Regulating cognitive control through approach-avoidance motor actions

In two studies, the regulatory function of approach-avoidance cues in activating cognitive control processes was investigated. It was hypothesized that avoidance motor actions, relative to approach motor actions, increase the recruitment of cognitive resources, resulting in better performance on tasks that draw on these capacities. In Study 1, error rates on a verbal response mode version of the Stroop task were analyzed. On inconsistent Stroop trials, participants in the avoidance condition made significantly fewer errors than those in the approach condition. In Study 2, performance differences on a task switching paradigm were investigated. Crucially, approach and avoidance motor actions were manipulated within-subjects by alternating between approach and avoidance motor actions on 4 blocks of trials. Temporal switching costs were significantly lower while performing an avoidance, compared to an approach motor action. These results support our hypothesis that avoidance cues, relative to approach cues, lead to improved performance on cognitive control tasks.     

Openness to Experience,Intellect, and Cognitive Ability

An instrument designed to separate 2 midlevel traits within each of the Big Five (the Big Five Aspect Scales [BFAS]) was used to clarify the relation of personality to cognitive ability. The BFAS measures Openness to Experience and Intellect as separate (although related) traits, and refers to the broader Big Five trait as Openness/Intellect. In 2 samples (N = 125 and 189), Intellect was independently associated with general intelligence (g) and with verbal and nonverbal intelligence about equally. Openness was independently associated only with verbal intelligence. Implications of these findings are discussed for the empirical and conceptual relations of intelligence to personality and for the mechanisms potentially underlying both Openness/Intellect and cognitive ability.     

Adding fear to conflict: A general purpose cognitive control network is modulated by trait anxiety

Studies of cognitive control show that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are involved in the detection and resolution of cognitive conflict. However, the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying emotional interference effects are less consistent. We used fMRI during emotional and nonemotional versions of a facial Stroop task to investigate the effects of emotional stimuli on cognitive control. In the full group there was limited evidence that different prefrontal circuits manage conflict arising from emotional and nonemotional distractors. However, individual differences in trait anxiety affected both behavioral performance and neural activity during the emotional task. Relative to low-anxiety (LA) subjects, high-anxiety (HA) subjects showed greater amygdala activity to task-relevant emotional information and impaired performance and greater conflict-related activity in the dACC when emotional content was task-irrelevant. Only LA subjects activated rostral ACC during the emotional task. This is consistent with cognitive models of individual differences that hypothesize deficient control of task-irrelevant emotional information in HA subjects. Additional behavioral and fMRI results from this study may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals .org/content/supplemental.     

Agreeableness,conscientiousness, and effortful control processes

Effortful control (EC) is believed to be a superordinate, temperament system that is associated with early-appearing individual differences in self-regulation. It has been suggested that EC indexes the common developmental process underlying Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Theory suggests this association, but little empirical evidence has linked personality to actual self-regulatory behaviors. This study examined personality and cognitive assessments associated with impairments in self-regulation. College students (N=113) gave self-reports on the five dimensions of personality. They also completed the Stroop test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), and a verbal fluency test. Agreeableness predicted Stroop reaction times. Both Agreeableness and Conscientiousness predicted WCST measures. Conscientiousness predicted verbal fluency for men. Results were discussed in terms of EC being a common developmental substrate of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.     

The relations between cognitive ability and personality: Convergent results across measures

Several studies have investigated the relations between cognitive ability and Big Five personality constructs. The present study extended previous research by (a) examining these relationships in large samples (total N = 120,014), (b) including several measures of cognitive ability and personality, (c) examining both domain and facet-level personality scores, (d) expanding the personality domains studied to include Machiavellianism, and (e) correcting the observed correlations for range restriction and reliability to provide a better statistical estimate of the relations between the cognitive and personality scores and constructs. Results were consistent with prior research showing a positive relationship between cognitive ability and Openness and negative relationships between cognitive ability and Neuroticism and Conscientiousness. Negative relations between cognitive ability and Extraversion and Agreeableness also were observed. Machiavellianism, not part of the Big Five was found to have a positive correlation with cognitive ability. Of particular interest was the finding that the relations between cognitive ability and personality were affected by the specific content of the cognitive and personality measures. Cognitive measures with verbal content were more strongly correlated with personality than were cognitive measures with math or nonverbal content for all of the samples. Also, there was considerable variability in the cognitive-personality correlations for the facets underlying each personality domain. The variability in correlations at the facet-level implies that cognitive-personality relationships at the domain-level will vary as a function of the specific content of the cognitive and personality measures. Overall, the results provide support for cognitive-personality association at the measurement level.     

Working Memory Deficits in Boys with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): The Contribution of Central Executive and Subsystem Processes

The current study investigated contradictory findings from recent experimental and meta-analytic studies concerning working memory deficits in ADHD. Working memory refers to the cognitive ability to temporarily store and mentally manipulate limited amounts of information for use in guiding behavior. Phonological (verbal) and visuospatial (nonverbal) working memory were assessed across four memory load conditions in 23 boys (12 ADHD, 11 typically developing) using tasks based on Baddeley's (Working memory, thought, and action, Oxford University Press, New York, 2007) working memory model. The model posits separate phonological and visuospatial storage and rehearsal components that are controlled by a single attentional controller (CE: central executive). A latent variable approach was used to partial task performance related to three variables of interest: phonological buffer/rehearsal loop, visuospatial buffer/rehearsal loop, and the CE attentional controller. ADHD-related working memory deficits were apparent across all three cognitive systems--with the largest magnitude of deficits apparent in the CE--even after controlling for reading speed, nonverbal visual encoding, age, IQ, and SES.     

Predicting employee attitudes to workplace diversity from personality,values, and cognitive ability

The current study assessed the predictive validity of broad and narrow measures of personality, values, and cognitive ability on employee attitudes to workplace diversity. Australian working adults (N = 731; 66% female; mean age = 43, SD = 12) completed the 200-item HEXACO Personality Inventory, Schwartz's Portrait Values Questionnaire, ACER measures of numeric, verbal, and abstract reasoning ability, the Attitudes Toward Diversity Scale, and four scales measuring prejudice towards female workers, ethnic workers, older workers, and workers with a disability. Results showed that Honesty–Humility, Extraversion, Openness, and cognitive ability (especially verbal) predicted more positive attitudes to workplace diversity. Valuing power, security, and tradition more, and valuing universalism less was associated with more negative attitudes to workplace diversity.     

Comparing the Performance of Native North Americans and Predominantly White Military Recruits on Verbal and Nonverbal Measures of Cognitive Ability

This study compared the cognitive ability of adult Canadian First Nations (American Indian) aboriginals (N=101) living in remote areas to recruits (N=131) undergoing military training in the Canadian Forces. Comparisons involved both verbal and nonverbal measures: The Canadian Forces Aptitude Test (CFAT), Wonderlic Personnel Test, (WPT), Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and Mill Hill Vocabulary (MHV) test. All measures were examined for differential test and item functioning; as well, the CFAT was analyzed for adverse impact. Confirming past research, First Nations (FNs) members scored, on average, 18 points lower in IQ estimates based on the WPT, a verbal measure of cognitive ability; however, the differences between the groups were less on the nonverbal tests: SPM (5 points lower) and the MHV (9 points lower). Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis detected a few items from the CFAT, SPM and MHV that displayed DIF, but none from the WPT. The SPM and WPT appear to be unbiased measures with respect to differential test functioning (DTF), once language and education are controlled. Making employment decisions solely on verbal cognitive ability test scores, however, is likely to produce adverse impact against members of FN, unless verbal ability is a bona fide occupational requirement for the positions under consideration. Both the verbal and nonverbal cognitive ability tests assessed the same latent structure suggesting that the nonverbal tests could be used in place of the verbal tests with little loss in predictive ability for occupations involving a high degree of spatial ability.     

Dissociations among tasks involving inhibition: A single-case study

Recent theories of working memory have emphasized the role of inhibition in suppressing irrelevant information. Moreover, psychometric studies have reported that several inhibition tasks with very diverse requirements load on a single inhibition factor. A patient with left inferior frontal damage, Patient M.L., previously reported to have a semantic short-term memory deficit (R. C. Martin & He, 2004), showed evidence of difficulty with inhibition on short-term memory tasks. We investigated whether he would show evidence of inhibition difficulty on two verbal tasks (a Stroop task and a recent-negatives task) and two nonverbal tasks (a nonverbal spatial Stroop task and an antisaccade task). M.L. was impaired on both verbal tasks but performed normally on the nonverbal tasks. M.L.’s data also represent a dissociation between Stroop and antisaccade performance, two tasks that load on a single factor in factor-analytic studies. The implications of these data for theories of inhibition and executive function are discussed.     

Flexible control in processing affective and non-affective material predicts individual differences in trait resilience

Trait resilience is a stable personality characteristic that involves the self-reported ability to flexibly adapt to emotional events and situations. The present study examined cognitive processes that may explain individual differences in trait resilience. Participants completed self-report measures of trait resilience, cognitive flexibility and working memory capacity tasks, and a novel affective task-switching paradigm that assesses the ability to flexibly switch between processing the affective versus non-affective qualities of affective stimuli (i.e., flexible affective processing). As hypothesised, cognitive flexibility and flexible affective processing were unique predictors of trait resilience. Working memory capacity was not predictive of trait resilience, indicating that trait resilience is tied to specific cognitive processes rather than overall better cognitive functioning. Cognitive flexibility and flexible affective processing were not associated with other trait measures, suggesting that these flexibility processes are unique to trait resilience. This study was among the first to investigate the cognitive abilities underlying trait resilience.     

Personality correlates of the Stroop Color and Word Test: more negative results.

Numerous studies have investigated personality correlates of performance on the Stroop Color and Word Test. With one exception, these studies have failed to identify any significant correlates between the two variables. The present study examined this relationship by administering the Stroop Color and Word Test, Cattell's 16 PF, and the Maudsley Personality Inventory to a sample of 210 college students. Results indicated no significant correlates existed between five different measures of Stroop Color and Word Test performance and the personality scales. It was concluded that the Stroop Color and Word Test has little relationship to measures of personality and may best be understood in terms of specific cognitive processes.     

Performance costs when emotion tunes inappropriate cognitive abilities: implications for mental resources and behavior

Emotion tunes cognition, such that approach-motivated positive states promote verbal cognition, whereas withdrawal-motivated negative states promote spatial cognition (Gray, 2001). The current research examined whether self-control resources become depleted and influence subsequent behavior when emotion tunes an inappropriate cognitive tendency. In 2 experiments, either an approach-motivated positive state or a withdrawal-motivated negative state was induced, and then participants completed a verbal or a spatial working memory task creating conditions of emotion-cognition alignment (e.g., approach/verbal) or misalignment (e.g., approach/spatial). A control condition was also included. To examine behavioral costs due to depleted self-control resources, participants completed either a Stroop task (Stroop, 1935; Experiment 1) or a Black/White implicit association test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Experiment 2). Participants in the misalignment conditions performed worse on the Stroop task, and they were worse at controlling their implicit attitude biases on the IAT. Thus, when emotion tunes inappropriate cognitive tendencies for one's current environment, self-control resources become depleted, impairing behavioral control.     

Personality traits of the behavioural approach and inhibition systems: associations with processing of emotional stimuli

This study examined the relationships of the traits associated with Gray's behavioural approach system (BAS) and behavioural inhibition system (BIS) with cognitive processing of emotional information. Initially, participants completed questionnaires covering trait impulsivity and anxiety, and BAS and BIS sensitivities. They were then tested individually. After completing a questionnaire of current positive and negative moods, they completed three tasks measuring processing of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral information. Consistent with Gray’s theory, the results showed that impulsivity and BAS sensitivity were associated with the processing of pleasant information, while anxiety and BIS sensitivity were associated with the processing of unpleasant information. These findings imply that Gray’s BAS–BIS theory can be extended to cognitive processing of emotional information.     

Profiles of Everyday Executive Function in Acquired and Developmental Disorders

The current study focused on the early development of inhibitory control in 5- to 7-year-old children attending kindergarten in two Eastern-European countries, Romania and Russia. These two countries share many aspects of child-rearing and educational practices, previously documented to influence the development of inhibitory control. Using the Lurian-based developmental approach offered by the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment battery, the study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology by exploring (a) early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural) in these two cultures, as well as (b) the predictive value of external factors (culture and maternal education) and individual differences (age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety) on inhibitory control and fluency outcomes in children from both countries. First, findings in both culture samples suggest that even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be considered a unitary entity. Second, differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores. However, children’s attention control performance varied as a function of culture, and the direction of these cultural effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. Findings also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers’ inhibitory control during this period, influencing measures of response suppression and particularly attention control. Finally, the results further stress the importance of individual differences effects in trait anxiety on attention control efficiency across cultures.     

Effects of sleep deprivation on Color-Word, Emotional, and Specific Stroop interference and on self-reported anxiety

The aim of this study was principally to assess the impact of sleep deprivation on interference performance in short Stroop tasks (Color-Word, Emotional, and Specific) and on subjective anxiety. Subjective sleepiness and performance on a psychomotor sustained attention task were also investigated to validate our protocol of sleep deprivation. Twelve healthy young subjects were tested at four-hourly intervals through a 36-h period of wakefulness under a constant routine protocol. Analyses of variance for repeated measurements revealed that self-assessment of sleepiness on a visual analogue scale as well as mean reaction time performance on the sustained attention task, both for the first minute and for 10 min of testing, were worsened by sleep deprivation. Analyses revealed an increase in self-reported anxiety scores on the STAI questionnaire but did not reveal any significant effect after sleep deprivation either on indexes of interference or on accuracy in Stroop tasks. However, analyses showed sensitivity to circadian effect on verbal reaction times in the threat-related (Emotional) and sleep-related (Specific) Stroop tasks. We concluded that 36 h of prolonged wakefulness affect self-reported anxiety and Emotional Stroop task resulting in a cognitive slowing. Moreover, total sleep deprivation does not affect interference control in any of the three short Stroop tasks.     

Interference control in children with reading difficulties

Two studies investigated whether the greater Stroop interference reported in children with reading difficulties compared to typical readers of the same age represents a generalized deficit in interference control or a consequence of their reading problems. In Study 1, a color-word Stroop task and a nonverbal task involving responses to locations associated with pictures were administered to 23 children with single word reading difficulties and 22 typically developing children matched for age and nonverbal ability. Children with reading difficulties showed disproportionate interference effects in the color-word Stroop but not the nonverbal task. In Study 2, groups of poor and typical readers completed a spatial Stroop task with printed input that did not require a verbal response and a nonverbal analogue. Both groups showed comparable interference in these two tasks. Thus, the reported problems in the color-word Stroop task in children with reading difficulties do not appear to entail general impairments in interference control.     

Verbal deficits in children with 47, XXY and 47, XXX karyotypes: A descriptive and experimental study

This study examines the intellectual abilities of children with a supernumerary X chromosome complement. In the first part, 33 boys and 13 girls, who were ascertained through a neonatal screening project, were given a WISC-R. Comparisons with siblings revealed a significant deficit in the verbal ability of the extra X children while their nonverbal skills were normal. The second part investigated the specific verbal impairments of these children with a sentence verification task. The results of comparisons with normal children indicated poorer performance by the supernumerary X groups, particularly on the more difficult task items. Correlations between measures indicated that verbal IQ was more strongly related to sentence verification performance than performance IQ. The final section deals with some of the biological factors that may contribute to the verbal deficits in these children. The results indicate that the most verbally impaired children were those with the greatest delays in physical growth, as indicated by bone age and dermatoglyphic measures. These findings are discussed in terms of the influence of chromosomally determined growth rates upon the brain, its maturity, and consequent capacity to develop specific cognitive functions.     

Threat of bodily harm has opposing effects on cognition

Several theoretical frameworks have suggested that anxiety/stress impairs cognitive performance. A competing prediction is made by attentional narrowing models that predict that stress decreases the processing of task-irrelevant items, thus benefiting performance when task-irrelevant information interferes with behavior. Critically, previous studies have not evaluated these competing frameworks when potent emotional manipulations are involved. Here, we used threat of bodily harm preceding a color-word Stroop task to test these claims. We found a basic effect of threat consisting of a slowing down of performance during neutral Stroop trials. Furthermore, both facilitation and interference scores were affected by threat of shock in a way that was consistent with a reduced-distractor effect. Taken together, we interpret our findings in terms of two opposing effects of stress on cognitive performance. Although partly consistent with the attentional narrowing hypothesis, both resource models and cognitive breadth models require revision in order to account for the results.     

Predicting Stereotype Threat,Test Anxiety,and Cognitive Ability Test Performance: An Examination of Three Models

As the classroom and workplace, among other contexts, become more diverse in their population characteristics, the need to be aware of specific factors impacting testing outcome issues correspondingly increases. The focus in this study, among other purposes, was to identify possible interactions between examinee's individual-difference characteristics (e.g., personality) and characteristics of the testing environment on test anxiety reactions and cognitive ability test performance. This study assessed reactions and performance in 4 different testing conditions through a path-analytic testing of 3 well-established theoretical models of stress appraisal and coping (i.e., cognitive appraisal, personality trait, and transactional). The transactional model, incorporating both personality and testing condition factors, was best in predicting the variance associated with the cognitive ability test scores, the 3 test anxiety score indexes (i.e., social derogation, physical tenseness, and cognitive obstruction), and the stereotype threat scores. With personality traits, for example, agreeableness was a relatively strong and consistent predictor of all study measures. Regarding testing condition factors, only the manipulation of stereotype threat level (low or high) produced some significant accounting of variance. Higher perceived stereotype threat levels were generally associated with heightened stereotype threat belief perceptions, lower cognitive ability test scores, and, interestingly, reduced feelings of cognitive obstruction in test anxiety.     

Measurements of auditory-verbal STM span in aphasia: effects of item, task, and lexical impairment

In the first part of this study, we investigated effects of item and task type on span performance in a group of aphasic individuals with word processing and STM deficits. Group analyses revealed significant effects of item on span performance with span being greater for digits than for words. We also investigated associations between subjects' lexical-semantic and phonological processing abilities and performance on four measures of verbal span (digit and word span, each varied for type of response, verbal vs. pointing) as well as one measure of nonverbal span. We predicted and found that the patterns of association between verbal span tasks and lexical abilities reflected the integrity of language processes and representations deployed in each paradigm used to assess span. Performance on the pointing span task, which engages both lexical-semantic and phonological processes, correlated with measures of both lexical-semantic and phonological abilities. Performance on repetition span, which engages primarily input and output phonological processes, correlated with measures of phonological abilities but not measures of lexical-semantic abilities. However, when partial correlations were performed for two subject groups based on their relative preservation of lexical-semantic ability (less or more than phonological ability), repetition span correlated with lexical-semantic measures only in the subgroup with relatively impaired lexical-semantics. Additionally, performance on the nonverbal span task correlated with measures of phonological abilities, suggesting either a general cognitive deficit affecting verbal and nonverbal STM or possibly, the use of a verbal strategy to perform this task. Our discussion focuses on the interpretation of span measurements in clinical practice and research, as well as the implications of these data for theories of short-term memory and word processing.