Dissociation of perceptual and motor inhibitory processes in young and elderly participants using the Simon task

AbstractDeficits in inhibitory abilities are frequently observed in normal aging. However, few studies have explored the generality of these deficits in a single group of participants. Here, we used an adaptation of the Simon task to differentially assess perceptual and motor inhibition using the same stimuli and task design and to determine whether these processes use separate or shared cognitive resources. We were interested in determining whether (1) normal aging is associated with the use of separate (as previously evidenced in young participants) or similar cognitive resources to perform perceptual and motor inhibition tasks; (2) older participants present a specific impairment in one of these two processes. Analyses of reaction times indicated that motor and perceptual inhibitory processes share some cognitive resources and both are impaired in normal aging. These results can be interpreted by considering that a dedifferentiation process is responsible for the inhibitory deficits presented by older participants. (JINS, 2008, 14, 1014–1021.)

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What people say and what they do: The differential effects of informational cues and task design

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes ◽

10.1016/0749-5978(88)90048-9 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 83-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Martin Kilduff ◽

Dennis T Regan

Keyword(s):

Task Design ◽

Differential Effects ◽

Informational Cues ◽

And Task

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Contributions of Brain Function and Structure to Three Different Domains of Cognitive Control in Normal Aging

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01685 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-22

Author(s):

Jenny R. Rieck ◽

Giulia Baracchini ◽

Cheryl L. Grady

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Cognitive Control ◽

Task Performance ◽

Brain Structure ◽

Functional Activity ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Diffusion Imaging ◽

Normal Aging ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

And Task

Cognitive control involves the flexible allocation of mental resources during goal-directed behavior and comprises three correlated but distinct domains—inhibition, shifting, and working memory. The work of Don Stuss and others has demonstrated that frontal and parietal cortices are crucial to cognitive control, particularly in normal aging, which is characterized by reduced control mechanisms. However, the structure–function relationships specific to each domain and subsequent impact on performance are not well understood. In the current study, we examined both age and individual differences in functional activity associated with core domains of cognitive control in relation to fronto-parietal structure and task performance. Participants ( N = 140, aged 20–86 years) completed three fMRI tasks: go/no-go (inhibition), task switching (shifting), and n-back (working memory), in addition to structural and diffusion imaging. All three tasks engaged a common set of fronto-parietal regions; however, the contributions of age, brain structure, and task performance to functional activity were unique to each domain. Aging was associated with differences in functional activity for all tasks, largely in regions outside common fronto-parietal control regions. Shifting and inhibition showed greater contributions of structure to overall decreases in brain activity, suggesting that more intact fronto-parietal structure may serve as a scaffold for efficient functional response. Working memory showed no contribution of structure to functional activity but had strong effects of age and task performance. Together, these results provide a comprehensive and novel examination of the joint contributions of aging, performance, and brain structure to functional activity across multiple domains of cognitive control.

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Exploring the Effects of Extraversion on Social Facilitation and Vigilance Task Performance

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/1541931218621279 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 62 (1) ◽

pp. 1216-1220

Author(s):

Victoria L. Claypoole ◽

Grace E. Waldfogle ◽

Alexis R. Neigel ◽

James L. Szalma

Keyword(s):

Task Performance ◽

Social Presence ◽

Social Facilitation ◽

Vigilance Task ◽

Task Design ◽

Personality Factors ◽

Vigilance Performance ◽

Mere Presence ◽

Design Factors ◽

And Task

Vigilance, or sustained attention, is the ability to maintain attention for extended periods of time. Recently, research on vigilance has focused on identifying individual differences and task design factors that may improve cognitive-based vigilance performance. One such factor is social facilitation, which leads to improved task performance when at least one individual is present. But, relatively little is known about the personality factors, such as extraversion or introversion, which may influence the effects of social presence, and in turn affect vigilance performance. Given this gap in the literature, the present research seeks to determine how personality, specifically extraversion, is related to vigilance performance in the presence of another individual. A total of 39 observers completed a 24-minute vigilance task either alone, in the mere presence of another person, or in the evaluative presence of another person (i.e., an individual monitoring their performance). The results indicated that extraversion was negatively correlated to the proportion of correct detections and sensitivity ( A’).

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Fixation patterns in simple choice reflect optimal information sampling

10.31234/osf.io/57v6k ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Frederick Callaway ◽

Antonio Rangel ◽

Tom Griffiths

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Decision Maker ◽

Sequential Sampling ◽

Empirical Work ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Optimal Solution ◽

Cognitive Resources ◽

Human Decision ◽

Information Sampling ◽

Optimal Information

When faced with a decision between several options, people rarely fully consider every alternative. Instead, we direct our attention to the most promising candidates, focusing our limited cognitive resources on evaluating the options that we are most likely to choose. A growing body of empirical work has shown that attention plays an important role in human decision making, but it is still unclear how people choose with option to attend to at each moment in the decision making process. In this paper, we present an analysis of how a rational decision maker should allocate her attention. We cast attention allocation in decision making as a sequential sampling problem, in which the decision maker iteratively selects from which distribution to sample in order to update her beliefs about the values of the available alternatives. By approximating the optimal solution to this problem, we derive a model in which both the selection and integration of evidence are rational. This model predicts choices and reaction times, as well as sequences of visual fixations. Applying the model to a ternary-choice dataset, we find that its predictions align well with human data.

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