Neural correlates of interference resolution in the multi-source interference task: a meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies.

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Deng, Yuqin; Wang, Xiaochun; Wang, Yan; Zhou, Chenglin

2018-04-10

Interference resolution refers to cognitive control processes enabling one to focus on task-related information while filtering out unrelated information. But the exact neural areas, which underlie a specific cognitive task on interference resolution, are still equivocal. The multi-source interference task (MSIT), as a particular cognitive task, is a well-established experimental paradigm used to evaluate interference resolution. Studies combining the MSIT with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have shown that the MSIT evokes the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and cingulate-frontal-parietal cognitive-attentional networks. However, these brain areas have not been evaluated quantitatively and these findings have not been replicated. In the current study, we firstly report a voxel-based meta-analysis of functional brain activation associated with the MSIT so as to identify the localization of interference resolution in such a specific cognitive task. Articles on MSIT-related fMRI published between 2003 and July 2017 were eligible. The electronic databases searched included PubMed, Web of Knowledge, and Google Scholar. Differential BOLD activation patterns between the incongruent and congruent condition were meta-analyzed in anisotropic effect-size signed differential mapping software. Robustness meta-analysis indicated that two significant activation clusters were shown to have reliable functional activity in comparisons between incongruent and congruent conditions. The first reliable activation cluster, which included the dACC, medial prefrontal cortex, supplementary motor area, replicated the previous MSIT-related fMRI study results. Furthermore, we found another reliable activation cluster comprising areas of the right insula, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right lenticular nucleus-putamen, which were not typically discussed in previous MSIT-related fMRI studies. The current meta-analysis study presents the reliable brain activation patterns

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

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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

Unnecessary work tasks and mental health

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Ida E H; Tripathi, Manisha; Borritz, Marianne

2014-01-01

OBJECTIVES: According to the "stress-as-offense-to-self" perspective, work tasks that are considered unnecessary or unreasonable - so-called "illegitimate work tasks" - are likely to elicit stress-reactions. Previous studies, mostly cross-sectional, have shown that illegitimate tasks are associated...... with increased self-reported stress, cortisol, and counterproductive work behavior. In this article, we examine the prospective association between unnecessary work tasks, one type of illegitimate work tasks, and mental health among Danish human service workers. Further, we explore whether this association...... is modified by sex, age, occupational position, and baseline mental health status. METHODS: The data were obtained from self-administered questionnaires from 1351 Danish human service workers in three waves of data-collection during 1999-2005. We measured unnecessary work tasks by a single item, and assessed...

Color-word matching stroop task: separating interference and response conflict.

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Zysset, S; Müller, K; Lohmann, G; von Cramon , D Y

2001-01-01

The Stroop interference task requires a person to respond to a specific dimension of a stimulus while suppressing a competing stimulus dimension. Previous PET and fMRI studies using the Color Stroop paradigm have shown increased activity in the "cognitive division" of the cingulate cortex. In our fMRI study with nine subjects, we used a Color-Word Matching Stroop task. A frontoparietal network, including structures in the lateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar region, the intraparietal sulcus, as well as the lateral occipitotemporal gyrus, was activated when contrasting the incongruent vs the neutral condition. However, no substantial activation in either the right or left hemisphere of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was detected. In accordance with a series of recent articles, we argue that the ACC is not specifically involved in interference processes. The ACC seems rather involved in motor preparation processes which were controlled in the present Color-Word Matching Stroop task. We argue that the region around the banks of the inferior frontal sulcus is required to solve interference problems, a concept which can also be seen as a component of task set management. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

Distractor interference during a choice limb reaching task.

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Matthew Ray

Full Text Available According to action-centered models of attention, the patterns of distractor interference that emerge in selective reaching tasks are related to the time and effort required to resolve a race for activation between competing target and non-target response producing processes. Previous studies have only used unimanual aiming tasks and, as such, only examined the effects of competition that occurs within a limb. The results of studies using unimanual aiming movements often reveal an "ipsilateral effect"--distractors on the same side of space as the effector cause greater interference than distractors on the opposite side of space. The cost of the competition when response selection is between the limbs has yet to be addressed. Participants in the present study executed reaching movements to 1 of 4 (2 left, 2 right possible target locations with and without a distractor. Participants made ipsilateral reaches (left hand to left targets, right hand to right targets. In contrast to studies using unimanual aiming movements, a "contralateral effect" was observed; distractors affording responses for the other hand (in contralateral space caused more interference than distractors affording responses for the same hand. The findings from the present research demonstrate that when certain portions of response planning must be resolved prior to response initiation, distractors that code for that dimension cause the greatest interference.

Task choice and semantic interference in picture naming

OpenAIRE

Piai, V.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Schriefers, H.J.

2015-01-01

Evidence from dual-task performance indicates that speakers prefer not to select simultaneous responses in picture naming and another unrelated task, suggesting a response selection bottleneck in naming. In particular, when participants respond to tones with a manual response and name pictures with superimposed semantically related or unrelated distractor words, semantic interference in naming tends to be constant across stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between the tone stimulus and the pic...

Different Loci of Semantic Interference in Picture Naming vs. Word-Picture Matching Tasks

OpenAIRE

Harvey, Denise Y.; Schnur, Tatiana T.

2016-01-01

Naming pictures and matching words to pictures belonging to the same semantic category impairs performance relative to when stimuli come from different semantic categories (i.e., semantic interference). Despite similar semantic interference phenomena in both picture naming and word-picture matching tasks, the locus of interference has been attributed to different levels of the language system – lexical in naming and semantic in word-picture matching. Although both tasks involve access to shar...

Task conflict in the Stroop task: When Stroop interference decreases as Stroop facilitation increases in a low task conflict context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Benjamin Andrew Parris

2014-10-01

Full Text Available In the present study participants completed two blocks of the Stroop task, one in which the Response-Stimulus Interval (RSI was 3500ms and one in which RSI was 200ms. It was expected that, in line with previous research, the shorter RSI would induce a low Task Conflict context by increasing focus on the colour identification goal in the Stroop task. Based on previous research showing the role of Task Conflict in the presence or absence Stroop facilitation, this was expected to lead to the novel finding of an increase in facilitation and simultaneous decrease in interference. Such a finding would be problematic for models of Stroop effects that predict these indices of performance should be affected in tandem. A crossover interaction is reported supporting these predictions. As predicted, the shorter RSI resulted in incongruent and congruent trial RTs decreasing relative to a static neutral baseline condition; hence interference decreased as facilitation increased. An explanatory model (expanding on the work of Goldfarb, Henik and colleagues is presented that: 1 Shows how under certain conditions the predictions from single mechanism models hold true (i.e. when Task conflict is held constant; 2 Shows how it is possible that interference can be affected by an experimental manipulation that leaves facilitation apparently untouched and; 3 Predicts that facilitation cannot be independently affected by an experimental manipulation.

Interference between postural control and spatial vs. non-spatial auditory reaction time tasks in older adults.

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Fuhrman, Susan I; Redfern, Mark S; Jennings, J Richard; Furman, Joseph M

2015-01-01

This study investigated whether spatial aspects of an information processing task influence dual-task interference. Two groups (Older/Young) of healthy adults participated in dual-task experiments. Two auditory information processing tasks included a frequency discrimination choice reaction time task (non-spatial task) and a lateralization choice reaction time task (spatial task). Postural tasks included combinations of standing with eyes open or eyes closed on either a fixed floor or a sway-referenced floor. Reaction times and postural sway via center of pressure were recorded. Baseline measures of reaction time and sway were subtracted from the corresponding dual-task results to calculate reaction time task costs and postural task costs. Reaction time task cost increased with eye closure (p = 0.01), sway-referenced flooring (p vision x age interaction indicated that older subjects had a significant vision X task interaction whereas young subjects did not. However, when analyzed by age group, the young group showed minimal differences in interference for the spatial and non-spatial tasks with eyes open, but showed increased interference on the spatial relative to non-spatial task with eyes closed. On the contrary, older subjects demonstrated increased interference on the spatial relative to the non-spatial task with eyes open, but not with eyes closed. These findings suggest that visual-spatial interference may occur in older subjects when vision is used to maintain posture.

Semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not vary with reading ability.

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Piai, Vitória; Roelofs, Ardi; Roete, Ingeborg

2015-01-01

Previous dual-task studies examining the locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming have obtained diverging results. In these studies, participants manually responded to tones and named pictures while ignoring distractor words (picture-word interference, PWI) with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between tone and PWI stimulus. Whereas some studies observed no semantic interference at short SOAs, other studies observed effects of similar magnitude at short and long SOAs. The absence of semantic interference in some studies may perhaps be due to better reading skill of participants in these than in the other studies. According to such a reading-ability account, participants' reading skill should be predictive of the magnitude of their interference effect at short SOAs. To test this account, we conducted a dual-task study with tone discrimination and PWI tasks and measured participants' reading ability. The semantic interference effect was of similar magnitude at both short and long SOAs. Participants' reading ability was predictive of their naming speed but not of their semantic interference effect, contrary to the reading ability account. We conclude that the magnitude of semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not depend on reading skill.

Hysteresis in Mental Workload and Task Performance: The Influence of Demand Transitions and Task Prioritization.

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Jansen, Reinier J; Sawyer, Ben D; van Egmond, René; de Ridder, Huib; Hancock, Peter A

2016-12-01

We examine how transitions in task demand are manifested in mental workload and performance in a dual-task setting. Hysteresis has been defined as the ongoing influence of demand levels prior to a demand transition. Authors of previous studies predominantly examined hysteretic effects in terms of performance. However, little is known about the temporal development of hysteresis in mental workload. A simulated driving task was combined with an auditory memory task. Participants were instructed to prioritize driving or to prioritize both tasks equally. Three experimental conditions with low, high, and low task demands were constructed by manipulating the frequency of lane changing. Multiple measures of subjective mental workload were taken during experimental conditions. Contrary to our prediction, no hysteretic effects were found after the high- to low-demand transition. However, a hysteretic effect in mental workload was found within the high-demand condition, which degraded toward the end of the high condition. Priority instructions were not reflected in performance. Online assessment of both performance and mental workload demonstrates the transient nature of hysteretic effects. An explanation for the observed hysteretic effect in mental workload is offered in terms of effort regulation. An informed arrival at the scene is important in safety operations, but peaks in mental workload should be avoided to prevent buildup of fatigue. Therefore, communication technologies should incorporate the historical profile of task demand. © 2016, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Effects of visual and verbal interference tasks on olfactory memory: the role of task complexity.

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Annett, J M; Leslie, J C

1996-08-01

Recent studies have demonstrated that visual and verbal suppression tasks interfere with olfactory memory in a manner which is partially consistent with a dual coding interpretation. However, it has been suggested that total task complexity rather than modality specificity of the suppression tasks might account for the observed pattern of results. This study addressed the issue of whether or not the level of difficulty and complexity of suppression tasks could explain the apparent modality effects noted in earlier experiments. A total of 608 participants were each allocated to one of 19 experimental conditions involving interference tasks which varied suppression type (visual or verbal), nature of complexity (single, double or mixed) and level of difficulty (easy, optimal or difficult) and presented with 13 target odours. Either recognition of the odours or free recall of the odour names was tested on one occasion, either within 15 minutes of presentation or one week later. Both recognition and recall performance showed an overall effect for suppression nature, suppression level and time of testing with no effect for suppression type. The results lend only limited support to Paivio's (1986) dual coding theory, but have a number of characteristics which suggest that an adequate account of olfactory memory may be broadly similar to current theories of face and object recognition. All of these phenomena might be dealt with by an appropriately modified version of dual coding theory.

Mental fatigue and task control : Planning and preparation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lorist, MM; Klein, Martin; Nieuwenhuis, S; De Jong, R; Mulder, G; Meijman, TF

The effects of mental fatigue on planning and preparation for future actions were examined, using a task switching paradigm. Fatigue was induced by "time on task," with subjects performing a switch task continuously for 2 hr. Subjects had to alternate between tasks on every second trial, so that a

Proactive interference does not meaningfully distort visual working memory capacity estimates in the canonical change detection task.

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Lin, Po-Han; Luck, Steven J

2012-01-01

The change detection task has become a standard method for estimating the storage capacity of visual working memory. Most researchers assume that this task isolates the properties of an active short-term storage system that can be dissociated from long-term memory systems. However, long-term memory storage may influence performance on this task. In particular, memory traces from previous trials may create proactive interference that sometimes leads to errors, thereby reducing estimated capacity. Consequently, the capacity of visual working memory may be higher than is usually thought, and correlations between capacity and other measures of cognition may reflect individual differences in proactive interference rather than individual differences in the capacity of the short-term storage system. Indeed, previous research has shown that change detection performance can be influenced by proactive interference under some conditions. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the canonical version of the change detection task - in which the to-be-remembered information consists of simple, briefly presented features - is influenced by proactive interference. Two experiments were conducted using methods that ordinarily produce substantial evidence of proactive interference, but no proactive interference was observed. Thus, the canonical version of the change detection task can be used to assess visual working memory capacity with no meaningful influence of proactive interference.

Emotional prosody of task-irrelevant speech interferes with the retention of serial order.

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Kattner, Florian; Ellermeier, Wolfgang

2018-04-09

Task-irrelevant speech and other temporally changing sounds are known to interfere with the short-term memorization of ordered verbal materials, as compared to silence or stationary sounds. It has been argued that this disruption of short-term memory (STM) may be due to (a) interference of automatically encoded acoustical fluctuations with the process of serial rehearsal or (b) attentional capture by salient task-irrelevant information. To disentangle the contributions of these 2 processes, the authors investigated whether the disruption of serial recall is due to the semantic or acoustical properties of task-irrelevant speech (Experiment 1). They found that performance was affected by the prosody (emotional intonation), but not by the semantics (word meaning), of irrelevant speech, suggesting that the disruption of serial recall is due to interference of precategorically encoded changing-state sound (with higher fluctuation strength of emotionally intonated speech). The authors further demonstrated a functional distinction between this form of distraction and attentional capture by contrasting the effect of (a) speech prosody and (b) sudden prosody deviations on both serial and nonserial STM tasks (Experiment 2). Although serial recall was again sensitive to the emotional prosody of irrelevant speech, performance on a nonserial missing-item task was unaffected by the presence of neutral or emotionally intonated speech sounds. In contrast, sudden prosody changes tended to impair performance on both tasks, suggesting an independent effect of attentional capture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Selective Inhibition and Naming Performance in Semantic Blocking, Picture-Word Interference, and Color-Word Stroop Tasks

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Shao, Zeshu; Roelofs, Ardi; Martin, Randi C.; Meyer, Antje S.

2015-01-01

In 2 studies, we examined whether explicit distractors are necessary and sufficient to evoke selective inhibition in 3 naming tasks: the semantic blocking, picture-word interference, and color-word Stroop task. Delta plots were used to quantify the size of the interference effects as a function of reaction time (RT). Selective inhibition was…

Cross-domain interference costs during concurrent verbal and spatial serial memory tasks are asymmetric

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Morey, Candice C.; Mall, Jonathan T.

2012-01-01

Some evidence suggests that memory for serial order is domain-general. Evidence also points to asymmetries in interference between verbal and visual-spatial tasks. We confirm that concurrently remembering verbal and spatial serial lists provokes substantial interference compared with remembering a

Proactive and coactive interference in age-related performance in a recognition-based operation span task.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeintl, Melanie; Kliegel, Matthias

2010-01-01

Generally, older adults perform worse than younger adults in complex working memory span tasks. So far, it is unclear which processes mainly contribute to age-related differences in working memory span. The aim of the present study was to investigate age effects and the roles of proactive and coactive interference in a recognition-based version of the operation span task. Younger and older adults performed standard versions and distracter versions of the operation span task. At retrieval, participants had to recognize target words in word lists containing targets as well as proactive and/or coactive interference-related lures. Results show that, overall, younger adults outperformed older adults in the recognition of target words. Furthermore, analyses of error types indicate that, while younger adults were only affected by simultaneously presented distracter words, older adults had difficulties with both proactive and coactive interference. Results suggest that age effects in complex span tasks may not be mainly due to retrieval deficits in old age. Copyright 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Proactive interference does not meaningfully distort visual working memory capacity estimates in the canonical change detection task

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Po-Han eLin

2012-02-01

Full Text Available The change detection task has become a standard method for estimating the storage capacity of visual working memory. Most researchers assume that this task isolates the properties of an active short-term storage system that can be dissociated from long-term memory systems. However, long-term memory storage may influence performance on this task. In particular, memory traces from previous trials may create proactive interference that sometimes leads to errors, thereby reducing estimated capacity. Consequently, the capacity of visual working memory may be higher than is usually thought, and correlations between capacity and other measures of cognition may reflect individual differences in proactive interference rather than individual differences in the capacity of the short-term storage system. Indeed, previous research has shown that change detection performance can be influenced by proactive interference under some conditions. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the canonical version of the change detection task—in which the to-be-remembered information consists of simple, briefly presented features—is influenced by proactive interference. Two experiments were conducted using methods that ordinarily produce substantial evidence of proactive interference, but no proactive interference was observed. Thus, the canonical version of the change detection task can be used to assess visual working memory capacity with no meaningful influence of proactive interference.

Interference Control in Preschoolers: Factors Influencing Performance on the Day-Night Task

Science.gov (United States)

Montgomery, Derek E.; Anderson, Maren; Uhl, Elizabeth

2008-01-01

Two experiments investigated preschoolers' interference control in variants of the day-night task. The day-night task involves instructing children across 16 trials to say the word "day" when viewing a card depicting a nighttime sky and to say "night" when shown a picture of the daytime sky. The purpose of the experiments was to investigate…

Gender differences in brain activation on a mental rotation task.

Science.gov (United States)

Semrud-Clikeman, Margaret; Fine, Jodene Goldenring; Bledsoe, Jesse; Zhu, David C

2012-10-01

Few neuroimaging studies have explored gender differences on mental rotation tasks. Most studies have utilized samples with both genders, samples mainly consisting of men, or samples with six or fewer females. Graduate students in science fields or liberal arts programs (20 males, 20 females) completed a mental rotation task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). When a pair of cube figures was shown, the participant made a keypad response based on whether the pair is the same/similar or different. Regardless of gender, the bilateral middle frontal gyrus, bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS), and the left precuneus were activated when a subject tried to solve the mental rotation task. Increased activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus/middle frontal gyrus, the left precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex/cuneus region, and the left middle occipital gyrus was found for men as compared to women. Better accuracy and shorter response times were correlated with an increased activation in the bilateral intraparietal sulcus. No significant brain activity differences related to mental rotation were found between academic majors. These findings suggest that networks involved in visual attention appear to be more strongly activated in the mental rotation tasks in men as compared to women. It also suggests that men use a more automatic process when analyzing complex visual reasoning tasks while women use a more top-down process.

Motor Interference Does Not Impair the Memory Consolidation of Imagined Movements

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Debarnot, Ursula; Maley, Laura; De Rossi, Danilo; Guillot, Aymeric

2010-01-01

The present study aimed to investigate whether an interference task might impact the sleep-dependent consolidation process of a mentally learned sequence of movements. Thirty-two participants were subjected to a first training session through motor imagery (MI) or physical practice (PP) of a finger sequence learning task. After 2 h, half of the…

Innovative Approaches to Task Shifting in Mental Health | CRDI ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Innovative Approaches to Task Shifting in Mental Health. Across the world, it is estimated that mental disorders account for 12% of disability-adjusted life years. This proportion is still increasing and projected to reach 15% by 2020. However, provision of mental health services has not matched the need, especially in ...

Unnecessary work tasks and mental health: a prospective analysis of Danish human service workers.

Science.gov (United States)

Madsen, Ida E H; Tripathi, Manisha; Borritz, Marianne; Rugulies, Reiner

2014-11-01

According to the "stress-as-offense-to-self" perspective, work tasks that are considered unnecessary or unreasonable - so-called "illegitimate work tasks" - are likely to elicit stress-reactions. Previous studies, mostly cross-sectional, have shown that illegitimate tasks are associated with increased self-reported stress, cortisol, and counterproductive work behavior. In this article, we examine the prospective association between unnecessary work tasks, one type of illegitimate work tasks, and mental health among Danish human service workers. Further, we explore whether this association is modified by sex, age, occupational position, and baseline mental health status. The data were obtained from self-administered questionnaires from 1351 Danish human service workers in three waves of data-collection during 1999-2005. We measured unnecessary work tasks by a single item, and assessed mental health using the 5-item mental health inventory from the Short form 36 questionnaire. We analyzed data using multi-level modeling, adjusting for potential confounding by sex, age, cohabitation, occupational position, and baseline mental health. Unnecessary work tasks were prospectively associated with a decreased level of mental health. This association was stronger for employees with poor baseline mental health and tended to be more pronounced among older employees. Among participants with poor baseline mental health, the association was explained by neither psychological demands nor decision latitude. Our findings suggest that the prevention of unnecessary work tasks may benefit employee mental health, particularly among employees with pre-existing mental health problems.

Unidirectional interference in use of nondominant hand during concurrent Grooved Pegboard and random number generation tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Strenge, Hans; Niederberger, Uwe

2008-06-01

The interference effect between Grooved Pegboard task with either hand and the executive task of cued verbal random number generation was investigated. 24 normal right-handed subjects performed each task under separate (single-task) and concurrent (dual-task) conditions. Articulatory suppression was required as an additional secondary task during pegboard performance. Analysis indicated an unambiguous distinction between the two hands. Comparisons of single-task and dual-task conditions showed an asymmetrical pattern of unidirectional interference with no practice effects during pegboard performance. Concurrent performance with nondominant hand but not the dominant hand of random number generation performance became continuously slower. There was no effect of divided attention on pegboard performance. Findings support the idea that the nondominant hand on the pegboard and random number tasks draw from the same processing resources but that for the executive aspect random number generation is more sensitive to changes in allocation of attentional resources.

Exploring methodological frameworks for a mental task-based near-infrared spectroscopy brain-computer interface.

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Weyand, Sabine; Takehara-Nishiuchi, Kaori; Chau, Tom

2015-10-30

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) enable users to interact with their environment using only cognitive activities. This paper presents the results of a comparison of four methodological frameworks used to select a pair of tasks to control a binary NIRS-BCI; specifically, three novel personalized task paradigms and the state-of-the-art prescribed task framework were explored. Three types of personalized task selection approaches were compared, including: user-selected mental tasks using weighted slope scores (WS-scores), user-selected mental tasks using pair-wise accuracy rankings (PWAR), and researcher-selected mental tasks using PWAR. These paradigms, along with the state-of-the-art prescribed mental task framework, where mental tasks are selected based on the most commonly used tasks in literature, were tested by ten able-bodied participants who took part in five NIRS-BCI sessions. The frameworks were compared in terms of their accuracy, perceived ease-of-use, computational time, user preference, and length of training. Most notably, researcher-selected personalized tasks resulted in significantly higher accuracies, while user-selected personalized tasks resulted in significantly higher perceived ease-of-use. It was also concluded that PWAR minimized the amount of data that needed to be collected; while, WS-scores maximized user satisfaction and minimized computational time. In comparison to the state-of-the-art prescribed mental tasks, our findings show that overall, personalized tasks appear to be superior to prescribed tasks with respect to accuracy and perceived ease-of-use. The deployment of personalized rather than prescribed mental tasks ought to be considered and further investigated in future NIRS-BCI studies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cognitive-motor dual-task interference: A systematic review of neural correlates.

Science.gov (United States)

Leone, Carmela; Feys, Peter; Moumdjian, Lousin; D'Amico, Emanuele; Zappia, Mario; Patti, Francesco

2017-04-01

Cognitive-motor interference refers to dual-tasking (DT) interference (DTi) occurring when the simultaneous performance of a cognitive and a motor task leads to a percentage change in one or both tasks. Several theories exist to explain DTi in humans: the capacity-sharing, the bottleneck and the cross-talk theories. Numerous studies investigating whether a specific brain locus is associated with cognitive-motor DTi have been conducted, but not systematically reviewed. We aimed to review the evidences on brain activity associated with the cognitive-motor DT, in order to better understand the neurological basis of the CMi. Results were reported according to the technique used to assess brain activity. Twenty-three articles met the inclusion criteria. Out of them, nine studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show an additive, under-additive, over- additive, or a mixed activation pattern of the brain. Seven studies used near-infrared spectroscopy, and seven neurophysiological instruments. Yet a specific DT locus in the brain cannot be concluded from the overall current literature. Future studies are warranted to overcome the shortcomings identified. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Asymmetric cross-domain interference between two working memory tasks : Implications for models of working memory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Morey, Candice C.; Morey, Richard D.; van der Reijden, Madeleine; Holweg, Margot

2013-01-01

Observations of higher dual-task costs for within-domain than cross-domain task combinations constitute classic evidence for multi-component models of working memory (e.g., Baddeley, 1986; Logie, 2011). However, we report an asymmetric pattern of interference between verbal and visual-spatial tasks,

Semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not vary with reading ability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Piai, V.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Roete, I.E.C.

2015-01-01

Previous dual-task studies examining the locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming have obtained diverging results. In these studies, participants manually responded to tones and named pictures while ignoring distractor words (picture-word interference, PWI) with varying

PENGUKURAN BEBAN KERJA MENTAL DALAM SEARCHING TASK DENGAN METODE RATING SCALE MENTAL EFFORT (RSME)

OpenAIRE

Ari Widyanti; Addie Johnson; Dick de Waard

2012-01-01

Metode pengukuran beban kerja mental meliputi metode obyektif dan subyektif. Metode pengukuran beban kerja mental secara subyektif yang banyak diaplikasikan di Indonesia adalah Subjective Workload Assessment Technique (SWAT) dan NASA TLX (NASA Task Load Index). SWAT dan NASA TLX adalah pengukuran subyektif yang bersifat multidimensional (multidimensional scaling) yang relatif membutuhkan waktu dalam aplikasinya. Sebagai alternatif SWAT dan NASA TLX, Rating Scale Mental Effort (...

Negative Priming Effect after Inhibition of Weight/Number Interference in a Piaget-Like Task

Science.gov (United States)

Schirlin, Olivier; Houde, Olivier

2007-01-01

Piagetian tasks have more to do with the child's ability to inhibit interference than they do with the ability to grasp their underlying logic. Here we used a chronometric paradigm with 11-year-olds, who succeed in Piaget's conservation-of-weight task, to test the role of cognitive inhibition in a priming version of this classical task. The…

Effect of preceding exercise on cerebral and splanchnic vascular responses to mental task

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Someya Nami

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background To investigate the effect of preceding acute exercise on the peripheral vascular response to a mental task, we measured splanchnic and cerebral blood flow responses to performing a mental task after exercise and resting. Methods In the exercise trial, 11 males exercised for 30 min on a cycle ergometer with a workload set at 70% of the age-predicted maximal heart rate for each individual. After a 15-min recovery period, the subjects rested for 5 min for pre-task baseline measurement and then performed mental arithmetic for 5 min followed by 5 min of post-task measurement. In the resting trial, they rested for 45 min and pre-task baseline data was obtained for 5 min. Then mental arithmetic was performed for 5 min followed by post-task measurement. We measured the mean blood velocity in the middle cerebral artery and superior mesenteric artery and the mean arterial pressure. Results Mean arterial pressure and mean blood velocity in the middle cerebral artery were significantly higher than the baseline during mental arithmetic in both exercise and resting trials. Mean blood velocity in the middle cerebral artery during mental arithmetic was greater in the control trial than the exercise trial. Mean blood velocity in the superior mesenteric artery showed no significant change during mental arithmetic from baseline in both trials. Conclusion These results suggest that acute exercise can moderate the increase in cerebral blood flow induced by a mental task.

Pengukuran Beban Kerja Mental Dalam Searching Task Dengan Metode Rating Scale Mental Effort (Rsme)

OpenAIRE

Widyanti, Ari; Johnson, Addie; de Waard, Dick

2010-01-01

Metode pengukuran beban kerja mental meliputi metode obyektif dan subyektif. Metodepengukuran beban kerja mental secara subyektif yang banyak diaplikasikan di Indonesia adalahSubjective Workload Assessment Technique (SWAT) dan NASA TLX (NASA Task Load Index).SWAT dan NASA TLX adalah pengukuran subyektif yang bersifat multidimensional (multidimensionalscaling) yang relatif membutuhkan waktu dalam aplikasinya. Sebagai alternatif SWAT dan NASA TLX,Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) adalah satu me...

Reliabilities of mental rotation tasks: limits to the assessment of individual differences.

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Hirschfeld, Gerrit; Thielsch, Meinald T; Zernikow, Boris

2013-01-01

Mental rotation tasks with objects and body parts as targets are widely used in cognitive neuropsychology. Even though these tasks are well established to study between-groups differences, the reliability on an individual level is largely unknown. We present a systematic study on the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of individual differences in mental rotation tasks comparing different target types and orders of presentations. In total n = 99 participants (n = 63 for the retest) completed the mental rotation tasks with hands, feet, faces, and cars as targets. Different target types were presented in either randomly mixed blocks or blocks of homogeneous targets. Across all target types, the consistency (split-half reliability) and stability (test-retest reliabilities) were good or acceptable both for intercepts and slopes. At the level of individual targets, only intercepts showed acceptable reliabilities. Blocked presentations resulted in significantly faster and numerically more consistent and stable responses. Mental rotation tasks-especially in blocked variants-can be used to reliably assess individual differences in global processing speed. However, the assessment of the theoretically important slope parameter for individual targets requires further adaptations to mental rotation tests.

Task switching in video game players: Benefits of selective attention but not resistance to proactive interference.

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Karle, James W; Watter, Scott; Shedden, Judith M

2010-05-01

Research into the perceptual and cognitive effects of playing video games is an area of increasing interest for many investigators. Over the past decade, expert video game players (VGPs) have been shown to display superior performance compared to non-video game players (nVGPs) on a range of visuospatial and attentional tasks. A benefit of video game expertise has recently been shown for task switching, suggesting that VGPs also have superior cognitive control abilities compared to nVGPs. In two experiments, we examined which aspects of task switching performance this VGP benefit may be localized to. With minimal trial-to-trial interference from minimally overlapping task set rules, VGPs demonstrated a task switching benefit compared to nVGPs. However, this benefit disappeared when proactive interference between tasks was increased, with substantial stimulus and response overlap in task set rules. We suggest that VGPs have no generalized benefit in task switching-related cognitive control processes compared to nVGPs, with switch cost reductions due instead to a specific benefit in controlling selective attention. Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Bidirectional Interference between Speech and Nonspeech Tasks in Younger, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults

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Bailey, Dallin J.; Dromey, Christopher

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine divided attention over a large age range by looking at the effects of 3 nonspeech tasks on concurrent speech motor performance. The nonspeech tasks were designed to facilitate measurement of bidirectional interference, allowing examination of their sensitivity to speech activity. A cross-sectional…

Age-Related Changes in Brain Activation Underlying Single- and Dual-Task Performance: Visuomanual Drawing and Mental Arithmetic

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Van Impe, A.; Coxon, J. P.; Goble, D. J.; Wenderoth, N.; Swinnen, S. P.

2011-01-01

Depending on task combination, dual-tasking can either be performed successfully or can lead to performance decrements in one or both tasks. Interference is believed to be caused by limitations in central processing, i.e. structural interference between the neural activation patterns associated with each task. In the present study, single- and…

Dual-Task Interference: The Effects of Verbal Cognitive Tasks on Upright Postural Stability in Parkinson's Disease

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. D. Holmes

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Although dual-task interference has previously been demonstrated to have a significant effect on postural control among individuals with Parkinson's disease, the impact of speech complexity on postural control has not been demonstrated using quantitative biomechanical measures. The postural stability of twelve participants with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and twelve healthy age-matched controls was evaluated under three conditions: (1 without a secondary task, (2 performing a rote repetition task and (3 generating a monologue. Results suggested a significant effect of cognitive load on biomechanical parameters of postural stability. Although both groups increased their postural excursion, individuals with Parkinson's disease demonstrated significantly reduced excursion as compared with that of healthy age-matched controls. This suggests that participants with Parkinson's disease may be overconstraining their postural adjustments in order to focus attention on the cognitive tasks without losing their balance. Ironically, this overconstraint may place the participant at greater risk for a fall.

Stroop Interference in a Delayed Match-to-Sample Task: Evidence for Semantic Competition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bradley R. Sturz

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Discussions of the source of the Stroop interference effect continue to pervade the literature. Semantic competition posits that interference results from competing semantic activation of word and color dimensions of the stimulus prior to response selection. Response competition posits that interference results from competing responses for articulating the word dimension versus the color dimension at the time of response selection. We embedded Stroop stimuli into a delayed match-to-sample task in an attempt to test semantic and response competition accounts of the interference effect. Participants viewed a sample color word in black or colored fonts that were congruent or incongruent with respect to the color word itself. After a 5s delay, participants were presented with two targets (i.e., a match and a foil and were instructed to select the correct match. We probed each dimension independently during target presentations via color targets (i.e., two colors or word targets (i.e., two words and manipulated whether the semantic content of the foil was related to the semantic content of the irrelevant sample dimension (e.g., word sample red in blue font with the word red as the match and the word blue as the foil. We provide evidence for Stroop interference such that response times increased for incongruent trials even in the presence of a response option with semantic content unrelated to the semantic content of the irrelevant sample dimension. Accuracy also deteriorated during the related foil trials. A follow-up experiment with a 10s delay between sample and targets replicated the results. Results appear to provide converging evidence for Stroop interference in a delayed match-to-sample task in a manner that is consistent with an explanation based upon semantic competition and inconsistent with an explanation based upon response competition.

Evaluating low-resolution tomography neurofeedback by single dissociation of mental grotation task from stop signal task performance.

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Getter, Nir; Kaplan, Zeev; Todder, Doron

2015-10-01

Electroencephalography source localization neurofeedback, i.e Standardized low-resolution tomography (sLORETA) neurofeedback are non-invasive method for altering region specific brain activity. This is an improvement over traditional neurofeedback which were based on recordings from a single scalp-electrode. We proposed three criteria clusters as a methodological framework to evaluate electroencephalography source localization neurofeedback and present relevant data. Our objective was to evaluate standardized low resolution EEG tomography neurofeedback by examining how training one neuroanatomical area effects the mental rotation task (which is related to the activity of bilateral Parietal regions) and the stop-signal test (which is related to frontal structures). Twelve healthy participants were enrolled in a single session sLORETA neurofeedback protocol. The participants completed both the mental rotation task and the stop-signal test before and after one sLORETA neurofeedback session. During sLORETA neurofeedback sessions participants watched one sitcom episode while the picture quality co-varied with activity in the superior parietal lobule. Participants were rewarded for increasing activity in this region only. Results showed a significant reaction time decrease and an increase in accuracy after sLORETA neurofeedback on the mental rotation task but not after stop signal task. Together with behavioral changes a significant activity increase was found at the left parietal brain after sLORETA neurofeedback compared with baseline. We concluded that activity increase in the parietal region had a specific effect on the mental rotation task. Tasks unrelated to parietal brain activity were unaffected. Therefore, sLORETA neurofeedback could be used as a research, or clinical tool for cognitive disorders. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Locus of Semantic Interference in Picture Naming: Evidence from Dual-Task Performance

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Piai, Vitória; Roelofs, Ardi; Schriefers, Herbert

2014-01-01

Disagreement exists regarding the functional locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming. This effect is a cornerstone of modern psycholinguistic models of word production, which assume that it arises in lexical response-selection. However, recent evidence from studies of dual-task performance suggests a locus in…

Cognitive inhibition of number/length interference in a Piaget-like task: evidence by combining ERP and MEG.

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Joliot, Marc; Leroux, Gaëlle; Dubal, Stéphanie; Tzourio-Mazoyer, Nathalie; Houdé, Olivier; Mazoyer, Bernard; Petit, Laurent

2009-08-01

We combined event-related potential (ERP) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) acquisition and analysis to investigate the electrophysiological markers of the inhibitory processes involved in the number/length interference in a Piaget-like numerical task. Eleven healthy subjects performed four gradually interfering conditions with the heuristic "length equals number" to be inhibited. Low resolution tomography reconstruction was performed on the combined grand averaged electromagnetic data at the early (N1, P1) and late (P2, N2, P3(early) and P3(late)) latencies. Every condition was analyzed at both scalp and regional brain levels. The inhibitory processes were visible on the late components of the electromagnetic brain activity. A right P2-related frontal orbital activation reflected the change of strategy in the inhibitory processes. N2-related SMA/cingulate activation revealed the first occurrence of the stimuli processing to be inhibited. Both P3 components revealed the working memory processes operating in a medial temporal complex and the mental imagery processes subtended by the precuneus. Simultaneous ERP and MEG signal acquisition and analysis allowed to describe the spatiotemporal patterns of neural networks involved in the inhibition of the "length equals number" interference. Combining ERP and MEG ensured a sensitivity which could be reached previously only through invasive intracortical recordings.

Cognitive-motor dual-task interference modulates mediolateral dynamic stability during gait in post-stroke individuals.

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Tisserand, R; Armand, S; Allali, G; Schnider, A; Baillieul, S

2018-04-01

Gait asymmetry and dynamic balance impairments observed in post-stroke individuals increase their risk of fall. Moreover, walking while performing a cognitive task (i.e. dual-task) disturbs the control of balance in post-stroke individuals. Here we investigated the mediolateral dynamic stability in twenty-two community-dwelling participants (12 post-strokes and 10 healthy controls) while walking in single-task (normal gait) and four different dual-tasks (cognitive-motor interference). Positions of the extrapolated center of mass and mediolateral widths of both margin of stability and base of support were extracted from 35 marker trajectories. Post-stroke participants presented larger margin of stability and base of support than controls during single-task (both p dual-task was found between groups. In post-stroke participants, dual-task induced slight modification of the mediolateral stability strategy, as the margin of stability was not different between the two limbs at foot-strike, and significantly reduced the performance in every cognitive task. Post-stroke participants increased their dynamic stability in the frontal plane in single-task by extending their base of support and mainly relying on their non-paretic limb. Under cognitive-motor interference (dual-task), post-stroke participants prioritized dynamic stability over cognitive performance to ensure a safe locomotion. Thus, rehabilitation programs should consider both dynamic balance and dual-task training, even at a chronic delay following stroke, to reduce the risk of fall in post-stroke individuals. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effect of time span and task load on pilot mental workload

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Berg, S. L.; Sheridan, T. B.

1986-01-01

Two sets of simulations designed to examine how a pilot's mental workload is affected by continuous manual-control activity versus discrete mental tasks that included the length of time between receiving an assignment and executing it are described. The first experiment evaluated two types of measures: objective performance indicators and subjective ratings. Subjective ratings for the two missions were different, but the objective performance measures were similar. In the second experiments, workload levels were increased and a second performance measure was taken. Mental workload had no influence on either performance-based workload measure. Subjective ratings discriminated among the scenarios and correlated with performance measures for high-workload flights. The number of mental tasks performed did not influence error rates, although high manual workloads did increase errors.

Emotional Facilitation Effect in the Picture-Word Interference Task: An ERP Study

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Liu, Baolin; Xin, Shuai; Jin, Zhixing; Hu, Yu; Li, Yang

2010-01-01

In this paper, we aimed to verify the emotional facilitation effect in the picture-word interference task using event-related potentials. Twenty-one healthy subjects were asked to categorize the emotional valences of pictures accompanied by emotionally congruent, either centrally or laterally positioned Chinese words. For both the foveal and…

Task-irrelevant distractors in the delay period interfere selectively with visual short-term memory for spatial locations.

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Marini, Francesco; Scott, Jerry; Aron, Adam R; Ester, Edward F

2017-07-01

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) enables the representation of information in a readily accessible state. VSTM is typically conceptualized as a form of "active" storage that is resistant to interference or disruption, yet several recent studies have shown that under some circumstances task-irrelevant distractors may indeed disrupt performance. Here, we investigated how task-irrelevant visual distractors affected VSTM by asking whether distractors induce a general loss of remembered information or selectively interfere with memory representations. In a VSTM task, participants recalled the spatial location of a target visual stimulus after a delay in which distractors were presented on 75% of trials. Notably, the distractor's eccentricity always matched the eccentricity of the target, while in the critical conditions the distractor's angular position was shifted either clockwise or counterclockwise relative to the target. We then computed estimates of recall error for both eccentricity and polar angle. A general interference model would predict an effect of distractors on both polar angle and eccentricity errors, while a selective interference model would predict effects of distractors on angle but not on eccentricity errors. Results showed that for stimulus angle there was an increase in the magnitude and variability of recall errors. However, distractors had no effect on estimates of stimulus eccentricity. Our results suggest that distractors selectively interfere with VSTM for spatial locations.

Effect of target-masker similarity on across-ear interference in a dichotic cocktail-party listening task.

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Brungart, Douglas S; Simpson, Brian D

2007-09-01

Similarity between the target and masking voices is known to have a strong influence on performance in monaural and binaural selective attention tasks, but little is known about the role it might play in dichotic listening tasks with a target signal and one masking voice in the one ear and a second independent masking voice in the opposite ear. This experiment examined performance in a dichotic listening task with a target talker in one ear and same-talker, same-sex, or different-sex maskers in both the target and the unattended ears. The results indicate that listeners were most susceptible to across-ear interference with a different-sex within-ear masker and least susceptible with a same-talker within-ear masker, suggesting that the amount of across-ear interference cannot be predicted from the difficulty of selectively attending to the within-ear masking voice. The results also show that the amount of across-ear interference consistently increases when the across-ear masking voice is more similar to the target speech than the within-ear masking voice is, but that no corresponding decline in across-ear interference occurs when the across-ear voice is less similar to the target than the within-ear voice. These results are consistent with an "integrated strategy" model of speech perception where the listener chooses a segregation strategy based on the characteristics of the masker present in the target ear and the amount of across-ear interference is determined by the extent to which this strategy can also effectively be used to suppress the masker in the unattended ear.

Electrophysiological correlates of proactive interference in the 'Recent Probes' verbal working memory task.

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Zhang, John X; Wu, Renhua; Kong, Lingyue; Weng, Xuchu; Du, Yingchun

2010-06-01

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study examined the temporal dynamics of proactive interference in working memory using a recent probes task. Participants memorized and retained a target set of four letters over a short retention interval. They then responded to a recognition probe by judging whether it was from the memory set. ERP waveforms elicited by positive probes compared to those from negative probes showed positive shifts in a fronto-central early N2 component and a parietal late positive component (LPC). The LPC was identified as the electrophysiological signature of proactive interference, as it differentiated between two types of negative probes defined based on whether they were recently encountered. These results indicate that the proactive interference we observed arises from a mismatch between familiarity and contextual information during recognition memory. When considered together with related studies in the literature, the results also suggest that there are different forms of proactive interference associated with different neural correlates. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Does Proactive Interference Play a Significant Role in Visual Working Memory Tasks?

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Makovski, Tal

2016-01-01

Visual working memory (VWM) is an online memory buffer that is typically assumed to be immune to source memory confusions. Accordingly, the few studies that have investigated the role of proactive interference (PI) in VWM tasks found only a modest PI effect at best. In contrast, a recent study has found a substantial PI effect in that performance…

Mental fatigue and impaired response processes: event-related brain potentials in a Go/NoGo task.

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Kato, Yuichiro; Endo, Hiroshi; Kizuka, Tomohiro

2009-05-01

The effects of mental fatigue on the availability of cognitive resources and associated response-related processes were examined using event-related brain potentials. Subjects performed a Go/NoGo task for 60 min. Reaction time, number of errors, and mental fatigue scores all significantly increased with time spent on the task. The NoGo-P3 amplitude significantly decreased with time on task, but the Go-P3 amplitude was not modulated. The amplitude of error-related negativity (Ne/ERN) also decreased with time on task. These results indicate that mental fatigue attenuates resource allocation and error monitoring for NoGo stimuli. The Go- and NoGo-P3 latencies both increased with time on task, indicative of a delay in stimulus evaluation time due to mental fatigue. NoGo-N2 latency increased with time on task, but NoGo-N2 amplitude was not modulated. The amplitude of response-locked lateralized readiness potential (LRP) significantly decreased with time on task. Mental fatigue appears to slows down the time course of response inhibition, and impairs the intensity of response execution.

Interference in motor learning - is motor interference sensory?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Jesper Lundbye; Petersen, Tue Hvass; Rothwell, John C

mechanisms determine whether or not interference occurs. We hypothesised that interference requires the same neural circuits to be engaged in the two tasks and provoke competing processes of synaptic plasticity. To test this, subjects learned a ballistic ankle plantarflexion task. Early motor memory...... was disrupted by subsequent learning of a precision tracking task with the same agonist muscle group, but not by learning involving antagonist muscles or by voluntary agonist contractions that did not require learning. If the competing task was learned with the same agonist muscle group 4 hours following...

Improving mental task classification by adding high frequency band information.

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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.

Effects of aversive odour presentation on inhibitory control in the Stroop colour-word interference task.

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Finkelmeyer, Andreas; Kellermann, Thilo; Bude, Daniela; Niessen, Thomas; Schwenzer, Michael; Mathiak, Klaus; Reske, Martina

2010-10-18

Due to the unique neural projections of the olfactory system, odours have the ability to directly influence affective processes. Furthermore, it has been shown that emotional states can influence various non-emotional cognitive tasks, such as memory and planning. However, the link between emotional and cognitive processes is still not fully understood. The present study used the olfactory pathway to induce a negative emotional state in humans to investigate its effect on inhibitory control performance in a standard, single-trial manual Stroop colour-word interference task. An unpleasant (H2S) and an emotionally neutral (Eugenol) odorant were presented in two separate experimental runs, both in blocks alternating with ambient air, to 25 healthy volunteers, while they performed the cognitive task. Presentation of the unpleasant odorant reduced Stroop interference by reducing the reaction times for incongruent stimuli, while the presentation of the neutral odorant had no effect on task performance. The odour-induced negative emotional state appears to facilitate cognitive processing in the task used in the present study, possibly by increasing the amount of cognitive control that is being exerted. This stands in contrast to other findings that showed impaired cognitive performance under odour-induced negative emotional states, but is consistent with models of mood-congruent processing.

Effects of aversive odour presentation on inhibitory control in the Stroop colour-word interference task

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Nießen Thomas

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Due to the unique neural projections of the olfactory system, odours have the ability to directly influence affective processes. Furthermore, it has been shown that emotional states can influence various non-emotional cognitive tasks, such as memory and planning. However, the link between emotional and cognitive processes is still not fully understood. The present study used the olfactory pathway to induce a negative emotional state in humans to investigate its effect on inhibitory control performance in a standard, single-trial manual Stroop colour-word interference task. An unpleasant (H2S and an emotionally neutral (Eugenol odorant were presented in two separate experimental runs, both in blocks alternating with ambient air, to 25 healthy volunteers, while they performed the cognitive task. Results Presentation of the unpleasant odorant reduced Stroop interference by reducing the reaction times for incongruent stimuli, while the presentation of the neutral odorant had no effect on task performance. Conclusions The odour-induced negative emotional state appears to facilitate cognitive processing in the task used in the present study, possibly by increasing the amount of cognitive control that is being exerted. This stands in contrast to other findings that showed impaired cognitive performance under odour-induced negative emotional states, but is consistent with models of mood-congruent processing.

Attention, gaze shifting, and dual-task interference from phonological encoding in spoken word planning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofs, A.P.A.

2008-01-01

Controversy exists about whether dual-task interference from word planning reflects structural bottleneck or attentional control factors. Here, participants named pictures whose names could or could not be phonologically prepared. and they manually responded to arrows presented away from (Experiment

Measuring cognitive load: performance, mental effort and simulation task complexity.

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Haji, Faizal A; Rojas, David; Childs, Ruth; de Ribaupierre, Sandrine; Dubrowski, Adam

2015-08-01

Interest in applying cognitive load theory in health care simulation is growing. This line of inquiry requires measures that are sensitive to changes in cognitive load arising from different instructional designs. Recently, mental effort ratings and secondary task performance have shown promise as measures of cognitive load in health care simulation. We investigate the sensitivity of these measures to predicted differences in intrinsic load arising from variations in task complexity and learner expertise during simulation-based surgical skills training. We randomly assigned 28 novice medical students to simulation training on a simple or complex surgical knot-tying task. Participants completed 13 practice trials, interspersed with computer-based video instruction. On trials 1, 5, 9 and 13, knot-tying performance was assessed using time and movement efficiency measures, and cognitive load was assessed using subjective rating of mental effort (SRME) and simple reaction time (SRT) on a vibrotactile stimulus-monitoring secondary task. Significant improvements in knot-tying performance (F(1.04,24.95)  = 41.1, p cognitive load (F(2.3,58.5)  = 57.7, p load among novices engaged in simulation-based learning. These measures can be used to track cognitive load during skills training. Mental effort ratings are also sensitive to small differences in intrinsic load arising from variations in the physical complexity of a simulation task. The complementary nature of these subjective and objective measures suggests their combined use is advantageous in simulation instructional design research. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Cognitive task demands, self-control demands and the mental well-being of office workers.

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Bridger, Robert S; Brasher, Kate

2011-09-01

The cognitive task demands of office workers and the self-control demands of their work roles were measured in a sample of 196 employees in two different office layouts using a self-report questionnaire, which was circulated electronically. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that both factors were associated with mental well-being, but not with physical well-being, while controlling for exposure to psychosocial stressors. The interaction between cognitive task demands and self-control demands had the strongest association with mental well-being, suggesting that the deleterious effect of one was greater when the other was present. An exploratory analysis revealed that the association was stronger for employees working in a large open-plan office than for those working in smaller offices with more privacy. Frustration of work goals was the cognitive task demand having the strongest negative impact on mental well-being. Methodological limitations and scale psychometrics (particularly the use of the NASA Task Load Index) are discussed. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Modern office work has high mental demands and low physical demands and there is a need to design offices to prevent adverse psychological reactions. It is shown that cognitive task demands interact with self-control demands to degrade mental well-being. The association was stronger in an open-plan office.

EEG correlates of task engagement and mental workload in vigilance, learning, and memory tasks.

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Berka, Chris; Levendowski, Daniel J; Lumicao, Michelle N; Yau, Alan; Davis, Gene; Zivkovic, Vladimir T; Olmstead, Richard E; Tremoulet, Patrice D; Craven, Patrick L

2007-05-01

The ability to continuously and unobtrusively monitor levels of task engagement and mental workload in an operational environment could be useful in identifying more accurate and efficient methods for humans to interact with technology. This information could also be used to optimize the design of safer, more efficient work environments that increase motivation and productivity. The present study explored the feasibility of monitoring electroencephalo-graphic (EEG) indices of engagement and workload acquired unobtrusively and quantified during performance of cognitive tests. EEG was acquired from 80 healthy participants with a wireless sensor headset (F3-F4,C3-C4,Cz-POz,F3-Cz,Fz-C3,Fz-POz) during tasks including: multi-level forward/backward-digit-span, grid-recall, trails, mental-addition, 20-min 3-Choice Vigilance, and image-learning and memory tests. EEG metrics for engagement and workload were calculated for each 1 -s of EEG. Across participants, engagement but not workload decreased over the 20-min vigilance test. Engagement and workload were significantly increased during the encoding period of verbal and image-learning and memory tests when compared with the recognition/ recall period. Workload but not engagement increased linearly as level of difficulty increased in forward and backward-digit-span, grid-recall, and mental-addition tests. EEG measures correlated with both subjective and objective performance metrics. These data in combination with previous studies suggest that EEG engagement reflects information-gathering, visual processing, and allocation of attention. EEG workload increases with increasing working memory load and during problem solving, integration of information, analytical reasoning, and may be more reflective of executive functions. Inspection of EEG on a second-by-second timescale revealed associations between workload and engagement levels when aligned with specific task events providing preliminary evidence that second

Titrating decision processes in the mental rotation task.

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Provost, Alexander; Heathcote, Andrew

2015-10-01

Shepard and Metzler's (1971) seminal mental-rotation task-which requires participants to decide if 1 object is a rotated version of another or its mirror image-has played a central role in the study of spatial cognition. We provide the first quantitative model of behavior in this task that is comprehensive in the sense of simultaneously providing an account of both error rates and the full distribution of response times. We used Brown and Heathcote's (2008) model of choice processing to separate out the contributions of mental rotation and decision stages. This model-based titration process was applied to data from a paradigm where converging evidence supported performance being based on rotation rather than other strategies. Stimuli were similar to Shepard and Metzler's block figures except a long major axis made rotation angle well defined for mirror stimuli, enabling comprehensive modeling of both mirror and normal responses. Results supported a mental rotation stage based on Larsen's (2014) model, where rotation takes a variable amount of time with a mean and variance that increase linearly with rotation angle. Differences in response threshold differences were largely responsible for mirror responses being slowed, and for errors increasing with rotation angle for some participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Modulating effect of COMT Val(158)Met polymorphism on interference resolution during a working memory task.

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Jaspar, Mathieu; Dideberg, Vinciane; Bours, Vincent; Maquet, Pierre; Collette, Fabienne

2015-04-01

Genetic variability related to the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene has received increasing attention in the last 15years, in particular as a potential modulator of the neural substrates underlying inhibitory processes and updating in working memory (WM). In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we administered a modified version of the Sternberg probe recency task (Sternberg, 1966) to 43 young healthy volunteers, varying the level of interference across successive items. The task was divided into two parts (high vs. low interference) to induce either proactive or reactive control processes. The participants were separated into three groups according to their COMT Val(158)Met genotype [Val/Val (VV); Val/Met (VM); Met/Met (MM)]. The general aim of the study was to determine whether COMT polymorphism has a modulating effect on the neural substrates of interference resolution during WM processing. Results indicate that interfering trials were associated with greater involvement of frontal cortices (bilateral medial frontal gyrus, left precentral and superior frontal gyri, right inferior frontal gyrus) in VV homozygous subjects (by comparison to Met allele carriers) only in the proactive condition of the task. In addition, analysis of peristimulus haemodynamic responses (PSTH) revealed that the genotype-related difference observed in the left SFG was specifically driven by a larger increase in activity from the storage to the recognition phase of the interfering trials in VV homozygous subjects. These results confirm the impact of COMT genotype on inhibitory processes during a WM task, with an advantage for Met allele carriers. Interestingly, this impact on frontal areas is present only when the level of interference is high, and especially during the transition from storage to recognition in the left superior frontal gyrus. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Autistic children and the object permanence task.

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Adrien, J L; Tanguay, P; Barthélémy, C; Martineaú, J; Perrot, A; Hameury, L; Sauvage, D

1993-01-01

Many mentally retarded autistic children can understand the concept of object permanence, but, in comparison to developmental-age matched normal children, the behavioral strategies they employ in carrying out the Casati-Lezine Object Permanence Test are deficient and lead to failure. These deficiencies appear unrelated to interference of stereotypic or other bizarre behavior in task performance. Similar problem-solving deficiencies can be found in mentally retarded children who are not autistic, suggesting that the deficiencies themselves are less related to the social-communication deficits of autistic children, but more to the general problem-solving difficulties found in children with a lower developmental quotient. Nevertheless, the qualitative analysis of results shows a tendency in autistic children, despite their better developmental level, to use less coordinated and regular sequences to solve the task than normal or mentally retarded children.

Inharmonic music elicits more negative affect and interferes more with a concurrent cognitive task than does harmonic music.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonin, Tanor; Smilek, Daniel

2016-04-01

We evaluated whether task-irrelevant inharmonic music produces greater interference with cognitive performance than task-irrelevant harmonic music. Participants completed either an auditory (Experiment 1) or a visual (Experiment 2) version of the cognitively demanding 2-back task in which they were required to categorize each digit in a sequence of digits as either being a target (a digit also presented two positions earlier in the sequence) or a distractor (all other items). They were concurrently exposed to either task-irrelevant harmonic music (judged to be consonant), task-irrelevant inharmonic music (judged to be dissonant), or no music at all as a distraction. The main finding across both experiments was that performance on the 2-back task was worse when participants were exposed to inharmonic music than when they were exposed to harmonic music. Interestingly, performance on the 2-back task was generally the same regardless of whether harmonic music or no music was played. We suggest that inharmonic, dissonant music interferes with cognitive performance by requiring greater cognitive processing than harmonic, consonant music, and speculate about why this might be.

Hemispheric dominance during the mental rotation task in patients with schizophrenia.

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Chen, Jiu; Yang, Laiqi; Zhao, Jin; Li, Lanlan; Liu, Guangxiong; Ma, Wentao; Zhang, Yan; Wu, Xingqu; Deng, Zihe; Tuo, Ran

2012-04-01

Mental rotation is a spatial representation conversion capability using an imagined object and either object or self-rotation. This capability is impaired in schizophrenia. To provide a more detailed assessment of impaired cognitive functioning in schizophrenia by comparing the electrophysiological profiles of patients with schizophrenia and controls while completing a mental rotation task using both normally-oriented images and mirror images. This electroencephalographic study compared error rates, reaction times and the topographic map of event-related potentials in 32 participants with schizophrenia and 29 healthy controls during mental rotation tasks involving both normal images and mirror images. Among controls the mean error rate and the mean reaction time for normal images and mirror images were not significantly different but in the patient group the mean (sd) error rate was higher for mirror images than for normal images (42% [6%] vs. 32% [9%], t=2.64, p=0.031) and the mean reaction time was longer for mirror images than for normal images (587 [11] ms vs. 571 [18] ms, t=2.83, p=0.028). The amplitude of the P500 component at Pz (parietal area), Cz (central area), P3 (left parietal area) and P4 (right parietal area) were significantly lower in the patient group than in the control group for both normal images and mirror images. In both groups the P500 for both the normal and mirror images was significantly higher in the right parietal area (P4) compared with left parietal area (P3). The mental rotation abilities of patients with schizophrenia for both normally-oriented images and mirror images are impaired. Patients with schizophrenia show a diminished left cerebral contribution to the mental rotation task, a more rapid response time, and a differential response to normal images versus mirror images not seen in healthy controls. Specific topographic characteristics of the EEG during mental rotation tasks are potential biomarkers for schizophrenia.

Mental workload and cognitive task automaticity: an evaluation of subjective and time estimation metrics.

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Liu, Y; Wickens, C D

1994-11-01

The evaluation of mental workload is becoming increasingly important in system design and analysis. The present study examined the structure and assessment of mental workload in performing decision and monitoring tasks by focusing on two mental workload measurements: subjective assessment and time estimation. The task required the assignment of a series of incoming customers to the shortest of three parallel service lines displayed on a computer monitor. The subject was either in charge of the customer assignment (manual mode) or was monitoring an automated system performing the same task (automatic mode). In both cases, the subjects were required to detect the non-optimal assignments that they or the computer had made. Time pressure was manipulated by the experimenter to create fast and slow conditions. The results revealed a multi-dimensional structure of mental workload and a multi-step process of subjective workload assessment. The results also indicated that subjective workload was more influenced by the subject's participatory mode than by the factor of task speed. The time estimation intervals produced while performing the decision and monitoring tasks had significantly greater length and larger variability than those produced while either performing no other tasks or performing a well practised customer assignment task. This result seemed to indicate that time estimation was sensitive to the presence of perceptual/cognitive demands, but not to response related activities to which behavioural automaticity has developed.

Cognitive-motor interference during fine and gross motor tasks in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD).

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Schott, Nadja; El-Rajab, Inaam; Klotzbier, Thomas

2016-10-01

While typically developing children produce relatively automatized postural control processes, children with DCD seem to exhibit an automatization deficit. Dual tasks with various cognitive loads seem to be an effective way to assess the automatic deficit hypothesis. The aims of the study were: (1) to examine the effect of a concurrent cognitive task on fine and gross motor tasks in children with DCD, and (2) to determine whether the effect varied with different difficulty levels of the concurrent task. We examined dual-task performance (Trail-Making-Test, Trail-Walking-Test) in 20 children with DCD and 39 typically developing children. Based on the idea of the Trail-Making-Test, participants walked along a fixed pathway, following a prescribed path, delineated by target markers of (1) increasing sequential numbers, and (2) increasing sequential numbers and letters. The motor and cognitive dual-task effects (DTE) were calculated for each task. Regardless of the cognitive task, children with DCD performed equally well in fine and gross motor tasks, and were slower in the dual task conditions than under single task-conditions, compared with children without DCD. Increased cognitive task complexity resulted in slow trail walking as well as slower trail tracing. The motor interference for the gross motor tasks was least for the simplest conditions and greatest for the complex conditions and was more pronounced in children with DCD. Cognitive interference was low irrespective of the motor task. Children with DCD show a different approach to allocation of cognitive resources, and have difficulties making motor skills automatic. The latter notion is consistent with impaired cerebellar function and the "automatization deficit hypothesis", suggesting that any deficit in the automatization process will appear if conscious monitoring of the motor skill is made more difficult by integrating another task requiring attentional resources. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All

Decision-making under risk conditions is susceptible to interference by a secondary executive task.

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Starcke, Katrin; Pawlikowski, Mirko; Wolf, Oliver T; Altstötter-Gleich, Christine; Brand, Matthias

2011-05-01

Recent research suggests two ways of making decisions: an intuitive and an analytical one. The current study examines whether a secondary executive task interferes with advantageous decision-making in the Game of Dice Task (GDT), a decision-making task with explicit and stable rules that taps executive functioning. One group of participants performed the original GDT solely, two groups performed either the GDT and a 1-back or a 2-back working memory task as a secondary task simultaneously. Results show that the group which performed the GDT and the secondary task with high executive load (2-back) decided less advantageously than the group which did not perform a secondary executive task. These findings give further evidence for the view that decision-making under risky conditions taps into the rational-analytical system which acts in a serial and not parallel way as performance on the GDT is disturbed by a parallel task that also requires executive resources.

Interference between a fast-paced spatial puzzle task and verbal memory demands.

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Epling, Samantha L; Blakely, Megan J; Russell, Paul N; Helton, William S

2017-06-01

Research continues to provide evidence that people are poor multi-taskers. Cognitive resource theory is a common explanation for the inability to efficiently perform multiple tasks at the same time. This theory proposes that one's limited supply of cognitive resources can be utilized faster than it is replenished, which results in a performance decline, particularly when these limited resources must be allocated among multiple tasks. Researchers have proposed both domain-specific, for example, spatial versus verbal processing resources, and domain general cognitive resources. In the present research, we investigated whether a spatial puzzle task performed simultaneously with a verbal recall task would impair performance in either task or both tasks, compared to performance on the tasks individually. As hypothesized, a reduction in word recall was found when dual-tasking, though performance on the puzzle task did not significantly differ between the single- and dual-task conditions. This is consistent, in part, with both a general resource theory and a Multiple Resource Theory, but further work is required to better understand the cognitive processing system. The employment of the recall task in the dual-task paradigm with a variety of secondary tasks will help to continue mapping out the specificity (or lack thereof) of cognitive resources utilized in various mental and physical tasks.

Sex Differences in Mental Rotation Tasks: Not Just in the Mental Rotation Process!

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Boone, Alexander P.; Hegarty, Mary

2017-01-01

The paper-and-pencil Mental Rotation Test (Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978) consistently produces large sex differences favoring men (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995). In this task, participants select 2 of 4 answer choices that are rotations of a probe stimulus. Incorrect choices (i.e., foils) are either mirror reflections of the probe or…

What Klein’s semantic gradient does and does not really show: decomposing Stroop interference into task and informational conflict components

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Yulia eLevin

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The present study suggests that the idea that Stroop interference originates from multiple components may gain theoretically from integrating two independent frameworks. The first framework is represented by the well-known notion of semantic gradient of interference and the second one is the distinction between two types of conflict – the task and the informational conflict – giving rise to the interference (Goldfarb & Henik, 2007; McLeod & MacDonald, 2000. The proposed integration led to the conclusion that two (i.e., orthographic and lexical components of the four theoretically distinct components represent task conflict, and the other two (i.e., indirect and direct informational conflict components represent informational conflict. The four components were independently estimated in a series of experiments. The results confirmed the contribution of task conflict (estimated by a robust orthographic component and of informational conflict (estimated by a strong direct informational conflict component to Stroop interference. However, the performed critical review of the relevant literature (see General Discussion, as well as the results of the experiments reported, showed that the other two components expressing each type of conflict (i.e., the lexical component of task conflict and the indirect informational conflict were small, and unstable. The present analysis refines our knowledge of the origins of Stroop interference by providing evidence that each type of conflict has its major and minor contributions. The implications for cognitive control of an automatic reading process are also discussed.

Analysis of Time n Frequency EEG Feature Extraction Methods for Mental Task Classification

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Caglar Uyulan

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Many endogenous and external components may affect the physiological, mental and behavioral states in humans. Monitoring tools are required to evaluate biomarkers, identify biological events, and predict their outcomes. Being one of the valuable indicators, brain biomarkers derived from temporal or spectral electroencephalography (EEG signals processing, allow for the classification of mental disorders and mental tasks. An EEG signal has a nonstationary nature and individual frequency feature, hence it can be concluded that each subject has peculiar timing and data to extract unique features. In order to classify data, which are collected by performing four mental task (reciting the alphabet backwards, imagination of rotation of a cube, imagination of right hand movements (open/close and performing mathematical operations, discriminative features were extracted using four competitive time-frequency techniques; Wavelet Packet Decomposition (WPD, Morlet Wavelet Transform (MWT, Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT and Wavelet Filter Bank (WFB, respectively. The extracted features using both time and frequency domain information were then reduced using a principal component analysis for subset reduction. Finally, the reduced subsets were fed into a multi-layer perceptron neural network (MP-NN trained with back propagation (BP algorithm to generate a predictive model. This study mainly focuses on comparing the relative performance of time-frequency feature extraction methods that are used to classify mental tasks. The real-time (RT conducted experimental results underlined that the WPD feature extraction method outperforms with 92% classification accuracy compared to three other aforementioned methods for four different mental tasks.

Verbal and facial-emotional Stroop tasks reveal specific attentional interferences in sad mood.

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Isaac, Linda; Vrijsen, Janna N; Eling, Paul; van Oostrom, Iris; Speckens, Anne; Becker, Eni S

2012-01-01

Mood congruence refers to the tendency of individuals to attend to information more readily when it has the same emotional content as their current mood state. The aim of the present study was to ascertain whether attentional interference occurred for participants in sad mood states for emotionally relevant stimuli (mood-congruence), and to determine whether this interference occurred for both valenced words and valenced faces. A mood induction procedure was administered to 116 undergraduate females divided into two equal groups for the sad and happy mood condition. This study employed three versions of the Stroop task: color, verbal-emotional, and a facial-emotional Stroop. The two mood groups did not differ on the color Stroop. Significant group differences were found on the verbal-emotional Stroop for sad words with longer latencies for sad-induced participants. Main findings for the facial-emotional Stroop were that sad mood is associated with attentional interference for angry-threatening faces as well as longer latencies for neutral faces. Group differences were not found for positive stimuli. These findings confirm that sad mood is associated with attentional interference for mood-congruent stimuli in the verbal domain (sad words), but this mood-congruent effect does not necessarily apply to the visual domain (sad faces). Attentional interference for neutral faces suggests sad mood participants did not necessarily see valence-free faces. Attentional interference for threatening stimuli is often associated with anxiety; however, the current results show that threat is not an attentional interference observed exclusively in states of anxiety but also in sad mood.

Beyond a mask and against the bottleneck: retroactive dual-task interference during working memory consolidation of a masked visual target.

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Nieuwenstein, Mark; Wyble, Brad

2014-06-01

While studies on visual memory commonly assume that the consolidation of a visual stimulus into working memory is interrupted by a trailing mask, studies on dual-task interference suggest that the consolidation of a stimulus can continue for several hundred milliseconds after a mask. As a result, estimates of the time course of working memory consolidation differ more than an order of magnitude. Here, we contrasted these opposing views by examining if and for how long the processing of a masked display of visual stimuli can be disturbed by a trailing 2-alternative forced choice task (2-AFC; a color discrimination task or a visual or auditory parity judgment task). The results showed that the presence of the 2-AFC task produced a pronounced retroactive interference effect that dissipated across stimulus onset asynchronies of 250-1,000 ms, indicating that the processing elicited by the 2-AFC task interfered with the gradual consolidation of the earlier shown stimuli. Furthermore, this interference effect occurred regardless of whether the to-be-remembered stimuli comprised a string of letters or an unfamiliar complex visual shape, and it occurred regardless of whether these stimuli were masked. Conversely, the interference effect was reduced when the memory load for the 1st task was reduced, or when the 2nd task was a color detection task that did not require decision making. Taken together, these findings show that the formation of a durable and consciously accessible working memory trace for a briefly shown visual stimulus can be disturbed by a trailing 2-AFC task for up to several hundred milliseconds after the stimulus has been masked. By implication, the current findings challenge the common view that working memory consolidation involves an immutable central processing bottleneck, and they also make clear that consolidation does not stop when a stimulus is masked. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

EFFECTIVE INDICES FOR MONITORING MENTAL WORKLOAD WHILE PERFORMING MULTIPLE TASKS.

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Hsu, Bin-Wei; Wang, Mao-Jiun J; Chen, Chi-Yuan; Chen, Fang

2015-08-01

This study identified several physiological indices that can accurately monitor mental workload while participants performed multiple tasks with the strategy of maintaining stable performance and maximizing accuracy. Thirty male participants completed three 10-min. simulated multitasks: MATB (Multi-Attribute Task Battery) with three workload levels. Twenty-five commonly used mental workload measures were collected, including heart rate, 12 HRV (heart rate variability), 10 EEG (electroencephalography) indices (α, β, θ, α/θ, θ/β from O1-O2 and F4-C4), and two subjective measures. Analyses of index sensitivity showed that two EEG indices, θ and α/θ (F4-C4), one time-domain HRV-SDNN (standard deviation of inter-beat intervals), and four frequency-domain HRV: VLF (very low frequency), LF (low frequency), %HF (percentage of high frequency), and LF/HF were sensitive to differentiate high workload. EEG α/θ (F4-C4) and LF/HF were most effective for monitoring high mental workload. LF/HF showed the highest correlations with other physiological indices. EEG α/θ (F4-C4) showed strong correlations with subjective measures across different mental workload levels. Operation strategy would affect the sensitivity of EEG α (F4-C4) and HF.

The Influence of Stimulus Discriminability on Young Children's Interference Control in the Stroop-Like Happy-Sad Task

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Bluell, Alexandra M.; Montgomery, Derek E.

2014-01-01

The day-night paradigm, where children respond to a pair of pictures with opposite labels for a series of trials, is a widely used measure of interference control. Recent research has shown that a happy-sad variant of the day-night task was significantly more difficult than the standard day-night task. The present research examined whether the…

Intrusive images and voluntary memory for affective pictures: contextualization and dual-task interference.

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Krans, Julie; Langner, Oliver; Reinecke, Andrea; Pearson, David G

2013-12-01

The present study addressed the role of context information and dual-task interference during the encoding of negative pictures on intrusion development and voluntary recall. Healthy participants were shown negative pictures with or without context information. Pictures were either viewed alone or concurrently with a visuospatial or verbal task. Participants reported their intrusive images of the pictures in a diary. At follow-up, perceptual and contextual memory was tested. Participants in the context group reported more intrusive images and perceptual voluntary memory than participants in the no context group. No effects of the concurrent tasks were found on intrusive image frequency, but perceptual and contextual memory was affected according to the cognitive load of the task. The analogue method cannot be generalized to real-life trauma and the secondary tasks may differ in cognitive load. The findings challenge a dual memory model of PTSD but support an account in which retrieval strategy, rather than encoding processes, accounts for the experience of involuntary versus voluntary recall. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Task-Sharing Approaches to Improve Mental Health Care in Rural and Other Low-Resource Settings: A Systematic Review.

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Hoeft, Theresa J; Fortney, John C; Patel, Vikram; Unützer, Jürgen

2018-12-01

Rural areas persistently face a shortage of mental health specialists. Task shifting, or task sharing, is an approach in global mental health that may help address unmet mental health needs in rural and other low-resource areas. This review focuses on task-shifting approaches and highlights future directions for research in this area. Systematic review on task sharing of mental health care in rural areas of high-income countries included: (1) PubMed, (2) gray literature for innovations not yet published in peer-reviewed journals, and (3) outreach to experts for additional articles. We included English language articles published before August 31, 2013, on interventions sharing mental health care tasks across a team in rural settings. We excluded literature: (1) from low- and middle-income countries, (2) involving direct transfer of care to another provider, and (3) describing clinical guidelines and shared decision-making tools. The review identified approaches to task sharing focused mainly on community health workers and primary care providers. Technology was identified as a way to leverage mental health specialists to support care across settings both within primary care and out in the community. The review also highlighted how provider education, supervision, and partnerships with local communities can support task sharing. Challenges, such as confidentiality, are often not addressed in the literature. Approaches to task sharing may improve reach and effectiveness of mental health care in rural and other low-resource settings, though important questions remain. We recommend promising research directions to address these questions. © 2017 National Rural Health Association.

Specific default mode subnetworks support mentalizing as revealed through opposing network recruitment by social and semantic FMRI tasks.

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Hyatt, Christopher J; Calhoun, Vince D; Pearlson, Godfrey D; Assaf, Michal

2015-08-01

The ability to attribute mental states to others, or "mentalizing," is posited to involve specific subnetworks within the overall default mode network (DMN), but this question needs clarification. To determine which default mode (DM) subnetworks are engaged by mentalizing processes, we assessed task-related recruitment of DM subnetworks. Spatial independent component analysis (sICA) applied to fMRI data using relatively high-order model (75 components). Healthy participants (n = 53, ages 17-60) performed two fMRI tasks: an interactive game involving mentalizing (Domino), a semantic memory task (SORT), and a resting state fMRI scan. sICA of the two tasks split the DMN into 10 subnetworks located in three core regions: medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC; five subnetworks), posterior cingulate/precuneus (PCC/PrC; three subnetworks), and bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ). Mentalizing events increased recruitment in five of 10 DM subnetworks, located in all three core DMN regions. In addition, three of these five DM subnetworks, one dmPFC subnetwork, one PCC/PrC subnetwork, and the right TPJ subnetwork, showed reduced recruitment by semantic memory task events. The opposing modulation by the two tasks suggests that these three DM subnetworks are specifically engaged in mentalizing. Our findings, therefore, suggest the unique involvement of mentalizing processes in only three of 10 DM subnetworks, and support the importance of the dmPFC, PCC/PrC, and right TPJ in mentalizing as described in prior studies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Analysis of task-evoked systemic interference in fNIRS measurements: insights from fMRI.

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Erdoğan, Sinem B; Yücel, Meryem A; Akın, Ata

2014-02-15

Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising method for monitoring cerebral hemodynamics with a wide range of clinical applications. fNIRS signals are contaminated with systemic physiological interferences from both the brain and superficial tissues, resulting in a poor estimation of the task related neuronal activation. In this study, we use the anatomical resolution of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to extract scalp and brain vascular signals separately and construct an optically weighted spatial average of the fMRI blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal for characterizing the scalp signal contribution to fNIRS measurements. We introduce an extended superficial signal regression (ESSR) method for canceling physiology-based systemic interference where the effects of cerebral and superficial systemic interference are treated separately. We apply and validate our method on the optically weighted BOLD signals, which are obtained by projecting the fMRI image onto optical measurement space by use of the optical forward problem. The performance of ESSR method in removing physiological artifacts is compared to i) a global signal regression (GSR) method and ii) a superficial signal regression (SSR) method. The retrieved signals from each method are compared with the neural signals that represent the 'ground truth' brain activation cleaned from cerebral systemic fluctuations. We report significant improvements in the recovery of task induced neural activation with the ESSR method when compared to the other two methods as reflected in the Pearson R(2) coefficient and mean square error (MSE) metrics (two tailed paired t-tests, pnoise (CNR) improvement (60%). Our findings suggest that, during a cognitive task i) superficial scalp signal contribution to fNIRS signals varies significantly among different regions on the forehead and ii) using an average scalp measurement together with a local measure of superficial hemodynamics better accounts

Effects of Word Recognition Training in a Picture-Word Interference Task: Automaticity vs. Speed.

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Ehri, Linnea C.

First and second graders were taught to recognize a set of written words either more accurately or more rapidly. Both before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture naming task.…

Mental Task Classification Scheme Utilizing Correlation Coefficient Extracted from Interchannel Intrinsic Mode Function.

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Rahman, Md Mostafizur; Fattah, Shaikh Anowarul

2017-01-01

In view of recent increase of brain computer interface (BCI) based applications, the importance of efficient classification of various mental tasks has increased prodigiously nowadays. In order to obtain effective classification, efficient feature extraction scheme is necessary, for which, in the proposed method, the interchannel relationship among electroencephalogram (EEG) data is utilized. It is expected that the correlation obtained from different combination of channels will be different for different mental tasks, which can be exploited to extract distinctive feature. The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) technique is employed on a test EEG signal obtained from a channel, which provides a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), and correlation coefficient is extracted from interchannel IMF data. Simultaneously, different statistical features are also obtained from each IMF. Finally, the feature matrix is formed utilizing interchannel correlation features and intrachannel statistical features of the selected IMFs of EEG signal. Different kernels of the support vector machine (SVM) classifier are used to carry out the classification task. An EEG dataset containing ten different combinations of five different mental tasks is utilized to demonstrate the classification performance and a very high level of accuracy is achieved by the proposed scheme compared to existing methods.

Long-term habitual physical activity is associated with lower distractibility in a Stroop interference task in aging: Behavioral and ERP evidence.

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Gajewski, Patrick D; Falkenstein, Michael

2015-08-01

Aging is associated with compromised executive control functions. Several lines of evidence point to beneficial effects of physical activity on cognition which indicate that regular physical activity may counteract the age-related decline of some executive functions. Here, we investigate the effects of lifelong physical activity (about 50 years) on interference processing in two matched groups of 20 physically high active and 20 low active healthy older men using event-related potentials (ERPs). In a low interference block of the Stroop task, participants had to indicate the meaning of color-words, while color was either compatible or incompatible with the meaning. In the high interference block, participants were asked to respond according to the ink color of the word and to ignore its meaning. Physically active seniors showed faster reaction times, lower individual variability in reaction times, and higher accuracy compared to low active seniors, particularly in the high interference block. This result was confirmed in the classic paper-and-pencil version of the Stroop task showing higher interference score in the low active than high active individuals. ERPs revealed a shorter latency of the P2 and generally more negative amplitudes of the fronto-central N2 and N450 components in the high active group compared to the low active group. The amount of interference was negatively correlated with objectively measured fitness and self-reported physical activity. The positive effect of physical fitness on interference processing in the behavioral data was related to N2 and N450 amplitudes. Taken together, this suggests that seniors reporting long-term physical activity may exhibit generally enhanced activity in the frontal cortex which enables more efficient interference resolution in the Stroop task. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Task Monotony and Performance Efficacy of Mentally Retarded Young Adults.

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Locke, Bill J.; And Others

1982-01-01

Thirty-six mildly mentally retarded young adults were exposed to one of three training arrangements for vigilance performance, a monitoring task that some professionals consider uniquely appropriate for such persons because they are assumed to be less susceptible to boredom. (Author)

Number line estimation and complex mental calculation: Is there a shared cognitive process driving the two tasks?

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Montefinese, Maria; Semenza, Carlo

2018-05-17

It is widely accepted that different number-related tasks, including solving simple addition and subtraction, may induce attentional shifts on the so-called mental number line, which represents larger numbers on the right and smaller numbers on the left. Recently, it has been shown that different number-related tasks also employ spatial attention shifts along with general cognitive processes. Here we investigated for the first time whether number line estimation and complex mental arithmetic recruit a common mechanism in healthy adults. Participants' performance in two-digit mental additions and subtractions using visual stimuli was compared with their performance in a mental bisection task using auditory numerical intervals. Results showed significant correlations between participants' performance in number line bisection and that in two-digit mental arithmetic operations, especially in additions, providing a first proof of a shared cognitive mechanism (or multiple shared cognitive mechanisms) between auditory number bisection and complex mental calculation.

Neonatal Perirhinal Lesions in Rhesus Macaques Alter Performance on Working Memory Tasks with High Proactive Interference.

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Weiss, Alison R; Nadji, Ryhan; Bachevalier, Jocelyne

2015-01-01

The lateral prefrontal cortex is known for its contribution to working memory (WM) processes in both humans and animals. Yet, recent studies indicate that the prefrontal cortex is part of a broader network of interconnected brain areas involved in WM. Within the medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures, the perirhinal cortex, which has extensive direct interactions with the lateral and orbital prefrontal cortex, is required to form active/flexible representations of familiar objects. However, its participation in WM processes has not be fully explored. The goal of this study was to assess the effects of neonatal perirhinal lesions on maintenance and monitoring WM processes. As adults, animals with neonatal perirhinal lesions and their matched controls were tested in three object-based (non-spatial) WM tasks that tapped different WM processing domains, e.g., maintenance only (Session-unique Delayed-nonmatching-to Sample, SU-DNMS), and maintenance and monitoring (Object-Self-Order, OBJ-SO; Serial Order Memory Task, SOMT). Neonatal perirhinal lesions transiently impaired the acquisition of SU-DNMS at a short (5 s) delay, but not when re-tested with a longer delay (30 s). The same neonatal lesions severely impacted acquisition of OBJ-SO task, and the impairment was characterized by a sharp increase in perseverative errors. By contrast, neonatal perirhinal lesion spared the ability to monitor the temporal order of items in WM as measured by the SOMT. Contrary to the SU-DNMS and OBJ-SO, which re-use the same stimuli across trials and thus produce proactive interference, the SOMT uses novel objects on each trial and is devoid of interference. Therefore, the impairment of monkeys with neonatal perirhinal lesions on SU-DNMS and OBJ-SO tasks is likely to be caused by an inability to solve working memory tasks with high proactive interference. The sparing of performance on the SOMT demonstrates that neonatal perirhinal lesions do not alter working memory processes per se but

Neonatal perirhinal lesions in rhesus macaques alter performance on working memory tasks with high proactive interference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alison R Weiss

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The lateral prefrontal cortex is known for its contribution to working memory (WM processes in both humans and animals. Yet, recent studies indicate that the prefrontal cortex is part of a broader network of interconnected brain areas involved in WM. Within the medial temporal lobe structures, the perirhinal cortex, which has extensive direct interactions with the lateral and orbital prefrontal cortex, is required to form active/flexible representations of familiar objects. However, its participation in WM processes has not be fully explored. The goal of this study was to assess the effects of neonatal perirhinal lesions on maintenance and monitoring WM processes. As adults, animals with neonatal perirhinal lesions and their matched controls were tested in three object-based (non-spatial WM tasks that tapped different WM processing domains, e.g. maintenance only (Session-unique Delayed-nonmatching-to Sample, SU-DNMS, and maintenance and monitoring (Object-Self-Order, OBJ-SO; Serial Order Memory Task, SOMT. Neonatal perirhinal lesions transiently impaired the acquisition of SU-DNMS at a short (5s delay, but not when re-tested with a longer delay (30s. The same neonatal lesions severely impacted acquisition of OBJ-SO task, and the impairment was characterized by a sharp increase in perseverative errors. By contrast, neonatal perirhinal lesion spared the ability to monitor the temporal order of items in WM as measured by the SOMT. Contrary to the SU-DNMS and OBJ-SO, which re-use the same stimuli across trials and thus produce proactive interference, the SOMT uses novel objects on each trial and is devoid of interference. Therefore, the impairment of monkeys with neonatal perirhinal lesions on SU-DNMS and OBJ-SO tasks is likely to be caused by an inability to solve working memory tasks with high proactive interference. The sparing of performance on the SOMT demonstrates that neonatal perirhinal lesions do not alter working memory processes per se

An accumulator model of semantic interference

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van Maanen, Leendert; van Rijn, Hedderik

To explain latency effects in picture-word interference tasks, cognitive models need to account for both interference and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) effects. As opposed to most models of picture-word interference, which model the time course during the task in a ballistic manner, the RACE model

Anticipation of a mentally effortful task recruits Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex: An fNIRS validation study.

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Vassena, Eliana; Gerrits, Robin; Demanet, Jelle; Verguts, Tom; Siugzdaite, Roma

2018-04-26

Preparing for a mentally demanding task calls upon cognitive and motivational resources. The underlying neural implementation of these mechanisms is receiving growing attention because of its implications for professional, social, and medical contexts. While several fMRI studies converge in assigning a crucial role to a cortico-subcortical network including Anterior Cigulate Cortex (ACC) and striatum, the involvement of Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) during mental effort anticipation has yet to be replicated. This study was designed to target DLPFC contribution to anticipation of a difficult task using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), as a more cost-effective tool measuring cortical hemodynamics. We adapted a validated mental effort task, where participants performed easy and difficult mental calculation, and measured DLPFC activity during the anticipation phase. As hypothesized, DLPFC activity increased during anticipation of a hard task as compared to an easy task. Besides replicating previous fMRI work, these results establish fNIRS as an effective tool to investigate cortical contributions to anticipation of effortful behavior. This is especially useful if one requires testing large samples (e.g., to target individual differences), populations with contraindication for functional MRI (e.g., infants or patients with metal implants), or subjects in more naturalistic environments (e.g., work or sport). Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Cross-limb interference during motor learning.

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Benedikt Lauber

Full Text Available It is well known that following skill learning, improvements in motor performance may transfer to the untrained contralateral limb. It is also well known that retention of a newly learned task A can be degraded when learning a competing task B that takes place directly after learning A. Here we investigate if this interference effect can also be observed in the limb contralateral to the trained one. Therefore, five different groups practiced a ballistic finger flexion task followed by an interfering visuomotor accuracy task with the same limb. Performance in the ballistic task was tested before the training, after the training and in an immediate retention test after the practice of the interference task for both the trained and the untrained hand. After training, subjects showed not only significant learning and interference effects for the trained limb but also for the contralateral untrained limb. Importantly, the interference effect in the untrained limb was dependent on the level of skill acquisition in the interfering motor task. These behavioural results of the untrained limb were accompanied by training specific changes in corticospinal excitability, which increased for the hemisphere ipsilateral to the trained hand following ballistic training and decreased during accuracy training of the ipsilateral hand. The results demonstrate that contralateral interference effects may occur, and that interference depends on the level of skill acquisition in the interfering motor task. This finding might be particularly relevant for rehabilitation.

Naming and categorizing objects: task differences modulate the polarity of semantic effects in the picture-word interference paradigm.

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Hantsch, Ansgar; Jescheniak, Jörg D; Mädebach, Andreas

2012-07-01

The picture-word interference paradigm is a prominent tool for studying lexical retrieval during speech production. When participants name the pictures, interference from semantically related distractor words has regularly been shown. By contrast, when participants categorize the pictures, facilitation from semantically related distractors has typically been found. In the extant studies, however, differences in the task instructions (naming vs. categorizing) were confounded with the response level: While responses in naming were typically located at the basic level (e.g., "dog"), responses were located at the superordinate level in categorization (e.g., "animal"). The present study avoided this confound by having participants respond at the basic level in both naming and categorization, using the same pictures, distractors, and verbal responses. Our findings confirm the polarity reversal of the semantic effects--that is, semantic interference in naming, and semantic facilitation in categorization. These findings show that the polarity reversal of the semantic effect is indeed due to the different tasks and is not an artifact of the different response levels used in previous studies. Implications for current models of language production are discussed.

Belief attribution despite verbal interference.

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Forgeot d'Arc, Baudouin; Ramus, Franck

2011-05-01

False-belief (FB) tasks have been widely used to study the ability of individuals to represent the content of their conspecifics' mental states (theory of mind). However, the cognitive processes involved are still poorly understood, and it remains particularly debated whether language and inner speech are necessary for the attribution of beliefs to other agents. We present a completely nonverbal paradigm consisting of silent animated cartoons in five closely related conditions, systematically teasing apart different aspects of scene analysis and allowing the assessment of the attribution of beliefs, goals, and physical causation. In order to test the role of language in belief attribution, we used verbal shadowing as a dual task to inhibit inner speech. Data on 58 healthy adults indicate that verbal interference decreases overall performance, but has no specific effect on belief attribution. Participants remained able to attribute beliefs despite heavy concurrent demands on their verbal abilities. Our results are most consistent with the hypothesis that belief attribution is independent from inner speech.

Effect of aging on performance, muscle activation and perceived stress during mentally demanding computer tasks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Alkjaer, Tine; Pilegaard, Marianne; Bakke, Merete

2005-01-01

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the effects of age on performance, muscle activation, and perceived stress during computer tasks with different levels of mental demand. METHODS: Fifteen young and thirteen elderly women performed two computer tasks [color word test and reference task] with different...... levels of mental demand but similar physical demands. The performance (clicking frequency, percentage of correct answers, and response time for correct answers) and electromyography from the forearm, shoulder, and neck muscles were recorded. Visual analogue scales were used to measure the participants......' perception of the stress and difficulty related to the tasks. RESULTS: Performance decreased significantly in both groups during the color word test in comparison with performance on the reference task. However, the performance reduction was more pronounced in the elderly group than in the young group...

Cognitive strategies in the mental rotation task revealed by EEG spectral power.

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Gardony, Aaron L; Eddy, Marianna D; Brunyé, Tad T; Taylor, Holly A

2017-11-01

The classic mental rotation task (MRT; Shepard & Metzler, 1971) is commonly thought to measure mental rotation, a cognitive process involving covert simulation of motor rotation. Yet much research suggests that the MRT recruits both motor simulation and other analytic cognitive strategies that depend on visuospatial representation and visual working memory (WM). In the present study, we investigated cognitive strategies in the MRT using time-frequency analysis of EEG and independent component analysis. We scrutinized sensorimotor mu (µ) power reduction, associated with motor simulation, parietal alpha (pα) power reduction, associated with visuospatial representation, and frontal midline theta (fmθ) power enhancement, associated with WM maintenance and manipulation. µ power increased concomitant with increasing task difficulty, suggesting reduced use of motor simulation, while pα decreased and fmθ power increased, suggesting heightened use of visuospatial representation processing and WM, respectively. These findings suggest that MRT performance involves flexibly trading off between cognitive strategies, namely a motor simulation-based mental rotation strategy and WM-intensive analytic strategies based on task difficulty. Flexible cognitive strategy use may be a domain-general cognitive principle that underlies aptitude and spatial intelligence in a variety of cognitive domains. We close with discussion of the present study's implications as well as future directions. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Investigation of relation between operator's mental workload and information flow in accident diagnosis tasks of nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ha, Chang Hoon; Kim, Jong Hyun; Seong, Poong Hyun

2004-01-01

In the main control room (MCR) of a nuclear power plant (NPP), there are lots of dynamic information sources for MCR operator's situation awareness. As the human-machine interface in MCR is advanced, operator's information acquisition, information gathering and decision-making is becoming an important part to maintain the effective and safe operation of NPPs. Diagnostic task in complex and huge systems like NPP is the most difficult and mental effort-demanding for operators. This research investigates the relation between operator's mental workload and information flow in accident diagnosis tasks. The amount of information flow is quantified, using information flow model and Conant's model, a kind of information theory. For the mental workload measure, eye blink rate, blink duration, fixation time, number of fixation, and gaze direction are measured during accident diagnosis tasks. Subjective methods such as NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) and Modified Cooper-Harper (MCH) method are also used in the experiment. It is shown that the operator's mental workload has significant relation to information flow of diagnosis task. It makes possible to predict the mental workload through the quantity of the information flow of a system

The window of my eyes: Task disengagement and mental fatigue covary with pupil dynamics

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Hopstaken, J.; Linden, D. van der; Bakker, A.B.; Kompier, M.A.J.

2015-01-01

Although mental fatigue is a complex, multi-facetted state that involves changes in motivation, cognition, and mood, one of its main characteristics is reduced task engagement. Despite its relevance for performance and safety, knowledge about the underlying neurocognitive processes in mental fatigue

The Role of Control Functions in Mentalizing: Dual-Task Studies of Theory of Mind and Executive Function

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Bull, Rebecca; Phillips, Louise H.; Conway, Claire A.

2008-01-01

Conflicting evidence has arisen from correlational studies regarding the role of executive control functions in Theory of Mind. The current study used dual-task manipulations of executive functions (inhibition, updating and switching) to investigate the role of these control functions in mental state and non-mental state tasks. The "Eyes"…

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

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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.

Effects of Relaxing Music on Mental Fatigue Induced by a Continuous Performance Task: Behavioral and ERPs Evidence.

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Guo, Wei; Ren, Jie; Wang, Biye; Zhu, Qin

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether listening to relaxing music would help reduce mental fatigue and to maintain performance after a continuous performance task. The experiment involved two fatigue evaluation phases carried out before and after a fatigue inducing phase. A 1-hour AX-continuous performance test was used to induce mental fatigue in the fatigue-inducing phase, and participants' subjective evaluation on the mental fatigue, as well as their neurobehavioral performance in a Go/NoGo task, were measured before and after the fatigue-inducing phase. A total of 36 undergraduate students (18-22 years) participated in the study and were randomly assigned to the music group and control group. The music group performed the fatigue-inducing task while listening to relaxing music, and the control group performed the same task without any music. Our results revealed that after the fatigue-inducing phase, (a) the music group demonstrated significantly less mental fatigue than control group, (b) reaction time significantly increased for the control group but not for the music group, (c) larger Go-P3 and NoGo-P3 amplitudes were observed in the music group, although larger NoGo-N2 amplitudes were detected for both groups. These results combined to suggest that listening to relaxing music alleviated the mental fatigue associated with performing an enduring cognitive-motor task.

Spatial-simultaneous working memory and selective interference in Down syndrome.

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Lanfranchi, Silvia; Mammarella, Irene C; Carretti, Barbara

2015-01-01

Several studies have suggested that individuals with Down syndrome (DS) have impairments in some aspects of the visuospatial domain. It has been reported that they are particularly impaired in the spatial-simultaneous working memory (WM) even in advantageous conditions such as when information is grouped to form a configuration. This study aimed to assess the performance of individuals with DS carrying out a spatial-simultaneous WM task in single and dual selective interference conditions in order to better explore the characteristics of their impairment in this area. Groups of individuals with DS and mentally age-matched typically developing (TD) children were asked to carry out a spatial-simultaneous WM task in a single- and in two dual-task conditions. In the single condition, the participants were required to recall an increasing number of positions of red squares presented simultaneously in a matrix. In the dual-task conditions, together with the spatial-simultaneous WM task, the participants were asked to carry out an articulatory suppression task or a tapping task. As has already been shown in other studies, individuals with DS were found to be impaired in carrying out a spatial-simultaneous WM task and showed a worse performance with respect to the TD group in both the conditions. These findings indicate that individuals with DS use the same coding modality as TD children of the same mental age. Just as the TD children, they performed lower in the dual- than in the single-task condition and there was no difference between the verbal and visuospatial conditions.

When Does a Good Working Memory Counteract Proactive Interference? Surprising Evidence from a Probe Recognition Task

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Cowan, Nelson; Saults, J. Scott

2013-01-01

It is often proposed that individuals with high working memory span overcome proactive interference (PI) from previous trials, saving working memory for task-relevant items. We examined this hypothesis in word-list probe recognition. We found no difference in PI related to span. Instead, ex-Gaussian analysis of reaction time showed speed…

Comparing the Parenting Role Tasks in Parents of Children with Mental/Physical Disabilities

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Azade Riyahi

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Background The role of parents during childhood is very important. Imbalances in parenting roles may cause severe emotional and physical injuries in children. The current study aimed at comparing parenting role tasks in parents of children who affected to mental/physical disabilities. Materials and Methods In the current cross sectional study, the parenting role tasks questionnaire was completed for 230 married couples with at least one child with disability and the parents were selected by convenience sampling method. The parenting role tasks were compared between mothers and fathers. Independent t-test, chi square and analysis of variances was used to compare the scores between fathers and mothers based on studied variables including demographic variables, types of child disabilities and history of trauma and seizure. Results Among enrolled children, 49 (21.3% had mental and 99 (43% affecting to physical disabilities. A significant difference regarding the parenting role tasks between mothers and fathers; therefore, the mean score of mothers for parenting role tasks was significantly higher than that of fathers regarding different variables such as demographic data, seizure, trauma, and the type of disabilities in the child (P

Interference in ballistic motor learning - is motor interference really sensory?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lundbye-Jensen, Jesper; Petersen, Tue Hvass; Rothwell, John C

Skill gained after a short period of practice in one motor task can be abolished if a second task is learned shortly afterwards. We hypothesised that interference requires the same circuits to be engaged in the two tasks and provoke competing processes of synaptic plasticity. To test this, subjects...

The role of rostral Brodmann area 6 in mental-operation tasks: an integrative neuroimaging approach.

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Hanakawa, Takashi; Honda, Manabu; Sawamoto, Nobukatsu; Okada, Tomohisa; Yonekura, Yoshiharu; Fukuyama, Hidena; Shibasaki, Hiroshi

2002-11-01

Recent evidence indicates that classical 'motor' areas may also have cognitive functions. We performed three neuroimaging experiments to investigate the functional neuroanatomy underlying three types of nonmotor mental-operation tasks: numerical, verbal, and spatial. (i) Positron emission tomography showed that parts of the posterior frontal cortex, which are consistent with the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and the rostral part of the dorsolateral premotor cortex (PMdr), were active during all three tasks. We also observed activity in the posterior parietal cortex and cerebellar hemispheres during all three tasks. Electrophysiological monitoring confirmed that there were no skeletomotor, oculomotor or articulatory movements during task performance. (ii) Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed that PMdr activity during the mental-operation tasks was localized in the depths of the superior precentral sulcus, which substantially overlapped the region active during complex finger movements and was located dorsomedial to the presumptive frontal eye fields. (iii) Single-trial fMRI showed a transient increase in activity time-locked to the performance of mental operations in the pre-SMA and PMdr. The results of the present study suggest that the PMdr is important in the rule-based association of symbolic cues and responses in both motor and nonmotor behaviors.

Language, culture, and task shifting--an emerging challenge for global mental health.

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Swartz, Leslie; Kilian, Sanja; Twesigye, Justus; Attah, Dzifa; Chiliza, Bonginkosi

2014-01-01

Language is at the heart of mental health care. Many high-income countries have sophisticated interpreter services, but in low- and middle-income countries there are not sufficient professional services, let alone interpreter services, and task shifting is used. In this article, we discuss this neglected issue in the context of low- and middle-income countries, where task shifting has been suggested as a solution to the problem of scarce mental health resources. The large diversity of languages in low- and middle-income countries, exacerbated by wide-scale migration, has implications for the scale-up of services. We suggest that it would be useful for those who are working innovatively to develop locally delivered mental health programmes in low- and middle-income countries to explore and report on issues of language and how these have been addressed. We need to know more about local challenges, but also about local solutions which seem to work, and for this we need more information from the field than is currently available.

Effects of gender, imagery ability, and sports practice on the performance of a mental rotation task.

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Habacha, Hamdi; Molinaro, Corinne; Dosseville, Fabrice

2014-01-01

Mental rotation is one of the main spatial abilities necessary in the spatial transformation of mental images and the manipulation of spatial parameters. Researchers have shown that mental rotation abilities differ between populations depending on several variables. This study uses a mental rotation task to investigate effects of several factors on the spatial abilities of 277 volunteers. The results demonstrate that high and low imagers performed equally well on this tasks. Athletes outperformed nonathletes regardless of their discipline, and athletes with greater expertise outperformed those with less experience. The results replicate the previously reported finding that men exhibit better spatial abilities than women. However, with high amounts of practice, the women in the current study were able to perform as well as men.

Using fiction to assess mental state understanding: a new task for assessing theory of mind in adults.

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David Dodell-Feder

Full Text Available Social functioning depends on the ability to attribute and reason about the mental states of others--an ability known as theory of mind (ToM. Research in this field is limited by the use of tasks in which ceiling effects are ubiquitous, rendering them insensitive to individual differences in ToM ability and instances of subtle ToM impairment. Here, we present data from a new ToM task--the Short Story Task (SST--intended to improve upon many aspects of existing ToM measures. More specifically, the SST was designed to: (a assess the full range of individual differences in ToM ability without suffering from ceiling effects; (b incorporate a range of mental states of differing complexity, including epistemic states, affective states, and intentions to be inferred from a first- and second-order level; (c use ToM stimuli representative of real-world social interactions; (d require participants to utilize social context when making mental state inferences; (e exhibit adequate psychometric properties; and (f be quick and easy to administer and score. In the task, participants read a short story and were asked questions that assessed explicit mental state reasoning, spontaneous mental state inference, and comprehension of the non-mental aspects of the story. Responses were scored according to a rubric that assigned greater points for accurate mental state attributions that included multiple characters' mental states. Results demonstrate that the SST is sensitive to variation in ToM ability, can be accurately scored by multiple raters, and exhibits concurrent validity with other social cognitive tasks. The results support the effectiveness of this new measure of ToM in the study of social cognition. The findings are also consistent with studies demonstrating significant relationships among narrative transportation, ToM, and the reading of fiction. Together, the data indicate that reading fiction may be an avenue for improving ToM ability.

Using Fiction to Assess Mental State Understanding: A New Task for Assessing Theory of Mind in Adults

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Dodell-Feder, David; Lincoln, Sarah Hope; Coulson, Joseph P.; Hooker, Christine I.

2013-01-01

Social functioning depends on the ability to attribute and reason about the mental states of others – an ability known as theory of mind (ToM). Research in this field is limited by the use of tasks in which ceiling effects are ubiquitous, rendering them insensitive to individual differences in ToM ability and instances of subtle ToM impairment. Here, we present data from a new ToM task – the Short Story Task (SST) - intended to improve upon many aspects of existing ToM measures. More specifically, the SST was designed to: (a) assess the full range of individual differences in ToM ability without suffering from ceiling effects; (b) incorporate a range of mental states of differing complexity, including epistemic states, affective states, and intentions to be inferred from a first- and second-order level; (c) use ToM stimuli representative of real-world social interactions; (d) require participants to utilize social context when making mental state inferences; (e) exhibit adequate psychometric properties; and (f) be quick and easy to administer and score. In the task, participants read a short story and were asked questions that assessed explicit mental state reasoning, spontaneous mental state inference, and comprehension of the non-mental aspects of the story. Responses were scored according to a rubric that assigned greater points for accurate mental state attributions that included multiple characters’ mental states. Results demonstrate that the SST is sensitive to variation in ToM ability, can be accurately scored by multiple raters, and exhibits concurrent validity with other social cognitive tasks. The results support the effectiveness of this new measure of ToM in the study of social cognition. The findings are also consistent with studies demonstrating significant relationships among narrative transportation, ToM, and the reading of fiction. Together, the data indicate that reading fiction may be an avenue for improving ToM ability. PMID:24244736

Differential development of retroactive and proactive interference during post-learning wakefulness.

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Brawn, Timothy P; Nusbaum, Howard C; Margoliash, Daniel

2018-07-01

Newly encoded, labile memories are prone to disruption during post-learning wakefulness. Here we examine the contributions of retroactive and proactive interference to daytime forgetting on an auditory classification task in a songbird. While both types of interference impair performance, they do not develop concurrently. The retroactive interference of task-B on task-A developed during the learning of task-B, whereas the proactive interference of task-A on task-B emerged during subsequent waking retention. These different time courses indicate an asymmetry in the emergence of retroactive and proactive interference and suggest a mechanistic framework for how different types of interference between new memories develop. © 2018 Brawn et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

The role of task interference and exposure duration in judging noise annoyance

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Zimmer, Karin; Ghani, Jody; Ellermeier, Wolfgang

2008-04-01

To determine whether the amount of performance disruption by a noise has an effect on the annoyance that noise evokes, a laboratory situation was created in which the participants rated a number of sounds before, after, and while performing a cognitively demanding memory task. The task consisted of memorizing, and later reproducing, a visually presented sequence of digits while being exposed to irrelevant sound chosen to produce different degrees of disruption. In two experiments, participants assessed these background sounds (frequency-modulated tones, broadband noise and speech) on a rating scale consisting of thirteen categories ranging from 'not annoying at all' to 'extremely annoying.' The judgments were collected immediately before, after, and concomitant to, the memory task. The results of the first experiment (N=24) showed that the annoyance assessments were indeed altered by the experience of disruption, most strongly during, and to a lesser extent after task completion, whereas ratings of the non-disruptive sounds remained largely unaffected. In the second experiment (N=25), participants were exposed to the same sounds, but for longer intervals at a time: 10 min as opposed to 14 s in the first experiment. The longer exposure resulted in increased annoyance in all noise conditions, but did not alter the differential effect of disruption on annoyance, which was replicated. The results of these laboratory experiments support the notion that annoyance cannot be conceived of as a purely perceptual sound property; rather, it is influenced by the degree of interference with the task at hand.

Frequent video game players resist perceptual interference.

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Aaron V Berard

Full Text Available Playing certain types of video games for a long time can improve a wide range of mental processes, from visual acuity to cognitive control. Frequent gamers have also displayed generalized improvements in perceptual learning. In the Texture Discrimination Task (TDT, a widely used perceptual learning paradigm, participants report the orientation of a target embedded in a field of lines and demonstrate robust over-night improvement. However, changing the orientation of the background lines midway through TDT training interferes with overnight improvements in overall performance on TDT. Interestingly, prior research has suggested that this effect will not occur if a one-hour break is allowed in between the changes. These results have suggested that after training is over, it may take some time for learning to become stabilized and resilient against interference. Here, we tested whether frequent gamers have faster stabilization of perceptual learning compared to non-gamers and examined the effect of daily video game playing on interference of training of TDT with one background orientation on perceptual learning of TDT with a different background orientation. As a result, we found that non-gamers showed overnight performance improvement only on one background orientation, replicating previous results with the interference in TDT. In contrast, frequent gamers demonstrated overnight improvements in performance with both background orientations, suggesting that they are better able to overcome interference in perceptual learning. This resistance to interference suggests that video game playing not only enhances the amplitude and speed of perceptual learning but also leads to faster and/or more robust stabilization of perceptual learning.

Frequent video game players resist perceptual interference.

Science.gov (United States)

Berard, Aaron V; Cain, Matthew S; Watanabe, Takeo; Sasaki, Yuka

2015-01-01

Playing certain types of video games for a long time can improve a wide range of mental processes, from visual acuity to cognitive control. Frequent gamers have also displayed generalized improvements in perceptual learning. In the Texture Discrimination Task (TDT), a widely used perceptual learning paradigm, participants report the orientation of a target embedded in a field of lines and demonstrate robust over-night improvement. However, changing the orientation of the background lines midway through TDT training interferes with overnight improvements in overall performance on TDT. Interestingly, prior research has suggested that this effect will not occur if a one-hour break is allowed in between the changes. These results have suggested that after training is over, it may take some time for learning to become stabilized and resilient against interference. Here, we tested whether frequent gamers have faster stabilization of perceptual learning compared to non-gamers and examined the effect of daily video game playing on interference of training of TDT with one background orientation on perceptual learning of TDT with a different background orientation. As a result, we found that non-gamers showed overnight performance improvement only on one background orientation, replicating previous results with the interference in TDT. In contrast, frequent gamers demonstrated overnight improvements in performance with both background orientations, suggesting that they are better able to overcome interference in perceptual learning. This resistance to interference suggests that video game playing not only enhances the amplitude and speed of perceptual learning but also leads to faster and/or more robust stabilization of perceptual learning.

Effects of cues in a binary categorization task on dual-task performance, mental workload, and effort.

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Botzer, Assaf; Meyer, Joachim; Parmet, Yisrael

2016-09-01

Binary cues help operators perform binary categorization tasks, such as monitoring for system failures. They may also allow them to attend to other tasks they concurrently perform. If the time saved by using cues is allocated to other concurrent tasks, users' overall effort may remain unchanged. In 2 experiments, participants performed a simulated quality control task, together with a tracking task. In half the experimental blocks cues were available, and participants could use them in their decisions about the quality of products (intact or faulty). In Experiment 1, the difficulty of tracking was constant, while in Experiment 2, tracking difficulty differed in the 2 halves of the experiment. In both experiments, participants reported on the NASA Task Load Index that cues improved their performance and reduced their frustration. Consequently, their overall score on mental workload (MWL) was lower with cues. They also reported, however, that cues did not reduce their effort. We conclude that cues and other forms of automation may support task performance and reduce overall MWL, but this will not necessarily mean that users will work less hard. Thus, effort and overall MWL should be evaluated separately, if one wants to obtain a full picture of the effects of automation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Investigation of relationship between mental workload and information flow rate of accident diagnosis tasks in NPPs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ha, Chang Hoon

2005-02-01

The objective of this study is to investigate experimentally the relationship between an operator's mental workload and the information flow rate of accident diagnosis tasks and further to propose the information flow rate as an analytic method for measuring the mental workload. There are two types of mental workload in the advanced MCR of NPPs: the information processing workload, which is the processing that the human operator must actually perform in order to complete the diagnosis task, and emotional stress workload experienced by the operator. In this study, the focus is on the former. Three kinds of methods are used to measure the operator's workload: information flow rate, subjective methods, and physiological measures. Information flows for eight accident diagnosis tasks are modeled qualitatively using a stage model and are quantified using Conant's model. The eight accident cases are considered here are: Loss Of Coolant Accident (LOCA), Steam Generator Tube Rupture (SGTR), Steam Line Break (SLB), Feedwater Line Break (FLB), Pressurizer (PZR) spray and heater failure, Reactor Coolant Pump (RCP) trip, Main Steam Isolation Valve (MSIV) failure, and PZR spray failure. The information flow rate is obtained for each diagnosis task by imposing time limit restrictions for the tasks. Subjective methods require the operators to respond to questionnaires to rate their level of mental effort. NASA-TLX and MCH scale are selected as subjective methods. NASA-TLX is a subjective method used in the various fields including the aviation, automobile, and nuclear industries. It has a multi-dimensional rating technique and provides an overall workload score based on a weighted average on six subscales using pair-wise comparison tests. MCH, on the other hand, is one-dimensional and uses a 10- point rating technique. As with NASA-TLX, the higher the score is, the higher the subjective workload is. For the physiological measurements, an eye tracking system analyzes eye movements

Neural congruency effects in the multi-source interference task vanish in healthy youth after controlling for conditional differences in mean RT.

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Kamin Kim

Full Text Available According to the conflict monitoring model of cognitive control, reaction time (RT in distracter interference tasks (e.g., the Stroop task is a more precise index of response conflict than stimulus congruency (incongruent vs. congruent. The model therefore predicts that RT should be a reliable predictor of activity in regions of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC that are posited to detect response conflict. In particular, pMFC activity should be (a greater in slow-RT than in fast-RT trials within a given task condition (e.g., congruent and (b equivalent in RT-matched trials from different conditions (i.e., congruent and incongruent trials. Both of these effects have been observed in functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI studies of adults. However, neither effect was observed in a recent study of healthy youth, suggesting that (a the model does not accurately describe the relationship between RT and pMFC activity in this population or (b the recent study was characterized by high variability due to a relatively small sample size. To distinguish between these possibilities, we asked a relatively large group of healthy youth (n = 28 to perform a distracter interference task - the multi-source interference task (MSIT - while we recorded their brain activity with functional MRI. In this relatively large sample, both of the model's predictions were confirmed. We conclude that the model accurately describes the relationship between pMFC activity and RT in healthy youth, but that additional research is needed to determine whether processes unrelated to response conflict contribute to this relationship.

The developmental pattern of stimulus and response interference in a color-object Stroop task: an ERP study

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Jongen Ellen MM

2008-09-01

with the RT response interference effect. Conclusion Although processes of stimulus interference control as measured with the color-object Stroop task seem to reach mature levels relatively early in childhood (6–7 years, development of response interference control appears to continue into late adolescence as 10–12 year-olds were still more susceptible to errors of response interference than adults.

Improving Learning Tasks for Mentally Handicapped People Using AmI Environments Based on Cyber-Physical Systems

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Diego Martín

2018-01-01

Full Text Available A prototype to improve learning tasks for mentally handicapped people is shown in this research paper using ambient intelligence techniques and based on cyber-physical systems. The whole system is composed of a worktable, a cyber-glove (both with several RFID and NFC detection zones, and an AmI software application for modeling and workflow guidance. A case study was carried out by the authors where sixteen mentally handicapped people and 3 trainers were involved in the experiment. The experiment consisted in the execution of several memorization tasks of movements of objects using the approach presented in this paper. The results obtained were very interesting, indicating that this kind of solutions are feasible and allow the learning of complex tasks to some types of mentally handicapped people. In addition, at the end of the paper are presented some lessons learned after performing the experimentation.

Mental workload and motor performance dynamics during practice of reaching movements under various levels of task difficulty.

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Shuggi, Isabelle M; Oh, Hyuk; Shewokis, Patricia A; Gentili, Rodolphe J

2017-09-30

The assessment of mental workload can inform attentional resource allocation during task performance that is essential for understanding the underlying principles of human cognitive-motor behavior. While many studies have focused on mental workload in relation to human performance, a modest body of work has examined it in a motor practice/learning context without considering individual variability. Thus, this work aimed to examine mental workload by employing the NASA TLX as well as the changes in motor performance resulting from the practice of a novel reaching task. Two groups of participants practiced a reaching task at a high and low nominal difficulty during which a group-level analysis assessed the mental workload, motor performance and motor improvement dynamics. A secondary cluster analysis was also conducted to identify specific individual patterns of cognitive-motor responses. Overall, both group- and cluster-level analyses revealed that: (i) all participants improved their performance throughout motor practice, and (ii) an increase in mental workload was associated with a reduction of the quality of motor performance along with a slower rate of motor improvement. The results are discussed in the context of the optimal challenge point framework and in particular it is proposed that under the experimental conditions employed here, functional task difficulty: (i) would possibly depend on an individuals' information processing capabilities, and (ii) could be indexed by the level of mental workload which, when excessively heightened can decrease the quality of performance and more generally result in delayed motor improvements. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Novel Design of 4-Class BCI Using Two Binary Classifiers and Parallel Mental Tasks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tao Geng

2008-01-01

Full Text Available A novel 4-class single-trial brain computer interface (BCI based on two (rather than four or more binary linear discriminant analysis (LDA classifiers is proposed, which is called a “parallel BCI.” Unlike other BCIs where mental tasks are executed and classified in a serial way one after another, the parallel BCI uses properly designed parallel mental tasks that are executed on both sides of the subject body simultaneously, which is the main novelty of the BCI paradigm used in our experiments. Each of the two binary classifiers only classifies the mental tasks executed on one side of the subject body, and the results of the two binary classifiers are combined to give the result of the 4-class BCI. Data was recorded in experiments with both real movement and motor imagery in 3 able-bodied subjects. Artifacts were not detected or removed. Offline analysis has shown that, in some subjects, the parallel BCI can generate a higher accuracy than a conventional 4-class BCI, although both of them have used the same feature selection and classification algorithms.

Cerebral blood flow, fatigue, mental effort, and task performance in offices with two different pollution loads

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nishihara, Naoe; Wargocki, Pawel; Tanabe, Shin-ichi

2014-01-01

The effects of indoor air quality on symptoms, perceptions, task performance, cerebral blood flow, fatigue, and mental effort of individuals working in an office were investigated. Twenty-four right-handed Danish female subjects in an office were exposed in groups of two at a time to two air...... pollution levels created by placing or removing a pollution source (i.e. a used carpet) behind a screen. During the exposure, the subjects performed four different office tasks presented on a computer monitor. The tasks were performed at two paces: normal and maximum. When the pollution source was present...... any effects caused by modifying pollution exposure, they were well correlated with increased mental effort when the tasks were performed at maximum pace and subjectively reported fatigue, which increased during the course of exposure, respectively....

Investigation of relationship between mental workload and information flow rate of accident diagnosis tasks in NPPs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ha, Chang Hoon

2005-02-15

The objective of this study is to investigate experimentally the relationship between an operator's mental workload and the information flow rate of accident diagnosis tasks and further to propose the information flow rate as an analytic method for measuring the mental workload. There are two types of mental workload in the advanced MCR of NPPs: the information processing workload, which is the processing that the human operator must actually perform in order to complete the diagnosis task, and emotional stress workload experienced by the operator. In this study, the focus is on the former. Three kinds of methods are used to measure the operator's workload: information flow rate, subjective methods, and physiological measures. Information flows for eight accident diagnosis tasks are modeled qualitatively using a stage model and are quantified using Conant's model. The eight accident cases are considered here are: Loss Of Coolant Accident (LOCA), Steam Generator Tube Rupture (SGTR), Steam Line Break (SLB), Feedwater Line Break (FLB), Pressurizer (PZR) spray and heater failure, Reactor Coolant Pump (RCP) trip, Main Steam Isolation Valve (MSIV) failure, and PZR spray failure. The information flow rate is obtained for each diagnosis task by imposing time limit restrictions for the tasks. Subjective methods require the operators to respond to questionnaires to rate their level of mental effort. NASA-TLX and MCH scale are selected as subjective methods. NASA-TLX is a subjective method used in the various fields including the aviation, automobile, and nuclear industries. It has a multi-dimensional rating technique and provides an overall workload score based on a weighted average on six subscales using pair-wise comparison tests. MCH, on the other hand, is one-dimensional and uses a 10- point rating technique. As with NASA-TLX, the higher the score is, the higher the subjective workload is. For the physiological measurements, an eye tracking system analyzes

Investigation of relation between operator's mental workload and information flow in accident diagnosis tasks of nuclear power plant

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ha, Chang Hoon; Kim, Jong Hyun; Seong, Poong Hyun [KAIST, Taejon (Korea, Republic of)

2004-07-01

In the main control room (MCR) of a nuclear power plant (NPP), there are lots of dynamic information sources for MCR operator's situation awareness. As the human-machine interface in MCR is advanced, operator's information acquisition, information gathering and decision-making is becoming an important part to maintain the effective and safe operation of NPPs. Diagnostic task in complex and huge systems like NPP is the most difficult and mental effort-demanding for operators. This research investigates the relation between operator's mental workload and information flow in accident diagnosis tasks. The amount of information flow is quantified, using information flow model and Conant's model, a kind of information theory. For the mental workload measure, eye blink rate, blink duration, fixation time, number of fixation, and gaze direction are measured during accident diagnosis tasks. Subjective methods such as NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) and Modified Cooper-Harper (MCH) method are also used in the experiment. It is shown that the operator's mental workload has significant relation to information flow of diagnosis task. It makes possible to predict the mental workload through the quantity of the information flow of a system.

Neural mechanisms of interference control in working memory: effects of interference expectancy and fluid intelligence.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gregory C Burgess

2010-09-01

Full Text Available A critical aspect of executive control is the ability to limit the adverse effects of interference. Previous studies have shown activation of left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex after the onset of interference, suggesting that interference may be resolved in a reactive manner. However, we suggest that interference control may also operate in a proactive manner to prevent effects of interference. The current study investigated the temporal dynamics of interference control by varying two factors - interference expectancy and fluid intelligence (gF - that could influence whether interference control operates proactively versus reactively.A modified version of the recent negatives task was utilized. Interference expectancy was manipulated across task blocks by changing the proportion of recent negative (interference trials versus recent positive (facilitation trials. Furthermore, we explored whether gF affected the tendency to utilize specific interference control mechanisms. When interference expectancy was low, activity in lateral prefrontal cortex replicated prior results showing a reactive control pattern (i.e., interference-sensitivity during probe period. In contrast, when interference expectancy was high, bilateral prefrontal cortex activation was more indicative of proactive control mechanisms (interference-related effects prior to the probe period. Additional results suggested that the proactive control pattern was more evident in high gF individuals, whereas the reactive control pattern was more evident in low gF individuals.The results suggest the presence of two neural mechanisms of interference control, with the differential expression of these mechanisms modulated by both experimental (e.g., expectancy effects and individual difference (e.g., gF factors.

Dual-task interference effects on cross-modal numerical order and sound intensity judgments: the more the louder?

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Alards-Tomalin, Doug; Walker, Alexander C; Nepon, Hillary; Leboe-McGowan, Launa C

2017-09-01

In the current study, cross-task interactions between number order and sound intensity judgments were assessed using a dual-task paradigm. Participants first categorized numerical sequences composed of Arabic digits as either ordered (ascending, descending) or non-ordered. Following each number sequence, participants then had to judge the intensity level of a target sound. Experiment 1 emphasized processing the two tasks independently (serial processing), while Experiments 2 and 3 emphasized processing the two tasks simultaneously (parallel processing). Cross-task interference occurred only when the task required parallel processing and was specific to ascending numerical sequences, which led to a higher proportion of louder sound intensity judgments. In Experiment 4 we examined whether this unidirectional interaction was the result of participants misattributing enhanced processing fluency experienced on ascending sequences as indicating a louder target sound. The unidirectional finding could not be entirely attributed to misattributed processing fluency, and may also be connected to experientially derived conceptual associations between ascending number sequences and greater magnitude, consistent with conceptual mapping theory.

Interference in ballistic motor learning: specificity and role of sensory error signals

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lundbye-Jensen, Jesper; Petersen, Tue Hvass; Rothwell, John C

2011-01-01

Humans are capable of learning numerous motor skills, but newly acquired skills may be abolished by subsequent learning. Here we ask what factors determine whether interference occurs in motor learning. We speculated that interference requires competing processes of synaptic plasticity in overlap......Humans are capable of learning numerous motor skills, but newly acquired skills may be abolished by subsequent learning. Here we ask what factors determine whether interference occurs in motor learning. We speculated that interference requires competing processes of synaptic plasticity...... in overlapping circuits and predicted specificity. To test this, subjects learned a ballistic motor task. Interference was observed following subsequent learning of an accuracy-tracking task, but only if the competing task involved the same muscles and movement direction. Interference was not observed from a non......-learning task suggesting that interference requires competing learning. Subsequent learning of the competing task 4 h after initial learning did not cause interference suggesting disruption of early motor memory consolidation as one possible mechanism underlying interference. Repeated transcranial magnetic...

Neural mechanisms of proactive interference-resolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Nee, Derek Evan; Jonides, John; Berman, Marc G

2007-12-01

The ability to mitigate interference from information that was previously relevant, but is no longer relevant, is central to successful cognition. Several studies have implicated left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) as a region tied to this ability, but it is unclear whether this result generalizes across different tasks. In addition, it has been suggested that left anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC) also plays a role in proactive interference-resolution although support for this claim has been limited. The present study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the role of these regions in resolving proactive-interference across two different tasks performed on the same subjects. Results indicate that both left VLPFC and left APFC are involved in the resolution of proactive interference across tasks. However, different functional networks related to each region suggest dissociable roles for the two regions. Additionally, regions of the posterior cingulate gyrus demonstrated unique involvement in facilitation when short- and long-term memory converged. This pattern of results serves to further specify models of proactive interference-resolution.

Patterns of Sympathetic Responses Induced by Different Stress Tasks

Science.gov (United States)

Fechir, M; Schlereth, T; Purat, T; Kritzmann, S; Geber, C; Eberle, T; Gamer, M; Birklein, F

2008-01-01

Stress tasks are used to induce sympathetic nervous system (SNS) arousal. However, the efficacy and the patterns of SNS activation have not been systematically compared between different tasks. Therefore, we analyzed SNS activation during the following stress tasks: Presentation of negative, positive, and – as a control – neutral affective pictures, Color-Word interference test (CWT), mental arithmetic under time limit, singing a song aloud, and giving a spontaneous talk. We examined 11 healthy subjects and recorded the following SNS parameters: Activation of emotional sweating by quantitative sudometry, skin vasoconstriction by laser-Doppler flowmetry, heart rate by ECG, blood pressure by determination of pulse wave transit time (PWTT), and electromyographic (EMG) activity of the trapezius muscle. Moreover, subjective stress ratings were acquired for each task using a visual analog scale. All tasks were felt significantly stressful when compared to viewing neutral pictures. However, SNS activation was not reliable: Affective pictures did not induce a significant SNS response; singing, giving a talk and mental arithmetic selectively increased heart rate and emotional sweating. Only the CWT globally activated the SNS. Regarding all tasks, induction of emotional sweating, increase of heart rate and blood pressure significantly correlated with subjective stress ratings, in contrast to EMG and skin vasoconstriction. Our results show that the activation of the SNS widely varies depending on the stress task. Different stress tasks differently activate the SNS, which is an important finding when considering sympathetic reactions - in clinical situations and in research. PMID:19018304

What is the relationship between mental workload factors and cognitive load types?

Science.gov (United States)

Galy, Edith; Cariou, Magali; Mélan, Claudine

2012-03-01

The present study tested the hypothesis of an additive interaction between intrinsic, extraneous and germane cognitive load, by manipulating factors of mental workload assumed to have a specific effect on either type of cognitive load. The study of cognitive load factors and their interaction is essential if we are to improve workers' wellbeing and safety at work. High cognitive load requires the individual to allocate extra resources to entering information. It is thought that this demand for extra resources may reduce processing efficiency and performance. The present study tested the effects of three factors thought to act on either cognitive load type, i.e. task difficulty, time pressure and alertness in a working memory task. Results revealed additive effects of task difficulty and time pressure, and a modulation by alertness on behavioral, subjective and psychophysiological workload measures. Mental overload can be the result of a combination of task-related components, but its occurrence may also depend on subject-related characteristics, including alertness. Solutions designed to reduce incidents and accidents at work should consider work organization in addition to task constraints in so far that both these factors may interfere with mental workload. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual Working Memory Capacity and Proactive Interference

OpenAIRE

Hartshorne, Joshua

2008-01-01

BACKGROUND: Visual working memory capacity is extremely limited and appears to be relatively immune to practice effects or the use of explicit strategies. The recent discovery that visual working memory tasks, like verbal working memory tasks, are subject to proactive interference, coupled with the fact that typical visual working memory tasks are particularly conducive to proactive interference, suggests that visual working memory capacity may be systematically under-estimated. METHODOLOGY/P...

Temporal Comparison Between NIRS and EEG Signals During a Mental Arithmetic Task Evaluated with Self-Organizing Maps.

Science.gov (United States)

Oyama, Katsunori; Sakatani, Kaoru

2016-01-01

Simultaneous monitoring of brain activity with near-infrared spectroscopy and electroencephalography allows spatiotemporal reconstruction of the hemodynamic response regarding the concentration changes in oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin that are associated with recorded brain activity such as cognitive functions. However, the accuracy of state estimation during mental arithmetic tasks is often different depending on the length of the segment for sampling of NIRS and EEG signals. This study compared the results of a self-organizing map and ANOVA, which were both used to assess the accuracy of state estimation. We conducted an experiment with a mental arithmetic task performed by 10 participants. The lengths of the segment in each time frame for observation of NIRS and EEG signals were compared with the 30-s, 1-min, and 2-min segment lengths. The optimal segment lengths were different for NIRS and EEG signals in the case of classification of feature vectors into the states of performing a mental arithmetic task and being at rest.

Author response to letter. Ref: Madsen et al. "Unnecessary work tasks and mental health: a prospective analysis of Danish human service workers".

Science.gov (United States)

Madsen, Ida Eh; Rugulies, Reiner

2015-03-01

We read with interest the letter from Drs Durand-Moreau, Loddé, and Dewitte (1) regarding our article on unnecessary work tasks and mental health (2). The authors argue that: (i) the article is flawed by an imprecise one-item exposure measurement, (ii) the results may be affected by reverse causality, and (iii) ultimately the elimination of unnecessary work tasks may increase "psychic suffering". We would like to take this opportunity to address their concerns. We acknowledge, as we did in the article itself, that measuring unnecessary work tasks using only one item is less than ideal and could have increased measurement error in our analyses. The item we used to measure unnecessary work tasks assesses the employee's overall evaluation regarding the extent to which they must conduct work tasks that they, for whatever reason, deem unnecessary. We are unconvinced by the claim by Drs Durand-Moreau, Loddé, and Dewitte that this phenomenon is somehow unrelated to Semmer's definition of unnecessary tasks (3, 4), regardless of the sense-making processes underlying an individual employee's evaluation of a particular work task as unnecessary. Regarding the issue of reverse causality, the analyses were longitudinal and the effect estimates were adjusted for the baseline mental health level of the participants. Consequently, we examined changes in mental health over time, and our results cannot be explained by poorer mental health making workers think "that what they're doing is useless" as claimed in the commentary. Although causal inference is always a delicate issue when applying observational research methods, the adjustment for baseline mental health should account for reverse causality at least. Drs Durand-Moreau, Loddé, and Dewitte question that our findings suggest that the elimination of unnecessary work tasks may be beneficial to employee mental health. Instead they propose that unnecessary work tasks may be conducive to mental health because "some tasks may seem

Language production in a shared task: Cumulative semantic interference from self- and other-produced context words

OpenAIRE

Hoedemaker, R.; Ernst, J.; Meyer, A.; Belke, E.

2017-01-01

This study assessed the effects of semantic context in the form of self-produced and other-produced words on subsequent language production. Pairs of participants performed a joint picture naming task, taking turns while naming a continuous series of pictures. In the single-speaker version of this paradigm, naming latencies have been found to increase for successive presentations of exemplars from the same category, a phenomenon known as Cumulative Semantic Interference (CSI). As expected, th...

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity relates to weak resistance to proactive interference.

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Smets, Jorien; Wessel, Ineke; Raes, Filip

2014-06-01

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity (rAMS), experiencing intrusive memories, and rumination appear to be risk factors for depression and depressive relapse. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether a weak resistance to proactive interference (PI) might underlie this trio of cognitive risk factors. Resistance to PI refers to being able to ignore cognitive distracters that were previously relevant but became irrelevant for current task goals. Students (N = 65) and depressed patients (N = 37) completed tasks measuring resistance to PI and AMS, and completed questionnaires on intrusive memories and rumination. In both samples, weaker resistance to PI was associated with rAMS. There was no evidence for a relationship between resistance to PI and intrusive memories or rumination. As we did not assess other measures of executive functioning, we cannot conclude whether the observed relationship between rumination and PI is due to unique qualities of PI. Difficulties to deliberately recall specific, rather than general or categoric autobiographical memories appear to be related to more general problems with the inhibition of interference of mental distracters. The results are in line with the executive control account of rAMS. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Applying systems thinking to task shifting for mental health using lay providers: a review of the evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Javadi, D; Feldhaus, I; Mancuso, A; Ghaffar, A

2017-01-01

This paper seeks to review the available evidence to determine whether a systems approach is employed in the implementation and evaluation of task shifting for mental health using lay providers in low- and middle-income countries, and to highlight system-wide effects of task-shifting strategies in order to better inform efforts to strength community mental health systems. Pubmed, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library databases were searched. Articles were screened by two independent reviewers with a third reviewer resolving discrepancies. Two stages of screens were done to ensure sensitivity. Studies were analysed using the World Health Organization's building blocks framework with the addition of a community building block, and systems thinking characteristics to determine the extent to which system-wide effects had been considered. Thirty studies were included. Almost all studies displayed positive findings on mental health using task shifting. One study showed no effect. No studies explicitly employed systems thinking tools, but some demonstrated systems thinking characteristics, such as exploring various stakeholder perspectives, capturing unintended consequences, and looking across sectors for system-wide impact. Twenty-five of the 30 studies captured elements other than the most directly relevant building blocks of service delivery and health workforce. There is a lack of systematic approaches to exploring complexity in the evaluation of task-shifting interventions. Systems thinking tools should support evidence-informed decision making for a more complete understanding of community-based systems strengthening interventions for mental health.

Formative research on a teacher accompaniment model to promote youth mental health in Haiti: Relevance to mental health task-sharing in low-resource school settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Eustache, Eddy; Gerbasi, Margaret E; Severe, Jennifer; Fils-Aimé, J Reginald; Smith Fawzi, Mary C; Raviola, Giuseppe J; Darghouth, Sarah; Boyd, Kate; Thérosmé, Tatiana; Legha, Rupinder; Pierre, Ermaze L; Affricot, Emmeline; Alcindor, Yoldie; Grelotti, David J; Becker, Anne E

2017-06-01

Task-sharing with teachers to promote youth mental health is a promising but underdeveloped strategy in improving care access in low-income countries. To assess feasibility, acceptability and utility of the teacher accompaniment phase of a school-based Teacher- Accompagnateur Pilot Study (TAPS) in Haiti. We assigned student participants, aged 18-22 years ( n = 120), to teacher participants ( n = 22) within four Haitian schools; we instructed participants to arrange meetings with their assigned counterparts to discuss mental health treatment, academic skills, and/or well-being. We measured student and teacher perceived feasibility, acceptability and utility of meetings with self-report Likert-style questions. We examined overall program feasibility by the percentage of students with a documented meeting, acceptability by a composite measure of student satisfaction and utility by the percentage with identified mental health need who discussed treatment with a teacher. Favorable ratings support feasibility, acceptability and utility of teacher- accompagnateur meetings with students. The majority of students (54%) met with a teacher. Among students with an identified mental disorder, 43.2% discussed treatment during a meeting. This accompaniment approach to mental health task-sharing with teachers provided a school-based opportunity for students with mental health need to discuss treatment and has potential relevance to other low-income settings.

Electrophysiological difference between mental state decoding and mental state reasoning.

Science.gov (United States)

Cao, Bihua; Li, Yiyuan; Li, Fuhong; Li, Hong

2012-06-29

Previous studies have explored the neural mechanism of Theory of Mind (ToM), but the neural correlates of its two components, mental state decoding and mental state reasoning, remain unclear. In the present study, participants were presented with various photographs, showing an actor looking at 1 of 2 objects, either with a happy or an unhappy expression. They were asked to either decode the emotion of the actor (mental state decoding task), predict which object would be chosen by the actor (mental state reasoning task), or judge at which object the actor was gazing (physical task), while scalp potentials were recorded. Results showed that (1) the reasoning task elicited an earlier N2 peak than the decoding task did over the prefrontal scalp sites; and (2) during the late positive component (240-440 ms), the reasoning task elicited a more positive deflection than the other two tasks did at the prefrontal scalp sites. In addition, neither the decoding task nor the reasoning task has no left/right hemisphere difference. These findings imply that mental state reasoning differs from mental state decoding early (210 ms) after stimulus onset, and that the prefrontal lobe is the neural basis of mental state reasoning. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Escaping the recent past: which stimulus dimensions influence proactive interference?

Science.gov (United States)

Craig, Kimberly S; Berman, Marc G; Jonides, John; Lustig, Cindy

2013-07-01

Proactive interference occurs when information from the past disrupts current processing and is a major source of confusion and errors in short-term memory (STM; Wickens, Born, & Allen, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2:440-445, 1963). The present investigation examines potential boundary conditions for interference, testing the hypothesis that potential competitors must be similar along task-relevant dimensions to influence proactive interference effects. We manipulated both the type of task being completed (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and dimensions of similarity irrelevant to the current task (Experiments 4 and 5) to determine how the recent presentation of a probe item would affect the speed with which participants could reject that item. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 contrasted STM judgments, which require temporal information, with semantic and perceptual judgments, for which temporal information is irrelevant. In Experiments 4 and 5, task-irrelevant information (perceptual similarity) was manipulated within the recent probes task. We found that interference from past items affected STM task performance but did not affect performance in semantic or perceptual judgment tasks. Conversely, similarity along a nominally irrelevant perceptual dimension did not affect the magnitude of interference in STM tasks. Results are consistent with the view that items in STM are represented by noisy codes consisting of multiple dimensions and that interference occurs when items are similar to each other and, thus, compete along the dimensions relevant to target selection.

Dependency-dependent interference: NPI interference, agreement attraction, and global pragmatic inferences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ming eXiang

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Previous psycholinguistics studies have shown that when forming a long distance dependency in online processing, the parser sometimes accepts a sentence even though the required grammatical constraints are only partially met. A mechanistic account of how such errors arise sheds light on both the underlying linguistic representations involved and the processing mechanisms that put such representations together. In the current study, we contrast the NPI (negative polarity items interference effect, as shown by the acceptance of an ungrammatical sentence like The bills that democratic senators have voted for will ever become law, with the well-known phenomenon of agreement attraction (The key to the cabinets are…. On the surface, these two types of errors look alike and thereby can be explained as being driven by the same source: similarity based memory interference. However, we argue that the linguistic representations involved in NPI licensing are substantially different from those of subject-verb agreement, and therefore the interference effects in each domain potentially arise from distinct sources. In particular, we show that NPI interference at least partially arises from pragmatic inferences. In a self-paced reading study with an acceptability judgment task, we showed NPI interference was modulated by participants’ general pragmatic communicative skills, as quantified by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen 2001, especially in offline tasks. Participants with more autistic traits were actually less prone to the NPI interference effect than those with fewer autistic traits. This result contrasted with agreement attraction conditions, which were not influenced by individual pragmatic skill differences. We also show that different NPI licensors have distinct interference profiles. We discuss two kinds of interference effects for NPI licensing: memory-retrieval based and pragmatically triggered.

Time and interference: Effects on working memory.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Beyond a Mask and Against the Bottleneck: Retroactive Dual-Task Interference During Working Memory Consolidation of a Masked Visual Target

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenstein, Mark; Wyble, Brad

While studies on visual memory commonly assume that the consolidation of a visual stimulus into working memory is interrupted by a trailing mask, studies on dual-task interference suggest that the consolidation of a stimulus can continue for several hundred milliseconds after a mask. As a result,

Dual Frequency Head Maps: A New Method for Indexing Mental Workload Continuously during Execution of Cognitive Tasks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thea Radüntz

2017-12-01

Full Text Available One goal of advanced information and communication technology is to simplify work. However, there is growing consensus regarding the negative consequences of inappropriate workload on employee's health and the safety of persons. In order to develop a method for continuous mental workload monitoring, we implemented a task battery consisting of cognitive tasks with diverse levels of complexity and difficulty. We conducted experiments and registered the electroencephalogram (EEG, performance data, and the NASA-TLX questionnaire from 54 people. Analysis of the EEG spectra demonstrates an increase of the frontal theta band power and a decrease of the parietal alpha band power, both under increasing task difficulty level. Based on these findings we implemented a new method for monitoring mental workload, the so-called Dual Frequency Head Maps (DFHM that are classified by support vectors machines (SVMs in three different workload levels. The results are in accordance with the expected difficulty levels arising from the requirements of the tasks on the executive functions. Furthermore, this article includes an empirical validation of the new method on a secondary subset with new subjects and one additional new task without any adjustment of the classifiers. Hence, the main advantage of the proposed method compared with the existing solutions is that it provides an automatic, continuous classification of the mental workload state without any need for retraining the classifier—neither for new subjects nor for new tasks. The continuous workload monitoring can help ensure good working conditions, maintain a good level of performance, and simultaneously preserve a good state of health.

Interference in Ballistic Motor Learning: Specificity and Role of Sensory Error Signals

Science.gov (United States)

Lundbye-Jensen, Jesper; Petersen, Tue Hvass; Rothwell, John C.; Nielsen, Jens Bo

2011-01-01

Humans are capable of learning numerous motor skills, but newly acquired skills may be abolished by subsequent learning. Here we ask what factors determine whether interference occurs in motor learning. We speculated that interference requires competing processes of synaptic plasticity in overlapping circuits and predicted specificity. To test this, subjects learned a ballistic motor task. Interference was observed following subsequent learning of an accuracy-tracking task, but only if the competing task involved the same muscles and movement direction. Interference was not observed from a non-learning task suggesting that interference requires competing learning. Subsequent learning of the competing task 4 h after initial learning did not cause interference suggesting disruption of early motor memory consolidation as one possible mechanism underlying interference. Repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of corticospinal motor output at intensities below movement threshold did not cause interference, whereas suprathreshold rTMS evoking motor responses and (re)afferent activation did. Finally, the experiments revealed that suprathreshold repetitive electrical stimulation of the agonist (but not antagonist) peripheral nerve caused interference. The present study is, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate that peripheral nerve stimulation may cause interference. The finding underscores the importance of sensory feedback as error signals in motor learning. We conclude that interference requires competing plasticity in overlapping circuits. Interference is remarkably specific for circuits involved in a specific movement and it may relate to sensory error signals. PMID:21408054

Mental Procedures in Real-Life Tasks: A Case of Electronic Trouble Shooting

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Jens; Jensen, A.

1974-01-01

be broken down into a sequence of recurrent search routines. Basically different typos of such routines are found with great differences in respect to the number of observations needed and the complexity of the mental data processing involved. They also differ greatly with respect to the depth of knowledge......The mental procedures used by skilled electronics repair men in their normal working environment have been studied by analysis of verbal protocols. The procedures found are organized as a search through a system which is viewed as a hierarchy of subunits. The general structure of the search can...... less of whether observations are informationally redundant or not. Seen from the viewpoint of information economy, the procedures are inefficient, but if the men are supposed to minimize the time spent ill the task and the mental load involved, the procedures are very rational. The records indicate...

Formative research on a teacher accompaniment model to promote youth mental health in Haiti: Relevance to mental health task-sharing in low-resource school settings

Science.gov (United States)

Eustache, Eddy; Gerbasi, Margaret E.; Severe, Jennifer; Fils-Aimé, J. Reginald; Smith Fawzi, Mary C.; Raviola, Giuseppe J.; Darghouth, Sarah; Boyd, Kate; Thérosmé, Tatiana; Legha, Rupinder; Pierre, Ermaze L.; Affricot, Emmeline; Alcindor, Yoldie; Grelotti, David J.; Becker, Anne E.

2017-01-01

Background Task-sharing with teachers to promote youth mental health is a promising but underdeveloped strategy in improving care access in low-income countries. Aims To assess feasibility, acceptability, and utility of the teacher accompaniment phase of a school-based teacher accompagnateur pilot study (TAPS) in Haiti. Methods We assigned student participants, ages 18–22 (n=120) to a teacher participant (n=22) within four Haitian schools; we instructed participants to arrange meetings with their assigned counterparts to discuss mental health treatment, academic skills, and/or well-being. We measured student and teacher perceived feasibility, acceptability, and utility of meetings with self-report Likert-style questions. We examined overall program feasibility by the percentage of students with a documented meeting, acceptability by a composite measure of student satisfaction, and utility by the percentage with identified mental health need who discussed treatment with a teacher. Results Favorable ratings support feasibility, acceptability, and utility of teacher-accompagnateur meetings with students. The majority of students (54%) met with a teacher. Among students with an identified mental disorder, 43.2% discussed treatment during a meeting. Conclusions This accompaniment approach to mental health task-sharing with teachers provided a school-based opportunity for students with mental health need to discuss treatment and has potential relevance to other low-income settings. PMID:28367718

Resolving task rule incongruence during task switching by competitor rule suppression.

Science.gov (United States)

Meiran, Nachshon; Hsieh, Shulan; Dimov, Eduard

2010-07-01

Task switching requires maintaining readiness to execute any task of a given set of tasks. However, when tasks switch, the readiness to execute the now-irrelevant task generates interference, as seen in the task rule incongruence effect. Overcoming such interference requires fine-tuned inhibition that impairs task readiness only minimally. In an experiment involving 2 object classification tasks and 2 location classification tasks, the authors show that irrelevant task rules that generate response conflicts are inhibited. This competitor rule suppression (CRS) is seen in response slowing in subsequent trials, when the competing rules become relevant. CRS is shown to operate on specific rules without affecting similar rules. CRS and backward inhibition, which is another inhibitory phenomenon, produced additive effects on reaction time, suggesting their mutual independence. Implications for current formal theories of task switching as well as for conflict monitoring theories are discussed. (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved

Tolerance of negative emotion moderates the amplification of mental contamination following an evoking task: A randomized experimental study.

Science.gov (United States)

Fergus, Thomas A

2018-06-01

Contamination is a near universal feeling, with mental contamination representing a contamination feeling in the absence of direct physical contact with a source. Extant research indicates that tolerance of negative emotion is important for understanding emotional reactions to images, thoughts, and memories, all of which are common sources of mental contamination. Extending research linking distress tolerance to mental contamination, this study examined if individual differences in the tolerance of negative emotion moderates the amplification of mental contamination following an evoking task. Unselected participants completed a self-report measure of tolerance of negative emotion during an online session. They later attended an in-person session and were randomized to an experimental scenario group: betrayal (n = 49) or control (n = 49). Participants imagined themselves in a scenario, with the betrayal scenario designed to evoke mental contamination. Mental contamination was assessed by self-report before and after the scenario. The betrayal, but not control, scenario caused an increase in mental contamination. Tolerance for negative emotion moderated the effect of group on mental contamination. Group differences in mental contamination evidenced at low, but not high, distress tolerance. A novel experimental manipulation and an unselected sample were used. Future research could assess tolerance of negative emotion using a behavioral task. These results indicate that tolerance of negative emotion may be important for understanding when individuals experience mental contamination. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using Pupil Diameter Changes for Measuring Mental Workload under Mental Processing

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Batmaz, Ihsan; Ozturk, Mustafa

In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the mental workload by using a practical way which based on measuring pupil diameter changes that occurs under mental processing. To determine the mental effort required for each task, the video record of subjects` eyes are taken while they are performed different tasks and pupils were measured from the records. A group of university student, one female 9 males participated to the experiment. Additionally, NASA-TLX questionnaire is applied for the related mental tasks. For verification of results obtained from both indices, the correlation coefficient is calculated task base. The results show that there is weak and negative correlation between the indices on task base except 3rd task. By investigating pupil diameter measurements data too, it is founded that pupil dilates under mental workload during performing related tasks. For all tasks, pupil diameters of response periods increased according to reference baseline period.

Similarity-based interference in a working memory numerical updating task: age-related differences between younger and older adults.

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Pelegrina, Santiago; Borella, Erika; Carretti, Barbara; Lechuga, M Teresa

2012-01-01

Similarity among representations held simultaneously in working memory (WM) is a factor which increases interference and hinders performance. The aim of the current study was to investigate age-related differences between younger and older adults in a working memory numerical updating task, in which the similarity between information held in WM was manipulated. Results showed a higher susceptibility of older adults to similarity-based interference when accuracy, and not response times, was considered. It was concluded that older adults' WM difficulties appear to be due to the availability of stored information, which, in turn, might be related to the ability to generate distinctive representations and to the process of binding such representations to their context when similar information has to be processed in WM.

Assessing Mental Models of Emergencies Through Two Knowledge Elicitation Tasks.

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Whitmer, Daphne E; Sims, Valerie K; Torres, Michael E

2017-05-01

The goals of this study were to assess the risk identification aspect of mental models using standard elicitation methods and how university campus alerts were related to these mental models. People fail to follow protective action recommendations in emergency warnings. Past research has yet to examine cognitive processes that influence emergency decision-making. Study 1 examined 2 years of emergency alerts distributed by a large southeastern university. In Study 2, participants listed emergencies in a thought-listing task. Study 3 measured participants' time to decide if a situation was an emergency. The university distributed the most alerts about an armed person, theft, and fire. In Study 2, participants most frequently listed fire, car accident, heart attack, and theft. In Study 3, participants quickly decided a bomb, murder, fire, tornado, and rape were emergencies. They most slowly decided that a suspicious package and identify theft were emergencies. Recent interaction with warnings was only somewhat related to participants' mental models of emergencies. Risk identification precedes decision-making and applying protective actions. Examining these characteristics of people's mental representations of emergencies is fundamental to further understand why some emergency warnings go ignored. Someone must believe a situation is serious to categorize it as an emergency before taking the protective action recommendations in an emergency warning. Present-day research must continue to examine the problem of people ignoring warning communication, as there are important cognitive factors that have not yet been explored until the present research.

Eldercare demands, mental health, and work performance: the moderating role of satisfaction with eldercare tasks.

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Zacher, Hannes; Jimmieson, Nerina L; Winter, Gabriele

2012-01-01

Due to demographic changes, a growing number of employees provide in-home care to an elderly family member. Previous research suggested a negative relationship between employees' eldercare demands and their work performance. However, the empirical nature of this relationship and its boundary conditions and mediating mechanisms have been neglected. The goal of this multisource study was to examine a mediated-moderation model of eldercare demands, mental health, and work performance. Drawing on the theory of conservation of resources (Hobfoll, 1989), it was expected that employees' satisfaction with eldercare tasks would buffer the negative relationship between eldercare demands and work performance, and that mental health would mediate this moderating effect. Data were collected from 165 employees providing in-home eldercare, as well as from one colleague and one family member of each employee. Results of mediated-moderation analyses supported the hypothesized model. The findings suggest that interventions that aim to increase employees' satisfaction with eldercare tasks may help protect employees from the negative effects of high eldercare demands on mental health and, subsequently, on work performance.

Task demand, task management, and teamwork

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Braarud, Per Oeivind; Brendryen, Haavar

2001-03-15

The current approach to mental workload assessment in process control was evaluated in 3 previous HAMMLAB studies, by analysing the relationship between workload related measures and performance. The results showed that subjective task complexity rating was related to team's control room performance, that mental effort (NASA-TLX) was weakly related to performance, and that overall activity level was unrelated to performance. The results support the argument that general cognitive measures, i.e., mental workload, are weakly related to performance in the process control domain. This implies that other workload concepts than general mental workload are needed for valid assessment of human reliability and for valid assessment of control room configurations. An assessment of task load in process control suggested that how effort is used to handle task demand is more important then the level of effort invested to solve the task. The report suggests two main workload related concepts with a potential as performance predictors in process control: task requirements, and the work style describing how effort is invested to solve the task. The task requirements are seen as composed of individual task demand and team demand. In a similar way work style are seen as composed of individual task management and teamwork style. A framework for the development of the concepts is suggested based on a literature review and experiences from HAMMLAB research. It is suggested that operational definitions of workload concepts should be based on observable control room behaviour, to assure a potential for developing performance-shaping factors. Finally an explorative analysis of teamwork measures and performance in one study indicated that teamwork concepts are related to performance. This lends support to the suggested development of team demand and teamwork style as elements of a framework for the analysis of workload in process control. (Author)

Workload assessment for mental arithmetic tasks using the task-evoked pupillary response

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Gerhard Marquart

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Pupillometry is a promising method for assessing mental workload and could be helpful in the optimization of systems that involve human–computer interaction. The present study focuses on replicating the studies by Ahern (1978 and Klingner (2010, which found that for three levels of difficulty of mental multiplications, the more difficult multiplications yielded larger dilations of the pupil. Using a remote eye tracker, our research expands upon these two previous studies by statistically testing for each 1.5 s interval of the calculation period (1 the mean absolute pupil diameter (MPD, (2 the mean pupil diameter change (MPDC with respect to the pupil diameter during the pre-stimulus accommodation period, and (3 the mean pupil diameter change rate (MPDCR. An additional novelty of our research is that we compared the pupil diameter measures with a self-report measure of workload, the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX, and with the mean blink rate (MBR. The results showed that the findings of Ahern and Klingner were replicated, and that the MPD and MPDC discriminated just as well between the lowest and highest difficulty levels as did the NASA-TLX. The MBR, on the other hand, did not differentiate between the difficulty levels. Moderate to strong correlations were found between the MPDC and the proportion of incorrect responses, indicating that the MPDC was higher for participants with a poorer performance. For practical applications, validity could be improved by combining pupillometry with other physiological techniques.

Visual working memory capacity and proactive interference.

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Hartshorne, Joshua K

2008-07-23

Visual working memory capacity is extremely limited and appears to be relatively immune to practice effects or the use of explicit strategies. The recent discovery that visual working memory tasks, like verbal working memory tasks, are subject to proactive interference, coupled with the fact that typical visual working memory tasks are particularly conducive to proactive interference, suggests that visual working memory capacity may be systematically under-estimated. Working memory capacity was probed behaviorally in adult humans both in laboratory settings and via the Internet. Several experiments show that although the effect of proactive interference on visual working memory is significant and can last over several trials, it only changes the capacity estimate by about 15%. This study further confirms the sharp limitations on visual working memory capacity, both in absolute terms and relative to verbal working memory. It is suggested that future research take these limitations into account in understanding differences across a variety of tasks between human adults, prelinguistic infants and nonlinguistic animals.

Attention and memory protection: Interactions between retrospective attention cueing and interference.

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Makovski, Tal; Pertzov, Yoni

2015-01-01

Visual working memory (VWM) and attention have a number of features in common, but despite extensive research it is still unclear how the two interact. Can focused attention improve VWM precision? Can it protect VWM from interference? Here we used a partial-report, continuous-response orientation memory task to examine how attention and interference affect different aspects of VWM and how they interact with one another. Both attention and interference were orthogonally manipulated during the retention interval. Attention was manipulated by presenting informative retro-cues, whereas interference was manipulated by introducing a secondary interfering task. Mixture-model analyses revealed that retro-cues, compared to uninformative cues, improved all aspects of performance: Attention increased recall precision and decreased guessing rate and swap-errors (reporting a wrong item in memory). Similarly, performing a secondary task impaired all aspects of the VWM task. In particular, an interaction between retro-cue and secondary task interference was found primarily for swap-errors. Together these results suggest that both the quantity and quality of VWM representations are sensitive to attention cueing and interference modulations, and they highlight the role of attention in protecting the feature-location associations needed to access the correct items in memory.

The director task: A test of Theory-of-Mind use or selective attention?

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Rubio-Fernández, Paula

2017-08-01

Over two decades, the director task has increasingly been employed as a test of the use of Theory of Mind in communication, first in psycholinguistics and more recently in social cognition research. A new version of this task was designed to test two independent hypotheses. First, optimal performance in the director task, as established by the standard metrics of interference, is possible by using selective attention alone, and not necessarily Theory of Mind. Second, pragmatic measures of Theory-of-Mind use can reveal that people actively represent the director's mental states, contrary to recent claims that they only use domain-general cognitive processes to perform this task. The results of this study support both hypotheses and provide a new interactive paradigm to reliably test Theory-of-Mind use in referential communication.

Cardiac autonomic responses induced by mental tasks and the influence of musical auditory stimulation.

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Barbosa, Juliana Cristina; Guida, Heraldo L; Fontes, Anne M G; Antonio, Ana M S; de Abreu, Luiz Carlos; Barnabé, Viviani; Marcomini, Renata S; Vanderlei, Luiz Carlos M; da Silva, Meire L; Valenti, Vitor E

2014-08-01

We investigated the acute effects of musical auditory stimulation on cardiac autonomic responses to a mental task in 28 healthy men (18-22 years old). In the control protocol (no music), the volunteers remained at seated rest for 10 min and the test was applied for five minutes. After the end of test the subjects remained seated for five more minutes. In the music protocol, the volunteers remained at seated rest for 10 min, then were exposed to music for 10 min; the test was then applied over five minutes, and the subjects remained seated for five more minutes after the test. In the control and music protocols the time domain and frequency domain indices of heart rate variability remained unchanged before, during and after the test. We found that musical auditory stimulation with baroque music did not influence cardiac autonomic responses to the mental task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Anatomically ordered tapping interferes more with one-digit addition than two-digit addition: a dual-task fMRI study.

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Soylu, Firat; Newman, Sharlene D

2016-02-01

Fingers are used as canonical representations for numbers across cultures. In previous imaging studies, it was shown that arithmetic processing activates neural resources that are known to participate in finger movements. Additionally, in one dual-task study, it was shown that anatomically ordered finger tapping disrupts addition and subtraction more than multiplication, possibly due to a long-lasting effect of early finger counting experiences on the neural correlates and organization of addition and subtraction processes. How arithmetic task difficulty and tapping complexity affect the concurrent performance is still unclear. If early finger counting experiences have bearing on the neural correlates of arithmetic in adults, then one would expect anatomically and non-anatomically ordered tapping to have different interference effects, given that finger counting is usually anatomically ordered. To unravel these issues, we studied how (1) arithmetic task difficulty and (2) the complexity of the finger tapping sequence (anatomical vs. non-anatomical ordering) affect concurrent performance and use of key neural circuits using a mixed block/event-related dual-task fMRI design with adult participants. The results suggest that complexity of the tapping sequence modulates interference on addition, and that one-digit addition (fact retrieval), compared to two-digit addition (calculation), is more affected from anatomically ordered tapping. The region-of-interest analysis showed higher left angular gyrus BOLD response for one-digit compared to two-digit addition, and in no-tapping conditions than dual tapping conditions. The results support a specific association between addition fact retrieval and anatomically ordered finger movements in adults, possibly due to finger counting strategies that deploy anatomically ordered finger movements early in the development.

The intention interference effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Anna-Lisa; Kantner, Justin; Dixon, Roger A; Lindsay, D Stephen

2011-01-01

Intentions have been shown to be more accessible (e.g., more quickly and accurately recalled) compared to other sorts of to-be-remembered information; a result termed an intention superiority effect (Goschke & Kuhl, 1993). In the current study, we demonstrate an intention interference effect (IIE) in which color-naming performance in a Stroop task was slower for words belonging to an intention that participants had to remember to carry out (Do-the-Task condition) versus an intention that did not have to be executed (Ignore-the-Task condition). In previous work (e.g., Cohen et al., 2005), having a prospective intention in mind was confounded with carrying a memory load. In Experiment 1, we added a digit-retention task to control for effects of cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we eliminated the memory confound in a new way, by comparing intention-related and control words within each trial. Results from both Experiments 1 and 2 revealed an IIE suggesting that interference is very specific to the intention, not just to a memory load.

Re: Madsen et al. "Unnecessary work tasks and mental health: a prospective analysis of Danish human service workers".

Science.gov (United States)

Durand-Moreau, Quentin; Loddé, Brice; Dewitte, Jean-Dominique

2015-03-01

Madsen et al (1) recently published a secondary analysis on data provided by the Project on Burnout, Motivation and Job Satisfaction (PUMA). The aim of their study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health was to examine the associations between unnecessary work tasks and a decreased level of mental health. Though the topic was quite novel, reading this work proved disturbing and raised issues. Based on the results of this study, the authors stated that there is an association between unnecessary work tasks (assessed by a single question) and a decreased level of mental health, idem [assessed by the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5)], in the specific population included in this PUMA survey. The authors point out a limitation of the study, namely that unnecessary work tasks were evaluated using one single question: "Do you sometimes have to do things in your job which appear to be unnecessary?". Semmer defines unnecessary work task as "tasks that should not be carried out at all because they do not make sense or because they could have been avoided, or could be carried out with less effort if things were organized more efficiently" (2). De facto, qualifying what an unnecessary task is requires stating or explaining whether the task makes sense. Making sense or not is not an objective notion. It is very difficult for either a manager or an employee to say if a task is necessary or not. Most important is that it makes sense from the worker's point of view. Making sense and being necessary are not synonyms. Some tasks do not make sense but are economically necessary (eg, when, as physicians, we are reporting our activity using ICD-10 on computers instead of being at patients' bedsides or reading this journal). Thus, there is a wide gap between Semmer's definition and the question used by the authors to evaluate his concept. A secondary analysis based on a single question is not adequate to evaluate unnecessary tasks. Nowadays, the general trend

The object classification task for children: A new measure of concept generation and mental flexibility in early childhood

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smidts, D.P.; Jacobs, R.; Anderson, V.

2004-01-01

In this study, the development of concept generation and mental flexibility was investigated in 84 Australian children between 3 and 7 years of age, using the Object Classification Task for Children (OCTC), a newly developed executive function test for use with young children. On this task, which

The relationship between interference control and sense of presence in virtual environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Velichkovsky B. B.

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Background. The sense of presence is an important aspect of interaction with virtual reality applications. Earlier we suggested that presence can depend on cognitive control. The latter is a set of meta-cognitive processes which are responsible for configuring the cognitive system for the accomplishment of specific tasks with respect to a given context. In particular, cognitive control helps in preventing interference from the task-irrelevant variables. Objective. is study aimed at investigation of the possible relationship between interference control and aspects of presence. Design. Thirty-nine subjects (32 female and 7 male, aged 18 to 27 years participated in the study. The subjects were assessed via a battery of interference control tasks (Flanker Task, Go/No Go task, antisaccade task and performed a virtual scenario (navigating within an array of randomly placed virtual digits in correct numerical order in high-immersion (CAVE and low-immersion (standard computer display virtual environments. Afterwards, the subjects completed a Russian version of the ITC-Sense of Presence inventory. Results. We found that interference control is generally related to the sense of presence, especially in the CAVE (high-immersion environment. Sensory interference control was most strongly associated with various aspects of presence (overall presence score, spatial presence, and emotional involvement. Motor interference control was associated with spatial presence and emotional involvement, but this relationship was weaker than was the case with sensory interference control. Low-immersion virtual environments attenuate some of these links between interference control and presence so that only sensory interference control remains a notable predictor of presence. Conclusion. Interference control is positively associated with presence in virtual environments with varying immersion levels. is may reflect a more general cause-and-effect relationship between

Motor learning interference is proportional to occlusion of LTP-like plasticity.

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Cantarero, Gabriela; Tang, Byron; O'Malley, Rebecca; Salas, Rachel; Celnik, Pablo

2013-03-13

Learning interference occurs when learning something new causes forgetting of an older memory (retrograde interference) or when learning a new task disrupts learning of a second subsequent task (anterograde interference). This phenomenon, described in cognitive, sensory, and motor domains, limits our ability to learn multiple tasks in close succession. It has been suggested that the source of interference is competition of neural resources, although the neuronal mechanisms are unknown. Learning induces long-term potentiation (LTP), which can ultimately limit the ability to induce further LTP, a phenomenon known as occlusion. In humans we quantified the magnitude of occlusion of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation-induced increased excitability after learning a skill task as an index of the amount of LTP-like plasticity used. We found that retention of a newly acquired skill, as reflected by performance in the second day of practice, is proportional to the magnitude of occlusion. Moreover, the degree of behavioral interference was correlated with the magnitude of occlusion. Individuals with larger occlusion after learning the first skill were (1) more resilient to retrograde interference and (2) experienced larger anterograde interference when training a second task, as expressed by decreased performance of the learned skill in the second day of practice. This effect was not observed if sufficient time elapsed between training the two skills and LTP-like occlusion was not present. These findings suggest competition of LTP-like plasticity is a factor that limits the ability to remember multiple tasks trained in close succession.

Visual working memory capacity and proactive interference.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joshua K Hartshorne

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Visual working memory capacity is extremely limited and appears to be relatively immune to practice effects or the use of explicit strategies. The recent discovery that visual working memory tasks, like verbal working memory tasks, are subject to proactive interference, coupled with the fact that typical visual working memory tasks are particularly conducive to proactive interference, suggests that visual working memory capacity may be systematically under-estimated. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Working memory capacity was probed behaviorally in adult humans both in laboratory settings and via the Internet. Several experiments show that although the effect of proactive interference on visual working memory is significant and can last over several trials, it only changes the capacity estimate by about 15%. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study further confirms the sharp limitations on visual working memory capacity, both in absolute terms and relative to verbal working memory. It is suggested that future research take these limitations into account in understanding differences across a variety of tasks between human adults, prelinguistic infants and nonlinguistic animals.

Effects of Distracting Task with Different Mental Workload on Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential Based Brain Computer Interfaces—an Offline Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yawei Zhao

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs, independent of the brain's normal output pathways, are attracting an increasing amount of attention as devices that extract neural information. As a typical type of BCI system, the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP-based BCIs possess a high signal-to-noise ratio and information transfer rate. However, the current high speed SSVEP-BCIs were implemented with subjects concentrating on stimuli, and intentionally avoided additional tasks as distractors. This paper aimed to investigate how a distracting simultaneous task, a verbal n-back task with different mental workload, would affect the performance of SSVEP-BCI. The results from fifteen subjects revealed that the recognition accuracy of SSVEP-BCI was significantly impaired by the distracting task, especially under a high mental workload. The average classification accuracy across all subjects dropped by 8.67% at most from 1- to 4-back, and there was a significant negative correlation (maximum r = −0.48, p < 0.001 between accuracy and subjective mental workload evaluation of the distracting task. This study suggests a potential hindrance for the SSVEP-BCI daily use, and then improvements should be investigated in the future studies.

Effects of cognitive appraisal and mental workload factors on performance in an arithmetic task.

Science.gov (United States)

Galy, Edith; Mélan, Claudine

2015-12-01

We showed in a previous study an additive interaction between intrinsic and extraneous cognitive loads and of participants' alertness in an 1-back working memory task. The interaction between intrinsic and extraneous cognitive loads was only observed when participants' alertness was low (i.e. in the morning). As alertness is known to reflect an individual's general functional state, we suggested that the working memory capacity available for germane cognitive load depends on a participant's functional state, in addition to intrinsic and extraneous loads induced by the task and task conditions. The relationships between the different load types and their assessment by specific load measures gave rise to a modified cognitive load model. The aim of the present study was to complete the model by determining to what extent and at what processing level an individual's characteristics intervene in order to implement efficient strategies in a working memory task. Therefore, the study explored participants' cognitive appraisal of the situation in addition to the load factors considered previously-task difficulty, time pressure and alertness. Each participant performed a mental arithmetic task in four different cognitive load conditions (crossover of two task difficulty conditions and of two time pressure conditions), both while their alertness was low (9 a.m.) and high (4 p.m.). Results confirmed an additive effect of task difficulty and time pressure, previously reported in the 1-back memory task, thereby lending further support to the modified cognitive load model. Further, in the high intrinsic and extraneous load condition, performance was reduced on the morning session (i.e. when alertness was low) on one hand, and in those participants' having a threat appraisal of the situation on the other hand. When these factors were included into the analysis, a performance drop occurred in the morning irrespective of cognitive appraisal, and with threat appraisal in the

Operational Stress and Correlates of Mental Health Among Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay Military Personnel.

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Webb-Murphy, Jennifer A; De La Rosa, Gabriel M; Schmitz, Kimberly J; Vishnyak, Elizabeth J; Raducha, Stephanie C; Roesch, Scott C; Johnston, Scott L

2015-12-01

Military personnel deployed to Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay (JTF-GTMO) faced numerous occupational stressors. As part of a program evaluation, personnel working at JTF-GTMO completed several validated self-report measures. Personnel were at the beginning, middle, or end of their deployment phase. This study presents data regarding symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, alcohol abuse, depression, and resilience among 498 U.S. military personnel deployed to JTF-GTMO in 2009. We also investigated individual and organizational correlates of mental health among these personnel. Findings indicated that tenure at JTF-GTMO was positively related to adverse mental health outcomes. Regression models including these variables had R2 values ranging from .02 to .11. Occupation at JTF-GTMO also related to mental health such that guards reported poorer mental health than medical staff. Reluctance to seek out mental health care was also related to mental health outcomes. Those who reported being most reluctant to seek out care tended to report poorer mental health than those who were more willing to seek out care. Results suggested that the JTF-GTMO deployment was associated with significant psychological stress, and that both job-related and attitude-related variables were important to understanding mental health symptoms in this sample. Copyright © 2015 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Neural mechanisms of interference control in working memory capacity.

Science.gov (United States)

Bomyea, Jessica; Taylor, Charles T; Spadoni, Andrea D; Simmons, Alan N

2018-02-01

The extent to which one can use cognitive resources to keep information in working memory is known to rely on (1) active maintenance of target representations and (2) downregulation of interference from irrelevant representations. Neurobiologically, the global capacity of working memory is thought to depend on the prefrontal and parietal cortices; however, the neural mechanisms involved in controlling interference specifically in working memory capacity tasks remain understudied. In this study, 22 healthy participants completed a modified complex working memory capacity task (Reading Span) with trials of varying levels of interference control demands while undergoing functional MRI. Neural activity associated with interference control demands was examined separately during encoding and recall phases of the task. Results suggested a widespread network of regions in the prefrontal, parietal, and occipital cortices, and the cingulate and cerebellum associated with encoding, and parietal and occipital regions associated with recall. Results align with prior findings emphasizing the importance of frontoparietal circuits for working memory performance, including the role of the inferior frontal gyrus, cingulate, occipital cortex, and cerebellum in regulation of interference demands. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The influence of emotional interference on cognitive control: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies using the emotional Stroop task

OpenAIRE

Song, Sensen; Zilverstand, Anna; Song, Hongwen; d?Oleire Uquillas, Federico; Wang, Yongming; Xie, Chao; Cheng, Li; Zou, Zhiling

2017-01-01

The neural correlates underlying the influence of emotional interference on cognitive control remain a topic of discussion. Here, we assessed 16 neuroimaging studies that used an emotional Stroop task and that reported a significant interaction effect between emotion (stimulus type) and cognitive conflict. There were a total of 330 participants, equaling 132 foci for an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) analysis. Results revealed consistent brain activation patterns related to emotionall...

Mental additions and verbal-domain interference in children with developmental dyscalculia.

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Mammarella, Irene C; Caviola, Sara; Cornoldi, Cesare; Lucangeli, Daniela

2013-09-01

This study examined the involvement of verbal and visuo-spatial domains in solving addition problems with carrying in a sample of children diagnosed with developmental dyscalculia (DD) divided into two groups: (i) those with DD alone and (ii) those with DD and dyslexia. Age and stage matched typically developing (TD) children were also studied. The addition problems were presented horizontally or vertically and associated with verbal or visuo-spatial information. Study results showed that DD children's performance on mental calculation tasks was more impaired when they tackled horizontally presented addition problems compared to vertically presented ones that are associated to verbal domain involvement. The performance pattern in the two DD groups was found to be similar. The theoretical, clinical and educational implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Interference Control In Elderly Bilinguals: Appearances Can Be Misleading.

Science.gov (United States)

Ansaldo, Ana Inés; Ghazi-Saidi, Ladan; Adrover-Roig, Daniel

2015-01-01

Bilingualism has been associated with successful aging. In particular, research on the cognitive advantages of bilingualism suggests that it can enhance control over interference and help delay the onset of dementia signs. However, the evidence on the so-called cognitive advantage is not unanimous; furthermore, little is known about the neural basis of this supposed cognitive advantage in bilingual as opposed to monolingual elderly populations. In this study, elderly bilingual and monolingual participants performed a visuospatial interference control task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. Response times and accuracy rates were calculated for congruent and incongruent conditions of the Simon task, and the neurofunctional correlates of performance on the Simon task were examined. The results showed equivalent performance on the Simon task across groups but different underlying neural substrates in the two groups. With incongruent trials, monolinguals activated the right middle frontal gyrus, whereas bilinguals relied upon the left inferior parietal lobule. These results show that elderly bilinguals and monolinguals have equivalent interference control abilities, but relay on different neural substrates. Thus, while monolinguals show a classical PASA (posterior-anterior shift in aging) effect, recruiting frontal areas, bilinguals activate visuospatial processing alone and thus do not show this posterior-anterior shift. Moreover, a modulation of frontal activity with task-dynamic control of interference, observed in the elderly bilingual group alone, suggests that elderly bilinguals deal with interference control without recruiting a circuit that is particularly vulnerable to aging.

When Learning Disturbs Memory – Temporal Profile of Retroactive Interference of Learning on Memory Formation

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Sosic-Vasic, Zrinka; Hille, Katrin; Kröner, Julia; Spitzer, Manfred; Kornmeier, Jürgen

2018-01-01

Introduction: Consolidation is defined as the time necessary for memory stabilization after learning. In the present study we focused on effects of interference during the first 12 consolidation minutes after learning. Participants had to learn a set of German – Japanese word pairs in an initial learning task and a different set of German – Japanese word pairs in a subsequent interference task. The interference task started in different experimental conditions at different time points (0, 3, 6, and 9 min) after the learning task and was followed by subsequent cued recall tests. In a control experiment the interference periods were replaced by rest periods without any interference. Results: The interference task decreased memory performance by up to 20%, with negative effects at all interference time points and large variability between participants concerning both the time point and the size of maximal interference. Further, fast learners seem to be more affected by interference than slow learners. Discussion: Our results indicate that the first 12 min after learning are highly important for memory consolidation, without a general pattern concerning the precise time point of maximal interference across individuals. This finding raises doubts about the generalized learning recipes and calls for individuality of learning schedules. PMID:29503621

When Learning Disturbs Memory – Temporal Profile of Retroactive Interference of Learning on Memory Formation

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Zrinka Sosic-Vasic

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Consolidation is defined as the time necessary for memory stabilization after learning. In the present study we focused on effects of interference during the first 12 consolidation minutes after learning. Participants had to learn a set of German – Japanese word pairs in an initial learning task and a different set of German – Japanese word pairs in a subsequent interference task. The interference task started in different experimental conditions at different time points (0, 3, 6, and 9 min after the learning task and was followed by subsequent cued recall tests. In a control experiment the interference periods were replaced by rest periods without any interference.Results: The interference task decreased memory performance by up to 20%, with negative effects at all interference time points and large variability between participants concerning both the time point and the size of maximal interference. Further, fast learners seem to be more affected by interference than slow learners.Discussion: Our results indicate that the first 12 min after learning are highly important for memory consolidation, without a general pattern concerning the precise time point of maximal interference across individuals. This finding raises doubts about the generalized learning recipes and calls for individuality of learning schedules.

Resolving semantic and proactive interference in memory over the short-term.

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Atkins, Alexandra S; Berman, Marc G; Reuter-Lorenz, Patricia A; Lewis, Richard L; Jonides, John

2011-07-01

Interference is a major source of short-term errors of memory. The present investigation explores the relationship between two important forms of interference: proactive interference (PI), induced by the need to reject recently studied items no longer relevant to task performance, and semantic interference (SI), induced by the need to reject lures sharing a meaningful relationship with current memoranda. We explore the possibility that shared cognitive control processes are recruited to resolve both forms of interference. In Experiment 1, we find that the requirement to engage in articulatory suppression during the retention interval of tasks that induce either PI or SI increases both forms of interference similarly and selectively. In Experiment 2, we develop a task to examine PI and SI within the same experimental context. The results show interactive effects between factors that lead to the two forms of interference. Taken together, these findings support contextual-cuing models of short-term remembering (Nairne, Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 53-81 2002), where the context in which retrieval occurs can influence susceptibility to interference. Lastly, we discuss several theoretical hypotheses concerning the cognitive control processes that are recruited to resolve SI and PI in short-term remembering.

Facilitation and interference in naming: A consequence of the same learning process?

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Hughes, Julie W; Schnur, Tatiana T

2017-08-01

Our success with naming depends on what we have named previously, a phenomenon thought to reflect learning processes. Repeatedly producing the same name facilitates language production (i.e., repetition priming), whereas producing semantically related names hinders subsequent performance (i.e., semantic interference). Semantic interference is found whether naming categorically related items once (continuous naming) or multiple times (blocked cyclic naming). A computational model suggests that the same learning mechanism responsible for facilitation in repetition creates semantic interference in categorical naming (Oppenheim, Dell, & Schwartz, 2010). Accordingly, we tested the predictions that variability in semantic interference is correlated across categorical naming tasks and is caused by learning, as measured by two repetition priming tasks (picture-picture repetition priming, Exp. 1; definition-picture repetition priming, Exp. 2, e.g., Wheeldon & Monsell, 1992). In Experiment 1 (77 subjects) semantic interference and repetition priming effects were robust, but the results revealed no relationship between semantic interference effects across contexts. Critically, learning (picture-picture repetition priming) did not predict semantic interference effects in either task. We replicated these results in Experiment 2 (81 subjects), finding no relationship between semantic interference effects across tasks or between semantic interference effects and learning (definition-picture repetition priming). We conclude that the changes underlying facilitatory and interfering effects inherent to lexical access are the result of distinct learning processes where multiple mechanisms contribute to semantic interference in naming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A dedicated system for topographical working memory: evidence from domain-specific interference tests.

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Piccardi, L; Nori, R; Boccia, M; Barbetti, S; Verde, P; Guariglia, C; Ferlazzo, F

2015-08-01

In the present study, we used single- and dual-task conditions to investigate the nature of topographical working memory to better understand what type of task can hamper performance during navigation. During dual-task conditions, we considered four different sources of interference: motor (M), spatial motor (SM), verbal (i.e. articulatory suppression AS) and spatial environmental (SE). In order to assess the nature of topographical working memory, we used the Walking Corsi Test, asking the participants to perform two tasks simultaneously (M, SM, AS and SE). Our results showed that only spatial-environmental interference hampers the execution of a topographical working memory task, suggesting a task-domain-specific effect. We also found general gender differences in the topographical working memory capabilities: men were more proficient than women, regardless of the type of interferences. However, like men, women performed worse when a spatial-environmental interference was present.

The effects of mental representation on performance in a navigation task

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Barshi, Immanuel

Most aviation accidents and incidents are attributed to human error. Among the various kinds of human errors found in aviation, problems in communication constitute a large majority. The purpose of this study is to understand some of the cognitive factors influencing these misunderstandings so they can be prevented. Five experiments tested individuals' ability to follow verbal instructions pertaining to navigating in space. The experiments simulated the kinds of instructions pilots receive from air traffic controllers. All five experiments show the importance of the mental representation of the task over and above the short-term memory demands. The results of Experiment 1 show that the number of instructional units is a critical factor, rather than the number of words per unit. The results of Experiment 2 show that when moving in a three dimensional space, it does not matter whether movement is required along all three dimensions or along only two of the three dimensions. The results of Experiment 3 show that individuals perform much better when they have to maintain a two-dimensional mental representation than when they have to maintain a three-dimensional mental representation. What is more, it shows that even immediate verbatim recall is affected by the representation of the situation to which the language input applies. The results of Experiments 4 and 5 show that the two-dimensional advantage found in Experiment 3 is indeed an aspect of the mental representation, rather than a result of translating a visual display into a mental representation. These results also suggest that three units is the capacity limit of short-term memory. Thus, to minimize misunderstandings due to message length, air traffic controllers are advised to limit their messages to no more than three instructions at a time. In addition to ATC procedures, this research has practical implications for computer/visual displays, and for training environments.

Identification and adjustment of experimental occlusal interference using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

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Oda, Masafumi; Yoshino, Kenichi; Tanaka, Tatsurou; Shiiba, Shunji; Makihara, Eri; Miyamoto, Ikuya; Nogami, Shinnosuke; Kito, Shinji; Wakasugi-Sato, Nao; Matsumoto-Takeda, Shinobu; Nishimura, Shun; Murakami, Keita; Koga, Masahiro; Kawagishi, Shigenori; Yoshioka, Izumi; Masumi, Shin-Ichi; Kimura, Mitsutaka; Morimoto, Yasuhiro

2014-10-10

The purpose of this study was to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to quantify changes in brain activity during experimental occlusal interference. Fourteen healthy volunteers performed a rhythmical tapping occlusion task with experimental occlusal interference of the right molar tooth at 0 mm (no occlusion), 0.5 mm, and 0.75 mm. The blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal was quantified using statistical parametric mapping and compared between rest periods and task periods. In tapping tasks with experimental occlusal interference of 0.75 mm or 0.5 mm, there was clear activation of the contralateral teeth-related primary sensory cortex and Brodmann's area 46. At 0 and 30 minutes after removal of the experimental occlusal interference, the activation clearly appeared in the bilateral teeth-related primary sensory cortices and Brodmann's area 46. At 60 minutes after the removal of the experimental occlusal interference, the activation of Brodmann's area 46 had disappeared, and only the bilateral teeth-related primary sensory cortices were active. The present results suggest that adjustments for experimental occlusal interference can be objectively evaluated using fMRI. We expect that this method of evaluating adjustments in occlusal interference, combined with fMRI and the tapping task, could be applied clinically in the future.

The Impairing Effect of Mental Fatigue on Visual Sustained Attention under Monotonous Multi-Object Visual Attention Task in Long Durations: An Event-Related Potential Based Study.

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Zizheng Guo

Full Text Available The impairing effects of mental fatigue on visual sustained attention were assessed by event-related potentials (ERPs. Subjects performed a dual visual task, which includes a continuous tracking task (primary task and a random signal detection task (secondary task, for 63 minutes nonstop in order to elicit ERPs. In this period, the data such as subjective levels of mental fatigue, behavioral performance measures, and electroencephalograms were recorded for each subject. Comparing data from the first interval (0-25 min to that of the second, the following phenomena were observed: the subjective fatigue ratings increased with time, which indicates that performing the tasks leads to increase in mental fatigue levels; reaction times prolonged and accuracy rates decreased in the second interval, which indicates that subjects' sustained attention decreased.; In the ERP data, the P3 amplitudes elicited by the random signals decreased, while the P3 latencies increased in the second interval. These results suggest that mental fatigue can modulate the higher-level cognitive processes, in terms of less attentional resources allocated to the random stimuli, which leads to decreased speed in information evaluating and decision making against the stimuli. These findings provide new insights into the question that how mental fatigue affects visual sustained attention and, therefore, can help to design countermeasures to prevent accidents caused by low visual sustained attention.

Between-Trial Forgetting Due to Interference and Time in Motor Adaptation.

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Sungshin Kim

Full Text Available Learning a motor task with temporally spaced presentations or with other tasks intermixed between presentations reduces performance during training, but can enhance retention post training. These two effects are known as the spacing and contextual interference effect, respectively. Here, we aimed at testing a unifying hypothesis of the spacing and contextual interference effects in visuomotor adaptation, according to which forgetting between trials due to either spaced presentations or interference by another task will promote between-trial forgetting, which will depress performance during acquisition, but will promote retention. We first performed an experiment with three visuomotor adaptation conditions: a short inter-trial-interval (ITI condition (SHORT-ITI; a long ITI condition (LONG-ITI; and an alternating condition with two alternated opposite tasks (ALT, with the same single-task ITI as in LONG-ITI. In the SHORT-ITI condition, there was fastest increase in performance during training and largest immediate forgetting in the retention tests. In contrast, in the ALT condition, there was slowest increase in performance during training and little immediate forgetting in the retention tests. Compared to these two conditions, in the LONG-ITI, we found intermediate increase in performance during training and intermediate immediate forgetting. To account for these results, we fitted to the data six possible adaptation models with one or two time scales, and with interference in the fast, or in the slow, or in both time scales. Model comparison confirmed that two time scales and some degree of interferences in either time scale are needed to account for our experimental results. In summary, our results suggest that retention following adaptation is modulated by the degree of between-trial forgetting, which is due to time-based decay in single adaptation task and interferences in multiple adaptation tasks.

The impact of ageing and gender on visual mental imagery processes: A study of performance on tasks from the Complete Visual Mental Imagery Battery (CVMIB).

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Palermo, Liana; Piccardi, Laura; Nori, Raffaella; Giusberti, Fiorella; Guariglia, Cecilia

2016-09-01

In this study we aim to evaluate the impact of ageing and gender on different visual mental imagery processes. Two hundred and fifty-one participants (130 women and 121 men; age range = 18-77 years) were given an extensive neuropsychological battery including tasks probing the generation, maintenance, inspection, and transformation of visual mental images (Complete Visual Mental Imagery Battery, CVMIB). Our results show that all mental imagery processes with the exception of the maintenance are affected by ageing, suggesting that other deficits, such as working memory deficits, could account for this effect. However, the analysis of the transformation process, investigated in terms of mental rotation and mental folding skills, shows a steeper decline in mental rotation, suggesting that age could affect rigid transformations of objects and spare non-rigid transformations. Our study also adds to previous ones in showing gender differences favoring men across the lifespan in the transformation process, and, interestingly, it shows a steeper decline in men than in women in inspecting mental images, which could partially account for the mixed results about the effect of ageing on this specific process. We also discuss the possibility to introduce the CVMIB in clinical assessment in the context of theoretical models of mental imagery.

Mentalization of complex emotions in borderline personality disorder: The impact of parenting and exposure to trauma on the performance in a novel cartoon-based task.

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Brüne, Martin; Walden, Sarah; Edel, Marc-Andreas; Dimaggio, Giancarlo

2016-01-01

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a range of interpersonal difficulties, which are, in part, related to adverse experiences during childhood. Unresponsive parenting and traumatization may cause functional impairment of mentalization, i.e. the ability to reflect upon own and others' mental states. However, the relationship of poor parenting, trauma and mentalization in BPD has not exhaustively been studied. Thirty patients diagnosed with BPD and 30 matched control subjects were asked to sequence a novel cartoon-based mentalization task involving complex emotions such as jealousy, shame, guilt etc. In addition, they were required to reason about cognitive and affective mental states of the cartoon characters. The quality of parental care was assessed using a self-report measure for recalled parental rearing style, and childhood trauma was measured in retrospect using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Patients with BPD performed more poorly in all aspects of the cartoon task. Mentalizing skills, particularly relating to affective mental states, were uniquely associated with the quality of recalled parental care and childhood trauma. Together, the quality of parental care and the experience of childhood trauma negatively impact on mentalization in BPD, even in an experimental "offline" task. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of long-term practice and task complexity on brain activities when performing abacus-based mental calculations: a PET study

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Wu, Tung-Hsin; Chen, Chia-Lin; Huang, Yung-Hui; Liu, Ren-Shyan; Hsieh, Jen-Chuen; Lee, Jason J.S.

2009-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine the neural bases for the exceptional mental calculation ability possessed by Chinese abacus experts through PET imaging. We compared the different regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) patterns using 15 O-water PET in 10 abacus experts and 12 non-experts while they were performing each of the following three tasks: covert reading, simple addition, and complex contiguous addition. All data collected were analyzed using SPM2 and MNI templates. For non-experts during the tasks of simple addition, the observed activation of brain regions were associated with coordination of language (inferior frontal network) and visuospatial processing (left parietal/frontal network). Similar activation patterns but with a larger visuospatial processing involvement were observed during complex contiguous addition tasks, suggesting the recruitment of more visuospatial memory for solving the complex problems. For abacus experts, however, the brain activation patterns showed slight differences when they were performing simple and complex addition tasks, both of which involve visuospatial processing (bilateral parietal/frontal network). These findings supported the notion that the experts were completing all the calculation process on a virtual mental abacus and relying on this same computational strategy in both simple and complex tasks, which required almost no increasing brain workload for solving the latter. In conclusion, after intensive training and practice, the neural pathways in an abacus expert have been connected more effectively for performing the number encoding and retrieval that are required in abacus tasks, resulting in exceptional mental computational ability. (orig.)

The effects of trait impulsivity on proactive and reactive interference control.

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Xiang, Ling; Chen, Yan; Chen, Antao; Zhang, Fenghua; Xu, Fuming; Wang, Baoxi

2018-02-01

The current study used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to explore whether self-reported trait impulsivity in healthy individuals might be differentially related to proactive and reactive interference control. Participants with high and low impulsivity (HI and LI, respectively) performed a modified version of the prime-target interference task. Proactive interference control was induced in the mostly incongruent (MI) context and reactive interference control was induced in the mostly congruent (MC) context. Although the behavioral data revealed no difference between HI and LI individuals in terms of the interference effects (incongruent - congruent) under both contexts, the ERP results showed that impulsivity has a different influence on the interference effects under different task contexts. In the MC context, the interference effects on the medial frontal negativity (MFN) and the negative sustained potential (N-SP) were greater, while that on the positive sustained potential (P-SP) were smaller in the HI compared to those in the LI group. This suggests that high levels of impulsivity might be associated with a reduced efficiency of the processes supporting reactive control to resolve interference when interference is not expected. In contrast, the three ERP indices (MFN, P-SP, and N-SP) of interference processing in the MI context were insensitive to variations in impulsivity. This suggests that HI individuals might be as effective as LI individuals in recruiting proactive control for sustained active maintenance of task goals to anticipate and prevent interference throughout the experimental blocks where interference occurs frequently. In conclusion, these results indicate that impulsivity has a more negative influence on reactive interference control than on proactive interference control. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Task representation in individual and joint settings

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Wolfgang ePrinz

2015-05-01

Full Text Available This paper outlines a framework for task representation and discusses applications to interference tasks in individual and joint settings. The framework is derived from the Theory of Event Coding. This theory regards task sets as transient assemblies of event codes in which stimulus and response codes interact and shape each other in particular ways. On the one hand, stimulus and response codes compete with each other within their respective subsets (horizontal interactions. On the other hand, stimulus and response code cooperate with each other (vertical interactions. Code interactions instantiating competition and cooperation apply to two time scales: on-line performance (i.e., doing the task and off-line implementation (i.e., setting the task. Interference arises when stimulus and response codes overlap in features that are irrelevant for stimulus identification, but relevant for response selection. To resolve this dilemma, the feature profiles of event codes may become restructured in various ways. The framework is applied to three kinds of interference paradigms. Special emphasis is given to joint settings where tasks are shared between two participants. Major conclusions derived from these applications include: (1 Response competition is the chief driver of interference. Likewise, different modes of response competition give rise to different patterns of interference. (2 The type of features in which stimulus and response codes overlap is also a crucial factor. Different types of such features give likewise rise to different patterns of interference. (3 Task sets for joint settings conflate intraindividual conflicts between responses (what, with interindividual conflicts between responding agents (whom. Features of response codes may, therefore, not only address responses, but also responding agents (both physically and socially.

Task representation in individual and joint settings

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Prinz, Wolfgang

2015-01-01

This paper outlines a framework for task representation and discusses applications to interference tasks in individual and joint settings. The framework is derived from the Theory of Event Coding (TEC). This theory regards task sets as transient assemblies of event codes in which stimulus and response codes interact and shape each other in particular ways. On the one hand, stimulus and response codes compete with each other within their respective subsets (horizontal interactions). On the other hand, stimulus and response code cooperate with each other (vertical interactions). Code interactions instantiating competition and cooperation apply to two time scales: on-line performance (i.e., doing the task) and off-line implementation (i.e., setting the task). Interference arises when stimulus and response codes overlap in features that are irrelevant for stimulus identification, but relevant for response selection. To resolve this dilemma, the feature profiles of event codes may become restructured in various ways. The framework is applied to three kinds of interference paradigms. Special emphasis is given to joint settings where tasks are shared between two participants. Major conclusions derived from these applications include: (1) Response competition is the chief driver of interference. Likewise, different modes of response competition give rise to different patterns of interference; (2) The type of features in which stimulus and response codes overlap is also a crucial factor. Different types of such features give likewise rise to different patterns of interference; and (3) Task sets for joint settings conflate intraindividual conflicts between responses (what), with interindividual conflicts between responding agents (whom). Features of response codes may, therefore, not only address responses, but also responding agents (both physically and socially). PMID:26029085

Frontal midline theta rhythm and gamma power changes during focused attention on mental calculation: an MEG beamformer analysis

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Ryouhei eIshii

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Frontal midline theta rhythm (Fmθ appears widely distributed over medial prefrontal areas in EEG recordings, indicating focused attention. Although mental calculation is often used as an attention-demanding task, little has been reported on calculation-related activation in Fmθ experiments. In this study we used spatially filtered MEG and permutation analysis to precisely localize cortical generators of the magnetic counterpart of Fmθ, as well as other sources of oscillatory activity associated with mental calculation processing (i.e., arithmetic subtraction. Our results confirmed and extended earlier EEG/MEG studies indicating that Fmθ during mental calculation is generated in the dorsal anterior cingulate and adjacent medial prefrontal cortex. Mental subtraction was also associated with gamma event-related synchronization, as an index of activation, in right parietal regions subserving basic numerical processing and number-based spatial attention. Gamma event-related desynchronization appeared in the right lateral prefrontal cortex, likely representing a mechanism to interrupt neural activity that can interfere with the ongoing cognitive task.

Work-Home Interference, Perceived Total Workload, and the Risk of Future Sickness Absence Due to Stress-Related Mental Diagnoses Among Women and Men: a Prospective Twin Study.

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Svedberg, Pia; Mather, Lisa; Bergström, Gunnar; Lindfors, Petra; Blom, Victoria

2018-02-01

Work-home interference has been proposed as an important explanation for sickness absence (SA). Previous studies show mixed results, have not accounted for familial factors (genetics and shared everyday environment), or investigated diagnosis specific SA. The aim was to study whether work-home interference and perceived total workload predict SA due to stress-related mental diagnoses, or SA due to other mental diagnoses, among women and men, when adjusting for various confounders and familial factors. This study included 11,916 twins, 19-47 years (49% women). Data on work-to-home and home-to-work conflicts, perceived total workload, and relevant confounders were derived from a 2005 survey, and national register data on SA spells until 2013 were obtained. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. Discordant twin pair design was applied to adjust for familial factors. Each one unit increase in work-to-home and home-to-work conflicts, and perceived total workload was associated with higher odds for SA due to stress-related mental diagnoses and to SA due to other mental diagnoses among women, when adjusting for sociodemographic factors (ORs 1.15-1.31). Including health or familial factors, no associations remained. For men, each one unit increase in work-to-home conflicts was associated with higher odds for SA due to stress-related diagnoses (ORs 1.23-1.35), independently of confounders. Work-to-home conflict was independently associated with future SA due to stress-related diagnoses among men only. Health- and work-related factors seem to be important confounders when researching work-home interference, perceived total workload, and SA. Not including such confounders involves risking drawing incorrect conclusions. Further studies are needed to confirm sex differences and whether genetic factors are important for the associations studied.

An Integrated Model of Cognitive Control in Task Switching

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Altmann, Erik M.; Gray, Wayne D.

2008-01-01

A model of cognitive control in task switching is developed in which controlled performance depends on the system maintaining access to a code in episodic memory representing the most recently cued task. The main constraint on access to the current task code is proactive interference from old task codes. This interference and the mechanisms that…

The Crosstalk Hypothesis: Why Language Interferes with Driving

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Bergen, Benjamin; Medeiros-Ward, Nathan; Wheeler, Kathryn; Drews, Frank; Strayer, David

2013-01-01

Performing two cognitive tasks at the same time can degrade performance for either domain-general reasons (e.g., both tasks require attention) or domain-specific reasons (e.g., both tasks require visual working memory). We tested predictions of these two accounts of interference on the task of driving while using language, a naturally occurring…

Actual tasks and directions of protection of mental health of the Ukrainian nuclear power plants employers

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Godlevskij, A.G.

1999-01-01

The problems of mental health of employers of the Ukrainian Nuclear Power Stations (UNPS) are considered on a background increasing the economic and the social crisis in our society. Is marked, that the psychological instability and mental disorders of the engineers, operators and administrative personnel can adverse influence economic parameters of the UNPS and, especially, on maintenance of nuclear and radiating safety of the Nuclear Power Station. We have information about small numbers of research works in this area and necessity of creation the modern government Social-Medical-Psychological Service of the UNPS. We submitted the basic goals, tasks and complex actual parts of the program 'Logos'. These Service and program directed on preservation and strengthening of the mental health of UNPS workers

Profiles of Cognitive-Motor Interference During Walking in Children: Does the Motor or the Cognitive Task Matter?

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Nadja Schott

2018-06-01

Full Text Available The evidence supporting the effects of age on the ability to coordinate a motor and a cognitive task show inconsistent results in children and adolescents, where the Dual-Task Effects (DTE – if computed at all – range from either being lower or comparable or higher in younger children than in older children, adolescents and adults. A feasible reason for the variability in such findings is the wide range of cognitive tasks (and to some extend of motor tasks used to study Cognitive-Motor Interference (CMI. Our study aims at determining the differences in CMI when performing cognitive tasks targeting different cognitive functions at varying walking pathways. 69 children and adolescents (boys, n = 45; girls, n = 24; mean age, 11.5 ± 1.50 years completed higher-level executive function tasks (2-Back, Serial Subtraction, Auditory Stroop, Clock Task, TMT-B in comparison to non-executive distracter tasks [Motor Response Task (MRT, TMT-A] to assess relative effects on gait during straight vs. repeated Change of Direction (COD walking. DT during COD walking was assessed using the Trail-Walking-Test (TWT. The motor and cognitive DTE were calculated for each task. There were significant differences between 5th and 8th graders on single gait speed on the straight (p = 0.016 and the COD pathway (p = 0.023, but not on any of the DT conditions. The calculation of DTEs revealed that motor DTEs were lowest for the MRT and highest for the TWT in the numbers/letters condition (p < 0.05 for all comparisons. In contrast, there were cognitive benefits for the higher-order cognitive tasks on the straight pathways, but cognitive costs for both DT conditions on the COD pathway (p < 0.01 for all comparisons. Our findings demonstrate that DT changes in walking when completing a secondary task that involve higher-level cognition are attributable to more than low-level divided attention or motor response processes. These results specifically show the direct competition

Developmental change in cognitive organization underlying stroop tasks of Japanese orthographies.

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Toma, C; Toshima, T

1989-01-01

Cognitive processes underlying Stroop interference tasks of two Japanese orthographies, hiragana (a phonetic orthography) and kanji (a logographic orthography) were studied from the developmental point of view. Four age groups (first, second, third graders, and university students) were employed as subjects. Significant interference was yielded both in the hiragana and in the kanji version. Performance time on interference task decreased with age. For elementary school children, the error frequency on the interference task was higher than that on the task of naming patch colors or on the task of reading words printed in black ink, but the error frequencies did not differ among tasks for university students. In the interference task more word reading errors were yielded in the kanji version than in the hiragana version during and after third grade. The findings suggested that (1) the recognition system of hiragana and of kanji becomes qualitatively different during and after third grade, (2) the integrative system, which organizes cognitive processes underlying Stroop task, develops with age, and (3) efficiency of the organization increases with age.

The interference effects of non-rotated versus counter-rotated trials in visuomotor adaptation.

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Hinder, Mark R; Walk, Laura; Woolley, Daniel G; Riek, Stephan; Carson, Richard G

2007-07-01

An isometric torque-production task was used to investigate interference and retention in adaptation to multiple visuomotor environments. Subjects produced isometric flexion-extension and pronation-supination elbow torques to move a cursor to acquire targets as quickly as possible. Adaptation to a 30 degrees counter-clockwise (CCW) rotation (task A), was followed by a period of rest (control), trials with no rotation (task B0), or trials with a 60 degrees clockwise (CW) rotation (task B60). For all groups, retention of task A was assessed 5 h later. With initial training, all groups reduced the angular deviation of cursor paths early in the movements, indicating feedforward adaptation. For the control group, performance at commencement of the retest was significantly better than that at the beginning of the initial learning. For the B0 group, performance in the retest of task A was not dissimilar to that at the start of the initial learning, while for the B60 group retest performance in task A was markedly worse than initially observed. Our results indicate that close juxtaposition of two visuomotor environments precludes improved retest performance in the initial environment. Data for the B60 group, specifically larger angular errors upon retest compared with initial exposures, are consistent with the presence of anterograde interference. Furthermore, full interference occurred even when the visuomotor environment encountered in the second task was not rotated (B0). This latter novel result differs from those obtained for force field learning, where interference does not occur when task B does not impose perturbing forces, i.e., when B consists of a null field (Brashers-Krug et al., Nature 382:252-255, 1996). The results are consistent with recent proposals suggesting different interference mechanisms for visuomotor (kinematic) compared to force field (dynamic) adaptations, and have implications for the use of washout trials when studying interference between

Task-dependent changes of corticospinal excitability during observation and motor imagery of balance tasks.

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Mouthon, A; Ruffieux, J; Wälchli, M; Keller, M; Taube, W

2015-09-10

Non-physical balance training has demonstrated to be efficient to improve postural control in young people. However, little is known about the potential to increase corticospinal excitability by mental simulation in lower leg muscles. Mental simulation of isolated, voluntary contractions of limb muscles increase corticospinal excitability but more automated tasks like walking seem to have no or only minor effects on motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This may be related to the way of performing the mental simulation or the task itself. Therefore, the present study aimed to clarify how corticospinal excitability is modulated during AO+MI, MI and action observation (AO) of balance tasks. For this purpose, MEPs and H-reflexes were elicited during three different mental simulations (a) AO+MI, (b) MI and (c) passive AO. For each condition, two balance tasks were evaluated: (1) quiet upright stance (static) and (2) compensating a medio-lateral perturbation while standing on a free-swinging platform (dynamic). AO+MI resulted in the largest facilitation of MEPs followed by MI and passive AO. MEP facilitation was significantly larger in the dynamic perturbation than in the static standing task. Interestingly, passive observation resulted in hardly any facilitation independent of the task. H-reflex amplitudes were not modulated. The current results demonstrate that corticospinal excitability during mental simulation of balance tasks is influenced by both the type of mental simulation and the task difficulty. As H-reflexes and background EMG were not modulated, it may be argued that changes in excitability of the primary motor cortex were responsible for the MEP modulation. From a functional point of view, our findings suggest best training/rehabilitation effects when combining MI with AO during challenging postural tasks. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Interference from previous distraction disrupts older adults' memory.

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Biss, Renée K; Campbell, Karen L; Hasher, Lynn

2013-07-01

Previously relevant information can disrupt the ability of older adults to remember new information. Here, the researchers examined whether prior irrelevant information, or distraction, can also interfere with older adults' memory for new information. Younger and older adults first completed a 1-back task on pictures that were superimposed with distracting words. After a delay, participants learned picture-word paired associates and memory was tested using picture-cued recall. In 1 condition (high interference), some pairs included pictures from the 1-back task now paired with new words. In a low-interference condition, the transfer list used all new items. Older adults had substantially lower cued-recall performance in the high- compared with the low-interference condition. In contrast, younger adults' performance did not vary across conditions. These findings suggest that even never-relevant information from the past can disrupt older adults' memory for new associations.

Cognitive architectures: choreographing the dance of mental operations with the task environment.

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Gray, Wayne D

2008-06-01

In this article, I present the ideas and trends that have given rise to the use of cognitive architectures in human factors and provide a cognitive engineering-oriented taxonomy of these architectures and a snapshot of their use for cognitive engineering. Architectures of cognition have had a long history in human factors but a brief past. The long history entails a 50-year preamble, whereas the explosion of work in the current decade reflects the brief past. Understanding this history is key to understanding the current and future prospects for applying cognitive science theory to human factors practice. The review defines three formative eras in cognitive engineering research: the 1950s, 1980s, and now. In the first era, the fledging fields of cognitive science and human factors emphasized characteristics of the dancer the limited capacity or bounded rationality view of the mind, and the ballroom, the task environment. The second era emphasized the dance (i.e., the dynamic interaction between mental operations and task environment). The third era has seen the rise of cognitive architectures as tools for choreographing the dance of mental operations within the complex environments posed by human factors practice. Hybrid architectures present the best vector for introducing cognitive science theories into a renewed engineering-based human factors. The taxonomy provided in this article may provide guidance on when and whether to apply a cognitive science or a hybrid architecture to a human factors issue.

Communications in interference limited networks

CERN Document Server

2016-01-01

This book offers means to handle interference as a central problem of operating wireless networks. It investigates centralized and decentralized methods to avoid and handle interference as well as approaches that resolve interference constructively. The latter type of approach tries to solve the joint detection and estimation problem of several data streams that share a common medium. In fact, an exciting insight into the operation of networks is that it may be beneficial, in terms of an overall throughput, to actively create and manage interference. Thus, when handled properly, "mixing" of data in networks becomes a useful tool of operation rather than the nuisance as which it has been treated traditionally. With the development of mobile, robust, ubiquitous, reliable and instantaneous communication being a driving and enabling factor of an information centric economy, the understanding, mitigation and exploitation of interference in networks must be seen as a centrally important task.

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex

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Junghöfer Markus

2007-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (~150–300 ms poststimulus. The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Results Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b. Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. Conclusion The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2007-02-22

Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (approximately 150-300 ms poststimulus). The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b). Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task-relevant stimuli. The present data suggest

The role of domain-general frontal systems in language comprehension: evidence from dual-task interference and semantic ambiguity.

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Rodd, Jennifer M; Johnsrude, Ingrid S; Davis, Matthew H

2010-12-01

Neuroimaging studies have shown that the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) plays a critical role in semantic and syntactic aspects of speech comprehension. It appears to be recruited when listeners are required to select the appropriate meaning or syntactic role for words within a sentence. However, this region is also recruited during tasks not involving sentence materials, suggesting that the systems involved in processing ambiguous words within sentences are also recruited for more domain-general tasks that involve the selection of task-relevant information. We use a novel dual-task methodology to assess whether the cognitive system(s) that are engaged in selecting word meanings are also involved in non-sentential tasks. In Experiment 1, listeners were slower to decide whether a visually presented letter is in upper or lower case when the sentence that they are simultaneously listening to contains words with multiple meanings (homophones), compared to closely matched sentences without homophones. Experiment 2 indicates that this interference effect is not tied to the occurrence of the homophone itself, but rather occurs when listeners must reinterpret a sentence that was initially misparsed. These results suggest some overlap between the cognitive system involved in semantic disambiguation and the domain-general process of response selection required for the case-judgement task. This cognitive overlap may reflect neural overlap in the networks supporting these processes, and is consistent with the proposal that domain-general selection processes in inferior frontal regions are critical for language comprehension. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of prestudy and poststudy rest on memory: Support for temporal interference accounts of forgetting.

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Ecker, Ullrich K H; Tay, Jia-Xin; Brown, Gordon D A

2015-06-01

According to interference-based theories of memory, including temporal-distinctiveness theory, both prestudy and poststudy rest should have beneficial impacts on memory performance. Specifically, higher temporal isolation of a memorandum should reduce proactive and/or retroactive interference, and thus should result in better recall. In the present study, we investigated the effects of prestudy and poststudy rest in a free recall paradigm. Participants studied three lists of words, separated by either a short or a long period of low mental activity (a tone-detection task). Recall targeted the second list; this list was studied in one of four conditions, defined by the fully crossed factors of prestudy and poststudy rest duration. Two experiments revealed a beneficial effect of prestudy rest (and, to a lesser extent, of poststudy rest) on list recall. This result is in line with interference-based theories of memory. By contrast, a beneficial effect of prestudy rest is not predicted by consolidation accounts of memory and forgetting; our results thus require additional assumptions and/or a better specification of the consolidation process and its time course in order to be reconciled with consolidation theory.

Facial and semantic emotional interference: A pilot study on the behavioral and cortical responses to the dual valence association task

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Petroni Agustín

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Integration of compatible or incompatible emotional valence and semantic information is an essential aspect of complex social interactions. A modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT called Dual Valence Association Task (DVAT was designed in order to measure conflict resolution processing from compatibility/incompatibly of semantic and facial valence. The DVAT involves two emotional valence evaluative tasks which elicits two forms of emotional compatible/incompatible associations (facial and semantic. Methods Behavioural measures and Event Related Potentials were recorded while participants performed the DVAT. Results Behavioural data showed a robust effect that distinguished compatible/incompatible tasks. The effects of valence and contextual association (between facial and semantic stimuli showed early discrimination in N170 of faces. The LPP component was modulated by the compatibility of the DVAT. Conclusions Results suggest that DVAT is a robust paradigm for studying the emotional interference effect in the processing of simultaneous information from semantic and facial stimuli.

Mental workload during n-back task-quantified in the prefrontal cortex using fNIRS.

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Herff, Christian; Heger, Dominic; Fortmann, Ole; Hennrich, Johannes; Putze, Felix; Schultz, Tanja

2013-01-01

When interacting with technical systems, users experience mental workload. Particularly in multitasking scenarios (e.g., interacting with the car navigation system while driving) it is desired to not distract the users from their primary task. For such purposes, human-machine interfaces (HCIs) are desirable which continuously monitor the users' workload and dynamically adapt the behavior of the interface to the measured workload. While memory tasks have been shown to elicit hemodynamic responses in the brain when averaging over multiple trials, a robust single trial classification is a crucial prerequisite for the purpose of dynamically adapting HCIs to the workload of its user. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role in the processing of memory and the associated workload. In this study of 10 subjects, we used functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive imaging modality, to sample workload activity in the PFC. The results show up to 78% accuracy for single-trial discrimination of three levels of workload from each other. We use an n-back task (n ∈ {1, 2, 3}) to induce different levels of workload, forcing subjects to continuously remember the last one, two, or three of rapidly changing items. Our experimental results show that measuring hemodynamic responses in the PFC with fNIRS, can be used to robustly quantify and classify mental workload. Single trial analysis is still a young field that suffers from a general lack of standards. To increase comparability of fNIRS methods and results, the data corpus for this study is made available online.

Mental workload during n-back task - quantified in the prefrontal cortex using fNIRS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian eHerff

2014-01-01

Full Text Available When interacting with technical systems, users experience mental workload. Particularly in multitasking scenarios (e.g. interacting with the car navigation system while driving it is desired to not distract the users from their primary task. For such purposes, human-machine interfaces (HCIs are desirable which continuously monitor the users' workload and dynamically adapt the behavior of the interface to the measured workload. While memory tasks have been shown to illicit hemodynamic responses in the brain when averaging over multiple trials, a robust single trial classification is a crucial prerequisite for the purpose of dynamically adapting HCIs to the workload of its user.The prefrontal cortex (PFC plays an important role in the processing of memory and the associated workload. In this study of 10 subjects, we used functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS, a non-invasive imaging modality, to sample workload activity in the PFC. The results show up to 78% accuracy for single-trial discrimination of three levels of workload from each other. We use an n-back task (n ∈ {1, 2, 3} to induce different levels of workload, forcing subjects to continuously remember the last one, two or three of rapidly changing items.Our experimental results show that measuring hemodynamic responses in the PFC with fNIRS, can be used to robustly quantify and classify mental workload.Single trial analysis is still a young field that suffers from a general lack of standards. To increase comparability of fNIRS methods and results, the data corpus for this study is made available online.

Cognitive inhibition of number/length interference in a Piaget-like task in young adults: evidence from ERPs and fMRI.

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Leroux, Gaëlle; Joliot, Marc; Dubal, Stéphanie; Mazoyer, Bernard; Tzourio-Mazoyer, Nathalie; Houdé, Olivier

2006-06-01

We sought to determine whether the neural traces of a previous cognitive developmental stage could be evidenced in young adults. In order to do so, 12 young adults underwent two functional imaging acquisitions (EEG then fMRI). During each session, two experimental conditions were applied: a Piaget-like task with number/length interference (INT), and a reference task with number/length covariation (COV). To succeed at Piaget's numerical task, which children under the age of 7 years usually fail, the subjects had to inhibit a misleading strategy, namely, the visuospatial length-equals-number bias, a quantification heuristic that is often relevant and that continues to be used through adulthood. Behavioral data confirmed that although there was an automation in the young adult subjects as assessed by the very high number of accurate responses (>97%), the inhibition of the "length equals number strategy" had a cognitive cost, as the reaction times were significantly higher in INT than in COV (with a difference of 230 ms). The event-related potential results acquired during the first session showed electrophysiological markers of the cognitive inhibition of the number/length interference. Indeed, the frontal N2 was greater during INT than during COV, and a P3(late)/P6 was detected only during INT. During the fMRI session, a greater activation of unimodal areas (the right middle and superior occipital cortex) and in the ventral route (the left inferior temporal cortex) was observed in INT than in COV. These results seem to indicate that when fully automated in adults, inhibition processes might take place in unimodal areas. Copyright 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The componential processing of fractions in adults and children: effects of stimuli variability and contextual interference.

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Zhang, Li; Fang, Qiaochu; Gabriel, Florence C; Szücs, Dénes

2014-01-01

Recent studies have indicated that people have a strong tendency to compare fractions based on constituent numerators or denominators. This is called componential processing. This study explored whether componential processing was preferred in tasks involving high stimuli variability and high contextual interference, when fractions could be compared based either on the holistic values of fractions or on their denominators. Here, stimuli variability referred to the fact that fractions were not monotonous but diversiform. Contextual interference referred to the fact that the processing of fractions was interfered by other stimuli. To our ends, three tasks were used. In Task 1, participants compared a standard fraction 1/5 to unit fractions. This task was used as a low stimuli variability and low contextual interference task. In Task 2 stimuli variability was increased by mixing unit and non-unit fractions. In Task 3, high contextual interference was created by incorporating decimals into fractions. The RT results showed that the processing patterns of fractions were very similar for adults and children. In task 1 and task 3, only componential processing was utilzied. In contrast, both holistic processing and componential processing were utilized in task 2. These results suggest that, if individuals are presented with the opportunity to perform componential processing, both adults and children will tend to do so, even if they are faced with high variability of fractions or high contextual interference.

Spectral feature extraction of EEG signals and pattern recognition during mental tasks of 2-D cursor movements for BCI using SVM and ANN.

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Bascil, M Serdar; Tesneli, Ahmet Y; Temurtas, Feyzullah

2016-09-01

Brain computer interface (BCI) is a new communication way between man and machine. It identifies mental task patterns stored in electroencephalogram (EEG). So, it extracts brain electrical activities recorded by EEG and transforms them machine control commands. The main goal of BCI is to make available assistive environmental devices for paralyzed people such as computers and makes their life easier. This study deals with feature extraction and mental task pattern recognition on 2-D cursor control from EEG as offline analysis approach. The hemispherical power density changes are computed and compared on alpha-beta frequency bands with only mental imagination of cursor movements. First of all, power spectral density (PSD) features of EEG signals are extracted and high dimensional data reduced by principle component analysis (PCA) and independent component analysis (ICA) which are statistical algorithms. In the last stage, all features are classified with two types of support vector machine (SVM) which are linear and least squares (LS-SVM) and three different artificial neural network (ANN) structures which are learning vector quantization (LVQ), multilayer neural network (MLNN) and probabilistic neural network (PNN) and mental task patterns are successfully identified via k-fold cross validation technique.

Task choice and semantic interference in picture naming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Piai, V.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Schriefers, H.J.

2015-01-01

Evidence from dual-task performance indicates that speakers prefer not to select simultaneous responses in picture naming and another unrelated task, suggesting a response selection bottleneck in naming. In particular, when participants respond to tones with a manual response and name pictures with

Interference effects of categorization on decision making.

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Wang, Zheng; Busemeyer, Jerome R

2016-05-01

Many decision making tasks in life involve a categorization process, but the effects of categorization on subsequent decision making has rarely been studied. This issue was explored in three experiments (N=721), in which participants were shown a face stimulus on each trial and performed variations of categorization-decision tasks. On C-D trials, they categorized the stimulus and then made an action decision; on X-D trials, they were told the category and then made an action decision; on D-alone trials, they only made an action decision. An interference effect emerged in some of the conditions, such that the probability of an action on the D-alone trials (i.e., when there was no explicit categorization before the decision) differed from the total probability of the same action on the C-D or X-D trials (i.e., when there was explicit categorization before the decision). Interference effects are important because they indicate a violation of the classical law of total probability, which is assumed by many cognitive models. Across all three experiments, a complex pattern of interference effects systematically occurred for different types of stimuli and for different types of categorization-decision tasks. These interference effects present a challenge for traditional cognitive models, such as Markov and signal detection models, but a quantum cognition model, called the belief-action entanglement (BAE) model, predicted that these results could occur. The BAE model employs the quantum principles of superposition and entanglement to explain the psychological mechanisms underlying the puzzling interference effects. The model can be applied to many important and practical categorization-decision situations in life. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The functional role of dorso-lateral premotor cortex during mental rotation: an event-related fMRI study separating cognitive processing steps using a novel task paradigm.

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Lamm, Claus; Windischberger, Christian; Moser, Ewald; Bauer, Herbert

2007-07-15

Subjects deciding whether two objects presented at angular disparity are identical or mirror versions of each other usually show response times that linearly increase with the angle between objects. This phenomenon has been termed mental rotation. While there is widespread agreement that parietal cortex plays a dominant role in mental rotation, reports concerning the involvement of motor areas are less consistent. From a theoretical point of view, activation in motor areas suggests that mental rotation relies upon visuo-motor rather than visuo-spatial processing alone. However, the type of information that is processed by motor areas during mental rotation remains unclear. In this study we used event-related fMRI to assess whether activation in parietal and dorsolateral premotor areas (dPM) during mental rotation is distinctively related to processing spatial orientation information. Using a newly developed task paradigm we explicitly separated the processing steps (encoding, mental rotation proper and object matching) required by mental rotation tasks and additionally modulated the amount of spatial orientation information that had to be processed. Our results show that activation in dPM during mental rotation is not strongly modulated by the processing of spatial orientation information, and that activation in dPM areas is strongest during mental rotation proper. The latter finding suggests that dPM is involved in more generalized processes such as visuo-spatial attention and movement anticipation. We propose that solving mental rotation tasks is heavily dependent upon visuo-motor processes and evokes neural processing that may be considered as an implicit simulation of actual object rotation.

Affective privilege: Asymmetric interference by emotional distracters

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Crystal eReeck

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Numerous theories posit that affectively salient stimuli are privileged in their capacity to capture attention and disrupt ongoing cognition. Two underlying assumptions in this theoretical position are that the potency of affective stimuli transcends task boundaries (i.e., emotional distracters do not have to belong to a current task-set to disrupt processing and that there is an asymmetry between emotional and cognitive processing (i.e., emotional distracters disrupt cognitive processing, but not vice versa. These assumptions have remained largely untested, as common experimental probes of emotion-cognition interaction rarely manipulate task-relevance and only examine one side of the presumed asymmetry of interference. To test these propositions directly, a face-word Stroop protocol was adapted to independently manipulate (a the congruency between target and distracter stimulus features, (b the affective salience of distracter features, and (c the task-relevance of emotional compared to non-emotional target features. A three-way interaction revealed interdependent effects of distracter relevance, congruence, and affective salience. Compared to task-irrelevant distracters, task-relevant congruent distracters facilitated performance and task-relevant incongruent distracters impaired performance, but the latter effect depended on the nature of the target feature and task. Specifically, task-irrelevant emotional distracters resulted in equivalent performance costs as task-relevant non-emotional distracters, whereas task-irrelevant non-emotional distracters did not produce performance costs comparable to those generated by task-relevant emotional distracters. These results document asymmetric cross-task interference effects for affectively salient stimuli, supporting the notion of affective prioritization in human information processing.

Mental rotation impairs attention shifting and short-term memory encoding: neurophysiological evidence against the response-selection bottleneck model of dual-task performance.

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Pannebakker, Merel M; Jolicœur, Pierre; van Dam, Wessel O; Band, Guido P H; Ridderinkhof, K Richard; Hommel, Bernhard

2011-09-01

Dual tasks and their associated delays have often been used to examine the boundaries of processing in the brain. We used the dual-task procedure and recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how mental rotation of a first stimulus (S1) influences the shifting of visual-spatial attention to a second stimulus (S2). Visual-spatial attention was monitored by using the N2pc component of the ERP. In addition, we examined the sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) believed to index the retention of information in visual short-term memory. We found modulations of both the N2pc and the SPCN, suggesting that engaging mechanisms of mental rotation impairs the deployment of visual-spatial attention and delays the passage of a representation of S2 into visual short-term memory. Both results suggest interactions between mental rotation and visual-spatial attention in capacity-limited processing mechanisms indicating that response selection is not pivotal in dual-task delays and all three processes are likely to share a common resource like executive control. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Testing complex animal cognition: Concept learning, proactive interference, and list memory.

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Wright, Anthony A

2018-01-01

This article describes an approach for assessing and comparing complex cognition in rhesus monkeys and pigeons by training them in a sequence of synergistic tasks, each yielding a whole function for enhanced comparisons. These species were trained in similar same/different tasks with expanding training sets (8, 16, 32, 64, 128 … 1024 pictures) followed by novel-stimulus transfer eventually resulting in full abstract-concept learning. Concept-learning functions revealed better rhesus transfer throughout and full concept learning at the 128 set, versus pigeons at the 256 set. They were then tested in delayed same/different tasks for proactive interference by inserting occasional tests within trial-unique sessions where the test stimulus matched a previous sample stimulus (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 trials prior). Proactive-interference functions revealed time-based interference for pigeons (1, 10 s delays), but event-based interference for rhesus (no effect of 1, 10, 20 s delays). They were then tested in list-memory tasks by expanding the sample to four samples in trial-unique sessions (minimizing proactive interference). The four-item, list-memory functions revealed strong recency memory at short delays, gradually changing to strong primacy memory at long delays over 30 s for rhesus, and 10 s for pigeons. Other species comparisons and future directions are discussed. © 2018 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Distraction during learning with hypermedia: Difficult tasks help to keep task goals on track

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katharina eScheiter

2014-03-01

Full Text Available In educational hypermedia environments, students are often confronted with potential sources of distraction arising from additional information that, albeit interesting, is unrelated to their current task goal. The paper investigates the conditions under which distraction occurs and hampers performance. Based on theories of volitional action control it was hypothesized that interesting information, especially if related to a pending goal, would interfere with task performance only when working on easy, but not on difficult tasks. In Experiment 1, 66 students learned about probability theory using worked examples and solved corresponding test problems, whose task difficulty was manipulated. As a second factor, the presence of interesting information unrelated to the primary task was varied. Results showed that students solved more easy than difficult probability problems correctly. However, the presence of interesting, but task-irrelevant information did not interfere with performance. In Experiment 2, 68 students again engaged in example-based learning and problem solving in the presence of task-irrelevant information. Problem-solving difficulty was varied as a first factor. Additionally, the presence of a pending goal related to the task-irrelevant information was manipulated. As expected, problem-solving performance declined when a pending goal was present during working on easy problems, whereas no interference was observed for difficult problems. Moreover, the presence of a pending goal reduced the time on task-relevant information and increased the time on task-irrelevant information while working on easy tasks. However, as revealed by mediation analyses these changes in overt information processing behavior did not explain the decline in problem-solving performance. As an alternative explanation it is suggested that goal conflicts resulting from pending goals claim cognitive resources, which are then no longer available for learning and

Differential Effects of Emotional Information on Interference Task Performance across the Life Span

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Haley M LaMonica

2010-09-01

Full Text Available While functioning in multiple domains declines with age, emotional regulation appears to remain preserved in older adults. The Emotion Inhibition (Emotional Stroop Test requires participants to name the ink color in which neutrally- and emotionally-valenced words are printed. It was employed in the current investigation as a measure of affective regulation in the context of an interference task in relation to age. Results demonstrated that while participants ranging from 20 to 50 years of age performed significantly worse on the emotion Stroop Inhibition relative to the neutral Stroop Inhibition condition, subjects over 60 years of age displayed the converse of this pattern, performing better on the emotion than the neutral condition, suggesting that they are less affected by the emotional impact of the positive and negative words used in the former condition. This pattern of age-related change in the ability to manage emotion may be related to blunting of affective signaling in limbic structures or, at the psychological level, focusing on emotional regulation.

Stroop interference and disorders of selective attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kingma, A.; LaHeij, W.; Fasotti, L.; Eling, P.

1996-01-01

Fourteen patients with a right-hemisphere CVA and 8 patients with a left-hemisphere CVA were examined for selective attention deficits using a variant of the Stroop color-word task: the picture-word interference task. Experiments 1 and 2 first compared the performance of the two patient groups and a

Assessment of life interference in anxious children

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rapee, Ronald; Thastum, Mikael; Chavira, Denise

associated with mental disorders arguably the key issue of relevance to both sufferers and therapists. Yet among both childhood and adult disorders the primary focus in terms of assessment and treatment is on symptoms, with far less attention paid to the impact of these symptoms on the sufferer's life....... This imbalance has particularly characterised research on child anxiety where few studies have examined either the impact of anxiety disorders on children's lives or the effects of treatments on life interference. To some extent this lack of attention has come from a lack of well developed measures to assess...... life interference derived from symptoms of anxiety. Broader and more general life interference measures tend to have minimal relevance for children with anxiety disorders. The current paper will describe two measures of life interference that have been developed at the Centre for Emotional Health...

The object classification task for children: A new measure of concept generation and mental flexibility in early childhood

OpenAIRE

Smidts, D.P.; Jacobs, R.; Anderson, V.

2004-01-01

In this study, the development of concept generation and mental flexibility was investigated in 84 Australian children between 3 and 7 years of age, using the Object Classification Task for Children (OCTC), a newly developed executive function test for use with young children. On this task, which was adapted from the Concept Generation Test (Levine, Stuss, & Milberg, 1995) and the Concept Generation Test for Children (Jacobs, Anderson, & Harvey, 2001), children were asked to categorize 6 plas...

The very low-frequency band of heart rate variability represents the slow recovery component after a mental stress task.

Science.gov (United States)

Usui, Harunobu; Nishida, Yusuke

2017-01-01

The very low-frequency (VLF) band of heart rate variability (HRV) has different characteristics compared with other HRV components. Here we investigated differences in HRV changes after a mental stress task. After the task, the high-frequency (HF) band and ratio of high- to low-frequency bands (LF/HF) immediately returned to baseline. We evaluated the characteristics of VLF band changes after a mental stress task. We hypothesized that the VLF band decreases during the Stroop color word task and there would be a delayed recovery for 2 h after the task (i.e., the VLF change would exhibit a "slow recovery"). Nineteen healthy, young subjects were instructed to rest for 10 min, followed by a Stroop color word task for 20 min. After the task, the subjects were instructed to rest for 120 min. For all subjects, R-R interval data were collected; analysis was performed for VLF, HF, and LF/HF ratio. HRV during the rest time and each 15-min interval of the recovery time were compared. An analysis of the covariance was performed to adjust for the HF band and LF/HF ratio as confounding variables of the VLF component. HF and VLF bands significantly decreased and the LF/HF ratio significantly increased during the task compared with those during rest time. During recovery, the VLF band was significantly decreased compared with the rest time. After the task, the HF band and LF/HF ratio immediately returned to baseline and were not significantly different from the resting values. After adjusting for HF and LF/HF ratio, the VLF band had significantly decreased compared with that during rest. The VLF band is the "slow recovery" component and the HF band and LF/HF ratio are the "quick recovery" components of HRV. This VLF characteristic may clarify the unexplained association of the VLF band in cardiovascular disease prevention.

Mental fatigue impairs soccer-specific decision-making skill.

Science.gov (United States)

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.

Letter and Colour Matching Tasks: Parametric Measures of Developmental Working Memory Capacity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tamara L. Powell

2014-01-01

Full Text Available We investigated the mediating role of interference in developmental assessments of working memory (WM capacity across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. One hundred and forty-two participants completed two versions of visuospatial (colour matching task, CMT and verbal (letter matching task, LMT WM tasks, which systematically varied cognitive load in a high and low interference condition. Results showed similar developmental trajectories across high interference contexts (CMT- and LMT-Complex and divergent developmental growth patterns across low interference contexts (CMT- and LMT-Simple. Performance on tasks requiring greater cognitive control was in closer agreement with developmental predictions relative to simple recall guided tasks that rely solely on the storage components of WM. These findings suggest that developmental WM capacity, as measured by the CMT and LMT paradigms, can be better quantified using high interference contexts, in both content domains, and demonstrate steady increases in WM through to mid-adolescence.

A key role for experimental task performance: effects of math talent, gender and performance on the neural correlates of mental rotation.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoppe, Christian; Fliessbach, Klaus; Stausberg, Sven; Stojanovic, Jelena; Trautner, Peter; Elger, Christian E; Weber, Bernd

2012-02-01

The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying superior cognitive performance are a research area of high interest. The majority of studies on the brain-performance relationship assessed the effects of capability-related group factors (e.g. talent, gender) on task-related brain activations while only few studies examined the effect of the inherent experimental task performance factor. In this functional MRI study, we combined both approaches and simultaneously assessed the effects of three relatively independent factors on the neurofunctional correlates of mental rotation in same-aged adolescents: math talent (gifted/controls: 17/17), gender (male/female: 16/18) and experimental task performance (median split on accuracy; high/low: 17/17). Better experimental task performance of mathematically gifted vs. control subjects and male vs. female subjects validated the selected paradigm. Activation of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was identified as a common effect of mathematical giftedness, gender and experimental task performance. However, multiple linear regression analyses (stepwise) indicated experimental task performance as the only predictor of parietal activations. In conclusion, increased activation of the IPL represents a positive neural correlate of mental rotation performance, irrespective of but consistent with the obtained neurocognitive and behavioral effects of math talent and gender. As experimental performance may strongly affect task-related activations this factor needs to be considered in capability-related group comparison studies on the brain-performance relationship. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Letter and Colour Matching Tasks: Parametric Measures of Developmental Working Memory Capacity

OpenAIRE

Powell, Tamara L.; Arsalidou, Marie; Vogan, Vanessa M.; Taylor, Margot J.

2014-01-01

We investigated the mediating role of interference in developmental assessments of working memory (WM) capacity across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. One hundred and forty-two participants completed two versions of visuospatial (colour matching task, CMT) and verbal (letter matching task, LMT) WM tasks, which systematically varied cognitive load in a high and low interference condition. Results showed similar developmental trajectories across high interference contexts (CMT- and...

Perceived Time as a Measure of Mental Workload

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hertzum, Morten; Holmegaard, Kristin Due

2013-01-01

The mental workload imposed by systems is important to their operation and usability. Consequently, researchers and practitioners need reliable, valid, and easy-to-administer methods for measuring mental workload. The ratio of perceived time to clock time appears to be such a method, yet mental...... is a performance-related rather than task-related dimension of mental workload. We find a higher perceived time ratio for timed than untimed tasks. According to subjective workload ratings and pupil-diameter measurements the timed tasks impose higher mental workload. This finding contradicts the prospective...... paradigm, which asserts that perceived time decreases with increasing mental workload. We also find a higher perceived time ratio for solved than unsolved tasks, while subjective workload ratings indicate lower mental workload for the solved tasks. This finding shows that the relationship between...

The influence of folate serum levels on depressive mood and mental processing in patients with epilepsy treated with enzyme-inducing anti-epileptic drugs.

Science.gov (United States)

Rösche, J; Uhlmann, C; Weber, R; Fröscher, W

2003-04-01

Folate deficiency is common in patients with epilepsy and also occurs in patients with depression or cognitive deficits. This study investigates whether low serum folate levels may contribute to depressive mood and difficulties in mental processing in patients with epilepsy treated with anti-epileptic drugs inducing the cytochrome P450. We analysed the serum folate levels, the score in the Self Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and the results of a bedside test in mental processing in 54 patients with epilepsy. There was a significant negative correlation between the serum folate levels and the score in SDS and significant positive correlations between the score in SDS and the time needed to process an interference task or a letter-reading task. Low serum folate levels may contribute to depressive mood and therefore to difficulties in mental processing. Further studies utilizing total plasma homocysteine as a sensitive measure of functional folate deficiency and more elaborate tests of mental processing are required to elucidate the impact of folate metabolism on depressive mood and cognitive function in patients with epilepsy.

Establishing a New Screening System for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease with Mental Rotation Tasks that Evaluate Visuospatial Function.

Science.gov (United States)

Suzuki, Ayuko; Shinozaki, Jun; Yazawa, Shogo; Ueki, Yoshino; Matsukawa, Noriyuki; Shimohama, Shun; Nagamine, Takashi

2018-01-01

The mental rotation task is well-known for the assessment of visuospatial function; however, it has not been used for screening of dementia patients. The aim of this study was to create a simple screening test for patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) by focusing on non-amnestic symptoms. Age-matched healthy controls (age 75.3±6.8), patients with MCI (76.5±5.5), and AD (78.2±5.0) participated in this study. They carried out mental rotation tasks targeting geometric graphics or alphabetical characters with three rotating angles (0°, 90°, and 180°) and indicated the correct answer. Response accuracy and reaction time were recorded along with their eye movements using an eye tracker. To quantify their visual processing strategy, the run count ratio (RC ratio) was calculated by dividing the mean number of fixations in incorrect answers by that in correct answers. AD patients showed lower accuracy and longer reaction time than controls. They also showed a significantly greater number of fixation and smaller saccade amplitude than controls, while fixation duration did not differ significantly. The RC ratio was higher for AD, followed by MCI and control groups. By setting the cut-off value to 0.47 in the 180° rotating angle task, we could differentiate MCI patients from controls with a probability of 80.0%. We established a new screening system for dementia patients by evaluating visuospatial function. The RC ratio during a mental rotation task is useful for discriminating MCI patients from controls.

Mental rotation impairs attention shifting and short-term memory encoding: neurophysiological evidence against the response-selection bottleneck model of dual-task performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pannebakker, M.M.; van Dam, W.O.; Band, G.P.H.; Ridderinkhof, K.R.; Hommel, B.

2011-01-01

Dual tasks and their associated delays have often been used to examine the boundaries of processing in the brain. We used the dual-task procedure and recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how mental rotation of a first stimulus (S1) influences the shifting of visual-spatial

Brief Meditation and the Interaction between Emotional Interference and Anxiety

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carolina Baptista Menezes

Full Text Available ABSTRACT This pilot study assessed the effects of a five day focused meditation training on the interplay between emotional interference and anxiety in a non clinical sample randomized into two groups (experimental=13; control=18. Emotional interference was indexed comparing the reaction times in an attention span task with negative or neutral distracting images. Anxiety experienced during the task was also assessed through self-report. Only in the control group higher anxiety levels interacted with greater emotional interference and a worse evaluation of valence and arousal of emotional images. These preliminary findings suggest that meditation may help modulating anxiety effects on bias to negative stimuli, and that even a short training may facilitate self-regulatory processes.

Cognitive interference and a food-related memory bias in binge eating disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Svaldi, Jennifer; Schmitz, Florian; Trentowska, Monika; Tuschen-Caffier, Brunna; Berking, Matthias; Naumann, Eva

2014-01-01

The present study was concerned with cognitive interference and a specific memory bias for eating-related stimuli in binge eating disorder (BED). Further objectives were to find out under which circumstances such effects would occur, and whether they are related with each other and with reported severity of BED symptoms. A group of women diagnosed with BED and a matched sample of overweight controls completed two paradigms, an n-back task with lures and a recent-probes task. The BED group generally experienced more interference in the n-back task. Additionally, they revealed selectively increased interference for food items in the recent-probes task. Findings can be reconciled with the view that control functions are generally impaired in BED, and that there is an additional bias for eating-related stimuli, both of which were related with reported severity of BED symptoms. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The neural architecture of age-related dual-task interferences

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Witold Xaver Chmielewski

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In daily life elderly adults exhibit deficits when dual-tasking is involved. So far these deficits have been verified on a behavioral level in dual-tasking. Yet, the neuronal architecture of these deficits in aging still remains to be explored especially when late-middle aged individuals around 60 years of age are concerned. Neuroimaging studies in young participants concerning dual-tasking were, among others, related to activity in middle frontal (MFG and superior frontal gyrus (SFG and the anterior insula (AI. According to the frontal lobe hypothesis of aging, alterations in these frontal regions (i.e., SFG and MFG might be responsible for cognitive deficits. We measured brain activity using fMRI, while examining age-dependent variations in dual-tasking by utilizing the PRP (psychological refractory period test. Behavioral data showed an increasing PRP effect in late-middle aged adults. The results suggest the age-related deteriorated performance in dual-tasking, especially in conditions of risen complexity. These effects are related to changes in networks involving the anterior insula, the SFG and the MFG. The results suggest that different cognitive subprocesses are affected that mediate the observed dual-tasking problems in late-middle aged individuals.

The neural architecture of age-related dual-task interferences.

Science.gov (United States)

Chmielewski, Witold X; Yildiz, Ali; Beste, Christian

2014-01-01

In daily life elderly adults exhibit deficits when dual-tasking is involved. So far these deficits have been verified on a behavioral level in dual-tasking. Yet, the neuronal architecture of these deficits in aging still remains to be explored especially when late-middle aged individuals around 60 years of age are concerned. Neuroimaging studies in young participants concerning dual-tasking were, among others, related to activity in middle frontal (MFG) and superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and the anterior insula (AI). According to the frontal lobe hypothesis of aging, alterations in these frontal regions (i.e., SFG and MFG) might be responsible for cognitive deficits. We measured brain activity using fMRI, while examining age-dependent variations in dual-tasking by utilizing the PRP (psychological refractory period) test. Behavioral data showed an increasing PRP effect in late-middle aged adults. The results suggest the age-related deteriorated performance in dual-tasking, especially in conditions of risen complexity. These effects are related to changes in networks involving the AI, the SFG and the MFG. The results suggest that different cognitive subprocesses are affected that mediate the observed dual-tasking problems in late-middle aged individuals.

Transfer and interference of motor skills in people with intellectual disability.

Science.gov (United States)

Mohan, A; Singh, A P; Mandal, M K

2001-08-01

Atypical laterality (i.e. the lack of a clear pattern of lateralization) has been found to be a characteristic feature of individuals with intellectual disability (ID). The evidence for this has been based on 'handedness' studies which have contained little information about the ability of people with ID to carry out interhemispheric tasks reflecting bilateral transfer or interference. The present study examined this capacity in individuals with ID by utilizing bilateral transfer and interference paradigms. Right-handed subjects with ID (IQ = 55-76) and controls matched for age and sex were tested for bilateral transfer of motor skill in contralateral hands with a mirror-drawing task. The subjects were also tested for their ability to perform a finger-tapping task while processing verbal and non-verbal stimuli. The findings indicated that people with ID are significantly deficient relative to matched controls in bilateral transfer of motor skills from their non-preferred (left) hand to their preferred (right) one. The effect of interference during performance of the dual task was significantly greater in individuals with ID. Subjects with ID were found to perform better with their non-preferred than with their preferred hand. A within-group comparison revealed that right-handed performance was more affected by interference than left in these subjects.

Effects of mental fatigue on the development of physical fatigue: a neuroergonomic approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Mehta, Ranjana K; Parasuraman, Raja

2014-06-01

The present study used a neuroergonomic approach to examine the interaction of mental and physical fatigue by assessing prefrontal cortex activation during submaximal fatiguing handgrip exercises. Mental fatigue is known to influence muscle function and motor performance, but its contribution to the development of voluntary physical fatigue is not well understood. A total of 12 participants performed separate physical (control) and physical and mental fatigue (concurrent) conditions at 30% of their maximal handgrip strength until exhaustion. Functional near infrared spectroscopy was employed to measure prefrontal cortex activation, whereas electromyography and joint steadiness were used simultaneously to quantify muscular effort. Compared to the control condition, blood oxygenation in the bilateral prefrontal cortex was significantly lower during submaximal fatiguing contractions associated with mental fatigue at exhaustion, despite comparable muscular responses. The findings suggest that interference in the prefrontal cortex may influence motor output during tasks that require both physical and cognitive processing. A neuroergonomic approach involving simultaneous monitoring of brain and body functions can provide critical information on fatigue development that may be overlooked during traditional fatigue assessments.

A Reverse Stroop Task with Mouse Tracking

Science.gov (United States)

Yamamoto, Naohide; Incera, Sara; McLennan, Conor T.

2016-01-01

In a reverse Stroop task, observers respond to the meaning of a color word irrespective of the color in which the word is printed—for example, the word red may be printed in the congruent color (red), an incongruent color (e.g., blue), or a neutral color (e.g., white). Although reading of color words in this task is often thought to be neither facilitated by congruent print colors nor interfered with incongruent print colors, this interference has been detected by using a response method that does not give any bias in favor of processing of word meanings or processing of print colors. On the other hand, evidence for the presence of facilitation in this task has been scarce, even though this facilitation is theoretically possible. By modifying the task such that participants respond to a stimulus color word by pointing to a corresponding response word on a computer screen with a mouse, the present study investigated the possibility that not only interference but also facilitation would take place in a reverse Stroop task. Importantly, in this study, participants’ responses were dynamically tracked by recording the entire trajectories of the mouse. Arguably, this method provided richer information about participants’ performance than traditional measures such as reaction time and accuracy, allowing for more detailed (and thus potentially more sensitive) investigation of facilitation and interference in the reverse Stroop task. These trajectories showed that the mouse’s approach toward correct response words was significantly delayed by incongruent print colors but not affected by congruent print colors, demonstrating that only interference, not facilitation, was present in the current task. Implications of these findings are discussed within a theoretical framework in which the strength of association between a task and its response method plays a critical role in determining how word meanings and print colors interact in reverse Stroop tasks. PMID:27199881

Event-related potential evidence for separable automatic and controlled retrieval processes in proactive interference.

Science.gov (United States)

Bergström, Zara M; O'Connor, Richard J; Li, Martin K-H; Simons, Jon S

2012-05-21

Interference between competing memories is a major source of retrieval failure, yet, surprisingly little is known about how competitive memory activation arises in the brain. One possibility is that interference during episodic retrieval might be produced by relatively automatic conceptual priming mechanisms that are independent of strategic retrieval processes. Such priming-driven interference might occur when the competing memories have strong pre-existing associations to the retrieval cue. We used ERPs to measure the neural dynamics of retrieval competition, and investigated whether the ERP correlates of interference were affected by varying task demands for selective retrieval. Participants encoded cue words that were presented either two or four times, paired either with the same or different strongly associated words across repetitions. In a subsequent test, participants either selectively recalled each cue's most recent associate, or simply judged how many times a cue had been presented, without requiring selective recall. Interference effects on test performance were only seen in the recall task. In contrast, ERPs during test revealed an early posterior positivity for high interference items that was present in both retrieval tasks. This early ERP effect likely reflects a conceptual priming-related N400 reduction when many associations to a cue were pre-activated. A later parietal positivity resembling the ERP correlate of conscious recollection was found only in the recall task. The results suggest that early effects of proactive interference are relatively automatic and independent of intentional retrieval processes, consistent with suggestions that interference can arise through conceptual priming. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Stroop revisited: a meta-analysis of interference control in AD/HD

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Mourik, R.; Oosterlaan, J.; Sergeant, J.A.

2005-01-01

Background: An inhibition deficit, including poor interference control, has been implicated as one of the core deficits in AD/HD. Interference control is clinically measured by the Stroop Colour-Word Task. The aim of this meta-analysis was to investigate the strength of an interference deficit in

Semantic category interference in overt picture naming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Maess, B.; Friederici, A.D.; Damian, M.F.; Meyer, A.S.; Levelt, W.J.M.

2002-01-01

The study investigated the neuronal basis of the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon. The semantic category interference effect was used to locate lexical retrieval processes in time and space. This effect reflects the finding that, for overt naming, volunteers are slower when naming pictures

The Effect of a Workload-Preview on Task-Prioritization and Task-Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Minotra, Dev

2012-01-01

With increased volume and sophistication of cyber attacks in recent years, maintaining situation awareness and effective task-prioritization strategy is critical to the task of cybersecurity analysts. However, high levels of mental-workload associated with the task of cybersecurity analyst's limits their ability to prioritize tasks.…

Development of task analysis method for operator tasks in main control room of an advanced nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin Chiuhsiangloe; Hsieh Tsungling

2016-01-01

Task analysis methods provide an insight for quantitative and qualitative predictions of how people will use a proposed system, though the different versions have different emphases. Most of the methods can attest to the coverage of the functionality of a system and all provide estimates of task performance time. However, most of the tasks that operators deal with in a digital work environment in the main control room of an advanced nuclear power plant require high mental activity. Such mental tasks overlap and must be dealt with at the same time; most of them can be assumed to be highly parallel in nature. Therefore, the primary aim to be addressed in this paper was to develop a method that adopts CPM-GOMS (cognitive perceptual motor-goals operators methods selection rules) as the basic pattern of mental task analysis for the advanced main control room. A within-subjects experiment design was used to examine the validity of the modified CPM-GOMS. Thirty participants participated in two task types, which included high- and low-compatibility types. The results indicated that the performance was significantly higher on the high-compatibility task type than on the low-compatibility task type; that is, the modified CPM-GOMS could distinguish the difference between high- and low-compatibility mental tasks. (author)

High-performers use the phonological loop less to process mental arithmetic during working memory tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Otsuka, Yuki; Osaka, Naoyuki

2015-01-01

This study investigated the effects of three working memory components-the central executive, phonological loop, and visuospatial sketchpad-on performance differences in complex mental arithmetic between individuals. Using the dual-task method, we examined how performance during two-digit addition was affected by load on the central executive (random tapping condition), phonological loop (articulatory suppression condition), and visuospatial sketchpad (spatial tapping condition) compared to that under no load (control condition) in high- and low-performers of complex mental arithmetic in Experiment 1. Low-performers showed an increase in errors under the random tapping and articulatory suppression conditions, whereas high-performers showed an increase of errors only under the random tapping condition. In Experiment 2, we conducted similar experiments on only the high-performers but used a shorter presentation time of each number. We found the same pattern for performing complex mental arithmetic as seen in Experiment 1. These results indicate that high-performers might reduce their dependence on the phonological loop, because the central executive enables them to choose a strategy in which they use less working memory capacity.

Measuring treatment effects on dual-task performance: a framework for research and clinical practice

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prudence ePlummer

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The relevance of dual-task walking to everyday ambulation is widely acknowledged, and numerous studies have demonstrated that dual-task interference can significantly impact recovery of functional walking in people with neurological disorders. The magnitude and direction of dual-task interference is influenced by the interaction between the two tasks, including how individuals spontaneously prioritize their attention. Therefore, to accurately interpret and characterize dual-task interference and identify changes over time, it is imperative to evaluate single and dual-task performance in both tasks, as well as the tasks relative to each other. Yet, reciprocal dual-task effects are frequently ignored. The purpose of this perspective paper is to present a framework for measuring treatment effects on dual-task interference, specifically taking into account the interactions between the two tasks and how this can provide information on whether overall dual-task capacity has improved or a different attentional strategy has been adopted. In discussing the clinical implications of using this framework, we provide specific examples of using this method and provide some explicit recommendations for research and clinical practice.

Interference control in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Mourik, R.; Papanikolau, A.; van Gelicum-Bijlhout, J.; van Oostenbruggen, J.; Veugelers, D.; Post-Uiterweer, A.; Sergeant, J.A.; Oosterlaan, J.

2009-01-01

The view that Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is associated with a diminished ability to control interfference is controversial and based exclusively on results of (verbal)-visual interference tasks, primarily the Stroop Color Word task. The present study compares medication-naïve

The anterior thalamus is critical for overcoming interference in a context-dependent odor discrimination task.

Science.gov (United States)

Law, L Matthew; Smith, David M

2012-10-01

The anterior thalamus (AT) is anatomically interconnected with the hippocampus and other structures known to be involved in memory, and the AT is involved in many of the same learning and memory functions as the hippocampus. For example, like the hippocampus, the AT is involved in spatial cognition and episodic memory. The hippocampus also has a well-documented role in contextual memory processes, but it is not known whether the AT is similarly involved in contextual memory. In the present study, we assessed the role of the AT in contextual memory processes by temporarily inactivating the AT and training rats on a recently developed context-based olfactory list learning task, which was designed to assess the use of contextual information to resolve interference. Rats were trained on one list of odor discrimination problems, followed by training on a second list in either the same context or a different context. In order to induce interference, some of the odors appeared on both lists with their predictive value reversed. Control rats that learned the two lists in different contexts performed significantly better than rats that learned the two lists in the same context. However, AT lesions completely abolished this contextual learning advantage, a result that is very similar to the effects of hippocampal inactivation. These findings demonstrate that the AT, like the hippocampus, is involved in contextual memory and suggest that the hippocampus and AT are part of a functional circuit involved in contextual memory. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

The Locus of the Gratton Effect in Picture-Word Interference

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Maanen, Leendert; van Rijn, Hedderik

Between-trial effects in Stroop-like interference tasks are linked to differences in the amount of cognitive control. Trials following an incongruent trial show less interference, an effect suggested to result from the increased control caused by the incongruent previous trial (known as the Gratton

Methylphenidate does not improve interference control during a working memory task in young patients with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Prehn-Kristensen, Alexander; Krauel, Kerstin; Hinrichs, Hermann; Fischer, Jochen; Malecki, Ulrike; Schuetze, Hartmut; Wolff, Stephan; Jansen, Olav; Duezel, Emrah; Baving, Lioba

2011-05-04

Patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show deficits in working memory (WM) which may be related to prefrontal dysfunction. Methylphenidate (MPH) can restore WM deficits in ADHD by enhancing prefrontal activity. At the same time, changes in striatal activation could cause ADHD patients to be more interference-sensitive during working memory tasks. However, it is unclear whether MPH reduces WM distractibility in ADHD. In this fMRI study, 12 ADHD patients and 12 healthy controls participated on two separate days in a delayed-match-to-sample test. During the delay interval, a distractor stimulus was presented in half of the trials. Children and adolescents with ADHD received MPH only on one of the two sessions. Behavioral data analyses revealed that MPH normalized WM in ADHD. However, MPH did not improve WM performance when a distractor was presented during the delay interval. Functional images showed that MPH enhanced prefrontal activity during the delay in ADHD patients when no distractor was present. If the delay was interrupted by a distractor, only healthy controls showed activation of the caudate. In patients with ADHD, however, in line with behavioral data, MPH did not enhance caudate activity. In healthy youth, caudate activity is involved in interference control allowing the successful maintenance of information in working memory even in the presence of distraction. Our findings suggest that interference control, linked to caudate activity, is not adequately enhanced by MPH in ADHD. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Separating intentional inhibition of prepotent responses and resistance to proactive interference in alcohol-dependent individuals.

Science.gov (United States)

Noël, Xavier; Van der Linden, Martial; Brevers, Damien; Campanella, Salvatore; Verbanck, Paul; Hanak, Catherine; Kornreich, Charles; Verbruggen, Frederick

2013-03-01

Impulsivity is a hallmark of addictive behaviors. Addicts' weakened inhibition of irrelevant prepotent responses is commonly thought to explain this association. However, inhibition is not a unitary mechanism. This study investigated the efficiency of overcoming competition due to irrelevant responses (i.e., inhibition of a prepotent response) and overcoming competition in memory (i.e., resistance to proactive interference) in sober and recently detoxified alcohol-dependent individuals. Three cognitive tasks assessing the inhibition of a prepotent response (Hayling task, anti-saccade task and Stroop task) and two tasks tapping into the capacity to resist proactive interference (cued recall, Brown-Peterson variant) were administered to 30 non-amnesic recently detoxified alcohol-dependent individuals and 30 matched healthy participants without alcohol dependency. In addition, possible confounds such as verbal updating in working memory was assessed. Alcohol-dependent subjects performed worse than healthy participants on the three cognitive tasks assessing the inhibition of irrelevant prepotent responses but group performance was similar in the tasks assessing overcoming proactive interference in memory, updating of working memory and abstract reasoning. These findings suggest that alcohol-dependence is mainly associated with impaired capacity to intentionally suppress irrelevant prepotent response information. Control of proactive interference from memory is preserved. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mental Fatigue Affects Visual Selective Attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Faber, Leon G.; Maurits, Natasha M.; Lorist, Monicque M.

2012-01-01

Mental fatigue is a form of fatigue, induced by continuous task performance. Mentally fatigued people often report having a hard time keeping their attention focussed and being easily distracted. In this study, we examined the relation between mental fatigue, as induced by time on task, and

Is the Male Advantage in Mental-Rotation Performance Task Independent? On the Usability of Chronometric Tests and Paper-and-Pencil Tests in Children

Science.gov (United States)

Quaiser-Pohl, Claudia; Neuburger, Sarah; Heil, Martin; Jansen, Petra; Schmelter, Andrea

2014-01-01

This article presents a reanalysis of the data of 862 second and fourth graders collected in two previous studies, focusing on the influence of method (psychometric vs. chronometric) and stimulus type on the gender difference in mental-rotation accuracy. The children had to solve mental-rotation tasks with animal pictures, letters, or cube…

Semantic Interference in Immediate and Delayed Naming and Reading: Attention and Task Decisions

Science.gov (United States)

Piai, Vitoria; Roelofs, Ardi; Schriefers, Herbert

2011-01-01

Disagreement exists about whether lexical selection in word production is a competitive process. Competition predicts semantic interference from distractor words in immediate but not in delayed picture naming. In contrast, Janssen, Schirm, Mahon, and Caramazza (2008) obtained semantic interference in delayed picture naming when participants had to…

The very low-frequency band of heart rate variability represents the slow recovery component after a mental stress task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Harunobu Usui

Full Text Available The very low-frequency (VLF band of heart rate variability (HRV has different characteristics compared with other HRV components. Here we investigated differences in HRV changes after a mental stress task. After the task, the high-frequency (HF band and ratio of high- to low-frequency bands (LF/HF immediately returned to baseline. We evaluated the characteristics of VLF band changes after a mental stress task. We hypothesized that the VLF band decreases during the Stroop color word task and there would be a delayed recovery for 2 h after the task (i.e., the VLF change would exhibit a "slow recovery". Nineteen healthy, young subjects were instructed to rest for 10 min, followed by a Stroop color word task for 20 min. After the task, the subjects were instructed to rest for 120 min. For all subjects, R-R interval data were collected; analysis was performed for VLF, HF, and LF/HF ratio. HRV during the rest time and each 15-min interval of the recovery time were compared. An analysis of the covariance was performed to adjust for the HF band and LF/HF ratio as confounding variables of the VLF component. HF and VLF bands significantly decreased and the LF/HF ratio significantly increased during the task compared with those during rest time. During recovery, the VLF band was significantly decreased compared with the rest time. After the task, the HF band and LF/HF ratio immediately returned to baseline and were not significantly different from the resting values. After adjusting for HF and LF/HF ratio, the VLF band had significantly decreased compared with that during rest. The VLF band is the "slow recovery" component and the HF band and LF/HF ratio are the "quick recovery" components of HRV. This VLF characteristic may clarify the unexplained association of the VLF band in cardiovascular disease prevention.

Stroop-interference effect in post-traumatic stress disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Hong; Chen, Guoliang; Liu, Xiaohui; Shan, Moshui; Jia, Yanyan

2014-12-01

To investigate the conflict processing in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients, we conducted the classical Stroop task by recording event-related potentials. Although the reaction time was overall slower for PTSD patients than healthy age-matched control group, the Stroop-interference effect of reaction time did not differ between the two groups. Compared with normal controls, the interference effects of N 2 and N 450 components were larger and the interference effect of slow potential component disappeared in PTSD. These data indicated the dysfunction of conflict processing in individuals with PTSD.

Influence of mental practice on development of voluntary control of a novel motor acquisition task.

Science.gov (United States)

Creelman, Jim

2003-08-01

The purpose of this investigation was to assess whether mental practice facilitates the development of voluntary control over the recruitment of the abductor hallucis muscle to produce isolated big toe abduction. A sample of convenience of 15 women and 20 men with a mean age of 28.8 yr. (SD=5.7) and healthy feet, who were unable voluntarily to abduct the big toe, were randomly assigned to one of three groups, a mental practice group, a physical practice group, and a group who performed a control movement during practice. Each subject received neuromuscular electrical stimulation to introduce the desired movement prior to each of five practice bouts over a single session lasting 2 hr. Big toe abduction active range of motion and surface electromyographic (EMG) output of the abductor hallucis and extensor digitorum brevis muscles were measured prior to the first practice bout and following each practice bout, yielding seven acquisition trials. Acquisition is defined as an improvement in both active range of motion and in the difference between the integrated EMG of the abductor hallucis and extensor digitorum brevis muscles during successive acquisition trials. Seven members of both the mental and physical practice groups and one member of the control group met the acquisition criteria. Chi-square analysis indicated the group difference was statistically significant, suggesting mental practice was effective for this task.

Auditory temporal preparation induced by rhythmic cues during concurrent auditory working memory tasks.

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Cutanda, Diana; Correa, Ángel; Sanabria, Daniel

2015-06-01

The present study investigated whether participants can develop temporal preparation driven by auditory isochronous rhythms when concurrently performing an auditory working memory (WM) task. In Experiment 1, participants had to respond to an auditory target presented after a regular or an irregular sequence of auditory stimuli while concurrently performing a Sternberg-type WM task. Results showed that participants responded faster after regular compared with irregular rhythms and that this effect was not affected by WM load; however, the lack of a significant main effect of WM load made it difficult to draw any conclusion regarding the influence of the dual-task manipulation in Experiment 1. In order to enhance dual-task interference, Experiment 2 combined the auditory rhythm procedure with an auditory N-Back task, which required WM updating (monitoring and coding of the information) and was presumably more demanding than the mere rehearsal of the WM task used in Experiment 1. Results now clearly showed dual-task interference effects (slower reaction times [RTs] in the high- vs. the low-load condition). However, such interference did not affect temporal preparation induced by rhythms, with faster RTs after regular than after irregular sequences in the high-load and low-load conditions. These results revealed that secondary tasks demanding memory updating, relative to tasks just demanding rehearsal, produced larger interference effects on overall RTs in the auditory rhythm task. Nevertheless, rhythm regularity exerted a strong temporal preparation effect that survived the interference of the WM task even when both tasks competed for processing resources within the auditory modality. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Language production in a shared task: Cumulative Semantic Interference from self- and other-produced context words.

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Hoedemaker, Renske S; Ernst, Jessica; Meyer, Antje S; Belke, Eva

2017-01-01

This study assessed the effects of semantic context in the form of self-produced and other-produced words on subsequent language production. Pairs of participants performed a joint picture naming task, taking turns while naming a continuous series of pictures. In the single-speaker version of this paradigm, naming latencies have been found to increase for successive presentations of exemplars from the same category, a phenomenon known as Cumulative Semantic Interference (CSI). As expected, the joint-naming task showed a within-speaker CSI effect, such that naming latencies increased as a function of the number of category exemplars named previously by the participant (self-produced items). Crucially, we also observed an across-speaker CSI effect, such that naming latencies slowed as a function of the number of category members named by the participant's task partner (other-produced items). The magnitude of the across-speaker CSI effect did not vary as a function of whether or not the listening participant could see the pictures their partner was naming. The observation of across-speaker CSI suggests that the effect originates at the conceptual level of the language system, as proposed by Belke's (2013) Conceptual Accumulation account. Whereas self-produced and other-produced words both resulted in a CSI effect on naming latencies, post-experiment free recall rates were higher for self-produced than other-produced items. Together, these results suggest that both speaking and listening result in implicit learning at the conceptual level of the language system but that these effects are independent of explicit learning as indicated by item recall. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Facial gender interferes with decisions about facial expressions of anger and happiness.

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Becker, D Vaughn

2017-04-01

The confounded signal hypothesis maintains that facial expressions of anger and happiness, in order to more efficiently communicate threat or nurturance, evolved forms that take advantage of older gender recognition systems, which were already attuned to similar affordances. Two unexplored consequences of this hypothesis are (1) facial gender should automatically interfere with discriminations of anger and happiness, and (2) controlled attentional processes (like working memory) may be able to override the interference of these particular expressions on gender discrimination. These issues were explored by administering a Garner interference task along with a working memory task as an index of controlled attention. Results show that those with good attentional control were able to eliminate interference of expression on gender decisions but not the interference of gender on expression decisions. Trials in which the stimulus attributes were systematically correlated also revealed strategic facilitation for participants high in attentional control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The Stroop Revisited: A Meta-Analysis of Interference Control in AD/HD

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Van Mourik, Rosa; Oosterlaan, Jaap; Sergeant, Joseph A.

2005-01-01

Background: An inhibition deficit, including poor interference control, has been implicated as one of the core deficits in AD/HD. Interference control is clinically measured by the Stroop Colour-Word Task. The aim of this meta-analysis was to investigate the strength of an interference deficit in AD/HD as measured by the Stroop Colour-Word Task…

The Role of Gesture in Supporting Mental Representations: The Case of Mental Abacus Arithmetic

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Brooks, Neon B.; Barner, David; Frank, Michael; Goldin-Meadow, Susan

2018-01-01

People frequently gesture when problem-solving, particularly on tasks that require spatial transformation. Gesture often facilitates task performance by interacting with internal mental representations, but how this process works is not well understood. We investigated this question by exploring the case of mental abacus (MA), a technique in which…

Driving with varying secondary task levels: mental workload, behavioural effects, and task prioritization

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Schaap, Nina; van Arem, Bart; van der Horst, Richard; Brookhuis, Karel; Alkim, T.P.; Arentze, T.

2010-01-01

Advanced Driver Assistance (ADA) Systems may provide a solution for safety-critical traffic situations. But these systems are new additions into the vehicle that might increase drivers’ mental workload. How do drivers behave in situations with high mental workload, and do they actively prioritize

Electroencephalography Based Analysis of Working Memory Load and Affective Valence in an N-back Task with Emotional Stimuli.

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Grissmann, Sebastian; Faller, Josef; Scharinger, Christian; Spüler, Martin; Gerjets, Peter

2017-01-01

Most brain-based measures of the electroencephalogram (EEG) are used in highly controlled lab environments and only focus on narrow mental states (e.g., working memory load). However, we assume that outside the lab complex multidimensional mental states are evoked. This could potentially create interference between EEG signatures used for identification of specific mental states. In this study, we aimed to investigate more realistic conditions and therefore induced a combination of working memory load and affective valence to reveal potential interferences in EEG measures. To induce changes in working memory load and affective valence, we used a paradigm which combines an N-back task (for working memory load manipulation) with a standard method to induce affect (affective pictures taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) database). Subjective ratings showed that the experimental task was successful in inducing working memory load as well as affective valence. Additionally, performance measures were analyzed and it was found that behavioral performance decreased with increasing workload as well as negative valence, showing that affective valence can have an effect on cognitive processing. These findings are supported by changes in frontal theta and parietal alpha power, parameters used for measuring of working memory load in the EEG. However, these EEG measures are influenced by the negative valence condition as well and thereby show that detection of working memory load is sensitive to affective contexts. Unexpectedly, we did not find any effects for EEG measures typically used for affective valence detection (Frontal Alpha Asymmetry (FAA)). Therefore we assume that the FAA measure might not be usable if cognitive workload is induced simultaneously. We conclude that future studies should account for potential context-specifity of EEG measures.

A beacon interval shifting scheme for interference mitigation in body area networks.

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Kim, Seungku; Kim, Seokhwan; Kim, Jin-Woo; Eom, Doo-Seop

2012-01-01

This paper investigates the issue of interference avoidance in body area networks (BANs). IEEE 802.15 Task Group 6 presented several schemes to reduce such interference, but these schemes are still not proper solutions for BANs. We present a novel distributed TDMA-based beacon interval shifting scheme that reduces interference in the BANs. A design goal of the scheme is to avoid the wakeup period of each BAN coinciding with other networks by employing carrier sensing before a beacon transmission. We analyze the beacon interval shifting scheme and investigate the proper back-off length when the channel is busy. We compare the performance of the proposed scheme with the schemes presented in IEEE 802.15 Task Group 6 using an OMNeT++ simulation. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a lower packet loss, energy consumption, and delivery-latency than the schemes of IEEE 802.15 Task Group 6.

Resolving Semantic Interference during Word Production Requires Central Attention

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Kleinman, Daniel

2013-01-01

The semantic picture-word interference task has been used to diagnose how speakers resolve competition while selecting words for production. The attentional demands of this resolution process were assessed in 2 dual-task experiments (tone classification followed by picture naming). In Experiment 1, when pictures and distractor words were presented…

Working memory capacity and Stroop interference: global versus local indices of executive control.

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Meier, Matt E; Kane, Michael J

2013-05-01

Two experiments examined the relations among working memory capacity (WMC), congruency-sequence effects, proportion-congruency effects, and the color-word Stroop effect to test whether congruency-sequence effects might inform theoretical claims regarding WMC's prediction of Stroop interference. In Experiment 1, subjects completed either a high-congruency or low-congruency Stroop task that restricted trial-to-trial repetitions of stimulus dimensions to examine WMC's relation to congruency-sequence effects while minimizing bottom-up, stimulus-driven contributions. Congruency-sequence effects and congruency-proportion effects were significant but did not interact. WMC predicted global Stroop interference under low-congruency conditions but neither local congruency-sequence effects nor global Stroop interference under high-congruency conditions, contrary to previous studies (e.g., Kane & Engle, 2003). A high-congruency Stroop task in Experiment 2 removed the Experiment 1 task constraints, and, here, we obtained the typical, global association between WMC and Stroop interference but still no relation between WMC and congruency-sequence effects. We thus examined the methodological differences between Experiments 1 and 2 to determine whether any of these were locally responsible for the global WMC-related differences. They were not, suggesting that the changes between Experiments 1 and 2 created a general task context that engaged (or disengaged) the executive processes associated with WMC.

Too easy? The influence of task demands conveyed tacitly on prospective memory

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Lourenço, Joana S.; Hill, Johnathan H.; Maylor, Elizabeth A.

2015-01-01

Previous research suggests that when intentions are encoded, participants establish an attention allocation policy based on their metacognitive beliefs about how demanding it will be to fulfill the prospective memory (PM) task. We investigated whether tacit PM demands can influence judgments about the cognitive effort required for success, and, as a result, affect ongoing task interference and PM performance. Participants performed a lexical decision task in which a PM task of responding to animal words was embedded. PM demands were tacitly manipulated by presenting participants with either typical or atypical animal exemplars at both instructions and practice (low vs. high tacit demands, respectively). Crucially, objective PM task demands were the same for all participants as PM targets were always atypical animals. Tacit demands affected participants’ attention allocation policies such that task interference was greater for the high than low demands condition. Also, PM performance was reduced in the low relative to the high demands condition. Participants in the low demands condition who succeeded to the first target showed a subsequent increase in task interference, suggesting adjustment to the higher than expected demands. This study demonstrates that tacit information regarding the PM task can affect ongoing task processing as well as harm PM performance when actual demands are higher than expected. Furthermore, in line with the proposal that attention allocation is a dynamic and flexible process, we found evidence that PM task experience can trigger changes in ongoing task interference. PMID:25983687

Desynchronization of Theta-Phase Gamma-Amplitude Coupling during a Mental Arithmetic Task in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

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Kim, Jun Won; Kim, Bung-Nyun; Lee, Jaewon; Na, Chul; Kee, Baik Seok; Min, Kyung Joon; Han, Doug Hyun; Kim, Johanna Inhyang; Lee, Young Sik

2016-01-01

Theta-phase gamma-amplitude coupling (TGC) measurement has recently received attention as a feasible method of assessing brain functions such as neuronal interactions. The purpose of this electroencephalographic (EEG) study is to understand the mechanisms underlying the deficits in attentional control in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by comparing the power spectra and TGC at rest and during a mental arithmetic task. Nineteen-channel EEGs were recorded from 97 volunteers (including 53 subjects with ADHD) from a camp for hyperactive children under two conditions (rest and task performance). The EEG power spectra and the TGC data were analyzed. Correlation analyses between the Intermediate Visual and Auditory (IVA) continuous performance test (CPT) scores and EEG parameters were performed. No significant difference in the power spectra was detected between the groups at rest and during task performance. However, TGC was reduced during the arithmetic task in the ADHD group compared with the normal group (F = 16.70, p attention-demanding tasks.

Interference impacts working memory in mild cognitive impairment

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Sara Aurtenetxe

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Mild cognitive impairment (MCI is considered a transitional stage between healthy aging and dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease (AD. The most common cognitive impairment of MCI includes episodic memory loss and difficulties in working memory (WM. Interference can deplete WM, and an optimal WM performance requires an effective control of attentional resources between the memoranda and the incoming stimuli. Difficulties in handling interference lead to forgetting. However, the interplay between interference and WM in MCI is not well understood and needs further investigation. The current study investigated the effect of interference during a WM task in 20 MCIs and 20 healthy elder volunteers. Participants performed a delayed match-to-sample paradigm which consisted in two interference conditions, distraction and interruption, and one control condition without any interference. Results evidenced a disproportionate impact of interference on the WM performance of MCIs, mainly in the presence of interruption. These findings demonstrate that interference, and more precisely interruption, is an important proxy for memory-related deficits in MCI. Thus the current findings reveal novel evidence regarding the causes of WM forgetting in MCI patients, associated with difficulties in the mechanisms of attentional control.

Interference control in working memory: comparing groups of children with atypical development.

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Palladino, Paola; Ferrari, Marcella

2013-01-01

The study aimed to test whether working memory deficits in children at risk of Learning Disabilities (LD) and/or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be attributed to deficits in interference control, thereby implicating prefrontal systems. Two groups of children known for showing poor working memory (i.e., children with poor comprehension and children with ADHD) were compared to a group of children with specific reading decoding problems (i.e., having severe problems in phonological rather than working memory) and to a control group. All children were tested with a verbal working memory task. Interference control of irrelevant items was examined by a lexical decision task presented immediately after the final recall in about half the trials, selected at random. The interference control measure was therefore directly related to working memory performance. Results confirmed deficient working memory performance in poor comprehenders and children at risk of ADHD + LD. More interestingly, this working memory deficit was associated with greater activation of irrelevant information than in the control group. Poor decoders showed more efficient interference control, in contrast to poor comprehenders and ADHD + LD children. These results indicated that interfering items were still highly accessible to working memory in children who fail the working memory task. In turn, these findings strengthen and clarify the role of interference control, one of the most critical prefrontal functions, in working memory.

Acoustic and semantic interference effects in words and pictures.

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Dhawan, M; Pellegrino, J W

1977-05-01

Interference effects for pictures and words were investigated using a probe-recall task. Word stimuli showed acoustic interference effects for items at the end of the list and semantic interference effects for items at the beginning of the list, similar to results of Kintsch and Buschke (1969). Picture stimuli showed large semantic interference effects at all list positions with smaller acoustic interference effects. The results were related to latency data on picture-word processing and interpreted in terms of the differential order, probability, and/or speed of access to acoustic and semantic levels of processing. A levels of processing explanation of picture-word retention differences was related to dual coding theory. Both theoretical positions converge on an explanation of picture-word retention differences as a function of the relative capacity for semantic or associative processing.

Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS on left cerebellar hemisphere affects mental rotation tasks during music listening.

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Silvia Picazio

Full Text Available Converging evidence suggests an association between spatial and music domains. A cerebellar role in music-related information processing as well as in spatial-temporal tasks has been documented. Here, we investigated the cerebellar role in the association between spatial and musical domains, by testing performances in embodied (EMR or abstract (AMR mental rotation tasks of subjects listening Mozart Sonata K.448, which is reported to improve spatial-temporal reasoning, in the presence or in the absence of continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS of the left cerebellar hemisphere. In the absence of cerebellar cTBS, music listening did not influence either MR task, thus not revealing a "Mozart Effect". Cerebellar cTBS applied before musical listening made subjects faster (P = 0.005 and less accurate (P = 0.005 in performing the EMR but not the AMR task. Thus, cerebellar inhibition by TBS unmasked the effect of musical listening on motor imagery. These data support a coupling between music listening and sensory-motor integration in cerebellar networks for embodied representations.

Language Proficiency and Executive Control in Proactive Interference: Evidence from Monolingual and Bilingual Children and Adults

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Bialystok, Ellen; Feng, Xiaojia

2009-01-01

Two studies are reported in which monolingual and bilingual children (Study 1) and adults (Study 2) completed a memory task involving proactive interference. In both cases, the bilinguals attained lower scores on a vocabulary test than monolinguals but performed the same on the proactive interference task. For the children, bilinguals made fewer…

Memory Reactivation Enables Long-Term Prevention of Interference.

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Herszage, Jasmine; Censor, Nitzan

2017-05-22

The ability of the human brain to successively learn or perform two competing tasks constitutes a major challenge in daily function. Indeed, exposing the brain to two different competing memories within a short temporal offset can induce interference, resulting in deteriorated performance in at least one of the learned memories [1-4]. Although previous studies have investigated online interference and its effects on performance [5-13], whether the human brain can enable long-term prevention of future interference is unknown. To address this question, we utilized the memory reactivation-reconsolidation framework [2, 12] stemming from studies at the synaptic level [14-17], according to which reactivation of a memory enables its update. In a set of experiments, using the motor sequence learning task [18] we report that a unique pairing of reactivating the original memory (right hand) in synchrony with novel memory trials (left hand) prevented future interference between the two memories. Strikingly, these effects were long-term and observed a month following reactivation. Further experiments showed that preventing future interference was not due to practice per se, but rather specifically depended on a limited time window induced by reactivation of the original memory. These results suggest a mechanism according to which memory reactivation enables long-term prevention of interference, possibly by creating an updated memory trace integrating original and novel memories during the reconsolidation time window. The opportunity to induce a long-term preventive effect on memories may enable the utilization of strategies optimizing normal human learning, as well as recovery following neurological insults. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Operation compatibility: a neglected contribution to dual-task costs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pannebakker, M.M.; Band, G.P.H.; Ridderinkhof, K.R.

2009-01-01

Traditionally, dual-task interference has been attributed to the consequences of task load exceeding capacity limitations. However, the current study demonstrates that in addition to task load, the mutual compatibility of the concurrent processes modulates whether 2 tasks can be performed in

Effects of Panax ginseng, consumed with and without glucose, on blood glucose levels and cognitive performance during sustained 'mentally demanding' tasks.

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Reay, Jonathon L; Kennedy, David O; Scholey, Andrew B

2006-11-01

Single doses of the traditional herbal treatment Panax ginseng have recently been shown to lower blood glucose levels and elicit cognitive improvements in healthy, overnight-fasted volunteers. The specific mechanisms responsible for these effects are not known. However, cognitive improvements may be related to the glycaemic properties of Panax ginseng. Using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, balanced-crossover design, 27 healthy young adults completed a 10 minute "cognitive demand" test battery at baseline. They then consumed capsules containing either ginseng (extract G115) or a placebo and 30 minutes later a drink containing glucose or placebo. A further 30 minutes later (i.e. 60 minutes post-baseline/capsules) they completed the "cognitive demand" battery six times in immediate succession. Depending on the condition to which the participant was allocated on that particular day, the combination of capsules/drink treatments corresponded to a dose of: 0mg G115/0 mg glucose (placebo); 200mg G115/0 mg glucose (ginseng); 0 mg G115/25 g glucose (glucose) or 200 mg G115/25 g glucose (ginseng/glucose combination). The 10 minute "cognitive demand" battery comprised a Serial Threes subtraction task (2 min); a Serial Sevens subtraction task (2 min); a Rapid Visual Information Processing task (5 min); and a "mental fatigue" visual analogue scale. Blood glucose levels were measured prior to the day's treatment, and before and after the post-dose completions of the battery. The results showed that both Panax ginseng and glucose enhanced performance of a mental arithmetic task and ameliorated the increase in subjective feelings of mental fatigue experienced by participants during the later stages of the sustained, cognitively demanding task performance. Accuracy of performing the Rapid Visual Information Processing task (RVIP) was also improved following the glucose load. There was no evidence of a synergistic relationship between Panax ginseng and exogenous glucose ingestion

Ego Depletion Does Not Interfere With Working Memory Performance.

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Singh, Ranjit K; Göritz, Anja S

2018-01-01

Ego depletion happens if exerting self-control reduces a person's capacity to subsequently control themselves. Previous research has suggested that ego depletion not only interferes with subsequent self-control but also with working memory. However, recent meta-analytical evidence casts doubt onto this. The present study tackles the question if ego depletion does interfere with working memory performance. We induced ego depletion in two ways: using an e-crossing task and using a Stroop task. We then measured working memory performance using the letter-number sequencing task. There was no evidence of ego depletion interfering with working memory performance. Several aspects of our study render this null finding highly robust. We had a large and heterogeneous sample of N = 1,385, which provided sufficient power. We deployed established depletion tasks from two task families (e-crossing task and Stroop), thus making it less likely that the null finding is due to a specific depletion paradigm. We derived several performance scores from the working memory task and ran different analyses to maximize the chances of finding an effect. Lastly, we controlled for two potential moderators, the implicit theories about willpower and dispositional self-control capacity, to ensure that a possible effect on working memory is not obscured by an interaction effect. In sum, this experiment strengthens the position that ego depletion works but does not affect working memory performance.

The inhibition of proactive interference among adults with Internet gaming disorder.

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Ko, Chih-Hung; Wang, Peng-Wei; Liu, Tai-Ling; Yen, Cheng-Fang; Chen, Cheng-Sheng; Yen, Ju-Yu

2015-06-01

Cognitive control plays a pivotal role in the mechanism of addictive behavior. The aim of the study was to evaluate the deficit in inhibition of proactive interference of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) using a directed forgetting task among young adults. A total of 64 participants with IGD and 69 controls were recruited on a university campus. They completed the directed forgetting task for online gaming words and neutral words. The results demonstrated that the IGD group had a poorer performance on the directed forgetting task, and this represented a deficit in inhibition of proactive interference. They also had a higher tendency to remember online gaming words rather than neutral words in comparison with the control group. This demonstrated memory bias toward online gaming words. These results suggested that more attention should be paid to deficits in inhibition of proactive interference and memory bias toward gaming content when treating subjects with IGD. Furthermore, it is essential and practical to prevent exposure to online gaming-related cues when endeavoring to control online gaming behavior. © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Neural Tuning Functions Underlie Both Generalization and Interference.

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Ian S Howard

Full Text Available In sports, the role of backswing is considered critical for generating a good shot, even though it plays no direct role in hitting the ball. We recently demonstrated the scientific basis of this phenomenon by showing that immediate past movement affects the learning and recall of motor memories. This effect occurred regardless of whether the past contextual movement was performed actively, passively, or shown visually. In force field studies, it has been shown that motor memories generalize locally and that the level of compensation decays as a function of movement angle away from the trained movement. Here we examine if the contextual effect of past movement exhibits similar patterns of generalization and whether it can explain behavior seen in interference studies. Using a single force-field learning task, the directional tuning curves of both the prior contextual movement and the subsequent force field adaptive movements were measured. The adaptation movement direction showed strong directional tuning, decaying to zero by 90° relative to the training direction. The contextual movement direction exhibited a similar directional tuning, although the effect was always above 60%. We then investigated the directional tuning of the passive contextual movement using interference tasks, where the contextual movements that uniquely specified the force field direction were separated by ±15° or ±45°. Both groups showed a pronounced tuning effect, which could be well explained by the directional tuning functions for single force fields. Our results show that contextual effect of past movement influences predictive force compensation, even when adaptation does not require contextual information. However, when such past movement contextual information is crucial to the task, such as in an interference study, it plays a strong role in motor memory learning and recall. This work demonstrates that similar tuning responses underlie both generalization of

Does oxytocin lead to emotional interference during a working memory paradigm?

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Tollenaar, Marieke S; Ruissen, M; Elzinga, B M; de Bruijn, E R A

2017-12-01

Oxytocin administration may increase attention to emotional information. We hypothesized that this augmented emotional processing might in turn lead to interference on concurrent cognitive tasks. To test this hypothesis, we examined whether oxytocin administration would lead to heightened emotional interference during a working memory paradigm. Additionally, moderating effects of childhood maltreatment were explored. Seventy-eight healthy males received 24 IU of intranasal oxytocin or placebo in a randomized placebo-controlled double-blind between-subjects study. A working memory task was performed during which neutral, positive, and negative distractors were presented. The main outcome observed was that oxytocin did not enhance interference by emotional information during the working memory task. There was a non-significant trend for oxytocin to slow down performance irrespective of distractor valence, while accuracy was unaffected. Exploratory analyses showed that childhood maltreatment was related to lower overall accuracy, but in the placebo condition only. However, the maltreated group sample size was very small precluding any conclusions on its moderating effect. Despite oxytocin's previously proposed role in enhanced emotional processing, no proof was found that this would lead to reduced performance on a concurrent cognitive task. The routes by which oxytocin exerts its effects on cognitive and social-emotional processes remain to be fully elucidated.

Comparing cognition by integrating concept learning, proactive interference, and list memory.

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Wright, Anthony A; Kelly, Debbie M; Katz, Jeffrey S

2018-06-01

This article describes an approach for training a variety of species to learn the abstract concept of same/different, which in turn forms the basis for testing proactive interference and list memory. The stimulus set for concept-learning training was progressively doubled from 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 . . . to 1,024 different pictures with novel-stimulus transfer following learning. All species fully learned the same/different abstract concept: capuchin and rhesus monkeys learned more readily than pigeons; nutcrackers and magpies were at least equivalent to monkeys and transferred somewhat better following initial training sets. A similar task using the 1,024-picture set plus delays was used to test proactive interference on occasional trials. Pigeons revealed greater interference with 10-s than with 1-s delays, whereas delay time had no effect on rhesus monkeys, suggesting that the monkeys' interference was event based. This same single-item same/different task was expanded to a 4-item list memory task to test animal list memory. Humans were tested similarly with lists of kaleidoscope pictures. Delays between the list and test were manipulated, resulting in strong initial recency effects (i.e., strong 4th-item memory) at short delays and changing to a strong primacy effect (i.e., strong 1st-item memory) at long delays (pigeons 0-s to 10-s delays; monkeys 0-s to 30-s delays; humans 0-s to 100-s delays). Results and findings are discussed in terms of these species' cognition and memory comparisons, evolutionary implications, and future directions for testing other species in these synergistically related tasks.

A slow component of classic Stroop interference

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Phaf, R. Hans; Horsman, Hark H.; van der Moolen, Bas; Roos, Yvo B. W. E. M.; Schmand, Ben

2010-01-01

The interference in colour naming may extend beyond critical Stroop trials. This "slow'' effect was first discovered in emotional Stroop tasks, but is extended here to classical Stroop. In two experiments, meaningless coloured letter strings followed a colour word or neutral word. Student

Sensorimotor Interference When Reasoning About Described Environments

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Avraamides, Marios N.; Kyranidou, Melina-Nicole

The influence of sensorimotor interference was examined in two experiments that compared pointing with iconic arrows and verbal responding in a task that entailed locating target-objects from imagined perspectives. Participants studied text narratives describing objects at locations around them in a remote environment and then responded to targets from memory. Results revealed only minor differences between the two response modes suggesting that bodily cues do not exert severe detrimental interference on spatial reasoning from imagined perspective when non-immediate described environments are used. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Analogous selection processes in declarative and procedural working memory: N-2 list-repetition and task-repetition costs.

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Gade, Miriam; Souza, Alessandra S; Druey, Michel D; Oberauer, Klaus

2017-01-01

Working memory (WM) holds and manipulates representations for ongoing cognition. Oberauer (Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 51, 45-100, 2009) distinguishes between two analogous WM sub-systems: a declarative WM which handles the objects of thought, and a procedural WM which handles the representations of (cognitive) actions. Here, we assessed whether analogous effects are observed when participants switch between memory sets (declarative representations) and when they switch between task sets (procedural representations). One mechanism assumed to facilitate switching in procedural WM is the inhibition of previously used, but currently irrelevant task sets, as indexed by n-2 task-repetition costs (Mayr & Keele, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129(1), 4-26, 2000). In this study we tested for an analogous effect in declarative WM. We assessed the evidence for n-2 list-repetition costs across eight experiments in which participants switched between memory lists to perform speeded classifications, mental arithmetic, or a local recognition test. N-2 list-repetition costs were obtained consistently in conditions assumed to increase interference between memory lists, and when lists formed chunks in long-term memory. Further analyses across experiments revealed a substantial contribution of episodic memory to n-2 list-repetition costs, thereby questioning the interpretation of n-2 repetition costs as reflecting inhibition. We reanalyzed the data of eight task-switching experiments, and observed that episodic memory also contributes to n-2 task-repetition costs. Taken together, these results show analogous processing principles in declarative and procedural WM, and question the relevance of inhibitory processes for efficient switching between mental sets.

Mental imagery for musical changes in loudness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Freya eBailes

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Musicians imagine music during mental rehearsal, when reading from a score, and while composing. An important characteristic of music is its temporality. Among the parameters that vary through time is sound intensity, perceived as patterns of loudness. Studies of mental imagery for melodies (i.e. pitch and rhythm show interference from concurrent musical pitch and verbal tasks, but how we represent musical changes in loudness is unclear. Theories suggest that our perceptions of loudness change relate to our perceptions of force or effort, implying a motor representation. An experiment was conducted to investigate the modalities that contribute to imagery for loudness change. Musicians performed a within-subjects loudness change recall task, comprising 48 trials. First, participants heard a musical scale played with varying patterns of loudness, which they were asked to remember. There followed an empty interval of 8 seconds (nil distractor control, or the presentation of a series of 4 sine tones, or 4 visual letters or 3 conductor gestures, also to be remembered. Participants then saw an unfolding score of the notes of the scale, during which they were to imagine the corresponding scale in their mind while adjusting a slider to indicate the imagined changes in loudness. Finally, participants performed a recognition task of the tone, letter or gesture sequence. Based on the motor hypothesis, we predicted that observing and remembering conductor gestures would impair loudness change scale recall, while observing and remembering tone or letter string stimuli would not. Results support this prediction, with loudness change recalled less accurately in the gestures condition than in the control condition. An effect of musical training suggests that auditory and motor imagery ability may be closely related to domain expertise.

The comparison of Selective Attention Deficit in Dual Task Performance in Elderly Alzheimer Patients and Healthy Elderly Individuals

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A. m. Azadian

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to compare selective attention deficit in elderly Alzheimer patients and healthy elderly individuals using the dual task. Therefore, 23 subjects (11 females and 12 males age 62 to 81 years; 13 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD and 10 healthy elderly subjects (EHI with normal cognitive function participated in this study. people with Alzheimer's disease. healthy people was selected through some neurologist identified Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ. After obtaining the average number of correct counting of months of the year in both simple and difficult cognitive task the overall error (E or Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE, and variable error (VE were calculated for the tracking task. Then each person performed 10 tasks simultaneously (under Dual-task in both simple and difficult mode. Analysis of variance in cognitive tasks showed that there was a significant interaction between task difficulty and risk of AD (p0.05. In other words, at dual conditions of tracking task, accuracy and consistency of both groups was equally reduced, which was most prominent in difficult conditions. This decrease indicates increased interference at response level due to defects in the mechanisms of selective attention in dual cognitive and tracking tasks and both groups.

Stroop proactive control and task conflict are modulated by concurrent working memory load.

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Kalanthroff, Eyal; Avnit, Amir; Henik, Avishai; Davelaar, Eddy J; Usher, Marius

2015-06-01

Performance on the Stroop task reflects two types of conflict-informational (between the incongruent word and font color) and task (between the contextually relevant color-naming task and the irrelevant, but automatic, word-reading task). According to the dual mechanisms of control theory (DMC; Braver, 2012), variability in Stroop performance can result from variability in the deployment of a proactive task-demand control mechanism. Previous research has shown that when proactive control (PC) is diminished, both increased Stroop interference and a reversed Stroop facilitation (RF) are observed. Although the current DMC model accounts for the former effect, it does not predict the observed RF, which is considered to be behavioral evidence for task conflict in the Stroop task. Here we expanded the DMC model to account for Stroop RF. Assuming that a concurrent working memory (WM) task reduces PC, we predicted both increased interference and an RF. Nineteen participants performed a standard Stroop task combined with a concurrent n-back task, which was aimed at reducing available WM resources, and thus overloading PC. Although the results indicated common Stroop interference and facilitation in the low-load condition (zero-back), in the high-load condition (two-back), both increased Stroop interference and RF were observed, consistent with the model's prediction. These findings indicate that PC is modulated by concurrent WM load and serves as a common control mechanism for both informational and task Stroop conflicts.

Divided attention and mental effort after severe traumatic brain injury.

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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.

Practice schedules for surgical skills: the role of task characteristics and proactive interference on psychomotor skills acquisition.

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Willis, Ross E; Curry, Eileen; Gomez, Pedro Pablo

2013-01-01

Although break periods during training sessions are desirable, it is unclear what learners should do during these breaks. Some educators recommend that learners abstain from all task-related practice; however, it is possible that switching to an alternate exercise during break periods can also be effective. The construct of proactive interference (PI) posits that new learning is disrupted by prior learning. PI can be "released" when the nature of the task is changed after several practice trials. In this study, we examined the existence of PI in motor learning under 5 training conditions that differed in contrast to a target exercise. Preclinical medical students (n = 75) performed 1 trial of peg transfer as a pretest. Participants were then randomly assigned to 1 of 5 training conditions: mass practice, similar exercise (laparoscopic bean transfer), dissimilar exercise (open suturing), observation, or rest. Participants in the mass practice condition practiced peg transfer in 3 training blocks of 15 minutes, each separated by a 5-minute break. Participants in the other conditions performed 3 training blocks consisting of 15 minutes of peg transfer followed by an interspersed alternate exercise. On completion of 3 training blocks, participants performed 1 additional peg transfer trial as a posttest. Despite having trained for the same amount of time on the target task, Analysis of Covariance on posttest scores using pretest scores as the covariate indicated a significant main effect for training condition (p = 0.009). Participants engaging in mass practice performed significantly worse than participants in the dissimilar (p = 0.012), observation (p = 0.022), and rest (p < 0.001) conditions. Additionally, participants in the similar exercise condition performed worse than participants in the rest condition (p = 0.03). When learning a laparoscopic task, a break comprised of dissimilar practice or unrelated activities is effective in releasing PI and improving

Distracted and down: neural mechanisms of affective interference in subclinical depression.

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Kaiser, Roselinde H; Andrews-Hanna, Jessica R; Spielberg, Jeffrey M; Warren, Stacie L; Sutton, Bradley P; Miller, Gregory A; Heller, Wendy; Banich, Marie T

2015-05-01

Previous studies have shown that depressed individuals have difficulty directing attention away from negative distractors, a phenomenon known as affective interference. However, findings are mixed regarding the neural mechanisms and network dynamics of affective interference. The present study addressed these issues by comparing neural activation during emotion-word and color-word Stroop tasks in participants with varying levels of (primarily subclinical) depression. Depressive symptoms predicted increased activation to negative distractors in areas of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), regions implicated in cognitive control and internally directed attention, respectively. Increased dACC activity was also observed in the group-average response to incongruent distractors, suggesting that dACC activity during affective interference is related to overtaxed cognitive control. In contrast, regions of PCC were deactivated across the group in response to incongruent distractors, suggesting that PCC activity during affective interference represents task-independent processing. A psychophysiological interaction emerged in which higher depression predicted more positively correlated activity between dACC and PCC during affective interference, i.e. greater connectivity between cognitive control and internal-attention systems. These findings suggest that, when individuals high in depression are confronted by negative material, increased attention to internal thoughts and difficulty shifting resources to the external world interfere with goal-directed behavior. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Cognition and speech-in-noise recognition: the role of proactive interference.

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Ellis, Rachel J; Rönnberg, Jerker

2014-01-01

Complex working memory (WM) span tasks have been shown to predict speech-in-noise (SIN) recognition. Studies of complex WM span tasks suggest that, rather than indexing a single cognitive process, performance on such tasks may be governed by separate cognitive subprocesses embedded within WM. Previous research has suggested that one such subprocess indexed by WM tasks is proactive interference (PI), which refers to difficulties memorizing current information because of interference from previously stored long-term memory representations for similar information. The aim of the present study was to investigate phonological PI and to examine the relationship between PI (semantic and phonological) and SIN perception. A within-subjects experimental design was used. An opportunity sample of 24 young listeners with normal hearing was recruited. Measures of resistance to, and release from, semantic and phonological PI were calculated alongside the signal-to-noise ratio required to identify 50% of keywords correctly in a SIN recognition task. The data were analyzed using t-tests and correlations. Evidence of release from and resistance to semantic interference was observed. These measures correlated significantly with SIN recognition. Limited evidence of phonological PI was observed. The results show that capacity to resist semantic PI can be used to predict SIN recognition scores in young listeners with normal hearing. On the basis of these findings, future research will focus on investigating whether tests of PI can be used in the treatment and/or rehabilitation of hearing loss. American Academy of Audiology.

Building a Framework for a Dual Task Taxonomy

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Tara L. McIsaac

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The study of dual task interference has gained increasing attention in the literature for the past 35 years, with six MEDLINE citations in 1979 growing to 351 citations indexed in 2014 and a peak of 454 cited papers in 2013. Increasingly, researchers are examining dual task cost in individuals with pathology, including those with neurodegenerative diseases. While the influence of these papers has extended from the laboratory to the clinic, the field has evolved without clear definitions of commonly used terms and with extreme variations in experimental procedures. As a result, it is difficult to examine the interference literature as a single body of work. In this paper we present a new taxonomy for classifying cognitive-motor and motor-motor interference within the study of dual task behaviors that connects traditional concepts of learning and principles of motor control with current issues of multitasking analysis. As a first step in the process we provide an operational definition of dual task, distinguishing it from a complex single task. We present this new taxonomy, inclusive of both cognitive and motor modalities, as a working model; one that we hope will generate discussion and create a framework from which one can view previous studies and develop questions of interest.

How to be proactive about interference: lessons from animal memory.

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Wright, Anthony A; Katz, Jeffrey S; Ma, Wei Ji

2012-05-01

Processes of proactive interference were explored using the pigeon as a model system of memory. This study shows that proactive interference extends back in time at least 16 trials (and as many minutes), revealing a continuum of interference and providing a framework for studying memory. Pigeons were tested in a delayed same/different task containing trial-unique pictures. On interference trials, sample pictures from previous trials reappeared as test pictures on different trials. Proactive-interference functions showed greatest interference from the most recent trial and with the longer of two delays (10 s vs. 1 s). These interference functions are accounted for by a time-estimation model based on signal detection theory. The model predicts that accuracy at test is determined solely by the ratio of the elapsed time since the offset of the current-trial sample to the elapsed time since the offset of the interfering sample. Implications for comparing memory of different species and different types of memory (e.g., familiarity vs. recollection) are discussed.

A task shifting approach to primary mental health care for adults in South Africa: human resource requirements and costs for rural settings.

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Petersen, Inge; Lund, Crick; Bhana, Arvin; Flisher, Alan J

2012-01-01

BACKGROUND A recent situational analysis suggests that post-apartheid South Africa has made some gains with respect to the decentralization and integration of mental health into primary health care. However, service gaps within and between provinces remain, with rural areas particularly underserved. Aim This study aims to calculate and cost a hypothetical human resource mix required to populate a framework for district adult mental health services. This framework embraces the concept of task shifting, where dedicated low cost mental health workers at the community and clinic levels supplement integrated care. METHOD The expected number and cost of human resources was based on: (a) assumptions of service provision derived from existing services in a sub-district demonstration site and a literature review of evidence-based packages of care in low- and middle-income countries; and (b) assumptions of service needs derived from other studies. RESULTS For a nominal population of 100 000, minimal service coverage estimates of 50% for schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, major depressive disorder and 30% for post-traumatic stress disorder and maternal depression would require that the primary health care staffing package include one post for a mental health counsellor or equivalent and 7.2 community mental health worker posts. The cost of these personnel amounts to £28 457 per 100 000 population. This cost can be offset by a reduction in the number of other specialist and non-specialist health personnel required to close service gaps at primary care level. CONCLUSION The adoption of the concept of task shifting can substantially reduce the expected number of health care providers otherwise needed to close mental health service gaps at primary health care level in South Africa at minimal cost and may serve as a model for other middle-income countries.

Interhemispheric inhibition during mental actions of different complexity.

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Nicolas Gueugneau

Full Text Available Several investigations suggest that actual and mental actions trigger similar neural substrates. Yet, neurophysiological evidences on the nature of interhemispheric interactions during mental movements are still meagre. Here, we asked whether the content of mental images, investigated by task complexity, is finely represented in the inhibitory interactions between the two primary motor cortices (M1s. Subjects' left M1 was stimulated by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS while they were performing actual or mental movements of increasing complexity with their right hand and exerting a maximum isometric force with their left thumb and index. Thus, we simultaneously assessed the corticospinal excitability in the right opponent pollicis muscle (OP and the ipsilateral silent period (iSP in the left OP during actual and mental movements. Corticospinal excitability in right OP increased during actual and mental movements, but task complexity-dependent changes were only observed during actual movements. Interhemispheric motor inhibition in the left OP was similarly modulated by task complexity in both mental and actual movements. Precisely, the duration and the area of the iSP increased with task complexity in both movement conditions. Our findings suggest that mental and actual movements share similar inhibitory neural circuits between the two homologous primary motor cortex areas.

Mental workload during brain-computer interface training.

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Felton, Elizabeth A; Williams, Justin C; Vanderheiden, Gregg C; Radwin, Robert G

2012-01-01

It is not well understood how people perceive the difficulty of performing brain-computer interface (BCI) tasks, which specific aspects of mental workload contribute the most, and whether there is a difference in perceived workload between participants who are able-bodied and disabled. This study evaluated mental workload using the NASA Task Load Index (TLX), a multi-dimensional rating procedure with six subscales: Mental Demands, Physical Demands, Temporal Demands, Performance, Effort, and Frustration. Able-bodied and motor disabled participants completed the survey after performing EEG-based BCI Fitts' law target acquisition and phrase spelling tasks. The NASA-TLX scores were similar for able-bodied and disabled participants. For example, overall workload scores (range 0-100) for 1D horizontal tasks were 48.5 (SD = 17.7) and 46.6 (SD 10.3), respectively. The TLX can be used to inform the design of BCIs that will have greater usability by evaluating subjective workload between BCI tasks, participant groups, and control modalities. Mental workload of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) can be evaluated with the NASA Task Load Index (TLX). The TLX is an effective tool for comparing subjective workload between BCI tasks, participant groups (able-bodied and disabled), and control modalities. The data can inform the design of BCIs that will have greater usability.

Error related negativity and multi-source interference task in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder-combined type

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Rosana Huerta-Albarrán

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Objective To compare performance of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders-combined (ADHD-C type with control children in multi-source interference task (MSIT evaluated by means of error related negativity (ERN. Method We studied 12 children with ADHD-C type with a median age of 7 years, control children were age- and gender-matched. Children performed MSIT and simultaneous recording of ERN. Results We found no differences in MSIT parameters among groups. We found no differences in ERN variables between groups. We found a significant association of ERN amplitude with MSIT in children with ADHD-C type. Some correlation went in positive direction (frequency of hits and MSIT amplitude, and others in negative direction (frequency of errors and RT in MSIT. Conclusion Children with ADHD-C type exhibited a significant association between ERN amplitude with MSIT. These results underline participation of a cingulo-fronto-parietal network and could help in the comprehension of pathophysiological mechanisms of ADHD.

Task force report: the macroenvironment and community mental health.

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Monahan, J; Vaux, A

1980-01-01

The U.S. President's Commission on Mental Health (1978) has called for a broader conception of mental health and the factors that influence it. The "macro"-social environment is emerging as one area of concern. The influence of two macroenvironmental domains, the physical and economic, on several areas of human functioning is documented in this article. Topics in the physical domain include noise and crowding; and in the economic domain, socio-economic status, unemployment, and economic change. The implications of this research for community mental health practice is described.

Parenting Role's Tasks in Parents of Children with Disability (Physical-Mental Less than 7 Years Old in the City of Arak in 2016

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Farhad Fatehi

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background: With regards to importance of the role of parents in children's life, imbalance in the roles of parents can lead to serious mental, emotional and physical damages of the child. The purpose of this study was to determine how to do parenting role's tasks in parents of children with disability (physical- mental younger than 7 years in the city of Arak in 2016. Materials and Methods: In this study, the parenting role's tasks questionnaire for 120 parents of children with disability was completed. The effect of demographic characteristics on how to perform the role of parents was studied. Results: Based on data collected and analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient for the relationship between the parents and other factors, we have found no significant relationship between role of parents with the child's age. In disabled children, between parent's role and maternal age was significant difference which its correlation coefficient was -0.18, represented the inverse association between maternal age and the parent's role with disabled children. In comparison of parent's role based on child's gender, significant difference was not seen in any of cases. The impact of the seizure on performance of parenting role's tasks implied no relationship between history of seizure and performance of parenting role's tasks. Economic situation as well as on how to do tasks was ineffective. Conclusion: Imbalance in performance of parenting role's tasks in primary care, education, leisure and cognition promotion showed that existence of a disabled child in the family had negative impact on the parenting role's tasks in different aspects, for example further focus on one of the domains lead to ignorance of other domains. Total score confirmed the negative impact of disabled children on efficient implementation of parenting role's tasks.

Non-Interfering Effects of Active Post-Encoding Tasks on Episodic Memory Consolidation in Humans.

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Varma, Samarth; Takashima, Atsuko; Krewinkel, Sander; van Kooten, Maaike; Fu, Lily; Medendorp, W Pieter; Kessels, Roy P C; Daselaar, Sander M

2017-01-01

So far, studies that investigated interference effects of post-learning processes on episodic memory consolidation in humans have used tasks involving only complex and meaningful information. Such tasks require reallocation of general or encoding-specific resources away from consolidation-relevant activities. The possibility that interference can be elicited using a task that heavily taxes our limited brain resources, but has low semantic and hippocampal related long-term memory processing demands, has never been tested. We address this question by investigating whether consolidation could persist in parallel with an active, encoding-irrelevant, minimally semantic task, regardless of its high resource demands for cognitive processing. We distinguish the impact of such a task on consolidation based on whether it engages resources that are: (1) general/executive, or (2) specific/overlapping with the encoding modality. Our experiments compared subsequent memory performance across two post-encoding consolidation periods: quiet wakeful rest and a cognitively demanding n-Back task. Across six different experiments (total N = 176), we carefully manipulated the design of the n-Back task to target general or specific resources engaged in the ongoing consolidation process. In contrast to previous studies that employed interference tasks involving conceptual stimuli and complex processing demands, we did not find any differences between n-Back and rest conditions on memory performance at delayed test, using both recall and recognition tests. Our results indicate that: (1) quiet, wakeful rest is not a necessary prerequisite for episodic memory consolidation; and (2) post-encoding cognitive engagement does not interfere with memory consolidation when task-performance has minimal semantic and hippocampally-based episodic memory processing demands. We discuss our findings with reference to resource and reactivation-led interference theories.

Comparable mechanisms of working memory interference by auditory and visual motion in youth and aging.

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Mishra, Jyoti; Zanto, Theodore; Nilakantan, Aneesha; Gazzaley, Adam

2013-08-01

Intrasensory interference during visual working memory (WM) maintenance by object stimuli (such as faces and scenes), has been shown to negatively impact WM performance, with greater detrimental impacts of interference observed in aging. Here we assessed age-related impacts by intrasensory WM interference from lower-level stimulus features such as visual and auditory motion stimuli. We consistently found that interference in the form of ignored distractions and secondary task interruptions presented during a WM maintenance period, degraded memory accuracy in both the visual and auditory domain. However, in contrast to prior studies assessing WM for visual object stimuli, feature-based interference effects were not observed to be significantly greater in older adults. Analyses of neural oscillations in the alpha frequency band further revealed preserved mechanisms of interference processing in terms of post-stimulus alpha suppression, which was observed maximally for secondary task interruptions in visual and auditory modalities in both younger and older adults. These results suggest that age-related sensitivity of WM to interference may be limited to complex object stimuli, at least at low WM loads. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Interference Control, Working Memory Capacity, and Cognitive Abilities: A Latent Variable Analysis

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Unsworth, Nash

2010-01-01

The present study examined whether various indices of interference control were related to one another and to other cognitive abilities. It was found that the interference control measures were weakly correlated and could form a single factor that was related to overall memory performance on the tasks as well as to measures of working memory…

Context-Sensitive Adjustment of Cognitive Control in Dual-Task Performance

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Fischer, Rico; Gottschalk, Caroline; Dreisbach, Gesine

2014-01-01

Performing 2 highly similar tasks at the same time requires an adaptive regulation of cognitive control to shield prioritized primary task processing from between-task (cross-talk) interference caused by secondary task processing. In the present study, the authors investigated how implicitly and explicitly delivered information promotes the…

Desynchronization of Theta-Phase Gamma-Amplitude Coupling during a Mental Arithmetic Task in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

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Jun Won Kim

Full Text Available Theta-phase gamma-amplitude coupling (TGC measurement has recently received attention as a feasible method of assessing brain functions such as neuronal interactions. The purpose of this electroencephalographic (EEG study is to understand the mechanisms underlying the deficits in attentional control in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD by comparing the power spectra and TGC at rest and during a mental arithmetic task.Nineteen-channel EEGs were recorded from 97 volunteers (including 53 subjects with ADHD from a camp for hyperactive children under two conditions (rest and task performance. The EEG power spectra and the TGC data were analyzed. Correlation analyses between the Intermediate Visual and Auditory (IVA continuous performance test (CPT scores and EEG parameters were performed.No significant difference in the power spectra was detected between the groups at rest and during task performance. However, TGC was reduced during the arithmetic task in the ADHD group compared with the normal group (F = 16.70, p < 0.001. The TGC values positively correlated with the IVA CPT scores but negatively correlated with theta power.Our findings suggest that desynchronization of TGC occurred during the arithmetic task in ADHD children. TGC in ADHD children is expected to serve as a promising neurophysiological marker of network deactivation during attention-demanding tasks.

Functional localization and effective connectivity of cortical theta and alpha oscillatory activity during an attention task

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Yuichi Kitaura

detailed level, decreased flow from right inferior frontal gyrus to anterior cingulate cortex for theta, and low and high alpha oscillations, and increased feedback (bidirectional flow between left superior temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus, were observed during the arithmetic task. Conclusions: Task related medial prefrontal increase in theta oscillations possibly corresponds to frontal midline theta, while parietal decreased alpha1 activity indicates the active role of this region in the numerical task. Task related decrease of intracortical right hemispheric connectivity support the notion that these nodes need to disengage from one another in order to not interfere with the ongoing numerical processing. The bidirectional feedback between left frontal-temporal-parietal regions in the arithmetic task is very likely to be related to attention network working memory function. Significance: The methods of analysis and the results presented here will hopefully contribute to clarify the roles of the different EEG oscillations during sustained attention, both in terms of their functional localization and in terms of how they integrate brain function by supporting information flow between different cortical regions. The methodology presented here might be clinically relevant in evaluating abnormal attention function. Keywords: Quantitative EEG, sLORETA, iCoh, Directional connectivity, Frontal midline theta, Attention network, Mental arithmetic, Fronto-parietal network, Directional flow, Attention task, Granger causality

Pornographic picture processing interferes with working memory performance.

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Laier, Christian; Schulte, Frank P; Brand, Matthias

2013-01-01

Some individuals report problems during and after Internet sex engagement, such as missing sleep and forgetting appointments, which are associated with negative life consequences. One mechanism potentially leading to these kinds of problems is that sexual arousal during Internet sex might interfere with working memory (WM) capacity, resulting in a neglect of relevant environmental information and therefore disadvantageous decision making. In this study, 28 healthy individuals performed 4 experimental manipulations of a pictorial 4-back WM task with neutral, negative, positive, or pornographic stimuli. Participants also rated 100 pornographic pictures with respect to sexual arousal and indicated masturbation urges previous to and following pornographic picture presentation. Results revealed worse WM performance in the pornographic picture condition of the 4-back task compared with the three remaining picture conditions. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis indicated an explanation of variance of the sensitivity in the pornographic picture condition by the subjective rating of the pornographic pictures as well as by a moderation effect of masturbation urges. Results contribute to the view that indicators of sexual arousal due to pornographic picture processing interfere with WM performance. Findings are discussed with respect to Internet sex addiction because WM interference by addiction-related cues is well known from substance dependencies.

Dealing with Prospective Memory Demands While Performing an Ongoing Task: Shared Processing, Increased On-Task Focus, or Both?

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Rummel, Jan; Smeekens, Bridget A.; Kane, Michael J.

2017-01-01

Prospective memory (PM) is the cognitive ability to remember to fulfill intended action plans at the appropriate future moment. Current theories assume that PM fulfillment draws on attentional processes. Accordingly, pending PM intentions interfere with other ongoing tasks to the extent to which both tasks rely on the same processes. How do people…

A caffeine-maltodextrin mouth rinse counters mental fatigue.

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

2018-04-01

Mental fatigue is a psychobiological state caused by prolonged periods of demanding cognitive activity that has negative implications on many aspects in daily life. Caffeine and carbohydrate ingestion have been shown to be able to reduce these negative effects of mental fatigue. Intake of these substances might however be less desirable in some situations (e.g., restricted caloric intake, Ramadan). Rinsing caffeine or glucose within the mouth has already been shown to improve exercise performance. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the effect of frequent caffeine-maltodextrin (CAF-MALT) mouth rinsing on mental fatigue induced by a prolonged cognitive task. Ten males (age 23 ± 2 years, physical activity 7.3 ± 4.3 h/week, low CAF users) performed two trials. Participants first completed a Flanker task (3 min), then performed a 90-min mentally fatiguing task (Stroop task), followed by another Flanker task. Before the start and after each 12.5% of the Stroop task (eight blocks), subjects received a CAF-MALT mouth rinse (MR: 0.3 g/25 ml CAF: 1.6g/25 ml MALT) or placebo (PLAC: 25 ml artificial saliva). Self-reported mental fatigue was lower in MR (p = 0.017) compared to PLAC. Normalized accuracy (accuracy first block = 100%) was higher in the last block of the Stroop in MR (p = 0.032) compared to PLAC. P2 amplitude in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) decreased over time only in PLAC (p = 0.017). Frequent mouth rinsing during a prolonged and demanding cognitive task reduces mental fatigue compared to mouth rinsing with artificial saliva.

Evaluating the Effects of Formal Corrective Feedback on Off-Task/On-Task Behavior of Mild Intellectually Disabled Students: An Action Research Study

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George, Kevin

2016-01-01

The off-task behavior demonstrated by the study participants appears to interfere with classroom instruction, contribute to poor academic performance and in many instances lead to disciplinary actions such as suspension. The purpose of the study entailed determining if formal corrective feedback has an effect on the off-task/on-task behavior of…

Proactive Interference and Its Release in Short-Term Memory of Mildly Retarded Adolescents

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Cody, William J.; Borkowski, John G.

1977-01-01

Release from proactive interference in mildly retarded adolescents due to taxonomic shifts and rest periods prior to the final, critical-word triad was investigated with 40 educable mentally handicapped persons 18 years old. (Author/MH)

The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes To a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses.

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Branoff, Ted

1998-01-01

Reports on a study to determine whether the presence of coordinate axes in a test of spatial-visualization ability affects scores and response times on a mental-rotations task for students enrolled in undergraduate introductory graphic communications classes. Based on Pavios's dual-coding theory. Contains 36 references. (DDR)

Does mental exertion alter maximal muscle activation?

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Vianney eRozand

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Mental exertion is known to impair endurance performance, but its effects on neuromuscular function remain unclear. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that mental exertion reduces torque and muscle activation during intermittent maximal voluntary contractions of the knee extensors. Ten subjects performed in a randomized order three separate mental exertion conditions lasting 27 minutes each: i high mental exertion (incongruent Stroop task, ii moderate mental exertion (congruent Stroop task, iii low mental exertion (watching a movie. In each condition, mental exertion was combined with ten intermittent maximal voluntary contractions of the knee extensor muscles (one maximal voluntary contraction every 3 minutes. Neuromuscular function was assessed using electrical nerve stimulation. Maximal voluntary torque, maximal muscle activation and other neuromuscular parameters were similar across mental exertion conditions and did not change over time. These findings suggest that mental exertion does not affect neuromuscular function during intermittent maximal voluntary contractions of the knee extensors.

Innovative Approaches to Task Shifting in Mental Health | IDRC ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Across the world, it is estimated that mental disorders account for 12% of disability-adjusted life years. This proportion is still increasing and projected to reach 15% by 2020. However, provision of mental health services has not matched the need, especially in low-income countries where it is estimated that 90% of people ...

Goal-neglect links Stroop interference with working memory capacity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Morey, C.C.; Elliott, E.M.; Wiggers, J.; Eaves, S.L.; Shelton, J.T.; Mall, Jonathan

2012-01-01

Relationships between Stroop interference and working memory capacity may reflect individual differences in resolving conflict, susceptibility to goal neglect, or both of these factors. We compared relationships between working memory capacity and three Stroop tasks: a classic, printed color-word

Effects of context on visuomotor interference depends on the perspective of observed actions.

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Marta Bortoletto

Full Text Available Visuomotor interference occurs when the execution of an action is facilitated by the concurrent observation of the same action and hindered by the concurrent observation of a different action. There is evidence that visuomotor interference can be modulated top-down by higher cognitive functions, depending on whether own performed actions or observed actions are selectively attended. Here, we studied whether these effects of cognitive context on visuomotor interference are also dependent on the point-of-view of the observed action. We employed a delayed go/no-go task known to induce visuomotor interference. Static images of hand gestures in either egocentric or allocentric perspective were presented as "go" stimuli after participants were pre-cued to prepare either a matching (congruent or non-matching (incongruent action. Participants performed this task in two different cognitive contexts: In one, they focused on the visual image of the hand gesture shown as the go stimulus (image context, whereas in the other they focused on the hand gesture they performed (action context. We analyzed reaction times to initiate the prepared action upon presentation of the gesture image and found evidence of visuomotor interference in both contexts and for both perspectives. Strikingly, results show that the effect of cognitive context on visuomotor interference also depends on the perspective of observed actions. When focusing on own-actions, visuomotor interference was significantly less for gesture images in allocentric perspective than in egocentric perspective; when focusing on observed actions, visuomotor interference was present regardless of the perspective of the gesture image. Overall these data suggest that visuomotor interference may be modulated by higher cognitive processes, so that when we are specifically attending to our own actions, images depicting others' actions (allocentric perspective have much less interference on our own actions.

Sigh rate and respiratory variability during mental load and sustained attention.

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Vlemincx, Elke; Taelman, Joachim; De Peuter, Steven; Van Diest, Ilse; Van den Bergh, Omer

2011-01-01

Spontaneous breathing consists of substantial correlated variability: Parameters characterizing a breath are correlated with parameters characterizing previous and future breaths. On the basis of dynamic system theory, negative emotion states are predicted to reduce correlated variability whereas sustained attention is expected to reduce total respiratory variability. Both are predicted to evoke sighing. To test this, respiratory variability and sighing were assessed during a baseline, stressful mental arithmetic task, nonstressful sustained attention task, and recovery in between tasks. For respiration rate (excluding sighs), reduced total variability was found during the attention task, whereas correlated variation was reduced during mental load. Sigh rate increased during mental load and during recovery from the attention task. It is concluded that mental load and task-related attention show specific patterns in respiratory variability and sigh rate. Copyright © 2010 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Attentional biases in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD): Eye-tracking using the emotional Stroop task.

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Toh, Wei Lin; Castle, David J; Rossell, Susan L

2017-04-01

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is characterised by repetitive behaviours and/or mental acts occurring in response to preoccupations with perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance. This study aimed to examine attentional biases in BDD via the emotional Stroop task with two modifications: i) incorporating an eye-tracking paradigm, and ii) employing an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) control group. Twenty-one BDD, 19 OCD and 21 HC participants, who were age-, sex-, and IQ-matched, were included. A card version of the emotional Stroop task was employed based on seven 10-word lists: (i) BDD-positive, (ii) BDD-negative, (iii) OCD-checking, (iv) OCD-washing, (v) general positive, (vi) general threat, and (vii) neutral (as baseline). Participants were asked to read aloud words and word colours consecutively, thereby yielding accuracy and latency scores. Eye-tracking parameters were also measured. Participants with BDD exhibited significant Stroop interference for BDD-negative words relative to HC participants, as shown by extended colour-naming latencies. In contrast, the OCD group did not exhibit Stroop interference for OCD-related nor general threat words. Only mild eye-tracking anomalies were uncovered in clinical groups. Inspection of individual scanning styles and fixation heat maps however revealed that viewing strategies adopted by clinical groups were generally disorganised, with avoidance of certain disorder-relevant words and considerable visual attention devoted to non-salient card regions. The operation of attentional biases to negative disorder-specific words was corroborated in BDD. Future replication studies using other paradigms are vital, given potential ambiguities inherent in emotional Stroop task interpretation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Intervention modalities for targeting cognitive-motor interference in individuals with neurodegenerative disease: a systematic review.

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Wajda, Douglas A; Mirelman, Anat; Hausdorff, Jeffrey M; Sosnoff, Jacob J

2017-03-01

Individuals with neurodegenerative disease (NDD) commonly have elevated cognitive-motor interference, change in either cognitive or motor performance (or both) when tasks are performed simultaneously, compared to healthy controls. Given that cognitive-motor interference is related to reduced community ambulation and elevated fall risk, it is a target of rehabilitation interventions. Areas covered: This review details the collective findings of previous dual task interventions in individuals with NDD. A total of 21 investigations focusing on 4 different neurodegenerative diseases and one NDD precursor (Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease (AD), dementia other than AD, and mild cognitive impairment) consisting of 721 participants were reviewed. Expert commentary: Preliminary evidence from interventions targeting cognitive-motor interference, both directly and indirectly, show promising results for improving CMI in individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. Methodological limitations, common to pilot investigations preclude firm conclusions. Well-designed randomized control trials targeting cognitive motor interference are warranted.

Memory updating and mental arithmetic

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Cheng-Ching eHan

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Is domain-general memory updating ability predictive of calculation skills or are such skills better predicted by the capacity for updating specifically numerical information? Here, we used multidigit mental multiplication (MMM as a measure for calculating skill as this operation requires the accurate maintenance and updating of information in addition to skills needed for arithmetic more generally. In Experiment 1, we found that only individual differences with regard to a task updating numerical information following addition (MUcalc could predict the performance of MMM, perhaps owing to common elements between the task and MMM. In Experiment 2, new updating tasks were designed to clarify this: a spatial updating task with no numbers, a numerical task with no calculation, and a word task. The results showed that both MUcalc and the spatial task were able to predict the performance of MMM but only with the more difficult problems, while other updating tasks did not predict performance. It is concluded that relevant processes involved in updating the contents of working memory support mental arithmetic in adults.

The similar effects of verbal and non-verbal intervening tasks on word recall in an elderly population.

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Williams, B R; Sullivan, S K; Morra, L F; Williams, J R; Donovick, P J

2014-01-01

Vulnerability to retroactive interference has been shown to increase with cognitive aging. Consistent with the findings of memory and aging literature, the authors of the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) suggest that a non-verbal task be administered during the test's delay interval to minimize the effects of retroactive interference on delayed recall. The goal of the present study was to determine the extent to which retroactive interference caused by non-verbal and verbal intervening tasks affects recall of verbal information in non-demented, older adults. The effects of retroactive interference on recall of words during Long-Delay recall on the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) were evaluated. Participants included 85 adults age 60 and older. During a 20-minute delay interval on the CVLT-II, participants received either a verbal (WAIS-III Vocabulary or Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IIIB) or non-verbal (Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices or WAIS-III Block Design) intervening task. Similarly to previous research with young adults (Williams & Donovick, 2008), older adults recalled the same number of words across all groups, regardless of the type of intervening task. These findings suggest that the administration of verbal intervening tasks during the CVLT-II do not elicit more retroactive interference than non-verbal intervening tasks, and thus verbal tasks need not be avoided during the delay interval of the CVLT-II.

Proactive Interference and Item Similarity in Working Memory

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Bunting, Michael

2006-01-01

Proactive interference (PI) may influence the predictive utility of working memory span tasks. Participants in one experiment (N=70) completed Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) and multiple versions of operation span and probed recall, modified for the type of memoranda (digits or words). Changing memoranda within- or across-trials…

Teaching Task Sequencing via Verbal Mediation.

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Rusch, Frank R.; And Others

1987-01-01

Verbal sequence training was used to teach a moderately mentally retarded woman to sequence job-related tasks. Learning to say the tasks in the proper sequence resulted in the employee performing her tasks in that sequence, and the employee was capable of mediating her own work behavior when scheduled changes occurred. (Author/JDD)

La metacognición como estrategia para detectar procesos cognitivos en niños con retraso mental

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Ana Patricia Vázquez-Chaves

2006-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract. It was planned to detect the cognitive processes that mentally retarded children used when solving math problems, through the use or metacognitive strategies. The work was done whit a sample of twenty mentally retarded children that attend integrated classrooms from de provinces of Heredia and Alajuela. An instrument called Batería de Resolución de Situaciones Matemáticas (BARSIMAR was used to detect the cognitive processes that children used when working with metacognitive strategies. The results show that the more cognitive engaged the children are, the more difficulty they will have when using cognitive processes to register the information in the short term memory. The advanced kids could use the processes in a better way, but with interferences and difficulty to recover the information form the long term memory and give correct answers to the cognitive task they are working on.

Age-Group Differences in Interference from Young and Older Emotional Faces.

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Ebner, Natalie C; Johnson, Marcia K

2010-11-01

Human attention is selective, focusing on some aspects of events at the expense of others. In particular, angry faces engage attention. Most studies have used pictures of young faces, even when comparing young and older age groups. Two experiments asked (1) whether task-irrelevant faces of young and older individuals with happy, angry, and neutral expressions disrupt performance on a face-unrelated task, (2) whether interference varies for faces of different ages and different facial expressions, and (3) whether young and older adults differ in this regard. Participants gave speeded responses on a number task while irrelevant faces appeared in the background. Both age groups were more distracted by own than other-age faces. In addition, young participants' responses were slower for angry than happy faces, whereas older participants' responses were slower for happy than angry faces. Factors underlying age-group differences in interference from emotional faces of different ages are discussed.

Revealing past memories: proactive interference and ketamine-induced memory deficits.

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Chrobak, James J; Hinman, James R; Sabolek, Helen R

2008-04-23

Memories of events that occur often are sensitive to interference from memories of similar events. Proactive interference plays an important and often unexamined role in memory testing for spatially and temporally unique events ("episodes"). Ketamine (NMDA receptor antagonist) treatment in humans and other mammals induces a constellation of cognitive deficits, including impairments in working and episodic memory. We examined the effects of the ketamine (2.5-100 mg/kg) on the acquisition, retrieval, and retention of memory in a delayed-match-to-place radial water maze task that can be used to assess proactive interference. Ketamine (2.5-25 mg/kg, i.p.) given 20 min before the sample trial, impaired encoding. The first errors made during the test trial were predominantly to arms located spatially adjacent to the goal arm, suggesting an established albeit weakened representation. Ketamine (25-100 mg/kg) given immediately after the sample trial had no effect on retention. Ketamine given before the test trial impaired retrieval. First errors under the influence of ketamine were predominantly to the goal location of the previous session. Thus, ketamine treatment promoted proactive interference. These memory deficits were not state dependent, because ketamine treatment at both encoding and retrieval only increased the number of errors during the test session. These data demonstrate the competing influence of distinct memory representations during the performance of a memory task in the rat. Furthermore, they demonstrate the subtle disruptive effects of the NMDA antagonist ketamine on both encoding and retrieval. Specifically, ketamine treatment disrupted retrieval by promoting proactive interference from previous episodic representations.

Interference control in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: differential Stroop effects for colour-naming versus counting

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Albrecht, B.; Rothenberger, A.; Sergeant, J.A.; Tannock, R.; Uebel, H.; Banaschewski, T.

2008-01-01

Deficits in interference control are ascribed to patients suffering from ADHD by a number of cognitive theories. However, previous research using the Stroop Colour Word Interference Task has demonstrated mixed results that may be explained by methodological issues (e.g., possible impact of colour

Examining depletion theories under conditions of within-task transfer.

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Brewer, Gene A; Lau, Kevin K H; Wingert, Kimberly M; Ball, B Hunter; Blais, Chris

2017-07-01

In everyday life, mental fatigue can be detrimental across many domains including driving, learning, and working. Given the importance of understanding and accounting for the deleterious effects of mental fatigue on behavior, a growing body of literature has studied the role of motivational and executive control processes in mental fatigue. In typical laboratory paradigms, participants complete a task that places demand on these self-control processes and are later given a subsequent task. Generally speaking, decrements to subsequent task performance are taken as evidence that the initial task created mental fatigue through the continued engagement of motivational and executive functions. Several models have been developed to account for negative transfer resulting from this "ego depletion." In the current study, we provide a brief literature review, specify current theoretical approaches to ego-depletion, and report an empirical test of current models of depletion. Across 4 experiments we found minimal evidence for executive control depletion along with strong evidence for motivation mediated ego depletion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effect of Mental Practice on Coordination of Upper Limb Movements in Hemiplegic Patients

OpenAIRE

Zahra Isargar; Mohammad Reza Nourbakhsh; Hassan A'shayeri; Nader Ma'roufi

2000-01-01

Objective: Mental Practice (MP) can be defined as the symbolic, covert, mental rehearsal of a task in the absence, overt physical rehearsal. Elements such as similar time between actual execution and mental performance of a task, the increase of regional cerebral blood flow, vegetative activation, and enhancement in muscle electromyographic (EMG) activity during mental practice suggests that mental practice imitates physical performance of a task. Since physical practice (PP) can, to some ext...

Single-Word Predictions of Upcoming Language During Comprehension: Evidence from the Cumulative Semantic Interference Task

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Kleinman, Daniel; Runnqvist, Elin; Ferreira, Victor S.

2015-01-01

Comprehenders predict upcoming speech and text on the basis of linguistic input. How many predictions do comprehenders make for an upcoming word? If a listener strongly expects to hear the word “sock”, is the word “shirt” partially expected as well, is it actively inhibited, or is it ignored? The present research addressed these questions by measuring the “downstream” effects of prediction on the processing of subsequently presented stimuli using the cumulative semantic interference paradigm. In three experiments, subjects named pictures (sock) that were presented either in isolation or after strongly constraining sentence frames (“After doing his laundry, Mark always seemed to be missing one…”). Naming sock slowed the subsequent naming of the picture shirt – the standard cumulative semantic interference effect. However, although picture naming was much faster after sentence frames, the interference effect was not modulated by the context (bare vs. sentence) in which either picture was presented. According to the only model of cumulative semantic interference that can account for such a pattern of data, this indicates that comprehenders pre-activated and maintained the pre-activation of best sentence completions (sock) but did not maintain the pre-activation of less likely completions (shirt). Thus, comprehenders predicted only the most probable completion for each sentence. PMID:25917550

Decomposing interference during Stroop performance into different conflict factors: an event-related fMRI study.

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Melcher, Tobias; Gruber, Oliver

2009-02-01

In the current event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we sought to trace back Stroop-interference to circumscribed properties of task-irrelevant word information - response-incompatibility, semantic incongruency and task-reference - that we conceive as conflict factors. Thereby, we particularly wanted to disentangle intermingled contributions of semantic conflict and response conflict to the overall Stroop-interference effect. To delineate neural substrates of single factors, we referred to the logics of cognitive subtraction and cognitive conjunction. Moreover, in a second step, we conducted correlation analyses to determine the relationship between neural activations and behavioral interference costs (i.e., conflict-related reaction time (RT) slowing) so as to further elucidate the functional role of the respective brain regions in conflict processing. Response-incompatibility was associated with activation in the left premotor cortex which can be interpreted as indicating motor competition or conflict, i.e., the presence of competing response tendencies. Accordingly, this activation was positively correlated with behavioral conflict costs. Semantic incongruency exhibited specific activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the bilateral insula, and thalamus as well as in left somatosensory cortex. As supported by the consistent negative correlation with behavioral conflict costs, these activations most probably reflect strengthened control efforts to overcome interference and to ensure adequate task performance. Finally, task-reference elicited activation in the left temporo-polar cortex (TPC) and the right medial superior as well as in left rostroventral prefrontal cortex (rvPFC, sub-threshold activation). As strongly supported by prior studies' findings, this neural activation pattern may underlie residual semantic processing of the task-irrelevant word information.

Interference Conditions of the Reconsolidation Process in Humans: The Role of Valence and Different Memory Systems.

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Fernández, Rodrigo S; Bavassi, Luz; Kaczer, Laura; Forcato, Cecilia; Pedreira, María E

2016-01-01

Following the presentation of a reminder, consolidated memories become reactivated followed by a process of re-stabilization, which is referred to as reconsolidation. The most common behavioral tool used to reveal this process is interference produced by new learning shortly after memory reactivation. Memory interference is defined as a decrease in memory retrieval, the effect is generated when new information impairs an acquired memory. In general, the target memory and the interference task used are the same. Here we investigated how different memory systems and/or their valence could produce memory reconsolidation interference. We showed that a reactivated neutral declarative memory could be interfered by new learning of a different neutral declarative memory. Then, we revealed that an aversive implicit memory could be interfered by the presentation of a reminder followed by a threatening social event. Finally, we showed that the reconsolidation of a neutral declarative memory is unaffected by the acquisition of an aversive implicit memory and conversely, this memory remains intact when the neutral declarative memory is used as interference. These results suggest that the interference of memory reconsolidation is effective when two task rely on the same memory system or both evoke negative valence.

Response inhibition and interference control in obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders

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Laura S van Velzen

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Over the past twenty years, motor response inhibition and interference control have received considerable scientific effort and attention, due to their important role in behavior and the development of neuropsychiatric disorders. Results of neuroimaging studies indicate that motor response inhibition and interference control are dependent on cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical (CSTC circuits. Structural and functional abnormalities within the CSTC circuits have been reported for many neuropsychiatric disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD and related disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome (TS and trichotillomania. These disorders also share impairments in motor response inhibition and interference control, which may underlie some of their behavioral and cognitive symptoms. Results of task-related neuroimaging studies on inhibitory functions in these disorders show that impaired task performance is related to altered recruitment of the CSTC circuits. Previous research has shown that inhibitory performance is dependent upon dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin signaling, neurotransmitters that have been implicated in the pathophysiology of these disorders. In this review we discuss the common and disorder-specific pathophysiological mechanisms of inhibition-related dysfunction in OCD and related disorders.

Maturation of cognitive control: delineating response inhibition and interference suppression.

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Christopher R Brydges

Full Text Available Cognitive control is integral to the ability to attend to a relevant task whilst suppressing distracting information or inhibiting prepotent responses. The current study examined the development of these two subprocesses by examining electrophysiological indices elicited during each process. Thirteen 18 year-old adults and thirteen children aged 8-11 years (mean=9.77 years completed a hybrid Go/Nogo flanker task while continuous EEG data were recorded. The N2 topography for both response inhibition and interference suppression changed with increasing age. The neural activation associated with response inhibition became increasingly frontally distributed with age, and showed decreases of both amplitude and peak latency from childhood to adulthood, possibly due to reduced cognitive demands and myelination respectively occurring during this period. Interestingly, a significant N2 effect was apparent in adults, but not observed in children during trials requiring interference suppression. This could be due to more diffuse activation in children, which would require smaller levels of activation over a larger region of the brain than is reported in adults. Overall, these results provide evidence of distinct maturational processes occurring throughout late childhood and adolescence, highlighting the separability of response inhibition and interference suppression.

Mental workload while driving: effects on visual search, discrimination, and decision making.

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Recarte, Miguel A; Nunes, Luis M

2003-06-01

The effects of mental workload on visual search and decision making were studied in real traffic conditions with 12 participants who drove an instrumented car. Mental workload was manipulated by having participants perform several mental tasks while driving. A simultaneous visual-detection and discrimination test was used as performance criteria. Mental tasks produced spatial gaze concentration and visual-detection impairment, although no tunnel vision occurred. According to ocular behavior analysis, this impairment was due to late detection and poor identification more than to response selection. Verbal acquisition tasks were innocuous compared with production tasks, and complex conversations, whether by phone or with a passenger, are dangerous for road safety.

Workload assessment for mental arithmetic tasks using the task-evoked pupillary response

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Marquart, G.; de Winter, J.C.F.

2015-01-01

Pupillometry is a promising method for assessing mental workload and could
be helpful in the optimization of systems that involve human–computer
interaction. The present study focuses on replicating the studies by Ahern
(1978) and Klingner (2010), which found that for three levels of

Event-based proactive interference in rhesus monkeys.

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Devkar, Deepna T; Wright, Anthony A

2016-10-01

Three rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were tested in a same/different memory task for proactive interference (PI) from prior trials. PI occurs when a previous sample stimulus appears as a test stimulus on a later trial, does not match the current sample stimulus, and the wrong response "same" is made. Trial-unique pictures (scenes, objects, animals, etc.) were used on most trials, except on trials where the test stimulus matched potentially interfering sample stimulus from a prior trial (1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 trials prior). Greater interference occurred when fewer trials separated interference and test. PI functions showed a continuum of interference. Delays between sample and test stimuli and intertrial intervals were manipulated to test how PI might vary as a function of elapsed time. Contrary to a similar study with pigeons, these time manipulations had no discernable effect on the monkey's PI, as shown by compete overlap of PI functions with no statistical differences or interactions. These results suggested that interference was strictly based upon the number of intervening events (trials with other pictures) without regard to elapsed time. The monkeys' apparent event-based interference was further supported by retesting with a novel set of 1,024 pictures. PI from novel pictures 1 or 2 trials prior was greater than from familiar pictures, a familiar set of 1,024 pictures. Moreover, when potentially interfering novel stimuli were 16 trials prior, performance accuracy was actually greater than accuracy on baseline trials (no interference), suggesting that remembering stimuli from 16 trials prior was a cue that this stimulus was not the sample stimulus on the current trial-a somewhat surprising conclusion particularly given monkeys.

Predicting memory performance under conditions of proactive interference: immediate and delayed judgments of learning.

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Wahlheim, Christopher N

2011-07-01

Four experiments examined the monitoring accuracy of immediate and delayed judgments of learning (JOLs) under conditions of proactive interference (PI). PI was produced using paired-associate learning tasks that conformed to variations of classic A-B, A-D paradigms. Results revealed that the relative monitoring accuracy of interference items was better for delayed than for immediate JOLs. However, delayed JOLs were overconfident for interference items, but not for items devoid of interference. Intrusions retrieved prior to delayed JOLs produced inflated predictions of performance. These results show that delayed JOLs enhance monitoring accuracy in PI situations, except when intrusions are mistaken for target responses.

Fuzzy-TLX: using fuzzy integrals for evaluating human mental workload with NASA-Task Load indeX in laboratory and field studies.

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Mouzé-Amady, Marc; Raufaste, Eric; Prade, Henri; Meyer, Jean-Pierre

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to assess mental workload in which various load sources must be integrated to derive reliable workload estimates. We report a new algorithm for computing weights from qualitative fuzzy integrals and apply it to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration -Task Load indeX (NASA-TLX) subscales in order to replace the standard pair-wise weighting technique (PWT). In this paper, two empirical studies were reported: (1) In a laboratory experiment, age- and task-related variables were investigated in 53 male volunteers and (2) In a field study, task- and job-related variables were studied on aircrews during 48 commercial flights. The results found in this study were as follows: (i) in the experimental setting, fuzzy estimates were highly correlated with classical (using PWT) estimates; (ii) in real work conditions, replacing PWT by automated fuzzy treatments simplified the NASA-TLX completion; (iii) the algorithm for computing fuzzy estimates provides a new classification procedure sensitive to various variables of work environments and (iv) subjective and objective measures can be used for the fuzzy aggregation of NASA-TLX subscales. NASA-TLX, a classical tool for mental workload assessment, is based on a weighted sum of ratings from six subscales. A new algorithm, which impacts on input data collection and computes weights and indexes from qualitative fuzzy integrals, is evaluated through laboratory and field studies. Pros and cons are discussed.

The effects of a single bout of exercise on motor memory interference in the trained and untrained hemisphere.

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Lauber, Benedikt; Franke, Steffen; Taube, Wolfgang; Gollhofer, Albert

2017-04-07

Increasing evidence suggests that cardiovascular exercise has positive effects on motor memory consolidation. In this study, we investigated whether a single session of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) mitigates the effects of practicing an interfering motor task. Furthermore, learning and interference effects were assessed in the actively trained and untrained limb as it is known that unilateral motor learning can cause bilateral adaptations. Subjects performed a ballistic training and then the HIIT either before (HIIT_before) or after (HIIT_after) practicing an interfering accuracy task (AT). The control group (No_HIIT) did not participate in the HIIT but rested instead. Performance in the ballistic task (BT) was tested before and after the ballistic training, after the exercise and practice of the AT and 24h later. After ballistic training, all groups showed comparable increases in performance in the trained and untrained limb. Despite the practice of the AT, HIIT_before maintained their BT performance after the high-intensity interval training whereas HIIT_after (trend) & No_HIIT showed prominent interference effects. After 24h, HIIT_before still did not show any interference effects but further improved ballistic motor performance. HIIT_after counteracted the interference resulting in a comparable BT performance after 24h than directly after the ballistic training while No_HIIT had a significantly lower BT performance in the retention test. The results were similar in the trained and untrained limb. The current results imply that a single session of cardiovascular exercise can prevent motor interference in the trained and untrained hemisphere. Overall learning was best, and interference least, when HIIT was performed before the interfering motor task. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

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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 (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.

Promotion of mental health in children of parents with a mental disorder.

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Verrocchio, Maria Cristina; Ambrosini, Alessandra; Fulcheri, Mario

2013-01-01

Mental disorders are associated with many difficulties in the activities of daily living, work, relationships and family, and they determine high social and economic costs that represent an important public health problem. The literature has shown that children of parents with mental disorders grow up in environments that are potentially harmful to their mental health and are at risk of neglect and maltreatment. Interventions to prevent mental disorders and psychological symptoms of children of parents with mental disorders are effective but supporting these families is a complex task which requires both cooperation between departments and an interdisciplinary knowledge. A greater knowledge of the responses provided to assist families with dependent children and a mentally ill parent, could stimulate reflections on critical issues and government actions aimed at promoting and protecting the mental health of children.

Mental workload associated with operating an agricultural sprayer: an empirical approach.

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Dey, A K; Mann, D D

2011-04-01

Agricultural spraying involves two major tasks: guiding a sprayer in response to a GPS navigation device, and simultaneous monitoring of rear-attached booms under various illumination and terrain difficulty levels. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of illumination, task difficulty, and task level on the mental workload of an individual operating an agricultural sprayer in response to a commercial GPS lightbar, and to explore the sensitivity of the NASA-TLX and SSWAT subjective rating scales in discriminating the subjective experienced workload under various task, illumination, and difficulty levels. Mental workload was measured using performance measures (lateral root mean square error and reaction time), physiological measures (0.1 Hz power of HRV, latency of the P300 component of event-related potential, and eye-glance behavior), and two subjective rating scales (NASA-TLX and SSWAT). Sixteen male university students participated in this experiment, and a fixed-base high-fidelity agricultural tractor simulator was used to create a simulated spraying task. All performance measures, the P300 latency, and subjective rating scales showed a common trend that mental workload increased with the change in illumination from day to night, with task difficulty from low to high, and with task type from single to dual. The 0.1 Hz power of HRV contradicted the performance measures. Eye-glance data showed that under night illumination, participants spent more time looking at the lightbar for guidance information. A similar trend was observed with the change in task type from single to dual. Both subjective rating scales showed a common trend of increasing mental workload with the change in illumination, difficulty, and task levels. However, the SSWAT scale was more sensitive than the NASA-TLX scale. With the change in illumination, difficulty, and task levels, participants spent more mental resources to meet the increased task demand; hence, the

Assessing physician job satisfaction and mental workload.

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Boultinghouse, Oscar W; Hammack, Glenn G; Vo, Alexander H; Dittmar, Mary Lynne

2007-12-01

Physician job satisfaction and mental workload were evaluated in a pilot study of five physicians engaged in a telemedicine practice at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston Electronic Health Network. Several previous studies have examined physician satisfaction with specific telemedicine applications; however, few have attempted to identify the underlying factors that contribute to physician satisfaction or lack thereof. One factor that has been found to affect well-being and functionality in the workplace-particularly with regard to human interaction with complex systems and tasks as seen in telemedicine-is mental workload. Workload is generally defined as the "cost" to a person for performing a complex task or tasks; however, prior to this study, it was unexplored as a variable that influences physician satisfaction. Two measures of job satisfaction were used: The Job Descriptive Index and the Job In General scales. Mental workload was evaluated by means of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index. The measures were administered by means of Web-based surveys and were given twice over a 6-month period. Nonparametric statistical analyses revealed that physician job satisfaction was generally high relative to that of the general population and other professionals. Mental workload scores associated with the practice of telemedicine in this environment are also high, and appeared stable over time. In addition, they are commensurate with scores found in individuals practicing tasks with elevated information-processing demands, such as quality control engineers and air traffic controllers. No relationship was found between the measures of job satisfaction and mental workload.

Workplace for analysis of task performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bos, J; Mulder, LJM; van Ouwerkerk, RJ; Maarse, FJ; Akkerman, AE; Brand, AN; Mulder, LJM

2003-01-01

In current research on mental workload and task performance a large gap exists between laboratory based studies and research projects in real life working practice. Tasks conducted within a laboratory environment often lack a strong resemblance with real life working situations. This paper presents

Prefrontal inhibition of threat processing protects working memory from interference.

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Robert James Clarke

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Bottom-up processes can interrupt ongoing cognitive processing in order to adaptively respond to emotional stimuli of high potential significance, such as those that threaten wellbeing. However it is vital that this interference can be modulated in certain contexts to focus on current tasks. Deficits in the ability to maintain the appropriate balance between cognitive and emotional demands can severely impact on day-to-day activities. This fMRI study examined this interaction between threat processing and cognition; 18 adult participants performed a visuospatial working memory (WM task with two load conditions, in the presence and absence of anxiety induction by threat of electric shock. Threat of shock interfered with performance in the low cognitive load condition; however interference was eradicated under high load, consistent with engagement of emotion regulation mechanisms. Under low load the amygdala showed significant activation to threat of shock that was modulated by high cognitive load. A directed top-down control contrast identified two regions associated with top-down control; ventrolateral PFC and dorsal ACC. Dynamic causal modelling provided further evidence that under high cognitive load, top-down inhibition is exerted on the amygdala and its outputs to prefrontal regions. Additionally, we hypothesised that individual differences in a separate, non-emotional top-down control task would predict the recruitment of dorsal ACC and ventrolateral PFC during top-down control of threat. Consistent with this, performance on a separate dichotic listening task predicted dorsal ACC and ventrolateral PFC activation during high WM load under threat of shock, though activation in these regions did not directly correlate with WM performance. Together, the findings suggest that under high cognitive load and threat, top-down control is exerted by dACC and vlPFC to inhibit threat processing, thus enabling WM performance without threat

From proactive to retroactive dual-task interference: The important role of Task-2 probability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenstein, Mark; Scholz, S.; Broers, Nico

2014-01-01

Dual-task studies on the attentional blink (AB) and psychological refractory period (PRP) effect show that the processing of a first target (T1) obstructs the processing of a shortly following target (T2). Recently, Nieuwenstein and Wyble (2014) found an opposite pattern, such that a memory encoding

Community mental health nurses’ experience of decentralised and integrated psychiatric-mental health care services in the Southern mental health region of Botswana (part 1

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M.K. Maphorisa

2002-09-01

Full Text Available Since the inception of the decentralisation and integration of psychiatric mental health care services into the general health care delivery system in Botswana, there has never been a study to investigate what community mental health nurses are experiencing due to the policy. Many of these nurses have been leaving the scantily staffed mental health care services in increasing numbers to join other sectors of health or elsewhere since the beginning of the implementation of the policy. During the research study, phenomenological in-depth interviews were conducted with three groups of 12 community mental health nurses altogether. An open central question was posed to each group followed by probing questions to explore and describe these nurses’ experience of the decentralisation and integration of psychiatric-mental health care services. After the data was analysed, related literature was incorporated and guidelines for advanced psychiatric nurses were formulated and described to assist these nurses to cope with the decentralisation and integration of psychiatric-mental health care services. The guidelines were set up for the management of the community mental health nurses who are experiencing obstacles in the quest for mental health which also interfere with their capabilities as mental health care providers.

"Smart inhibition": electrophysiological evidence for the suppression of conflict-generating task rules during task switching.

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Meiran, Nachshon; Hsieh, Shulan; Chang, Chi-Chih

2011-09-01

A major challenge for task switching is maintaining a balance between high task readiness and effectively ignoring irrelevant task rules. This calls for finely tuned inhibition that targets only the source of interference without adversely influencing other task-related representations. The authors show that irrelevant task rules generating response conflict are inhibited, causing their inefficient execution on the next trial (indicating the presence of competitor rule suppression[CRS];Meiran, Hsieh, & Dimov, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 36, 992-1002, 2010). To determine whether CRS influences task rules, rather than target stimuli or responses, the authors focused on the processing of the task cue before the target stimulus was presented and before the response could be chosen. As was predicted, CRS was found in the event-related potentials in two time windows during task cue processing. It was also found in three time windows after target presentation. Source localization analyses suggest the involvement of the right dorsal prefrontal cortex in all five time windows.

Stronger interference from distractors in the right hemifield during visual search.

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Carlei, Christophe; Kerzel, Dirk

2018-03-01

The orientation-bias hypothesis states that there is a bias to attend to the right visual hemifield (RVF) when there is spatial competition between stimuli in the left and right hemifield [Pollmann, S. (1996). A pop-out induced extinction-like phenomenon in neurologically intact subjects. Neuropsychologia, 34(5), 413-425. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(95)00125-5 ]. In support of this hypothesis, stronger interference was reported for RVF distractors with contralateral targets. In contrast, previous studies using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) found stronger interference from distractors in the left visual hemifield (LVF). We used the additional singleton paradigm to test whether this discrepancy was due to the different distractor features that were employed (colour vs. orientation). Interference from the colour distractor with contralateral targets was larger in the RVF than in the LVF. However, the asymmetrical interference disappeared when observers had to search for an inconspicuous colour target instead of the inconspicuous shape target. We suggest that the LVF orienting-bias is limited to situations where search is driven by bottom-up saliency (singleton search) instead of top-down search goals (feature search). In contrast, analysis of the literature suggests the opposite for the LVF bias in RSVP tasks. Thus, the attentional asymmetry may depend on whether the task involves temporal or spatial competition, and whether search is based on bottom-up or top-down signals.

Nurses' perceptions of mental healthcare in primary-care settings in Kenya.

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Mendenhall, Emily; Isaiah, Gitonga; Nelson, Bernadette; Musau, Abednego; Koon, Adam D; Smith, Lahra; Mutiso, Victoria; Ndetei, David

2018-04-01

Kenya maintains an extraordinary treatment gap for mental health services because the need for and availability of mental health services are extraordinarily misaligned. One way to narrow the treatment gap is task-sharing, where specialists rationally distribute tasks across the health system, with many responsibilities falling upon frontline health workers, including nurses. Yet, little is known about how nurses perceive task-sharing mental health services. This article investigates nurses' perceptions of mental healthcare delivery within primary-care settings in Kenya. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 60 nurses from a public urban (n = 20), private urban (n = 20), and public rural (n = 20) hospitals. Nurses participated in a one-hour interview about their perceptions of mental healthcare delivery. Nurses viewed mental health services as a priority and believed integrating it into a basic package of primary care would protect it from competing health priorities, financial barriers, stigma, and social problems. Many nurses believed that integrating mental healthcare into primary care was acceptable and feasible, but low levels of knowledge of healthcare providers, especially in rural areas, and few specialists, would be barriers. These data underscore the need for task-sharing mental health services into existing primary healthcare in Kenya.

Mental rotation task in a pilot during and after pregnancy.

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Piccardi, Laura; Verde, Paola; Bianchini, Filippo; Morgagni, Fabio; Guariglia, Cecilia; Strollo, Felice

2013-10-01

Discordant findings have been reported about the change in pregnant women's cognitive test performance. Visuo-spatial abilities, which are crucial in terrestrial/flight navigation, could be influenced by hormonal variations. A 32-yr-old Italian Air Force pilot underwent a 2-D Mental Rotation Task (MRT) and hormonal assessment in the second trimester of pregnancy and 1 yr after delivery. Her performance was compared with that of two nonpregnant groups of women: one with flying experience and the other without. Estradiol and progesterone were significantly higher in pregnancy compared with postpartum, while testosterone was almost unchanged. During pregnancy, we observed a significant difference in the subject's response time compared with pilots (she was slower) and nonpilots (she was faster). One year after delivery, her performance was still better than the nonpilot group and was almost the same as the pilot group. Our data are consistent with an effect of pregnancy on visuo-spatial ability that can last for some time after delivery, even with the early recovery of the hormonal levels. MRT smoothly changed in our subject, supporting previous findings that women who are experts in flight navigation are less sensitive to hormonal fluctuations. In this case, visuospatial ability requiring effortful processing underwent variations during pregnancy and postpartum. Further studies are needed in order to confirm our observations in a wider population.

Promotion of mental health in children of parents with a mental disorder

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Maria Cristina Verrocchio

Full Text Available Mental disorders are associated with many difficulties in the activities of daily living, work, relationships and family, and they determine high social and economic costs that represent an important public health problem. The literature has shown that children of parents with mental disorders grow up in environments that are potentially harmful to their mental health and are at risk of neglect and maltreatment. Interventions to prevent mental disorders and psychological symptoms of children of parents with mental disorders are effective but supporting these families is a complex task which requires both cooperation between departments and an interdisciplinary knowledge. A greater knowledge of the responses provided to assist families with dependent children and a mentally ill parent, could stimulate reflections on critical issues and government actions aimed at promoting and protecting the mental health of children.

Object versus spatial visual mental imagery in patients with schizophrenia

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Aleman, André; de Haan, Edward H.F.; Kahn, René S.

2005-01-01

Objective Recent research has revealed a larger impairment of object perceptual discrimination than of spatial perceptual discrimination in patients with schizophrenia. It has been suggested that mental imagery may share processing systems with perception. We investigated whether patients with schizophrenia would show greater impairment regarding object imagery than spatial imagery. Methods Forty-four patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy control subjects were tested on a task of object visual mental imagery and on a task of spatial visual mental imagery. Both tasks included a condition in which no imagery was needed for adequate performance, but which was in other respects identical to the imagery condition. This allowed us to adjust for nonspecific differences in individual performance. Results The results revealed a significant difference between patients and controls on the object imagery task (F1,63 = 11.8, p = 0.001) but not on the spatial imagery task (F1,63 = 0.14, p = 0.71). To test for a differential effect, we conducted a 2 (patients v. controls) х 2 (object task v. spatial task) analysis of variance. The interaction term was statistically significant (F1,62 = 5.2, p = 0.026). Conclusions Our findings suggest a differential dysfunction of systems mediating object and spatial visual mental imagery in schizophrenia. PMID:15644999

Sex-specific neural activity when resolving cognitive interference in individuals with or without prior internalizing disorders.

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Wang, Zhishun; Jacobs, Rachel H; Marsh, Rachel; Horga, Guillermo; Qiao, Jianping; Warner, Virginia; Weissman, Myrna M; Peterson, Bradley S

2016-03-30

The processing of cognitive interference is a self-regulatory capacity that is impaired in persons with internalizing disorders. This investigation was to assess sex differences in the neural correlates of cognitive interference in individuals with and without an illness history of an internalizing disorder. We compared functional magnetic resonance imaging blood-oxygenation-level-dependent responses in both males (n=63) and females (n=80) with and without this illness history during performance of the Simon task. Females deactivated superior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobe, and posterior cingulate cortex to a greater extent than males. Females with a prior history of internalizing disorder also deactivated these regions more compared to males with that history, and they additionally demonstrated greater activation of right inferior frontal gyrus. These group differences were represented in a significant sex-by-illness interaction in these regions. These deactivated regions compose a task-negative or default mode network, whereas the inferior frontal gyrus usually activates when performing an attention-demanding task and is a key component of a task-positive network. Our findings suggest that a prior history of internalizing disorders disproportionately influences functioning of the default mode network and is associated with an accompanying activation of the task-positive network in females during the resolution of cognitive interference. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Processing bias in anxious subjects and repressors, measured by emotional Stroop interference and attentional allocation.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brosschot, J.F.; de Ruiter, C.; Kindt, M.

1999-01-01

Hypothesized that repressors (Ss high in defensiveness with low trait anxiety) would show cognitive avoidance of threatening information in an attention deployment task, but an attentional bias for the same information in an emotional interference task, while Ss high in anxiety would show a

Cross-cultural differences in mental representations of time: evidence from an implicit nonlinguistic task.

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Fuhrman, Orly; Boroditsky, Lera

2010-11-01

Across cultures people construct spatial representations of time. However, the particular spatial layouts created to represent time may differ across cultures. This paper examines whether people automatically access and use culturally specific spatial representations when reasoning about time. In Experiment 1, we asked Hebrew and English speakers to arrange pictures depicting temporal sequences of natural events, and to point to the hypothesized location of events relative to a reference point. In both tasks, English speakers (who read left to right) arranged temporal sequences to progress from left to right, whereas Hebrew speakers (who read right to left) arranged them from right to left, replicating previous work. In Experiments 2 and 3, we asked the participants to make rapid temporal order judgments about pairs of pictures presented one after the other (i.e., to decide whether the second picture showed a conceptually earlier or later time-point of an event than the first picture). Participants made responses using two adjacent keyboard keys. English speakers were faster to make "earlier" judgments when the "earlier" response needed to be made with the left response key than with the right response key. Hebrew speakers showed exactly the reverse pattern. Asking participants to use a space-time mapping inconsistent with the one suggested by writing direction in their language created interference, suggesting that participants were automatically creating writing-direction consistent spatial representations in the course of their normal temporal reasoning. It appears that people automatically access culturally specific spatial representations when making temporal judgments even in nonlinguistic tasks. Copyright © 2010 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Frontal theta EEG dynamics in a real-world air traffic control task.

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Shou, Guofa; Ding, Lei

2013-01-01

Mental workload and time-on-task effect are two major factors expediting fatigue progress, which leads to performance decline and/or failure in real-world tasks. In the present study, electroencephalography (EEG) is applied to study mental fatigue development during an air traffic control (ATC) task. Specifically, the frontal theta EEG dynamics are firstly dissolved into a unique frontal independent component (IC) through a novel time-frequency independent component analysis (tfICA) method. Then the temporal fluctuations of the identified frontal ICs every minute are compared to workload (reflected by number of clicks per minute) and time-on-task effect by correlational analysis and linear regression analysis. It is observed that the frontal theta activity significantly increase with workload augment and time-on-task. The present study demonstrates that the frontal theta EEG activity identified by tfICA method is a sensitive and reliable metric to assess mental workload and time-on-task effect in a real-world task, i.e., ATC task, at the resolution of minute(s).

Using near infrared spectroscopy and heart rate variability to detect mental overload.

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Durantin, G; Gagnon, J-F; Tremblay, S; Dehais, F

2014-02-01

Mental workload is a key factor influencing the occurrence of human error, especially during piloting and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operations, where safety depends on the ability of pilots to act appropriately. In particular, excessively high or low mental workload can lead operators to neglect critical information. The objective of the present study is to investigate the potential of functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) - a non-invasive method of measuring prefrontal cortex activity - in combination with measurements of heart rate variability (HRV), to predict mental workload during a simulated piloting task, with particular regard to task engagement and disengagement. Twelve volunteers performed a computer-based piloting task in which they were asked to follow a dynamic target with their aircraft, a task designed to replicate key cognitive demands associated with real life ROV operating tasks. In order to cover a wide range of mental workload levels, task difficulty was manipulated in terms of processing load and difficulty of control - two critical sources of workload associated with piloting and remotely operating a vehicle. Results show that both fNIRS and HRV are sensitive to different levels of mental workload; notably, lower prefrontal activation as well as a lower LF/HF ratio at the highest level of difficulty, suggest that these measures are suitable for mental overload detection. Moreover, these latter measurements point toward the existence of a quadratic model of mental workload. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Interference conditions of the reconsolidation process in humans: the role of valence and different memory systems.

OpenAIRE

Rodrigo S Fernández; Luz Bavassi; Luz Bavassi; Laura Kaczer; Cecilia Forcato; María Eugenia Pedreira

2016-01-01

Following the presentation of a reminder, consolidated memories become reactivated followed by a process of re-stabilization, which is referred to as reconsolidation. The most common behavioral tool used to reveal this process is interference produced by new learning shortly after memory reactivation. Memory interference is defined as a decrease in memory retrieval, the effect is generated when new information impairs an acquired memory. In general, the target memory and the interference task...

Semantic category interference in overt picture naming: Sharpening current density localization by PCA

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Maess, B.; Friederici, A.D.; Damian, M.F.; Meyer, A.S.; Levelt, W.J.M.

2002-01-01

The study investigated the neuronal basis of the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon. The semantic category interference effect was used to locate lexical retrieval processes in time and space. This effect reflects the finding that, for overt naming, volunteers are slower when naming pictures

Interleaved Practice in Multi-Dimensional Learning Tasks: Which Dimension Should We Interleave?

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Rau, Martina A.; Aleven, Vincent; Rummel, Nikol

2013-01-01

Research shows that multiple representations can enhance student learning. Many curricula use multiple representations across multiple task types. The temporal sequence of representations and task types is likely to impact student learning. Research on contextual interference shows that interleaving learning tasks leads to better learning results…

Comparison of Postural Stubility and Auditory Short- Term Memory Taks Interference between Patients with Functional Ankle Instability and Healthy Individuals

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Maryam Hayati

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Objective: With increased recognition of the importance of conscious process and cognition activities in the stability and regulation of posture and also in line of probable adaptation in central nervous system in patients with functional ankle instability, this study was aimed to assess interference patterns between short–term memory task and postural stability tasks in functional ankle instability patients in comparison with healthy individuals. Materials & Methods: In this cross–sectional and case–control study, with dual–task paradigm fifteen functional ankle instability patients whom were selected simply and conveniently and fifteen healthy persons whom were matched with patients as control group were assessed and compared. Six steps of tests were performed for every case with two situation of balance Biodex system instability and three situation of auditory short–term memory task. Data were analyzed by repeated measurement ANOVA. Results: Finding showed that there was significant interference between postural task and cognitive task in both groups (P<0.05 , but there was no significant difference between interferences of two groups. Conclusion: Present study, certificated disruption in information processing in a peripheral musculoskeletal injury such as functional ankle instability. Application of training programs in order to facilitate central information processing in balance rehabilitation process of this patients and improved dual–task paradigms with different degrees of cognitive and postural tasks seems to be effective.

Verbal and facial-emotional Stroop tasks reveal specific attentional interferences in sad mood

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Isaac, L.; Vrijsen, J.N.; Eling, P.A.T.M.; Oostrom, I.I.H. van; Speckens, A.E.M.; Becker, E.S.

2012-01-01

Mood congruence refers to the tendency of individuals to attend to information more readily when it has the same emotional content as their current mood state. The aim of the present study was to ascertain whether attentional interference occurred for participants in sad mood states for emotionally

Identification and adjustment of experimental occlusal interference using functional magnetic resonance imaging

OpenAIRE

Oda, Masafumi; Yoshino, Kenichi; Tanaka, Tatsurou; Shiiba, Shunji; Makihara, Eri; Miyamoto, Ikuya; Nogami, Shinnosuke; Kito, Shinji; Wakasugi-Sato, Nao; Matsumoto-Takeda, Shinobu; Nishimura, Shun; Murakami, Keita; Koga, Masahiro; Kawagishi, Shigenori; Yoshioka, Izumi

2014-01-01

Background The purpose of this study was to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to quantify changes in brain activity during experimental occlusal interference. Methods Fourteen healthy volunteers performed a rhythmical tapping occlusion task with experimental occlusal interference of the right molar tooth at 0 mm (no occlusion), 0.5 mm, and 0.75 mm. The blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal was quantified using statistical parametric mapping and compared between rest period...

Neuroticism, intelligence, and intra-individual variability in elementary cognitive tasks: testing the mental noise hypothesis.

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Colom, Roberto; Quiroga, Ma Angeles

2009-08-01

Some studies show positive correlations between intraindividual variability in elementary speed measures (reflecting processing efficiency) and individual differences in neuroticism (reflecting instability in behaviour). The so-called neural noise hypothesis assumes that higher levels of noise are related both to smaller indices of processing efficiency and greater levels of neuroticism. Here, we test this hypothesis measuring mental speed by means of three elementary cognitive tasks tapping similar basic processes but varying systematically their content (verbal, numerical, and spatial). Neuroticism and intelligence are also measured. The sample comprised 196 undergraduate psychology students. The results show that (1) processing efficiency is generally unrelated to individual differences in neuroticism, (2) processing speed and efficiency correlate with intelligence, and (3) only the efficiency index is genuinely related to intelligence when the colinearity between speed and efficiency is controlled.

[Influences of balancing-side interference on jaw function].

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Baba, K

1991-03-01

The influences of experimental balancing-side interference on the jaw function were investigated on 6 subjects. A specially designed onlay was fabricated for the lower second molar, which acted as an artificial balancing-side interference in the lateral mandibular position. The subjects were asked to do maximum clenching, lateral gliding and gum chewing with and without the device. Electromyographic activity of the masseter and the anterior and posterior temporal muscles were measured and the related mandibular movement was simultaneously recorded during these tasks. Introduction of the experimental interference caused alteration in the muscle activity as follows: 1. When the subjects exerted maximum clenching efforts in the lateral mandibular position, the ratio of the temporal muscle activity on the working-side to the balancing-side decreased, while that of the masseter muscle remained unchanged. 2. There was a tendency for the activity in the working-side posterior temporal muscle to increase during gliding from intercuspation. The ratio of the temporal muscle activity on the working-side to the balancing-side decreased during gliding into intercuspation. 3. Prolongation of the occlusal phase associated with the increase of the muscle activity was observed during gum chewing on the side opposite to the interference. It was suggested that the balancing-side interference might provoke a specific muscle activity in the temporal muscles during parafunctional clenching or grinding.

Levels of Information Processing in a Fitts law task (LIPFitts)

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Mosier, K. L.; Hart, S. G.

1986-01-01

State-of-the-art flight technology has restructured the task of human operators, decreasing the need for physical and sensory resources, and increasing the quantity of cognitive effort required, changing it qualitatively. Recent technological advances have the most potential for impacting a pilot in two areas: performance and mental workload. In an environment in which timing is critical, additional cognitive processing can cause performance decrements, and increase a pilot's perception of the mental workload involved. The effects of stimulus processing demands on motor response performance and subjective mental workload are examined, using different combinations of response selection and target acquisition tasks. The information processing demands of the response selection were varied (e.g., Sternberg memory set tasks, math equations, pattern matching), as was the difficulty of the response execution. Response latency as well as subjective workload ratings varied in accordance with the cognitive complexity of the task. Movement times varied according to the difficulty of the response execution task. Implications in terms of real-world flight situations are discussed.

The Effects of Romantic Love on Mentalizing Abilities.

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Wlodarski, Rafael; Dunbar, Robin I M

2014-12-01

The effects of the human pair-bonded state of "romantic love" on cognitive function remain relatively unexplored. Theories on cognitive priming suggest that a state of love may activate love-relevant schemas, such as mentalizing about the beliefs of another individual, and may thus improve mentalizing abilities. On the other hand, recent functional MRI (fMRI) research on individuals who are in love suggests that several brain regions associated with mentalizing may be "deactivated" during the presentation of a love prime, potentially affecting mentalizing cognitions and behaviors. The current study aimed to investigate experimentally the effect of a love prime on a constituent aspect of mentalizing-the attribution of emotional states to others. Ninety-one participants who stated they were "deeply in love" with their romantic partner completed a cognitive task involving the assessment of emotional content of facial stimuli (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task) immediately after the presentation of either a love prime or a neutral prime. Individuals were significantly better at interpreting the emotional states of others after a love prime than after a neutral prime, particularly males assessing negative emotional stimuli. These results suggest that presentation of a love stimulus can prime love-relevant networks and enhance subsequent performance on conceptually related mentalizing tasks.

Stopping the past from intruding the present: Social anxiety disorder and proactive interference.

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Moore, Harry T A; Gómez-Ariza, Carlos J; Garcia-Lopez, Luis-Joaquín

2016-04-30

It has recently been suggested that social anxiety disorder (SAD) entails a deficit in downregulating unwanted (even non-threatening) memories. In the present study we test this hypothesis by comparing a sample of young adults diagnosed with SAD and healthy controls in their ability to resist proactive interference in a working memory task. Where participants performed similarly in the control condition of the memory task, participants with SAD were more susceptible to interference in the experimental condition than the healthy controls. This finding is in line with previous studies that show anxiety to be associated with impoverished executive control and, specifically, suggests that SAD entails a reduced ability to get rid of interfering memories. Clinical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The role of rehearsal in a novel call center-type task

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Nick Perham

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Laboratory research has long demonstrated the disruptive effects of background sound to task performance yet the real-world implications of such effects are less well known. We report two experiments that demonstrate the importance of the role of rehearsal to a novel call center-type task. In Experiment 1, performance of a novel train timetable task-in which participants identified four train journeys following presentation of train journey information-was disrupted by realistic office noise. However, in Experiment 2, when the need for rehearsal was reduced by presenting the information and the timetable at the same time, no disruption occurred . Results are discussed in terms of interference-by-process and interference-by-content approaches to short-term memory.

Discordant tasks and motor adjustments affect interactions between adaptations to altered kinematics and dynamics

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Fritzie Arce

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Motor control and adaptation are multi-determinate processes with complex interactions. This is reflected for example in the ambiguous nature of interactions during sequential adaptation of reaching under kinematics and dynamics perturbations. It has been suggested that perturbations based on the same kinematic parameter interfere. Others posited that opposing motor adjustments underlie interference. Here, we examined the influence of discordances in task and in motor adjustments on sequential adaptations to visuomotor rotation and viscous force field perturbations. These two factors – perturbation direction and task discordance – have been examined separately by previous studies, thus the inherent difficulty to identify the roots of interference. Forty-eight human subjects adapted sequentially to one or two types of perturbations, of matched or conflicting directions. We found a gradient of interaction effects based on perturbation direction and task discordance. Perturbations of matched directions showed facilitation while perturbations of opposite directions, which required opposing motor adjustments, interfered with each other. Further, interaction effects increased with greater task discordance. We also found that force field and visuomotor rotation had mutual anterograde and retrograde effects. However, we found independence between anterograde and retrograde interferences between similar tasks. The results suggest that the newly acquired internal models of kinematic and dynamic perturbations are not independent but they share common neuronal resources and interact between them. Such overlap does not necessarily imply competition of resources. Rather, our results point to an additional principle of sensorimotor adaptation allowing the system to tap or harness common features across diverse sensory inputs and task contexts whenever available.

Age-Related Differences in Corticospinal Excitability during Observation and Motor Imagery of Balance Tasks.

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Mouthon, Audrey A; Ruffieux, Jan; Keller, Martin; Taube, Wolfgang

2016-01-01

Postural control declines across adult lifespan. Non-physical balance training has been suggested as an alternative to improve postural control in frail/immobilized elderly people. Previous studies showed that this kind of training can improve balance control in young and older adults. However, it is unclear whether the brain of young and older adults is activated differently during mental simulations of balance tasks. For this purpose, soleus (SOL) and tibialis motor evoked potentials (MEPs) and SOL H-reflexes were elicited while 15 elderly (mean ± SD = 71 ± 4.6 years) and 15 young participants (mean ± SD = 27 ± 4.6 years) mentally simulated static and dynamic balance tasks using motor imagery (MI), action observation (AO) or the combination of AO and MI (AO + MI). Young subjects displayed significant modulations of MEPs that depended on the kind of mental simulation and the postural task. Elderly adults also revealed differences between tasks, but not between mental simulation conditions. Furthermore, the elderly displayed larger MEP facilitation during mental simulation (AGE-GROUP; F (1,28) = 5.9; p = 0.02) in the SOL muscle compared to the young and a task-dependent modulation of the tibialis background electromyography (bEMG) activity. H-reflex amplitudes and bEMG in the SOL showed neither task- nor age-dependent modulation. As neither mental simulation nor balance tasks modulated H-reflexes and bEMG in the SOL muscle, despite large variations in the MEP-amplitudes, there seems to be an age-related change in the internal cortical representation of balance tasks. Moreover, the modulation of the tibialis bEMG in the elderly suggests that aging partially affects the ability to inhibit motor output.

Mental distress among shift workers in Norwegian offshore petroleum industry--relative influence of individual and psychosocial work factors.

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Ljoså, Cathrine Haugene; Tyssen, Reidar; Lau, Bjørn

2011-11-01

This study aimed to investigate the association between individual and psychosocial work factors and mental distress among offshore shift workers in the Norwegian petroleum industry. All 2406 employees of a large Norwegian oil and gas company, who worked offshore during a two-week period in August 2006, were invited to participate in the web-based survey. Completed questionnaires were received from 1336 employees (56% response rate). The outcome variable was mental distress, assessed with a shortened version of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-5). The following individual factors were adjusted for: age, gender, marital status, and shift work locus of control. Psychosocial work factors included: night work, demands, control and support, and shift work-home interference. The level of mental distress was higher among men than women. In the adjusted regression model, the following were associated with mental distress: (i) high scores on quantitative demands, (ii) low level of support, and (iii) high level of shift work-home interference. Psychosocial work factors explained 76% of the total explained variance (adjusted R (²)=0.21) in the final adjusted model. Psychosocial work factors, such as quantitative demands, support, and shift work-home interference were independently associated with mental distress. Shift schedules were only univariately associated with mental distress.

Vagal and sympathetic activity in burnouts during a mentally demanding workday

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zanstra, Ydwine J.; Schellekens, Jan M. H.; Schaap, Cas; Kooistra, Libbe

2006-01-01

Objective: We study differences in task performance and related sympathetic-vagal reaction patterns between burnouts and controls during a mentally demanding workday. Method: Thirty-nine adults with burnout and 40 healthy controls performed mental tasks during a simulated workday. At pretest, just

Factors associated with mental health status of medical residents : a model-guided study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Anagnostopoulos, F.; Demerouti, E.; Sykioti, P.; Niakas, D.; Zis, P.

2015-01-01

Residency is a stressful period in a physician’s development, characterized by long work hours, time pressure, and excessive work load, that can exert negative effects on residents’ mental health. Job burnout and negative work–home interference may play a major role in residents’ mental health

Evaluating Explicit and Implicit Stigma of Mental Illness in Mental Health Professionals and Medical Students