PSYC 3334 Chapter 5 Notes

Cognitive Control aka executive function: ability to coordinate your thoughts and actions to achieve a goal → allows us to plan, decide, and select behaviors

• Proactive and reactive cognitive control recruiter different brain regions and together contribute to our ability to guide our own behavior

• Cognitive control requires attention bc the range of options in any given moment far exceeds what we can actually do → need to prioritize thoughts

• Proactive control - Sometimes we apply cognitive control as we prepare to do something

  • EX: I will try to not check my phone during class

• Reactive control - Other times we apply cognitive control only in reaction to a challenge

  • EX: Hear the notification sound from phone, MUST RESIST

Internal attention: limitations in how much info can be prioritized within the mind

• EX: Remember the word onset, then close your eyes and rearrange the letters to spell a different word → hard task so require internal attention to your thoughts instead of to the external world

Multitasking is often studied using a dual-task experiment (doing two tasks at the same time or in rapid succession)

• These experiments force attention to split across more than one object and task, a situation called divided attention

  • The assumption is that you have limited mental resources which constraints how much info the mind can process at any given time

Two key factors determining how much multitasking harms performance

• Cognitive load (task’s difficulty)

  • Automatic process: a task that requires minimal cognitive effort (resources) like walking

  • Controlled process: a task that requires more cognitive effort (when you rearranged the letters to a different word)

Combining two automatic tasks are easy (walking and humming), but combining two controlled tasks can be harder. Combing auto and control falls in between

• Practice and training make controlled tasks more automatic

• Cognitive load is higher for beginner than for an expert

  • But it’s rare to see a highly controlled task become fully automatic (even most elite professionals can make mistakes)

• Cognitive overlap (degree to which task compete for the same mental resources)

• Multiple resource theory: explains that there will be greater interference between tasks that compete for the same perceptual or cog resources

  • By pairing different types of tasks, researchers can measure which task interfere with each other and how much

    • EX: listening to podcast will likely interfere more with your ability to write a paper than listening to instrumental music, bc the podcast and the paper both make demands on your language processing

      • the more cognitive overlap there is between simultaneous tasks, the more performance suffer (aka cognitive interference)

Cognitive load and cognitive interference can explain why some distractions, more than others, increase the risk of car accidents

• more dangerous to talk on a cell phone than to listening to music or talk to passenger

  • hands-free phones can just as distracting as handheld ones (EX: inhibiting your urge to check your phone is demanding and hurts performance)

  • In multiple resource theory, both driving and texting compete for visual processing resources → more fatalities due to distracted driving

Media multitasking is the consumption of more than one stream of content at the same time (monitoring your feeds or listening to music when working on a computer)

• Heavy media multitaskers are actually more distractable, with worse cognitive control even when they are not engaged in multitasking

• Heavin media multitasker was associated with chronic impairments in everyday cognitive control (EX: lower GPA, lower test scores)

Human factors: the use of psychology and engineering research to design products and processes that are safer and more efficient for ppl

• good human factor design can help ensure information is communicated in a way that helps ppl respond quickly, accurately, and safely

  • in Multiple resource theory, it predicts it is easier to divide attention across two modalities (auditory and visual) than to attend to two sources from the same modality

    • EX: navigation assistance is verbal guidance and sound warning for cross-collision warning

• Proximity compatibility principle: idea to bundle critical info where users are already attending

  • EX: cars have blind spot monitoring on side mirrors and have a warning light on

The Prefrontal Cortex and Cognitive Control

• controlled activities with high cog load typically recruit the prefrontal cortex

  • prefrontal cortex serves as a command center to coordinate the brain’s activities → exercise control by working together with other brain areas, forming functional networks that support executive function

Damage to prefrontal cortex (like from stroke) can impair cognitive control

• EX: pt with damage might start brushing their teeth in the middle of a clinical interview bc they are unable to suppress the habitual urge → these pt lack cog control bc the command center is dysfunctional

Access damage by using the Wisconsin Card Sorting task

• Experiment: pt needs to match new cards to different colored reference cards

  • Trick of each response card could match any reference cards, depending on what rule is being used

    • EX: match based on shape, or match based on color

• On each trial, pt receives feedback on if matched correctly, and this helps to figure our the rule through trial and error

  • but the rule can change w/o warning (from color matching to shape matching aka set switching) → switch causes pt to start making errors again

    • Participants w/o damage to prefrontal cortex can switch rules when they start receiving feedback indicating they are incorrect but people with damage tend to stick with previous rule and fail to adjust

• These perseveration errors (persistent responses that fail to adapt to changing rules or circumstances) are typical of people with prefrontal damage

5.2 Types of Cognitive Control

• Inhibition (ability to suppress info)

• Switching

• Updating

Inhibition

• ability to suppress info, thoughts, or actions that may interfere with ongoing behavior

  • EX: it is best to stop yourself from using profanity in class

  • EX: when studying for a test, you need to focus on the course material and inhibit distractions

How to test inhibition

• Stop-signal task: an experimental task in which participants need to abort a response when a stop signal appears; a classic measure of inhibition

  • Experiment: ppl press a buzzer asap when they see a target

    • ppl typically respond to this cue within a half sec

  • On a small number of trials tho, a stop signal appears soon after the target, indicating the participants must withhold their response

    • Most ppl are able to stop, but stopping becomes harder when the stop signal is delayed bc the response is already underway

  • The later the stop signal, the harder it is to inhibit the go response

    • ppl also find it harder to withhold response when the need to do so occurs infrequently

• in general, ppl with good inhibitory control can react to stop signal better than ppl with poor inhibitory control

Stroop interference: people are slower to name the ink color of a color word when two conflict (the word green printed in red ink)

• occurs bc reading is so automatic that it overpowers our inhibitory control

  • it is difficult to suppress the word meanings to focus on the ink color

• this task shows the importance of cognitive control which enables you to inhibit the automatic word meaning to focus on the task of naming the word color

Simon task aka spatial interference task: a task where a spatial incompatibility between the target location and the responding hand slows down response time

• interference from this task arise from a mismatch between the target’s left-right location and which hand participant respond with

  • EX: ppl might be instructed to respond with left hand whenever a blue circle appears and with right hand with green circle appear

    • response are slower when the blue circle appears on the right and when the green circle appears on the left bc the required response conflicts with the impulse to use the hand on the same side as the target

• Such stimulus-response compatibility should be considered when designing products that users can operate naturally and intuitively

Conflict Monitoring and Resolution

• in order to overcome interference, cognitive control processes must accomplish

  • 1. conflict monitoring: a core component of cog control, involving the detection of interference

  • 2. conflict resolution: in cog control, the ability to reduce interference, either thru inhibition or thru other behavioral adjustments

• These processes allow ppl to monitor their own actions, adjust for problems, and compensate for errors (EX: when miss the first free throw in basketball, you adjust your next shot)

Conflict monitoring operates like an alarm system

• brain area called anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) acts as the monitor, signaling the need to adjust when interference arises

  • typically occurs when multiple perceptual input or response options compete for priority

    • EX: during Stroop task, ACC is more active when color names (the words) conflict with ink colors

    • EX: during Simon task, ACC shows greater activity when response hand and target are on opposite sides

When ACC detects, it calls out an alarm to other cog control to inhibit the actions

• dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (one of several brain areas important for cog control) serves to inhibit interference

  • EX: in Stroop task, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex inhibits processing of the distracting words, thus reducing the Stroop effect

• ACC not only detects interference or high demands before ppl make mistakes, but also registers and responds after people make errors (aka error detection)

  • When mistake happens, the ACC triggers cog control mechanisms to adjust performance to reduce further error

  • Learning from mistakes is important and ACC makes that possible

Usage of fMRI or EEG for ACC’s response

• Researchers can use neuroimaging techniques to watch ACC’s response to errors (like an automatic reaction like oh Sh_t response)

• Bc of EEG’s superior temporal precision, it can capture this response (known as the error-related negativity ERN) in milisec

  • EX: ERN is predictive of behaviors ranging from substance abuse relapses to symptoms severity in OCD → ppl with OCD shows larger ERN, suggesting heightened sensitivity to instances when their internal standards are not met

  • EX: a smaller ERN has been found to predict relapse from cocaine addiction treatment

Task Switching

• people are slower and less accurate when they switch back and forth between tasks (like alternating between adding and subtracting) compared with when they can do the same task consecutively w/o switching.

• task-switch cost: the decline in speed and accuracy when ppl switch back and forth

  • EX: if you keep checking your email when studying, you usually need more time to learn the material bc switching tasks disrupts your focus and adds cog load

Experiment: view a 2×2 grid with assigned grid codes (G7 or 5E etc), then must answer questions based on what row the location is on (either call out digital or letter) → top row = letter, bottom row = number

• people take longer in responding when you switch tasks (switch rows) compared to when task repeats

In general, increasing time between trials gives ppl more time to prepare and reduces task-switch cost (aka preparation effect)

• significant cost persists whenever you switch task

• even with long delays that allow plenty of prep, the task-switch cost doesn’t completely go away

Task switching requires cog control

• brain has to work harder to implement the task switch

  • cog control mechanisms in prefrontal cortex are more active during task-switch trials than in trials that don’t require a task switch

• when multitasking, your brain is actually working harder (for most ppl, sense of being more efficient while multitasking is an illusion)

  • evidence show that you’re more efficient when you focus on one task at a time

Speeded Response Selection

• EX: task of pressing a button asap when seeing a visual signal. Now imagine pressing button again to second visual signal.

  • If there is enough time between two signals, you’re equally fast to both. However, if second signal appears within half a sec of the first one, you’ll be slower to respond to it

Psychological refractory period: cognitive delay that reveals a fundamental limitation in info processing; the response to a second stimulus is significantly slowed bc a first stimulus is still being processed

• called a cognitive bottleneck

• coordinating two responses in rapid succession requires cog control, and ppl with higher cog abilities show less slowing to second target

5.3

Working Memory: a brain system for temporary storage and manipulation of the info necessary for cognitive tasks like language, learning, and reasoning

• Involves short term storage of information in the mind (lasting from sec to mins) → form of internal attention and memory

• Connects perception, memory, and action (gateway to aspects of cognitions)

  • EX: by helping you remember what someone just said about a shared experience years ago, so you can respond appropriately

Modal Model

• model that describes flow fleeting perceptions are transformed and stored into more durable memories, across sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory

This model considers how fleeting perceptions are transformed into more durable memories

• Three components of sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory

• Key concept of storage: idea that memory systems can maintain info that is no longer present in the environment (no longer visible or audible)

How to form lasting memory?

1. Encode: the mental processing of info in a way that enables you to later have access to it

• Not one step process

  • Based on modal model, it involves transferring info across multiple stages

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    • EX: after stimulus is briefly presented, it lingers in your mind for a fraction of a sec. This highly detailed but short-lived impression of sensory info is called sensory memory (then fades away quickly unless you direct attention to it)

      • By directing attention to it, you can select it for transfer to short-term memory (more durable and lasts several seconds)

• It’s race against time: the sensory representations that you can attend to before they deteriorate are the ones that get transferred to short-term memory

Experiment: present brief 50 milisec of letters and numbers to ppl and ask them to recall as many as they could

• typically can only report about 4 items (33% - 50%) when asked to report the whole array of letters and numbers (the whole report condition)

  • meaning sensory memory had faded quickly over the second it took to report them

• If asked to report only some of items (the partial report condition) by using a high/low tone for top/bottom row, ppl can report over 80% of the cued part of the array

  • cue enabled them to select relevant parts of their sensory memory before it faded

  • increase in accuracy suggested that sensory memory was storing more info than it had seemed from just the whole report condition (iconic and echoic memory)

Iconic memory: very short-term visual memory; highly detailed, but largely fades within a fraction of a second

Echoic memory (auditory sensory memory): fleeting auditory memory for sounds and words, persisting for several seconds, but lost unless selected into short-term memory

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Short memory is more durable than sensory memory

• maintained info can be limited

  • not rich and detailed like sensory memory

  • not long-lasting like long-term memory

• susceptible to erasure or forgetting

In order to use info for future occasion, you need to store in long-term memory to be retrieval.

Manipulation and working memory

In modal model,

• short term memory briefly maintains selected info, but working memory does more than storage

Working memory is where the mind manipulates info, perform operations and transforming it

• EX: subtracting numbers (not just storing those numbers, you are actively working with them)

  • when people make simple math mistakes, it’s often bc pieces of info slip out from working memory storage, not bc they forgot how to do math

Working memory correlates strongly with intelligence (especially mental puzzle-solving abilities and with executive functions supported by prefrontal cortex)

• high working memory capacity predicts better reading comprehension and math ability in school

• individual differences in working memory tasks can predict how well ppl can follow directions

• can also predict airplane pilot skills (better situational awareness correlates with better working memory)

  • EX: Air Force pilots assessed on their situational awareness with rapidly changing info

Working Memory

• model by Alan Baddeley

  • model involves the central executive and three subcomponents (central executive with subcomponents of Visuospatial sketchpad, Episodic buffer, and phonological loop)

Central Executive: primary system for controlling attention and thinking

• responsible for manipulating info that is temporarily stored in 3 separate buffers (temporary storage systems), which involve attention and can store only a limited number of items for a brief amount of time

1. Phonological loop, where verbal and acoustic info is stored and manipulated

2. Visuospatial sketchpad, where visual info is stored and manipulated

3. episodic buffer (EX: have location and time info tagged to a photo)

• Integrates info from multiple internal sources (like the phonological loop and sketchpad)

  • accounts for when we don’t think about visual info separated from auditory info (we combine them)

    • EX: when recalling what professor said in class, we make up a representation that includes both how they looked and how they sounded

• Episodic reflects that the object or event can be tied to a place and time (like an episode) and the contents of the buffer are accessible by conscious awareness

Supporting evidence

• dual-task interference

  • EX: studies on dual-task demonstrate that more interference occurs when ppl perform two tasks that use the same storage system.

    • Phonological (verbal) tasks and visuospatial tasks do not strongly interfere with each other → suggesting they use separate storage systems

• neuropsychological impairments

  • distinguish phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad bc they are affected by different types of brain lesions

    • EX: pt are impaired at verbal working memory tasks but not at spatial tasks, and vice versa → support notion that two forms of working memory are separate

• brain imaging

  • reveals that phonological tasks and visuospatial tasks activate different brain regions

  • supports a distinct role for central executive: tasks that involve manipulation of info typically activate the prefrontal cortex more than tasks that involve only storage

Central Executive

• command center for working memory

  • coordinate types of cog control processes like inhibition, response selection, and task switching

• supports decision-making and planning, manage dual-task demands, and direct attention to important info in the environment (external attention) or in the mind like memories and thoughts (internal attention)

Third core executive function: UPDATING (besides inhibition and task switching)

• Updating: ability to monitor and adjust the contents of working memory (can be taxing)

  • Need to release some items from working memory to catch others

• working memory only have limited capacity, so adding new items = dropping old ones (process that demands mental coordination and control)

Supporting evidence of updating, shifting, and inhibition is separable

• comes from analyses of how ppl perform in a wide variety of tasks of that required executive function

• brain imaging suggests that updating of working memory, inhibition, and shifting are separable in the brain, but also share some common mechanisms

N-Back Task

• a task that requires working memory updating to monitor a sequence of items and detect repetition across N(0, 1, 2…) intervening items

  • EX: clap each time when you hear an item repeat (1-back version)

  • EX: clap not when an item immediately repeats, but when it matches the one you heard two items ago (2-back version)

• increasing difficulty comes from having to keep more items in mind while continuously replacing old items with new ones

Central executive is closely linked to activity in prefrontal cortex

• especially active in situation that requires manipulation (not just storage) and when 2 tasks need to be performed together, not separately

• Critical for cognitive flexibility: ability to adjust thoughts and behaviors in response to changing demands

  • deficits in cog flexibility might indicate many clinical conditions like ADHD, mood disorders, and dementia

    • EX: Wisconsin card sorting task

Phonological Loop

• component of working memory that allows you to briefly remember verbal materials

• two mechanisms of (1) a phonological store that holds sound- or speech-based info for 1-2 secs and (2) an articulatory rehearsal loop which occurs thru inner speech by repeating in head (uttering things to yourself w/o vocalizing out loud)

  • Such subvocal articulation (inner speech) maintains phonological info either thru rehearsal (when you repeat the spelling of someone’s name in your head as you type on computer)

    • Articulatory rehearsal is limited in capacity → when the number of items to rehearse increases, the earlier items start to be forgotten

Phonological store

• info rapidly decays unless rehearsed by articulatory rehearsal loop, and the amount of info that can be rehearsed is limited

• storage capacity is commonly tested with the digit-span task

  • EX: experimenter tells you a series of numbers and you immediately repeat them. When you start making mistakes with longer lists, then that’s the capacity of your phonological loop

    • capacity differs across individuals

Articulatory Rehearsal Loop (7±2)

• when a large group of ppl are tested, their average performance in digit-span task is about seven items plus or minus two

  • estimates are approximate bc individual performance is variable and bc studies demonstrate inconsistency in how to define what an item is

• George Miller proposed working memory capacity was seven plus or minus two “chunks” → where chunk is flexibly defined as whatever unit is meaningful to the participant

  • EX: If had to remember long sequences, can group them into years (1776, 1984, and etc)

• Combining pieces of info into larger, meaningful wholes is known as chunking, which is a useful way to enhance everyday memory

Verbal recall is phonological

• word-length effect: an effect where working memory capacity for words or other phonological stimuli depends on the spoken duration or syllable length of the words

  • ppl can remember about as many items as they can say in 2 seconds

  • word-length effect predicts that fast talkers have higher working memory spans

  
  

Phonological store is limited by number of syllables it can maintain

• help explain that English and Chinese speakers have a larger working memory span for digits than Arabic speakers

• Arabic speakers have been found to fit fewer digits into working memory, even tho their overall working memory capacity is no different

Acoustic similarity effect: the reduced capacity of working memory for items that are similar in sound, compared with items that are dissimilar in sound

• when words sound similar, they interfere with each other and reduce working memory capacity for them

  • EX: ppl find it harder to remember a series of similar words (man, cap, mad) versus dissimilar words (pit, day, cow) → suggest that phonological loop handles words acoustically rather than by meaning

Irrelevant speech effect: the impairment of working memory by irrelevant speech (EX: when neighboring convo is so distracting that you can’t hear yourself think)

• since phonological loop involves rehearsal of spoken material, hearing others (irrelevant speech) disrupts it

  • But if hearing nonphonological sounds (bursts of noise), it doesn’t

• occurs even if the irrelevant spoken material involves non-sense words or words from foreign language

  • it is not the meaning that interferes, but the phonological sound that does

Pt with working memory deficits typically have problems with their phonological loop

• bc these ppl don’t rely on phonological working memory, they encode words visually → don’t show an acoustic similarity effect or a word-length effect

  • pt who lack ability for inner speech shows reduced working memory span

Researchers can mimic these pt effects in lab by engaging in articulatory suppression (the disruption of rehearsal in working memory, induced by uttering irrelevant sounds)

• ppl who repeat irrelevant sound (da da da) are unable to rehearse materials within their phonological loop

• articulatory suppression impairs working memory only for verbal, not visual info

Neuroimaging to understand nature pf phonological working memory

• several brain regions, like prefrontal cortex, are active during phonological tasks

  • as number of verbal letters to remember increases, the activity in cortex also increases

• the brain regions that are active during verbal working memory tasks were different from those that are active during visual working memory tasks

Phonological loop and language learning in children

• better verbal working memory correlates with better reading comprehension

  • the ability to repeat words or nonwords in the phonological loop is highly correlated with general vocabulary at the time of testing and even a year later

Phonological loop facilities learning new vocabulary

• children’s phonological loop capacity correlates with their vocab lvls

• higher phonological loop capacity is also predictive of how well you can learn a second language (the loop maybe evolved to facilitate language acquisition)

  • kids with language disorders typically show specific difficulties in their phonological loop → reveal deficits in hearing and repeating back unfamilar words

Visuospatial Sketchpad (visual working memory or visual short-term memory)

• temporary storage of visual info, especially when the perceptual image is no longer available or has changed

  • briefly retains visual info → happens a lot bc your visual input changes whenever you move your eyes

• visual working memory helps stitch together info from one fixation to the next

Visual working memory has limited capacity

• visual objects range in size (from period at the end of sentence to size of the room) → harder to define limits of visual working memory

Does visual working memory store features or objects?

• Change-detection tasks: asks ppl to detect differences between 2 displays

  • EX: 1 to 6 lines with different colors and orientation flash on the screen, then when display appears again, ppl need to report whether one of items has changed color (color-only condition), or its orientation (orientation-only condition)

• Result: no trouble when only 1 or 2 items, but when number reaches to 4 or more, ppl start making mistakes → suggest that most ppl can hold about 4 items in visual working memory

Researchers found

• in versions of change-detection task where ppl didn’t know ahead of time whether the change would be color or shape, they performed just as well as when they knew to attend to only one of the feature dimensions

  • suggests that they store the whole object with both features (essentially remembering twice as many features as when they attended to either feature dimension alone)

• visual working memory capacity is about 4 objects, and each object can contain multiple features

Limit of visual working memory

• visually complex objects take up more storage space than simple ones

  • the more visually detailed the objects, the harder they are to hold in mind

• visual working memory can hold fewer complex objects than simple objects

Visual working memory holds location and positions too

• it’s critical bc position helps identify and distinguish objects

• position allows you to track the objects as separate entities based on location

A separate working memory system holds spatial info

• experiment: presented with several objects that were identical in shape. Asked the question if one of objected changed position or not after a delay

• this location change detection tasks uses spatial working memory and is associated with activity in brain areas that are separate from those involved in working memory for objects

Working memory and attention (tightly linked)

• spatial foci of working memory and attention are also closely linked, and both tasks activate similar brain regions

  • EX: when you attend to a location on the screen, working memory is enhanced for that location

  • EX: when screen location is maintained in working memory (w/o visible target), attention is enhanced in the same region of space

Similar results for object working memory

• when sample object is held in working memory, attention shifts to the object in view that matches the sample

• this facilitation is related to how holding a target in mind guides search for that item (looking for a friend at the restaurant)

Conclusion

• attention is biased by what is prioritized in working memory and vice versa

• common brain mechanism are involved for attention directed to sensory info or to their representation in working memory

• Both attention and working memory involve top-down signals from the prefrontal cortex that enhance perceptual processing or motor planning in other relevant brain areas

• the tight relation between working memory and attention suggests that ppl with greater working memory capacity may control attention bettwe

5.4

Cognitive control helps us regulate our emotions

• particularly relevant for clinical disorders like depression and anxiety

  • depression affects about 7% of adults in US every year

  • anxiety disorder affects about 19% of adults every year

Mood disorders involve difficulties with emotion regulation (ability to manage, modulate, and alter one’s emotions)

• bc cog control inhibits unwanted distractions, it’s helpful when handling unhelpful or inaccurate thoughts

  • but sometimes even when you know a thought is wrong, it can still be hard to stop thinking about it

Ppl with major depressive disorder engage in rumination (an incessant focus on one’s negative thoughts

• occurs when ppl find it difficult to disengage attention from negative thoughts about oneself, interpersonal relationships, or stressful events

  • this process prolongs depression partly bc this negative thinking can interfere with positive problem-solving

for most ppl, an emotional stimuli (fearful face, spider, snake etc) can capture attention (though pattern is stronger in clinical disorder like anxiety)

• ability to ignore or suppress emotional distraction so they don’t distract or impair working memory, depends on the prefrontal cortex

Trait anxiety: ppl who report feeling more anxious in everyday life

• shows broader difficulties with cog control of attention even during nonthreatening situations

  • participants with high trait anxiety show lower prefrontal activity in trials that cause greater interference → suggest that this region of brain is less effective

• in a task that doesn’t use emotional stimuli, individuals with high trait anxiety appear to be more susceptible to distraction and impaired cog control

Cog control can help regulate pain

• pain is both sensory and emotional (some types of pain can be modulated with cog control)

• psychological expectations can reduce pain

  • EX: placebos can lower not only perceived pain, but also activity in brain regions that respond to pain → just believing that placebo will help the pain appears to engage the prefrontal cortex, which reduces activity in these regions

Cog control can help regulate cravings and reward-seeking behaviors

• it’s key to cope with addiction

• ability to inhibit drug cravings relies on prefrontal cog control mechanisms, which are impaired in addiction

  • Cog control appears to be similarly involved in behavioral addictions like compulsive digital media use

Stress and Cognitive control

• Yerkes-Dodson curve: a model that describes how performance, especially on difficult tasks, initially improves but then suffers as arousal, anxiety, or stress increase

• Stress and anxiety take up working memory capacity that could otherwise be devoted to problem-solving

• math problem-solving is good way to study this curve bc it’s easily measured and highly dependent on prefrontal function

Experiment: participants performed demanding math problems under different lvl of pressure

• in low pressure condition, the test was described as practice

• in high pressure condition, ppl were told that they would receive a financial bonus based on performance

  • to add social pressure, participants were randomly paired with another person and both teammates had to improve for either of them to receive a reward

Result: added pressure hurt performance

• good performers suffered more

  • individual with higher working memory capacity, measured separately, were more susceptible to choking

• concluded that ppl with highest capacity for success may often be the most vulnerable under pressure

Tips to counter cognitive toll

• research suggest shifting your mindset to reframe stressors as challenges or thinking about beneficial ways that stress can boost your energy and resilience can protect against its negative impact (sometimes can increase cog functioning)

  • when ppl feel a sense of control over a stressor, they’re less impaired on cog tasks

• Focus thoughts on resources to cope with stressor can shift you from a “threat” state (where stress overwhelms your ability to function) to a “challenge” state (where stress feel manageable and can even be empowering)

Mental Workload: Amount of cognitive effort needed to perform a task

• determined by both task complexity and user’s skill lvl

• controlled cog processes have higher mental workload than automatic cog processes → mental workload in any task is higher for beginner

Live measurements can be useful

• done by tracking physiological signatures associated with higher mental workloads (increased heart rate, BP, breathing rates, & decreased heart rate variability)

• also be done with eye gaze tracking, used to gauge emotional states and cog processes like attention

  • EGG technology for recording live brain-based measurements of mental workload

  • EX: life or death situations faced by military personnel, surgeons, air traffic controllers

We’re limited to how much info we can attend to or how long we can stay focused

• just as excessive manual activity makes you physically tired, extended cog effort can leave you mentally exhausted

Theory of ego depletion

• proposed that engaging in demanding task can deplete mental energy. impairing cog control and performance in a subsequent task

  • ego refers to the part of self responsible for regulating behavior and exerting self-control

Support of this theory

• Experiment: ppl who were asked to suppress their emotions were worse at solving anagram puzzles → suggest that controlling one’s emotions had drained their cog resources

  • But studied have also been proven difficult to replicate, even with original researchers

    • these replication challenges often come down to whether the initial task was truly depleting or whether the task shared enough cognitive overlap to interfere with each other

Our multiple mental resources may be more resilient and compartmentalized than originally thought

• hard to fully tired someone with single cog task in a way that impairs their performance on other tasks

• But cognitive function is still affected by depleting environmental factors like poverty (effects of scarcity on cog performance)

Scarcity hypothesis: hypothesis that scarcity impairs cognitive control

• ppl whose incomes are below poverty line suffer worse health outcomes, shorter life expectancy, lower performance on intelligence test, and lower educational achievement

• Experiment: tested sugar cane farmers before and after harvesting their crops

  • Results: farmers performed more poorly before harvest on cognitive task

Inducing concerns of financial scarcity made low-income participants perform more poorly in fluid intelligence and cog control tasks

• can create tunnel vision, reduce mental bandwidth

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Cognitive load theory: the instructional design theory that learning can be facilitated by understanding different types of cog load, like difficulty of the material, learner’s skill lvl, and manner in which material is taught

• intrinsic load: complexity and difficulty of material itself (depends on what learner already knows)

  • EX: mastering calculus forces ppl to deal with more intrinsic load than mastering addition and subtraction

• Extraneous load: manner which the material is taught or communicated

  • EX: if giving presentation in class, it can be tempting to leave dense text on slides. But not every bit of info learn the learning of material

Goal: keep total load within limits of what your audience can handle, minimizing extraneous load that detracts from learning so audience’s mental energy can focus on restructuring their knowledge

• Simplify delivery and trim out unnecessary info can reduce extraneous load

• breaking large concepts into smaller, easier to understand parts can help make intrinsic load more manageable

EX: fully worked out math problem

• where instructors initially guide learners step by step thru processes of applying new concept or solving a problem → shown to speed up learning and increase learner’s abilities to apply solutions to new problems

Modality effect: shows learning is better when a visual diagram is presented together with a spoken description

• works bc working memory has separate capacities for visual info and for phonological info

How to improve cognitive control and working memory?

• principle of neuroplasticity: neural connections and brain function change with experience

• evidence is mixed

Idea of exercising cog performance to improve

• activities from computerized training to school curriculum have been associated with improvements in children’s executive functions

• more targeted programs designed to train attention and working memory have shown promise in some studies

  • EX: working memory training has been linked to improvements in working memory itself and even improved math performance

• BUT some studies showed that it did not demonstrate broad cognitive improvements

  • effectiveness of working memory training requires further investigation

Several reviews concluded that although training can improve performance on the trained cognitive tasks, there was little evidence that such benefits generalized beyond those tasks

• benefits of brain training seems to be task specific

  • EX: more than 11,000 participants trained on tasks that designed to improve memory, attention and etc

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    • only improved on those tasks, but benefits did not carry to untrained tasks (even when they are closely related to trained ones)

Video games improving cognitive capabilities

• action videos have been linked with enhanced attentional control and low-lvl visual skills

  • EX: customized video game designed to train multitasking appeared to improve working memory and attention in older adults

• specialized games have been designed to address attention and cog control difficulties in children with ADHD

  • gamifying cog training can increase motivation and possibly lead to broader benefits like improved both reading abilities and attentional/planning skills

• Substance abuse (legal drugs like alcohol and marijuana) impairs cog skills

• Prescription drugs don’t improve focus for everyone (only can help improve for pt with ADHD)

Best cognitive enhancer

• good life habits like sleeping

  • not sleeping enough hours or have irregular sleep patterns have direct effect on attention, working memory, and cog control

    • pulling an all-nighter can increase attentional failure in lab and in real hospital settings

• Reducing stress

  • make sure getting enough rest and quality sleep are associated with better emotional regulation and stress management

    • Meditation (mindfulness training) can help alleviate harmful effects of stress and improve executive function and working memory

• Exercise

  • physical activity can directly benefit cog function

  • Try going outdoor setting

Attention restoration theory: theory that being out in nature can restore cognitive fatigue

• compared with ppl who walked in a city, ppl who walked in a forested trail performed better on attention and working memory tasks

• nature experience benefits cog functions, emotional well-being, and other aspects of mental health