The Relationship Between Facebook Intrusion and Self-Control Dimensions Among Facebook Users

Previous studies have shown the essential role of self-control in the development of behavioral addiction such as gaming, Internet, or gambling addiction. On the one hand, most studies have considered self-control as a homogeneous phenomenon. On the other hand, little evidence has been found on the relationship between the self-control dimensions and Facebook intrusion (FI). Additionally, research on the relationship between the dimensions of self-control and FI has only been conducted on a group of gamers. Consequently, the aim of this study was to test the relationship between FI and the self-control dimensions among young Facebook users who were not gamers. A total of 991 individuals (785 females) took part in the study. The self-control dimensions were assessed with NAS-50 and FI was assessed with the Facebook Intrusion Scale. Taking into account the results of the structural equation analysis, the findings showed a significant relationship between FI and self-control dimensions such as inhibition and adjournment, initiative and persistence, and goal maintenance among young Facebook users. Based on this study, it can be concluded that the behavioral mechanism connected with FI may be primarily associated with a low ability to suppress or delay unwanted or improper actions and that this may contribute to the failure of goal-directed behavior. It can also be assumed that this mechanism is associated with a low ability to focus on goals and a low ability to induce efficient motivation and have persistence to achieve higher-order goals.

Distributed neural systems enable flexible attention updating during category learning

In order to accurately categorize novel items, humans learn to selectively attend to stimulus dimensions that are most relevant to the task. Models of category learning describe the interconnected cognitive processes that contribute to selective attention as observations of stimuli and category feedback are progressively acquired. The Adaptive Attention Representation Model (AARM), for example, provides an account whereby categorization decisions are based on the perceptual similarity of a new stimulus to stored exemplars, and dimension-wise attention is updated on every trial in the direction of a feedback-based error gradient. As such, attention modulation as described by AARM requires interactions among orienting, visual perception, memory retrieval, error monitoring, and goal maintenance in order to facilitate learning across trials. The current study explored the neural bases of attention mechanisms using quantitative predictions from AARM to analyze behavioral and fMRI data collected while participants learned novel categories. GLM analyses revealed patterns of BOLD activation in the parietal cortex (orienting), visual cortex (perception), medial temporal lobe (memory retrieval), basal ganglia (error monitoring), and prefrontal cortex (goal maintenance) that covaried with the magnitude of model-predicted attentional tuning. Results are consistent with AARM’s specification of attention modulation as a dynamic property of distributed cognitive systems.

Neurocognitive subprocesses of working memory performance

Working memory (WM) has been defined as the active maintenance and flexible updating of goal-relevant information in a form that has limited capacity and resists interference. Complex measures of WM recruit multiple subprocesses, making it difficult to isolate specific contributions of putatively independent subsystems. The present study was designed to determine whether neurophysiological indicators of proposed subprocesses of WM predict WM performance. We recruited 200 individuals defined by care-seeking status and measured neural responses using electroencephalography (EEG), while participants performed four WM tasks. We extracted spectral and time-domain EEG features from each task to quantify each of the hypothesized WM subprocesses: maintenance (storage of content), goal maintenance, and updating. We then used EEG measures of each subprocess as predictors of task performance to evaluate their contribution to WM. Significant predictors of WM capacity included contralateral delay activity and frontal theta, features typically associated with maintenance (storage of content) processes. In contrast, significant predictors of reaction time and its variability included contingent negative variation and the P3b, features typically associated with goal maintenance and updating. Broadly, these results suggest two principal dimensions that contribute to WM performance, tonic processes during maintenance contributing to capacity, and phasic processes during stimulus processing that contribute to response speed and variability. The analyses additionally highlight that reliability of features across tasks was greater (and comparable to that of WM performance) for features associated with stimulus processing (P3b and alpha), than with maintenance (gamma, theta and cross-frequency coupling).

The Interactions Between Cognitive Control, Aging, and Emotion

The dual mechanisms of control framework proposes that age-related declines in cognitive control are due to deficits with continuous goal maintenance (proactive control). Older adults default instead to another form of control (reactive control). In contrast to these declines, older adults demonstrate preserved emotional processing. According to the socioemotional selectivity theory, perceived time constraints related to advancing age results in emotional regulation goals in which older adults prioritize positive well-being or mood. To achieve this, they devote more cognitive resources and pay greater attention to positive versus negative information (“positivity effects”) than younger adults. Research on the interactions between cognitive control and emotion is increasing but work focused on the interactions in older adults is limited. Thus, it is unknown how older adults' emotional goals may influence their goal maintenance deficits. This study manipulated mood and emotional face stimuli to examine whether these factors affect age differences in cognitive control between younger (ages 18-30) and older adults (ages 65+). Experiment 1 induced neutral or negative moods prior to a cognitive control task (the standard letter AX-CPT task). Results indicated typical patterns of proactive control in younger adults and reactive control in older adults that did not vary substantially by mood. Experiment 2 examined the effects of neutral, negative, and positive mood inductions on a less cognitively demanding version of the AX-CPT (with face cues as contextual information). Results showed evidence of enhanced proactive control in older adults that was comparable to that of younger adults across all mood conditions, although this was limited to response time data. Additionally, there was evidence of small mood effects on cognitive control. Finally, Experiment 3 examined the effect of positive, negative, and neutral contextual information (face cues) on older adults' cognitive control performance using a different variant of the AX-CPT (face AX-CPT). Results indicated strong engagement in reactive control that did not vary by the emotionality of the contextual information. Together, the results of this study suggest that older adults’ proactive control patterns are affected by the task demands of the AX-CPT, but there is less evidence of mood or emotional stimuli effects.

Functional Architecture of Executive Control and Associated Event-Related Potentials

Medial frontal cortex enables executive control by monitoring relevant information and using it to adapt behavior. In macaques performing a saccade countermanding (stop-signal) task, we recorded EEG over and neural spiking across all layers of the supplementary eye field (SEF). We report the laminar organization of concurrently activated neurons monitoring the conflict between incompatible responses and the timing of events serving goal maintenance and executive control. We also show their relation to coincident event-related potentials (ERP). Neurons signaling response conflict were largely broad-spiking found across all layers. Neurons signaling the interval until specific task events were largely broad-spiking neurons concentrated in L3 and L5. Neurons predicting the duration of control and sustaining the task goal until the release of operant control were a mix of narrow- and broad-spiking neurons confined to L2/3. We complement these results with the first report of a monkey homologue of the N2/P3 ERP complex associated with response inhibition. N2 polarization varied with error likelihood and P3 polarization varied with the duration of expected control. The amplitude of the N2 and P3 were predicted by the spike rate of different classes of neurons located in L2/3 but not L5/6. These findings reveal important, new features of the cortical microcircuitry supporting executive control and producing associated ERP.

Antisaccade error rates and gap effects in psychosis syndromes from bipolar-schizophrenia network for intermediate phenotypes 2 (B-SNIP2)

Background Antisaccade tasks can be used to index cognitive control processes, e.g. attention, behavioral inhibition, working memory, and goal maintenance in people with brain disorders. Though diagnoses of schizophrenia (SZ), schizoaffective (SAD), and bipolar I with psychosis (BDP) are typically considered to be distinct entities, previous work shows patterns of cognitive deficits differing in degree, rather than in kind, across these syndromes. Methods Large samples of individuals with psychotic disorders were recruited through the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes 2 (B-SNIP2) study. Anti- and pro-saccade task performances were evaluated in 189 people with SZ, 185 people with SAD, 96 people with BDP, and 279 healthy comparison participants. Logistic functions were fitted to each group's antisaccade speed-performance tradeoff patterns. Results Psychosis groups had higher antisaccade error rates than the healthy group, with SZ and SAD participants committing 2 times as many errors, and BDP participants committing 1.5 times as many errors. Latencies on correctly performed antisaccade trials in SZ and SAD were longer than in healthy participants, although error trial latencies were preserved. Parameters of speed-performance tradeoff functions indicated that compared to the healthy group, SZ and SAD groups had optimal performance characterized by more errors, as well as less benefit from prolonged response latencies. Prosaccade metrics did not differ between groups. Conclusions With basic prosaccade mechanisms intact, the higher speed-performance tradeoff cost for antisaccade performance in psychosis cases indicates a deficit that is specific to the higher-order cognitive aspects of saccade generation.

Cortical Microcircuitry of Executive Control and Source of Associated Event-Related Potentials

Medial frontal cortex enables executive control by signaling conflict, monitoring and predicting events and outcomes, and goal maintenance, indexed by event-related potentials (ERP). In monkeys performing a saccade countermanding (stop-signal) task, we recorded EEG over and neural spiking across all layers of the supplementary eye field (SEF). Neurons did not contribute to reactive response inhibition. Those signaling response conflict and tracking and predicting the timing of events for successful stopping had different spike widths and were concentrated differently across layers. Conflict neurons were in all layers and those encoding temporal parameters were concentrated in L2/3 and L5. The N2 indexed reward association with variation of polarization predicted by conflict and event timing neurons in L2/3 but not L5/6. The P3 indexed the timing of the upcoming event with variation of polarization predicted by event timing neurons in L2/3 but not L5/6. These findings reveal novel features of the cortical microcircuitry supporting executive control and producing associated ERP.

How Individual Differences in Working Memory and Source Monitoring matter in Susceptibility to False Memory

Using the DRM word list paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995) we investigated the role of individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) and source monitoring (SM) ability in protection from false memories (FM) in recall and recognition. Both spreading activation and monitoring are cognitive processes associated with working memory (Anderson, 1983; Cantor & Engle, 1993), and previous research demonstrates working memory’s relation to goal maintenance (Kane & Engle, 2003) and importance for withholding irrelevant information (Conway & Engle, 1994). However, whether higher WMC constitutes activation or monitoring and predicts increased or decreased FM production respectively, remains inconclusive (Watson et al., 2005; Peters et al., 2007; Bixter & Daniel, 2013). When considering SM ability, a relationship has been found between WMC and FM in recall, suggesting that SM mediates this relation (Unsworth & Brewer, 2010). Other work suggests that SM and WMC interact based on the role of memory monitoring in constraining task irrelevant information (Rose, 2013; Lilienthal et al., 2015). From an activation-monitoring perspective (Gallo, 2010), we investigated individual differences in WMC and SM predicting FM in recall and recognition, testing whether the relationships are additive or interactive. Our findings support moderation, suggesting that when SM ability is too high, working memory cannot work as well to monitor and constrain activation in order to reduce FM. Only when WMC was higher and SM was lower did we show a predicted decrease in FM during recognition. This work suggests that protecting mental resources in WMC is more important for constraining FM production than SM ability and we consider the implications for real world false memories and eyewitness testimony.