Search results for "Task switching"

Electrophysiological correlates of the cognitive control processes underpinning mixing and switching costs

2016

Typically, in task-switching contexts individuals are slower and less accurate when repeating a task in mixed blocks compared to single-task blocks (mixing cost) and when switching to a new task compared to repeating a previous one (switch cost). Previous research has shown that distinct electrophysiological correlates underlie these two phenomena. However, this evidence is not a consistent result. The goal of this study was to better characterize differences between the control processes involved in mixing and switch costs. To this aim, we examined event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked during a cued task-switching experiment. In order to minimize the confounding effects of cognitive deman…

2017

Moving and acting underwater within recreational or occupational activities requires intact executive functions, since they subserve higher cognitive functions such as successful self-regulation, coping with novel situations, and decision making; all of which could be influenced by nitrogen narcosis due to elevated partial pressure under water. However, specific executive functions that could provide a differentiated view on humans’ cognitive performance ability have not yet been systematically analyzed in full-water immersion, which is a research gap addressed within this approach to contribute to a better understanding of nitrogen narcosis. In this study, 20 young, healthy, and certified …

Measuring Task-Switching Ability in the Implicit Association Test

2005

Abstract. Recently, the role of method-specific variance in the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was examined ( McFarland & Crouch, 2002 ; Mierke & Klauer, 2003 ). This article presents a new content-unspecific control task for the assessment of task-switching ability within the IAT methodology. Study 1 showed that this task exhibited good internal consistency and stability. Studies 2-4 examined method-specific variance in the IAT and showed that the control task is significantly associated with conventionally scored IAT effects of the IAT-Anxiety. Using the D measures proposed by Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji (2003 ), the amount of method-specific variance in the IAT-Anxiety could b…

Vitellogenin-like A–associated shifts in social cue responsiveness regulate behavioral task specialization in an ant

2018

Division of labor and task specialization explain the success of human and insect societies. Social insect colonies are characterized by division of labor, with workers specializing in brood care early and foraging later in life. Theory posits that this task switching requires shifts in responsiveness to task-related cues, yet experimental evidence is weak. Here, we show that a Vitellogenin (Vg) ortholog identified in an RNAseq study on the ant T. longispinosus is involved in this process: using phylogenetic analyses of Vg and Vg-like genes, we firstly show that this candidate gene does not cluster with the intensively studied honey bee Vg but falls into a separate Vg-like A cluster. Second…

Fronto-parietal homotopy in resting-state functional connectivity predicts task-switching performance

2021

Homotopic functional connectivity reflects the degree of synchrony in spontaneous activity between homologous voxels in the two hemispheres. Previous studies have associated increased brain homotopy and decreased white matter integrity with performance decrements on different cognitive tasks across the life-span. Here, we correlated functional homotopy, both at the whole-brain level and specifically in fronto-parietal network nodes, with task-switching performance in young adults. Cue-to-target intervals (CTI: 300 vs. 1200 ms) were manipulated on a trial-by-trial basis to modulate cognitive demands and strategic control. We found that mixing costs, a measure of task-set maintenance and moni…

To switch or not to switch: Brain potential indices of attentional control after task-relevant and task-irrelevant changes of stimulus features

2009

Attention is controlled by the interplay of sensory input and top-down processes. We compared attentional control processes during task switching and reorientation after distraction. The primary task was to discriminate laterally and centrally presented tones; these stimuli were composed of a frequent standard or an infrequent deviant pitch. In the distraction condition, pitch was irrelevant and could be ignored. In the switch condition, pitch changes were relevant: whenever a deviant tone was presented, participants had to discriminate its pitch and not its direction. The task in standard trials remained unchanged. In both conditions, deviants elicited mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, P3b, …

Positive affect and self-control: attention to self-control demands mediates the influence of positive affect on consecutive self-control.

2013

Positive affect (PA) can either improve or impair self-control performance, depending on whether two tasks are dissimilar, and thus require flexible releasing and switching, or similar, which requires stable maintenance. The present study suggests that this effect is mediated by attentional shifts. The authors found that participants under PA, who performed on two dissimilar tasks and had to switch to a new response dimension, were less attentive to distracting information compared to neutral affect (NE), leading to better performance. In contrast, participants under PA who did not have to switch, were more attentive to distracting information compared to participants under NE. These findin…

The two-factor structure of cognitive flexibility : tempo of switching and overcoming of prepotent responses

2023

Prezentowane badanie miało na celu odkrycie struktury procesów latentnych leżących u podstaw wykonania kilku zadań, które hipotetycznie mierzą spontaniczną i adaptacyjną giętkość poznawczą, dostarczając dowodów na ich trafność zbieżną. Grupa zdrowych ochotników (N = 121) ukończyła dwa zestawy zadań do oceny spontanicznej i adaptacyjnej giętkości poznawczej. Spontaniczna giętkość poznawcza obejmowała test myślenia dywergencyjnego (do oceny płynności i giętkości myślenia) oraz werbalny test płynności. Miary giętkości adaptacyjnej obejmowały test przełączania się między zadaniami jako miarę kosztów przełączania oraz test przerzucania uwagi jako miarę wyuczonej nieistotności i perseweracji. Nat…

Understanding the limits of self-control: Positive affect moderates the impact of task switching on consecutive self-control performance

2013

Performing consecutive self-control tasks typically leads to deterioration in self-control performance. This effect can be explained within the strength model of self-control or within a cognitive control perspective. Both theoretical frameworks differ in their predictions with regard to the impact of affect and task characteristics on self-control deterioration within a two-task paradigm. Whereas the strength model predicts decrements in self-control performance whenever both tasks require a limited resource, under a cognitive control perspective, decrements should only occur when people switch to a different response conflict in the second task. Moreover, only the cognitive control model …