scholarly journals Catecholaminergic modulation of the avoidance of cognitive control

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monja I. Froböse ◽  
Jennifer C. Swart ◽  
Jennifer L. Cook ◽  
Dirk E.M. Geurts ◽  
Hanneke E.M. den Ouden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
Trait Impulsivity ◽  
Undermining Effect

AbstractThe catecholamines have long been associated with cognitive control and value-based decision-making. More recently, we proposed that the catecholamines might modulate value-based decision-making about whether or not to engage in cognitive control. We test this hypothesis by assessing effects of a catecholamine challenge in a large sample of young, healthy adults (n = 100) on the avoidance of a cognitively demanding control process: task switching. Prolonging catecholamine transmission by blocking reuptake with methylphenidate altered the avoidance, but not the execution of cognitive control. Crucially, these effects could be isolated by taking into account individual differences in trait impulsivity, so that participants with higher trait impulsivity became more avoidant of cognitive control, despite faster task performance. One implication of these findings is that performance-enhancing effects of methylphenidate may be accompanied by an undermining effect on the willingness to exert cognitive control. Taken together, these findings integrate hitherto segregated literatures on catecholamines’ roles in value-based learning/choice and cognitive control.

Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Marianne Yee ◽  
Sarah L Adams ◽  
Asad Beck ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

scholarly journals Catecholaminergic modulation of the cost of cognitive control in healthy older adults

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monja Isabel Froböse ◽  
Andrew Westbrook ◽  
Mirjam Bloemendaal ◽  
Esther Aarts ◽  
Roshan Cools
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Drug Effects ◽  
Study Drug ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Subjective Value ◽  
Undermining Effect ◽  
Back Task

Catecholamines have long been associated with cognitive control and value-based decision-making. More recently, we have shown that catecholamines also modulate value-based decision-making about whether or not to engage in cognitive control. Yet it is unclear whether catecholamines influence these decisions by altering the subjective value of control. Thus, we tested whether tyrosine, a catecholamine precursor altered the subjective value of performing a demanding working memory task among healthy older adults (60-75 years). Contrary to our prediction, tyrosine administration did not significantly increase the subjective value of conducting an N-back task for reward, as a main effect. Instead, in line with our previous study, drug effects varied as a function of participants’ trait impulsivity scores. Specifically, tyrosine increased the subjective value of conducting an N-back task in low impulsive participants, while reducing its value in more impulsive participants. One implication of these findings is that the over-the-counter tyrosine supplements may be accompanied by an undermining effect on the motivation to perform demanding cognitive tasks, at least in certain older adults. Taken together, these findings indicate that catecholamines can alter cognitive control by modulating motivation (rather than just the ability) to exert cognitive control.

The Role of Processing Speed and Cognitive Control on Word Retrieval in Aging and Aphasia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah ◽  
Megan Gehman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Control Word ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Word Retrieval ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Language Deficit

Purpose When speakers retrieve words, they do so extremely quickly and accurately—both speed and accuracy of word retrieval are compromised in persons with aphasia (PWA). This study examined the contribution of two domain-general mechanisms: processing speed and cognitive control on word retrieval in PWA. Method Three groups of participants, neurologically healthy young and older adults and PWA ( n = 15 in each group), performed processing speed, cognitive control, lexical decision, and word retrieval tasks on a computer. The relationship between word retrieval speed and other tasks was examined for each group. Results Both aging and aphasia resulted in slower processing speed but did not affect cognitive control. Word retrieval response time delays in PWA were eliminated when processing speed was accounted for. Word retrieval speed was predicted by individual differences in cognitive control in young and older adults and additionally by processing speed in older adults. In PWA, word retrieval speed was predicted by severity of language deficit and cognitive control. Conclusions This study shows that processing speed is compromised in aphasia and could account for their slowed response times. Individual differences in cognitive control predicted word retrieval speed in healthy adults and PWA. These findings highlight the need to include nonlinguistic cognitive mechanisms in future models of word retrieval in healthy adults and word retrieval deficits in aphasia.

scholarly journals Disentangling the Roles of Cue Visibility and Knowledge in Adjusting Cognitive Control: A Preregistered Direct Replication of the Farooqui and Manly (2015) Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 468-479
Author(s):  
Christina Bejjani ◽  
Jack Dolgin ◽  
Ziwei Zhang ◽  
Tobias Egner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Contextual Cuing ◽  
Switch Costs

Recent research suggests that people can learn to link the control process of task switching to predictive cues so that switch costs are attenuated following informative precues of switch likelihood. However, the precise conditions that shape such contextual cuing of control are not well understood. Farooqui and Manly (2015) raised the possibility that cued task switching is more effective when cues of control demand are presented subliminally. In the current study, we aimed to replicate and extend these findings by more systematically manipulating whether cues of control demand are consciously perceived or are presented subliminally and whether participants have explicit prior knowledge of the cue meaning or acquire cue knowledge through experience. The direct replication was unsuccessful: We found no evidence for effective subliminal cuing but observed some evidence for participants reducing switch costs with explicit, supraliminal cues. Thus, cognitive control may be guided most effectively by explicitly understood and consciously perceived precues.

scholarly journals Intermittent Absence of Control during Reinforcement Learning Interferes with Pavlovian Bias in Action Selection

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gábor Csifcsák ◽  
Eirik Melsæter ◽  
Matthias Mittner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Learned Helplessness ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Behavioral Manipulation ◽  
Different Response

The ability to control the occurrence of rewarding and punishing events is crucial for our well-being. Two ways to optimize performance are to follow heuristics like Pavlovian biases to approach reward and avoid loss or to rely more on slowly accumulated stimulus–action associations. Although reduced control over outcomes has been linked to suboptimal decision-making in clinical conditions associated with learned helplessness, it is unclear how uncontrollability of the environment is related to the arbitration between different response strategies. This study directly tested whether a behavioral manipulation designed to induce learned helplessness in healthy adults (intermittent loss of control over feedback in a reinforcement learning task; “yoking”) would modulate the magnitude of Pavlovian bias and the neurophysiological signature of cognitive control (frontal midline theta power) in healthy adults. Using statistical analysis and computational modeling of behavioral data and electroencephalographic signals, we found stronger Pavlovian influences and alterations in frontal theta activity in the yoked group. However, these effects were not accompanied by reduced performance in experimental blocks with regained control, indicating that our behavioral manipulation was not potent enough for inducing helplessness and impaired coping ability with task demands. We conclude that the level of contingency between instrumental choices and rewards/punishments modulates Pavlovian bias during value-based decision-making, probably via interfering with the implementation of cognitive control. These findings might have implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying helplessness in various psychiatric conditions.

scholarly journals Multivariate associations between dopamine receptor availability and risky investment decision making across adulthood

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikella A Green ◽  
Kendra L Seaman ◽  
Jennifer L Crawford ◽  
Camelia M Kuhnen ◽  
Gregory R Samanez-Larkin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Pet Imaging ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Financial Risk ◽  
Investment Decision ◽  
Expected Value ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Binding Potential ◽  
Risky Investment

Pharmacological manipulations have revealed that enhancing dopamine increases financial risk taking across adulthood. However, it is unclear whether baseline individual differences in dopamine function, assessed using PET imaging, are related to performance on risky financial decision making tasks. Here, thirty-five healthy adults completed an incentive-compatible learning-based risky investment decision task and a PET scan at rest using [11C]FLB457 to assess dopamine D2-like receptor availability. In the task, participants made choices between a safe asset (bond) and a risky asset (stock) with either an expected value less than the bond (bad stock) or expected value greater than the bond (good stock). Five measures of behavioral performance (choice inflexibility, risk seeking, suboptimal investment) and beliefs (absolute error, optimism) were extracted from the task data and average non-displaceable dopamine D2-like binding potential was extracted from four brain regions of interest (midbrain, amygdala, anterior cingulate, insula) from the PET imaging data. Given the presence of multiple independent and dependent variables, we used canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to evaluate multivariate associations between learning-based decision making and dopamine function controlling for age. Decomposition of the first dimension (r = .76) revealed that the strongest associations were between measures of choice inflexibility, incorrect choice, optimism, amygdala binding potential, and age. Follow-up univariate analyses revealed that amygdala binding potential and age were both independently associated with choice inflexibility. The findings reveal latent associations between baseline neural and behavioral measures suggesting that individual differences in dopamine function may be associated with learning-based financial risk taking in healthy adults.

scholarly journals Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control: A Hierarchical Bayesian Approach to Test-Retest Reliability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jean-Paul Snijder
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Stroop Effect ◽  
Hierarchical Bayesian ◽  
Reasoning Problem ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Test Retest Reliability ◽  
Measurement Practices

Cognitive control, also known as attentional control or executive function, is a set of fundamental processes that are utilized in a wide range of cognitive functioning: including working memory, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. Currently, no existing theory of cognitive control unifies experimental and individual differences approaches. Some even argue that cognitive control as a psychometric construct does not exist at all. These disparities may exist in part because individual differences research in cognitive control utilizes tasks optimized for experimental effects (i.e., Stroop effect). As a result, many cognitive control tasks do not have reliable individual differences despite robust experimental effects (Hedge, Powell, & Sumner, 2018). In the current study, we examine the efficacy of a new task battery based on the Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control theory (DMCC; Braver, 2012) to provide reliable estimates of individual differences in cognitive control. With two sets of analyses, the first traditional (e.g., split-half, ICC, and rho), and the second hierarchical Bayesian, we provide evidence that (1) reliable individual differences can be extracted from experimental tasks, and (2) weak correlations between tasks of cognitive control are not solely caused by the attenuation of unreliable estimates. The implications of our findings suggest that it is unlikely that poor measurement practices are the cause of the weak between-task correlations in cognitive control, and that a psychometric construct of cognitive control should be reconsidered

Executive functions at work: The impact of Individual Differences in Cognitive Control on Managerial Decision-Making

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniella Laureiro Martinez ◽  
Stefano Brusoni ◽  
Nicola Canessa ◽  
Stefano Cappa ◽  
Maurizio Zollo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Executive Functions ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Managerial Decision Making ◽  
The Impact
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