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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]

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]

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]

According to Schmidt's schema theory skill acquisition is based on schema formation where multiple learning incidents with varying task features are abstracted to a unifying pattern, the schema. Practice can be scheduled block-wise, with low contextual interference (CI) or randomly, with high CI. The greater effort during high CI training usually results in reduced training success but enhanced retention and transfer performance. In contrast to well-established CI effects for simple tasks, findings for complex tasks are heterogeneous, supposedly due to the detrimental accumulation of task demands. We assumed that in complex tasks, cognitive reasoning abilities might impose a limit upon schema formation and hence the effectiveness of CI. In a virtual overarm-throwing experiment participants practiced target positions at center, left, or right and were retested for retention - at the center position - and transfer with a larger target distance. Although there was no main effect of CI on performance, either in training, retention or transfer, under high CI, training performance was better for participants with higher reasoning ability, as measured with the Raven matrices. This advantage persisted across retention and transfer. Under low CI, reasoning was positively related to performance improvement only in the last third of training. We argue, that variability of practice is a necessary prerequisite for beneficial effects of reasoning abilities. Based on previous findings, we discuss feedback evaluation as a possible locus of the relationship between reasoning and performance in motor skill acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many cognitive tasks have what we refer to as a placekeeping requirement: steps or subtasks must be performed in a linear or other systematic fashion, without repetitions or omissions that would compromise performance. Here we asked whether the cognitive control mechanisms that meet this requirement are specific to individual tasks or general enough to be shared across tasks. Participants (N = 289) performed two tasks (Letterwheel and UNRAVEL) that share a sequential structure but are otherwise distinct. Placekeeping measures correlated significantly across tasks after controlling for construct-irrelevant variance, evidence that individual differences in placekeeping ability correlated across tasks rather than varying independently. Furthermore, an empirical pattern in the form of a crossover interaction in placekeeping error gradients was evident for both tasks, evidence that placekeeping in the two tasks is supported by similar cognitive mechanisms. The results suggest that placekeeping ability is a task-independent cognitive control construct and that placekeeping measures could help predict performance in a range of workplace and everyday tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Task switching refers to the effortful mental process of shifting attention between different tasks. While it is well-established that task switching usually comes with an objective performance cost, recent studies have shown that people also subjectively evaluate task switching as negative. An open question is whether this affective evaluation of task switching is also related to actual decision making. In this pre-registered study, we therefore examined whether individual differences in the negative evaluation of task switch cues are related to less voluntary task switching. To this end, participants first performed a cued task switching paradigm where abstract cues signaled task transitions (repetition or alternation). In a second phase, these transition cues were used as prime stimuli in an affective priming procedure to assess participants' affective evaluation of task switching. In a third phase, participants were allowed to freely choose whether to switch or repeat tasks. We found that a more negative evaluation of task switching cues was related to lower switch rates in the voluntary task switching phase. This finding supports neuroeconomic theories of value-based decision making which suggest that people use their subjective value of control to decide whether to engage in (different) tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategy use on reasoning tasks has consistently been shown to correlate with working memory capacity and accuracy, but it is still unclear to what degree individual preferences, working memory capacity, and features of the task itself contribute to strategy use. The present studies used eye tracking to explore the potential for strategy transfer between reasoning tasks. Study 1 demonstrated that participants are consistent in what strategy they use across reasoning tasks and that strategy transfer between tasks is possible. Additionally, post-hoc analyses identified certain ambiguous items in the figural analogies task that required participants to assess the response bank to reach solution, which appeared to push participants towards a more response-based strategy. Study 2 utilized a between-subjects design to manipulate this "ambiguity" in figural analogies problems prior to completing the RAPM. Once again, participants transferred strategies between tasks when primed with different strategies, although this did not affect their ability to accurately solve the problem. Importantly, strategy use changed considerably depending on the ambiguity of the initial reasoning task. The results provided across the two studies suggest that participants are consistent in what strategies they employ across reasoning tasks, and that if features of the task push participants towards a different strategy, they will transfer that strategy to another reasoning task. Furthermore, to understand the role of strategy use on reasoning tasks, future work will require a diverse sample of both reasoning tasks and strategy use measures. • Strategy consistency and transfer across multiple reasoning tasks was assessed. • Participants are consistent in what strategy they use across reasoning tasks. • Ambiguous reasoning items increased use of response-based strategies. • Participants transferred a response-based strategy but it did not affect accuracy. • Strategy use appears to be driven by individual differences and the task itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once considered a human characteristic, the presence of correlations between individuals' performance in cognitive tasks has now been reported in a range of vertebrates. In humans, an important source of cognitive variability is inhibitory control: some individuals are consistently more efficient in inhibitory tasks and this affects individual differences in other cognitive tasks, including measures of general intelligence. We looked for these two types of individual differences in a teleost fish, the guppy Poecilia reticulata. First, we observed guppies in two inhibitory control tasks. In the tube task, guppies had to inhibit the tendency to attack live prey sealed into a transparent tube. In the cylinder task, guppies had to inhibit the tendency to swim directly toward a food item placed inside a transparent cylinder and rather detour and enter the cylinder from the open sides. Individual rank performance was maintained between the two inhibitory tasks, suggesting individual differences in inhibitory control across tasks in this species. Then, we tested the same set of guppies in a problem-solving task, whereby they had to learn to dislodge an object that prevented the access to a food reward. Neither the tube task nor the cylinder task score predicted guppies' problem-solving performance. Our study demonstrates that fish exhibit consistent individual differences in inhibitory control, as expected if this trait has a common evolutionary origin in vertebrates. Yet, in fish, these individual differences appear not to be related to other cognitive processes such as those required for problem solving. • Humans often differ in executive function such as inhibitory control. • We observed a fish species in 2 inhibitory control tasks and a problem-solving task. • Fish showed individual differences in inhibitory control across the two tasks. • Inhibitory control did not predict problem-solving performance. • Some cognitive individual differences may have evolved early in vertebrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Showcases new lab-based real world paradigm for examining how children complete routine tasks typical of daily life. • Children's performance completing routine tasks improves over the course of middle childhood. • Children's performance completing routine tasks is predicted by their attention to instructions and their executive function. • The real world paradigm provides opportunity to study how children use executive processes to complete routine tasks. Performing everyday tasks well is important for children's success in the home and classroom and thought to rely on cognitive processes as studied in lab-based paradigms. There has been much interest in the link between executive function (EF) and children's achievements in real world settings. Little is known about how children's EF is related to their capacity to complete everyday tasks typical in real world settings. There is no gold standard for measuring how children complete everyday tasks. We developed a real world paradigm in which a group of 6- to 7-year-old and a group of 8- to 10-year-old children (N = 50) were provided instructions to complete routine tasks typical of daily life in a "lab house", such as gathering homework to prepare for a day at school. To examine the link between EF and performance on the everyday tasks, we measured children's EF using the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS). To examine the role of attention to the instructions to performance on the everyday tasks, children were fitted with a mobile eye tracker and looking time to the visual aids the instructions were displayed upon was extracted. Results showed children completed the everyday tasks more accurately and efficiently with age. Individual differences in EF and more looking time to visual aids while instructions were provided accounted for children's performance above and beyond age. The real world paradigm provides a new platform for investigating how EF is used while completing everyday tasks and developing new methods to foster success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]