Search

The authors examined how the stability of the current total isometric force (FT) produced by four fingers is influenced by previous and expected voluntary changes in FT. The authors employed the synergy index obtained from the across-trial uncontrolled manifold analysis to quantify the stability of FT. The authors compared two tasks with similar histories of FT changes; one in which participants expected changes in FT in the future, and one in which they expected no changes in FT. The stability of FT was lower in the former task, indicating the existence of a novel type of anticipatory synergy adjustment. Disparate histories of FT changes yield inconsistent changes in stability, driven by individual differences in the covariation in the finger forces that leave FT invariant. Future research should focus on exploring these individual differences to better understand how previous and expected behavior changes influence the stability of the current motor behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed at exploring if the vocabulary recall of the advanced EFL learners could be enhanced by MI-oriented Thematic Vocabulary Instruction (TVI). To scrutinize the probable impact of the treatment on various intelligence groups, we selected a purposive homogeneous sample of 80 out of 118 advanced level learners and assigned them to four groups. The first experimental group (EG1) underwent TVI along with matching MI-based tasks, the second experimental group (EG2) received TVI with non-matching MI-oriented tasks, the third experimental group (EG3) had TVI but just did the coursebook exercises and the control group (CG) received conventional non-thematic instruction with coursebook exercises. 60 advanced words were taught for 10 sessions. The vocabulary recall test was administered with a three-week interval after the end of the treatment, requiring the participants to use the words in five paragraphs based on the given topic and the frequency counts showed the number of the new words. The results from ANOVA and Tukey post hoc tests revealed that the EG1 members who had undergone TVI with MI-oriented tasks significantly outperformed their peers. Specifically, verbally intelligent learners had the highest and the intra-personally dominant ones had the lowest significant performances. The findings accentuate the significance of taking individual differences into account and offer a number of pedagogical implications for the teachers and administrative authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tasks measuring the sense of agency often manipulate the predictability of action outcomes by introducing spatial deviation. However, the extent to which spatial predictability of an outcome influences the sense of agency when spatial deviation is controlled for remains untested. We used a novel task to investigate the effect of several factors (action–outcome contingency, spatial deviation, and spatial predictability when controlling for spatial deviation of action outcomes) on the sense of agency. We also investigated trait predictors of metacognition of agency—the degree to which participants' confidence in their agency judgements corresponds to the accuracy of those judgements. Initial and replication samples completed contingency, deviation, and predictability versions of the task. Across samples, participants' sense of agency was impacted by action–outcome contingency and spatial deviation of action outcomes. Manipulation of the spatial predictability of action outcomes did not reliably impact the sense of agency. Metacognition of agency was related to alexithymic traits—higher alexithymia scores were associated with reduced metacognition of agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A striking range of individual differences has recently been reported in three different visual search tasks. These differences in performance can be attributed to strategy, that is, the efficiency with which participants control their search to complete the task quickly and accurately. Here, we ask whether an individual's strategy and performance in one search task is correlated with how they perform in the other two. We tested 64 observers and found that even though the test–retest reliability of the tasks was high, an observer's performance and strategy in one task was not predictive of their behaviour in the other two. These results suggest search strategies are stable over time, but context-specific. To understand visual search, we therefore need to account not only for differences between individuals but also how individuals interact with the search task and context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain activity in the action observation network (AON) is lateralized during action execution, with greater activation in the contralateral hemisphere to the side of the body used to perform the task. However, it is unknown whether the AON is also lateralized when watching another person perform an action. In this study, we use fNIRS to measure brain activity over the left and right cortex while participants completed actions with their left and right hands and watched an actor complete action with their left and right hands. We show that while activation is lateralized when the participants themselves are moving, brain lateralization is not affected by the side of the body when the participant is observing another person's action. In addition, we demonstrate that individual differences in hand preference and dexterity between the right and left hands are related to brain lateralization patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether task instruction affected comprehension of multiple conflicting-view texts after controlling for a number of individual difference variables and whether the effects of task instruction varied as a result of post-reading assessment tasks. Recruited from a First-Year Composition course, 64 participants received a task instruction that set the goal of seeking an alternative explanation and reframed argument as a process of conversation and exploration. Multiple-text comprehension was measured by a synthesis writing task and an argument writing task. The results showed that participants given the instruction outperformed participants in the control condition, as reflected in their argument writing. Among the control variables, beliefs about argumentation, need for cognition and topic interest were positively correlated with comprehension measures. These results highlight the importance of cultivating divergent thinking of multiple perspectives rather than dichotomous thinking of pros and cons. Pedagogical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The midsession reversal paradigm confronts an animal with a two-choice discrimination task where the reward contingencies are reversed at the midpoint of the session. Species react to the reversal with either win-stay/lose-shift, using local information of reinforcement, or reversal estimation, using global information, e.g. time, to estimate the point of reversal. Besides pigeons, only mammalian species were tested in this paradigm so far and analyses were conducted on pooled data, not considering possible individually different responses. We tested twelve kea parrots with a 40-trial midsession reversal test and additional shifted reversal tests with a variable point of reversal. Birds were tested in two groups on a touchscreen, with the discrimination task having either only visual or additional spatial information. We used Generalized Linear Mixed Models to control for individual differences when analysing the data. Our results demonstrate that kea can use win-stay/lose-shift independently of local information. The predictors group, session, and trial number as well as their interactions had a significant influence on the response. Furthermore, we discovered notable individual differences not only between birds but also between sessions of individual birds, including the ability to quite accurately estimate the reversal position in alternation to win-stay/lose-shift. Our findings of the kea's quick and flexible responses contribute to the knowledge of diversity in avian cognitive abilities and emphasize the need to consider individuality as well as the limitation of pooling the data when analysing midsession reversal data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bjorklund and Kipp (1996) hypothesized that due to selection processes operative during human evolution, females have an inborn advantage over males in the ability to suppress inappropriate responses on tasks in the behavioral and social domains. To test this hypothesis, a meta-analysis was conducted on gender differences on simple delay tasks in which the participant is required to wait for a "go" signal before making an approach response to an enticing stimulus. The meta-analysis was performed on 113 effect sizes derived from 102 studies of 21,378 children who ranged in age from 1 year to 9 years and who lived in at least 15 countries. As hypothesized, girls exceeded boys in delay ability, with the gender differences being small in magnitude (Hedges' g =.25–.26). The female advantage in delay ability held for both U.S. and non-U.S. samples of children. Further analyses found that girls outperformed boys on each of four simple delay tasks. Although the magnitude of the gender difference on the individual simple delay tasks did not differ as a function of age, the age ranges covered were narrow. Discussion focuses on two issues: (a) whether gender differences in delay ability can be explained by a factor other than inhibitory control and (b) whether parental socialization processes can explain the gender differences in delay ability. The evidence reviewed does not provide substantial support for either of these possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are there individual differences in the tendency to enjoy tasks regardless of the tasks' contents or situational determinants? To answer this question, we constructed and validated the six-item Trait Task Enjoyment Scale (TTES). In Study 1, it had an internally consistent one-factor structure (pooled N = 997); good test-retest reliabilities over 1 and 4 months; measurement invariance regarding gender (strong) and time (partial strong); and was not redundant with respect to a large number of theoretically related constructs. In Studies 2 and 3, the TTES predicted self-reported momentary task enjoyment, one of its opposites, boredom, and voluntary persistence in a free-choice paradigm. It did so for various tasks, including thirty diverse tasks presented in vignettes and a memory task in the lab. Results suggest that the TTES may predict momentary task enjoyment regardless of objective task aversiveness or, in this case, equally well for tasks with boring or enjoyable contents. The TTES addresses an important gap in current research on task enjoyment and is an adequately valid and reliable research tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judgments of liking and beauty appear to be expressions of a common hedonic state, but they differ in how they engage cognitive processes. We hypothesised that beauty judgments place greater demands on limited executive resources than judgments of liking. We tested this hypothesis by asking two groups of participants to judge works of visual art for their beauty or liking while having to remember the location of 1, 3, or 5 dots in a 4 by 4 matrix. We also examined the effect of individual differences in working memory capacity. Our results show that holding information about the location of the dots in working memory delayed judgments of beauty but not of liking. Also, the greater participants' working memory capacity, the faster they completed the working memory task when judging liking, but not when judging beauty. Our study provides evidence that judging beauty draws more on working memory resources than judging liking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Task conflict is a type of conflict that emerges when a stimulus triggers two or more competing tasks. In the Stroop task, task conflict occurs between the relevant color-naming task and irrelevant word reading task and can be observed mainly on congruent trials, which only involve task conflict and are devoid of additional conflict types. We hypothesized that task conflict also manifests in the affordances task between the relevant task (e.g., classifying manipulatable objects), and the automatic task afforded by the object (e.g., grasping the object), and is mostly evident on congruent trials. Using an individual differences design we assessed the relationship between control mechanisms operating on Stroop congruent and affordances congruent trials under conditions of high and low cognitive control requirements. We hypothesized that task control is employed in both tasks. One-hundred and twenty-three participants performed an affordances task and two blocks of a Stroop task, each requiring a different level of task control (high vs. low). In a hierarchical regression model, we found a significant and specific correlation between affordances congruent and Stroop congruent conditions only in the high-control block, designed to greatly engage participants' task control, thus linking the task control mechanism in both tasks. These results indicate that task control underlies diverse modalities of response (visuomotor and linguistic), independently of other conflict types. We suggest that the affordances task may serve as a supplementary tool for the assessment of task control in the lab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Error‐related negativity (ERN), an electroencephalogram (EEG) component following an erroneous response, has been associated with the subjective motivational relevance of error commission. A smaller EEG event, the correct response negativity (CRN), occurs after a correct response. It is unclear why correct behavior evokes a neural response similar to error commission. CRN might reflect suboptimal performance: in tasks where speed is motivationally relevant (i.e., incentivized), a correct but slow response may be experienced as a minor error. The literature is mixed on the relationship between CRN and response time (RT), possibly due to different motivational structures, tasks, or individual traits. We examined ERN and CRN in a go/no‐go task where correctness and speed were encouraged using a points‐based feedback system. A key individual trait, regulatory focus, describes a person's tendency to seek gains (promotion focus) and avoid losses (prevention focus). Trait regulatory focus was measured, and participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: points gain, points loss, and informative‐only feedback. Participants committed too few errors to reliably model ERN effects. CRN amplitude related to RT in all feedback conditions, with slower responses having larger CRN. Participants with stronger promotion focus had a more exaggerated RT/CRN relationship in the point gain condition, suggesting that regulatory fit influences the motivational relevance of speed and thus the negative subjective experience and CRN for slower responses. These findings are consistent with the claim that CRN reflects RT when RT is motivationally relevant and that the CRN/RT relationship reflects the degree of subjective motivational relevance. Our findings show that larger correct response negativities are associated with slower responses in a task with explicit response time feedback. Using regulatory fit theory, we further show that the correct response negativity reflects subjective motivational value from regulatory fit between promotion orientation strength and feedback framed as point gains. These findings suggest that correct response negativity reflects response time when response time is motivationally relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, studies within the dual-process approach were mainly focused on group differences in processing, and individual differences were neglected. However, individual differences have proven to be a significant factor in conflict detection efficiency and the overall success in base-rate neglect and similar tasks. This should be taken into consideration within the framework of the Hybrid Model of Dual Processing. New tendencies in the development of this model have focused attention on the degree of mindware instantiation as a predictor of base-rate neglect task efficiency. This study aimed to examine the relationship between mindware and base-rate neglect task efficiency and to test and explore the relationship between base-rate response frequency and conflict detection efficiency and the degree of mindware instantiation. All participants solved base-rate neglect tasks, made judgments of confidence in their responses, and solved the Statistical Reasoning Test, Cognitive Reflection Test and Numeracy Scale. We used the Statistical Reasoning Test as a measure of mindware instantiation. The degree of mindware instantiation was found to be the only significant predictor of base-rate neglect task efficiency and the results showed that participants with a higher degree of mindware instantiation generally made more base-rate responses. No correlation was found between the degree of mindware instantiation and conflict detection efficiency. These findings support the hypothesis that the power of logical intuition depends on the individual’s degree of mindware instantiation. Therefore, the results of this research indicate the importance of further research into the role of statistical reasoning in base-rate neglect task efficiency. However, we discuss that there are some methodological limitations in this research which might explain why the degree of mindware instantiation had no relationship with conflict efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the global pandemic, behavioral sciences including psychology that have traditionally relied on face-to-face data collection methods are facing a crisis. Given these circumstances, the present study was designed as a web-based replication of the findings reported in Lee et al. (2019) on the relationship between print exposure measured by the Korean Author Recognition Test (KART) and online measures of word processing using the lexical decision task and offline measures of language ability. We used the PsychoPy3 and Pavlovia platform in which participants were presented with a series of tasks in an entirely web-based environment. We found that scores on the KART were correlated with scores on a measure of language skills as well as self-reported reading habits. In addition, KART scores modulated the word frequency effect in the lexical decision task such that participants with higher KART scores tended to have smaller frequency effects. These results were highly consistent with previous lab-based studies including Lee et al. indicating that web-based experimental procedures are a viable alternative to lab-based face-to-face experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic procrastination involves the delayed implementation of actions required to fulfill study-related tasks. These behavioral delays are thought to result from momentary failures in self-regulation (i.e., within-person processes). Most previous studies focused on the role of trait-based individual differences in students' procrastination tendencies. Little is known about the within-person processes involved in the occurrence of procrastination behavior in real-life academic situations. The present study applied an event-based experience sampling approach to investigate whether the onset of task-specific delay behavior can be attributed to unfavorable changes in students' momentary appraisals of tasks (value, aversiveness, effort, expectations of success), which may indicate failures in self-regulation arise between critical phases of goal-directed action. University students (N = 75) used an electronic diary over eight days to indicate their next days' intentions to work on academic tasks and their task-specific appraisals (n = 582 academic tasks planned). For each task, a second query requested the next day determined whether students' task-related appraisals changed and whether they implemented their intention on time or delayed working on the respective task (n = 501 completed task-specific measurements). Students' general procrastination tendency was assessed at baseline using two established self-report questionnaires. Stepwise two-level logistic regression analyses revealed that within-person changes in task-related appraisals that reflected a devaluation of the study-related tasks increased the risk for an actual delay. The risk to delay decreased when students maintained a positive attitude toward the task. Students' general procrastination tendency did not predict individual differences in their task-specific delay behavior. We discuss these findings in light of the growing effort to understand the within-person processes that contribute to induce procrastination behavior under real-life academic conditions and illustrate how this knowledge can benefit the design of tasks and instructions that support students' self-regulation to their best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical facet of adjusting one's behaviour after succeeding or failing at a task is assigning responsibility for the ultimate outcome. Humans have trait- and state-like tendencies to implicate aspects of their own behaviour (called 'internal' ascriptions) or facets of the particular task or Lady Luck ('chance'). However, how these tendencies interact with actual performance is unclear. We designed a novel task in which subjects had to learn the likelihood of achieving their goals, and the extent to which this depended on their efforts. High internality (Levenson I-score) was associated with decision making patterns that are less vulnerable to failure. Our computational analyses suggested that this depended heavily on the adjustment in the perceived achievability of riskier goals following failure. We found beliefs about chance not to be explanatory of choice behaviour in our task. Beliefs about powerful others were strong predictors of behaviour, but only when subjects lacked substantial influence over the outcome. Our results provide an evidentiary basis for heuristics and learning differences that underlie the formation and maintenance of control expectations by the self. Author summary: How success in tasks depends on our efforts is largely a feature of what is known as the controllability of the situation or environment. This quantity should determine the way we approach, adapt to, and perform tasks. In novel settings, it can only be our expectations about controllability that exert an effect, for instance determining the balance of our focus between features of achievability and potential reward; or affecting prior notions about what exactly is achievable or what we can or cannot do. All of these might be different between aversive and appetitive domains. To study these issues, we designed a novel task in which subjects have to learn about a new environment, and analyzed their behavior using a rich computational model. We found that expectations about controllability played a particularly important role in influencing learning, but in a way that differed between positive and negative outcomes. In particular, high expectations about controllability were tied to higher learning rates of unachievability given negative outcomes, guarding subjects from further loss, and preserving their subjective optimistic expectations about control. Our findings can be interpreted within a theoretical framework which implicates control expectations in individual learning differences, and fit well within modern theories of learning in aversive contexts and serotonergic function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effects of mental fatigue (MF) induced by a 90-min AX-continuous performance test (AX-CPT) on balance control by addressing the issue of the heterogeneity of individuals' responses. Twenty healthy young active participants were recruited. They had to carry out two balance tasks (sway as little as possible on a stable support with the eyes open and closed) when standing on a force platform before and after performing a 90-min AX-CPT. The NASA-TLX test was used to assess the subjective manifestations of MF. Objective cognitive performance was measured using results from the AX-CPT. Inter-individual differences in behavioral deterioration due to MF were analyzed with a hierarchical cluster analysis, which categorizes participants' behaviors into subgroups with similar characteristics. The cluster analysis revealed that the achievement of the AX-CPT induced various levels of MF and balance impairments within the whole sample. A significant relationship between the level of MF and the degree of balance disturbance was observed only when participants stood with the eyes open, thus suggesting that inter-individual differences in vulnerability to MF could stem from differences between subjects in the level of engagement of visual attention and/or from differences in field dependency for balance control. These findings show that the completion of the same prolonged demanding cognitive task induces a strong heterogeneity in subjects' responses, with marked individual differences in MF vulnerability that affect balance control differently according to the sensory context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Studies examining individual differences in interruption recovery have shown that higher working memory capacity (WMC) attenuated the negative impact of interruption length on resumption, at least in static contexts. In continuously evolving (or dynamic) situations, however, working memory may not be as central to the effective resumption of a task, especially in the case of long interruptions. One of the main theories of task interruption suggests that dynamic task resumption could depend on a reconstruction of the primary task context, that is, a visual examination of the post-interruption environment. To better define the role of working memory and reconstruction processes in interruption recovery, the current study examined the association between (1) dynamic task resumption following interruptions of various lengths and (2) two cognitive abilities chosen to operationalize the processes under study, namely, WMC and visual search capacity. Participants performed a multiple object tracking task which could be uninterrupted or interrupted for 5, 15, or 30 s while the hidden stimuli continued their trajectory. They also completed tasks measuring the two cognitive abilities of interest. The results revealed that WMC contributed to post-interruption accuracy regardless of interruption duration. On the contrary, visual search capacity was related to faster resumption in the 15-s and 30-s interruption conditions only. Those results show that working memory plays a preponderant role in resumption not only in static, but also in dynamic contexts. However, our study suggests that this mechanism must share the limelight with reconstruction following lengthy interruptions in dynamic settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual differences in reading skill have frequently been related to variability in working memory capacity; however, it is unclear what drives this relation. The present study investigated two attentional control mechanisms that may contribute to this relation: proactive control and online filtering. To examine how the neural mechanisms of these processes relate to individual differences in reading, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collected during a novel working memory paradigm was correlated with measures of reading skill. Results indicated that skilled readers deployed greater proactive control resources, as evidenced by more activation in left anterior prefrontal regions, when cued proactively about task-relevant features than less-skilled readers. Additionally, high-vocabulary individuals showed online filtering benefits. These findings provide novel contributions to our understanding about the relation between working memory and reading and suggest that proactive control and attentional filtering mechanisms may play a key role in driving this relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we inquire into possible differences between children with exceptionally high intellectual abilities and their average peers as regards metacognitive monitoring and related metacognitive strategies. The question whether gifted children surpass their typically developing peers not only in the intellectual abilities, but also in their level of metacognitive skills, has not been convincingly answered so far. We sought to examine the indicators of metacognitive behavior by means of eye-tracking technology and to compare these findings with the participants' subjective confidence ratings. Eye-movement data of gifted and average students attending final grades of primary school (4th and 5th grades) were recorded while they dealt with a deductive reasoning task, and four metrics supposed to bear on metacognitive skills, namely the overall trial duration, mean fixation duration, number of regressions and normalized gaze transition entropy, were analyzed. No significant differences between gifted and average children were found in the normalized gaze transition entropy, in mean fixation duration, nor - after controlling for the trial duration - in number of regressions. Both groups of children differed in the time devoted to solving the task. Both groups significantly differed in the association between time devoted to the task and the participants' subjective confidence rating, where only the gifted children tended to devote more time when they felt less confident. Several implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of media multitasking – the concurrent use of multiple forms of media – has motivated research on whether and how it is related to various cognitive abilities, such as the ability to switch tasks. However, previous research on the relationship between media multitasking and task-switching performance has yielded mixed results, possibly because of small sample sizes and a confound between task and cue transitions that resulted in switch costs being impure measures of task-switching ability. The authors conducted a large-sample study in which media multitasking behavior was surveyed and task-switching performance was assessed using two cues per task, thereby allowing switch costs to be partitioned into task-switching and cue-repetition effects. The main finding was no evidence of any relationship between media multitasking scores and task-switching effects (or cue-repetition effects), either in correlational analyses or in extreme group analyses of light and heavy media multitaskers. The results are discussed in the context of previous research, with implications for studying media multitasking in relation to task-switching performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Individual differences in face identification ability range from prosopagnosia to super‐recognition. The current study examined whether face identification ability predicts voice identification ability (participants: N = 529). Superior‐face‐identifiers (exceptional at face memory and matching), superior‐face‐recognisers (exceptional at face memory only), superior‐face‐matchers (exceptional face matchers only), and controls completed the Bangor Voice Matching Test, Glasgow Voice Memory Test, and a Famous Voice Recognition Test. Meeting predictions, those possessing exceptional face memory and matching skills outperformed typical‐range face groups at voice memory and voice matching respectively. Proportionally more super‐face‐identifiers also achieved our super‐voice‐recogniser criteria on two or more tests. Underlying cross‐modality (voices vs. faces) and cross‐task (memory vs. perception) mechanisms may therefore drive superior performances. Dissociations between Glasgow Voice Memory Test voice and bell recognition also suggest voice‐specific effects to match those found with faces. These findings have applied implications for policing, particularly in cases when only suspect voice clips are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A primary psychometric concern with laboratory-based inhibition tasks has been their reliability. However, a reliable measure may not be necessary or sufficient for reliably detecting effects (statistical power). The current study used a bootstrap sampling approach to systematically examine how the number of participants, the number of trials, the magnitude of an effect, and study design (between- vs. within-subject) jointly contribute to power in five commonly used inhibition tasks. The results demonstrate the shortcomings of relying solely on measurement reliability when determining the number of trials to use in an inhibition task: high internal reliability can be accompanied with low power and low reliability can be accompanied with high power. For instance, adding additional trials once sufficient reliability has been reached can result in large gains in power. The partial dissociation between reliability and power was particularly apparent in between-subject designs where the number of participants contributed greatly to power but little to reliability, and where the number of trials contributed greatly to reliability but only modestly (depending on the task) to power. For between-subject designs, the probability of detecting small-to-medium-sized effects with 150 participants (total) was generally <55%. However, effect size was positively associated with number of trials. Thus, researchers have some control over effect size and this needs to be considered when conducting power analyses using analytic methods that take such effect sizes as an argument. Results are discussed in the context of recent claims regarding the role of inhibition tasks in experimental and individual difference designs. • Adequate reliability is neither necessary nor sufficient for adequate power. • Greater number of trials resulted in greater between-subject variance, effect size, reliability, and power. • This influence on power was substantially greater in within-subject designs. • Number of participants had a slightly greater influence on power in between-subject designs. • Since trial number influences variance it should feature in decisions regarding expected effect size for power calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated how people balance cognitive constraints (switch costs) against environmental constraints (stimulus availabilities) to optimise their voluntary task switching performance and explored individual differences in their switching behaviour. Specifically, in a self-organised task-switching environment, the stimulus needed for a task repetition was delayed by a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) that increased with each consecutive repetition until a task switch reset the SOA. As predicted, participants switched tasks when the SOA in task switches approximately matched their individual switch costs and thus they optimised local task performance. Interestingly, self-reports (confirmed by behavioural switching patterns) revealed two individual strategies: some participants (N = 34) indicated to guide their task selection behaviour based on preplanned task sequences over several trials, whereas others (N = 42) indicated to primarily decide on a trial-by-trial basis whether to switch or to repeat tasks. Exploration of switching behaviour based on the two strategy groups revealed additional insights into how people achieved adaptive task selection behaviour in this task environment. Overall, the present findings suggest that individuals select tasks with the aim of improving task performance when dealing with multiple task requirements, but they differ in their preferred individual task selection strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent investigation of individual differences in multitasking revealed evidence for individual preferences for modes of task processing (serial vs. overlapping) in a task switching with preview (TSWP) paradigm and different strategies of response organization (blocking, switching, and response grouping) in a free concurrent dual-tasking (FCDT) paradigm. However, this research on individual differences at the levels of cognitive task processing and behavioral response organization has been pursued separately, thus far, by testing independent samples of participants. In the current study, we investigated whether these two levels of task coordination were linked intra-individually. As individuals preferring an overlapping task processing mode can generate time gains particularly at task switches, we predicted that they prefer a switching strategy of response organization. In contrast, individuals preferring a serial processing mode are expected to prefer a blocking strategy to reduce dual-task demands. These predictions were confirmed in an experiment based on n = 70 participants. Indeed, most serial processors preferred a blocking strategy, whereas overlapping processors predominantly preferred to switch between the tasks. This finding suggests a strong correspondence between individual preferences emerging in both aspects of task coordination, which might reflect a common basic difference in the preferred style of cognitive control (flexible vs. persistent). Moreover, in case the preferred modes of task processing and strategies of response organization did not correspond to each other, the overall multitasking efficiency was comparably low. Thus, the distinction between the preferences for both aspects of multitasking seems to be an important aspect of understanding multitasking performance and should be considered in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animals that exploit resources from human-modified environments may encounter unique problems when searching for food. Pulling a string tied to a food reward (string-pulling task) is one of the most widespread methods of testing a species' problem-solving performance in non-human animals. Performance in problem-solving tasks may be influenced by an individual's characteristics and social interactions, especially in its natural habitat. We examined problem solving by free-ranging Steller's jays (Cyanocitta stelleri) when extracting food from a string-pulling task presented in their natural habitat. During the study, seven of 50 jays successfully solved the task on their first to eighteenth experimental opportunity; solvers differed from nonsolvers by showing higher levels of persistence by pulling the string in more trials. Of the successful jays, five birds solved without observing others, while two birds were present during successful trials and subsequently completed the task. All seven jays demonstrated improvement in the task by using less string pulls over additional successful trials. Nineteen other jays in the population interacted with the apparatus and pulled the string, but not enough to acquire the food. These 19 jays were significantly bolder (shorter latencies to approach), more explorative (contacted more parts of the apparatus), and had observed solvers more than the 24 individuals that did not pull the string. These results indicate a broad spectrum of individual differences in propensity for solving novel tasks in our population of Steller's jays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly assumed that a specific testing occasion (task, design, procedure, etc.) provides insights that generalize beyond that occasion. This assumption is infrequently carefully tested in data. We develop a statistically principled method to directly estimate the correlation between latent components of cognitive processing across tasks, contexts, and time. This method simultaneously estimates individual-participant parameters of a cognitive model at each testing occasion, group-level parameters representing across-participant parameter averages and variances, and across-task correlations. The approach provides a natural way to "borrow" strength across testing occasions, which can increase the precision of parameter estimates across all testing occasions. Two example applications demonstrate that the method is practical in standard designs. The examples, and a simulation study, also provide evidence about the reliability and validity of parameter estimates from the linear ballistic accumulator model. We conclude by highlighting the potential of the parameter-correlation method to provide an "assumption-light" tool for estimating the relatedness of cognitive processes across tasks, contexts, and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interindividual variations in the ability to perform visuospatial mental transformations have been investigated extensively, in particular through mental rotation tasks. However, the impact of early visual processes on performance has been largely ignored. To clarify this issue, we explored the time‐course of early visual processing (from 0 to 450 ms poststimulus) using event‐related potentials topographic analyses. The main findings demonstrated a significant link between early attentional processes and accuracy scores occurring more than five seconds later, as well as a strong association between spatial covariance and microstate topographies exhibiting substantial gender differences. More specifically, the results indicated that, in a classical mental rotation task, the male brain expends more time processing visual‐spatial information resulting in a longer bilateral positive potential at posterior‐occipital sites. In comparison, the female brain initiates earlier processing of non‐spatial information resulting in a faster transition from a bilateral positive potential of posterior‐occipital sites to a negative potential at central‐frontal sites. These findings illustrate how a more complete utilization of the spatiotemporal information contained in EEG recordings can provide important insights about the impact of early visual processes on interindividual differences, particularly across gender, and thus shed new light on alternate cognitive strategies. Our research complements previous studies exploring interindividual variability in visuospatial transformations by examining the early stages of perceptual and attentional processes between men and women during mental rotation. Using event‐related potentials topographic analyses, we provide important insights about the electrical dynamics underpinning interindividual differences in demonstrating a significant link between early attentional processes and performance scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a recent increase in individual differences research within the field of audiovisual perception (Spence & Squire, 2003, Current Biology, 13(13), R519–R521), and furthering the understanding of audiovisual integration capacity with an individual differences approach is an important facet within this line of research. Across four experiments, participants were asked to complete an audiovisual integration capacity task (cf. Van der Burg, Awh, & Olivers, 2013, Psychological Science, 24(3), 345–351; Wilbiks & Dyson, 2016, PLOS ONE 11(12), e0168304; 2018, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(6), 871–884), along with differing combinations of additional perceptual tasks. Experiment 1 employed a multiple object tracking task and a visual working memory task. Experiment 2 compared performance on the capacity task with that of the Attention Network Test. Experiment 3 examined participants' focus in space through a Navon task and vigilance through time. Having completed this exploratory work, in Experiment 4 we collected data again from the tasks that were found to correlate significantly across the first three experiments and entered them into a regression model to predict capacity. The current research provides a preliminary explanation of the vast individual differences seen in audiovisual integration capacity in previous research, showing that by considering an individual's multiple object tracking span, focus in space, and attentional factors, we can account for up to 34.3% of the observed variation in capacity. Future research should seek to examine higher-level differences between individuals that may contribute to audiovisual integration capacity, including neurodevelopmental and mental health differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity sorting tasks, in which participants sort multiple naturally varying stimuli of usually two identities into perceived identities, have recently gained popularity in voice and face processing research. In both modalities, participants who are unfamiliar with the identities tend to perceive multiple stimuli of the same identity as different people and thus fail to "tell people together." These similarities across modalities suggest that modality-general mechanisms may underpin sorting behaviour. In this study, participants completed a voice sorting and a face sorting task. Taking an individual differences approach, we asked whether participants' performance on voice and face sorting of unfamiliar identities is correlated. Participants additionally completed a voice discrimination (Bangor Voice Matching Test) and a face discrimination task (Glasgow Face Matching Test). Using these tasks, we tested whether performance on sorting related to explicit identity discrimination. Performance on voice sorting and face sorting tasks was correlated, suggesting that common modality-general processes underpin these tasks. However, no significant correlations were found between sorting and discrimination performance, with the exception of significant relationships for performance on "same identity" trials with "telling people together" for voices and faces. Overall, any reported relationships were however relatively weak, suggesting the presence of additional modality-specific and task-specific processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has shown that risk and reward are positively correlated in many environments, and that people have internalized this association as a "risk-reward heuristic": when making choices based on incomplete information, people infer probabilities from payoffs and vice-versa, and these inferences shape their decisions. We extend this work by examining people's expectations about another fundamental trade-off--that between monetary reward and delay. In 2 experiments (total N = 670), we adapted a paradigm previously used to demonstrate the risk-reward heuristic. We presented participants with intertemporal choice tasks in which either the delayed reward or the length of the delay was obscured. Participants inferred larger rewards for longer stated delays, and longer delays for larger stated rewards; these inferences also predicted people's willingness to take the delayed option. In exploratory analyses, we found that older participants inferred longer delays and smaller rewards than did younger ones. All of these results replicated in 2 large-scale pre-registered studies with participants from a different population (total N = 2138). Our results suggest that people expect intertemporal choice tasks to offer a trade-off between delay and reward, and differ in their expectations about this trade-off. This "delay-reward heuristic" offers a new perspective on existing models of intertemporal choice and provides new insights into unexplained and systematic individual differences in the willingness to delay gratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When people are confronted with multiple tasks, how do they decide which task to do first? Normatively, priority should be given to the most efficient task (i.e., the task with the best cost/benefit ratio). However, we hypothesize that people consistently choose to address smaller (involving less work) tasks first, and continue to focus on smaller tasks, even when this strategy emerges as less efficient, a phenomenon we termthe "smaller tasks trap". We also hypothesize that the preference for the smaller tasks is negatively related to individual differences in the tendency for rational thinking. To test these hypotheses, we developed a novel paradigm consisting of an incentive-compatible task management game, in which participants are saddled with multiple tasks and have to decide how to handle them. The results lend weight to the smaller tasks trap and indicate that individual differences in rational thinking predict susceptibility to this trap. That is, participants low in rational thinking preferred to start with a smaller (vs. larger) task and focused more on the smaller tasks regardless of their efficiency. Consequently, their overall performance in the task management game was significantly lower. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and suggest possible interventions that may help people improve their task management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proactive control reflects a sustained, top-down maintenance of a goal representation prior to task-related events, whereas reactive control reflects a transient, bottom-up goal reactivation in response to them. We designed a manual stop-signal task to isolate electrophysiological signals specifically involved in proactive control. Participants performed a simple choice reaction time task but had to withhold their response to an infrequent stop signal, resulting in go- and stop-signal trials. We manipulated the stop-signal probability (30% vs. 10%) over different blocks of trials so that different proactive control levels were sustained within each block. The behavioral results indicated that most participants proactively changed their behaviors. The reaction times in the go trials increased and the number of response errors in the stop-signal trials decreased. However, those two behavioral measures did not correlate: individuals with an increased delayed reaction did not necessarily manifest a higher decrease in response errors in the stop-signal trials. To isolate the proactive control signal, we obtained event-related potentials (ERPs) locked to an uninformative fixation onset and compared the signals between the two stop-signal probability conditions. We found that the ERPs at the left hemisphere were more negatively shifted with the increasing stop-signal probability. Moreover, ERP differences obtained from a set of electrodes in the left hemisphere accounted for the changes in response errors in the stop-signal trials but did not explain the changes in reaction times of the go trials. Together, the behavioral and electrophysiological results suggest that proactive control mechanisms reducing erroneous responses of the stop-signal trials are different from mechanisms slowing reaction times of the go trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic cognitive control adjustments are important for integrating thoughts and actions that take place during dynamic changes of environmental demands and support goal-directed behavior. We investigated, in a working memory (WM) paradigm, whether dynamic adjustments in cognitive control based on previous trial load influence the neural response to neutral or unpleasant distracters. We also investigated whether individual self-reported abilities in controlling thoughts influence this effect. Participants performed a WM change detection task with low or high WM-related cognitive demands. An unpleasant or a neutral distractive image was presented at the beginning of each trial, prior to the WM task. We tested for control adjustments that were associated with the load level of the preceding trial task (N-1) on the neural response to the subsequent distractive image. We found an effect of the prior WM task load on a parieto-occipital waveform event-related potential (ERP) that appeared between 200 and 300 ms after the neutral distracter onset. This effect was not observed for the unpleasant distracter. Individual ability for controlling thoughts may influence the effect of cognitive control adjustments on distracter processing during the unpleasant condition. These findings provide evidence that: (1) dynamic cognitive control adjustments are impaired by unpleasant distracters; and (2) the ability to control unpleasant thoughts is linked to individual differences in flexible cognitive control adjustments and shielding of WM representations from unpleasant distracters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive offloading refers to the act of reducing the mental processing requirements of a task through physical actions like writing down information or storing information on a cell phone or computer. Offloading can lead to improved performance on ongoing tasks with high cognitive demand, such as tasks where multiple pieces of information must be simultaneously maintained. However, less is known about why some individuals choose to engage in offloading and under what conditions they might choose to do so. In the present study, offloading behavior is investigated in a short-term memory task requiring memory for letters. The present study is a replication and extension of a previous study conducted by Risko and Dunn, and tests the new prediction that individuals with lower working memory capacity will be more likely to offload. Here, we find that offloading information confers a performance advantage over relying on internal memory stores, particularly at higher memory loads. However, we fail to observe that those with poorer memory abilities have a greater propensity for offloading or benefit more from it. Instead, our findings suggest that cognitive offloading may be a valid compensatory strategy to improve performance of memory-based tasks for individuals with a wide range of memory ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musical expertise promotes both the perception and the processing of music. The aim of the present study was to analyze if musicians compared to non-musicians already have auditory processing advantages at the neural level. 50 musicians and 50 non-musicians worked on a task to determine the individual auditory difference threshold (individual JND threshold). A passive oddball paradigm followed while the EEG activity was recorded. Frequent standard sounds (528 hertz [Hz]) and rare deviant sounds (individual JND threshold, 535 Hz, and 558 Hz) were presented in the oddball paradigm. The mismatch negativity (MMN) and the P3a were used as indicators of auditory discrimination skills for frequency differences. Musicians had significantly smaller individual JND thresholds than non-musicians, but musicians were not faster than non-musicians. Musicians and non-musicians showed both the MMN and the P3a at the 535 Hz and 558 Hz condition. In the individual JND threshold condition, non-musicians, whose individual JND threshold was at 539.8 Hz (and therefore even above the deviant sound of 535 Hz), predictably showed the MMN and the P3a. Musicians, whose individual JND threshold was at 531.1 Hz (and thus close to the standard sound of 528 Hz), showed no MMN and P3a—although they were behaviorally able to differentiate frequencies individually within their JND threshold range. This may indicate a key role of attention in triggering the MMN during the detection of frequency differences in the individual JND threshold range (see Tervaniemi et al. in Exp Brain 161:1–10, 2005). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The present study attempts to expand our understanding of frustration, clinical symptoms, and working memory by examining the unique contribution of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and frustration to working memory capacity (WMC). A factor‐analytic framework was utilized to isolate and examine WMC based on results from three working memory tasks that were administered in counterbalanced order to control for individual differences in baseline WMC. All participants provided subjective ratings of frustration both prior to and after administration of a frustration induction. Results suggest that although we were able to systematically induce subjective frustration for participants in the experimental group relative to the control group, WMC was not associated with induced frustration in the present study. Results also indicated that inattention symptoms predicted baseline frustration levels. This work highlights the need to examine the extent to which storage/rehearsal WMC and additional process‐oriented working memory‐related performance variables are related to frustration. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We specify new REMs for signed relational events from article co-production in Wikipedia. • We demonstrate that balance theory well explains the network structure of teams working on contentious tasks. • We provide empirical support for an alter-centric interpretation of status theory. We consider two rival hypotheses on the emergence of organization in open production communities. According to the first ("reputation hypothesis"), patterns of agreement and disagreement among participants in open production communities are explained by differences in individual reputation for quality of contribution. The reputation hypothesis predicts that participants will tend to agree with more reputable others and disagree with less reputable others thus contributing to establish a stable open production community. According to the second hypothesis ("balance hypothesis"), patterns of agreement and disagreement are explained by membership in sub-communities of "friends" and "enemies." The balance hypothesis predicts that participants in open production communities will agree mainly with friends and disagree mainly with enemies, regardless of considerations about reputation for the quality of their contributions. In this paper, we examine which one of these hypotheses is more consistent with patterns of positive and negative interaction events observed during the production of the complete set of 1,206 English-language Wikipedia articles officially considered controversial. We specify and estimate new models for signed and weighted relational event networks predicting the probability that a user deletes the contributions of another user – thus expressing personal disagreement – and/or protects the contributions of another user against deletion from third parties – thus expressing personal agreement. In an analysis of positive and negative interaction among Wikipedia contributors consisting of more than 60 million observations, we find strong support for the balance hypothesis and for the predictions of the reputation hypothesis that are more consistent with alter-centric interpretations of social status as conferred by alters through observable acts of deference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are characterized by their ability to leverage rules for classifying and linking stimuli to context-appropriate actions. Previous studies have shown that when humans learn stimulus-response associations for two-dimensional stimuli, they implicitly form and generalize hierarchical rule structures (task-sets). However, the cognitive processes underlying structure formation are poorly understood. Across four experiments, we manipulated how trial-unique images mapped onto responses to bias spontaneous task-set formation and investigated structure learning through the lens of incidental stimulus encoding. Participants performed a learning task designed to either promote task-set formation (by "motor-clustering" possible stimulus-action rules), or to discourage it (by using arbitrary category-response mappings). We adjudicated between two hypotheses: Structure learning may promote attention to task stimuli, thus resulting in better subsequent memory. Alternatively, building task-sets might impose cognitive demands (for instance, on working memory) that divert attention away from stimulus encoding. While the clustering manipulation affected task-set formation, there were also substantial individual differences. Importantly, structure learning incurred a cost: spontaneous task-set formation was associated with diminished stimulus encoding. Thus, spontaneous hierarchical task-set formation appears to involve cognitive demands that divert attention away from encoding of task stimuli during structure learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prospective memory (PM) performance suffers when individuals collaborate, consistent with findings of "collaborative inhibition" in episodic recall. However, prior research indicates strong individual differences, such that some collaborative groups are more effective than others. To identify successful and unsuccessful collaborative processes, we examined dialogue of 20 stranger dyads and intimate couples who worked together to complete an interactive PM task, "Virtual Week." Ten were the highest-performing dyads, and 10 were the lowest-performing dyads. We coded each transcript of their dialogue during the task for cognitive processes, social processes, and generalized conversational skills. A Principal Components Analysis indicated that processes clustered into four factors, with some processes (e.g., task division, monitoring, sociability) being beneficial for both couples and stranger dyads, and others (e.g., demands, critical dialogue) being detrimental for couples only. We conclude that the best strategies to enhance collaborative PM might depend on who is collaborating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to replicate findings of diffusion model parameters capturing emotion effects in a lexical decision task and investigating whether these findings extend to other tasks of implicit emotion processing. Additionally, we were interested in the stability of diffusion model parameters across emotional stimuli and tasks for individual subjects. Responses to words in a lexical decision task were compared with responses to faces in a gender categorization task for stimuli of the emotion categories: happy, neutral and fear. Main effects of emotion as well as stability of emerging response style patterns as evident in diffusion model parameters across these tasks were analyzed. Based on earlier findings, drift rates were assumed to be more similar in response to stimuli of the same emotion category compared to stimuli of a different emotion category. Results showed that emotion effects of the tasks differed with a processing advantage for happy followed by neutral and fear-related words in the lexical decision task and a processing advantage for neutral followed by happy and fearful faces in the gender categorization task. Both emotion effects were captured in estimated drift rate parameters—and in case of the lexical decision task also in the non-decision time parameters. A principal component analysis showed that contrary to our hypothesis drift rates were more similar within a specific task context than within a specific emotion category. Individual response patterns of subjects across tasks were evident in significant correlations regarding diffusion model parameters including response styles, non-decision times and information accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Piaget's theory of number development, children do not possess a true concept of number until they are able to reason on numerical quantity regardless of changes in other nonnumerical magnitudes, such as length. Recent studies have echoed this result by arguing that abstracting number from nonnumerical dimensions of magnitude is a developmental milestone and a strong predictor of mathematics achievement. However, the mechanisms supporting such abstraction remain largely underspecified. We aimed to study how identification of the numerical equivalence in a Piaget-like estimation task by 6-year-old children is affected by (a) the degree of interference between number and nonnumerical magnitudes and (b) children's spontaneous orientation to numerosity. Six-year-old children first performed a card sorting task assessing their spontaneous orientation towards numerosity, spacing, or item size in a set of dots. Then, they completed a Piaget-like same/different numerical estimation task using two rows of dots in which the length ratio between the two rows varied systematically. Children were less likely to accept the numerical equivalence in the Piaget-like estimation task (a) as the difference in spacing between the dots increased and (b) as the children were more spontaneously oriented towards spacing over number in the card sorting task. Our results suggest that abstracting number depends on its saliency, which varies both as a function of the context (i.e., length ratio between the two rows) and of individual differences in children's sensitivity to the numerical aspects of their environment. These factors could be at the root of the observed development of performance in the seminal number-conservation task, which appears as a progressive abstraction of number rather than a conceptual shift, as Piaget hypothesized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Model-free learning enables an agent to make better decisions based on prior experience while representing only minimal knowledge about an environment's structure. It is generally assumed that model-free state representations are based on outcome-relevant features of the environment. Here, we challenge this assumption by providing evidence that a putative model-free system assigns credit to task representations that are irrelevant to an outcome. We examined data from 769 individuals performing a well-described 2-step reward decision task where stimulus identity but not spatial-motor aspects of the task predicted reward. We show that participants assigned value to spatial-motor representations despite it being outcome irrelevant. Strikingly, spatial-motor value associations affected behavior across all outcome-relevant features and stages of the task, consistent with credit assignment to low-level state-independent task representations. Individual difference analyses suggested that the impact of spatial-motor value formation was attenuated for individuals who showed greater deployment of goal-directed (model-based) strategies. Our findings highlight a need for a reconsideration of how model-free representations are formed and regulated according to the structure of the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades of research show that people are susceptible to developing false memories. But if they do so in one task, are they likely to do so in a different one? The answer: "No". In the current research, a large number of participants took part in three well-established false memory paradigms (a misinformation task, the Deese-Roediger-McDermott [DRM] list learning paradigm, and an imagination inflation exercise) as well as completed several individual difference measures. Results indicate that many correlations between false memory variables in all three inter-paradigm comparisons are null, though some small, positive, significant correlations emerged. Moreover, very few individual difference variables significantly correlated with false memories, and any significant correlations were rather small. It seems likely, therefore, that there is no false memory "trait". In other words, no one type of person seems especially prone, or especially resilient, to the ubiquity of memory distortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to investigate the synchrony effect between chronotype and time of day on task switching and vigilance, and the effect of high illuminance on the performance of two chronotypes at their non-optimal time. Four 46 minute sessions were administrated on separate days, the illuminance (200 vs. 1200 lx at eye level) and time of day (1.5 hours vs. 10.5 hours after waking up) were manipulated within participants. We found that high illuminance (1200 lx) significantly decreased the latency switch cost only for evening type independent of time of day, and there was a trend that low illuminance (200 lx) was better for morning type to decrease latency switch cost compared with evening type. The high illuminance could decrease the subjective sleepiness significantly for both chronotypes at the later part of the experiment. No synchrony effect on task switching and vigilance was found in the present study. The results suggested that the effect of ambient light on task switching was modulated by chronotype. Current study enriched the research on the effect of ambient light on task switching. When setting the optimal light environment, we should considerate the individual difference such as chronotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change detection task is a common method for assessing the storage capacity of working memory, but estimates of memory capacity from this task can be distorted by lapses of attention. When combined with appropriate mathematical models, some versions of the change detection task make it possible to separately estimate working memory and the probability of attentional lapses. In principle, these models should allow researchers to isolate the effects of experimental manipulations, group differences, and individual differences on working memory capacity and on the rate of attentional lapses. However, the present research found that two variants of a widely accepted model of the change detection task are not mathematically identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a dot-probe task, two cues—one emotional and one neutral—are followed by a probe in one of their locations. Faster responses to probes co-located with the emotional stimulus are taken as evidence of attentional bias. Several studies indicate that such attentional bias measures have poor reliability, even though ERP studies show that people reliably attend to the emotional stimulus. This inconsistency might arise because the emotional stimulus captures attention briefly (as indicated by ERP), but cues appear for long enough that attention can be redistributed before the probe onset, causing RT measures of bias to vary across trials. We tested this hypothesis by manipulating SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony between onset of the cues and onset of the probe) in a dot-probe task using angry and neutral faces. Across three experiments, the internal reliability of behavioural biases was significantly greater than zero when probes followed faces by 100 ms, but not when the SOA was 300, 500, or 900 ms. Thus, the initial capture of attention shows some level of consistency, but this diminishes quickly. Even at the shortest SOA internal reliability estimates were poor, and not sufficient to justify the use of the task as an index of individual differences in attentional bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most decision-making models describing individual differences in heuristics and biases tasks build on the assumption that reasoners produce a first incorrect answer in a quick, automatic way which they may or may not override later and that the advantage of high capacity reasoners arises from this late correction mechanism. To investigate this assumption, we developed a mouse-tracking analysis technique to capture individuals' first answers and subsequent thinking dynamics. Across two denominator neglect task experiments, we observed that individuals initially move the mouse cursor towards the correct answer option in a substantial number of cases suggesting that reasonersmay not always produce an incorrect answer first. Furthermore, we observed that, compared to low capacity reasoners, high capacity individuals revise their first answer more frequently if it is incorrect and make fewer changes if it is correct. However, we did not find evidence that high capacity individuals produce correct initial answers more frequently. Consistent with the predictions of previous decision-making models, these results suggest that in the denominator neglect task the capacity-normativity relationship arises after the initial response is formulated. The present work demonstrates how the analysis of mouse trajectories can be utilized to investigate individual differences in decision-making and help us better apprehend the dynamics of thinking behind decision biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Using stimuli from different categories may expand the capacity limits of working memory (WM) by spreading item representations across distinct neural populations. We explored this mixed-category benefit by correlating individuals' behavioral performance with fMRI measures of category information during uniform- and mixed-category trials. Behaviorally, we found weak evidence for a mixed-category benefit at the group-level, although there was a high degree of individual variability. To test whether distinct neural patterns elicited superior performance in some individuals, we correlated a multivariate measure of neural category information with multiple behavioral metrics. This revealed a widespread positive relationship, intuitive for hit rate and working memory capacity, but counterintuitive for false alarm rate. Overall, these data suggest that mixed-category effects may support working memory performance, but unexpectedly, not all participants show this benefit. Only some people may be able to take advantage of representing mixed-category information in a differentiable way. Highlights • Mixed-category stimuli may be a useful strategy to improve WM performance. • High degree of individual variability in mixed-category benefit. • Behavior positively correlated with greater neural category separability. • Training to use category information in WM may be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]