The effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on multitasking performance and oculometrics

Multitasking is the ability to perform more than one task simultaneously. The need to multitask is common in many industries especially within the military with tasks such as air traffic controllers, cyber defense operators and image analysts. However, as the time on task increases, information throughput can become overwhelming resulting in a performance decrement. Through task prioritizing, the operator is able to maintain performance on specific subtasks in which they selected as high importance while other subtasks experience a decrement. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (ldLPFC) on information processing capabilities to improve individual and overall multitasking performance while performing the multi-attribute task battery (MATB). Two groups of 8 participants each received either 2 mA of anodal or sham tDCS while performing MATB. In addition, eye tracking was implemented to record eye movement patterns. In doing so, we were able to determine how much time the operator allocated to each of the subtasks within MATB and how their task priorities changed as workload demands increased. The findings provided evidence that 2 mA of anodal tDCS during MATB significantly improved overall information throughput compared to the sham group. With respect to the individual subtasks, communication and system monitoring displayed the greatest enhancement with anodal tDCS. Our data suggests that tDCS could be a useful tool to enhance information processing capabilities during a multitasking paradigm resulting in improved processing capabilities and information throughput.     

The physical self-attribute questionnaire: development and initial validation

The Physical Self-attribute Questionnaire was developed for use in conjunction with the Physical Self-perception Profile to model cognitive facets of perceived competence, certainty, importance, and discrepancy from ideal to each of the physical subdomains measured by the latter (Strength, Attractive Body, Condition, and Sport). To this end, two studies were conducted. Study 1 examined the factor structure, test-retest reliability, and validity of the questionnaire in a sample of 154 (28 men, 126 women) undergraduate health students. Reliability and validity were acceptable, and confirmatory factor analysis indicated good fit for a four-factor solution. In Study 2, the reliability, validity, and factor structure was again confirmed in a sample of 120 (83 men, 37 women) undergraduate students recruited from exercise classes. Results of these two studies suggest that the Physical Self-attribute Questionnaire is a viable tool to measure the underlying cognitive facets of subdomain-specific physical self-esteem.     

The relationship of momentary anger and impulsivity to bulimic behavior

Past research has suggested that negative affect may be a causal factor for eating disordered behaviors. More specifically, research has shown that anger appears to be one aspect of negative affect that is particularly relevant in bulimic patients. Previous studies have also shown that the relationship between negative affect and eating disordered behaviors may partially depend upon personality variables such as impulsivity. The present study examined whether the relationship between anger and eating disordered behaviors is moderated by impulsivity. Subjects completed an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol for an average of 2 weeks. Findings revealed that overall antecedent anger level and the variability of antecedent anger predicted binge-eating episodes and that these relationships were moderated by participants' level of impulsivity. These findings suggest that personality variables impact the way that anger and eating behaviors relate. They also suggest that the variability of antecedent anger may be a fruitful avenue for future research for those interested in causal variables associated with bulimia nervosa.     

When quantity trumps number: discrimination experiments in cotton-top tamarins (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Saguinus oedipus</Emphasis>) and common marmosets (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Callithrix jacchus</Emphasis>)

The capacity for non-linguistic, numerical discrimination has been well characterized in non-human animals, with recent studies providing careful controls for non-numerical confounds such as continuous extent, density, and quantity. More poorly understood are the conditions under which animals use numerical versus non-numerical quantification, and the nature of the relation between these two systems. Here we test whether cotton-top tamarins and common marmosets can discriminate between two quantities on the basis of the amount of food rather than on number. In three experiments, we show that when choosing between arrays containing different numbers and sizes of food objects, both species based their decisions on the amount of food with only minor influences of numerical information. Further, we find that subjects successfully discriminated between two quantities differing by a 2:3 or greater ratio, which is consistent with the ratio limits found for numerical discrimination with this species. These studies demonstrate that non-human primates possess mechanisms that enable quantification of total amount, in addition to the numerical representations demonstrated in previous studies, with both types of quantification subject to similar processing limits.     

Expression of flavor preference depends on type of test and on recent drinking history

The persistence of a conditioned flavor preference was examined in 3 experiments. All contained an initial acquisition phase in which half the rats were given almond odor mixed with sucrose (AS) in some sessions and water (W) only in other sessions, whereas the other half (controls) were given explicitly unpaired exposures to almond (A) and sucrose (S) in separate sessions. Subsequent 2-bottle choice tests revealed a persistent preference for A, despite extinction exposure to A or S, but this depended on the choice offered on test: Exposure to A did not extinguish the preference for A over W but did reduce the preference for AS over S; conversely, exposure to S did not extinguish the preference for AS over S but did reduce the preference for A over W. These results indicate that flavor preferences can be resistant to extinction procedures but suggest that the expression of such preferences in choice tests depends on an adaptation-level process.     

On the interdependence of cognition and emotion

Affect and cognition have long been treated as independent entities, but in the current review we suggest that affect and cognition are in fact highly interdependent. We open the article by discussing three classic views for the independence of affect. These are (i) the affective independence hypothesis, that emotion is processed independently from cognition, (ii) the affective primacy hypothesis, that evaluative processing precedes semantic processing, and (iii) the affective automaticity hypothesis, that affectively potent stimuli commandeer attention and evaluation is automatic. We argue that affect is not independent from cognition, that affect is not primary to cognition, nor is affect automatically elicited. The second half of the paper discusses several instances of how affect influences cognition. We review experiments showing affective involvement in perception, semantic activation, and attitude activation. We conclude that one function of affect is to regulate cognitive processing.     

Hidden Sexism: Facial Prominence and Its Connections to Gender and Occupational Status in Popular Print Media

A total of 779 article-embedded photographs from six popular US magazines during 2004 (Newsweek, Time, Fortune, Money, People, and Sports Illustrated) were examined assessing the relationship between occupational status and gender and the depiction of men and women in print media. Results show individuals depicted in intellectually focused occupations had higher face-to-body ratios than individuals depicted in physically focused occupations. Gender differences in facial prominence did not reach significance. A gender by occupation interaction indicated men in intellectually focused occupations had higher face-to-body ratios than women in similar professions, whereas women in physical occupations had higher face-to-body ratios than men in similar occupations. This suggests a disparity in the media with regard to displaying men and women equally in similar occupational roles.     

Two conceptions of subjective experience

Do philosophers and ordinary people conceive of subjective experience in the same way? In this article, we argue that they do not and that the philosophical concept of phenomenal consciousness does not coincide with the folk conception. We first offer experimental support for the hypothesis that philosophers and ordinary people conceive of subjective experience in markedly different ways. We then explore experimentally the folk conception, proposing that for the folk, subjective experience is closely linked to valence. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for a central issue in the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness.     

Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) spontaneously compute addition operations over large numbers

Mathematics is a uniquely human capacity. Studies of animals and human infants reveal, however, that this capacity builds on language-independent mechanisms for quantifying small numbers (<4) precisely and large numbers approximately. It is unclear whether animals and human infants can spontaneously tap mechanisms for quantifying large numbers to compute mathematical operations. Moreover, all available work on addition operations in non-human animals has confounded number with continuous perceptual properties (e.g. volume, contour length) that correlate with number. This study shows that rhesus monkeys spontaneously compute addition operations over large numbers, as opposed to continuous extents, and that the limit on this ability is set by the ratio difference between two numbers as opposed to their absolute difference.