Task Difficulty Regulates How Conscious and Unconscious Monetary Rewards Boost the Performance of Working Memory: An Event-Related Potential Study

The performance of working memory can be improved by the corresponding high-value vs. low-value rewards consciously or unconsciously. However, whether conscious and unconscious monetary rewards boosting the performance of working memory is regulated by the difficulty level of working memory task is unknown. In this study, a novel paradigm that consists of a reward-priming procedure and N-back task with differing levels of difficulty was designed to inspect this complex process. In particular, both high-value and low-value coins were presented consciously or unconsciously as the reward cues, followed by the N-back task, during which electroencephalogram signals were recorded. It was discovered that the high-value reward elicited larger event-related potential (ERP) component P3 along the parietal area (reflecting the working memory load) as compared to the low-value reward for the less difficult 1-back task, no matter whether the reward was unconsciously or consciously presented. In contrast, this is not the case for the more difficult 2-back task, in which the difference in P3 amplitude between the high-value and low-value rewards was not significant for the unconscious reward case, yet manifested significance for the conscious reward processing. Interestingly, the results of the behavioral analysis also exhibited very similar patterns as ERP patterns. Therefore, this study demonstrated that the difficulty level of a task can modulate the influence of unconscious reward on the performance of working memory.

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Working Memory and the Suppression of Reflexive Saccades

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/089892902317205357 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 95-103 ◽

Cited By ~ 80

Author(s):

Jason P. Mitchell ◽

C. Neil Macrae ◽

Iain D. Gilchrist

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Memory Load ◽

Critical Role ◽

Memory Task ◽

Behavioral Responses ◽

Error Rates ◽

Antisaccade Task ◽

Working Memory Load ◽

Reflexive Saccades ◽

Back Task

Conscious behavioral intentions can frequently fail under conditions of attentional depletion. In attempting to trace the cognitive origin of this effect, we hypothesized that failures of action control—specifically, oculomotor movement—can result from the imposition of fronto-executive load. To evaluate this prediction, participants performed an antisaccade task while simultaneously completing a working-memory task that is known to make variable demands on prefrontal processes (n-back task, see Jonides et al., 1997). The results of two experiments are reported. As expected, antisaccade error rates were increased in accordance with the fronto-executive demands of the n-back task (Experiment 1). In addition, the debilitating effects of working-memory load were restricted to the inhibitory component of the antisaccade task (Experiment 2). These findings corroborate the view that working memory operations play a critical role in the suppression of prepotent behavioral responses.

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Effects of Memory Load and Distraction on Performance and Event-Related Slow Potentials in a Visuospatial Working Memory Task

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.1997.9.6.743 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. 743-757 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Gina M. Geffen ◽

Margaret J. Wright ◽

Heather J. Green ◽

Nicole A. Gillespie ◽

David C. Smyth ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Memory Load ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Memory Task ◽

Delayed Response ◽

Visuospatial Working Memory ◽

Computer Screen ◽

Slow Potentials ◽

The Difference ◽

Response Task

Brain electrical activity related to working memory was recorded at 15 scalp electrodes during a visuospatial delayed response task. Participants (N = 18) touched the remembered position of a target on a computer screen after either a 1 or 8 sec delay. These memory trials were compared to sensory trials in which the target remained present throughout the delay and response periods. Distractor stimuli identical to the target were briefly presented during the delay on 30% of trials. Responses were less accurate in memory than sensory trials, especially after the long delay. During the delay slow potentials developed that were significantly more negative in memory than sensory trials. The difference between memory and sensory trials was greater at anterior than posterior electrodes. On trials with distractors, the slow potentials generated by memory trials showed further enhancement of negativity, whereas there were minimal effects on accuracy of performance. The results provide evidence that engagement of visuospatial working memory generates slow wave negativity with a timing and distribution consistent with frontal activation. Enhanced brain activity associated with working memory is required to maintain performance in the presence of distraction.

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Effects of Performance and Task Duration on Mental Workload during Working Memory Task

Photonics ◽

10.3390/photonics6030094 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 94 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Kosar Khaksari ◽

Emma Condy ◽

John Millerhagen ◽

Afrouz Anderson ◽

Hadis Dashtestani ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Learning Process ◽

Task Difficulty ◽

Mental Workload ◽

Memory Task ◽

Behavioral Data ◽

Significant Difference ◽

The Difference ◽

Different Levels ◽

Back Task

N-back is a working memory (WM) task to study mental workload on the prefrontal cortex (PFC). We assume that the subject’s performance and changes in mental workload over time depends on the length of the experiment. The performance of the participant can change positively due to the participant’s learning process or negatively because of objective mental fatigue and/or sleepiness. In this pilot study, we examined the PFC activation of 23 healthy subjects while they performed an N-back task with two different levels of task difficulty (2-, and 3-back). The hemodynamic responses were analyzed along with the behavioral data (correct answers). A comparison was done between the hemodynamic activation and behavioral data between the two different task levels and between the beginning and end of the 3-back task. Our results show that there is a significant difference between the two task levels, which is due to the difference in task complication. In addition, a significant difference was seen between the beginning and end of the 3-back task in both behavioral data and hemodynamics due to the subject’s learning process throughout the experiment.

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Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Cognitive Change With the Mobile Cognitive App Performance Platform

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2907 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 801-801

Author(s):

Dawn Mechanic-Hamilton ◽

Sean Lydon ◽

Alexander Miller ◽

Kimberly Halberstadter ◽

Jacqueline Lane ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Memory Load ◽

Memory Task ◽

Structural Mri ◽

Cognitive Change ◽

Difficulty Level ◽

Trial Duration ◽

Parahippocampal Cortex ◽

Relationship Of

Abstract This study investigates the psychometric properties of the mobile cognitive app performance platform (mCAPP), designed to detect memory changes associated with preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). The mCAPP memory task includes learning and matching hidden card pairs and incorporates increasing memory load, pattern separation features, and spatial memory. Participants included 30 older adults with normal cognition. They completed the mCAPP, paper and pencil neuropsychological tests and a subset completed a high-resolution structural MRI. The majority of participants found the difficulty level of the mCAPP game to be “just right”. Accuracy on the mCAPP correlated with performance on memory and executive measures, while speed of performance on the mCAPP correlated with performance on attention and executive function measures. Longer trial duration correlated with measures of the parahippocampal cortex. The relationship of mCAPP variables with molecular biomarkers, at-home and burst testing, and development of additional cognitive measures will also be discussed.

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Abnormal prefrontal activity subserving attentional control of emotion in remitted depressed patients during a working memory task with emotional distracters

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291711001097 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 29-40 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

R. Kerestes ◽

C. D. Ladouceur ◽

S. Meda ◽

P. J. Nathan ◽

H. P. Blumberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Attentional Control ◽

Memory Load ◽

Memory Task ◽

Region Of Interest ◽

Blood Oxygen Level Dependent ◽

Emotional Information ◽

Working Memory Load ◽

Depressed Patients ◽

The Right

BackgroundPatients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show deficits in processing of facial emotions that persist beyond recovery and cessation of treatment. Abnormalities in neural areas supporting attentional control and emotion processing in remitted depressed (rMDD) patients suggests that there may be enduring, trait-like abnormalities in key neural circuits at the interface of cognition and emotion, but this issue has not been studied systematically.MethodNineteen euthymic, medication-free rMDD patients (mean age 33.6 years; mean duration of illness 34 months) and 20 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC; mean age 35.8 years) performed the Emotional Face N-Back (EFNBACK) task, a working memory task with emotional distracter stimuli. We used blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure neural activity in the dorsolateral (DLPFC) and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventral striatum and amygdala, using a region of interest (ROI) approach in SPM2.ResultsrMDD patients exhibited significantly greater activity relative to HC in the left DLPFC [Brodmann area (BA) 9/46] in response to negative emotional distracters during high working memory load. By contrast, rMDD patients exhibited significantly lower activity in the right DLPFC and left VLPFC compared to HC in response to positive emotional distracters during high working memory load. These effects occurred during accurate task performance.ConclusionsRemitted depressed patients may continue to exhibit attentional biases toward negative emotional information, reflected by greater recruitment of prefrontal regions implicated in attentional control in the context of negative emotional information.

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Working memory load reduces the processing of outcome evaluation involving others but not oneself: Event‐related potential evidence

Psychophysiology ◽

10.1111/psyp.13938 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Huiyan Lin ◽

Jiafeng Liang

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Memory Load ◽

Outcome Evaluation ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Working Memory Load

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Occipital Cortex of Blind Individuals Is Functionally Coupled with Executive Control Areas of Frontal Cortex

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_00807 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 27 (8) ◽

pp. 1633-1647 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Ben Deen ◽

Rebecca Saxe ◽

Marina Bedny

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Functional Connectivity ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Memory Load ◽

Memory Task ◽

Occipital Cortex ◽

Memory Systems ◽

Functional Responses ◽

Congenitally Blind ◽

Blind Individuals

In congenital blindness, the occipital cortex responds to a range of nonvisual inputs, including tactile, auditory, and linguistic stimuli. Are these changes in functional responses to stimuli accompanied by altered interactions with nonvisual functional networks? To answer this question, we introduce a data-driven method that searches across cortex for functional connectivity differences across groups. Replicating prior work, we find increased fronto-occipital functional connectivity in congenitally blind relative to blindfolded sighted participants. We demonstrate that this heightened connectivity extends over most of occipital cortex but is specific to a subset of regions in the inferior, dorsal, and medial frontal lobe. To assess the functional profile of these frontal areas, we used an n-back working memory task and a sentence comprehension task. We find that, among prefrontal areas with overconnectivity to occipital cortex, one left inferior frontal region responds to language over music. By contrast, the majority of these regions responded to working memory load but not language. These results suggest that in blindness occipital cortex interacts more with working memory systems and raise new questions about the function and mechanism of occipital plasticity.

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Contralateral Delay Activity Tracks Fluctuations in Working Memory Performance

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01233 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 30 (9) ◽

pp. 1229-1240 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Kirsten C. S. Adam ◽

Matthew K. Robison ◽

Edward K. Vogel

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Memory Load ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Memory Task ◽

Memory Storage ◽

Alpha Power ◽

Working Memory Load ◽

Contralateral Delay Activity ◽

Trial Performance

Neural measures of working memory storage, such as the contralateral delay activity (CDA), are powerful tools in working memory research. CDA amplitude is sensitive to working memory load, reaches an asymptote at known behavioral limits, and predicts individual differences in capacity. An open question, however, is whether neural measures of load also track trial-by-trial fluctuations in performance. Here, we used a whole-report working memory task to test the relationship between CDA amplitude and working memory performance. If working memory failures are due to decision-based errors and retrieval failures, CDA amplitude would not differentiate good and poor performance trials when load is held constant. If failures arise during storage, then CDA amplitude should track both working memory load and trial-by-trial performance. As expected, CDA amplitude tracked load (Experiment 1), reaching an asymptote at three items. In Experiment 2, we tracked fluctuations in trial-by-trial performance. CDA amplitude was larger (more negative) for high-performance trials compared with low-performance trials, suggesting that fluctuations in performance were related to the successful storage of items. During working memory failures, participants oriented their attention to the correct side of the screen (lateralized P1) and maintained covert attention to the correct side during the delay period (lateralized alpha power suppression). Despite the preservation of attentional orienting, we found impairments consistent with an executive attention theory of individual differences in working memory capacity; fluctuations in executive control (indexed by pretrial frontal theta power) may be to blame for storage failures.

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Effects of a secondary task and working memory load on multisensory hand position

Seeing and Perceiving ◽

10.1163/187847612x646794 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 25 (0) ◽

pp. 58

Author(s):

Katrina Quinn ◽

Francia Acosta-Saltos ◽

Jan W. de Fockert ◽

Charles Spence ◽

Andrew J. Bremner

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Visual Information ◽

Secondary Task ◽

Memory Load ◽

Memory Task ◽

Hand Position ◽

Working Memory Load ◽

The Individual ◽

Task Conditions ◽

Relative Weighting

Information about where our hands are arises from different sensory modalities; chiefly proprioception and vision. These inputs differ in variability from situation to situation (or task to task). According to the idea of ‘optimal integration’, the information provided by different sources is combined in proportion to their relative reliabilities, thus maximizing the reliability of the combined estimate. It is uncertain whether optimal multisensory integration of multisensory contributions to limb position requires executive resources. If so, then it should be possible to observe effects of secondary task performance and/or working memory load (WML) on the relative weighting of the senses under conditions of crossmodal sensory conflict. Alternatively, an integrated signal may be affected by upstream influences of WML or a secondary task on the reliabilities of the individual sensory inputs. We examine these possibilities in two experiments which examine effects of WML on reaching tasks in which bisensory visual-proprioceptive (Exp. 1), and unisensory proprioceptive (Exp. 2) cues to hand position are provided. WML increased visual capture under conditions of visual-proprioceptive conflict, regardless of the direction of visual-proprioceptive conflict, and the degree of load imposed. This indicates that task-switching (rather than WML load) leads to an increased reliance on visual information regardless of its task-specific reliability (Exp. 1). This could not be explained due to an increase in the variability of proprioception under secondary working memory task conditions (Exp. 2). We conclude that executive resources are involved in the relative weighting of visual and proprioceptive cues to hand position.

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