Individual differences in attentional control predict working memory capacity in adults who stutter.

PURPOSE: Prior research has suggested that people who stutter exhibit differences in some working memory tasks, particularly when more phonologically complex stimuli are used. This study aimed to further specify working memory differences in adults who stutter by not only accounting for linguistic demands of the stimuli but also individual differences in attentional control and experimental influences, such as concomitant processing requirements. METHOD: This study included 40 adults who stutter and 42 adults who do not stutter who completed the Attention Network Test (ANT; Fan et al., 2002) and three complex span working memory tasks: the Operation Span (OSPAN), Rotation Span, and Symmetry Span (Draheim et al., 2018; Foster et al., 2015; Unsworth et al., 2005, 2009). All complex span tasks were dual-tasks and varied in linguistic content in task stimuli. RESULTS: Working memory capacities demonstrated by adults who stutter paralleled the hierarchy of linguistic content across the three complex span tasks, with statistically significant between-group differences in working memory capacity apparent in the task with the highest linguistic demand (i.e., OSPAN). Individual differences in attentional control in adults who stutter also significantly predicted working memory capacity on the OSPAN. DISCUSSION: Findings from this study extend existing working memory research in stuttering by showing that: (1) significant working memory differences are present between adults who stutter and adults who do not stutter even using relatively simple linguistic stimuli in dual-task working memory conditions; (2) adults who stutter with stronger executive control of attention demonstrate working memory capacity more comparable to adults who do not stutter on the OSPAN compared to adults who stutter with lower executive control of attention.

Control preference persists with age.

The opportunity to exert control in one's environment is desirable, and individuals are willing to seek out control, even at a financial cost. Additionally, control-related activation of reward regions in the brain and the positive affect associated with the opportunity to exert control suggest that control is rewarding. The present study explores whether there are age-related differences in the preference for control. Older and younger adults chose whether to maintain control and play a guessing game themselves or to cede this control to the computer. Maintaining and ceding control were associated with different amounts of monetary reward that could be banked upon a successful guess. This required participants to weigh the value associated with control compared to monetary rewards. We found that older adults preferred control and traded monetary reward for control, similar to younger adults. The results suggest that the preference for exerting control may be preserved across age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Gotcha: Working memory prioritization from automatic attentional biases.

Attention is an important resource for prioritizing information in working memory (WM), and it can be deployed both strategically and automatically. Most research investigating the relationship between WM and attention has focused on strategic efforts to deploy attentional resources toward remembering relevant information. However, such voluntary attentional control represents a mere subset of the attentional processes that select information to be encoded and maintained in WM (Theeuwes, Journal of Cognition, 1[1]: 29, 1-15, 2018). Here, we discuss three ways in which information becomes prioritized automatically in WM-physical salience, statistical learning, and reward learning. This review integrates findings from perception and working memory studies to propose a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between attention and working memory.

Is it worth it? The costs and benefits of bringing a laptop to a university class.

Students often bring laptops to university classes, however, they do not limit their laptop use to class-related activity. Off-task laptop use occurs frequently in university classrooms and this use negatively impacts learning. The present study addresses whether potential benefits of class-related laptop use might mitigate the costs of off-task laptop activity. We used tracking software to monitor both class-related and off-task laptop use by undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology course, and we observed how types of laptop use related to course performance. We found a positive correlation between class-related use and exam scores that was driven by viewing lecture slides during class. We also found a negative correlation between off-task laptop use and exam scores, but class-related activities did not predict an increase in off-task use. Thus, for students who constrain their laptop use to class-related activity, the benefits outweigh the costs. While a laptop may be beneficial for some, it is unclear which students are able to constrain themselves to class-related activities and whether the benefits of class-related laptop use obtained by slide viewing could be achieved by other means. Thus, students and educators should carefully consider the costs and benefits of laptop use in the classroom.

Persistent guidance of attention in visual statistical learning.

When repeatedly selected features have predictive value, an observer can learn to prioritize them. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms underlying this persistent statistical learning. In two experiments, we investigated the boundary conditions of statistical learning. Each task included a training phase where targets appeared more frequently in one of two target colors, followed by a test phase where targets appeared equally in both colors. A posttest survey probed awareness of target color probability differences. Experiment 1 tested whether statistical learning requires the predictive feature to be inherently bound to the target. Participants searched for a horizontal or vertical line among diagonal distractors and reported its length (long or short). In the bound condition, targets and distractors were colored, whereas targets were presented in white font and surrounded by colored boxes in the unbound condition. Experiment 2 tested whether reducing task difficulty by simplifying the judgment (horizontal or vertical) would eliminate statistical learning. The results suggested that statistical learning is robust to manipulations of binding, but is attenuated when task difficulty is reduced. Finally, we found evidence that explicit awareness may contribute to statistical learning, but its effects are small and require large sample sizes for adequate detection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Attention induces surround suppression in visual working memory.

Controversy currently exists regarding whether visual working memory (VWM) maintains sensory or non-sensory representations. Here, we tested the nature of VWM representations by leveraging a perceptual surround suppression effect when an item is attended. Participants performed a delayed-estimation task in which they memorized an array of six colors. A cue indicated which location was most likely probed. In separate experiments, we manipulated external attention (via a precue) or internal attention (via a retrocue). Both types of attention elicited a surround suppression effect, such that memory performance showed a Mexican-hat profile as a function of cue-probe offsets. Given the sensory origin of the surround suppression effect, our results thus provide compelling evidence that VWM maintenance relies on sensory mechanisms.

Stimulus-driven attention and cognitive control during encoding: An event related brain potentials study.

Stimulus-driven attention drawn to relevant items can improve working memory (WM) whether attentional capture is driven by salient, low level features or by contingent salience from shared features with targets. In the current work, we examined the time course of enhanced attention to contingently salient information in a non-spatial WM task using event related brain potentials (ERPs). In line with previous work, we predicted that the encoding of contingently salient stimuli would be associated with an enhancement of cognitive control processes rather than low-level salience detection. The results of this study supported this hypothesis, evidenced by a posterior P3 component of greater amplitude for contingently salient stimuli relative to stimuli of a control color, which is thought to reflect enhanced attention to information that matches a target held in WM. However, P3 amplitude during encoding was unrelated to subsequent memory accuracy. As an exploratory follow up on these results, we conducted a regression analysis including beliefs about ability to focus attention as a moderator, which interacted with P3 amplitude to predict WM recall of salient letters. Furthermore, source localization analyses implicated a significant contribution of regions in the salience network to the detection of target stimuli, but only frontal control regions showed a greater response to salient than control letters. Thus, the results of this experiment suggest that participants enhance cognitive control during the encoding of contingently salient stimuli, but that the relationship between this neural process during encoding and subsequent benefits to WM recall might depend on individual differences in attentional focus.

Neural Mechanisms for the Benefits of Stimulus-Driven Attention.

Stimulus-driven attention can improve working memory (WM) when drawn to behaviorally relevant information, but the neural mechanisms underlying this effect are unclear. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test competing hypotheses regarding the nature of the benefits of stimulus-driven attention to WM: that stimulus-driven attention benefits WM directly via salience detection, that stimulus-driven attention benefits WM incidentally via cognitive control mechanisms recruited to reduce interference from salient features, or that both mechanisms are co-involved in enhancing WM for salient information. To test these hypotheses, we observed activation in brain regions associated with cognitive control and salience detection. We found 2 cognitive control regions that were associated with enhanced memory for salient stimuli: a region in the right superior parietal lobule and a region in the right inferior frontal junction. No regions associated with salience detection were found to show this effect. These fMRI results support the hypothesis that benefits to WM from stimulus-driven attention occur primarily as a result of cognitive control and top-down factors rather than pure bottom-up aspects of stimulus-driven attention.

Logged In and Zoned Out.

Laptop computers are widely prevalent in university classrooms. Although laptops are a valuable tool, they offer access to a distracting temptation: the Internet. In the study reported here, we assessed the relationship between classroom performance and actual Internet usage for academic and nonacademic purposes. Students who were enrolled in an introductory psychology course logged into a proxy server that monitored their online activity during class. Past research relied on self-report, but the current methodology objectively measured time, frequency, and browsing history of participants' Internet usage. In addition, we assessed whether intelligence, motivation, and interest in course material could account for the relationship between Internet use and performance. Our results showed that nonacademic Internet use was common among students who brought laptops to class and was inversely related to class performance. This relationship was upheld after we accounted for motivation, interest, and intelligence. Class-related Internet use was not associated with a benefit to classroom performance.

Where to start? Bottom-up attention improves working memory by determining encoding order.

The present study aimed to characterize the mechanism by which working memory is enhanced for items that capture attention because of their novelty or saliency-that is, via bottom-up attention. The first experiment replicated previous research by corroborating that bottom-up attention directed to an item is sufficient for enhancing working memory and, moreover, generalized the effect to the domain of verbal working memory. The subsequent 3 experiments sought to determine how bottom-up attention affects working memory. We considered 2 hypotheses: (1) Bottom-up attention enhances the encoded representation of the stimulus, similar to how voluntary attention functions, or (2) It affects the order of encoding by shifting priority onto the attended stimulus. By manipulating how stimuli were presented (simultaneous/sequential display) and whether the cue predicted the tested items, we found evidence that bottom-up attention improves working memory performance via the order of encoding hypothesis. This finding was observed across change detection and free recall paradigms. In contrast, voluntary attention improved working memory regardless of encoding order and showed greater effects on working memory. We conclude that when multiple information sources compete, bottom-up attention prioritizes the location at which encoding should begin. When encoding order is set, bottom-up attention has little or no benefit to working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record

Ventral fronto-parietal contributions to the disruption of visual working memory storage.

The ability to maintain information in visual working memory (VWM) in the presence of ongoing visual input allows for flexible goal-directed behavior. Previous evidence suggests that categorical overlap between visual distractors and the contents of VWM is associated with both the degree to which distractors disrupt VWM performance and activation among fronto-parietal regions of cortex. While within-category distractors have been shown to elicit a greater response in ventral fronto-parietal regions, to date, no study has linked distractor-evoked response of these regions to VWM performance costs. Here we examined the contributions of ventral fronto-parietal cortex to the disruption of VWM storage by manipulating memoranda-distractor similarity. Our results revealed that the degree of activation across cortex was graded in a manner suggesting that similarity between the contents of VWM and visual distractors influenced distractor processing. While abrupt visual onsets failed to engage ventral fronto-parietal regions during VWM maintenance, objects sharing categorical- (Related objects) and feature-overlap (Matched objects) with VWM elicited a significant response in the right TPJ and right AI. Of central relevance, the magnitude of activation in the right AI elicited by both types of distractor objects subsequently predicted costs to binding change detection accuracy. In addition, Related and Matched distractors differentially affected ventral-dorsal connectivity between the right AI and dorsal parietal regions, uniquely contributing to disruption of VWM storage. Together, our current results implicate activation of ventral fronto-parietal cortex in disruption of VWM storage, and disconnection between ventral frontal and dorsal parietal cortices as a mechanism to protect the contents of VWM.

The nature of working memory gating in Parkinson's disease: A multi-domain signal detection examination.

Distractions are ubiquitous; our brains are inundated with task-irrelevant information. Thus, to remember successfully, one must actively maintain relevant information and prevent distraction from entering working memory. Researchers suggest the basal ganglia-prefrontal pathways are vital to this process by acting as a working memory gate. Using Parkinson's disease as a model of frontostriatal functioning and with signal detection analyses, the present study aims to better characterize the contribution of frontostriatal pathways of this gating process and to determine how it operates across multiple domains. To achieve this, Parkinson's disease patients and healthy controls completed verbal and spatial working memory tasks consisting of three conditions: low-load without distraction; low-load with distraction; and high-load without distraction. Patients were tested both ON and OFF dopaminergic medication, allowing for assessment of the contribution of dorsal and ventral frontostriatal pathways. The results demonstrate that when medication is withheld, Parkinson's patients have a response bias to answer "NO" across all conditions and domains, supporting our hypothesis that the basal ganglia-prefrontal pathways allow or prevent updates of working memory. Contrastingly, medication status affects d' in the distraction condition but not in the high- or low-load conditions. We attribute this to stimulus valuation processes that were impaired by dopaminergic medication overdosing the ventral pathway. These findings are both consistent with the hypothesis that the working memory gate filters spatial and verbal information before it enters into the working memory system, adding support for the gate being a domain-general mechanism of the central executive.

An inability to set independent attentional control settings by hemifield.

Recent evidence suggests that people can simultaneously activate attentional control setting for two distinct colors. However, it is unclear whether both attentional control settings must operate globally across the visual field or whether each can be constrained to a particular spatial location. Using two different paradigms, we investigated participants' ability to apply independent color attentional control settings to distinct regions of space. In both experiments, participants were told to identify red letters in one hemifield and green letters in the opposite hemifield. Additionally, some trials used a "relevant distractor"-a letter that matched the opposite side's target color. In Experiment 1, eight letters appeared (four per hemifield) simultaneously for a brief amount of time and then were masked. Relevant distractors increased the error rate and resulted in a greater number of distractor intrusions than irrelevant distractors. Similar results were observed in Experiment 2 in which red and green targets were presented in two rapid serial visual presentation streams. Relevant distractors were found to produce an attentional blink similar in magnitude to an actual target. The results of both experiments suggest that letters matching either attentional control setting were selected by attention and were processed as if they were targets, providing strong evidence that both attentional control settings were applied globally, rather than being constrained to a particular location.

Functional specialization of the left ventral parietal cortex in working memory.

The function of the ventral parietal cortex (VPC) is subject to much debate. Many studies suggest a lateralization of function in the VPC, with the left hemisphere facilitating verbal working memory and the right subserving stimulus-driven attention. However, many attentional tasks elicit activity in the VPC bilaterally. To elucidate the potential divides across the VPC in function, we assessed the pattern of activity in the VPC bilaterally across two tasks that require different demands, an oddball attentional task with low working memory demands and a working memory task. An anterior region of the VPC was bilaterally active during novel targets in the oddball task and during retrieval in WM, while more posterior regions of the VPC displayed dissociable functions in the left and right hemisphere, with the left being active during the encoding and retrieval of WM, but not during the oddball task and the right showing the reverse pattern. These results suggest that bilateral regions of the anterior VPC subserve non-mnemonic processes, such as stimulus-driven attention during WM retrieval and oddball detection. The left posterior VPC may be important for speech-related processing important for both working memory and perception, while the right hemisphere is more lateralized for attention.

Motivational enhancement of cognitive control depends on depressive symptoms.

Performance feedback can motivate improvements in executive function (Ravizza, Goudreau, Delgado, & Ruiz, 2012). The present study examines whether the enhancement of task switching with performance feedback is modulated by the level of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms have been linked to deficits in processing affective information inherent to such feedback (Henriques, Glowacki, & Davidson, 1994; Pizzagalli, Jahn, & O'Shea, 2005). Task switching speed was assessed when performance feedback about accuracy was present or absent in a group of participants with minimal to moderate levels of depression. A significant positive correlation was observed between depressive symptoms and feedback effects on executive function indicating that those with lower depressive symptoms were more likely to show improvements in switching speed when performance feedback was present. These results suggest a novel link between executive function deficits and depression symptoms; namely, that greater levels of depressive symptoms are linked to diminished executive functioning via deficits in processing the affective component of performance feedback.

The effect of Twitter exposure on false memory formation.

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have increased drastically in popularity. However, information on these sites is not verified and may contain inaccuracies. It is well-established that false information encountered after an event can lead to memory distortion. Therefore, social media may be particularly harmful for autobiographical memory. Here, we tested the effect of Twitter on false memory. We presented participants with a series of images that depicted a story and then presented false information about the images in a scrolling feed that bore either a low or high resemblance to a Twitter feed. Confidence for correct information was similar across the groups, but confidence for suggested information was significantly lower when false information was presented in a Twitter format. We propose that individuals take into account the medium of the message when integrating information into memory.

Restricted and repetitive behaviors in autism spectrum disorders: the relationship of attention and motor deficits.

Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are hallmark symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs); however, it has proven difficult to understand the mechanisms underlying these behaviors. One hypothesis suggests that RRBs are the result of a core deficit in attention. Alternatively, abnormalities of the motor system may constitute the central mechanism underlying RRBs, given motor deficits observed in ASDs. In this experiment, we investigated the etiology of RRBs and the relationship between attention and motor deficits. Movement impairments (a) may be indirectly related to attention deficits, (b) may result from a shared compromised process, or (c) may be independent. Twenty-two adolescents with ASD and 20 typically developing participants performed a spatial attention task. Movement impairments were assessed with a rhythmic tapping task. Attentional orienting and motor control were found to be related and supported the hypothesis that these impairments in ASD arise from a shared process. In contrast, measures of attention switching and motor control were found to be independent. Stereotyped behaviors, as assessed by parental ratings, were related more to the degree of motor impairment than to deficits of attention. These results suggest that both attentional orienting deficits and stereotyped RRBs are related to a compromised motor system.

Do brain activation changes persist in athletes with a history of multiple concussions who are asymptomatic?

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: To evaluate brain activation patterns of asymptomatic athletes with a history of two or more concussions. RESEARCH DESIGN: A paired case-control design was used to evaluate brain activation patterns during cognitive performance in 14 athletes with a history of two or more concussions and 14 age- and sex-matched controls with no previous concussion. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Percentage Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent (BOLD) change during an N-back working memory task was assessed in all participants. Performance on the Trail-Making Test Form A and B, Symbol-Digit Modalities Test and the Immediate Post-concussion Assessment and Cognitive Test (ImPACT) was also compared between groups. MAIN RESULTS: As expected, brain regions activated during the performance of the N-back were equivalent between groups. The groups performed similarly on the neurocognitive measures. The history of concussion group was less accurate than controls on the 1-, 2- and 3-back conditions of the N-back. CONCLUSIONS: Following the complete resolution of symptoms, a history of two or more concussions is not associated with changes in regional brain activation during the performance of working memory task. Compensatory brain activation may only persist during the typically brief time athletes experience symptoms following concussion.

Cognitive control: preparation of task switching components.

Task performance often improves when tasks can be prepared in advance. However, the mechanisms that support advance preparation are highly debated. Proceeding under the hypothesis that switch-specific neural activation during advance preparation is the hallmark of controlled processing, this study investigates the behavioral and neural effects of component preparation during task-switching. Toward this end, fMRI was used to observe neural activity during preparation of response rules (RULE task) compared to preparation of stimulus set (PERCEPTUAL task). We predicted that switch-specific activation would be observed for RULE and PERCEPTUAL switching when component preparation was isolated from target-related activation. The results indicated that preparation for both tasks was supported by common regions of activation; however preparation for switches of response rule was supported by switch-specific activation of the anterior cingulate (ACC) and left lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). Shift-cost was also eradicated in this condition with enough preparation time, and was associated with an increase in ACC activation. Switches of stimulus set were not marked by specific neural activity during the preparation interval. While the amount of preparation time affected overall performance, PERCEPTUAL task switches did not benefit more from preparation time than task repeats. It was concluded that response rules can be reconfigured pre-target due to the support of ACC-LPFC activation, where preparation of stimulus sets is supported by a general type of configuration common to both components.

Executive function in Parkinson's disease: contributions of the dorsal frontostriatal pathways to action and motivation.

Disruption of the dorsal frontostriatal pathways in Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with impairments in motivation, as well as in executive function. The goal of this study was to investigate whether these impairments are related and, if so, whether the disruption of frontostriatal pathways compromises the ability to process the motivational aspects of feedback in such tasks. In Experiment 1, informative feedback improved the performance of young, healthy participants in a task-switching paradigm. This task-switching paradigm was then used in Experiment 2 to test whether feedback would improve the performance of 17 PD patients and age-matched controls. The PD group benefitted from feedback to the same degree as control participants; however, depression scores on the Beck Depression Inventory were significantly related to feedback usage, especially when response selection demands were high. Regardless of feedback, PD patients were more impaired when response demands were high than in an equally difficult condition with low action demands. These results suggest that response selection is a core impairment of insufficient dopamine to the dorsal frontal striatal pathways.