increase in automation of information analysis resulted in higher team coordination ratings; and automation of decision selection led to better team effectiveness under low levels of task difficulty but at the cost of higher workload. The results support the use of early and intermediate forms of automation related to acquisition and analysis of information in the design of team tasks. Decision-making automation may provide benefits in more limited contexts. Applications of this research include the design and evaluation of automation in team environments.

Occupational-Specific Strength Predicts Astronaut-Related Task Performance in a Weighted Suit.

PubMed

Taylor, Andrew; Kotarsky, Christopher J; Bond, Colin W; Hackney, Kyle J

2018-01-01

Future space missions beyond low Earth orbit will require deconditioned astronauts to perform occupationally relevant tasks within a planetary spacesuit. The prediction of time-to-completion (TTC) of astronaut tasks will be critical for crew safety, autonomous operations, and mission success. This exploratory study determined if the addition of task-specific strength testing to current standard lower body testing would enhance the prediction of TTC in a 1-G test battery. Eight healthy participants completed NASA lower body strength tests, occupationally specific strength tests, and performed six task simulations (hand drilling, construction wrenching, incline walking, collecting weighted samples, and dragging an unresponsive crewmember to safety) in a 48-kg weighted suit. The TTC for each task was recorded and summed to obtain a total TTC for the test battery. Linear regression was used to predict total TTC with two models: 1) NASA lower body strength tests; and 2) NASA lower body strength tests + occupationally specific strength tests. Total TTC of the test battery ranged from 20.2-44.5 min. The lower body strength test alone accounted for 61% of the variability in total TTC. The addition of hand drilling and wrenching strength tests accounted for 99% of the variability in total TTC. Adding occupationally specific strength tests (hand drilling and wrenching) to standard lower body strength tests successfully predicted total TTC in a performance test battery within a weighted suit. Future research should couple these strength tests with higher fidelity task simulations to determine the utility and efficacy of task performance prediction.Taylor A, Kotarsky CJ, Bond CW, Hackney KJ. Occupational-specific strength predicts astronaut-related task performance in a weighted suit. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2018; 89(1):58-62.

The association between aerobic fitness and cognitive function in older men mediated by frontal lateralization.

PubMed

Hyodo, Kazuki; Dan, Ippeita; Kyutoku, Yasushi; Suwabe, Kazuya; Byun, Kyeongho; Ochi, Genta; Kato, Morimasa; Soya, Hideaki

2016-01-15

Previous studies have shown that higher aerobic fitness is related to higher cognitive function and higher task-related prefrontal activation in older adults. However, a holistic picture of these factors has yet to be presented. As a typical age-related change of brain activation, less lateralized activity in the prefrontal cortex during cognitive tasks has been observed in various neuroimaging studies. Thus, this study aimed to reveal the relationship between aerobic fitness, cognitive function, and frontal lateralization. Sixty male older adults each performed a submaximal incremental exercise test to determine their oxygen intake (V·O2) at ventilatory threshold (VT) in order to index their aerobic fitness. They performed a color-word Stroop task while prefrontal activation was monitored using functional near infrared spectroscopy. As an index of cognitive function, Stroop interference time was analyzed. Partial correlation analyses revealed significant correlations among higher VT, shorter Stroop interference time and greater left-lateralized dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activation when adjusting for education. Moreover, mediation analyses showed that left-lateralized DLPFC activation significantly mediated the association between VT and Stroop interference time. These results suggest that higher aerobic fitness is associated with cognitive function via lateralized frontal activation in older adults. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Non-image forming effects of illuminance level: Exploring parallel effects on physiological arousal and task performance.

PubMed

Huiberts, Laura M; Smolders, Karin C H J; de Kort, Yvonne A W

2016-10-01

This study investigated diurnal non-image forming (NIF) effects of illuminance level on physiological arousal in parallel to NIF effects on vigilance and working memory performance. We employed a counterbalanced within-subjects design in which thirty-nine participants (mean age=21.2; SD=2.1; 11 male) completed three 90-min sessions (165 vs. 600lx vs. 1700lx at eye level) either in the morning (N=18) or afternoon (N=21). During each session, participants completed four measurement blocks (incl. one baseline block) each consisting of a 10-min Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and a Backwards Digit-Span Task (BDST) including easy trials (4-6 digits) and difficult trials (7-8 digits). Heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) were measured continuously. The results revealed significant improvements in performance on the BDST difficult trials under 1700lx vs. 165lx (p=0.01), while illuminance level did not affect performance on the PVT and BDST easy trials. Illuminance level impacted HR and SCL, but not SBP. In the afternoon sessions, HR was significantly higher under 1700lx vs. 165lx during PVT performance (p=0.05), while during BDST performance, HR was only slightly higher under 600 vs. 165lx (p=0.06). SCL was significantly higher under 1700lx vs. 165lx during performance on BDST easy trials (p=0.02) and showed similar, but nonsignificant trends during the PVT and BDST difficult trials. Although both physiology and performance were affected by illuminance level, no consistent pattern emerged with respect to parallel changes in physiology and performance. Rather, physiology and performance seemed to be affected independently, via unique pathways. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Cognitive and Physical Fatigue Tasks Enhance Pain, Cognitive Fatigue and Physical Fatigue in People with Fibromyalgia

PubMed Central

Dailey, Dana L; Keffala, Valerie J; Sluka, Kathleen A

2014-01-01

Objective Fibromyalgia is a condition characterized by chronic widespread muscle pain and fatigue. The primary objective of this study was to determine if pain, perceived cognitive fatigue, and perceived physical fatigue were enhanced in participants with fibromyalgia compared to healthy controls during a cognitive fatigue task, a physical fatigue task and a dual fatigue task. Methods Twenty four people with fibromyalgia and 33 healthy controls completed pain, fatigue and function measures. A cognitive fatigue task (Controlled Oral Word Association Test) and physical fatigue task (Valpar peg test) were done individually and combined for a dual fatigue task. Resting pain, perceived cognitive fatigue and perceived physical fatigue were assessed during each task using visual analogue scales. Function was assessed with shoulder range of motion and grip. Results People with fibromyalgia had significantly higher increases in pain, cognitive fatigue and physical fatigue when compared to healthy controls after completion of a cognitive fatigue task, a physical fatigue task, or a dual fatigue task (p<0.01). People with fibromyalgia performed equivalently on measures of physical performance and cognitive performance on the physical and cognitive fatigue tasks, respectively. Conclusions These data show that people with fibromyalgia show larger increases in pain, perceived cognitive fatigue and perceived physical fatigue to both cognitive and physical fatigue tasks compared to healthy controls. The increases in pain and fatigue during cognitive and physical fatigue tasks could influence subject participation in daily activities and rehabilitation. PMID:25074583

Achievement goals affect metacognitive judgments

PubMed Central

Ikeda, Kenji; Yue, Carole L.; Murayama, Kou; Castel, Alan D.

2017-01-01

The present study examined the effect of achievement goals on metacognitive judgments, such as judgments of learning (JOLs) and metacomprehension judgments, and actual recall performance. We conducted five experiments manipulating the instruction of achievement goals. In each experiment, participants were instructed to adopt mastery-approach goals (i.e., develop their own mental ability through a memory task) or performance-approach goals (i.e., demonstrate their strong memory ability through getting a high score on a memory task). The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that JOLs of word pairs in the performance-approach goal condition tended to be higher than those in the mastery-approach goal condition. In contrast, cued recall performance did not differ between the two goal conditions. Experiment 3 also demonstrated that metacomprehension judgments of text passages were higher in the performance-approach goal condition than in the mastery-approach goals condition, whereas test performance did not differ between conditions. These findings suggest that achievement motivation affects metacognitive judgments during learning, even when achievement motivation does not influence actual performance. PMID:28983496

Response inhibition predicts painful task duration and performance in healthy individuals performing a cold pressor task in a motivational context.

PubMed

Karsdorp, P A; Geenen, R; Vlaeyen, J W S

2014-01-01

Long-term avoidance of painful activities has shown to be dysfunctional in chronic pain. Pain may elicit escape or avoidance responses automatically, particularly when pain-related fear is high. A conflict may arise between opposing short-term escape/avoidance goals to reduce pain and long-term approach goals to receive a reward. An inhibitory control system may resolve this conflict. It was hypothesized that reduced response inhibition would be associated with greater escape/avoidance during pain, particularly among subjects with higher pain-related fear. Response inhibition was measured with the stop-signal task, and pain-related fear with the Fear of Pain Questionnaire. Participants completed a tone-detection task (TDT) in which they could earn money while being exposed to cold pressor pain. Escape/avoidance was operationalized as the hand immersion time during a cold pressor task (CPT) and the performance on the TDT. Poorer response inhibition was associated with shorter CPT immersion duration and with worse TDT performance. Pain after the CPT was associated with pain-related fear, but not with response inhibition. No supportive evidence was found for the hypothesis that the relation between inhibition and escape/avoidance would be most pronounced for those with higher pain-related fear. In contrast, the relation between response inhibition and number of hits on the TDT was most pronounced for those with lower pain-related fear. The findings suggest that individuals with a stronger ability to inhibit responses in a stop-signal task are better able to inhibit escape/avoidance responses elicited by pain, in the service of a conflicting approach goal. © 2013 European Pain Federation - EFIC®

Evaluating stereoscopic displays: both efficiency measures and perceived workload sensitive to manipulations in binocular disparity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Beurden, Maurice H. P. H.; Ijsselsteijn, Wijnand A.; de Kort, Yvonne A. W.

2011-03-01

Stereoscopic displays are known to offer a number of key advantages in visualizing complex 3D structures or datasets. The large majority of studies that focus on evaluating stereoscopic displays for professional applications use completion time and/or the percentage of correct answers to measure potential performance advantages. However, completion time and accuracy may not fully reflect all the benefits of stereoscopic displays. In this paper, we argue that perceived workload is an additional valuable indicator reflecting the extent to which users can benefit from using stereoscopic displays. We performed an experiment in which participants were asked to perform a visual path-tracing task within a convoluted 3D wireframe structure, varying in level of complexity of the visualised structure and level of disparity of the visualisation. The results showed that an optimal performance (completion time, accuracy and workload), depend both on task difficulty and disparity level. Stereoscopic disparity revealed a faster and more accurate task performance, whereas we observed a trend that performance on difficult tasks stands to benefit more from higher levels of disparity than performance on easy tasks. Perceived workload (as measured using the NASA-TLX) showed a similar response pattern, providing evidence that perceived workload is sensitive to variations in disparity as well as task difficulty. This suggests that perceived workload could be a useful concept, in addition to standard performance indicators, in characterising and measuring human performance advantages when using stereoscopic displays.

Cognitive Fatigue Influences Time-On-Task during Bodyweight Resistance Training Exercise

PubMed Central

Head, James R.; Tenan, Matthew S.; Tweedell, Andrew J.; Price, Thomas F.; LaFiandra, Michael E.; Helton, William S.

2016-01-01

Prior investigations have shown measurable performance impairments on continuous physical performance tasks when preceded by a cognitively fatiguing task. However, the effect of cognitive fatigue on bodyweight resistance training exercise task performance is unknown. In the current investigation 18 amateur athletes completed a full body exercise task preceded by either a cognitive fatiguing or control intervention. In a randomized repeated measure design, each participant completed the same exercise task preceded by a 52 min cognitively fatiguing intervention (vigilance) or control intervention (video). Data collection sessions were separated by 1 week. Participants rated the fatigue intervention with a significantly higher workload compared to the control intervention (p < 0.001). Additionally, participants self-reported significantly greater energetic arousal for cognitively fatiguing task (p = 0.02). Cognitive fatigue did not significantly impact number of repetitions completed during the exercise task (p = 0.77); however, when cognitively fatigued, participants had decreased percent time-on-task (57%) relative to the no fatigue condition (60%; p = 0.04). RPE significantly changed over time (p < 0.001), but failed to show significant differences between the cognitive fatigue intervention and control intervention (p > 0.05). There was no statistical difference for heart rate or metabolic expenditure as a function of fatigue intervention during exercise. Cognitively fatigued athletes have decreased time-on-task in bodyweight resistance training exercise tasks. PMID:27635122

Use of immersive virtual reality to assess episodic memory: A validation study in older adults.

PubMed

Corriveau Lecavalier, Nick; Ouellet, Émilie; Boller, Benjamin; Belleville, Sylvie

2018-05-29

Virtual reality (VR) allows for the creation of ecological environments that could be used for cognitive assessment and intervention. This study comprises two parts that describe and assess an immersive VR task, the Virtual Shop, which can be used to measure episodic memory. Part 1 addresses its applicability in healthy older adults by measuring presence, motivation, and cybersickness symptoms. Part 2 addresses its construct validity by investigating correlations between performance in the VR task and on a traditional experimental memory task, and by measuring whether the VR task is sensitive to age-related memory differences. Fifty-seven older and 20 younger adults were assessed in the Virtual Shop, in which they memorised and fetched 12 familiar items. Part 1 showed high levels of presence, higher levels of motivation for the VR than for the traditional task, and negligible cybersickness symptoms. Part 2 indicates that memory performance in the VR task is positively correlated with performance on a traditional memory task for both age groups, and age-related differences were found on the VR and traditional memory tasks. Thus, the use of VR is feasible in older adults and the Virtual Shop is a valid task to assess and train episodic memory in this population.

Activation of the Prefrontal Cortex While Performing a Task at Preferred Slow Pace and Metronome Slow Pace: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

PubMed Central

Moriguchi, Yoshiya

2014-01-01

Individuals have a preferred pace at which they perform voluntary repetitive movements. Previous studies have reported that greater activation of the prefrontal cortex was observed during self-initiated movements than during externally triggered movements. The purpose of the present study is to compare the activation of the prefrontal cortex induced when the subjects performed a peg-board task at their preferred slow pace (PSP, the self-initiated condition) with that induced when they performed the same task at metronome slow pace (MSP, the externally triggered condition) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Healthy subjects performed the task while sitting in a chair. By assessing the activated channels individually, we confirmed that all of the prefrontal regions of interest were activated by both tasks. In the second-level analyses, we found that the activation detected in the frontopolar cortex (FPPFC; Brodmann area 10) was higher during the PSP task than during the MSP task. The FPPFC is known to be at the top of prefrontal hierarchy, and specifically involved in evaluating self-generated information. In addition, the FPPFC plays a role in coordinating lateral prefrontal cortex. In the present study, the subjects evaluated and managed the internally generated PSP by coordinating the activity of other lower level prefrontal regions. PMID:25436155

Effects of imperfect automation and individual differences on concurrent performance of military and robotics tasks in a simulated multitasking environment.

PubMed

Chen, J Y C; Terrence, P I

2009-08-01

This study investigated the performance and workload of the combined position of gunner and robotics operator in a simulated military multitasking environment. Specifically, the study investigated how aided target recognition (AiTR) capabilities for the gunnery task with imperfect reliability (false-alarm-prone vs. miss-prone) might affect the concurrent robotics and communication tasks. Additionally, the study examined whether performance was affected by individual differences in spatial ability and attentional control. Results showed that when the robotics task was simply monitoring the video, participants had the best performance in their gunnery and communication tasks and the lowest perceived workload, compared with the other robotics tasking conditions. There was a strong interaction between the type of AiTR unreliability and participants' perceived attentional control. Overall, for participants with higher perceived attentional control, false-alarm-prone alerts were more detrimental; for low attentional control participants, conversely, miss-prone automation was more harmful. Low spatial ability participants preferred visual cueing and high spatial ability participants favoured tactile cueing. Potential applications of the findings include personnel selection for robotics operation, robotics user interface designs and training development. The present results will provide further understanding of the interplays among automation reliability, multitasking performance and individual differences in military tasking environments. These results will also facilitate the implementation of robots in military settings and will provide useful data to military system designs.

Controlling the stream of thought: working memory capacity predicts adjustment of mind-wandering to situational demands.

PubMed

Rummel, Jan; Boywitt, C Dennis

2014-10-01

Although engaging in task-unrelated thoughts can be enjoyable and functional under certain circumstances, allowing one's mind to wander off-task will come at a cost to performance in many situations. Given that task-unrelated thoughts need to be blocked out when the current task requires full attention, it has been argued that cognitive control is necessary to prevent mind-wandering from becoming maladaptive. Extending this idea, we exposed participants to tasks of different demands and assessed mind-wandering via thought probes. Employing a latent-change model, we found mind-wandering to be adjusted to current task demands. As hypothesized, the degree of adjustment was predicted by working memory capacity, indicating that participants with higher working memory capacity were more flexible in their coordination of on- and off-task thoughts. Notably, the better the adjustment, the smaller performance decrements due to increased task demands were. On the basis of these findings, we argue that cognitive control does not simply allow blocking out task-unrelated thoughts but, rather, allows one to flexibly adjust mind-wandering to situational demands.

Consistent Performance Differences between Children and Adults Despite Manipulation of Cue-Target Variables

PubMed Central

Bauer, Jessie-Raye; Martinez, Joel E.; Roe, Mary Abbe; Church, Jessica A.

2017-01-01

Two behavioral experiments assessed the plasticity and short-term improvement of task switching in 215 children and adults. Specifically, we studied manipulations of cued attention to different features of a target stimulus as a way to assess the development of cognitive flexibility. Each experiment had multiple levels of difficulty via manipulation of number of cued features (2–4) and number of response options (2 or 4). Working memory demand was manipulated across the two experiments. Impact of memory demand and task level manipulations on task accuracy and response times were measured. There were three overall goals: First, these task manipulations (number of cued features, response choices, and working memory load) were tested to assess the stability of group differences in performance between children ages 6–16 years and adults 18–27 years, with the goal of reducing age group differences. Second, age-related transitions to adult-level performance were examined within subgroups of the child sample. Third, short-term improvement from the beginning to the end of the study session was measured to probe whether children can improve with task experience. Attempts to use task manipulations to reduce age differences in cued task switching performance were unsuccessful: children performed consistently worse and were more susceptible to task manipulations than adults. However, across both studies, adult-like performance was observed around mid-adolescence, by ages 13-16 years. Certain task manipulations, especially increasing number of response options when working memory demand was low, produced differences from adults even in the oldest children. Interestingly, there was similar performance improvement with practice for both child and adult groups. The higher memory demand version of the task (Experiment 2) prompted greater short-term improvement in accuracy and response times than the lower memory demand version (Experiment 1). These results reveal stable differences in cued switching performance over development, but also relative flexibility within a given individual over time. PMID:28824489

Does media multitasking always hurt? A positive correlation between multitasking and multisensory integration.

PubMed

Lui, Kelvin F H; Wong, Alan C-N

2012-08-01

Heavy media multitaskers have been found to perform poorly in certain cognitive tasks involving task switching, selective attention, and working memory. An account for this is that with a breadth-biased style of cognitive control, multitaskers tend to pay attention to various information available in the environment, without sufficient focus on the information most relevant to the task at hand. This cognitive style, however, may not cause a general deficit in all kinds of tasks. We tested the hypothesis that heavy media multitaskers would perform better in a multisensory integration task than would others, due to their extensive experience in integrating information from different modalities. Sixty-three participants filled out a questionnaire about their media usage and completed a visual search task with and without synchronous tones (pip-and-pop paradigm). It was found that a higher degree of media multitasking was correlated with better multisensory integration. The fact that heavy media multitaskers are not deficient in all kinds of cognitive tasks suggests that media multitasking does not always hurt.

Acquisition of Motor and Cognitive Skills through Repetition in Typically Developing Children

PubMed Central

Magallón, Sara; Narbona, Juan; Crespo-Eguílaz, Nerea

2016-01-01

Background Procedural memory allows acquisition, consolidation and use of motor skills and cognitive routines. Automation of procedures is achieved through repeated practice. In children, improvement in procedural skills is a consequence of natural neurobiological development and experience. Methods The aim of the present research was to make a preliminary evaluation and description of repetition-based improvement of procedures in typically developing children (TDC). Ninety TDC children aged 6–12 years were asked to perform two procedural learning tasks. In an assembly learning task, which requires predominantly motor skills, we measured the number of assembled pieces in 60 seconds. In a mirror drawing learning task, which requires more cognitive functions, we measured time spent and efficiency. Participants were tested four times for each task: three trials were consecutive and the fourth trial was performed after a 10-minute nonverbal interference task. The influence of repeated practice on performance was evaluated by means of the analysis of variance with repeated measures and the paired-sample test. Correlation coefficients and simple linear regression test were used to examine the relationship between age and performance. Results TDC achieved higher scores in both tasks through repetition. Older children fitted more pieces than younger ones in assembling learning and they were faster and more efficient at the mirror drawing learning task. Conclusions These findings indicate that three consecutive trials at a procedural task increased speed and efficiency, and that age affected basal performance in motor-cognitive procedures. PMID:27384671

Acquisition of Motor and Cognitive Skills through Repetition in Typically Developing Children.

PubMed

Magallón, Sara; Narbona, Juan; Crespo-Eguílaz, Nerea

2016-01-01

Procedural memory allows acquisition, consolidation and use of motor skills and cognitive routines. Automation of procedures is achieved through repeated practice. In children, improvement in procedural skills is a consequence of natural neurobiological development and experience. The aim of the present research was to make a preliminary evaluation and description of repetition-based improvement of procedures in typically developing children (TDC). Ninety TDC children aged 6-12 years were asked to perform two procedural learning tasks. In an assembly learning task, which requires predominantly motor skills, we measured the number of assembled pieces in 60 seconds. In a mirror drawing learning task, which requires more cognitive functions, we measured time spent and efficiency. Participants were tested four times for each task: three trials were consecutive and the fourth trial was performed after a 10-minute nonverbal interference task. The influence of repeated practice on performance was evaluated by means of the analysis of variance with repeated measures and the paired-sample test. Correlation coefficients and simple linear regression test were used to examine the relationship between age and performance. TDC achieved higher scores in both tasks through repetition. Older children fitted more pieces than younger ones in assembling learning and they were faster and more efficient at the mirror drawing learning task. These findings indicate that three consecutive trials at a procedural task increased speed and efficiency, and that age affected basal performance in motor-cognitive procedures.

During computing tasks symptomatic female office workers demonstrate a trend towards higher cervical postural muscle load than asymptomatic office workers: an experimental study.

PubMed

Szeto, Grace P Y; Straker, Leon M; O'Sullivan, Peter B

2009-01-01

Do symptomatic female office workers perform computing tasks with higher cervical postural muscle loads (in terms of higher amplitudes and less muscular rest) and more discomfort compared with asymptomatic individuals? Are these differences in postural muscle loads consistent across bilateral (typing) and unilateral (mousing) conditions? an experimental case-control study. 18 symptomatic female office workers and 21 asymptomatic female office workers. Three conditions (typing, mousing, and type-and-mouse) were performed in random order. Muscle load was measured as median amplitude and gap frequency using surface EMG of bilateral cervical erector spinae and upper trapezius. Discomfort was measured using a numerical rating scale. The case group demonstrated 4.3% (95% CI 0.1 to 8.4) higher amplitude during typing and 3.5% (95% CI 0.1 to 6.9) higher amplitude during type-and-mouse in the right cervical erector spinae compared with the control group. There was a similar difference between groups in the left cervical erector spinae which also demonstrated a 1.2 gaps/min (95% CI -2.3 to 0.0) lower frequency during typing. The case group had significantly higher discomfort during all conditions compared with the control group. The case group demonstrated higher median amplitudes and lower gap frequencies than the control group during bilateral conditions (typing and type-and-mouse) compared with unilateral conditions (mousing) for both muscle groups. There was increased amplitude and decreased muscular rest in the cervical erector spinae of office workers performing typing and mousing tasks. These findings may represent a mechanism underlying computer-related musculoskeletal disorders.

Benefits of a Tangible Interface for Collaborative Learning and Interaction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schneider, Bertrand; Jermann, Patrick; Zufferey, Guillaume; Dillenbourg, Pierre

2011-01-01

We investigated the role that tangibility plays in a problem-solving task by observing logistic apprentices using either a multitouch or a tangible interface. Results showed that tangibility helped them perform the task better and achieve a higher learning gain. In addition, groups using the tangible interface collaborated better, explored more…

Electroencephalogram complexity analysis in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder during a visual cognitive task.

PubMed

Zarafshan, Hadi; Khaleghi, Ali; Mohammadi, Mohammad Reza; Moeini, Mahdi; Malmir, Nastaran

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate electroencephalogram (EEG) dynamics using complexity analysis in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with healthy control children when performing a cognitive task. Thirty 7-12-year-old children meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria for ADHD and 30 healthy control children underwent an EEG evaluation during a cognitive task, and Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC) values were computed. There were no significant differences between ADHD and control groups on age and gender. The mean LZC of the ADHD children was significantly larger than healthy children over the right anterior and right posterior regions during the cognitive performance. In the ADHD group, complexity of the right hemisphere was higher than that of the left hemisphere, but the complexity of the left hemisphere was higher than that of the right hemisphere in the normal group. Although fronto-striatal dysfunction is considered conclusive evidence for the pathophysiology of ADHD, our arithmetic mental task has provided evidence of structural and functional changes in the posterior regions and probably cerebellum in ADHD.

Improving mental task classification by adding high frequency band information.

PubMed

Zhang, Li; He, Wei; He, Chuanhong; Wang, Ping

2010-02-01

Features extracted from delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma bands spanning low frequency range are commonly used to classify scalp-recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) for designing brain-computer interface (BCI) and higher frequencies are often neglected as noise. In this paper, we implemented an experimental validation to demonstrate that high frequency components could provide helpful information for improving the performance of the mental task based BCI. Electromyography (EMG) and electrooculography (EOG) artifacts were removed by using blind source separation (BSS) techniques. Frequency band powers and asymmetry ratios from the high frequency band (40-100 Hz) together with those from the lower frequency bands were used to represent EEG features. Finally, Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA) combining with Mahalanobis distance were used as the classifier. In this study, four types of classifications were performed using EEG signals recorded from four subjects during five mental tasks. We obtained significantly higher classification accuracy by adding the high frequency band features compared to using the low frequency bands alone, which demonstrated that the information in high frequency components from scalp-recorded EEG is valuable for the mental task based BCI.

Gender differences in offaxis neuromuscular control during stepping under a slippery condition.

PubMed

Lee, Song Joo; Ren, Yupeng; Geiger, François; Zhang, Li-Qun

2013-11-01

Females are at greater risks of musculoskeletal injuries than are males, which may be related to decreased neuromuscular control in axial and/or frontal planes, offaxis neuromuscular control. The objective of this study was to investigate gender differences in offaxis neuromuscular control during stepping under a slippery condition. Forty-three healthy subjects (21 males and 22 females) performed different stepping tasks under a slippery condition, namely, free pivoting task (FPT) to control axial plane pivoting, free sliding task (FST) to control frontal plane sliding, and free pivoting and sliding task (FPST) to control axial pivoting, and frontal sliding on a custom-made offaxis elliptical trainer. Compared to males, females showed significantly higher pivoting instability, higher max internal and external pivoting angles, higher mean max medial and lateral sliding distance, and higher entropy of time to peak EMG in the medial and lateral gastrocnemius muscles during the FPST and higher entropy of time to peak EMG in the lateral gastrocnemius muscle during the FPT and FST. The findings may help us understand potential injury risk factors associated with gender differences, and provide a basis for developing targeted neuromuscular training to improve offaxis neuromuscular control, and reduce musculoskeletal injuries associated with excessive offaxis loadings.

Carving Executive Control At Its Joints: Working Memory Capacity Predicts Stimulus-Stimulus, But Not Stimulus-Response, Conflict

PubMed Central

Meier, Matt E.; Kane, Michael J.

2015-01-01

Three experiments examined the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and two different forms of cognitive conflict: stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (SR) interference. Our goal was to test whether WMC’s relation to conflict-task performance is mediated by stimulus-identification processes (captured by S-S conflict), response-selection processes (captured by S-R conflict), or both. In Experiment 1, subjects completed a single task presenting both S-S and S-R conflict trials, plus trials that combined the two conflict types. We limited ostensible goal-maintenance contributions to performance by requiring the same goal for all trial types and by presenting frequent conflict trials that reinforced the goal. WMC predicted resolution of S-S conflict as expected: Higher-WMC subjects showed reduced response time interference. Although WMC also predicted S-R interference, here, higher-WMC subjects showed increased error interference. Experiment 2A replicated these results in a version of the conflict task without combined S-S/S-R trials. Experiment 2B increased the proportion of congruent (non-conflict) trials to promote reliance on goal-maintenance processes. Here, higher-WMC subjects resolved both S-S and S-R conflict more successfully than did lower-WMC subjects. The results were consistent with Kane and Engle’s (2003) two-factor theory of cognitive control, according to which WMC predicts executive-task performance through goal-maintenance and conflict-resolution processes. However, the present results add specificity to the account by suggesting that higher-WMC subjects better resolve cognitive conflict because they more efficiently select relevant stimulus features against irrelevant, distracting ones. PMID:26120774

Carving executive control at its joints: Working memory capacity predicts stimulus-stimulus, but not stimulus-response, conflict.

PubMed

Meier, Matt E; Kane, Michael J

2015-11-01

Three experiments examined the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and 2 different forms of cognitive conflict: stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (S-R) interference. Our goal was to test whether WMC's relation to conflict-task performance is mediated by stimulus-identification processes (captured by S-S conflict), response-selection processes (captured by S-R conflict), or both. In Experiment 1, subjects completed a single task presenting both S-S and S-R conflict trials, plus trials that combined the 2 conflict types. We limited ostensible goal-maintenance contributions to performance by requiring the same goal for all trial types and by presenting frequent conflict trials that reinforced the goal. WMC predicted resolution of S-S conflict as expected: Higher WMC subjects showed reduced response time interference. Although WMC also predicted S-R interference, here, higher WMC subjects showed increased error interference. Experiment 2A replicated these results in a version of the conflict task without combined S-S/S-R trials. Experiment 2B increased the proportion of congruent (nonconflict) trials to promote reliance on goal-maintenance processes. Here, higher WMC subjects resolved both S-S and S-R conflict more successfully than did lower WMC subjects. The results were consistent with Kane and Engle's (2003) 2-factor theory of cognitive control, according to which WMC predicts executive-task performance through goal-maintenance and conflict-resolution processes. However, the present results add specificity to the account by suggesting that higher WMC subjects better resolve cognitive conflict because they more efficiently select relevant stimulus features against irrelevant, distracting ones. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of noise on the performance of a memory decision response task

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lawton, B. W.

1972-01-01

An investigation has been made to determine the effects of noise on human performance. Fourteen subjects performed a memory-decision-response task in relative quiet and while listening to tape recorded noises. Analysis of the data obtained indicates that performance was degraded in the presence of noise. Significant increases in problem solution times were found for impulsive noise conditions as compared with times found for the no-noise condition. Performance accuracy was also degraded. Significantly more error responses occurred at higher noise levels; a direct or positive relation was found between error responses and noise level experienced by the subjects.

Effect of Water Immersion on Dual-task Performance: Implications for Aquatic Therapy.

PubMed

Schaefer, Sydney Y; Louder, Talin J; Foster, Shayla; Bressel, Eadric

2016-09-01

Much is known about cardiovascular and biomechanical responses to exercise during water immersion, yet an understanding of the higher-order neural responses to water immersion is unclear. The purpose of this study was to compare cognitive and motor performance between land and water environments using a dual-task paradigm, which served as an indirect measure of cortical processing. A quasi-experimental crossover research design is used. Twenty-two healthy participants (age = 24.3 ± 5.24 years) and a single-case patient (age = 73) with mild cognitive impairment performed a cognitive (auditory vigilance) and motor (standing balance) task separately (single-task condition) and simultaneously (dual-task condition) on land and in chest-deep water. Listening errors from the auditory vigilance task and centre of pressure (CoP) area for the balance task measured cognitive and motor performance, respectively. Listening errors for the single-task and dual-task conditions were 42% and 45% lower for the water than land condition, respectively (effect size [ES] = 0.38 and 0.55). CoP area for the single-task and dual-task conditions, however, were 115% and 164% lower on land than in water, respectively, and were lower (≈8-33%) when balancing concurrently with the auditory vigilance task compared with balancing alone, regardless of environment (ES = 0.23-1.7). This trend was consistent for the single-case patient. Participants tended to make fewer 'cognitive' errors while immersed chest-deep in water than on land. These same participants also tended to display less postural sway under dual-task conditions, but more in water than on land. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Driving performance in a power wheelchair simulator.

PubMed

Archambault, Philippe S; Tremblay, Stéphanie; Cachecho, Sarah; Routhier, François; Boissy, Patrick

2012-05-01

A power wheelchair simulator can allow users to safely experience various driving tasks. For such training to be efficient, it is important that driving performance be equivalent to that in a real wheelchair. This study aimed at comparing driving performance in a real and in a simulated environment. Two groups of healthy young adults performed different driving tasks, either in a real power wheelchair or in a simulator. Smoothness of joystick control as well as the time necessary to complete each task were recorded and compared between the two groups. Driving strategies were analysed from video recordings. The sense of presence, of really being in the virtual environment, was assessed through a questionnaire. Smoothness of joystick control was the same in the real and virtual groups. Task completion time was higher in the simulator for the more difficult tasks. Both groups showed similar strategies and difficulties. The simulator generated a good sense of presence, which is important for motivation. Performance was very similar for power wheelchair driving in the simulator or in real life. Thus, the simulator could potentially be used to complement training of individuals who require a power wheelchair and use a regular joystick. [Box: see text].

Closed-loop, pilot/vehicle analysis of the approach and landing task

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Anderson, M. R.; Schmidt, D. K.

1986-01-01

In the case of approach and landing, it is universally accepted that the pilot uses more than one vehicle response, or output, to close his control loops. Therefore, to model this task, a multi-loop analysis technique is required. The analysis problem has been in obtaining reasonable analytic estimates of the describing functions representing the pilot's loop compensation. Once these pilot describing functions are obtained, appropriate performance and workload metrics must then be developed for the landing task. The optimal control approach provides a powerful technique for obtaining the necessary describing functions, once the appropriate task objective is defined in terms of a quadratic objective function. An approach is presented through the use of a simple, reasonable objective function and model-based metrics to evaluate loop performance and pilot workload. The results of an analysis of the LAHOS (Landing and Approach of Higher Order Systems) study performed by R.E. Smith is also presented.

Effort, performance, and motivation: insights from robot-assisted training of human golf putting and rat grip strength.

PubMed

Duarte, Jaime E; Gebrekristos, Berkenesh; Perez, Sergi; Rowe, Justin B; Sharp, Kelli; Reinkensmeyer, David J

2013-06-01

Robotic devices can modulate success rates and required effort levels during motor training, but it is unclear how this affects performance gains and motivation. Here we present results from training unimpaired humans in a virtual golf-putting task, and training spinal cord injured (SCI) rats in a grip strength task using robotically modulated success rates and effort levels. Robotic assistance in golf practice increased trainees feelings of competence, and, paradoxically, increased their sense effort, even though it had mixed effects on learning. Reducing effort during a grip strength training task led rats with SCI to practice the task more frequently. However, the more frequent practice of these rats did not cause them to exceed the strength gains achieved by rats that exercised less often at higher required effort levels. These results show that increasing success and decreasing effort with robots increases motivation, but has mixed effects on performance gains.

Weight stigma predicts inhibitory control and food selection in response to the salience of weight discrimination.

PubMed

Araiza, Ashley M; Wellman, Joseph D

2017-07-01

Fear and stigmatization are often used to motivate individuals with higher body weight to engage in healthy behaviors, but these strategies are sometimes counterproductive, leading to undesirable outcomes. In the present study, the impact of weight-based stigma on cognition (i.e., inhibitory control) and food selection (i.e., calories selected) was examined among individuals who consider themselves to be overweight. It was predicted that participants higher in perceived weight stigma would perform more poorly on an inhibitory control task and order more calories on a food selection task when they read about discrimination against individuals with higher weight versus discrimination against an out-group. Participants completed online prescreen measures assessing whether they considered themselves to be overweight and their perceptions of weight stigma. Individuals who considered themselves to be overweight were invited into the laboratory to complete tasks that manipulated weight-based discrimination, then inhibitory control and food selection were measured. The higher participants were in perceived weight stigma, the more poorly they performed on the inhibitory control task and the more calories they ordered when they read about discrimination against individuals with higher body weight. These relationships were not observed when participants read about discrimination against an out-group. The present findings provide evidence that perceptions of weight stigma are critical in understanding the impact of weight-based discrimination. Additionally, these results have theoretical and practical implications for both understanding and addressing the psychological and physical consequences of weight-based stigma. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Levels-of-processing effects on a task of olfactory naming.

PubMed

Royet, Jean-Pierre; Koenig, Olivier; Paugam-Moisy, Helene; Puzenat, Didier; Chasse, Jean-Luc

2004-02-01

The effects of odor processing were investigated at various analytical levels, from simple sensory analysis to deep or semantic analysis, on a subsequent task of odor naming. Students (106 women, 23.6 +/- 5.5 yr. old; 65 men, 25.1 +/- 7.1 yr. old) were tested. The experimental procedure included two successive sessions, a first session to characterize a set of 30 odors with criteria that used various depths of processing and a second session to name the odors as quickly as possible. Four processing conditions rated the odors using descriptors before naming the odor. The control condition did not rate the odors before naming. The processing conditions were based on lower-level olfactory judgments (superficial processing), higher-level olfactory-gustatory-somesthetic judgments (deep processing), and higher-level nonolfactory judgments (Deep-Control processing, with subjects rating odors with auditory and visual descriptors). One experimental condition successively grouped lower- and higher-level olfactory judgments (Superficial-Deep processing). A naming index which depended on response accuracy and the subjects' response time were calculated. Odor naming was modified for 18 out of 30 odorants as a function of the level of processing required. For 94.5% of significant variations, the scores for odor naming were higher following those tasks for which it was hypothesized that the necessary olfactory processing was carried out at a deeper level. Performance in the naming task was progressively improved as follows: no rating of odors, then superficial, deep-control, deep, and superficial-deep processings. These data show that the deepest olfactory encoding was later associated with progressively higher performance in naming.

Pilot-model analysis and simulation study of effect of control task desired control response

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Adams, J. J.; Gera, J.; Jaudon, J. B.

1978-01-01

A pilot model analysis was performed that relates pilot control compensation, pilot aircraft system response, and aircraft response characteristics for longitudinal control. The results show that a higher aircraft short period frequency is required to achieve superior pilot aircraft system response in an altitude control task than is required in an attitude control task. These results were confirmed by a simulation study of target tracking. It was concluded that the pilot model analysis provides a theoretical basis for determining the effect of control task on pilot opinions.

Taming a wandering attention: short-form mindfulness training in student cohorts.

PubMed

Morrison, Alexandra B; Goolsarran, Merissa; Rogers, Scott L; Jha, Amishi P

2014-01-06

Mindfulness training (MT) is a form of mental training in which individuals engage in exercises to cultivate an attentive, present centered, and non-reactive mental mode. The present study examines the putative benefits of MT in University students for whom mind wandering can interfere with learning and academic success. We tested the hypothesis that short-form MT (7 h over 7 weeks) contextualized for the challenges and concerns of University students may reduce mind wandering and improve working memory. Performance on the sustained attention to response task (SART) and two working memory tasks (operation span, delayed-recognition with distracters) was indexed in participants assigned to a waitlist control group or the MT course. Results demonstrated MT-related benefits in SART performance. Relative to the control group, MT participants had higher task accuracy and self-reported being more "on-task" after the 7-week training period. MT did not significantly benefit the operation span task or accuracy on the delayed-recognition task. Together these results suggest that while short-form MT did not bolster working memory task performance, it may help curb mind wandering and should, therefore, be further investigated for its use in academic contexts.

Stimulant Drug Effects on Touchscreen Automated Paired-Associates Learning (PAL) in Rats

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roschlau, Corinna; Votteler, Angeline; Hauber, Wolfgang

2016-01-01

Here we tested in rats effects of the procognitive drugs modafinil and methylphenidate on post-acquisition performance in an object-location paired-associates learning (PAL) task. Modafinil (32; 64 mg/kg) was without effect, while higher (9 mg/kg) but not lower (4.5 mg/kg) doses of methylphenidate impaired PAL performance. Likewise, higher but not…

Performance drifts in two-finger cyclical force production tasks performed by one and two actors.

PubMed

Hasanbarani, Fariba; Reschechtko, Sasha; Latash, Mark L

2018-03-01

We explored changes in the cyclical two-finger force performance task caused by turning visual feedback off performed either by the index and middle fingers of the dominant hand or by two index fingers of two persons. Based on an earlier study, we expected drifts in finger force amplitude and midpoint without a drift in relative phase. The subjects performed two rhythmical tasks at 1 Hz while paced by an auditory metronome. One of the tasks required cyclical changes in total force magnitude without changes in the sharing of the force between the two fingers. The other task required cyclical changes in the force sharing without changing total force magnitude. Subjects were provided with visual feedback, which showed total force magnitude and force sharing via cursor motion along the vertical and horizontal axes, respectively. Further, visual feedback was turned off, first on the variable that was not required to change and then on both variables. Turning visual feedback off led to a mean force drift toward lower magnitudes while force amplitude increased. There was a consistent drift in the relative phase in the one-hand task with the index finger leading the middle finger. No consistent relative phase drift was seen in the two-person tasks. The shape of the force cycle changed without visual feedback reflected in the lower similarity to a perfect cosine shape and in the higher time spent at lower force magnitudes. The data confirm findings of earlier studies regarding force amplitude and midpoint changes, but falsify predictions of an earlier proposed model with respect to the relative phase changes. We discuss factors that could contribute to the observed relative phase drift in the one-hand tasks including the leader-follower pattern generalized for two-effector tasks performed by one person.

Comparative assessment of surgeons' task performance and surgical ergonomics associated with conventional and modified flank positions: a simulation study.

PubMed

Fan, Yu; Kong, Gaiqing; Meng, Yisen; Tan, Shutao; Wei, Kunlin; Zhang, Qian; Jin, Jie

2014-11-01

Flank position is extensively used in retroperitoneoscopic urological practice. Most surgeons follow the patients' position in open approaches. However, surgical ergonomics of the conventional position in the retroperitoneoscopic surgery is poor. We introduce a modified position and evaluated task performance and surgical ergonomics of both positions with simulated surgical tasks. Twenty-one novice surgeons were recruited to perform four tasks: bead transfer, ring transfer, continuous suturing, and cutting a circle. The conventional position was simulated by setting an endo-surgical simulator parallel to the long axis of a surgical desk. The modified position was simulated by rotating the simulator 30° with respect to the long axis of the desk. The outcome measurements include task performance measures, kinematic measures for body alignment, surface electromyography, relative loading between feet, and subjective ratings of fatigue. We observed significant improvements in both task performance and surgical ergonomics parameters under the modified position. For all four tasks, subjects finished tasks faster with higher accuracy (p < 0.005 or < 0.001). For ergonomics part: (1) The angle between the upper body and the head was decreased by 7.4 ± 1.7°; (2) The EMG amplitude collected from shoulders and left lumber was significantly lower (p < 0.05); (3) Relative loading between feet was more balanced (p < 0.001); (4) Manual-action muscles and postural muscles are rated less fatiguing according to the questionnaire (p < 0.05). Conventional position of patient in retroperitoneoscopic upper urinary tract surgery is associated with poor surgical ergonomics. With a simulated surgery, we demonstrated that our modified position could significantly improve task performance and surgical ergonomics. Further studies are still warranted to validate these benefits for both patients and surgeons.

Sustained and transient attention in the continuous performance task.

PubMed

Smid, H G O M; de Witte, M R; Homminga, I; van den Bosch, R J

2006-08-01

One of the most frequently applied methods to study abnormal cognition is the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). It is unclear, however, which cognitive functions are engaged in normal CPT performance. The aims of the present study were to identify the neurocognitive functions engaged in the main variants of the CPT and to determine to what extent these variants differentially engage these functions. We hypothesized that the main CPT versions (CPT-X, CPT-AX, CPT-Identical Pairs) can be distinguished by whether they demand sustained or transient attention and sustained or transient response preparation. Transient attention to objects like letters or digits, that is, the need to switch attention to different objects from trial to trial, impairs target detection accuracy relative to sustained attention to a single object. Transient response preparation, that is, the possibility to switch response preparation on and off from trial to trial, improves response speed relative to having to sustain response preparation across all trials. Comparison of task performance and Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs) of healthy participants obtained in the main CPT variants confirmed these hypotheses. Behavioral and ERP measures indicated worse target detection in the CPT-AX than in the CPT-X, consistent with a higher demand on transient attention in that task. In contrast, behavioral and ERP measures indicated higher response speed in the CPT-AX than in the CPT-X, associated with more response preparation in advance of the targets. This supports the idea of increased transient response preparation in the CPT-AX. We conclude that CPTs differ along at least two task variables that each influences a different cognitive function.

Modeling effects of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards on the competition between striatal learning systems.

PubMed

Boedecker, Joschka; Lampe, Thomas; Riedmiller, Martin

2013-01-01

A common assumption in psychology, economics, and other fields holds that higher performance will result if extrinsic rewards (such as money) are offered as an incentive. While this principle seems to work well for tasks that require the execution of the same sequence of steps over and over, with little uncertainty about the process, in other cases, especially where creative problem solving is required due to the difficulty in finding the optimal sequence of actions, external rewards can actually be detrimental to task performance. Furthermore, they have the potential to undermine intrinsic motivation to do an otherwise interesting activity. In this work, we extend a computational model of the dorsomedial and dorsolateral striatal reinforcement learning systems to account for the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. The model assumes that the brain employs both a goal-directed and a habitual learning system, and competition between both is based on the trade-off between the cost of the reasoning process and value of information. The goal-directed system elicits internal rewards when its models of the environment improve, while the habitual system, being model-free, does not. Our results account for the phenomena that initial extrinsic reward leads to reduced activity after extinction compared to the case without any initial extrinsic rewards, and that performance in complex task settings drops when higher external rewards are promised. We also test the hypothesis that external rewards bias the competition in favor of the computationally efficient, but cruder and less flexible habitual system, which can negatively influence intrinsic motivation and task performance in the class of tasks we consider.

Brain Activation in Motor Sequence Learning Is Related to the Level of Native Cortical Excitability

PubMed Central

Lissek, Silke; Vallana, Guido S.; Güntürkün, Onur; Dinse, Hubert; Tegenthoff, Martin

2013-01-01

Cortical excitability may be subject to changes through training and learning. Motor training can increase cortical excitability in motor cortex, and facilitation of motor cortical excitability has been shown to be positively correlated with improvements in performance in simple motor tasks. Thus cortical excitability may tentatively be considered as a marker of learning and use-dependent plasticity. Previous studies focused on changes in cortical excitability brought about by learning processes, however, the relation between native levels of cortical excitability on the one hand and brain activation and behavioral parameters on the other is as yet unknown. In the present study we investigated the role of differential native motor cortical excitability for learning a motor sequencing task with regard to post-training changes in excitability, behavioral performance and involvement of brain regions. Our motor task required our participants to reproduce and improvise over a pre-learned motor sequence. Over both task conditions, participants with low cortical excitability (CElo) showed significantly higher BOLD activation in task-relevant brain regions than participants with high cortical excitability (CEhi). In contrast, CElo and CEhi groups did not exhibit differences in percentage of correct responses and improvisation level. Moreover, cortical excitability did not change significantly after learning and training in either group, with the exception of a significant decrease in facilitatory excitability in the CEhi group. The present data suggest that the native, unmanipulated level of cortical excitability is related to brain activation intensity, but not to performance quality. The higher BOLD mean signal intensity during the motor task might reflect a compensatory mechanism in CElo participants. PMID:23613956

Towards a ternary NIRS-BCI: single-trial classification of verbal fluency task, Stroop task and unconstrained rest

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schudlo, Larissa C.; Chau, Tom

2015-12-01

Objective. The majority of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) brain-computer interface (BCI) studies have investigated binary classification problems. Limited work has considered differentiation of more than two mental states, or multi-class differentiation of higher-level cognitive tasks using measurements outside of the anterior prefrontal cortex. Improvements in accuracies are needed to deliver effective communication with a multi-class NIRS system. We investigated the feasibility of a ternary NIRS-BCI that supports mental states corresponding to verbal fluency task (VFT) performance, Stroop task performance, and unconstrained rest using prefrontal and parietal measurements. Approach. Prefrontal and parietal NIRS signals were acquired from 11 able-bodied adults during rest and performance of the VFT or Stroop task. Classification was performed offline using bagging with a linear discriminant base classifier trained on a 10 dimensional feature set. Main results. VFT, Stroop task and rest were classified at an average accuracy of 71.7% ± 7.9%. The ternary classification system provided a statistically significant improvement in information transfer rate relative to a binary system controlled by either mental task (0.87 ± 0.35 bits/min versus 0.73 ± 0.24 bits/min). Significance. These results suggest that effective communication can be achieved with a ternary NIRS-BCI that supports VFT, Stroop task and rest via measurements from the frontal and parietal cortices. Further development of such a system is warranted. Accurate ternary classification can enhance communication rates offered by NIRS-BCIs, improving the practicality of this technology.

Muscle activity and mood state during simulated plant factory work in individuals with cervical spinal cord injury

PubMed Central

Okahara, Satoshi; Kataoka, Masataka; Okuda, Kuniharu; Shima, Masato; Miyagaki, Keiko; Ohara, Hitoshi

2016-01-01

[Purpose] The present study investigated the physical and mental effects of plant factory work in individuals with cervical spinal cord injury and the use of a newly developed agricultural working environment. [Subjects] Six males with C5–C8 spinal cord injuries and 10 healthy volunteers participated. [Methods] Plant factory work involved three simulated repetitive tasks: sowing, transplantation, and harvesting. Surface electromyography was performed in the dominant upper arm, upper trapezius, anterior deltoid, and biceps brachii muscles. Subjects’ moods were monitored using the Profile of Mood States. [Results] Five males with C6–C8 injuries performed the same tasks as healthy persons; a male with a C5 injury performed fewer repetitions of tasks because it took longer. Regarding muscle activity during transplantation and harvesting, subjects with spinal cord injury had higher values for the upper trapezius and anterior deltoid muscles compared with healthy persons. The Profile of Mood States vigor scores were significantly higher after tasks in subjects with spinal cord injury. [Conclusion] Individuals with cervical spinal cord injury completed the plant factory work, though it required increased time and muscle activity. For individuals with C5–C8 injuries, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment and assistive devices to facilitate their work. PMID:27134377

Depressive symptoms and poorer performance on the Stroop Task are associated with weight gain.

PubMed

Stinson, Emma J; Krakoff, Jonathan; Gluck, Marci E

2018-03-15

Executive function impairments and depression are associated with obesity but whether they predict weight gain is unclear. Forty-six individuals (35m, 37±10y) completed the Stroop Task, Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), Inventory for Depressive Symptomatology (IDS-SR), Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS), and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Body composition (DXA) and fasting glucose were also measured. Data from return visits were used to assess changes in weight. Poorer Stroop and WCST performance associated with higher BMI whereas poorer IGT and WCST performance associated with higher body fat (%; all p's≤0.05). Stroop interference (p=0.04; p=0.05) and IDS-SR (p=0.06; p=0.02) associated with increased BMI and weight gain (%/yr). In a multivariate linear model Stroop interference (β=0.40, p<0.01; β=0.35, p<0.01) and IDS-SR (β=0.38, p<0.01; β=0.37, p<0.01) independently predicted increased BMI and weight gain (%/yr) even after controlling for baseline weight and glucose levels. Poorer response inhibition and depressive symptoms, but not glucose levels, predicted weight gain. Evaluating neurocognitive and mood deficits could improve current treatment strategies for weight loss. Clinical Trial Registration Numbers NCT00523627, NCT00342732, NCT01224704. clinicaltrials.gov. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Eysenck's Theory of Personality and the Role of Background Music in Cognitive Task Performance: A Mini-Review of Conflicting Findings and a New Perspective.

PubMed

Küssner, Mats B

2017-01-01

The question of whether background music is able to enhance cognitive task performance is of interest to scholars, educators, and stakeholders in business alike. Studies have shown that background music can have beneficial, detrimental or no effects on cognitive task performance. Extraversion-and its postulated underlying cause, cortical arousal-is regarded as an important factor influencing the outcome of such studies. According to Eysenck's theory of personality, extraverts' cortical arousal at rest is lower compared to that of introverts. Scholars have thus hypothesized that extraverts should benefit from background music in cognitive tasks, whereas introverts' performance should decline with music in the background. Reviewing studies that have considered extraversion as a mediator of the effect of background music on cognitive task performance, it is demonstrated that there is as much evidence in favor as there is against Eysenck's theory of personality. Further, revisiting Eysenck's concept of cortical arousal-which has traditionally been assessed by activity in the EEG alpha band-and reviewing literature on the link between extraversion and cortical arousal, it is revealed that there is conflicting evidence. Due to Eysenck's focus on alpha power, scholars have largely neglected higher frequency bands in the EEG signal as indicators of cortical arousal. Based on recent findings, it is suggested that beta power might not only be an indicator of alertness and attention but also a predictor of cognitive task performance. In conclusion, it is proposed that focused music listening prior to cognitive tasks might be a more efficient way to boost performance than listening to background music during cognitive tasks.

Eysenck's Theory of Personality and the Role of Background Music in Cognitive Task Performance: A Mini-Review of Conflicting Findings and a New Perspective

PubMed Central

Küssner, Mats B.

2017-01-01

The question of whether background music is able to enhance cognitive task performance is of interest to scholars, educators, and stakeholders in business alike. Studies have shown that background music can have beneficial, detrimental or no effects on cognitive task performance. Extraversion—and its postulated underlying cause, cortical arousal—is regarded as an important factor influencing the outcome of such studies. According to Eysenck's theory of personality, extraverts' cortical arousal at rest is lower compared to that of introverts. Scholars have thus hypothesized that extraverts should benefit from background music in cognitive tasks, whereas introverts' performance should decline with music in the background. Reviewing studies that have considered extraversion as a mediator of the effect of background music on cognitive task performance, it is demonstrated that there is as much evidence in favor as there is against Eysenck's theory of personality. Further, revisiting Eysenck's concept of cortical arousal—which has traditionally been assessed by activity in the EEG alpha band—and reviewing literature on the link between extraversion and cortical arousal, it is revealed that there is conflicting evidence. Due to Eysenck's focus on alpha power, scholars have largely neglected higher frequency bands in the EEG signal as indicators of cortical arousal. Based on recent findings, it is suggested that beta power might not only be an indicator of alertness and attention but also a predictor of cognitive task performance. In conclusion, it is proposed that focused music listening prior to cognitive tasks might be a more efficient way to boost performance than listening to background music during cognitive tasks. PMID:29184523

Acute psychosocial stress and children's memory.

PubMed

de Veld, Danielle M J; Riksen-Walraven, J Marianne; de Weerth, Carolina

2014-07-01

We investigated whether children's performance on working memory (WM) and delayed retrieval (DR) tasks decreased after stress exposure, and how physiological stress responses related to performance under stress. About 158 children (83 girls; Mage = 10.61 years, SD = 0.52) performed two WM tasks (WM forward and WM backward) and a DR memory task first during a control condition, and 1 week later during a stress challenge. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) and cortisol were assessed during the challenge. Only WM backward performance declined over conditions. Correlations between physiological stress responses and performance within the stress challenge were present only for WM forward and DR. For WM forward, higher cortisol responses were related to better performance. For DR, there was an inverted U-shape relation between cortisol responses and performance, as well as a cortisol × sAA interaction, with concurrent high or low responses related to optimal performance. This emphasizes the importance of including curvilinear and interaction effects when relating physiology to memory.

Control strategies for a telerobot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ohara, John; Stasi, Bill

1989-01-01

One of the major issues impacting the utility of telerobotic systems for space is the development of effective control strategies. For near-term applications, telerobot control is likely to utilize teleoperation methodologies with integrated supervisory control capabilities to assist the operator. Two different approaches to telerobotic control are evaluated: bilateral force reflecting master controllers and proportional rate six degrees-of-freedom hand controllers. The controllers' performance of single manipulator arm tasks is compared. Simultaneous operation of both manipulator arms and complex multiaxis slave arm movements is investigated. Task times are significantly longer and fewer errors are committed with the hand controllers. The hand controllers are also rated significantly higher in cognitive and manual control workload on the two-arm task. The master controllers are rated significantly higher in physical workload. The implications of these findings for space teleoperations and higher levels of control are discussed.

Is improved lane keeping during cognitive load caused by increased physical arousal or gaze concentration toward the road center?

PubMed

Li, Penghui; Markkula, Gustav; Li, Yibing; Merat, Natasha

2018-08-01

Driver distraction is one of the main causes of motor-vehicle accidents. However, the impact on traffic safety of tasks that impose cognitive (non-visual) distraction remains debated. One particularly intriguing finding is that cognitive load seems to improve lane keeping performance, most often quantified as reduced standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP). The main competing hypotheses, supported by current empirical evidence, suggest that cognitive load improves lane keeping via either increased physical arousal, or higher gaze concentration toward the road center, but views are mixed regarding if, and how, these possible mediators influence lane keeping performance. Hence, a simulator study was conducted, with participants driving on a straight city road section whilst completing a cognitive task at different levels of difficulty. In line with previous studies, cognitive load led to increased physical arousal, higher gaze concentration toward the road center, and higher levels of micro-steering activity, accompanied by improved lane keeping performance. More importantly, during the high cognitive task, both physical arousal and gaze concentration changed earlier in time than micro-steering activity, which in turn changed earlier than lane keeping performance. In addition, our results did not show a significant correlation between gaze concentration and physical arousal on the level of individual task recordings. Based on these findings, various multilevel models for micro-steering activity and lane keeping performance were conducted and compared, and the results suggest that all of the mechanisms proposed by existing hypotheses could be simultaneously involved. In other words, it is suggested that cognitive load leads to: (i) an increase in arousal, causing increased micro-steering activity, which in turn improves lane keeping performance, and (ii) an increase in gaze concentration, causing lane keeping improvement through both (a) further increased micro-steering activity and (b) a tendency to steer toward the gaze target. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Does team lifting increase the variability in peak lumbar compression in ironworkers?

PubMed

Faber, Gert; Visser, Steven; van der Molen, Henk F; Kuijer, P Paul F M; Hoozemans, Marco J M; Van Dieën, Jaap H; Frings-Dresen, Monique H W

2012-01-01

Ironworkers frequently perform heavy lifting tasks in teams of two or four workers. Team lifting could potentially lead to a higher variation in peak lumbar compression forces than lifts performed by one worker, resulting in higher maximal peak lumbar compression forces. This study compared single-worker lifts (25-kg, iron bar) to two-worker lifts (50-kg, two iron bars) and to four-worker lifts (100-kg, iron lattice). Inverse dynamics was used to calculate peak lumbar compression forces. To assess the variability in peak lumbar loading, all three lifting tasks were performed six times. Results showed that the variability in peak lumbar loading was somewhat higher in the team lifts compared to the single-worker lifts. However, despite this increased variability, team lifts did not result in larger maximum peak lumbar compression forces. Therefore, it was concluded that, from a biomechanical point of view, team lifting does not result in an additional risk for low back complaints in ironworkers.

Skill components of task analysis

PubMed Central

Rogers, Wendy A.; Fisk, Arthur D.

2017-01-01

Some task analysis methods break down a task into a hierarchy of subgoals. Although an important tool of many fields of study, learning to create such a hierarchy (redescription) is not trivial. To further the understanding of what makes task analysis a skill, the present research examined novices’ problems with learning Hierarchical Task Analysis and captured practitioners’ performance. All participants received a task description and analyzed three cooking and three communication tasks by drawing on their knowledge of those tasks. Thirty six younger adults (18–28 years) in Study 1 analyzed one task before training and five afterwards. Training consisted of a general handout that all participants received and an additional handout that differed between three conditions: a list of steps, a flow-diagram, and concept map. In Study 2, eight experienced task analysts received the same task descriptions as in Study 1 and demonstrated their understanding of task analysis while thinking aloud. Novices’ initial task analysis scored low on all coding criteria. Performance improved on some criteria but was well below 100 % on others. Practitioners’ task analyses were 2–3 levels deep but also scored low on some criteria. A task analyst’s purpose of analysis may be the reason for higher specificity of analysis. This research furthers the understanding of Hierarchical Task Analysis and provides insights into the varying nature of task analyses as a function of experience. The derived skill components can inform training objectives. PMID:29075044

Computerization of the standard corsi block-tapping task affects its underlying cognitive concepts: a pilot study.

PubMed

Claessen, Michiel H G; van der Ham, Ineke J M; van Zandvoort, Martine J E

2015-01-01

The tablet computer initiates an important step toward computerized administration of neuropsychological tests. Because of its lack of standardization, the Corsi Block-Tapping Task could benefit from advantages inherent to computerization. This task, which requires reproduction of a sequence of movements by tapping blocks as demonstrated by an examiner, is widely used as a representative of visuospatial attention and working memory. The aim was to validate a computerized version of the Corsi Task (e-Corsi) by comparing recall accuracy to that on the standard task. Forty university students (Mage = 22.9 years, SD = 2.7 years; 20 female) performed the standard Corsi Task and the e-Corsi on an iPad 3. Results showed higher accuracy in forward reproduction on the standard Corsi compared with the e-Corsi, whereas backward performance was comparable. These divergent performance patterns on the 2 versions (small-to-medium effect sizes) are explained as a result of motor priming and interference effects. This finding implies that computerization has serious consequences for the cognitive concepts that the Corsi Task is assumed to assess. Hence, whereas the e-Corsi was shown to be useful with respect to administration and registration, these findings also stress the need for reconsideration of the underlying theoretical concepts of this task.

Perceived task complexity of trunk stability exercises.

PubMed

McPhee, Megan; Tucker, Kylie J; Wan, Alan; MacDonald, David A

2017-02-01

Perceived task complexity can impact participation in an exercise programme and the level of skill acquisition resulting from participation. Although trunk stability exercises are commonly included in the management of people with low back pain, potential differences in perceived task complexity between those exercises have not been investigated previously. To investigate the perceived task complexity following first time instruction of two common stability exercises: the abdominal brace and abdominal hollow. Cross-sectional. Twenty-four naïve healthy participants received instruction in the performance of an abdominal brace and an abdominal hollow with feedback. Participants rated their perceived task complexity (mental, physical, and temporal demand, performance, effort, frustration) for each exercise on the NASA-Task Load Index. The abdominal hollow was associated with higher perceived mental demand than the abdominal brace (p = 0.01), and required more time to learn (p < 0.01). The abdominal brace was associated with greater mental demand and frustration when performed after the abdominal hollow than before. This study has provided the first evidence for differences in perceived task complexity between two commonly used trunk stability exercises. Those differences in perceived task complexity may influence the selection of exercises intended to enhance the robustness of spinal stability. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Relating physician's workload with errors during radiation therapy planning.

PubMed

Mazur, Lukasz M; Mosaly, Prithima R; Hoyle, Lesley M; Jones, Ellen L; Chera, Bhishamjit S; Marks, Lawrence B

2014-01-01

To relate subjective workload (WL) levels to errors for routine clinical tasks. Nine physicians (4 faculty and 5 residents) each performed 3 radiation therapy planning cases. The WL levels were subjectively assessed using National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX). Individual performance was assessed objectively based on the severity grade of errors. The relationship between the WL and performance was assessed via ordinal logistic regression. There was an increased rate of severity grade of errors with increasing WL (P value = .02). As the majority of the higher NASA-TLX scores, and the majority of the performance errors were in the residents, our findings are likely most pertinent to radiation oncology centers with training programs. WL levels may be an important factor contributing to errors during radiation therapy planning tasks. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Shifting of attentional set is inadequate in severe burnout: Evidence from an event-related potential study.

PubMed

Sokka, Laura; Leinikka, Marianne; Korpela, Jussi; Henelius, Andreas; Lukander, Jani; Pakarinen, Satu; Alho, Kimmo; Huotilainen, Minna

2017-02-01

Individuals with prolonged occupational stress often report difficulties in concentration. Work tasks often require the ability to switch back and forth between different contexts. Here, we studied the association between job burnout and task switching by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to stimulus onset during a task with simultaneous cue-target presentation and unpredictable switches in the task. Participants were currently working people with severe, mild, or no burnout symptoms. In all groups, task performance was substantially slower immediately after task switch than during task repetition. However, the error rates were higher in the severe burnout group than in the mild burnout and control groups. Electrophysiological data revealed an increased parietal P3 response for the switch trials relative to repetition trials. Notably, the response was smaller in amplitude in the severe burnout group than in the other groups. The results suggest that severe burnout is associated with inadequate processing when rapid shifting of attention between tasks is required resulting in less accurate performance. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Biobehavioral Insights into Adaptive Behavior in Complex and Dynamic Operational Settings: Lessons learned from the Soldier Performance and Effective, Adaptable Response Task

PubMed Central

Haufler, Amy J.; Lewis, Gregory F.; Davila, Maria I.; Westhelle, Felipe; Gavrilis, James; Bryce, Crystal I.; Kolacz, Jacek; Granger, Douglas A.; McDaniel, William

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the biobehavioral correlates of adaptive behavior in the context of a standardized laboratory-based mission-relevant challenge [the Soldier Performance and Effective, Adaptable Response (SPEAR) task]. Participants were 26 healthy male volunteers (M = 34.85 years, SD = 4.12) with active military duty and leadership experience within the last 5 years (i.e., multiple leadership positions, operational deployments in combat, interactions with civilians and partner nation forces on the battlefield, experience making decisions under fire). The SPEAR task simultaneously engages perception, cognition, and action aspects of human performance demands similar to those encountered in the operational setting. Participants must engage with military-relevant text, visual, and auditory stimuli, interpret new information, and retain the commander’s intent in working memory to create a new plan of action for mission success. Time-domain measures of heart period and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were quantified, and saliva was sampled [later assayed for cortisol and alpha-amylase (sAA)] before-, during-, and post-SPEAR. Results revealed a predictable pattern of withdraw and recovery of the cardiac vagal tone during repeated presentation of battlefield challenges. Recovery of vagal inhibition following executive function challenge was strongly linked to better task-related performance. Rate of RSA recovery was also associated with better recall of the commander’s intent. Decreasing magnitude in the skin conductance response prior to the task was positively associated with better overall task-related performance. Lower levels of RSA were observed in participants who reported higher rates of combat deployments, and reduced RSA flexibility was associated with higher rates of casualty exposure. Greater RSA flexibility during SPEAR was associated with greater self-reported resilience. There was no consistent pattern of task-related change in cortisol or sAA. We conclude that individual differences in psychophysiological reactivity and regulation in response to an ecologically valid, military-relevant task are associated with performance-related adaptive behavior in this standardized operational setting. The implications for modern day warfare, where advancing our understanding of the nature of individual differences in adaptive problem solving is critical to mission success, fitness for duty, and other occupational health-related outcomes, are discussed. PMID:29459893

Biobehavioral Insights into Adaptive Behavior in Complex and Dynamic Operational Settings: Lessons learned from the Soldier Performance and Effective, Adaptable Response Task.

PubMed

Haufler, Amy J; Lewis, Gregory F; Davila, Maria I; Westhelle, Felipe; Gavrilis, James; Bryce, Crystal I; Kolacz, Jacek; Granger, Douglas A; McDaniel, William

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the biobehavioral correlates of adaptive behavior in the context of a standardized laboratory-based mission-relevant challenge [the Soldier Performance and Effective, Adaptable Response (SPEAR) task]. Participants were 26 healthy male volunteers (M = 34.85 years, SD = 4.12) with active military duty and leadership experience within the last 5 years (i.e., multiple leadership positions, operational deployments in combat, interactions with civilians and partner nation forces on the battlefield, experience making decisions under fire). The SPEAR task simultaneously engages perception, cognition, and action aspects of human performance demands similar to those encountered in the operational setting. Participants must engage with military-relevant text, visual, and auditory stimuli, interpret new information, and retain the commander's intent in working memory to create a new plan of action for mission success. Time-domain measures of heart period and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were quantified, and saliva was sampled [later assayed for cortisol and alpha-amylase (sAA)] before-, during-, and post-SPEAR. Results revealed a predictable pattern of withdraw and recovery of the cardiac vagal tone during repeated presentation of battlefield challenges. Recovery of vagal inhibition following executive function challenge was strongly linked to better task-related performance. Rate of RSA recovery was also associated with better recall of the commander's intent. Decreasing magnitude in the skin conductance response prior to the task was positively associated with better overall task-related performance. Lower levels of RSA were observed in participants who reported higher rates of combat deployments, and reduced RSA flexibility was associated with higher rates of casualty exposure. Greater RSA flexibility during SPEAR was associated with greater self-reported resilience. There was no consistent pattern of task-related change in cortisol or sAA. We conclude that individual differences in psychophysiological reactivity and regulation in response to an ecologically valid, military-relevant task are associated with performance-related adaptive behavior in this standardized operational setting. The implications for modern day warfare, where advancing our understanding of the nature of individual differences in adaptive problem solving is critical to mission success, fitness for duty, and other occupational health-related outcomes, are discussed.

High variability impairs motor learning regardless of whether it affects task performance.

PubMed

Cardis, Marco; Casadio, Maura; Ranganathan, Rajiv

2018-01-01

Motor variability plays an important role in motor learning, although the exact mechanisms of how variability affects learning are not well understood. Recent evidence suggests that motor variability may have different effects on learning in redundant tasks, depending on whether it is present in the task space (where it affects task performance) or in the null space (where it has no effect on task performance). We examined the effect of directly introducing null and task space variability using a manipulandum during the learning of a motor task. Participants learned a bimanual shuffleboard task for 2 days, where their goal was to slide a virtual puck as close as possible toward a target. Critically, the distance traveled by the puck was determined by the sum of the left- and right-hand velocities, which meant that there was redundancy in the task. Participants were divided into five groups, based on both the dimension in which the variability was introduced and the amount of variability that was introduced during training. Results showed that although all groups were able to reduce error with practice, learning was affected more by the amount of variability introduced rather than the dimension in which variability was introduced. Specifically, groups with higher movement variability during practice showed larger errors at the end of practice compared with groups that had low variability during learning. These results suggest that although introducing variability can increase exploration of new solutions, this may adversely affect the ability to retain the learned solution. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We examined the role of introducing variability during motor learning in a redundant task. The presence of redundancy allows variability to be introduced in different dimensions: the task space (where it affects task performance) or the null space (where it does not affect task performance). We found that introducing variability affected learning adversely, but the amount of variability was more critical than the dimension in which variability was introduced.

The influence of time on task on mind wandering and visual working memory.

PubMed

Krimsky, Marissa; Forster, Daniel E; Llabre, Maria M; Jha, Amishi P

2017-12-01

Working memory relies on executive resources for successful task performance, with higher demands necessitating greater resource engagement. In addition to mnemonic demands, prior studies suggest that internal sources of distraction, such as mind wandering (i.e., having off-task thoughts) and greater time on task, may tax executive resources. Herein, the consequences of mnemonic demand, mind wandering, and time on task were investigated during a visual working memory task. Participants (N=143) completed a delayed-recognition visual working memory task, with mnemonic load for visual objects manipulated across trials (1 item=low load; 2 items=high load) and subjective mind wandering assessed intermittently throughout the experiment using a self-report Likert-type scale (1=on-task, 6=off-task). Task performance (correct/incorrect response) and self-reported mind wandering data were evaluated by hierarchical linear modeling to track trial-by-trial fluctuations. Performance declined with greater time on task, and the rate of decline was steeper for high vs low load trials. Self-reported mind wandering increased over time, and significantly varied asa function of both load and time on task. Participants reported greater mind wandering at the beginning of the experiment for low vs. high load trials; however, with greater time on task, more mind wandering was reported during high vs. low load trials. These results suggest that the availability of executive resources in support of working memory maintenance processes fluctuates in a demand-sensitive manner with time on task, and may be commandeered by mind wandering. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Perceived Difficulty with Physical Tasks, Lifestyle, and Physical Performance in Obese Children

PubMed Central

D'Amico, Osvaldo; Sticco, Maura; Nugnes, Rosa; Mozzillo, Enza; Franzese, Adriana

2014-01-01

We estimated perceived difficulty with physical tasks, lifestyle, and physical performance in 382 children and adolescents (163 obese, 54 overweight, and 165 normal-weight subjects) and the relationship between perceived physical difficulties and sports participation, sedentary behaviors, or physical performance. Perceived difficulty with physical tasks and lifestyle habits was assessed by interview using a structured questionnaire, while physical performance was assessed through the six-minute walking test (6MWT). Obese children had higher perceived difficulty with several activities of daily living, were less engaged in sports, and had lower physical performance than normal-weight or overweight children; on the contrary, they did not differ with regard to time spent in sedentary behaviors. Perceived difficulty in running and hopping negatively predicted sports participation (P < 0.05 and <0.01, resp.), while perceived difficulty in almost all physical activities negatively predicted the 6MWT, independently of BMI (P < 0.01). Our results indicate that perception of task's difficulty level may reflect an actual difficulty in obese children. These findings may have practical implications for approaching physical activity in obese children. Exploring both the perception of a task's difficulty level and physical performance may be useful to design exercise programs that allow safe and successful participation. PMID:25105139

Media multitasking and behavioral measures of sustained attention.

PubMed

Ralph, Brandon C W; Thomson, David R; Seli, Paul; Carriere, Jonathan S A; Smilek, Daniel

2015-02-01

In a series of four studies, self-reported media multitasking (using the media multitasking index; MMI) and general sustained-attention ability, through performance on three sustained-attention tasks: the metronome response task (MRT), the sustained-attention-to-response task (SART), and a vigilance task (here, a modified version of the SART). In Study 1, we found that higher reports of media multitasking were associated with increased response variability (i.e., poor performance) on the MRT. However, in Study 2, no association between reported media multitasking and performance on the SART was observed. These findings were replicated in Studies 3a and 3b, in which we again assessed the relation between media multitasking and performance on both the MRT and SART in two large online samples. Finally, in Study 4, using a large online sample, we tested whether media multitasking was associated with performance on a vigilance task. Although standard vigilance decrements were observed in both sensitivity (A') and response times, media multitasking was not associated with the size of these decrements, nor was media multitasking associated with overall performance, in terms of either sensitivity or response times. Taken together, the results of the studies reported here failed to demonstrate a relation between habitual engagement in media multitasking in everyday life and a general deficit in sustained-attention processes.

Executive functions in mild cognitive impairment: emergence and breakdown of neural plasticity.

PubMed

Clément, Francis; Gauthier, Serge; Belleville, Sylvie

2013-05-01

Our goal was to test the effect of disease severity on the brain activation associated with two executive processes: manipulation and divided attention. This was achieved by administrating a manipulation task and a divided attention task using functional magnetic resonance imaging to 24 individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 14 healthy controls matched for age, sex and education. The Mattis Dementia Rating Scale was used to divide persons with MCI into those with better and worse cognitive performances. Both tasks were associated with more brain activation in the MCI group with higher cognition than in healthy controls, particularly in the left frontal areas. Correlational analyses indicated that greater activation in a frontostriatal network hyperactivated by the higher-cognition group was related with better task performance, suggesting that these activations may support functional reorganization of a compensatory nature. By contrast, the lower-cognition group failed to show greater cerebral hyperactivation than controls during the divided attention task and, during the manipulation task, and showed less brain activation than controls in the left ventrolateral cortex, a region commonly hypoactivated in patients with Alzheimer's disease. These findings indicate that, during the early phase of MCI, executive functioning benefits from neural reorganization, but that a breakdown of this brain plasticity characterizes the late stages of MCI. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Task-Driven Optimization of Fluence Field and Regularization for Model-Based Iterative Reconstruction in Computed Tomography.

PubMed

Gang, Grace J; Siewerdsen, Jeffrey H; Stayman, J Webster

2017-12-01

This paper presents a joint optimization of dynamic fluence field modulation (FFM) and regularization in quadratic penalized-likelihood reconstruction that maximizes a task-based imaging performance metric. We adopted a task-driven imaging framework for prospective designs of the imaging parameters. A maxi-min objective function was adopted to maximize the minimum detectability index ( ) throughout the image. The optimization algorithm alternates between FFM (represented by low-dimensional basis functions) and local regularization (including the regularization strength and directional penalty weights). The task-driven approach was compared with three FFM strategies commonly proposed for FBP reconstruction (as well as a task-driven TCM strategy) for a discrimination task in an abdomen phantom. The task-driven FFM assigned more fluence to less attenuating anteroposterior views and yielded approximately constant fluence behind the object. The optimal regularization was almost uniform throughout image. Furthermore, the task-driven FFM strategy redistribute fluence across detector elements in order to prescribe more fluence to the more attenuating central region of the phantom. Compared with all strategies, the task-driven FFM strategy not only improved minimum by at least 17.8%, but yielded higher over a large area inside the object. The optimal FFM was highly dependent on the amount of regularization, indicating the importance of a joint optimization. Sample reconstructions of simulated data generally support the performance estimates based on computed . The improvements in detectability show the potential of the task-driven imaging framework to improve imaging performance at a fixed dose, or, equivalently, to provide a similar level of performance at reduced dose.

Task shifting between physicians and nurses in acute care hospitals: cross-sectional study in nine countries.

PubMed

Maier, Claudia B; Köppen, Julia; Busse, Reinhard

2018-05-25

Countries vary in the extent to which reforms have been implemented expanding nurses' Scopes-of-Practice (SoP). There is limited cross-country research if and how reforms affect clinical practice, particularly in hospitals. This study analyses health professionals' perceptions of role change and of task shifting between the medical and nursing professions in nine European countries. Cross-sectional design with surveys completed by 1716 health professionals treating patients with breast cancer (BC) and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in 161 hospitals across nine countries. Descriptive and bivariate analysis on self-reported staff role changes and levels of independence (with/without physician oversight) by two country groups, with major SoP reforms implemented between 2010 and 2015 (Netherlands, England, Scotland) and without (Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Turkey). Participation in 'medical tasks' was identified using two methods, a data-driven and a conceptual approach. Individual task-related analyses were performed for the medical and nursing professions, and Advanced Practice Nurses/Specialist Nurses (APN/SN). Health professionals from the Netherlands, England and Scotland more frequently reported changes to staff roles over this time period vs. the other six countries (BC 74.0% vs. 38.7%, p < .001; AMI 61.7% vs. 37.3%, p < .001), and higher independence in new roles (BC 58.6% vs. 24.0%, p < .001; AMI 48.9% vs. 29.2%, p < .001). A higher proportion of nurses and APN/SN from these three countries reported to undertake tasks related to BC diagnosis, therapy, prescribing of medicines and information to patients compared to the six countries. Similar cross-country differences existed for AMI on prescribing medications and follow-up care. Tasks related to diagnosis and therapy, however, remained largely within the medical profession's domain. Most tasks were reported to be performed by both professions rather than carried out by one profession only. Higher levels of changes to staff roles and task shifting were reported in the Netherlands, England and Scotland, suggesting that professional boundaries have shifted, for instance on chemotherapy or prescribing medicines. For most tasks, however, a partial instead of full task shifting is practice.

Neural Correlates of Expert Behavior During a Domain-Specific Attentional Cueing Task in Badminton Players.

PubMed

Wang, Chun-Hao; Tu, Kuo-Cheng

2017-06-01

The present study aimed to investigate the neural correlates associated with sports expertise during a domain-specific task in badminton players. We compared event-related potentials activity from collegiate male badminton players and a set of matched athletic controls when they performed a badminton-specific attentional cueing task in which the uncertainty and validity were manipulated. The data showed that, regardless of cue type, the badminton players had faster responses along with greater P3 amplitudes than the athletic controls on the task. Specifically, the contingent negative variation amplitude was smaller for the players than for the controls in the condition involving higher uncertainty. Such an effect, however, was absent in the condition with lower uncertainty. We conclude that expertise in sports is associated with proficient modulation of brain activity during cognitive and motor preparation, as well as response execution, when performing a task related to an individual's specific sport domain.

The relationship between emotional intelligence and task-switching in temporal lobe epilepsy.

PubMed

Gul, Amara; Hussain, Imtiaz

2016-01-01

To examine the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in task-switching performance of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). An experimental research design conducted at Sheikh Zayed Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan, Mayo and Services Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan from March 2013 to October 2014. Twenty-five patients with TLE and 25 healthy individuals from local community participated in the study. Participants completed measures of intelligence, EI, depression, anxiety, stress, and task-switching experiment. Patients and controls showed an average intelligence quotient, and normal levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. In contrast to controls, patients showed lower EI and impaired task-switching abilities. This result can be seen in the context of disintegrated white matter and cerebral connectivity in patients with TLE. Emotional intelligence was found to be a significant predictor of task-switching performance. Emotional intelligence is a potential marker of higher order cognitive functioning in patients with TLE.

Evaluation of 16 measures of mental workload using a simulated flight task emphasizing mediational activity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wierwille, W. W.; Rahimi, M.; Casali, J. G.

1985-01-01

As aircraft and other systems become more automated, a shift is occurring in human operator participation in these systems. This shift is away from manual control and toward activities that tap the higher mental functioning of human operators. Therefore, an experiment was performed in a moving-base flight simulator to assess mediational (cognitive) workload measurement. Specifically, 16 workload estimation techniques were evaluated as to their sensitivity and intrusion in a flight task emphasizing mediational behavior. Task loading, using navigation problems presented on a display, was treated as an independent variable, and workload-measure values were treated as dependent variables. Results indicate that two mediational task measures, two rating scale measures, time estimation, and two eye behavior measures were reliably sensitive to mediational loading. The time estimation measure did, however, intrude on mediational task performance. Several of the remaining measures were completely insensitive to mediational load.

Attention in dichoptic and binocular vision

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kimchi, Ruth; Rubin, Yifat; Gopher, Daniel; Raij, David

1989-01-01

The ability of human subjected to mobilize attention and cope with task requirements under dichoptic and binocular viewing was investigated in an experiment employing a target search task. Subjects were required to search for a target at either the global level, the local level, or at both levels of a compound stimulus. The tasks were performed in a focused attention condition in which subjects had to attend to the stimulus presented to one eye/field (under dichoptic and binocular viewings, respectively) and to ignore the stimulus presented to the irrelevant eye/field, and in a divided attention condition in which subjects had to attend to the stimuli presented to both eyes/fields. Subjects' performance was affected mainly by attention conditions which interacted with task requirements, rather than by viewing situation. An interesting effect of viewing was found for the local-directed search task in which the cost of dividing attention was higher under binocular than under dichoptic viewing.

A comparison of the real-time controllability of pattern recognition to conventional myoelectric control for discrete and simultaneous movements

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Myoelectric control has been used for decades to control powered upper limb prostheses. Conventional, amplitude-based control has been employed to control a single prosthesis degree of freedom (DOF) such as closing and opening of the hand. Within the last decade, new and advanced arm and hand prostheses have been constructed that are capable of actuating numerous DOFs. Pattern recognition control has been proposed to control a greater number of DOFs than conventional control, but has traditionally been limited to sequentially controlling DOFs one at a time. However, able-bodied individuals use multiple DOFs simultaneously, and it may be beneficial to provide amputees the ability to perform simultaneous movements. In this study, four amputees who had undergone targeted motor reinnervation (TMR) surgery with previous training using myoelectric prostheses were configured to use three control strategies: 1) conventional amplitude-based myoelectric control, 2) sequential (one-DOF) pattern recognition control, 3) simultaneous pattern recognition control. Simultaneous pattern recognition was enabled by having amputees train each simultaneous movement as a separate motion class. For tasks that required control over just one DOF, sequential pattern recognition based control performed the best with the lowest average completion times, completion rates and length error. For tasks that required control over 2 DOFs, the simultaneous pattern recognition controller performed the best with the lowest average completion times, completion rates and length error compared to the other control strategies. In the two strategies in which users could employ simultaneous movements (conventional and simultaneous pattern recognition), amputees chose to use simultaneous movements 78% of the time with simultaneous pattern recognition and 64% of the time with conventional control for tasks that required two DOF motions to reach the target. These results suggest that when amputees are given the ability to control multiple DOFs simultaneously, they choose to perform tasks that utilize multiple DOFs with simultaneous movements. Additionally, they were able to perform these tasks with higher performance (faster speed, lower length error and higher completion rates) without losing substantial performance in 1 DOF tasks. PMID:24410948

Flankers Facilitate 3-Year-Olds' Performance in a Card-Sorting Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jordan, Patricia L.; Morton, J. Bruce

2008-01-01

Three-year-old children often act inflexibly in card-sorting tasks by continuing to sort by an old rule after being asked to switch and sort by a new rule. This inflexibility has been variously attributed to age-related constraints on higher order rule use, object redescription, and attention shifting. In 2 experiments, flankers that were…

Attentional demands of movement observation as tested by a dual task approach.

PubMed

Saucedo Marquez, Cinthia M; Ceux, Tanja; Wenderoth, Nicole

2011-01-01

Movement observation (MO) has been shown to activate the motor cortex of the observer as indicated by an increase of corticomotor excitability for muscles involved in the observed actions. Moreover, behavioral work has strongly suggested that this process occurs in a near-automatic manner. Here we further tested this proposal by applying transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) when subjects observed how an actor lifted objects of different weights as a single or a dual task. The secondary task was either an auditory discrimination task (experiment 1) or a visual discrimination task (experiment 2). In experiment 1, we found that corticomotor excitability reflected the force requirements indicated in the observed movies (i.e. higher responses when the actor had to apply higher forces). Interestingly, this effect was found irrespective of whether MO was performed as a single or a dual task. By contrast, no such systematic modulations of corticomotor excitability were observed in experiment 2 when visual distracters were present. We conclude that interference effects might arise when MO is performed while competing visual stimuli are present. However, when a secondary task is situated in a different modality, neural responses are in line with the notion that the observers motor system responds in a near-automatic manner. This suggests that MO is a task with very low cognitive demands which might be a valuable supplement for rehabilitation training, particularly, in the acute phase after the incident or in patients suffering from attention deficits. However, it is important to keep in mind that visual distracters might interfere with the neural response in M1.

Displaced aggression predicts switching deficits in people with temporal lobe epilepsy.

PubMed

Gul, Amara; Ahmad, Hira

2014-12-01

This study examined the relationship between task-switching abilities and displaced aggression in people with temporal lobe epilepsy (PWE). Participants (35 PWE and 35 healthy controls) performed emotion and gender classification switching tasks. People with temporal lobe epilepsy showed larger switch costs than controls. This result reflected task-switching deficits in PWE. People with temporal lobe epilepsy reported higher anger rumination, revenge planning, and behavioral displaced aggression compared with controls. Displaced aggression was a significant predictor of the task switch costs. It is suggested that displaced aggression is a significant marker of task-switching deficits. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The association of subjective workload dimensions on quality of care and pharmacist quality of work life.

PubMed

Chui, Michelle A; Look, Kevin A; Mott, David A

2014-01-01

Workload has been described both objectively (e.g., number of prescriptions dispensed per pharmacist) as well as subjectively (e.g., pharmacist's perception of busyness). These approaches might be missing important characteristics of pharmacist workload that have not been previously identified and measured. To measure the association of community pharmacists' workload perceptions at three levels (organization, job, and task) with job satisfaction, burnout, and perceived performance of two tasks in the medication dispensing process. A secondary data analysis was performed using cross-sectional survey data collected from Wisconsin (US) community pharmacists. Organization-related workload was measured as staffing adequacy; job-related workload was measured as general and specific job demands; task-related workload was measured as internal and external mental demands. Pharmacists' perceived task performance was assessed for patient profile review and patient consultation. The survey was administered to a random sample of 500 pharmacists who were asked to opt in if they were a community pharmacist. Descriptive statistics and correlations of study variables were determined. Two structural equation models were estimated to examine relationships between the study variables and perceived task performance. From the 224 eligible community pharmacists that agreed to participate, 165 (73.7%) usable surveys were completed and returned. Job satisfaction and job-related monitoring demands had direct positive associations with both dispensing tasks. External task demands were negatively related to perceived patient consultation performance. Indirect effects on both tasks were primarily mediated through job satisfaction, which was positively related to staffing adequacy and cognitive job demands and negatively related to volume job demands. External task demands had an additional indirect effect on perceived patient consultation performance, as it was associated with lower levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of burnout. Allowing community pharmacists to concentrate on tasks and limiting interruptions while performing these tasks are important factors in improving quality of patient care and pharmacist work life. The results have implications for strategies to improve patient safety and pharmacist performance. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Association of Subjective Workload Dimensions on Quality of Care and Pharmacist Quality of Work Life

PubMed Central

Chui, Michelle A.; Look, Kevin A.; Mott, David A.

2013-01-01

Background Workload has been described both objectively (e.g., number of prescriptions dispensed per pharmacist) as well as subjectively (e.g., pharmacist’s perception of busyness). These approaches might be missing important characteristics of pharmacist workload that have not been previously identified and measured. Objectives To measure the association of community pharmacists’ workload perceptions at three levels (organization, job, and task) with job satisfaction, burnout, and perceived performance of two tasks in the medication dispensing process. Methods A secondary data analysis was performed using cross-sectional survey data collected from Wisconsin (US) community pharmacists. Organization–related workload was measured as staffing adequacy; job-related workload was measured as general and specific job demands; task-related workload was measured as internal and external mental demands. Pharmacists’ perceived task performance was assessed for patient profile review and patient consultation. The survey was administered to a random sample of 500 pharmacists who were asked to opt in if they were a community pharmacist. Descriptive statistics and correlations of study variables were determined. Two structural equation models were estimated to examine relationships between the study variables and perceived task performance. Results From the 224 eligible community pharmacists that agreed to participate, 165 (73.7%) usable surveys were completed and returned. Job satisfaction and job-related monitoring demands had direct positive associations with both dispensing tasks. External task demands were negatively related to perceived patient consultation performance. Indirect effects on both tasks were primarily mediated through job satisfaction, which was positively related to staffing adequacy and cognitive job demands and negatively related to volume job demands. External task demands had an additional indirect effect on perceived patient consultation performance, as it was associated with lower levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of burnout. Implications/Conclusions Allowing community pharmacists to concentrate on tasks and limiting interruptions while performing these tasks are important factors in improving quality of patient care and pharmacist work life. The results have implications for strategies to improve patient safety and pharmacist performance. PMID:23791360

Changes in absolute theta power in bipolar patients during a saccadic attention task.

PubMed

Cartier, Consuelo; Diniz, Claudia; Di Girogio, Luiza; Bittencourt, Juliana; Gongora, Mariana; Ken Tanaka, Guaraci; Teixeira, Silmar; Basile, Luis F; Novis, Fernanda; Angélica Silveira, Luciana; da Silva, Rafael de Assis; Cagy, Mauricio; Cheniaux, Elie; Ribeiro, Pedro; Velasques, Bruna

2015-08-30

The present study analyzed absolute theta power (ATP) in brain areas involved with attention in the three phase of BD while the patients performing a saccadic attention task. We hypothesized that patients in depression and mania states show a higher ATP compared to euthymic patients, since a higher ATP is indicative of attention deficit. We analyzed the frontal (F7, F3, Fz, F4 and F8) and central (C3, Cz and C4) areas. Thirty bipolar patients were enrolled in this study. The subjects performed a saccadic attention task while their brain activity pattern was recorded using quantitative electroencephalography (20 channels). Our results showed a main effect for group over C3, C4, Cz, F7, F4, F8 electrodes, and a main effect for moment over Cz, F7, F8 electrodes. These results indicate that both task and groups produce changes in theta activity in distinct cortical areas that participate in the organization of attention. Our results therefore demonstrate that, although it is well established in the literature that theta has a relevant role in the attention process, it is necessary to deepen the investigations to better understand the specifics of theta during visual processing tasks that have a demand for attention. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individual differences in the benefits of feedback for learning.

PubMed

Kelley, Christopher M; McLaughlin, Anne Collins

2012-02-01

Research on learning from feedback has produced ambiguous guidelines for feedback design--some have advocated minimal feedback, whereas others have recommended more extensive feedback that highly supported performance. The objective of the current study was to investigate how individual differences in cognitive resources may predict feedback requirements and resolve previous conflicted findings. Cognitive resources were controlled for by comparing samples from populations with known differences, older and younger adults.To control for task demands, a simple rule-based learning task was created in which participants learned to identify fake Windows pop-ups. Pop-ups were divided into two categories--those that required fluid ability to identify and those that could be identified using crystallized intelligence. In general, results showed participants given higher feedback learned more. However, when analyzed by type of task demand, younger adults performed comparably with both levels of feedback for both cues whereas older adults benefited from increased feedbackfor fluid ability cues but from decreased feedback for crystallized ability cues. One explanation for the current findings is feedback requirements are connected to the cognitive abilities of the learner-those with higher abilities for the type of demands imposed by the task are likely to benefit from reduced feedback. We suggest the following considerations for feedback design: Incorporate learner characteristics and task demands when designing learning support via feedback.

Influence of malnutrition on cognitive development assessed by Piagetian tasks.

PubMed

Agarwal, D K; Upadhyay, S K; Agarwal, K N

1989-01-01

Cognitive development of 1336 children (6-8 yr) was studied in relation to their nutritional status. Seven Piagetian tasks covering the mental process of a concrete operational period were given to each child to assess the cognitive development. Weschler intelligence scale for Indian Children was used to assess the IQ of each child. The percentage of malnourished children in stage I of development (preoperational) was significantly higher as that of wellnourished children. A higher percentage of children in the latter group was in stage III of development (concrete operation). In boys performance on all the tasks was influenced by undernutrition except for class inclusion. In girls this was true only for conservation of liquid, substance and ordinal relation. The results of the regression analysis showed that nutrition was the only factor weakly associated with the poor performance of the children in various tasks. Further, the effect of nutrition was more pronounced in conservation tasks indicating poor verbal reasoning and comprehension in malnourished children. Information was also collected regarding the parental education and occupation, socio-economic status, caste, economic sufficiency, psychosocial stimulation and home environment. However, these environmental factors did not influence the development of rural children. This might be due to the fact that the population in the present study did not vary much with regard to these variables.

The subtype-selective nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist SIB-1553A improves both attention and memory components of a spatial working memory task in chronic low dose 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine-treated monkeys.

PubMed

Schneider, J S; Tinker, J P; Menzaghi, F; Lloyd, G K

2003-07-01

Monkeys that receive chronic low dose (CLD) 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) administration develop deficits in spatial delayed-response task performance. The present study examined the extent to which SIB-1553A [(+/-)-4-[[2-(1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)ethyl]thio]phenol hydrochloride], a novel neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonist with selectivity for beta4 subunit-containing nAChRs, could counteract this cognitive deficit produced by CLD MPTP exposure. Prior to MPTP treatment, monkeys displayed a delay-dependent decrement in performance on a variable delayed response task. CLD MPTP treatment caused a shift to a delay-independent pattern of responding on this task, such that short-delay trials were performed as poorly as long-delay trials. At lower doses (e.g., 0.025 mg/kg), SIB-1553A significantly improved performance on short-delay trials but only at 24 h after drug administration. At higher doses (e.g., 0.50 mg/kg), SIB-1553A significantly improved performance on both short- and long-delay trials at both 20 min and 24 h after drug administration. When tested 24 h after drug administration, monkeys performed long-delay trials with greater accuracy than they did under normal (pre-MPTP) conditions. These results suggest that at lower doses, SIB-1553A may be more effective in improving attentional deficits associated with CLD MPTP exposure, whereas at higher doses, SIB-1553A may effectively improve both attentional and memory performance.

Performance of women with fibromyalgia in walking up stairs while carrying a load.

PubMed

Collado-Mateo, Daniel; Adsuar, José C; Olivares, Pedro R; Dominguez-Muñoz, Francisco J; Maestre-Cascales, Cristina; Gusi, Narcis

2016-01-01

Background. Fibromyalgia is a chronic disease characterized by widespread pain and other associated symptoms. It has a relevant impact on physical fitness and the ability to perform daily living tasks. The objective of the study was to analyze the step-by-step-performance and the trunk tilt of women with fibromyalgia in the 10-step stair climbing test compared with healthy controls. Methods. A cross-sectional study was carried out. Twelve women suffering from fibromyalgia and eight healthy controls were recruited from a local association. Participants were asked to climb 10 stairs without carrying a load and 10 stairs carrying a load of 5 kg in each hand. Mediolateral trunk tilt was assessed using the "Functional Assessment of Biomechanics (FAB)" wireless motion capture device, and the time between steps was assessed via weight-bearing insoles. Results. Trunk tilt in the stair-climbing task carrying a load was significantly higher in women with fibromyalgia when compared to the healthy controls (2.31 (0.63) vs. 1.69 (0.51) respectively). The effect of carrying a load was significantly higher for women with fibromyalgia compared with healthy controls at the intermediate and final part of the task. Discussion. Trunk tilt during stair climbing while carrying a load was higher in women with FM, which could increase the risk of falling. Additionally, women with FM experienced a higher pace slowdown as a consequence of the load, which supports the need of including specific strength and resistance training to physical therapies for this population.

Comparison of a brain-based adaptive system and a manual adaptable system for invoking automation.

PubMed

Bailey, Nathan R; Scerbo, Mark W; Freeman, Frederick G; Mikulka, Peter J; Scott, Lorissa A

2006-01-01

Two experiments are presented examining adaptive and adaptable methods for invoking automation. Empirical investigations of adaptive automation have focused on methods used to invoke automation or on automation-related performance implications. However, no research has addressed whether performance benefits associated with brain-based systems exceed those in which users have control over task allocations. Participants performed monitoring and resource management tasks as well as a tracking task that shifted between automatic and manual modes. In the first experiment, participants worked with an adaptive system that used their electroencephalographic signals to switch the tracking task between automatic and manual modes. Participants were also divided between high- and low-reliability conditions for the system-monitoring task as well as high- and low-complacency potential. For the second experiment, participants operated an adaptable system that gave them manual control over task allocations. Results indicated increased situation awareness (SA) of gauge instrument settings for individuals high in complacency potential using the adaptive system. In addition, participants who had control over automation performed more poorly on the resource management task and reported higher levels of workload. A comparison between systems also revealed enhanced SA of gauge instrument settings and decreased workload in the adaptive condition. The present results suggest that brain-based adaptive automation systems may enhance perceptual level SA while reducing mental workload relative to systems requiring user-initiated control. Potential applications include automated systems for which operator monitoring performance and high-workload conditions are of concern.

Action video gaming and the brain: fMRI effects without behavioral effects in visual and verbal cognitive tasks.

PubMed

Richlan, Fabio; Schubert, Juliane; Mayer, Rebecca; Hutzler, Florian; Kronbichler, Martin

2018-01-01

In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we compared task performance together with brain activation in a visuospatial task (VST) and a letter detection task (LDT) between longtime action video gamers ( N  =   14) and nongamers ( N  =   14) in order to investigate possible effects of gaming on cognitive and brain abilities. Based on previous research, we expected advantages in performance for experienced action video gamers accompanied by less activation (due to higher efficiency) as measured by fMRI in the frontoparietal attention network. Contrary to these expectations, we did not find differences in overall task performance, nor in brain activation during the VST. We identified, however, a significantly different increase in the BOLD signal from a baseline task to the LDT in action video gamers compared with nongamers. This increased activation was evident in a number of frontoparietal regions including the left middle paracingulate cortex, the left superior frontal sulcus, the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the left and right posterior parietal cortex. Furthermore, we found increased activation in the triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus in gamers relative to nongamers when activation during the LDT was compared with activation during the VST. In sum, the expected positive relation between action video game experience and cognitive performance could not be confirmed. Despite their comparable task performance, however, gamers and nongamers exhibited clear-cut differences in brain activation patterns presumably reflecting differences in neural engagement, especially during verbal cognitive tasks.

Sexual orientation differences in cerebral asymmetry and in the performance of sexually dimorphic cognitive and motor tasks.

PubMed

Sanders, G; Wright, M

1997-10-01

With each of the tasks in the present studies we expected to find the reported sex difference between heterosexual women and heterosexual men and we predicted a sexual orientation effect with the performance of homosexual men being similar to that of heterosexual women and different from that of heterosexual men. Study 1 aimed to replicate earlier findings by recording the performance of a group of homosexual men on a visuospatial task, the Vincent Mechanical Diagrams Test (VMDT), a dot detection divided visual field measure of functional cerebral asymmetry, and on five subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). For each task the profile of scores obtained for the homosexual men was similar to that of heterosexual women in that they scored lower than heterosexual men on the VMDT, they showed less asymmetry, and they recorded a higher Verbal than Performance IQ on the WAIS. In Study 2, a male-biased targeted throwing task favored heterosexual men while, in contrast, on the female-biased Purdue Pegboard single peg condition heterosexual men were outperformed by heterosexual women and homosexual men. On neither of these two tasks did the performances of homosexual men and heterosexual women differ. One task, manual speed, yielded neither sex nor sexual orientation differences. Another, the Purdue Pegboard assemblies condition, revealed a sex difference but no sexual orientation difference. Failure to obtain a sexual orientation difference in the presence of a sex difference suggests that the sexual orientation effect may be restricted to a subset of sexually dimorphic tasks.

The puzzle of processing speed, memory, and executive function impairments in schizophrenia: fitting the pieces together.

PubMed

Knowles, Emma E M; Weiser, Mark; David, Anthony S; Glahn, David C; Davidson, Michael; Reichenberg, Abraham

2015-12-01

Substantial impairment in performance on the digit-symbol substitution task in patients with schizophrenia is well established, which has been widely interpreted as denoting a specific impairment in processing speed. However, other higher order cognitive functions might be more critical to performance on this task. To date, this idea has not been rigorously investigated in patients with schizophrenia. Neuropsychological measures of processing speed, memory, and executive functioning were completed by 125 patients with schizophrenia and 272 control subjects. We implemented a series of confirmatory factor and structural regression modeling to build an integrated model of processing speed, memory, and executive function with which to deconstruct the digit-symbol substitution task and characterize discrepancies between patients with schizophrenia and control subjects. The overall structure of the processing speed, memory, and executive function model was the same across groups (χ(2) = 208.86, p > .05), but the contribution of the specific cognitive domains to coding task performance differed significantly. When completing the task, control subjects relied on executive function and, indirectly, on working memory ability, whereas patients with schizophrenia used an alternative set of cognitive operations whereby they relied on the same processes required to complete verbal fluency tasks. Successful coding task performance relies predominantly on executive function, rather than processing speed or memory. Patients with schizophrenia perform poorly on this task because of an apparent lack of appropriate executive function input; they rely instead on an alternative cognitive pathway. Copyright © 2015 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The effects of age on crash risk associated with driver distraction.

PubMed

Guo, Feng; Klauer, Sheila G; Fang, Youjia; Hankey, Jonathan M; Antin, Jonathan F; Perez, Miguel A; Lee, Suzanne E; Dingus, Thomas A

2017-02-01

Driver distraction is a major contributing factor to crashes, which are the leading cause of death for the US population under 35 years of age. The prevalence of secondary-task engagement and its impacts on distraction and crashes may vary substantially by driver age. Driving performance and behaviour data were collected continuously using multiple cameras and sensors in situ for 3542 participant drivers recruited for up to 3 years for the Second Strategic Highway Research Program Naturalistic Driving Study. Secondary-task engagement at the onset of crashes and during normal driving segments was identified from videos. A case-cohort approach was used to estimate the crash odds ratios associated with, and the prevalence of, secondary tasks for four age groups: 16-20, 21-29, 30-64 and 65-98 years of age. Only severe crashes (property damage and higher severity) were included in the analysis. Secondary-task-induced distraction posed a consistently higher threat for drivers younger than 30 and above 65 when compared with middle-aged drivers, although senior drivers engaged in secondary tasks much less frequently than their younger counterparts. Secondary tasks with high visual-manual demand (e.g. visual-manual tasks performed on cell phones) affected drivers of all ages. Certain secondary tasks, such as operation of in-vehicle devices and talking/singing, increased the risk for only certain age groups. Teenaged, young adult drivers and senior drivers are more adversely impacted by secondary-task engagement than middle-aged drivers. Visual-manual distractions impact drivers of all ages, whereas cognitive distraction may have a larger impact on young drivers. © The Author 2016; all rights reserved. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association

Vision technology/algorithms for space robotics applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Krishen, Kumar; Defigueiredo, Rui J. P.

1987-01-01

The thrust of automation and robotics for space applications has been proposed for increased productivity, improved reliability, increased flexibility, higher safety, and for the performance of automating time-consuming tasks, increasing productivity/performance of crew-accomplished tasks, and performing tasks beyond the capability of the crew. This paper provides a review of efforts currently in progress in the area of robotic vision. Both systems and algorithms are discussed. The evolution of future vision/sensing is projected to include the fusion of multisensors ranging from microwave to optical with multimode capability to include position, attitude, recognition, and motion parameters. The key feature of the overall system design will be small size and weight, fast signal processing, robust algorithms, and accurate parameter determination. These aspects of vision/sensing are also discussed.

LEADERSHIP PERFORMANCE OF NURSING SUPERVISORS AT TWO ORGANIZATIONAL LEVELS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

BLOOD, MILTON R.; NEALEY, STANLEY M.

THE RELATIONS OF LEADERSHIP STYLE AND BEHAVIOR TO WORK GROUP PERFORMANCE AND SUBORDINATE JOB SATISFACTION HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATED FOR 22 FIRST-LEVEL AND EIGHT SECOND-LEVEL NURSING SUPERVISORS IN A 1680 BED VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HOSPITAL. NURSING ASSISTANTS SUPERVISED BY TASK-ORIENTED LEADERS RECEIVED HIGHER PERFORMANCE RATINGS AT THE FIRST LEVEL…

Thrive or overload? The effect of task complexity on novices' simulation-based learning.

PubMed

Haji, Faizal A; Cheung, Jeffrey J H; Woods, Nicole; Regehr, Glenn; de Ribaupierre, Sandrine; Dubrowski, Adam

2016-09-01

Fidelity is widely viewed as an important element of simulation instructional design based on its purported relationship with transfer of learning. However, higher levels of fidelity may increase task complexity to a point at which novices' cognitive resources become overloaded. In this experiment, we investigate the effects of variations in task complexity on novices' cognitive load and learning during simulation-based procedural skills training. Thirty-eight medical students were randomly assigned to simulation training on a simple or complex lumbar puncture (LP) task. Participants completed four practice trials on this task (skill acquisition). After 10 days of rest, all participants completed one additional trial on their assigned task (retention) and one trial on a 'very complex' simulation designed to be similar to the complex task (transfer). We assessed LP performance and cognitive load on each trial using multiple measures. In both groups, LP performance improved significantly during skill acquisition (p ≤ 0.047, f = 0.29-0.96) and was maintained at retention. The simple task group demonstrated superior performance compared with the complex task group throughout these phases (p ≤ 0.002, d = 1.13-2.31). Cognitive load declined significantly in the simple task group (p < 0.009, f = 0.48-0.76), but not in the complex task group during skill acquisition, and remained lower at retention (p ≤ 0.024, d = 0.78-1.39). Between retention and transfer, LP performance declined and cognitive load increased in the simple task group, whereas both remained stable in the complex task group. At transfer, no group differences were observed in LP performance and cognitive load, except that the simple task group made significantly fewer breaches of sterility (p = 0.023, d = 0.80). Reduced task complexity was associated with superior LP performance and lower cognitive load during skill acquisition and retention, but mixed results on transfer to a more complex task. These results indicate that task complexity is an important factor that may mediate (via cognitive overload) the relationship between instructional design elements (e.g. fidelity) and simulation-based learning outcomes. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education.

Impact of fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery training during medical school on performance by first year surgical residents.

PubMed

Edelman, David A; Mattos, Mark A; Bouwman, David L

2011-09-01

Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) certification is a high stakes examination. The best training methods to enable successful certification are undetermined. We hypothesized that first year surgical residents (R01s) who had been pretrained as medical students would perform better during skills training than previously un-trained R01s. This is an IRB-approved, retrospective review of FLS training data generated from a single surgical skills laboratory from July 2007 through June 2010. During the study period, there were 24 R01s with no previous FLS exposure (NOVICE group) and seven R01s who had undergone FLS task training while medical students (MS4 group). All R01s practiced the FLS skill tasks weekly for portions of the training sessions with informal feedback and teaching. Performance goals were proposed for each task based on local and national proficiency figures. The performance outcome measure was task completion time (TCT). Pretraining performance was designated iTCT and post-training fTCT. The MS4 group began with iTCTs for all four tasks that were significantly lower than the NOVICE iTCTs. At completion of the 16-wk training period, the MS4 group continued to demonstrate mean fTCTs that were lower for all four FLS skill tasks but only significantly for PEG, CIRCLE, and INTRA skill tasks. Both NOVICE and MS4 groups showed significant improvement for all four skill tasks (P < 0.05). In the current milieu of work-hour limitations, the integration of FLS skill training into medical school curriculum provided a durable advantage to the pretrained R01s, which was associated with higher levels of final performance. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Eye movements and postural control in dyslexic children performing different visual tasks.

PubMed

Razuk, Milena; Barela, José Angelo; Peyre, Hugo; Gerard, Christophe Loic; Bucci, Maria Pia

2018-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine eye movements and postural control performance among dyslexic children while reading a text and performing the Landolt reading task. Fifteen dyslexic and 15 non-dyslexic children were asked to stand upright while performing two experimental visual tasks: text reading and Landolt reading. In the text reading task, children were asked to silently read a text displayed on a monitor, while in the Landolt reading task, the letters in the text were replaced by closed circles and Landolt rings, and children were asked to scan each circle/ring in a reading-like fashion, from left to right, and to count the number of Landolt rings. Eye movements (Mobile T2®, SuriCog) and center of pressure excursions (Framiral®, Grasse, France) were recorded. Visual performance variables were total reading time, mean duration of fixation, number of pro- and retro-saccades, and amplitude of pro-saccades. Postural performance variable was the center of pressure area. The results showed that dyslexic children spent more time reading the text and had a longer duration of fixation than non-dyslexic children. However, no difference was observed between dyslexic and non-dyslexic children in the Landolt reading task. Dyslexic children performed a higher number of pro- and retro-saccades than non-dyslexic children in both text reading and Landolt reading tasks. Dyslexic children had smaller pro-saccade amplitude than non-dyslexic children in the text reading task. Finally, postural performance was poorer in dyslexic children than in non-dyslexic children. Reading difficulties in dyslexic children are related to eye movement strategies required to scan and obtain lexical and semantic meaning. However, postural control performance, which was poor in dyslexic children, is not related to lexical and semantic reading requirements and might not also be related to different eye movement behavior.

Higher Intelligence Is Associated with Less Task-Related Brain Network Reconfiguration

PubMed Central

Cole, Michael W.

2016-01-01

The human brain is able to exceed modern computers on multiple computational demands (e.g., language, planning) using a small fraction of the energy. The mystery of how the brain can be so efficient is compounded by recent evidence that all brain regions are constantly active as they interact in so-called resting-state networks (RSNs). To investigate the brain's ability to process complex cognitive demands efficiently, we compared functional connectivity (FC) during rest and multiple highly distinct tasks. We found previously that RSNs are present during a wide variety of tasks and that tasks only minimally modify FC patterns throughout the brain. Here, we tested the hypothesis that, although subtle, these task-evoked FC updates from rest nonetheless contribute strongly to behavioral performance. One might expect that larger changes in FC reflect optimization of networks for the task at hand, improving behavioral performance. Alternatively, smaller changes in FC could reflect optimization for efficient (i.e., small) network updates, reducing processing demands to improve behavioral performance. We found across three task domains that high-performing individuals exhibited more efficient brain connectivity updates in the form of smaller changes in functional network architecture between rest and task. These smaller changes suggest that individuals with an optimized intrinsic network configuration for domain-general task performance experience more efficient network updates generally. Confirming this, network update efficiency correlated with general intelligence. The brain's reconfiguration efficiency therefore appears to be a key feature contributing to both its network dynamics and general cognitive ability. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The brain's network configuration varies based on current task demands. For example, functional brain connections are organized in one way when one is resting quietly but in another way if one is asked to make a decision. We found that the efficiency of these updates in brain network organization is positively related to general intelligence, the ability to perform a wide variety of cognitively challenging tasks well. Specifically, we found that brain network configuration at rest was already closer to a wide variety of task configurations in intelligent individuals. This suggests that the ability to modify network connectivity efficiently when task demands change is a hallmark of high intelligence. PMID:27535904

Media multitasking is associated with distractibility and increased prefrontal activity in adolescents and young adults.

PubMed

Moisala, M; Salmela, V; Hietajärvi, L; Salo, E; Carlson, S; Salonen, O; Lonka, K; Hakkarainen, K; Salmela-Aro, K; Alho, K

2016-07-01

The current generation of young people indulges in more media multitasking behavior (e.g., instant messaging while watching videos) in their everyday lives than older generations. Concerns have been raised about how this might affect their attentional functioning, as previous studies have indicated that extensive media multitasking in everyday life may be associated with decreased attentional control. In the current study, 149 adolescents and young adults (aged 13-24years) performed speech-listening and reading tasks that required maintaining attention in the presence of distractor stimuli in the other modality or dividing attention between two concurrent tasks. Brain activity during task performance was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We studied the relationship between self-reported daily media multitasking (MMT), task performance and brain activity during task performance. The results showed that in the presence of distractor stimuli, a higher MMT score was associated with worse performance and increased brain activity in right prefrontal regions. The level of performance during divided attention did not depend on MMT. This suggests that daily media multitasking is associated with behavioral distractibility and increased recruitment of brain areas involved in attentional and inhibitory control, and that media multitasking in everyday life does not translate to performance benefits in multitasking in laboratory settings. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Developmental changes in real life decision making: performance on a gambling task previously shown to depend on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Crone, Eveline A; van der Molen, Maurits W

2004-01-01

Patients with bilateral lesions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, when performing gambling tasks modeling real-life decision-making, opt for choices that yield high immediate gains in spite of higher future losses. Under the hypothesis that the prefrontal cortex is the last brain region to mature, it was examined whether young children would show a similar preference for immediate prospects. In Experiment 1, 4 age groups (6-9, 10-12, 13-15 and 18-25 years olds) performed 2 versions of a computerized variant of the original Iowa gambling task under 3 different feedback conditions (no feedback, global feedback, and option-specific feedback) and completed the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices as an index of inductive reasoning ability. In Experiment 2, 3 age groups (7-8, 11-12, and 15-16 year olds) performed both task versions in addition to a working memory task ("Digit Span Backwards"). Results showed a developmental increase in the sensitivity to future consequences, positive or negative, that could not be explained by developmental changes in working memory capacity or inductive reasoning. It was concluded that young children share with ventromedial prefrontal patients the failure to anticipate on future outcomes.

Sex-related differences on a task of volume and density

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howe, Ann C.; Shayer, Michael

A sex-related difference, favoring boys, was found on initial performance of two samples (one British, one American) of 10- and 11-year-old children on a task of volume and density. After a period of classroom instruction that included opportunities for children to interact with appropriate materials and each other, both boys and girls performed at a higher level on the task, but the difference between them remained the same. There was no indication of a sex-related difference other than a time lag, in pattern of development of the concept. The question of why there is a sex-related difference, which persists in spite of experience and instruction, is discussed.

Effects of Psychiatric Symptoms on Attention in North Korean Refugees.

PubMed

Lee, Yu Jin; Jun, Jin Yong; Park, Juhyun; Kim, Soohyun; Gwak, Ah Reum; Lee, So Hee; Yoo, So Young; Kim, Seog Ju

2016-09-01

We investigated the performance of North Korean refugees on attention tasks, and the relationship between that performance and psychiatric symptoms. Sustained and divided attention was assessed using the computerized Comprehensive Attention Test in North Korean refugees and in South Koreans. All participants also completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised and the Dissociative Experiences Scale-II (DES-II). The North Korean refugees showed slower reaction times (RTs) on the visual sustained attention task compared to the South Koreans after controlling for age and sex. North Korean refugees had a greater number of omission errors (OEs) on the divided attention task and a higher standard deviation (SD) of RT. Total DES-II scores of the North Korean refugees were associated with the number of OEs and the SD of RT on the sustained attention task, and with the number of OEs on the divided attention task. North Korean refugees showed poorer performance on computerized attention tasks. In addition, attention deficit among North Korean refugees was associated with their dissociative experiences. Our results suggest that refugees may have attention deficits, which may be related to their psychiatric symptoms, particularly dissociation.

Processing F0 with cochlear implants: Modulation frequency discrimination and speech intonation recognition.

PubMed

Chatterjee, Monita; Peng, Shu-Chen

2008-01-01

Fundamental frequency (F0) processing by cochlear implant (CI) listeners was measured using a psychophysical task and a speech intonation recognition task. Listeners' Weber fractions for modulation frequency discrimination were measured using an adaptive, 3-interval, forced-choice paradigm: stimuli were presented through a custom research interface. In the speech intonation recognition task, listeners were asked to indicate whether resynthesized bisyllabic words, when presented in the free field through the listeners' everyday speech processor, were question-like or statement-like. The resynthesized tokens were systematically manipulated to have different initial-F0s to represent male vs. female voices, and different F0 contours (i.e. falling, flat, and rising) Although the CI listeners showed considerable variation in performance on both tasks, significant correlations were observed between the CI listeners' sensitivity to modulation frequency in the psychophysical task and their performance in intonation recognition. Consistent with their greater reliance on temporal cues, the CI listeners' performance in the intonation recognition task was significantly poorer with the higher initial-F0 stimuli than with the lower initial-F0 stimuli. Similar results were obtained with normal hearing listeners attending to noiseband-vocoded CI simulations with reduced spectral resolution.

Processing F0 with Cochlear Implants: Modulation Frequency Discrimination and Speech Intonation Recognition

PubMed Central

Chatterjee, Monita; Peng, Shu-Chen

2008-01-01

Fundamental frequency (F0) processing by cochlear implant (CI) listeners was measured using a psychophysical task and a speech intonation recognition task. Listeners’ Weber fractions for modulation frequency discrimination were measured using an adaptive, 3-interval, forced-choice paradigm: stimuli were presented through a custom research interface. In the speech intonation recognition task, listeners were asked to indicate whether resynthesized bisyllabic words, when presented in the free field through the listeners’ everyday speech processor, were question-like or statement-like. The resynthesized tokens were systematically manipulated to have different initial F0s to represent male vs. female voices, and different F0 contours (i.e., falling, flat, and rising) Although the CI listeners showed considerable variation in performance on both tasks, significant correlations were observed between the CI listeners’ sensitivity to modulation frequency in the psychophysical task and their performance in intonation recognition. Consistent with their greater reliance on temporal cues, the CI listeners’ performance in the intonation recognition task was significantly poorer with the higher initial-F0 stimuli than with the lower initial-F0 stimuli. Similar results were obtained with normal hearing listeners attending to noiseband-vocoded CI simulations with reduced spectral resolution. PMID:18093766

The Role of the Frontal Lobe in Complex Walking Among Patients With Parkinson's Disease and Healthy Older Adults: An fNIRS Study.

PubMed

Maidan, Inbal; Nieuwhof, Freek; Bernad-Elazari, Hagar; Reelick, Miriam F; Bloem, Bas R; Giladi, Nir; Deutsch, Judith E; Hausdorff, Jeffery M; Claassen, Jurgen A H; Mirelman, Anat

2016-11-01

Gait is influenced by higher order cognitive and cortical control mechanisms. Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been used to examine frontal activation during walking in healthy older adults, reporting increased oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2) levels during dual task walking (DT), compared with usual walking. To investigate the role of the frontal lobe during DT and obstacle negotiation, in healthy older adults and patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Thirty-eight healthy older adults (mean age 70.4 ± 0.9 years) and 68 patients with PD (mean age 71.7 ± 1.1 years,) performed 3 walking tasks: (a) usual walking, (b) DT walking, and (c) obstacles negotiation, with fNIRS and accelerometers. Linear-mix models were used to detect changes between groups and within tasks. Patients with PD had higher activation during usual walking (P < .030). During DT, HbO2 increased only in healthy older adults (P < .001). During obstacle negotiation, HbO2 increased in patients with PD (P = .001) and tended to increase in healthy older adults (P = .053). Higher DT and obstacle cost (P < .003) and worse cognitive performance were observed in patients with PD (P = .001). A different pattern of frontal activation during walking was observed between groups. The higher activation during usual walking in patients with PD suggests that the prefrontal cortex plays an important role already during simple walking. However, higher activation relative to baseline during obstacle negotiation and not during DT in the patients with PD demonstrates that prefrontal activation depends on the nature of the task. These findings may have important implications for rehabilitation of gait in patients with PD. © The Author(s) 2016.

Understanding the local public health workforce: labels versus substance.

PubMed

Merrill, Jacqueline A; Keeling, Jonathan W

2014-11-01

The workforce is a key component of the nation's public health (PH) infrastructure, but little is known about the skills of local health department (LHD) workers to guide policy and planning. To profile a sample of LHD workers using classification schemes for PH work (the substance of what is done) and PH job titles (the labeling of what is done) to determine if work content is consistent with job classifications. A secondary analysis was conducted on data collected from 2,734 employees from 19 LHDs using a taxonomy of 151 essential tasks performed, knowledge possessed, and resources available. Each employee was classified by job title using a schema developed by PH experts. The inter-rater agreement was calculated within job classes and congruence on tasks, knowledge, and resources for five exemplar classes was examined. The average response rate was 89%. Overall, workers exhibited moderate agreement on tasks and poor agreement on knowledge and resources. Job classes with higher agreement included agency directors and community workers; those with lower agreement were mid-level managers such as program directors. Findings suggest that local PH workers within a job class perform similar tasks but vary in training and access to resources. Job classes that are specific and focused have higher agreement whereas job classes that perform in many roles show less agreement. The PH worker classification may not match employees' skill sets or how LHDs allocate resources, which may be a contributor to unexplained fluctuation in public health system performance. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Predicting better performance on a college preparedness test from narrative comprehension at the age of 6 years: An fMRI study.

PubMed

Horowitz-Kraus, Tzipi; Eaton, Kenneth; Farah, Rola; Hajinazarian, Ardag; Vannest, Jennifer; Holland, Scott K

2015-12-10

To investigate whether high performance on college preparedness tests at 18 years of age can be predicted from brain activation patterns during narrative comprehension at 5-7 years of age. In this longitudinal study, functional MRI data during an auditory narrative-comprehension task were acquired from 15 children (5-7 years of age) who also provided their American College Testing (ACT) scores at the age of 18 years. Active voxels during the narrative-comprehension task were correlated with both composite ACT scores and the reading-comprehension component of the exam. Higher composite ACT scores and behavioral scores for reading comprehension were positively correlated with greater activation in frontal and anterior brain regions during the narrative-comprehension task. Our results suggest that neural circuits supporting higher ACT performance are predictable from a narrative-comprehension task at the age of 5-7 years. This supports a critical role for the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a part of the cingulo-opercular cognitive-control network early in development, as a facilitator for better ACT scores. This study highlights that shared neural circuits that support overall ACT performance and neural circuits that support reading comprehension both rely on neural circuits related to narrative comprehension in childhood, suggesting that interventions involving narrative comprehension should be considered for individuals with reading and other academic difficulties. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Strategic Learning in Youth with Traumatic Brain Injury: Evidence for Stall in Higher-Order Cognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gamino, Jacquelyn F.; Chapman, Sandra B.; Cook, Lori G.

2009-01-01

Little is known about strategic learning ability in preteens and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Strategic learning is the ability to combine and synthesize details to form abstracted gist-based meanings, a higher-order cognitive skill associated with frontal lobe functions and higher classroom performance. Summarization tasks were…

Measuring listening effort: driving simulator vs. simple dual-task paradigm

PubMed Central

Wu, Yu-Hsiang; Aksan, Nazan; Rizzo, Matthew; Stangl, Elizabeth; Zhang, Xuyang; Bentler, Ruth

2014-01-01

Objectives The dual-task paradigm has been widely used to measure listening effort. The primary objectives of the study were to (1) investigate the effect of hearing aid amplification and a hearing aid directional technology on listening effort measured by a complicated, more real world dual-task paradigm, and (2) compare the results obtained with this paradigm to a simpler laboratory-style dual-task paradigm. Design The listening effort of adults with hearing impairment was measured using two dual-task paradigms, wherein participants performed a speech recognition task simultaneously with either a driving task in a simulator or a visual reaction-time task in a sound-treated booth. The speech materials and road noises for the speech recognition task were recorded in a van traveling on the highway in three hearing aid conditions: unaided, aided with omni directional processing (OMNI), and aided with directional processing (DIR). The change in the driving task or the visual reaction-time task performance across the conditions quantified the change in listening effort. Results Compared to the driving-only condition, driving performance declined significantly with the addition of the speech recognition task. Although the speech recognition score was higher in the OMNI and DIR conditions than in the unaided condition, driving performance was similar across these three conditions, suggesting that listening effort was not affected by amplification and directional processing. Results from the simple dual-task paradigm showed a similar trend: hearing aid technologies improved speech recognition performance, but did not affect performance in the visual reaction-time task (i.e., reduce listening effort). The correlation between listening effort measured using the driving paradigm and the visual reaction-time task paradigm was significant. The finding showing that our older (56 to 85 years old) participants’ better speech recognition performance did not result in reduced listening effort was not consistent with literature that evaluated younger (approximately 20 years old), normal hearing adults. Because of this, a follow-up study was conducted. In the follow-up study, the visual reaction-time dual-task experiment using the same speech materials and road noises was repeated on younger adults with normal hearing. Contrary to findings with older participants, the results indicated that the directional technology significantly improved performance in both speech recognition and visual reaction-time tasks. Conclusions Adding a speech listening task to driving undermined driving performance. Hearing aid technologies significantly improved speech recognition while driving, but did not significantly reduce listening effort. Listening effort measured by dual-task experiments using a simulated real-world driving task and a conventional laboratory-style task was generally consistent. For a given listening environment, the benefit of hearing aid technologies on listening effort measured from younger adults with normal hearing may not be fully translated to older listeners with hearing impairment. PMID:25083599

Intraocular pressure is sensitive to cumulative and instantaneous mental workload.

PubMed

Vera, Jesús; Jiménez, Raimundo; García, José Antonio; Cárdenas, David

2017-04-01

We used a repeated-measures design to assess the impact of mental-task complexity on intraocular pressure (IOP). Fourteen participants performed three continuous 11-min blocks of a mental-workload task (3-back) and an oddball version of this task. Also, heart-rate variability (HRV), cognitive-performance scores, and subjective measure of mental load (NASA-TLX) were determined. IOP was taken before each block and afterwards as well as after recovery from mental tasks. We found that IOP increased during heavy mental workloads (p < 0.01). Consistent with this finding, the autonomic control (HRV) and the cognitive performance were significantly lower (p < 0.045, and p < 0.01, respectively), and the NASA-TLX scores were higher during the 3-back task (p < 0.01). We conclude that IOP is sensitive to mental workload, and it could provide a novel neuroergonomic tool to assess mental workload. Our study highlights a potential association between IOP and the nervous system's state of activation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Activity in primary motor cortex during action observation covaries with subsequent behavioral changes in execution.

PubMed

Aridan, Nadav; Mukamel, Roy

2016-11-01

Observing someone else perform a movement facilitates motor planning, execution, and motor memory formation. Rate, an important feature in the execution of repeated movements, has been shown to vary following movement observation although the underlying neural mechanisms are unclear. In the current study, we examined how the rate of self-paced index finger pressing is implicitly modified following passive observation of a similar action performed at a different rate. Fifty subjects performed a finger pressing sequence with their right hand at their own pace before and after passive observation of either a 1-min video depicting the task performed at 3 Hz by someone else or a black screen. An additional set of 15 subjects performed the task in an MRI scanner. Across all 50 subjects, the spontaneous execution rate prior to video observation had a bimodal distribution with modes around 2 and 4 Hz. Following video observation, the slower subjects performed the task at an increased rate. In the 15 subjects who performed the task in the MRI scanner, we found positive correlation between fMRI signal in the left primary motor strip during passive video observation and subsequent behavioral changes in task performance rate. We conclude that observing someone else perform an action at a higher rate implicitly increases the spontaneous rate of execution, and that this implicit induction is mediated by activity in the contralateral primary motor cortex.

Bias in discriminating very mild dementia for older adults with different levels of education in Hong Kong.

PubMed

Chang, Jianfang; Tse, Chi-Shing; Leung, Grace Tak Yu; Fung, Ada Wai Tung; Hau, Kit-Tai; Chiu, Helen Fung Kum; Lam, Linda Chiu Wa

2014-06-01

Education has a profound effect on older adults' cognitive performance. In Hong Kong, some dementia screening tasks were originally designed for developed population with, on average, higher education. We compared the screening power of these tasks for Chinese older adults with different levels of education. Community-dwelling older adults who were healthy (N = 383) and with very mild dementia (N = 405) performed the following tasks: Mini-Mental State Examination, Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive subscales, Verbal Fluency, Abstract Thinking, and Visual/Digit Span. Logistic regression was used to examine the power of these tasks to predict Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR 0.5 vs. 0). Logistic regression analysis showed that while the screening power of the total scores in all tasks was similar for high and low education groups, there were education biases in some items of these tasks. The differential screening power in high and low education groups was not identical across items in some tasks. Thus, in cognitive assessments, we should exercise great caution when using these potentially biased items for older adults with limited education.

Reward Motivation Enhances Task Coding in Frontoparietal Cortex.

PubMed

Etzel, Joset A; Cole, Michael W; Zacks, Jeffrey M; Kay, Kendrick N; Braver, Todd S

2016-04-01

Reward motivation often enhances task performance, but the neural mechanisms underlying such cognitive enhancement remain unclear. Here, we used a multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approach to test the hypothesis that motivation-related enhancement of cognitive control results from improved encoding and representation of task set information. Participants underwent two fMRI sessions of cued task switching, the first under baseline conditions, and the second with randomly intermixed reward incentive and no-incentive trials. Information about the upcoming task could be successfully decoded from cue-related activation patterns in a set of frontoparietal regions typically associated with task control. More critically, MVPA classifiers trained on the baseline session had significantly higher decoding accuracy on incentive than non-incentive trials, with decoding improvement mediating reward-related enhancement of behavioral performance. These results strongly support the hypothesis that reward motivation enhances cognitive control, by improving the discriminability of task-relevant information coded and maintained in frontoparietal brain regions. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Multiple Days of Heat Exposure on Firefighters' Work Performance and Physiology.

PubMed

Larsen, Brianna; Snow, Rod; Vincent, Grace; Tran, Jacqueline; Wolkow, Alexander; Aisbett, Brad

2015-01-01

This study assessed the accumulated effect of ambient heat on the performance of, and physiological and perceptual responses to, intermittent, simulated wildfire fighting tasks over three consecutive days. Firefighters (n = 36) were matched and allocated to either the CON (19°C) or HOT (33°C) condition. They performed three days of intermittent, self-paced simulated firefighting work, interspersed with physiological testing. Task repetitions were counted (and converted to distance or area) to determine work performance. Participants were asked to rate their perceived exertion and thermal sensation after each task. Heart rate, core temperature (Tc), and skin temperature (Tsk) were recorded continuously throughout the simulation. Fluids were consumed ad libitum. Urine volume was measured throughout, and urine specific gravity (USG) analysed, to estimate hydration. All food and fluid consumption was recorded. There was no difference in work output between experimental conditions. However, significant variation in performance responses between individuals was observed. All measures of thermal stress were elevated in the HOT, with core and skin temperature reaching, on average, 0.24 ± 0.08°C and 2.81 ± 0.20°C higher than the CON group. Participants' doubled their fluid intake in the HOT condition, and this was reflected in the USG scores, where the HOT participants reported significantly lower values. Heart rate was comparable between conditions at nearly all time points, however the peak heart rate reached each circuit was 7 ± 3% higher in the CON trial. Likewise, RPE was slightly elevated in the CON trial for the majority of tasks. Participants' work output was comparable between the CON and HOT conditions, however the performance change over time varied significantly between individuals. It is likely that the increased fluid replacement in the heat, in concert with frequent rest breaks and task rotation, assisted with the regulation of physiological responses (e.g., heart rate, core temperature).

Multiple Days of Heat Exposure on Firefighters’ Work Performance and Physiology

PubMed Central

Larsen, Brianna; Snow, Rod; Vincent, Grace; Tran, Jacqueline; Wolkow, Alexander; Aisbett, Brad

2015-01-01

This study assessed the accumulated effect of ambient heat on the performance of, and physiological and perceptual responses to, intermittent, simulated wildfire fighting tasks over three consecutive days. Firefighters (n = 36) were matched and allocated to either the CON (19°C) or HOT (33°C) condition. They performed three days of intermittent, self-paced simulated firefighting work, interspersed with physiological testing. Task repetitions were counted (and converted to distance or area) to determine work performance. Participants were asked to rate their perceived exertion and thermal sensation after each task. Heart rate, core temperature (Tc), and skin temperature (Tsk) were recorded continuously throughout the simulation. Fluids were consumed ad libitum. Urine volume was measured throughout, and urine specific gravity (USG) analysed, to estimate hydration. All food and fluid consumption was recorded. There was no difference in work output between experimental conditions. However, significant variation in performance responses between individuals was observed. All measures of thermal stress were elevated in the HOT, with core and skin temperature reaching, on average, 0.24 ± 0.08°C and 2.81 ± 0.20°C higher than the CON group. Participants’ doubled their fluid intake in the HOT condition, and this was reflected in the USG scores, where the HOT participants reported significantly lower values. Heart rate was comparable between conditions at nearly all time points, however the peak heart rate reached each circuit was 7 ± 3% higher in the CON trial. Likewise, RPE was slightly elevated in the CON trial for the majority of tasks. Participants’ work output was comparable between the CON and HOT conditions, however the performance change over time varied significantly between individuals. It is likely that the increased fluid replacement in the heat, in concert with frequent rest breaks and task rotation, assisted with the regulation of physiological responses (e.g., heart rate, core temperature). PMID:26379284

Daily variability in working memory is coupled with negative affect: the role of attention and motivation.

PubMed

Brose, Annette; Schmiedek, Florian; Lövdén, Martin; Lindenberger, Ulman

2012-06-01

Across days, individuals experience varying levels of negative affect, control of attention, and motivation. We investigated whether this intraindividual variability was coupled with daily fluctuations in working memory (WM) performance. In 100 days, 101 younger individuals worked on a spatial N-back task and rated negative affect, control of attention, and motivation. Results showed that individuals differed in how reliably WM performance fluctuated across days, and that subjective experiences were primarily linked to performance accuracy. WM performance was lower on days with higher levels of negative affect, reduced control of attention, and reduced task-related motivation. Thus, variables that were found to predict WM in between-subjects designs showed important relationships to WM at the within-person level. In addition, there was shared predictive variance among predictors of WM. Days with increased negative affect and reduced performance were also days with reduced control of attention and reduced motivation to work on tasks. These findings are in line with proposed mechanisms linking negative affect and cognitive performance.

Is Set Shifting Really Impaired in Trait Anxiety? Only When Switching Away from an Effortfully Established Task Set

PubMed Central

Gustavson, Daniel E.; Altamirano, Lee J.; Johnson, Daniel P.; Whisman, Mark A.; Miyake, Akira

2016-01-01

The current study investigated whether trait anxiety was systematically related to task-set shifting performance, using a task-switching paradigm in which one task was more attentionally demanding than the other. Specifically, taking advantage of a well-established phenomenon known as asymmetric switch costs, we tested the hypothesis that the association between trait anxiety and task-set shifting is most clearly observed when individuals must switch away from a more attentionally demanding task for which it was necessary to effortfully establish an appropriate task set. Ninety-one young adults completed an asymmetric switching task and trait-level mood questionnaires. Results indicated that higher levels of trait anxiety were systematically associated with greater asymmetry in reaction-time (RT) switch costs. Specifically, the RT costs for switching from the more attentionally demanding task to the less demanding task were significantly greater with higher levels of trait anxiety, whereas the RT costs for switching in the opposite direction were not significantly associated with trait anxiety levels. Further analyses indicated that these associations were not attributable to comorbid dysphoria or worry. These results suggest that levels of trait anxiety may not be related to general set-shifting ability per se, but, rather, that anxiety-specific effects may primarily be restricted to when one must efficiently switch away from (or let go of) an effortfully established task set. PMID:27429194

Working Memory and Reasoning Benefit from Different Modes of Large-scale Brain Dynamics in Healthy Older Adults.

PubMed

Lebedev, Alexander V; Nilsson, Jonna; Lövdén, Martin

2018-07-01

Researchers have proposed that solving complex reasoning problems, a key indicator of fluid intelligence, involves the same cognitive processes as solving working memory tasks. This proposal is supported by an overlap of the functional brain activations associated with the two types of tasks and by high correlations between interindividual differences in performance. We replicated these findings in 53 older participants but also showed that solving reasoning and working memory problems benefits from different configurations of the functional connectome and that this dissimilarity increases with a higher difficulty load. Specifically, superior performance in a typical working memory paradigm ( n-back) was associated with upregulation of modularity (increased between-network segregation), whereas performance in the reasoning task was associated with effective downregulation of modularity. We also showed that working memory training promotes task-invariant increases in modularity. Because superior reasoning performance is associated with downregulation of modular dynamics, training may thus have fostered an inefficient way of solving the reasoning tasks. This could help explain why working memory training does little to promote complex reasoning performance. The study concludes that complex reasoning abilities cannot be reduced to working memory and suggests the need to reconsider the feasibility of using working memory training interventions to attempt to achieve effects that transfer to broader cognition.

The effects of cognitively demanding dual-task driving condition on elderly people's driving performance; Real driving monitoring.

PubMed

Ebnali, Mahdi; Ahmadnezhad, Pedram; Shateri, Alireza; Mazloumi, Adel; Ebnali Heidari, Majid; Nazeri, Ahmad Reza

2016-09-01

Using in-vehicle audio technologies such as audio systems and voice messages is regarded as a common secondary task. Such tasks, known as the sources of non-visual distraction, affect the driving performance. Given the elderly drivers' cognitive limitations, driving can be even more challenging to drivers. The current study examined how listening to economic news, as a cognitively demanding secondary task, affects elderly subjects' driving performance and whether their comprehension accuracy is associated with these effects. Participants of the study (N=22) drove in a real condition with and without listening to economic news. Measurements included driving performance (speed control, forward crash risk, and lateral lane position) and task performance (comprehension accuracy). The mean driving speed, duration of driving in unsafe zones and numbers of overtaking decreased significantly when drivers were engaged in the dual-task condition. Moreover, the cognitive secondary task led to a higher speed variability. Our results demonstrate that there was not a significant relationship between the lane changes and the activity of listening to economic news. However, a meaningful difference was observed between general comprehension and deep comprehension on the one hand and driving performance on the other. Another aspect of our study concerning the drivers' ages and their comprehension revealed a significant relationship between age above 75 and comprehension level. Drivers aging 75 and older showed a lower level of deep comprehension. Our study demonstrates that elderly drivers compensated driving performance with safety margin adoption while they were cognitively engaged. In this condition, however, maintaining speed proved more demanding for drivers aging 75 and older. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Two Trackers Are Better than One: Information about the Co-actor's Actions and Performance Scores Contribute to the Collective Benefit in a Joint Visuospatial Task.

PubMed

Wahn, Basil; Kingstone, Alan; König, Peter

2017-01-01

When humans collaborate, they often distribute task demands in order to reach a higher performance compared to performing the same task alone (i.e., a collective benefit). Here, we tested to what extent receiving information about the actions of a co-actor, performance scores, or receiving both types of information impacts the collective benefit in a collaborative multiple object tracking task. In a between-subject design, pairs of individuals jointly tracked a subset of target objects among several moving distractor objects on a computer screen for a 100 trials. At the end of a trial, pairs received performance scores (Experiment 1), information about their partner's target selections (Experiment 2), or both types of information (Experiment 3). In all experiments, the performance of the pair exceeded the individual performances and the simulated performance of two independent individuals combined. Initially, when receiving both types of information (Experiment 3), pairs achieved the highest performance and divided task demands most efficiently compared to the other two experiments. Over time, performances and the ability to divide task demands for pairs receiving a single type of information converged with those receiving both, suggesting that pairs' coordination strategies become equally effective over time across experiments. However, pairs' performances never reached a theoretical limit of performance in all experiments. For distributing task demands, members of a pair predominantly used a left-right division of labor strategy (i.e., the leftmost targets were tracked by one co-actor while the rightmost targets were tracked by the other co-actor). Overall, findings of the present study suggest that receiving information about actions of a co-actor, performance scores, or receiving both enables pairs to devise effective division of labor strategies in a collaborative visuospatial task. However, when pairs had both types of information available, the formation of division of labor strategies was facilitated, indicating that pairs benefited the most from having both types of information available (i.e., actions about the co-actor and performance scores). Findings are applicable to circumstances in which humans need to perform collaborative visuospatial tasks that are time-critical and/or only allow a very limited exchange of information between co-actors.

Modeling effects of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards on the competition between striatal learning systems

PubMed Central

Boedecker, Joschka; Lampe, Thomas; Riedmiller, Martin

2013-01-01

A common assumption in psychology, economics, and other fields holds that higher performance will result if extrinsic rewards (such as money) are offered as an incentive. While this principle seems to work well for tasks that require the execution of the same sequence of steps over and over, with little uncertainty about the process, in other cases, especially where creative problem solving is required due to the difficulty in finding the optimal sequence of actions, external rewards can actually be detrimental to task performance. Furthermore, they have the potential to undermine intrinsic motivation to do an otherwise interesting activity. In this work, we extend a computational model of the dorsomedial and dorsolateral striatal reinforcement learning systems to account for the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. The model assumes that the brain employs both a goal-directed and a habitual learning system, and competition between both is based on the trade-off between the cost of the reasoning process and value of information. The goal-directed system elicits internal rewards when its models of the environment improve, while the habitual system, being model-free, does not. Our results account for the phenomena that initial extrinsic reward leads to reduced activity after extinction compared to the case without any initial extrinsic rewards, and that performance in complex task settings drops when higher external rewards are promised. We also test the hypothesis that external rewards bias the competition in favor of the computationally efficient, but cruder and less flexible habitual system, which can negatively influence intrinsic motivation and task performance in the class of tasks we consider. PMID:24137146

A New Measure for Neural Compensation Is Positively Correlated With Working Memory and Gait Speed.

PubMed

Ji, Lanxin; Pearlson, Godfrey D; Hawkins, Keith A; Steffens, David C; Guo, Hua; Wang, Lihong

2018-01-01

Neuroimaging studies suggest that older adults may compensate for declines in brain function and cognition through reorganization of neural resources. A limitation of prior research is reliance on between-group comparisons of neural activation (e.g., younger vs. older), which cannot be used to assess compensatory ability quantitatively. It is also unclear about the relationship between compensatory ability with cognitive function or how other factors such as physical exercise modulates compensatory ability. Here, we proposed a data-driven method to semi-quantitatively measure neural compensation under a challenging cognitive task, and we then explored connections between neural compensation to cognitive engagement and cognitive reserve (CR). Functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired for 26 healthy older adults during a face-name memory task. Spatial independent component analysis (ICA) identified visual, attentional and left executive as core networks. Results show that the smaller the volumes of the gray matter (GM) structures within core networks, the more networks were needed to conduct the task ( r = -0.408, p = 0.035). Therefore, the number of task-activated networks controlling for the GM volume within core networks was defined as a measure of neural compensatory ability. We found that compensatory ability correlated with working memory performance ( r = 0.528, p = 0.035). Among subjects with good memory task performance, those with higher CR used fewer networks than subjects with lower CR. Among poor-performance subjects, those using more networks had higher CR. Our results indicated that using a high cognitive-demanding task to measure the number of activated neural networks could be a useful and sensitive measure of neural compensation in older adults.

Do laparoscopic skills transfer to robotic surgery?

PubMed

Panait, Lucian; Shetty, Shohan; Shewokis, Patricia A; Sanchez, Juan A

2014-03-01

Identifying the set of skills that can transfer from laparoscopic to robotic surgery is an important consideration in designing optimal training curricula. We tested the degree to which laparoscopic skills transfer to a robotic platform. Fourteen medical students and 14 surgery residents with no previous robotic but varying degrees of laparoscopic experience were studied. Three fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery tasks were used on the laparoscopic box trainer and then the da Vinci robot: peg transfer (PT), circle cutting (CC), and intracorporeal suturing (IS). A questionnaire was administered for assessing subjects' comfort level with each task. Standard fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery scoring metric were used and higher scores indicate a superior performance. For the group, PT and CC scores were similar between robotic and laparoscopic modalities (90 versus 90 and 52 versus 47; P > 0.05). However, for the advanced IS task, robotic-IS scores were significantly higher than laparoscopic-IS (80 versus 53; P < 0.001). Subgroup analysis of senior residents revealed a lower robotic-PT score when compared with laparoscopic-PT (92 versus 105; P < 0.05). Scores for CC and IS were similar in this subgroup (64 ± 9 versus 69 ± 15 and 95 ± 3 versus 92 ± 10; P > 0.05). The robot was favored over laparoscopy for all drills (PT, 66.7%; CC, 88.9%; IS, 94.4%). For simple tasks, participants with preexisting skills perform worse with the robot. However, with increasing task difficulty, robotic performance is equal or better than laparoscopy. Laparoscopic skills appear to readily transfer to a robotic platform, and difficult tasks such as IS are actually enhanced, even in subjects naive to the technology. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Facilitative Role for Corticosterone in the Acquisition of a Spatial Task under Moderate Stress

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akirav, Irit; Kozenicky, Maya; Tal, Dadi; Sandi, Carmen; Venero, Cesar; Richter-Levin, Gal

2004-01-01

Emotionally charged experiences alter memory storage via the activation of hormonal systems. Previously, we have shown that compared with rats trained for a massed spatial learning task in the water maze in warm water (25 degrees C), animals that were trained in cold water (19 degrees C) performed better and showed higher levels of the stress…

The components of working memory updating: an experimental decomposition and individual differences.

PubMed

Ecker, Ullrich K H; Lewandowsky, Stephan; Oberauer, Klaus; Chee, Abby E H

2010-01-01

Working memory updating (WMU) has been identified as a cognitive function of prime importance for everyday tasks and has also been found to be a significant predictor of higher mental abilities. Yet, little is known about the constituent processes of WMU. We suggest that operations required in a typical WMU task can be decomposed into 3 major component processes: retrieval, transformation, and substitution. We report a large-scale experiment that instantiated all possible combinations of those 3 component processes. Results show that the 3 components make independent contributions to updating performance. We additionally present structural equation models that link WMU task performance and working memory capacity (WMC) measures. These feature the methodological advancement of estimating interindividual covariation and experimental effects on mean updating measures simultaneously. The modeling results imply that WMC is a strong predictor of WMU skills in general, although some component processes-in particular, substitution skills-were independent of WMC. Hence, the reported predictive power of WMU measures may rely largely on common WM functions also measured in typical WMC tasks, although substitution skills may make an independent contribution to predicting higher mental abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessment of Preschooler's Scientific Reasoning in Adult-Child Interactions: What Is the Optimal Context?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meindertsma, Heidi B.; van Dijk, Marijn W. G.; Steenbeek, Henderien W.; van Geert, Paul L. C.

2014-04-01

In educational settings, continuous assessment of the child's level of understanding is necessary to effectively utilize the principles of scaffolding and to create contexts that can advance the scientific reasoning of the child. In this article, we argue that a child's performance is a dynamic notion that is created by all elements in an interaction, including the task. Therefore, we studied preschoolers' levels of scientific reasoning varying different properties of the assessment context. Young children were interviewed about four scientific tasks using one out of four different protocols (varying in the degree of flexibility and adaptiveness) by an adult. In the first study, different task contents resulted in different performance levels. The second study indicated that the most structured protocol elicited the highest maximum level of reasoning in children and the highest percentage of correct predictions. The third study showed differences between the protocols in the adult's verbal behavior. Adaptation in verbal behavior to different children by the adult did not result in higher scientific understanding by the children, whereas a higher degree of task structure did. Combined, the studies emphasize the importance of context, which has implications for assessment and teaching situations.

Time and interference: Effects on working memory.

PubMed

Botto, Marta; Palladino, Paola

2016-05-01

This study tested predictions from the time-based resource-sharing (TBRS) model with a classical verbal working memory (WM) task, where target and non-target information interfere strongly with each other. Different predictions can be formulated according to the dominant perspectives (TBRS and interference hypothesis) on the role of inhibitory control in WM task performance. Here, we aimed to trace the activation of irrelevant information, examining priming effects in a lexical decision task immediately following WM recall. Results indicate the roles of both time and interference constraints in determining task performance. In particular, the role of time available seemed crucial at the highest WM loads (i.e., 3 and 4 memoranda). These were also associated with a higher activation of no-longer-relevant information but, in this case, independently from time available for processing. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Heart rate variability and cortisol responses during attentional and working memory tasks in naval cadets.

PubMed

Johnsen, Bjørn Helge; Hansen, Anita L; Murison, Robert; Eid, Jarle; Thayer, Julian F

2012-01-01

The aim of the paper was to study the relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and cortisol release during cognitive challenging tasks. Forty-nine male naval cadets from the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy were administered computerised versions of attentional and working memory tests. The results from this study support the hypothesis of a negative correlation between HRV and cortisol secretion during cognitive tasks. Confirmation of the hypothesis with the low HRV group scoring higher on cortisol only during performance of cognitive tasks and recovery was also found. Furthermore, a replication of the previous findings of a negative association between cortisol levels and performance were supported when using uncorrected comparisons. None of the correlations survived Bonferonin corrections. The findings are discussed in relation to factors increasing HRV, thus improving tolerance to cognitive stress in onboard environments.

Neural and psychophysiological correlates of human performance under stress and high mental workload.

PubMed

Mandrick, Kevin; Peysakhovich, Vsevolod; Rémy, Florence; Lepron, Evelyne; Causse, Mickaël

2016-12-01

In our anxiogenic and stressful world, the maintenance of an optimal cognitive performance is a constant challenge. It is particularly true in complex working environments (e.g. flight deck, air traffic control tower), where individuals have sometimes to cope with a high mental workload and stressful situations. Several models (i.e. processing efficiency theory, cognitive-energetical framework) have attempted to provide a conceptual basis on how human performance is modulated by high workload and stress/anxiety. These models predict that stress can reduce human cognitive efficiency, even in the absence of a visible impact on the task performance. Performance may be protected under stress thanks to compensatory effort, but only at the expense of a cognitive cost. Yet, the psychophysiological cost of this regulation remains unclear. We designed two experiments involving pupil diameter, cardiovascular and prefrontal oxygenation measurements. Participants performed the Toulouse N-back Task that intensively engaged both working memory and mental calculation processes under the threat (or not) of unpredictable aversive sounds. The results revealed that higher task difficulty (higher n level) degraded the performance and induced an increased tonic pupil diameter, heart rate and activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, and a decreased phasic pupil response and heart rate variability. Importantly, the condition of stress did not impact the performance, but at the expense of a psychophysiological cost as demonstrated by lower phasic pupil response, and greater heart rate and prefrontal activity. Prefrontal cortex seems to be a central region for mitigating the influence of stress because it subserves crucial functions (e.g. inhibition, working memory) that can promote the engagement of coping strategies. Overall, findings confirmed the psychophysiological cost of both mental effort and stress. Stress likely triggered increased motivation and the recruitment of additional cognitive resources that minimize its aversive effects on task performance (effectiveness), but these compensatory efforts consumed resources that caused a loss of cognitive efficiency (ratio between performance effectiveness and mental effort). Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Different cognitive functions discriminate gait performance in younger and older women: A pilot study.

PubMed

Gonzales, Joaquin U; James, C Roger; Yang, Hyung Suk; Jensen, Daniel; Atkins, Lee; Thompson, Brennan J; Al-Khalil, Kareem; O'Boyle, Michael

2016-10-01

Cognitive dysfunction is associated with slower gait speed in older women, but whether cognitive function affects gait performance earlier in life has yet to be investigated. Thus, the objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that cognitive function will discriminate gait performance in healthy younger women. Fast-pace and dual-task gait speed were measured in 30 young to middle-aged (30-45y) and 26 older (61-80y) women without mild cognitive impairment. Visuoperceptual ability, working memory, executive function, and learning ability were assessed using neuropsychological tests. Within each age group, women were divided by the median into lower and higher cognitive function groups to compare gait performance. Younger women with higher visuoperceptual ability had faster fast-pace (2.25±0.30 vs. 1.98±0.18m/s, p≤0.01) and dual-task gait speed (2.02±0.27 vs. 1.69±0.25m/s, p≤0.01) than women with lower visuoperceptual ability. The difference in dual-task gait speed remained significant (p=0.02) after adjusting for age, years of education, and other covariates. Dividing younger women based on other cognitive domains showed no difference in gait performance. In contrast, working memory and executive function discriminated dual-task gait speed (p<0.05) in older women after adjusting for age and education. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that poorer cognitive function even at a relatively young age can negatively impact mobility. Different cognitive functions discriminated gait performance based on age, highlighting a possible influence of aging in the relationship between cognitive function and mobility in women. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of the effect of a laparoscopic robotized needle holder on ergonomics and skills.

PubMed

Bensignor, Thierry; Morel, Guillaume; Reversat, David; Fuks, David; Gayet, Brice

2016-02-01

Laparoscopy generates technical and ergonomics difficulties due to limited degrees of freedom (DOF) of forceps. To reduce this limitation, a new 5-mm robotized needle holder with two intracorporeal DOF, Jaimy(®), has been developed. The aim of this study was to evaluate its effects on ergonomics and skills. Fourteen surgeons including eight senior and six residents were crossover randomized and stratified based on experience. Three suturing tasks were performed with both Jaimy(®) and a classic needle holder (NH): task 1: Peg-Board; task 2: hexagonal suture; task 3: frontal suture. Postural ergonomics of the dominant arm were evaluated with an ergonomics score (RULA score) thanks to motion capture, and muscular ergonomics with electromyography of six muscular groups (flexor and extensor carpis, biceps, triceps, deltoid, trapeze). Performance outcomes are a quantitative and qualitative score, and skills outcomes are the measurement of the number of movements and the path length travelled by the instrument. The RULA score showed a statistically improved posture with Jaimy(®) (p < 0.001). The cumulative muscular workload (CMW) of four muscles was not different. However, the CMW was in favor of the NH for the flexor carpi ulnaris (p < 0.001) and the triceps (p = 0.027). The number of movements was not different (p = 0.39) although the path length was shorter with Jaimy(®) (p = 0.012). The score for task 1 was in favor of the NH (p = 0.006) with a higher quantity score. Task 2 score was not different (p = 0.086): The quality part of the score was in favor of Jaimy(®) (p = 0.009) and the quantity part was higher with the NH (p = 0.04). The score for task 3 was higher with Jaimy(®) (p = 0.001). This study suggests that the use of a robotized needle holder improves both posture and the quality of laparoscopic sutures.

Binocular Glaucomatous Visual Field Loss and Its Impact on Visual Exploration - A Supermarket Study

PubMed Central

Aehling, Kathrin; Heister, Martin; Rosenstiel, Wolfgang; Schiefer, Ulrich; Papageorgiou, Elena

2014-01-01

Advanced glaucomatous visual field loss may critically interfere with quality of life. The purpose of this study was to (i) assess the impact of binocular glaucomatous visual field loss on a supermarket search task as an example of everyday living activities, (ii) to identify factors influencing the performance, and (iii) to investigate the related compensatory mechanisms. Ten patients with binocular glaucoma (GP), and ten healthy-sighted control subjects (GC) were asked to collect twenty different products chosen randomly in two supermarket racks as quickly as possible. The task performance was rated as “passed” or “failed” with regard to the time per correctly collected item. Based on the performance of control subjects, the threshold value for failing the task was defined as μ+3σ (in seconds per correctly collected item). Eye movements were recorded by means of a mobile eye tracker. Eight out of ten patients with glaucoma and all control subjects passed the task. Patients who failed the task needed significantly longer time (111.47 s ±12.12 s) to complete the task than patients who passed (64.45 s ±13.36 s, t-test, p<0.001). Furthermore, patients who passed the task showed a significantly higher number of glances towards the visual field defect (VFD) area than patients who failed (t-test, p<0.05). According to these results, glaucoma patients with defects in the binocular visual field display on average longer search times in a naturalistic supermarket task. However, a considerable number of patients, who compensate by frequent glancing towards the VFD, showed successful task performance. Therefore, systematic exploration of the VFD area seems to be a “time-effective” compensatory mechanism during the present supermarket task. PMID:25162522

Binocular glaucomatous visual field loss and its impact on visual exploration--a supermarket study.

PubMed

Sippel, Katrin; Kasneci, Enkelejda; Aehling, Kathrin; Heister, Martin; Rosenstiel, Wolfgang; Schiefer, Ulrich; Papageorgiou, Elena

2014-01-01

Advanced glaucomatous visual field loss may critically interfere with quality of life. The purpose of this study was to (i) assess the impact of binocular glaucomatous visual field loss on a supermarket search task as an example of everyday living activities, (ii) to identify factors influencing the performance, and (iii) to investigate the related compensatory mechanisms. Ten patients with binocular glaucoma (GP), and ten healthy-sighted control subjects (GC) were asked to collect twenty different products chosen randomly in two supermarket racks as quickly as possible. The task performance was rated as "passed" or "failed" with regard to the time per correctly collected item. Based on the performance of control subjects, the threshold value for failing the task was defined as μ+3σ (in seconds per correctly collected item). Eye movements were recorded by means of a mobile eye tracker. Eight out of ten patients with glaucoma and all control subjects passed the task. Patients who failed the task needed significantly longer time (111.47 s ±12.12 s) to complete the task than patients who passed (64.45 s ±13.36 s, t-test, p < 0.001). Furthermore, patients who passed the task showed a significantly higher number of glances towards the visual field defect (VFD) area than patients who failed (t-test, p < 0.05). According to these results, glaucoma patients with defects in the binocular visual field display on average longer search times in a naturalistic supermarket task. However, a considerable number of patients, who compensate by frequent glancing towards the VFD, showed successful task performance. Therefore, systematic exploration of the VFD area seems to be a "time-effective" compensatory mechanism during the present supermarket task.

Speech task effects on acoustic measure of fundamental frequency in Cantonese-speaking children.

PubMed

Ma, Estella P-M; Lam, Nina L-N

2015-12-01

Speaking fundamental frequency (F0) is a voice measure frequently used to document changes in vocal performance over time. Knowing the intra-subject variability of speaking F0 has implications on its clinical usefulness. The present study examined the speaking F0 elicited from three speech tasks in Cantonese-speaking children. The study also compared the variability of speaking F0 elicited from different speech tasks. Fifty-six vocally healthy Cantonese-speaking children (31 boys and 25 girls) aged between 7.0 and 10.11 years participated. For each child, speaking F0 was elicited using speech tasks at three linguistic levels (sustained vowel /a/ prolongation, reading aloud a sentence and passage). Two types of variability, within-session (trial-to-trial) and across-session (test-retest) variability, were compared across speech tasks. Significant differences in mean speaking F0 values were found between speech tasks. Mean speaking F0 value elicited from sustained vowel phonations was significantly higher than those elicited from the connected speech tasks. The variability of speaking F0 was higher in sustained vowel prolongation than that in connected speech. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Choke or thrive? The relation between salivary cortisol and math performance depends on individual differences in working memory and math-anxiety.

PubMed

Mattarella-Micke, Andrew; Mateo, Jill; Kozak, Megan N; Foster, Katherine; Beilock, Sian L

2011-08-01

In the current study, we explored how a person's physiological arousal relates to their performance in a challenging math situation as a function of individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity and math-anxiety. Participants completed demanding math problems before and after which salivary cortisol, an index of arousal, was measured. The performance of lower WM individuals did not depend on cortisol concentration or math-anxiety. For higher WM individuals high in math-anxiety, the higher their concentration of salivary cortisol following the math task, the worse their performance. In contrast, for higher WM individuals lower in math-anxiety, the higher their salivary cortisol concentrations, the better their performance. For individuals who have the capacity to perform at a high-level (higher WMs), whether physiological arousal will lead an individual to choke or thrive depends on math-anxiety. 2011 APA, all rights reserved

A hierarchically distributed architecture for fault isolation expert systems on the space station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miksell, Steve; Coffer, Sue

1987-01-01

The Space Station Axiomatic Fault Isolating Expert Systems (SAFTIES) system deals with the hierarchical distribution of control and knowledge among independent expert systems doing fault isolation and scheduling of Space Station subsystems. On its lower level, fault isolation is performed on individual subsystems. These fault isolation expert systems contain knowledge about the performance requirements of their particular subsystem and corrective procedures which may be involved in repsonse to certain performance errors. They can control the functions of equipment in their system and coordinate system task schedules. On a higher level, the Executive contains knowledge of all resources, task schedules for all systems, and the relative priority of all resources and tasks. The executive can override any subsystem task schedule in order to resolve use conflicts or resolve errors that require resources from multiple subsystems. Interprocessor communication is implemented using the SAFTIES Communications Interface (SCI). The SCI is an application layer protocol which supports the SAFTIES distributed multi-level architecture.

[Learned helplessness, generalized self-efficacy, and immune function].

PubMed

Kuno, Mayumi; Yazawa, Hisashi; Ohira, Hideki

2003-02-01

Generalized self-efficacy is considered one of important personality traits that determine psychological and physiological stress responses. The present study examined the interaction effects of generalized self-efficacy and controllability of acute stress on salivary secretory immunoglobulin A (s-IgA), task performance, and psychological stress responses in a typical learned helplessness paradigm. Twenty low and 19 high self-efficacy undergraduate women performed two response selection tasks one after another. In the first task, they were exposed to controllable or uncontrollable aversive noise. The second task was identical for all, but perceived controllability was higher for the high self-efficacy group than the low. Performance under uncontrollable condition was lower than controllable condition. The interaction of self-efficacy and controllability was observed only on the s-IgA variable; increase of secretion of s-IgA secretion under stressor uncontrollability was more prominent in the low self-efficacy group than the high. These results suggested that generalized self-efficacy was a moderator of the stressor controllability effect on secretory immunity.

Asthma management self-efficacy in parents of primary school-age children.

PubMed

Brown, Nicola; Gallagher, Robyn; Fowler, Cathrine; Wales, Sandra

2014-06-01

The aim of this study was to investigate asthma management self-efficacy in parents of primary school-age children with asthma and to explore possible associations between parent asthma management self-efficacy, parent and child characteristics, asthma task difficulty and asthma management responsibility. A cross-sectional descriptive survey of 113 parents was conducted to assess the level of parent asthma management self-efficacy, asthma task difficulty and confidence, asthma responsibility and socio-demographic characteristics. The findings indicate that parents had higher self-efficacy for attack prevention than attack management. Parents had higher self-efficacy for asthma management tasks that are simple, skills based and performed frequently such as medication administration and less confidence and greater difficulty with tasks associated with judgement and decision-making. Multivariate linear regression analysis identified English language, child asthma responsibility and parent education as predictors of higher asthma management self-efficacy, while an older child was associated with lower parent asthma management self-efficacy. The implications of these results for planning and targeting health education and self-management interventions for parents and children are discussed. © The Author(s) 2013.

Bimanual Motor Coordination in Older Adults Is Associated with Increased Functional Brain Connectivity – A Graph-Theoretical Analysis

PubMed Central

Heitger, Marcus H.; Goble, Daniel J.; Dhollander, Thijs; Dupont, Patrick; Caeyenberghs, Karen; Leemans, Alexander; Sunaert, Stefan; Swinnen, Stephan P.

2013-01-01

In bimanual coordination, older and younger adults activate a common cerebral network but the elderly also have additional activation in a secondary network of brain areas to master task performance. It remains unclear whether the functional connectivity within these primary and secondary motor networks differs between the old and the young and whether task difficulty modulates connectivity. We applied graph-theoretical network analysis (GTNA) to task-driven fMRI data in 16 elderly and 16 young participants using a bimanual coordination task including in-phase and anti-phase flexion/extension wrist movements. Network nodes for the GTNA comprised task-relevant brain areas as defined by fMRI activation foci. The elderly matched the motor performance of the young but showed an increased functional connectivity in both networks across a wide range of connectivity metrics, i.e., higher mean connectivity degree, connection strength, network density and efficiency, together with shorter mean communication path length between the network nodes and also a lower betweenness centrality. More difficult movements showed an increased connectivity in both groups. The network connectivity of both groups had “small world” character. The present findings indicate (a) that bimanual coordination in the aging brain is associated with a higher functional connectivity even between areas also activated in young adults, independently from task difficulty, and (b) that adequate motor coordination in the context of task-driven bimanual control in older adults may not be solely due to additional neural recruitment but also to aging-related changes of functional relationships between brain regions. PMID:23637982

Upper-Extremity Dual-Task Function: An Innovative Method to Assess Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults.

PubMed

Toosizadeh, Nima; Najafi, Bijan; Reiman, Eric M; Mager, Reine M; Veldhuizen, Jaimeson K; O'Connor, Kathy; Zamrini, Edward; Mohler, Jane

2016-01-01

Difficulties in orchestrating simultaneous tasks (i.e., dual-tasking) have been associated with cognitive impairments in older adults. Gait tests have been commonly used as the motor task component for dual-task assessments; however, many older adults have mobility impairments or there is a lack of space in busy clinical settings. We assessed an upper-extremity function (UEF) test as an alternative motor task to study the dual-task motor performance in older adults. Older adults (≥65 years) were recruited, and cognitive ability was measured using the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA). Participants performed repetitive elbow flexion with their maximum pace, once single-task, and once while counting backward by one (dual-task). Single- and dual-task gait tests were also performed with normal speed. Three-dimensional kinematics was measured both from upper-extremity and lower-extremity using wearable sensors to determine UEF and gait parameters. Parameters were compared between the cognitively impaired and healthy groups using analysis of variance tests, while controlling for age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). Correlations between UEF and gait parameters for dual-task and dual-task cost were assessed using linear regression models. Sixty-seven older adults were recruited (age = 83 ± 10 years). Based on MoCA, 10 (15%) were cognitively impaired. While no significant differences were observed in the single-task condition, within the dual-task condition, the cognitively impaired group showed significantly less arm flexion speed (62%, d = 1.51, p = 0.02) and range of motion (27%, d = 0.93, p = 0.04), and higher speed variability (88%, d = 1.82, p < 0.0001) compared to the cognitively intact group, when adjusted with age, gender, and BMI. Significant correlations were observed between UEF speed parameters and gait stride velocity for dual-task condition (r = 0.55, p < 0.0001) and dual-task cost (r = 0.28, p = 0.03). We introduced a novel test for assessing dual-task performance in older adults that lasts 20 s and is based on upper-extremity function. Our results confirm significant associations between upper-extremity speed, range of motion, and speed variability with both the MoCA score and the gait performance within the dual-task condition.

Upper-Extremity Dual-Task Function: An Innovative Method to Assess Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults

PubMed Central

Toosizadeh, Nima; Najafi, Bijan; Reiman, Eric M.; Mager, Reine M.; Veldhuizen, Jaimeson K.; O’Connor, Kathy; Zamrini, Edward; Mohler, Jane

2016-01-01

Background: Difficulties in orchestrating simultaneous tasks (i.e., dual-tasking) have been associated with cognitive impairments in older adults. Gait tests have been commonly used as the motor task component for dual-task assessments; however, many older adults have mobility impairments or there is a lack of space in busy clinical settings. We assessed an upper-extremity function (UEF) test as an alternative motor task to study the dual-task motor performance in older adults. Methods: Older adults (≥65 years) were recruited, and cognitive ability was measured using the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA). Participants performed repetitive elbow flexion with their maximum pace, once single-task, and once while counting backward by one (dual-task). Single- and dual-task gait tests were also performed with normal speed. Three-dimensional kinematics was measured both from upper-extremity and lower-extremity using wearable sensors to determine UEF and gait parameters. Parameters were compared between the cognitively impaired and healthy groups using analysis of variance tests, while controlling for age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). Correlations between UEF and gait parameters for dual-task and dual-task cost were assessed using linear regression models. Results: Sixty-seven older adults were recruited (age = 83 ± 10 years). Based on MoCA, 10 (15%) were cognitively impaired. While no significant differences were observed in the single-task condition, within the dual-task condition, the cognitively impaired group showed significantly less arm flexion speed (62%, d = 1.51, p = 0.02) and range of motion (27%, d = 0.93, p = 0.04), and higher speed variability (88%, d = 1.82, p < 0.0001) compared to the cognitively intact group, when adjusted with age, gender, and BMI. Significant correlations were observed between UEF speed parameters and gait stride velocity for dual-task condition (r = 0.55, p < 0.0001) and dual-task cost (r = 0.28, p = 0.03). Conclusion: We introduced a novel test for assessing dual-task performance in older adults that lasts 20 s and is based on upper-extremity function. Our results confirm significant associations between upper-extremity speed, range of motion, and speed variability with both the MoCA score and the gait performance within the dual-task condition. PMID:27458374

Chinese Preservice Teachers’ Professional Identity Links with Education Program Performance: The Roles of Task Value Belief and Learning Motivations

PubMed Central

Zhang, Yan; Hawk, Skyler T.; Zhang, Xiaohui; Zhao, Hongyu

2016-01-01

Professional identity is a key issue spanning the entirety of teachers’ career development. Despite the abundance of existing research examining professional identity, its link with occupation-related behavior at the primary career stage (i.e., GPA in preservice education) and the potential process that underlies this association is still not fully understood. This study explored the professional identity of Chinese preservice teachers, and its links with task value belief, intrinsic learning motivation, extrinsic learning motivation, and performance in the education program. Grade-point average (GPA) of courses (both subject and pedagogy courses) was examined as an indicator of performance, and questionnaires were used to measure the remaining variables. Data from 606 preservice teachers in the first 3 years of a teacher-training program indicated that: (1) variables in this research were all significantly correlated with each other, except the correlation between intrinsic learning motivation and program performance; (2) professional identity was positively linked to task value belief, intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivations, and program performance in a structural equation model (SEM); (3) task value belief was positively linked to intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivation; (4) higher extrinsic (but not intrinsic) learning motivation was associated with increased program performance; and (5) task value belief and extrinsic learning motivation were significant mediators in the model. PMID:27199810

Chinese Preservice Teachers' Professional Identity Links with Education Program Performance: The Roles of Task Value Belief and Learning Motivations.

PubMed

Zhang, Yan; Hawk, Skyler T; Zhang, Xiaohui; Zhao, Hongyu

2016-01-01

Professional identity is a key issue spanning the entirety of teachers' career development. Despite the abundance of existing research examining professional identity, its link with occupation-related behavior at the primary career stage (i.e., GPA in preservice education) and the potential process that underlies this association is still not fully understood. This study explored the professional identity of Chinese preservice teachers, and its links with task value belief, intrinsic learning motivation, extrinsic learning motivation, and performance in the education program. Grade-point average (GPA) of courses (both subject and pedagogy courses) was examined as an indicator of performance, and questionnaires were used to measure the remaining variables. Data from 606 preservice teachers in the first 3 years of a teacher-training program indicated that: (1) variables in this research were all significantly correlated with each other, except the correlation between intrinsic learning motivation and program performance; (2) professional identity was positively linked to task value belief, intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivations, and program performance in a structural equation model (SEM); (3) task value belief was positively linked to intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivation; (4) higher extrinsic (but not intrinsic) learning motivation was associated with increased program performance; and (5) task value belief and extrinsic learning motivation were significant mediators in the model.

The impact of cognitive load on reward evaluation.

PubMed

Krigolson, Olave E; Hassall, Cameron D; Satel, Jason; Klein, Raymond M

2015-11-19

The neural systems that afford our ability to evaluate rewards and punishments are impacted by a variety of external factors. Here, we demonstrate that increased cognitive load reduces the functional efficacy of a reward processing system within the human medial-frontal cortex. In our paradigm, two groups of participants used performance feedback to estimate the exact duration of one second while electroencephalographic (EEG) data was recorded. Prior to performing the time estimation task, both groups were instructed to keep their eyes still and avoid blinking in line with well established EEG protocol. However, during performance of the time-estimation task, one of the two groups was provided with trial-to-trial-feedback about their performance on the time-estimation task and their eye movements to induce a higher level of cognitive load relative to participants in the other group who were solely provided with feedback about the accuracy of their temporal estimates. In line with previous work, we found that the higher level of cognitive load reduced the amplitude of the feedback-related negativity, a component of the human event-related brain potential associated with reward evaluation within the medial-frontal cortex. Importantly, our results provide further support that increased cognitive load reduces the functional efficacy of a neural system associated with reward processing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Functional topography of the cerebellum for motor and cognitive tasks: an fMRI study

PubMed Central

Stoodley, Catherine J.; Valera, Eve M.; Schmahmann, Jeremy D.

2011-01-01

Anatomical, clinical and imaging findings suggest that the cerebellum is engaged in cognitive and affective functions as well as motor control. Evidence from converging modalities also indicates that there is a functional topography in the human cerebellum for overt control of movement vs. higher functions, such that the cerebellum can be divided into zones depending on connectivity with sensorimotor vs. multimodal association cortices. Using functional MRI, we show that regions active during overt movement differ from those involved in higher-level language, spatial processing and working memory tasks. Nine healthy participants each completed five tasks in order to determine the relative activation patterns for the different paradigms. Right-handed finger-tapping activated right cerebellar lobules IV-V and VIII, consistent with descriptions of the cerebellar homunculi. Verb generation engaged right cerebellar lobules VI-Crus I and a second cluster in lobules VIIB-VIIIA. Mental rotation activation peaks were localized to medial left cerebellar lobule VII (Crus II). A 2-back working memory task activated bilateral regions of lobules VI-VII. Viewing arousing vs. neutral images did not reliably activate the cerebellum or cerebral limbic areas in this study. The cerebellar functional topography identified in this study reflects the involvement of different cerebro-cerebellar circuits depending on the demands of the task being performed: overt movement activated sensorimotor cortices along with contralateral cerebellar lobules IV-VI and VIII, whereas more cognitively demanding tasks engaged prefrontal and parietal cortices along with cerebellar lobules VI and VII. These findings provide further support for a cerebellar role in both motor and cognitive tasks, and better establish the existence of functional subregions in the cerebellum. Future studies are needed to determine the exact contribution of the cerebellum – and different cerebro-cerebellar circuits – to task performance. PMID:21907811

Carotid flow pulsatility is higher in women with greater decrement in gait speed during multi-tasking.

PubMed

Gonzales, Joaquin U; James, C Roger; Yang, Hyung Suk; Jensen, Daniel; Atkins, Lee; Al-Khalil, Kareem; O'Boyle, Michael

2017-05-01

Central arterial hemodynamics is associated with cognitive impairment. Reductions in gait speed during walking while performing concurrent tasks known as dual-tasking (DT) or multi-tasking (MT) is thought to reflect the cognitive cost that exceeds neural capacity to share resources. We hypothesized that central vascular function would associate with decrements in gait speed during DT or MT. Gait speed was measured using a motion capture system in 56 women (30-80y) without mild-cognitive impairment. Dual-tasking was considered walking at a fast-pace while balancing a tray. Multi-tasking was the DT condition plus subtracting by serial 7's. Applanation tonometry was used for measurement of aortic stiffness and central pulse pressure. Doppler-ultrasound was used to measure blood flow velocity and β-stiffness index in the common carotid artery. The percent change in gait speed was larger for MT than DT (14.1±11.2 vs. 8.7±9.6%, p <0.01). Tertiles were formed based on the percent change in gait speed for each condition. No vascular parameters differed across tertiles for DT. In contrast, carotid flow pulsatility (1.85±0.43 vs. 1.47±0.42, p=0.02) and resistance (0.75±0.07 vs. 0.68±0.07, p=0.01) indices were higher in women with more decrement (third tertile) as compared to women with less decrement (first tertile) in gait speed during MT after adjusting for age, gait speed, and task error. Carotid pulse pressure and β-stiffness did not contribute to these tertile differences. Elevated carotid flow pulsatility and resistance are characteristics found in healthy women that show lower cognitive capacity to walk and perform multiple concurrent tasks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

FMRI to probe sex-related differences in brain function with multitasking

PubMed Central

Tschernegg, Melanie; Neuper, Christa; Schmidt, Reinhold; Wood, Guilherme; Kronbichler, Martin; Fazekas, Franz; Enzinger, Christian

2017-01-01

Background Although established as a general notion in society, there is no solid scientific foundation for the existence of sex-differences in multitasking. Reaction time and accuracy in dual task conditions have an inverse relationship relative to single task, independently from sex. While a more disseminated network, parallel to decreasing accuracy and reaction time has been demonstrated in dual task fMRI studies, little is known so far whether there exist respective sex-related differences in activation. Methods We subjected 20 women (mean age = 25.45; SD = 5.23) and 20 men (mean age = 27.55; SD = 4.00) to a combined verbal and spatial fMRI paradigm at 3.0T to assess sex-related skills, based on the assumption that generally women better perform in verbal tasks while men do better in spatial tasks. We also obtained behavioral tests for verbal and spatial intelligence, attention, executive functions, and working memory. Results No differences between women and men were observed in behavioral measures of dual-tasking or cognitive performance. Generally, brain activation increased with higher task load, mainly in the bilateral inferior and prefrontal gyri, the anterior cingulum, thalamus, putamen and occipital areas. Comparing sexes, women showed increased activation in the inferior frontal gyrus in the verbal dual-task while men demonstrated increased activation in the precuneus and adjacent visual areas in the spatial task. Conclusion Against the background of equal cognitive and behavioral dual-task performance in both sexes, we provide first evidence for sex-related activation differences in functional networks for verbal and spatial dual-tasking. PMID:28759619

FMRI to probe sex-related differences in brain function with multitasking.

PubMed

Tschernegg, Melanie; Neuper, Christa; Schmidt, Reinhold; Wood, Guilherme; Kronbichler, Martin; Fazekas, Franz; Enzinger, Christian; Koini, Marisa

2017-01-01

Although established as a general notion in society, there is no solid scientific foundation for the existence of sex-differences in multitasking. Reaction time and accuracy in dual task conditions have an inverse relationship relative to single task, independently from sex. While a more disseminated network, parallel to decreasing accuracy and reaction time has been demonstrated in dual task fMRI studies, little is known so far whether there exist respective sex-related differences in activation. We subjected 20 women (mean age = 25.45; SD = 5.23) and 20 men (mean age = 27.55; SD = 4.00) to a combined verbal and spatial fMRI paradigm at 3.0T to assess sex-related skills, based on the assumption that generally women better perform in verbal tasks while men do better in spatial tasks. We also obtained behavioral tests for verbal and spatial intelligence, attention, executive functions, and working memory. No differences between women and men were observed in behavioral measures of dual-tasking or cognitive performance. Generally, brain activation increased with higher task load, mainly in the bilateral inferior and prefrontal gyri, the anterior cingulum, thalamus, putamen and occipital areas. Comparing sexes, women showed increased activation in the inferior frontal gyrus in the verbal dual-task while men demonstrated increased activation in the precuneus and adjacent visual areas in the spatial task. Against the background of equal cognitive and behavioral dual-task performance in both sexes, we provide first evidence for sex-related activation differences in functional networks for verbal and spatial dual-tasking.

Working memory delay period activity marks a domain-unspecific attention mechanism.

PubMed

Katus, Tobias; Müller, Matthias M

2016-03-01

Working memory (WM) recruits neural circuits that also perform perception- and action-related functions. Among the functions that are shared between the domains of WM and perception is selective attention, which supports the maintenance of task-relevant information during the retention delay of WM tasks. The tactile contralateral delay activity (tCDA) component of the event-related potential (ERP) marks the attention-based rehearsal of tactile information in somatosensory brain regions. We tested whether the tCDA reflects the competition for shared attention resources between a WM task and a perceptual task under dual-task conditions. The two tasks were always performed on opposite hands. In different blocks, the WM task had higher or lower priority than the perceptual task. The tCDA's polarity consistently reflected the hand where the currently prioritized task was performed. This suggests that the process indexed by the tCDA is not specific to the domain of WM, but mediated by a domain-unspecific attention mechanism. The analysis of transient ERP components evoked by stimuli in the two tasks further supports the interpretation that the tCDA marks a goal-directed bias in the allocation of selective attention. Larger spatially selective modulations were obtained for stimulus material related to the high-, as compared to low-priority, task. While our results generally indicate functional overlap between the domains of WM and perception, we also found evidence suggesting that selection in internal (mnemonic) and external (perceptual) stimulus representations involves processes that are not active during shifts of preparatory attention. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Toward a Comprehensive Understanding of Executive Cognitive Function in Implicit Racial Bias

PubMed Central

Ito, Tiffany A.; Friedman, Naomi P.; Bartholow, Bruce D.; Correll, Joshua; Loersch, Chris; Altamirano, Lee J.; Miyake, Akira

2014-01-01

Although performance on laboratory-based implicit bias tasks often is interpreted strictly in terms of the strength of automatic associations, recent evidence suggests that such tasks are influenced by higher-order cognitive control processes, so-called executive functions (EFs). However, extant work in this area has been limited by failure to account for the unity and diversity of EFs, focus on only a single measure of bias and/or EF, and relatively small sample sizes. The current study sought to comprehensively model the relation between individual differences in EFs and the expression of racial bias in three commonly used laboratory measures. Participants (N=485) completed a battery of EF tasks (session 1) and three racial bias tasks (session 2), along with numerous individual difference questionnaires. The main findings were as follows: (1) measures of implicit bias were only weakly intercorrelated; (2) EF and estimates of automatic processes both predicted implicit bias and also interacted, such that the relation between automatic processes and bias expression was reduced at higher levels of EF; (3) specific facets of EF were differentially associated with overall task performance and controlled processing estimates across different bias tasks; (4) EF did not moderate associations between implicit and explicit measures of bias; and (5) external, but not internal, motivation to control prejudice depended on EF to reduce bias expression. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of global and specific EF abilities in determining expression of implicit racial bias. PMID:25603372

Efficacy of a novel educational curriculum using a simulation laboratory on resident performance of hysteroscopic sterilization.

PubMed

Chudnoff, Scott G; Liu, Connie S; Levie, Mark D; Bernstein, Peter; Banks, Erika H

2010-09-01

To assess whether a novel educational curriculum using a simulation teaching laboratory improves resident knowledge, comfort with, and surgical performance of hysteroscopic sterilization. An educational prospective, pretest/posttest study. The Montefiore Institute of Minimally Invasive Surgery Laboratory. PATIENT(S)/SUBJECT(S): Thirty-four OB/GYN residents in an academic medical center. Hysteroscopic sterilization simulation laboratory and a brief didactic lecture. Differences in scores on validated skill assessment tools: Task specific checklist, Global Rating Scale (GRS), pass fail assessment, and a multiple-choice examination to evaluate knowledge and attitude. In the entire cohort improvements were observed on all evaluation tools after the simulation laboratory, with 31% points (SD+/-11.5, 95% confidence interval [CI] 27.3-35.3) higher score on the written evaluation; 63% points (SD+/-15.7, 95% CI 57.8-68.8) higher score on the task specific checklist; and 54% points (SD+/-13.6, 95% CI 48.8-58.3) higher score on the GRS. Higher PGY status was correlated with better pretest performance, but was not statistically significant in posttest scores. Residents reported an improvement in comfort performing the procedure after the laboratory. Simulation laboratory teaching significantly improved resident knowledge, comfort level, and technical skill performance of hysteroscopic sterilization. Copyright (c) 2010 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A study on the effect of varying sequence of lab performance skills on lab performance of high school physics students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bournia-Petrou, Ethel A.

The main goal of this investigation was to study how student rank in class, student gender and skill sequence affect high school students' performance on the lab skills involved in a laboratory-based inquiry task in physics. The focus of the investigation was the effect of skill sequence as determined by the particular task. The skills considered were: Hypothesis, Procedure, Planning, Data, Graph, Calculations and Conclusion. Three physics lab tasks based on the simple pendulum concept were administered to 282 Regents physics high school students. The reliability of the designed tasks was high. Student performance was evaluated on individual student written responses and a scoring rubric. The tasks had high discrimination power and were of moderate difficulty (65%). It was found that, student performance was weak on Conclusion (42%), Hypothesis (48%), and Procedure (51%), where the numbers in parentheses represent the mean as a percentage of the maximum possible score. Student performance was strong on Calculations (91%), Data (82%), Graph (74%) and Plan (68%). Out of all seven skills, Procedure had the strongest correlation (.73) with the overall task performance. Correlation analysis revealed some strong relationships among the seven skills which were grouped in two distinct clusters: Hypothesis, Procedure and Plan belong to one, and Data, Graph, Calculations, and Conclusion belong to the other. This distinction may indicate different mental processes at play within each skill cluster. The effect of student rank was not statistically significant according to the MANOVA results due to the large variation of rank levels among the participating schools. The effect of gender was significant on the entire test because of performance differences on Calculations and Graph, where male students performed better than female students. Skill sequence had a significant effect on the skills of Procedure, Plan, Data and Conclusion. Students are rather weak in proposing a sensible, detailed procedure for the inquiry task which involves the "novel" concept. However they perform better on Procedure and Plan, if the "novel" task is not preceded by another, which explicitly offers step-by-step procedure instructions. It was concluded that the format of detailed, structured instructions often adopted by many commercial and school-developed lab books and conventional lab practices, fails to prepare students to propose a successful, detailed procedure when faced with a slightly "novel", lab-based inquiry task. Student performance on Data collection was higher in the tasks that involved the more familiar experimental arrangement than in the tasks using the slightly "novel" equipment. Student performance on Conclusion was better in tasks where they had to collect the Data themselves than in tasks, where all relevant Data information was given to them.

Structural invariance of multiple intelligences, based on the level of execution.

PubMed

Almeida, Leandro S; Prieto, María Dolores; Ferreira, Arístides; Ferrando, Mercedes; Ferrandiz, Carmen; Bermejo, Rosario; Hernández, Daniel

2011-11-01

The independence of multiple intelligences (MI) of Gardner's theory has been debated since its conception. This article examines whether the one- factor structure of the MI theory tested in previous studies is invariant for low and high ability students. Two hundred ninety-four children (aged 5 to 7) participated in this study. A set of Gardner's Multiple Intelligence assessment tasks based on the Spectrum Project was used. To analyze the invariance of a general dimension of intelligence, the different models of behaviours were studied in samples of participants with different performance on the Spectrum Project tasks with Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA). Results suggest an absence of structural invariance in Gardner's tasks. Exploratory analyses suggest a three-factor structure for individuals with higher performance levels and a two-factor structure for individuals with lower performance levels.

Effects of and preference for pay for performance: an analogue analysis.

PubMed

Long, Robert D; Wilder, David A; Betz, Alison; Dutta, Ami

2012-01-01

We examined the effects of 2 payment systems on the rate of check processing and time spent on task by participants in a simulated work setting. Three participants experienced individual pay-for-performance (PFP) without base pay and pay-for-time (PFT) conditions. In the last phase, we asked participants to choose which system they preferred. For all participants, the PFP condition produced higher rates of check processing and more time spent on task than did the PFT condition, but choice of payment system varied both within and across participants.

Emotional states, attentional resources, and cognitive activity: a preliminary study.

PubMed

Versace, R; Monteil, J M; Mailhot, L

1993-06-01

This study explored the link between emotional state and attentional resources. A neutral or negative emotional state was induced in 50 subjects, then they performed a path-learning task followed by a word-memorization task while reproducing the prelearned path. Memory performance was assessed on a free-recall test. Analysis indicated that a previous induction of a negative emotional state disrupted path learning. Recall was not significantly affected by the subjects' emotional states, but recall was higher for subjects who had automatized the path prior to memorizing the words.

A comparison of adaptive and adaptable automation under different levels of environmental stress.

PubMed

Sauer, Juergen; Kao, Chung-Shan; Wastell, David

2012-01-01

The effectiveness of different forms of adaptive and adaptable automation was examined under low- and high-stress conditions, in the form of different levels of noise. Thirty-six participants were assigned to one of the three types of variable automation (adaptive event-based, adaptive performance-based and adaptable serving as a control condition). Participants received 3 h of training on a simulation of a highly automated process control task and were subsequently tested during a 4-h session under noise exposure and quiet conditions. The results for performance suggested no clear benefits of one automation control mode over the other two. However, it emerged that participants under adaptable automation adopted a more active system management strategy and reported higher levels of self-confidence than in the two adaptive control modes. Furthermore, the results showed higher levels of perceived workload, fatigue and anxiety for performance-based adaptive automation control than the other two modes. This study compared two forms of adaptive automation (where the automated system flexibly allocates tasks between human and machine) with adaptable automation (where the human allocates the tasks). The adaptable mode showed marginal advantages. This is of relevance, given that this automation mode may also be easier to design.

Effortful semantic decision-making boosts memory performance in older adults.

PubMed

Fu, Li; Maes, Joseph H R; Varma, Samarth; Kessels, Roy P C; Daselaar, Sander M

2017-04-01

A major concern in age-related cognitive decline is episodic memory (EM). Previous studies indicate that both resource and binding deficits contribute to EM decline. Environmental support by task manipulations encouraging stronger cognitive effort and deeper levels of processing may facilitate compensation for these two deficits. To clarify factors that can counteract age-related EM decline, we assessed effects of cognitive effort (four levels) and level of processing (LoP, shallow/deep) during encoding on subsequent retrieval. Young (YAs, N = 23) and older (OAs, N = 23) adults performed two incidental encoding tasks, deep/semantic and shallow/perceptual. Cognitive effort was manipulated by varying decision-making demands. EM performance, indexed by d-prime, was later tested using a recognition task. Results showed that regardless of LoP, increased cognitive effort caused higher d-primes in both age groups. Compared to YAs, OAs showed a lower d-prime after shallow encoding across all cognitive effort levels, and after deep encoding with low cognitive effort. Deep encoding with higher levels of cognitive effort completely eliminated these age differences. Our findings support an environmental-compensatory account of cognitive ageing and can have important therapeutic implications.

Chewing Gum: Cognitive Performance, Mood, Well-Being, and Associated Physiology

PubMed Central

Allen, Andrew P.; Smith, Andrew P.

2015-01-01

Recent evidence has indicated that chewing gum can enhance attention, as well as promoting well-being and work performance. Four studies (two experiments and two intervention studies) examined the robustness of and mechanisms for these effects. Study 1 investigated the acute effect of gum on mood in the absence of task performance. Study 2 examined the effect of rate and force of chewing on mood and attention performance. Study 3 assessed the effects of chewing gum during one working day on well-being and performance, as well as postwork mood and cognitive performance. In Study 4, performance and well-being were reported throughout the workday and at the end of the day, and heart rate and cortisol were measured. Under experimental conditions, gum was associated with higher alertness regardless of whether performance tasks were completed and altered sustained attention. Rate of chewing and subjective force of chewing did not alter mood but had some limited effects on attention. Chewing gum during the workday was associated with higher productivity and fewer cognitive problems, raised cortisol levels in the morning, and did not affect heart rate. The results emphasise that chewing gum can attenuate reductions in alertness, suggesting that chewing gum enhances worker performance. PMID:26075253

Differential long-term effects of haloperidol and risperidone on the acquisition and performance of tasks of spatial working and short-term memory and sustained attention in rats.

PubMed

Hutchings, Elizabeth J; Waller, Jennifer L; Terry, Alvin V

2013-12-01

A common feature of the neuropsychiatric disorders for which antipsychotic drugs are prescribed is cognitive dysfunction, yet the effects of long-term antipsychotic treatment on cognition are largely unknown. In the current study, we evaluated the effects of long-term oral treatment with the first-generation antipsychotic haloperidol (1.0 and 2.0 mg/kg daily) and the second-generation antipsychotic risperidone (1.25 and 2.5 mg/kg daily) on the acquisition and performance of two radial-arm maze (RAM) tasks and a five-choice serial reaction-time task (5C-SRTT) in rats during days 15-60 and 84-320 days of treatment, respectively. In the RAM, neither antipsychotic significantly affected the acquisition or performance of a spatial win shift or a delayed non-match-to-position task. Conversely, in the rats administered 5C-SRTT, haloperidol was associated with profound deficits in performance, and the subjects were not able to progress through all stages of task acquisition. Depending on the dose, risperidone was associated with a greater number of trials to meet specific performance criteria during task acquisition compared with vehicle-treated controls; however, most subjects were eventually able to achieve all levels of task acquisition. Both haloperidol and risperidone also increased the number of perseverative and time-out responses during certain stages of task acquisition, and the response and reward latencies were slightly higher than controls during several stages of the study. These results in rats suggest that while long-term treatment with haloperidol or risperidone may not significantly affect spatial working or short-term memory, both antipsychotics can (depending on dose) impair sustained attention, decrease psychomotor speed, increase compulsive-type behaviors, and impair cognitive flexibility.

Differential Long-Term Effects of Haloperidol and Risperidone on the Acquisition and Performance of Tasks of Spatial Working and Short-Term Memory and Sustained Attention in Rats

PubMed Central

Hutchings, Elizabeth J.; Waller, Jennifer L.

2013-01-01

A common feature of the neuropsychiatric disorders for which antipsychotic drugs are prescribed is cognitive dysfunction, yet the effects of long-term antipsychotic treatment on cognition are largely unknown. In the current study, we evaluated the effects of long-term oral treatment with the first-generation antipsychotic haloperidol (1.0 and 2.0 mg/kg daily) and the second-generation antipsychotic risperidone (1.25 and 2.5 mg/kg daily) on the acquisition and performance of two radial-arm maze (RAM) tasks and a five-choice serial reaction-time task (5C-SRTT) in rats during days 15–60 and 84–320 days of treatment, respectively. In the RAM, neither antipsychotic significantly affected the acquisition or performance of a spatial win shift or a delayed non–match-to-position task. Conversely, in the rats administered 5C-SRTT, haloperidol was associated with profound deficits in performance, and the subjects were not able to progress through all stages of task acquisition. Depending on the dose, risperidone was associated with a greater number of trials to meet specific performance criteria during task acquisition compared with vehicle-treated controls; however, most subjects were eventually able to achieve all levels of task acquisition. Both haloperidol and risperidone also increased the number of perseverative and time-out responses during certain stages of task acquisition, and the response and reward latencies were slightly higher than controls during several stages of the study. These results in rats suggest that while long-term treatment with haloperidol or risperidone may not significantly affect spatial working or short-term memory, both antipsychotics can (depending on dose) impair sustained attention, decrease psychomotor speed, increase compulsive-type behaviors, and impair cognitive flexibility. PMID:24042161

Task complexity modulates pilot electroencephalographic activity during real flights.

PubMed

Di Stasi, Leandro L; Diaz-Piedra, Carolina; Suárez, Juan; McCamy, Michael B; Martinez-Conde, Susana; Roca-Dorda, Joaquín; Catena, Andrés

2015-07-01

Most research connecting task performance and neural activity to date has been conducted in laboratory conditions. Thus, field studies remain scarce, especially in extreme conditions such as during real flights. Here, we investigated the effects of flight procedures of varied complexity on the in-flight EEG activity of military helicopter pilots. Flight procedural complexity modulated the EEG power spectrum: highly demanding procedures (i.e., takeoff and landing) were associated with higher EEG power in the higher frequency bands, whereas less demanding procedures (i.e., flight exercises) were associated with lower EEG power over the same frequency bands. These results suggest that EEG recordings may help to evaluate an operator's cognitive performance in challenging real-life scenarios, and thus could aid in the prevention of catastrophic events. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Can an app help identify psychomotor function impairments during drinking occasions in the real world? A mixed-method pilot study.

PubMed

Suffoletto, Brian; Goyal, Akash; Puyana, Juan Carlos; Chung, Tammy

2017-01-01

Being able to measure the acute effects of alcohol consumption on psychomotor functions in natural settings could be useful in injury prevention interventions. This study examined the feasibility and acceptability of collecting app-based measures of information processing, working memory, and gait stability during times of typical alcohol consumption among young adults. Ten young adults (aged 21-26) with hazardous drinking completed a baseline assessment and ecological momentary assessments (EMA) on 4 consecutive Fridays and Saturdays, every hour from 8 pm to 12 am. EMA assessed alcohol consumption and perceived intoxication, followed by a digit symbol substitution task (DSST), a visuospatial working memory task (VSWMT), and a 5-step tandem gait task (TGT). Exit interviews probed user experiences. Multilevel models explored relationships between estimated blood alcohol concentration (eBAC; mg/dL) and DSST and VSWMT performance. Participants completed 32% of EMA. Higher rates of noninitiation occurred later in the evening and over time. In multilevel models, higher eBAC was associated with lower DSST scores. Eight out of 10 individuals had at least 1 drinking occasion when they did not perceive any intoxication. Lower DSST scores would identify impairment in 45% of these occasions. Exit interviews indicated that adding real-time feedback on task performance could increase awareness of alcohol effects. Collecting app-based psychomotor performance data from young adults during drinking occasions is feasible and acceptable, but strategies to reduce barriers to task initiation are needed. Mobile DSST is sensitive to eBAC levels and could identify occasions when an individual may not perceive impairments.

Age of second language acquisition affects nonverbal conflict processing in children: an fMRI study.

PubMed

Mohades, Seyede Ghazal; Struys, Esli; Van Schuerbeek, Peter; Baeken, Chris; Van De Craen, Piet; Luypaert, Robert

2014-09-01

In their daily communication, bilinguals switch between two languages, a process that involves the selection of a target language and minimization of interference from a nontarget language. Previous studies have uncovered the neural structure in bilinguals and the activation patterns associated with performing verbal conflict tasks. One question that remains, however is whether this extra verbal switching affects brain function during nonverbal conflict tasks. In this study, we have used fMRI to investigate the impact of bilingualism in children performing two nonverbal tasks involving stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response conflicts. Three groups of 8-11-year-old children--bilinguals from birth (2L1), second language learners (L2L), and a control group of monolinguals (1L1)--were scanned while performing a color Simon and a numerical Stroop task. Reaction times and accuracy were logged. Compared to monolingual controls, bilingual children showed higher behavioral congruency effect of these tasks, which is matched by the recruitment of brain regions that are generally used in general cognitive control, language processing or to solve language conflict situations in bilinguals (caudate nucleus, posterior cingulate gyrus, STG, precuneus). Further, the activation of these areas was found to be higher in 2L1 compared to L2L. The coupling of longer reaction times to the recruitment of extra language-related brain areas supports the hypothesis that when dealing with language conflicts the specialization of bilinguals hampers the way they can process with nonverbal conflicts, at least at early stages in life.

Postural control and attentional demand during adolescence.

PubMed

Palluel, Estelle; Nougier, Vincent; Olivier, Isabelle

2010-10-28

In the present study we aimed to determine the attentional cost of postural control during adolescence by studying the influence of a cognitive task on concurrent postural control. 38 teenagers aged 12 to 17years and 13 young adults (mean age=26.1) stood barefoot on a force platform in a semi-tandem position. A dual-task paradigm consisted of performing a Stroop or a COUNTING BACKWARD task while simultaneously standing quietly on a firm or foam support surface. Different centre of pressure (CoP) measures were calculated (90% confidence ellipse area, mean velocity, root mean square on the antero-posterior (AP) and medio-lateral (ML) axes). The number and percentage of correct responses in the cognitive tasks were also recorded. Our results indicate (1) higher values of surface, ML mean velocity and ML RMS in the COUNTING BACKWARD task in adolescents aged 12 to 15 than in teenagers aged 16 to 17 and in adults, regardless of the complexity of the postural task and, (2) better cognitive performances in the Stroop than in the COUNTING BACKWARD task. The difference in the dual-task performance between the different age groups and particularly the existence of a turning point around 14-15years of age might be due to 1) difficulties in properly allocating attentional resources to two simultaneous tasks and/or, 2) the inability to manage increased cognitive requests because of a limited information processing capacity in adolescents aged 14-15years. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Unravelling the influence of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) on cognitive-linguistic processing: a comparative group analysis.

PubMed

Barwood, Caroline H S; Murdoch, Bruce E

2013-06-01

Cognitive-linguistic deficits often accompany traumatic brain injury (TBI) and can negatively impact communicative competency. The linguistic sequelae underpinning mild TBI (MTBI) remain largely unexplored in contemporary literature. The present research methods aim to provide group evidence pertaining to the influence of MTBI on linguistic and higher-level language processing. Extrapolating on the findings of recent case reports, it is hypothesized that performance of the MTBI patients will be significantly reduced compared to normal controls performance on the employed high-level linguistic tasks. Sixteen patients with MTBI and 16 age- and education-matched normal control participants were assessed using a comprehensive battery of cognitive-linguistic assessments. The results demonstrated statistically significant differences between MTBI and normal control group performance across a number of higher-level linguistic, general cognitive and general language tasks. MTBI group performance was significantly lower than the normal control group on tasks requiring complex lexical semantic operations and memory demands, including: Recall, organization, making inferences, naming and perception/discrimination. These outcomes confer that post-MTBI, cognitive, high-level language and isolated general language performance (e.g. naming) is significantly reduced in MTBI patients, compared to normal controls. Furthermore, the detailed cognitive-linguistic profile offered provides a necessary direction for the identification of areas of linguistic decline in MTBI and targets for therapeutic intervention of impaired cognitive-linguistic processes to ultimately improve communicative outcomes in MTBI.

Augmenting team cognition in human-automation teams performing in complex operational environments.

PubMed

Cuevas, Haydee M; Fiore, Stephen M; Caldwell, Barrett S; Strater, Laura

2007-05-01

There is a growing reliance on automation (e.g., intelligent agents, semi-autonomous robotic systems) to effectively execute increasingly cognitively complex tasks. Successful team performance for such tasks has become even more dependent on team cognition, addressing both human-human and human-automation teams. Team cognition can be viewed as the binding mechanism that produces coordinated behavior within experienced teams, emerging from the interplay between each team member's individual cognition and team process behaviors (e.g., coordination, communication). In order to better understand team cognition in human-automation teams, team performance models need to address issues surrounding the effect of human-agent and human-robot interaction on critical team processes such as coordination and communication. Toward this end, we present a preliminary theoretical framework illustrating how the design and implementation of automation technology may influence team cognition and team coordination in complex operational environments. Integrating constructs from organizational and cognitive science, our proposed framework outlines how information exchange and updating between humans and automation technology may affect lower-level (e.g., working memory) and higher-level (e.g., sense making) cognitive processes as well as teams' higher-order "metacognitive" processes (e.g., performance monitoring). Issues surrounding human-automation interaction are discussed and implications are presented within the context of designing automation technology to improve task performance in human-automation teams.

Task Inhibition and Response Inhibition in Older vs. Younger Adults: A Diffusion Model Analysis

PubMed Central

Schuch, Stefanie

2016-01-01

Differences in inhibitory ability between older (64–79 years, N = 24) and younger adults (18–26 years, N = 24) were investigated using a diffusion model analysis. Participants performed a task-switching paradigm that allows assessing n−2 task repetition costs, reflecting inhibitory control on the level of tasks, as well as n−1 response-repetition costs, reflecting inhibitory control on the level of responses. N−2 task repetition costs were of similar size in both age groups. Diffusion model analysis revealed that for both younger and older adults, drift rate parameters were smaller in the inhibition condition relative to the control condition, consistent with the idea that persisting task inhibition slows down response selection. Moreover, there was preliminary evidence for task inhibition effects in threshold separation and non-decision time in the older, but not the younger adults, suggesting that older adults might apply different strategies when dealing with persisting task inhibition. N−1 response-repetition costs in mean RT were larger in older than younger adults, but in mean error rates tended to be larger in younger than older adults. Diffusion-model analysis revealed longer non-decision times in response repetitions than response switches in both age groups, consistent with the idea that motor processes take longer in response repetitions than response switches due to persisting response inhibition of a previously executed response. The data also revealed age-related differences in overall performance: Older adults responded more slowly and more accurately than young adults, which was reflected by a higher threshold separation parameter in diffusion model analysis. Moreover, older adults showed larger non-decision times and higher variability in non-decision time than young adults, possibly reflecting slower and more variable motor processes. In contrast, overall drift rate did not differ between older and younger adults. Taken together, diffusion model analysis revealed differences in overall performance between the age groups, as well as preliminary evidence for age differences in dealing with task inhibition, but no evidence for an inhibitory deficit in older age. PMID:27895599

The effect of environment and task on gait parameters after stroke: A randomized comparison of measurement conditions.

PubMed

Lord, Susan E; Rochester, Lynn; Weatherall, Mark; McPherson, Kathryn M; McNaughton, Harry K

2006-07-01

To assess the effect of environment and a secondary task on gait parameters in community ambulant stroke survivors and to assess the contribution of clinical symptoms to gait performance. A 2x3 randomized factorial design with 2 main factors: task (no task, motor task, cognitive task) and environment (clinic, suburban street, shopping mall). Subjects were assessed in 1 of 3 settings: 2 in the community (a suburban street and shopping mall) and 1 clinical environment. Twenty-seven people with stroke (mean age, 61+/-11.6y; mean time since stroke onset, 45.8+/-34.2mo), living at home, were recruited from community stroke groups and from a local rehabilitation unit. Selection criteria included the following: ability to give informed consent, unilateral first ever or recurrent stroke at least 6 months previously, walking independently in the community, a gait speed between 24 and 50 m/min, Mini-Mental State Examination score of 24 or higher, and no severe comorbidity. Not applicable. Gait speed (in m/min), cadence, and step length were assessed by using an accelerometer with adjustable thresholds. Clinical measures hypothesized to influence gait parameters in community environments were also assessed including fatigue, anxiety and depression, and attentional deficit. Twenty-seven people with a mean baseline gait speed of 42.2+/-5.9 m/min were randomly allocated to 1 of 9 conditions in which the setting and distraction were manipulated. Analysis of variance showed a significant main effect for environment (P = .046) but not for task (P = .37). The interaction between task and environment was not significant (P = .73). Adjusting for baseline gait speed, people walked on average 8.8m/min faster in the clinic (95% confidence interval, 0.3-17.3m/min) than in the mall. Scores for fatigue, anxiety and depression, and attentional deficit were higher than normative values but did not influence gait performance. This study suggests that people with chronic stroke cope well with the challenges of varied environments and can maintain their gait speed while performing a secondary task. Despite moderate levels of gait impairment, gait automaticity may be restored over time to a functional level.

Between Domain Cognitive Dispersion and Functional Abilities in Older Adults

PubMed Central

Fellows, Robert P.; Schmitter-Edgecombe, Maureen

2016-01-01

Objective Within-person variability in cognitive performance is related to neurological integrity, but the association with functional abilities is less clear. The primary aim of this study was to examine the association between cognitive dispersion, or within-person variability, and everyday multitasking and the way in which these variables may influence performance on a naturalistic assessment of functional abilities. Method Participants were 156 community-dwelling adults, age 50 or older. Cognitive dispersion was calculated by measuring within-person variability in cognitive domains, established through principal components analysis. Path analysis was used to determine the independent contribution of cognitive dispersion to functional ability, mediated by multitasking. Results Results of the path analysis revealed that the number of subtasks interweaved (i.e., multitasked) mediated the association between cognitive dispersion and task sequencing and accuracy. Although increased multitasking was associated with worse task performance in the path model, secondary analyses revealed that for individuals with low cognitive dispersion, increased multitasking was associated with better task performance, whereas for those with higher levels of dispersion multitasking was negatively correlated with task performance. Conclusion These results suggest that cognitive dispersion between domains may be a useful indicator of multitasking and daily living skills among older adults. PMID:26300441

An Analysis of the Effects of Smartphone Push Notifications on Task Performance with regard to Smartphone Overuse Using ERP

PubMed Central

Kim, Seul-Kee; Kim, So-Yeong; Kang, Hang-Bong

2016-01-01

Smartphones are used ubiquitously worldwide and are essential tools in modern society. However, smartphone overuse is an emerging social issue, and limited studies have objectively assessed this matter. The majority of previous studies have included surveys or behavioral observation studies. Since a previous study demonstrated an association between increased push notifications and smartphone overuse, we investigated the effects of push notifications on task performance. We detected changes in brainwaves generated by smartphone push notifications using the N200 and P300 components of event-related potential (ERP) to investigate both concentration and cognitive ability. ERP assessment indicated that, in both risk and nonrisk groups, the lowest N200 amplitude and the longest latency during task performance were found when push notifications were delivered. Compared to the nonrisk group, the risk group demonstrated lower P300 amplitudes and longer latencies. In addition, the risk group featured a higher rate of error in the Go-Nogo task, due to the negative influence of smartphone push notifications on performance in both risk and nonrisk groups. Furthermore, push notifications affected subsequent performance in the risk group. PMID:27366147

An Analysis of the Effects of Smartphone Push Notifications on Task Performance with regard to Smartphone Overuse Using ERP.

PubMed

Kim, Seul-Kee; Kim, So-Yeong; Kang, Hang-Bong

2016-01-01

Smartphones are used ubiquitously worldwide and are essential tools in modern society. However, smartphone overuse is an emerging social issue, and limited studies have objectively assessed this matter. The majority of previous studies have included surveys or behavioral observation studies. Since a previous study demonstrated an association between increased push notifications and smartphone overuse, we investigated the effects of push notifications on task performance. We detected changes in brainwaves generated by smartphone push notifications using the N200 and P300 components of event-related potential (ERP) to investigate both concentration and cognitive ability. ERP assessment indicated that, in both risk and nonrisk groups, the lowest N200 amplitude and the longest latency during task performance were found when push notifications were delivered. Compared to the nonrisk group, the risk group demonstrated lower P300 amplitudes and longer latencies. In addition, the risk group featured a higher rate of error in the Go-Nogo task, due to the negative influence of smartphone push notifications on performance in both risk and nonrisk groups. Furthermore, push notifications affected subsequent performance in the risk group.

The Effect of Information Analysis Automation Display Content on Human Judgment Performance in Noisy Environments.

PubMed

Bass, Ellen J; Baumgart, Leigh A; Shepley, Kathryn Klein

2013-03-01

Displaying both the strategy that information analysis automation employs to makes its judgments and variability in the task environment may improve human judgment performance, especially in cases where this variability impacts the judgment performance of the information analysis automation. This work investigated the contribution of providing either information analysis automation strategy information, task environment information, or both, on human judgment performance in a domain where noisy sensor data are used by both the human and the information analysis automation to make judgments. In a simplified air traffic conflict prediction experiment, 32 participants made probability of horizontal conflict judgments under different display content conditions. After being exposed to the information analysis automation, judgment achievement significantly improved for all participants as compared to judgments without any of the automation's information. Participants provided with additional display content pertaining to cue variability in the task environment had significantly higher aided judgment achievement compared to those provided with only the automation's judgment of a probability of conflict. When designing information analysis automation for environments where the automation's judgment achievement is impacted by noisy environmental data, it may be beneficial to show additional task environment information to the human judge in order to improve judgment performance.

Working and waiting for better rewards: self-control in two monkey species (Cebus apella and Macaca mulatta).

PubMed

Evans, Theodore A; Perdue, Bonnie M; Parrish, Audrey E; Beran, Michael J

2014-03-01

Self-control is typically defined as choosing a greater, delayed reward over a lesser, more immediate reward. However, in nature, there are other costs besides delay associated with obtaining the greatest outcome including increased effort, potential punishment, and low probability of reward. Effort is an interesting case because it sometimes impairs self-control, by acting as an additional cost, and at other times facilitates self-control, by distracting one from impulsive options. Additionally, different species may perform differently in effortful self-control tasks, based on their natural ecology. To gain insight into these aspects of self-control behavior, we examined capuchin monkeys' and rhesus monkeys' self-control in separate working and waiting choice tasks. We hypothesized that capuchins would show greater self-control in the working task, given their naturally higher activity level, whereas rhesus would perform similarly in both tasks. Rhesus performed as predicted, whereas contrary to our hypothesis, capuchins exhibited lesser performance in the working task. Nonetheless, these results may still stem from inherent species differences interacting with details of the methodology. Capuchins, being highly energetic and social monkeys, may have divided their energy and attention between the working task and other elements of the test environment such as visible group mates or manipulanda. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Performance of women with fibromyalgia in walking up stairs while carrying a load

PubMed Central

Adsuar, José C.; Olivares, Pedro R.; Dominguez-Muñoz, Francisco J.; Maestre-Cascales, Cristina; Gusi, Narcis

2016-01-01

Background. Fibromyalgia is a chronic disease characterized by widespread pain and other associated symptoms. It has a relevant impact on physical fitness and the ability to perform daily living tasks. The objective of the study was to analyze the step-by-step-performance and the trunk tilt of women with fibromyalgia in the 10-step stair climbing test compared with healthy controls. Methods. A cross-sectional study was carried out. Twelve women suffering from fibromyalgia and eight healthy controls were recruited from a local association. Participants were asked to climb 10 stairs without carrying a load and 10 stairs carrying a load of 5 kg in each hand. Mediolateral trunk tilt was assessed using the “Functional Assessment of Biomechanics (FAB)” wireless motion capture device, and the time between steps was assessed via weight-bearing insoles. Results. Trunk tilt in the stair-climbing task carrying a load was significantly higher in women with fibromyalgia when compared to the healthy controls (2.31 (0.63) vs. 1.69 (0.51) respectively). The effect of carrying a load was significantly higher for women with fibromyalgia compared with healthy controls at the intermediate and final part of the task. Discussion. Trunk tilt during stair climbing while carrying a load was higher in women with FM, which could increase the risk of falling. Additionally, women with FM experienced a higher pace slowdown as a consequence of the load, which supports the need of including specific strength and resistance training to physical therapies for this population. PMID:26855878

Dietary fiber is positively associated with cognitive control among prepubertal children.

PubMed

Khan, Naiman A; Raine, Lauren B; Drollette, Eric S; Scudder, Mark R; Kramer, Arthur F; Hillman, Charles H

2015-01-01

Converging evidence now indicates that aerobic fitness and adiposity are key correlates of childhood cognitive function and brain health. However, the evidence relating dietary intake to executive function/cognitive control remains limited. The current study assessed cross-sectional associations between performance on an attentional inhibition task and dietary fatty acids (FAs), fiber, and overall diet quality among children aged 7-9 y (n = 65). Attentional inhibition was assessed by using a modified flanker task. Three-day food records were used to conduct nutrient-level analyses and to calculate diet quality (Healthy Eating Index-2005) scores. Bivariate correlations revealed that socioeconomic status and sex were not related to task performance or diet measures. However, age, intelligence quotient (IQ), pubertal staging, maximal oxygen uptake (V̇O2max), and percentage of fat mass (%fat mass) correlated with task accuracy. Hierarchical regression models were used to determine the relation between diet variables and task accuracy and reaction time across both congruent and incongruent trials of the flanker task. After adjustment of confounding variables (age, IQ, pubertal staging, V̇O2max, and %fat mass), congruent accuracy was positively associated with insoluble fiber (β = 0.26, P = 0.03) and total dietary fiber (β = 0.23, P = 0.05). Incongruent response accuracy was positively associated with insoluble fiber (β = 0.35, P < 0.01), pectins (β = 0.25, P = 0.04), and total dietary fiber (β = 0.32, P < 0.01). Higher diet quality was related to lower accuracy interference (β = -0.26, P = 0.03), whereas higher total FA intake was related to greater accuracy interference (β = 0.24, P = 0.04). No statistically significant associations were observed between diet variables and reaction time measures. These results demonstrate that children's diet quality, specifically dietary fiber, is an important correlate of performance on a cognitive task requiring variable amounts of cognitive control. © 2015 American Society for Nutrition.

Dietary Fiber Is Positively Associated with Cognitive Control among Prepubertal Children12

PubMed Central

Khan, Naiman A; Raine, Lauren B; Drollette, Eric S; Scudder, Mark R; Kramer, Arthur F; Hillman, Charles H

2015-01-01

Background: Converging evidence now indicates that aerobic fitness and adiposity are key correlates of childhood cognitive function and brain health. However, the evidence relating dietary intake to executive function/cognitive control remains limited. Objective: The current study assessed cross-sectional associations between performance on an attentional inhibition task and dietary fatty acids (FAs), fiber, and overall diet quality among children aged 7–9 y (n = 65). Methods: Attentional inhibition was assessed by using a modified flanker task. Three-day food records were used to conduct nutrient-level analyses and to calculate diet quality (Healthy Eating Index–2005) scores. Results: Bivariate correlations revealed that socioeconomic status and sex were not related to task performance or diet measures. However, age, intelligence quotient (IQ), pubertal staging, maximal oxygen uptake (V̇O2max), and percentage of fat mass (%fat mass) correlated with task accuracy. Hierarchical regression models were used to determine the relation between diet variables and task accuracy and reaction time across both congruent and incongruent trials of the flanker task. After adjustment of confounding variables (age, IQ, pubertal staging, V̇O2max, and %fat mass), congruent accuracy was positively associated with insoluble fiber (β = 0.26, P = 0.03) and total dietary fiber (β = 0.23, P = 0.05). Incongruent response accuracy was positively associated with insoluble fiber (β = 0.35, P < 0.01), pectins (β = 0.25, P = 0.04), and total dietary fiber (β = 0.32, P < 0.01). Higher diet quality was related to lower accuracy interference (β = −0.26, P = 0.03), whereas higher total FA intake was related to greater accuracy interference (β = 0.24, P = 0.04). No statistically significant associations were observed between diet variables and reaction time measures. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that children’s diet quality, specifically dietary fiber, is an important correlate of performance on a cognitive task requiring variable amounts of cognitive control. PMID:25527669

Characterization of a normal control group: are they healthy?

PubMed

Aine, C J; Sanfratello, L; Adair, J C; Knoefel, J E; Qualls, C; Lundy, S L; Caprihan, A; Stone, D; Stephen, J M

2014-01-01

We examined the health of a control group (18-81years) in our aging study, which is similar to control groups used in other neuroimaging studies. The current study was motivated by our previous results showing that one third of the elder control group had moderate to severe white matter hyperintensities and/or cortical volume loss which correlated with poor performance on memory tasks. Therefore, we predicted that cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., hypertension, high cholesterol) within the control group would account for significant variance on working memory task performance. Fifty-five participants completed 4 verbal and spatial working memory tasks, neuropsychological exams, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and blood tests to assess vascular risk. In addition to using a repeated measures ANOVA design, a cluster analysis was applied to the vascular risk measures as a data reduction step to characterize relationships between conjoint risk factors. The cluster groupings were used to predict working memory performance. The results show that higher levels of systolic blood pressure were associated with: 1) poor spatial working memory accuracy; and 2) lower fractional anisotropy (FA) values in multiple brain regions. In contrast, higher levels of total cholesterol corresponded with increased accuracy in verbal working memory. An association between lower FA values and higher cholesterol levels were identified in different brain regions from those associated with systolic blood pressure. The conjoint risk analysis revealed that Risk Cluster Group 3 (the group with the greatest number of risk factors) displayed: 1) the poorest performance on the spatial working memory tasks; 2) the longest reaction times across both spatial and verbal memory tasks; and 3) the lowest FA values across widespread brain regions. Our results confirm that a considerable range of vascular risk factors are present in a typical control group, even in younger individuals, which have robust effects on brain anatomy and function. These results present a new challenge to neuroimaging studies both for defining a cohort from which to characterize 'normative' brain circuitry and for establishing a control group to compare with other clinical populations. © 2013.

Individual differences in implicit motor learning: task specificity in sensorimotor adaptation and sequence learning

PubMed Central

Raza, Meher; Ivry, Richard B.

2016-01-01

In standard taxonomies, motor skills are typically treated as representative of implicit or procedural memory. We examined two emblematic tasks of implicit motor learning, sensorimotor adaptation and sequence learning, asking whether individual differences in learning are correlated between these tasks, as well as how individual differences within each task are related to different performance variables. As a prerequisite, it was essential to establish the reliability of learning measures for each task. Participants were tested twice on a visuomotor adaptation task and on a sequence learning task, either the serial reaction time task or the alternating reaction time task. Learning was evident in all tasks at the group level and reliable at the individual level in visuomotor adaptation and the alternating reaction time task but not in the serial reaction time task. Performance variability was predictive of learning in both domains, yet the relationship was in the opposite direction for adaptation and sequence learning. For the former, faster learning was associated with lower variability, consistent with models of sensorimotor adaptation in which learning rates are sensitive to noise. For the latter, greater learning was associated with higher variability and slower reaction times, factors that may facilitate the spread of activation required to form predictive, sequential associations. Interestingly, learning measures of the different tasks were not correlated. Together, these results oppose a shared process for implicit learning in sensorimotor adaptation and sequence learning and provide insight into the factors that account for individual differences in learning within each task domain. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We investigated individual differences in the ability to implicitly learn motor skills. As a prerequisite, we assessed whether individual differences were reliable across test sessions. We found that two commonly used tasks of implicit learning, visuomotor adaptation and the alternating serial reaction time task, exhibited good test-retest reliability in measures of learning and performance. However, the learning measures did not correlate between the two tasks, arguing against a shared process for implicit motor learning. PMID:27832611

Avoiding boredom: Caudate and insula activity reflects boredom-elicited purchase bias.

PubMed

Dal Mas, Dennis E; Wittmann, Bianca C

2017-07-01

People show a strong tendency to avoid boring situations, but the neural systems mediating this behavioural bias are yet unknown. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the anticipation of a boring task influences decisions to purchase entertainment. Participants accepted higher prices to avoid boredom compared to control tasks, and individual differences in boredom experience predicted the increase in price. This behavioural bias was associated with higher activity in the caudate nucleus during music purchases driven by boredom avoidance. Insula activation was increased during performance of the boring task and subsequently associated with individual differences in boredom-related decision making. These results identify a mechanism that drives decisions to avoid boring situations and potentially underlies consumer decisions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Accommodation in Astigmatic Children During Visual Task Performance

PubMed Central

Harvey, Erin M.; Miller, Joseph M.; Apple, Howard P.; Parashar, Pavan; Twelker, J. Daniel; Crescioni, Mabel; Davis, Amy L.; Leonard-Green, Tina K.; Campus, Irene; Sherrill, Duane L.

2014-01-01

Purpose. To determine the accuracy and stability of accommodation in uncorrected children during visual task performance. Methods. Subjects were second- to seventh-grade children from a highly astigmatic population. Measurements of noncycloplegic right eye spherical equivalent (Mnc) were obtained while uncorrected subjects performed three visual tasks at near (40 cm) and distance (2 m). Tasks included reading sentences with stimulus letter size near acuity threshold and an age-appropriate letter size (high task demands) and viewing a video (low task demand). Repeated measures ANOVA assessed the influence of astigmatism, task demand, and accommodative demand on accuracy (mean Mnc) and variability (mean SD of Mnc) of accommodation. Results. For near and distance analyses, respectively, sample size was 321 and 247, mean age was 10.37 (SD 1.77) and 10.30 (SD 1.74) years, mean cycloplegic M was 0.48 (SD 1.10) and 0.79 diopters (D) (SD 1.00), and mean astigmatism was 0.99 (SD 1.15) and 0.75 D (SD 0.96). Poor accommodative accuracy was associated with high astigmatism, low task demand (video viewing), and high accommodative demand. The negative effect of accommodative demand on accuracy increased with increasing astigmatism, with the poorest accommodative accuracy observed in high astigmats (≥3.00 D) with high accommodative demand/high hyperopia (1.53 D and 2.05 D of underaccommodation for near and distant stimuli, respectively). Accommodative variability was greatest in high astigmats and was uniformly high across task condition. No/low and moderate astigmats showed higher variability for the video task than the reading tasks. Conclusions. Accuracy of accommodation is reduced in uncorrected children with high astigmatism and high accommodative demand/high hyperopia, but improves with increased visual task demand (reading). High astigmats showed the greatest variability in accommodation. PMID:25103265

Dementia alters standing postural adaptation during a visual search task in older adult men.

PubMed

Jor'dan, Azizah J; McCarten, J Riley; Rottunda, Susan; Stoffregen, Thomas A; Manor, Brad; Wade, Michael G

2015-04-23

This study investigated the effects of dementia on standing postural adaptation during performance of a visual search task. We recruited 16 older adults with dementia and 15 without dementia. Postural sway was assessed by recording medial-lateral (ML) and anterior-posterior (AP) center-of-pressure when standing with and without a visual search task; i.e., counting target letter frequency within a block of displayed randomized letters. ML sway variability was significantly higher in those with dementia during visual search as compared to those without dementia and compared to both groups during the control condition. AP sway variability was significantly greater in those with dementia as compared to those without dementia, irrespective of task condition. In the ML direction, the absolute and percent change in sway variability between the control condition and visual search (i.e., postural adaptation) was greater in those with dementia as compared to those without. In contrast, postural adaptation to visual search was similar between groups in the AP direction. As compared to those without dementia, those with dementia identified fewer letters on the visual task. In the non-dementia group only, greater increases in postural adaptation in both the ML and AP direction, correlated with lower performance on the visual task. The observed relationship between postural adaptation during the visual search task and visual search task performance--in the non-dementia group only--suggests a critical link between perception and action. Dementia reduces the capacity to perform a visual-based task while standing and thus, appears to disrupt this perception-action synergy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effects of gamelike features and test location on cognitive test performance and participant enjoyment

PubMed Central

Skinner, Andy; Woods, Andy T.; Lawrence, Natalia S.; Munafò, Marcus

2016-01-01

Computerised cognitive assessments are a vital tool in the behavioural sciences, but participants often view them as effortful and unengaging. One potential solution is to add gamelike elements to these tasks in order to make them more intrinsically enjoyable, and some researchers have posited that a more engaging task might produce higher quality data. This assumption, however, remains largely untested. We investigated the effects of gamelike features and test location on the data and enjoyment ratings from a simple cognitive task. We tested three gamified variants of the Go-No-Go task, delivered both in the laboratory and online. In the first version of the task participants were rewarded with points for performing optimally. The second version of the task was framed as a cowboy shootout. The third version was a standard Go-No-Go task, used as a control condition. We compared reaction time, accuracy and subjective measures of enjoyment and engagement between task variants and study location. We found points to be a highly suitable game mechanic for gamified cognitive testing because they did not disrupt the validity of the data collected but increased participant enjoyment. However, we found no evidence that gamelike features could increase engagement to the point where participant performance improved. We also found that while participants enjoyed the cowboy themed task, the difficulty of categorising the gamelike stimuli adversely affected participant performance, increasing No-Go error rates by 28% compared to the non-game control. Responses collected online vs. in the laboratory had slightly longer reaction times but were otherwise very similar, supporting other findings that online crowdsourcing is an acceptable method of data collection for this type of research. PMID:27441120

Factors influencing the academic motivation of individual college students.

PubMed

Yoshida, Masahiro; Tanaka, Masaaki; Mizuno, Kei; Ishii, Akira; Nozaki, Kumi; Urakawa, Ayako; Cho, Yuki; Kataoka, Yosky; Watanabe, Yasuyoshi

2008-10-01

Motivation is an important psychological concept in academic learning. Subjects performed jigsaw puzzle and square puzzle sessions (as difficulty variant task) and 80%, 50%, and 20% completion sessions (as completion variant task). After square puzzle or 20% completion sessions, subjective motivation decreased. Although baseline scores on an academic motivation scale were negatively correlated with changes in subjective motivation for the square puzzle session, a positive correlation was observed for the 20% completion session. These suggest that while continual completion of facile task trials may support the motivation of college students with lower academic motivation, attempting difficult task trials may sustain that of those with higher academic motivation.

Competition between frontoparietal control and default networks supports social working memory and empathy

PubMed Central

Xin, Fei

2015-01-01

An extensive body of literature has indicated that there is increased activity in the frontoparietal control network (FPC) and decreased activity in the default mode network (DMN) during working memory (WM) tasks. The FPC and DMN operate in a competitive relationship during tasks requiring externally directed attention. However, the association between this FPC-DMN competition and performance in social WM tasks has rarely been reported in previous studies. To investigate this question, we measured FPC-DMN connectivity during resting state and two emotional face recognition WM tasks using the 2-back paradigm. Thirty-four individuals were instructed to perform the tasks based on either the expression [emotion (EMO)] or the identity (ID) of the same set of face stimuli. Consistent with previous studies, an increased anti-correlation between the FPC and DMN was observed during both tasks relative to the resting state. Specifically, this anti-correlation during the EMO task was stronger than during the ID task, as the former has a higher social load. Intriguingly, individual differences in self-reported empathy were significantly correlated with the FPC-DMN anti-correlation in the EMO task. These results indicate that the top-down signals from the FPC suppress the DMN to support social WM and empathy. PMID:25556209

The persistence of thought: evidence for a role of working memory in the maintenance of task-unrelated thinking.

PubMed

Levinson, Daniel B; Smallwood, Jonathan; Davidson, Richard J

2012-04-01

Tasks that tax working memory (WM) have consistently been found to decrease mind wandering. These findings may indicate that maintenance of mind wandering requires WM resources, such that mind wandering cannot persist when WM resources are being consumed by a task. An alternative explanation for these findings, however, is that mind wandering persists without the support of WM but is nonetheless decreased during any demanding task because good task performance requires that attention be restricted from task-unrelated thought (TUT). The present study tested these two competing theories by investigating whether individuals with greater WM resources mind-wander more during an undemanding task, as would be predicted only by the theory that WM supports TUT. We found that individuals with higher WM capacity reported more TUT in undemanding tasks, which suggests that WM enables the maintenance of mind wandering.

What makes a 'good group'? Exploring the characteristics and performance of undergraduate student groups.

PubMed

Channon, S B; Davis, R C; Goode, N T; May, S A

2017-03-01

Group work forms the foundation for much of student learning within higher education, and has many educational, social and professional benefits. This study aimed to explore the determinants of success or failure for undergraduate student teams and to define a 'good group' through considering three aspects of group success: the task, the individuals, and the team. We employed a mixed methodology, combining demographic data with qualitative observations and task and peer evaluation scores. We determined associations between group dynamic and behaviour, demographic composition, member personalities and attitudes towards one another, and task success. We also employed a cluster analysis to create a model outlining the attributes of a good small group learning team in veterinary education. This model highlights that student groups differ in measures of their effectiveness as teams, independent of their task performance. On the basis of this, we suggest that groups who achieve high marks in tasks cannot be assumed to have acquired team working skills, and therefore if these are important as a learning outcome, they must be assessed directly alongside the task output.

Is set shifting really impaired in trait anxiety? Only when switching away from an effortfully established task set.

PubMed

Gustavson, Daniel E; Altamirano, Lee J; Johnson, Daniel P; Whisman, Mark A; Miyake, Akira

2017-02-01

The current study investigated whether trait anxiety was systematically related to task-set shifting performance, using a task-switching paradigm in which 1 task was more attentionally demanding than the other. Specifically, taking advantage of a well-established phenomenon known as asymmetric switch costs, we tested the hypothesis that the association between trait anxiety and task-set shifting is most clearly observed when individuals must switch away from a more attentionally demanding task for which it was necessary to effortfully establish an appropriate task set. Ninety-one young adults completed an asymmetric switching task and trait-level mood questionnaires. Results indicated that higher levels of trait anxiety were systematically associated with greater asymmetry in reaction time (RT) switch costs. Specifically, the RT costs for switching from the more attentionally demanding task to the less demanding task were significantly greater with higher levels of trait anxiety, whereas the RT costs for switching in the opposite direction were not significantly associated with trait anxiety levels. Further analyses indicated that these associations were not attributable to comorbid dysphoria or worry. These results suggest that levels of trait anxiety may not be related to general set-shifting ability per se, but, rather, that anxiety-specific effects may primarily be restricted to when one must efficiently switch away from (or let go of) an effortfully established task set. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Management by Professors: A Proposal

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wasser, Henry

1977-01-01

Mass higher education calls for new management style and structure: administration should not be separate from faculty and students. Professors with administrative qualities should perform administrative tasks in the contemporary university. (Author/LBH)

Video game players show higher performance but no difference in speed of attention shifts.

PubMed

Mack, David J; Wiesmann, Helene; Ilg, Uwe J

2016-09-01

Video games have become both a widespread leisure activity and a substantial field of research. In a variety of tasks, video game players (VGPs) perform better than non-video game players (NVGPs). This difference is most likely explained by an alteration of the basic mechanisms underlying visuospatial attention. More specifically, the present study hypothesizes that VGPs are able to shift attention faster than NVGPs. Such alterations in attention cannot be disentangled from changes in stimulus-response mappings in reaction time based measurements. Therefore, we used a spatial cueing task with varying cue lead times (CLTs) to investigate the speed of covert attention shifts of 98 male participants divided into 36 NVGPs and 62 VGPs based on their weekly gaming time. VGPs exhibited higher peak and mean performance than NVGPs. However, we did not find any differences in the speed of covert attention shifts as measured by the CLT needed to achieve peak performance. Thus, our results clearly rule out faster stimulus-response mappings as an explanation for the higher performance of VGPs in line with previous studies. More importantly, our data do not support the notion of faster attention shifts in VGPs as another possible explanation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Self-Relevant Disgust and Self-Harm Urges in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder and Depression: A Pilot Study with a Newly Designed Psychological Challenge

PubMed Central

Abdul-Hamid, Sawsan; Denman, Chess; Dudas, Robert B.

2014-01-01

Background Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a common psychiatric condition associated with self-harm. Self-harm is poorly understood and there is currently no treatment for acute presentations with self-harm urges. Objectives By using a new task (Self-relevant Task; SRT), to explore emotions related to one's own person (PERSON task) and body (BODY task), to study the correlations of these emotions, specifically disgust, with self-harm urge level changes, and to test the task's potential to be developed into an experimental model of self-harming for treatment trials. Methods 17 BPD patients, 27 major depressive disorder (MDD) patients, and 25 healthy volunteers performed the SRT. Emotion labels were extracted from task narratives and disgust and self-harm urge level changes measured by visual analogue scales. We used validated rating scales to measure symptom severity. Results The SRT was effective at inducing negative emotions and self-harm urge changes. Self-harm urge changes correlated with borderline symptom severity. Post-task disgust levels on the visual analogue scales were higher in BPD patients than in healthy controls in the PERSON task, and higher than in both control groups in the BODY task. Changes in disgust levels during the task were significantly greater in the patient groups. Post-task disgust levels or changes in disgust were not associated with self-harm urge changes (except the latter in MDD in the PERSON task), but self-harm urge changes and disgust (but no other emotion) narrative labels were on a whole sample level. Conclusion Although associations with the analogue scale measures were not significant, self-disgust reported in the narrative of patients may be associated with a higher probability of self-harm urges. Further research with larger sample sizes is needed to confirm this relationship and to examine whether reducing self-disgust could reduce self-harm urges. The SRT was effective and safe, and could be standardized for experimental studies. PMID:24956153

Comparison of User Performance with Interactive and Static 3d Visualization - Pilot Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Herman, L.; Stachoň, Z.

2016-06-01

Interactive 3D visualizations of spatial data are currently available and popular through various applications such as Google Earth, ArcScene, etc. Several scientific studies have focused on user performance with 3D visualization, but static perspective views are used as stimuli in most of the studies. The main objective of this paper is to try to identify potential differences in user performance with static perspective views and interactive visualizations. This research is an exploratory study. An experiment was designed as a between-subject study and a customized testing tool based on open web technologies was used for the experiment. The testing set consists of an initial questionnaire, a training task and four experimental tasks. Selection of the highest point and determination of visibility from the top of a mountain were used as the experimental tasks. Speed and accuracy of each task performance of participants were recorded. The movement and actions in the virtual environment were also recorded within the interactive variant. The results show that participants deal with the tasks faster when using static visualization. The average error rate was also higher in the static variant. The findings from this pilot study will be used for further testing, especially for formulating of hypotheses and designing of subsequent experiments.

Effects of Field of View and Visual Complexity on Virtual Reality Training Effectiveness for a Visual Scanning Task

DOE PAGES

Ragan, Eric D.; Bowman, Doug A.; Kopper, Regis; ...

2015-02-13

Virtual reality training systems are commonly used in a variety of domains, and it is important to understand how the realism of a training simulation influences training effectiveness. The paper presents a framework for evaluating the effects of virtual reality fidelity based on an analysis of a simulation’s display, interaction, and scenario components. Following this framework, we conducted a controlled experiment to test the effects of fidelity on training effectiveness for a visual scanning task. The experiment varied the levels of field of view and visual realism during a training phase and then evaluated scanning performance with the simulator’s highestmore » level of fidelity. To assess scanning performance, we measured target detection and adherence to a prescribed strategy. The results show that both field of view and visual realism significantly affected target detection during training; higher field of view led to better performance and higher visual realism worsened performance. Additionally, the level of visual realism during training significantly affected learning of the prescribed visual scanning strategy, providing evidence that high visual realism was important for learning the technique. The results also demonstrate that task performance during training was not always a sufficient measure of mastery of an instructed technique. That is, if learning a prescribed strategy or skill is the goal of a training exercise, performance in a simulation may not be an appropriate indicator of effectiveness outside of training—evaluation in a more realistic setting may be necessary.« less

Quantifying tasks, ergonomic exposures and injury rates among school custodial workers.

PubMed

Village, J; Koehoorn, M; Hossain, S; Ostry, A

2009-06-01

A job exposure matrix of ergonomics risk factors was constructed for school custodial workers in one large school district in the province of British Columbia using 100 h of 1-min fixed-interval observations, participatory worker consensus on task durations and existing employment and school characteristic data. Significant differences in ergonomics risk factors were found by tasks and occupations. Cleaning and moving furniture, handling garbage, cleaning washrooms and cleaning floors were associated with the most physical risks and the exposure was often higher during the summer vs. the school year. Injury rates over a 4-year period showed the custodian injury rate was four times higher than the overall injury rate across all occupations in the school district. Injury rates were significantly higher in the school year compared with summer (12.2 vs. 7.0 per 100 full-time equivalents per year, p < 0.05). Custodial workers represent a considerable proportion of the labour force and have high injury rates, yet ergonomic studies are disproportionately few. Previous studies that quantified risk factors in custodial workers tended to focus on a few tasks or specific risk factors. This study, using participatory ergonomics and observational methods, systematically quantifies the broad range of musculoskeletal risk factors across multiple tasks performed by custodial workers in schools, adding considerably to the methodological literature.

The Contribution of Increased Gamma Band Connectivity to Visual Non-Verbal Reasoning in Autistic Children: A MEG Study

PubMed Central

Takesaki, Natsumi; Kikuchi, Mitsuru; Yoshimura, Yuko; Hiraishi, Hirotoshi; Hasegawa, Chiaki; Kaneda, Reizo; Nakatani, Hideo; Takahashi, Tetsuya; Mottron, Laurent; Minabe, Yoshio

2016-01-01

Some individuals with autism spectrum (AS) perform better on visual reasoning tasks than would be predicted by their general cognitive performance. In individuals with AS, mechanisms in the brain’s visual area that underlie visual processing play a more prominent role in visual reasoning tasks than they do in normal individuals. In addition, increased connectivity with the visual area is thought to be one of the neural bases of autistic visual cognitive abilities. However, the contribution of such brain connectivity to visual cognitive abilities is not well understood, particularly in children. In this study, we investigated how functional connectivity between the visual areas and higher-order regions, which is reflected by alpha, beta and gamma band oscillations, contributes to the performance of visual reasoning tasks in typically developing (TD) (n = 18) children and AS children (n = 18). Brain activity was measured using a custom child-sized magneto-encephalograph. Imaginary coherence analysis was used as a proxy to estimate the functional connectivity between the occipital and other areas of the brain. Stronger connectivity from the occipital area, as evidenced by higher imaginary coherence in the gamma band, was associated with higher performance in the AS children only. We observed no significant correlation between the alpha or beta bands imaginary coherence and performance in the both groups. Alpha and beta bands reflect top-down pathways, while gamma band oscillations reflect a bottom-up influence. Therefore, our results suggest that visual reasoning in AS children is at least partially based on an enhanced reliance on visual perception and increased bottom-up connectivity from the visual areas. PMID:27631982

Estradiol concentrations and working memory performance in women of reproductive age.

PubMed

Hampson, Elizabeth; Morley, Erin E

2013-12-01

Estrogen has been proposed to exert a regulatory influence on the working memory system via actions in the female prefrontal cortex. Tests of this hypothesis have been limited almost exclusively to postmenopausal women and pharmacological interventions. We explored whether estradiol discernibly influences working memory within the natural range of variation in concentrations characteristic of the menstrual cycle. The performance of healthy women (n=39) not using hormonal contraceptives, and a control group of age- and education-matched men (n=31), was compared on a spatial working memory task. Cognitive testing was done blind to ovarian status. Women were retrospectively classified into low- or high-estradiol groups based on the results of radioimmunoassays of saliva collected immediately before and after the cognitive testing. Women with higher levels of circulating estradiol made significantly fewer errors on the working memory task than women tested under low estradiol. Pearson's correlations showed that the level of salivary estradiol but not progesterone was correlated inversely with the number of working memory errors produced. Women tested at high levels of circulating estradiol tended to be more accurate than men. Superior performance by the high estradiol group was seen on the working memory task but not on two control tasks, indicating selectivity of the effects. Consistent with previous studies of postmenopausal women, higher levels of circulating estradiol were associated with better working memory performance. These results add further support to the hypothesis that the working memory system is modulated by estradiol in women, and show that the effects can be observed under non-pharmacological conditions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Planetary Patterns. Grade 8 Science, Language Usage. Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP): Resource Library. Public Release Task.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maryland State Dept. of Education. Baltimore. Div. of Planning, Results and Information Management.

One component of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) is the state's performance-based assessments, criterion-referenced tests that require students to apply what they know and can do to solve problems and display other higher-order thinking skills. This document helps parents, teachers, students, and other citizens…

Stress and binge drinking: A toxic combination for the teenage brain.

PubMed

Goldstein, Aaron; Déry, Nicolas; Pilgrim, Malcolm; Ioan, Miruna; Becker, Suzanna

2016-09-01

Young adult university students frequently binge on alcohol and have high stress levels. Based on findings in rodents, we predicted that heavy current alcohol use and elevated stress and depression scores would be associated with deficits on high interference memory tasks, while early onset, prolonged binge patterns would lead to broader cognitive deficits on tests of associative encoding and executive functions. We developed the Concentration Memory Task, a novel computerized version of the Concentration card game with a high degree of interference. We found that young adults with elevated stress, depression, and alcohol consumption scores were impaired in the Concentration Memory Task. We also analyzed data from a previous study, and found that higher alcohol consumption scores were associated with impaired performance on another high interference memory task, based on Kirwan and Stark's Mnemonic Similarity Test. On the other hand, adolescent onset of binge drinking predicted poorer performance on broader range of memory tests, including a more systematic test of spatial recognition memory, and an associative learning task. Our results are broadly consistent with findings in rodents that acute alcohol and stress exposure suppress neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus, which in turn impairs performance in high interference memory tasks, while adolescent onset binge drinking causes more extensive brain damage and cognitive deficits. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effects of monetary and social rewards on task performance in children and adolescents: liking is not enough.

PubMed

Demurie, Ellen; Roeyers, Herbert; Baeyens, Dieter; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund

2012-12-01

The current study compared the effects of reward anticipation on task performance in children and adolescents (8-16 years old) using monetary and various social rewards. Eighty-five typically developing children undertook the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task. Of these 44 also undertook the Social Incentive Delay (SID-basic) task where social reward was operationalized as a smiling face and spoken compliments. Forty-one children participated in the SID-plus where points were added to a pictogram with written compliments. In a preparatory validation study participants were asked howmuch they liked the SID-basic rewards.Results showed that there was an effect of reward size on accuracy and RT in both the MID task and SID-plus, but not SID-basic. Subjective value of the SID-basic rewards was rated higher with hypothesized increasing reward intensity. In conclusion, although the social rewards in SID-basic were liked by children andadolescents in the validation study, they had no effect on the behaviour. Only when points were added (SID-plus), anticipated social reward affected task performance. Thus our results highlight (i) the difference between likeability andreinforcing quality and (ii) the need for a quantifiable element to rewards for themto be reinforcing for children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Single-Incision Transumbilical Surgery (SITUS) versus Single-Port Laparoscopic Surgery and conventional laparoscopic surgery: a prospective randomized comparative study of performance with novices in a dry laboratory.

PubMed

Schoenthaler, Martin; Avcil, Tuba; Sevcenco, Sabina; Nagele, Udo; Hermann, Thomas E W; Kuehhas, Franklin E; Shariat, Shahrokh F; Frankenschmidt, Alexander; Wetterauer, Ulrich; Miernik, Arkadiusz

2015-01-01

To evaluate the Single-Incision Transumbilical Surgery (SITUS) technique as compared to an established laparoendoscopic single-site surgery (LESS) technique (Single-Port Laparoscopic Surgery, SPLS) and conventional laparoscopy (CLS) in a surgical simulator model. Sixty-three medical students without previous laparoscopic experience were randomly assigned to one of the three groups (SITUS, SPLS and CLS). Subjects were asked to perform five standardized tasks of increasing difficulty adopted from the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery curriculum. Statistical evaluation included task completion times and accuracy. Overall performances of all tasks (except precision cutting) were significantly faster and of higher accuracy in the CLS and SITUS groups than in the SPLS group (p = 0.004 to p < 0.001). CLS and SITUS groups alone showed no significant difference in performance times and accuracy measurements for all tasks (p = 0.048 to p = 0.989). SITUS proved to be a simple, but highly effective technique to overcome restrictions of SPLS. In a surgical simulator model, novices were able to achieve task performances comparable to CLS and did significantly better than using a port-assisted LESS technique such as SPLS. The demonstrated advantages of SITUS may be attributed to a preservation of the basic principles of conventional laparoscopy, such as the use of straight instruments and an adequate degree of triangulation.

Heart Rate Response During Mission-Critical Tasks After Space Flight

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Arzeno, Natalia M.; Lee, S. M. C.; Stenger, M. B.; Lawrence, E. L.; Platts, S. H.; Bloomberg, J. J.

2010-01-01

Adaptation to microgravity could impair crewmembers? ability to perform required tasks upon entry into a gravity environment, such as return to Earth, or during extraterrestrial exploration. Historically, data have been collected in a controlled testing environment, but it is unclear whether these physiologic measures result in changes in functional performance. NASA?s Functional Task Test (FTT) aims to investigate whether adaptation to microgravity increases physiologic stress and impairs performance during mission-critical tasks. PURPOSE: To determine whether the well-accepted postflight tachycardia observed during standard laboratory tests also would be observed during simulations of mission-critical tasks during and after recovery from short-duration spaceflight. METHODS: Five astronauts participated in the FTT 30 days before launch, on landing day, and 1, 6, and 30 days after landing. Mean heart rate (HR) was measured during 5 simulations of mission-critical tasks: rising from (1) a chair or (2) recumbent seated position followed by walking through an obstacle course (egress from a space vehicle), (3) translating graduated masses from one location to another (geological sample collection), (4) walking on a treadmill at 6.4 km/h (ambulation on planetary surface), and (5) climbing 40 steps on a passive treadmill ladder (ingress to lander). For tasks 1, 2, 3, and 5, astronauts were encouraged to complete the task as quickly as possible. Time to complete tasks and mean HR during each task were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA and ANCOVA respectively, in which task duration was a covariate. RESULTS: Landing day HR was higher (P < 0.05) than preflight during the upright seat egress (7%+/-3), treadmill walk (13%+/-3) and ladder climb (10%+/-4), and HR remained elevated during the treadmill walk 1 day after landing. During tasks in which HR was not elevated on landing day, task duration was significantly greater on landing day (recumbent seat egress: 25%+/-14 and mass translation: 26%+/-12; P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Elevated HR and increased task duration during postflight simulations of mission-critical tasks is suggestive of spaceflight-induced deconditioning. Following short-duration microgravity missions (< 16 d), work performance may be transiently impaired, but recovery is rapid.

Cognitive Functions in Elite and Sub-Elite Youth Soccer Players Aged 13 to 17 Years.

PubMed

Huijgen, Barbara C H; Leemhuis, Sander; Kok, Niels M; Verburgh, Lot; Oosterlaan, Jaap; Elferink-Gemser, Marije T; Visscher, Chris

2015-01-01

Soccer players are required to anticipate and react continuously in a changing, relatively unpredictable situation in the field. Cognitive functions might be important to be successful in soccer. The current study investigated the relationship between cognitive functions and performance level in elite and sub-elite youth soccer players aged 13-17 years. A total of 47 elite youth soccer players (mean age 15.5 years, SD = 0.9) and 41 sub-elite youth soccer players (mean age 15.2 years, SD = 1.2) performed tasks for "higher-level" cognitive functions measuring working memory (i.e., Visual Memory Span), inhibitory control (i.e., Stop-Signal Task), cognitive flexibility (i.e., Trail Making Test), and metacognition (i.e., Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System Design Fluency Test). "Lower-level" cognitive processes, i.e., reaction time and visuo-perceptual abilities, were also measured with the previous tasks. ANOVA's showed that elite players outscored sub-elite players at the "higher-level" cognitive tasks only, especially on metacognition (p < .05). Using stepwise discriminant analysis, 62.5% of subjects was correctly assigned to one of the groups based on their metacognition, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility performance. Controlling for training hours and academic level, MANCOVA's showed differences in favor of the elite youth soccer players on inhibitory control (p = .001), and cognitive flexibility (p = .042), but not on metacognition (p = .27). No differences were found concerning working memory nor the "lower-level" cognitive processes (p > .05). In conclusion, elite youth soccer players have better inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and especially metacognition than their sub-elite counterparts. However, when training hours are taken into account, differences between elite and sub-elite youth soccer players remain apparent on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility in contrast to metacognition. This highlights the need for longitudinal studies to further investigate the importance of "higher-level" cognitive functions for talent identification, talent development and performance in soccer.

Cognitive Functions in Elite and Sub-Elite Youth Soccer Players Aged 13 to 17 Years

PubMed Central

Huijgen, Barbara C. H.; Leemhuis, Sander; Kok, Niels M.; Verburgh, Lot; Oosterlaan, Jaap; Elferink-Gemser, Marije T.; Visscher, Chris

2015-01-01

Soccer players are required to anticipate and react continuously in a changing, relatively unpredictable situation in the field. Cognitive functions might be important to be successful in soccer. The current study investigated the relationship between cognitive functions and performance level in elite and sub-elite youth soccer players aged 13–17 years. A total of 47 elite youth soccer players (mean age 15.5 years, SD = 0.9) and 41 sub-elite youth soccer players (mean age 15.2 years, SD = 1.2) performed tasks for “higher-level” cognitive functions measuring working memory (i.e., Visual Memory Span), inhibitory control (i.e., Stop-Signal Task), cognitive flexibility (i.e., Trail Making Test), and metacognition (i.e., Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System Design Fluency Test). “Lower-level” cognitive processes, i.e., reaction time and visuo-perceptual abilities, were also measured with the previous tasks. ANOVA’s showed that elite players outscored sub-elite players at the “higher-level” cognitive tasks only, especially on metacognition (p < .05). Using stepwise discriminant analysis, 62.5% of subjects was correctly assigned to one of the groups based on their metacognition, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility performance. Controlling for training hours and academic level, MANCOVA’s showed differences in favor of the elite youth soccer players on inhibitory control (p = .001), and cognitive flexibility (p = .042), but not on metacognition (p = .27). No differences were found concerning working memory nor the “lower-level” cognitive processes (p > .05). In conclusion, elite youth soccer players have better inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and especially metacognition than their sub-elite counterparts. However, when training hours are taken into account, differences between elite and sub-elite youth soccer players remain apparent on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility in contrast to metacognition. This highlights the need for longitudinal studies to further investigate the importance of “higher-level” cognitive functions for talent identification, talent development and performance in soccer. PMID:26657073

A visual processing advantage for young-adolescent deaf observers: Evidence from face and object matching tasks

PubMed Central

Megreya, Ahmed M.; Bindemann, Markus

2017-01-01

It is unresolved whether the permanent auditory deprivation that deaf people experience leads to the enhanced visual processing of faces. The current study explored this question with a matching task in which observers searched for a target face among a concurrent lineup of ten faces. This was compared with a control task in which the same stimuli were presented upside down, to disrupt typical face processing, and an object matching task. A sample of young-adolescent deaf observers performed with higher accuracy than hearing controls across all of these tasks. These results clarify previous findings and provide evidence for a general visual processing advantage in deaf observers rather than a face-specific effect. PMID:28117407

A wrist tendon travel assessment of hand movements associated with industrial repetitive activities.

PubMed

Ugbolue, U Chris; Nicol, Alexander C

2012-01-01

To investigate slow and fast paced industrial activity hand repetitive movements associated with carpal tunnel syndrome where movements are evaluated based on finger and wrist tendon travel measurements. Nine healthy subjects were recruited for the study aged between 23 and 33 years. Participants mimicked an industrial repetitive task by performing the following activities: wrist flexion and extension task, palm open and close task; and pinch task. Each task was performed for a period of 5 minutes at a slow (0.33 Hz) and fast (1 Hz) pace for a duration of 3 minutes and 2 minutes respectively. Tendon displacement produced higher flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS) tendon travel when compared to the flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) tendons. The left hand mean (SD) tendon travel for the FDS tendon and FDP tendon were 11108 (5188) mm and 9244 (4328) mm while the right hand mean tendon travel (SD) for the FDS tendon and FDP tendon were 9225 (3441) mm and 7670 (2856) mm respectively. Of the three tasks mimicking an industrial repetitive activity, the wrist flexion and extension task produced the most tendon travel. The findings may be useful to researchers in classifying the level of strenuous activity in relation to tendon travel.

Planning deficits in polysubstance dependent users: Differential associations with severity of drug use and intelligence.

PubMed

Valls-Serrano, C; Verdejo-García, A; Caracuel, A

2016-05-01

Polysubstance use is associated with alterations in different components of executive functioning such as working memory and response inhibition. Nevertheless, less attention has been given to executive planning skills, which are required to benefit of low structured interventions. This study examines the association between severity of use of cocaine, heroin, alcohol, fluid and crystallized intelligence and planning tasks varying on degree of structure. Data were collected from 60 polysubstance users and 30 healthy controls. Cognitive assessment consisted of three planning tasks with different structure levels: Stockings of Cambridge, Zoo Map test, and Multiple Errands Test. Polysubstance users had significant planning deficits across the three tasks compared to healthy controls. Hierarchical regression models showed that severity of drug use and fluid and crystallized intelligence significantly explained performance in all the planning tasks. However, these associations were higher for low-structured real world tasks. These low-structured tasks also showed a unique association with crystallized but not fluid intelligence. Drug abuse is negatively associated with planning abilities, and intelligence is positively associated with planning performance in real-world tasks. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effects of smartphone multitasking on gait and dynamic balance.

PubMed

Lee, Jeon Hyeong; Lee, Myoung Hee

2018-02-01

[Purpose] This study was performed to analyze the influence of smartphone multitasking on gait and dynamic balance. [Subjects and Methods] The subjects were 19 male and 20 female university students. There were 4 types of gait tasks: General Gait (walking without a task), Task Gait 1 (walking while writing a message), Task Gait 2 (walking while writing a message and listening to music), Task Gait 3 (walking while writing a message and having a conversation). To exclude the learning effect, the order of tasks was randomized. The Zebris FDM-T treadmill system (Zebris Medical GmbH, Germany) was used to measure left and right step length and width, and a 10 m walking test (10MWT) was conducted for gait velocity. In addition, a Timed Up and Go test (TUG) was used to measure dynamic balance. All the tasks were performed 3 times, and the mean of the measured values was analyzed. [Results] There were no statistically significant differences in step length and width. There were statistically significant differences in the 10MWT and TUG tests. [Conclusion] Using a smartphone while walking decreases a person's dynamic balance and walking ability. It is considered that accident rates are higher when using a smartphone.

The Influence of Temporal Resolution Power and Working Memory Capacity on Psychometric Intelligence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Troche, Stefan J.; Rammsayer, Thomas H.

2009-01-01

According to the temporal resolution power (TRP) hypothesis, higher TRP as reflected by better performance on psychophysical timing tasks accounts for faster speed of information processing and increased efficiency of information processing leading to better performance on tests of psychometric intelligence. An alternative explanation of…

Age differences in recall and predicting recall of action events and words.

PubMed

McDonald-Miszczak, L; Hubley, A M; Hultsch, D F

1996-03-01

Age differences in recall and prediction of recall were examined with different memory tasks. We asked 36 younger (19-28 yrs) and 36 older (60-81 yrs) women to provide both global and item-by-item predictions of their recall, and then to recall either (a) Subject Performance Tasks (SPTs), (b) verb-noun word-pairs memorized in list-like fashion (Word-Pairs), or (c) nonsense verb-noun word-pairs (Nonsense-Pairs) over three experimental trials. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that these tasks would vary in relative difficulty and flexibility of encoding. The results indicated that (a) age differences in global predictions (task specific self-efficacy) and recall performance across trials were minimized with SPT as compared with verbal materials, (b) global predictions were higher and more accurate for SPT as compared to verbal materials, and (c) item-by-item predictions were most accurate for materials encoded with the most flexibility (Nonsense Pairs). The results suggest that SPTs may provide some level of environmental support to reduce age differences in performance and task-specific self-efficacy, but that memory monitoring may depend on specific characteristics of the stimuli (i.e., flexibility of encoding) rather than their verbal or nonverbal nature.

The influence of positive vs. negative affect on multitasking.

PubMed

Morgan, Brent; D'Mello, Sidney K

2016-10-01

Considerable research has investigated how affect influences performance on a single task; however, little is known about the role of affect in complex multitasking environments. In this paper, 178 participants multitasked in a synthetic work environment (SYNWORK) consisting of memory, visual monitoring, auditory monitoring, and math tasks. Participants multitasked for a 3-min baseline phase (MT1), following which they were randomly assigned to watch one of three affect-induction videos: positive, neutral, or negative. Participants then resumed multitasking for two additional critical phases (MT2, MT3; 3min each). In MT2, performance of the positive and neutral conditions was statistically equivalent and higher than the negative condition. In MT3, the positive condition performed better than the negative condition, with the neutral condition not significantly different from the other two. The differences in overall multitasking scores were largely driven by errors in the Math task (the most cognitively demanding task) in MT2 and the Memory task in MT3. These findings have implications for how positive and negative affective states influence processing in a cognitively demanding multitasking environment. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

EEG alpha spindles and prolonged brake reaction times during auditory distraction in an on-road driving study.

PubMed

Sonnleitner, Andreas; Treder, Matthias Sebastian; Simon, Michael; Willmann, Sven; Ewald, Arne; Buchner, Axel; Schrauf, Michael

2014-01-01

Driver distraction is responsible for a substantial number of traffic accidents. This paper describes the impact of an auditory secondary task on drivers' mental states during a primary driving task. N=20 participants performed the test procedure in a car following task with repeated forced braking on a non-public test track. Performance measures (provoked reaction time to brake lights) and brain activity (EEG alpha spindles) were analyzed to describe distracted drivers. Further, a classification approach was used to investigate whether alpha spindles can predict drivers' mental states. Results show that reaction times and alpha spindle rate increased with time-on-task. Moreover, brake reaction times and alpha spindle rate were significantly higher while driving with auditory secondary task opposed to driving only. In single-trial classification, a combination of spindle parameters yielded a median classification error of about 8% in discriminating the distracted from the alert driving. Reduced driving performance (i.e., prolonged brake reaction times) during increased cognitive load is assumed to be indicated by EEG alpha spindles, enabling the quantification of driver distraction in experiments on public roads without verbally assessing the drivers' mental states. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Costs of task allocation with local feedback: Effects of colony size and extra workers in social insects and other multi-agent systems.

PubMed

Radeva, Tsvetomira; Dornhaus, Anna; Lynch, Nancy; Nagpal, Radhika; Su, Hsin-Hao

2017-12-01

Adaptive collective systems are common in biology and beyond. Typically, such systems require a task allocation algorithm: a mechanism or rule-set by which individuals select particular roles. Here we study the performance of such task allocation mechanisms measured in terms of the time for individuals to allocate to tasks. We ask: (1) Is task allocation fundamentally difficult, and thus costly? (2) Does the performance of task allocation mechanisms depend on the number of individuals? And (3) what other parameters may affect their efficiency? We use techniques from distributed computing theory to develop a model of a social insect colony, where workers have to be allocated to a set of tasks; however, our model is generalizable to other systems. We show, first, that the ability of workers to quickly assess demand for work in tasks they are not currently engaged in crucially affects whether task allocation is quickly achieved or not. This indicates that in social insect tasks such as thermoregulation, where temperature may provide a global and near instantaneous stimulus to measure the need for cooling, for example, it should be easy to match the number of workers to the need for work. In other tasks, such as nest repair, it may be impossible for workers not directly at the work site to know that this task needs more workers. We argue that this affects whether task allocation mechanisms are under strong selection. Second, we show that colony size does not affect task allocation performance under our assumptions. This implies that when effects of colony size are found, they are not inherent in the process of task allocation itself, but due to processes not modeled here, such as higher variation in task demand for smaller colonies, benefits of specialized workers, or constant overhead costs. Third, we show that the ratio of the number of available workers to the workload crucially affects performance. Thus, workers in excess of those needed to complete all tasks improve task allocation performance. This provides a potential explanation for the phenomenon that social insect colonies commonly contain inactive workers: these may be a 'surplus' set of workers that improves colony function by speeding up optimal allocation of workers to tasks. Overall our study shows how limitations at the individual level can affect group level outcomes, and suggests new hypotheses that can be explored empirically.

Costs of task allocation with local feedback: Effects of colony size and extra workers in social insects and other multi-agent systems

PubMed Central

Dornhaus, Anna; Su, Hsin-Hao

2017-01-01

Adaptive collective systems are common in biology and beyond. Typically, such systems require a task allocation algorithm: a mechanism or rule-set by which individuals select particular roles. Here we study the performance of such task allocation mechanisms measured in terms of the time for individuals to allocate to tasks. We ask: (1) Is task allocation fundamentally difficult, and thus costly? (2) Does the performance of task allocation mechanisms depend on the number of individuals? And (3) what other parameters may affect their efficiency? We use techniques from distributed computing theory to develop a model of a social insect colony, where workers have to be allocated to a set of tasks; however, our model is generalizable to other systems. We show, first, that the ability of workers to quickly assess demand for work in tasks they are not currently engaged in crucially affects whether task allocation is quickly achieved or not. This indicates that in social insect tasks such as thermoregulation, where temperature may provide a global and near instantaneous stimulus to measure the need for cooling, for example, it should be easy to match the number of workers to the need for work. In other tasks, such as nest repair, it may be impossible for workers not directly at the work site to know that this task needs more workers. We argue that this affects whether task allocation mechanisms are under strong selection. Second, we show that colony size does not affect task allocation performance under our assumptions. This implies that when effects of colony size are found, they are not inherent in the process of task allocation itself, but due to processes not modeled here, such as higher variation in task demand for smaller colonies, benefits of specialized workers, or constant overhead costs. Third, we show that the ratio of the number of available workers to the workload crucially affects performance. Thus, workers in excess of those needed to complete all tasks improve task allocation performance. This provides a potential explanation for the phenomenon that social insect colonies commonly contain inactive workers: these may be a ‘surplus’ set of workers that improves colony function by speeding up optimal allocation of workers to tasks. Overall our study shows how limitations at the individual level can affect group level outcomes, and suggests new hypotheses that can be explored empirically. PMID:29240763

Does practicing a wide range of joint angle configurations lead to higher flexibility in a manual obstacle-avoidance target-pointing task?

PubMed Central

Bootsma, Reinoud J.; Schoemaker, Marina M.; Otten, Egbert; Mouton, Leonora J.; Bongers, Raoul M.

2017-01-01

Flexibility in motor actions can be defined as variability in the use of degrees of freedom (e.g., joint angles in the arm) over repetitions while keeping performance (e.g., fingertip position) stabilized. We examined whether flexibility can be increased through enlarging the joint angle range during practice in a manual obstacle-avoidance target-pointing task. To establish differences in flexibility we partitioned the variability in joint angles over repetitions in variability within (GEV) and variability outside the solution space (NGEV). More GEV than NGEV reflects flexibility; when the ratio of the GEV and NGEV is higher, flexibility is higher. The pretest and posttest consisted of 30 repetitions of manual pointing to a target while moving over a 10 cm high obstacle. To enlarge the joint angle range during practice participants performed 600 target-pointing movements while moving over obstacles of different heights (5–9 cm, 11–15 cm). The results indicated that practicing movements over obstacles of different heights led participants to use enlarged range of joint angles compared to the range of joint angles used in movements over the 10 cm obstacle in the pretest. However, for each individual obstacle neither joint angle variance nor flexibility were higher during practice. We also did not find more flexibility after practice. In the posttest, joint angle variance was in fact smaller than before practice, primarily in GEV. The potential influences of learning effects and the task used that could underlie the results obtained are discussed. We conclude that with this specific type of practice in this specific task, enlarging the range of joint angles does not lead to more flexibility. PMID:28700695

Overlapping neural systems represent cognitive effort and reward anticipation.

PubMed

Vassena, Eliana; Silvetti, Massimo; Boehler, Carsten N; Achten, Eric; Fias, Wim; Verguts, Tom

2014-01-01

Anticipating a potential benefit and how difficult it will be to obtain it are valuable skills in a constantly changing environment. In the human brain, the anticipation of reward is encoded by the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) and Striatum. Naturally, potential rewards have an incentive quality, resulting in a motivational effect improving performance. Recently it has been proposed that an upcoming task requiring effort induces a similar anticipation mechanism as reward, relying on the same cortico-limbic network. However, this overlapping anticipatory activity for reward and effort has only been investigated in a perceptual task. Whether this generalizes to high-level cognitive tasks remains to be investigated. To this end, an fMRI experiment was designed to investigate anticipation of reward and effort in cognitive tasks. A mental arithmetic task was implemented, manipulating effort (difficulty), reward, and delay in reward delivery to control for temporal confounds. The goal was to test for the motivational effect induced by the expectation of bigger reward and higher effort. The results showed that the activation elicited by an upcoming difficult task overlapped with higher reward prospect in the ACC and in the striatum, thus highlighting a pivotal role of this circuit in sustaining motivated behavior.

Sex Attracts: Investigating Individual Differences in Attentional Bias to Sexual Stimuli

PubMed Central

Kagerer, Sabine; Wehrum, Sina; Klucken, Tim; Walter, Bertram; Vaitl, Dieter; Stark, Rudolf

2014-01-01

We investigated the impact of sexual stimuli and the influence of sexual motivation on the performance in a dot-probe task and a line-orientation task in a large sample of males and females. All pictures (neutral, erotic) were rated on the dimensions of valence, arousal, disgust, and sexual arousal. Additionally, questionnaires measuring sexual interest/desire/motivation were employed. The ratings of the sexual stimuli point to a successful picture selection because sexual arousal did not differ between the sexes. The stimuli were equally arousing for men and women. Higher scores in the employed questionnaires measuring sexual interest/desire/motivation led to higher sexual arousal ratings of the sex pictures. Attentional bias towards sex pictures was observed in both experimental tasks. The attentional biases measured by the dot-probe and the line-orientation task were moderately intercorrelated suggesting attentional bias as a possible marker for a sex-attention trait. Finally, only the sexual sensation seeking score correlated with the attentional biases of the two tasks. Future research is needed to increase the predictive power of these indirect measures of sexual interest. PMID:25238545

Early but not late blindness leads to enhanced arithmetic and working memory abilities.

PubMed

Dormal, Valérie; Crollen, Virginie; Baumans, Christine; Lepore, Franco; Collignon, Olivier

2016-10-01

Behavioural and neurophysiological evidence suggest that vision plays an important role in the emergence and development of arithmetic abilities. However, how visual deprivation impacts on the development of arithmetic processing remains poorly understood. We compared the performances of early (EB), late blind (LB) and sighted control (SC) individuals during various arithmetic tasks involving addition, subtraction and multiplication of various complexities. We also assessed working memory (WM) performances to determine if they relate to a blind person's arithmetic capacities. Results showed that EB participants performed better than LB and SC in arithmetic tasks, especially in conditions in which verbal routines and WM abilities are needed. Moreover, EB participants also showed higher WM abilities. Together, our findings demonstrate that the absence of developmental vision does not prevent the development of refined arithmetic skills and can even trigger the refinement of these abilities in specific tasks. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The adaptive use of recognition in group decision making.

PubMed

Kämmer, Juliane E; Gaissmaier, Wolfgang; Reimer, Torsten; Schermuly, Carsten C

2014-06-01

Applying the framework of ecological rationality, the authors studied the adaptivity of group decision making. In detail, they investigated whether groups apply decision strategies conditional on their composition in terms of task-relevant features. The authors focused on the recognition heuristic, so the task-relevant features were the validity of the group members' recognition and knowledge, which influenced the potential performance of group strategies. Forty-three three-member groups performed an inference task in which they had to infer which of two German companies had the higher market capitalization. Results based on the choice data support the hypothesis that groups adaptively apply the strategy that leads to the highest theoretically achievable performance. Time constraints had no effect on strategy use but did have an effect on the proportions of different types of arguments. Possible mechanisms underlying the adaptive use of recognition in group decision making are discussed. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Dissociable changes in functional network topology underlie early category learning and development of automaticity

PubMed Central

Soto, Fabian A.; Bassett, Danielle S.; Ashby, F. Gregory

2016-01-01

Recent work has shown that multimodal association areas–including frontal, temporal and parietal cortex–are focal points of functional network reconfiguration during human learning and performance of cognitive tasks. On the other hand, neurocomputational theories of category learning suggest that the basal ganglia and related subcortical structures are focal points of functional network reconfiguration during early learning of some categorization tasks, but become less so with the development of automatic categorization performance. Using a combination of network science and multilevel regression, we explore how changes in the connectivity of small brain regions can predict behavioral changes during training in a visual categorization task. We find that initial category learning, as indexed by changes in accuracy, is predicted by increasingly efficient integrative processing in subcortical areas, with higher functional specialization, more efficient integration across modules, but a lower cost in terms of redundancy of information processing. The development of automaticity, as indexed by changes in the speed of correct responses, was predicted by lower clustering (particularly in subcortical areas), higher strength (highest in cortical areas) and higher betweenness centrality. By combining neurocomputational theories and network scientific methods, these results synthesize the dissociative roles of multimodal association areas and subcortical structures in the development of automaticity during category learning. PMID:27453156

Relationships Among Lower Body Strength, Power, and Performance of Functional Tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ploutz-Snyder, Lori; Ryder, J.; Hackney, K.; Scott-Pandorf, M.; Redd, E.; Buxton, R.; Bloomberg, J.

2010-01-01

There is a large degree of variability among crewmembers with respect to decrements in muscle strength and power following long duration spaceflight, ranging from 0 to approx.30% reductions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of varying decrements in lower body muscle strength and power (relative to body weight) on the performance of 2 occupationally relevant tasks (ladder climb and supine egress & walk). Seventeen participants with leg strength similar to US crewmembers performed a leg press power test, an isokinetic knee extension strength test and they were asked to complete the 2 functional tasks as quickly as possible. On additional test days the participants were asked to repeat the functional tasks under 3 conditions where a different external load was applied each time using a weighted suit in order to experimentally manipulate participants strength/body weight and power/body weight ratios. The weight in the suit ranged from 20-120% of body weight and was distributed in proportion to limb segment weights to minimize changes in center of gravity. The ladder task consisted of climbing 40 rungs on a ladder treadmill as fast as possible. The supine egress & walk task consisted of rising from a supine position and walking through an obstacle course. Results show a relatively linear relationship between strength/body weight and task time and power/body weight with task time such that the fastest performance times are associated with higher strength and power with about half the variance in task time is accounted for by a single variable (either strength or power). For the average person, a 20% reduction in power/body weight (from 18 to 14.4 W/kg) induces an increase (slowing) of about 10 seconds in the ladder climb task from 14 to 24 seconds (approx.70%) and a slowing of the supine egress & walk task from 14 to 21 seconds (approx.50%). Similar relationships were observed with strength/body weight and task performance. For the average person, a 20% reduction in strength/body weight (from 2.1 to 1.7 Nm/kg) resulted in a slowing of the ladder climb from 10.5 to 24 seconds (approx.128%) and a slowing of the supine egress & walk from 11 to 20 seconds (approx.82%). These data suggest that the single variable of either low body muscle strength or power, relative to body weight is predictive of about 50% of the variance in task performance time, and that considerable slowing in task performance is associated with relatively typical decrements in muscle performance seen with long duration spaceflight. The observation of a relatively linear relationship between strength/power and task time suggests that across the full spectrum of initial crew strengths and typical decrements in strength previously observed, that task performance would be expected to be slowed following long duration spaceflight. These data will be confirmed in actual spaceflight with subsequent studies.

Irrelevant Features of a Stimulus Can Either Facilitate or Disrupt Performance in a Working Memory Task: The Role of Fluid Intelligence

PubMed Central

Perfetti, Bernardo; Tesse, Marcello; Varanese, Sara; Saggino, Aristide; Onofrj, Marco

2011-01-01

It has been shown that fluid intelligence (gf) is fundamental to overcome interference due to information of a previously encoded item along a task-relevant domain. However, the biasing effect of task-irrelevant dimensions is still unclear as well as its relation with gf. The present study aimed at clarifying these issues. Gf was assessed in 60 healthy subjects. In a different session, the same subjects performed two versions (letter-detection and spatial) of a three-back working memory task with a set of physically identical stimuli (letters) presented at different locations on the screen. In the letter-detection task, volunteers were asked to match stimuli on the basis of their identity whereas, in the spatial task, they were required to match items on their locations. Cross-domain bias was manipulated by pseudorandomly inserting a match between the current and the three back items on the irrelevant domain. Our findings showed that a task-irrelevant feature of a salient stimulus can actually bias the ongoing performance. We revealed that, at trials in which the current and the three-back items matched on the irrelevant domain, group accuracy was lower (interference). On the other hand, at trials in which the two items matched on both the relevant and irrelevant domains, the group showed an enhancement of the performance (facilitation). Furthermore, we demonstrated that individual differences in fluid intelligence covaries with the ability to override cross-domain interference in that higher gf subjects showed better performance at interference trials than low gf subjects. Altogether, our findings suggest that stimulus features irrelevant to the task can affect cognitive performance along the relevant domain and that gf plays an important role in protecting relevant memory contents from the hampering effect of such a bias. PMID:22022580

Differences in the acuity of the Approximate Number System in adults: the effect of mathematical ability.

PubMed

Guillaume, Mathieu; Nys, Julie; Mussolin, Christophe; Content, Alain

2013-11-01

It is largely admitted that processing numerosity relies on an innate Approximate Number System (ANS), and recent research consistently observed a relationship between ANS acuity and mathematical ability in childhood. However, studies assessing this relationship in adults led to contradictory results. In this study, adults with different levels of mathematical expertise performed two tasks on the same pairs of dot collections, based either on numerosity comparison or on cumulative area comparison. Number of dots and cumulative area were congruent in half of the stimuli, and incongruent in the other half. The results showed that adults with higher mathematical ability obtained lower Weber fractions in the numerical condition than participants with lower mathematical ability. Further, adults with lower mathematical ability were more affected by the interference of the continuous dimension in the numerical comparison task, whereas conversely higher-expertise adults showed stronger interference of the numerical dimension in the continuous comparison task. Finally, ANS acuity correlated with arithmetic performance. Taken together, the data suggest that individual differences in ANS acuity subsist in adulthood, and that they are related to mathematical ability. © 2013.

Influence of diagnosis threat and illness cognitions on the cognitive performance of people with acquired brain injury.

PubMed

Fresson, Megan; Dardenne, Benoit; Meulemans, Thierry

2018-02-27

Illness cognitions - cognitive representations of illness - have been found to influence health outcomes in chronic diseases: more adaptive illness cognitions generally lead to better outcomes. Concomitantly, diagnosis threat (DT) is a phenomenon whereby participants with acquired brain injury (ABI) underperform on neuropsychological tasks due to stereotype activation. This randomised study examined the impact of illness cognitions and DT on cognitive performance. People with ABI completed the Illness Cognitions Questionnaire and were then exposed to either a DT condition or a reduced DT condition (in which stereotype cues were reduced). They then completed memory and attentional tasks. Control participants performed only the tasks under one of the two conditions. Under the reduced DT condition, higher adaptive illness cognitions were associated with better memory and attentional performance. However, the DT condition diminished memory (but not attentional) performance in participants with a high level of adaptive illness cognitions, often leading to performance at the pathological level. This study confirms the detrimental impact of DT in people with ABI and highlights the necessity for clinicians to consider psychosocial influences when assessing and treating this population.

SU43. The Effect of Implementation Intention on Different Types of Prospective Memory Performance in Patients With Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Wang, Ya; Liu, Lu-lu; Gan, Ming-yuan; Tan, Shu-ping; Shum, David; Chan, Raymond

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Prospective memory (PM) refers to remembering to execute a planned intention in the future, which can been divided as event-based PM (focal, nonfocal) and time-based PM according to the nature of the cue. Focal event-based PM, where the ongoing task requires processing of the characteristics of PM cues, has been found to be benefited from implementation intention (II, ie, an encoding strategy in the format of “if I see X, then I will do Y”). However, to date, it is unclear whether implementation intention can produce a positive effect on nonfocal event-based PM (where the ongoing task is irrelevant with the PM cues) and time-based PM. Moreover, patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) were found to have impairments in these types of PM, and few studies have been conducted to examine the effect of II on these types of PM. This study investigated whether (and how) implementation intention can improve nonfocal event-based PM and time-based PM performance in patients with SCZ. Methods: Forty-two patients with SCZ and 42 healthy control participants were administered both computerized nonfocal event-based PM task and time-based PM task. Patients and healthy controls were further randomly allocated to implementation intention condition (N = 21) and typical instruction condition (N = 21). Results: Patients with SCZ in the implementation intention group showed higher PM accuracy than the typical instruction group in both nonfocal event-based PM task (0.51 ± 0.32 vs 0.19 ± 0.29, t(40) = 3.39, P = .002) and time-based PM task (0.72 ± 0.31 vs 0.39 ± 0.40, t(40) = 2.98, P = .005). Similarly, healthy controls in the II group also showed better PM performance than the typical instruction group in both tasks (all P’s < 0.05). Time check frequency of time-based PM task in the II group of all the participants was significantly higher than the typical instruction group. Conclusion: Implementation intention is an effective strategy for improving different types of PM performance in patients with schizophrenia and can be applied for clinical settings.

The Influence of State Anxiety on Fear Discrimination and Extinction in Females

PubMed Central

Dibbets, Pauline; Evers, Elisabeth A. T.

2017-01-01

Formal theories have linked pathological anxiety to a failure in fear response inhibition. Previously, we showed that aberrant response inhibition is not restricted to anxiety patients, but can also be observed in anxiety-prone adults. However, less is known about the influence of currently experienced levels of anxiety on inhibitory learning. The topic is highly important as state anxiety has a debilitating effect on cognition, emotion, and physiology and is linked to several anxiety disorders. In the present study, healthy female volunteers performed a fear conditioning task, after being informed that they will have to perform the Trier Social Stress Test task (n = 25; experimental group) or a control task (n = 25; control group) upon completion of the conditioning task. The results showed that higher levels of state anxiety corresponded with a reduced discrimination between a stimulus (CS+) typically followed by an aversive event and a stimulus (CS-) that is never followed by an aversive event both during the acquisition and the extinction phase. No effect of state anxiety on the skin conductance response associated with CS+ and CS- was found. Additionally, higher levels of state anxiety coincided with more negative valence ratings of the CSs. The results suggest that increased stress-induced state anxiety might lead to stimulus generalization during fear acquisition, thereby impairing associative learning. PMID:28360869

The impairing effects of mental fatigue on response inhibition: An ERP study

PubMed Central

Guo, Zizheng; Chen, Ruiya; Liu, Xian; Zheng, Yan; Gong, Mingliang; Zhang, Jun

2018-01-01

Mental fatigue is one of the main reasons for the decline of response inhibition. This study aimed to explore the impairing influence of mental fatigue on a driver’s response inhibition. The effects of mental fatigue on response inhibition were assessed by comparing brain activity and behavioral indices when performing a Go/NoGo task before and after a 90-min fatigue manipulation task. Participants in the driving group performed a simulated driving task, while individuals in the control group spent the same time watching movies. We found that participants in the driving group reported higher levels of mental fatigue and had a higher percentage of eye closure and larger lateral deviations from their lane positions, which indicated there was effective manipulation of mental fatigue through a prolonged simulated driving task. After manipulation of mental fatigue, we observed increased reaction time and miss rates, delayed NoGo-N2 latency and Go-P3 latency, and decreased NoGo-P3 amplitude, which indicated that mental fatigue may slow down the speed of the inhibition process, delay the evaluation of visual stimuli and reduce the availability of attentional resources. These findings revealed the underlying neurological mechanisms of how mental fatigue impaired response inhibition. PMID:29856827

Aerobic Capacity and Cognitive Control in Elementary School-Age Children

PubMed Central

Scudder, Mark R.; Lambourne, Kate; Drollette, Eric S.; Herrmann, Stephen; Washburn, Richard; Donnelly, Joseph E.; Hillman, Charles H.

2014-01-01

Purpose The current study examined the relationship between children’s performance on the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) subtest of the FitnessGram® and aspects of cognitive control that are believed to support academic success. Methods Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted on a sample of 2nd and 3rd grade children (n = 397) who completed modified versions of a flanker task and spatial n-back task to assess inhibitory control and working memory, respectively. Results Greater aerobic fitness was significantly related to shorter reaction time and superior accuracy during the flanker task, suggesting better inhibitory control and the facilitation of attention in higher fit children. A similar result was observed for the n-back task such that higher fit children exhibited more accurate target detection and discrimination performance when working memory demands were increased. Conclusion These findings support the positive association between aerobic fitness and multiple aspects of cognitive control in a large sample of children, using a widely implemented and reliable field estimate of aerobic capacity. Importantly, the current results suggest that this relationship is consistent across methods used to assess fitness, which may have important implications for extending this research to more representative samples of children in a variety of experimental contexts. PMID:24743109

NASA's Functional Task Test: Providing Information for an Integrated Countermeasure System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bloomberg, J. J.; Feiveson, A. H.; Laurie, S. S.; Lee, S. M. C.; Mulavara, A. P.; Peters, B. T.; Platts, S. H.; Ploutz-Snyder, L. L.; Reschke, M. F.; Ryder, J. W.;

Probabilistic Reversal Learning in Schizophrenia: Stability of Deficits and Potential Causal Mechanisms.

PubMed

Reddy, Lena Felice; Waltz, James A; Green, Michael F; Wynn, Jonathan K; Horan, William P

2016-07-01

Although individuals with schizophrenia show impaired feedback-driven learning on probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) tasks, the specific factors that contribute to these deficits remain unknown. Recent work has suggested several potential causes including neurocognitive impairments, clinical symptoms, and specific types of feedback-related errors. To examine this issue, we administered a PRL task to 126 stable schizophrenia outpatients and 72 matched controls, and patients were retested 4 weeks later. The task involved an initial probabilistic discrimination learning phase and subsequent reversal phases in which subjects had to adjust their responses to sudden shifts in the reinforcement contingencies. Patients showed poorer performance than controls for both the initial discrimination and reversal learning phases of the task, and performance overall showed good test-retest reliability among patients. A subgroup analysis of patients (n = 64) and controls (n = 49) with good initial discrimination learning revealed no between-group differences in reversal learning, indicating that the patients who were able to achieve all of the initial probabilistic discriminations were not impaired in reversal learning. Regarding potential contributors to impaired discrimination learning, several factors were associated with poor PRL, including higher levels of neurocognitive impairment, poor learning from both positive and negative feedback, and higher levels of indiscriminate response shifting. The results suggest that poor PRL performance in schizophrenia can be the product of multiple mechanisms. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Empathy and feedback processing in active and observational learning.

PubMed

Rak, Natalia; Bellebaum, Christian; Thoma, Patrizia

2013-12-01

The feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the P300 have been related to the processing of one's own and other individuals' feedback during both active and observational learning. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the role of trait-empathic responding with regard to the modulation of the neural correlates of observational learning in particular. Thirty-four healthy participants completed an active and an observational learning task. On both tasks, the participants' aim was to maximize their monetary gain by choosing from two stimuli the one that showed the higher probability of reward. Participants gained insight into the stimulus-reward contingencies according to monetary feedback presented after they had made an active choice or by observing the choices of a virtual partner. Participants showed a general improvement in learning performance on both learning tasks. P200, FRN, and P300 amplitudes were larger during active, as compared with observational, learning. Furthermore, nonreward elicited a significantly more negative FRN than did reward in the active learning task, while only a trend was observed for observational learning. Distinct subcomponents of trait cognitive empathy were related to poorer performance and smaller P300 amplitudes for observational learning only. Taken together, both the learning performance and event-related potentials during observational learning are affected by different aspects of trait cognitive empathy, and certain types of observational learning may actually be disrupted by a higher tendency to understand and adopt other people's perspectives.

Toward a comprehensive understanding of executive cognitive function in implicit racial bias.

PubMed

Ito, Tiffany A; Friedman, Naomi P; Bartholow, Bruce D; Correll, Joshua; Loersch, Chris; Altamirano, Lee J; Miyake, Akira

2015-02-01

Although performance on laboratory-based implicit bias tasks often is interpreted strictly in terms of the strength of automatic associations, recent evidence suggests that such tasks are influenced by higher-order cognitive control processes, so-called executive functions (EFs). However, extant work in this area has been limited by failure to account for the unity and diversity of EFs, focus on only a single measure of bias and/or EF, and relatively small sample sizes. The current study sought to comprehensively model the relation between individual differences in EFs and the expression of racial bias in 3 commonly used laboratory measures. Participants (N = 485) completed a battery of EF tasks (Session 1) and 3 racial bias tasks (Session 2), along with numerous individual difference questionnaires. The main findings were as follows: (a) measures of implicit bias were only weakly intercorrelated; (b) EF and estimates of automatic processes both predicted implicit bias and also interacted, such that the relation between automatic processes and bias expression was reduced at higher levels of EF; (c) specific facets of EF were differentially associated with overall task performance and controlled processing estimates across different bias tasks; (d) EF did not moderate associations between implicit and explicit measures of bias; and (e) external, but not internal, motivation to control prejudice depended on EF to reduce bias expression. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of global and specific EF abilities in determining expression of implicit racial bias. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

Altered neural circuits accompany lower performance during narrative comprehension in children with reading difficulties: an fMRI study.

PubMed

Horowitz-Kraus, Tzipi; Buck, Catherine; Dorrmann, Dana

2016-10-01

Narrative comprehension is a linguistic ability that is foundational for future reading ability. The aim of the current study was to examine the neural circuitry of children with reading difficulties (RD) compared to typical readers during a narrative-comprehension task. We hypothesized that due to deficient executive functions, which support narrative comprehension abilities, children with RD would display altered activation and functional connectivity, as well as lower performance on a narrative-comprehension task. Children with RD and typical readers were scanned during a narrative-comprehension task and administered reading behavioral tests. Children with RD scored significantly lower on the narrative-comprehension task than did typical readers. Composite activation maps showed more diffused activation during narrative comprehension in the RD group. Maps comparing the two reading groups showed more activation in the frontal lobes (regions responsible for executive functions), and functional connectivity showed higher global efficiency in children with RD than in typical readers. Global efficiency was negatively correlated with phonological awareness and reading and executive function scores in the entire study group. Children with RD may suffer from narrative-comprehension difficulties due to diffused activation of language areas, as was observed during a narrative-comprehension task. Greater effort in this task may be reflected by the engagement of brain regions related to executive functions and higher functional connectivity or attributed to difficulties in phonological processing and reading and executive functions. Therefore, the accommodation given to children with RD of reading aloud may need to be revised due to the observed difficulty in this domain.

Childhood obesity affects postural control and aiming performance during an upper limb movement.

PubMed

Boucher, François; Handrigan, Grant A; Mackrous, Isabelle; Hue, Olivier

2015-07-01

Obesity reduces the efficiency of postural and movement control mechanisms. However, the effects of obesity on a functional motor task and postural control in standing and seated position have not been closely quantified among children. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of obesity on the execution of aiming tasks performed in standing and seated conditions in children. Twelve healthy weight children and eleven obese children aged between 8 and 11 years pointed to a target in standing and seated position. The difficulty of the aiming task was varied by using 2 target sizes (1.0 cm and 5.0 cm width; pointing to the smaller target size needs a more precise movement and constitutes a more difficult task). Hand movement time (MT) and its phases were measured to quantify the aiming task. Mean speed of the center of pressure displacement (COP speed) was calculated to assess postural stability during the movement. Obese children had significantly higher MTs compared to healthy-weight children in seated and standing conditions explained by greater durations of deceleration phase when aiming. Concerning the COP speed during the movement, obese children showed significantly higher values when standing compared to healthy-weight children. This was also observed in the seated position. In conclusion, obesity adds a postural constraint during an aiming task in both seated and standing conditions and requires obese children to take more time to correct their movements due to a greater postural instability of the body when pointing to a target with the upper-limb. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Food-cue affected motor response inhibition and self-reported dieting success: a pictorial affective shifting task

PubMed Central

Meule, Adrian; Lutz, Annika P. C.; Krawietz, Vera; Stützer, Judith; Vögele, Claus; Kübler, Andrea

2014-01-01

Behavioral inhibition is one of the basic facets of executive functioning and is closely related to self-regulation. Impulsive reactions, that is, low inhibitory control, have been associated with higher body mass index (BMI), binge eating, and other problem behaviors (e.g., substance abuse, pathological gambling, etc.). Nevertheless, studies which investigated the direct influence of food-cues on behavioral inhibition have been fairly inconsistent. In the current studies, we investigated food-cue affected behavioral inhibition in young women. For this purpose, we used a go/no-go task with pictorial food and neutral stimuli in which stimulus-response mapping is reversed after every other block (affective shifting task). In study 1, hungry participants showed faster reaction times to and omitted fewer food than neutral targets. Low dieting success and higher BMI were associated with behavioral disinhibition in food relative to neutral blocks. In study 2, both hungry and satiated individuals were investigated. Satiation did not influence overall task performance, but modulated associations of task performance with dieting success and self-reported impulsivity. When satiated, increased food craving during the task was associated with low dieting success, possibly indicating a preload-disinhibition effect following food intake. Food-cues elicited automatic action and approach tendencies regardless of dieting success, self-reported impulsivity, or current hunger levels. Yet, associations between dieting success, impulsivity, and behavioral food-cue responses were modulated by hunger and satiation. Future research investigating clinical samples and including other salient non-food stimuli as control category is warranted. PMID:24659978

Prosodic development in middle childhood and adolescence in high-functioning autism.

PubMed

Lyons, Megan; Schoen Simmons, Elizabeth; Paul, Rhea

2014-04-01

The present study aims to investigate the perception and production of several domains of prosodic performance in a cross-sectional sample of preadolescents and adolescents with and without high-functioning autism (HFA). To look at the role of language abilities on prosodic performance, the HFA groups were subdivided based on "high" and "low" language performance on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition (CELF-4) (Semel, Wiig, & Secord). Social and cognitive abilities were also examined to determine their relationship to prosodic performance. No significant differences were seen in prosody scores in the younger versus older subgroups in typically developing (TD) group with age-appropriate language. There was small but significant improvement in performance with age in the groups with HFA. Comparing performance at each age level across diagnostic groups showed that preteens with HFA and higher language levels perform similarly to their TD peers on all prosodic tasks, whereas those with lower language skills scored significantly worse than both their higher language and TD peers when looking at composite perception and production findings. Teens with HFA showed no deficits on perception tasks; however, those with low language levels had difficulty on several production tasks when compared to the TD group. Regression analyses suggested that, for the preteen group with HFA, language was the strongest predictor of prosodic perception, whereas nonverbal IQ was most highly predictive of prosodic production. For adolescents with HFA, social skills significantly contributed to the prediction of prosodic perception and, along with language abilities, predicted prosodic production. Implications of these findings will be discussed. © 2014 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Simulated Firefighting Task Performance and Physiology Under Very Hot Conditions

PubMed Central

Larsen, Brianna; Snow, Rod; Williams-Bell, Michael; Aisbett, Brad

2015-01-01

Purpose: To assess the impact of very hot (45°C) conditions on the performance of, and physiological responses to, a simulated firefighting manual-handling task compared to the same work in a temperate environment (18°C). Methods: Ten male volunteer firefighters performed a 3-h protocol in both 18°C (CON) and 45°C (VH). Participants intermittently performed 12 × 1-min bouts of raking, 6 × 8-min bouts of low-intensity stepping, and 6 × 20-min rest periods. The area cleared during the raking task determined work performance. Core temperature, skin temperature, and heart rate were measured continuously. Participants also periodically rated their perceived exertion (RPE) and thermal sensation. Firefighters consumed water ad libitum. Urine specific gravity (USG) and changes in body mass determined hydration status. Results: Firefighters raked 19% less debris during the VH condition. Core and skin temperature were 0.99 ± 0.20 and 5.45 ± 0.53°C higher, respectively, during the VH trial, and heart rate was 14–36 beats.min−1 higher in the VH trial. Firefighters consumed 2950 ± 1034 mL of water in the VH condition, compared to 1290 ± 525 in the CON trial. Sweat losses were higher in the VH (1886 ± 474 mL) compared to the CON trial (462 ± 392 mL), though both groups were hydrated upon protocol completion (USG < 1.020). Participants' average RPE was higher in the VH (15.6 ± 0.9) compared to the CON trial (12.6 ± 0.9). Similarly, the firefighers' thermal sensation scores were significantly higher in the VH (6.4 ± 0.5) compared to the CON trial (4.4 ± 0.4). Conclusions: Despite the decreased work output and aggressive fluid replacement observed in the VH trial, firefighters' experienced increases in thermal stress, and exertion. Fire agencies should prioritize the health and safety of fire personnel in very hot temperatures, and consider the impact of reduced productivity on fire suppression efforts. PMID:26617527

Associations of Adiposity and Aerobic Fitness with Executive Function and Math Performance in Danish Adolescents.

PubMed

Huang, Tao; Tarp, Jakob; Domazet, Sidsel Louise; Thorsen, Anne Kær; Froberg, Karsten; Andersen, Lars Bo; Bugge, Anna

2015-10-01

To examine the associations of adiposity and aerobic fitness with executive function and math performance in Danish adolescents. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted with data on 525 adolescents attending sixth and seventh grades from 14 schools in the 5 main regions of Denmark. A modified Eriksen flanker task was used to assess inhibitory control, a key aspect of executive function. Academic performance was assessed by a customized math test. Aerobic fitness was assessed by an intermittent shuttle-run test (Andersen test). Body mass index (BMI) was negatively associated with accuracy on incongruent trials during the flanker task (P = .005). A higher BMI was associated with a larger accuracy interference score (P = .01). Similarly, waist circumference (WC) was negatively associated with accuracy on incongruent trials (P = .008). A higher WC was associated with a larger reaction time (RT) interference score (P = .02) and accuracy interference score (P = .009). Higher aerobic fitness was associated with a faster RT on congruent trials (P = .009) and incongruent trials (P = .003). Higher aerobic fitness was associated with a smaller RT interference score (P = .04). Aerobic fitness was positively associated with math score (P < .001). BMI and WC were not associated with math score (P > .05). These results suggest that aerobic fitness is positively associated with both inhibitory control and math performance in adolescents. Adiposity is negatively associated with inhibitory control in adolescents. Adiposity is not associated with math performance. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reconfiguration of Brain Network Architectures between Resting-State and Complexity-Dependent Cognitive Reasoning.

PubMed

Hearne, Luke J; Cocchi, Luca; Zalesky, Andrew; Mattingley, Jason B

2017-08-30

Our capacity for higher cognitive reasoning has a measurable limit. This limit is thought to arise from the brain's capacity to flexibly reconfigure interactions between spatially distributed networks. Recent work, however, has suggested that reconfigurations of task-related networks are modest when compared with intrinsic "resting-state" network architecture. Here we combined resting-state and task-driven functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine how flexible, task-specific reconfigurations associated with increasing reasoning demands are integrated within a stable intrinsic brain topology. Human participants (21 males and 28 females) underwent an initial resting-state scan, followed by a cognitive reasoning task involving different levels of complexity, followed by a second resting-state scan. The reasoning task required participants to deduce the identity of a missing element in a 4 × 4 matrix, and item difficulty was scaled parametrically as determined by relational complexity theory. Analyses revealed that external task engagement was characterized by a significant change in functional brain modules. Specifically, resting-state and null-task demand conditions were associated with more segregated brain-network topology, whereas increases in reasoning complexity resulted in merging of resting-state modules. Further increments in task complexity did not change the established modular architecture, but affected selective patterns of connectivity between frontoparietal, subcortical, cingulo-opercular, and default-mode networks. Larger increases in network efficiency within the newly established task modules were associated with higher reasoning accuracy. Our results shed light on the network architectures that underlie external task engagement, and highlight selective changes in brain connectivity supporting increases in task complexity. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans have clear limits in their ability to solve complex reasoning problems. It is thought that such limitations arise from flexible, moment-to-moment reconfigurations of functional brain networks. It is less clear how such task-driven adaptive changes in connectivity relate to stable, intrinsic networks of the brain and behavioral performance. We found that increased reasoning demands rely on selective patterns of connectivity within cortical networks that emerged in addition to a more general, task-induced modular architecture. This task-driven architecture reverted to a more segregated resting-state architecture both immediately before and after the task. These findings reveal how flexibility in human brain networks is integral to achieving successful reasoning performance across different levels of cognitive demand. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/378399-13$15.00/0.

Better dual-task processing in simultaneous interpreters

PubMed Central

Strobach, Tilo; Becker, Maxi; Schubert, Torsten; Kühn, Simone

2015-01-01

Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a highly complex activity and requires the performance and coordination of multiple, simultaneous tasks: analysis and understanding of the discourse in a first language, reformulating linguistic material, storing of intermediate processing steps, and language production in a second language among others. It is, however, an open issue whether persons with experience in SI possess superior skills in coordination of multiple tasks and whether they are able to transfer these skills to lab-based dual-task situations. Within the present study, we set out to explore whether interpreting experience is associated with related higher-order executive functioning in the context of dual-task situations of the Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) type. In this PRP situation, we found faster reactions times in participants with experience in simultaneous interpretation in contrast to control participants without such experience. Thus, simultaneous interpreters possess superior skills in coordination of multiple tasks in lab-based dual-task situations. PMID:26528232

Visuospatial and verbal memory in mental arithmetic.

PubMed

Clearman, Jack; Klinger, Vojtěch; Szűcs, Dénes

2017-09-01

Working memory allows complex information to be remembered and manipulated over short periods of time. Correlations between working memory and mathematics achievement have been shown across the lifespan. However, only a few studies have examined the potentially distinct contributions of domain-specific visuospatial and verbal working memory resources in mental arithmetic computation. Here we aimed to fill this gap in a series of six experiments pairing addition and subtraction tasks with verbal and visuospatial working memory and interference tasks. In general, we found higher levels of interference between mental arithmetic and visuospatial working memory tasks than between mental arithmetic and verbal working memory tasks. Additionally, we found that interference that matched the working memory domain of the task (e.g., verbal task with verbal interference) lowered working memory performance more than mismatched interference (verbal task with visuospatial interference). Findings suggest that mental arithmetic relies on domain-specific working memory resources.

The role of fluid intelligence and learning in analogical reasoning: How to become neurally efficient?

PubMed

Dix, Annika; Wartenburger, Isabell; van der Meer, Elke

2016-10-01

This study on analogical reasoning evaluates the impact of fluid intelligence on adaptive changes in neural efficiency over the course of an experiment and specifies the underlying cognitive processes. Grade 10 students (N=80) solved unfamiliar geometric analogy tasks of varying difficulty. Neural efficiency was measured by the event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the alpha band, an indicator of cortical activity. Neural efficiency was defined as a low amount of cortical activity accompanying high performance during problem-solving. Students solved the tasks faster and more accurately the higher their FI was. Moreover, while high FI led to greater cortical activity in the first half of the experiment, high FI was associated with a neurally more efficient processing (i.e., better performance but same amount of cortical activity) in the second half of the experiment. Performance in difficult tasks improved over the course of the experiment for all students while neural efficiency increased for students with higher but decreased for students with lower fluid intelligence. Based on analyses of the alpha sub-bands, we argue that high fluid intelligence was associated with a stronger investment of attentional resource in the integration of information and the encoding of relations in this unfamiliar task in the first half of the experiment (lower-2 alpha band). Students with lower fluid intelligence seem to adapt their applied strategies over the course of the experiment (i.e., focusing on task-relevant information; lower-1 alpha band). Thus, the initially lower cortical activity and its increase in students with lower fluid intelligence might reflect the overcoming of mental overload that was present in the first half of the experiment. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Measuring cognitive load during simulation-based psychomotor skills training: sensitivity of secondary-task performance and subjective ratings.

PubMed

Haji, Faizal A; Khan, Rabia; Regehr, Glenn; Drake, James; de Ribaupierre, Sandrine; Dubrowski, Adam

2015-12-01

As interest in applying cognitive load theory (CLT) to the study and design of pedagogic and technological approaches in healthcare simulation grows, suitable measures of cognitive load (CL) are needed. Here, we report a two-phased study investigating the sensitivity of subjective ratings of mental effort (SRME) and secondary-task performance (signal detection rate, SDR and recognition reaction time, RRT) as measures of CL. In phase 1 of the study, novice learners and expert surgeons attempted a visual-monitoring task under two conditions: single-task (monitoring a virtual patient's heart-rate) and dual-task (tying surgical knots on a bench-top simulator while monitoring the virtual patient's heart-rate). Novices demonstrated higher mental effort and inferior secondary-task performance on the dual-task compared to experts (RRT 1.76 vs. 0.73, p = 0.012; SDR 0.27 vs. 0.97, p < 0.001; SRME 7.75 vs. 2.80, p < 0.001). Similarly, secondary task performance deteriorated from baseline to dual-task among novices (RRT 0.63 vs. 1.76 s, p < 0.006 and SDR 1.00 vs. 0.27, p < 0.001), but not experts (RRT 0.63 vs. 0.73 s, p = 0.124 and SDR 1.00 vs. 0.97, p = 0.178). In phase 2, novices practiced surgical knot-tying on the bench top simulator during consecutive dual-task trials. A significant increase in SDR (F(9,63) = 6.63, p < 0.001, f = 0.97) and decrease in SRME (F(9,63) = 9.39, p < 0.001, f = 1.04) was observed during simulation training, while RRT did not change significantly (F(9,63) = 1.18, p < 0.32, f = 0.41). The results suggest subjective ratings and dual-task performance can be used to track changes in CL among novices, particularly in early phases of simulation-based skills training. The implications for measuring CL in simulation instructional design research are discussed.

Reduced prefrontal cortex activation in the color-word Stroop task for Chinese dyslexic children: a near-infrared spectroscopy study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Jinyan; Zhai, Jiahuan; Song, Ranran; Zou, Li; Gong, Hui

2011-01-01

Behavioral studies have investigated the performance of children with developmental dyslexia in conflict resolution, a function connected with the prefrontal cortex (PFC) closely. However, little is known about the prefrontal activation in conflict resolution for dyslexic children. In the present study, the involvement of the PFC in resolving conflict was evaluated for Chinese dyslexic children by means of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The NIRS instrument is a portable, continuous-wave system and can measure concentration changes of hemodynamic parameters (including oxy-, deoxy-, and total hemoglobin). Considering better sensitivity, the oxy-hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) was chosen to indicate the prefrontal activation. Ten dyslexic children and 11 normal children were recruited to perform the Chinese-character color-word Stroop task, which included the neutral and color (incongruent) tasks. In behavioral performance, both groups showed significant Stroop effect, longer response time or higher error rate for the color task. In particular, the Stroop interference effect was marginally larger for dyslexic children than normal children in response time. What's more, the two groups showed distinct pattern of oxy-Hb activation during the Stroop tasks. The normal group recruited the bilateral PFC to perform the tasks, while the dyslexic group couldn't activate the bilateral PFC in the difficult color task. Moreover, significantly less color Stroop effect was found in the left PFC for the dyslexic group, showing their disability in coping with the Stroop interference. These findings suggest that the PFC is dysfunctional in conflict resolution for Chinese dyslexic children and that NIRS can be an effective tool in neurological research and clinical application.

Go Deeper, Go Deeper: Understanding submarine command and control during the completion of dived tracking operations.

PubMed

Roberts, Aaron P J; Stanton, Neville A; Fay, Daniel T

2018-05-01

This is a world's first-of-a-kind study providing empirical evidence for understanding submarine control room performance when completing higher and lower demand Dived Tracking (DT) scenarios. A submarine control room simulator was built, using a non-commercial version of Dangerous Waters as the simulation engine. The creation of networked workstations allowed a team of nine operators to perform tasks completed by submarine command teams during DT. The Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method was used to model the social, task and information networks and describe command team performance. Ten teams were recruited for the study, affording statistical comparisons of how command team roles and level of demand affected performance. Results indicate that command teams can covertly DT a contact differently depending on demand (e.g. volume of contacts). In low demand it was possible to use periscope more often than in high demand, in a 'duck-and-run' fashion. Therefore, the type of information and frequency of particular task completion, was significantly different between the higher and lower demand conditions. This resulted in different operators in the command team experiencing greater demand depending on how the DT mission objective was completed. Potential bottlenecks in the command team were identified and implications are discussed alongside suggestions for future work. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Low motor performance scores among overweight children: poor coordination or morphological constraints?

PubMed

Chivers, Paola; Larkin, Dawne; Rose, Elizabeth; Beilin, Lawrence; Hands, Beth

2013-10-01

This study examined whether lower motor performance scores can be full attributed to poor coordination, or whether weight related morphological constraints may also affect motor performance. Data for 666 children and adolescents from the longitudinal Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study were grouped into normal weight, overweight and obese categories based on the International Obesity Task Force cut points. Participants completed the 10-item McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (MAND) at the 10 and 14 year follow-up. The prevalence of overweight and obese participants classified with mild or moderate motor difficulties was not different from the normal weight group at 10 years (χ2 = 5.8 p = .215), but higher at 14 years (χ2 = 11.3 p = .023). There were no significant differences in overall motor performance scores between weight status groups at 10 years, but at 14 years, the normal weight group achieved better scores than the obese group (p<.05). For specific items, the normal weight group consistently scored higher than the overweight and obese groups on the jump task at 10 (p<.001) and 14 (p<.01)years but lower on the hand strength task at both ages (p<.01). Our findings raise the question as to whether some test items commonly used for assessing motor competence are appropriate for an increasingly overweight and obese population. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Predictive value of background experiences and visual spatial ability testing on laparoscopic baseline performance among residents entering postgraduate surgical training.

PubMed

Louridas, Marisa; Quinn, Lauren E; Grantcharov, Teodor P

2016-03-01

Emerging evidence suggests that despite dedicated practice, not all surgical trainees have the ability to reach technical competency in minimally invasive techniques. While selecting residents that have the ability to reach technical competence is important, evidence to guide the incorporation of technical ability into selection processes is limited. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether background experiences and 2D-3D visual spatial test results are predictive of baseline laparoscopic skill for the novice surgical trainee. First-year residents were studied. Demographic data and background surgical and non-surgical experiences were obtained using a questionnaire. Visual spatial ability was evaluated using the PicSOr, cube comparison (CC) and card rotation (CR) tests. Technical skill was assessed using the camera navigation (LCN) task and laparoscopic circle cut (LCC) task. Resident performance on these technical tasks was compared and correlated with the questionnaire and visual spatial findings. Previous experience in observing laparoscopic procedures was associated with significantly better LCN performance, and experience in navigating the laparoscopic camera was associated with significantly better LCC task results. Residents who scored higher on the CC test demonstrated a more accurate LCN path length score (r s(PL) = -0.36, p = 0.03) and angle path (r s(AP) = -0.426, p = 0.01) score when completing the LCN task. No other significant correlations were found between the visual spatial tests (PicSOr, CC or CR) and LCC performance. While identifying selection tests for incoming surgical trainees that predict technical skill performance is appealing, the surrogate markers evaluated correlate with specific metrics of surgical performance related to a single task but do not appear to reliably predict technical performance of different laparoscopic tasks. Predicting the acquisition of technical skills will require the development of a series of evidence-based tests that measure a number of innate abilities as well as their inherent interactions.

Driver behavior profiling: An investigation with different smartphone sensors and machine learning

PubMed Central

Ferreira, Jair; Carvalho, Eduardo; Ferreira, Bruno V.; de Souza, Cleidson; Suhara, Yoshihiko; Pentland, Alex

2017-01-01

Driver behavior impacts traffic safety, fuel/energy consumption and gas emissions. Driver behavior profiling tries to understand and positively impact driver behavior. Usually driver behavior profiling tasks involve automated collection of driving data and application of computer models to generate a classification that characterizes the driver aggressiveness profile. Different sensors and classification methods have been employed in this task, however, low-cost solutions and high performance are still research targets. This paper presents an investigation with different Android smartphone sensors, and classification algorithms in order to assess which sensor/method assembly enables classification with higher performance. The results show that specific combinations of sensors and intelligent methods allow classification performance improvement. PMID:28394925

Come to think of it: Contributions of reasoning abilities and training schedule to skill acquisition in a virtual throwing task.

PubMed

Frömer, Romy; Stürmer, Birgit; Sommer, Werner

2016-10-01

According to Schmidt's schema theory skill acquisition is based on schema formation where multiple learning incidents with varying task features are abstracted to a unifying pattern, the schema. Practice can be scheduled block-wise, with low contextual interference (CI) or randomly, with high CI. The greater effort during high CI training usually results in reduced training success but enhanced retention and transfer performance. In contrast to well-established CI effects for simple tasks, findings for complex tasks are heterogeneous, supposedly due to the detrimental accumulation of task demands. We assumed that in complex tasks, cognitive reasoning abilities might impose a limit upon schema formation and hence the effectiveness of CI. In a virtual overarm-throwing experiment participants practiced target positions at center, left, or right and were retested for retention - at the center position - and transfer with a larger target distance. Although there was no main effect of CI on performance, either in training, retention or transfer, under high CI, training performance was better for participants with higher reasoning ability, as measured with the Raven matrices. This advantage persisted across retention and transfer. Under low CI, reasoning was positively related to performance improvement only in the last third of training. We argue, that variability of practice is a necessary prerequisite for beneficial effects of reasoning abilities. Based on previous findings, we discuss feedback evaluation as a possible locus of the relationship between reasoning and performance in motor skill acquisition. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Exploring the disruptive effects of psychopathy and aggression on group processes and group effectiveness.

PubMed

Baysinger, Michael A; Scherer, Kelly T; LeBreton, James M

2014-01-01

The present research examines the influence of implicit and explicit personality characteristics on group process and effectiveness. Individuals from 112 groups participated in 2 problem-solving tasks and completed measures of group process and effectiveness. Results indicated that groups characterized by higher levels of psychopathy and implicit aggression tended to have more dysfunctional interactions and negative perceptions of the group. In addition, task participation and negative socioemotional behaviors fully mediated the relationship between group personality traits and group commitment and cohesion, and negative socioemotional behaviors fully mediated the relationship between group personality and performance on both tasks. Implications of antisocial traits for group interactions and performance, as well as for future theory and research, are discussed. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved

Specific EEG frequencies at specific brain areas and performance.

PubMed

Fernández, T; Harmony, T; Silva-Pereyra, J; Fernández-Bouzas, A; Gersenowies, J; Galán, L; Carbonell, F; Marosi, E; Otero, G; Valdés, S I

2000-08-21

In this study it was shown that in adults, the frequency characteristics of EEG preceding stimuli that were followed by incorrect responses were different from the characteristics of EEG preceding stimuli that were followed by correct responses. In the recording during three different tasks that explore different neuronal networks, higher values of current preceding incorrect performance in those areas directly related to the task were found in frequencies within the delta (1.56 and 3.12 Hz) and beta bands (13.26, 14.04, 14.82, 15.6, 17.16 and 17.94 Hz), suggesting that these frequencies signal inhibition. Frequencies within the alpha band (9.36 and 12.48 Hz) showed greater energy preceding correct responses in task-specific areas, supporting previous results observed in children.

Testing problem-solving capacities: differences between individual testing and social group setting.

PubMed

Krasheninnikova, Anastasia; Schneider, Jutta M

2014-09-01

Testing animals individually in problem-solving tasks limits distractions of the subjects during the test, so that they can fully concentrate on the problem. However, such individual performance may not indicate the problem-solving capacity that is commonly employed in the wild when individuals are faced with a novel problem in their social groups, where the presence of a conspecific influences an individual's behaviour. To assess the validity of data gathered from parrots when tested individually, we compared the performance on patterned-string tasks among parrots tested singly and parrots tested in social context. We tested two captive groups of orange-winged amazons (Amazona amazonica) with several patterned-string tasks. Despite the differences in the testing environment (singly vs. social context), parrots from both groups performed similarly. However, we found that the willingness to participate in the tasks was significantly higher for the individuals tested in social context. The study provides further evidence for the crucial influence of social context on individual's response to a challenging situation such as a problem-solving test.

Motor adaptation capacity as a function of age in carrying out a repetitive assembly task at imposed work paces.

PubMed

Gilles, Martine Annie; Guélin, Jean-Charles; Desbrosses, Kévin; Wild, Pascal

2017-10-01

The working population is getting older. Workers must adapt to changing conditions to respond to the efforts required by the tasks they have to perform. In this laboratory-based study, we investigated the capacities of motor adaptation as a function of age and work pace. Two phases were identified in the task performed: a collection phase, involving dominant use of the lower limbs; and an assembly phase, involving bi-manual motor skills. Results showed that senior workers were mainly limited during the collection phase, whereas they had less difficulty completing the assembly phase. However, senior workers did increase the vertical force applied while assembling parts, whatever the work pace. In younger and middle-aged subjects, vertical force was increased only for the faster pace. Older workers could adapt to perform repetitive tasks under different time constraints, but adaptation required greater effort than for younger workers. These results point towards a higher risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders among seniors. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Investigation of the performance of trackpoint and touchpads with varied right and left buttons function locations.

PubMed

Wu, Chih-Fu; Lai, Chih-Chun; Liu, Yen-Kou

2013-03-01

This study investigates the relationships of the following 5 factors with commonly-used task patterns: 4 (2 existing and 2 newly-designed) built-in cursor input devices of notebook PCs, usage experiences, genders, sensitivity of cursor movements, and 5 tasks of input applications (including click, drag-drop, click-select, select-drag-drop, and type-select-click). This experiment reveals that there are significant differences among these factors in the operating times and/or error rates of particular tasks. Although somewhat influenced by the task patterns, the results show that the touchpad with the cursor-tracking pad located on the bottom-center and the right and left buttons on the bottom-left beneath the keyboard, which avoids ulnar and radial deviation and hindrance of text-entry-pointer-manipulation switching, leads to higher performance and preference, while the trackpoint leads to lower performance and preference. In addition, the touchpads with sensitivity values of 10 and 12 for cursor movement are preferred over those with the value of 8. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

Performance Evaluation of a Mobile Touchscreen Interface for Assistive Robotic Manipulators: A Pilot Study.

PubMed

Chung, Cheng-Shiu; Ka, Hyun W; Wang, Hongu; Ding, Dan; Kelleher, Annmarie; Cooper, Rory A

2017-01-01

Background: Assistive robotic manipulators (ARMs) have been developed to provide enhanced assistance and independence in performance of daily activities among people with spinal cord injury when a caregiver is not on site. However, the current commercial ARM user interfaces (UIs) may be difficult to learn and control. A touchscreen mobile UI was developed to overcome these challenges. Objective: The object of this study was to evaluate the performance between 2 ARM UIs, touchscreen and the original joystick, using an ARM evaluation tool (ARMET). Methods: This is a pilot study of people with upper extremity impairments ( N = 8). Participants were trained on 2 UIs, and then they chose one to use when performing 3 tasks on the ARMET: flipping a toggle switch, pushing down a door handle, and turning a knob. Task completion time, mean velocity, and open interviews were the main outcome measurements. Results: Among 8 novice participants, 7 chose the touchscreen UI and 1 chose the joystick UI. All participants could complete the ARMET tasks independently. Use of the touchscreen UI resulted in enhanced ARMET performance (higher mean moving speed and faster task completion). Conclusions: Mobile ARM UIs demonstrated easier learning experience, less physical effort, and better ARMET performance. The improved performance, the accessibility, and lower physical effort suggested that the touchscreen UI might be an efficient tool for the ARM users.

Individual differences in brain activity during visuo-spatial processing assessed by slow cortical potentials and LORETA.

PubMed

Lamm, Claus; Fischmeister, Florian Ph S; Bauer, Herbert

2005-12-01

Using slow-cortical potentials (SCPs), Vitouch et al. demonstrated that subjects with low ability to solve a complex visuo-spatial imagery task show higher activity in occipital, parietal and frontal cortex during task processing than subjects with high ability. This finding has been interpreted in the sense of the so-called "neural efficiency" hypothesis, which assumes that the central nervous system of individuals with higher intellectual abilities is functioning in a more efficient way than the one of individuals with lower abilities. Using a higher spatial resolution of SCP recordings, and by employing the source localization method of LORETA (low-resolution electromagnetic tomography), we investigated this hypothesis by performing an extended replication of Vitouch et al.'s study. SCPs during processing of a visuo-spatial imagery task were recorded in pre-selected subjects with either high or low abilities in solving the imagery task. Topographic and LORETA analyses of SCPs revealed that a distributed network of extrastriate occipital, superior parietal, temporal, medial frontal and prefrontal areas was active during task solving. This network is well in line with former studies of the functional neuroanatomy of visuo-spatial imagery. Contrary to our expectations, however, the results of Vitouch et al. as well as of other studies supporting the neural efficiency hypothesis could not be confirmed since no difference in brain activity between groups was observed. This inconsistency between studies might be due to differing task processing strategies. While subjects with high abilities in the Vitouch et al. study seemed to use a visuo-perceptual task solving approach, all other subjects relied upon a visuo-motor task processing strategy.

Self-Monitoring of Attention versus Self-Monitoring of Performance: Effects on Attention and Academic Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reid, Robert; Harris, Karen R.

1993-01-01

Twenty-eight students (ages 9-12) with learning disabilities were taught a spelling study procedure (SSP), followed by instruction in self-monitoring of performance (SMP) and self-monitoring of attention (SMA). On-task behavior was significantly higher in both SMA and SMP than in SSP. Neither SMP nor SMA were inherently superior across subjects,…

Salinity. Grade 5 Science Language Usage. Maryland School Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP): Resource Library. Public Release Task.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maryland State Dept. of Education. Baltimore. Div. of Planning, Results and Information Management.

One component of the Maryland School Performance Assessment; Program (MSPAP) is the state's performance-based assessments, criterion-referenced tests that require students to apply what they know and can do to solve problems and display other higher-order thinking skills. This document helps parents, teachers, students, and other citizens…

Comparison of Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance and conventional occupational therapy on occupational performance in individuals with stroke: A randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Ahn, Si-Nae; Yoo, Eun-Young; Jung, Min-Ye; Park, Hae-Yean; Lee, Ji-Yeon; Choi, Yoo-Im

2017-01-01

Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP) approach based on cognitive strategy in occupational therapy. To investigate the effects of CO-OP approach on occupational performance in individuals with hemiparetic stroke. This study was designed as a 5-week, randomized, single-blind. Forty-three participants who had a diagnosis of first stroke were enrolled in this study. The participants were randomly assigned to the experimental group (n = 20) or the control group (n = 23). The experimental group conducted CO-OP approach while the control group conducted conventional occupational therapy based on occupational performance components. This study measured Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) and Performance Quality Rating Scale (PQRS). Outcome measurements were performed at baseline and post-intervention. After training, the scores of COPM and PQRS in trained task were significantly higher for the score in the experimental group than the control group. In addition, the non-trained task was significantly higher for the score in the experimental group than the control group in COPM and the PQRS. This study suggests that the CO-OP approach is beneficial effects on the occupational performance to improvement in individuals with hemiparetic stroke, and have positive effects on generalization and transfer of acquired skills.