Attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered boys' evaluations of and attributions for task performance on medication versus placebo

The present study examined the effects of stimulant medication on the self-evaluations of and attributions for task performance of 26 attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered boys. Each boy performed a continuous performance task twice, once while on medication and once while on placebo. Immediately following the completion of the task, the boys were asked a series of questions concerning their self-evaluations of, and attributions for, their performance. Two findings of note were obtained. First, medication, compared with placebo, increased the correspondence between the boys' self-evaluations and their performance. Second, the boys did not use medication as a frequent explanation for their performance, as others have predicted. In fact, the boys picked medication as an explanation for their successes significantly less often than either effort or ability.     

Effects of anxiety on inferential reasoning task performance

Three experiments were conducted in which high anxiety and low anxiety subjects were required to construct inferences. In Experiment 1 there was no anxiety-related performance deficit when inferring a necessary anaphoric relation, a process argued to be automatic. Experiments 2 and 3 involved the verification of unnecessary inferences, a process argued to involve the utilization of the working memory system. In both Experiments 2 and 3 there was an anxiety-related performance deficit. The results are consistent with a working memory-oriented account of anxiety-related performance effects, as deficits were restricted to capacity-demanding tasks.     

Poststimulation time interval-dependent effects of motor cortex anodal tDCS on reaction-time task performance

Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) induces long-term potentiation-like plasticity, which is associated with long-lasting effects on different cognitive, emotional, and motor performances. Specifically, tDCS applied over the motor cortex is considered to improve reaction time in simple and complex tasks. The timing of tDCS relative to task performance could determine the efficacy of tDCS to modulate performance. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a single session of anodal tDCS (1.5 mA, for 15 min) applied over the left primary motor cortex (M1) versus sham stimulation on performance of a go/no-go simple reaction-time task carried out at three different time points after tDCS—namely, 0, 30, or 60 min after stimulation. Performance zero min after anodal tDCS was improved during the whole course of the task. Performance 30 min after anodal tDCS was improved only in the last block of the reaction-time task. Performance 60 min after anodal tDCS was not significantly different throughout the entire task. These findings suggest that the motor cortex excitability changes induced by tDCS can improve motor responses, and these effects critically depend on the time interval between stimulation and task performance.     

Multidimensional influences of anxiety and assessment type on task performance

We examined state evaluation anxiety, trait evaluation anxiety, and neuroticism in relation to New Zealand first-year university students’ (n = 234) task performance on either a...     

Comorbidity of test anxiety and other anxiety disorders in children

Elementary school children with clinically significant test anxiety, as determined by self-report and a clinical interview, were assessed for the incidence of other fears and anxiety. The results indicated that test-anxious children reported more fears and general worries than their non-test-anxious peers. As expected, the test-anxious children experienced more negative cognitions and subjective distress when taking a test. Furthermore, the fear of negative evaluation was not limited to an actual test, since these children also reported identical symptoms when engaged in a second social-evaluative task. Finally, 60% of the testanxious sample met DSM-III criteria for an anxiety disorder. The results are discussed in terms of the relationship of text anxiety to more complex social-evaluative dysfunctions, more pervasive anxiety conditions, DSM-III anxiety disorders, and the utility of test anxiety as an indicator of the presence of these more pervasive anxiety states.This research is based on a dissertation conducted by the first author under the direction of the second author. Thanks are expressed to Stephen B. Manuck, Scott M. Monroe, Sharon Nelson-LeGall, and Saul Shiffman, who served as committee members. This study was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grants No. 30915 and No. 16804, and a grant to the first author from the Sigma Xi Foundation.     

Time-pressure effects on performance in a base-rate task

Researchers assume that time pressure impairs performance in decision tasks by invoking heuristic processes. In the present study, the authors inquired (a) whether it was possible in some cases for time pressure to improve performance or to alter it without impairing it, and (b) whether the heuristic invoked by base-rate neglect under direct experience can be identified. They used a probability-learning design in 2 experiments, and they measured the choice proportions after each of 2 possible cues in each experiment. In 1 comparison, time pressure increased predictions of the more likely outcome, which improved performance. In 2 comparisons, time pressure changed the choice proportions without affecting performance. In a 4th comparison, time pressure hindered performance. The choice proportions were consistent with heuristic processing that is based on cue matching rather than on cue accuracy, base rates, or posterior probabilities.     

The effects of music and task difficulty on performance at a visual vigilance task

Forty subjects performed a visual vigilance task in music or noise and when the task was difficult or easy. Response measures taken were: correct detections, commission errors, detection latencies and d' values. For the difficult version of the task a significant increase in detection latencies was found which music prevented. Broadly similar findings were obtained for correct detections. The results are compared with other studies of detection latency and task difficulty and are discussed in terms of arousal.     

Short-term rhythms in the performance of a simple motor task

Following the discovery of short-term rhythmicities In physiological processes, a study was conducted to investigate existence of similar rhythms in motor behavior. Two groups of eight subjects each were tested every 10 or 20 min respectively in the performance of a linear positioning task with augmented auditory and proprioceptive feedback, for 10 consecutive hr. Each testing sample consisted of five trials with knowledge of results (KR), followed by five trials without knowledge of results (NKR). Between tests subjects drank constant amounts of fluids and urine flow was measured. Movement accuracy in the NKR condition varied rhythmically with periodicities centered at 100 min/ cycle. No comparable rhythms were found in the KR trials or in movement time. Urine flow also varied rhythmically with similar dominant periodicities, but these rhythms were unrelated to rhythms in error. The findings are interpreted to indicate rhythmic modulations in the efficiency of short-term storage and information processing from movement execution. Significance of these results to current views of motor control is discussed.     

The effects of age and task context on Stroop task performance

In this study, we investigated the impact of age and task context on Stroop task performance, using error scores, response latencies, and process dissociation estimates (e.g., Lindsay & Jacoby, 1994). Across three experiments, the findings showed that although older adults were able to evaluate Stroop task demands and modify their representations of task context in response to this knowledge, they were less able to maintain and update these representations on a trial-by-trial basis in tasks with high stimulus uncertainty or ambiguity. Moreover, although there was no age-related decline in the ability to modulate print color information, older adults were consistently less able to control the activation of conflicting word information. Together, these findings suggest that whereas age differences in the Stroop task may be magnified under conditions that promote transient failures to maintain task context, the primary source of these differences seems to be a more enduring decline in the efficiency of processes that are responsible for suppressing the activation of irrelevant lexical information.