Evidence-based scientific thinking and decision-making in everyday life.

In today's knowledge economy, it is critical to make decisions based on high-quality evidence. Science-related decision-making is thought to rely on a complex interplay of reasoning skills, cognitive styles, attitudes, and motivations toward information. By investigating the relationship between individual differences and behaviors related to evidence-based decision-making, our aim was to better understand how adults engage with scientific information in everyday life. First, we used a data-driven exploratory approach to identify four latent factors in a large set of measures related to cognitive skills and epistemic attitudes. The resulting structure suggests that key factors include curiosity and positive attitudes toward science, prosociality, cognitive skills, and openmindedness to new information. Second, we investigated whether these factors predicted behavior in a naturalistic decision-making task. In the task, participants were introduced to a real science-related petition and were asked to read six online articles related to the petition, which varied in scientific quality, while deciding how to vote. We demonstrate that curiosity and positive science attitudes, cognitive flexibility, prosociality and emotional states, were related to engaging with information and discernment of evidence reliability. We further found that that social authority is a powerful cue for source credibility, even above the actual quality and relevance of the sources. Our results highlight that individual motivating factors toward information engagement, like curiosity, and social factors such as social authority are important drivers of how adults judge the credibility of everyday sources of scientific information.

From pre-processing to advanced dynamic modeling of pupil data.

The pupil of the eye provides a rich source of information for cognitive scientists, as it can index a variety of bodily states (e.g., arousal, fatigue) and cognitive processes (e.g., attention, decision-making). As pupillometry becomes a more accessible and popular methodology, researchers have proposed a variety of techniques for analyzing pupil data. Here, we focus on time series-based, signal-to-signal approaches that enable one to relate dynamic changes in pupil size over time with dynamic changes in a stimulus time series, continuous behavioral outcome measures, or other participants' pupil traces. We first introduce pupillometry, its neural underpinnings, and the relation between pupil measurements and other oculomotor behaviors (e.g., blinks, saccades), to stress the importance of understanding what is being measured and what can be inferred from changes in pupillary activity. Next, we discuss possible pre-processing steps, and the contexts in which they may be necessary. Finally, we turn to signal-to-signal analytic techniques, including regression-based approaches, dynamic time-warping, phase clustering, detrended fluctuation analysis, and recurrence quantification analysis. Assumptions of these techniques, and examples of the scientific questions each can address, are outlined, with references to key papers and software packages. Additionally, we provide a detailed code tutorial that steps through the key examples and figures in this paper. Ultimately, we contend that the insights gained from pupillometry are constrained by the analysis techniques used, and that signal-to-signal approaches offer a means to generate novel scientific insights by taking into account understudied spectro-temporal relationships between the pupil signal and other signals of interest.

Context independent reductions in external processing during self-generated episodic social cognition.

Ongoing cognition supports behavioral flexibility by facilitating behavior in the moment, and through the consideration of future actions. These different modes of cognition are hypothesized to vary with the correlation between brain activity and external input, since evoked responses are reduced when cognition switches to topics unrelated to the current task. This study examined whether these reduced evoked responses change as a consequence of the task environment in which the experience emerges. We combined electroencephalography (EEG) recording with multidimensional experience sampling (MDES) to assess the electrophysiological correlates of ongoing thought in task contexts which vary on their need to maintain continuous representations of task information for satisfactory performance. We focused on an event-related potential (ERP) known as the parietal P3 that had a greater amplitude in our tasks relying on greater external attention. A principal component analysis (PCA) of the MDES data revealed four patterns of ongoing thought: off-task episodic social cognition, deliberate on-task thought, imagery, and emotion. Participants reported more off-task episodic social cognition and mental imagery under low external demands and more deliberate on-task thought under high external task demands. Importantly, the occurrence of off-task episodic social cognition was linked to similar reductions in the amplitude of the P3 regardless of external task. These data suggest the amplitude of the P3 may often be a general feature of external task-related content and suggest attentional decoupling from sensory inputs are necessary for certain types of perceptually-decoupled, self-generated thoughts.

Pupillometry tracks errors in interval timing.

Recent primate studies suggest a potential link between pupil size and subjectively elapsed duration. Here, we sought to investigate the relationship between pupil size and perceived duration in human participants performing two temporal bisection tasks in the subsecond and suprasecond interval ranges. In the subsecond task, pupil diameter was greater during stimulus processing when shorter intervals were overestimated but also during and after stimulus offset when longer intervals were underestimated. By contrast, in the suprasecond task, larger pupil diameter was observed only in the late stimulus offset phase prior to response prompts when longer intervals were underestimated. This pattern of results suggests that pupil diameter relates to an error monitoring mechanism in interval timing. These results are at odds with a direct relationship between pupil size and the perception of duration but suggest that pupillometric variation might play a key role in signifying errors related to temporal judgments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Genetic polymorphisms in COMT and BDNF influence synchronization dynamics of human neuronal oscillations.

Neuronal oscillations, their inter-areal synchronization, and scale-free dynamics constitute fundamental mechanisms for cognition by regulating communication in neuronal networks. These oscillatory dynamics have large inter-individual variability that is partly heritable. We hypothesized that this variability could be partially explained by genetic polymorphisms in neuromodulatory genes. We recorded resting-state magnetoencephalography (MEG) from 82 healthy participants and investigated whether oscillation dynamics were influenced by genetic polymorphisms in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met. Both COMT and BDNF polymorphisms influenced local oscillation amplitudes and their long-range temporal correlations (LRTCs), while only BDNF polymorphism affected the strength of large-scale synchronization. Our findings demonstrate that COMT and BDNF genetic polymorphisms contribute to inter-individual variability in neuronal oscillation dynamics. Comparison of these results to computational modeling of near-critical synchronization dynamics further suggested that COMT and BDNF polymorphisms influenced local oscillations by modulating the excitation-inhibition balance according to the brain criticality framework.

Fluctuation in Pupil Size and Spontaneous Blinks Reflect Story Transportation.

Thirty-nine participants listened to 28 neutral and horror excerpts of Stephen King short stories while constantly tracking their emotional arousal. Pupil size was measured with an Eyelink 1000+, and participants rated valence and transportation after each story. In addition to computing mean pupil size across 1-sec intervals, we extracted blink count and used detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) to obtain the scaling exponents of long-range temporal correlations (LRTCs) in pupil size time-series. Pupil size was expected to be sensitive also to emotional arousal, whereas blink count and LRTC's were expected to reflect cognitive engagement. The results showed that self-reported arousal increased, pupil size was overall greater, and the decreasing slope of pupil size was flatter for horror than for neutral stories. Horror stories induced higher transportation than neutral stories. High transportation was associated with a steeper increase in self-reported arousal across time, stronger LRTCs in pupil size fluctuations, and lower blink count. These results indicate that pupil size reflects emotional arousal induced by the text content, while LRTCs and blink count are sensitive to cognitive engagement associated with transportation, irrespective of the text type. The study demonstrates the utility of pupillometric measures and blink count to study literature reception.

Critical dynamics of endogenous fluctuations predict cognitive flexibility in the Go/NoGo task.

Fluctuations with power-law scaling and long-range temporal correlations (LRTCs) are characteristic to human psychophysical performance. Systems operating in a critical state exhibit such LRTCs, but phenomenologically similar fluctuations and LRTCs may also be caused by slow decay of the system's memory without the system being critical. Theoretically, criticality endows the system with the greatest representational capacity and flexibility in state transitions. Without criticality, however, slowly decaying system memory would predict inflexibility. We addressed these contrasting predictions of the 'criticality' and 'long-memory' candidate mechanisms of human behavioral LRTCs by using a Go/NoGo task wherein the commission errors constitute a measure of cognitive flexibility. Response time (RT) fluctuations in this task exhibited power-law frequency scaling, autocorrelations, and LRTCs. We show here that the LRTC scaling exponents, quantifying the strength of long-range correlations, were negatively correlated with the commission error rates. Strong LRTCs hence parallel optimal cognitive flexibility and, in line with the criticality hypothesis, indicate a functionally advantageous state. This conclusion was corroborated by a positive correlation between the LRTC scaling exponents and executive functions measured with the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure test. Our results hence support the notion that LRTCs arise from critical dynamics that is functionally significant for human cognitive performance.

Time dilates after spontaneous blinking.

Accumulating evidence from pharmacology, neuroimaging, and genetics indicates that striatal dopamine influences time perception [1-5]. Despite these converging results, it is not known whether endogenous variations in dopamine underlie transient fluctuations in our perception of time. Here, we exploited the finding that striatal dopamine release is associated with an increase in spontaneous eye blink rate [6-8] to examine the relationship between intra-individual fluctuations in dopamine and interval timing. In two studies, participants overestimated visual subsecond and suprasecond and auditory subsecond intervals if they had blinked on the previous trial. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that transient fluctuations in striatal dopamine contribute to intra-individual variability in time perception.

Affective processing in natural scene viewing: valence and arousal interactions in eye-fixation-related potentials.

Attention is drawn to emotionally salient stimuli. The present study investigates processing of emotionally salient regions during free viewing of emotional scenes that were categorized according to the two-dimensional model comprising of valence (unpleasant, pleasant) and arousal (high, low). Recent studies have reported interactions between these dimensions, indicative of stimulus-evoked approach or withdrawal tendencies. We addressed the valence and arousal effects when emotional items were embedded in complex real-world scenes by analyzing both eye movement behavior and eye-fixation-related potentials (EFRPs) time-locked to the critical event of fixating the emotionally salient items for the first time. Both data sets showed an interaction between the valence and arousal dimensions. First, the fixation rates and gaze durations on emotionally salient regions were enhanced for unpleasant versus pleasant images in the high arousal condition. In the low arousal condition, both measures were enhanced for pleasant versus unpleasant images. Second, the EFRP results at 140-170 ms [P2] over the central site showed stronger responses for high versus low arousing images in the unpleasant condition. In addition, the parietal LPP responses at 400-500 ms post-fixation were enhanced for stimuli reflecting congruent stimulus dimensions, that is, stronger responses for high versus low arousing images in the unpleasant condition and stronger responses for low versus high arousing images in the pleasant condition. The present findings support the interactive two-dimensional approach, according to which the integration of valence and arousal recruits brain regions associated with action tendencies of approach or withdrawal.

Eye movement related brain responses to emotional scenes during free viewing.

Emotional stimuli are preferentially processed over neutral stimuli. Previous studies, however, disagree on whether emotional stimuli capture attention preattentively or whether the processing advantage is dependent on allocation of attention. The present study investigated attention and emotion processes by measuring brain responses related to eye movement events while 11 participants viewed images selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Brain responses to emotional stimuli were compared between serial and parallel presentation. An "emotional" set included one image with high positive or negative valence among neutral images. A "neutral" set comprised four neutral images. The participants were asked to indicate which picture-if any-was emotional and to rate that picture on valence and arousal. In the serial condition, the event-related potentials (ERPs) were time-locked to the stimulus onset. In the parallel condition, the ERPs were time-locked to the first eye entry on an image. The eye movement results showed facilitated processing of emotional, especially unpleasant information. The EEG results in both presentation conditions showed that the LPP ("late positive potential") amplitudes at 400-500 ms were enlarged for the unpleasant and pleasant pictures as compared to neutral pictures. Moreover, the unpleasant scenes elicited stronger responses than pleasant scenes. The ERP results did not support parafoveal emotional processing, although the eye movement results suggested faster attention capture by emotional stimuli. Our findings, thus, suggested that emotional processing depends on overt attentional resources engaged in the processing of emotional content. The results also indicate that brain responses to emotional images can be analyzed time-locked to eye movement events, although the response amplitudes were larger during serial presentation.

The impact of salient advertisements on reading and attention on web pages.

Human vision is sensitive to salient features such as motion. Therefore, animation and onset of advertisements on Websites may attract visual attention and disrupt reading. We conducted three eye tracking experiments with authentic Web pages to assess whether (a) ads are efficiently ignored, (b) ads attract overt visual attention and disrupt reading, or (c) ads are covertly attended with distraction showing up indirectly in the reading performance. The Web pages contained an ad above a central text and another ad to the right of the text. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3A the task was to read for comprehension. Experiment 1 examined whether the degree of animation affects attention toward the ads. The results showed that ads were overtly attended during reading and that the dwell times on ads were the longest when the ad above was static and the other ad was animated. In Experiments 2 and 3, the ads appeared abruptly after a random time interval. The results showed that attention (i.e., the time when the eyes first entered an ad) was related to the ad onset time. This happened especially for the ad to the right, indicating that ads appearing close to the text region capture overt attention. In Experiment 3B the participants browsed the Web pages according to their own interest. The study demonstrated that salient ads attract overt visual attention and disrupt reading, but during free browsing, ads were viewed more frequently and for longer time than during reading.

Right visual field advantage in parafoveal processing: evidence from eye-fixation-related potentials.

Readers acquire information outside the current eye fixation. Previous research indicates that having only the fixated word available slows reading, but when the next word is visible, reading is almost as fast as when the whole line is seen. Parafoveal-on-foveal effects are interpreted to reflect that the characteristics of a parafoveal word can influence fixation on a current word. Prior studies also show that words presented to the right visual field (RVF) are processed faster and more accurately than words in the left visual field (LVF). This asymmetry results either from an attentional bias, reading direction, or the cerebral asymmetry of language processing. We used eye-fixation-related potentials (EFRP), a technique that combines eye-tracking and electroencephalography, to investigate visual field differences in parafoveal-on-foveal effects. After a central fixation, a prime word appeared in the middle of the screen together with a parafoveal target that was presented either to the LVF or to the RVF. Both hemifield presentations included three semantic conditions: the words were either semantically associated, non-associated, or the target was a non-word. The participants began reading from the prime and then made a saccade towards the target, subsequently they judged the semantic association. Between 200 and 280ms from the fixation onset, an occipital P2 EFRP-component differentiated between parafoveal word and non-word stimuli when the parafoveal word appeared in the RVF. The results suggest that the extraction of parafoveal information is affected by attention, which is oriented as a function of reading direction.

Topography of attention in the primary visual cortex.

Previous research suggests that feedback circuits mediate the effect of attention to the primary visual cortex (V1). This inference is mainly based on temporal information of the responses, where late modulation is associated with feedback signals. However, temporal data alone are inconclusive because the anatomical hierarchy between cortical areas differs significantly from the temporal sequence of activation. In the current work, we relied on recent physiological and computational models of V1 network architecture, which have shown that the thalamic feedforward, local horizontal and feedback contribution are reflected in the spatial spread of responses. We used multifocal functional localizer and quantitative analysis in functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the spatial scales of attention and sensory responses. Representations of 60 visual field regions in V1 were functionally localized and four of these regions were targets in a subsequent attention experiment, where human volunteers fixated centrally and performed a visual discrimination task at the attended location. Attention enhanced the peak amplitudes significantly more in the lower than in the upper visual field. This enhancement by attention spread with a 2.4 times larger radius (approximately 10 mm, assuming an average magnification factor) compared with the unattended response. The corresponding target region of interest was on average 20% stronger than that caused by the afferent sensory stimulation alone. This modulation could not be attributed to eye movements. Given the contemporary view of primate V1 connections, the activation spread along the cortex provides further evidence that the signal enhancement by spatial attention is dependent on feedback circuits.