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There is a demand for ways to enhance cognitive flexibility, as it can be a limiting factor for performance in daily life. Video game training has been linked to advantages in cognitive functioning, raising the question if training with video games can promote cognitive flexibility. In the current study, we investigated if game-based computerized cognitive training (GCCT) could enhance cognitive flexibility in a healthy young adult sample (N = 72), as measured by task-switch performance. Three GCCT schedules were contrasted, which targeted: (1) cognitive flexibility and task switching, (2) attention and working memory, or (3) an active control involving basic math games, in twenty 45-min sessions across 4–6 weeks. Performance on an alternating-runs task-switch paradigm during pretest and posttest sessions indicated greater overall reaction time improvements after both flexibility and attention training as compared to control, although not related to local switch cost. Flexibility training enhanced performance in the presence of distractor-related interference. In contrast, attention training was beneficial when low task difficulty undermined sustained selective attention. Furthermore, flexibility training improved response selection as indicated by a larger N2 amplitude after training as compared to control, and more efficient conflict monitoring as indicated by reduced Nc/CRN and larger Pe amplitude after training. These results provide tentative support for the efficacy of GCCT and suggest that an ideal training might include both task switching and attention components, with maximal task diversity both within and between training games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent findings suggest that, relative to negative feedback, positive feedback counteracts conflict processing and subsequent attentional adaptation. Here we hypothesize that this interaction may direct adjustments in perception and action via the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). We recorded EEG while participants performed an arrow flanker task with monetary gain or loss as arbitrary reward feedback between trials. As predicted, we found a reduction in conflict-driven adaptation for trials in which conflict was followed by monetary gain (vs. monetary loss), a behavioral effect accompanied by a modulation in early visual processing related to the processing of the distracters. Moreover, time-frequency analyses showed that ongoing fronto-central theta oscillations induced by previous conflict sustained longer after loss than after gain, an interaction presumably reflecting ACC modulation. These data provide a first important step toward understanding the neural mechanism underlying the affective regulation of conflict-driven behavior. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Behavioral and psychophysiological studies on the Simon effect have demonstrated that stimuli automatically activate spatially corresponding responses, even if their location is irrelevant to the task. Interestingly, this Simon effect is attenuated after stimulus–response incompatible trials (Gratton effect or compatibility-sequence effect), a pattern that has often been attributed to online conflict adaptation, even though an account in terms of episodic binding and retrieval is just as plausible. Here we show that the compatibility-sequence effect can be eliminated and partly reversed by rotating the boxes in which stimuli are presented in between two given trials, a manipulation that is likely to affect episodic representation but not online control. Sequential modulations of electrophysiological indicators of automatic response priming were also eliminated (N2) or even reversed in sign (LRP), suggesting that these effects are due to episodic retrieval of stimulus–response bindings but not, or to only a negligible degree, to online adaptation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]