Individuals differ in the attentional blink: Mental speed and intra-subject stability matter

The failure to correctly report two targets (“T₁”, “T₂”) that follow each other in close temporal proximity has been called the “attentional blink” (AB). The AB has, so far, mainly been studied using experimental approaches. The present studies investigated individual differences in AB performance, revealing (among further findings) a high positive correlation between the accuracies of detecting the two targets correctly (r = 0.69); and between T₂∣T₁ accuracy and psychometric intelligence (0.41 ≤ r ≤ 0.43) and RT variability in short-term and working memory (− 0.38 ≤ r ≤ − 0.45). Together, these results support important aspects of major theoretical accounts of the AB from an individual differences perspective and introduce intelligence and intra-subject stability as contributing factors in AB performance.     

What cognitive abilities are involved in trail-making performance?

The cognitive abilities involved in the Connections (Salthouse, et al., 2000) version of the trail making test were investigated by administering the test, along with a battery of cognitive tests and tests of complex span and updating conceptualizations of working memory, to a sample of over 3600 adults. The results indicate that this variant of the trail making test largely reflects individual differences in speed and fluid cognitive abilities, with the relative contributions of the two abilities varying according to particular measure of performance considered (e.g., difference, ratio, or residual). Relations of age on trail making performance were also examined. Although strong age differences were evident in the Connections and working memory measures, with both sets of variables there was nearly complete overlap of the age differences with individual differences in speed and fluid cognitive abilities.     

Need for Cognition and false recall

Two experiments investigated whether Need for Cognition (NFC) affected false recall in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In the first experiment, participants were presented with DRM lists and given one attempt to recall the items. In the second experiment, participants were presented with DRM lists under full or divided attention and were given three consecutive recall tests. In Experiment 2, high-NFC individuals exhibited increased false recall across successive recall attempts in both the full and divided attention conditions whereas low-NFC individuals did not. Furthermore, high-NFC individuals in the full attention condition exhibited increased levels of true recall across successive tests. These results show that the individual differences in the ways in which individuals process information can affect true and false recall in the DRM task.     

Convergent, but not divergent, thinking predicts susceptibility to associative memory illusions

The relationship between creativity and susceptibility to associative memory illusions in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott procedure was investigated using a multiple regression analysis. Susceptibility to false recognition was significantly predicted by performance on a measure of convergent thinking (the Remote Associates Task) but not by performance on a measure of divergent thinking (the Alternative Uses Task). These findings suggest that the ability to engage in convergent (but not divergent) thinking underlies some of the individual variation in susceptibility to associative memory illusions by influencing the automaticity with which critical lures are activated at encoding.     

Representational momentum in older adults

Humans have a tendency to perceive motion even in static images that simply “imply” movement. This tendency is so strong that our memory for actions depicted in static images is distorted in the direction of implied motion - a phenomenon known as representational momentum (RM). In the present study, we created an RM display depicting a pattern of implied (clockwise) rotation of a rectangle. Young adults viewers’ memory of the final position of the test rectangle was biased in the direction of continuing rotation, but older adults did not show a similar memory bias. We discuss several possible explanations for this group difference, but argue that the failure of older adults to shown an RM effect most likely reflects age-related changes in areas of the brain involved in processing real and implied motion.     

How emotional pictures influence visuospatial binding in short-term memory in ageing and Alzheimer’s disease?

The present study examines the prediction that emotion can facilitate short-term memory. Nevertheless, emotion also recruits attention to process information, thereby disrupting short-term memory when tasks involve high attentional resources. In this way, we aimed to determine whether there is a differential influence of emotional information on short-term memory in ageing and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Fourteen patients with mild AD, 14 healthy older participants (NC), and 14 younger adults (YA) performed two tasks. In the first task, involving visual short-term memory, participants were asked to remember a picture among four different pictures (negative or neutral) following a brief delay. The second task, a binding memory task, required the recognition by participants of a picture according to its spatial location. The attentional cost involved was higher than for the first task. The pattern of results showed that visual memory performance was better for negative stimuli than for neutral ones, irrespective of the group. In contrast, binding memory performance was essentially poorer for the location of negative pictures in the NC group, and for the location of both negative and neutral stimuli in the AD group, in comparison to the YA group. Taken together, these results show that emotion has beneficial effects on visual short-term memory in ageing and AD. In contrast, emotion does not improve their performances in the binding condition.     

Mechanism of isoflavone aglycone's effect on cognitive performance of senescence-accelerated mice

This study investigated the effect of isoflavone aglycone (IA) on the learning and memory performance of senescence-accelerated mice, and explored its neural protective mechanism. Results showed that SAM-P/8 senescence-accelerated mice treated with IA performed significantly better in the Y-maze cognitive test than the no treatment control (P<0.05). The cortex AchE activity, serum SOD and GSH-Px activities were notably higher (P<0.05). MDA concentration and the β-secretase activity in the hippocampal tissue were both lower (P<0.05). Additionally, the number of hippocampal neurons was increased and cell morphology was significantly improved. Data suggested that IA could indirectly increase concentration of the cholinergic neural transmitter Ach through regulation of AchE, therefore improving the central cholinergic function and enhancing the learning and memory ability. By reducing the β-secretase activity, IA could decrease the formation and deposition of insoluble Adebris, relieve the resulted toxicity and damage to neurons, and thereby effectively protect the nervous system.     

Sexual orientation and spatial position effects on selective forms of object location memory

Prior research has demonstrated robust sex and sexual orientation-related differences in object location memory in humans. Here we show that this sexual variation may depend on the spatial position of target objects and the task-specific nature of the spatial array. We tested the recovery of object locations in three object arrays (object exchanges, object shifts, and novel objects) relative to veridical center (left compared to right side of the arrays) in a sample of 35 heterosexual men, 35 heterosexual women, and 35 homosexual men. Relative to heterosexual men, heterosexual women showed better location recovery in the right side of the array during object exchanges and homosexual men performed better in the right side during novel objects. However, the difference between heterosexual and homosexual men disappeared after controlling for IQ. Heterosexual women and homosexual men did not differ significantly from each other in location change detection with respect to task or side of array. These data suggest that visual space biases in processing categorical spatial positions may enhance aspects of object location memory in heterosexual women.     

Differential recruitment of executive resources during mind wandering

Recent research has shown that mind wandering recruits executive resources away from the external task towards inner thoughts. No studies however have determined whether executive functions are drawn away in a unitary manner during mind wandering episodes, or whether there is variation in specific functions impacted. Accordingly, we examined whether mind wandering differentially modulates three core executive functions—response inhibition, updating of working memory, and mental set shifting. In three experiments, participants performed one of these three executive function tasks and reported their attentional state as either on-task or mind wandering at random intervals. We found that mind wandering led to poorer performance in the response inhibition and working memory tasks, but not the set-shifting task. These findings suggest that mind wandering does not recruit executive functions in a monolithic manner. Rather, it appears to selectively engage certain executive functions, which may reflect the adaptive maintenance of ongoing task performance.