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In situations where the features of distracting information are unpredictable, effective visual search often relies on the ability to reactively disengage from distraction after initial capture. The current study examined whether adults with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) differed in their ability to reactively reject a salient distractor. Participants (36 ADHD, 46 non-ADHD) completed the additional-singleton task with eye-tracking measures, in which they searched for a unique shape while a unique color item unpredictably appeared on half of the trials. Both groups—ADHD and non-ADHD—demonstrated substantial oculomotor capture, as indicated by the landing position of their initial saccades, with no difference between the groups. However, analyses of subsequent eye movements revealed that participants with ADHD tended to 'linger' on the distractor with more refixations and longer looking times compared to those without ADHD. These results suggest that ADHD is associated with deficits in reactive rejection of distractors, rather than deficits in the ability to avoid initial capture.

Despite long-standing concerns about the use of free reaction times (RTs) in cognitive psychology, they remain a prevalent measure of conflict resolution. This report presents the forced-response method as a fresh approach to examine speed-accuracy tradeoff functions (SATs) in conflict tasks. The method involves fixing the overall response time, varying the onset of stimuli, and observing response expression. We applied this method to an arrow flanker task. By systematically varying the time between stimulus onset and response, we reveal a comprehensive time course of the flanker interference effect that is rarely observed in previous literature. We further show that influential manipulations observed in free-RT paradigms similarly affect accuracy within the forced-response technique, suggesting that the forced-response method retains the core cognitive processing characteristics of traditional free-RT conflict tasks. As an RT-irrelevant, accuracy-based method, the forced-response method provides a novel and more nuanced look into the dynamics of conflict resolution.

Across multiple experiments, we found that Americans misestimated the growth of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and that these estimates were in turn related to people’s forecasts of the duration of social distancing orders, and their own future adherence to these orders. We also investigated how mode of data presentation influences forecasting of future cases by showing participants data on the number of COVID-19 cases from a five-week period in either graphical or tabular form. We found that people shown tables produced more accurate forecasts compared to people shown line-graphs of the same data; yet, people shown line-graphs were more confident in their estimates. These findings suggest that graphs engender false-confidence in the accuracy of forecasts, that people’s forecasts of future cases may have important implications for their attitudes concerning social distancing, and that tables are better than graphs for informing the public about the trajectory of COVID-19.

Research indicates that a subtle shift in language—silently referring to oneself using one’s own name and non–first-person-singular pronouns (i.e., distanced self-talk)—promotes emotion regulation. Yet it remains unclear whether the efficacy of distanced self-talk depends on the intensity of the negative experience reflected on and whether the benefits extend to emotionally vulnerable individuals. Two high-powered experiments addressed these issues. Distanced as opposed to immersed self-talk reduced emotional reactivity when people reflected on negative experiences that varied in their emotional intensity. These findings held when participants focused on future and past autobiographical events and when they scored high on individual difference measures of emotional vulnerability. The results also generalized across various types of negative events. These findings illuminate the functionality of language for allowing people to regulate their emotions when reflecting on negative experiences across the spectrum of emotional intensity and highlight the need for future research to examine the clinical implications of this technique.

People differ substantially in their vulnerability to distraction. Yet, many types of distraction exist, from external stimulation to internal thoughts. How are these different forms of distraction related to each other? Does a person who is prone to one type of distraction also prone to other types of distraction? Two samples of adult participants (total N = 1220) completed a large battery of self-report measures assessing different facets of real-world distractibility. Latent modeling revealed that the factor structure of these measures could be explained by three correlated-yet-distinct factors: external distraction, unwanted intrusive thoughts, and mind-wandering. Importantly, about 80% of the total variance in these three factors could be explained by a single higher-order factor (d) that could be construed in terms of a person's general distractibility, and this general distractibility model was replicated across the two samples. We then applied the general distractibility model to understand the nature of ADHD symptomatology and hyperfocus (a long-lasting state of concentration often reported by people with ADHD). d was substantially associated with self-reported ADHD symptoms (particularly inattentive symptoms). Interestingly, d was also positively associated with hyperfocus, suggesting that hyperfocus may, to some degree, reflect attention problems. These results also show marked consistencies across the two samples. Overall, the study provides an important step toward a more comprehensive understanding of individual differences in distractibility and other related constructs.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive form of electrical brain stimulation popularly used to augment the effects of working memory (WM) training. Although success has been mixed, some studies report enhancements in WM performance persisting days, weeks, or even months that are actually more reminiscent of consolidation effects typically observed in the long-term memory (LTM) domain, rather than WM improvements per se. Although tDCS has been often reported to enhance both WM and LTM, these effects have never been directly compared within the same study. However, given their considerable neural and behavioral overlap, this is a timely comparison to make. This study reports results from a multisession intervention in older adults comparing active and sham tDCS over the left dorsolateral pFC during training on both an n-back WM task and a word learning LTM task. We found strong and robust effects on LTM, but mixed effects on WM that only emerged for those with lower baseline ability. Importantly, mediation analyses showed an indirect effect of tDCS on WM that was mediated by improvements in consolidation. We conclude that tDCS over the left dorsolateral pFC can be used as an effective intervention to foster long-term learning and memory consolidation in aging, which can manifest in performance improvements across multiple memory domains.

On April 13, 2021, the CDC announced that the administration of Johnson and Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine would be paused due to a rare blood clotting side effect in ~ 0.0001% of people given the vaccine. Most people who are hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine list potential side effects as their main concern (PEW, 2021); thus, it is likely that this announcement increased vaccine hesitancy among the American public. Two days after the CDC’s announcement, we administered a survey to a group of 2,046 Americans to assess their changes in attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines. The aim of this study was to investigate whether viewing icon arrays of side effect risk would prevent increases in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy due to the announcement. We found that using icon arrays to illustrate the small chance of experiencing the blood clotting side effect significantly prevented increases in aversion toward the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as well as all other COVID-19 vaccines.

Objective The majority of the population will experience some cognitive decline with age. Therefore, the development of effective interventions to mitigate age-related decline is critical for older adults’ cognitive functioning and their quality of life. Methods In our randomized controlled multisite trial, we target participants’ working memory (WM) skills, and in addition, we focus on the intervention’s optimal scheduling in order to test whether and how the distribution of training sessions might affect task learning, and ultimately, transfer. Healthy older adults completed an intervention targeting either WM or general knowledge twice per day, once per day, or once every-other-day. Before and after the intervention and 3 months after training completion, participants were tested in a variety of cognitive domains, including those representing functioning in everyday life. Results In contrast to our hypotheses, spacing seems to affect learning only minimally. We did observe some transfer effects, especially within the targeted cognitive domain (WM and inhibition/interference), which remained stable at the 3-month follow-up. Discussion Our findings have practical implications by showing that the variation in training schedule, at least within the range used here, does not seem to be a crucial element for training benefits.

Psychologists have long debated whether it is possible to assess how people subjectively feel without asking them. The recent proliferation of online social networks has recently added a fresh chapter to this discussion, with research now suggesting that it is possible to index people's subjective experience of emotion by simply counting the number of emotion words contained in their online social network posts. Whether the conclusions that emerge from this work are valid, however, rests on a critical assumption: that people's usage of emotion words in their posts accurately reflects how they feel. Although this assumption is widespread in psychological research, here we suggest that there are reasons to challenge it. We corroborate these assertions in 2 ways. First, using data from 4 experience-sampling studies of emotion in young adults, we show that people's reports of how they feel throughout the day neither predict, nor are predicted by, their use of emotion words on Facebook. Second, using simulations we show that although significant relationships emerge between the use of emotion words on Facebook and self-reported affect with increasingly large numbers of observations, the relationship between these variables was in the opposite of the theoretically expected direction 50% of the time (i.e., 3 of 6 models that we performed simulations on). In contrast to counting emotion words, we show that judges' ratings of the emotionality of participants' Facebook posts consistently predicts how people feel across all analyses. These findings shed light on how to draw inferences about emotion using online social network data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

A growing body of literature demonstrating the malleability of critical higher-order cognitive functions by means of targeted interventions has incited widespread scientific interest, most notably in the form of cognitive training programs. The results are mixed and a point of contention: It has been argued that gains observed in cognitive training are mainly due to placebo effects. To address this, we examined the effect of participant expectations on one type of cognitive training that has been central to the controversy, namely n-back training, by inducing beliefs about expected outcomes. Participants receiving n-back training showed improvements in non-trained n-back performance regardless of expectations, and furthermore, expectations for positive outcomes did not result in any significant gains in an active control group. Thus, there was no detectable expectancy effect in either direction as a function of the cognitive intervention used, suggesting that training-related improvements are unlikely due solely to a placebo effect.

Demanding cognitive functions like working memory (WM) depend on functional brain networks being able to communicate efficiently while also maintaining some degree of modularity. Evidence suggests that aging can disrupt this balance between integration and modularity. In this study, we examined how cognitive training affects the integration and modularity of functional networks in older and younger adults. Twenty three younger and 23 older adults participated in 10 days of verbal WM training, leading to performance gains in both age groups. Older adults exhibited lower modularity overall and a greater decrement when switching from rest to task, compared to younger adults. Interestingly, younger but not older adults showed increased task‐related modularity with training. Furthermore, whereas training increased efficiency within, and decreased participation of, the default‐mode network for younger adults, it enhanced efficiency within a task‐specific salience/sensorimotor network for older adults. Finally, training increased segregation of the default‐mode from frontoparietal/salience and visual networks in younger adults, while it diffusely increased between‐network connectivity in older adults. Thus, while younger adults increase network segregation with training, suggesting more automated processing, older adults persist in, and potentially amplify, a more integrated and costly global workspace, suggesting different age‐related trajectories in functional network reorganization with WM training., We examined how working memory (WM) training affects the integration and modularity of functional networks in older and younger adults. Younger adults increase network segregation with training, suggesting more automated processing. Older adults persist in, and potentially amplify, a more integrated and costly global workspace, suggesting different age‐related trajectories in functional network reorganization with WM training.

We suggest that consideration of trial-by-trial variations, individual differences, and training data will enrich the current framework in Luck et al. (2020). We consider whether attentional capture is modulated by trial-by-trial fluctuations of attentional state and experiences on the previous trial. We also consider whether individual differences may affect attentional capture while highlighting potential challenges in using the color-singleton task to measure individual differences. Finally, performance in the color-singleton task can be modified dramatically with practice but the underlying mechanisms are not entirely clear. Understanding the malleability of attentional capture may broaden the current framework and resolve outstanding questions. The version of record of this manuscript will be available in Visual Cognition (2021), https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2021.1915903

Our ability to maintain focus on a task waxes and wanes. Recent research suggests that eye-tracking may be a useful tool to capture the momentary slips of attention. In this paper, we show that pre-trial gaze stability predicted momentary slips of attention on the upcoming trial. In two visual search tasks, we asked participants to stabilize their gaze on a fixation cross before the search array appeared. We recorded participants’ manual responses and eye movements as they searched for the target. We also occasionally presented thought probes to examine whether participants were mind-wandering on a subset of trials. Results from the two tasks revealed a converging pattern: lower pre-trial gaze stability predicted worse performance in the upcoming trial. Specifically, participants had longer response times, were more influenced by distractors, and inspected the target for a longer duration. Participants also reported greater mind-wandering at the end of the trial if they had low pre-trial gaze stability. Overall, these findings suggest that pre-trial gaze stability is a simple and objective measure that can predict moments of inattention, which may be used to proactively curb its negative effects before the actual task starts.

The news media commonly presents data about the incidence of COVID-19 using two graphical displays: daily cases and cumulative cases. How well do ordinary Americans understand the relationship between these graphs? We carried out a multi-phase study to investigate this. We demonstrated that 594 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers (MTurkers) had a poor understanding of the link between new daily and cumulative cases and that this misunderstanding was linked to weaker support for social distancing policies. Critically, we found that a brief training intervention improved understanding of accumulation in contexts other than COVID-19. In a pre-registered study, we replicated these effects in 1,435 MTurkers and show the training also benefits understanding of relevant environmental issues including accumulation of annual CO2 emissions, coral-reef degradation, and plastic production. Finally, we also show that these benefits persist for as long as 10 months after the initial training.

Brain activity typically increases with increasing working memory (WM) load, regardless of age, before reaching an apparent ceiling. However, older adults exhibit greater brain activity and reach ceiling at lower loads than younger adults, possibly reflecting compensation at lower loads and dysfunction at higher loads. We hypothesized that WM training would bolster neural efficiency, such that the activation peak would shift towards higher memory loads after training. Pre-training, older adults showed greater recruitment of the WM network than younger adults across all loads, with decline at the highest load. Ten days of adaptive training on a verbal WM task improved performance and led to greater brain responsiveness at higher loads for both groups. For older adults the activation peak shifted rightward towards higher loads. Finally, training increased task-related functional connectivity in older adults, both within the WM network and between this task-positive network and the task-negative/default-mode network. These results provide new evidence for functional plasticity with training in older adults and identify a potential signature of improvement at the neural level. National Institute on AgingUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USANIH National Institute on Aging (NIA) [R21-AG-045460]; National Institutes of HealthUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA [1S10OD012240-01A1] This research was supported by a National Institute on Aging [R21-AG-045460] grant to P.A.R.-L. and a National Institutes of Health [1S10OD012240-01A1] grant. The authors thank Krisanne Litinas for assistance with MRI data reconstruction and Daniel Weissman for comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

Research investigating transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to enhance cognitive training augments both our understanding of its long-term effects on cognitive plasticity as well as potential applications to strengthen cognitive interventions. Previous work has demonstrated enhancement of working memory training while applying concurrent tDCS to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, the optimal stimulation parameters are still unknown. For example, the timing of tDCS delivery has been shown to be an influential variable that can interact with task learning. In the present study, we used tDCS to target the right DLPFC while participants trained on a visuospatial working memory task. We sought to compare the relative efficacy of online stimulation delivered during training to offline stimulation delivered either immediately before or afterwards. We were unable to replicate previously demonstrated benefits of online stimulation; however, we did find evidence that offline stimulation delivered after training can actually be detrimental to training performance relative to sham. We interpret our results in light of evidence suggesting a role of the right DLPFC in promoting memory interference, and conclude that while tDCS may be a promising tool to influence the results of cognitive training, more research and an abundance of caution are needed before fully endorsing its use for cognitive enhancement. This work suggests that effects can vary substantially in magnitude and direction between studies, and may be heavily dependent on a variety of intervention protocol parameters such as the timing and location of stimulation delivery, about which our understanding is still nascent. Accepted version

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treats neuropsychiatric disorders, but effects of stimulation are highly state-dependent and in most therapeutic applications, mental state is not controlled. This exploratory proposal will test the broad hypothesis that when TMS, specifically intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS), is applied during a controlled mental state, network changes will be facilitated, compared to stimulation when mental state is uncontrolled. We will focus on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the associated fronto-parietal network (FPN), which subserves cognitive control, an important neural and behavioral target of therapeutic TMS. After a baseline functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session, iTBS will be administered to 40 healthy subjects in three sessions over three days in a within-subjects, cross-over design: (1) dlPFC stimulation by iTBS alone, (2) dlPFC stimulation by iTBS while simultaneously performing a cognitive task, and (3) vertex (control) iTBS stimulation. Immediately after each iTBS session, we will measure blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activation during a cognitive control task (“n-back” task) and during the resting state, using BOLD connectivity and arterial spin labeling (ASL). We will test hypotheses that persisting neural changes and performance enhancement induced by iTBS to the dlPFC, compared to iTBS to the vertex, will affect the FPN, and these effects will be modulated by whether or not subjects receive iTBS when they are engaged in a cognitive control task. Demonstrating this interaction between iTBS and mental state will lay critical groundwork for future studies to show how controlling mental state during TMS can improve therapeutic effects. Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04010461.

Background Patients with heart failure (HF) are at risk of cognitive dysfunction, including decreased directed attention. Directed attention is critical for performing daily activities including HF self-care by facilitating one to follow instructions or train-of-thought when there are interferences in which presented stimuli are in conflict with one another. The Multi-Source Interference Task (MSIT) is a computerized neuropsychological test that examines the function of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, the neurological substrate for directed attention. However, the MSIT has not been used in past HF studies. Objective The purpose of the study was to examine construct validity of the MSIT in HF. Methods Baseline data were obtained from a cognitive intervention study among patients with HF (n = 22) and age- and education-matched healthy adults (n = 20). Construct validity was evaluated using t tests to examine differences between patients with HF and healthy adults and congruent and incongruent MSIT trials. Pearson’s correlations were computed to examine relationships between the MSIT and Trail-Making Test, Stroop Test, and Attentional Function Index. Results Compared with healthy adults, patients with HF demonstrated worse performance (i.e., slower response times and higher error rates) on MSIT. Patients with HF had worse performance on MSIT incongruent trials than congruent trials. Interference z scores of MSIT did not correlate with Trail-Making Tests A and B and Stroop Test interference z scores, but the MSIT interference z scores correlated with perceived attention function measured by Attentional Function Index. Discussion Construct validity of the MSIT was supported, in part, among patients with HF. The MSIT is a sensitive measure of detecting worse directed attention among patients with HF compared with healthy adults. The preliminary findings support the use of the MSIT as a measure of directed attention in HF. Confirmation is warranted for current findings in larger samples

Recent work has established the possibility that messaging and incentive during recruitment may influence the outcome of cognitive training. These factors may impact intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to complete a training intervention, and one provocative single session study suggests that recruitment messaging may be responsible for an expectancy effect in certain training experiments. To examine the effects of payment and payment messaging during recruitment on a longer training program, participants were recruited to complete a twenty-session working memory regimen with or without payment, and with messaging that either emphasized payment or improving cognition. Significant group differences were observed at baseline; unpaid participants reported a significantly higher number of cognitive failures compared to compensated participants. However, both paid and unpaid training groups improved on transfer measures compared to an active control group, and payment had no effect on transfer. An additional post-test survey within the compensated group revealed different motivational orientations that were associated with significant performance differences on the visuospatial reasoning factor at baseline. While these differences in motivation were not predictive of transfer or training gain, it is possible that other elements of the study, including researcher involvement, may also play a role in determining the extent to which participants demonstrate transfer on untrained tasks. We conclude that while payment and recruitment messaging may affect training and transfer performance to some degree, a variety of additional factors likely contribute to the outcome of any individual study and the influence of certain factors may matter less during a longer-term program.

In heart failure (HF), attention may be decreased because of lowered cerebral blood flow and increased attentional demands needed for self-care. Guided by the Attention Restoration Theory, the objective was to test the efficacy of the natural restorative environment (NRE) intervention on improving attention and mood among HF patients and healthy adults. A randomized crossover pilot study was conducted among 20 HF patients and an age- and education-matched comparison group of 20 healthy adults to test the efficacy of the NRE intervention compared with an active control intervention. Neuropsychological tests were administered to examine attention, particularly attention span, sustained attention, directed attention, and attention switching, at before and after the intervention. Mood was measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. No significant differences were found in attention and mood after the NRE intervention compared with the control intervention among the HF patients and the healthy adults. In analyses with HF patients and healthy adults combined (n = 40), significant differences were found. Compared with the control intervention, sustained attention improved after the NRE intervention (P = .001) regardless of the presence of HF. Compared with the healthy adults, HF patients performed significantly worse on attention switching after the control intervention (P = .045). The NRE intervention may be efficacious in improving sustained attention in HF patients. Future studies are needed to enhance the NRE intervention to be more efficacious and tailored for HF patients and test the efficacy in a larger sample of HF patients.

Les réseaux sociaux ont rapidement changé la façon dont les gens interagissent entre eux. Le réseau social le plus populaire est Facebook, avec un nombre croissant de personnes qui consacrent de plus en plus de temps sur ce site chaque jour. Dans cet article, nous discutons de l’impact de l’utilisation de Facebook sur le bonheur. La revue de littérature révèle que le bonheur serait influencé différemment selon une utilisation passive ou active de Facebook. L’utilisation active de Facebook stimule le capital social et le sentiment de connexion, qui, à leur tour, ont un impact positif sur le bonheur. L’utilisation passive de Facebook mène souvent à une hausse de la comparaison sociale et de l’envie, qui, à leur tour, ont un impact négatif sur le bonheur. Les gens sont en général plus passifs qu’actifs sur Facebook et ainsi, leur utilisation du site tend à diminuer plutôt qu’à augmenter leur bonheur. Nous terminons cet article en discutant de pistes de recherches futures., Social network sites have rapidly changed the way people interact. The most popular social network site is Facebook with an increasing number of people spending an increasing amount of time on Facebook each day. In this article we discuss the impact of using Facebook on happiness. A review of the present literature reveals that happiness is differentially impacted by active and passive Facebook usage. Active Facebook usage stimulates social capital and connectedness, which, in turn, positively impact happiness. Passive Facebook usage often leads to upward social comparisons and envy, which, in turn, negatively impact happiness. People tend to use Facebook more often passively than actively, and hence, tend to use Facebook in a way that undermines rather than enhances happiness. We end this article by discussing possibilities for future research.

Does silently talking to yourself in the third-person constitute a relatively effortless form of self control? We hypothesized that it does under the premise that third-person self-talk leads people to think about the self similar to how they think about others, which provides them with the psychological distance needed to facilitate self control. We tested this prediction by asking participants to reflect on feelings elicited by viewing aversive images (Study 1) and recalling negative autobiographical memories (Study 2) using either “I” or their name while measuring neural activity via ERPs (Study 1) and fMRI (Study 2). Study 1 demonstrated that third-person self-talk reduced an ERP marker of selfreferential emotional reactivity (i.e., late positive potential) within the first second of viewing aversive images without enhancing an ERP marker of cognitive control (i.e., stimulus preceding negativity). Conceptually replicating these results, Study 2 demonstrated that third-person self-talk was linked with reduced levels of activation in an a priori defined fMRI marker of self-referential processing (i.e., medial prefrontal cortex) when participants reflected on negative memories without eliciting increased levels of activity in a priori defined fMRI markers of cognitive control. Together, these results suggest that third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of self-control. This research was supported by funds provided by Michigan State University and the National Institutes of Health (HD065879) to JM and both funds provided by the University of Michigan and a grant provided by the John Templeton Foundation (#349798, #348747) to EK.

Social network sites are ubiquitous and now constitute a common tool people use to interact with one another in daily life. Here we review the consequences of interacting with social network sites for subjective well-being—that is, how people feel moment-to-moment and how satisfied they are with their lives. We begin by clarifying the constructs that we focus on in this review: social network sites and subjective well-being. Next, we review the literature that explains how these constructs are related. This research reveals: (a) negative relationships between passively using social network sites and subjective well-being, and (b) positive relationships between actively using social network sites and subjective well-being, with the former relationship being more robust than the latter. Specifically, passively using social network sites provokes social comparisons and envy, which have negative downstream consequences for subjective well-being. In contrast, when active usage of social network sites predicts subjective well-being, it seems to do so by creating social capital and stimulating feelings of social connectedness. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of this work.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a prevalent disorder involving disturbances in mood. There is still much to understand regarding precisely how emotions are disrupted in individuals with MDD. In this study, we used a network approach to examine the emotional disturbances underlying MDD. We hypothesized that compared with healthy control individuals, individuals diagnosed with MDD would be characterized by a denser emotion network, thereby indicating that their emotion system is more resistant to change. Indeed, results from a 7-day experience sampling study revealed that individuals with MDD had a denser overall emotion network than did healthy control individuals. Moreover, this difference was driven primarily by a denser negative, but not positive, network in MDD participants. These findings suggest that the disruption in emotions that characterizes depressed individuals stems from a negative emotion system that is resistant to change.

Socioeconomic disadvantage during childhood is associated with a myriad of negative adult outcomes. One mechanism through which disadvantage undermines positive outcomes may be by disrupting the development of self-control. The goal of the present study was to examine pathways from three key indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage – low family income, low maternal education, and neighborhood poverty – to neural and behavioral measures of response inhibition. We utilized data from a representative cohort of 215 twins (ages 7–18 years, 70% male) oversampled for exposure to disadvantage, who participated in the Michigan Twins Neurogenetics Study (MTwiNS), a study within the Michigan State University Twin Registry (MSUTR). Our child-friendly Go/No-Go task activated the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and activation during this task predicted behavioral inhibition performance, extending prior work on adults to youth. Critically, we also found that neighborhood poverty, assessed via geocoding, but not family income or maternal education, was associated with IFG activation, a finding that we replicated in an independent sample of disadvantaged youth. Further, we found that neighborhood poverty predicted response inhibition performance via its effect on IFG activation. These results provide the first mechanistic evidence that disadvantaged contexts may undermine self-control via their effect on the brain. The broader neighborhood, beyond familial contexts, may be critically important for this association, suggesting that contexts beyond the home have profound effects on the developing brain and behaviors critical for future health, wealth, and wellbeing.

Interactions with natural environments and nature-related stimuli have been found to be beneficial to cognitive performance, in particular on executive cognitive tasks with high demands on directed attention processes. However, results vary across different studies. The aim of the present paper was to evaluate the effects of nature vs. urban environments on cognitive performance across all of our published and new/unpublished studies testing the effects of different interactions with nature vs. urban/built control environments, on an executive-functioning test with high demands on directed attention—the backwards digit span (BDS) task. Specific aims in this study were to: (1) evaluate the effect of nature vs. urban environment interactions on BDS across different exposure types (e.g., real-world vs. artificial environments/stimuli); (2) disentangle the effects of testing order (i.e., effects caused by the order in which experimental conditions are administered) from the effects of the environment interactions, and (3) test the (mediating) role of affective changes on BDS performance. To this end, data from 13 experiments are presented, and pooled data-analyses are performed. Results from the pooled data-analyses (N = 528 participants) showed significant time-by-environment interactions with beneficial effects of nature compared to urban environments on BDS performance. There were also clear interactions with the order in which environment conditions were tested. Specifically, there were practice effects across environment conditions in first sessions. Importantly, after parceling out initial practice effects, the positive effects of nature compared to urban interactions on BDS performance were magnified. Changes in positive or negative affect did not mediate the beneficial effects of nature on BDS performance. These results are discussed in relation to the findings of other studies identified in the literature. Uncontrolled and confounding order effects (i.e., effects due to the order of experimental conditions, rather than the treatment conditions) may explain some of the inconsistent findings across studies in the literature on nature effects on cognitive performance. In all, these results highlight the robustness of the effects of natural environments on cognition, particularly when confounding order effects have been considered, and provide a more nuanced account of when a nature intervention will be most effective.

Proactive control is the ability to manipulate and maintain goal-relevant information within working memory (WM), allowing individuals to selectively attend to important information while inhibiting irrelevant distractions. Deficits in proactive control may cause multiple cognitive impairments seen in schizophrenia. However, studies of cognitive control have largely relied on visual tasks, even though the functional deficits in schizophrenia are more frequent and severe in the auditory domain (i.e., hallucinations). Hence, we developed an auditory analogue of a visual ignore/suppress paradigm. Healthy adults (N = 40) listened to a series of four letters (600-ms stimulus onset asynchrony) presented alternately to each ear, followed by a 3.2-s maintenance interval and a probe. Participants were directed either to selectively ignore (I) the to-be-presented letters at one ear, to suppress (S) letters already presented to one ear, or to remember (R) all presented letters. The critical cue was provided either before (I) or after (S) the encoding series, or simultaneously with the probe (R). The probes were encoding items presented to either the attended/not suppressed ear (“valid”) or the ignored/suppressed ear (“lure”), or were not presented (“control”). Replicating prior findings during visual ignore/suppress tasks, response sensitivity and latency revealed poorer performance for lure than for control trials, particularly during the suppress condition. Shorter suppress than remember latencies suggested a behavioral advantage when discarding encoded items from WM. The paradigm-related internal consistencies and 1-week test–retest reliabilities (n = 38) were good to excellent. Our findings validate these auditory WM tasks as a reliable manipulation of proactive control and set the stage for studies with schizophrenia patients who experience auditory hallucinations.

Interactions with natural environments and nature-related stimuli have been found to be beneficial to cognitive performance, in particular on executive cognitive tasks with high demands on directed attention processes. However, results vary across different studies.The aim of the present study was to perform a meta-analysis of all our published and unpublished studies testing the effect of different interactions with nature versus urban/built control environments, on an executive test with high demands on directed attention: the backwards digit span (BDS) task. Specific aims were to evaluate the effect of nature versus urban environment interactions on BDS across different exposure types (e.g. being in real environments, or viewing videos, images, or listening to sounds) and disentangle the effects of testing order (i.e. practice with repeated testing) and the role of affective changes on BDS performance. We also reviewed the literature and compared and contrasted our meta-analysis with results from other studies. Results from our meta-analysis comprising 12 studies (N=567 participants) showed significant environment-by-time interactions with beneficial effects of nature compared to urban environments on BDS performance. This effect was magnified after parceling out initial practice effects on the BDS. Changes in positive or negative affect did not mediate the beneficial effects of nature on BDS performance. These results mirrored effects that we reviewed from outside of our laboratories. Uncontrolled and confounding order effects may explain some of the inconsistent findings in the literature. In all, these results highlight the robustness of the effects of natural environments on cognition when confounding order effects have been considered, and also provide a more nuanced account of when a nature intervention will be most effective.

Prior research indicates that Facebook usage predicts declines in subjective well-being over time. How does this come about? We examined this issue in 2 studies using experimental and field methods. In Study 1, cueing people in the laboratory to use Facebook passively (rather than actively) led to declines in affective well-being over time. Study 2 replicated these findings in the field using experience-sampling techniques. It also demonstrated how passive Facebook usage leads to declines in affective well-being: by increasing envy. Critically, the relationship between passive Facebook usage and changes in affective well-being remained significant when controlling for active Facebook use, non-Facebook online social network usage, and direct social interactions, highlighting the specificity of this result. These findings demonstrate that passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is characterized by rumination. Prior research suggests that resting-state brain activation reflects rumination when depressed individuals are not task engaged. However, no study has directly tested this. Here we investigated whether resting-state epochs differ from induced ruminative states for healthy and depressed individuals. Most previous research on resting-state networks comes from seed-based analyses with the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). By contrast, we examined resting state connectivity by using the complete multivariate connectivity profile (i.e., connections across all brain nodes) and by comparing these results to seeded analyses. We find that unconstrained resting-state intervals differ from active rumination states in strength of connectivity and that overall connectivity was higher for healthy vs. depressed individuals. Relationships between connectivity and subjective mood (i.e., behavior) were strongly observed during induced rumination epochs. Furthermore, connectivity patterns that related to subjective mood were strikingly different for MDD and healthy control (HC) groups suggesting different mood regulation mechanisms.

A great deal of interest surrounds the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to augment cognitive training. However, effects are inconsistent across studies, and meta-analytic evidence is mixed, especially for healthy, young adults. One major source of this inconsistency is individual differences among the participants, but these differences are rarely examined in the context of combined training/stimulation studies. In addition, it is unclear how long the effects of stimulation last, even in successful interventions. Some studies make use of follow-up assessments, but very few have measured performance more than a few months after an intervention. Here, we utilized data from a previous study of tDCS and cognitive training [Au, J., Katz, B., Buschkuehl, M., Bunarjo, K., Senger, T., Zabel, C., et al. Enhancing working memory training with transcranial direct current stimulation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 28, 1419–1432, 2016] in which participants trained on a working memory task over 7 days while receiving active or sham tDCS. A new, longer-term follow-up to assess later performance was conducted, and additional participants were added so that the sham condition was better powered. We assessed baseline cognitive ability, gender, training site, and motivation level and found significant interactions between both baseline ability and motivation with condition (active or sham) in models predicting training gain. In addition, the improvements in the active condition versus sham condition appear to be stable even as long as a year after the original intervention.

Short-term memory (STM), the brief maintenance of information in the absence of external stimulation, is central to higher-level cognition. Behavioral and neural data indicate that information maintained in STM can be represented in qualitatively distinct states. These states include a single chunk held in the focus of attention available for immediate processing (the "focus"), a capacity-limited set of additional actively maintained items that the focus can access (the "active state"), and passively maintained items (the "passive state"). Little is known about how information is shifted among these states. Here, we used fMRI in humans to examine the neural correlates of shifting information among representational states of STM. We used a paradigm that has demonstrated dissociable performance costs associated with shifting the focus among active items and switching sets of items between active and passive states. Behavioral results confirmed distinct behavioral costs associated with different representational states. Neural results indicated that the caudal superior frontal sulcus (cSFS), in the vicinity of the frontal eye fields, was associated with shifting the focus, consistent with the role of this region in internal and external attention. By contrast, the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) was associated with shifting between active and passive states. Increased cSFS-medial temporal lobe (MTL) connectivity was associated with shifting the focus, while cSFS-MTL connectivity was disrupted when the active state was changed. By contrast, PMv-MTL connectivity increased when the active state was switched. These data indicate that dissociable frontal-MTL interactions mediate shifts of information among different representational states in STM.