Are insomniacs sleepy during the day? A pupillometric assessment.

A biodevelopmental model of insomnia is articulated specifying coordinated nighttime (disturbed sleep pattern) and daytime (no excessive daytime sleepiness) characteristics defining an insomnoid classification in at-risk groups: short sleepers and older adults. Pupillometry is proposed as a useful means of discriminating degree of daytime sleepiness to aid in the differential diagnosis of insomnia and insomnoid states, and the present study tested the discriminative validity of this approach. Noninsomniac (n = 34) and insomniac (n = 29) college students submitted to four 10 min pupillometry sessions tracking daytime sleepiness from morning arising to bedtime. Pupil diameter proved to be an able discriminator of these two groups though substantial overlap of the two distributions was also noted. The results supported the sensitivity of pupillometry in detecting daytime sleepiness, but yielded alternative interpretations. We observed statistical differentiation in insomniac and noninsomniac daytime sleepiness, but substantial, functional overlap between these groups. Assessment and treatment implications arising from the biodevelopmental model were hypothesized.     

Vigilance, personality and strength of the nervous system

Numerous attempts have been made to explain the overall level of performance and the change in performance over time in vigilance tasks in terms of the proposed inverted U relationship between performance and ‘arousal’. The present experiment investigated the effects on vigilance performance of the following variables: introversion, neuroticism, time of day, accessory sensory stimulation, ‘signal frequency’ and time on task. Some measures of subjective state and body temperature were also included. The behavioural measures of overall performance revealed interactions involving neuroticism and time of day, and between neuroticism and frequency. This may reflect the operation of response bias factors, though these may be influenced by ‘arousal’. There were also main effects for several of the factors which may have practical significance. There was a significant effect of time on task on all the behavioural measures but no clearcut effects of personality on the vigilance ‘decrement’. It is argued that the latter may not provide the most satisfactory test of the inverted U model and its relationship to personality. However, interactions between noise and time on task for some of the measures may have practical importance. Measures of subjective state showed a fall in the reported level of ‘arousal’ accompanied by a rise in reported ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’ with time on task. Body temperature was higher after the task than before.     

Inoculation against conspiracy theories: A consumer side approach to India's fake news problem

We attempt to replicate Roozenbeek and van der Linden's Western-based study in India by employing the Bad News Game, an online game, in which players take on the role of a misinformation tycoon. They are exposed to weakened doses of the strategies employed in conspiracy and fake news production with the aim to cognitively inoculate them against misinformation. The proliferation of inexpensive mobile connections coupled with a lack of digital literacy has resulted in a conspiratorial pandemic in developing countries like India. We test the game's impact on an Indian sample (n = 1002) using a within-subject design. We provide evidence of significant improvement in the ability of participants to identify the misinformation produced using Conspiracy, Impersonation, and to a lesser extent, the Discrediting technique, while observing greater truth discernment in correctly identifying true news. We also conduct sub-sample analyses. These findings have positive implications for methods that protect users from malignant online content.     

Aphasia type and aging in Hindi-speaking stroke patients

In this study, the clinical profile of Hindi-speaking stroke patients with aphasia from northern India has been investigated. We examined the interactional effect between age and gender with aphasia type in 97 Hindi-speaking right-handed individuals, the majority of them with a confirmed diagnosis of a cerebrovascular accident. The subjects included in the study ranged from 3 weeks to two years post-onset with a diagnosis of a common classical aphasia (Broca's, Wernicke's, anomic, global, conduction, and transcortical) types involving both males and females. Also examined was the interaction between literacy and aphasia type since the subjects had varied exposures to education (total illiteracy to professional/university education). While the data reported here about Hindi-speaking aphasics are relatively in agreement with the age-aphasia type patterns discussed in western countries, nonetheless some differences were also observed. The mean age of Indian patients with aphasia was significantly lower. Also, in addition to some gender and literacy related differences, an outstanding difference was that many clinical symptoms that are known to co-occur with aphasia were not readily reported by subjects with stroke.     

The road not taken: creative solutions require avoidance of high-frequency responses

To investigate individual differences in creativity as measured with a complex problem-solving task, we developed a computational model of the remote associates test (RAT). For 50 years, the RAT has been used to measure creativity. Each RAT question presents three cue words that are linked by a fourth word, which is the correct answer. We hypothesized that individuals perform poorly on the RAT when they are biased to consider high-frequency candidate answers. To assess this hypothesis, we tested individuals with 48 RAT questions and required speeded responding to encourage guessing. Results supported our hypothesis. We generated a norm-based model of the RAT using a high-dimensional semantic space, and this model accurately identified correct answers. A frequency-biased model that included different levels of bias for high-frequency candidate answers explained variance for both correct and incorrect responses. Providing new insight into the nature of creativity, the model explains why some RAT questions are more difficult than others, and why some people perform better than others on the RAT.