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Longitudinal studies and meta-analyses have shown a causal link between attentional dysfunctions and developmental dyslexia (DD). We carried out a meta-analysis to test the effectiveness of action video games (AVGs) training on visual attention in children with DD. PubMed, Cochrane, Science Report, EBSCO Database, Scopus, ProQuest Dissertation and Theses, and IEEE Explore were consulted. Only quantitative studies with measures of pre- and post-treatment reading skills, written in English, and with an active control group were considered. The risk of bias was evaluated according to RoB2 and ROBINS-I assessment tools. Out of 2073 records, nine experiments using AVGs in 238 children (aged 5–15) with DD were selected. The Hedge's g results indicate that AVGs training affects visual attention as well as reading-related functions. Studies with a larger sample including follow-up assessments and neurobiological studies are needed to verify AVGs long-lasting effects on DD. HIGHLIGHTS: Action video games (AVGs) improve learning by attention enhancement. Attention is dysfunctional in children with developmental dyslexia (DD). AVGs training improves visual attention and reading speed in children with DD. AVGs training also boosts phonological processing (far transfer) in children with DD. Further studies are needed to confirm long-lasting effects of AVGs in children with DD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key event-related potentials (ERPs) of perceptual decision-making such as centroparietal positivity (CPP) elucidate how evidence is accumulated toward a given choice. Furthermore, this accumulation can be impacted by visual target selection signals such as the N2 contralateral (N2c). How these underlying neural mechanisms of perceptual decision-making are influenced by the spatial congruence of distractors relative to target stimuli remains unclear. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) in humans of both sexes to investigate the effect of distractor spatial congruency (same vs different hemifield relative to targets) on perceptual decision-making.We confirmed that responses for perceptual decisions were slower for spatially incongruent versus congruent distractors of high salience. Similarly, markers of target selection (N2c peak amplitude) and evidence accumulation (CPP slope) were found to be lower when distractors were spatially incongruent versus congruent. To evaluate the effects of congruency further, we applied drift diffusion modeling to participant responses, which showed that larger amplitudes of both ERPs were correlated with shorter nondecision times when considering the effect of congruency. The modeling also suggested that congruency's effect on behavior occurred prior to and during evidence accumulation when considering the effects of the N2c peak and CPP slope. These findings point to spatially incongruent distractors, relative to congruent distractors, influencing decisions as early as the initial sensory processing phase and then continuing to exert an effect as evidence is accumulated throughout the decision-making process. Overall, our findings highlight how key electrophysiological signals of perceptual decision-making are influenced by the spatial congruence of target and distractor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of any social interaction involves inferring other people's mental states, intentions, and their likely next actions, by way of facial expression, body posture, eye gaze, and limb movements. An actor's production of actions during social interactions and the observer's perception of these actions are thus closely linked. In this review, we outline an action-observation methodology, which not only allows for separate analyses of production and perception, but also promotes the study of the dynamic interaction between these two sides of every social exchange. We review two lines of research that have benefited from its application. The first line focuses on individuals performing tasks alone and the observation of their actions by other individuals in order to make inferences about their attentional states. The second line of study focused on pairs of individuals performing collaborative tasks in naturalistic settings and the observation of these performances by other individuals. We offer several suggestions for how this methodology can be extended to improve on the limitations of the present studies, as well as some suggestions of how to use this methodology to venture into new territory. Our aim is to inspire future research applications of this methodology in order to advance our understanding of social action production and perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research on task switching has shown that the reconfiguration of stimulus–response mappings across trials is associated with behavioral switch costs. Here, we investigated the effects of switching representations of target‐defining features in visual search (attentional templates). Participants searched for one of two color‐defined target objects that changed predictably every two trials (Experiment 1) or every four trials (Experiment 2). Substantial costs were observed for search performance on target switch relative to target repeat trials. Preparatory target template activation processes were tracked by measuring N2pc components (indicative of attentional capture) to a rapid series of task‐irrelevant color singleton probes that appeared during the interval between search displays, and either matched the currently relevant or the other target color. N2pcs to relevant target color probes emerged from 800 ms before search display onset on target repetition trials, reflecting the activation of a corresponding color template. Crucially, probe N2pcs only emerged immediately before target onset on target switch trials, indicating that preparatory template activation was strongly delayed. In contrast, irrelevant color singleton probes did not trigger N2pcs on either repeat or switch trials, suggesting the absence of any target template inertia across trials. These results show that switching the identity of search targets delays preparatory target template activation and impairs subsequent attentional guidance processes. They suggest that performance costs on switch versus repeat trials are associated with differences in the time course of task preparation. Switching between cognitive tasks results in substantial performance costs, but the mechanisms responsible for these costs are not yet fully understood. Using electrophysiological markers of task preparation processes in visual search, we show that preparation is delayed when the identity of an upcoming search target changes. This new finding suggests strong links between switch costs and the time course of activating preparatory attentional task sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of any social interaction involves inferring other people’s mental states, intentions, and their likely next actions, by way of facial expression, body posture, eye gaze, and limb movements. An actor’s production of actions during social interactions and the observer’s perception of these actions are thus closely linked. In this review, we outline an action-observation methodology, which not only allows for separate analyses of production and perception, but also promotes the study of the dynamic interaction between these two sides of every social exchange. We review two lines of research that have benefited from its application. The first line focuses on individuals performing tasks alone and the observation of their actions by other individuals in order to make inferences about their attentional states. The second line of study focused on pairs of individuals performing collaborative tasks in naturalistic settings and the observation of these performances by other individuals. We offer several suggestions for how this methodology can be extended to improve on the limitations of the present studies, as well as some suggestions of how to use this methodology to venture into new territory. Our aim is to inspire future research applications of this methodology in order to advance our understanding of social action production and perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of categories is known to distort perceptual space: representations are pushed away from category boundaries and pulled toward categorical prototypes. This phenomenon has been studied with artificially constructed objects, whose feature dimensions are easily defined and manipulated. How such category-induced perceptual distortions arise for complex, real-world scenes, however, remains largely unknown due to the technical challenge of measuring and controlling scene features. We address this question by generating realistic scene images from a high-dimensional continuous space using generative adversarial networks and using the images as stimuli in a novel learning task. Participants learned to categorize the scene images along arbitrary category boundaries and later reconstructed the same scenes from memory. Systematic biases in reconstruction errors closely tracked each participant's subjective category boundaries. These findings suggest that the perception of global scene properties is warped to align with a newly learned category structure after only a brief learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perceptual system must integrate information from various points in time and space to interpret continuous sensory input into meaningful units, such as visual objects or events. To explore the relationship between the perception of spatial objects and temporal events, we modified the missing element task, a typical temporal integration task, by inserting a simple spatial object. The aim was to determine whether the perceptual processing of the object would have an impact on the frequency of temporal integration and segregation. Temporal integration was most successful when the missing element was located within the object, less successful when there was no object, and least successful when the missing element appeared outside the object. The advantage of the location of the missing element within the object was observed at display durations from 30 ms to 150 ms. Interestingly, the object provided the same benefit for integration and segregation despite their opposing perceptual demands. This study demonstrates the relationship that exists between the processing of temporal events and spatial objects, and shows how such spatial information can facilitate temporal integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children sometimes learn distracting information better than adults do, perhaps because of the development of selective attention. To understand this potential link, we ask how the learning of children (aged 7–9 years) and the learning of adults differ when information is the directed focus of attention versus when it is not. Participants viewed drawings of common objects and were told to attend to the drawings (Experiment 1: 42 children, 35 adults) or indicate when shapes (overlaid on the drawings) repeated (Experiment 2: 53 children, 60 adults). Afterward, participants identified fragments of these drawings as quickly as possible. Adults learned better than children when directed to attend to the drawings; however, when drawings were task irrelevant, children showed better learning than adults in the first half of the test. And although directing attention to the drawings improved learning in adults, children learned the drawings similarly across experiments regardless of whether the drawings were the focus of the task or entirely irrelevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Category learning is a crucial aspect of cognition that involves organizing entities into equivalence classes. Whereas adults tend to focus on category-relevant features, young children often distribute attention between relevant and irrelevant ones. The reasons for children's distributed attention are not fully understood. In two category-learning experiments with adults and with children aged 4, 5, and 6 (N = 201), we examined potential drivers of distributed attention, including (a) immature filtering of distractors and (b) the general tendency for exploration or broad information sampling. By eliminating distractor competition, we reduced filtering demands. Despite identifying the features critical for accurate categorization, children, regardless of their categorization performance, continued sampling more information than was necessary. These results indicate that the tendency to sample information extensively contributes to distributed attention in young children. We identify candidate drivers of this tendency that need to be examined in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Male frogs court females from within crowded choruses, selecting for mechanisms allowing them to call at favourable times relative to the calls of rivals and background chorus noise. To accomplish this, males must continuously evaluate the fluctuating acoustic scene generated by their competitors for opportune times to call. Túngara frogs produce highly frequency- and amplitude-modulated calls from within dense choruses. We used similarly frequency- and amplitude-modulated playback tones to investigate the sensory basis of their call-timing decisions. Results revealed that different frequencies present throughout this species' call differed in their degree of call inhibition, and that lower-amplitude tones were less inhibitory. Call-timing decisions were then driven by fluctuations in inhibition arising from underlying frequency- and amplitude-modulation patterns, with tone transitions that produced steeper decreases in inhibition having higher probabilities of triggering calls. Interactions between the varied behavioural sensitivities to different conspecific call frequencies revealed here, and the stereotyped amplitude- and frequency-modulation patterns present in this species' calls, can explain previously surprising patterns observed in túngara frog choruses. This highlights the importance of understanding the specific sensory drivers underpinning conspecific signalling interactions, and reveals how sensory systems can mediate the interplay between signal perception and production to facilitate adaptive communication strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention and decision-making processes are fundamental to cognition. However, they are usually experimentally confounded, making it difficult to link neural observations to specific processes. Here we separated the effects of selective attention from the effects of decision-making on brain activity obtained from human participants (both sexes), using a two-stage task where the attended stimulus and decision were orthogonal and separated in time. Multivariate pattern analyses of multimodal neuroimaging data revealed the dynamics of perceptual and decision-related information coding through time with magnetoencephalography (MEG), through space with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and their combination (MEG-fMRI fusion). Our MEG results showed an effect of attention before decision-making could begin, and fMRI results showed an attention effect in early visual and frontoparietal regions. Model-based MEG-fMRI fusion suggested that attention boosted stimulus information in the frontoparietal and early visual regions before decision-making was possible. Together, our results suggest that attention affects neural stimulus representations in the frontoparietal regions independent of decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Non-contact injuries are highly prevalent among young athletes and occur particularly in situations that require fast decision making and divided attention. Administering relevant neurocognitive tests could help identify deficiencies in these cognitive abilities and thus potentially mitigate injury risk. However, processes such as selective attention and response inhibition might depend to some extent on the athlete's maturation stage. We aimed to examine the effect of maturation on selective visual attention and response inhibition among adolescent volleyball players. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 52 female adolescents (age 12.3 ± 2.1 years) performed an Eriksen Flankers task. Participants were divided into subgroups based on their estimated adult stature, using the Khamis & Roche method: Pre-pubertal (PRE; n = 13, age: 9.9 ± 1.3), early-puberty (EPUB; n = 7, age: 10.5 ± 0.6), mid-puberty (MPUB; n = 8, age: 12.6 ± 0.8) and late puberty (LPUB; n = 24, age: 14.1 ± 0.9). Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were performed on congruent and incongruent reaction times (RT), with corresponding success rates (% correct responses) as covariate. Flanker interference effect was tested using ANOVA. Correlations were further examined between the dependent variables and participants' chronological age. Results: There was a significant group effect, with PRE demonstrating longer RT compared with LPUB (P < 0.001) for both congruent and incongruent RT. Moderate negative correlations were observed between age and RT (Rp = -0.695, Rp = -0.614 for congruent and incongruent RT, respectively) and low positive correlations between age and incongruent success rate (Rs = 0.318). Low to moderate correlations were also observed within the LPUB group for RT (Rp = -0.431–-0.532) and success rate (negative Rs = -574 for congruent and positive Rs = 0.417 for incongruent). There were no group differences nor age associations with interference effect. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that information processing and selective visual attention are superior at late maturation compared with early maturation among female adolescents. The same cannot be said for response inhibition, which did not differ between maturation groups. Similar tendencies were observed with regards to chronological age, but not entirely explained by it. Maturation level, rather than chronological age, should guide practitioners during sport participation and injury prevention programs for young athletes, whose neurocognitive abilities are not yet fully developed, placing them at risk for non-contact injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive decline, a common consequence of aging, detrimentally affects independence, physical activity, and social interactions. This decline encompasses various cognitive functions, including processing speed, memory, language, and executive functioning. This trial aimed to investigate, with a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial on 96 healthy older adults, the efficacy of once-daily 250 mg of a standardized grape (Vitis vinifera L.) juice extract (Cognigrape®) in improving short- and long-term cognitive functions. The results revealed significant improvements across multiple cognitive domains, notably immediate and delayed memory, visuospatial abilities, language, and attention, with improvements occurring within just 14 days, which continued to improve after 84 days of supplementation. The extract exhibited statistically significant enhancements in the Mini-Mental State Evaluation (MMSE), assessment of neuropsychological status (RBANS), "Esame Neuropsicologico Breve 2 (ENB-2), and Modified Bells Test (MBT) scores, with the latter test revealing a significant improvement in selective attention within just 90 min of the first dose. These positive results highlight the potential this natural grape extract has on improving cognitive function both acutely and chronically in a healthy aging population, which in turn supports a longer health span, at least cognitively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Selective attention declines with age, due to age-related functional changes in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI) neurofeedback has been used in young adults to train volitional control of brain activity, including in dACC. Methods: For the first time, this study used rtfMRI neurofeedback to train 19 young and 27 older adults in volitional up- or down-regulation of bilateral dACC during a selective attention task. Results: Older participants in the up-regulation condition (experimental group) showed greater reward points and dACC BOLD signal across training sessions, reflective of neurofeedback training success; and faster reaction time and better response accuracy, suggesting behavioral benefits on selective attention. These effects were not observed for older participants in the down-regulation condition (inverse condition control group), supporting specificity of volitional dACC up-regulation training in older adults. These effects were, unexpectedly, also not observed for young participants in the up-regulation condition (age control group), perhaps due to a lack of motivation to continue the training. Conclusions: These findings provide promising first evidence of functional plasticity in dACC in late life via rtfMRI neurofeedback up-regulation training, enhancing selective attention, and demonstrate proof of concept of rtfMRI neurofeedback training in cognitive aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual search usually improves with repeated exposure to a search display. Previous research suggests that such a "contextual cueing" effect may be supported even by aspects of the search display that participants have been explicitly asked to ignore. Based on this evidence, it has been suggested that the development of contextual cueing over trials does not depend on selective attention. In the present series of experiments, we show that the most common strategy used to prevent participants from paying attention to task-irrelevant distractors often results in suboptimal selection. Specifically, we show that visual search is slower when search displays include many irrelevant distractors. Eye-tracking data show that this happens, at least in part, because participants fixate on them. These results cast doubts on previous demonstrations that contextual cueing is independent of selective attention. Public Significance Statement: Can we learn about stimuli we are trying to ignore? Previous research suggests that, occasionally, people learn statistical relations between visual stimuli they have been instructed to ignore, even if paying attention to them is counterproductive. This is consistent with the common assumption that some types of learning are relatively automatic and require no attention. However, can we be sure that people actually ignore stimuli just because they are instructed to do so? In the present study, we show that participants do pay some attention to task-irrelevant stimuli, putting a question mark on previous studies concluding that learning does not require attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature-based attention allows to efficiently guide attention to relevant information in the visual scene, but unambiguous empirical evidence on age-related effects is still limited. In this study, young and older participants performed a two-alternative forced choice task in which a response was selected based on a task-relevant number (=target) presented alone or with a task-irrelevant letter (=neutral distracter) or number (=compatible/incompatible distracter). Participants were required to select the target based on color. To compare the behavioral interference of the distracters between the age groups, data were modeled with a hierarchical drift-diffusion model. The results revealed that decreases in the rate at which information was collected in the conditions with versus without a distracter were more pronounced in the older than young age group when the distracter was compatible or incompatible. Our findings are consistent with an age-related decline in the ability to filter out distracters based on features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study aimed to examine how concurrent working memory (WM) loads affect selective attention, and to explore developmental differences between young adults and children/adolescents aged 10 to 14 years. Methods: We employed a modified Stroop task with verbal or spatial WM loads to assess their impact on attention. Results: In adults, we found increased Stroop effects when WM load overlapped with target processing and decreased Stroop effects when WM load overlapped with distractor processing. Conversely, in children/adolescents, WM loads did not significantly impact target or distractor processing, indicating no change in Stroop effects under dual-task conditions. Interestingly, results from the correlational analyses revealed that as participants' ages increase, the interference effect under the WM load that shares resources with distractor processing in the attention task decreases. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the interaction between attention and WM differs across developmental stages. While adults showed distinctive effects of concurrent WM loads on attention processing depending on the cognitive resources utilized, children/adolescents failed to show the interaction between the two cognitive systems. Furthermore, a significant relationship between age and the effects of WM load on attention was observed, providing insights into the development of the interaction between WM and attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Non-contact injuries are highly prevalent among young athletes and occur particularly in situations that require fast decision making and divided attention. Administering relevant neurocognitive tests could help identify deficiencies in these cognitive abilities and thus potentially mitigate injury risk. However, processes such as selective attention and response inhibition might depend to some extent on the athlete’s maturation stage. We aimed to examine the effect of maturation on selective visual attention and response inhibition among adolescent volleyball players. Methods In this cross-sectional study, 52 female adolescents (age 12.3 ± 2.1 years) performed an Eriksen Flankers task. Participants were divided into subgroups based on their estimated adult stature, using the Khamis & Roche method: Pre-pubertal (PRE; n = 13, age: 9.9 ± 1.3), early-puberty (EPUB; n = 7, age: 10.5 ± 0.6), mid-puberty (MPUB; n = 8, age: 12.6 ± 0.8) and late puberty (LPUB; n = 24, age: 14.1 ± 0.9). Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were performed on congruent and incongruent reaction times (RT), with corresponding success rates (% correct responses) as covariate. Flanker interference effect was tested using ANOVA. Correlations were further examined between the dependent variables and participants’ chronological age. Results There was a significant group effect, with PRE demonstrating longer RT compared with LPUB (P

Many casinos diffuse a pleasant ambient scent into their facilities as a customer experience management practice, but the ethics of this scenting process is questionable. Although the effect of a pleasant scent on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses has been well-documented, its effect on attention during gambling has yet to be explored. Grounded in the tenets of the top-down control of attention and cross-modal correspondence between vision and olfaction, we conduct two eye-tracking experiments that involve different electronic casino games including video slots and live Cussec. The findings consistently show that pleasant ambient scent prolongs attention and induces more frequent attention to the win/loss areas on the video screen. The findings add to the implications related to responsible gambling by inspiring the stakeholders to consider the use of ambient scent in the gambling environment. Theoretically, the findings offer insights into scent as the catalyst that directs attention to goal-related information, while scent and goal do not need to be congruent in traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing teachers’ professional vision (TPV) may contribute to increasing the quality of teaching-learning processes through higher perceived efficacy, leading to autonomy-supportive environment. This is of particular importance in Physical Education (PE), due to the fact that this subject presents different challenges and more dynamic situations compared to others. One of the latest approaches for enhancing TPV is video-based reflection, which allows teachers to observe recorded lessons and analyze them. The aim of this research was to test the effect of a video-based reflection program on TPV in PE. Two teachers participated in a 3-step video-analysis program consisting of self-reflection, peer reflection, and expert feedback. Notable changes were found in TPV at the end of the 6-month intervention, both in terms of teachers’ selective attention to classroom events and their knowledge-based reasoning. Our findings suggest that video-based reflection programs could represent an important part of any teacher training program aiming to increasing PE teachers’ responsiveness to diverse in-class situations.

The aim of this research was to investigate the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation in enhancing academic achievement, cognitive flexibility, and selective attention in students with specific learning disabilities. This applied study employed a semi-experimental design with pretest-posttest, a quantitative research method, and an experimental and control group. The population included all elementary school pupils who were referred to learning disability centers in Zanjan during the academic year 2021-2022. A total of 40 participants (22 boys and 18 girls) were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (each group, 20 participants). The selection was conducted through convenience sampling. The control group was placed on a waiting list, while the experimental group received 12 sessions of cognitive rehabilitation interventions. The Stroop and Wisconsin Card Sorting Tests were employed to capture data, which were subsequently analyzed using SPSS24 and repeated measures analysis. The findings showed that after cognitive rehabilitation, the level of selective attention, cognitive flexibility, and academic achievement of the participants increased significantly. Selective attention, cognitive flexibility, and academic achievement were significantly different between the experimental and control groups in the pretest, posttest, and follow-up (P

Abstract Multilingual speakers can find speech recognition in everyday environments like restaurants and open-plan offices particularly challenging. In a world where speaking multiple languages is increasingly common, effective clinical and educational interventions will require a better understanding of how factors like multilingual contexts and listeners’ language proficiency interact with adverse listening environments. For example, word and phrase recognition is facilitated when competing voices speak different languages. Is this due to a “release from masking” from lower-level acoustic differences between languages and talkers, or higher-level cognitive and linguistic factors? To address this question, we created a “one-man bilingual cocktail party” selective attention task using English and Mandarin speech from one bilingual talker to reduce low-level acoustic cues. In Experiment 1, 58 listeners more accurately recognized English targets when distracting speech was Mandarin compared to English. Bilingual Mandarin–English listeners experienced significantly more interference and intrusions from the Mandarin distractor than did English listeners, exacerbated by challenging target-to-masker ratios. In Experiment 2, 29 Mandarin–English bilingual listeners exhibited linguistic release from masking in both languages. Bilinguals experienced greater release from masking when attending to English, confirming an influence of linguistic knowledge on the “cocktail party” paradigm that is separate from primarily energetic masking effects. Effects of higher-order language processing and expertise emerge only in the most demanding target-to-masker contexts. The “one-man bilingual cocktail party” establishes a useful tool for future investigations and characterization of communication challenges in the large and growing worldwide community of Mandarin–English bilinguals.

A mounting number of individuals engage in the simultaneous learning of multiple foreign languages. Prior research has underscored the advantages of bilingualism on foreign language aptitude (FLA). However, the impact of multilingual experience on the constituents of FLA, namely explicit language aptitude (ELA) and implicit language aptitude (ILA), along with the cognitive mechanisms underlying these effects, remain less explored. This study seeks to fill this gap by examining the potential multilingual influence on FLA constituents and the possible mediating role of cognitive abilities such as selective attention and working memory. Our research involved 82 Chinese college students, aged between 17 and 24, equally distributed into two cohorts: Chinese-English bilinguals and Chinese-English-Japanese trilinguals (41 per group). The results showed that bilinguals outperformed trilingual learners in terms of ILA performance, with selective attention fully mediating the relationship between multilingualism and ILA. This work is pioneering in identifying the crucial role of selective attention in linking multilingualism and ILA, thereby advancing our understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of the relative bilingual efficiency in language aptitude. The insights are invaluable for educational practice, suggesting that language learning programmes should be designed to optimise cognitive resources in multilingual learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To find a target in visual search, it is often necessary to filter out task-irrelevant distractors. People find the process of distractor filtering effortful, exerting physical effort to reduce the number of distractors that need to be filtered on a given search trial. Working memory demands are sufficiently costly that people are sometimes willing to accept aversive heat stimulation in exchange for the ability to avoid performing a working memory task. The present study examines whether filtering distractors in visual search is similarly costly. The findings reveal that individuals are sometimes willing to accept an electric shock in exchange for the ability to skip a single trial of visual search, increasingly so as the demands of distractor filtering increase. This was true even when acceptance of shock resulted in no overall time savings, although acceptance of shock was overall infrequent and influenced by a plurality of factors, including boredom and curiosity. These findings have implications for our understanding of the mental burden of distractor filtering and why people seek to avoid cognitive effort more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attentional bias to threat has been almost exclusively examined after participants experienced repeated pairings between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). This study aimed to determine whether threat-related attentional capture can result from observational learning, when participants acquire knowledge of the aversive qualities of a stimulus without themselves experiencing aversive outcomes. Non-clinical young-adult participants (N = 38) first watched a video of an individual (the demonstrator) performing a Pavlovian conditioning task in which one colour was paired with shock (CS+) and another colour was neutral (CS−). They then carried out visual search for a shape-defined target. Oculomotor measures evidenced an attentional bias toward the CS+ colour, suggesting that threat-related attentional capture can ensue from observational learning. Exploratory analyses also revealed that this effect was positively correlated with empathy for the demonstrator. Our findings extend empirical and theoretical knowledge about threat-driven attention and provide valuable insights to better understand the formation of anxiety disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive processes deal with contradictory demands in social contexts. On the one hand, social interactions imply a demand for cooperation, which requires processing social signals, and on the other, demands for selective attention require ignoring irrelevant signals, to avoid overload. We created a task with a humanoid robot displaying irrelevant social signals, imposing conflicting demands on selective attention. Participants interacted with the robot as a team (high social demand; n = 23) or a passive co‐actor (low social demand; n = 19). We observed that theta oscillations indexed conflict processing of social signals. Subsequently, alpha oscillations were sensitive to the conflicting social signals and the mode of interaction. These findings suggest that brains have distinct mechanisms for dealing with the complexity of social interaction and that these mechanisms are activated differently depending on the mode of the interaction. Thus, how we process environmental stimuli depends on the beliefs held regarding our social context. We investigated the impact of social interaction on cognition, specifically the conflicting demands of social signals while suppressing irrelevant information using a human–robot handover task. Our results revealed that these demands interactively influence neural processes, and we identified the timing of this interaction. These findings have implications for sociocognitive neuroscience, illustrating how the brain handles complex social interactions. They also have relevance for robotics, emphasizing the negative impact of irrelevant robot behaviors on human cognitive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visual Simon task is widely employed to explore the underlying mechanisms of sensorimotor processing in the presence of task-relevant (targets) and task-irrelevant (distracting) location information. Critically, the Simon effect is considered as an indicator of action-related interference resulting from distractor-based activation, which fades out over time. In this study, we tested whether attenuated Simon effects with slower task processing may be fully explained by the fading of distractor-based response activation. To that end, we selectively manipulated perceptual target discriminability by varying the ratio of differently colored dots within (Experiment 1) and between blocks (Experiment 2). According to pure fading activation accounts, the negative-going delta plots of the two discriminability conditions should overlap across the entire reaction time (RT) distribution. In contrast to this prediction, the negative-going DPs for the two discriminability conditions did not overlap in either experiment. Instead, the Simon effect was either consistently smaller (Experiment 1) or larger (Experiment 2) across the entire RT distribution in the easy condition compared to the hard condition. This result pattern indicates that perceptual target discriminability affected conflict resolution beyond the mere fading of distractor-based activation. Exploratory model-based analyses suggest a stronger processing of relevant perceptual information with more discriminable targets, which may counteract the influence of distracting location information. However, as the exact effects of discriminability on conflict processing seem to depend on variation mode (trialwise vs. blockwise), the importance of global strategic effects is also highlighted. Public Significance Statement: In various real-world situations, individuals face the challenge of processing goal-relevant sensory information in environments filled with distracting and potentially conflicting sources of information. Uncovering the underlying mental mechanisms enabling the successful transformation of information into appropriate motor responses is of both practical (e.g., human–machine-interaction) and theoretical (uncovering general principles of human cognition) importance. In the present study, we demonstrate that the strength of activation by relevant information directly influences action-related conflict. These findings offer new evidence, suggesting a more substantial involvement of perceptual processes in action control than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article summarizes several studies on teachers' professional vision and the use of eye tracking technology to understand their visual attention in the classroom. The studies explore different aspects of professional vision, including noticing and reasoning, gaze behavior, instructional guidance, and the role of training. The findings emphasize the importance of integrating multiple data sources, such as eye tracking, to gain a comprehensive understanding of professional vision. The studies also highlight the need for training and support to enhance teachers' visual focus and interpretation of classroom events. [Extracted from the article]

Completely ignoring a salient distractor presented concurrently with a target is difficult, and sometimes attention is involuntarily attracted to the distractor's location (attentional capture). Employing the N2ac component as amarker of attention allocation toward sounds, in this study we investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of auditory attention across two experiments. Human participants (male and female) performed an auditory search task, where the target was accompanied by a distractor in two-third of the trials. For a distractor more salient than the target (Experiment 1), we observe not only a distractor N2ac (indicating attentional capture) but the full chain of attentional dynamics implied by the notion of attentional capture, namely, (1) the distractor captures attention before the target is attended, (2) allocation of attention to the target is delayed by distractor presence, and (3) the target is attended after the distractor. Conversely, for a distractor less salient than the target (Experiment 2), although responses were delayed, no attentional capture was observed. Together, these findings reveal two types of spatial attentional dynamics in the auditory modality (distraction with and without attentional capture). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between selective attention, attentional bias and smoking in Turkish university students. The study was conducted with 64 individuals with an average age of 20.3 ± 0.83 years. While the d2 Test of Attention was used to measure various aspects of attention including processing speed, accuracy and selective attention; the Smoking Stroop Test evaluated the attentional bias toward smoking-related stimuli by comparing reaction times to smoking-related and neutral words. Also, the Fagerström Nicotine Dependence Test and Questionnaire of Smoking Urges assessed the level of nicotine dependence and cravings of participants. Findings showed that smoking status (B: 0.05, 95%CI:0.03,0.07) was statistically explanatory of attentional bias, but there was no significant difference in selective attention performance in terms of smoking status. These results are important for the development of intervention methods targeting cognitive processes associated with smoking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The principal aim of this study was to determine the impact of moderate-intensity exercise and high-intensity interval exercise on selective attention. Materials and Methods: This experimental study transpired at Khyber Girls Medical College Peshawar from August 2020 to March 2021. Thirty-four young adults were enlisted, participating in two sequential experimental sessions. In the initial session, subjects engaged in a 20-minute session of moderate-intensity exercise, with forward digit span tests administered both pre and post-exercise. Following a one-week interval, the second session involved the same procedures, with participants undertaking high-intensity interval exercise characterized by alternating one-minute intervals of low and high-intensity activities. Selective attention was re-evaluated within 5 minutes of completing the exercise. Participants were then scheduled for a follow-up session one week later, where the same procedures were replicated. SPSS version 20 was used for Data analysis, with statistical significance set at P < 0.05. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to assess the normality of the data. Results: thirty-four participants with a mean age of 21 ± 2 years, a body mass index (BMI) of 23 ± 4 kg/m2, and a mean waist-hip ratio of 0.81± 0.05 were included in the study. After fifteen minutes of high-intensity interval exercise, a noteworthy improvement in selective attention was observed (P = 0.001). Conclusion: A single session of high-intensity interval exercise exhibited greater efficacy in enhancing selective attention as compared to moderate exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents qualitative research aimed at investigating how an experimental activity, based on the Theory of Similarity through an intervention designed using mathematical modeling, can contribute to the construction of knowledge in electrochemistry. The participants were students in the Chemistry Teaching Degree program at a public institution of higher education in Brazil. Data collection methods included participant observation and investigative activities through experiments, challenging students to identify which experiments provided evidence of a chemical reaction. The Theory of Similarity facilitated the discussion of the data. The results offer reflections on the organization, planning, and relationship of attentional mechanisms in the development of interventions involving mathematical and chemical thinking concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For chorusing males, optimally timing their calls relative to nearby rivals' calls and fluctuations in background chorus noise is crucial for reproductive success. A caller's acoustic environment will vary by chorus density and the properties of his chorus-mates' calls and will fluctuate unpredictably due to chorusing dynamics emerging among his chorus-mates. Thus, callers must continuously monitor moment-to-moment fluctuations in the acoustic scene they perceive at the chorus for advantageous times to call. In live experimental choruses, we investigated the factors influencing túngara frog call-timing responses to chorus-mates' calls on an interaction-by-interaction basis, revealing that intrinsic and extrinsic factors influenced call-timing decisions. Callers were more likely to overlap calls from smaller chorus-mates and chorus-mates at intermediate distances, as well as calls containing lower frequencies and exhibiting lower final amplitude minima. Consequently, variation among males in call properties led to variation in levels of call-interference received when calling in the same social environment. Additionally, callers were more likely to overlap chorus-mates' calls after experiencing extended periods of inhibition and were less likely to overlap synchronized chorus-mates' calls relative to single calls. In chorusing species, female choice is influenced by inter-caller dynamics, selecting for male call-timing strategies which, in turn, constitute the selective environment further refining these same strategies. Thus, understanding the specific factors driving call-timing decisions is essential for understanding how sexual selection operates in chorusing taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Recent research has revealed that bilingual and monolingual people differ from each other in various areas, one of which is cognitive ability. This study aims to compare executive functions, selective attention, visual short-term memory, and auditory short-term memory in monolingual (Persian) and bilingual (Azeri Turkish-Persian) children. Methods: The statistical... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the classic Posner cuing paradigm has been used to study cuing of a single endogenous shift of attention, we present a new multiple cue paradigm to study the competition between multiple endogenous shifts of attention. The new paradigm enables us to manipulate the number of competing attention shifts and their relative importance. In three experiments, we demonstrate that the process of selecting one among other relevant attention shifts is governed by limited capacity and biased competition. We show that the probability of performing the most optimal attention shift is influenced by the total number of attention shifts competing for execution and that reward is a determining factor for the selection between attention shifts. We explain our results with a recent mathematical model of biased selection of response sets (the model of intention selection [MIS]). Our new paradigm offers a critical test of MIS and is an important new tool for investigating the mechanisms underlying the retrieval of response sets from long-term memory (LTM). The model (MIS) and the new multiple cue paradigm can provide a new perspective on LTM representations of response sets for instrumental action and on habitual and goal-directed processing in action control. Public Significance Statement: We show that the competition between shifts of attention is dependent on the number of cues and the relative reward associated with each shift of attention. Our digital life is dominated by multiple cues for attention weighted by the prospect of social reward. Our experiments and mathematical model provide insights into the selection mechanisms involved in the simultaneous cuing of multiple attention shifts. Mechanisms that are being manipulated by social media algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The N2pc and P3 event-related potentials (ERPs), used to index selective attention and access to working memory and conscious awareness, respectively, have been important tools in cognitive sciences. Although it is likely that these two components and the underlying cognitive processes are temporally and functionally linked, such links have not yet been convincingly demonstrated. Adopting a novel methodological approach based on dynamic time warping (DTW), we provide evidence that the N2pc and P3 ERP components are temporally linked. We analyzed data from an experiment where 23 participants (16 women) monitored bilateral rapid serial streams of letters and digits in order to report a target digit indicated by a shape cue, separately for trials with correct responses and trials where a temporally proximal distractor was reported instead (distractor intrusion). DTW analyses revealed that N2pc and P3 latencies were correlated in time, both when the target or a distractor was reported. Notably, this link was weaker on distractor intrusion trials. This N2pc–P3 association is discussed with respect to the relationship between attention and access consciousness. Our results demonstrate that our novel method provides a valuable approach for assessing temporal links between two cognitive processes and their underlying modulating factors. This method allows to establish links and their modulator for any two time-series across all domains of the field (general-purpose MATLAB functions and a Python module are provided alongside this paper). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been shown to be critical to many aspects of executive function including filtering irrelevant information, updating response contingencies when reinforcement contingencies change and stabilizing task sets. Nonspecific lesions to this region in rats produce a vulnerability to distractors that have gained salience through prior associations with reinforcement. These lesions also exacerbate cognitive fatigue in tests of sustained attention but do not produce global attentional impairments nor do they produce distractibility to novel distractors that do not have a prior association with reinforcement. To determine the neurochemical basis of these cognitive impairments, dopaminergically selective lesions of the ACC were made in both male and female Long‐Evans, hooded rats prior to assessment in two attentional tasks. Dopaminergic lesions of the ACC increase the vulnerability of subjects to previously reinforced distractors and impede formation of an attentional set. Lesioned rats were not more susceptible to the effects of novel, irrelevant stimuli in a test of sustained attention as has been previously shown. Additionally, the effects of dopaminergic lesions were found to differ based on sex. Lesioned female, but not male, rats were more vulnerable than sham‐lesioned females to the effects of prolonged testing and the removal of reinforcement during a test of sustained attention. Together, these data support the hypothesis that dopamine in the ACC is critical to filtering distractors whose salience has been gained through reinforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: The objective of the present study was to analyze the association of physical fitness, specifically lower limb strength, abdominal strength, vertical jump, and grip strength, with cognitive performance, specifically focusing on selective attention and memory in children aged 7 to 12 years. (2) Methods: Two hundred twenty-seven students participated in this study. Pearson correlation was used to analyze potential relationships between the independent variables and dependent variables. (3) Results: In relation to physical fitness, a higher number of abdominal repetitions performed in 30 s showed a significant and positive association with a higher number of correct responses assessed by the Stroop Test. Furthermore, at a functional level, higher grip strength correlated with a greater number of correct responses and a higher average correct response time in the Stroop Test. Additionally, grip strength showed a significant and positive correlation with the number of words recalled assessed by the word recall test. Our key findings showed a significant association of grip strength with the categories of cognitive status, selective attention, and memory. (4) Conclusions: This study reveals that physical fitness levels, especially grip strength and abdominal strength, correlate with selective attention capacity in primary school students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multilingual speakers can find speech recognition in everyday environments like restaurants and open-plan offices particularly challenging. In a world where speaking multiple languages is increasingly common, effective clinical and educational interventions will require a better understanding of how factors like multilingual contexts and listeners' language proficiency interact with adverse listening environments. For example, word and phrase recognition is facilitated when competing voices speak different languages. Is this due to a "release from masking" from lower-level acoustic differences between languages and talkers, or higher-level cognitive and linguistic factors? To address this question, we created a "one-man bilingual cocktail party" selective attention task using English and Mandarin speech from one bilingual talker to reduce low-level acoustic cues. In Experiment 1, 58 listeners more accurately recognized English targets when distracting speech was Mandarin compared to English. Bilingual Mandarin–English listeners experienced significantly more interference and intrusions from the Mandarin distractor than did English listeners, exacerbated by challenging target-to-masker ratios. In Experiment 2, 29 Mandarin–English bilingual listeners exhibited linguistic release from masking in both languages. Bilinguals experienced greater release from masking when attending to English, confirming an influence of linguistic knowledge on the "cocktail party" paradigm that is separate from primarily energetic masking effects. Effects of higher-order language processing and expertise emerge only in the most demanding target-to-masker contexts. The "one-man bilingual cocktail party" establishes a useful tool for future investigations and characterization of communication challenges in the large and growing worldwide community of Mandarin–English bilinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross‐sectional study aimed to investigate developmental changes in the efficiency of sustained, selective, and divided attention in a group of children aged 6−12 years by means of a computerized test battery. Participants included 199 children (51% female, majority White) who had normal or corrected‐to‐normal vision and no history of either neurological or attention deficit disorders. The study was conducted in three different schools. We used a convenience sampling strategy; each age group was sampled from one of the schools and was represented by students selected from different (parallel) classes of the same grade level. The three aspects of attention showed different developmental trajectories from 6 to 12 years. In terms of accuracy, selective attention was found to improve gradually, while the efficiency of divided attention increased dramatically across the school‐age years. In terms of reaction time, all attentional components showed a slow developmental time course. The results indicate that situations in which children have to divide attention among several sources of visual information while looking for two target stimuli considerably hamper their task performance. This is especially true for children of senior preschool and primary school age. Practitioners Points: The manuscript reports the application of a new test battery designed for the assessment of different attentional components in preschool‐ and school‐age children.The study is focused on the exploration of age‐related changes in different aspects of attention—including divided attention—in children aged 6−12 years.The results indicate that the ability to divide attention among several stimuli improves dramatically from the age of 6 to the age of 12. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reward has been shown to influence selective attention, yet previous research has primarily focused on rewards associated with specific locations or features, with limited investigation into the impact of a reward object on object-based attention (OBA). Therefore, it remains unclear whether objects previously associated with rewards affect OBA. To address this issue, we conducted two experiments using a paradigm that combined a reward training phase with a modified two-rectangle paradigm. The results indicate that a reward object modulates both space-based attention (SBA) and OBA. When cues appear on a reward object, the effects of both SBA and OBA are amplified compared to when cues appear on a no-reward object. This finding supports the value-driven attentional capture (VDAC) theory, which suggests that a reward object gain enhanced saliency to capture attention, thereby providing a theoretical support for the treatment of conditions such as drug addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People excel at learning the statistics of their environments. For instance, people rapidly learn to pay attention to locations that frequently contain visual search targets. Here, we investigated how frequently finding specific objects as search targets influences attentional selection during real-world object search. We investigated how learning that a specific object (e.g., a coat) is task-relevant affects searching for that object and whether a previously frequent target would influence search more broadly for all items of that target's category (e.g., all coats). Across five experiments, one or more objects from a single category were likely targets during a training phase, after which objects from many categories became equally likely to be targets in a neutral testing phase. Participants learned to find a single frequent target object faster than other objects (Experiment 1, N = 44). This learning was specific to that object, with no advantage in finding a novel category-matched object (Experiment 2, N = 32). In contrast, learning to prioritize multiple exemplars from one category spread to untrained objects from the same category, and this spread was comparable whether participants learned to find two, four, or six exemplars (Experiment 3, N = 72). These differences in the breadth of attention were due to variability in the learning environment and not differences in task (Experiment 4, N = 24). Finally, a set-size manipulation showed that learning affects attentional guidance itself, not only postselective processing (Experiment 5, N = 96). These experiments demonstrate that the breadth of attentional tuning is flexibly adjusted based on recent experience to effectively address task demands. Public Significance Statement: When searching for an object, people can look for its specific visual features—its color, for instance—or they can search more broadly for any object from a category (e.g., cars). But what determines the breadth of attentional tuning in naturalistic search? We hypothesized that recent experience affects how people focus their attention during real-world object search. Participants learned to attend to a particular object or multiple objects from the same category, and we assessed how these different experiences would affect future search. People focused their attention narrowly on a specific object if it was the only object they had previously looked for, but on an entire category if they had gained experience finding two or more objects from that category. This shows that people adaptively learn whether to search narrowly or broadly when looking for real-world objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has confirmed that individuals with social anxiety (SA) show an attentional bias towards threat‐related stimuli. However, the extent to which this attentional bias depends on top‐down cognitive control processes remains controversial. The present study investigated the effect of working memory (WM) load on selective attention to emotional faces in both high social anxiety (HSA) and low social anxiety (LSA) groups by manipulating WM load through the inclusion of forward counting in multiples of two (low load) or backward counting in multiples of seven (high load) within a modified flanker task. In the flanker task, emotional faces (angry, happy, or neutral faces) were used as targets and distractors. A total of 70 participants (34 HSA participants; 36 LSA participants) completed the flanker task in the laboratory. The results showed that the HSA individuals performed worse when responding to angry targets. Relative to LSA individuals, HSA individuals showed interference from angry distractors in the flanker task, resulting in significantly lower accuracy in identifying angry targets compared to happy targets. These results were unaffected by the manipulation of WM load. The findings imply HSA individuals have impaired attentional control, and that their threat‐related attentional bias relies more on the bottom‐up automatic attentional process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neural mechanisms underpinning the dynamic switching of a listener's attention between speakers are not well understood. Here we addressed this issue in a natural conversation involving 21 triadic adult groups. Results showed that when the listener's attention dynamically switched between speakers, neural synchronization with the to-be-attended speaker was significantly enhanced, whereas that with the to-be-ignored speaker was significantly suppressed. Along with attention switching, semantic distances between sentences significantly increased in the to-be-ignored speech. Moreover, neural synchronization negatively correlated with the increase in semantic distance but not with acoustic change of the to-be-ignored speech. However, no difference in neural synchronization was found between the listener and the two speakers during the phase of sustained attention. These findings support the attenuation model of attention, indicating that both speech signals are processed beyond the basic physical level. Additionally, shifting attention imposes a cognitive burden, as demonstrated by the opposite fluctuations of interpersonal neural synchronization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest to identify neural mechanisms of selective attention has broadened in recent years to include multiple forms of attention, multiple species, and multiple levels of analysis. New data reveal distinct and causal roles of the superior colliculus and parietal cortex in stimulus-driven visual attention. Convergent evidence across species has identified a role of motor-related signals in the control of goal-directed attention. Fluctuations in cortical activity associated with global arousal interact with goal-driven attention and both predict perceptual performance. Neural oscillations reflecting attentional control in human and non-human primates suggest an underlying rhythmic mechanism synchronized to theta. Despite a constant deluge of sensory stimulation, only a fraction of it is used to guide behavior. This selective processing is generally referred to as attention, and much research has focused on the neural mechanisms controlling it. Recently, research has broadened to include more ways by which different species selectively process sensory information, whether due to the sensory input itself or to different behavioral and brain states. This work has produced a complex and disjointed body of evidence across different species and forms of attention. However, it has also provided opportunities to better understand the breadth of attentional mechanisms. Here, we summarize the evidence that suggests that different forms of selective processing are supported by mechanisms both common and distinct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an ongoing debate among visual attention researchers about whether top-down processes contribute to pop-out search. In the present study, we describe a new method to orthogonally manipulate top-down preparation and feature priming in a pop-out search task. On each trial, participants viewed a single-item (randomly blue or orange) followed by a pop-out search display (randomly blue target with orange distractors, or vice versa). Preparation was induced by instructing participants to respond to the single-item if it was a particular colour and to ignore it otherwise--but to respond to the odd-coloured target in all following pop-out search displays. This method allowed us to examine whether top-down preparation for the single-item influenced subsequent pop-out search. Our results revealed a large effect of preparation for the single-item on subsequent search response times. We discuss this result in relation to the interplay between top-down control and selection history effects in pop-out visual search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Train driving is a demanding form of human performance where inattention or distraction can lead to serious errors and accidents. Train drivers, therefore, require a unique set of abilities to deal with these demands, especially when exposed to competing or conflicting performance expectations (e.g., on‐time performance and following safety rules). Cognitive abilities, in particular, are considered essential to safe and effective train driving. Selective attention is one such ability, however, other cognitive abilities can be equally important. Drawing on self‐control theory, this article examines the combined effect of selective attention, fluid intelligence, and verbal reasoning on train driving performance. The results of a study involving 101 experienced train drivers indicates that drivers with low selective attention, low fluid intelligence, and low verbal reasoning perform worse on a train simulator driving assessment than drivers who are higher in these cognitive abilities. The results from this study provide direction for future rail safety research and guidance for practitioners responsible for assessing and selecting train drivers. Practitioner points: Safe and effective train driving performance relies on drivers with high selective attention, fluid intelligence, and verbal reasoning abilities.The combination of these three cognitive abilities explains 28% of the variance in train driving performance.Cognitive ability tests, unlike personality tests, cannot be "faked good" by job candidates making them ideal for train driver selection purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not always easy to attend to task-relevant information and ignore task-irrelevant distractions. We investigated the impact of task switching and emotional stimuli on goal-oriented selective attention and subsequent recognition memory. Results from two experiments with different stimulus materials (words and images) found that the memory advantage of task-relevant information over task-irrelevant information (i.e. memory selectivity) was attenuated on task switch trials and emotional distractor trials. In contrast, task repetitions and emotional targets improved memory selectivity. These results suggest that both task switching and emotional distractors divert limited cognitive resources needed for selective attention and selective encoding. Emotional targets likely supported selective encoding through the process of attentional prioritisation of emotional stimuli. The effects of task switching and emotional stimuli did not interact, suggesting distinct mechanisms, although this conclusion remains tentative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]