scholarly journals Pupil dilation predicts individual success in emotion regulation and dietary self-control

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Maier ◽  
Marcus Grueschow
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Norepinephrine System ◽  
Individual Success

AbstractMultiple theories have proposed that increasing central arousal through the brain’s locus coeruleus – norepinephrine system may facilitate cognitive control and memory. However, for emotion research this hypothesis poses a puzzle, because conventionally, successful emotion regulation is associated with a decrease in arousal.Pupil diameter is a proxy to infer upon the central arousal state. We employed an emotion regulation paradigm with a combination of design features that allowed us to dissociate regulation- from stimulus-associated arousal in the pupil diameter time course of healthy adults. A pupil diameter increase during regulation predicted individual differences in emotion regulation success beyond task difficulty. Moreover, the extent of this individual arousal boost predicted performance in another self-control task, dietary health challenges. Participants who harnessed more regulation-associated arousal during emotion regulation were also more successful in choosing healthier foods. These results suggest that a common arousal-based facilitation mechanism may support an individual’s self-control across domains.

scholarly journals Pupil dilation predicts individual self-regulation success across domains

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia U. Maier ◽  
Marcus Grueschow
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Arousal System ◽  
Norepinephrine System ◽  
Individual Self

AbstractMultiple theories have proposed that increasing central arousal through the brain’s locus coeruleus—norepinephrine system may facilitate cognitive control and memory. However, the role of the arousal system in emotion regulation is less well understood. Pupil diameter is a proxy to infer upon the central arousal state. We employed an emotion regulation paradigm with a combination of design features that allowed us to dissociate regulation from emotional arousal in the pupil diameter time course of 34 healthy adults. Pupil diameter increase during regulation predicted individual differences in emotion regulation success beyond task difficulty. Moreover, the extent of this individual regulatory arousal boost predicted performance in another self-control task, dietary health challenges. Participants who harnessed more regulation-associated arousal during emotion regulation were also more successful in choosing healthier foods. These results suggest that a common arousal-based facilitation mechanism may support an individual’s self-control across domains.

scholarly journals On the interrelation of 1/f neural noise and norepinephrine system activity during motor response inhibition

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (5) ◽  
pp. 1633-1643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maik Pertermann ◽  
Moritz Mückschel ◽  
Nico Adelhöfer ◽  
Tjalf Ziemssen ◽  
Christian Beste
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Response Inhibition ◽  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Human Information Processing ◽  
System Activity ◽  
Neural Noise ◽  
Control Processes ◽  
Norepinephrine System

Several lines of evidence suggest that there is a close interrelation between the degree of noise in neural circuits and the activity of the norepinephrine (NE) system, yet the precise nexus between these aspects is far from being understood during human information processing and cognitive control in particular. We examine this nexus during response inhibition in n = 47 healthy participants. Using high-density EEG recordings, we estimate neural noise by calculating “1/ f noise” of those data and integrate these EEG parameters with pupil diameter data as an established indirect index of NE system activity. We show that neural noise is reduced when cognitive control processes to inhibit a prepotent/automated response are exerted. These neural noise variations were confined to the theta frequency band, which has also been shown to play a central role during response inhibition and cognitive control. There were strong positive correlations between the 1 /f neural noise parameter and the pupil diameter data within the first 250 ms after the Nogo stimulus presentation at centro-parietal electrode sites. No such correlations were evident during automated responding on Go trials. Source localization analyses using standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography show that inferior parietal areas are activated in this time period in Nogo trials. The data suggest an interrelation of NE system activity and neural noise within early stages of information processing associated with inferior parietal areas when cognitive control processes are required. The data provide the first direct evidence for the nexus between NE system activity and the modulation of neural noise during inhibitory control in humans. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This is the first study showing that there is a nexus between norepinephrine system activity and the modulation of neural noise or scale-free neural activity during inhibitory control in humans. It does so by integrating pupil diameter data with analysis of EEG neural noise.

scholarly journals Tracking reading strategy utilisation through pupillometry

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Y. Wong ◽  
Jarrod Moss ◽  
Christian D. Schunn
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Reading Strategy ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Learning Gains ◽  
Norepinephrine System ◽  
Comprehension Tests

Explicit reading strategies help low-knowledge readers make the inferences necessary to comprehend expository texts. Self-explanation is a particularly effective strategy, but it is challenging to monitor how well a reader is applying self-explanation without requiring the reader to externalise the self-explanations being generated. Studies have shown that different reading strategies vary in the amount of cognitive control required as well as the engagement of brain regions involved in internally-directed attention. Pupil diameter is related to task engagement and cognitive control via the brain’s locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system. Therefore, pupil diameter could be a method to unobtrusively measure a reader’s use of self-explanation. The current study assessed whether pupil diameter can be used to distinguish between the use of different reading strategies and whether it is linked to the quality and effectiveness of the strategy in terms of learning gains. Participants reread, paraphrased, and self-explained texts while pupil diameter was recorded, and completed comprehension tests. Average pupil diameter differed between all three reading strategies, and pupil diameter was related to learning gains and the quality of strategy use. The results suggest that pupil diameter could be used to track effective reading strategy utilisation.

Individual Differences in Irony Use Depend on Context

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 675-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoritaka Akimoto ◽  
Shiho Miyazawa
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Interpersonal Relationship ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Expressive Suppression ◽  
Social Abilities ◽  
The Relationship

We investigated individual differences in irony use depending on context. In Study 1, we manipulated contextual factors, including the speaker’s emotion and the listener’s emotion, and assessed the likelihood of irony use. In Study 2, we manipulated the relationship between the speaker and the listener and assessed the rate of irony use with free description. Correlations between participants’ responses to various measures of personality traits and differences in irony use between conditions and mean irony use across conditions were examined. Regulation of interpersonal relationships and preference for supportive humor predicted the differences in irony use between conditions, whereas expressive suppression, self-control, and preference for playful humor predicted irony use regardless of condition. These results confirmed our hypothesis that the speaker’s social abilities about management of interpersonal relationship and tendency toward emotion regulation were associated with individual differences in irony use depending on context and in general, respectively.

Pupil Diameter and Performance in a Supervisory Control Task: A Measure of Effort or Individual Differences?

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 865-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph T. Coyne ◽  
Cyrus Foroughi ◽  
Ciara Sibley
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Supervisory Control ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Load Condition ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Task Load ◽  
Selection Test

The relationship between increased pupil diameter and effort has been well established within the Psychology literature since the 1960s. The ability to detect an individuals’ effort is important, particularly in tasks where there are extended periods of monitoring, and limited ways to directly measure performance. The current study sought to investigate whether pupil diameter could be used to detect periods of high and low workload during an unmanned vehicle supervisory control task. Participants were Navy and Marine Corps student pilots, and the experimenters had access to their aviation selection test scores. The study found increased pupil diameters when the task load increased. In addition, pupil diameter during the high task load condition was significantly correlated with the individual’s performance on the supervisory control task. This paper discusses two possible explanations for this finding: 1) that those individuals who performed better on the task were trying harder or, 2) that pupil diameter was capturing differences in general fluid intelligence which influenced task performance. Previous research has shown that differences in an individual’s working memory capacity are correlated with pupil diameter at rest. Further the significant correlation between pupil diameter and the pilot’s selection test scores in this study provide additional evidence that pupil diameter may be capturing individual differences.

scholarly journals A chronometric model of the relationship between frontal midline theta functional connectivity and human intelligence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Lena Schubert ◽  
Dirk Hagemann ◽  
Christoph Löffler ◽  
Jan Rummel ◽  
Stefan Arnau
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Adaptive Modulation ◽  
Human Intelligence ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Control Processes

Individual differences in cognitive control have been suggested to act as a domain-general bottleneck constraining performance in a variety of cognitive ability measures including but not limited to fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and processing speed. However, due to psychometric problems associated with the measurement of individual differences in cognitive control, it has been challenging to empirically test the assumption that individual differences in cognitive control underlie individual differences in cognitive abilities. In the present study, we addressed these issues by analyzing the chronometry of intelligence-related differences in mid-frontal global theta connectivity, which has been shown to reflect cognitive control functions. We demonstrate in a sample of 98 adults, who completed a cognitive control task while their EEG was recorded, that individual differences in mid-frontal global theta connectivity during stages of higher-order information-processing explained 65 percent of the variance in fluid intelligence. In comparison, task-evoked theta connectivity during earlier stages of information processing was not related to fluid intelligence. These results suggest that more intelligent individuals benefit from an adaptive modulation of theta-band synchronization during the time-course of information processing. Moreover, they emphasize the role of interregional goal-directed information-processing for cognitive control processes in human intelligence and support theoretical accounts of intelligence which propose that individual differences in cognitive control processes give rise to individual differences in cognitive abilities.

scholarly journals Individual differences in self-reported self-control predict successful emotion regulation

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1193-1204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena M. Paschke ◽  
Denise Dörfel ◽  
Rosa Steimke ◽  
Ima Trempler ◽  
Amadeus Magrabi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Self Control

scholarly journals Salience network dynamics underlying successful resistance of temptation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Steimke ◽  
Jason S. Nomi ◽  
Vince D Calhoun ◽  
Christine Stelzel ◽  
Lena M. Paschke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Network Dynamics ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Salience Network ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Dynamic Functional Connectivity ◽  
Control Networks

AbstractSelf-control and the ability to resist temptation are critical for successful completion of long-term goals. Contemporary models in cognitive neuroscience emphasize the primary role of prefrontal cognitive control networks in aligning behavior with such goals. Here we use gaze pattern analysis and dynamic functional connectivity fMRI data to explore how individual differences in the ability to resist temptation are related to intrinsic brain dynamics of the cognitive control and salience networks. Behaviorally, individuals exhibit greater gaze distance from target location (e.g. higher distractibility) during presentation of tempting erotic images compared with neutral images. Individuals whose intrinsic dynamic functional connectivity patterns gravitate towards configurations in which salience detection systems are less strongly coupled with visual systems resist tempting distractors more effectively. The ability to resist tempting distractors was not significantly related to intrinsic dynamics of the cognitive control network. These results suggest that susceptibility to temptation is governed in part by individual differences in salience network dynamics, and provide novel evidence for involvement of brain systems outside canonical cognitive control networks in contributing to individual differences in self-control.

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