Applying cognitive training to target executive functions during early development

Developmental psychopathology is increasingly recognizing the importance of distinguishing causal processes (i.e., the mechanisms that cause a disease) from developmental outcomes (i.e., the symptoms of the disorder as it is eventually diagnosed). Targeting causal processes early in disordered development may be more effective than waiting until outcomes are established and then trying to reverse the pathogenic process. In this review, I evaluate evidence suggesting that neural and behavioral plasticity may be greatest at very early stages of development. I also describe correlational evidence suggesting that, across a number of conditions, early emerging individual differences in attentional control and working memory may play a role in mediating later-developing differences in academic and other forms of learning. I review the currently small number of studies that applied direct and indirect cognitive training targeted at young individuals and discuss methodological challenges associated with targeting this age group. I also discuss a number of ways in which early, targeted cognitive training may be used to help us understand the developmental mechanisms subserving typical and atypical cognitive development.     

Feature saliency affects delayed matching of an attended feature

We examined how top-down attentional modulation and bottom-up stimulus saliency interact with feature memory. Experiment 1 used a delayed-matching-to-sample (DMS) task to examine the relative saliency between features by observing the relative accuracy of recognition at different stimulus durations. Feature salience decreased according to the following order: colour, form, and texture. In a modified DMS task (Experiments 2 and 3), participants were required to attend to one of three features and ignore the others. After a delay, they were required to choose which of the two test stimuli matched the reference stimulus on the attended feature, disregarding other task-irrelevant features. The target was either identical to the reference stimulus or mismatched the reference stimulus on one of the irrelevant features. The results showed that colour matching was affected neither by a form change nor by a texture change. Form matching was affected by a colour change, and texture matching was affected by a colour or form change. These results are consistent with the relative saliency hypothesis. Even when all features of an attended object are maintained, a relatively more salient task-irrelevant feature can interfere with the delayed recognition of a less salient feature.     

Carry-over effects in face recognition: Processing mode or attentional window?

This study investigates whether or not the dominant processing mode (global or local) in a Navon task is carried over to a face recognition task when the dominant processing mode (configural or featural) in an encoding phase is manipulated. In Experiment 1, Navon figures that were equal in size to a facial photograph were prepared. Participants performed better on the face recognition task after reading large letters in the Navon figures than after reading small letters when configural processing was required in the encoding phase. In Experiment 2, Navon figures that were equal in size to the parts of a face were prepared. The performance after reading large letters did not differ from that after reading small letters. This suggests that both the dominant processing mode in Navon tasks and the size of Navon figures should be considered when discussing the effects of Navon tasks in face recognition.     

Cognitive control and counterproductive oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli

Two experiments investigated the extent to which value-modulated oculomotor capture is subject to top-down control. In these experiments, participants were never required to look at the reward-related stimuli; indeed, doing so was directly counterproductive because it caused omission of the reward that would otherwise have been obtained. In Experiment 1, participants were explicitly informed of this omission contingency. Nevertheless, they still showed counterproductive oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli, suggesting that this effect is relatively immune to cognitive control. Experiment 2 more directly tested whether this capture is controllable by comparing the performance of participants who either had or had not been explicitly informed of the omission contingency. There was no evidence that value-modulated oculomotor capture differed between the two conditions, providing further evidence that this effect proceeds independently of cognitive control. Taken together, the results of the present research provide strong evidence for the automaticity and cognitive impenetrability of value-modulated attentional capture.     

Reward prospect interacts with trial-by-trial preparation for potential distraction

When attending for impending visual stimuli, cognitive systems prepare to identify relevant information while ignoring irrelevant, potentially distracting input. Recent work showed that a supramodal distracter-filtering mechanism is invoked in blocked designs involving expectation of possible distracter stimuli, although this entails a cost (distraction-filtering cost) on speeded performance when distracters are expected but not presented. Here we used an arrow-flanker task to study whether an analogous cost, potentially reflecting the recruitment of a specific distraction-filtering mechanism, occurs dynamically when potential distraction is cued trial-to-trial (cued distracter-expectation cost). In order to promote the maximal utilization of cue information by participants, in some experimental conditions the cue also signalled the possibility of earning a monetary reward for fast and accurate performance. This design also allowed us to investigate the interplay between anticipation for distracters and anticipation of reward, which is known to engender attentional preparation. Only in reward contexts did participants show a cued distracter-expectation cost, which was larger with higher reward prospect and when anticipation for both distracters and reward were manipulated trial-to-trial. Thus, these results indicate that reward prospect interacts with the distracter expectation during trial-by-trial preparatory processes for potential distraction. These findings highlight how reward guides cue-driven attentional preparation.     

Flying under pressure: Effects of anxiety on attention and gaze behavior in aviation

Landing an aircraft is a complex task that requires effective attentional control in order to be successful. The present study examined how anxiety may influence gaze behavior during the performance of simulated landings. Participants undertook simulated landings in low visibility conditions which required the use of cockpit instruments in order to obtain guidance information. Landings were performed in either anxiety or control conditions, with anxiety being manipulated using a combination of ego-threatening instructions and monetary incentives. Results showed an increase in percentage dwell time toward the outside world in the anxiety conditions. Visual scanning entropy, which is the predictability of visual scanning behavior, showed an increase in the randomness of scanning behavior when anxious. Furthermore, change in scanning randomness from the pre-test to anxiety conditions positively correlated with both the change in cognitive anxiety and change in performance error. These results support the viewpoint that anxiety can negatively affect attentional control.     

“Making it explicit” makes a difference: Evidence for a dissociation of spontaneous and intentional level 1 perspective taking in high-functioning autism

The ability of perspective taking is a fundamental aspect of social cognition. The ability to decide, what another person can or cannot see is referred to as “level 1 perspective taking.” This is thought to be a process that we can make use of intentionally, but which also takes place spontaneously. Autism is characterized by impairments of social interaction, which are thought to be related to deficits in implicit rather than explicit perspective taking. In order to assess both levels of processing with regard to perspective taking, we employed an established task in patients and controls. Our results demonstrate that both groups engage in spontaneous level 1 perspective taking. In contrast to controls, however, patients reacted more slowly if they had to verify the other’s as compared to their own perspective, which shows that participants with high-functioning autism have selective difficulties in explicit, but not implicit, level 1 perspective taking. These findings demonstrate that while spontaneous level 1 perspective taking appears to be intact in autism, this ability is impaired in patients when used explicitly.     

Prospective duration judgments: The role of temporality and executive demands of concurrent tasks

It is known that concurrent non-temporal tasks shorten reproduced temporal durations in prospective duration judgments. Two experiments were carried out, one comparing a concurrent temporal task to a minimally demanding concurrent task (Experiment 1) and one comparing an executive concurrent (Simon) task with a less demanding non-executive concurrent task (Experiment 2). An effect of the concurrent task type on temporal reproductions was found. Furthermore, a duration length effect was found, where longer durations were underestimated more than shorter durations. This effect tended to be stronger for the experiments that included a concurrent task that demanded high attention.     

Salience-based progression of visual attention: Time course

In a visual search task, visual attention progresses from the most to the least salient item until a target is found. The time course of such salience-based progression remains unclear although the temporal deployment seems as crucial as the spatial deployment. The present study investigated how the general hierarchical pattern takes place. Healthy volunteers were presented with a primed visual search paradigm in which the primes consisted of three items differing in salience for either 33, 50 or 100 ms. Subsequently one of them became the target and participants had to make a judgment about it. In order to progress on the basis of salience, attention seemed first to be captured by the most salient item. Secondly, the first two most salient items seemed both encompassed within the attentional spotlight. At that time, the least salient item seemed inhibited, completing the stepwise progression of attention. In summary, our data suggest that the hierarchical pattern is built up over time through orienting and expansion of the spotlight, and inhibition of the least salient signals. Furthermore, complementary analyses revealed a proximity effect influencing the selection of the next location to visit. As predicted by different computational models, items located closely to the first visited location were more prone to attract attention than distant items but interestingly enough, this effect only applied to the least salient item suggesting a balance between salience and proximity criteria. Critically also, salience and proximity effects seem to have different time courses. Results are only partially explained by current visual attention models and require further investigation.