Sexually dimorphic effect of an acute smoking manipulation on skin resistance but not on heart-rate during a cognitive verbal task

In a two-day, two-session experiment where smokers male and female college-student subjects worked on a cognitive verbal task during either the first or second day, and on a cognitive spatial task on the second or first day, smoking was manipulated as an acute independent variable by requiring 10+ hours of pre-experimental abstention, and providing a cigarette during the 15-minute rest period between the two sessions. Non-smoker female and male subjects underwent the same experiment, and hence served as controls for the effects of this acute-smoking manipulation. Overall adaptation (decreased arousal) to the experiment was manifested in a significant increase in skin resistance level (SRL) in all subjects, but when this adaptation effect was statistically controlled, there was a significant smokers by sex interaction during the verbal task only, such that SRL was increased by the cigarette in males, but decreased in females. In contrast, the same analysis indicated only a marked increase in heart-rate (HR) due to smoking, which was unaffected either by sex or by whether the task was the verbal or the (easier) spatial one. We interpret the SRL results as reflecting a sex difference in the direction of transient psychological arousal, and discuss it in relation to evidence in the literature based on self reports, and to evidence (based on HR in this study and on blood pressure in other studies) on physiological (cardiovascular) arousal.     

Effects of nicotine administration via a sublingual tablet on arousal and verbal ability in non‐smokers

Tobacco smoking or nicotine administration on its own can influence cognitive task performance. This study examined the effects of acute nicotine administration on verbal task performance and a physiological index of arousal. Healthy non‐smoking participants received either a 2‐mg sublingual nicotine tablet or placebo. Participants next completed various verbal tasks while heart rate recordings were taken concurrently. Nicotine increased heart rate relative to a pre‐administration baseline period, indicating that the new method of nicotine administration increased cardiovascular arousal. Nicotine was associated with reduced accuracy in a verbal matching task and reduced accuracy and increased reaction time in an anagram task, but had no effect on performance during an analogy or verbal fluency task. The data suggest that nicotine‐naïve individuals are unlikely to gain any benefit to their verbal ability from the single acute intake of nicotine, such as that obtained from cigarette smoking or by using nicotine replacement therapy products.     

Effects of smoking and nicotine on EEG lateralization as a function of personality

The effects of nicotine/smoking on lateralization of the EEG were evaluated in 40 smokers while they responded to a low-stress, visual vigilance task. Smoking a high-nicotine cigarette was associated with a relatively larger increase in right hemisphere EEG arousal in extraverts and Type-A individuals, but with a relatively larger increase in left hemisphere EEG arousal in introverts and Type Bs. These findings suggest that nicotine/smoking may differentially influence the left and right hemispheres and that this interaction may be a function of personality.     

The effects of self-modeling on cigarette smoking behavior

Two studies of self-modeling are described. Study 1 investigated whether self-modeling would inhibit cigarette smoking behavior. Fourteen cigarette smokers (four males and 10 females) served as subjects for a repeated-measures design. In the self-modeling condition, the subjects watched themselves on a television monitor while smoking; in the control condition, they watched a short cartoon film on the same monitor, also while smoking. The following were measured: (1) the amount of tobacco consumed, (2) the amount of time lit cigarettes were in contact with the subjects’ lips, and (3) the subjects’ physiological responses (GSRs). Study 2 investigated the role of cognitive factors in self-modeling. It followed much the same self-modeling procedures as Study 1. However, unlike Study 1, it incorporated a manipulated cognitive variable: attitudes toward cigarette smoking. Self-modeling reduced the amount of smoking relative to the control condition in Study 1. In Study 2 it was found that cognitive factors influenced the amount of smoking. Smoking increased in subjects supplied with information favorable to smoking, whereas it decreased in those supplied with information unfavorable to smoking. These findings and additional research on the efficacy of self-modeling relative to other procedures suggest the importance of cognitive factors in self-modeling.     

A male advantage for spatial and object but not verbal working memory using the n-back task

Sex-related differences have been reported for performance and neural substrates on some working memory measures that carry a high cognitive load, including the popular n-back neuroimaging paradigm. Despite some evidence of a sex effect on the task, the influence of sex on performance represents a potential confound in neuroimaging research. The present study investigated sex-related differences in verbal, spatial, and common object versions of the high cognitive load "n-back" working memory task. Eighteen male and 18 female undergraduates completed all 3 versions of the task. A mixed ANOVA, with Sex (male and female) as the between-subjects factor and Condition (verbal, spatial, and object) as the within-subjects repeated measure revealed that males were significantly more accurate than females on the spatial and object versions of the n-back task and performed equivalently to females on the verbal version of the task. Although the expected female advantage for verbal working memory was not found using this effortful n-back task, these results support a male advantage for high cognitive load spatial and object working memory. Future research should take into account the influence of sex on performance of the n-back task, and examine sex-related differences in working memory using other paradigms.     

Effects of tobacco smoking on electroencephalographic, auditory evoked and event related potentials

After overnight abstinence, tobacco smokers smoked an average nicotine yield cigarette and nonsmokers sham smoked an unlit placebo cigarette. EEG alpha(1), delta, and theta frequency amplitudes decreased, whereas alpha(2) and beta frequency amplitude increased. Short, middle (EP) and long latency ERP were also studied in nonsmokers and smokers just after smoking, and after overnight abstinence from tobacco. Short latency potentials were unaffected by tobacco smoking or abstinence. Middle and long-latency potentials were reduced during abstinence and enhanced immediately after tobacco smoking. These findings indicate that compared to nonsmokers smokers have a higher arousal level after smoking than when partially abstinent. Evidence for both normalization from tobacco abstinence as well as stimulation was obtained.     

An fMRI study of sex differences in regional activation to a verbal and a spatial task

Sex differences in cognitive performance have been documented, women performing better on some phonological tasks and men on spatial tasks. An earlier fMRI study suggested sex differences in distributed brain activation during phonological processing, with bilateral activation seen in women while men showed primarily left-lateralized activation. This blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI study examined sex differences (14 men, 13 women) in activation for a spatial task (judgment of line orientation) compared to a verbal-reasoning task (analogies) that does not typically show sex differences. Task difficulty was manipulated. Hypothesized ROI-based analysis documented the expected left-lateralized changes for the verbal task in the inferior parietal and planum temporal regions in both men and women, but only men showed right-lateralized increase for the spatial task in these regions. Image-based analysis revealed a distributed network of cortical regions activated by the tasks, which consisted of the lateral frontal, medial frontal, mid-temporal, occipitoparietal, and occipital regions. The activation was more left lateralized for the verbal and more right for the spatial tasks, but men also showed some left activation for the spatial task, which was not seen in women. Increased task difficulty produced more distributed activation for the verbal and more circumscribed activation for the spatial task. The results suggest that failure to activate the appropriate hemisphere in regions directly involved in task performance may explain certain sex differences in performance. They also extend, for a spatial task, the principle that bilateral activation in a distributed cognitive system underlies sex differences in performance.     

Individual differences and task format in sentence verification

This study examined the effects of task format and individual differences in cognitive ability on performance of the sentence-picture verification task. Four groups of subjects were selected on the basis of their scores on psychometric tests of verbal and spatial ability: low verbal/low spatial, high verbal/high spatial, low verbal/high spatial, and high verbal/low spatial. Subjects completed four different versions of the sentence verification task, each version differing in terms of the interval between sentence and picture presentation. The results confirmed the importance of both task format and spatial ability in determining the cognitive strategy employed by subjects in carrying out the task. The finding of principal interest, however, was that spatial ability was the most significant determinant of strategy choice, and that low spatial subjects made substantial use of linguistic strategies under task formats designed to encourage imaginal strategies.     

Individual differences in cognition: Some relationships between personality and memory

Individual differences in cognition were studied in the form of the hypothesis that arousal, as indexed by personality measures of extraversion and neuroticism, affects the way in which verbal material is organized in memory. Subjects pretested on measures of these personality variables participated in either a paired-associates learning or a free-recall experiment. On the paired-associates task, subjects who were thought to be high on arousal made fewer errors when response terms were semantically similar than low arousal subjects. On the other hand, subjects thought low on arousal made fewer errors when response words were phonetically similar than high arousal subjects. On the free-recall task, low arousal subjects were found to cluster words together on the basis of semantic category at a higher rate than high arousal subjects. These results were taken to support the view that high arousal (as indexed by personality measures) leads to a focus on the physical aspects of verbal material, whereas low arousal leads to a memory organized around semantic aspects. The implications of these findings for other views of memory are discussed.     

The effects of goal difficulty on physiological arousal, cognition, and task performance.

Two laboratory experiments with 117 undergraduate students were conducted to examine (a) the effect of assigned goal difficulty on arousal (self-report and heart rate), cognition (perceived norm, self-efficacy strength, and personal goal), and behavioral (task performance) measures and (b) the role of heart rate as a mediator of the goal-difficulty-performance relation. All Ss performed a task requiring cognitive and physical responses. Results of both experiments demonstrated that assigned goal difficulty affected heart rate, cognition, and task performance and that heart-rate change was positively related to the cognitive and behavioral measures. Regression analyses suggested that a cognitive-affective mechanism may mediate the goal-difficulty-performance relation. Discussion is focused on the theoretical and practical implications of integrating an arousal concept within goal-setting theory.     

Interference in visual perception by verbal and spatial cognitive activity

In two experiments we tested the hypothesis that cognitive processing based on spatial imagery produces more deterioration of visual perception than cognitive processing based on verbal codes. So, we studied the effect on visual perception of two cognitive tasks, one of spatial imagery and the other a verbal task. In the first one, with 30 participants, we analyzed the mental load and ocular behaviors in both cognitive tasks. In the second experiment, with 29 participants, we studied the effect of both tasks on a visual search task, using a dual-task experimental paradigm. The verbal task presented higher mental load than the imagery task when both tasks were carried out with visual search task, and there was more deterioration in stimulus detection with the verbal task. We can conclude that: (1) cognitive tasks produce important deterioration in the capacities of visual search and identification of stimuli; (2) this deterioration has two components: (a) an inefficient search, associated with alterations of the gaze patterns while performing cognitive tasks, and (b) a general interference, nonspecific to spatial codes, in the process of identification of looked-at stimuli; (3) this cognitive interference is related to the mental load or effort required by the cognitive task.     

An investigative biobehavioral approach to sex differences in cognitive functioning

Advances in our biological understanding and control of cognitive functioning have not been matched in the behavioral realm. The bio-behavioral approach outlined in this paper helps to close this bio-behavioral gap by aiming for a taxonomic precision in psychology that is comparable to that in physiology. The approach is applied to the phenomenon of group sex differences, and is illustrated by referring to three sets of recently reported findings: (a) interactive effects of nicotine and sex on the trait of cognitive style; (b) sexually dimorphic cognitive style in rats and the involvement of nitric oxide as a potential physiological mechanism and (c) sexually dimorphic phasic arousal change induced by smoking a cigarette following deprivation.     

情绪效价和唤醒对熟悉性和回想的不同影响

本研究检验了情绪的效价和唤醒对记忆提取阶段熟悉性过程和回想过程的影响及其心理机制。结果发现,编码阶段无分心任务时,积极图片的高、低自信再认准确率均高于消极图片,而唤醒对于高自信再认准确率的影响只限于消极图片;在编码阶段设置分心任务时,发现积极和消极的高唤醒图片的高自信再认准确率显著高于低唤醒图片。这些结果说明情绪的效价影响了熟悉性和回想两类记忆过程,而唤醒只影响回想过程,效价效应是编码阶段被试调用认知资源对积极图片进行精细加工的结果,而唤醒对回想过程的影响是自动编码高唤醒刺激细节的结果。     

Differential memory impairment in dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease

This study was conducted in order to elucidate the functioning of the Central Executive System of Working Memory (WM) and to clarify the status of other cognitive functions in Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Fourteen DLB, 22 AD, and 23 control subjects were assessed with the dual task paradigm and other cognitive tests. When compared with controls, DLB subjects performed more poorly in concurrent conditions on semantic WM tasks, and AD subjects performed more poorly on the spatial WM task. The DLB subjects had an inferior verbal span and AD subjects, an inferior recall on the CVLT. These data suggest relative impairments of verbal and semantic WM in DLB and relative impairments of spatial WM and verbal episodic memory in AD.     

Effect of Depressive Symptoms and Sex on the Relationship Between Loneliness and Cigarette Dependence: A Moderated Mediation

Loneliness is a subjective and emotionally unpleasant experience of perceiving insufficient social relationships. Previous research has revealed that loneliness constitutes a psychosocial risk factor for depression, and is also related to unhealthy behaviors such as smoking. This study aims to examine the relation between loneliness, depression, and cigarette dependence, and to explore the role of sex in this relationship. A total sample of 275 adult treatment-seeking daily smokers (Mage = 45.3; 61.5% females) was used. Our results showed a significant correlation between higher scores of loneliness, depressive symptoms, and cigarette dependence. In addition, mediation analysis showed a significant indirect effect of loneliness on cigarette dependence, via depressive symptoms. Regarding the effect of sex, we found that this variable significantly moderated the relationship between depressive symptoms and cigarette dependence. Results of this study extend previous literature by showing that, in treatment seeking smokers, loneliness is a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, and through this relation, it predicts cigarette dependence. Additionally, sex was a significant moderator of this relation. These findings have several clinical implications, and also contribute to the understanding of cigarette dependence, which is a well-known barrier for smoking cessation.     

The effects of smoking and urinary pH on a detection task

Performance was measured in a detection task over a period of 50 min. Subjects were either non-smokers or smoked more than 15 cigarettes per day. No smoking was allowed during the task, but smokers were all asked to smoke a cigarette immediately before doing it. One hour previously, subjects had been given a double-blind dose of a substance which would shift the pH of their urine either upwards or downwards, by small amounts sufficient to affect the rate of renal excretion of nicotine in the smokers. The pH manipulation had no effect on the performance of the non-smokers, who improved steadily throughout the task. After some 40 min of performance, the deprived smokers showed less improvement than the non-smokers, and the smokers whose urine had been made acid improved less than those whose had been made alkaline. The results are interpreted as evidence for a phasic effect on performance of small degrees of nicotine deprivation, which has consequences for theories of nicotine dependence.     

Prevalence of cigarette smoking in Iran.

The current research assessed the prevalence of cigarette smoking in Shiraz, Iran by randomly selecting 1,335 subjects (782 men and 553 women) from the city for a face-to-face interview and completion of a questionnaire. Of the participants, 205 (26%) of the men and 20 (3.6%) of the women reported being current smokers. The mean ages of smokers and nonsmokers were 41.8 and 37.0 yr., respectively (range between 16 and 90 years for smokers and nonsmokers). The mean age of starting to smoke cigarettes was 21.3 yr. (range of 10 to 60). The most common reasons for current cigarette smoking were Need to avoid withdrawal symptoms, Release of tension, and Pleasurable purposes. Foreign filter-tipped cigarettes were the most common type consumed. The mean number of cigarettes per day was 13.4 (SD = 10.3). Reports for onset of cigarette smoking included Modeling, Release of tension, and Pleasurable purposes. Cigarette smoking was reported by more males than females. The most common reason for onset of cigarette smoking was different from that for current smoking. Frequencies of smokers within age groups were varied.     

Recognition memory for valenced and arousing materials under conditions of divided attention

Two experiments are reported that examined the effect of both valence and arousal on recognition memory performance. Each experiment used two classes of negative items that differed in arousal, as well as a neutral and non-arousing set of items. In Experiment 1 a difficult divided attention task was crossed with the learning and test phases of the experiment. In Experiment 2 encoding time was manipulated and remember-know judgements were collected. The emotional enhancement effect often found with verbal materials survived the depletion of cognitive resources, as did the extra benefit accruing from high arousal. Although we found that arousal led to more recollection, the general conclusion that we draw is that the effect of emotion on recognition memory can be attributed to relatively automatic influences.     

Immediate antecedents of cigarette smoking: an analysis from ecological momentary assessment

The authors assessed the association between smoking and situational cues, including affect, in real-world contexts. Using ecological momentary assessment, 304 smokers monitored ad-lib smoking for 1 week, recording each cigarette on palm-top computers. Generalized estimating equations contrasted 10,084 smoking and 11,155 nonsmoking situations. After controlling for smoking restrictions, smoking was strongly related to smoking urges and modestly related to consumption of coffee and food, the presence of other smokers, and several activities. Smoking was unrelated to negative or positive affect or to arousal, although it was associated with restlessness. Thus, in daily life, affect appears to exert little influence over ad-lib smoking in heavy smoking adults.     

Recognition memory for valenced and arousing materials under conditions of divided attention

Two experiments are reported that examined the effect of both valence and arousal on recognition memory performance. Each experiment used two classes of negative items that differed in arousal, as well as a neutral and non-arousing set of items. In Experiment 1 a difficult divided attention task was crossed with the learning and test phases of the experiment. In Experiment 2 encoding time was manipulated and remember–know judgements were collected. The emotional enhancement effect often found with verbal materials survived the depletion of cognitive resources, as did the extra benefit accruing from high arousal. Although we found that arousal led to more recollection, the general conclusion that we draw is that the effect of emotion on recognition memory can be attributed to relatively automatic influences.