Computational Neuroimaging of Cognition-Emotion Interactions: Affective and Task-similar Interference Differentially Impact Working Memory

Cognition depends on resisting interference and responding to relevant stimuli. Distracting information, however, varies based on content, requiring distinct filtering mechanisms. For instance, affective information captures attention, disrupts performance and attenuates activation along frontal-parietal regions during cognitive engagement, while recruiting bottom-up regions. Conversely, distraction matching task features (i.e. task-similar) increases fronto-parietal activity. Neural mechanisms behind unique effects of different distraction on cognition remain unknown. Using fMRI in 45 adults, we tested whether affective versus task-similar interference show distinct signals during delayed working memory (WM). We found robust differences between distractor types along fronto-parietal versus affective-ventral neural systems. We studied a hypothesized mechanism of this effect via a biophysically-based computational WM model that implements a functional antagonism between affective/cognitive neural 'modules'. This architecture reproduced experimental effects: task-similar distractors increased, whereas affective distractors attenuated cognitive module activity while increasing affective module signals. The model architecture suggested that task-based connectivity may be altered in affective-ventral vs. fronto-parietal networks depending on distractor type. Empirically, affective interference significantly increased connectivity within the affective-ventral network, but reduced connectivity between affective-ventral and fronto-parietal networks, which predicted WM performance. These findings detail an antagonistic architecture between cognitive and affective systems, capable of flexibly engaging distinct distractions during cognition.

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Effects of Working Memory Training on Neural Systems

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e624562013-001 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Hikaru Takeuchi ◽

Yasuyuki Taki ◽

Ryuta Kawashima

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Working Memory Training ◽

Neural Systems ◽

Memory Training

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Working memory updating: Discovering its nature from the study of different materials and task procedures as well as individual differences

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e636952013-004 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Paola Palladino

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Memory Updating ◽

Working Memory Updating ◽

And Task

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Experiential and Strategic Emotional Intelligence Are Implicated When Inhibiting Affective and Non-Affective Distractors: Findings from Three Emotional Flanker N-Back Tasks

Journal of Intelligence ◽

10.3390/jintelligence9010012 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 12

Author(s):

Ming D. Lim ◽

Damian P. Birney

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Emotional Intelligence ◽

Experimental Evidence ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Response Times ◽

Memory Task ◽

Low Load ◽

Affective Information ◽

Accuracy Rates

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a set of competencies to process, understand, and reason with affective information. Recent studies suggest ability measures of experiential and strategic EI differentially predict performance on non-emotional and emotionally laden tasks. To explore cognitive processes underlying these abilities further, we varied the affective context of a traditional letter-based n-back working-memory task. In study 1, participants completed 0-, 2-, and 3-back tasks with flanking distractors that were either emotional (fearful or happy faces) or non-emotional (shapes or letters stimuli). Strategic EI, but not experiential EI, significantly influenced participants’ accuracy across all n-back levels, irrespective of flanker type. In Study 2, participants completed 1-, 2-, and 3-back levels. Experiential EI was positively associated with response times for emotional flankers at the 1-back level but not other levels or flanker types, suggesting those higher in experiential EI reacted slower on low-load trials with affective context. In Study 3, flankers were asynchronously presented either 300 ms or 1000 ms before probes. Results mirrored Study 1 for accuracy rates and Study 2 for response times. Our findings (a) provide experimental evidence for the distinctness of experiential and strategic EI and (b) suggest that each are related to different aspects of cognitive processes underlying working memory.

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Football Juggling Learning Alters the Working Memory and White Matter Integrity in Early Adulthood: A Randomized Controlled Study

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11093843 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 3843

Author(s):

Yifan Shi ◽

Kelong Cai ◽

Hao Zhu ◽

Xiaoxiao Dong ◽

Xuan Xiong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

White Matter ◽

Motor Skill ◽

Early Adulthood ◽

Skill Learning ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

White Matter Integrity ◽

Control Group ◽

Motor Skill Learning ◽

Experimental Group

Cross-sectional studies suggest that motor skill learning is associated with working memory (WM) and white matter integrity (WMI). However, it has not been established whether motor skill learning improves WM performance, and information on its neural mechanisms have not been clearly elucidated. Therefore, this study compared WM and WMI across time points prior to and following football juggling learning, in early adulthood (18–20 years old), relative to a control group. Study participants in the experimental group were subjected to football juggling for 10 weeks while participants in the control category went on with their routine life activities for the same period of time and were not involved in the learning-related activities. Data on cognitive measurements and that from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were collected before and after learning. There was a significant improvement in WM performance of the experimental group after motor learning, although no improvement was observed in the control group. Additionally, after learning, DTI data revealed a significant increase in functional anisotropy (FA) in the genu of corpus callosum (GOCC) and the right anterior corona radiata (R.ACR) in the experimental group. Moreover, the better WM associated with football juggling learning was correlated to a higher FA. Mediation analysis suggested that FA in the GOCC acts as a mediation variable between football juggling learning and WM. These findings show that motor skill learning improves the WM and remodels WMI in early adulthood. With a particular emphasis on the importance of WMI in motor skill learning and WM, this study also revealed the possible neural mechanisms mediated by WMI.

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Personalizing information retrieval using task features, topic knowledge, and task product

Proceedings of the 32nd international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval - SIGIR '09 ◽

10.1145/1571941.1572176 ◽

2009 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jingjing Liu

Keyword(s):

Information Retrieval ◽

Topic Knowledge ◽

Task Features ◽

And Task

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Current Task Activation Predicts General Effects of Advance Preparation in Task Switching

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169.53.4.260 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 53 (4) ◽

pp. 260-267 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Edita Poljac ◽

Ab de Haan ◽

Gerard P. van Galen

Keyword(s):

Task Performance ◽

Task Switching ◽

Shape Matching ◽

Response Times ◽

Error Rates ◽

Matching Task ◽

Task Switch ◽

Current Task ◽

Within Subjects ◽

And Task

Two experiments investigated the way that beforehand preparation influences general task execution in reaction-time matching tasks. Response times (RTs) and error rates were measured for switching and nonswitching conditions in a color- and shape-matching task. The task blocks could repeat (task repetition) or alternate (task switch), and the preparation interval (PI) was manipulated within-subjects (Experiment 1) and between-subjects (Experiment 2). The study illustrated a comparable general task performance after a long PI for both experiments, within and between PI manipulations. After a short PI, however, the general task performance increased significantly for the between-subjects manipulation of the PI. Furthermore, both experiments demonstrated an analogous preparation effect for both task switching and task repetitions. Next, a consistent switch cost throughout the whole run of trials and a within-run slowing effect were observed in both experiments. Altogether, the present study implies that the effects of the advance preparation go beyond the first trials and confirms different points of the activation approach ( Altmann, 2002) to task switching.

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Neural Dynamics of Cognitive Control over Working Memory Capture of Attention

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01409 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 31 (7) ◽

pp. 1079-1090 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Peter S. Whitehead ◽

Mathilde M. Ooi ◽

Tobias Egner ◽

Marty G. Woldorff

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Search ◽

Cognitive Control ◽

Attentional Capture ◽

Search Display ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

High Temporal Resolution ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Attentional Orienting ◽

Behavioral Studies

The contents of working memory (WM) guide visual attention toward matching features, with visual search being faster when the target and a feature of an item held in WM spatially overlap (validly cued) than when they occur at different locations (invalidly cued). Recent behavioral studies have indicated that attentional capture by WM content can be modulated by cognitive control: When WM cues are reliably helpful to visual search (predictably valid), capture is enhanced, but when reliably detrimental (predictably invalid), capture is attenuated. The neural mechanisms underlying this effect are not well understood, however. Here, we leveraged the high temporal resolution of ERPs time-locked to the onset of the search display to determine how and at what processing stage cognitive control modulates the search process. We manipulated predictability by grouping trials into unpredictable (50% valid/invalid) and predictable (100% valid, 100% invalid) blocks. Behavioral results confirmed that predictability modulated WM-related capture. Comparison of ERPs to the search arrays showed that the N2pc, a posteriorly distributed signature of initial attentional orienting toward a lateralized target, was not impacted by target validity predictability. However, a longer latency, more anterior, lateralized effect—here, termed the “contralateral attention-related negativity”—was reduced under predictable conditions. This reduction interacted with validity, with substantially greater reduction for invalid than valid trials. These data suggest cognitive control over attentional capture by WM content does not affect the initial attentional-orienting process but can reduce the need to marshal later control mechanisms for processing relevant items in the visual world.

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