Frontal Midline Theta Reflects Individual Task Performance in a Working Memory Task

The effect of stress on task performance is complex, too much or too little stress negatively affects performance and there exists an optimal level of stress to drive optimal performance. Task difficulty and external affective factors are distinct stressors that impact cognitive performance. Neuroimaging studies showed that mood affects working memory performance and the correlates are changes in haemodynamic activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). We investigate the interactive effects of affective states and working memory load (WML) on working memory task performance and haemodynamic activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging on the PFC of healthy participants. We seek to understand if haemodynamic responses could tell apart workload-related stress from situational stress arising from external affective distraction. We found that the haemodynamic changes towards affective stressor- and workload-related stress were more dominant in the medial and lateral PFC, respectively. Our study reveals distinct affective state-dependent modulations of haemodynamic activity with increasing WML in n-back tasks, which correlate with decreasing performance. The influence of a negative effect on performance is greater at higher WML, and haemodynamic activity showed evident changes in temporal, and both spatial and strength of activation differently with WML.

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Phenomenology of Visuo-spatial Working Memory Task Performance

10.31231/osf.io/5843r ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Aleš Oblak ◽

Anka Slana Ozimič ◽

Grega Repovš ◽

Urban Kordeš

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Cognitive Psychology ◽

Task Performance ◽

Present Article ◽

Spatial Working Memory ◽

Memory Task ◽

Bodily Feelings ◽

Psychological Tasks

In experimental cognitive psychology, objects of inquiry have typically been operationalized with psychological tasks. If we are interested in measuring the target phenomena, we must inquire into the validity of the task; that is, to what extent does the task elicit the phenomenon in question. If we subscribe to the second view, evaluating the validity and the interpretation of the gathered data can be supplemented by understanding the experience of solving psychological tasks. The aim of the present article is to investigate how individuals experience performing a psychological task, specifically, a visuo-spatial working memory task. We present ethnographic descriptions of different ways individuals can experience the same task. We focus on aspects of experience that comprise the overall sense of experience (e.g., bodily feelings, emotional atmosphere, mood). We discuss the methodological implications of our findings and the possibility of conducting a neurophenomenology of visuo-spatial working memory.

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Spontaneous Eye Blink Rate during the Working Memory Delay Period Predicts Task Performance

10.1101/2021.03.15.435433 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jefferson Ortega ◽

Chelsea Reichert Plaska ◽

Bernard A Gomes ◽

Timothy M Ellmore

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Task Performance ◽

Memory Task ◽

Delay Period ◽

Blink Rate ◽

Indirect Measure ◽

Eye Blink ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

Spontaneous eye blink rate (sEBR) has been found to be a non-invasive indirect measure of striatal dopamine activity. Dopamine (DA) neurons project to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) through the mesocortical dopamine pathway and their activity is implicated in a range of cognitive functions, including attention and working memory (WM). The goal of the present study was to understand how fluctuations in sEBR during different phases of a working memory task relate to task performance. Across two experiments, with recordings of sEBR inside and outside of a magnetic resonance imaging bore, we observed sEBR to be positively correlated with WM performance during the WM delay period. Additionally we investigated the non-linear relationship between sEBR and WM performance, and modeled a proposed Inverted-U-shape relationship between DA and WM performance. We also investigated blink duration, which is proposed to be related to sustained attention, and found blink duration to be significantly shorter during the encoding and probe periods of the task. Taken together, these results provide support towards sEBR as an important correlate of working memory task performance. The relationship of sEBR to DA activity and the influence of DA on the PFC during WM maintenance is discussed.

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Prospective memory mediated by interoceptive accuracy: a psychophysiological approach

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2016.0005 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 371 (1708) ◽

pp. 20160005 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Satoshi Umeda ◽

Saiko Tochizawa ◽

Midori Shibata ◽

Yuri Terasawa

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Task Performance ◽

Prospective Memory ◽

Nervous Activity ◽

Memory Task ◽

Cardiac Reactivity ◽

The Individual ◽

Interoceptive Accuracy ◽

Event Based ◽

The Relationship

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

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